Streamlining with Quicktime Pro

Byrichard

If you’re learning about editing but don’t want to spend much money then Quicktime pro is a cheap and easy straight cut editor. It’s quick and easy to use.

With the short cut apple+c apple+N and apple+v you have a very simple editor. Using J to play backwards, k to pause and L to play normally you control how the video plays. With the I key for marking in points and the O key for out points you’ve got everything you need.

Find a video clip that is recognised by Quicktime and play the video. Find the footage you want to keep with the J,K,L keys and mark your in and out points. Once this is done cut the video with apple+C and open a new player with apple+n. Paste the video segment in your new player and you’ve got the first shot. Repeat this process with the source video and you’ve got a simple straight cuts editor.

There was some footage I wanted to process quickly, without opening finalcut pro and it worked fine. It’s more intuitive than imovie (for me at least) and it’s very affordable.

Interview with the creators of Minsh tomorrow

Byrichard

Minsh is launching tomorrow and I will be meeting with them to record an interview with them about the website. They’re university students who did this as one of their projects.

Minsh is a 3d virtual environment in which twitter users are represented as fish swimming in the ocean. Each fish is a different twitter user. I saw this project in pre alpha and it’s an interesting idea.

Tomorrow I will see how it’s evolved and I hope to have a video up by Friday lunchtime which will help you understand what the website is about.

Nanox,TRP files and Mpeg streamclip

Byrichard

Satellite television broadcasting is an interesting field to looik into, especially now that there are thousands of channels available on a multitude of satellites. Over the past two days I have been learning about the Nanox HDTV recording device.

What I like about using the Nanox receiver is the ability to see stream information, what format is being broadcast as well as resolution. What’s interesting is that some satellite channels are broadcasting at full HD quality whilst others are broadcasting at no more than 576*352 for example. You get the bit rate information too.

Now that I’ve lost most people here’s the part I like. You can attach any USB hard disk to the device and record programs off the television. This is particularly interesting if there’s a documentary you intended to watch but weren’t around to watch it. It can record two simultaneous streams at once.

TRP files are a compressed file format that are ideal for storage. They’re not recognised by quicktime but if you download mpeg streamclip then you can convert this file format to any file format you desire.

If you record a number of files with the satellite receiver with mpeg streamclip you can batch encode a number of files at once. This means that a spare computer can do the rendering without you having to be there.

If there is an EPG available for the channel you are watching you can schedule the receiver to record the program. In other situations you can start a recording and it will ask whether to stop recording at the end of the scheduled program. If there is no EPG the process is manual to start a recording but you can select how long you want to record for. It’s a shame that you need to go into the menu to set the record duration however.

Happy and slightly nervous – as would be expected.

Byrichard

Nouvo is a show I have enjoyed watching many times, aired on Swiss television and in podcast form until recently. They are changing format and appearing on the website and news programs from now on. What makes this particularly interesting is that they left a comment on this blog, asking to interview the person behind Warzabidul, my twitter name for the past two years.

I accepted and after two half hour phone calls we spent half a day. I was filmed at home tweeting at breakfast, walking through the countryside and in the old town of Geneva. Two other people were interviewed about twitter as well, to provide some balance.

That news item will be aired on Sunday 19th of April on the 1930 Téléjournal, as well as on the Nouvo site. They also have a new twitter account so once you’ve watched the two accounts make sure to create an account and let them know you’ve watched the program. Let’s show that Switzerland too uses the social media.

As an afterthought you should see the seesmic logo on my laptop, maybe seesmic desktop, nambu, dabr, twitterific and maybe one or two other applications.

Sociability and the web

Byrichard

Yesterday I had the pleasure of someone deciding to spend a good portion of the day with me, something that is quite rare. It’s also something that is important to a topic that I have spent quite a bit of time thinking about. How much of your time do you give to others, and what would you like to receive in exchange for that time.

I ask this because whilst Kutcher and CNN are turning followers into a commodity I value the dialogue that I have with those that I follow, and that follow me. Twitter i about just one thing, dialogue. Through dialogue we can discuss projects, we can establish friendships and we can acquire knowledge. All of these things can help up along in life.

I’m interested in this topic because one friend, months ago, said that twitter and social media were chronophage, that is to say that they’re a waste of time. Of course that’s something all internet users worry about. It’s something we all struggle to justify and eventually there is just one reality we must accept.

There is no point wasting time on the social media with those that don’t have or want to take the time to talk to us. Over the past few months I have seen friend after friend after friend run out of time, losing the ability to stay online and converse, as much through twitter as through skype, IM and other forms of electronic conversation. I’m sure you’ve experienced it too.

Each of these people, as they have less time to be social, and as they leave messages unanswered devalue the time we spend online. Send twenty messages without getting an answer and you believe that you’re at fault, that you’re wasting your time. You can stop worrying about that.

It’s the people that don’t have the time to answer that are wasting your time, not the other way around. By this I mean that you can always answer. You don’t need to answer the same morning, or the same day. You should still take the time to answer. It gives you value within the social media. It also keeps one more person interested in what you’re doing.

A few people have seen the value that answering to everyone has, two examples are Vaynerchuck and Loic Lemeur. I don’t follow either of them but they live according to this ideology. I call it an ideology because in reality it’s as bad as not answering at all. For the novice, the inexperienced web user getting an answer is great, it’s confidence building and it’s flattering. To the social media veteran you eventually see through the smoke and mirrors. For a long time I followed certain big names and without giving names I stopped following them. I stopped because I could see they were giving generic answers, trying not to ignore too many people consistently.

The point is the following. The social media are about dialogue so you should only follow as many people as you feel you can have a personal conversation with without losing site of individuals as a result. The social media are about friendship, rather than brand. The more you value the friendships you establish the more you will gain. The popularity contest between CNN and the other guy are devaluing the follower. It’s a good publicity stunt because it generates buzz but at the end of the day because you’re talking to a mass you’re unable to chat with individuals. Remember this. Friendships create community, not crowds.

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It’s a question of Gravity – Twitter on S60

Byrichard

Gravity is a twitter client for the s60 and I recently installed it on my N95 and so far I’m very happy with it. With an intuitive interface it makes being logged in to two twitter accounts and one identica account very easy. What is especially nice is that you select which account you want to look at and by scrolling left and right you see the friend’s timeline, the replies, your tweets, your DM and finally searches if you want. That’s automatic and for every account.

It’s far better than the other twitter clients for s60 that I’ve tried so for the moment that is one twitter client I would recommend you use.

I know what I’m talking about. I tweet from anywhere without it slowing down my social life.

Also if you pay for this app after the ten day trial period you’re helping demonstrate that it’s not just the iphone which has people willing to pay for the applications

Nambu is great

Byrichard

Nambu is a desktop client for Twitter available only to users of Leopard 10.5. What makes this application great is that it has automatic threading of conversations, making it easier to keep track of conversations.

The multi-column to single column view is also easy to interact with and creating groups and adding friends is a breeze. As a result of it’s intuitive nature it’s a pleasure to use this application

There are two views that make it amazingly easy to see what your twitter friends have hyperlinked to.

Overall it’s a nice product and other people are enjoying it to.

Sportstracker has been improved.

Byrichard

Today I was pleasantly surprised after racketing in the mountains to discover that my phone’s battery had not depleted. I was using sportstracker for over two hours and some charge was still left after an hour and a half. There was so much battery left in fact I went for nine more kilometers of walking and still the battery is healthy.

That’s not the only thing that’s improved. Now you have maps. You can’t move around the map except by changing geographic location but you can see the roads around you and more. It’s much simpler than google maps but then again there’s no need for such accuracy anyway.

Now I can spend half a day walking and still have enough power to be tracked the whole way. I know, half a day isn’t that long. Still better than an hour or two though.