Lastly, let’s encode something directly without first creating a .WAV or
.AVI file for our audio or video. We’ll use RealProducer Basic for this
example, although it works similarly for Windows Media Encoder.
If you have a camera, webcam, and/or microphone, you can hook it up to your computer
using the audio and/or
video input jacks. (Most computers come with the 1/8th audio jack on
the back of the computer. Some come with a video jack (RCA type), but
you may need to purchase a video card as described earlier for video).
We'll try a new session using RealProducer.
Open RealProducer. When the New Session
menu pops up, choose Media Device. (If the menu doesn’t pop up,
choose File | New Session.) Check both Capture Audio and
Capture Video if you want to capture both, or just one if you want to
capture just audio or just video.
In the Output field, select
RealMedia file and click Save As… Give the file a name, such
as testvideo.rm and click Save, then OK.
Enter a Title, Author, Copyright, Description and Keywords if
desired. Choose Single Rate, and also Voice with Music Background,
and also Normal Motion Video (you can experiment with these later to
try test the quality with various settings). Select 28K Modem as the
Target Audience.
Turn on the camera or microphone if it isn’t already on, and when
you’re ready, press the Start button on the menu. Press Stop
when finished, and Close. Click Play to watch or listen to
your clip.
You now have a new RealMedia file that can be added to your webpage as
shown in the instructions on the previous page.
You can use Windows Media Encoder in the same way to encode a Windows
Media file.
I've greatly streamlined these instructions for working with audio and
video to get you going quickly, but you'll soon find out that there are
many, many options (and many possible complications!) when working with
audio and video.
Much of this technology, while advanced, is still in it's infancy, so be
encouraged that it will actually get easier as the years go by. I hope
this has been enough to whet your appetite to consider going deeper over
time. But I also realize it could make you feel like you're sinking!
Don't be discouraged. I've taken you to the deep end of the pool and
you can go back to the shallow end anytime and still do a tremendous work
for the Lord, either way.
You're at the end of the exercises, let me conclude with a few final
thoughts on the next page.
