Tonight (er, this morning) I'm working on a multimedia presentation for my Information Architecture class. I really enjoy putting presentations together. Last winter I did one using screencasting which I enjoyed, and this semester we're required to appear on video so I've been trying out different tools to accomplish this.
A few days ago I put a question out on Twitter asking if anybody knew a good tool for including video and PowerPoint together, Nick DeNardis responded back saying that SlideRocket "changed how he did presentations forever", so I decided to check it out. Let me just say, wow! I don't know why I haven't looked at this sooner. The presentations look really simple, and they're completely editable in the web browser. You can add video, audio, and/or images really easily, and presentations can be shared online through the web browser, or if you like an offline viewer can be downloaded.
As with any new thing there's been a bit of a learning curve for me though. This is a group presentation for an online class so we have to collaborate completely online. My classmates and I have to all appear on video at some point during the presentation too. You can add video to PowerPoint I guess, but another group did this in what looked to be an attractively packaged presentation, but the video boxes included within the presentation did not play for myself or another group member. I'm not sure why. SlideRocket uses Flash video, is easy to learn, and the presentations really flow much better than anything I could ever create in a PowerPoint.
I was up for the challenge of combining all of these elements together, video, audio, basic PowerPoint slides (yes, you can import .ppt files!), into one presentation though. I mentioned that SlideRocket uses Flash video, it does also accept .mov or .mp4 movie formats, but I opted for the flash, it seemed more native to what I was trying to do. First I did raw editing of the camera .avi files in Windows Movie Maker, which is what I usually use. It's easy for me to use, it's on my computer, it just works. I exported those into .wmv files. Exporting to .wmv always seem to work the best when I'm working in Windows Movie Maker. Keeping them in the .avi format (which is actually the default) makes them huge and even distorted so I pick an appropriate sized .wmv setting to match the dimensions of the original .avi file.
I had to hunt around for a tool that does media conversion. Luckily I didn't have to hunt too far as Lifehacker did a pick of top 5 media converters on Sunday! I eventually went with SUPER, I'm not impressed with the interface or their website (both are difficult to navigate), but it had the most options and I wanted to do two different conversations with my .wmv files. Despite the confusing interface, the converter works really well once you get it going!
I converted each file into a .flv and a .mp3, and now I'm in the process of uploading those to SlideRocket and incorporating them into my slides. I wanted one of each so I could decide between a video or just an audio for slides, I didn't necessarily think that the video had to be on every slide, but the audio certainly does since this presentation will be delivered online.
It's a long process, but I have learned a few things along the way... although I'm hoping to get a few hours sleep tonight!
Slide rocket is great! I'll be sure to try it out in class too.
I checked out SlideRocket earlier this year, and thought it was great! Heidi, any chance you might demo it at the Refresh Detroit meeting next week?
Deborah, I don't mind doing some demo of my experience with it, although I've only been using it for a few days! I might download the offline player and see how that works if I have time.
So far I'm pretty pleased with how simple it is.