When you watch YouTube videos, can you can tell the difference between good sound and bad sound recording?  Bad sound is distracting especially when the video is a speech.

When it comes to your own video recording of a lecture,  seminar or workshop, always use an external microphone.  With a proper clip-on microphone on the presenter, you will get crisp clear voice quality.

HOWEVER… sometimes things happen!  Someone in the audience coughed loudly, an electrical buzz interrupted from nowhere or an intermittent static noise interfered with your wireless microphone.

The worst thing is… the unwanted sounds are recorded into your video even before you can react.

If you have a back up audio recording device, great!

Otherwise, the big question is “How do I remove unwanted background noise from an audio recording?”

First, let me classify some common noises into two types, random noise and constant noise.

• Random noises are like  coughs, sneezes, phones ringing, doors slamming and chairs creaking.  Mostly created by individuals in the audience that can occur at any time.  If  loud enough, even a good external microphone on the presenter cannot isolate the noise from his voice.
• Constant noises are like the hum from the air-conditioner blower, laptop cooler fan, nearby vending machine, electrical buzzing and ambient hissing.  These sounds have fixed patterns.  They may stop for a while, but when they are back, they will go on for a long time with the same tone.

Here I present to you 3 simple software solution to repair a damaged audio recording.

1. Audacity
   Audacity is a free open-source software for recording and editing sounds.  It has features to enhance audio as well as to repair bad recordings.  My favorite feature is “Noise Removal”.  It is great for removing constant noise in the background.  All you have to do is to mark out a segment of that constant noise.  Audacity will analyze the pattern of the noise and remove that pattern across the recording.  Depending on the intensity of the noise, you may not remove it completely, but reduce it to a comfortable level.
2. Adobe Soundbooth
   Adobe Soundbooth is a tool for video editors to create and polish audio, customize music, add sound effects and more.  It can automatically detect and fix common flaws in audio such as hisses, hums, crackling and pops.   My favorite feature is “Autoheal”.  Like a doctor, it heals coughs…  Soundbooth can remove random coughing noise.    All you have to do is mark the tiny segment where the cough occurred.  Soundbooth will remove the entire audio from that segment, then analyze the sound waves immediately before and after the deleted portion to recreate a replacement.  I experimented and found that Autoheal worked well on a music recording but very bad on a speech recording.
3. Sony Vegas
   Sony Vegas is more than just a professional video editing software.  It is also a superior audio production tool.  This is the software I use most often to enhance seminar audio recording and remove random audio interference.  There is no dedicated feature to remove audio noise, but tweaking specific audio filters can enhance speech quality.  I use basic editing features like split, mix and level adjustments to fix sounds.  Works most of the time as long as there is a backup microphone recording.   Sony Vegas may not be perfect for audio repair but doing it within my video editing software saves loads of time.

Action Steps:

These are great tools for repairing audio, but always remember… prevention is better than cure.   Double check equipment before and after setting them up.   Wear headphones and listen throughout the recording so you can react immediately to any disturbance.   If budget allows, get a separate audio device to record a backup.

Adrian Lee
http://VideoLane.com
Videography Trainer

PS:  Have you repaired an audio recording before? How did you do it?  Please share your technique in the comment box below.

Do you like editing videos on the go without being stuck to a desktop computer?  Laptops are becoming powerful enough for video production work.  However, there are numerous models and brands to choose from. Beware, the most expensive brand does not mean the best. When it comes to video editing, speed and memory matter. So in this post we address the 3 most important questions to ask before buying a laptop for video editing.

1. Should I buy an i5 or i7 laptop?
2. Which GPU is best for video editing?
3. Should I get 2GB or 4GB or 8GB RAM?

Should I buy an i5 or i7 laptop?

This is the question I ask myself all the time. The salesman always tell me that the i5 model is the latest model and runs faster than the current i7 model.

Let’s hear from the experience of other users.

What is the difference between i5 and i7?

“Intel’s high-end processor line is the Core i7. Many users who are looking for a high-performance part end up considering both i5 and i7 products. The i5 is quick, but the i7 promises to be faster…”

“…significant performance difference is how the Core i7 and Core i5 products will be handling hyper-threading. Hyper-threading is a technology used by Intel to simulate more cores than actually exist on the processor. While Core i7 products have all been quad-cores, they appear in Windows as having eight cores. This further improves performance when using programs that make good use of multi-threading. All Core i5 processors have hyper-threading disabled…”
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/48391.aspx

“I love the 8 core CPU action to rock my High Def video renders in Sony Vegas. What used to take 2 hours to render was reduced to 20 minutes. It changed the way Booya produces videos. I used to have to finish the whole video edit, and pray that it turned out ok less I’d have to re-render. But with the core i7, I’ll render a damn video 2-3 times and end up with the perfection I was seeking in far less time!”
http://www.booyagadget.com/2011/03/intel-core-i7-hyperthreading-with-p6x58d-mobo-owner-review.html

Speed matters.  Get an i7 laptop to complete your video editing faster.

Which GPU is best for video editing?

Popular video editing software like Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere now boast a new feature that will significantly speed up video editing to almost no waiting time by utilizing the GPU.  The GPU or Graphics Processing Unit exists in every computer and its job is to generate the display on the monitor screen.

I mentioned this my Sony Vegas Pro 11 Review.

Sony Vegas Pro 11

“…Vegas Pro 11 leverages GPU acceleration for video FX, transitions, compositing, pan/crop, track motion and encoding, providing a significantly faster workflow. The addition of GPU acceleration streamlines the video editing experience in Vegas Po 11 by providing playback performance gains and faster rendering times, ideal for industry professionals who work on tight deadlines where every second counts…”

“…Vegas Pro 11 accelerates both video playback and rendering, providing improved performance results from start to finish. ..  Over 45 effects, transitions, generators and compositors are GPU-accelerated in Vegas Pro 11, as well as a substantial amount of built-in video processing such as crossfades, fades, alpha compositing, framerate resampling, interlace processing, pan/crop, track motion, opacity, fade-to-color, and multicamera display.”

Supported cards for GPU-acceleration on Sony Vegas Pro 11:

• NVIDIA

• Requires a CUDA-enabled GPU and driver 270.xx or later. GeForce GPUs:
• GeForce GTX 4xx Series or higher (or GeForce GT 2xx Series or higher with driver 285.62 or later).
  Quadro GPUs: Quadro 600 or higher (or Quadro FX 1700 or higher with driver 285.62 or later).
• NVIDIA recommends NVIDIA Quadro for professional applications and recommends use of the latest boards based on the Fermi architecture.

• AMD/ATI

• Requires an OpenCL-enabled GPU and Catalyst driver 11.7 or later with a Radeon HD 57xx or higher GPU. If using a FirePro GPU, FirePro unified driver 8.85 or later is required.

For more information on supported NVIDIA or ATI cards for GPU-acceleration, please see the Sony Vegas Pro GPU acceleration page.”
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/gpuacceleration

Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5

“Speed up your creative workflow by seeing the results of many effects without having to render them first, thanks to GPU acceleration and the enhanced 64-bit Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, now on workstations and laptops…”

Supported NVIDIA graphics cards for GPU acceleration on Adobe Premiere Pro:

• GeForce GTX 285 (Windows and Mac OS)
• GeForce GTX 470 (Windows)
• GeForce GTX 570 (Windows)
• GeForce GTX 580 (Windows)
• NVIDIA Tesla C2075 card (Windows)/Maximus configuration
• Quadro FX 3700M (Windows)
• Quadro FX 3800 (Windows)
• Quadro FX 3800M (Windows)
• Quadro FX 4800 (Windows and Mac OS)
• Quadro FX 5800 (Windows)
• Quadro 2000 (Windows)
• Quadro 2000D (Windows)
• Quadro 2000M (Windows)
• Quadro 3000M (Windows)
• Quadro 4000 (Windows and Mac OS)
• Quadro 4000M (Windows)
• Quadro 5000 (Windows)
• Quadro 5000M (Windows)
• Quadro 5010M (Windows)
• Quadro 6000 (Windows)
• Quadro CX (Windows)

The list of graphics cards that are compatible with Adobe Premiere® Pro CS5 is updated on a regular basis.  Visit http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/tech-specs.html for the latest list of supported cards.

Speed matter again.  Get a laptop fitted with one of the GPU’s listed above.

Should I get 2GB or 4GB or 8GB RAM?

What is RAM and what is it for?

“RAM is an acronym for Random Access Memory. It is a type of computer memory akin to a person’s short-term memory. Data that must be accessed quickly is kept in RAM, such as running applications and open files. When a computer does not have enough RAM, it is forced to allocate part of the hard disk in place of the missing RAM, which hurts performance.”
http://what-is-what.com/what_is/ram.html

“…image editing applications like Photoshop, video/audio editing applications, or virtual machines like VirtualBox or VMware will use as much RAM as you can spare. On my desktop with 8GB of RAM, I’m able to run all of the above at the same time, without showing any signs of slowdown when switching from one application to another.”
http://lifehacker.com/5415355/do-you-really-need-more-than-4gb-of-ram

Speed speed speed.  If  you do heavy audio/video/image editing, you should consider upgrading with as much RAM as you can afford. (You may need a 64-bit version of Windows to take advantage of it all, but that’s another story)

When it comes to video editing, speed and memory matter.  So now you know the 3 important elements to look for before buying a laptop for video editing.  Get a laptop with an i7 processor, a powerful GPU and upgrade the RAM as much as you can afford.

Happy editing on the roads!

Adrian Lee
Videography and Web Video Production Trainer
http://VideoLane.com

PS: The above information may be good only for the next 3 months, because technology is advancing at breakneck speed.  Keep yourself updated on videography and web video production by subscribing to http://VideoLane.com.

PPS: Hire a video professional here http://videolane.com/services/ .  Become a video professional here http://videolane.com/courses/ .

New Canon 5D Mark III Shoots Longer HD Videos
The new Canon DSLR camera records video in the widely accepted MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format. It can shoot in 3 Frame Sizes, Full HD 1920 x 1080, good-for-web HD 1280 x 720 and almost SD 640 x 480. There is no worry about getting a PAL or NTSC model like in regular video camcorders, because this gadget has everything, 30 fps, 25 fps, 24 fps, 60 fps and 50 fps. How long can this baby shoot continuously? Based on a 8GB Card, 32 minutes at 1920 x 1080, 37 minutes at 1280 x 720 and 97 minutes at 640 x 480. Movie shooting does not stop when the file size reaches 4GB.
http://videolane.com/canon-5d-mark-iii/

World’s Most Compact and Lightweight DSLR Rig
I am always looking for the most protable and lightweight gadget for my camera. This one works like a stabilizer. When it’s mounted to the base of your DSLR, it looks no bigger than a battery grip. But when it’s expanded, it transforms into a fully-functional shoulder stabilizer. The Pocket Rig is so small that you will forget that you have it attached, yet it will serve you instantly, anywhere you have your DSLR.
http://www.edelkrone.com/the-pocket-rig/

The Psychology Behind Movie Poster and DVD Cover Designs
There’s a lot more to movie poster design than meets the eye. Unlike most other marketed products, movies require immediate emotional impact while still maintaining a continuous push to each subsequent level of distribution. Get some ideas from this infographic before you design your next movie poster or DVD cover.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1815812/the-psychology-behind-movie-poster-designs

A New Place to Spread Your YouTube Videos
Pinterest is a new social site for bookmarking and networking. It is spreading like wildfire with 7.2 MILLION unique visitors per month. This website is addictive, making people go crazy, spending hours “pinning” images and videos that they like.
Follow me on http://pinterest.com/adrianleeyc/

3 Videography Tips for Beginners
In response to questions from subscribers and participants of our 2-day Basic Videography Course, I posted 3 notable answers on our blog.
How to Make a Good Cooking Video For YouTube
How to Render as DVD in Sony Vegas – Best Setting
Cut-in and Cutaway Shot Definition and Example

Until the next post, enjoy!

Adrian Lee
http://VideoLane.com
Videography and Web Video Production

PS:
Making your own marketing videos
My friend, video marketing expert, Mike Koenigs, is sharing his secret recipe for dominating online video marketing for so long. Mike shows you how the formula produces PAGES of ideas for your videos. You can use these videos as an online campaign to influence search engine results, and generate massive amounts of traffic and leads…fast and easy.
http://videolane.com/traffic-geyser/

A VideoLane.com subscriber posed a question about making cooking videos for YouTube…

“How do you suggest I make a good decent video for YouTube – cooking segment.
Not interested in showing myself really, just the food.”

Here’s my response…

Let me make some assumptions:

• You are the one cooking.
• You are the one shooting.
• The location is a home kitchen.
• You don’t want to be seen in the video.
• Final video is for Youtube.

Three things you need:

• A video camera.
• A tripod.
• Lights.

Procedure before the shoot:

• Plan and visualize the sequence of cooking in steps.
• Ask yourself “What do I want my audience to see?”.
• Clear a table space with all background distractions removed. Plastic bags and table rags look terrible in a cooking video.
• Clean up your stove and hide anything that is not relevant to cooking. We don’t need to see a bin or a broom.
• Arrange your ingredients and utensils visibly recognizable.
• Wear a good looking apron or neutral-colored clothes. Your body will still be seen on camera together with your hands.
• Remove jewelry from your hands and arms. They may be more attractive to look at than your food.

During the shoot:

• Position your camera and tripod so that the ingredients and utensils are immediately recognizable on screen. Some things are just not identifiable from a certain angle.
• For every step in the cooking sequence, change the position of the camera, raise or lower the tripod. Sometimes we need to shoot from above, looking into a cooking pot. Sometimes we need to shoot from the side, to show clearly an ingredient label.
• Most shots will be close-ups. Show the audience the food and not the whole kitchen.
• Shine lots of lights generously to remove shadows. Don’t shoot if somehow a shadow is cast on the very thing you want to show. Use standing lamps and turn on all the lights in the kitchen.
• You may speak while demonstrating. Since the camera will always be very near you, the voice quality should be acceptable.  Optionally, using an external microphone will make you sound more professional.

What if:

• What if you cannot hold the camera while using two hands to cook? After positioning the camera on the tripod, flip the camera screen around to face you on the cooking side. Keep your movements small so that you will safely stay within the frame.
• What if your items are very small? You need to bring them closer to camera or the camera closer to the item. It may be a seed in a fruit or it may be a dial on the oven. Just remember that every scene must make the audience understand what you are doing.
• What if you realized you missed a shot but the food is already cooked? Prepare extra ingredients to standby for another shoot OR just explain verbally to the audience what happened.

These are some experiences I gathered from years of shooting cooking videos professionally.

At home, I attempted to make a cooking video entirely with my iPhone 4, from shooting to editing to uploading on YouTube.

I hope the above information can help you get started in making a good cooking video for YouTube. I can go on into details, but that will be moving into professional video production.

Adrian Lee
http://VideoLane.com

PS:
Would you like to author your own DVDs and publish video to the Web? Are you interested in saving time and money by learning how to produce your own videos in-house?  This 2-day basic videography course is definitely for you!

PS:
OR hire video production professionals to get your video produced professionally.

When creating DVDs, I like to use a combination of 2 programs, Sony Vegas and Corel VideoStudio.

Sony Vegas renders DVD videos clean and sharp, especially when the footage was shot in HD.

I use Sony Vegas to edit my video footage and create the DVD-compliant MPEG2 file.

The MPEG2 file is then imported into Corel VideoStudio to create the physical disc.

Corel VideoStudio does not RE-RENDER the video files, hence maintaining its original high quality.

Corel VideoStudio also makes authoring of motion menus fast and easy, unlike Sony’s DVD Architect.

With that being said, the correct setting is of utmost importance.

I experimented a variety of custom configurations and found the best.

Instead of describing in words, take a look at the screenshots of the setting I use.

First, Project Properties DO affect the quality of your final rendered video.

So set the Project Properties before you start editing.

Here is a screenshot of Sony Vegas Pro 11 customized Project Properties. Take note of the settings marked with red asterisks. They make a difference.

For older versions, this is the Sony Vegas Pro 8 customized Project Properties.

This is the custom render setting for best DVD MPEG2 quality in Sony Vegas Pro 11.

Here is the custom render setting for best DVD MPEG2 quality in the older Sony Vegas Pro 8.

Most DVD burning software tend to re-render files into DVD-MPEG2 files. What makes Corel VideoStudio great is that you can turn off the re-render process by checking “Do not convert MPEG files”.

By the way, Corel VideoStudio is a video editing software and I am using only the DVD burning section because it does the job well.

One more thing… The above setting is for PAL videos. Change the frame rate to 30fps if you are making NTSC videos.

So that’s how to create best quality DVDs in Sony Vegas. Do leave your comments below.

Adrian Lee
http://VideoLane.com
DVD and Web Video Production