Posts Tagged ‘Video’
Making of webOS (r)evolution commercial
I know what you are thinking, “how did my wife create that amazing (r)evolution commercial?”
I would like to take a couple minutes to share with everyone how she made it, and what software I used to help her edit it.
First of all here was the setup.
She started with a piece of poster board paper taped to our kitchen floor. Then added a microphone boom with a mini tripod zip tied to the end of the boom. This allowed her to take pictures from the same height every time and also gave a little flexibility in moving the camera around. Finally she added two small halogen lights to either side of the paper to light the “stage”. When taking pictures she took a picture of the whole piece of paper every time and we used software to edit the photos later.
For the commercial she needed 3 full size webOS cards and 6 smaller phones. She started with making the phones.
The phones were made so well it was almost painful to do this to them. The animation was made by crumpling the phones and then playing the animation backward in the commercial.
The cards were pretty easy to make. The hardest part was the animation of the media player. To animate the media player we had to cut slivers off of each album art and then tape them back together one piece at a time. It was time consuming but we were very pleased with the result. The calendar was intentionally longer than the other cards to compensate for when it would be folded.
Once all of the pictures were taken we needed to figure out how to manage 1000+ pictures to make a 1 minute commercial. To start we split up the pictures into folders labeled for each scene and numbered them in order 01_dynatac, 02_nokia, etc. We then used Phatch to trim off edges of each picture and essentially “zoom” into each picture to the size we wanted. Once the pictures were trimmed Métomorphose renamed all the pictures in sequence and then Stopmotion stitched all the pictures together into one video file. To add music and narration to the commercial I used Audacity to record the script she wrote for me and then OpenShot and PiTiVi to match up the audio and video and then export to a finished file. We could have just used one video editor, but OpenShot had a weird white frame at the end of the video so we tried PiTiVi and didn’t have a problem.
We hope you all enjoy the video and I just wanted to take the time to show a little behind the scenes for everything that went into making it. If you listen to mintCast you will know how impressed I was with this finished product, and the fact that it was made entirely with free and opensource software.
If you get a chance, head over to webOS Roundup and vote for the commercial.
My webOS commercial
If you have ever talked to me about mobile phones and mobile operating systems you will know I am a big fan of webOS. I have never owned a webOS device but have convinced many friends to get them and would love to get one assuming the hardware gets an update. I came across webOSroundup because they are putting on a “PalmSpot Video contest” and decided after hearing the Engadget podcast bicker and moan about Palm’s horrible ads I would try my hand at creating an ad for the contest.
Just a preface for this video, I am not a video editor, film director, or obviously a music composer. This was also my first time ever using Final Cut. Let me know what you think about the video in the comments.
Also please share the video with everyone you know and watch the video over and over again between April 19th and May 3rd because the finalists are chosen by how many views the videos have during that period of time.
How-to Fix a Video Card in the Oven
I recently happen to come across a video card that had problems with 3D rendering. I usually would just throw out the video card and get a new one, but when the video card is a Nvidia 8800 GTX I just couldn’t throw away the card no matter how bad it was broken. Luckily shortly after I got the card in it’s broken state I found this article over at Engadget about someone who was able to fix their Nvidia video card by baking it in the oven. Now of course I thought they were crazy but figured “it’s not like it can break my video card any more”. So I gave it a shot.
I was completely surprised that not only did it do no visible harm to the video card. When I plugged it in my test machine it worked flawlessly. I wasn’t able to test extensively because I don’t have a dedicated desktop that can handle any games that would really test this card. So instead I ran a 3D benchmark tool before and after I cooked the video card. Lets just say that before I cooked it the benchmark tool wouldn’t even start, and after it worked flawlessly.
I am not saying this is a fix for everything you might have wrong with your computer but you may want to give it a try if you have a video card on the fritz. The reasoning I read in the forums that this works, who knows if it is actually true, is that some cards will get micro cracks in their solder joints that cause bad connections between components. Solder melts at 365 degrees Fahrenheit so when you stick the video card in the over you are really just softening and filling in those micro cracks. I have some pictures of the card before and after (there wasn’t much difference) so you can see exactly how I set the card in the oven.
I cooked my card at ~385 for 8 1/2 minutes. We will see how long this card lasts.
In the forums there are probably 2-3 dozen reports of this working on other video cards. I have see 2 unsuccessful attempts out of all the reports I read, and I even saw one person unsuccessfully cook their motherboard to see if it would fix their problems. Let me know if you give it a try in the comments.
Video Podcast 2
Here is just a update since my first video podcast. Not super interesting but I am trying to stick to my resolutions.
Too bad YouTube only allows 10 minute videos. Here is the second part.
BTW I am looking to sell my 1 TB external hard drive and my 500 GB Buffalo Linkstation. If you are interested send me a email.
Video Podcast 01
Go easy on me it was my first time.
I just take a few minutes to explain how the beginning of my year has been so far and what I have been playing around with.
Let me know which you like better…Vidcast or Vodcast. I am kinda leaning toward vodcast.