Need to convert Video? Pull the Handbrake!

In the last few years, the quality and amount of video that a simulation program can generate has increased to levels unimaginable a few years ago.  Videos from AV Systems, GoPros, Mobile Phones, Zoom and Teams have become a vital part of our simulation efforts.  This has provided excellent opportunities for educational materials, debriefing, and research. It does present some difficulties though.  There are wide number of different video formats that these systems produce. There is a veritable alphabet soup of file types (.mp4, .m4v, .mov, etc. etc. etc). High quality videos come with enormous storage requirements.  Just one minute of 4K, 60 frames per second GoPro video can be 1 gigabyte worth of data. Even in a time of gigabit network speeds and terabyte data storage devices, space and file transfer times can be a challenge with these videos.

Fortunately, there is a free, easy to use software application to help with this.  Handbrake (https://handbrake.fr)  is a product that allows you to both convert nearly any video format into a more standard, web accessible one,  as well as easily convert large resolution (4K, 60fps) videos down to something more reasonable (1080p, 30fps). It will also do an outstanding job “compressing” the videos using standard algorithms to reduce the overall file size.  For example, GoPro cameras essentially send “raw” data from their video sensors to their memory cards. This accounts for their huge file sizes. Simply running the GoPro video file through Handbrake can reduce the file size by 95%, meaning that that 1 GB file would now be just 500 MBs.  The best part is that the quality of the video is barely affected. Most people, on most video monitors, cannot tell the difference. 

Handbrake has some standard presets for creating videos to host on the web, as well as allowing you to customize your file output to exactly your needs.

Try Handbrake to help with some of your program’s video needs!

One of our current Fellows had the opportunity to participate in the INACSL Visual Conference 2021 earlier this summer. Mikang Kim was fortunate enough to have her poster accepted to be one of the 90 posters exhibited this year. The INACSL conference had to be held virtually this year due to COVID, but that did not stop individuals from attending. The conference had over 450 attendees, and 148 speakers.

Mikang presented her poster: “Development of self-assessment tool in virtual-reality simulation”, which is a summary of her doctoral dissertation related to the recently emerging Virtual Simulation. Mikang focused on if using virtual reality simulation evaluation could be a key factor in the success of simulation-based education for nursing students. To learn more about her poster and presentation please click on the picture below.

Mikang has never presented at an international conference before, so this was an exciting new experience for her. We are extremely proud and happy to be part of Lena’s on-going journey and can’t wait to see what in store for her next!

For more information on our Fellowship program please visit Fellowship Program | WISER (wisersimulation.org)

WISER Highlights – Fall 2021