The May wefcpug looked at the (very) small screen, as we examined options for producing and viewing videos on the iPod Touch (and iPhone, for that matter).
The snippet of Apple video we saw came from a freely downloadable movie on Apple's developer centre (ADC) website. You need to register on this site (which is free unless you want 'premium' content) and then follow the 'ADC in iTunes' link. The movie is 'Designing Web content for iPhone' - there's a link in the lower half of the page. It's from the WWDC 2007 sessions, so will probably disappear soon, and is showing its age already. There's a lot of discussion about the Edge network connection, which is not so widespread in Europe as the US, and of course there's the expected announcement of a 3G iPhone anyway. The hour-long presentation deals with video at 38 minutes in.
There was mention of the 'makeref' program, for compiling QuickTime reference movies with multiple versions of a video file (one for slow connections, one for wired desktops, etc). That too is available for free via the ADC, as is a whole host of reference material about QuickTime. Visit apple.com/quicktime/resources for the list.
For downloads, etc, visit http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/ (again, you need to have registered) and then follow the Tools link in the list near the bottom of the page. (Direct link is http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools/index.html)
The software comes as a disk image, makerefmovie.dmg from which you drag the program into your applications folder. Plus there's a Readme with instructions. I also found an article about QT reference movies here on the QuickTime sub-site of apple.com - this article too is showing its age, with a definite look of OS9 about the illustration!
Elliott Bristow talked about his experiences of producing small screen versions of his roadtrips series - his website is www.retroroadtrips.com
And Finally
Richard issued a challenge: what's the best recipe for editing and compressing HDV-native footage in an SD DVD (meaning PAL mpeg-2)? email him, not me, with your recipe and we'll compare end results in the June meeting.
And the June meeting will be on Monday, June 2nd.
