Creating videos only to export them to an unsupported format can be frustrating. The video plays perfectly under Mac OS but sharing it with someone who has Windows can become a headache. Or, created it in Windows and sharing it with a Mac OS user with the same result.

Now before you go and start installing a bunch of video players or “The Master Fix”, also known as the video player that can play just about anything, you might want to try Adobe Media Encoder CS6.

You can drag and drop lots of different file formats in and export many to many formats as well.

Here’s a list of file formats supported for import and for export.

Adobe Media Encoder CS6 is available on stations 1, 3, and 4 in the Digital Media Lab. Make sure to check it out next time you stop by.

Be sure to check out the Up and Running with Adobe Media Encoder tutorials on Lynda.com while you’re in the library as well.

NPR writes an article about tutors teaching Seniors “New High-Tech Tricks” but that is nothing new to the Skokie Public Library. We teach a number of classes that go beyond the basic Mouse, Internet, and Email one-on-one classes. In fact our popular Internet classes have grown to include  Skype and Facebook.  We have also added Word classes and many patrons are signing up for them.

Currently, we have six staff instructors and nine volunteer instructors. Each teacher has a number of different class types that they can teach. We  offer morning, afternoon and evening classes as well as classes on some Saturdays and Sundays.

Very exciting for Macintosh users are the classes  in the Digital Media Lab. These range from Photoshop Elements  to Introduction to Podcasting. There are also one-on-one classes offered in subjects like Mac Basics, iMovie or Garageband.

Once a patron has “graduated” from the one-on-one classes there are a variety of group classes that the library offers. Some of the classes held in the Spring quarter included Pintrest for Beginners and Hello iPad. More classes will be held in the Summer quarter.

Whatever your interest, the Skokie Public Library is eager to teach you new technology!

iBooks Author is an application that helps you create books for the iPad.  You can make textbooks, cookbooks, picture books, and more.  You can also add interactivity with photo galleries, movies or Keynote presentations.

Some of the features of iBooks Author include:

• Apple-designed templates
• Beautiful text and layouts
• Multi-touch widgets
• Export for iBookstore or iTunes U

iBooks Author is now available on the computers in the Digital Media Lab.  We even have a few self-guided tutorials available through the Lynda.com Online Learning Library when you come in to use iBooks Author in the DML.

We now have a Blu-ray burner available for use in the DML. Bring your own blank blu-ray disc and give it a test run!

Burning Blu-ray DVDs

There are 3 cables in the box that you will need to use the Blu-ray burner on a Mac: a Firewire 800 cable, the AC adapter, and the power cord.

1) Plug the power cord into the AC adapter.  Plug the end of the AC adapter into the DC slot on the back of the burner.  Then plug the other end of the power cord into an outlet.

2) Plug one end of the Firewire 800 cable into the back of the burner and the other into the back of the Mac.

Once you have connected the Blu-ray burner to the computer, turn the power switch on the back of the burner to ON.

After you’ve brought your project into the program Burn (see directions here), click the Burn button in the bottom right corner.  A window will appear with options.  Make sure your select the Pioneer BD-RW BDR-208D burner, not the default SuperDrive.

Click the blue Burn button.  You will be prompted to load a Blu-ray disc into the drive; then it will start burning.

As the smartphone/tablet population grows, so do the megapixels on the integrated camera….which also ‘grows’ the file size of pictures and videos. A lot of people  upload directly to Facebook, Flickr, etc. so, in most cases, the file is resized accordingly. However, if you’d like to email these larger photos, you might be restricted by an email attachment limit.

Up until a couple weeks ago, the Yahoo! Mail attachment limit was 25MB. Well….., there’s still a 25MB limit on attachments. However, Yahoo! Mail has now teamed up with Dropbox to provide larger attachment sizes. This is great news since sending 10 photos at ~5MB each would result in sending two separate emails.

If you use Yahoo! Mail, you may have noticed the new option ‘Share from Dropbox’ in the attachment options dropdown menu.  This allows you to link the email recipient to the files that are larger than Yahoo’s limit. Or, if you don’t have a Dropbox account, you will be able to sign up.

Log in to your Yahoo! Mail account and try it today!

In the Digital Media Lab we have noticed that Apple’s Quicktime application will often not play all the videos we think it should.

In comes MPlayerX.  On MPlayerX’s website they write, “MPlayerX is armed by FFmpeg and MPlayer, which means it could handle almost any media format in the world for you and no extra plug-ins or codec packages are required.  Just drop anything to it, MPlayerX will give you a clear and smooth playback.” Which means that unlike Quicktime it should play pretty much anything!

Sadly, MPlayerX is only works for Apple computers, but, really, Windows does pretty well with most formats/codecs so they don’t need it as much.  However, if you are desperate for something for your Windows computer we have had some luck with VLC Media Player in the past.

Some of you may or may not know that the Internet Explorer is not the only web browser available to use when browsing the internet, there are a few other web browsers that can be used to surf the internet.  The PC computers in the Skokie Public Library have 3 web browsers installed, they are Internet Explorer, FireFox and Chrome.  The Digital Media Lab iMacs have Safari, Firefox and Chrome installed.  All of these web browsers have very much the same basic functionalities for web surfing.  Internet Explorer is made by Microsoft, Safari is made by Apple, Chrome is made by Google and Firefox is made by Mozilla.  Feel free to use any one of these when you come in to browse the internet.

Mr. Warren  Posternack came to the Library because he had video footage he wanted to use to promote his Chicago Oldies DJ service for senior centers.

With the help of of our Patron Technology Assistants and a few classes on the basics of producing a movie with iMovie he was ready to rock!  Warren writes, “…the way your staff helped, was through guidance, explanation, and showing me what had to be done, to finish my project.”

The Chicago Oldies DJ website is currently under construction and these videos are being shared via DVD so, sadly, I can not embed them.  But know that these seniors invented Rock and Roll and have the moves to prove it.

Toby, Brad, and Mick discuss some cool new things in the Digital Media Lab, Lego Codebots Club, Tumblr, and the acquisition of Goodreads by Amazon.com.

Justin Peters in the Digital Media Lab rocking out

Justin Peters is a very regular user of the Digital Media Lab.  He uses the space to create exuberant  Christian Praise Music.  The particular software he uses is Garageband (but insider information says he is planning on learning Logic in the near future) and our piano  keyboard to write, record, and produce his music.

Check out the embedded video/song below and his other work.

Click here to view the embedded video.

By the way, the image was also taken in the Digital Media Lab and it features the piano keyboard and Yeti Microphone.