Promotional Video Advert for LCD Smartie

[fishthecat]

I'm thinking about making a short promo video for LCD Smartie which would show a variety of LCDs and VFDs, and some of the fantastic things we can do with them. If it's any good, I could then post it to YouTube etc.

What do you think? Would anyone like to help? Has anyone got any ideas or tips?
I want to only use free software and MS Movie Maker etc. Does anyone have any software recommendations? Does anyone know where I can get royalty free music for the sound track from?
I'll also need some video clips of LCDs/VFDs that I don't have. I've only got a 20x2 VFD and 24x2 green LCD. So some clips of 4x20 LCDs would be great...

Are there any large versions of the LCD Smartie Logo around that I can use? Is the font available too?

[IFR]

Great idea!
I'd like to see a video showing off many features of LCDSmartie with a nice techno beat in the background.

[mattcro]

I think a video is a great idea for getting folks interested in using LCDs. Potential users will be able to see LCDs in action and get some idea of what's possible.

I think the video should have as much stuff about LCD hardware and connections as showing off Smartie screens in action. After all, half the fun/battle is in getting your hardware working and installed in a PC or standalone enclosure.

I can contribute some stills and maybe video (haven't got very good bandwidth net access so no huge files...) of my LCD enclosure (my MO compatible PIC design) if you like.

A cool challenge will be to sync video of spectrum displays and track info to the video soundtrack!

[fishthecat]

Great idea!
I'd like to see a video showing off many features of LCDSmartie with a nice techno beat in the background.

Me to, I like a bit of techno. Who can write us a nice royalty free thumping sound track? Any Techno DJ's out there want to help?
This leads me neatly onto length. How long should a web promo be? How long would you spend watching it? 30s? 2mins?

I think a video is a great idea for getting folks interested in using LCDs. Potential users will be able to see LCDs in action and get some idea of what's possible.

Exactly. Us lot know that Smartie is a great program and most of the fantastic things it can do, so by promoting it, we might get people using it who would never have considered it at all.
We can help them with questions like "Where can I get a cheap pre-wired LCD from" and other beginners questions.

I think the video should have as much stuff about LCD hardware and connections as showing off Smartie screens in action. After all, half the fun/battle is in getting your hardware working and installed in a PC or standalone enclosure.

Good plan. If we can show new people that the wiring isn't _that_ bad, or that they can 'cheat', then we'll get more users.
What about a short promo to get people interested, then a longer 'introduction to LCD Smartie' video that goes through wiring and customer characters etc?

I can contribute some stills and maybe video (haven't got very good bandwidth net access so no huge files...) of my LCD enclosure (my MO compatible PIC design) if you like.

Interesting promo stills and clips are a great start. We should all post a few here to get a visual style going. What do you think of this one?

I hope lots of people will contribute. I think the video should show all sizes and types of hardware.

A cool challenge will be to sync video of spectrum displays and track info to the video soundtrack!

That's a brilliant idea! I think it's possible. If we spliced up the clips with the original sound first, then we can dub over the proper version over the top after. I should be able to do that in Movie Maker.

[fishthecat]

Here's a draft script I've put together. It'll be about 3:30mins long if left as is. Please comment on it as I've not written a promo before. Is it too 'info-mercial'?

SCRIPT

This is LCD Smartie. It is the best software for displaying data on LCD and VFD screens. LCD Smartie is absolutely free and is packed with features and plugins making it a must for all LCD users.

I?m sure you've seen many of these before. This is a liquid crystal display and this is a vacuum fluorescent display. Both are really effective and cheap ways of displaying information, but did you know that you easily hook them up to your computer?

If you?ve ever wondered how people display messages on LCD screens like: email alerts; rss feeds; or even the track title of their currently playing mp3, then you?ll be pleased to hear that you can do it all and more with LCD Smartie.

Firstly, a quick word about the hardware itself. LCD Smartie supports lots of different LCDs. What kind you go for depends on: how you want to connect it to your PC; how tech-savvy you are; and how much you want to spend.
There?s an option for everyone. They range from professionally manufactured, prewired LCDs that arrive ready to plug into a spare USB port? to bare LCDs, scavenged or bought off auction sites, which can be manually wired up to run off a printer port.

No matter which LCD hardware you choose, it?s most likely that LCD Smartie will be the software you?ll want use with it, and here?s why:

LCD Smartie is a small and easy to use program. Whatever you type in the settings window, appears on the LCD display. You control what shows up on the screen and its position and behaviour.
There are lots of inbuilt functions that you can use to add dynamic information to the LCD. For instance, adding the date and time is easy, choose it from the menu on the left and click insert. You can see what?s being displayed on the screen with the real-time emulation window.
There are also lots of free plugins that can even more functionality to the program. Here are some examples of the things you can do with LCD Smartie:

[Insert a montage of screens running on LCDs and VFDs and the EMU. Lasting about 1 minute.
Probably things like: system info, email, rss feeds, itunes/wmp/winamp screens inc winamp spectrum analyser, IM integration, lots of graphics & eye candy like analogue clock and animated gif plugins etc. ]

This is just a taster of what LCD Smartie can do. If it?s whetted your appetite and you?re interested in finding out more, why not visit our website: http://lcdsmartie.sourceforge.net

[fishthecat]

We need some eye candy to really show off LCD Smartie. If anyone has any ideas of screen that show Smartie at it's best, please let me know.

I'm thinking of little touches like the BBC logo in this screen. It's really easy to see what the screen's about when you see the logo.

[mattcro]

That script sounds good. Is there somebody who can do a convincing voiceover without being too gushy and hysterical? (I'm not keen on the super-modulated over-the-top commercial radio voice talent style ). We should consider the international audience and keep the language relatively straightforward and clear.

I'd suggest that any screens for inclusion should be kept fairly un-cluttered so that it's obvious what's being displayed - not just a bunch of numbers, mini graphs etc. We might know what data our LCDs are showing but often it's cryptic to the newcomer.

I like fishthecat's BBC screen - you can tell at a glance it's a BBC news feed.

I'll try for some shots of my LCD in action, but will have to devise some straightforward screens since mine tend to have unlabelled values that are confusing if you don't know what they happen to represent...

Ideas for obvious screens:
*Media players - Winamp, Windows Media Centre/Player, Zoomplayer, other HTPC media screens.
* System info - a CPU stats screen with fan, temp, speed etc. A memory/disk usage screen.
*Network stats - up/down speeds, graphs etc. Torrent or download progress. Email status.
*News or other RSS like fishthecat's screen
*Game stats if any available.
*Application status screen - I saw a Nero progress screen on the forum somewhere.
*Server health screen - mem/disk usage, cpu load, uptime, temps etc.

Any ideas for a soundtrack? If it's going to end up on Youtube and the like, I'd suggest keeping the video length relatively short. See what we can fit into perhaps a couple of minutes without whizzing through things so fast that viewers can't keep up.

[fishthecat]

If the draft sounds too gushy, I can re-write it a bit. eg I can change this line:

This is LCD Smartie. It is the best software for displaying data on LCD and VFD screens.

To

This is LCD Smartie. It's software for displaying data on LCD and VFD screens.

Do you think stripping out that stuff would be better?

[fishthecat]

Re: Screens.
elesquiador's nero screen is classy: http://forums.lcdsmartie.org/viewtopic. ... light=nero
It instantly shows someone what it does and that it's showing useful dynamic into about another program.

Does anyone have any suitable game stats screens?

[waterbury]

....