My first video production -- on Linux: "ubuntu usability testing"

I decided to do a simple usability testing... involving my mom and ubuntu...

I set up this machine for my mom cuz this guy could hardly move when running XP....  Therefore, I put ubuntu on it instead.

Then, as I was messing around on this ubuntu machine, I thought of puppy... I have always liked the baby blue color of the default puppy interface... at least that version I got...

So I thought... because it is so cute... it must be more usable for my mama.  (some logic here... 8-O lol)

Just before I wipe the machine out and put puppy on... I decided to do a "usability testing" on my mama using ubuntu...

End result: It worked perfect because I left only one icon on the desktop... all that she had to do is to turn on the computer, double-click on the Firefox icon, and, the Taiwanese stock market page of Yahoo will be loaded by default.  I was having some difficulties getting her to turn off the machine when trying to have her retest it again....  8-O lol

Regardless, the following really boring clip as the end product...



Step 1:

Importing the clips.  

When the camera is connected to the computer, you should see the pop-up window asking you which software program to use for further processing. 

If you select F-Spot, you should be presented with the next window.

Select the pictures to download... Chinese version.

Select the pictures to download... English version.

Once you selected the files you want to download, click "Copy."

When the process is done, you would see the window like the following...

Download complete window in Chinese.

Download complete window in English.

Editing the video 

I have used the PiTivi program to edit the video.  The process is straight forward... with the only trick... for reason known, on the desktop where I have installed the Chinese version of Ubuntu, to import video, you have to use the import icon that looks like a green cross.

However, when testing it out running the os directly from my usb drive using the thinkpad laptop, it did allow me to drag and drop the videos into the program...

The PiTiVi program that came with the ubuntu install.

Drag and drop videos into the PiTiVi program.

Drag and drop videos into the timeline in PiTiVi program.

Converting from .ogg file to avi file

Unfortunately, the output of the PiTIvi program is in ogg format.

After I uploaded the file to youtube, it would only play the sound but not the images.

As a result, I had to use the mencoder program to convert the .ogg file into an avi file.... after a lot of trial and errors, it finally worked...

(Please see my other posting on how to use mencoder to convert .ogg file to avi.)