JING: A Free Screen Capture Appliation

This is a great new application that is currently being made available for fee (I expect this will come with a price-tag at some point).  I’ve experimented with a few screen capture programs and have generally yawned at the various efforts.  My initial impression of this one named “Jing” is WOWZERS!  Great interface (I’m using it on a Mac but they have versions for Mac or PC) and super easy to use.  This does screen capture (still and video) on a whole new level.

With a price of $0 – you have no excuse.  Check it out – [ http://www.jingproject.com ]

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Hey!Watch – A New Online Video Encoding Tool

Hey!Watch LogoAlthough still in BETA, Hey!Watch looks like a very valuable tool for those of us that need to encode video for various purposes in our work/personal lives. I’ve used some free software tools but a lot of the encoding process has been guess-work because I’ve hesitated to spend the big $$ for some of the full-fledged encoding software available that can run up in the hundreds of dollars.

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Not “if” but “when”… Some Video Hints

I know I know – this is a blog for non-profit WEBSITE Development. So, why am I doing a write-up on video? Well, if you’re like me, working in the non-profit realm often includes one big thing – VERSATILITY. Often, budgets don’t allow for non-profits to drop the necessary cash for professional services which means that on occasion (more for some than others), there are a myriad of creative arts that drop on the shoulders of the in-house “Web-Guy”.

For me, that is entirely true. Along with web…I also do music, graphics design AND, on occasion, video work.

So…here’s a quick list of “Rule-of-Thumbs” that everyone doing video should know about.

  1. TV/Video is FIXED RESOLUTION
    • create graphics at 72 dpi
  2. TV/Video is INTERLACED. So, to prevent “flickering”…
    • LINES should be 4 pixels wide or wider
    • FONTS should be SANS SERIF (i.e. no “decoration”)
    • FONTS should be 24 points or larger
  3. IMAGE PLACEMENT is important because…
    • most TVs can’t see FULL SCREEN
    • ACTION SAFE is 5% from edges
    • TITLE SAFE is 10% from edges
  4. Computer pixels are SQUARE = 1.0 : 1.0
    • TV/Video pixels are RECTAGULAR ~ 1:0 : 0.9
    • for 4:3 720×480 video, create 720×540 graphics
  5. TV/Video color space YUV < RGB Computer color space
  6. Superwhites (digital video setting) are 109% which are NOT broadcast-safe (tip: set whites in Photoshop to 92% in graphics)
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