In the past, there was a bit of criticism on our teaser video. For many people, it did not really help to understand the main ideas of Docear. Others were complaining about the “annoying” background music. Well, in the past week we created a new video.
For the best viewing experience watch the video in HD directly on Vimeo. Watch it in full-screen but do not upscale it (you can disable scaling in the top-right corner, after switching to full-screen).
We hope that the video illustrates the ideas behind Docear more comprehensively than the previous video. Unfortunately, no one in our team is a native English speaker. So, right now, I had to narrate the video with my great German accent (and yes, I know, my voice is maybe not the most beautiful one to narrate a video). Of course, we would prefer to have the video narrated by a native English speaker. Therefore, our question to all the English Docear users out there: Would you be interested in narrating the video? All you would have to do is to listen to the video, and re-record what I am saying in the video (feel free to correct any grammar errors and rephrase the script, when necessary). If you are interested in doing the narration, please send an email to info A/T docear.org. We could send you the raw video file (created with Camtasia) or you could just record the narration and send us the wav or mp3 file, and we will add it to the video.
And a general question to all of you: How do you like the video? Are there any parts that you don’t understand? Parts that are too long? Do you like the background music? If not, do you have specific suggestions for better music?…?
Finally, we have another question to all the HTML/CSS gurus out there. We are not satisfied with the way the current video is embedded into our website. We would love to have it the following way. On our homepage should be a small thumbnail of the video (it could be a simple image, or the ‘truly’ embedded video). However, when a visitor clicks on that thumbnail…
Thumbnail on our homepage
… the video should open in a new layer that expands to the entire screen but should not become larger than the maximum video size (i.e. 1184 x 666 pixels). I have tried several WordPress plugins, tried to code something myself, but nothing worked. Can anybody help us with this, and either point us to an appropriate WordPress plugin, or tell us which HTML/CSS code to use?
Expanded video in full resolution taking the entire screen
Update: We found a narrator 🙂
4 Comments
John · 5th October 2013 at 02:05
Hi Joeran,
if your english narrator is unable to complete the recording, for whatever reason, I’d be delighted to help out. I have full access to a professional recording studio and many voice over artists – many of the tv adverts in the country where I live are made here. If it would have any value, we could also record it in Hindi, Mandarin, Cantonese, Indonesian/Malay and many other asian languages. In time, hopefully I can find people to undertake full docear conversions to those languages.
best regards,
John
Joeran [Docear] · 5th October 2013 at 16:02
John, thank you very much for your offer, but I just received the narration from our English speaker. However, if we should ever need another narrator I will gladly get back to your offer.
Rachel · 3rd October 2013 at 17:58
Overall I like the teaser, I think it has a great explanation of what Docear can do. I definitely agree you need a native english speaker to as some of the pronounciation is a little distracting and there are a few nuances that could be improved. I don’t understand the pirate/bearded lady/gun shot, it is confusing. The only other suggestion that I have is that you improve the heading/text shots a little. I don’t think you need “Chapter 1”, “Chapter 2” just the headings and perhaps the font, colour etc, could do with a little polishing. I love Docear and think everyone should use it. I don’t know how I would have ever managed to write up my research without it so well done. I even learned a few things I didn’t know from the video so that is awesome too. Keep up the great work.
Joeran [Docear] · 3rd October 2013 at 18:04
Thanks for your feedback. We already found someone to narrate the video. So, in a few days the video will have a proper English narration 😉 We will also replace the “pirate” girl. It was intended to illustrate the “Docear will revolutionize your research process” expression.