The Francofous Show 2
Et voila que PiouPiou nous donne la deuxième version de la version Française du “Seesmix Français”
On twestival
The first tweetup I went to saw a crowd of no more than sixty people. The twestival had many more. Enough to fill the Doon club. So many new faces but not many new people to follow. It’s fun to see how big the London twitter community has become.
The usual people were there, sizemore, loudmouthman, documentally, danacea weaverluke and a few new faces like digitalmaverick, amandita, Poppyd and a few more people. Some video was shot of the event but I’m not sure by when they’ll go up. There was no wifi so no opportunity to do some live streaming.
At the same time I’m thinking it’s time for a plurk up of the same scale, since for the moment there are so few people.
Now it’s time for Tuttle.
From One Screen to the Next and the Next
A good video looking at the evolution towards the fourth screen
IBC and Automated Camera Systems/Solutions
One guy was going around IBC on a segway that was modified for steadycam work. Rising from the platform was a rest where you could put your legs to keep upright whilst to the side the steadycam mount was free to move for steady shots.
That’s just one of the contraptions. Simple automated camera heads could be found at Sony’s stand, JVC and other companies. Each one had a remote control which would allow you to select between up to 18 cameras depending on the cofiguration. One system in particular allowed you to preset shots before a shoot whilst providing a touch screen. Press the thumbnail and the camera head will go to that shot automatically. Press another shot and it reframes to that one. Adjust the speed and everything is automated.
There were some jibs automated of which the most impressive was a noiseless machine that could be programmed to within a millimeter of where you wanted the camera to be at different times. What made that one most impressive is that it’s plugged into a virtual studio. As the camera moves around it moves in accordance with the virtual elements so the presenter can use screens, props and more to illustrate the story. That’s not all though. If the camera turns beyond a certain point then you see nothing. The camera points right at the crowd but you see the virtual studio. It’s fun.
Pedestals are also remotely operated so there’s no need for more than one camera operator per studio. It’s all about reducing costs and making broadcast of a high quality more affordable. The positive side is that for less interesting and creative shoots you don’t need to tie up a camera operator as he stands around waiting for things to happen. Once it’s programmed the machine runs.
The question is what this means for the future. How will the remotes be improved to make controlling the cameras easier? Most of the remotes are not as easy to control as standing at the pedestal and operating the camera yourself. They require a level of experience and speed that is not there quite yet but it will come. Will this mean that camera men will have more fun assignments like documentary shoots, festivals and other types of events to cover? There’s the vision mixing to take into consideration but that’s another post topic.
Plurk and mobility, why I like it.
Plurk is one of the most interesting mobile “microblogging” tool available at the moment because of it’s simple interface. Without the need for additional applications, expensive data packages and more you can follow the conversation of your contacts and friends in a way that neither jaiku nor twitter allow.
If you’re on your home network then jaiku is interesting because you download the messages. If you’re travelling then twitter is semi useful to read messages whilst mobile. The biggest limitation with twitter is the api limit. Frequently I have found that I can’t access the messages due to a 404 error. That’s problematic.
That’s why I like plurk. It provides a simple front page where you can see all plurks. Select a plurk and you can read the responses and respond yourself. That’s great because it means you can converse without putting your life on hold to keep the conversation going.
What’s particularly interesting is that there was a time when twitter was as advantageous as plurk for mobility but due to costs they were unable to provide the service anymore due to cost. Cost is an excuse for a lack of lateral thinking.
By creating a good wap interface that can as easily be used as easily on an n95 as an ipod touch plurk have circumvented most of the cost problems and provided a service that just works. Of course their user base is much smaller and it’s easier to deal with the requests. We’ll see how things progress from here.
IBC and some of the trends to take notice of.
IBC is a big show. There are a lot of things to see. Some of those are fun and innovative whilst others are less interesting. I’ve noticed that there are quite a few companies showing mobile and IPTV solutions. Many of them are multiplatform, web tv, mobile and other. they work on a variety of codecs.
Anothr aspect is the virtual studio and automated processes. We see many remote camera rigs, remote jibs, remote 3d modeling cameras and to some extent virtual modelling and sets before any of the shooting is ever done. In reality it’s abou he one man operation. One camera operator to program, one person to control multiple camers and more. It’s also about high definition and 3d.
There were quite a few examples and solutions attempting to allow for 3D productions, from two small cameras fitted on a rig to allow for shooting as if it was two eyes to more expensive rigs where you’d see two cameras, one pointing down and shooting through a mirror with another shooting straight forward. Of course there are also the monitors that can play in 3D. Several stands had demonstrations and implementations of this technology.
After this we have the importance of asset managment. Many companies were working at offering solutions for newsrooms, video archives and more. That’s because of the amount of content that content aggregators are now having to contend with. It’s an interesting time. i learned quite a bit on this topic.
There are many more details to be discussed but those are some of the key points I have noticed at this particular IBC. More articles will come soon.
IBC, the N96 and DVB-h
One of the advantages of going to IBC is that you get to play with toys like the N96. I did this at the Nokia Ovi stand. They were demonstrating the possibilities of OVI as well as DVB-H. DVB-H is one method of getting live television broadcasts to the phone using a different part of spectrum than usual GSM.
The number of channels is limited to BBC HD, CNN and a few more channels. The video plays well and the accelerometers know whether the phone is held vertical or horizontal.
In Switzerland we saw a push for DVB-H phones during the Euro 2008, hoping that this event would encourage people to use the technology.
We’ll see how long it takes for other countries to use DVB-H for their celluar phones.
Gael Métroz and Dziga Vertov
For three weeks he had no battery and was unable to record anything but the rest of the time he was collecting 150hrs worth of video for his documentary Nomad’s land. We’re speaking of Gael Métroz of course, a swiss born traveler who wanted to retrace the steps of Nicholas Bouvier. He would travel from Switzerland to Sri Lanka.
I want to see the documentary but so far I’ve had no opportunity. I’m more interested in what he talked about in between seesmics. He told us that he would meet with the people and let them use his camera. At first what they filmed would not be so good and he would show them how to get some better results. In effect the people would participate in the making of the documentary.
It’s interesting because that’s what Dziga Vertov was trying to do with the Agit trains in Russia in the early 1900s, the idea that the camera would be used to document the everyday lives of groups of people in a country as vast as Russia in Vertov’s case and as big as half the globe in relation to Métroz’ case.
That’s the trip you want to do, one where you travel for a year meeting people, experiencing their culture and really having the time to talk. He would bring up that he wishes he had this amount of time in the Western world to get to know people, without having to worry about everything else. It was interesting.
That’s what would make an interesting travel documentary, far more in depth than the entertaining Lonely Planets we have watched on numerous occasions.
It was also a taste of why I enjoyed going to the Frontline club in London. You get a short introduction about the subject, watch the documentary and then listen as people discuss the issues that are raised by the documentaries. It’s an academic exercise rather than entertainment. It’s a shame there aren’t more opportunities like this that i know of around Switzerland.
VideoSurf – Video search engine with a difference.
Videosurf, still in beta is an interesting way to search videos. I got my invite this morning and so far there are a number of features I find interesting but I’ll learn more about it before going into detail.
When it’s ready it will be an interesting to site to use to sort through many videos at once and will allow you to see what’s within the video, at least visually so far.
Gael Métroz au City Club de Lausanne
Today I met, Gael Métroz, a guy who decided to travel along the trail of Nicholas Bouvier shortly after his studies. It was an opportunity to try the seesmic style of interview at the City Club in Lausanne. The idea is simple. Those doing the interview have a laptop with a webcam and a good internet connection. They go to film an interview with the laptop and the audience themselves ask questions from the person appearing.
It was the first time that the people I was with tried this style of interview and it was a good experience.
What was also a nice experience was getting to talk with Gael, getting a more personal view than if we had watched the interview on television. It’s a more relaxed, and in this case, less rushed interview, more personal less formal.
I hope that we get to do more of these events.