Producing video for the web

Using Real Producer : Part 1

Producing video for the internet is surprisingly easy. There are three sections in this tutorial, where we show you how to do this :

• Part 1 : Set some basic details for each clip, convert your video
• Part 2 : Create a web page and Publish your video to a web server
• Part 3 : Advanced settings for better presentions

The first thing you will need to create Real Player clips from your pre-recorded video file is a free program called Real Producer. You can download Real Producer from real.com by visiting this page.

The aim of using this tool is to convert the normally very large video file into something that can be played on internet connections such as modems. Real Producer removes redundant information and squeezes files, often to 1-5% of their original size.

This picture shows the Real Producer Main Screen. Descriptions and close-ups of the screen areas follow below.

Clip Information Recording Controls Quality Settings Chosen Audience Preview Window

1. Clip Information

You can add any information here which will be used by your clip if it played without captions. CaptionKit can add extended information to your clip.

Title, Author and Copyright are recommended, Description and Keywords may be filled in if you wish.

2. Recording Controls

The Recording Controls you can see are greyed out until you select an input file to convert. You pick an input and output file name from the menu : To do this, on the menu go to File » New Session. Choose the video you want to convert,
and a filename to save it as. Remember where you saved this file for Step 2.

3. Quality Settings

Changing these settings will affect how crisp the video appears, and how clear the audio sounds. Good middle settings are 'Voice with background music' and 'Normal motion video'.

If you have only spoken word, you can reduce the final clip size by choosing 'Voice only'. You may find 'Sharpest image video' is suitable for talking-head style presentations with little movement, such as a news reader or almost stationary image.

These settings are worth playing with to find a good compromise for your content. Settings at higher quality can increase the final video size, which may be important to know, if you are making a presentation for dial up users.

4. Chosen Target Audience

You may find that users from across the world wish to view your video. The best compromise to use here is 56k modem, which will allow useful video to be viewed by pretty much anybody.

One sigificant anvantage of CaptionKit is that even under poor internet conditions, your video can still be followed.

While the video or audio may occasionally break up for users with poor internet connections, the text stream is very light and can be delivered whatever connection the user has.

5. Preview Input and Output

These areas will show your original video if you are making a visual presentation, and the output video quality as it is created.