IVT Studio Blog

Recently IVT Founder and CTO Greg Pulier had a chance to sit down with podcaster/blogger Robert Scoble and chat about webcasting, IVT Studio and the state of video on the internet. Check out the webcast chat and the Studio demo below:

Scoble Show Podcasts:

Talking About Webcasting

Studio Demo

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Tags: ivt, scoble, scoble show, webcasting, studio, demo, podcast

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Entrepreneur Magazine: All That Jazz

This recent article in Entrepreneur Magazine highlights a unique use for Studio. Showcasing products that users/shoppers/viewers may not get a true sense of as a static picture. Since Studio makes webcasting so easy you can display many products and information about those products quickly and painlessly.

If you’re an artist, musician, small business owner, ebay auctioner, or perhaps your pitching yourself with a video resume, IVT Studio keeps it simple and increases the impact you have on your potential audience.

technorati tags:article, studio, news, e-tailer

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IVT is pleased to announce the latest release of IVT Studio, version 2.3.08. This release includes a variety of updates and fixes to make your webcast creation experience far, far better.

Audio/Video Synch

In past versions of Studio we have found that various cameras can cause synch problems within Studio. We are more than happy to report that we have found a solution to this problem and Studio is now compatible with a far wider range of webcams. Please let us know if you have any problems with synch or notice any other odd behavior with the camera you use.

Interface Enhancements

If you have been using the previous versions you’ll immediately notice interface enhancements. As you record your presentation icons that represent what you have recorded now appear next to recorded items in the index. If you recorded webcam video you’ll see a webcam icon. If you do a screen capture you’ll see the screen capture icon and if you import a video a small film reel icon will show up. Each index item is also labeled with it’s running time. This allows you to keep an eye on how long your presentation is going. It also gives you greater flexibility in editing your presentation as you’ll know where you can trim some time out. In the event you do use the trim tool the index time will appear orange to let you know that you have trimmed that piece of video. We’re sure you’ll find these enhancements incredibly useful.

Under the Hood

We have included a myriad of little nips and tucks that improve upon the Studio experience we hope you have been enjoying. Again, if there are any issues, comments or suggestions feel free to email us or leave them in the comment section here. Thanks!

technorati tags:studio, upgrade, 2.3.08, enhancements, download, webcasting

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Once again a whirl-wind has been released from the Northwest US and tech companies around the world await as their user base steadily begins to upgrade to the latest Windows OS. We here at IVT are in the very same boat and we assure you that Vista support is coming very soon. There’s much testing to be done and we certainly don’t want to hinder your ability to create great webcasts. Along with Vista we’ll be supporting Office 2007 for PowerPoint import into your Studio projects.

Check back soon and leave any questions in the comments. Thanks!

technorati tags:vista, office, office 2007, powerpoint, upgrade, support, help

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The truth of the matter is, most Studio users work in an environment that is not conducive to shooting beautiful video. it’s compounded by the fact that most web cams have tiny lenses. All is not lost. There are a few things you can do with lighting to help your video look much, much nicer.

Recently the industry magazine, “Digital Content Producer,” ran an article about lighting for streaming video. They give a great overview of flat vs. 3 point lighting and some of the technical hurdles you may encounter when creating streaming video. Check out the article here:

Lighting for Online Video Techniques | Lighting setups can make or break your online video

IVT has also created a quick guide in the Best Practices section of our Studio Wiki. There you’ll find tips on shooting with higher quality cameras, importing PowerPoint slides, how to give the best presentation and more lighting and technical tricks.

If you have any other thoughts or ideas you would like to add or you think we should add to the wiki, comment here. We’d love to hear them.

technorati tags:studio, ivt, tips, tricks, help, techniques, article, external link

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For the first Studio Feature Highlight I’d like to go over one of the most popular tools in Studio: Screen Capture. There are quite a few apps out there that will capture your screen activity and encode it as video of your choice. Studio, however, integrates screen capture into your presentation seamlessly, enhancing your viewers exeprience and adding great value to your content.

Screen capture is simple to implement:

1. Right click on a slide in your slide index.

2. Select Screen Capture and choose to capture your entire screen or one application.

I highly recommend you capture a single application (unless your needs differ) as Studio will only record within the window of the application. Resizing the app will not only improve performance when recording but, in the end, the video will look clearer and be more readable for your audience.

3. Once you’ve chosen the application (or entire screen) Studio will pop a message asking you to start recording and informing you that Ctrl+Shift+Q will stop screen capture and return you to Studio.

4. Click OK and begin speaking as you work on the screen. Studio will record from your microphone (which is probably in your USB cam) and from your screen while you work. Use the Ctrl+Shift+Q key combo to stop and your screen capture is set.

If you playback the preview in Studio you’ll notice your screen capture looks very small. Have no fear! It will expand in your final, published published presentation.

That’s it! Feel free to experiment with different app window sizes while recording. If you know you want to record your entire screen I suggest you change your resolution to 1024×768 or 800×600. Be sure to check the Studio Wiki for further info on Studio features and Best Practices for creating great StudioCasts.

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StudioCast 2007

Great presenters, great teachers and great salespeople often find their inspiration and techniques from watching the best in their fields do their thing. The First Annual IVT StudioCast Presentation Festival will be a way for people to share their approaches to presenting.

Imagine novice salespeople being able to see great salepeople give their pitches…inexperienced teachers being able to study the teaching techniques of the best professors in the world…executives inspired to put some of the enthusiasm they see others putting into their speeches. These are the goals of the festival.

Categories will be:

1) Best Overall Presentation

2) Best Teaching Lecture

3) Best Salespitch

4) Most Inspirational Executive Message

5) Most Creative Presentation

An additional category will be based on every submission using the same IVT-supplied generic slides to level the playing field and allow everyone to focus on their presentation style, humor, ability to convey the message, etc…

Rules and Start Date To Be Announced!

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I’ve been watching WAY too much video online recently to get a sense of which videos would benefit from being more than just video (i.e. PowerPoint Based StudioCasts). I think its safe to say that almost ANY video that is intended to educate, instruct, demonstrate, sell or brand falls into this category. Basically that leaves strictly entertainment focused videos in the “plain-old-video” category.

Why is this?

When you are trying to teach someone something, the biggest challenge is often getting them to pay attention. Even when someone appears to be paying attention their mind is often wandering and as their attention comes back to the speaker they may need to remind themselves of the context of the present actions to make sense of whats going on. Additionally, video is often not the appropriate medium to convey certain types of information (i.e. a detailed diagram that would need to be a still in the video for many minutes to be properly viewed). StudioCasts which include synchronized slides serve three main purposes which address these issues:

1) Synchronized slides capture attention with their message and reinforce or regain attention each time they flip.

2) Synchronized slides provide a contstant reminder of the context in which the video is currently referring. This can be a significant benefit leading to much higher retention and better comprehension.

3) Synchronized slides enable certain types of information to be presented which would either not be readable in video or not be desireable because it is static in nature or simply because it may obscure the speaker.

Straight-up entertainment videos don’t suffer these problems and would benefit from StudioCasts for an entirely opposite reason: to remove the clutter that usually surrounds online video. That is to say, a StudioCast Theme that is clean, branded and almost full-screen would be a better way to present most entertainment-based online video unless of course the video is encoded at a high enough bandwidth to go full screen itself.

www.ivtstudio.com : Teach Something.

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Perhaps you have downloaded Studio and you aren’t entirely sure what to do next. Let me be your guide.

Project Setup

The first thing you need to do is set up your project. The most basic Studio project is audio/video only. This is also the default setting so don’t do anything except name your project.

Recording

You should now see yourself in the video preview window (unless you’re doing audio only in which case you see an audio only icon).

Go ahead and click the Record button. A red border will appear around the video preview and you should start talking when you see it. (If you are using a PowerPoint slide deck with your video hit the spacebar to advance slides).

Publishing

When you’re finished with your presentation click Stop. You may want to see how it came out. Click the Play button for a preview of your presentation. Happy? Good!

Click the Publish button. Now Studio will ask you to register for your free account. Don’t worry, no spam, promise! One you have registered you choose the theme for your presentation. Studio should choose the default theme which is great for now. Click Publish and sit back while Studio does all the dirty work. When Studio has finished you can click the link that’s presented to you, email it to your friends and colleagues or copy and paste the link and use as you see fit.

That’s it!

It couldn’t be easier! Tell us all about the StudioCasts you create by leaving comments here!

For further help and info, go to the IVT Studio Wiki

technorati tags:how-to, studio, studiocast, instructions

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IVT is happy to announce the launch of IVT Studio Blog. Subscribe or check back here for updates, notices, news and other announcements relating to Studio.

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