video blogging

video blogging

20060205 Auckland drive

Ever been on a drive where the countryside is so beautiful it's hard to pick the most beautiful part of it. I took some video - the collage doesn't do the day justice but perhaps gives some idea. There was so much to look at I had to choose some of the finer details to concentrate on.

This video was created in eZedia QTI for Windows. I'm trying out the software - you can add interactive components but for this example I didn't. I just left it simple. There's a limit to 5 objects on the trial version as well so I couldn't fit any more objects in without going over save/export limit! The only thing I don't like about it is that I need to host the videos locally (at least all together on another site of mine) instead of using a remote site such as archive.org. Which means if I use this technique again, I'll need to use smaller video files and loop them. Hopefully this doesn't make my site go over bandwidth - it's only a very small webspace. Oh well. See how it goes.

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videoblog mind map

There's been lots of discussion on the vlogtheory yahoogroups list about videoblogging - debates over content, medium etc. I've done up a quick mind map (using sourceforge freemind) to try to collect my thoughts. it may not be completely in line with the ideas of the group, but could be useful as a starting point to capture thoughts, for me at least. I haven't included everything yet, but it's a start.

current version :
( see http://www.aliak.com/files/videoblog_v02.mm attached )

Expand - Collapse

or below is a screenshot of the mm/pdf file.

if you cannot read the text in the image, try opening the larger version @ http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=96141734&size=o

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click 'read more' for initial version & previous versions:

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some thoughts on personal videoblogs and comparisons to written blog entries

here's another email sent to vlogtheory yahoogroups list on some thoughts and conversations I've been having today.

thanks for the replies guys.I find observing and loosely analysing communities really interesting. human behaviour in groups I guess. online behaviour is a particular interest.

(likely another non topic message, so delete now if not interested)

ok, it's a really hot sat afternoon here now (Auckland) and I've just returned from lunch and taking photos of street art & graf so have turned on the aircon and am emailing to cool down. at lunch I mentioned videoblogging to my friend, who hadn't really heard of it or realised it had a name. but one of the conversations was the difference between personal blogs and personal videoblogs. the main differentiation I see, is that written blogs (or even books), is really the little voice in your head speaking - letting it have a voice, whereas video diary entries are more real as you see the persons expressions and location not just descriptions of it. so you (the viewer) can connect differently to it. ie almost real vs imaginary, though not imaginary in the context of made up, but rather descriptive / virtual reality open to interpretation - the reality inside your mind compared to reality that you see. (prob not explaining this properly, perhaps I should have had the camera running at the time of the conversation as it was more coherent then).

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2005 - 2006 a few highlights to remember

apart from podcasting, videoblogging / video podcasting was growing in 2004-2005 and will get even bigger in 2006, especially after the release of sony's psp & the video ipod. $1.99 itunes downloads for tv episodes will be more and more popular. even tivo is doing trials atm with (internet based) videoblogs to tivo. http://research.tivo.com/rocketboom/
archive.org (& perhaps google video if they decide to make it more videoblog friendly) providing free storage for videoblog movies & creative content has meant everyday users no longer have to worry about the costs involved in website hosting & data throughput /traffic.

http://braintrustdv.com/roundtables/ipod.html#Anchor-34275 has some interesting points of view from media analysts.

when holographic data storage becomes widely used in consumer devices (eg psp/ipod or future flavours) data storage worries are out the window. these are due for professional gear in 2006 (broadcasters have been testing with hdtv off holographic data storage this year)
http://www.hiptechblog.com/2005/11/25/maxell-introduces-groundbreaking-h...
http://www.inphase-technologies.com/

exciting times!

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quicktime + smil for creating quicktime videos

I've been looking at the Linkubator script from Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen which is used to create a SMIL script that can be saved as a quicktime movie, and can combine videos, text, audio images etc hosted on the net into a 'remuxed' video.

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dpwolf, quartz composer and electrofringe workshops

I went to 2005 electrofringe a few weeks ago in Newcastle, Australia. I haven't finished going over my notes or posting some of the links to the artist's projects, but one of the workshops I went to was on Quartz Composer hosted by dpwolf. The software runs on a MAC, which unfortunately I don't have. :( perhaps if we get a project bonus this year I might be able to save up for one so I can try the software (and also max / msp }. anyway, I also came across the name dpwolf on the videoblogging mail list and low and behold it's the same person. he seems to do some work with Adrian Miles, who does some great projects with video and interactive quicktime and media in general. small world. I'd love to do the course Adrian teaches but can't afford to give up work to do it fulltime. due to excessive work commitments, I had to drop the Internet Communication course I was doing at CQU. now that I've finally upgraded my (this) site and moving most of my projects online (so as not to be so dependant on my laptop in case of travelling without it), I'd like to experiment more with blogging, videoblogging, podcasting and digital art and music projects (in addition to listing other people's projects on the site), hence, why the blog posts here have now become more personal. I've been reading about and been across these media for a while but haven't had much time to play myself, so that's the goal for the next year (& hopefully continuing onwards).

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Auckland Hip Hop Summit - videos

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 The 2005 Auckland Hip Hop Summit was held 7-8th October at Auckland's Town Hall and Aotea Square. I caught a bit of the grafitti wall being painted on Saturday afternoon, and some of the "Disrupt the Floor" breakdancing heats. The finals and MC gigs were held Saturday night but unfortunately I couldn't attend. Congratulations to the Blackout crew for winning the competition - I heard it was a great battle between Step Kingz and Blackout. Check out some of the videos of the heats via the links below - be warned, some of the files are quite large!

Save the links and open in Real Player (Windows) to stream the videos instead of downloading. I'm trying out different file formats - some are are divX AVI and the others are DivX6. Any comments welcome on which format work best on your system..

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 - 09
Disrupt the Floor semi-finals
Time Bandits (Hamilton) (LHS) vs Blackout (The Mount) (RHS)
Blackout went through to the finals
(33Mb) (divx6 fomat) (00:07:29)
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_09/auckland...

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 - 08
Disrupt the Floor breakdancing comp - Popping battle
Elijah (LHS) vs Big Spell (RHS)
(33Mb) (divx6 fomat) (00:07:01)
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_08_divx6/au...

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 - 07
Disrupt the Floor breakdancing comp semi-finals
Step Kingz (Wellington) (LHS) vs Faith City Rockers (Auckland) (RHS)
Step Kingz go through to the finals
(175Mb) (avi format) (00:08:36)
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_07/auckland...

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 - 06
Disrupt the Floor breakdancing heats
Time Bandits (foreground) vs Questionable tekneek (background)
(133Mb) (AVI format) (00:08:48)
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_06/auckland...

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 - 05
Disrupt the Floor breakdancing heats
Blackout (foreground) vs Back Breakers (background)
(133Mb) (AVI format) (00:08:41)
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_05/auckland...

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 - 04
Disrupt the Floor heats
Stepkingz (Wellington) (LHS) vs Faith City Rockers (Auckland) (RHS) (part 2)
(20Mb) (avi format) (00:00:53)
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_04/auckland...

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 - 03
Disrupt the Floor heats
Stepkingz (Wellington) (LHS) vs Faith City Rockers (Auckland) (RHS) (part 1)
(23Mb) (avi format) (00:01:05)
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_03/auckland...

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 - 02
the view in Aotea Square showing grafitti wall being painted - graf characters
(9.1Mb) (avi format) (00:00:34)
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_02/auckland...

Auckland Hip Hop Summit 2005 - 01
the view outside showing grafitti wall being painted by New Zealand artists
(2.3Mb) (avi format) (00:00:04)
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_1-01_0-04/a...

or visit the source files via the links below:
http://www.archive.org/download/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_1-01_0-04
http://www.archive.org/details/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_0
http://www.archive.org/details/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_02
http://www.archive.org/details/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_03
http://www.archive.org/details/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_04
http://www.archive.org/details/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_05
http://www.archive.org/details/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_06
http://www.archive.org/details/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_07
http://www.archive.org/details/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_08_divx6
http://www.archive.org/details/auckland_hip_hop_summit_2005_09

video for web settings

I went to the Auckland Hip Hop Summit on Saturday afternoon and caught some of the b-boying / breakdancing DISRUPT THE FLOOR heats and semis. The finals were held that night but I didn't make along. The Hip Hop Summit website will have the results. I took some video and am trying to convert it so I can upload to archive.org. What a challenge this is proving to be! The camera records direct to DVD which is great for previewing directly on my pc (or dvd player - though I don't have one here in Auckland), but the software that it comes with doesn't provide much in the way of conversion utilities. :( I have some software called MGI VideoWave which I've had for a while - since buying my Belkin usb/rca converter I think. It works ok - it's like a mini- Premiere package with a basic interface. But it doesn't open mpeg2 files or DVD .vob files directly.. So, to use this method, I need to connect the video camera to the Belkin video input and capture the vide and audio. Now, the camera does AC3 audio inherantly which sounds great on the DVD, but pretty crap once it's been recaptured - especially since the input on the level meter is stuck at 100% so it's really high level. I can capture the video this way, save as .avi file, then open in Quicktime and convert to .mov but quicktime is dropping the audio altogether!

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Google hosting user's video content for free

Google have released a video upload program which will allow (PC users at the moment) users to upload their videos to be stored on the Google webspace. Will Google become a free hosting site for creative content, similar to www.archive.org? Interesting times ahead.

" Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Currently, Google Video lets you search a growing archive of televised content -- everything from sports events to dinosaur documentaries to news programs. In addition to televised content, we're now accepting video from anyone who wants to upload content to us. Uploaded content will not be immediately available to users searching Google Video as this is just the submission stage of the program. But (if you'll pardon the pun) stay tuned. " read through the Google video FAQ for more details @ https://upload.video.google.com/video_faq.html

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