Video News

We all have experienced a lapse in memory from time to time. It’s especially disappointing when the memory you’re trying to recall is one of importance, such as a special family event or vacation. Over the decades, the popularization of camcorders and cameras have helped us forever capture memories, but only the moments chosen by the person operating the camera.

Microsoft Research had developed a device called the SenseCam that is proving to be a great tool for memory loss. The digital camera is worn around the users neck, and is equipped with a fish-eye lens in order to capture as much information as possible. The SenseCam takes up to two pictures a minute without having to be prompted, and can store up to 30,000 photos on a 1GB flash memory card. This allows the user to view a thorough recount of their day picture by picture, or by compiling them all in a stop-motion fashion.

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To give a little equal time to operating systems that are not Windows 7, and in acknowledgement of the recent release of Ubuntu 9.10, let’s revisit one of the most popular free distributions of Linux. (Note: that’s free as in beer and free as in speech, at least for the following distributions.)

The aforementioned Ubuntu 9.10 is one of the most prevalent distributions that can operate as a Live CD. That is to say, you can try Ubuntu 9.10 by running it off the CD that you burn it to (its performance will be hobbled since everything’s being read off the CD, but everything still works–this can be overcome by putting the contents of the CD onto a USB flash drive and booting from that instead.) This is one of the reasons why I really like this distro. If you’ve never had any exposure to Linux before, it’s worth a try; the hardest part about it is probably burning the ISO image that you download onto a blank CD. And both Fedora and OpenSUSE have new versions coming out soon as well. These are also popular free distributions with deep-seeded roots. All of them are worth trying out if you have some extra hard drive space.

But there are many more distributions than just these: check out DistroWatch for information on literally hundreds of Linux, BSD and Solaris distributions. You can filter down to the distributions that will best suit your needs. While not everyone can replace Windows outright with a Linux distribution, you might find that a free operating system offers a great way to eke some more life out of an old system that you can’t part with, or for cobbling something new together for pretty cheap.

So, back to the question we raised in the headline: can one edit video with Linux? The answer is an unqualified yes! There are at least 10 free video editing applications that can be run with Linux. At least a couple even offer AVCHD support. For more information on what’s out there and what might be worth a try, hit Wikipedia’s Comparison of video editing software and List of video editing software.

GenArts Inc., the premier provider of specialized visual effects software for the film, television and video industries, announced today a definitive agreement to acquire particleIllusion™ and all related products and technologies from wondertouch LLC. The acquisition includes particleIllusion SE, all Emitters and Pro Emitters, particleIllusion for AE, and all additional intellectual property from wondertouch LLC. As part of the acquisition, Alan Lorence, the former CEO of wondertouch and creator of particleIllusion, will join GenArts as a full-time developer. Read the rest of this entry »

After spending the last few days, on and off, installing Windows 7 on a couple of laptops, and after seeing some press releases over the last couple of days for Win7-ready versions of several utilities, I thought I would compile a quick list of utilities that I have found helpful for either optimizing systems or just saving my bacon… Read the rest of this entry »

Sony Creative Software Inc., a leading provider of professional video and audio editing applications, today announced Vegas™ Pro 9.0c software, the latest update to its award-winning nonlinear HD video and audio editing (NLE) application. Vegas Pro 9.0c software features Sony® XDCAM® EX MP4 file rendering and the ability to Smart Render MPEG-2 video across different containers for faster, more seamless editing. New audio features, including exclusive élastique Pro timestretching and Import Stereo Audio as Dual Mono, offer provide even more professional depth to this award-winning NLE. Additional support for media filmed with the RED ONE video camera streamlines file access and efficiency for editors working with footage up to 4K resolution. Vegas Pro 9.0c software also includes additional card support for capture and output via SDI, HD-SDI and HDMI™. Read the rest of this entry »

We got an early release of Motorola’s new Droid phone and took it for a quick test drive to see if it’s got what it takes to be a competitive camcorder.

Charlie Fulton, our Tech Guru had the chance to play with the phone and was surprisingly pleased with the quality of the video it recorded.  The Droid can upload video directly to YouTube, so when you shoot it now, you can share it with the world in only seconds, a cool feature if you’re the first one to catch the return of Elvis from an extraterrestrial spaces-ship. Now that’s a video the world will want to engage in! Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, Videomaker completed its first-ever Basic Production Techniques webinar and we couldn’t be more pleased with the turn-out. There were so many good questions, but, unfortunately, not enough time to answer them all. Here, at Videomaker, we value every question presented and aim to answer each one of them. One question we were unable to answer within the allotted time was regarding basic tips for composing, lighting, and shooting a talking-head corporate video.

Great composition is vital to any video production. Generally, you always want to observe the rule of thirds. If you divide your frame into three equal parts, both vertically and horizontally, you’ll end up with a basic guideline for good composition. The goal here is to place your subject, or points of interest, on one of the intersections within your imaginary grid. In the case of shooting a “talking-head,” you will want to place the subjects eyes on an intersection located in the upper-third of the grid. If you can’t fit your entire subject into the frame, be sure to crop the top of the head and not the chin.

Since corporate videos are pretty straightforward, you don’t need to create an extravagant lighting scheme. A basic 3-point lighting setup – a key light, fill light, and hair light – should do the trick.

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On the surface, it certainly seems like you could put anything onto your favorite video sharing site. It seems like we’ve seen just about everything that could possibly be seen on video sharing sites over the past few years. The primary demarcation point, when it comes down to it, is whether a video being posted is a one-off production of a remarkable event, or something episodic.

We got a very nice mention from ReadWriteWeb a while back from regarding our just-completed Basic Production Techniques webinar. They reminded us of a few of the flagship episodic videos out there, including the venerable Ask a Ninja and iJustine, though there are a few that we’d add a few to that list too. Video sharing sites, at that point, do their best work in that they serve as a springboard to encourage viewers to subscribe to feeds in a somewhat more convenient way (though you can certainly subscribe via the sharing site itself, and that is certainly easy.) But it also lets you find new, related videos as well. And as we see it, the biggest coup one could hope to accomplish is to have an episode of an episodic series go viral, exposing viewers to a goldmine of previous episodes which might result in the clicking of the big golden “Subscribe” button. And that could mean ad revenue sharing…

It’s true, though, that YouTube comments are some of the most brutal things on the internet, right up there with having a comment disemvoweled on Boing Boing or any number of things that might appear on any political web site…

Avid teams with ABC to give journalism students the opportunity to practice production, editing and distribution aspects of broadcast journalism in their ABC News to Campus program. Read on for more details.

Student teams from leading journalism schools across United States get hands-on experience; create and report news in real-world newsroom environment

Avid® has joined forces with ABC News to participate in ABC News On Campus - an innovative program designed to give tomorrow’s most promising news professionals an opportunity to practice real-world news gathering, production and broadcasting.  ABC News On Campus students capture, produce, edit and distribute news stories in their local area, which are often featured across ABC News programs. This year, students from six universities, including Arizona State University, Syracuse University, University of Florida, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of North Carolina (at Chapel Hill), and University of Texas (at Austin) will learn the inner workings of a newsroom, while using industry-leading solutions like Media Composer® video editing software to create news stories.  The program is in its second year.
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JVC just unveiled it’s latest Blu-ray player, the JVC XV-BP11. Now you can have Blu-ray playback at an affordable sub $200 price. Read on for more details.

JVC today announced the availability of a new entry-level Blu-ray player. The new JVC XV-BP11 is a truly versatile high definition player, offering playback of high definition Blu-ray discs, plus playback of the AVCHD format, the high definition format widely used for HD camcorders, including the JVC HD Everio line.  New XV-BP11 player offers AVCHD file playback.

The new JVC XV-BP11 Blu-ray player is available immediately for $199.95.

Reprinted from a JVC press release.