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Using Video CDs For Education
Phil Shapiro writes: "Video CDs offer one of the lowest-cost ways of distributing training and instruction. They can be duplicated much faster than VHS videotapes, the media is much cheaper and the postage costs are much cheaper. Learn how and why we ought to be exploring the educational potential of this new media."
You mean videodisks? Yeah, I think I saw those in the 1967 issue of Scientific American.
Havn't VCDs been around for like 10 years or so? While most people now have DVD players that will play them now, the format itself is hardly new.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
One great thing about VCD is that they work in standard DVD players (NTSC and PAL VCD discs only work in players for the respective formats, of course; a limitation not seen on computers). However, lots of older DVD players can't read CD-R media, because of an incompatibiliity with the DVD laser. Duplicated VCDs on normal CD media work just fine, of course. All DVD players in the market today should work, AFAIK.
My video compression blog
but, i would think if you add in sending computers good enough to play these nicely and a monitor large enough for the class to view the postage would be more than a video tape.
sig - .
Now i can watch the video for "the sun is a mass of incandescent gas..." by They Might Be Giants in Science class.
wait, that was 7th grade...
$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. Stop
VCD's aren't exactly new media. They've been used for years, just mostly in asian markets. Advocating their use now just delays even bigger acceptance of DVD's. Instructional use is one thing that could further drive the DVD format, and even more importantly, set a real demand for recordable DVD's. Sure sticking with CD's might seem good now, but it just hurts the impact of media designed for such video uses.
At the risk of sounding like I have a bug up my ass, I feel I should point out that VCD isn't a new format. In fact, VCD has been out about as long as DVDs, maybe even longer (don't quote me on that). It originally started in Japan as a cheap format for video. I believe it's moderately popular over there (or was for a time), but it never picked up in North America, except for videophiles and those who like to view their video in less than legal ways.
My other sig is funny!
Thanks to pressure from the @!#$!@# media companies, many many DVD players (which are very likely the primary viewing device) have dropped support for VCD and/or CD-R media.
VCDs and DVDs are so low tech. I get my training via implants.
A good place to learn how to convert various media to burnable (S)VCD format can be found at http://www.vcdhelp.com
ok , we have a system for transporting multimedia and alloing millions to make freely make copies of it so that knowledge can be spread worldide.
.. this better not get popular or RIAA will ask for it to be banned.
.. the music publishers.
Umm
Technology, science which improves lives versus shitty profiteering music publishers. Which cause do u think our government will support?
That's easy
So what do you prefer... saline or silicone? =)
"Video CDs offer one of the lowest-cost ways of distributing training and instruction. They can be duplicated much faster than VHS videotapes, the media is much cheaper and the postage costs are much cheaper."
can you say "pirated" - thats the main reason VCDs seem to have existed in Asian countries for YEARS now. They get used for anything that can be seen on TV, whether it be movies, TV, karaoke or educational productions. Standalone VCD players are even cheaper than the cost of 2-3 original DVDs. Perhaps with the acceptance of DVD players in western countries that also play VCDs, western educators are finally aware of techniques what asian countries have known and used for years.
How much functionality do the VideoCD 2.0 and 3.0 standards give the developer? Is it still just simple menus and chapters? If anything more than this was needed, then you are back to having to use multimedia CDs in a computer.
Anyone know where I can get "Afterschool Chinese" on VCD?
- HeXa
More access to learning opprotunities? What they need is more of a will to use the opprotunities they have. The unfortunate truth that I have at least witnessed is that most students don't care to learn. those that actualyl do want to learn often find their own means when their opprotunities aren't enough. agreed, some do not, but i believe a far greater number simply do not care.
They go on to say how video is the best way to learn? haha, i don't think so. interaction is needed for real learning. and then, the cd's only hold 70 minutes. what can one really learn in 70 minutes? a lot for some things, but almost nothing for others. a lot of subjects are either a lot of practice (calculus, for example), or just a lot of material (french language). because this offers no interaction (practice/ Q&A sessions), the only application would really be subjects that are volumnous, and those may not fit all in 70 minutes...lots of cd changing is in your future =)
i dunno, it just seems like a waste to me. not that the current education system is anywhere near perfect (indeed, i feel it is far from it), this doesn't seem to me like it would enhance it much. anyone get to watch those science laser disks in science class? interesting pictures and demonstrations, but most of the actual content of the class was drawn on the chalkboard.
Just like how VHS replaced 16mm film (do any teachers know how to thread a reel these days?), the VCD should replace VHS. The reasons why:
VHS tapes get chewed up with use, VCDs don't degrade with repeated playback and if they are damaged, just burn a new copy from your master.
VHS tapes need rewinding, placing wear and tear on capital equipment (VCRs), VCDs don't suffer from this to the same degree.
VCDs can be played by individual students, using a donated computer - no need for those bulky media labs.
VCDs are cheap to mail, so you can trade a bunch of instructional media for less than a dollar.
The only caveat is that the cheapest VHS players are less expensive than the cheapest DVD players (at least, as far as I've seen.)
An additional plus is if this takes off, we can add ANOTHER arena of fair use that uses the "evil" blank CD that the RIAA wants to continue to tax and regulate. The more legit uses we can find for blank CDs, the stronger the argument for banishing the CD tax, and tossing out any notion of regulating recordable media.
At home, I'm spec'ing out a project to convert all analog media that I have (video tapes, audio tapes, etc.) to digital equivalents (VCDs, CDs), and storing copies of them on a big LAN server (MPEGs and MP3s) for my personal library. I expect my tapes to completely degrade in another ten years, so this is one way of safeguarding my investment. On a related topic, does anyone know if there are archived copies of periodical articles, like you can find on microfilm, but on CD?
I do with my used colored contact lenses?
I use 'em as yarmulkes for my penis!
The author of this article has some good technical points. Yes, VCDs are much easier to deal with on older and less expensive hardware. However, he is neglecting a critical issue : where will one get the content in the first place? Although there are thousands upon thousands of active open source projects out there, only a handful have good free written documentation, much less freely available video tutorials! And while there are a handful of oustanding science and mathematics video series ("The Mechanical Universe", "Cosmos", "By the Numbers"), they are almost always owned by the university or broadcast station which produced them.
So, if you are going to distribute video content, either you are going to have to purchase it, or produce it yourself. It doesn't take much to do a quick-and-dirty video shoot with your vidcam in your bedroom with poor lighting and sound, but to really put together an outstanding series like "The Mechanical Universe" takes a lot of time and effort by a lot of talented people. And if you are going to go to all the bother of mass-distributing your video, it absolutely behooves you to do an outstanding job.
So the question remains... where is all this great video content going to come from?
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
"If someone is the best teacher in a country at a particular grade or on a particular subject, their instruction and explanations deserve to be videotaped."
What makes the best teachers the best is because they can respond to my questions. Most of the time, they only need to reword some sentences to turn the light on. With this technology, I cannot ask questions, and therefore, not getting the 'best' from the best.
"They deserve to be compensated for their excellence. And the resulting video ought to be made available to the public for free..."
How are they being compensated?
Good idea though, but like everything, it has limitations.
Chicoy#13
~the keyboard is mightier than the pen.
Super VCD has much better quality and is user far more than the aging VCD format (at least for movie rips and so-forth). There is a bit of info about SVCD here, but you can search google for more info.
While this may be a good thing for education you've got to remember a few things. Not all dvds play vcds and not all people are willing to just go out and get one that will. At least in the US copying of VCDs has already been associated with "pirating".
As for using in schools. I attend what could be considered as a very well off school system. Very good when it comes to technology too. Each high school has 5 dvd players on cart. While every room has VCRs. New schools are still opening with VCRs. Why are they not buying DVDs? Well.. I can see a few reasons. Not all educational stuff that it used has been switched to dvd. I can guess a lot of it won't be just because of how old it is. Like that video from the 70s that I had to watch in Sex Ed with the talking STD. Yes I'm sure they are going to get to turning that into DVD sometime soon. Another reason would be cost. You can buy cheap dvds for under $100, but they aren't very good DVDs most of the time either.
Teachers in school already have enough trouble opperating VCRs they have owner themselves for 10 years. I can't see a switching to an optical disk technology in schools for another 10 years or so due to still high cost (for many school systems) and because of incompetence.
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This sounds like something Jon Katz would try and post.
Wow, video on CDs.. that's a great idea, but let's fast forward to reality for a second. Just in case anyone has forgotten, there are still plenty of schools in this country that don't even have TVs, let alone computers. Maybe we should focus more on bringing those sub-standard holes up to par and finding & paying good teachers. Creating a bunch of satellite learning centers is just plain unrealistic, unreasonable and will only widen education disparities.
What's next? supersonic flight? landing a man on the moon?
consider the following:
Make the disks interactive.
Each task comlteted unlocks the next level of education, hence you know you ot it right.
Make the disk have an option to be attachable to you system or a backup of your system in such a way that by each level you unlock, you system unlocks new levels of interactiveness. Video game style.
The feedback is kept in a data base from your distro to maintain your level of education and where to obtain updates and new levels.
a/s/l here. Sorry, adding domain tags to your s
The company that employs me by day has been doing this for several years now for employee training. Things that can be easily moved to computer based learning systems with e-tests etc have been put on VCDs.
It works very well if it's done right.
-dave
This is not a sig. this is a duck. quack.
The way the want to use it is in the context of education. Copying for those purposes is legal. Say for example, I bring in a burned CD of music from a lot of different artists to show different musical styles. When I play that for the class I am not violating copyrights because of the context that I use it. Remember when the Internet was younger and warez was a lot more prevalent? They always used the "educational purposes" loophole. That loophole is no longer there but the original intent of that law is. And before anyone starts spouting examples, I know there is limitations to this.
Over in SE Asia, VCDs are universally used for the sexual education of adults who should know better...
You can read text/image faster than you can listen to a person talk. You can search text faster than you can search a video. You can perform minute fast forwards and rewinds with much greater speed than you can through a video- just move your eye, rather than fiddling with a UI. I could go on for some time with this.
I find it odd that techniques like this aren't used more widely; My school wasn't large or that wealthy, yet they decided to use VCD to teach the course. It seems that VCD isn't widespread just because it takes a little more work to generate a course around it; My French teacher worked hard for a high school level class, but I doubt most do.
The only disadvantage to using video material is the fact that it's video material -- television anyone? It's very easy to stare at a screen and completely zone out, ignoring whatever you're trying to be taught. If not interrupted constantly for questioning and such, VCDs are useless.
You should say "old medium." VCDs have been around for quite some time. The only reason they are new to you is because the MPAA prevented them from being used much in the US. At the same time, VCDs were very popular in Asia (where the piracy of organizations like the MPAA is less palatable) for most of the last decade.
However, I agree that this old medium has become cheaper and more advantageous for teaching than probably any other.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
I guess that's what they are used for most often.
--- Eat my sig.
I also fine that VCDs are great for movie pirating ;-)
The idea is that VCDs are an excellent medium for any instance that require you to distribute video.
I admit that in most cases, video is not the best medium for instruction. However, there are many more applications:
1) Archives of videotaped university lectures at the library [my school had real videotapes and I found this extremely helpful, but they were somewhat jelaously guarded]
2) Sharing video with semi-computer-literate family: Sending out cousin Larry's first piano recital to all the aunts and uncles, mailing a copy of the wedding to all the guests, etc.
3) Distributing underground "cult classic" movies, favorite TV episodes, etc. Demos for independent filmmakers
4) "Handouts" for students in film/advertising class
4) Ticking off the MPAA
5) etc.
I'm sure you can think of more. What kind of geeks are you???
... The cost of the VHS equipment.
I guess you'd call the tape room an equivilent of a server farm. - Lots of very expensive VHS recorders simultaneously creating copies of a master tape. (I'm assuming) it just wouldn't pay to make one copy at a time with VHS equipment.
Many people are posting on how DVDs are better than VCDs... while this may be true in some cases, in other ways they're the same thing
DVD = 4.7GB
CD = 650-700MB
(NTSC)
DVD = Mpeg2 video 720x480
VCD = Mpeg2 video 352x240 - 720x480 (xvcd)
Were really talking about storage capacity and video resolution as the main differences here.
My point being that a VCDs with educational content can be produced with DVD video quality, at a cheaper price and still maintain compatibility with standalone DVD players.
The article stated that VCDs would be beneficial because they would allow more information to be learned by the student or individual. As a society, we have become more dependent on amounts of knowledge than what the knowledge actually is. What we don't need is for our students to learn more. They are already collapsing under the mountain of information educators and legislators throw at them. What we do need our students to do is to understand more. The current curriculum in schools these days is like the old saying "A mile wide and an inch thick". We have substituted wisdom for information. Projects such as the VCD and other tools can help education not by adding to the amount of what we know, but by understanding what is already taught. The more we, as a society, understand, the better prepared we are for any change in the world around us. The more we teach students to think and understand, the better prepared they will be for any change the world may have.
I work for a school system. If you remember, school systems had invested fairly heavily in LaserDisc technology back when it was established enough to have had the bugs worked out. It flopped.
It flopped because teachers did not make use of it. Remember the old addage "Those who can, do, those who can't teach"? Trust me, it holds true. If you want to buy an LD player with less than 50 hours of use on it, go to a school district surplus auction.
I know that DVD has had significantly more market penetration than LD had, but at the same time, it's not the older, more established people who are buying into it. It's the video-game era people who are used to buttons and switches. It's the people who can program their VCR's clock to not blink "12:00". a LOT of people who teach, the vast majority, are before this was the norm. They don't rely on video to instruct. They don't use computers for the benfit of the kids except when absolutely required by the superintendency.
Until you have computer labs being booked solid in schools, without teachers deciding to skip computers for that day of the month that they get lab time, you won't see technology of this sort in schools, or at least not in an effective manner. It's just not going to happen.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Back in the 60's B. F. Skinner, a Harvard psychologist, had an idea that you could learn from a book that had interactive questions along with the text. Depending on the answers the reader was moved to different sections of the book. (hhmmmm - early hyperlinking?). I remember the only book I had like that was boring but with this new technology perhaps it's time to re-examine the ideas behind programmed learning.
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FINALLY- someone that completely expresses my own feelings on the state of education. Most people simply don't give a shit- one of the reasons we live in a Windows world, still get Code Red attacks, still have the Gap, still have to deal with boy bands, and all that other bad stuff- people eat what they're fed and generally don't give a shit about what goes on in their own lives, let alone the lives of others.
I learned more in one year in the field than I did in both years of trade school- during which I learned more about computers and software than I had in my entire academic career prior to that. None of it from classes, almost none of it from manuals- all of it from a handful of verbal tips ( Supervisor: "type man, then a space, then the application name. This is the last time I'm telling you.") and just raw plugging away at the applications to see what I could do with them.
The problem is that the education *industry* wants a turnkey solution that they can claim just works- heck, the only thing school did for me professionally was teach me MacOS (six classes out of my entire school cirriculum) and get me in touch with the guy that got me the job I have now. Yes, I picked up a lot of the stuff I use professionally at school- but the kicker is that I did because I was *curious* - I've had formal training on only one application I use now, and that's photoshop.
Education is a resource best approached through ones own ingenium- the things schools really need to teach us as children are reading, basic math (I will never have a head for algebra and resent being grossly penalized in high school for having a mind that prioritizes art over equation).... and rather than drill in bullshit we'll never use by rote, they really need to simply buckle down and teach kids how to use their brains, rather than regurgitate facts. First graders aren't much different than TIVOs, aside from that moving, yelling and bleeding thing.
I got lucky, passed the IQ test in first grade, and landed in the enrichment program- all kinds of fun exercises that taught me how to not only solve a problem, but how to look for the answer- quantitative reasoning, non-linear thinking, forget the box and just THINK kind of stuff. Very cool stuff. Problem is, the school only gave it to the smart kids, when it should be a federal mandate that every child be trained in such a fashion.
Of course, if they did that, only the smart kids would get it. The dumb kids would still sit around, smoke pot and fail their classes. Such a program would actually give fair weight of grading to those who can think for themselves and those who can't- as opposed to someone who sucks at math but womps ass at english and art.
Naturally, the sheep that don't care to learn have an alarming tendency to vote for the sort of people that think things like this are cool.... and there are an awful lot of the little bastards.
Our high school has a program called Real Science where some students volunteer to work on an interacive cd with movies on an area of science. The project is student run and is of fairly high quality.
Lesson One: A VCD is a medium. Multiple VCDs are media.
Lesson Two: New \New\, a. 1. Having existed, or having been made, but a short time; having originated or occured lately. I.e., not VCD.
Got friends?
What is it about VCDs on slashdot that seem so... so... Antiquated? Forgive me for stepping on another deligtfully informing article (ie; wasted space) and say this is a bit behind the times? And what is a VCD going to do that a VCR can't? Sure it's cheap, but unless you're somewhere in Asia, VCDs have gone the way of Betamax. And then you'd actually either have to buy the player or a PC to read it. If you buy the player, that's more out of pocket. if you use the PC, you might as well use CDRs.
Whoohooo... News for nerds, stuff that matters... I'm all over that action, aren't you?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Weren't those magnetic?
ANYHOW...
That is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to this topic, because...
Hardly anyone uses them anymore
Most people do not have hardware that can read them
Most people alive today have probably never even heard of them let alone seen them
The recording hardware is NOT nor was it ever cheap and ubiquitious as CDR has become.
So shut the hell up.
This argument is as painful now as it was when I was in school. So people are less inclined to learn about the things that you find interesting. Maybe they are involved in other pursuits (sports, dating, etc.)
Blaming students and then suggesting that all educational innovation is futile is ridiculous. What should we use to test student ambition, before making any expenditures on our part?
or the right education?
First of all, didn't VCD come out over 10 years ago? I seem to recall something about CD-I being able to play it (and that being one of it's nifty selling points...or not). That's new?
Second, VCD is a mediUM. When people talk about "New Media" they are speaking of more than one mediUM.
JEEZ. Why do so many people have to do so many bad things to MY language?
Imagine 800 megabytes of powerpoint + mp3 of a lecture, or even just 800 megabytes of text.
So what pray tell should be done with "the dumb kids". Should they be ignored, or do you think some good condescending tough love is in order?
Not to belabor the point, but most people value more in life than grades.
can you say "pirated" - thats the main reason VCDs seem to have existed in Asian countries for YEARS now.
That's not the reason entirely. As the author of the article wrote, distribution and production costs are cheaper for VCDs than videotapes. As most Asian countries' populations (excluding Japan) have typically low average incomes, encouraging them to save money while distributing content by using the less expensive VCD. This is the reason why VCDs have been a popular format in Asia for the past few years.
They get used for anything that can be seen on TV, whether it be movies, TV, karaoke or educational productions.
There are more reasons why media is "pirated" in Asia. A popular, longstanding Asian mentality, which is Confucian in origin states that "knowledge is free". This "knowledge" includes videos, software, video games, books, movies, and almost all other forms of visual, and audio content. This excerpt of a paper written by a Rutgers University student further explains the beliefs behind digital piracy in the Asian country that has the largest pirate market in the Far East; China:
"Confucius's concept of the transmission of culture and Marx's views on the social nature of language and invention arose from very different ideological foundations. Nonetheless, because each school of thought in its own way saw intellectual creation as fundamentally a product of the larger society from which it emerged, neither elaborated a strong rationale for treating it as establishing private ownership interests. Deeply influenced by these two ideologies, China falls behind all developed countries and many developing countries in the field of intellectual property protection. It is also not difficult to understand why most of Chinese did not know what were IPRs in 1980s."
Also, another popular Asian mentality that states "if everyone does it, no one will be punished". As original products was brought in to China, demand for those products grew while the economy began to decline, finally taking a severe hit during the Asian stock market crisis of the late 1990s. Then pirates came to satiate that demand. This is yet another reason why "piracy" of brand-name "Western" merchandise to software has skyrocketed in the past 20 years. This excerpt of an article written by Lisa Movius of Salon.com further explains:
"China Record Co.'s Tang Haiyang recalls the evolution of piracy's acceptability. "No one thinks of it as theft anymore. At first, there was no choice but to pay 30 RMB [$3.60] for a real album, which is a day's salary for most. Then the pirates came along, at 10 RMB [$1.20] for a CD, and at first people were uncomfortable, and would still pay more for the real thing. But now, everyone's used to it, it's normal and accepted, and people just think, 'It's very cheap, very cheap, that's good!'""
As one can see, the connection can be made between VCD's popularity in Asia and the beliefs and financial situations of its' peoples are actually logical and economical--a low cost, lightweight media to meet small budgets and efficient, fast replication to drive the legal and non-legal media market.
Further information on "piracy" in Chinese countries can be found below. Note that some of the ideas and beliefs behind the creation of China's bootleg market also apply to other markets of Far East countries:
"Imitation Nation", an article written by Lisa Movius
"Preliminary Analysis of Intellectual Property Protection and Economic Development in China", an essay written by Sheng Ding
"To Steal A Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization" by William P. Alford
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Oh, how I wish we could change "moderators" to "authors". I suspect half of slashdots staff would cease to exist with stories like these... Karma, karma everywhere and not a bite to eat...
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Not to answer for the poster here, but here's my insight (for what it's worth).
How many people have you met that said they screwed around in school, and now they regret it? not many, but hopefully more than none. those people were probably labled 'the dumb kids' the first time around, simply because they saw no point in what they were doing. later, they saw a purpose to learning, but by then, by our system, it was too late to really fix things. it's never too late really, but personal circumstances (job, kids, etc) do pin people into their current situation.
what about those people who get out in the world, and find they dont need school? let them stay there! as long as they aren't leeching from others due to their poverty levels, who cares if they're a double Ph.D or not even past 5th grade. if at some point they decide 'oops, this was bad', let them start somewhere reasonable, and go farther. there's a whole lot more to life than school.
The company that owns and runs slashdot owns and runs sourceforge. VM Ware, I believe, though I could be wrong. There is an option to pay to have an ad-less slashdot.
I do security
So, altogether, I just don't see the point of producing a lot of video at all.
Who said it was new??? Not I...
I'm a Fairfax County Public Schools Student, and we used those big (vinyl-sized) video discs in Elementary and Middle school. We've been using them for at least 7 years.
Cmdr Taco = Nigger
Everybody's arguing about how VCD is not a new format, but nobody seems to know how old it actually is. Some think it actually came out around the same time as DVD. The fellow who wrote the article thinks it's a new format. One fellow isn't sure, but thinks it might be even older, but isn't quite sure. Egh. Apparently I'm the first who actually bothered to Google it. VCD is fifteen years old. It was created in 1987. Now, was that so difficult? And as a matter of trivia, the compact disc was originally invented with video in mind.
Heck is a place for people who don't believe in Gosh.
"Video CDs offer one of the lowest-cost ways of distributing training and instruction."
Ow, great. I hope that Usama doesn't have a burner...
VMWare? Close, but not close enough. VA Software Corporation (former VA Linux). Lots of confusing little two-letter V-something corporations these days. =)
...is they actually hook you into the mistaken belief that how well you're doing in Algebra actually somehow matters to you ten years from now.
The enrichment course wasn't graded. You went, you learned, and if you were me, you got bitched out for being too punk rock, even in fourth grade. My problem with public education is that the cirricula is set up in such a fashion that my strengths- creative problem solving, artwork and (through school and the last few years) digital media- never actually applied. Me going to high school (compulsory, thank you) was just about pointless, as the classes played up against my every weakness, with the exception of english and art.
The idea of a grading scale isn't a bad one, it's simply been badly implemented. I brought it up as a point of how things like this are completely and totally misapplied thanks to poorly conceptualized standardization- I'm the sort of guy that wasn't designed for things like math... so as a consequence, through the tension headaches, the cattle prodding, the constant yelling and screaming (my sister didn't have any problems... "You're so smart! Why don't you try harder?!")... I'm stuck with a bit of a negative stigma about things that don't do the least bit of good for the individual being labeled as "educational"... and in the case of the schools, promptly forced down the throats of the undeserving.
I'm one of the few for whom sleeping through English produced A's, moderate effort in Art produced A's and B's.... and hard, raging cramming, studying, nightmares, headaches and endless amounts of rage and frustration produced rarely more than a D+ in math.
I keep drifting off the point... it's late. Basically, the dumb kids will grow up to be dumb adults, the smart kids will grow up to be smart adults, and changing the status quo without implementing eugenics or some sort of Gattica solution doesn't seem likely. Education as it's implemented does nothing more than babysit kids for twelve years while they get a dim idea of what they may want to do for the rest of their life- grades are there to make those that are good at wash-rinse-repeat textbook learning feel good about themselves.
The "dumb kids" have a habit of making life for the smart kids miserable- favoring a Final Solution would be pretty fascist..... I'd like to think that by the time they hit college, the smart kids know that they'll be doing something with their lives, and the ones that tormented them aren't going to amount to much.
Living well is the best revenge, in all honesty.
And- I forgot to add- not very popular with technophiles.
Technophiles are inclined to believe that the more gears and bits you put into a thing, the better it is.
"How dare you suggest your little pocket notebook is better than my PDA? It doesn't even have batteries? Luddite!"
As a programmer for 18 years so far, I have no difficulty ignoring such people.
When the PDA's are significantly better, I will use them. Until then, the pocket notebook is just fine for my needs.
... can use these to get their work out quickly and easily. Since most DVD players can handle this you can just burn a VCD from your computer once you've edited the video.
Better still, you can resize your video to the correct resolution for VCD (352x288 for PAL, IIRC) from the DV capture (at 720x576) and save a huge amount of render time and disk space. Not to mention how much quicker Premiere handles the smaller video files...
I live in Singapore, and VCDs have already been widely used in schools to replace VHS tapes, for quite some time now. If I'm not wrong, VCDs and CD-ROMs have already been in use in schools here since about 5 years ago.
I suspect the reason why the US has not yet widely adopted VCDs is due to the large size of the country, hence the disability to change standards every once in a while, as compared to Asian countries. This is probably also why the handphone standards in US still lag behind Asian countries in general, which normally use the GSM digital standard.
A good development, nonetheless. At least VCDs don't have all the restrictions like region coding or encryption that DVDs suffer from. No RIAA or MPAA or whatever to try to reap profits from the education system.
Didn't we (actually our parents or even grandparents) hear exactly that before, when television arrived? "Great opportunity to bring more education to the masses." And what actually did happen? Where were these educational programs? Yes there were a few, some are still around, but over all TV was used for what is used today: Entertainment and commercials. We can count ourselves lucky if we still get some decent news casts! So why is all that going to change now when "all of a sudden some cheap medium is available" to broadcast education? Sadly I think it is not going to happen.
I'm sick of hearing people saying that technology XYZ will 'revolutionize' our education system. I'll curb my enthusiasm until schools begin even using TV and VCRs to their potential.
Who here read Shakespeare when there were in school? Did it take a month or so? Did you ever ask why you didn't just watch the video and get it over with in 2 hours?
<rant>
We aren't even using our books to their potential. What is being read in schools today? Moby Dick, Shakespeare...
What the hell do people that died hundreds of years ago have to teach me? They didn't even know the world was round, but as part of my 'education' I have to take a month out of my life to read what they have to say!
Thank god I read Hamlet. Otherwise I would have no idea what a problem ear-poison has become in our world today.
It's like, more and more, people are not being taught anything in school. That is, except to memorize, believe, and do what you are told by an authority figure.
</rant>
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Yep... and the CDTV (which essentially was an Amiga 500 looking like a CD-player) played them too, quite a few years before that.
So why do you think VHS got popular? It sure wasn't because you could "rent" och "buy" movies at the videostore.
We (as in the people) can make these now, its not very expensive. Making DVD's is very expensive for the home user. Besides they'll be replacing the DVD format with Blueray in a couple of years, so people might as well be playing with this now.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
They don't work in all, but MOST. (Since they are produced in countries where people have droves of VCD's) - Pioneers are generally good, Sonys are bad (they seem to stick to much to some 'standards')
Some players will only play commercial VCDs, and some (especially Sony's) will only work with certain brands of CDR/CDRW. If you have a difficult player, try buying one cdr of several different brands, and see what taste your player has.
Its easy to make one, get the tmpgenc mpg encoder from http://www.tmpgenc.net/ to encode a VCD. and get Nero http://nero.com to burn it on the cd.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
...like one of those people who don't want to learn *G*
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
... one giftet speaker can teach more in a minutte that you could read in the same time...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This is why, for my English courses for primary aged children, set to open in October, all the students receive flashcard, an audio CD, a video CD, and a CD full of web applications, all for reinforcing the English taught in class. It seems to be hitting a nerve among parents.
Put identity in the browser.
There are always some would will start this debate, claiming numbers on their side. But one thing is if what the numbers say, another is what they eyes see.
I've seen commercial VCD's who looked TOTALLY DAMN GREAT! I wouldn't have known it wasn't a DVD if i hadn't been told.
So it might be that technically it was way behind the DVD specs, so what.
Ok, so these VCD's were mastered by pro's of official material, and you are hardly likely to get the same if you fiddle around with a webcam in your living room, but then you wouldn't if you could burn a "real" DVD either.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This is the reason why public schools are chronically underfunded, to provide a steady stream of proletarians that will work to enrich their bosses without becoming rich themselves, and to steadily consume without question the worthless stuff the bourgeois constantly peddle them.
But if the poor start getting educated and rich, the world as we know it will most definitely crumble!!!
The point about reading Shakespeare rather than watching a video is you aren't getting someone else's interpretation. Do you view Winnie the Pooh through Disney's eyes or did you make your own mind up reading the original? I live in Sussex and there sure aren't any gophers here.
A certain religious prophet who died 1423 years ago (type xemacs M-x calendar P I) has something to teach you, because there are folks who take what he said very seriously indeed whose actions and opinions are very important in world politics today. I'm not a believer by the way, I'm just pointing out an example of why history isn't bunk.
The Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org
A collection of old movies and propaganda films free for download in several formats, including mpeg suitable for VCD.
Besides that, you can put all your family videos onto VCD and send them to all your relatives. Much more of a hassle to do with VHS.
If every form of digital media is "locked-down" in the future, I'll just go back to using the abacus and playing my quaker oatmeal drum. It's not worth it to appease every greedy corporate hand that reaches into the cookie jar.
IMHO the *killer* feature, that could put (S)VCD ahead of VHS/Film, is it's potential interactivity.
This press release, describes some DVDs sold with interactive flashcards. My two year old son has the 'Baby Dolittle - World Animals', and loves it. Unfortunately the latest releases are on Disney and are region encoded, but that's another topic =). Basically it's a series of still photos, and some audio clips. The
buttons are all you need for navigation. First you are shown a picture of an animal, say a dog. Then pushing next shows the same dog with the text "DOG" on the image, and a voice says dog. Pushing next again gets you an audio clip of the dog barking. This is very entertaining for a two year old, and now he knows the animals and their sounds. The same should hold for older kids if the media is compelling enough.There should be enough royalty free space stuff on the NASA site to make a few discs. And of course you'd be free to create graphics for say alphabet/math cards.
Enough rambling for one post. I've been thinking about doing something like this for a while. If anyone would like to contribute (audio/video/stills/art/whatever), drop me a note and we'll set up something on sourceforge.
I grab 2-3 porn VCDs a day from usenet. Sure beats the crappy little clips I had to settle for 5 years ago.
Well, maybe you can. Or, more accurately, while you may be able to read faster than you can listen, you may not be able to comprehend. It's all part of the different modes of learning. I have a friend who does not comprehend written words very well. If you talk to her, however, she will understand a great deal. I am the exact opposite. I remember almost everything I read but if you say something to me, then there is no guarantee I will remember it even two minutes later.
You need to move your opening tag up to the beginning of your post. It's not displaying correctly in Netscape 4.7.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
I keep reading about people talking about the cost of computers and DVD players in order to view Video CDs. I'm pretty darn sure, though, that the Sony Playstation (the first one) can play Video CDs just fine.
And the last time I checked, you could pick these things up used for under $40 some places. How about it? One of these machines could provide a great Video CD and audio CD player for classrooms.Of course, there are the issues of students bringing copies of the favorite first person shooters to class...
-Lawrence
Visit Zymurgy Records!
Every once in a while somebody asks me (in the role of CD-R FAQ maintainer) about distributing on VideoCD instead of VHS. I've gotten a few unsolicited VHS videotapes -- usually constructed of some incredibly lightweight material to reduce postage costs -- and I'm guessing I'd get a lot more if the discs could be sent out for what AOL pays to spam us with CD-ROMs.
The problems can be summarized in two statements:
(1) In the United States, dedicated VideoCD players are almost unheard-of, and a significant percentage of DVD players don't support VideoCD playback. I think most of the MPEG decoder chipsets support MPEG 1 and 2, so it's usually a matter of the DVD player company not wanting to spend resources on something that won't get used.
(2) Many DVD players can't handle CD-R media. Which is fine for large AOL-spamming runs, but poor for company demo videos that you only need a couple hundred of. The problem there is the laser wavelength; it costs extra to handle CD-R. Usually CD-RW works just fine, but the discs could be maliciously replaced with some educational material of an entirely different nature.
VideoCD is fine for a well-contained environment where you can verify that the hardware and media will successfully co-exist. Providing VideoCD as an option is reasonable, but it can't be the only mode of distribution.
The DVD FAQ at www.dvddemystified.com has more details.
This may sound like flamebait (so thats why a/c)
You are the main reason why most people outside the U.S. view Americans as stupid.
Why learn the classics? Why learn geography outside the 50 states? None of that shit matters; all that matters is the GBA in my hand or my PS/2 at home...Let me watch my Geraldo and Rosie and all that homogeneous crap spewed out by modern "media".
Let me take your arguement one step further, why study history? What can people who died 47-54 years ago teach me about the value of FREEDOM and TYRANNY? Or better still what can a bunch of hicks in New England kicking some British soldier's ass back a few hundred years ago have anything relevent today to my life?
Go back to your video game you troll.
BAH
laserdisc, quite sure of it...
You're right. I checked this out, and came across something called Compact Disc Video (CD-V; not Video-CD, V-CD or VCD); essentially, this is just Laserdisc and Laserdisc/CD hybrids under a different name.
This page gives a 1987 date for CD-V, and this page dates the official adoption of Video CD (i.e. MPEG-1) to 1993. There's more here and here about CD-V.
The CD-audio 5" disks are actually hybrid CD-DA/Laserdiscs (digital and analog) which is what threw me. (I was wrong earlier- it's the 8" discs that hold 20 minutes of video; the 5" discs hold a whole 6 minutes worth! Wow.)
I don't remember the phrase `Laserdisc' being used to describe any of these discs (5", 8" or 12"); but then, Laserdisc had pretty much bombed in the UK, so it wouldn't surprise me if they marketed all 3 sizes as CD-V.
This still leaves the issue of when VCD (MPEG-1) was launched. The 1987 date given in the URL above seems very early- I think the author of the webpage meant CD-V/Laserdisc (which I saw marketed in '89), or confused it with VCD... I could be wrong though.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Careful with their compatibility list. It's not bad, but I found it rather innacurate. Unfortunately, it seemed to err on the optomistic side, too.
EG. My PS2 can't play DVD-R discs of movies properly. Their compatibility list said it could. (I think this is due to people putting in a DVD-R and playing it for a few minutes, so they assume it works fine.) In reality, it usually plays ok until it nears the end of a disc - where it start skipping badly and aborts before the movie ends. They also claimed my Samsung DVD-812 could play MP3 and VCD formats. This seems to have come from its instruction manual, which does state this. Unfortunately, it also clearly states that the DVD-812 won't read any CD-R media. (So tell me, where do you get commercially pressed CD-ROMs full of MP3 music?) I think when most people check a compatibility list on DVD players for MP3 capabilities, they're assuming it'll play them from CD-R type discs.....
Convert your text into mp3's and listen to them at a high rate of speed.
Blind people know all about this, but if you listen to high speed text you will get used to it. Try gradually increasing the speed...
Eventually you'll be going through 3-4 lengthy books in a week and without eye strain.
Project Gutenberg provides the fuel, and textaloud mp3 provides the engine.
There has been a story on here about ATT's new voice engine, natural voices, and it's absolutely phenomenal. At their higher end voices, it's virtually indistinguishable from human speech. (It's WAY beyond the "hawking" voice now.)
Anyways, I'm hooked to text-mp3's... I think most people will be too in a few years.
BTW, there's a pretty thriving ebook community on IRC as well.
NEways... good luck if you were looking for this. If you weren't, hope you have a good appetite for dust.
VCD has never taken off in North America given the ease and cheap cost in production. I know that VCD is huge in HK, China, Taiwan and probably other Asian countries.
VCD is so yesterday, if you insist using CD-R as a medium, use SVCD to achieve almost-decent level of interactivity to your multimedia. But why to even mention VCD or CD media now -- VCD's piracy peak, even in Europe/U.S. was back in 1998-99, SVCD and DivX have replaced it after that totally.
/. people really should read "the industry news" -- http://doom9.net/ http://vcdhelp.com/ http//afterdawn.com/ http://digital-digest.com/
Blank, cheap "no-name" DVD-R discs cost $0.99 and can store 4.36GB (or 4.7 billion bytes if you insist using "Japanese" terms) which makes them on par with CDs when speaking of cost per megabyte. And the price of recordable drives is now around $300 and dropping rapidly.
And oh yeah, DVD plus R(W) is kinda dead. Geez,
I know there is a VCD format, but often Video Cd's are refered to as a CD with some video on it (sounds obvious, doesn't it). Well the format of the video could be one of many different formats. While there are players out there to play it, some are not free. If they are free often they have restrictions on redistibuting the software.
Companties that try to have a consistent computing platform, this causes all kinds of trouble. I recently ran into the problem with Real PLayer and Quicktime.
Putting a copyof the player does not solve the problem either. We do not allow users to install software themselves. it is restriced to keep a standard. I know this sounds overboard, but it keeps our critical apps running, makes support a hell of a lot easier, and keeps our network more secure.
Great Linux Site
Check your facts before posting..
m
http://www.afterdawn.com/glossary/terms/vcd.cfm
http://www.vcdhelp.com/vcd.htm
http://www.afterdawn.com/glossary/terms/svcd.cf
http://www.vcdhelp.com/svcd.htm
http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvd.htm
Summarum:
VCD
-MPEG-1
-352x240/288 (NTSC/PAL), 23.97/25.00/29.97fps
-1150kbps video, max. 224 kbps MP2 (yes, two) audio, CBR
SVCD
-MPEG-2
-480x480/576, 23.97/25.00/29.97fps
-max. 2600/2750kbps total (video+audio), VBR, MP2 audio (or MPEG 5.1, which is supported by handful of players)
-selectable subtitles
-multiple audio and subtitle streams
DVD-Video (DVD is the "mother standard", DVD-Video is the thing you have the movies on)
-352x240/288, 352x480/576, 704x480/576, 720x480/576, 23.97/25.00/29.97fps
-MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 video, max. around 8Mbps
-MP2, AC3, LPCM, DS2.0 or DTS audio
-multiple audio and subtitle streams
(as an addition, Chaoji VCD or "CVD" is otherwise the same as SVCD, but it was the original draft before SVCD was standardized and its only real differences are in different subtitle format and the fact that its resolution is more "manageable" 352x480/576)
Yes, someone could re-interpret the story when they make the movie. So what? Someone could do the same by making modifications to the books as well. What good are teachers if they can't choose the most accurate version from hundreds of different performances of Hamlet?
Besides, Shakespeare was a playright, no? His stories were meant to be watched, not read.
I do not have, nor do I want, emacs/xemacs.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Mass produced VHS videos are made by heating the
target tape and pressing it against the
master tape, at high speeds. It works because
the master is a material that maintains its
magnatism at higher temperatures than the
copy.
Perhaps the VideoCD lectures are a step forward from pure paper-based correspondence courses, or VHS for that matter.
... and their tax free status!
But eventually I hope to see interactive online education supplant many of the traditional courses being offered at universities today. The author correctly points out that the best teachers should be teaching everyone (instead of paying thousands of graduate students to regurgitate the same material, often in broken English and/or illegible handwriting). In one example I know too well, the undergraduates pay roughly $2500 per course, while the teaching fellow gets roughly $5000 to teach the course, which usually has about 20-25 students.
Do the math, and see why universities are running the kind of surpluses they do. Sure, they have to pay to the heat the building and scrub the toilets, but don't forget what they take in from alumni fundraising
We need online education so that folks don't need to mortgage their home to send little Jane to school. We also need online education to level the playing field so Tom can learn what Jane is learning even if Tom's parents don't have a home to mortgage, because what universities today call "financial aid" is just a joke to alleviate the guilt some of the overpaid university administrators feel, you know, the ones pulling in say $300K a year.
Aren't VCRs about half as a much as DVD players, aren't VHS a TINY bit more copy-proof (GASP, I need to have AND hook up 2 VCRs), and aren't VCRs just a bit more widely available?
I don't think my old high school, OCHS, had any DVD players (even DVD-ROMs), but they had at least 4 VCRs.
Also, business wise, VCRs are better bacause of cost efficiency: I can buy two for the price of one DVD player, and when one breaks, we're still slightly better off than having one DVD player.
Oh, and wouldn't tapes be a bit more durable than VCDs? SCRATCH....
VCD: Well, this one's shot.
Tape: Well, get a sticker, we need to re-label this...
Pay? Well, I don't care that much... ;)
Absolutely fascinating. I see no reason why it shouldn't work. I'll have to try it.
That said, control over indexing is critical, and you can index much faster with your eye than with a forward/rewind pair.
But I'll definitely try what you have recommended at some point. I had never heard of that before.
Some have said that "VCD players are too expensive". GET REAL.
.avi can be played, MORE places than VHS, MORE places than a CD-ROM). Think about that!
Most people have access to a 1998+ computer. A mod for a Playstation I costs very little. Newer portable cd players now support not only MP3 but have video-out ports for VCD. Many more DVD players support VCD than ever before.
The benefit of VCD as a format is that it can be played in so many of these varied environments (MORE places than DVDs can be played, MORE places than CD +Quicktime or CD +
And for those who said "isn't VCD for pirating?" -- Well, this is exactly why we NEED legitimate uses for VCDs... otherwise, DVD manufacturers will drop support for this nifty little format for that reason alone. If University courses were typically available on VCD, consumers would demand VCD from their DVD players.
[Also... If you're a computer animator, droping your animation onto S-VCD format and taking it down to a bureau for transfer onto s-betacam (an industry standard) is a simply fantastic time-saver.]
VHS -> VCD
S-VHS -> SVCD
DVD -> DivX
Of course, you can't (yet) play the DivX in your DVD player, so use SVCD for that too but be prepared to use 3-4 disks per movie (each SVCD disk holds 35-40 mins).
FWIW I hated Shakespeare at school and I still have a strong urge to deface any copies of Thomas Hardy's the Mayor of Casterbridge I come across. The hardest thing for me with Eng Lit (as a geek) was not in accepting that I wasn't any good at it, but in no-one being willing even to teach me what I was supposed to do just to get the exam pass I needed on a monkey see monkey do basis. Nice point about Shakespeare being meant to be watched not read. I'm still worried that you're advocating not learning from history though, but if that's my misinterpretation, sorry.
I think that it's michael's injury, not his daughter's, but the injury to him (as an athiest) is that his daughter has been brought up 'indoctrinated' in a pledge of alegience that forces people to honor a god that he doesn't believe in. This is really a conflict between him and his wife, but the government got into it by supporting his wife solely because she is christian.
I see support for that lawsuit as being under Jesus' admonition to "do unto others". If, for political or religious reasons, the dominant religion were to become non-christian, I would not want my grand children forced to pledge alegience to the new relition. As such, I'm unwilling to force others to pledge allegience to mine.
BTW: The words 'Under God' in the pledge are not ancient. They were inserted during the McCarthy era specifically to 'root out' non-christians so that they could be persecuted under the guise of being 'comunist athiests'. Those words are not there to support god. They are there for hateful reasons -- using religion as a weapon and tool of opression. As such, I see it as a perversion of Jesus' message.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
On the other hand, if students were to read NEW books, they would be reading about subjects that interest them, primarily because books written today address the concerns of today. Why teach Shakespear, and not Stephen King? Why teach Moby Dick, and not The Positronic man?
English classes, reading hundreds of years-old books, is like an astronomy class being taught from star charts with The Eath at the center of the universe. Those things do not represent the knowledge, questions, and concerns of people today... They address the concerns of people hudreds of years ago.
If you still don't agree with me, simply explain to me, what have I learned after reading Hamlet?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
We're agreeing, hoorah. There's probably a lot to learn from Hamlet, never got round to it myself, which proves your point. (I can almost hear the groans from the literary intelligensia.) Of course, if we only teach (young) people (in school) subjects they are interested in or that they feel are relevant, is that really in their best interests? I hated control theory because I thought it was all about controlling smelly chemical plants, until I realised I could build a better hi-fi with it.
We don't watch news reports from years ago (even though we may be taught what happened). Why are instructors forcing their students to read books that are hundreds of years old?
But hey, that was a secondary point anyhow. My point was always that no ammmount of technology can help if instructors are unwilling to utilize it.
<rant>
A great deal of money is being spent to teach instructors computer literacy, with no benefit besides instructors being better able to surf the web. Not to say some instructors don't make use of it. Just the idea that since the computer is a buzzword, teaching technology to instructors (many of whom don't have any need for it) has become a fix-all... a substitute for actually improving the education system in any meaningful way. Teaching them a skill, and having it benefitially utilized are two, unrelated, and entirely different subjects. The TV and VCR just happen to be a good example of technology everyone knows how to use, that could make huge improvements in education, but has been of practically no impact.
</rant>
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Hmmm, I thought the idea was so self evident that it didn't need mentioning. But, I guess the corporate management types are truly clueless. Someone brought the article references by the slashdot article to a meeting and wanted us to start doing this.
The rub is that we have been using VCDs for training video for almost three years now.
NRRPT/RCT