canon, canoncamerabuzz, hg10, tips, video, vlogging

HG10 video for vlogging

March 10, 2008 Lloyd Davis 3 Comments

Thayer asked for some tips on getting video from the HG10 in suitable form for uploading to YouTube or Blip.tv

Please do not take this as a definitive way of doing things – I AM FREQUENTLY WRONG! – However, it seems to have worked for me so far, though I had to bodge around for a bit, so there may well be better, easier ways to do it, so please let me know if you find them. Oh and I’m doing it on a PC running XP – iMovie doubtlessly cleans your shoes for you while it’s speedily encoding and compressing.

First off, I installed all of the software that came with the camera – I can’t remember what all of it was, but basically I chucked everything at it.

Then this is what I do. You get files off the camera in .mts format. I start up the Corel Ulead DVD Movie Factory and create a new project. Since we’re just going to export to another type of file I don’t think it matters whether you go for a DVD project or a AVCHD project so just choose whichever one you think goes best with your eyes.

Click on the Add Video Files icon (film strip) at the top left hand corner. Choose a file and then click on the Export Selected Clips icon about half way down. (You can process more than one clip at a time by the way – if you’ve got a bunch to do)

I choose Customize…

In the file save as dialog that comes up I give it a name and change the type to .avi.

Then click on Options. I scale the frame size down to 720 x 540 on the General Tab and on the AVI tab I choose the DivX Codec with standard settings.

Then click Save. Close down Movie Factory. Fire up Windows Movie Maker or your favourite video editing program and import the .avi file for editing. With these settings the .avi is about one-third the size of the .mts file.

You may find that different codecs with different settings give you better results but having stumbled over something that works well enough, I’m not going to start messing around.

Uncategorized

The Dead & Alive Ladybird Club

March 6, 2008 Lloyd Davis 2 Comments

feb 08 063

Originally uploaded by Lloyd Davis

My flat has lately become a meeting place for the above mentioned society. I don’t really know what to do except to let them out the window when I see them alive and collect and photograph them for posterity when I find them dead.

I suspect though that it’s the toasty warm of central heating that’s keeping them going and once they get outside they freeze and perish anyway.

At least it’s not cockroaches.

8 things, box of frogs, mild insanity

8 things redux with a twist

March 5, 2008 Lloyd Davis 3 Comments

Thayer tagged me with the 8 random things meme…again – she’s forgiven as we barely knew each other in August last year. I couldn’t manage eight last time (this was the last one) so some of these might not actually be entirely true.

1. I once spent three months measuring the hedgerows of Gloucestershire. You can still find some of my waymarkers on country lanes just outside Cheltenham, if you know where to look.

2. My favourite colour combination is the kind of orangey-brown of krispy-kreme donuts against catkin green.

3. Since the age of 12 I’ve always owned exactly 3 gerbils. I always have several dealers on standby in case one of them dies and needs to be instantly replaced. My gerbils go *everywhere* with me. Yes… I mean *everywhere*

4. I was once almost arrested for possession of a Mr Kipling Bakewell Tart (and a milkbottle). This was during my New Romantic phase, so the frilly shirt and heavy eye make-up might also have had something to do with it.

5. I had a walk-on part in the film “Stab Truck” (I was the synth player in the band during the flashback to the David Hasselhof character’s complete humiliation in a London night club.) It was filmed in the basement of the Centrepoint Tower.

6. One of my cousins was the artist’s model for Freddo the Frog, Cadbury’s 1970’s novelty moulded chocolate. He went on to design the wheel nuts of the Audi A8.

7. My gerbils’ names are Rainey, Bessie and Janis after the 3 greatest female blues singers of the 20th Century. People often imagine that if they see the white one, that must be Janis, but my gerbils (and the blues) are colour-blind.

8. As a student I worked in a launderette in Guildford. I have seen, touched and washed the underwear of Eric Clapton, Bonnie Langford, Michael Buerk and various forgettable members of the Prog Rock Hall of Fame.

So to pass it on, I tag: HM The Queen, Ronnie Hazlehurst, Lewis Carroll, Mickey Dolenz, Pogle out of Pogle’s Wood, Optimus Prime, Stuart Hall (not the Jamaican one, the one off It’s a Knockout) and the entire Electric Light Orchestra.

anti-academy, generational divide, pimlico, pimlico school, protest, sw1

Pimlico School Anti-Academy Protest

March 5, 2008 Lloyd Davis 13 Comments

On my way home tonight, passing Pimlico School, I saw a couple of policemen inside the gates. I prickled, thinking poor them, it’s so cold and they’ve got to go in there and find someone who’s disappeared over the fence or something.

It turned out there was something less dramatic but just as interesting and exciting going on. A group of ex-governors are protesting against the demolition of the school and its transformation into an Academy. They were helped by some anti-grafitti artists who used a high-pressure hose to clean off the words “Anti Academy School” on the front wall.

I went and filled their hot-water bottles for them – it’s bloody cold out there and then came back for a chat. They were keen for me to climb over, but the combination of my inflexible legs, the anti-climb paint and my general scaredy-catness meant that I conducted my interview from the other side of locked gates. One of the protestors, Hank, very kindly rigged up an alternative ladder combo to help me, but I gratefully declined.

I spoke to Anthea Masey about what they were doing there. The interview petered out as we were interrupted by a year 10 pupil from the school who was passing but didn’t want to be seen on camera but had a lot to say in praise of the school as it is.

I have no opinion on this issue either way – I personally think the building’s ugly. I can imagine how uncomfortable the classrooms are when the sun shines. I know nothing of the academic record or merits of the case for the current regime, Westminster Council or the protestors, but I’m happy to lend a hand to people who are passionate enough to spend a night under the stars on a ~~freezing February~~ monkey-ball-freezing March night in order to have a say on what they believe in.

Much is written about generational divides, mostly about frightened older people disturbed by young hoodies. Tonight I witnessed a different one where the spirit of protest lives on in those over 50 while 14-year-olds think making a stand like this is pointless and stupid.

documentally, friends, generosity, podcampuk, seesmic

Christian Payne

February 18, 2008 Lloyd Davis

For those who don’t know him already, I want to introduce you to Christian Payne, documentally, our man inside. I met Christian briefly at podcampuk, I logged him as a cheeky midland photo geek, nice guy, dry humour, keep an eye out for him etc. but then he popped up on seesmic.

I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that he is seesmic’s brightest star. I only feel comfortable calling him that because I see a lot of genuine humility in him and don’t think he’ll take it the worng way. Just in terms of numbers of posts Christian as out-seesmiced the best of them, but he also shines as an inventive, imaginative curious naughty funny experimenter with a great visual style.

I just love watching him and so does everyone else. I really hope he gets to reap some reward from all the effort he puts in. While seesmic is in development it’s still difficult to easily share what he does there, but watch him if you can, he’s bloody good.

This week, however, I had cause to write the following tweet: “@documentally slow down and do one thing at a time man, one thing at a time. don’t go all jimmy dean on us” but unfortunately the next thing we saw was this. I’m glad to say that Christian himself was largely unhurt, but the Land Rover he was driving is kaput. Now he’s written more about it and posted a video showing what he’s doing to get himself mobile again.

I’d urge you to nip over to Christian’s site, laugh at his video, wonder at his WIN, S.H.A.D.O. and SPECTRUM stickers and generously bung him some dosh towards a new mean machine.

canon hg10, video

Back in the video saddle

February 16, 2008 Lloyd Davis 1 Comment

Not much to see here, but I’m glad that this was a little less painful than my previous foray into HD.

For those not intimately following my every move, the simple version is, my camera broke, a nice friend lent me one, I used it at BarCamp but screwed aspect ratios, nice friend needed to have camera back, nice people at canoncamerabuzz (well, nice lady in particular – “Miss Jones”) said yup ok popsie, you can be in our review programme and have a Canon HG10 to play with.

This is what it spits out pretty much with all the defaults.

More over the weekend and coming month where I’ll be trying to stretch it a bit.

conferences, events, friends, goingsolo, lausanne

Solo? Going?

February 13, 2008 Lloyd Davis

One of the things twitter has taught me is how fragmented our social networks are. Not everybody who reads this blog knows everybody who reads this blog. So there will be some folk who don’t know Stephanie Booth in fact she teetered on the edge of my network mostly through the european KM folk until twitter made us all feel much closer.

When I last saw Steph, in Berlin at the girl geek dinner, she had a twinkle in her eye and shortly thereafter announced the reason to the world – Going Far is going to be her vehicle for running cool events and the first of these will be on May 16th in Lausanne – Going Solo a conference for people who work by themselves (and with others) on a freelance basis, covering how to run things in a business-like way, how to market, how to charge…etc.

The thing I like about this is that it’s another example of the demand side supplying itself – the speakers already announced are Suw Charman, Stowe Boyd, Martin Roell and Laura Fitton rather than some list of people you’ve never heard of organised by people with no idea of the industry and totally pwned by their sponsors.

There’s a few days left of early early bird discounts but even after that the fee’s under £200 for another month. Should be manageable from most parts of Europe. And unlike many such conferences, you’re likely to learn enough from it to make it pay for itself quite quickly. If you can’t currently recoup the cost of the day, travel and accommodation in a couple of days of consulting, then you *definitely* need to go and learn how to 🙂

Just to be clear – I’m not involved in the organisation of this in any way beyond friendly chats with Steph from time to time – but I have great faith in those involved that they will make it a really special day. I’ll be booking my place just as soon as those invoices get paid 🙂

Bonus: You can see Steph talking about it herself in the corridors at LIFT08 last week.

advertising, capitalist piglets, clueless, marketing, matterbox

Matter Box Contents

February 8, 2008 Lloyd Davis 2 Comments

Matter Box Contents

Originally uploaded by Lloyd Davis

Others have covered this more quickly than me, but I thought I’d say something beyond what I said on Seesmic last week – http://seesmic.com/v/6XRvg23fSW

Charlie said he didn’t want samples. I do. I’m much happier with my shower gel and play-doh than with a plastic monster a calendar and a badge in the shape of a vodka bottle. If something that comes in this isn’t useful, it had better be completely, mindblowingly, gobsmackingly beautiful – cereal box shaped like a book? Nah.

While the crayons made of soap are potentially also useful, the thing that made my brain scream more than anything was the lametrocious rubbish written about it:

“A set of crayons that are really soap tell a story about how Nissan’s not what you expect.” which in my very very humble opinion is the biggest load of self-justifying, bollockshite I’ll read in the context of advertising copy this year. God I hope so, I couldn’t bear anything more slimy and contrived.

Like Roo, I like the recyclability of the packaging, but I’m looking forward to much cooler and less wanky stuff next time please.

UPDATE: in the comments on the picture on flickr, mike heath says:

“That is really funny that you got Black and White playdoh in your Sony Bravia promo item. err… ‘Colour like no other’ LOL! That is probably a collectors piece, like a misprinted stamp 🙂 Bit of a Homer Simpson moment at the packing factory!”