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Art Jamboree [Time Lapse]

argh, blip.tv shut down… no video!

Wahoo! We had a good time at the Art Jamboree at City Hall… and I even wrote all about it on the Makerspace blog, so here is the video I created during the event…

I had a camera connected to my MacBook and ran a Processing sketch to capture still frames which I then compiled into this time lapse video. The sketch was (heavily) based on ASCII Video by Ben Fry. I changed the character set to spell out “Art Jamboree” and added in code to capture the still frames at an interval.

Enjoy!

(You can also see the video at blip.tv)

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Static in the Video Age

Xmas means many things, and one of the things it means is that we watch It’s a Wonderful Life, and for years it meant we put in the old VHS tape that the wife has and let it roll. Last year I ended up getting a VCR out of the closet on Christmas Day and connecting it to the old HDTV and watching it in all its glory.

This year I got as far as getting out the VCR, and before finding all the right cables, I figure I’d check if there was another option.

Netflix

The first thing I did was turn on the Wii and checked Netflix. It’s a Wonderful Life is not available for streaming, so that was a dead end.

I should also note that as much as I’m a technology nerd, I’m not a digital video consumption nerd. In the last few months I’ve watched about 200 episodes of Star Trek on my MacBook (usually while working in the office) but we don’t have a Blu-ray player or an Apple TV, and I’m the furthest thing from a home theater snob. I’d rather buy a DVD I can rip than rent videos online with limited usage and silly restrictions. I’m not a pirate, but I like to choose how I can use the media I buy. (All the music I ever bought from the iTunes store had the DRM stripped from it before I added it to my library.)

iTunes

Netflix would have been the easy option, since I’ve already got a streaming account, but since it wasn’t available, I moved on to iTunes. It’s a Wonderful Life is available on iTunes, but the last time I checked on iTunes video rental, there were all sorts of crazy restrictions I didn’t want to deal with, so I never seriously looked at it.

I probably would have paid $2.99 to rent it so we could watch it immediately, but the options seemed to be $17.99 to buy the “HD” version, or $9.99 to buy the “non-HD” version. (It wasn’t filmed in HD, so HD, bah, whatever.) I thought about the lock-in to the Apple/iTunes ecosystem and figured it might be worth checking if Amazon had a better option…

Amazon

Well, I don’t know if the Amazon option was better, but the film was available for $9.99, the same price as the “non-HD” version on iTunes. At this point I didn’t feel like doing a comparative analysis of the various online video rental systems and just went with Amazon, assuming it would be more open than Apple. There was a link or two about downloading, so I figured that was a good thing, and with one click, I bought it.

I ended up streaming it so we could just watch is ASAP, and we did, and the quality was good (well, better than an old VHS tape anyway!) and it all just worked.

After the movie I wanted to check on the downloadability, and discovered that Amazon has a player that is only available on Windows. Bloody Hell, what is this, 1999?

They also have a list of 350+ Amazon Instant Video Compatible Devices… none of which I own. The Roku player is on the list, and I considered getting one a few years ago, but after Netflix became available for the Wii, I forgot about it. I tend to use the Wii or my MacBook for most of the video streaming we do, so I never thought I needed a dedicated device.

So now I’ve got a video I own through Amazon, that I can’t download, but can stream. I’ve probably been an Amazon customer for 15 years, so I guess I should trust them, but It’s a Wonderful Life is over 60 years old. Will I be able to watch it 30 years from now? Should I even worry about such things? While buying music online went from a DRM mess to a more open world, I don’t know that video will go the same way… And yes, there is the pirating option, but personally I’m not a fan of that approach. Blame it on my desire to see things move towards openness.

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Unacceptable, Netflix!

No Depth of Field!

No Depth of Field!

No Depth of Field!

Dear Reed Hastings,

I am a pretty forgiving guy… I mean, I can forgive a lot of things… but this is unacceptable!

The lack of attention to the shots in your latest video are terrible. Who the hell shot this!? Did they really think a T-stop of 16 (or was it 18) was the best idea? I mean, sure, you are shooting outside, and maybe you didn’t have any ND filters handy, but come on!!! To put it in other words, “I find your lack of depth-of-field disturbing.”

I’m not saying everything needs to be shot at 1.3. I dunno… maybe you were going for some sort of “low-budget video” look or something, to be more like the common people of YouTube or something. Either way, I was completely disappointed in the video. Besides the technical issues, the characters were not exactly likeable.

I recommend sending this back to the writers for some tweaks, as well as hiring a new cinematographer.

Your truly, Netflix Customer and Film Critic, raster

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Pro Apps (and then some!)

tools

In the world of professional media making (and other things) it often pays to learn not just the One Tool™ but some of the alternatives… especially some of the free/open source alternatives.

In the world of video, there’s Final Cut Pro, which will often do 95% of what you need done with video, but when you need that extra 5%, that extra push over the cliff, there’s other applications to make that happen. Things like MPEG StreamClip, FFmpeg, and VLC have become extras in our toolbox that we’ve come to rely on. MPEG StreamClip is killer for getting things into the needed format, and if it can’t do it, I’ll move on to FFmpeg or perhaps VLC. They’ve all got their specialties.

Even things like iMovie (the most recent version, as well as the older version) are worth keeping around… Same goes with iDVD, which is usually a simple and fast option when all you need is a looping DVD. Photoshop? I love it…. but sometimes iPhoto is exactly what you need.

On the audio side of things, we tend to use Logic, but we’ve also got room for things like Audacity. What’s that? Need an 8 bit/8kHz mono WAV file for an antiquated phone system? I can kick that out in Audacity in 1/10th the time I’d figure out the settings in Logic. (And yes, that’s something I had to do last week.)

NeoOffice, OpenOffice, LibreOffice? I’ve used them all, and believe it or not, they all have subtle differences which maybe of use depending on the situation. (In fact the one I left out is Microsoft Office, because I don’t use it, but years ago, if you used a Mac and wanted to open the latest Word files from Windows, you could only do so with NeoOffice.)

So here’s my advice…. Learn the pro apps, and learn them well, but spend some time digging through the open source/free tools as well. Figure them out, what they are good at (and bad at) and keep them around for that special task that they excel at.

Have you got any favorite “lesser” apps that complement your “pro” apps?

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Google+ Puppet Hangout

Google+ Puppet Hangout

Recently while doing a Google+ Hangout, I put one of my puppets in front of my camera for a while and thought nothing of it. But then… inspiration struck! A hangout consisting of nothing but puppets!

I thought this was the perfect excuse for people who had excuses about being uncomfortable on camera. I mean, to some degree we are all hiding behind our keyboards when we post online, but with video… bam! It’s your face, right there, nothing to hide behind. That makes some people uncomfortable… send in the puppets!

So thus was born the first Google+ Puppet Hangout.

I’d love it if others did this as well… Here’s my suggestion. Post the following along with the hangout:

By joining this hangout you consent to letting me take a screen shot of it and post it on the internets… Puppet Hangout FTW!!!

I’d hope no one has an issue with a photo of their puppet being posted. And yes, I want to see the pictures! Share them please. :)

One weird thing was, when we got up to five people, I started to forget who was who, which was really interesting. Oh, I know there’s been great debate over store-bought vs. hand-made puppets, but I say anything goes. And as for silly voices? Encouraged!

Go forth now people, and let a thousand Puppet Hangouts bloom!