So it took me a while to do this, but I finally took advantage of the Warner Bros. offer to “upgrade” (still love that term!) my HD-DVDs to Blu-ray discs. Just in case anyone forgets the story. When “High Definition” discs were introduced back in 2006, there were two competing platforms, the aforementioned HD-DVD and Blu-ray versions. Despite efforts to not turn it into a format war, the two camps promoted their respective discs as the better way to do hi-def video discs. There was no discernable difference.

The reason I went with HD-DVD in the first place was to get the HD version of “The Shining” (and other Stanley Kubrick films), and it was stunning. It was especially exciting to see a wider screen version of the film, particularly the opening sequence of Jack Torrance’s drive to the Overlook Hotel viewed by helicopter.

At the time of the format war I was basically unconcerned about whether HD-DVD “won” or not. The technology existed to “rip” the HD content to a hard drive. Practically speaking however, the convenience of the disc did become important, especially when considering the extra features included. It’s difficult to duplicate the access to those features with a ripped version, not to mention managing an approximately 16 to 20 GB file for just the movie. So when I saw Warner’s offer, I said some day I’ll do that. Last week I decided to take the plunge.

The offer was to trade in the cover art of the HD-DVDs plus $4.95 in exchange for the Blu-ray version. The only exception to this was Blade Runner which has multiple versions and several discs so I had to pony up $14.95 for that one. So the line-up of movies is The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, 2001 – A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, Batman Begins, Blazing Saddles, Goodfellas, and Blade Runner. So with postage I spent about $56 which is $7 a disc – not a bad deal. I still have some HD-DVDs that weren’t on the upgrade list, so I’ll need a strategy for those movies going forward. I did receive a bonus disc – Rumor Has It… a 2005 Rob Reiner film – no clue as to why.

I have built up quite a good collection of Blu-ray discs over the last few years. Maybe I’ll blog about those movies one day.

There was this one scene in particular that was magic (literally) for me. The simplicity of the “trick” was marvelous. It reminds me of what students are doing in DS106 and in other places. Creating interesting videos as experimentation. No one did this quite like Dali, and the whole video provides many great examples.

My memory of this scene has been altered over a 22 year period. I thought that the delivery of the “metallic paper” and the dancing assistant went on much longer. It is rather fleeting. However, that unique dance and hauntingly jaunty music, was strongly etched into my pre-frontal cortex. Thanks to digital archivists such as UbuWeb, I’ll have this memory forever.

There’s a bit of history surrounding “The Kit”. It all started with a presidential initiative back in 2006. We worked with a company to provide live streaming of lectures, and “boxes” that included all of the hardware needed to accomplish it, such as the computer, audio mixing board, two PTZ (Pan, Tilt, Zoom) video cameras, and a wireless microphone. It all got lugged around in a large rolling case, like something you’d see a band use on their world tour, pushing it in and out of the semi-trailer. It was huge, but it contained everything that was needed – except maybe the tripod wouldn’t quite fit.

The computer was a Shuttle PC with a Video Toaster card inside. I wrote (briefly) about it almost 4 years ago – Time to Make Video Toast.

It was a pretty sweet system in its day. Interesting how four years can seem like a generation ago when it comes to technology. This was also at a time when there was the shiny allure of recording in High Definition video. It was an upgrade for the Toaster that didn’t exist, even though HD cameras were available. Nope it was all Standard Definition video, with a composite connection to the Toaster, so the video quality was pretty low. When the time came to stream the video, a lot of the detail was being lost. For the 2009 Faculty Academy we used the Toaster with Ustream.tv. With no built in streaming capabilities (nothing cheap like Ustream anyway), we used an intermediary program called WebcamMax to get the captured video output to Ustream. It worked, and we got good feedback on the live stream, as well as exposing more people to the magic of Faculty Academy.

For 2010, my old Macintosh DNA was re-surging. I had started using a MacBook Pro in 2008, but I was using it to run Windows Vista. Pretty quickly I might add. I began making the switch to OS X in 2009, and I was beginning to investigate video solutions that would replace the Toaster. I found that the Mac platform had an interesting set of developers. There was also this strange phenomenon of bundled software deals available for Macs. In early February there was one called MacHeist. This was the third edition of this “event” and one of the programs included in the bundle was called Boinx TV. If enough people bought the bundle for $49, Boinx TV would be “unlocked”. The software normally sold for $249. I would get Boinx TV and other cool programs like WireTap Studio, Acorn, and Kinemac all for $49.

For Faculty Academy 2010 it was all Mac and Boinx TV. However, we still had the issue of using an intermediary program for streaming. CamTwist, a free program, was used to take the video output from Boinx TV and route it to the Ustream broadcasting page. It works by taking an area of the screen and making your computer think it’s just a built-in webcam (WebcamMax did the same thing). It did pretty well, but it necessitates some window juggling that adds to the interface complexity. The whole system was a general success, though the size of the iMac used was still a bit difficult  to lug around.

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by orioles29

A month later I presented at the 2010 NMC Summer Conference. Using my laptop and Boinx TV, we were inching closer to the ideal. It was a very well received presentation as I did a live show – broadcasted to the live audience and streamed live to the world. It was titled “This Old New Media Center” and the idea was to show how DIY “sweat equity” could be applied to new technologies for someone moderately technology-able to create a live streamed presentation.

At the beginning of 2011, I began to think of creating the ideal streaming kit. It would have to be a laptop, and one with some horsepower as this live streaming/recording is quite CPU intensive. Everything else would have to be compact as well. It would all have to fit in a backpack, with the exception being a good solid tripod. At about the same time, I was asked to be involved in recording our president give a State of the University speech. While we wouldn’t have the kit ready in time for the speech, we were able to cobble together most of the pieces that would ultimately make up the kit. Much as we liked the Boinx TV software, a critical piece to streamlining the live broadcast and recording was using Telestream’s Wirecast software. It has built-in streaming to several different services such as Ustream, Livestream, and Justin.tv to name a few. It also has a relatively simple interface for doing simple shows. It can also be used for some more complex tasks like chroma-keying (green screen) to put different backgrounds virtually in a video. It certainly is the next step in simplified live streaming.

At the 2011 ACCS of Virginia Conference in March, I again did a live show to unveil “The Kit”. I was able to stream live using Ustream and also make a recording, in HD no less, to the hard drive for archival purposes. I was able to present using the Wirecast software to the local audience and also stream the identical program. My Keynote presentation integrated nicely as Wirecast supports playing Keynote QuickTime movies, so I can advance a slide at a time, or even a bullet point at a time complete with the animations and transitions. A resource page for “The Kit” has the recorded presentation as well as a list of the components.

Kit Time Lapse from umwnewmedia on Vimeo.

I have since given two more presentations with the Kit, and it really is pretty simple to set up. Thanks to the great network of individuals found in the phenomenon known as DS106, we have already seen this employed for something known as DS106 TV. When the concept of DIY technology is unleashed on talented people, great things happen.

I got my Glif last week and haven’t used it yet, but I’m still excited about it. After I received it, I subsequently listened to three podcasts that mentioned what a great product it was. It’s nice to have affirmation that you made a smart purchase, especially one like the Glif. You could say it’s a little pricey (about $20), but that’s before you see what it does, and how well it is designed.

Oh right. What is a Glif? Well, on a basic level it is a tripod adapter for the iPhone. It form fits on the iPhone 4 to give you a standard tripod socket. However, because of its design, it can also be used as a stand for both horizontal and vertical orientation. It will be one of those handy gadgets I keep in my computer backpack for different occasions.

Now it’s time to get some use out of this thing.

I’m getting back on my feet after a busy live-streaming week, and a bit of a hiatus from posting in this space. Anyway, here’s a quick post about an interesting follow-up to a great video from Michael Wesch’s Digital Ethnography project.

We’re working on a new video, tentatively titled “The Visions of Students Today.” We are hoping that a few students all over the world will be willing to show us how they see their world and how they learn.

The post giving the details is a call for submissions of a two-minute video of “critical learning moments” from the students perspective. Hoping some of the “ds106-ers” will see this and run with it.

Update: Here are the videos on YouTube tagged with vost2011.

And now, the downsides. Flash is a plugin in a web browser, which needs to be installed – and updated on a regular basis. The other downside? It doesn’t work on iThings – iPods, iPhones, iPads. Flash is having it’s performance problems on other mobile devices, and it doesn’t seem to be that Apple is just making it up.

So how does this all clear the way for HTML5 video? What is HTML5 anyway? The what is it question is answered by a very informative website called Dive Into HTML5 by Mark Pilgrim. HTML5 is (the shortened description) a specification about how components work in a web page, but they include fancy new capabilities like animation and video, and more interaction – you know, like Flash – but without the plugin. It does it natively with whatever browser you have, as long as the browser supports the capabilities. It’s why HTML5 is not quite ready for prime time yet. Not all the browsers fully support it. The Internet Explorer browsers have been particularly slow to adopt it, though IE9 will make up quite a bit of the distance that its predecessors left it.

HTML5 video is being adopted more quickly that the other HTML5 bits because of the Flash deficiencies mentioned previously. However, the browser support issue needs to be dealt with. A common way forward is to program for the HTML5 video and then have a “fallback” plan in case it isn’t supported in the browser. In other words program so that Flash kicks in if there is no HTML5 video support. Do a search for “html5 flash fallback” and you get a bucket load of procedures.

Now this is where you should be shouting, “You’re doing it all wrong!” Why? Because the HTML5 support is immature, and it shows. The built in players just don’t have the functionality of the Flash players. Use the same search terms for falling back to HTML5 and you get much less information. But that’s how it should be done. Look, Flash works great in the modern web browsers because it has been around for so long. It has years of development on its side. So use it. Then if your device doesn’t support Flash (I’m looking at you iPhone and iPad), fall back to HTML5. A great tutorial by Lee Brimelow shows you how it’s done.

A word of caution is that the HTML5 fallback works for standard web pages, but it gets tricky to make it work in a WordPress installation. Luckily there is a nice plugin for that. Rodrigo Violante has created the HTML5 and Flash Video Player plugin which allows that Flash player with HTML5 fallback functionality, and it works like a charm. It should be noted that sites like YouTube and Vimeo are also using a Flash interface, but support for the iDevices is there as well (you need a Vimeo “Plus” account for their mobile, non-iPad, support). However, keep in mind – it’s still early. We’re still in the dress rehearsal phase.

A while ago I mentioned a cool program that could download and convert YouTube videos. It was a Mac only program called Evom. I lamented that I wished there was an easy program for Windows that could do what Evom did. Well, it’s here in the form of Fastest YouTube Downloader. I know, what a great name

It’s not quite the drag and drop goodness of Evom on the Mac, but it lives up to its name. IT IS FAST. Almost magically so (you hear that Apple?). There is also a version for the Mac, so this might be that elusive cross-platform beauty I’ve been looking for. It does what you expect, and after downloading the video, gives you a wide selection of files types to convert to – including MP3 audio files. I’m putting it through its paces, but it looks like a good one. The creators even have a quick video for further enticement.

Welcome to the new school year. I’m still shaking my head about where the summer went. I’m also still grinding gears from vacation last week, but despite those issues, I’m very excited about 2010/11 at UMW. While perusing my RSS feed today, Lifehacker reminded me about Evom, a Mac only (sorry) video converter that is super slick and easy. If it were on the PC it could be the one program I would recommend to do a myriad of tasks.

Evom comes from a company called Little App Factory, makers of the Mac DVD ripping software RipIt! I don’t know where the name Evom came from, but the program works great. It converts many types of videos, and uses the ffmpeg engine to perform its magic. The beauty of the program is the ease in which it gets video into the right configuration for Apple devices. You drag a file from your hard drive into the interface and you get asked which device you want to prepare the file for.

Choosing the iTunes or iPod buttons gives you the option convert the video, or to ditch the video and just save as an MP3 audio file, so it’s handy for ripping audio from video files. You can also prepare videos for an Apple TV (and therefore iPad), or for uploading to YouTube. It’ll even take care of the uploading part (supply your YouTube credentials). You also have the option to simply save the file to a folder anywhere on your computer.

OK. So lots of converters do similar things to Evom. Big deal. Well, for me the big deal is that it can also convert videos that are ON YouTube. If you’re using Safari or Firefox, simply drag the YouTube link from the address bar to the Evom window, and then choose your destination. The downloading and conversion can take a while, depending on connection speed, length of the video, etc., but it all happens in the background. So it’s YouTube to iPod, or iPhone, or iPad, or Apple TV, or to PowerPoint or Keynote, in minimal steps.

One wrench in the works, and it’s not Evom’s fault, is that the Google Chrome browser doesn’t allow the dragging of links into the Evom window. I don’t know what prevents this, but there’s a simple solution. Simply copy the link, with a Command-c shortcut, or by clicking the Edit menu and Copy, then paste the link into Evom (use Command-p or choose Edit>Paste in Evom). Since Google Chrome still does not have a YouTube downloader extension, this is a great solution for grabbing those videos.

One final word about Evom. It’s free!

I know.

You’re welcome.

Standard disclaimer about grabbing YouTube videos or ripping audio from files. Remember there are copyright issues.