What will I need to get started?

You probably won't need everything on this list, but we've attempted to set down a shopping list of all the things you might ultimately want to have for a complete Landro play analysis system.

First, you obviously need the Landro Education Edition software, one license for each faculty or lab computer where video will be tagged or cataloged.

The most effective educational use of Landro involves copies of Landro Student Edition licensed for each student enrolled in the program using Landro, for use on his or her own personal computer. Student Edition licenses are handled as part of a package purchase and are not presently available as individual copies.

You may also want the Landro Education Presenter software, which is a low-cost, playback-only version of Landro ideal for classroom use with a projector or large screen. The Presenter is effective anywhere that Landro is only needed to play back video tagged and cataloged elsewhere, without the cost of a full Landro Education Edition license.

You need the computers to run the software. Each computer can be a desktop or laptop PC, as long as it meets our system requirements.

You need to get video into Landro, and the recommended way to do this is using a Landro capture box accessory. This is a small electronic box, about the size of a deck of cards, that captures analog video and audio from a camera and microphone and stores it as a high-quality file on a USB stick. You generally want one capture box for each room where video is recorded.

You need a camera for each room where video is recorded. The specific type of camera doesn't matter, as long as the camera has either an S-Video or composite video output.

You will probably want a tripod for keeping the camera level while recording events. Alternately, you may want to use a wall mount for the camera for a more permanent installation. (However, a wall mount makes it harder to adjust the aim of the camera, unless you invest in a camera system with Pan/Tilt/Zoom capabilities; these are more expensive cameras, especially if you want better than security camera quality of video.)

You will probably want some sort of microphone system to capture the audio in a session room, as a better alternative than using the microphone in your camera. The microphone system must have some sort of amplifier, because the capture box needs "line level" (pre-amplified) audio signals; a passive microphone input will not work.

If you will also be getting video for Landro from VHS or DVD, you will need an extra capture box for use with your DVD player or VCR to convert the video into digital files usable in Landro.

Read over our video capture notes for recommended devices for this purpose.

For presenting video in front of an audience, you will probably want a larger display than the screen of your laptop. The usual approach is to use a video projector that accepts VGA input. Ideally this should support at least 1024x768 screen resolution; 800x600 is the very minimum resolution that can work for Landro playback. (You could use a large flat-screen monitor that accepts VGA instead, which allows you to display video in more room lighting, but this is typically more expensive as well as smaller.)

You may find it easier to present video in front of an audience if you don't have to keep pressing keys on the laptop. A media PC remote gives you more freedom to move around while you present. (Landro Personal Edition accepts voice commands to control playback, but then it would be harder to also talk to your audience since Landro might try to interpret your comments as voice commands.)

For capturing video in the capture box, and for exchanging Landro video files with others, you will want to have either USB memory sticks or USB drives. These come with a wide range of capacities and prices. A useful rule of thumb is that an hour of Landro video requires somewhere around one gigabyte (1 GB) of storage.

 
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