Virtual video cutter - creates small chunks of content from longer streaming audio or video files

One of the drawbacks of video and audio in learning materials is that typically "the bit you want" is buried deep inside a file. In a conversation during a conference I attended last week, Robert Schuwer of the Open University of the Netherlands mentioned SURF's Virtual Video Cutter. This is an impressive web-based tool for making snippets from streaming media files.

The tool has comprehensive instructions in Dutch, English, and Spanish. I usually struggle with this kind of thing, but managed quickly to make usable snippets from MP3 (audio) and MP4 (video) files, and to save these locally in a format that enabled me subsequently to open them and play them locally; though the actual asset seems to be stored (for how long?) on a SURF server. One of the nice features of the Virtual Video Cutter is that it enables you precisely to specify the start and finish time of the snippet, and easily to alter this.

If readers know of other web-based tools that do the same kind of thing, post a comment below.

[SURF is, broadly, the Dutch equivalent of the UK's JISC.]

Comments

[AJ Cann]

Nice, thanks for pointing at this. Shame it doesn't edit Flash format video though as this now seems to be the predominant online format.

[SallyH]

I think this is quite similar to what William Garrison's team at Portsmouth university was doing with Lifesign:
http://www.lifesign.ac.uk/
but extends the system to enable the user to be able to edit clips from any site and not just WM files.
It appears to require IE which is a bit of a pain for firefox users, but the simplicity of the method makes it quite elegant.
Thanks for the link Seb :)

[Soobrosa]

Yes, it's quite funny that I've actually came through 3 different online cutters in proximity of 'education' and none was handling THE dominant format, FLV.

Now isn't that telling us that education isn't even in 'following' mode, but in 'doesn't have a clue' mode?

Oh, and I almost forgot: this is not bad - pen source online video editor http://www.moviemasher.com/.

[Naomi]

I couldn't get this one to work which is a shame. Illumina Digital has developed several versions of a video editing tool. You can see it on the National Archive website, Focus on Film (shortlisted for a 2008 Bett award) where it also makes 'video' clips from image grabs: http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/focuson/film/editors-room/

Another version:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/music/tipsandtools/vjmasher/

allows you to edit effects, audio and video into a sequence.

It has also successfully been used in a more formal learning environment for the QIA's National Teaching and Learning Change Programme:

http://ntlcp.qia.org.uk/it/activities/diydocumentary.php

==

Thanks Naomi. Definitely useful.

Seb