Video production is the art of creating artistic video presentations using audio and video to produce movies or other video content with the use of a video camera, video editing tools and software. The end product may be used for business or personal use such as corporate events, special occasions and celebrations. Video production companies also require a physical space to work on film, edit and even film in closed settings. Some video production companies only work on weddings or other events and will require the videographer go to the client.

Video production operations that require streaming video include ingest, editing and playout. Each concurrently accessed stream of video consumes a portion of the Volume’s total minimum available bandwidth.

But you got what you paid for when it came to image quality. The challenge of the independent video producer was to always balance the quality of the image with the cost of the gear, and most often quality lost. But if you are searching for a stunning and priceless record of the most important day of your life - you have come to the right place. But perhaps he figured that he will get better quality encoding from 640×480 input files, than he would get from his capture program’s quick-and-dirty downsampling done in realtime during capture. Unless there is hardware doing the downsampling, this may be true.

But if potential clients and customers don’t know you exist, or can’t find you -what do you do? But did you know we also have an award winning Video Production department capable of handling all types of projects; from television commercial production and corporate marketing videos to personal family and wedding videos. We also have the ability to deliver your projects on whatever format you desire, including Streaming Video and Email Video Services.

Social Media Optimization is growing, with the likes of youtube.com and metacafe.com, a video production professional must have the creative and have the technical expertise to put your business on the web. Get your message out to the world via a professionaly produced video. The web is a fantastic financial resource for your business that only continues to grow. Social media marketing is the answer to connecting to your customers where they are already interacting: social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twiiter.

WHAT IS HIGH-DEFINITION VIDEO?
We are all familiar with standard-definition (SD) analog television. It is the television (TV) we have known and watched for decades. NTSC TV (used in North America and a few other parts of the world) displays pictures consisting of 525 lines of resolution at 30 frames per second. PAL TV (used in the rest of the world) displays 625 lines of resolution at 24 frames per second. Still pictures are first drawn on all the odd numbered resolution lines; after that, the same picture information is drawn from the even numbered lines. Given there are two frames painted on the monitor, this is referred to as 50/60 fields per second. This odd/even drawing pattern is called interlacing, which was developed to conserve transmission bandwidth (the data rate capacity of a given network connection). This resolution is referred to as 480i, and it provides 240 unique lines of picture information. The bandwidth required for SD at home is 45-90 Mbps.
For small video monitors (less than 27 inches), standard-definition television looks reasonably sharp and smooth. However, as screens increase beyond 27 inches, it is easy to see degradation in picture quality with the 480i format. Jagged lines, blurry outlines, washed-out colors, visual noise, and choppy movements may be noticed.
The progressive scan format is an alternative to interlacing that improves picture quality on larger screens. Progressive scanning combines 480 unique lines of picture information into one picture frame and corrects picture quality automatically. Progressive scanning reduces jagged pictures and smoothes movement on larger monitors. For standard-definition television, this resolution is known as 480p.
True high-definition video displays picture resolutions of 1080i or 720p. Resolutions other than these are not truly high-definition.

Of the many formats available, the following six are considered true high-definition formats.

The high-definition formats provide more visual information than any standard-definition format. If the screen resolutions are converted to pixels, it is easy to see that the high-definition formats can provide at a minimum up to four times more visual information than the 480i format. The following table gives the screen resolution in pixels for the common formats and aspect ratios.

To understand this visually, think of the television screen as a computer monitor. Imagine what would happen to the quality of a 640 X 240 (480i equivalent) low-resolution digital picture if stretched across a 42-inch screen. The image would be distorted due to not enough picture information being available to provide a high quality view of the low-resolution picture. The increased pixel count inherent in the high-definition formats provides better picture quality and makes viewing images on larger screens clearer and easier to watch. In video conferencing, this enhances the overall viewing experience and eliminates meeting fatigue. Colors are also more vibrant and realistic, and movements are sharp and smooth.

While the media rants and raves over the “global recession”, there are many businesses that are making mondy - and lots of it.  Thankfully the media doesn’t control the economy or else we would all be standing in line at the soup kitchen.

One of the largest mistakes I’ve seen businesses make, especailly during a cyclical “economic downturn” is to pull money from advertising and marketing.  Business owners suddenly restrict spending and hold advertising budgets because they feel that money spent on advertising and marketing is wasted.  Advertisng and marketing takes 2nd, 3rd and forth place in positioning funds related to the business.  This is a huge mistake.  Truth be told, businesses must advertise to survive.  If you don’t advertise you wont survive this recession and your business could fail.

Perhaps some will not believe what was just written.  It is true.  You must advertise to survive.  If your advertising doesn’t work or you feel its not working the problem ins’t the advertising in may be the advertisment or the method used.

How to develop a successful ad campaign

Many are not aware of whats needed to make a successful and profitable ad campaign.  Going it alone with money and time spent on an unseccessful campaign using and advertising or marketing company like Big U Media can give you and edge and help maximize your campaigns profitabillity.

Responsive advertising

Many business owners don’t understand how marketing is supposed to work.  Each ad should be bad so that results can be measured.  Advertising without measuring is irresponsible and costly.

Ads should be developed and monitored, updated and analyzed in regards to return on investment or ROI.  Each ad campaign had better be profitable and made more profitable.  Advertising is planned ahead of time, launched and measured for effectiveness.  The ad should be continuously updated and improved for ROI.  Advertising works, only if done correctly.

If your advertisng and marketing is not profitable, you need help.  Don’t spend another dime on  poor advertising that dosen’t deliver results.  Every Advertising campaign should increase business profits.  Let Big U Media, a Tampa Ad Agency help you define, design and promote your advertising campaign.  Big U Media, results based advertising.

To understand what brandtailing is we first must break down the definition of each of the root words.  What is a brand?

A Brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the descriptive verbal attributes and concrete symbols such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme that convey the essence of a company, product or service. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary. A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to a company, product or service. A brand serves to create associations and expectations among products made by a producer. A brand often includes an explicit logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols and sound which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality. The key objective is to create a relationship of trust.

A good brand name should:

• be protected (or at least protectable) under trademark law

• be easy to pronounce

• be easy to remember

• be easy to recognize

• be easy to translate into all languages in the markets where the brand will be used

• attract attention

• suggest product benefits (e.g.: Easy-Off) or suggest usage (note the tradeoff with strong trademark protection)

• suggest the company or product image

• distinguish the product’s positioning relative to the competition.

• be attractive

• stand out among a group of other brands

What about retailing?

Retailing consists of the sale of goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store or kiosk, or by post, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser.[1] Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be individuals or businesses. In commerce, a retailer buys goods or products in large quantities from manufacturers or importers, either directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells smaller quantities to the end-user. Retail establishments are often called shops or stores. Retailers are at the end of the supply chain. Manufacturing marketers see the process of retailing as a necessary part of their overall distribution strategy. Online retailing, also known as e-commerce is the latest form of non-shop retailing.  This method is used every day via the internet and online stores.

How does all this relate to brandtailing.  In a few different ways.  Brandtailing is the associated retailing of products that have a strong dominiate brand.  Some companies are known primarily for their brand.  This brand is dominate and represents a well known and trusted product.

For instance, name a toothpaste? What’s the first name that comes to mind?  Name a soda?  Name a fast food restaurant. Which company was dominate?  Companies spend tons of money branding themselves so you will think of them first. So brandtailing is either a retailer making the consumer think of them first and focusing on selling their brand, which happens to be a product or a competitive company piggybacking onto a larger company and shifting the consumer to think of them instead.

High Definition Systems:

· 720p video resolution for clear crisp images (1080p is on the horizon)

· High quality audio reproduction

· Advances in hardware and firmware, enable better encoding and decoding

· High quality computer image sharing to far side

· Backward compatible with legacy systems

Connectivity:

· Cost effective wide bandwidth availability and improved internet connections

· As an option - Priority connectivity to guarantee mission critical calls at additional cost

· MPLS and Quality of Service options can be deployed within current networks with firewalls

NOTE: ISDN lines are being phased out by most companies. On the rare occasions that you need to connect with someone using ISDN, I would recommend a conference service provider that can connect your IP system to the far side by means of a bridge and ISDN gateway at a metered rate.

Any new technology follows a business implementation curve that has become an industry expectation.

As the new technology develops, the acceptance and quality are low, and the expense and difficulty are high. As the quality increases and the expense decrease we see a large swell in acceptance and popularity. Cell phones are a prime example of this phenomenon. So the question becomes, where is video conferencing on this timeline/curve?

Since 2000, the modern video conference system has become somewhat common place. It was still plagued by unreliability of the hardware, or codec, which has the responsibility of encoding voice, video and data and decoding the same signal from a compatible far end codec. During this same period, IP connectivity was completely unpredictable, so it was always recommended to use ISDN lines, just as you would use a phone line to make a phone call.

ISDN lines and long distance charges continued to make these calls cost prohibitive, and the quality was good, not great.

Part 2 Coming tomorrow…

The market influx of video cameras and video recorders along with video websites like You Tube and Meta Cafe and others have launched a whole new generation of people interested in video production and producing videos. The price of many high end video cameras and high definition video cameras has made the availability of professional quality video production higher than in times past. This in itself does not guarantee a high quality finished product. There are a number of elements that a professional videographer will take into account when producing a production. This goes far beyond just shooting the video.

One of the most important elements of a professionally produced video production is the quality and technique of providing good lighting. Many so called production specialists pay no attention to the element of quality lighting on the subject. Often overlooked this is a crucial part of any video shoot.

Another often overlooked aspect of a video production is the sound. Often a after thought, having clean and clear audio is crucial to the entire video. Without good sound the entire production could be compromised.

Enough cannot be said about the quality of the editing. Another very important factor in any well done video production is making sure the editing of the production is smooth, without meaningless graphics and distractions. Proper pacing in the video is crucial to the eye and overall view of the video once it is completed. Is the pace fast and choppy, or slow, smooth and flows with the music or voice over.

The last but not the least important aspect of the shoot is the video itself. Are you shooting just to fill time or is your shot on purpose, fulfilling a crucial role in the production. A secret of producing a quality production and making sure it is pleasing to the eye is the composition of each shot. If you view each shot as a still and can communicate

Big U Media is pleased to announce the use of our first Go-Green DVD duplication packaging for our client, Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

In keeping in line with CMAs dedication to helping the environment and
conservation, Big U Media has provided DVD packaging that uses a tray
of 100 percent post consumer recycled water bottles made from
recycled water bottles for the DVDs offered at CMAs gift shop.

The cost is not that big of a deal when it comes to helping out the environment - said David Yates, CEO of Clearwater Marine Aquarium. If your company is looking to Go-Green and you are sending out DVDs and CDs, you should definitely look into the products current packaging.

The more we all chip in, the better it will be for us now and for our childrens future.

In a recent post I found about keywords it spoke about when a website owner is determining the keywords for their website that they needs to think backwards–they need to put themselves in the place of the person who is searching for information on the topic of their website.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I am not good at figuring out what someone would type into Google to reach one of my sites. I always think I know the obvious search terms that someone would use, and then I’m shocked at the simplicity of what folks actually do type in.

The lesson of the story is–it’s worth it to do keyword research. You’ll be creating your website keeping your keywords in mind, and also writing your articles on the topics of your keywords (and entering your keywords into the “Enter Your Article Form” on SubmitYOURArticle.com to be used in your article submissions).

So, it might be a good idea to take some time on the front end and figure out what your keywords are. But how?

Luckily there are tools created just for this purpose. On the web there are many free keyword research resources and some that cost money. Let’s look at a few:

Google Keywords Tool (free). This tool is actually intended to help folks who are interested in signing up for Adwords (Google’s advertising program), but it’s free for all to use and it can be very helpful for giving you an idea about what keywords to use for your website.

Just type in your the keyword phrase you’re researching and follow the steps for doing the search. The results list you’ll get will show Advertiser Competition (I ignore that), Search Volume for the present month, and Average Monthly Search Volume over a recent 12 month period.

All of this info is really helpful (and it’s free!). It tells you the demand for a keyword, but one thing that this tool lacks is that it does not tell you the supply for a keyword.

For example, it tells you how high a search volume your keywords have, but it does not show how many other websites are already satisfying that search. It is possible that a keyword has a high search volume, but might also be a saturated market–meaning that there are already lots of other websites out there who are satisfying these searches.

Oh well, it’s still very insightful information, even if it doesn’t tell you the supply.

WordTracker ($59/month). WordTracker is my favorite keyword research tool because of the plethora of info it gives.

Here are the basics:
Wordtracker takes the word you typed in, and it spits out a long list of related words that you probably wouldn’t have thought of that people are typing into search engines.
You click on the words or phrases that interest you, and that deposits those words into a shopping cart like thing.
Then, you get a report on how frequently the words in your cart are being searched and how many websites are competing for those searches.

The real goldmine is the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) number. The higher the KEI, the more popular the keyword is, and the less competition you have. As we said earlier, it is possible that a keyword has a high search volume but that there are already bunches of websites supplying that demand. What you’re looking for are keywords (or keyword phrases) that is being searched frequently, but that don’t have many websites addressing them.

WordTracker is a super-duper keyword information machine, so it does cost money. It used to be that there was a weekly rate you could get, but it looks like they now only have a monthly and an annual rate. At this time, their monthly rate is $59, but…..there is a 7 day free trial that you can do too. I think that the free trial does not include Google search results, so it’s not the whole shebang but it is still pretty useful even in the free version.

WordTracker also offers a Free Keyword Suggestion Tool in case you just want to dip your toe into the keyword waters.

Keyword Discovery ($49.95/month) Keyword Discovery is one of the most popular keyword research tools on the net. I have never used it before, but I’m sure it works pretty similarly to WordTracker by providing search statistics for pretty much all the search engines and letting you know the search volume and the how much competition there already is for the keywords.

SEO Book Keyword Tool (free) I love the SEO Book site as a whole, and I have used this tool a few times. This tool does not tell you the popularity of the keywords (it tells the demand, but not the supply), but it does breakdown the results so that you can see how many folks on Google are typing in the search terms -vs- how many folks on Yahoo!. So, if you’re interested in comparing search volume for your keywords on the various search engines, you might want to give SEO Book Keyword Tool a try.

There are several other good keyword research tools out there, but these are some of the most popular. I have to warn you though–all of this “keyword research” stuff may sound very boring and cut and dry, but I’m telling you it’s totally fun.

Keyword research is almost addictive if you don’t watch yourself–it is so fun to see the unexpected types of things that folks are typing into the search engines to potentially find your website. I always have to pull myself away by a sheer act of willpower.

These tools are fascinating and fun–I encourage you to just play around and explore. Use the free tools, or do the free trials of the paid services and see which one you like best.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the most important element in building a successful website. Much thought and research must go into a site before it is ever developed and designed.  Most people online have heard the term SEO and have some idea of what is involved yet it remains a mysterious process to many. One of the reasons SEO is so mysterious is that it can be a complicated endeavor and search engines are constantly changing the way they rank sites and the way the recognize the many tools of SEO.

At the forefront of the SEO check and balance system is the leading search engine Google. They have pretty much set the standard for technology in search engine algorithms that can track the relevancy of a website to its content and SEO efforts. Their ranking system remains one of the most popular methods of determining a web site’s quality because of their diligent efforts of weeding out the bad apples that have little to offer a consumer other than skilled manipulation and the ability to ‘play the system’ to their advantage.

Of course taking advantage of the system makes perfect sense from a business standpoint but from the search engine outlook of wanting to provide the best quality sites on their results for the viewer it can become difficult to differentiate the site that is good quality wise from the site that is good because it has a very manipulative operator at the helm.

Because the rules for SEO evolve and change rapidly the mystique of search engine optimization continues to confuse website owners. Many people build their websites thinking the only SEO tool they need is key word density. While key words are an important aspect in SEO they are not the only means to an end, they are simply a part of the puzzle. There is another tried and true method of SEO that is as relevant today as it was at the start of the concept of web 2.0 marketing and that is back linking. While back linking remains one of the most successful ways to get your site to rank high on the search engines it also has undergone some changes making the types of links important so that search engines do not penalize a site for bad incoming links.

The term “back link” refers to an outside link on another site that points to yours. In the past any link from another site would have a positive impact on your site by the search engines. Because there were so many gimmicks developed in the last few years to garner massive back links to websites such as link farms, and irrelevant reciprocal linking Google began to develop a way to weed out links that were purchased, or had little meaning or relevancy.

Even though back linking is used to manipulate search engine popularity there are many very legitimate reasons for using the system of back linking. Finding web sites that have a common interest to your own who are willing to place your link on their site can get you extra exposure. When their visitors come to their site they will see your link and likely visit your site as well.

The fact that on-site links like that have such a perceived relevance to the visitor makes them a valuable marketing tool, but that perception of quality is also why Google works so hard to be sure they are real quality links. You will get higher ranking on a search engine for a number of truly appropriate back linking partnerships however if the sites linking to you do not share any common information or products Google will penalize you for the link. There are new programs in the works with Google where your site could even be devalued if the site that links to you is determined to be bad quality so it is important who you choose to link to, and also who links to you.

In the past many web site owners would open up multiple websites with the sole purpose of promoting one principle site. They would use the extra websites as a means of placing back links to the main site. Google now watches for sites that are created with the same IP address. Creating a large number of websites on the same IP address and putting back links on them to quickly develop a number of links is known as link bombing. That is not to say that you cannot ever link to your own website from a site you own. If there is a reason to show your visitors some additional information a few well placed back links are fine. It is when there are many links from each site all pointing to a single ‘main’ site that the search engines look at them suspiciously.

The system Google is working hard to put in place to discount a link from a bad site is why it is very important to know who is linking to you and if their site stacks up to your standards. It is no longer true that all inbound links to your site are good links. There are very good tools available online for free that can show you who is linking to you. If you find a site that is linking to you that you feel is questionable in terms of how they relate to your website either in information or product you should contact the webmaster of the site and demand that they remove the link to your website to avoid being penalized by the search engines.

Probably the best way to obtain a back link to your site is through anchor text. That is when you have another website with content that is relevant to your own (relevancy is ALWAYS important) including your site in the actual content of their site with a hyperlink inside the text. These back links are valued much higher than a simple sidebar link as long as they appear in the text in a way that has a fluid and meaningful association with the content of the article. There are several ways to get such back links.

Providing articles to content sites with your link built into the article is one method. If you write very compelling information on your website is another as someone else with a similar site may wish to point it out on their own. You may not even realize they are doing it unless they tell you about it. This is one of the main reasons it is important to keep an eye on who is back linking to you. While the majority of those types of links are wonderful and you should thank the site owner for their inclusion, if you feel the site that is linking to you does not meet your standards, have similar information, or the content is not relevant to your site you should definitely ask them to remove your link.

Back linking is an extremely important aspect of SEO development and it is something you need to understand well in order to implement and control it properly. There are many secrets and mysteries in the SEO world that diligent study can clear up. Keeping your website in good standing with the search engines and popular with your visitors is the best way to ensure a vital and profitable future for your business online.