I've been away from email for a few days, catching up. One thing I
plan to do this summer is to travel for 2 months (in India), and I
hope to be able to post videoblog entries. I'm trying to figure out
how I could do that...

On a related note, as Jay mentioned, we're thinking of sharing a
server for videoserving. We can try it for a year. Cost would be
about $10 a month, shared between 10 or 15 people. That would give
us enough bandwidth to serve video, and the fact that we share it
makes it a lot cheaper. Anyone interested? I'll post details of my
research so far in hosting solutions later...

Cheers!

(PS: http://me-tv is the wiki I created with this list, feel free to
add/change/edit it)

On 15/06/2004, at 5:09 PM, Yaron Samid wrote:

> Quality of service, namely picture quality (resolution and screen
> size) is important to mainstream viewer adoption. Its been proven
> time and again in the media world. Cable TV killed that antenna on
> top of your old TV set because of picture quality, not because of
> the 100 channels you never watch. You'll be switching to and paying
> extra for HDTV soon to. That being said, I've always felt the
> plumbing is only worth the shit it delivers. Picture quality or not,
> you're 100% correct, content is THE main driver of viewership and
> always will be.

I'm too far out of trad. media studies these days to know how accurate
this is :-) But i'll still keep the hat on and suggest it is only half
true. In Aust. cable uptake has been low, and in Britain it (I think)
was kick started by Murdoch buying football rights and sticking it on
the satellite. Here digital TV is being kicked off by home DVD +
theatre, not to get the digital signal. People are buying bigger tvs
with better sound systems so the extra few dollars for the decoder is
no big deal, but it is still secondary.

now, on top of that, keep in mind in the US you have NTSC and we have
PAL (as does Europe) which does look better, so the technical demand or
gap is lessened. Also I'd suggest it is not just quality of image but
content. Here things like the Soprano's, Sex in the City, Six Feet
Under, etc are all free to air but they are all cable in the States.
Now, not only is this content that US free to air can't match, but it
is also clear that cable has caused a renaissance in US television
production. This is because of the creative freedom that cable
produces, not because the picture is so much better :-)

I'm not disagreeing, just suggesting it is not just a question of
supply and demand where supply = better quality images and sound.

>
> I would think picture quality is relevant for video bloggers as
> well, whether they shoot a 15 second "life moment" or 5 minute short
> movie -- you put in the time to produce the content, isn't it a
> shame to have it seen in a choppy 200X100 window? Before you answer
> that, let me just say that it is entirely up to you. Our goal is not
> to enforce any production value standards on video bloggers, just to
> facilitate the publishing and distribution of their video files,
> regardless of its size. The key value to video bloggers is that its
> an free and easy way to publish video online. If they still want to
> create small, low-res files, that's completely up to them. Low
> quality encoding standards are actually imposed on people by the
> bandwith/costs limitations of streaming. Sticking to that standard
> with our technology would be like driving a porsche in 1st gear, but
> to each his own. This is really not about picture quality for the
> publishers but I'm glad you brought it up.

again 50% there. If I want to accept what are basically Hollywood
production values translated to the web then sure, but what if I want
to be Jean Luc Goddard on the web? Or any other new wave director?
What's the web equivalent there? Perhaps it is 320 x 240, stuttering,
shuddering video. But of course, the model ought to support all needs.

I do argue strongly for the idea that networked video is about desktop
screens. it isn't tv or cinema and misjudges the desktop if it tries to
be this. why? well the screen is domestic and personal. it is usually
viewed by one person, me. right now i have 12 programs running and I'll
flip from writing mail to my news browser to my web browser as I need
or whim dictates. So the model of content in this environment is the
blog chunk. That isn't just 20" bits of video but it is also 20" bits
of video that play nicely on my desktop with everything else that I'm
doing. For example, right now the best 'vogs' are high quality 30
second commercials that companies make available online. my personal
favourites have been the US Volkswagen ads. They're 30seconds long,
download in easily, play politely, have good production values and good
narratives. They don't want to be movies, they don't want or need to
own my desktop. Would I like much better quality sound and vision? sure
:-) Will it ever be enough? No.

>
> How important do you think it is for video bloggers to have thier
> clips seen by many people? Is it a small community thing or are we
> striving for mainstream viewership?
>

oh, tricky one. If you're using the blog model then it is more about a
community of reader/viewers which could be 10's, 100's, 1000's or
10,000's. if you want a lot of viewers then it is easy to get them, but
if you want quality readers then it is a case of making decent work and
letting the audience accrue. what many in .com misunderstand is that
for things like blogs and vogs the start up costs basically approach 0.
That means there is no implicit need to garner an audience to recoup
the start up and running costs. So if you make decent content, leave it
there, add to it, your audience builds over time.

in terms of vogs the trickiest part is to develop the same architecture
that blogs have. permalinks that point to video objects not html
objects, a way of linking to those, and the like. This is what will
significantly help videoblogs as a specific practice, the other
conversation is to treat video on the web as only a question about
delivery. it isn't. it is also about making, writing, publishing, then
viewing and linking.

cheers
Adrian Miles
.................................................................
hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

On 16/06/2004, at 11:36 AM, Jay Dedman wrote:

> --we need to solve the problem of bandwidth so I wont go broke if a
> bunch of
> people decide to follow my Moments day to day.

as is so often the case Ted Nelson's original ideas would have been
handy here. He envisaged a system of micropayments for IP so that if
you view my work i earn n cents. if i view your work you earn n cents.
if i quote your work same deal.

at the moment ISPs pay for bandwidth and data flow, then charge this
down the line to end users. so the business model is basically
wholesale v. retail, but Nelson's model is essentially P2P, and of
course means if your content is popular you earn more, rather than pay
more (the irony online remaining that if your content is popular it
costs you, which is generally the reverse of other economic systems).

cheers
Adrian Miles
.................................................................
hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

isn't this what Bit Torrent is supposed to do?
it seems too clunky to me.

so today we've narrowed down the problems:
--we need a simple interface that edits, optimizes, and posts video to a blog.
--we need to solve the problem of storage so i can keep my archived video for
years to come and have a permanent video presence on the web.
--we need to solve the problem of bandwidth so I wont go broke if a bunch of
people decide to follow my Moments day to day.

The next thing is developing a langauge of videoblogging.


>
> On 16/06/2004, at 5:56 AM, Yaron Samid wrote:
>
> > Now imagine a push-button desktop publishing tool and global network
> > leveraging the efficiencies of P2P with the convenience of a viewer
> > experience embedded directly in your blog. Subscribed viewers are
> > notified of your new post, launch your site, and watch the video
> > (which has already been delivered in the background to their local
> > disk) directly in your blog post. No server space, memory, or
> > bandwidth costs whatsoever. Does that model work?
>
> I'm confused by this, though intrigued.
>
> by p2p do you mean there may be multiple copies of the vog distributed
> via p2p to n clients so that when client x requests the video it is
> served from client y who already has it?
>
> cheers
> Adrian Miles


--
Jay Dedman
Manhattan Neighborhood Network
537 West 59th (between 10th and 11th Ave)
NY NY 10019
www.mnn.org
212 757 2670

On 15/06/2004, at 8:49 PM, Eli Chapman wrote:

> The problem I have with videoblogging (a problem I'm intent on
> solving) is that it is not a natural extension of what I do with a
> camera and computer. Text-based blogging is. I browse the web, I read
> blogs, I link, I comment, I post. We were all doing it before
> blogging existed, whether for ourselves, or on message boards, in
> email, or in word docs. For videoblogging to be this natural, all the
> video sources I consume and produce daily need to be available
> (permalinked) for easy reference and annotation. That means films,
> tv, dvds, and tapes. Then, when 1000s of videobloggers are doing the
> same, the network of reference and usage and personality will emerge.
>

absolutely :-)

i have a very old piece of work which is actually a sketch in photoshop
that I turned into a QT movie, when you mouse into it it loads jpegs
from a Norwegian newspaper's webcams. This is very straightforward to
do in something like LiveStage, but it would also be relatively easy to
make a movie that would let someone enter urls and the movie would
display these urls. in fact I've got a MA student now who is doing
something like this (he's not quite there yet but check out
http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/~dpwolf) and is certainly about to start
loading remote movies into his movies.

AS Eli notes, there is a lot that can or could be done. One of the
interesting short term things would be, for example, to get David to
make a simple scriptable movie where anyone could enter the
'permalinks' for 3 video objects to include them in their work. In
other words make a 'sketch' tool that demonstrates an idea, let people
use it and play with it, etc.

I'd like to do this too, with a movie that loads two child movies and
scripts the playback speed of each of the two child movies. I'll build
this shortly (won't be for a couple of weeks, OS conference next week)
but will let you all know when its available, what it does and how to
use it.

cheers
Adrian Miles
.................................................................
hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

On 16/06/2004, at 10:07 AM, Jay Dedman wrote:

> looks like they'd developing the kind of video interface that Peter
> dreamed up.
> http://www.audiovisceral.net/facts/this.html

also check out
http://weblogs.media.mit.edu/mupes/

to see the nokia project they're working on.
>

cheers
Adrian Miles
.................................................................
hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

On 16/06/2004, at 5:56 AM, Yaron Samid wrote:

> Now imagine a push-button desktop publishing tool and global network
> leveraging the efficiencies of P2P with the convenience of a viewer
> experience embedded directly in your blog. Subscribed viewers are
> notified of your new post, launch your site, and watch the video
> (which has already been delivered in the background to their local
> disk) directly in your blog post. No server space, memory, or
> bandwidth costs whatsoever. Does that model work?

I'm confused by this, though intrigued.

by p2p do you mean there may be multiple copies of the vog distributed
via p2p to n clients so that when client x requests the video it is
served from client y who already has it?

cheers
Adrian Miles
.................................................................
hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

On 16/06/2004, at 1:21 AM, Jay Dedman wrote:

> And if I have 500 people watch my video every day(not inconceivable),
> I will
> run out of bandwidth within a week.
> Peter and I are talking about renting our own server and sharing the
> costs with
> other videobloggers.
>
> would anyone be interested?

now i need to be careful here, but I can provide some hosting
space/bandwidth from my server. it is in Australia (in a small room
downstairs), but i can do this for you for free. the proviso's are:

1. the content must adhere to fair use provisions
2. it can't slander, vilify, etc
3. it must fit the research stuff i'm trying to support (providing some
kickstart help for videoblogs is ok)
4. it is a research server which means there is definitely *no* 24/7
support and minimal backups are kept.

given all that, is some people are interested in say 1Gb of free server
space to serve from for a while, let me know and we'll see what we can
come up with.

cheers
Adrian Miles
.................................................................
hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

On 16/06/2004, at 1:18 AM, Jay Dedman wrote:

> Is anyone working on a blogging tool that you know of?

I know that Aisling Kelliher was working on something like this, but
I'm not sure where the project is up to. They were at the Media Lab at
MIT and also MIT's Dublin Media Lab. they're videoblog is at:
http://www.audiovisceral.net/

and more details at:
http://web.media.mit.edu/~aisling/

also Eli at http://www.chapmanlogic.com/blog/ is working on stuff to do
with prosumer tools that would achieve these sorts of things. btw eli
has a good list of links.

cheers
Adrian Miles
.................................................................
hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

Mica sent me a link to this woman's website.
she studies at the MIT media lab.
looks like they'd developing the kind of video interface that Peter dreamed up.
http://www.audiovisceral.net/facts/this.html



--
Jay Dedman
Manhattan Neighborhood Network
537 West 59th (between 10th and 11th Ave)
NY NY 10019
www.mnn.org
212 757 2670

Hello 2 All!

I just joined the list, so here are some links:


* www.open4all.info

A selection of my texts, most of which deal with way to use
the Internet and enable broad participation in media
production.


* www.unmediated.org

Unmediated is a group blog that tracks the tools, processes,
and ideas being used to decentralize media production and
distribution.


* dv.open4all.info

DV Guide is a BitTorrent/RSS video blog started recently
with the idea to serve as a clearing house for Internet
based video material and cable/TV production.

Best
Drazen Pantic

The other problem is memory and bandwidth.
If I post a 10 second video(200k) every day, I will run out of server space
pretty quickly. I dont want to erase my archives.
Imagine if I had DVD quality video....how big would that file be?

And if I have 500 people watch my video every day(not inconceivable), I will
run out of bandwidth within a week.
Peter and I are talking about renting our own server and sharing the costs with
other videobloggers.

would anyone be interested?


--
Jay Dedman
Manhattan Neighborhood Network
537 West 59th (between 10th and 11th Ave)
NY NY 10019
www.mnn.org
212 757 2670

When I videoblog, my workflow is fairly similar to Steve Garfield's.
www.stevegarfield.blogs.com/videoblog/
When i was first starting, I realy liked how he was transparent about his
process.

Peter and I discovered that digital cameras take those short MPEG's which are
great for the web. Very easy to download. The whole problem comes with
optimizing and then uploading and posting. I got the whole process down to
about 10 minutes. Still too long.

About two months ago, Peter wrote up the specs for our imaginary videoblogging
tool that Adrian spoke of.
http://www.me-tv.org/wakka.php?wakka=DeskTopTool&v=15x7
With just a couple of buttons you could edit, optimize and upload to your blog.

I believe that Adrian is right.
Through videoblogging, I want to express my daily life.
Just little moments.
It's like the difference between writing poetry and shooting a feature movie.
"we need the sketchpad".

Is anyone working on a blogging tool that you know of?
Yaron, what exactly are you creating?

--
Jay Dedman
Manhattan Neighborhood Network
537 West 59th (between 10th and 11th Ave)
NY NY 10019
www.mnn.org
212 757 2670

Hi all-
my first post was a intro to my recent thoughts
on the blog, its language, and use. My background is in art, I
work with photography and  video. Currently working for a docu
filmmaker.  Im obsessed with the ideologies and philosophy of
media and communication.
I learned to program Basic when I was eight, but I have no
contemporary programming skills.
My first amazing experience with the web was in 1999.
My friend and I drove across US and made daily image/text posts
on a website.  We didn't call it a blog, we called it Janepage.
I'm thrilled to dig into this great discussion
However, im swamped today.
Still, i wanted to extend an invite to yous in NYC
I'll be screening the first episode of my mnn(nyc cable
access/jay's work)  tonight
at Remote Lounge - on Bowery btw 2-3rd sts,7-9pm

Hi Jay. Hi Adrian. Hello everyone else. I'll be poking around and
jumping into the middle of things.

Based on what Peter and Jay, Adrian, and Yaron have been
doing/talking about, I see three types of tools/technologies for
videoblogging emerging:

1. Those that extend the functionality of the web (and existing web-
based software/systems/formats/standards/formats) to make it easier
(more natural) to link to, reference, and share already
digitized/encoded/hosted video.

2. Those that augment (or replace) existing desktop production tools
to expedite the camera to videoblog process.

3. Those that make video distribution cheaper and easier, and provide
videobloggers with control over quality and perhaps even audience.

In addition, there is an exploration going on into the language of
videoblogging, of which Adrian has written and explored for quite
some time. Adrian's use of vogs for personal expression demonstrates
a significant path for the medium. We can look at the shape of blogs
to see where this path can lead (i.e., group blogs, topic blogs, link
blogs (reblogs), cross blog conversations, blog search, blog
aggregators, etc...) Also, we can look at the evolution of film as an
expressive medium to see potential directions (i.e., cinema verite,
mockumentary, genre films, pseudo-reality, etc...). Perhaps we might
say that the language of videoblogs is anything we want, with the
provision that the videoblog must communicate or enable communication
(conversation).

The problem I have with videoblogging (a problem I'm intent on
solving) is that it is not a natural extension of what I do with a
camera and computer. Text-based blogging is. I browse the web, I read
blogs, I link, I comment, I post. We were all doing it before
blogging existed, whether for ourselves, or on message boards, in
email, or in word docs. For videoblogging to be this natural, all the
video sources I consume and produce daily need to be available
(permalinked) for easy reference and annotation. That means films,
tv, dvds, and tapes. Then, when 1000s of videobloggers are doing the
same, the network of reference and usage and personality will emerge.

I look forward to participating in the group.
  -Eli

(in New York)

Great question and point Adrian, and thanks for playing devils
advocate, the most important part of innovating a new idea/product
is having people smarter then you shoot holes in it until its
actually worth something.

Quality of service, namely picture quality (resolution and screen
size) is important to mainstream viewer adoption. Its been proven
time and again in the media world. Cable TV killed that antenna on
top of your old TV set because of picture quality, not because of
the 100 channels you never watch. You'll be switching to and paying
extra for HDTV soon to. That being said, I've always felt the
plumbing is only worth the shit it delivers. Picture quality or not,
you're 100% correct, content is THE main driver of viewership and
always will be.

I would think picture quality is relevant for video bloggers as
well, whether they shoot a 15 second "life moment" or 5 minute short
movie -- you put in the time to produce the content, isn't it a
shame to have it seen in a choppy 200X100 window? Before you answer
that, let me just say that it is entirely up to you. Our goal is not
to enforce any production value standards on video bloggers, just to
facilitate the publishing and distribution of their video files,
regardless of its size. The key value to video bloggers is that its
an free and easy way to publish video online. If they still want to
create small, low-res files, that's completely up to them. Low
quality encoding standards are actually imposed on people by the
bandwith/costs limitations of streaming. Sticking to that standard
with our technology would be like driving a porsche in 1st gear, but
to each his own. This is really not about picture quality for the
publishers but I'm glad you brought it up.

How important do you think it is for video bloggers to have thier
clips seen by many people? Is it a small community thing or are we
striving for mainstream viewership?



--- In videoblogging@yahoogroups.com, Adrian Miles
<adrian.miles@r...> wrote:
>
> On 15/06/2004, at 4:07 PM, Yaron Samid wrote:
>
> > I'm an entrepreneur in NYC that has recently secured funding for
my
> > broadband media startup. Our product/network will enable anyone
to
> > broadcast DVD quality video over the Internet to an unlimited
number
> > of viewers at no cost. I'm particularly passionate about helping
> > video bloggers and independent content producers to get their
visual
> > stories to the world by entirely bypassing the bureaucracy of
> > traditional offline distribution channels and the technical,
quality
> > and cost limitations of streaming video online.
>
> hi Yaron
>
> ok, I'm regularly going to play devil's advocate here, ok? largely
in
> the spirit of pushing ideas and making things better.
>
> so, front up question. What's the big deal about DVD quality
material?
> Lots of things work not because they are high rez but because
their
> content works, or the content model works. (SMS, early html, early
> cinema, early radio spring to mind.)
> I'm not sure if it is a relevant analogy, but on my desktop i want
> small video works, not monuments. I want monuments I'll go to the
> cinema. At a major end of the spectrum it isn't about the
production
> values in this sense. In the same way I guess that blogs aren't
books,
> and don't try to be.
>
> What empowers more is a tool that makes it easy to make, much like
a
> pencil and sketchpad. We don't need galleries to present our work
yet,
> we need the sketchpads.
>
> cheers
> Adrian Miles
> .................................................................
> hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
> interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
> research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

On 15/06/2004, at 4:07 PM, Yaron Samid wrote:

> I'm an entrepreneur in NYC that has recently secured funding for my
> broadband media startup. Our product/network will enable anyone to
> broadcast DVD quality video over the Internet to an unlimited number
> of viewers at no cost. I'm particularly passionate about helping
> video bloggers and independent content producers to get their visual
> stories to the world by entirely bypassing the bureaucracy of
> traditional offline distribution channels and the technical, quality
> and cost limitations of streaming video online.

hi Yaron

ok, I'm regularly going to play devil's advocate here, ok? largely in
the spirit of pushing ideas and making things better.

so, front up question. What's the big deal about DVD quality material?
Lots of things work not because they are high rez but because their
content works, or the content model works. (SMS, early html, early
cinema, early radio spring to mind.)
I'm not sure if it is a relevant analogy, but on my desktop i want
small video works, not monuments. I want monuments I'll go to the
cinema. At a major end of the spectrum it isn't about the production
values in this sense. In the same way I guess that blogs aren't books,
and don't try to be.

What empowers more is a tool that makes it easy to make, much like a
pencil and sketchpad. We don't need galleries to present our work yet,
we need the sketchpads.

cheers
Adrian Miles
.................................................................
hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

Hello all,

I'm an entrepreneur in NYC that has recently secured funding for my
broadband media startup. Our product/network will enable anyone to
broadcast DVD quality video over the Internet to an unlimited number
of viewers at no cost. I'm particularly passionate about helping
video bloggers and independent content producers to get their visual
stories to the world by entirely bypassing the bureaucracy of
traditional offline distribution channels and the technical, quality
and cost limitations of streaming video online.

I believe strongly that if you give the world a free, easy-to-use
self-publishing tool for securely distributing (and even monetizing)
video online, it would ignite the minds and imagination of thousands
of creative people around the world that would otherwise never have
their content seen by anyone outside of their immediate circle of
friends and family. While most of the content would be relevant only
to their producer and perhaps close friends (much like text-based
blogs) I believe there are hidden gems out there that the masses
would eagerly and loyally consume if they could easily find
it, `subscribe' to it, and watch it (instantly, clearly and
full screen) on their IP-enabled device of choice, whenever they
want. Our business plan is counting on it and I would love your help
to validate some of our thinking and product concepts.

Just the fact that we were able to secure funding from a major VC
with video blogging as a central premise is a testament to the rapid
growth and industry recognition of this dynamic new community which
you are leading.

Peter and Jay I'd love to get together sometime to discuss our
concepts and your thoughts. How does another long walk in the park
sound?

Looking forward to the ongoing discussions and making history
together!

Yaron

On 15/06/2004, at 12:47 AM, Jay Dedman wrote:

> For those of you actively videoblogging, what problems are you having?
> Technically and creatively.

have a software application that lets me vog easily. eg:
shoot and capture. set in and out points. nominate some hotspots and
basic mouse events.
publish directly to my blog.

ecto have just provided QT support, so this is very useful, but you
still need to produce all of your content somewhere else.

> We're kind of making this up as we go (which is exciting), but let's
> get
> specific.
> And secondly, What are you trying to do with video in your blogs?

express something about my daily life. explore what how and why
networked video (and here i mean network a la internet not tv networks)
is different to broadcast media.

cheers
Adrian Miles
.................................................................
hypertext.rmit || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/adrian
interactive networked video || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog
research blog || hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog/

Okay.
Looks like we got a good group of people here to discuss videoblogging.
Some of you I know personally. Some I know through your sites.

Let me introduce myself.
During the day, I work at a community TV station in Manhattan where anyone can
come in and make a TV show.
We have 4 TV channels that is open to the public. People can either use theor
own equipment or get the free use use of our equipment.
No censorship exists.
Currently, we program 1200 shows per week ranging from political conversations
to artistic explorartions to complete confusion.
When videoblogging came out, I got excited.
Video holds a lot of information and is a great way to show people something
they dont get anywhere else.
But can it work on the web?

Let's start with a simple question.
For those of you actively videoblogging, what problems are you having?
Technically and creatively.
We're kind of making this up as we go (which is exciting), but let's get
specific.
And secondly, What are you trying to do with video in your blogs?


--
Jay Dedman
Manhattan Neighborhood Network
537 West 59th (between 10th and 11th Ave)
NY NY 10019
www.mnn.org
212 757 2670

I'm actually also from Belgium, even though I'm living in NYC right
now... Beliuj videoblogs!

I'm looking into encoding tools, and started a wiki page here:
http://www.me-tv.org/wakka.php?wakka=VideoEncodingTools

What do you use?

Hi all,

strange coincidence but i am also Belgian, live in ghent but I work in
antwerp, at a firm called alcatel.

Spare time is filled in with making movies for my friends and myself
and fooling around with film in general.

In "professional" life i work at research department where - right now
- i am dong several projects related to communities, social networks
and TV applications

Cheers

hendrik

Hi,
My name is Steve Garfield and I'm a Video Producer and Editor from
Boston.

As a New Year's resolution, I started my video blog on January 1,
2004, and in that first
post, I called 2004 The Year of the Video Blog.

http://stevegarfield.blogs.com/videoblog/

On the blog I'm experimenting with different types of video: Time
Lapse and Video from
my Canon S400 Digital Still Camera, and Digital Video from my Canon
GL2 miniDV camera.

I explain the process I go through for those that haven't done it yet.

I also use the blog to post entries of things I'm learning to do with
editing, like adding
music with Apple's LiveType, while editing in Final Cut Pro.

An issue we all face is bandwidth usage and image quailty.  You'd
like to post nice looking
video, but the download it too long for a lot of users still on dial
up.

I'm very interested in producing reality news by citizen journalists
and plan on doing some
reporting from the Democratic Convention next month.

Looking forward to the discussion,
--Steve
As Seen In TIME Magazine: http://makeashorterlink.com/?D50162E78

Hallo everyone,

My name is Christophe Bouten, and I live in Antwerp, Belgium. I have
recently launched what people would normally define as a personal
website, http://www.voetbalenzo.be (sorry, it is in Dutch!). But
actually it's also a weblog, a videoblog, a small community site,
and an intranet. Which shows that integration is perfectly possible,
and that web content management is a broad term that can mean
anything you want. You just have to find the right tools for the
right job...and depending on the message you want to deliver, choose
for words, pictures or even video shots.

I know that it's not the purpose of this group to cover your own
site, but I thought it could be interesting to have a short
introduction on my own practical case. About videoblogging now. On
one section of the site I explain my experiences in buying and
renovating a house. I've indeed recently bought a house in Lier, and
now people can read about it and see small video entries
(http://www.voetbalenzo.be/index.php?id=605&backPID=456&tt_news=88)
of what we are doing in the house.

My major goal is to share my experiences about that whole process
with other people. And video offers often much more possibilities to
explain something than words. And of course it is potentially much
more universal, much more multilingual. On my site for instance
people without knowledge of Dutch won't be able to read my texts,
but nevertheless they will understand where we are in the `house
building process' when they look at the video entries. I will be
glad to share my experiences with videoblogs in this group. Regards

Christophe

Hi everyone!

I'm Andreas (Haugstrup Pedersen) and I'm a 22 year-old student living
in Aalborg, Denmark. Online I hang out at <http://www.solitude.dk/>

Currently I'm finishing my BA in Communication and in September I'll
start on my Master's. My biggest interest - internet-wise - is
hypertext, but after looking at video blogs for a month I've gotten
interested. I have lots of thoughts to share - most of which will
most
likely be of a theoretical nature since that is the way I like to
talk
about things.

I'm also insanely busy this week with my last paper this semester. I
should return from the world of the stress-filled Monday.

My own practical experience with recording video is limited, but not
non-existant. I have recorded a short movie, recorded meetings and
speeches and this semester I was part of a group who reccorded a
music
video for a local band. My theoretical background in regard to
hypermedia and audio-visual communication is a bit more impressive
(thankfully). That's also why I find the so-called "language of
video-blogging" much more interesting than the practical problems. :o)

Notes on Video Blogging

By nature a blog is
<sum> open source
<sum> collaborative
<sum> dialog
<sum> accumulative
<sum> contemporary

The `author as diarist' seems to be the proto-language of the
blog. Like the painterly photo, or the film as `photoplay', or the TV
as tiny proscenium theatre, blogging takes its first steps in the
shoes of a preceding technology.  And it is a very appropriate
language to start with as blogging shares many common traits
with letter writing / diary keeping – it is periodic, its is a dialog
and unlike say, a phone conversation, it is author-centric(very
much 1st person in its content) and  it is a cumulative form of
story telling.

Being a diarist in that way doesn't appeal to me, personally. I'm
more interested in the element of accumulation - a buildup of
content to give relevance to the form – that meaning establishes
itself over time.

Adding video to this form will allow the medium to truly come into
its own and begin establishing its unique language. So, what
can a video blog do or rather, what can I do with a video blog that
I cannot do with other mediums? It attracts me because of this
unique combination of traits in a visual medium. It is irrelevant to
me if its content is edited or `real' or  `art'. What is most
interesting to me is that it provides a way to tell a story that could
eliminate worn-out narrative forms without relying on
`postmodern' or ironic or self-aware tricks, most of which are
rapidly becoming traps.

so anyways, I know that you are primarily concerned at present,
with the technical issues of making this happen, but I have no
doubt you will. I am chomping at the bit to enact some of my
ideas and thrilled to have a diverse group people experimenting
and analyzing in the same way.  Yea!
hoping i can get some of my more technically adept  friends to
joins us soon(and make up for my own ineptness in the area.)

My name is Jay Dedman.
Yes, Peter is way too modest.
We have had long talks about videoblogging and wanted to bring other people
into the conversation.

The ability to put video on blogs seems amazing to us, but there seem to be
some obstacles.
1. Technically, the process takes too long.(capture, import, optimize, write
some HTML, post).
2. existing servers don't allow much bandwidth and storage space. You'll either
get screwed becasue too mnay people watch your posts, or you have to earse your
archive video because youre out of space.
3. what is the language of videoblogging? is it little movies? or moments from
your life?

We believe that if we get interested people together, we'll answer all these
questions.
So this is the beginning.


--
Jay Dedman
Manhattan Neighborhood Network
537 West 59th (between 10th and 11th Ave)
NY NY 10019
www.mnn.org
212 757 2670

First message to this new list. I'll start by introducing myself -
please do the same.

I am Peter Van Dijck (http://poorbuthappy.com/ease), a Belgian
information architect. I got interested in videoblogging after
talking to Jay Dedman about this (we're both in New York City). I've
posted a few video entries on my blog, but it's a lot of work, and
the bandwidth usage is a bit scary.

Anyways, welcome, please introduce yourselves, and lets talk video on
the web!

Cheers,
Peter