Multimedia

Applications for creating, designing, editing, converting, and producing multimedia content including sound, video, print media, presentation, animation, and modeling including applications used to play, edit, create, or record audio for purposes of dictation, music, broadcast, or otherwise and applications used to create, edit, or produce video content. Software ranges from simple clip editor tools, to professional video editing software, to DVD production tools. Finally, this category includes software for capturing. Capture software allows you to get a snapshot of something. For example, you could get a snapshot of your computer screen at a particular moment in time or for a period of time. This snapshot could be an image (screenshot) or video (screencast).

There is also capture software designed for capturing presentations, lectures and events

Blender

October 30, 2014 by Andy Voelker
Categories: Analysis & ModelingMultimedia

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Availability: Free Download
Comparable: After Effects, Sketchup

Blender is a free and open source 3D animation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Advanced users employ Blender’s API for Python scripting to customize the application and write specialized tools; often these are included in Blender’s future releases. Blender is well suited to individuals and small studios who benefit from its unified pipeline and responsive development process. Examples from many Blender-based projects are available in the showcase.

Blender is cross-platform and runs equally well on Linux, Windows and Macintosh computers. Its interface uses OpenGL to provide a consistent experience. To confirm specific compatibility, the list of supported platformsindicates those regularly tested by the development team.

As a community-driven project under the GNU General Public License (GPL), the public is empowered to make small and large changes to the code base, which leads to new features, responsive bug fixes, and better usability. Blender has no price tag, but you can invest, participate, and help to advance a powerful collaborative tool: Blender is your own 3D software.

Camtasia Studio

September 16, 2014 by Andy Voelker
Categories: Multimedia

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Availability: Contact CLAS IT
Comparable: Expression Encoder, Screencast-O-Matic, ScreenFlow, BB FlashBack Pro

Camtasia Studio and Camtasia for Mac are software suites, created and published by TechSmith, for creating video tutorials and presentations directly via screencast, or via a direct recording plug-in to Microsoft PowerPoint. The screen area to be recorded can be chosen freely, and microphone, audio, or other multimedia recordings may be recorded at the same time or added separately from any other source and integrated in the Camtasia Studio component of the product.

Camtasia Studio v8 for Microsoft Windows consists of two major components:

  • Camtasia Recorder – a separate tool for capturing screen audio and video.  This can be used to easily capture a screen or portion of a screen while capturing audio from a microphone.  Most people use this to show something on the screen, such as a document, website, video, or presentation, while describing it.
  • Camtasia Studio editor – this suite allows a user to edit the capture they just performed.  Users can add audio, insert video, cut and paste portions, and zoom in to more specific regions of the screen to produce a more professional video.
Tags: tutorial

Expression Encoder

September 18, 2014 by Andy Voelker
Categories: Multimedia

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Availability: Free Download
Comparable: Camtasia Studio, Screencast-O-Matic, ScreenFlow, BB FlashBack Pro

The Microsoft Expression Encoder is a screen capturing tool that allows the user to record portions or all of the screen, accompanying audio, and export it into an editable video.  Expression Encoder is very similar in features to the PC version of Camtasia Studio.  Unlike Camtasia, Expression Encoder is only available for Windows.

There are two components to Expression Encoder.  The first is the “Screen Capture” application, which sets the user up to record the screen.  Options include recording with a microphone for narration, recording a webcam with the screen, and selecting the area you want to record.  Once the recording is complete the result is handed off to the second component titled “Expression Encoder.”  In the Encoder, the user can edit the video in a timeline layout.  The user can add the webcam as a picture-in-picture, set it to full screen, turn it off, or vary between the three in the end result of the production.  The Encoder also allows the user to add background audio, insert other video clips, and rearrange content.

One difficulty with using the Expression Encoder is that it prefers to export video in the proprietary WMV (Windows Media Video) format.  This format does not read well across platforms (mac and linux) and does not work well with websites.  Changing formats can be a difficult procedure without the right software.

The free version of Expression Encoder is available at no cost, but it does have a recording limit of 10 minutes.