And He Blogs

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Memories from NMC 2007 are somewhat faded, but one of the most interesting sessions for me was the IUPUI presentation on “Searching for an Ideal Live Video Streaming Technology”. A promise was made to publish the detailed results of “the search” by the end of the summer. Well, it’s been delivered, and let’s give a huge round of applause to VLC! What is VLC? Well in a bit of Jim Groom style hyperbolic flare, it’s only the best program ever. I’m only half kidding. VLC stands for VideoLAN Client and it is a multi-purpose media player. The list of its capabilities is truly staggering.

First off it is completely cross platform. Windows (including Vista), Macintosh, AND Linux versions exist. Jim Groom highlighted this program in a post about Mac video tools a while back, so he can vouch for the viability of using this program on OS X. An interesting side note is that this program was actually developed as a student project in a Paris, France school, so it was literally born in the education world.

I promise a full article on all of its talents, but here is a short list. It plays virtually all of the media formats, audio and video, that you could think of. More importantly it plays files very efficiently. I have seen in the case of some high bitrate DivX files, DivX’s own player stutter with the playback, while VLC handled the same file with aplomb. The only major exception to format compatibility is the Real Media format, which is perhaps for licensing issues. That format is pretty dead, though UMW certainly dabbled in it. VLC also can function as a DVD player, playing discs back with full menus. It also has a great playlist feature (we employed at our recent freshman student orientation presentation). Throw it a directory of files, again video or audio, and it will play them back one-by-one. I use it to play DivX and FLV (like YouTube) files, my two favorite formats.

Finally, as the title of this post suggests, you can stream from your computer live video. That’s right it’s both a client and server program for live streaming video. As you can see, IUPUI thought very highly of it. Now how much would you pay for it? Did I mention that it was free? It’s versatility is unmatched and you will hear me speak of it often in my role as New Media Specialist here at the University of Mary Washington. The multi-faceted VLC.

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As I prepare for a new position as “New Media Specialist”, this is the sort of groundbreaking application that I’d like to highlight. Mac fan-boys (and girls) will be so jealous!

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I had seen this information a while back about what is the best video format to upload to get the best quality playback from YouTube videos. Well, obviously there is a (corny) video to go along with the information. Boy, that DivX sure gets around.

Just to sum up, save your video with the following attributes:

* MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
* 320×240 640×480 resolution (*updated recommendation)
* MP3 audio
* 30 frames per second

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The remix as promotion. I came across a great example of this via the ccMixter website, which is a Creative Commons project site that allows you to use, re-use, and remix vocals, instrumental music, and other sound samples into new compositions. All this with the benefit of a Creative Commons license. It’s an interesting site to explore, with a wide range of musical flavors.

So who is Calendar Girl? Well, let me first tell you the story of the discovery. At the ccMixter site I followed the “editors picks” link to a song called “May (apeskinny mix).” For some reason, before I played the song, I noticed a section on the page labeled “Uses samples from:” and clicked on “May“. It was an acappella vocal with a light jazzy feel. So here is the vocal of “May”, and this inspires this version, the “apeskinny mix”. Other versions with widely varying styles are available, or you’re certainly free to create your own version. You are free to mix it up, as long as you give attribution to calendargirl and you keep it non-commercial, as the Creative Commons license states.

Calendar Girl can be found at her Calendar Songs website, where her goal is to write a song a month (she started in October of 2006), and have people write music for the vocal, and then create an album of twelve songs. Certainly a cool idea, and enabled only by the power of Creative Commons. If you care to further delve into the personality of Calendar Girl, she has a “disco alter-ego” that is part of Freeform Five (though I only counted four). She also has a YouTube presence.

May (apeskinny mix) is a hauntingly groovy song. What makes this composition process even cooler is the ability to comment with the artists. Imagine it. Social music creation.

Hey, I’m thinking of starting a band. So you live in London and you live in Hong Kong? No problem!

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