Mastery Group South

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Creating your own Interactive Training Part 1

Converting existing video or Powerpoint presentations to the Mastery Interactive Platform - Well, the Powerpoint conversion is the easiest, so I will leave that discussion until later.  Let’s just focus on what it takes to make an interactive video training program out of your existing video.  This is a request that comes from many customers as they try to add site specificity to their OSHA compliance training programs.  OK...so you have yourself some video.  The first step is getting that video on to your computer.  That used to require special equipment and may still require something additional today, if your video is on VHS tape.  Before I get carried away, I have to remind you that you should own the video...not just own the tape, but the own the rights to manipulate it.  If you are not sure, ask.  If you filmed the video yourself, then there is no question.  If it is on tape you will need to get it to the PC.  There are many ways to do this, you may opt to check out products from companies like Pinnacle.  However, if you only need a small amount of video converted, you may opt for a service bureau to do the work for you.  Just search Google or others for “VHS video capture” or “VHS video conversion”.  You will want your resulting computer video to be in one of the MPEG formats...preferable MPEG-1 or MPEG-4.  You will also want your software to have the ability to break the video up into small segments.  Stay tuned for part 2.