Tips & Tricks

NOTE: Due to an anomaly with H264 and Flash, the height and width of your media assets should always be even numbers (regardless of your compression method). Odd numbered resolutions may result in image distortion or thin white lines at the edges of the video.

1. Prepping your media assets.

With the release of version 506, users now have the option to skip video compression on Export. (See Project Settings > Export > Compress Video.) With Video Compression deselected, Korsakow will no longer recompress (or ‘transcode’) your media assets using H264 or FLV during Export (although it will still change the file extensions from .mov to .flv).

However, if your media assets have not been properly prepared at the beginning of your project, according to our guidelines (below), especially in terms of frame size and compression codec, you will experience problems exporting your Korsakow film. (The best solution in this case is simply to turn video compression back on.)

With properly prepared video assets, skipping video compression will greatly increase the speed of your workflow.

Method X, using MPEG Streamclip (free video compression software). Thanks to Florian and Dayna McLeod for these recipes! NB These are not ‘sure-fire’ recipes, but personal preferences. We suggest using them as a starting point.

• Export all of your video files from Final Cut (for example) in uncompressed format, and import into MPEG Streamclip for batch processing.
• Test drive one of the following media compression recipes:

Method Y, using Apple Compressor (comes bundled with Final Cut).

• Import all of your full resolution files into Compressor
• Change the compression setting to Custom > Quicktime H.264
• Choose a destination folder to save your new files
• Select all the clips and drag the new custom compression setting to these files
• Select all the clips, go to the Target menu and under Destination select a place to store your newly compressed clips
• Click on the Submit button
• Give a name to this batching process
• click OK.

Other Tips & Tricks for Happier Korsakow Filmmaking:

2. Put all prepped media into one directory before starting a project, and don’t move it or rename it during the life of the project. (Always back up all your work!)

3. Don’t map out the project in advance. Korsakow films are not like ‘Choose your own adventure’ stories, ie they don’t have fixed links.

4. Set the grid in the Interface Editor to match the aspect ratio of your video assets, eg for 4:3, try setting the width=40, and height=30.

5. SNUs can be created from still images. Drag the image file (eg a jpg) into the main Korsakow window. Double-click on the image file to SNUify it. The default duration of a still image is 5 seconds. To adjust this duration (currently up to 30 secs) right-click (Windows) or control-click (Mac) on the still image and select ‘Get Info’. The duration can now be adjusted using the slider.

6. For test exports, use the Draft Export option (File > Export > Draft for Web). NB If you are already skipping Video Compression (see above), you do not need to use the Draft Export option. Draft Export creates a low-res, cached export which will open automatically in your default web browser (eg Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome) as soon as it is done. Since it is cached, you cannot save this export.

7. Overwrite older exports, but don’t overwrite all your video assets every single time – unless the content of previously exported video assets has changed. In other words, changing the interface design or SNU information (eg keywords) or Preview text only affects the index.html file, so there’s no need to recompress your video assets.

8. Playback controls: A k-film can be paused using the space bar. The current SNU can be skipped using the forward arrow. A k-film can be restarted simply by clicking on the reload button in the browser’s toolbar. A viewer’s path through the k-film can be recorded by deploying the History widget in the Interface Editor.

9. Any SNU in a k-film can be shared or embedded on another website. The viewer just needs to float their cursor over the current SNU and click on the ‘Share’ button that appears in the top right corner of the SNU. NB This feature only appears when your Korsakow film is played on the web.

10. Two advanced options that Florian uses, ‘Keep links per line’ and ‘Clear links per line’, can be accessed by adding special OUT keywords while SNUifying: Keep links per line (three dashes without spaces: – - -) and Clear links per line (the letter ‘x’ three times: xxx). Click here for a very simple demo.