About EFR
What is EFR?
The Electronic Film Review (EFR) System was designed to aid the utilization of film in the learning process. The system allows the user to define certain segments of a DVD to play. Any clip or series of clips from a film can be played during a lecture without the instructor having to queue the DVD. Alternatively, the system can be used to skip selected clips during the playback of a film (for offensive segments). Annotations can also be added to a film, a feature that can be particularly useful for language learning in a one-person-one-computer setting.
The EFR approach is a type of Customized Video Playback (CVP). About CVP (PDF)
- Customizing the viewing of a film
- To show a few selected clips for a lecture or
- To show an entire film except for a few selected clips (e.g. potentially offensive clips)
- Annotating a film for language learning, especially in a one-student-one-computer setting.
To find out more about the applications of EFR, please explore the menu options in the All Topics drop-down menu. The site is under construction and this menu contains links to all of the completed pages. More pages and navigation options will be available soon. Thank you for your patience.
Customization process
The EFR system consists of three main programs: EFR Aid, CDL Builder, and the EFR Video Player. EFR Aid allows the user to define clips from a DVD. These clips do not have to be chapters of the DVD. A clip can span chapters or be very short. Through EFR Aid the user defines the boundaries of a clip. The clips defined in EFR Aid are used either to skip certain segments of a DVD or play segments. The user can choose to define clips that will be skipped or clips that will be played. Once the desired clips are defined and saved as a cliplist, they can be exported as an EFR file to be used by CDL Builder.
CDL Builder is used to open EFR files, which consist of a list of defined clips, and make that list of clips into a playlist for DVD playback. In CDL Builder, the user specifies which clips will be skipped and which will be played. When the playlist is ready, the user saves the playlist as CDL and VCL files.
The EFR Video Player allows the user to play DVD playlists that have been created. Once a playlist is loaded in the player, only the clips that have been selected will be played. In the case of skipping clips, only the clips surrounding those that were selected for skipping will be played. The EFR Video Player also enables the user to jump to any clip in the playlist.