New tutorial video on Editing the Drum Palette on YouTube
For those of you who had questions about editing the drum palette here is a short tutorial video on this subject.
Editing the Drum Palette in MuseScore
This is the first of several tutorial videos I have planned, and I would appreciate feedback on how I can improve these, together with suggestions on Topics you would like covered.
Katie has already covered the basics, so I am limiting myself to more advanced stuff.
I am also in the process of setting up space on my website for MuseScore tutorials so that they can be downloaded if people want them, particularly as upload to YouTube seems to degrade the quality - and it's chopped off the very end of the vid!
Regards
Michael
Comments
Hi Michael, if this was your very first video tutorial ever, than you did a terrific job. Well done! As requested, a few remarks on how to improve the video tutorial.
Content:
* Add at the beginning of the video that this is a tutorial made with & for MuseScore 1.1. This should avoid confusion when people use future MuseScore releases, which will be different, especially for the drum palette.
* In your intro window, we see the title of the tutorial and the Musescore logo. Perhaps you could add the address in there as well http://musescore.org so people have a reference to the software.
Quality:
* The video is available in 2 resolutions: 360p and 480p. It should be at least 720p in order to make the text in the MuseScore interface readable. Improving the resolution is a must in order to reach & please an audience.
Audio: No remarks here. Good talking tempo and volume.
Captions:
* It would be great if you could create the English caption as well. Personally, my mother tongue is not English and sometimes I really had to concentrate in order to understand what you just said. Captions would help a lot and we could also include them on musescore.org so they are available for translators to translate.
License:
* You released your video under copyright, i.e. all rights reserved. For the Getting Started series, Katie used the much more liberal Creative Commons by-sa-nc, i.e. some rights reserved. In order for MuseScore users to use/embed/distribute your video without having to ask you, consider using a Creative Commons license.
Last but not least, a reference to a post by Katie where she describes how she created her video tutorials:
http://midnightmusic.com.au/index.php/2010/07/making-effective-tutorial…
In reply to A few remarks by Thomas
Thank you very much for these comments Thomas
1. I did wonder whether to include MuseScore's version number, that is easy to do but would be easier if I had access to a copy of the Splash screen which appears on launching MuseScore. I originally intended to use this, but couldn't get a screenshot of it as it was disappearing before I could hit the Print Screen key :) Athough I now have it in the video so I can take a snapshot of it from the video. The original image would be better though :)
2. I did put the web address for MuseScore at the end of the video, but there is no reason why it shoudn't be at the beginning too.
3. Quality - the video was encoded from Windows Movie Maker using the highest WMV setting available. I did try using the DVI-AVI setting, but the video looked so awful in Windows Media Player that I reverted to WMV. Played back on my laptop in fullscreen using Windows Media Player the text is clearly visible, but uploading it to YouTube resulted in a degrade in quality, which is one of the reasons I am making it available on my own website. Possiby the answer here is conversion to Flash? Or maybe I need better movie editing software - can anyone recommend anything Open Source??
4. Captions - It would be easy enough to use the script I used for the voiceover to generate captions for use as subtitles. I can also make this available on the website and/or YouTube for people to use, and for anyone wishing to translate it to use.
5. Licence - I shall look at the CCL - I've used it in the past for one of my liturgical arrangements, but I would need to check whether it is valid under UK law.
Thanks for the links
Regards
Michael
In reply to Thanks for these comments by ChurchOrganist
You will have to check whether the wmv file you created with Windows Movie Maker is 720x480 or higher. Of course, your source video that you potentially created with screencast software needs to be of a high resolution already. What software did you use to make the screencast and at what resolution?
In reply to Video resolution by Thomas
The WMV file is 720x576 encoded at 1140kbps.
As I said before - upload to YouTube resulted in a downgrade of quality - perhaps there is some way to control quality on the upload page??
The screencast was made with CamStudio 2.6b using their own vidoe codec and recorded at 1033x749 with 705kbps encoding.
Regards
Michael
In reply to Video Resolution by ChurchOrganist
There are a ton of video tutorials on how to create high quality youtube videos with windows movie maker. Just do a quick search on "youtube quality export windows movie maker". I presume it will help if you make your screencast with standard dimensions like 640x480 / 720x480 / 1024x768 / 1280x720, so youtube does not need to re-encode your video again. But I'm not an expert on this matter, so I can't help much more.
In reply to Tutorials by Thomas
I told CamStudio to record the MuseScore window at my normal working resolution of 1024x768. It came up with the weird screen resolution on it's own :)
Maybe I can try and fiddle with the frame rate and try other codecs to see which is best, but the original AVI file CamStudio generated is fine - all the detail is visible - it's just putting it through WMM that seems to cause problems.
Regards
michael
In reply to CamStudio chose the dimensions by ChurchOrganist
MPEG Streamclip (or VirtualDub) might be a better tool?
In reply to MPEG Streamclip (or by chen lung
Yes I thought that finding an alternative Video Editor might be the way forward.
I have got as far as looking at the websites of VirtualDub, Avidemux and Open Movie Editor, but haven't yet decided if any are worth downloading.
I shall now have a look at MPEG StrreamClip.
Regards :)
In reply to CamStudio chose the dimensions by ChurchOrganist
This video may help http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIm4SLndHU4
In reply to Upload CamStudio to YouTube in best quality by Thomas
Yes that was very helpful.
It has more or less confirmed that it's the export from Windows Movie Maker which is the problem.
I'm going to have another go with the 2.1 Mbps WMM codec see if that will upload in 780p.
Regards :)
In reply to Thanks for these comments by ChurchOrganist
On your conversion question I have used Any Video Converter, free for some time, not open source but there are two verions, free and pro. They had an issue a version or two back that caused quality problems. It appears that this has been fixed in the latest release. The program is fairly intuitive, but you may have tweak it from the conversion menu on the right of their main screen, resoulution, framerate, etc.
In reply to On your conversion question I by earthshaker
I seem to have got that sorted now.
The key is using the H264 Codec which is the key ingredient to movies in HD format.
It's also patently clear that the XP version of WMM just aint good enough to encode at a high enough quality for upload to YouTube in 780p format.
Serif MoviePlus is a real find - you can do zooms and all sorts with it :) Far better than WMM, and as a free download it is brilliant :)
Regards
Michael
Can it not be exported from WMM uncompressed?
In reply to Can it not be exported from by chen lung
I've tried exporting in DV-AVI format, but Movie Maker does something to the original AVI source which results in a poor quality and flickering display which is unacceptable :(
It also won't play on all Media Players - the Gnome standard player on my Linux box coughed with it and then got indigestion :)
Regards
Michael
In reply to Movie Maker DV-AVI export by ChurchOrganist
The right resolution and frame rate are more important, as opposed to the right encoding.
The intro to the vid has now been updated to show the MuseScore 1.1 splash screen at the beginning of the movie complete with URL
It has also been encoded at 2.1Mbps instead of 1.2Mbps which I hope will improve the quality.
The new version is here:
Editing the Drum Palette in MuseScore 1.1 (new version)
The original version is still availabe for viewing at present but will be taken down as soon as a 720p version is arrived at.
Regards
Michael
After an entire day spent researching mainly naff open source and freeware movie editors I finally hit on a goodie :)
Serif MoviePlus SE is a free download, although you have to pony up £4.99 ($8.99) to unlock the H264 video codec which appears to be the only one which gives great quality to HD projects.
You have to put up with the odd nag screen wanting you to upgrade, but you can do far more with it than with Windows Movie Maker.
I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone thinking of producing tutorial vids for MuseScore.
I am currently working on a remake of the How To Edit the Drum Palette video which I will put up on YouTube when I'm happy with it :)
Until then - watch this space.
Regards
michael
In reply to Serif MoviePlus SE by ChurchOrganist
Great to read you are persistent to find the best solution. Perhaps an idea: make a very short test and upload it to YouTube. Once you hit it, you can go back to your complete video.
In reply to Serif MoviePlus SE by ChurchOrganist
Michael, if you need a sideline, try sales, I am downloading Serif movie Plus as I write this. By the way I am holding you personally responsible for this. (not a bad thing trust me) Every bit of software I have on this computer other than the standard windows stuff, was downloaded on the recommendation of a friend, or I just took a chance. I have not been disappointed very often with my choices.
We shall see what transpires now, thanks for the ideas...and opinions.
Michael, you did good, I have a question however (not about the tut). If you open or create any other score project, does the triangle stay persistent? Or, does it just appear on the drum pallet, in the drum demo score? Of course I can find out on my own following your well done tut.
Regards, Ryan
In reply to Michael, you did good, I have by earthshaker
No it doesn't.
To make it permanent I think you would have to save your file as a template which would contain your edited Drum Palette when you created a score with it.
Regards
Michael
In reply to No it doesn't. To make it by ChurchOrganist
Thanks Michael, that is what I thought with the handclap issue a few weeks back, you have confirmed my suspicion.
In reply to Thanks Michael, that is what by earthshaker
Might be worth tagging that on to the end of the tutorial?
In reply to Might be worth tagging that by ChurchOrganist
I think it would be helpful, especially for newbies like me
In reply to Michael, you did good, I have by earthshaker
To make it stick in the drumset instrument, you will have to edit
instruments.xmlin the MuseScore install directory and select it in Preferences -> Instrument listIn reply to To make it stick in the by [DELETED] 5
I've had a look at this file, and nowhere can i see reference to the sounds in the drumset.
Am I missing something??
In reply to syntax? by ChurchOrganist
No you are right. For the two drumsets (5 lines and 3 lines), the list of instruments is omited and MuseScore uses its default full configuration. The "snare" instrument is probably a better example, defining two drum notes.
In reply to No you are right. For the two by [DELETED] 5
So it could be edited to include them then?
Presumably using the syntax for the Snare Drum entry.
There are one or two rough edges left to tidy up, but I've just about got this knocked into shape.
I've been checking out alternatives to YouTube for video hosting and come across these two via a Google search.
I would appreciate your feedback on the two different streams embedded in my site regarding quality etc
Stream one from Vidmeup - http://www.organspider.me.uk/Videmup.html
Stream 2 from Vidoebam - http://www.organspider.me.uk/Videobam.html
Regards
Michael
In reply to OK I think we're nearly there folks by ChurchOrganist
Personally, I have no preference over any video hosting service, but YouTube can't be neglected since they are the most popular one. Often people tend to search for MuseScore directly on YouTube. You don't want to miss these views I assume.
Apart from that, I still think the quality can be tuned up even more to 720p which would make it perfect for my smaller laptop window. With the videos I currently see, the text is still to blurry. Sorry about my perfectionism ;) Anyways, great job so far!
In reply to YouTube more popular by Thomas
1080p is the best one really.
I agree YouTube is the most popular one.
In reply to YouTube more popular by Thomas
The video was output from Serif MovieMaker in 1280x720 720p format using the H264 1 pass Quality codec
It is crystal clear when viewed directly from the AVI file on my laptop.
The problem is now that the video hosting sites concerned have altered the quality to SD, although Videobam does give an option to switch to HD, it is still blurry compared to the original.
As regards 1080p that requires recording the original at a screen resolution of 1920x1080 and I currently do not have a monitor capable of displaying that screen resolution.
Incidentally all of Katies videos except one are seem to be in 360p, the exception being in 480p
In reply to Video Resolution by ChurchOrganist
Sorry if I missed it, but did you upload the 1280x720 video to YouTube? If so, what's the link?
In reply to YouTube link by Thomas
I haven't yet.
I'm loth to cloud the waters still further by uploading a third unfinished video.
I will be doing so later today and will post the link here.
In reply to YouTube link by Thomas
Here's the final version guys.
Just uploaded it to YouTube and it has come out crystal clear even in 380p.
It is available in 720p for those of you who want HD quality :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvVBHW-O5Ww
I'm trying to collect together MuseScore support stuff on my webpage - so if you have anything you want me to link to, please email me.
Both the old links are still live but have been made unlisted so a YouTube search will send you to the final version.
I think a day off tomorrow then I'll get cracking on the next in the series :)
In reply to Ok guys this is it :) by ChurchOrganist
Well done ChurchOrganist! Terrific work! If you spread the link, make sure you add &hd=1 like http://youtu.be/PvVBHW-O5Ww?hd=1. This way, the hd quality will be used by default.
In reply to Terrific by Thomas
Thanks for the tip.
Can I also add that to the embed code in my website??
Incidentally the link to the MuseScore section of this is:-
http://www.organspider.me.uk/MuseScoreTut.html
But I'm still working on it - next step is to link the Narration transcript.
Regards
Michael
In reply to Thanks for the tip. Can I by ChurchOrganist
Here is a screen shot
![youtube.png]( "youtube.png")
In reply to Video Resolution by ChurchOrganist
I can appreciate it might be harder (depending on the set-up) to do 1080p.
In reply to I can appreciate it might be by chen lung
According to YouTube/Google statistics the number of people downloading in 1080p doesn't make the investment in a new video card and monitor worthwhile!