Track Motion & "Blue Movie Border" from Media Generater

jldpc schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 00:12 Uhr
As a semi-retired lawyer, returned to school in a Master's Degree program in Special Education, I discovered a complete lack of useful multimedia resources for Special Education Teachers. So I am presently making a Demonstration Prject, to be used in Class and distributed to various school districts, and teachers, demonstrating the power of multimedia material as workaround for various learning disabilities. That is, reading words from paper is the most common area of disability, but most of those students have no problem watching and learning from television.

No news to all of you "forum lurkers," and multimedia nutcases. Just Kidding. Making videos with VV 4.0 is my avocation.

So I spent the weekend downloading about 24 hours of various mpg's, avi's, mov's, wmv's, and ra's, from a variety of websites, e.g., volcanoes, polar bears, whales, rainforest, pulsating maps, rotating globes, space shots, funny and funky gif's - alphabets & numbers etc, gaming outtakes from gamer websites, Cartoon networks outtakes, travel videos from around the world, etc. I got some really great stuff. Some was just downloading files; others were website stripping with Frontpage 2002, others were capture with my canopus ADVC-100.

I want to use the "9screenmoves.veg" for my lead-in of about 6 minutes. Needless to say, I have tons of stuff to play on each of the 9 screens. I want to show the audience the visual and audio complexity of "normal" life for kids. Then using various Video transitions, FX, etc, I want to demonstrate how that material looks and sounds to a disabled child, i.e., distorted.

The Problem:

Because all of the sources are varied, and my skill level is still not high, it will look better if I can border each of the nine tracks as they appear through Track Motion, first as they move onto and occupy the grid of 9 screens, and second as I bring them one at a time to full screen, temporarily covering their brethern. Of course, there will be separate audio tracks with varing sound levels, and a master sound track -- talk over -- for the duration of the video. It will be about 20 minutes worth.

I have tried the Help files, native to VV 4.0, but I cannot learn how to get the border called "Blue Movie Border" from Media Generators to stay with and travel with each of the nine screens. Doing so would give me a margin of visible error for alignment of each of the nine screens, i.e., the overlap would not be noticeable, if they are all the same color.

Can anybody help me?

Thanks!

Larry

BTW: My last presentation, was termed "Best she had ever seen!" by the head of special Education in a major urban area, suburban school district. My point is not that I did well. My point is, it was so easy with VV. A picture slide show of Rainforest animals, insects, vegetation, waterways, and people. Also some great video of the same with some classic, moody, music - Rodrigo, some with strings, some with brass. But 6 months into my 2 year course, I have learned that all school teachers are really independant contractors, on one year contracts, and have limited resources, i.e, no money, and no equipment or skills in making their lesson plans into multimedia presentations. So literally, an experienced teacher may have 7 years of materials on Penguins in her own big box, that she uses every year for about 6 weeks to teach a multitude of required state standards in the areas of reading, writing, and math, and science, and geopgraphy, etc., but no multimedia.

For the learning disabled MULTIMEDIA is the necessary workaround. See the NEED! See the opportunity.

Kommentare

Cheno schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 02:19 Uhr
Larry,

Impressed with your desire to help out in the Multimedia world, however unless the clips you've downloaded have been purchased or you've paid royalty fees per use, you most likely are using media that is illegal to use. If you've gained permission to use them, I apologize however most of the users in this forum, the Creative Cow and DMN are against illegal use of media. Just in case you don't get immediate assistance on your issue...

Mike
Tyler.Durden schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 02:40 Uhr
Hi Larry,

Try dropping the blue-bevel border from the Border FX panel onto each event.




HTH, MPH

Tips:
http://www.martyhedler.com/homepage/Vegas_Tutorials.html

jldpc schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 04:30 Uhr
I couldn't agree more with your concern over copyrighted material.

My project at the moment is for demonstration purposes in a classroom; it is not now or ever will be for sale. I don't believe there is a problem using clipart or images lifted from my own computer (even if temporary internet files) after they were freely downloaded from the internet. Moreover, I only chose material where the authors are freely distributing the material, e.g., travel and educational videos are almost always free to use. Part of the searching, with Google for example, is to find "free" material. For example, the volcano stuff came from European scientists freely distributing their work from the recent Etna explosions. The wonderful coral reef footage comes from the Miami University of Ohio naturalist website. Every year they do a Caribbean class and take tons of photos and videos. They are not restricted as to use. From Berkeley, the perapetic traveling professor has seen the world, and offers his material from 7 continents. NASA.gov is a wonderful sight for earthquakes, geography, oceans, and space footage. If the site said one must buy to use, I moved on. As for clip-art, animated gif's, etc., I have tons of software bought and paid for, which I am free to use.

Gioven your expression of concern, and out of an abundance of caution, I may skip the TV footage, and go with another pc game.

As for the presentation, there will be an attribution page at the end. It is required as a professional standard in our classroom work, down to the most minute detail, e.g., "'.....'retrieved from www.xxxx.xxx on month, day, year."

If I ever went beyond a purely one time demonstration -- to get educators to see the utility of multimedia -- I would either purchase, obtain releases or permissions.

I went to the trouble to spell this out to you, in order to impress all who read this of the importance of honoring copyrighted material.

I hope you will reconsider your reluctance to helping me.
jldpc schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 04:38 Uhr
Thank you for your helpful comment. I tried it. The 1/9th box moves nicely with a blue border. Great. But it dosen't seem to give me the total end result I need.

How do you get the track motion of the FX track (Track 1) and the track motion of the video track (Track 2) to syncronize, so that what is seen in the 1/9th box moving around (from the FX track at rack 1) against a background (say white at track 3)CONTAINS the video track from track 2?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
wcoxe1 schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 04:43 Uhr
Please post your email address. I'll send you a .veg file. You can substitue what you want into the 9 tracks. You can control what shows through, what overlaps, what overwhelms, easily. Study the veg I send.
jldpc schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 04:49 Uhr
Thank you.

jldpc@qwest.net
wcoxe1 schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 05:52 Uhr
It is on the way. Personally, I think that the blue border is "TOO MUCH," and would definitely reduce it in width if I wanted to use it.
Cheno schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 08:03 Uhr
Sorry Larry if I came out hard nosed or offending. I had no such intent. Time to time, users post that are basically using Vegas illegally with material they shouldn't be. I should have taken into account that you are in law as your original post stated and perhaps may be keen to what you are doing. In no way did I mean to say that you wouldn't get help and when Marty posted as quickly as he did, I felt bad. Forums are here for assistance, guidance and learning. I jumped to conclusions and shouldn't have.

Welcome to Vegas. I know that you'll love it. It's an incredible program capable of just about anything you can imagine.. (within reason..)

This forum is great along with the Vegas forum at www.creativecow.net - You'll find a few things with this community.. Very, very willing to help (I was a bad first impression), we all absolutely love the software and Sonic Foundry's support is second to none. You'll not find another editing program with all 3 of these together like they are with Vegas..

Mike
jldpc schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 08:19 Uhr
No problem. You were right on the target. I guess I spoke too enthuiastically about getting material from the internet, without also clarifying our responsibility to act responsibly. Its just I get carried away with all of the "really free" thematic content stuff that can be used to help the learning disabled kids.

Its programs like VV that are making it all possible, after so many years of talking about it. Its up to the teachers to do their own presentations. The school districts are still piled high with old, non-functioning, off-in-the corner MACs, that no teacher ever learned to use; much less create something on.

Really you would not believe the look on the faces of the "old" teachers, who have struggled for so many years with little or no resources, and certainly none that could be done very quickly, or easily, or at reasonable cost.

For example, as you know, one can shoot on DV several training seesions (about 10 minutes each) of a very difficult training technique, backed up by a Powerpoint slide presentation of the keypoints, showing how the "best practice" technique is applied to a particular disability, toward the acquisition of a particular skill, and scan in all of the relevant professional research literature, applicable progress tests, eligibility documentation, grade specific state standards, IEP end goals, and prepare a positive DVD, VCD, or VHS for a parent to review, and better meet the needs of both the student, the parents, the teacher, and the school district. And its all possible through VV.

It may not be commercial (yet!); but it sure is doable to improve the lives of many.

Thanks for your interest.
jldpc schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 08:47 Uhr
Thank you again. Nice example. I am experimenting. Will let you know.
wcoxe1 schrieb am 20.02.2003 um 19:39 Uhr
Hope it works out. Sounds like a good man on a good project. Keep it up.

By the way, in case you want to, you can go back and edit the post where you put your email address, in case you want to. I hate spam, and don't leave mine sitting around for long in public.

Just go back to the place where you can read your portion of the thread and there will be an edit button. Just xxxx it out to show that you removed it.
haze2 schrieb am 22.02.2003 um 18:53 Uhr
I wish we had a lot more teachers with your vision, insight, and dedication. I have a son with ADHD who is a high school sophomore. He has a terrible time understanding concepts presented in a written format. But he can see a video presentation, of the exact same material, and his comprehension increases dramatically.

He hates the stigma attached with being a Special Ed student because it severely affects the way his piers view him. He's just your average kid, with average intelligence, and a serious learning disability. It takes people like you to move these kids into the "main stream" and I applaud your efforts. Having Vegas Video, and all the other wonderful multi-media tools that are available now, is a Godsend.

I'm a pilot and recently took an early retirement from Continental Airlines. In the "old days" we learned new aircraft by attending ground school. Some instructors were great, some were horrible. Now most of the material is offered through multi-media presentations and it is so much better!

I know this is off topic for this forum, but I felt so compelled to thank and encourage this gentleman that I just couldn't help myself. I'm new to VV and this forum and I promise to stay on-topic in the future.
wcoxe1 schrieb am 22.02.2003 um 22:52 Uhr
Sounds on topic to me. The man is using innovative video, and that is exactly what this forum is all about. Sharing those ideas on the forum, and doing good work always accepts of "Thanks" given with the heart. Makes it all worthwhile.