Water and Wastewater Dot Com publisher Joe Taylor recently broke new ground for the industrial equipment industry with his “Live Video Interviews” from PTX South in Charlotte, NC.

Over two days, Taylor and his daughter Diana produced and posted 27 video interviews on the sister website Powder and Bulk Dot Com. This online video first almost took place last year right here on the popular video sharing site at Water and Wastewater Dot Com, but a nervous show manager stopped the camera at the last minute.

Joe Taylor reports he is working on getting clearances from the major water and wastewater shows. In the near future you’ll likely be seeing live show videos from events such as the WEFTEC show or the AWWA annual meeting, ACE08.  In the meantime I thought you’d like this preview of what you can expect by taking a look at some of the best videos from PTX South.  This is a dry materials handling industry show where you’ll find some of the same equipment makers that you're familiar with.

I think you'll find the handheld camerawork by Diana Taylor has an authentic indie film feel that is perfectly in tune with the growing online video medium.  I found the best in-booth interviews involved a demonstration of some new piece of equipment.  Even for those who attended the show, it’s worth the time to take a look at these unrehearsed live demos, with their up-close views and the opportunity to replay the action as many times as you want.

Following are a few brief samples of some of the videos Joe Taylor said he found of interest:

In an interview at the 3Sigma booth, Scott Dahlgren demonstrates 3Sigma’s GeoMate™ Dry Material Feeder. Dahlgren describes how the feeder has been optimized for batching applications with its “Pulseless” feed and “Instant Off” capabilities.

On a visit to the Young Industries booth, Joe Taylor interviews James Mothersbaugh , who demonstrates a cohesive powder feeder that uses air pressure.  Young Industries provides solutions in pneumatic conveying, mixing, blending, size reduction, and air pollution control.

In his interview with Jack Paddock of Atlantic Coast Crushers (see lead photo),  we learn that the company posts videos of their customer material tests on a private page on Yahoo! Taylor told me you can do the same on Powder and Bulk Dot Com.  When you upload a video to this site, the default is for the video to be “public.”  During your video upload, simply select the “private” button. You can then email the video page address to those with whom you want to share your private video.

Joe Taylor says Keith Simpson of Spiroflow was a bit reluctant to do a video,  but Taylor thinks it turned out to be one of the best videos.  Even Simpson had to admit it was a success.   In an email to Taylor, Simpson wrote that he was surprised to find that he “wasn’t as frightening to watch” as he thought it would be.

You can find all 27 videos in the "Trade Shows and Events" channel in the Powder and Bulk Dot Com Video Center

Don Dunnington
Moderator

Computerworld's David Ramel has posted a great tutorial, "How to get yourself on YouTube, for business or pleasure." I'd recommend it for anyone who's been thinking about posting a video on this site but isn’t sure how to get started. Come to think of it, I’d also recommend it for those who haven’t thought at all about online video. After you read this you should have lots of ideas about using online video for your company.

Ramel even provides a live video demonstration of how he composed and uploaded his own video. The article provides a fairly comprehensive overview of why and where you should be using online video, plus a brief introduction to how it's done. He suggests several ways video can be used effectively in corporate communications:

• Executive presentations and company events: share important announcements, commentary and special events with your employees and customers with online video
• Employee training: I'd include customer training, too
• Help desk demonstrations: don't just tell; show
• Marketing: "A picture is worth a thousand words, and thousands of pictures streamed together at 29.97 frames per second is worth a lot more," Ramel writes. This is where video sharing often shines best.

It doesn’t take a big production to have a big impact. We recently launched an all-new website at www.ktron.com, and I wanted to see if the search engines had indexed our new pages. On the first page of search results for "single screw feeder" I found a video I had posted on waterandwastewater.com showing K-Tron’s S60 Single Screw Volumetric Feeder.

Some Production Tips
Ramel suggests these settings for the best results on YouTube. I checked with PowderandBulk.com's publisher, Joe Taylor, and he says these are a good choice for this site, too:

• MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format   
• 320x240 resolution   
• MP3 audio   
• 30 frames per second (technically 29.97)

Try Two Camcorders
Another good idea from Ramel: use two camcorders, capturing the same thing from different angles, or different things that are happening at the same time. Not only does this allow you more creativity in putting the final video together, as Ramel suggests, it also gives you much more latitude in editing for the very best sound bites without annoying jump cuts.

Don Dunnington
Blog Moderator

Have you tried sharing a video on the new Water and Wastewater.com Video Center? This is about as easy as it gets for equipment makers to demonstrate how their machines work.

You don't have to do a big production to do this. It isn't a TV commercial. Quick and simple are the norm for Internet video. For a discussion of Internet video production values see "A New Industrial 'YouTube' for the World's Engineers" on the IAOC blog.

How to Upload Your Own Video

Following is a step by step description of how easy it is to sign up and post your own video. The whole process takes just a very few minutes.

1. Click the Upload Tab

 
Enter your email, user name and password and click the Sign Up button.

2. Your Email Confirmation is Sent

My email confirmation arrived in seconds.


Click the link in the email and you're now a member of the video center.

3.  Describe Your Video

4. Browse for Your Video

Locate the video on your local drive and click upload.

5. Your Video is Uploaded and Prepared

Your video is converted on the fly to a small Flash file and placed in the Video Center.

6. Your Video is Online

 
This short video of a K-Tron S60 single screw volumetric feeder can now be seen in the Video Center.

Don Dunnington