Creating New Content

***News: We've been using a program for converting formats recently with great results, the program is called "Super" from a company called eRightSoftware. Simple to use, comes supplied with all the proper codecs, nice result, almost every format can be converted back and forth. Best of all, it's free. You can download it at www.erightsoft.com. Follow the instruction below, using the export option of AVI using DivX or Xvid options.

There are several ways to display content on the egokast player.

To create original and personal video content, you can use one of many video editors. As there are many video compression programs on the market (referred to as codecs), and many video software programs, some combinations will play easily on the egokast and other not. Using the guidelines below and experimentation you will be able to create your own content for your own egokasts.

Video can be created by any one of the commonly available video editors for PC’s and Macs.

The egokast runs at a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels, and can play 30 frames per second. Depending on what kind of content you are creating, you may want to tailor the different factors for different results.

We cannot go into all of the details of creating video here, there are many good books available for different software packages online.

Perhaps the simplest program to use for basic editing and exporting to the egokast is Quicktime. Quicktime can be downloaded from www.quicktime.com, the latest version 7.0 is recommended. Most people have Quicktime already installed on their computers. QT is upgraded to Pro by going to the register website and purchasing a serial number for 29 dollars, once the serial number is entered into the normal QT player, the program allows editing and all of the additional features. Many features are hidden in its deceptively simple interface. The program can assemble, lengthen and shorten videos, save to different formats change video sizes.

How to combine egovideo fragments into longer video clips.

Using the egokast dvd as the source material, open one of the “fragment” files in Quicktime. You see the standard QT inferface. Key board shortcuts are the easiest to use. To make a video twice as long, do the following steps.

Ctrl-A (selects the whole video)

Ctrl-C (copies the section into memory)

Ctrl-V (pastes the section into the video at the location of the pointer)

That’s the first step, to make a video twice as long, Crtl-A, Crtl-C, Ctrl-V. By repeatedly pressing Ctrl-V, you can extend the loop as long as you like.

When your mouse is over the timeline bar, two additional arrow/pointers are displayed, this allows you to select the beginning and end of a section of video that you would like to use. When an area is selected, as in the picture above, copying and pasting will be done using that section. Pasting video will be inserted starting at the location of the main dark pointer.

You can have two or more Quicktime windows open at the same time. You can cut and paste from one window to another to mix and create videos. Naturally editing can be done using the “edit” menu instead of keyboard shortcuts.

After you’ve done you first editing, you can export the file by choosing “export” from the file menu. Choose “Movie as MPEG-4” from the options. In the options menu (lower left corner) of the dialog box.

Choose 320x240 resolution, “improved mpeg” 30 frames per second, and a data rate of 768 kbps.

To fit more video on a memory card, use lower frame rate settings, lower data rate settings. To increase the quality of an video, sharper edges and faster moving, increase the data rate up to around 4800 kbts/sec, this give a better quality, but a much bigger file size.

Click okay and your video is exported. The video is ready to be copied over to the video folder on the egokast and played.

Tip: Changing the speed slower or faster in Quicktime Pro is possible, but a little bit tricky. It involves a command called “Add to selection and scale” in the edit menu. For example, you would like your video clip to be half as fast, slow motion. First open your video, select all of the video using the arrow pointers or Ctrl-A. Copy the selection to memory using Ctrl-C. Paste the video back into the movie using Crtl-V. Now the movie is twice as long. Here’s the trick. You are going to paste your video clip (which is still in the memory) over the entire, longer track. Ctrl-A selects the entire longer track. Edit menu “Add to selection and scale”, (Crtl-Shift-Alt-V) your original clip is pasted into the track, but time stretched to be half as fast and twice as long. To speed up a video, you would paste a long video into a shorter track using the same commands.

To use photos from a digital camera.

Smaller photos work better, if possible, resize your photos to 320 x 240. Many programs such as Photoshop or ACDsee will allow you to resize may photos in batches automatically. Load the photos into the folder marked “photos” on the egokast memory card. In the Setup menu, “PlayMode”, “Photo interval” this is the number of seconds that the photos will show in a slideshow during playback. The photos will cycle through the entire folder. You can make additional sub-folders under the main Photo folder, slideshows will play through the photos in any selected folder and then repeat. For example

To use digital camera video.

Open the file in Quicktime, edit and export as MPEG-4 video. Ready to go.

Advanced, to use DVD video.

Sadly a little more involved of a process because the digital rights are restricted by the copyright holders. Just as making a mix tape for yourself from your CD’s, as long as you are using the content for yourself and not selling or sharing it, should be fine.

Step 1. Transfer the video information from the DVD using software referred to as “rippers” This moves a very large file to your computer from the DVD disk. This file is in the format of a VOB file, video object. Using video editing software select the parts of the file you want to use. Export the file as VCD file for use on the egokast.

Downloaded video clips.

Clips from the internet can be downloaded and saved to your computer. Sites such as archive.org have huge collections of video that can be downloaded. P2P sites or torrents collections have video content also. Download the video, edit as you like, export out of Quicktime. YouTube and Google videos are a little bit tougher, but not impossible. As they are changing their technologies often, do a google search on “saving youtube videos” to get the latest results.

Here are some links to get you started:

Using Flash files from the web.

When a Flash file is played in your browser, a SWF file is generally stored in your browser cache. Firefox browser has tools that allow you to easily save these files with your own name instead of hunting for them. Opening a SWF file in Quicktime allows you to export MPEG-4 video that can be played on the egokast.