Major Project Description: Lessons Learned
I had originally planned to do another project. This was to be an interactive game for reviewing networking concepts. I determined that my programming skills were not up to the kind of project that I wanted to complete. Far from being a negative experience I chalked it up to defining the scope of possibilities for the class project. I then decided to do a project again centering on networking skills. This time I decided to deploy a video on networking cable making with a DHTML text that enabled the viewer to follow the video in text format. One of the goals I had for the web page with the video is that the text be able to sit next to the video. I was able to accomplish this.
Once the second project was concede and approved I had to go about securing the resources. I called up a colleague who had a digital camcorder with a firewire (IEEE 1394) port and USB. Next I borrowed a USB Dazzle set up from another friend. Lastly I secured a copy of Adobe Premiere. For the actual web pages I used Dreamweaver 4.0 and Fireworks 4.0. With these elements in place I set about to construct the site. I used a 1ghz AMD machine that I built my self in January buying quality components that I could find on the Internet at the lowest pricepoint. I have it networked to two other machines via a Lynksys router/switch with cable modem serving as my ISP WAN connection. The processing power and the flexibility to work on different machines for different tasks made this project easy from a technology standpoint.
The first task at hand was to shoot a video of the cable making. Creating a Category 5e ethernet Straight Through cable can be broken down into discreet steps. To make the video easier to shoot I wrote a script based on these discreet steps using the Cisco Curriculum cable making lab as a guide. With the script written I contacted two Centennial students, Robert Timothy and Adam Schaeffer, who volunteered to shoot the video with me. At Centennial Adam used the video camcorder, I read the speaking script and directed, while Robert did the cable construction. Their help was invaluable to say the least. We shot two complete videos, one with sound and one without in about 35 minutes. The script was made it possible to setup and begin shooting after just a couple of minutes of prep.
Once the video was shot I then had to edit it. Here is where I ran into problems. With Windows "plug and pray" technology I could not get the USB Dazzle to work -- dreaded driver problems. I then decided to go and buy a Firewire card with a video editing program. The best price point was a Dazzle 3 port card with Ulead editing software. I installed it and immediately began to get video transfer. This was a relief. However, I was dissatisfied with the simplistic editing features on the Ulead software. I had Adobe Premiere on my computer but had no documentation. So, I went out and bought a copy of the Peach Pit Visual Quickstart Guide to Adobe Premiere. I came home and read the 450 pages cover to cover. Armed with this knowledge I got up the next day and launched Adobe Premiere. I was able to capture the video and make a rough cut using clips. I assembled the clips on the timeline for a master video. I wanted to take more time to trim the cut and add a modicum of transitions, but the time this would take would intrude on the time needed for web page construction. I decided to stay with the rough cut. I then used Adobe Premiere to convert the master project to Real Media streaming video for CABLE/DSL/Lan connections. Since I would be using the lrs http server I would later go back, use SAVE AS to duplicate the original master and convert the duplicate video into streaming media for 56K modems and single ISDN connections.
Next came the actual web site construction. I sketched out what I wanted the pages to look like on paper. I used Fireworks create the graphics. I optimized these as web safe .gifs to minimize load times. I used Fireworks to layout the initial pages using the slicing tool to create custom tables to allow for progressive loading. I then imported the Fireworks HTML layouts into Dreamweaver. In Dreamweaver I used the DHTML layers to create the script. In the furthest non spacing table column I inserted another single column table with six rows. This table would contain the buttons that would trigger the show-hide layers on the page revealing text for each step of the cabling project. I used the Dreamweaver behavior extension to coordinate the display of text keying it to a simple mouse-over event. The extension generates the Java script simplifying the process greatly.
With the graphics in place I downloaded Macromedia's Real Media Objects and installed them. I inserted the Real Media plugin and the controls, but I ran into a problem. Jim Bertelsen helped me figure out that I had to open the video RPM file and give it an absolute http URL. I later found out that I could insert a SMIL feature in the objects palette and then enter the absolute URL in the dialog box and it would change the RPM file with out me having to open it and change it manually. With this problem solved the video streamed just as it should. After checking the links and testing all them, my site was finished.
I would do things differently in the future. First I would use the script to shoot the video, but with two cameras and some proper lighting. I would place one camera statically on a tripod and have another handheld shooting at various angles. I would import the clips and edit more variety into the video shot-wise. I would also shoot the video without sound and then once edited solicit the help of friend of mine who does professional television voice-overs and ads to do the voice-over. I would edit these clips with the video using Premiere's timeline feature to create a more professional and polished video. I would also spend more time creating less garish and more polished graphics for the site. I would also create more options for users of Windows Media Player and QucikTime. Given the time frame of the project, I was generally pleased by the outcome.
In reflection I would say that I learned a great deal from this project. I was able to incorporate streaming video with DHTML layers and Java script. I learned a whole lot about Adobe Premiere. Also I was able to stretch my knowledge and use of Dreamweaver and Fireworks 4.0 as well. Amazingly, the relative simplicity of the site's layout does not really seem to show off all the effort that went into constructing it. However, this was one of the design goals -- KISS -- Keep it simple stupid --for the end user.