Video in the Corridors of the Cyberspace

[NOTE: This article first appeared in the May/June 1999 issue of TESOL Matters.]

For many teachers, learning how to put together a home page is still new, and the idea of incorporating video may seem light years away. However, with the right equipment, software, and a few tips, teachers can soon be filling the corridors of cyberspace with video segments to the delight of language students and colleagues around the world. Although there are several technologies out there, I will outline the basics of creating video on the Web using the free RealProducer G2 tools from RealNetworks (http://www.real.com/products/tools/producer/).

Creating your Masterpiece

Step One: Shoot your video. Most basic video cameras will do the job, but be sure to buy the best quality video cassette for your recording. If you compromise on quality too much early on, you won't be able to rescue your video later. Also, because there are limitations to the speed at which video is transferred over the Internet, your best recordings will be shots with little movement and scene changes like interviews or presentations. If you try for high motion action, you run the risk of ending up with blurry images.

More and more digital video cameras can be found on the market which provide high quality output to work with in the editing process.

Step Two: Transfer the video from your camera to your computer. If you are using an analog (verses digital) video camera, you'll need a video caption card (your biggest expense besides the computer, but usually a few hundred dollars if purchased as an add-on), and one way to tell if you have one is to look in the back of your computer for a yellow port labeled "Video-in," like the one you have on your VCR machine. If it's not there, you will probably have to buy one. You will also need audio and video cables to transfer the video.

With a digital camera, you are able import the signal into the computer via a FireWire port (IEEE-1394) with very little degradation, and the video quality is superior than if you had to convert an analog signal to a digital one for editing. More specific information on this can be found at, "How to Add Video to Your Site: Hardware and Software" (http://builder.cnet.com/Graphics/Video/).

You may need software to digitize and edit your video. Computers with caption cards can usually have built-in features for digitalizing video, but you may need software for editing (see Software).

Step Three: Encode your files. The process for basic encoding with the RealProducer G2 tools is pretty straightforward; the high-end commercial product, RealProducer Pro, gives you power to add synchronized text and embedded multimedia presentations to your videos. All RealProducer G2 tools provide help in creating the necessary files and HTML code to add to your pages.

Step Four: Link the RealVideo clip to your web page for video streaming. You can choose server-side streaming from a special RealServer or streaming from a HTTP server (the transfer system used by all servers on the Web), which is a free choice that works great for most people. Take a look at for details on the differences between these alternative approaches at (http://www.realnetworks.com/devzone/library/stream/httpstream.html).

Language Learning Applications