Real Estate Technology

We're getting the questions again and again. "How do you do John's Tuesday Morning Coffee video blogs?" It's not as difficult as it may seem and you don't have to be particularly "techy" to do it. Here's the long and the short of it.

If you want to keep it simple. Get a Flip Video camera (any digital video camera or Flip model will do but we use the Flip Video HD) shoot your video and upload it to Facebook. The HD version automatically uploads in the correct format for High Def on Facebook which is really a pretty good unbranded player. YouTube also will do similar but users will have to select the HD viewing option there.

If you want to fancy it up a little. Get yourself a copy of Adobe Premiere Elements (iMovie or Finalcut will workthe same for any Mac users), available at Best Buy with Photoshop Premier Elements for $100. It's as easy as adding your video and choosing Add Titles and placing them where you want to. Then you choose how you want to output the file. I suggest Windows Media or Quicktime. Upload it to your preferred online video sharing site and your off. (You can also do this with Windows Movie Maker which comes on most Windows PCs but your options are much more limited)

How we do it. Tuesday Morning Coffee is shot on a green screen, also known as a chroma screen. You can pick up one (mine is colapsible) for around $100 on www.amazon.com. The trick with using a chroma screen is to minimize shadows so lighting becomes key. We're lucky that John's complexion is usually not "shiney" and that his office has very good natural lighting for video. When shooting footage elsewhere I use a lighting soft box, also available on www.amazon.com in the photo and video accesories. They can get expensive but you should be able to find one for under $150 with all the necessary parts.

The other important thing when using a greenscreen is your video software. Premiere Elements doesn't really do a great job but will work if you have REALLY good lighting. Adobe Premiere Pro gets a little better, and has an awsome titler, but I've found it best to go straight to the big guns with a copy of Adobe AfterEffects. AfterEffects allows you alot of control over the chroma and great effects other software simply doesn't have. You just import your footage add a Linear Color Key, Spill Suppresor, and Matte Choker and then play with the settings until you're happy with the keyed video output. Save the file and then import it in Premiere Pro, via the File menu, as a linked AfterEffects composition. Then ad titles, background images, video, etc.

I've started doing some cool things with chroma keying and virtual tours. Here's an example of a Green Screen Virtual Tour project that I've got in the works.

The keys for creating this video in High Definition. If you used an HD device to record the video you can output it as HD too. I have a lot of people ask how I get Facebook and YouTube to encode the video as HD. The answer is all in the file  format. Here are the settings I use.

  • 1280x720
  • 29.97 fps
  • Codec: H.264
  • Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels
  • Bitrate: 4,000-5,000

If your using the Flip Video you'll need to be sure an install the Flip Software so you'll get the 3IVX Codec for "descrambling" the Flip's compressed format. We post our video's using www.Viddler.com because of the custom players and removable watermark unlike www.YouTube.com. The only downside to Viddler...they're not on the HD bandwagon yet, but I expect it won't be long until they give in as well.

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