video

neave.tv – a flash wizard’s frontend to YouTube

eirikso1 Comment

Paul Neave is a complete genius that have made amazing stuff like the wonderful flash based frontend for Google Maps and Windows Live Local.

He has also made a very nice frontend for YouTube, blip.tv and Google Video. It’s called neave.tv and it’s close to a service that you would want on your media center. Slightly better keyboard control and it would have been perfect.

As far as I understand the content is selected by Mr. Neave himself. It’s a very nice collection of good stuff from the three video sites mentioned. Including a video that I put out there a while ago…

Most media centers is capable of starting internet explorer in kiosk mode. Meaning full screen without any toolbars. Simply make a shortcut in your media center of choice that starts internet explorer at neave.tv and you have yet another television channel to play around with. The command you need looks like this:

iexplore -k http://neave.tv

Neave.tv lets you play the videos in full screen as well. I wouldn’t recommend that if you have a big LCD. Image quality isn’t exactly what YouTube and the others are known for. And, neave.tv had problems scaling correct on a 16/9 monitor:

Anyway, yet another interesting experiment from Mr. Neave.

neave.tv – a flash wizard’s frontend to YouTube

Automatic transfer of files from Media Center to iPod and PSP

eirikso6 Comments

VideoSync
I haven’t tried this one out yet, but another product from Pegasys is already my favourite video encoding tool. I use TMPGENc Xpress 4.0 for most of my high quality video encoding already.

VideoSync from the same guys seems like a promising product. It supports DVR-MS files from Windows Media Center Edition (in addition to a bunch of other formats).

The most interesting feature is the possibility to set up a watch folder. Meaning that you can tell the software to constantly watch a folder on your computer and immediately start transcoding and publishing to your favourite mobile device if a new file arrives in this folder.

Update:
You find a very detailed list of alternative methods of transfering video to your iPod here. And a related post on eirikso.com here

Automatic transfer of files from Media Center to iPod and PSP

Have fun with a reporter

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Washington Post
The Washington post has released an interview done by their reporter Dana Milbank. The video lacks one little detail: the answers. You’re supposed to make them yourself.

So, download the clip from the Washington Post, sit down in front of your camera and answer the questions. Or let your hamster answer the questions. Or your neighbour. Whatever. Then fire up your favourite video editing software. Make the final video with Dana Milbank’s questions and your answers. Then submit it to the Washington Post and wait for feedback and glory.

Via Micro Persuasion.

And, yes I know – Rocketboom have done something similar.

Have fun with a reporter

YouTube or Google Video?

eirikso2 Comments

First, an apology to my RSS subscribers. Unfortunately, articles from this blog get published again if I change them. Recently I have done some experiments where I change the hosting of some of my videos to Google Video from YouTube. All the articles that have been modified will then show up as new in many RSS-readers. Sorry for the inconvenience.

So for my little experiment. I have posted a couple of videos lately, and have been using YouTube to host them. I have also been playing around with Google Video, and here is a quick round-up:

YouTube
– Low quality on videos
– Big community and lots of possible viewers even without links from a blog or web page
– Very nice with trackbacks so you can see who is linking to your videos
– Counter that shows how many times the video has been played
– Web based uploader with good feedback on progress

GoogleVideo
– Better quality than YouTube
– In general less traffic and smaller chances for people discovering your video unless you link to it from your blog
– Possibilities for selling videos
– Possible to let people download your video as well
– Web based uploader with limited feedback on progress
– Desktop based uploader available

If you have any comments on what you prefer please contact me or comment directly here.

Here is an example of the same video, hosted on GoogleVideo and on YouTube:

Human Drums, on GoogleVideo
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-3876415520174236092&hl=en

Human Drums, on YouTube

Update:
And here is the same video on Revver:
http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf

YouTube or Google Video?

Magnetic fluid art installation

eirikso9 Comments

Protude Flow
Protude Flow is one of the most amazing art installations I have ever seen. Another clip from my archive of videos from the Siggraph conference back in 2001. It is impossible to communicate how it was to experience this thing live through a video. The installation was made by Sachiko Kodama and Minako Takeno. It is a pool of magnetic fluid with one very powerful electro magnet above it. The magnet is controlled by the sound in the room through a microphone.
http://flash.revver.com/player/1.0/player.swf

Link to video on Revver.

The experience was something like “this has to be trick photography“. But you are there in the room and it is real…

Magnetic fluid art installation

Amazing floating words

eiriksoLeave a comment

While preparing for Siggraph 2006 i went through my archives and found a couple of videos from my visit to Siggraph back in 2001. Some of the technology and art installations are still pretty amazing so I have decided to post a series of videos from that conference.

This one is from the art exhibition. The system consist of a couple of computers, a projector, a camera and a pool of water. The projector and the camera is mounted directly above the pool. One computer renders the characters and project them in the pool. Another computer is analyzing the video feed from the camera and control the animation of the words on basis of the movements of the elements in the picture. One is used to move the characters and the other one is used as an eraser.

Link to the video on YouTube.

You speak into a microphone and letters start to drip out of the funnel. Then you can have fun lifting the letters up, moving them around and erase them.

These kinds of alternative methods of controlling computers are quite interesting. Again, I have to think about Brian Eno and the wish for more “africa” in computers. Mentioned here at eirikso.com before. You also find some thoughts over at brilliantdays.com.

If you want to follow the rest of my videos from Siggraph 2001 I recommend subscribing to this blog through your RSS reader or through my email update. You find all the information you need here.

Credit goes to the artist Shinji Sasada, that will be back with some interesting stuff this year.

(If you want to link to this story you find an image that you can use here.)

Amazing floating words

Sex, violence and a small rubberduck

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rubberduck
From time to time I am teaching media students about possibilities and new media. I love the fact that it is now possible to make high quality content without having to invest millions of dollars in equipment.

Cheap possibilities for editing, sound design and motion graphics have been around for a while. With an HDV camera and a high resolution digital SLR you can shoot pretty high quality footage as well.

Still, for years it has been the privilege of big media companies to own distribution. Both newspapers and television channels had this big advantage of being able to distribute.

Now the internet has changed this. There is an estimated 240 million broadband users out there. That’s 240 million potential content producers with a distribution channel. And cheap production equipment. Geeks like me can reach more that 100 000 people with videos like this.

But why the utterly speculative headline for this article?

The Norwegian band Ugress is an example of a couple of guys making high quality music with relatively limited resources. Then they team up with some uttrly creative people making some very cool music videos.

If you look carefully at the videos on their web page, at least two of these videos could have been made with an extremely low budget. No expensive actors. No expensive locations. No expensive props. Of course you have to disregard the insane amount of hours needed to make stuff like this. In a commercial world time is money. As students it is possible to think different. Be creative. Have fun.

You find inspiration over at the web page of Ugress. You’ll find both music and a couple of videos. One video featuring the true story about Makina the rubber duck. One lovely Bollywood inspired show and a fantastic little video inspired by computer games from the eighties featuring sex, drugs and rock & roll…

Loungemaister

Sex, violence and a small rubberduck