May 7, 3pm-4pm EDT, SmartSound’s Stephanie Joyce joins us to demonstrate the new features of Sonicfire Pro 5. This is the latest release as well as a new Final Cut plug-in just launched at NAB. Join us to discuss practical applications and basic copyright issues of custom music in the AV world. More about SmartSound here.
InfoComm 2009
Title: SmartSound Sonicfire Pro5 Demonstration
Date: Thursday, May 7, 2009
Time: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/521459541
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 10:39 AM .
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The public beta has been released. Many folks have asked about Producer since Office 07 came out and for a while the official word was…..not going to do it for PPT 2007. Read about it and find the beta download at The PowerPoint Team Blog.
…………TD
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 10:13 AM .
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I’ve been impressed by an online video editing and archiving tool that lets you create a
“private label YouTube” – check it out.
http://members2.viditalk.com/view/?id=9DGHQ6GWTSYT34RF6B7S1
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 4:45 PM .
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Check out their press release here.
…………….TD
Posted by Todd Dunn, CTS at 1:31 PM .
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For those who have admired Xcelsius but have been afraid to learn it or unwilling to buy it, now you can download the new FREE light version that comes with lots of tutorials.
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 2:16 PM .
1 Comment »
Serious Magic, creators of Ovation, the popular PowerPoint enhancement software, has been acquired by Adobe. Adobe seems to be primarily interested in their video-related products. In the press release, Ovation isn’t even mentioned until the boilerplate verbiage at the end. They also say they will continue to sell the Serious Magic product line. However, as we’ve all seen in the past with acquisitions of this sort, there’s a big difference between selling and supporting/developing.
Posted by Lee Potts at 8:11 AM .
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My new business book about PowerPoint is now available to read online. “Solving the PowerPoint Predicament: Using Digital Media for Effective Communication” is not a book specifically about PowerPoint, but the use of the program with third party tools to convey a message for business, academia or religious content. You can also buy the book on Amazon.
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 1:00 PM .
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For those of you considering a move to HD video in your presentations check out a short and sweet piece in PC Mag “Are You Ready for HD?” Besides the Sony HD camcorder referred to in the article, I also suggest a look at some offerings from JVC. Ulead software has a plug in to work with HD content on your desktop but the article mentions the big problems using these gigantic files. Those who worked with digital video years ago will think they’ve been down this road before.
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 1:18 PM .
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From “Top Ten Truths About the Digital Ecosystem“, a recent post on the Dealing with Darwin blog:
“10. Images are king. Verbal content, by virtue of its sheer volume, is increasingly perceived as noise. We are entering a new era of collage, where the mind of the viewer is the assembling artist. Verbalization happens post facto, the residue of headline skimming and subconscious synthesis. The esthetics of digitally enhanced images will become increasingly powerful as a vehicle for cutting through the clutter. Manipulating semantics or semiotics via images will become increasingly sophisticated, both in the private and public sectors. High-definition displays and portable form factors will be popular mass markets. Indexing and searching images, on the other hand, while technologically interesting, will be of peripheral impact.”
Posted by Lee Potts at 8:00 AM .
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“Instead of going over all the options here, I’m going to highlight the tools and some of the methods we use to create Rocketboom because, consequently, I have amassed what I would call not just a killer app, but a killer briefcase filled with lots of killer apps that all together allow us to see all video, hear all video and speak all video, not to mention create, tweak and seek. I haven’t been stopped by a file yet (knock on wood).
“This is what we use to make Rocketboom: “
Posted by Lee Potts at 9:51 PM .
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Of all the programs the Presentation Council makes available to the presentation professionals community, one of the most useful is their series of live webinars exploring various presentation tools, techniques and technologies. In case you missed the live events, here are links to the archived versions of the three most recent:
Tom Bunzel, “Using Video Effectively In Your Presentation”
Rick Altman, “Too Many Chefs?: The Fragile Art of Collaboration”
Julie Irvin, “How to Effectively Communicate Data Charts & Graphs”
As the schedule of future webinars are announced, we’ll post it here.
Posted by Lee Potts at 9:33 PM .
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This 
“>thumbnail image provides link to an example of vidoe blog created with the demo version of the new Vlog It! tool from Serious Magic.
I originally created the video in Communicator using the V-screen and teleprompter and then dropped it into Vlog It! Amazingly Vlog It! itself has these same features — the main difference from the Communicator product is that it doesn’t output the same range of professional quality higher res video files.
As a bonus of this product, the FLV file (which normally takes Flash to create and use) along with the thumbnail images from your blog are in My Documents\Vlog It!\My Output.
Perhaps the coolest feature is the way to instantly create a blog thumbnail file and then drag and drop it into your blog’s editor. (Note: there is a slight glitch with the music coming up twice in this version but I think it serves to give you the idea). I see the Video Blog as a great presentation follow up tool to provide professionals with a way to follow up with their clients and audience.
As more and more portable devices play video, the subscription capabilities of text blogs will also be easier to incorporate into video downloads, making this a very cool rich media tool.
Posted by Tom Bunzel at 1:45 PM .
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Video-on-the-go stole the show last week at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show. More than 150,000 people swarmed Las Vegas to see the latest electronic gadgets, gizmos and thingamajigs, demonstrating once again the bottomless demand for products and services that nobody needs.
Many of the announcements by hardware and services companies focused on devices to create, transmit and display video whenever and wherever. Giants such as, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Cisco, Sony, Palm, Starz, RCA and Verizon focused much of their hype on bringing television and video to the Web and to portable devices.
Video Podcasting, as both entertainment delivery and personal communication, is shaping up to be the NBT (next big thing.) And that has major implications for anyone who creates and delivers presentations.
The trend suggests that, just as Web conferencing and collaboration moved presentations out of the meeting room and into cyberspace, the arrival of portable, wireless, video-capable capture and display devices makes it possible to deliver rich media presentations on demand to any location at any time.
As video becomes more available, it also becomes more desirable. Video will quickly become expected fare in mobile business communications, which presents significant production, budgetary and skillset challenges to professional media communicators.
In addition, video is becoming a two-way street. Someday soon, video capture and transmission will be as commonplace as cellphone snapshots are today. Video will move from being push media to being interactive media. Presenters and audience alike will have mobile video capability.
The age of Me-TV is upon us. Watch it.
Posted by Robert L. Lindstrom at 1:38 PM .
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