What I'm Up To!

Just a quick peek above the parapet to let you know why I've been so quiet lately, especially on Twitter.

Well, I have still been on a couple of podcasts (Bagel Tech Mac every Friday and The Bro Show last night) but mainly, I've been heavily involved in three things.

First was to update the live and members ScreenCastsOnline website. Still not quite there, but much better than it was before. More about that shortly.

Second was to try and get ahead of myself by preparing some ScreenCastsOnline tutorials in advance. I'm off to the Thinking Digital conference for a couple of days next week, and then off to WWDC a week or so after that. I need to have some tutorials in the can so all I have to worry about is to remotely publish them when necessary. Pretty much on track with the show prep and hopefully, I'll be able to relax a bit and take in the information overload at the conferences. 

Thirdly, the most exciting bit is that I've been working with a designer to completely re-vamp the ScreenCastsOnline home page.

It's only the home page for now, but it's a real change from the current home page.

It looks so much more professional and modern than the existing site, that I'm really very excited to launch it, hopefully early next week.  

For the time being, some of the links will need to point to some existing older pages but over time, I'll take a staged approach to bringing all of the public site to the same standard.

Can't wait to let you see it! 

Forklift 2 Prize Draw Winners

If you're a regular follower of the show, you'll know I did a prize draw for one of ten free licences to Forklift 2, donated by BinaryNights, at the end of episode SCO0279 - ForkLift 2

Well the deadline has passed and we had 449 entries - not too shabby!

Utilising the excellent Random.org service, I created a set of 10 random numbers:

This equated to the 10 luck winners below (based on their position in my email folder):

• Jason Lord
• Brian Engquist
• Henk 't Hart
• Howard Fuller
• David Free
• Christopher Hall
• Stefan Jung
• Charlie P. Lenglez
• Sherman Cheong
• Peter Clarke

Congratulations!

I've sent the names and emails off to the ForkLift 2 developers and they should be getting in touch very soon!

Show SCO0275 - Scrivener - Update for 1st Gen Apple TV

This only impacts anyone wanting to watch this episode on an 1st Gen Apple TV.

It looks like there was an issue with the HD and HD-OS version of show SCO0275 - Scrivener that I published earlier today.

Luckily, the issue only affects people wanting to view the show in the 1st Gen Apple TV. Unfortunately, the HD and HD-OS versions would not play on the Apple TV and in some cases, needed a reset!

Ouch!

Apologies!

I've got to the bottom of the problem and uploaded new versions of the files.

So download the new versions....

Firstly delete the current version of episode SCO0275 in iTunes (again, only if you're using an AppleTV)

Once deleted, right or ctrl click on the podcast title in iTunes and select "Show all available episodes" from the popup menu.

This should refresh the podcast feed and you'll see the new version of episode SCO0275.

Just click the "Get" button next to it to download the new version.

That should sync or stream to your 1st Gen Apple TV and play just fine.

As luck would happen, I tested the new versions of the shows on every device I had last night, including the new Apple TV and all worked fine. Forgot to test it on the 1st Gen Apple TV!

Apologies for any inconvenience.

The end of 960x540 resolution...

Really excited about tomorrows ScreenCastsOnline show which is all about the amazing Scrivener.

It's an application I've long admired and have used since the original version. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to approach covering the application as it's fairly unique, and to be honest, I really wanted to do it justice.

I finished off the editing yesterday but following a final run through today, I made some slight changes and added some new bits. A final run through and I was happy with the content.

On to the editing and I setup the usual compressor job to spit out the normal files for distribution:

1280x720, 1280x720-OS, 950x540 and 640x360

Why so many versions?

1280x720 - This is the native resolution of the original version of the show and looks superb! Looks fantastic, even when playing full screen.

1280x720-OS - This version is specifically for people watching via Apple TV or Mac on a large screen TV with overscan. If you can't control the overscan on the TV, the menubar will appear off screen, not too good for a screencast. Due to the nature of the encoding, some quality is lost but it's passable.

960x540 - Historically, this was created for those people whose Macs couldn't play the 1280x720 version due to older hardware.

640x360 - Intended for iPods and iPhones up to the 3GS. This is the maximum resolution of these devices. The problem is that it's so small, it's quite difficult to watch a full screencast although some people like to have it on their iPod or iPhone. Quality is not too bad.

So what's the problem?

I was taking a look at the 960x540 version today, whilst checking the Scrivener episode and it looked awful. There's just no comparison with the 1280x720 version. After spending so much time preparing, recording and editing the show, I'd hate to release it looking as it does.

So I'm not going to.

Apple's most recent devices are all capable of playing 1280x720 video files (notably the iPad and the iPhone 4) so as of this week, I'll just be releasing the show in three formats suitable for the following Apple devices:

1280x720 - Macs, iPads, Apple TVs and iPhone 4's

1280x720-OS - Apple TVs (with Overscan)

640x360 - iPods and iPhones up to 3GS

This should make the distribution process easier and make it less confusing for new members. I would imagine the vast majority of viewers now have hardware that would play the 1280x720 version with no problem. The fall back position is that everyone can play the 640x360 version on any device.

If it does cause anyone any issues please let me know!

iPhoto '11 Show - Burning a Slideshow to DVD

I published the first in a couple of shows about iLife '11 today, the first being all about iPhoto '11.

SCO0234 - iPhoto '11 Update - Show Link

It is a ScreenCastsOnline members show, so you need to be a member to see the full show. Details about becoming a member are here.

However, I've just had an email from a viewer with a fairly common request, and one I might have included in the show, so I'm going to repeat it here.

The question was:

How do I burn an iPhoto slideshow to DVD without using an iDVD theme?

There are two options in iPhoto '11 that allow you to burn photos to DVD but neither will allow you to play a slideshow automatically in a DVD player with the some times intrusive iDVD themes. The two options are:

• A direct export to iDVD, but it will force you into using one of the iDVD themes, when most people just want the slideshow to play when your insert the disc.

• There's also an option to just "Burn" the photo's but this creates an iPhoto library on the DVD, and is only readable by another copy of iPhoto '11

So this is how to create an auto running DVD with no iDVD theme that will just play when you insert it into a DVD player.

• Create a Slideshow using the option under the Create Button just like I demonstrated in the show.

• If you don't want to use any of the fancy iPhoto themes, just use the Classic theme for a plain presentation. You can change the order of the slides, add music, add movies, etc, all the features contained in iPhoto '11.

• Under Slideshow Settings select the iPod/TV (4:3) or HDTV (16:9) Aspect Ratio.

• Export the slideshow as a QuickTime movie file, again, just like I demonstrated in the show. I'd suggest going for the large size. Bare in mind that the final DVD will not display high resolution versions of the photos as the standard DVD resolution is only 720 x 480 (NTSC) or 720 x 576 (PAL), so your high res photos may not look as good as the originals!

• Once you've exported the movie, give it a quick check to make sure it plays exactly as you want using Quicktime player. If not, go back into iPhoto '11 and make any tweaks you want, then export it again overwriting the original movie

• Fire up iDVD

• Don't make any selections from the opening Dialog Box but go to File -> One Step DVD from Movie

• Navigate to your Quicktime Movie file (the default location is Pictures/iPhoto Slideshows) and select it

• Insert a blank recordable DVD in the drive and Click OK.

• iDVD will re-encode the QuickTime movie and burn it to the DVD.

• Once completed, you can insert the DVD in any DVD player and the slideshow will play, exactly as your original slideshow did in iPhoto, but with no iDVD themes.