Video

From Acorn

Capturing video with the Nikon Coolpix P2

If video is an important part of your project, it may be best captured with a dedicated video camera. However, the P2 can capture adequate video for specific requirements, under certain conditions. It is best to experiment beforehand, to see if the results meet your needs. For example, for short "talking head" interviews, to be delivered as web movies, the results may be adequate. Click to see sample Note: sample removed at student's request.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR RECORDING

1. Set mode dial to the video icon.
2. Turn the camera on.
3. Push the "MENU" button to view the video menu options. There are 3:
   1. Set the Movie Type to "Small Size 320". This will create 320x240 movies, 15 frames per second (FPS). This is adequate for most movies that do not require much editing, to be delivered over the web. This will allow about 28 minutes of video to be recorded to a 512 MB Memory Card.
   2. If the movie will require considerable future editing, in video editing programs such as iMovie, set the Movie Type to "TV Movie 640 (with star)". These will be 640x480, 30 FPS. This will allow about 7 minutes to be recorded to a 512 MB Memory Card.
   3. Auto-Focus Mode: Single AF (S-AF) focuses only before you start recording, when the shutter-release button is pressed half-way down. Continuous AF (C-AF) adjusts focus continuoulsy, but the camera noise might be picked up by the microphone.
   4. Electronic Vibration Reduction (e-VR), set to On. This reduces the effect of camera shake.
4. Zoom in to the desired amount. You cannot use optical zoom while recording. (Digital zoom still works, but is not recommended)
5. Press the shutter release button half way down to focus (when in Single-AF mode), push all the way down to start recording, available recording time is displayed
6. Press the shutter release button again to stop recording
7. To pause recording, press the "OK" button. Press again to resume recording. This will create one movie file.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR VIEWING

1. Press the "VIEW" button to view the movie.
2. Multi-select button controls playback
3. Use the Zoom controls to control playback volume. However, the camera speaker is very tiny, and even good movie volume will sound very weak.

SHOOTING TIPS

1. Show up early for the shoot, if there is a schedule. Make sure your battery is charged, and you have enough recording capacity. Record and play back a little video for a test.
2. Watch out for camera shake, steady the camera for brief hand-held shots, use a tripod for longer shots. Use a tripod if you are going to zoom in more than 50% for more than a few seconds. Or, if you have longer scenes. If you are not using a tripod, keep the camera as steady as possible, and avoid extreme zooms.
3. If you are more than 8 feet or so away from the speaker, the built-in microphone will start to sound poor. Good audio is harder to capture than good video. Minimize background and extraneous noises. If you are interviewing someone, try to keep both you and the subject the same distance from the camera.
4. Control the lighting: try for even lighting for interviews. Try to keep the subject brighter than the background.
5. Compose the shot esthetically before you record it. Make your pans slowly and carefully. Watch your favorite shows or movies for ideas on composition. Always take into account visual “headroom” and “talkspace”. If you are ambitious, sketch out rough storyboards of the action.
6. Be aware of recording lag. Let the camera record for a few seconds before and after a scene.
7. When you are done, play back a short section of video to ensure you have recorded.

TRANSFERING VIDEO TO THE COMPUTER

Videos can be transfered using the same methods as in transfering images. Due to the slower speed of the Camera USB bus, they can take a while to transfer.

Editing Video and Audio

1. Movies created with the P2 are in QuickTime format, with the .mov extension. They can be viewed "as is". However, they can sometimes benefit from simple editing using QuickTime Player Pro. This is installed on all the computers in the PC Electronic Classroom, the Neff Lab, the ATL, and the DCC.
2. The codecs (COmpressors-DECompressors used in the P2 are 24-bit JPEG for video, and uncompressed 7.875 kilohertz, 8-bit Mono for audio.
3. Some uses for QT Player Pro
   1. Simple selection and deletion to trim the ends of movies.
   2. Delete middle, unwanted portions of a movie
   3. Copy and paste between movies, or to make one movie from several.
   4. The P2 codecs are not best for web delivery, QT Player Pro can be used to export them to more adequate formats.
   5. For example, the above movie was exported as "Movie to QuickTime Movie" using the "Broadband Medium" settings. This changes the video codec to H.264, the audio codec to AAC (mp4). It lowers the size of the movie from 8 megabytes to 1 megabyte, without any appreciable lowering of quality. The data rate is lowered from 2.2 Megabytes per second, to 250 kilobytes/second. The frame size (320x240) and frames per second (15) are the same.
   6. Not all video formats can play on an iPod. If your videos are to be part of a podcast, use QT Player Pro to export the video to "Movie to iPod (320x240)". This will create a larger file than the above, it will now be 2.5 MB, with a data rate of 700 kilobytes/second. It is possible to create smaller movies that will play on the iPod, with QT Player Pro, but this is the easy way.
   7. QuickTime Player version 7 or higher is required to view video encoded with the H.264 codec. QT Player 6 or higher is required to hear AAC (mp4) audio.
   8. Audio editing and ouput
      1. Increase audio level in a video clip, it it's too low.
      2. Export only the audio from a captured video, to AIFF or WAV format
      3. Simple cut, clear, copy and paste editing of the audio using QT Player Pro
      4. Output to AAC (mp4) Click for sample
      5. If you prefer mp3, iTunes can perform this conversion Click for sample

NOTES

Tips for using QuickTime Pro