Most of you have probably noticed the influx of videos to electronicdesign.com over the past year or so. For the most part, these videos were shot at trade shows. Typically, a staff member at the show who knows something about video cameras hooks up with an editor to do video interviews.
We shoot with a handheld, harddisk- based camera. When we get back to the office, a member of our production staff adds a video intro and overlays some text to identify the speakers. Lately, we’ve been trying to speed up the process by sending the video back to the office for processing the next day or by sending a production person to the trade show and processing the video when the day is over.
We’re going through some growing pains, I have to admit, since most of our production department is busy working on the magazines. But this should work itself out over time, as both editors and production alike become used to video being an integral part of the job.
This whole video experiment started a couple of years back for us with the launch of EngineeringTV.com, a joint effort of the electronic and mechanical engineering publications that our parent company, Penton Media, produces. The ETV site got such rave reviews from both viewers and advertisers that we were encouraged to expand our video offerings on all of our magazine Web sites as well.
EDITORS IN THE FIELD At last month’s Design Automation Conference (DAC), EDA editor David Maliniak conducted 21 video interviews—a record for us and hopefully a boon to any viewer involved with EDA (see the figure). Video interviews are a departure from our traditional coverage, but we think it’s effective nevertheless.Embedded/Systems/Software Editor Bill Wong was on hand at April’s Embedded Systems Conference, filing copy for the magazine as well as video for the Web site. For example, Dan Monopoli of LeCroy showed off his Guitar Hero skills via an oscilloscope demo. Check out this interview and others at http://electronicdesign.com/shows/ESC2008/.
When he was at February’s APEC 2008 show, Analog/Power Editor Don Tuite spoke with representatives from International Rectifier, On Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, and other power industry heavyweights. You can find these video interviews at http://electronicdesign.com/subject/apec2008.
Meanwhile, Digital Technologies Editor Daniel Harris was on the scene at DesignCon 2008. Communications/ Test Editor Louis E. Frenzel tackled CTIA. And, I even shot video during my trip to the International Electronics Forum in Dubai. You can find videos from these shows and more via the navigation bar at electronicdesign.com.
THE ELECTRONIC DESIGN STUDIO We’re constantly thinking of new types of videos to deliver to our audience. We’ve just started filming new product videos, which you can view at http://electronicdesign.com/shows/new_products/index.cfm. Companies often visit us at our offices in Paramus, N. J., and provide great explanations of their latest products and technologies.Typically, these company spokespeople expect us to simply write about their products, and their presentations were prepared with print coverage in mind. They haven’t said no to our video cameras, though, as video can be an equally powerful medium for delivering their message.
We also see lots of great product demos. Last year when I was at our sister publication, EEPN, Bob Zollo of Agilent Technologies gave us a terrific demo of the company’s N6705A DC Power Analyzer. At the time, we had no video strategy in place. But I asked Zollo if Agilent would produce a video of the demo for us, and the company did. We posted the video on www.eepn.com, and I hope some of you got a chance to view it.
What does the video future hold? We’ll continue to conduct video interviews at all of the shows and conferences that we attend. We’ll also add to our store of new product videos and demos. What else would you like to see? We can do video tutorials, panel discussions, and whatever else our editors and readers alike can imagine. Let me know what you think.