Videocracy Blog

I read an interesting article today about the trends in the Home Media market…thanks to services like YouTube, Sony and JVC have released a new camera that is specifically meant for people  interested in taking video of their child or their dog playing, or any other simple home movies.

These companies are coming out with a simple digital video camera for around 100 bucks…I had one of these kinda cameras almost two years ago, it’s an aptek digital camera and it takes stills and video.  Pretty neat camera I get a lot of use  out of it.  It saves the image to a flash card and you can take them right off the card and put them in your PC.  What’s interesting is the demand for a camera that is cost effective, for someone who isn’t going to be using the camera too often, or for extensive purposes…it’s really today’s answer to Home Movies.

Likewise, with the demand for an easy an affordable camera, comes an easy and affordable way to edit and display your home videos.  You can now do simple edits, transitions and add music to your video, and then from there put it on YouTube, or send it to a friend.

I looked at a few of these sites, and the one that interested me the most is a site that is actually owned by Yahoo…it’s called JumpCut (www.JumpCut.com) and you simply upload your video, and edit it however you please.  It’s pretty neat, for a basic editor…and I’m talking more basic then iMovie, or Windows Movie Maker…it does a pretty nice job.

The one feature I was most interested in was that it will send it to your cell phone…however upon trying it, it didn’t actually send it to your phone, instead it sends a Text Message providing a link to where you can look at in online.

The other website worth noting is one called Motion Box…This one is more of a way to upload and store your photos and videos, similar to YouTube, the difference is, you can do simple edits…and you can share your videos in the form of an eCard, and or just to email it to someone….

These days it’s becoming more and more possible to be a filmmaker, no matter how novice…

We have youtube debates…and now, in the newest wave of Election 2.0, we have the first ever user controlled debates…Yahoo offered a debate online, where you could choose the question and then choose the candidates, and then you can watch their answers, and then judge for yourself who has the better answer, thus being the better candidate.

Pretty neat…in the end viewers choose Barack Obama as their political candidate.

I can’t wait to see more from this new “Election 2.0″ as I like to call it….

I read an article today in Entertainment Weekly about NBC pulling out of iTunes….They specifically referenced that episodes of the Office, and Heros were availbe for download (at a price) through iTunes.  But NBC felt that iTunes was charging too much so they pulled out.

What interests me about this article is this…Why are people paying to watch NBC shows?  I could see people paying to watch the Sopranos, or Big Love…because they are on premium stations.  And yes I realize that people want to own these videos for themselves, and a majority of the people purchase them to watch them when they feel like it.  But I don’t see the need for paying 10 bucks for an episode of the Office when I can watch it for free on Thursdays.  And in the days of DVR, Tivo, DVD Recorders, and now a coax card for your computer…why pay for it.  It’s Free..every Thursday night…and with some shows you can watch the episode on the station website for a week.  But again you can’t own it.

This all goes back to the idea of television the way I want it…and by I, I mean the TV viewer…you control what you watch, and when you watch it…People want to take their programs with them on the go…

I love my iPod, I haven’t quite gotten into using it for video (I know it’s funny coming from a Video Guy…but it’s a Music Device, and I’m also a music guy).  Maybe if I was on the bus instead of a car I could see getting it.

The days of the tangible video/audio media is coming to a close…The next wave of home entertainment  will come through the apple TV, or similar wiFi device.  I mean afterall…nobody wants to put a disc into their computer…that’s too much work.

Please don’t make this out to seem like a rant…it’s not…I’m not on a soap box, I am interested in current video trends…but I’m also an art lover, and I  would rather have an album with artwork…or a DVD with cool packaging then a digital file that sits on my computer.  This is coming from the guy who collects vinyl, and has over 200 DVDs….So hopefully there will still be people out there like me who want this sort of thing.  And it won’t die off completely.

So I’m not a fan of They Might Be Giants, but they are the topic of a podcast I was listening to today. In the past I may have mentioned my liking of the podcast This America Life, in this episode which was recorded in like 1998, they are talking about the telephone, and they are referencing They Might be Giants, and a process they use to choose their songs. They have a thing called Dial-a-Song, where fans can call this number in New York, at their apartment, and they would get a free song, which has been recorded on their answering machine. What a great idea…they record a song, and record it to their answering machine, and then fans listen to the song…and they can leave feedback about the song right there on They Might Be Giants answering machine, and then from there they decide what songs get put on their album.

I never realized what a valuable tool your outgoing message is…I heard one yesterday where the person you called gave an updated weekly quote….I have had the same message on my voicemail for like 3 years…of course, my problem is that it takes me 3 hours to record the outgoing message because I’m never satisfied with my first time through…so I gotta do it again and again.

I’m not sure if Dial-A-Song still exists, I tried the number that was mentioned in the wikipedia page about it, but the line kept ringing and ringing and ringing no answer. If you do a google search you will find that the Dial-A-Song website, which was an online version of the once popular phone number. Well apparently they started doing this in 2003 and is became what is now known as………podcasting.

So I’m waiting for my FIRST EVER Computer Animation to finish rendering…I avoided Computer Animation all through college thinking that it wasn’t for me….now I’m wishing that I hadn’t, because I’m really having fun with it. The hardest thing to learn was modeling, it took me about an hour to figure out how to animate the camera movements and the object movements.

I’m animating a commercial for theBubbler, I am doing it right now because of necessity…I needed another commercial for the latest episode went so long that I have to make another commercial for the additional break that was added…and for this one, I figured it was time to step it up a notch…making something better then I had 6 months ago…

I can’t wait to show off this animation, Blender has become a really good tool under my belt.