Digital Commons at Penn State

If you are saving directly to your PASS Space, U-Drive, or DC storage space then it may take longer than normal to save and work on your projects. It is recommended that you save all of your projects to the computers Desktop then copy your files to your other storage solution.

This prompt comes up the first time the DVD player software is run on any machine. Because the Editing Workstations reset every night, this prompt will come up every time you try to play a DVD movie. America is REGION 1. Once you enter that your movie will play normally.

If iTunes is not showing up in the media browser of Garageband it is because you did not approve the End User Licensing Agreement in iTunes yet. Close Garageband and open iTunes. Click Agree and then reopen Garageband and you can now access all of your music files.

You will need to repeat this step every time you use the Digital Commons computers.

The iMac's are set to Automatically Log off after a period of time when the computer is inactive. The computer does not count rendering or burning a DVD/CD as user activity and will thus log off. To get around this function there is an application located in the Application folder on the iMac hard drive. The application is titled "disable automatic logout", run this application and the computer will no longer automatically log off.

Warning, remember to log off when you are finished or others might have access to your video or files. The auto logout feature will reset back to normal when the computer is logged out or turned off.

Reset your camera by either

1. holding down the power button for 10 seconds, or
2. insert a pin into the reset hole located inside the tripod mount on the bottom of the camera

http://puredigital.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/puredigital.cfg/php/enduser/std_...

If iTunes is not showing up in the media browser of Garageband it is because you did not approve the End User Licensing Agreement in iTunes yet. Close Garageband and open iTunes. Click Agree and then reopen Garageband and you can now access all of your music files.

You will need to repeat this step every time you use the Digital Commons computers.

"Digital" means information stored in a binary format (made up of ones and zeroes). In general, the term refers to using computers to record, play, and manage audio stored in a digital format. Digital audio systems can be used to transfer audio from a tape, CD, or live performance into a format playable on computers (like AIFF or WAV files); make edits (like cuts, fades, and special effects) to those audio files; and output audio files back to tape or CD media.

Capturing audio, meaning taking audio from an analog source such as an audio tape or microphone, requires a sound card. A sound card plugs into an internal slot and has audio-in, audio-out, microphone, and speaker jacks. The card contains chips that compress incoming audio data and allow your computer to save the audio data to disk. All Macintosh computers and most Windows computers have built-in sound cards. Sound stored on a CD is already in digital format, and it can be copied to an internal hard drive, external hard drive, uploaded to the internet, or back to a CD. With such programs like iTunes (installed on all Macintosh computers and many PCs) one can play all types of digital audio files.

When a sound card is digitizing audio, it is measuring the voltage coming from the audio source many times per second. These measurements are called "samples," and they are saved to the hard drive as a list of numbers. When it is time to play back the sound, the computer can then read the numbers from the hard drive and reproduce the original voltage levels.

The quality of digital audio depends on two factors -- the "sample rate" and the "sample size." Sample rates usually lie between 8 kHz and 44.1 kHz; a sample rate of 44.1 kHz means that the sound is sampled, or measured, 44,000 times per second. Eleven kHz is considered "phone quality," 22.5 kHz is "radio quality," and 44.1 kHz is "CD quality." Digitizing with a high sample rate results in a closer approximation to the original sound with better capture of high-frequency sounds, but it requires more disk space.

Sample size, usually 8 or 16 bits, tells how accurately the voltage is measured. For an 8-bit sample, numbers between 0 and 255 are used to describe voltages. For a 16-bit sample, numbers between 0 and 65,536 are used to describe 0%-100% voltages. Again, using a higher sample size gives a closer approximation to the original sound with smoother transitions between voltages.

CDs use a 44.1-kHz sample rate and a 16-bit sample size; that is 44,000 samples per second, with each sample taking up 16 bits (two bytes). Therefore one second of CD-quality sound would take up 88,000 bytes, or 88K of disk space. This would be doubled if the sound were in stereo.

MIDI, which stands for "musical instrument digital interface," is an electronic music format which contains a list of notes to play and descriptions of the instruments to play them on. Since MIDI files contain lists of musical notes, and not actual sounds, they are much smaller than WAV or AIF files of the same duration.

However, MIDI files can only create music, not sound effects or speech. It is not possible to convert a WAV or AIF file into a MIDI file, just as it is not possible to write sheet music that describes the sound of a lion's roar or of a person's voice.

It is possible to convert a MIDI file into a WAV or AIF file, however.

Perhaps the most common digital audio format today is MP3. An MP3 stands for "MPEG-layer 3" which is the audio layer of another format for video. MP3 files can be compressed small enough to be easily streamed over the Internet. All computers made now have MP3 playing capabilities with programs such as iTunes, RealPlayer, or Windows MediaPlayer. There are several software applications available that can be used to convert your audio file to mp3 format, which one may depend on what format the audio file is in.

Record digital audio in our studio or capture audio from audio tape, videotape, or CD and edit it on our high-end workstations using GarageBand, Audacity, or iMovie. Get help publishing audio to iTunes, CD and many other audio formats such as AAC, AIF and WAV.

Try these websites:

http://www.harmony-central.com/MIDI/

http://www.real.com/player/?src=realaudio

The medium defines the ways you can transfer images from the camera to the computer. You can either connect the camera directly to a computer using a cable or you can remove the card or disk from the camera and pop it into a special drive. After downloading the images, erase the camera's storage medium, and you're ready to take more pictures.

This varies with each camera according to its memory capacity. It is also a factor of the resolution that the camera was set to when each photo was taken. Higher resolution photos will take up more space on the camera's memory. The Sony CD Mavica, for example, can use a CD-RW disc which can store up to 1,000 images and be used over and over. Other cameras use various memory formats to store up to several thousand images.

To put it simply, the photo was taken at a high resolution setting on the camera. When you open it in an application such as Photoshop, it may look pretty large -- you may even have to scroll to see the whole photo. The file's physical dimensions, however, may only be something like 3"x5", which is what the printer will output. A lower resolution setting will result in a smaller size on the monitor, but the same physical size when the photo prints. Its quality will not be as good as a photo taken at a higher resolution setting, however.

An image's resolution is measured in dots per inch, or pixels per inch in the digital realm. Since a monitor never displays more than 72 dpi (dots per inch), photos that will never be used in print (such as for the Web or PowerPoint) are better saved down to 72 dpi from higher resolutions. You'll have a smaller file size and the files will load more quickly.

To see a file's physical size and resolution, open it in Photoshop and under the "Image" menu, go to "Image Size...". It will bring up a window that will allow you to view and adjust the photo's physical size and resolution.

Identify what you want to do with your photographs. Will they be shared with family and friends, used professionally in a magazine or the Web, or needed at work or school? What image quality do you need? What are you going to photograph? Close-ups, action, or long-distance? How experienced are you? Do you want automatic settings or control over your camera's functions?

There are five categories of digital cameras:

• Entry-level -- Basic digital cameras with few features and limited image quality. Priced from $50-$200.
• Deluxe point-and-shoot -- These cameras offer more controls and produce better images than entry-level ones do. Priced from $200-$400. Printing is limited to 4x6 inches.
• Professional lite -- Features, quality, and ease of use make these cameras ideal for many different jobs, ranging from graphic and Web design to insurance and real estate. Priced from $300-$800.
• Professional -- The best of digital cameras, producing images that meet or exceed the quality of film. Priced from $1500-$60,000.
• Gadget -- Toy cameras, and cameras that are built into computers. Priced from $10-$200.

The major feature that separates this camera from point-and-shoot cameras is the amount of picture information it captures. Inside every digital camera is a chip that captures the picture. In this group of cameras, the quality and size of that chip increases. These cameras have very accurate and detailed chips, some that even rival the quality of film. Many of these cameras offer manual and automatic exposure control, and include an optical zoom lens, LCD screen, and flash sync connection.

Digital cameras store images as a collection of tiny dots called pixels. The more pixels, the better the quality. The number of pixels captured by the image sensor is known as resolution. Resolution refers to the number of pixels packed into a certain area. Megapixel cameras capture one million pixels or more. The resolution of consumer grade 35mm film is estimated at about 6 million pixels.

This prompt comes up the first time the DVD player software is run on any machine. Because the Editing Workstations reset every night, this prompt will come up every time you try to play a DVD movie. America is REGION 1. Once you enter that your movie will play normally.

"Digital" means that the information is stored in a binary format, as a coded series of 1's and 0's. Thus, digital video refers to video stored in a binary format. Digital video systems can be used to transfer video from an analog videotape into digital format, make edits (like cuts, transitions, and special effects) output digital video files back to videotape, and compress digital video files for the Web, DVD, or CD. "DV" is a specific format of digital video. DV is the standard for video editing programs and most digital video cameras.

Capturing (or digitizing) video from a videotape or camcorder requires certain hardware. The type of hardware depends on what type of video the information is coming from. It is easier to capture video from a DV video camera than to capture video from VHS, Hi8, SVHS, Laserdisc, or other video sources. This is because the video stored in a DV camera is already in digital format and has a built-in computer interface. The video stored in the other formats is analog and does not have a built-in computer interface.

All Apple Macintosh computers built since 1998 and many newer PCs come with the hardware necessary to capture video from a DV camera. Capturing from sources other than a DV camera requires purchase of a D/A (digital/analog) media converter or purchase and installation of a video capture card.

When using a video capture card, the quality of video you can capture depends on the specifications of the capture card, the speed of the computer, and the speed of the disk drive.

Importing DV from a DV video camera, media converter, or other DV device requires the use of FireWire (IEEE 1394) cables. FireWire, invented by Apple, is one of the fastest peripheral connection methods ever developed. FireWire also often allows the user to control the playback device (such as a DV video camera) directly from the computer.

Today, a variety of digital video editing software is available for both PCs and Mac. Since most video software was developed on a Macintosh platform, digital video editing is primarily done on Macintosh.

Apple's iMovie is perhaps the simplest and most straightforward capturing and editing program for beginners. Apple's Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro are much more advanced editing tools, designed for video professionals.

For beginners, Pinnacle's Studio 9 or Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker are as close to iMovie as is possible on the Windows Platform. Adobe Premiere is another popular professional editing program used that has recently transitioned from the Mac to the PC.

Any Windows or Macintosh computer should be capable of playing video on the screen using programs like Quicktime, Real Player and Windows Media Player; no special adapter or hardware is required. However, faster computers with faster disk drives and more RAM will be able to play video back more smoothly.

"Printing" or exporting to tape involves taking files stored on a computer and making an analog video tape of their contents. This requires some type of converter, like a Sony Media Converter or the Dazzle Hollywood-Bridge, to take the digital signal from the computer and convert it to an analog signal that the VCR can understand. These are the same converters that were explained earlier in the "capture" FAQ

Video editing programs like Adobe Premiere, iMovie, and Final Cut Pro allow users to import most types of image files (TIFF, GIF, PICT, JPG) and incorporate them into video projects. With video editing software, the user can easily control the duration, motion, and size of the image on the screen. Image files as video clips are also capable of the same transitions and filters as any other video file.

Presentation files, like those from Microsoft PowerPoint, must first be saved as sets of individual images before they can be imported into a video editing program.

Many types of audio files can also be added to video projects as soundtracks.

Prior to digital editing, video editing was achieved through "linear editing." In "linear editing" the finished product is built as edit decisions are made. Therefore, if you were working on a 10-minute video and needed to fix something in the first 2 minutes, your new edit could throw off everything that came after it, requiring you to rebuild all the video after the new edit. With "digital non-linear editing" all edit decisions are made before the finished product is built. Editing this way allows the editor to test edits and preview the finished product before exporting the video to more permanent media.

"Digital camera" usually refers to a digital still camera; these are similar to 35mm snapshot cameras, except that they contain no film. Some digital still cameras allow you to capture short (under 30 second) clips of audio as well, and some can be connected to televisions in order to preview the pictures in the camera.

A "digital video camera" is similar to a regular camcorder or video camera, except that it stores the recorded video in a digital (as opposed to analog) format. This results in video which can be duplicated many times or copied directly into a computer without any additional loss of image quality.

A "DV camera" is a specific type of digital video camera that shoots in the "DV" format. This is the same format that editing software uses, therefore video on a DV cassette doesn't lose any quality when captured directly to these programs.

Most popular consumer DV video cameras use Mini DV tapes. Mini DV tapes capture the same fine-quality video as their larger industrial counterparts and are relatively inexpensive.

Record digital video in our studio or bring in media, such as on a VHS videotape, and edit it on our high-end workstations. Get help publishing video online, to DVD and to many other video formats.

We've put together this reference table to illustrate the amount of space a streamed video takes up on a server. Keep in mind that many factors such as the data rate, the length of video, and the image size can affect the overall size of the files and these numbers are meant for comparison only.

The following table, with the exception of full DV, is for Quicktime (.mov) video using the Sorenson compression format (web streaming standard). Full DV is used when editing video for non-streaming media, like VHS or DVD.

Since the computer has control over each pixel of each frame of every video clip, digital video allows for a wide range of special effects. These include adding titles (text), adjusting brightness and contrast, compositing (combining multiple images), and performing 2D and 3D digital video effects (DVEs).

Digital video also allows "nonlinear editing," which allows you to take parts of a video and paste them together in any order that you wish.

Try these Web sites:

http://www.videoguys.com/

http://www.dv.com/

With our CD-ROM writer we can record Macintosh, ISO 9660 Level 1, ISO 9660 with extended MS-DOS file names, Macintosh/ISO 9660 hybrid, and audio CDs. For any other formats, please call us.

Generally, CDs hold around 650 MB of data, though larger capacity CDs are available that will store roughly 700 MB of data. Each CD will format differently and lose some of its available space, so it's a good idea to shoot for about 20 MB under the maximum size of the disc when filling it.

You can bring in the data on an external hard drive or removable media. In addition, we can connect to your ANGEL course site or your network storage space to download data to one of our workstations.

Our setup is capable of writing only one CD at a time. We encourage people needing multiple copies to have them made through the Computer Store's Media Duplication Services.

A "glass master" is a glass disc etched with CD data in a process similar to photography or screen printing; it is the first step in the injection molding manufacturing process that is used to mass-produce CDs. Since our equipment can only write data to preformed plastic blank media, we cannot create glass masters. We can, however, write your data to a plastic CD, enabling you to test your application on a locked medium and to send the application CD to a duplicating house in lieu of sending a hard drive.

We do not check the data or the copyright of any data that we record to CD. Copyright issues remain the responsibility of the person supplying us with the data.

Here are some Web sites that will help you understand copyright issues:

Music files for an audio CD can be saved in any audio format, though compressed files (like MP3s, AACs or WMAs) will have less quality than uncompressed files (like AIFFs.) The total time estimate for these files and the pauses between files must be less than 74 minutes per CD (or 80 minutes with some CD media.)

ISO 9660-1 is the standard format for MS-DOS CD-ROMs, and is readable on Mac, Windows, and UNIX machines. However, it requires the following constraints on file names:

For more information about the ISO 9660 standard and about CD recording in general, consult The CD Information Center.

This prompt comes up the first time the DVD player software is run on any machine. Because the Editing Workstations reset every night, this prompt will come up every time you try to play a DVD movie. America is REGION 1. Once you enter that your movie will play normally.

The technical definition goes something like this: an optical disc capable of storing relatively large amounts of digital data. Modern applications for DVDs range from high-quality video to better-than-CD quality audio to video games to data

You will need a DVD burner that is connected to your computer and use one of many software programs available to facilitate DVD authoring. You will also need unused DVD-R discs to burn your media to.

Digital Commons has computer stations with built in DVD burners and primarily uses iDVD, an extremely user friendly DVD authoring program. Please note that Digital Commons clients need to supply their own DVD-R media.

For any questions regarding DVDs and the many other forms of digital video discs such as VCDs and SVCDs, try Jim Taylor's DVD Demystified DVD FAQ. Jim Taylor is a leading authority in the field of digital disc media and the FAQ posted on his site is the best informational resource on the subject.

If you burned the DVD using iDVD at the FMC, then the answer is yes. Independent authoring attempts are subject to varying results depending on the hardware and programs used.

Please note that DVDs are different than VCDs. For an explanation of the differences, see below under "Where can I find more information about DVD?".

Our setup is capable of writing only one DVD-R at a time, though a few extra copies can be done by the time you come to pick up your project. We encourage people needing many DVD-R copies to have them made through the Computer Store's Media Duplication Services.

iDVD is capable of burning DVD's with 1 hour, 29 minutes of DVD quality video. The time missing from the full hour-and-a-half recording time of a DVD-R goes to space taken up by the DVD's menus.

If iTunes is not showing up in the media browser of Garageband it is because you did not approve the End User Licensing Agreement in iTunes yet. Close Garageband and open iTunes. Click Agree and then reopen Garageband and you can now access all of your music files.

You will need to repeat this step every time you use the Digital Commons computers.

Apple is offering an iMovie 06' download for free, for those people who have recently purchased a new Mac and are currently running iMovie 08'. Click this link to access the site where the download is available .
This download will allow you to have both versions of iMovie on your computer at the same time.

iTunes U only accepts files for upload that are less than 500 megabytes (MB). Audio files must be either AAC or MP3 with appropriate file extensions (.m4a, .mp3). To use specific cover artwork with an audio track, use the AAC file type format (.m4a). Video files must be MPEG-4 with H.264 compression with appropriate file extensions (.mp4, .m4v, .mov). If you are using QuickTime to create and edit video content, export your videos by choosing Movie to iPod from the Export pop-up menu in QuickTime Pro.

Double-clicking on tracks in iTunesU opens a preview of that track. Usually this works ok for audio or short video files because your computer can grab enough of the file to start playing properly. But with enhanced podcasts (mp3 files that contain synchronized slides or pictures) or large video files, the entire file needs to be downloaded first. If you Subscibe or Get Track and wait for the file to download, it should play without any problems.

Yes. Everything in iTunesU (Welcome Pages, courses, shows, tracks, tabs) has its own URL. Just right-click (Mac users control-click) on any item you want to link to, and you will see a menu that says "Copy iTunes Store URL". Once you copy the URL you can paste it into ANGEL, an email, etc.

First, make sure you have iTunes installed. This is a free application.

If you're using Firefox, sometimes the browser forgets how to handle iTunes links. Try the following:

Launch Firefox
In the URL location box type about:config" and tap the return key.
You will get a long list in the "filter" box type itms and tap the return key.
The list will be left with 1-2 things control/click OR right click on each item and choose RESET
Quit Firefox

Next, launch Firefox again and type the following in the URL "location box." itmss://deimos.apple.com/
Hit return. A drop down menu should appear. Check the box for "Remember my choice for all links of this type" and click on "Launch Application." iTunes will/should launch.

First, make sure you have iTunes installed. This is a free application.

Then browse to http://itunes.psu.edu and click on the "Open Penn State on iTunesU" button.

Since iTunesU exists within the iTunes application, your browser must be instructed to launch iTunes and open the correct URL for Penn State's content.

For more information, see: http://digitalcommons.psu.edu/node/3432

iTunes defaults to not showing the artwork portion of enhanced podcasts. To fix this open iTunes and go to View > Show Artwork Column. iTunes will now show the visual part of your enhanced podcast.