Sonic Foundry's Video Factory is actually quite easy to use. The help files have a feature called "Show Me" that will walk you through some of the most basic to advanced steps to creating video projects on your computer. This tutorial will help get you started in using Video Factory.
Before we get started - let's take a look at the Video Factory interface as shown below:
1. Menu Bar
2. Tool Bar
3. Tracks Area
4. Timeline Area
5. Multifunction Area
6. Preview Area
Video Factory Overview:
The process of creating your own videos can be broken down into the following
steps:
1. Import and acquire media via the Media Pool tab in the "Multifunction Area" - you can acquire pictures from your digital camera, scanner, web cam, etc... digital audio from CD's, and video from your digital video camera or from a standard VCR. For tips and hardware requirements concerning video capture check out this file here.
2. Drag media clips from the Media Pool into the "Timeline area" - As you acquire media, a thumbnail icon will appear in the Media Pool. Drag the clip into the Timeline and onto a track that corresponds to it's media type. For example, video files will drag onto one of the "video" tracks while audio files will drag onto one of the "audio" tracks.
3. Arrange media clips in the "Timeline Area" - Media events do not have to happen as you place them into your project. You can rearrange the order, length, and apply effects as needed to the clips as you wish as easy as dragging and dropping them to their new location.
4. Apply transitions, FX, and text as needed by selecting the corresponding tabs in the "Multifunction Area" - more info later.
5. Save your work and press the "Make Movie" button in the Tool bar area - Pressing this button will bring you to another menu that will provide a wizard to help guide you through the export process. From here you can make VCD's (Video CD's), print back to DV tape, or save the video to your hard drive for use with other applications.
To begin, choose New Project from the File menu to start a new project. Just follow the wizard and you should be OK. FYI - Standard Full-Screen NTSC video should be captured at 29.97 frames per second and at a screen size of 720 x 480. At the output screen choose "Not Sure Yet", you can change output (export) at anytime.
Video Factory will allow you to either import or acquire media in several different ways and formats. If you've already created media and want to use it within Video Factory, you would use the "Import" function from the File Menu. Otherwise, you'll need to use the capture video, extract audio, or get photo functions from within the Media Pool tab.
Below is a listing
of what Video Factory will "import":
| Video | Audio | Stills |
| Video for Windows - (*.avi); Quicktime - (*.mov); MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 - (*.mpg) | CD Audio - (*.cda); Mac Aiff - (*.aif); Wave files - (*.wav); MP3 - (*.mp3); QuickTime - (*.mov); Sonic Foundry Audio, Perfect Clarity Audio and Wave 64 - (*.sfa, *.pca, *.w64); | GIF - (*.gif); JPEG -(*.jpg); Portable Network Graphics - (*.png), Photoshop Documents - (*.psd); Windows Bitmap files - (*.bmp) Targa - (*.tga); |
Click the "Media
Pool" tab in the Multifunction area:
Depending on the media you want to get, you'll use one of the 4 buttons.
1. Imports media already stored on the hard drive
2. Captures video and audio from a digital camera via firewire port
3. Acquires pictures via scanner or USB camera (web cameras)
4. Extracts audio from CD's
1. Clicking on the Import Media button (1) will open another window that will allow you to select the media via a standard Windows open file dialog box. Navigate to the directory containing the file and click "Open" to import the file. The imported file will appear as a thumbnail icon in the Media Pool area.
2. Clicking on
the Capture Video button (2) will open a new window allowing you to control
your digital camera.
 |
If this is the first time you've captured video from a particular tape, Video Factory will prompt you for some information about the tape and how you wish to proceed. You can give each tape a specific name and each successive time you attempt to capture it Video Factory will recognize the tape. At this point we really don't need to assign it a name - we can leave this blank. However, if you wish, you can capture the contents of the tape either from the beginning of the tape or at the current tape position. For now, click on Don't Capture any clips right now and hit "OK" |
Once you hit "OK",
the following window will appear:
Use the transport controls to preview parts of the tape. When you've found the area you wish to capture, you can hit the Capture Video button to begin recording. Hit the Stop button to stop recording. NOTE: there is a file size limit (due to the Windows Operating system) when capturing long *.avi files. Video Factory will split up the recording into clips. There's no need to worry about this - Video Factory will automatically "connect" these clips if you drag the first clip of a sequence into the timeline. When you're finished capturing, close this window and you'll be back at the main interface. You'll see your clips in the Media Pool area. The blue box above the transport controls is your preview area. If your camera is connected correctly, you'll see a "Device Connected" message in that area.
3. Click on the Get Photo button (3). The select Camera/Scanner dialog box will appear. Within the window, a listing of all available devices will show. Select the device you wish to use and Video Factory will start your scanner or camera software. Once done scanning, your new image(s) will appear in the Media Pool
4. Click on the
Extract Audio from CD button (4) to extract tracks from a CD. A new window
appears allowing you to extract tracks from a CD. (Provided you've inserted
a CD in your CD-ROM drive). Select the track you wish to digitize and hit "Save".
Your track will appear in the Media Pool once you've exited the window.
[Back]
Dragging media clips into the timeline in Video Factory is simple. It's a simple drag-and-drop interface that only allows media to be placed where it should. For example, you can only drop video clips into one of the two video tracks in the timeline. Audio clips can only be dropped onto one of the three audio tracks. Still media such as pictures are treated as video clips and can only be dropped into video tracks.
To begin, start by picking up a media clip in you Media pool and drag it onto the timeline area. You'll notice that video tracks will have an accompanying audio track and the audio will automatically be placed into the "Voice" track. Keep adding media until you're happy with the amount you've placed in. Bear in mind - the more files you place makes for a rather large project. Keep an eye on your hard drive space and you shouldn't have any problems.
More on Tracks: Your primary video track is the "Video" track. The Video Overlay track is intended to be a track in which you can lay video over the lower track. (Like Company Logos and the like) However, these logos are usually partially transparent. If you put video or stills in this track that are not transparent - it will cover up any video in the track below. The other 3 audio tracks have no particular hierarchy. One track will not "block" out another UNLESS it is much louder than the others. You don't need to put voice narration into the "Voice" track. You could, if you wish, place it in the "Sound Effects" track without any ill effects.
Once clips are into the timeline you can click and drag media clips within the timeline. Click a clip and hold to drag a clip to move it horizontally to have the clip play at sooner or later in the timeline or vertically to place it in either the Video or Video overlay tracks. In the example above Clip 2 overlaps Clip 1. Video Factory automatically creates a cross-fade whenever 2 clips are placed over one another.
If there is any space between clips you will get solid black between the clips. To avoid overlapping clips, which is quite easy to do if you're zoomed out, use the Scale View Horizontally buttons (shown above) to zoom into the clips and place them as close together as possible. Use the transport controls just below the Timeline Area to check your work. The Preview Area is only for checking your work - it is NOT the final viewing size of your movie!
There are many more functions on how to get the most out of Sonic Foundry's Video Factory that are not covered here. Be sure to check out the help file AND use the "Show Me" button. Almost anything you want to do is covered there and the best part is - you'll be shown how to do it!
Here's where the
real fun begins. You have, at your disposal, three types of effects:
Transitions: these work between clips
VideoFX: these work directly on the video clips themselves
Text and Backdrops: works either over, between, or independantly of the video
clips.
To use any of the effects, simply select the appropriate tab in the Multifunction area, select the effect and drag into the timeline. All the effects and transitions have presets that can be manually altered to your taste. Select a transition at random and place it on the timeline between two clips. Experimentation is your best friend - and remember that you can always "Undo" what you've done by selecting it from the Edit Menu Bar.
Text and Backdrops are primarily used for titles and end credits. Selecting a preset that is transparent will allow you to have a "subtitle" effect. There's no need to create a title screen in Photoshop and import it into Video Factory - you can do it all in here. Also, to add fuel to the fire, you can add transitions to your Text and Backdrops!
You can add effects to your audio tracks by clicking on the Audio Track FX button on your audio track.
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(Green button circled is the audio FX button) Once clicked, hit the Edit Chain button and select the effect family from the new window. Once you select the effect you're able to "tweak" it to your liking. |
For more info,
check the Help button associated with the FX you're wishing to add.
Hit File => Save As to save your work. Video Factory saves the work in a
*.vf format. When saving your work, it's important to realize that when you
save it - it makes links to the media files. You can only view your project
in Video Factory. Now, hit the Make Movie button on the Tool Bar. You'll get
the following screen:
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Write to a file on disk is the most multi-purpose export tool! This will allow us to save our work in a variety of formats. Print to DV tape will allow you to print the movie back to your DV camera. Write to VCD or CD-ROM will save the work and start the CD burning software to write the files to a CD or VCD The last two options are wizards that will compress your video for email and web. Follow the wizards and you'll be fine. For now select the Write File to Disk.
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Take a look at the following screen:
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You'll want to set your options as shown here for creating a VCD. Most CD burning software have the ability to compress files to MPEG-1 for VCD's but it's quicker to do it this way. MPEG-2 is used for DVD's. The Quicktime, RealMedia, and Windows Media Video are good for email and web functions. Video For Windows is the only choice if you want your video uncompressed. |
AVI files are quite huge. By default, Video Factory has the Fast Video Resizing button checked. Uncheck this box, it will take longer to compress the file - but it will be a bit better quality! Also, check to make sure the Template drop down box says NTSC DV - there's no reason (right now) to use the widescreen or PAL functions.
Hit the Next button. The last screen will prompt you for a filename and directory. Hit Finish to complete the project.
end