Archive for July, 2004

A Videoblog just using a videophone

Saturday, July 31st, 2004

Brice Le Blévennec has created a videoblog.
He posts from a Sony-Ericsson P900 over GPRS via my ViBlog script for WordPress 1.3.
He asks if it’s the first ever video from a cellphone?
No, but he’s in a small crowd.

Brice over-the-air video moblog My first video post%u2026 World First ?

He has only a handful of videos so far.
Seems like a business type…more about the “wow” that he can even do it. It’s good but I want more.
It also shows me that the videoblogs I like are the ones that are REVEALING.

Typepad is slow as shit

Friday, July 30th, 2004

I use Typepad as my blogging host.
It’s $8.95 a month for 100mb of storage space and 3GB a month of bandwidth.
The bad part is that the sever is super slow.
A video takes like a minute to download.
The good part is that Typepad is very easy to use and has greart customer service.
I send an email and Brenna, their rep, emails me back within a day.

RE: Slow Server 7/29/04
“Thanks for the report, and your feedback. We appreciate
it. We’re working on the server performance currently, and
this is top priority. There is additional hardware going in
this week, also.”

“The video especially, is very sluggish and this needs to be
much faster. This is something we’ve been working on in
engineering and I’m in touch with them again on this.
Please let us know if you continue to experience it.”

See I’ll put up with a lot for this kind of service.
I wish Typepad would make videoblogging a priority.

Meet the illustrious Adrian Miles

Friday, July 30th, 2004

This is a whole new kind of videoblog: a How-to.
Vlog 2.1: iMovie to mpeg4
“This is a quickie QT tutorial movie about how to export from iMovie to mpeg4.”

I wanted to know how to export a vdieo into MPEG4.
So Adrian SHOWED me.
I live in Manhattan. He lives in Australia.
Ive spoken with him through email for several months now, but this is the first time I’ve HEARD his voice.
Wait till everyone can see and hear each other all over the whole world.
This must have been what it was like for the first people with telephones.
It’s really powerful and now I know how to export to MPEG4.

Lifeblog

Thursday, July 29th, 2004

I always like Nokia.
They want you to blog your life.
Awesome concept.

Nokia – Lifeblog overview

“You love taking pictures, not to mention getting and sending text and picture messages – but what to do when your phone’s full of great memories? Save them in your Nokia Lifeblog!”

I wonder how safe the archives are?
What happens if I blog for 10 years(photos, text, and videos)and the server blows up?
Jesus, I’d go crazy.

Plus, look at how they market.
Videoblogging has got to be grassroots.

Good idea–Shitty Selling

Thursday, July 29th, 2004

So here’sssssssss Serious Magic, software that helps you videoblog.
Who would buy this?

Serious Magic

“Take blogging to the next level! Visual Communicator makes it incredibly easy to create and share personal video messages in just minutes. Create your very own video blogs to share your opinions about anything and everything — politics, sports, hobbies, travel, work, movies you name it. The software works with any webcam or camcorder, and includes a teleprompter to help you deliver your message professionally, graphical templates to save time, and dazzling TV effects. You can easily publish your videos for the Internet so they can be uploaded to any website and shared with people all over the world.”

I can’t imagine who they targeting.
If i undersatnd correctly, you plug in a webcam and record your self talking. Then program helps you add titles, then posts.
It has a Teleprompter so you can read text just a like a newscaster.
It’s only for PCs.
It seems that Serious Magic wants businnesses to videoblog.
Weird.

No one yet seems to understand that people want to videoblog two ways:
1. I want to make little movies so I need an all-in-one too that edits/compresses/posts.
2. Or I want to record a moment in the street and post from the street. Maybe using a videophone or a MPEG4 camera with Wi-Fi.

Video #19: My friend’s kid understands

Thursday, July 29th, 2004

Here’s the latest video.
Imagine me trying to interact with a kid.

aden

I seem to be making a video every week.
This gives me enough time to record and collect moments, digest them, and edit.
I dont know if it’d be cool to have a camera phone where I could just capture and post.
I like editing.
I assume people watching do, too.
But I still want the option to post from my phone in case something needs immediate coverage.
Citizen Journalism, art, screwing around….each takes a different form in videoblogging.

Ive gotten my editing, compressing and posting process down pretty quick.
It’s taken time and still hard terrain for a newcomer.

Waking Dreaming

Thursday, July 29th, 2004

Shannon works as a effects designer in Hollywood(uses Flame).
He’s the only LA videoblogger that we know of.
He gave a great explanation of what the process of videoblogging feels like to him.

“For me the outcome of vlogging is very near to
lucid dreaming….those waking moments during a dream when you realize you
have to get up and take a piss and the dream ends…. only this way I get to
complete the dreams.”

I agree.
You’re living your life, somtheing’s happening, and you decide to pull out the camera and record.
You put the camera up and continue living.
The next day you download the video clips and think, “wow, there it is.”
A videoblogging is short–under 2 minutes.
So it doesnt have to tell a story.
It’s that waking dream that Shannon talks about.

Using Copyrighted material in a videoblog

Thursday, July 29th, 2004

My friend, Andreas, made a good argument for respecting copyrights in videoblogs.
Please comment if you think differently.
I can’t see the problem.

>Don’t screw copyrights unless you want to get screwed over
> yourself.
> Not to mention that you would never be able to go beyond the “wee, we’re
> just goofing around” stage. If you want people to take you seriously, if
> you want to have companies build software for you you can’t ignore
> copyright laws. Basing a business plan on copyright infringement is a
> quick recipe for disaster. If you on the other hand is happy to have an
> underground phenomena then feel free to ignore copyrights. I’d like
> videoblogging to be just a little tiny bit more than that, and that’s why
> I take copyrights seriously.

Fair enough.
you make a good argument.
here’s my confusion.
let’s say I make a video today.
tomorrow i wake up and someone has put it up on their site as their own.
what do i do? call the internet cops?
i can bitch and moan, but in the end Im not too worried about it.
If someone kept stealing my material and calling it his own, I’d just get the word out and we’d all hate him.

for me, “copyright issues” become an issue when $$$$$$ is involved.
Metallica getting angry because college kids arent paying for their albums.
This isn’t how I see videoblogging.
we arent making Movies you buy and sell in stores.
videoblogging is expression and documentation and citizen journalism.
We are only underground in so far as we dont fit into a corporation’s strategy…yet.
Let them build around us.

In Community TV, people have used copyrighted material for years.
Clips from local news, music videos, scenes from movies, songs…
It’s all “stolen”, but it’s also put in context.
I like the Fair Use laws in the US.
And really, no one ever bothers us becasue we make no money from these shows.

Videoblogging is goofing around but its also dead serious.
we’re making something real that has never existed.
i can put up video that the entire wired Earth can see.
how much does this costs me? 8.95 each month for server space.

i dont know what other visions for videoblogging are,
but I want to turn on the internet and see everything in people’s heads come alive in video.
i want someone documenting anything that happens on this planet and posting it without spin.
I want to see people’s lives.
I want to watch someone’s studied, personal opinion, not large propaganda.

If people have to borrow other work to get their point across or tell a joke, im not sure I see the problem.

[videoblogging] V-Span

Thursday, July 29th, 2004

Steve got a hit of the fever today.
Once you start thinking about the possibilities of videoblogging, you can’t stop.
He even has proof of concept.

“I’ve got a new word, V-Span.
It’s like C-Span where we get coverage of events that are not
normally covered by mainstream media.

“V-Span is Citizen Journalists who are there with their video cameras,
documenting events as they happen.”

“When this gets popular, we’ll be able to see things that up till now,
we’ve just been able to read about in the newspapers.”

“I just drove by the Loius Boston, where the Red Hot Chilli Peppers
were performing.
I stuck my cell phone put he window and recorded the audio directly to
my blogger blog with the new audioblogger.”

“Listen to poor quality audio here:
http://offonatangent.blogspot.com/2004/07/red-hot-chilli-peppers-
drive-by.html”

“Just wait until we can stick out cell phone / video recorder and post
that directly to our blogs!
That’ll be amazing.”

A videoblogging tool???

Wednesday, July 28th, 2004

Check out this videoblog tool. Wow.

Welcome to vBlog Central

This guy Sean Gilligan created it.
This is a conversation I had with his friend.

“vBlog Central is an alpha-stage project by my friend
Sean Gilligan (cc’d above). He has built a tool that
provides a drag-and-drop interface for video blogging.”

“Basically, you drag an MPEG or JPEG file onto his Java
destop app, provde a text entry, and the tool uploads
the file and text and creates an entry in your blog.
The tool and back end system does not provide video
editing, but it does provide compression and encoding
into formats that make any video viewable on via
QuickTime, Windows, and Real players.”

“The hosting of the video is done by Sean. When a user
clicks on your video in your blog the request is
redirected to vBlog Central and served up from there.
The whole thing is transparent to the user.”

“That part all works in an alpha-level format today.
What Sean has not done is figure out pricing (based on
storage and bandwidth) and gotten ready to accept
orders – although I think he’s getting close.”

“There are a number of limitations with the system
today, such as range of image quality and tested
compaitbility with blogs other than Movable Type and
Blogger, but these are things Sean is working on.”

Basically, a newcomer could just upload video and be done.
He’s the tool and host all in one.
Problems I see is that the quality is really poor(for my tastes).
And the newcomer would still have to know how to edit.
We need a simple editor for the newcomer.

But I give a big up to Sean Gilligan who made this out of scratch.
I always wonder who these guys are.
He created a tool about the same time as our Videoblogging Discussion Group.
Seems like there’s something in the air.