‘Mucking about with Multimedia’

( Attempts at )   Presenting Family History in Text, Image, Sound and Motion
Paul Brooks - 17 Jan 2007 - speaking at the BerksFHS Computer Branch, Woodley

Paul began by looking back at the technological leap in the last 25 years, from the birth of the IBM PC to the mobile phones of today which can share voice, text, images and video. He highlighted the mass of images, slides, cine film, audio and camcorder tapes that most families have accumulated over the last 50 years, which would become meaningless within a generation if not properly identified and preserved for the future.



Scanning was discussed with advice on resolution and file formats, along with importing images from memory cards and photo CDs, a couple of more advanced editing tricks, and the use of images in family history programs, charts, and word processed booklets.

Paul's view was that images scanned at 100 dpi, and saved in the JPG format would probably be fine for general use on web pages, etc, at the moment, but for editing, zooming in, and future viewing, it would be worth scanning a copy at a minimum of 300dpi, but preferably 600 dpi, and saving in a non-compressed TIF format.



Creating and editing sound files was considered using a microphone, importing from audio tape or old records, followed by a method to create a slide show with soundtrack using Microsoft Movie Maker.  He related his personal experience of converting cine film to VHS tape and DVD, both through the use of a specialist company, and home projection and digital recapture.



Methods of importing digital video were then reviewed, directly from a camcorder using firewire and indirectly through a coaxial cable to a WinTV card.  Finally Paul explained the basic principles of editing digital video, combining the moving image with soundtrack and voice using a timeline, and the principles of creating a family history DVD using Ulead VideoStudio software..



Multimedia was recognised to require  'fast thinking PCs, with plenty of brain cells'  for processing 25 to 30 pictures every second in the case of video, so a machine of at least  3ghz speed with 2gb of RAM was recommended. Storing video at a reasonable quality was seen to consume around 4.5 gigabytes per hour before being processed, thus requiring large volumes of disk storage. Ideally members considering their next machine should also include Firewire as well as USB connections for attaching digital cameras and camcorders, etc.

In summary he reminded the audience that they should ensure that all their existing photographs, slides, cine, audio and video should be clearly labelled, and that old cine films really should be converted now before the reels become too brittle with aging to be projected.

In the question and answer session that followed it was noted that members with old cine film with a wider social significance might wish to contact the  Wessex Film and Sound Archive, based at the Hampshire Record Office in Winchester.

updated 9^th February 2007