Video Archives - Page 17 of 18 - Christopher S. Penn

$10,000 Scholarship in 32 Seconds

My company, the Student Loan Network, is running this scholarship.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eObXz_xRDOM[/youtube]

The video was made around the office 🙂

Fill out the application here.

February 2, 2008

This will mess with your head

Hat tip to Erik Carlsson for this head frying video.

Failing marks for live social media at MacWorld

MacWorld 2008 brought lots of anticipation and excitement to the new media world. New devices, new toys, etc. What it didn’t bring was new infrastructure to popular net-based services like uStream.tv and Twitter, both of which suffered badly under load, in some cases becoming inoperable.

Here’s the scary thought. Twitter buckled under load. uStream buckled under load. Back during Katrina, there was talk about how the Internet could act as a channel during a crisis, helping keep people connected when other options failed. Based on the performance of two presence/real-time applications today, with a known, planned event, I wouldn’t put these applications in your emergency first aid kit as dependable.

January 15, 2008

An addictive little video

This one caught my eye. Not sure if it’s the tune, or the very well done animation, but it’s good stuff. Hat tip to Lisa Amorao on Facebook for pointing this out!

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvaHZIrt0o[/youtube]

December 30, 2007

That man could dance

Fashion and ridiculous pants aside, if there’s one thing you can never take away from MC Hammer, he could DANCE.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMzoBkaFxh4[/youtube]

Ah, the 90s.

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November 10, 2007

Did you know?

One of my favorite videos, redone by XPLANE, originally by Karl Fisch of Arapahoe High School. Watch it. Think about it. The implications are enormous and potentially devastating or liberating.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U[/youtube]

October 18, 2007

As shown at PodCamp Philly: Social Networks 101

Click To Play

September 13, 2007

Farewell, still photographers

Something struck me tonight as I was taking a screenshot of my Mac. HDTV at 1080p is 1920 x 1080 pixels. That’s roughly two megapixels.

With 2 megapixels, you can print a reasonably nice 4 x 6 photo at 300 DPI.

Think about that for a second.

HDTV. 4 x 6 photo.

What does this mean? It means that the age of the still photographer may be coming to an end, at least in the way that we know it, where you try to click the shutter at just the right moment, in just the right light, to capture just the right photo.

As technology improves, as video goes from 1080p to higher and higher resolutions, at some point you won’t ever need to worry about clicking the shutter to capture a great photo. You’ll simply open the video stream, find the exact moment in the video that you want to print as a still photo, export that frame, and call it a day. Imagine what that will mean for portrait studios – just tell someone to come in for a minute, make a bunch of faces, have fun, don’t worry about posing, and then after 60 seconds of video or so, go to the studio display, scroll through the video stream, and get the photo you want.

Where will we be in 10 years? I remember the maximum resolution a consumer could get for reasonably money 10 years ago was 640 x 480 in the Sony Mavica and the Apple Quicktake. Today, you can get a 12 megapixel camera for about the same amount of money – 40 times the resolution. If we’re today at 2 megapixel VIDEO stills, and technology manages the same rate of improvement, we’ll be able to print mural-sized photos from our videos in the next decade.

July 5, 2007

Stabilization equipment for handheld video

We in new media have enjoyed access to smaller, lighter, less costly equipment as the years have gone by. I remember when my father got our first VHS video camera. It shot at 320 x 240, 30 fps, weighed 17 pounds, sat on your shoulder, and cost a thousand bucks. Today, I carry a small Canon SD130IS and a Nikon DSLR which can crank out HD videos all on its own. The Canon weighs so little that I forget I have it with me half the time.

The downside of gear this small and light is that it’s extremely unstable. Human hands are not known for stability, and gear that light doesn’t weigh enough (and therefore have enough inertia) to self-stabilize. What to do? Well, some folks have come up with very innovative products to do things like stabilize video or enable hand-held distance pictures. Two such products are Manfrotto’s Fig Rig, and PixPal’s camera extender. The Fig Rig will set you back about $300, and a camera extender another$ 30.

This, then, is how to do it all on $7.

First, go to the hardware store and pick up a 5 foot length of PVC, two 90 degree elbows, one 45 degree elbow, one T junction, 2 female-female pipe connectors, 2 1/4″ x 3″ carriage bolts, and 2 wingnuts, 1/4″. You’ll also need a drill with 1/4″ bit and a saw. The pipe can be any width that feels comfortable, but make absolutely sure you buy connecting pieces to fit that width, and buy them all at the same store, since some piping systems are – yes – proprietary.

Note: the 2 connectors are NOT shown here.

Start by drilling a hole in the bottom of the T junction. You may want to use a kitchen knife to pare off any bits of plastic left over.

You’ll also want to drill a hole in the elbow. Aim the drill for the center of where the pipe will be.

Saw the pipe into 5 equal sections.

Assemble the pieces as shown below:

Now attach your camera(s) using the carriage bolt and wingnut. Do NOT overtighten or you’ll wreck your camera. Tighten until the camera doesn’t easily rotate, but not so tight that it won’t budge.