Help on audio/video production

For both audio and video, strive for the smallest file size while maintaining quality. The smaller the files, the faster they download, and your students will have a better learning experience.

Audio

• Use the .mp3 format. A data rate of 64K bps or so should be sufficient.
• Audacity, a freeware audio recording/editing program, is available for both Windows and Mac. It can read a variety of audio files and export to .mp3.
• In SE, audio plays in the video position on the screen. Therefore, audio files should be named this way: v01.mp3, v02.mp3 ...

Video

• Video dimensions are 360x270.
• Use either the .mp4 or .flv format. A data rate of 200K bps or so should be usually sufficient unless there is a lot of movement. The mp4 format with H.264 2-pass compression is the most recommended method.
• You don't necessarily need a professional tool like Adobe Premiere for the job. A less expensive option for Windows is Windows Live Movie Maker for filming/editing and Aura Video Converter Professional for encoding. For the Mac, iMovie for filming/editing and QuickTime for encoding.
• In SE, videos are named like v01.mp4 or v01.flv. In the FlashCard template there is an option to play a second video after the student finishes recording (marked as "Video 2" in the author mode). Use the prefix "w" for that (w01.mp4 or w01.flv).