Netflix/NBC Deal Allows Streaming of The Office, SNL, and Many More!

Fresh off its invasion of Canada, Netflix recently announced a deal with NBC/Universal that will add a bunch of the entertainment company's network and cable TV offerings to Netflix's streaming service.

Starting this week, Netflix Watch Instantly users will have access to

* Episodes from every season of Saturday Night Live, including day-after broadcast of the upcoming 2010, 2011 and 2012 seasons plus hundreds of episodes from the first 35 years of SNL.

* More than 75 prior season episodes of Battlestar Galactica, as well as prior seasons of Destination Truth and Eureka.

* Every episode from the last season of 30 Rock, The Office and Law & Order: SVU, as well as earlier seasons of those shows renewed for streaming from Netflix under the current deal.

* All prior seasons -- and eventually next year's final season -- of Friday Night Lights.

* All prior seasons of USA Network's Psych, In Plain Sight, as well as all seasons of Monk.

As seen on The Consumerist

Find these Home Use titles here in Media Services:

Battlestar Galactica Season 1 - Season 4.5 - HU DVD 6601 - 6625
The Office Season 1 - Season 5 - HU DVD 4011 - 4028
SNL: Saturday Night Live The Complete First and Second Season - HU DVD 5051 - 5066

Todd's Tips - Easy Video Importation into iDVD

While iDVD is one of the simplest DVD creation programs out there, sometimes it can throw folks for a loop.  

Say for example, you had a video that you made and it's lingering in some folder somewhere.  You open up iDVD, find a template and then what?  Now, you can use the "Import" command from the File menu, but there's an even easier way to do it.

Now, say your video's file name is "myRadVideo.mov"

It's as simple as dragging the video from its folder into the iDVD theme.  Now, here's the tricky part.  Most of the iDVD themes have "Drop Zones" on them, delineated by a black and yellow caution-style border.  DO NOT put the video there.  That will simply make it part of the theme.  Instead, drag and drop the file somewhere else on the theme.  You'll know you've done it right when the file name appears on the screen.  

One last thing to do.  Select that file name and type the word "Play."  This will appear on the screen when the DVD is played as a clickable button.  You can leave the original file name, but DVD convention dictates that people are looking for that "Play" button and not some odd file name.  Don't want to give your professor any reason to not be able to watch your video.

DMS Help - Video Tutorials for Adobe Applications

There are zillions of videos and tutorials on the web about Adobe's products.  While many of these can be useful and some of them even dead accurate, why go to the barrel for an apple when you can get it off the tree.

Here's the tree: Adobe's Design Center Video Workshop.

The workshop includes tutorials on 47 different topics involving many of the tasks that can be accomplished by Adobe applications.  In addition to being categorized by topic, videos can also be found by selecting the various Adobe applications on the top right-hand box of the workshop.

And the best part about these videos, other than the fact that they are free, is that they are developed by Adobe professionals.  No where will you find better answers on Adobe's products.

Please note that you will need to have Flash player for this work.

DMS Help - Simple CSS Tutorial

Lately we've had some requests for CSS help here in Media Services. Apparently there are some classes here that have their students hand code CSS for various projects. Moreover, for anyone in the web design, communications or journalism worlds, it's good to have some idea of what CSS is and what it can do.

This is a great text tutorial that gives a highly readable and easy-to-understand introduction to CSS.

11th Annual Human Rights Film Series in Underway!

The School of Communication's Center for Social Media is co-presenting the 11th Annual Human Rights Film Series along with the AU Washington College of Law Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

Films will be screened on Thursdays between September 23 and October 28 from 5:30pm - 8:00pm at the American University Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall. Each screening will feature special guests and will be followed by an in-depth discussions of the films and the issues they approach.

3 Picks From Werner Herzog!

Werner Herzog was on WAMU 88.5FM last week talking about three films that he highly recommends you see:

Treasure of the Sierra Madre - HU DVD 1022
Viva Zapata - HU VHS 1657
Swing Time - HU VHS 7048

Read about it here or...

Listen to the WAMU/NPR segment here:


Here is a list of some of the Herzog films in our collection:
Death for Five Voices – HU DVD 460
Land of Silence and Darkness – HU DVD 1364
Signs of Life – HU DVD 1421
Wheel of Time – DVD 1563
White Diamond – DVD 1578
Grizzly Man – HU DVD 1682
Aguirre, The Wrath of God – DVD 1807
Rescue dawn – HU DVD 3419
Fitzcarraldo – HU DVD 3540
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser – HU DVD 3541
Even Dwarfs Started Small – HU DVD 3542
Lessons of Darkness/Fata Morgana – HU DVD 3543
Heart of Glass – HU DVD 3544
Little Dieter Needs to Fly – HU DVD 3545
Stroszek – HU DVD 3546
Nosferatu The Vampyre – DVD 3875
Encounters at the End of the World – DVD 5029
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans – HU DVD 7042

Woyzeck – VHS 4248
My Best Fiend – VHS 6287
Herdsmen of the Sun – HU VHS 6458
Cobra Verde – HU VHS 7088