Tag: Todd’s Tips

Todd’s Tips – Color Palettes for Your Graphics Projects

When I’m doing graphics one of the things I find most difficult is choosing a proper color palate. And that’s where this site (ColourLovers) comes in. The site has over 1 million color palates online and they are searchable by matching colors, theme, mood, even season or trend. If you need a good palate, this … Continue reading “Todd’s Tips – Color Palettes for Your Graphics Projects”

When I’m doing graphics one of the things I find most difficult is choosing a proper color palate.

And that’s where this site (ColourLovers) comes in. The site has over 1 million color palates online and they are searchable by matching colors, theme, mood, even season or trend.
If you need a good palate, this is a one stop shop. I highly recommend checking out ColourLovers.

Todd’s Tips – Best Free Stock Photo Site Ever

One of the most difficult things about professional media production can be obtaining good quality images for your work. Stock.xchng is one of the best places to get free stock photos. And, the vast majority of the nearly 400,000 free photos is that they come with wide open usage licenses. Most only require photographer credit. … Continue reading “Todd’s Tips – Best Free Stock Photo Site Ever”

One of the most difficult things about professional media production can be obtaining good quality images for your work.

Stock.xchng is one of the best places to get free stock photos. And, the vast majority of the nearly 400,000 free photos is that they come with wide open usage licenses. Most only require photographer credit.
All you have to do to start downloading free photos (and even some vector graphics) is create an account. It’s free and they don’t send you a bunch of silly email. Just fill out the form and your off and downloading.
So if you need images, this is the place.

Todd’s Tips – Best Video Formats for FCP + Visual Hub

Have you ever imported anything into Final Cut Pro, dragged it to the timeline and then found that it doesn’t playback? Perhaps you find an angry red line on top of your timeline, like this: Yeah, this is undoubtedly annoying. But the problem is not with Final Cut, at least not directly. While FCP is … Continue reading “Todd’s Tips – Best Video Formats for FCP + Visual Hub”

Have you ever imported anything into Final Cut Pro, dragged it to the timeline and then found that it doesn’t playback? Perhaps you find an angry red line on top of your timeline, like this:

Yeah, this is undoubtedly annoying. But the problem is not with Final Cut, at least not directly. While FCP is a vast program full of options, it can be picky about some things. One of those things is the video format you import into it.
When capturing directly from a camera you rarely come across that problem, but when importing pre-digitized footage, from a FlipCam or some other device, it comes up with alarming frequency.
When importing from a device, the video typically comes in one of three major formats: .mp4, .mov and .avi. While it might make sense that at least a .mov would work properly in FCP without rendering, it’s an Apple format after all, this is not always the case. The best way to ensure that your video works in FCP is to convert it to the most friendly video format for FCP: .dv.
Fortunately, we have a program in Media Services that will do this for you with no hassle. Visual Hub is a now defunct video converter Media Services managed to acquire.
All you need to do is select DV from the top bar, drag your video clips into the space below, check the “Ready for Final Cut” box and click “Start.” It’s that simple.
One thing to note though, .dv files are fairly un-compressed video so the resulting files may be large. Make sure you have plenty of storage space on hand.
This video will show you how to use Visual Hub to convert video for FCP.

Todd’s Tips – About Web Hosting and a Recommendation

**This recommendation comes strictly from Todd, based on his personal experiences with the hosting company noted below, and is in no way a paid promotion or advertisement.** There are a lot of web hosting companies out there on the web… Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Perhaps you’d like to know what web hosting is … Continue reading “Todd’s Tips – About Web Hosting and a Recommendation”

**This recommendation comes strictly from Todd, based on his personal experiences with the hosting company noted below, and is in no way a paid promotion or advertisement.**

There are a lot of web hosting companies out there on the web…
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Perhaps you’d like to know what web hosting is first before we discuss who does it well?
Every website you see on the net, including this blog, is hosted on a server, somewhere in the world. A server is basically a big computer that does two things, it receives requests and doles out data. When you type in a web address and hit return, what are doing is essentially placing a “call” to the server and asking it for the information that should be displayed on a particular web page. Your web browser (Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc…) then translates the code it gets back into a coherent “page.” That’s what you see when you bring up this blog.
So, to have your own website, you need to have a server. Now, you could purchase a server and some server software and setup your own, but this takes expertise and is therefore best left to the experts. That said, you’ll need to pay someone else to host your site.
And to come back to where I started, there are a number of web hosting companies out there on the web. But, before I make a specific recommendation, let me give you a few things to think about when shopping for web hosting:
Cost, obviously. Most companies range between 5 and 12 dollars per month, depending on how many bells and whistles you get.
Storage space. Typically most standard hosting plans will provide you enough storage space for all your pages. The only issue is if you are planning to have a lot of multimedia on your site (videos and the like). If so, you may consider paying for more space.
Bandwidth. This is how much data you can transfer per month. Again, unless you are doing a lot of multimedia then you’re probably ok with the standard plan.
Databases. If you are planning on hosting a CMS (Content Management System) like Drupal or Joomla, you WILL need some databases. Most standard plans now allow 10 to 50 databases on a standard plan, but you’ll need to make sure.
Tech Support. Unless you are a master, things will go wrong on your site and you will not know how to fix them. Make sure the plan you get has tech support, free if possible…
My personal recommendation for web hosting is a company called Bluehost. Their prices are about average for the market, they offer large storage and bandwidth options as well as 50 databases on most plans. Their tech support folks are awesome. And free. I have hosted two sites on Bluehost and both were based on a Drupal CMS; I had no problems with installation or usage of either site. These are good folks.
But, there are a few other worthwhile competitors to Bluehost where I know colleagues have successfully hosted sites. They are:

Todd’s Tips – Easy Video Importation into iDVD

While iDVD is one of the simplest DVD creation programs out there, sometimes it can throw folks for a loop.   Say for example, you had a video that you made and it’s lingering in some folder somewhere.  You open up iDVD, find a template and then what?  Now, you can use the “Import” command … Continue reading “Todd’s Tips – Easy Video Importation into iDVD”

While iDVD is one of the simplest DVD creation programs out there, sometimes it can throw folks for a loop.  

Say for example, you had a video that you made and it’s lingering in some folder somewhere.  You open up iDVD, find a template and then what?  Now, you can use the “Import” command from the File menu, but there’s an even easier way to do it.
Now, say your video’s file name is “myRadVideo.mov”
It’s as simple as dragging the video from its folder into the iDVD theme.  Now, here’s the tricky part.  Most of the iDVD themes have “Drop Zones” on them, delineated by a black and yellow caution-style border.  DO NOT put the video there.  That will simply make it part of the theme.  Instead, drag and drop the file somewhere else on the theme.  You’ll know you’ve done it right when the file name appears on the screen.  
One last thing to do.  Select that file name and type the word “Play.”  This will appear on the screen when the DVD is played as a clickable button.  You can leave the original file name, but DVD convention dictates that people are looking for that “Play” button and not some odd file name.  Don’t want to give your professor any reason to not be able to watch your video.

Todd’s Tips – Extracting Audio in iMovie

Let’s say, for example, you have to do a project about campus. You get a FlipCam from Media Services and you shoot some video. You record some voice-over and you’re ready to put your video together. But, when you look over your footage you find that the audio from the footage you shot of campus … Continue reading “Todd’s Tips – Extracting Audio in iMovie”

Let’s say, for example, you have to do a project about campus. You get a FlipCam from Media Services and you shoot some video. You record some voice-over and you’re ready to put your video together. But, when you look over your footage you find that the audio from the footage you shot of campus is filled with sirens and the other sounds of city traffic. Problem.

One way you could handle this to simply turn down the sound

on the video clip. But, you could also remove the audio from the video clip entirely (and even replace it with something else, like your voice-over or music).
To do this in iMovie HD you’ll need to be in timeline mode. On the bottom left-hand corner of the program there’s a little button with a clock icon.
Once you’ve clicked on that, the video-building interface on the bottom of iMovie will change to look like this:
Here a blue bar represents your video instead of a small box. Once you have the timeline view up, right click on the video (the blue bar) to bring up a small menu. In that menu select “Extract Audio,” as seen here:
Finally, once you select “Extract Audio” the clip will split with the blue bar (your video) above and a purple bar (when selected) with darker purple waveforms below (your audio).
The audio and video tracks may now be moved independently of each other. You can also delete one or the other by selecting one and hitting the “Delete” key. You can also cut the audio clips just like you cut video (by hitting “Apple T”)
Be mindful though, if you begin playing with your audio track you can move audio out of synch with video which can be a real problem if your video is of someone speaking.

Todd’s Tips – See Audio Waveforms in the Final Cut Pro Timeline

Often times when editing you want to see the audio waveforms in the audio tracks (as pictured to the right). This can allow an editor to more easily edit to audio and is particularly useful when creating music videos. Final Cut Pro’s default setup is NOT to show these waveforms on the audio tracks. However, … Continue reading “Todd’s Tips – See Audio Waveforms in the Final Cut Pro Timeline”

Often times when editing you want to see the audio waveforms in the audio tracks (as pictured to the right). This can allow an editor to more easily edit to audio and is particularly useful when creating music videos.

Final Cut Pro’s default setup is NOT to show these waveforms on the audio tracks. However, setting it so that it does is a very simple process, though finding the proper place to change the setting can be a bit hairy. But, if you follow these simple steps, you’ll have no problem in making this change:
**Please note that these changes will only take effect in NEW sequences of the timeline. Therefore, after you make the changes, you will need to create a new sequence from the File menu. As such, this procedure is best done BEFORE you begin editing.**
1) Once Final Cut Pro is open, go to and click on the “Final Cut Pro” menu; it’s the one to the right of the apple and to the left of the “File” menu.
2) Select the “User Preferences” menu item.
3) Select the “Timeline Options” tab.
4) On the left-hand side of the panel there is an area designated “Track Display.”
5) In the track display area, find the check-box for “Show Audio Waveforms” and check it.
6) Click the “Ok” button on the bottom right-hand side of the panel.
7) Create a new sequence from the “File” menu and when you add media that has audio you will see the waveforms displayed on the green audio tracks.