Video Paper Builder

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IMPORTANT NOTICE - There are several major issues with VideoPaper Builder. View our Known Issues page for descriptions of the issues and work-arounds.

General Information

First, you will need a video. The entire content of a VideoPaper is organized around and depends upon a single digital video file-- generally a segment (5-10 minutes long, on average) selected from classroom video or student interviews that tells an interesting story. The VideoPaper Builder works with QuickTime-compatible files (.mov, .mpg, .mpeg, and .avi files). For more information about creating a digital video file, see our Video Basics page.

Next, you will need text content for your paper. Your VideoPaper can be organized in similar fashion to a traditional research paper (including, for example, an abstract, literature review, and references) or can take the form of a narrative with pages describing events in the video. In any form you choose, it is important to create an organizational structure and to decide how your viewers will be able to move through the paper. Please see our VideoPaper Examples for some ideas. Some aspects to consider are:

How readers will navigate through your paper, ie, what will the Navigational Menu contain? (It could look like an outline of your paper)
Where to place Play buttons in your text (which link to and play short segments of your video)
When to link between the video and individual text pages (e.g., which pages are important when viewing particular moments of video, and vice versa?)
What images to use to expand upon your text and video, and whether these should be included in the text or as a Slide Show associated with the video, appearing and disappearing as video segments are played.

You will most likely wish to include images as part of your VideoPaper. Images used are generally .jpg or .gif files. Common uses for images are scans of student work, still images of the video segment taken from an alternative angle, line drawings, and graphs. Some advanced users have included Flash files, animated GIFs, and other creative uses of media. Please see our Image Basics page for general information on creating images.

After you have thought about these content elements, you will need to download the VideoPaper Builder software. See our Download page for requirements and to choose the appropriate download file for your computer.

Think of VideoPaper Builder as a tool to organize and add to your files. To start using VideoPaper Builder to author a multimedia paper, follow these steps:

Create a new folder on your computer to hold your VideoPaper files.
Place your text, video, and image files in this folder. (see VPB Folder for more explanation)
Download and install VideoPaper Builder. The download is self-expanding; click on the Installer on your desktop and follow the directions to install on your hard drive.
Open VideoPaper Builder.
Follow the software's dialog boxes to begin adding new content. (See our Tutorial and User Guide for details.)

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Last Update: 07/15/2005 Maintainer: VPB Webmaster (webmaster@concord.org)