LRC 12/06

Workshop on Downloading, Editing and Uploading SCOLA Files and

Making Media Workbooks

1. SCOLA – introduction and password

We have download privileges on a year-by-year basis, paid for by the Vice-Provost for International Relations.

Web URL is user namecornell607edu, passwordcornell#254

  1. After logging in, you see Instaclass and Videostream Service. Instaclass gives access to selected audio and sometimes video once a week, with a full transcript, translations and “exercises.” To try these out, click on your language (if it’s there) and select the files you want. The “zip” file includes the pdf of text, the audio and video

(if available) in one download. Your computer should then unzip this.

  1. The Videostream service lets you watch SCOLA live on the web and download archived files in half hour pieces from the last week. Click on a channel. To watch live, find the current time. You can choose the day by clicking on the days of the last week near the top. You click on either “200k” or “56” to download files. The “56” files are much lower resolution, both video and audio, but may be good enough for scanning. For student use, you will want to use the 200k files. These files are about 40 MB – one half-hour program.
  1. On a Mac, when you click on a file to download it, you can check the progress of the download by selecting “Downloads” under “Window” (in Safari). The file should start up automatically in Quicktime when it is finished downloading. The file is located on the desktop (unless you have changed the “Save downloaded file to” location in Preferences). If you are using Mac OS 10.4 and Safari, you will probably get an error from Quicktime when it tries to open the file. If this happens, find the file (probably on the desktop) and erase “.mov” from the end of the filename. Then double-click on it and Quicktime will open it. This problem does not occur with Firefox. I have written to SCOLA about this bug.
  1. In Quicktime 7, you can view the files, but you still cannot save an edited file without copying the entire, unedited file to a new “player.” To do this, choose Select All under the Edit menu, then Copy. Then choose New Player under File, then Paste under Edit. Now you can edit and save parts of the video.
  1. There are various sequences of actions you can use to select the portion of the file you want to use. Here is one:

• Play the file by clicking on the play button. It is best not to resize your viewing window. Doing so may change the size of the saved file’s window and cause trouble in the workbook. You will see the “Play head” advance along the time line. You can stop and start using the space bar. You can click anywhere on the time line and the play head will move there. You can drag the Play head to any position. When playing is stopped, you can hold down either arrow key to move the Play head very slowly.

• Find the beginning of your desired clip portion fairly precisely with the Play head. Press the letter i (lower case) This will set that current position as the “in” or beginning of your clip. Now play to the end of your clip. Stop and press o for “out.” This will select the portion of video between your “i” and “o” spots.

• You can select “Play Selection Only” in the View menu to review your clip. To make very small adjustments to the beginning or end, click once on one of the selection triangles (its triangle should turn hollow), then hold down one of the arrow keys to move the selection point forward or back. Or you can move these with the mouse.

• When you are satisfied with your selection, choose “Trim to Selection” under the Edit menu. Now you can see just what your clip will be. You can edit it further or choose “Undo Trim” under “Edit” if you wish.

• Choose “Save as” under “File.” Click on “Make movie self-contained.” Give it a new name (scola1, scola2 or scola3 for today), without spaces. Note where you are saving it.

*NUBB cost

The live streaming seems to come at about the rate of 25KB/sec. This multiplies out to 1.5 MB/minute, or 90 MB/hour. 90 MB costs you about 14 cents. So you could run streaming SCOLA all day during office hours

(8 hours) for $1.12, or about $6/week, $25/month. That's for playing it continuously. The downloads will cost about 6 cents/40 MB (the size of a half-hour broadcast) at $.0015/MB, the NUBB price after July 1, 2005. This is after you use up your 2 GB (which would allow you 25 free downloads).