1. We suggest that you keep your video under 10 minutes and not over 1 GB.

  2. If you are recording yourself with the help of colleagues and a camcorder, make sure that you have a nice clean audio feed. By using a headset to listen to the audio and watching the audio input indicator on your camera, you can monitor audio to assure that it is not over 12db. If audio is too “hot” the recording will have pops and cracks in it and sound pretty bad.

  3. If you are recording yourself with a webcam, be sure to project your voice clearly toward the webcam microphone. Create a test video and play it back in iMovie or MovieMaker to see how the audio recorded. If the audio is still not loud enough even after projecting your voice well and toward the webcam microphone, you can change the amplitude to a higher level by editing the audio portion of the recorded file afterward in iMovie or MovieMaker.

  4. If you are the person speaking into the microphone, keep your mouth away from the microphone far enough when speaking into it so that the microphone does not pick up your breathing and/or your “p” and “t” sounds don’t cause feedback.

  5. Use a lot of light during recording. Video recordings need to be lit up more than what you would expect for the recording to show colors and contrast naturally. Use natural lighting from a window behind the camera pointing toward the person speaking or point lights from behind the camera toward the person speaking. Put as many existing lights and lamps on in the room to increase the room's overall light level. Replace existing lightbulbs with more powerful lightbulbs. Use a reflector to bounce an existing light source onto your subject. A reflector can be made with a foil covered large piece of cardboard or a large white poster board to help reflect light up from below the speaker to fill in the shadows under the chin and eye sockets when there is a lot of overhead light. Use lamps to produce a three point lighting set up. See additional lighting tips at: http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/light/

  6. If you are using built in computer software like iMovie or MovieMaker make sure to use the export settings that constrain the file size to under 1 GB. Some built in software allows you to specify the file size you wish to constrain your movie and this automatically configures the bitrate.

  7. If you are using more advanced video software to edit your video like Adobe Primere or Final Cut Pro, set up your project to use: 480 X 360 resolution; H.264 compression; Export your file to constrain to 1 GB and use our recommended export settings charted below.

    If you record your video using: use one of the following programs : then export your video as: using the following compression settings: with resolution (dimensions): Tutorial

    a webcam with computer audio or a consumer digital video camera

    Windows Movie Maker

    .wmv
    Frame Rate: 29.97 fps; keyframes: automatic; Quality: High or Best; Data Rate: automatic
    		 480 X 360 (or 640 X 480 if Windows Media Encoder 9 Series is not installed)

    Creating your video

    Mac iMovie

    .mov (QuickTime)

    compression: H.264; Frame Rate: 29.97 fps; keyframes: automatic; Quality: High or Best; Data Rate: automatic

    		 480 X 360

    Creating your video
  8. If you have an existing video that you would like to upload and need to change the resolution and compression use software like Sorenson Squeeze (commercial product, but good and easy to use) or MPEG Streamclip by SQUARED 5 (freeware, easy to use). Both of these conversion programs actually allow you to convert your movie into an flash video file thus saving a step during upload to the SciVee server.

  9. Convert your movie to a flash video file (.flv) using a compression tool (like the ones mentioned in tip#7). This will cut down on the time that it take to upload your video because you will have already completed the conversion to flash step prior to upload on your local machine. Thus, the SciVee upload system will not need to convert the video to flv, and it will save you the time it takes to convert the video through the browser remotely on the server.


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