Video Capture - The State of the Art (Feb. 2008)
Video offers a unique opportunity to provide language students with feedback on their speaking, but the logistics have always been a barrier that has been just a bit too high. For years, the only choice was VHS tapes, but instructors now can capture video with a MiniDV camera or webcam connected to a laptop.
This method still leaves several things to be desired. Setup is still time-consuming, and at least two pieces of equipment (the camera and the laptop) are required. Also, the product video is always too large for email and sometimes even too large to be put online for download. If we try to keep the video to less than 20MB, it requires both manual changing the settings for encoding and limiting the presentation to about 10 minutes.
On the other hand, commercial video services like YouTube have a model which seems very applicable to this situation. Video files can be uploaded and ingested regardless of format, and the product is streamed. Of course, privacy concerns prevent us from actually using a service like YouTube, but it is nonetheless attractive.
So what would it take to implement something like that? First, it would require a streaming server with some sort of ingestion system. But I would also require a quick and easy way to upload the video. The system above can capture to a file, but it may seem that we have gained nothing if we still have to use (at least) two pieces of equipment. Just going to class with a MiniDV camera is a possibility, but that requires significant post-processing.
The key may be a new generation of video cameras that capture directly to a Flash drive. Cameras like this have been on the market for some time, but the low end machines do not have microphones of acceptable quality, and the high end machines are well beyond a level where several could be purchased for a department. The problem was that there was no middle ground. However, beginning sometime in the spring of 2008, several companies will be releasing just such cameras:
- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/479002-REG/JVC_GZMG555US_GZ_MG555_Everio_G_Digital.html
- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/536077-REG/Panasonic_HDC_SD9_HDC_SD9_SDHC_Flash_Memory.html
- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/539224-REG/Canon_2699B001_FS_100_Flash_Memory_Camcorder.html
- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/539223-REG/Canon_2686B001_FS_10_8GB_Flash_Memory.html
- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/539222-REG/Canon_2685B001_FS_11_16GB_Hybrid_Flash.html
Since these (presumably) have decent microphones, an instructor could go to class with just a camera and capture several student presentations. She would then be able to return to a central office (or use a laptop) to simply upload the video directly off of the Flash drive.
This is, of course, all dependent on the purchase of some sort of streaming server system, which seems imminent, but there are as yet no concrete details. It is difficult to guarantee how such a workflow would work without actually piloting it, but I do think that a Flash drive camera with a normal consumer grade microphone is a safe bet for any necessary new purchases. However, until the streaming server and ingestion system are in place, there really is not much point in making such new purchases: ultimately, in order to make video files reasonable for downloading, the most efficient workflow involves manually adjusting the encoding settings, not post processing.