Embedding video clips
From: George U.
To: Martin
Date: 13-Mar-2007
Subject: PG Computing and Information Management
Hi Martin,
We'd like to get some short video clips/presentation slide demos
added to the website to give prospective students a brief flavour
of the sort of work they'd be undertaking. Obviously we've got to
get the demo material ready, but what are your thoughts on how
this can best be achieved?
regards
George
Hi George,
One idea that springs to mind immediately is to use YouTube. It's
arguable whether that'll give a good impression or a bad one, but
personally I think it's likely to make LSBU/BCIM seem "hip"/"cool",
for want of a better word, providing of course that the video clips
themselves are good. It's easy to link to individual YouTube videos,
or even to embed them within a web page - as this demo (which I've
just knocked up) shows:
<click here>
Martin.
Added 9-May-2007
After discussions with colleagues, we've decided not to use YouTube (for the time being, at least) but to use one of the Faculty's streaming servers instead. That was after I had taken a video of myself posing as a student who had just finished an MSc course; I posted it on YouTube and asked colleagues for comments. Most comments were very positive, but one colleague (F.C.) warned me that there was a slight but real danger that the video could fall into the "wrong hands" and that that might be very embarrasing. I quickly removed it from YouTube after he said that! One potential problem with using YouTube is that viewers can post comments about videos (although this can be disabled). If we allow users to post comments we may live to regret it! F.C. also suggested that we should state that the videos are "unedited and used with permission", and that we should seek approval from our Marketing Dept before publishing them on our website. Good advice, I think.
Added 14-Oct-2007
I went on an introductory Flash course recently and discovered that it's really easy to
embed a Flash video clip into a web page. Moreover,
Flash players are almost ubiquitous now.