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July 31, 2006
[ffmpeg] View of /trunk/qt-faststart.c
Posted by vanevery at 02:31 AM | TrackBack
July 30, 2006
Popularity Dialer - Relaunch (and Dugg)
Go Jenny and Cory, go!
"Have you ever been in a situation where you wished your cell phone would ring? Maybe you wanted to look extra important or popular on that hot date. Or maybe you just needed an excuse to escape from an unpleasant meeting."
Posted by vanevery at 12:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Verizon DSL constantly changing IP address
So, I haven't called support and I know that is the first thing I should do when problems like this arise but it just seems too fishy.
To make a long story short, I recently decided to switch from regular home phone service from Verizon (who also supply my DSL) to VoIP service. I have had VoIP and regular phone service for quite some time and things were well. Recently though, we had a pretty nasty electrical storm and one of the things that got zapped was my Asterisk box which handled the integration between normal phone service and VoIP.
After a bit of research, I found the Verizon does in fact offer naked loop DSL (DSL without a phone number) for existing customers and that I could continue with my DSL and transfer my phone number over to my VoIP provider and basically save myself $50 a month.
Now here is the troubling bit. After filling out the paper work and sending it to my VoIP provider who subsequently contacted Verizon to get the process started my DSL has been tremendously flaky. So flaky that my IP address is repeatedly changing. Not once a day, not 10 times a day, somewhere in the vicinity of 100 times a day! I probably don't need to mention how bad this is for services like VoIP. Essentially making it useless and unusable.
I could chalk it up to damage from the electrical storm (but I didn't notice it until after sending in the paperwork) or:
Could this really be a Verizon tactic to prevent people from going with 3rd party VoIP?
Posted by vanevery at 11:57 AM | TrackBack
July 29, 2006
Lights and Sensors, Toys for Adults
iBar - intelligent surface system - interactive bar: Pictures
I don't think these types of things will ever get old..
Posted by vanevery at 02:30 PM | TrackBack
July 27, 2006
Dear telephone, meet the internet
Pheeder
"Pheeder is a whole new way of using your cellphone: it lets you communicate with all of your friends simultaneously, with a single phone call. To use it, you just call Pheeder, leave a message and hang up. Seconds later all of your friends, or anyone you want, receives the message at the very same instant. And if they want, they can send a reply to your message."
Posted by vanevery at 11:21 AM | TrackBack
July 21, 2006
Test Posting
Posted by vanevery at 08:20 PM | TrackBack
July 20, 2006
Flash, FFMPEG and now Thumbnails!
A couple of days ago I got FFMPEG working to automatically generate FLV video files for OpenVlog. Today I finally got thumbnails generating correctly. Here are the commands:
This creates a JPEG:
ffmpeg -i inputfile -t 0.001 -ss 1 -vframes 1 -f mjpeg -s 320x240 outputfile.jpg
This creates a QT Movie that I am using as a reference movie (just one frame of video):
ffmpeg -i inputfile -t 0.001 -ss 1 -vframes 1 -vcodec mpeg4 -an outputfile.mov
I got this working with lots of help from the following pages:
Converting Video Formats with FFmpeg
Extracting JPG Frames Using FFmpeg and mjpeg Parameter
Posted by vanevery at 01:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 15, 2006
Flash, FFMPEG and more..
Over at OpenVlog I have just finished implementing an automatic Flash conversion for video that is sent in. It was quite a task from getting FFMPEG running on Dreamhost with LAME and AMR support (you need to change your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable), understanding Ruby enough to get FLVTool2 installed and working (another environment variable issue) and building a fancy Flash video player..
I think it was worthwhile in the end..
A Sample: I love NY (click on the Flash Version link).
Next will be making thumbnails with FFMPEG so that I don't use the silly "Click Here" graphic anymore.. I suppose I should still say, "click here" as for some strange reason I can not get the mouse pointer to change over top of the QuickTime plugin. That is a story for another day but the gist is, use JavaScript instead of reference movies. The added benefit is that IE users don't have the extra alert.
Thanks to Cat and the FreeFormed.org crew for the impetus.
Posted by vanevery at 08:34 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
July 14, 2006
Lame and Sox for use with Asterisk
VoIPowering Your Office with Asterisk: Soothing the Savages with Hold Music
Some good little command line snippets for conversion to GSM..
Posted by vanevery at 05:09 PM | TrackBack
Increasing cooperation in the IM space..
Yahoo, Microsoft IM Beta Joined at The Hip
Definitely a good thing. Perhaps a standard will emerge.. Nah.. That is just hopeful thinking. Besides, I would rather Jabber was the standard.
Posted by vanevery at 05:05 PM | TrackBack
July 12, 2006
Peter takes a look at the 3 new video blogging books!
blip.tv (beta)
Check it out!
Here are the 3 books:
Videoblogging by Jay Dedman and Joshua Paul.
Secrets of Videoblogging by Michael Verdi, Ryanne Hodson, Diana Weynand and Shirley Craig
Videoblogging For Dummies by S. C. Bryant
Here is the one that Peter didn't buy:
Hands-On Guide to Video Blogging and Podcasting : Emerging Media Tools for Business Communication
Posted by vanevery at 11:53 PM | TrackBack
July 03, 2006
New Video Comments WordPress Plugin
ITP Research >> Video Comments WordPress Plugin Version 1.2 Released
Here are some new features you can expect:
1: A GUI interface inside the WP administrative screens for posting.
2: Revised comment display on the main post page. Now the timecode is hyperlinked and will bring up the plugin and seek the appropriate place in the video.
3: The ability to put a thumbnail or your own text in the post for launching the player.
4: A couple of random bug fixes.. GREAT!
Posted by vanevery at 10:54 PM | TrackBack
Online Video -- Moving Forward..?
This morning Dan pointed me to an article in Today's NY Times about Nobody's Watching. Nobody's Watching is a sitcom in the form of a reality show about creating a sitcom. (A bit convoluted, no doubt).
Nobody's Watching is a pilot that hasn't yet been picked up by any networks but has been posted on YouTube. This online posting and the subsequent audience response that it has garnered has the networks rethinking their decisions. Taking a look at the YouTube page, we find that the show has had more than 300,000 views and more than 600 comments. While not huge numbers compared with television audiences, these are big big numbers for any online video.
Based on this, I am betting that the networks are about to learn something about the possibilities of online video. I am also betting that they get it wrong...
Stephen Speicher in Engadget's The Clicker: The Clicker: People are watching "Nobody's Watching" writes:
"Now, make no mistake, the likelihood of this show rising from the heaps and living to the tender age of two (err... episodes) is about as likely as Stephen Colbert replacing Tony Snow as the current administration's Press Secretary, but really that's not the point. This experiment shows that people will watch, comment on, and enjoy pilots on the web in a way that today's traditional broadcast systems won't allow. What's missing is the networks taking the next (obvious) step: instead of spending multiple years and countless dollars trying to determine what to show the viewing public, why not let the audience decide? Put the pilots on the internet before you make the decision. Not only does this give a more accurate assessment of what people might watch, it has the potential to dramatically speed up the decision process.
and
"Yet, despite their best efforts, the entrenched powers behind modern broadcasting just cannot get their heads around the potential of the internet. This is evident at every turn. Whether it be the pulling of the wildly-popular "Lazy Sunday" clip from YouTube (and then later re-releasing in a harder-to-find corner of the NBC site) or the treatment of the internet as a dumping ground for dead projects, the current regime views the internet as, at best, additional revenue. More often than not, the internet is considered a nuisance.
Exactly right, given the opportunity, people will tell you exactly what they like and what they don't. There is incredible value in this, should the networks decided to start paying attention.
YouTube is an incredible phenomenon. If you haven't yet explored it, I suggest you checkout my playlist: Interesting videos from YouTube. It shows a wide range of what YouTube has to offer (the good and the overwhelming bad), from Nobody's Watching to home videos about cats and everything in between.
Speaking of online video, "research" has brought me to: Where the Hell is Matt and Rocketboom's version. I personally respond to the freedom offered by "regular people" to just have fun with the medium. I also think there is power in how these folks are referencing each-other.
Last, I have to make plug for Ze Frank's The Show. Ze gets it, he truly engages his audience! He shows that the possibilities for audience participation and feedback are endless. On his wiki member's of his audience (now participants themselves) have taken it upon themselves to transcribe every single one of his daily shows. Ze even fits in time to play chess by vlog as well as inviting and showing audience member's doing their "Power Moves".
So.. Online video, starting to move forward? YouTube becoming more than just drivel?
Incredible..
Disturbing..
Perhaps both. And that is how it should be.