Pro Editing @ Home

by Kevin P McAuliffe

In tough economic times, like today, every decision you make in regards to how you spend your money is important. I have always been a very huge fan of self-paced training, as it not only helps everyone from beginners to advanced users alike, but the discs (or books) are very handy to have on your shelf if you need a quick refresher. I had the chance to talk to Paul Holtz, who is not only the President of Class On Demand, a California based company that offers self-paced DVD training on a variety of topics from Adobe's Production Premium CS4 to Final Cut Pro to Vegas to Media Composer, but he is also an instructor on COD's Pinnacle training series. Let's see what Paul had to say about his company and what their training has to offer.

PE@H: Can you give us a bit of history of Class on Demand?

PH: I started in the creative and media industry 20 years ago. I have really done it all but I loved compositing and 2D/3D effects creation. I had some successful  Effects Plug-ins, HoltzFX I and HoltzFX II on Pinnacle Hardware. During this same time I was also Editor in Chief of "The Lamp Magazine" from 1997-2001, which was the first publication that focused real-time compositing for concert tours IMAG (Image Magnification) and television TD’s. My 15 minutes of fame would include Art Director, IMAG, for Tina Turner’s “24/7 Tour" and Bette Midler’s “Miss Divine Tour", Technical Consultant and Trainer at ESPN, ABC, NBC, CBS, CBC, CNN, The Weather Channel, Gosh that is a lot. I currently have a title, "Complete Training for Pinnacle Studio" educating thousands consumers around the world. Since I had also been an onsite trainer in Video Production and Post production for many of the Major Networks and Film Studios, 12 years ago we decided to bring this same quality education to everyone without the expense of Live trainng. Class on Demand was born. Video-based Training allows for inexpensive high quality training from the best artists and producers in the world, right on you're PC. We pride ourselves on the incredible Talent we have under contract with Class on Demand. They have real production backgrounds. We have been recognized with dozens of awards for excellence in our educational products. Now every student can have an industry recognized Guru sitting right next to him or her and follow right along with the best of the best. We know how people learn. We have designed the training based on our tremendous experience in classroom settings. But when you have to put aside our training for a few hours, days or weeks, you can review and pick right up where you left off. You can’t do that after you walk out of an onsite course. We also work with the Software Manufacturers closely to co release training courses at the same time new software products are released. Because of these great OEM partnerships, we also develop COD training directly for many of the manufacturers, to be included with the software.

PE@H: Why do you think that "self-paced" training has really taken off?

PH: In this tough economy, many people have been re-deployed or laid off from their job. We provide them with affordable ways of polishing up either old skills or learning new skills to help them become more marketable in the current job market. Another substantial market for us is the student just graduating from a higher educational institution. Many are finding out that they need a several other skills not learned during school. They need a quick and cost effective way of acquiring these skills while they search for that first important career focused employment. Even manufacturers are pushing out, more than ever, new products so that they can be competitive. For the end user all these new tools and software choices make keeping up with the times a bit more challenging thus making self paced learning ideal.

PE@H: Do you think that DVD training has an advantage over class-based training?

PH: Cost savings is a big one. It would cost far more than one of our courses to have your favorite trainer sitting next to you for the day. You need to factor in the day rate of the instructor as well as all associated travel and lodging expenses. You are also at the mercy of the time away from your office or business. How much is lost opportunity while you are gone? All this has to be considered versus a Class on Demand self paced course that you can watch at more convenient times. Probably the number one reason that Class on demand Training DVD's are so effective is that you have Instant access to chapters when you need a refresher on that topic. Most people only remember a small potion of what they learn at a live training seminar once they walk out door to leave. We are always at your fingertips.

The Basic Training for Adobe's PP CS4 takes a look at all the applications in the suite, plus a few added bonuses

PE@H: What would you say is the cost comparison between class and DVD training?

PH: We have found that typically you are at about a 10-1 cost savings . A course that might cost $1000-$1500 including expenses is about $100-$150 for a Class on Demand equivalent course. Plus with COD you have all the benefits we just talked about including being able to review again and again.

PE@H: You have quite an extensive DVD catalog for your training.  Are there plans to take your training online?

PH: Actually, we already have online training through a number of partners. A great example is Avid. If you go to Avid’s online university which is called ALEX (Avid Learning Excellerator) many of the courses that you have access to are Class on Demand courses. But the short of it is we will have all of our titles available online in early 2009.  We will offer many popular methods of delivering our content including DVD’s, Online, and Web 2.0 offerings. DVD’s will continue to be popular though, because of their convenience of not worrying about a fast internet hookup. Many of our customers still need to work and learn on a plane or at work with limited access to the internet because of firewall issues, plus you can share a disc with a Colleague if needed. You can’t do that with an online program that is locked to a particular IP address. Even with instant access, DVD’s currently still have a place as a delivery method. Because the need is growing, however, we will offer users the convenience of various delivery methods.  

PE@H: Looking at all the training you provide, which training would you say is the most popular?

PH: That’s a tough question because we deliver both Professional and Consumer Titles and it is an entirely different market based on a percentage of penetration. But Adobe titles are always popular for us. We have award winning products for CS, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, and of course PhotoShop.  Our Basic Training for CS4 has been very well received as well as our Final Cut Titles- Basic training for FCS2 and Complete training for FCP6. We also have 3 very popular consumer tiles for Windows Vista, Mac OSX Leopard, and Pinnacle Studio. These are some of the popular mainstream tiles I can think of off the top of my head, but all of our titles fill a need.

Tim Kolb, your host for the Adobe Production Premium CS4 training

PE@H: What do you look for when picking an instructor for one of your courses?

PH: We look for the best of the best. We sign artists that are professionals in their field. Our instructors are the people that produce the Movies, write the books, help develop the software, as well as are active in their creative community. They are well known for their excellence and that is why we sign them. A couple of quick examples are Jerrod Davis- our Lightwave Guru, and Tom Wolsky- our Final Cut master.

Jarrod is a terrific trainer who is an Emmy-Award winning Visual Effects Artist. Jarrod has worked on numerous television, film and commercial projects including Van Helsing, CSI, 24, Battlestar Galactica, Century City, Firefly, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Star Trek: Voyager.

Tom is like the grand old master that loves to teach and his students love him for it. Tom is on the Board of Directors of the Digital Media Academy, for whom he is an instructor in Final Cut Pro at their Stanford University summer program. Tom is an internationally known guru on Final Cut and the author of five Final Cut instructional books. Tom also developed video journalism curriculum for Apple Computer.
All of instructors have similar high caliber credentials.

PE@H: What new courses do you have coming that we can look forward to?

PH: Even though our library is already quite extensive, we are constantly adding new titles for all the major OEM’s like Adobe, Newtek, Microsoft, Novell, HP, and many others. It will be a busy and exciting year for us. We have current partner bundles with many companies like Sorenson, Telestream, Grass Valley, and Avid/Pinnacle, that include our training, either through the channel, or with the software. These are ongoing relationships that need constant revisions.

Current training line-up at Class On Demand

PE@H: Why should people look to Class on Demand for all their training?

PH: There are many reasons as we have discussed, but here are the top benefits to Class on Demand training. Class on Demand training is very cost effective. It is going to cost about one tenth of a similar classroom based course.  Recognized industry experts will be your instructors on all COD courses. We include Broadcast quality graphics and video footage so users can immediately follow along without trying to figure out how to import Video and Photo's before the training even starts. There is a real sense of accomplishment after 5 minutes into the training as users have already completed their first project . We build on that experience to more advanced chapters. On our consumer titles, we demystify the world of Video, Graphics, Creating DVD's, sharing your finished video on You Tube, My Space, and much more. Since we came from a high quality production and special effects background, the quality and "watch ability" of our programs are very well received. Our training is not just endless chapters of screen shots with a talking voice. We have wonderful interactive menus that allow the student to access any part of the training at any time for further review. We also include the instructor on Camera throughout the training for that "human" element. It's as close as possible to having instructor in the same room with you. And finally the production value of our products is outstanding and polished to keep the student engaged. No one learns anything if the training is boring and people are falling asleep during the lessons. And, last but not least, is the depth of our catalogue. You will typically be able to go to Class on Demand as a one stop shop for most of your training needs. Our catalogue grows all the time so we encourage all of your readers to take literally 15 seconds to sign up on our site for our popular newsletter at classondemand.com. It is a great resource for free training chapters, doses of tips and tricks, as well as discounts and important events. We appreciate the tremendous loyalty and support our customers have given us over the years. This loyalty has helped us grow into one of the major providers of software education in the world. We will always create timely, high quality products for our users. It is what we are all about.

I want to thank Paul for taking the time to talk to us. As I had mentioned before, I am a huge fan of self-paced learning, so watch for a review of both the Adobe PP CS4 Basic Training and Final Cut Studio 2 Basic training coming up very soon. If you are looking to expand your knowledge of a current program, or want to learn something new, check out Class On Demand's training at www.classondemand.com .