Tools for video capture

I’m sharing another workshop on Internet safety and addressing cyberbullying in the Oklahoma City area tomorrow, and will be using several videos in my presentation. The primary tools I now use to capture offline copies of videos to use in presentations are:

1. The YouTube Downloader website (enter the URL of a YouTube video, and then download a FLV version saved to your hard drive. Free FLV players are available for different platforms, I use the free SWF & FLV Player for Macintosh.
2. Snapz Pro X 2 (permits screen capture as a movie of anything displayed on your Mac’s screen. This is $70 commercial software but works well, the main problem is it saves pretty large file sizes. As a result, I generally take the captured file and make it smaller using QuickTime Pro. The file size savings is substantial. For the 6 minute “Predator” movie I saved with Snapz, it went from 283.7 MB down to 35.6 MB exporting with QT Pro “broadband high” settings. If I didn’t have QT Pro I could use the free ffMPEGx. (That video is available for download from iSafe, but I haven’t yet completed all the online training to be eligible to download a copy directly.)

For tomorrow’s workshop I’m going to use a brief clip from the “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets DVD, when Harry is writing in Tom Riddle’s diary (Scene 21: “The Diary.”) As you might recall, Harry rather stupidly reveals HIS OWN FULL NAME as he writes in the diary, which leads to some more information about “the monster” and Hagrid, but also some problems. I’m going to use this as an object lesson with 4th graders to discuss how young people should NOT reveal their true names when they are writing online. I think the parallels to online digital social networking environments is very strong. Unfortunately there are real “Tom Riddles” out there online, attempting to chat live with real young people just like Harry Potter in the film. While this undoubtedly seems exciting, young people need to understand the very real dangers they are subject to in the online environment– particularly if they reveal personally identifying information.

I also may use the YouTube video “Hero in the Hallway!” about kids taking action to stop bullying and cyberbullying. I saw that tonight on LeaderTalk, courtesy of Rick who found it via Stephen Rahn via Vicki Davis via Steve Dembo. Thanks to all for sharing!

Technorati Tags: internetsafety, video

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