Converting VOB Training clips

[moosetracker]

For training, all BSA movie clips come in the annoying VOB. This makes it impossible to embed into the Training Powerpoint. Which causes you to either have to have two laptops and/or two projectors.. or loose your place in your powerpoint in order to run the clip, then come back..

 

I have Roxio that converts other things, but not VOB.. I have looked for a free converted, but find they instill with them either things that are monitoring me, or blasting me with advertisements, or infecting me with viruses..

 

If anyone else have a different method that they do powerpoint & movie clips together without embedding the two together that is clean & neat I would be interested..

Before people argue the merits of the powerpoint & movie clips.. I allow my trainers to use what they are comfortable with.. Some use the powerpoint only, some use the movie clips only, some use both, and some use neither.. They all follow the syllabus though.. My problem is just supporting them and facilitating what they need in the easiest way possible.

 

[BluejacketScouter]

There is no good freeware software that I am aware of, and it's usually the freeware that chokes you with the advertising, spyware, and limits to converted file size or length (or both).

 

Here's a link to a site that compares some of the more popular commercial products, but you may be better off visiting a Best-Buy or similar and getting a good staff selection and explanation of their off-the-shelf products.

 

http://video-converter-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

[ctbailey]

Hey Moose:

 

I'm currently in the process of doing something similar for work. I've been using "Camtasia Studio" to create movies of the computer screen for training purposes.

 

Then - in order to present the material I'm developing a PowerPoint slide deck. One thing I've learned during this process - I've used every version of PowerPoint throughout my career, and only NOW in PowerPoint 2010 does it provide good results.

 

Another thing I've learned is movie clips are humungous file sizes. You need to LINK to the video clips in PowerPoint - Do not embed them, or else the PowerPoint file becomes Ginormous, and performance is lost.

 

Also, when video clips are linked, you need to keep all the clips with the PowerPoint presentation in the same directory, or else no clicky-clicky if you get my drift.

 

Another potential gotcha - the resolution of the video clips may or may not look great "inside" a PowerPoint slide, so you'll probably end up going fullscreen anyways.

 

But none of this is anygood unless you can capture the video. This is where Camtasia would be useful. But before you do any dubbing, the copyright of the BSA material needs to be reviewed. This may be un-kosher.

 

My advice - skip it, and have an elf with you, sitting at the laptop and switching between Windows Media Player and PowerPoint.

 

Yours in Scouting,

Craig

 

 

 

 

[moosetracker]

Thanks both, the conversion tools look good..

 

Also ctbaily - I do so happen to have camtasia, maybe not the latest version, but about 2 years back version.. Surprisingly I got too, don't know how I did it, but I bought one, and I was a winner of something like the 1 millionth customer or something and one a second, so I took one to work.. I guess though I am a little leery that the screen capture will be as clear as a convert..

 

We converted the Woodbadge movie clips to embed in the powerpoint for that course, which is what gave me the wants to do it to other things.. Someone else had a freeware converted and did it.. All but Mr. Hollands Opus clips converted.. that did have some sort of copyrighted signature on it.. While doing that I found out they are really linked & not embeded.. And the full path, not the partial path from the powerpoint to where the video is either.. Therefore I have learned that moving it to a different laptop does mean just deleting the old link and relinking up the videos again.. But it is not to complex...

 

I double checked, Here is what the syllbus says..

CD-ROM diskThis resource contains copies of many of the presentation materials, including images that may be incoporated into presentations as PowerPoint slides or converted into transparencies for overhead projection. Presentations are optional; they are designed to enhance rather then replace the trainer.

 

 

From what I understand from our Council Training Chair.. BSA allows us the rights to copy the training items as long as we use them for their intended purpose..So you can copy other parts of the training syllabus besides the index handouts if you think something will illustrate a point...

 

 

[ctbailey]

Moose - that's good to know that BSA has allowed volunteers to make copies of the material. This might be different for some parts of the WB curruculum? Have I heard that the WB stuff is "licensed" by a 3rd party?

 

ctb

[moosetracker]

Lets hope not.. Didn't really understand it but, something about the syllabus did not change for the next year, so they didn't get new syllabus books.. and this year we are doing 2 courses not 1 (when normally we just do one).. So guess what is being copied by the boat load..!!