The Professor's Notes

Well, an era has ended.  I have done my last HS sports team video.

This time it was for Matthew’s Swim Team.  I had fun with this one, including playing with some 3D effects, but most importantly it was a chance for me to help the kids highlight the fun and excitement that was their Swim Season.

I would like to thank Mike Singletary for giving us the GREAT “Formula” quote, and the good folks Crackpot and Buzzkill at The No Agenda Show for the mix of the Formula quote.  It’s a great way to start a slide show–especially if we watch it “In the Morning.”

For the sound track I used:
Ladies and Gentlemen by Saliva

There’s A Party (Feat. George Clinton & Chali 2na) by N.A.S.A.

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines by US Air Force Band and Singing Sergeants

Just A Friend by Biz Markie

Lord, Guard and Guide (The U.S. Air Force Hymn) by US Air Force Band and Singing Sergeants

Nota Bene:

There are two hidden audio jewels.  At the end of the first song, there is a faint voice over, with a certain person saying “I was told that, that suit is illegal.”  And then, before “Just a Friend” the audio is, in classic “no one likes to be a video star” mode being told “Brady, Go Away.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

We get to join the rest of the East Coast in enjoying the “Great Snow of 2010″ (and no, it’s not a statement on the political climate.)  I chose to share our experiences in a short video.

Enjoy.

I just posted this morning about the Kodak Zi8 HD Pocket Video Camera and the fact that you cannot buy one anywhere, nationwide.  Oh, and Best Buy has chosen to increase the price to $209 per unit, even when Kodak is still offering it at $179.

I decided you might be interested in a review of the device as well.

Based on the use from my friend and colleague, the choice of the Kodak was an overwhelming success.  Starting with the bottom line from a very personal assessment, his daughter, who has used both the Flip cameras and now the zi8, has asked to take his camera when she goes places.  Her opinion is that it is superior.

Now, on to the features.

My friend liked that it has a flip-out USB connector, and that it can charge both with a charger and through the computer via the USB connector.  He also liked the HD resolution (1080p) and the quality of the audio.  The built in audio isn’t “the best” but it was “good enough” for most personal use.  As I mentioned before, he then combined it with the Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stereo Recorder combining outstanding video with high quality stereo audio.

Other features that were “cool” included the image stabilization built in, and the face tracking, although the face tracking feature wasn’t tested very heavily (yet.)

Now the device isn’t without flaws.  The zoom on the camera is digital, and the quality falls off rather quickly.  In addition the memory that comes with the camera is paltry at best.  His recommendation? Get the SD card with it at the time of purchase.  Get a large enough SD card, and you can record up to 10 hours of video.

The low light image quality was “okay” and sufficient for family videos.

I hope to get my hands on one myself, sometime in the near future (did you check my Wishlist on the right side of the blog? Anyone want to order me one?)  When I get my hands on one, I promise to put it through its paces testing all the features.  With my love of outdoor photography, and constant video work in swim meets and water polo matches I hope to get lots of opportunities to test.

For the past few weeks I have been streaming live video from my son’s high school water polo matches and tournaments.  When I first proposed the idea, the coach loved it but was told that it would take a while to get things set up–and check back in a few weeks.  Turns out, it’s really not that hard.  Here’s what we did:

We started simple.  We had a camcorder ¹ on a tripod, and a notebook computer with wifi.²  The camcorder had a Firewire out,  and the computer had a Firewire port as well, so we were able to simply feed the video out to the computer.

I created a UStream account and was ready to go.

I turned on the camcorder, and then logged in to the UStream account.  From that point forward it was quite simple:  point the camera at the action! ³

For later sessions, we added an audio mixer and microphones so that we could have commentators “calling” the match.  The kids loved that, and who knows, maybe we have encouraged some to pursue careers in media.

Families locked on to this quite quickly.  Family members from around the country, and around the world (to include Scotland and Iraq), were soon logging on to watch the live polo matches.  In addition, we picked up a few fans who are fans of water polo (and hopefully now fans of our high school team as well!)  It was quite gratifying to receive comments from the parents that their families were loving the video, and that the quality was outstanding.  The quality was so good that my brother was able to recognize my son, and comment on the plays he (and others) were making.

Of course, UStream provides the option to record the video and make it available for later viewing as well–and many of the families have taken advantage of that option as well.  You can too.  Go watch the videos!

This was a simple solution that I think serves to show how we can take events and provide coverage nationwide of what are traditionally under-covered sports.  Local HS football teams get coverage (every place I have lived has had “Football Friday” HS News coverage) but one rarely, if ever, sees TV coverage (live or recorded) of sports in the pool.

Try it yourself–and stop back here to share the link!

For those of you that actually looked at the PowerPoint presentation that I included with my Podcasting paper, I had an icon for a program called “Jing.”

But what is “Jing?”

Jing is an interesting, and as of now, free, way of sharing what you are seeing on your computer screen, with anyone over the ‘net. They don’t have to have Jing installed to receive what you send–only to

Check it out for yourself. I am including a link for you view this yourself.

http://screencast.com/t/o71lRKpYDtg

Let me know what you think!

Flash » Epic 2015

Care to know what the future holds, for news agencies, google, Amazon, and Microsoft? This is an interesting look into the future of media convergence, done in documentary style. Of note is that it must have been created in 2004 since the timelines (predictions) begin diverging in 2005.

I particularly like the fact that this actually has Google Ads running at the bottom–real ads, I believe!