This obviously is my first attempt at VideoBlogging, Vblogging, Vlogging or even Vogging, don’t really know what exactly to call the experience as people are using any of these terms quite happily. To me it sounds better for “vlog” – which is all beside the point. I know.
So welcome to my house! I couldn’t find anything better to do this morning as I decided NOT to go to work and just chill out and harass the gardeners. What’s new? I know that too, so save your breath.
I couldn’t find my Sony DV camera anywhere in the house, but I said as the intention is to post a small version of a movie anyway, why not use simpler tools? That I did:
The Canon IXUS 400 fit the bill quite nicely, I just installed a 1GB compact flash card in it, pointed the camera at me and started recording.
The editing was done with the included iMovie HD on my miniMac at home, and used the same program to export the final result into an .mp4 file as you can (hopefully) see above. You’re saved all the stupid filters and wipes as I thought they were just unnecessary in this particular piece, cuts only is what worked. I would have liked to use titles but I couldn’t be bothered to find out how it worked.
I’m treating this process as “proof of concept” but hope that you like it. If so, let me know and maybe I can start vlogging once in a while to alleviate the boredom. I hope it will become more than a feature… sort of finally justifying the .tv domain!
Have fun…
Comments
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Neither the direct link or the picture seem to work at this time… Just an FYI.
Re: First VLOG, trial at video blogging
thanks, try again please as I’ve had to restart apache and mysql as they were hogging all the resources.
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
I just tried Mahmood. The computer wanted to know what program to use to open it. I tried Widnows Media Player, didnt work…..
Re: First VLOG, trial at video blogging
ah thanks for the feedback, it should have automatically offered QuickTime player as the clip is in MPEG4 (mp4) format.
So if you chose Quicktime, it should work.
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
The Quick time logo just pops on the screen and then nothing happens. I am on a broadband connection so the download should be a matter of seconds.
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
I downloaded it Mahmood. Took about 3 seconds. I got no quicktime logo. I have saved it, but cannot open it.
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Ya Mahmood!
I got it to work on Windows Media Player. The graphics were rather choppy. Your gardener looked like he was SERIOUSLY caffeinated! But the sound was smooth and crisp.
Thanks for the tour of the grounds! I hope you can get all the technical stuff worked out so we can show more of Bahrain to the world!
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
I downloaded the video, but can’t seem to play it in Quicktime or Media Player. Get an error with both.
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Yeah, cannot play it here either. I like the concept however.
Re: First VLOG, trial at video blogging
DAMN! That’s a FAST connection!
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Still nothing here. Life goes on!
Re: First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Ok DIB
Spill the beans on how you got this #$@#%^&%$ thing to work before I drive down to DC and haul you up here to get it to work on my computer.
Re(1): First VLOG, trial at video blogging
buy a Mac! That’s how easy it is!!
The other thing is associate .mp4 with QuickTime, or use Windows Media Player 10.
Re(1): First VLOG, trial at video blogging
[quote]Ok DIB
Spill the beans on how you got this #$@#%^&%$ thing to work before I drive down to DC and haul you up here to get it to work on my computer. [/quote]
I am here in DC and havent gotten it to work!
Re(2): First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Buy a Mc Mac? HAHAHAHAHAHA! NEVER. I dealt with McCrap Mac’s for years in the printing industry and I am convinced they are not worth the cost of the plastic case they came in. Maybe it was the “designers” that ran the machines too. Who knows… Seriously I have nothing against Mac’s just I have no desire to move toward them when Mac seems to moving more towards me. Call me lazy.
Re(2): First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Don’t you dare try an muslce in on my DIB plot. I called him first and I will be damned if you pick him up before I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Re(2): First VLOG, trial at video blogging
you guys are missing OSCAR material and a free tour of my garden if you can’t get it to work! Malik, forget islam, muslims and any other crap and just concentrate on getting to see my first ever superduperfantabulousearthshatteringvlog! 🙂
Re(3): First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Mahmood
Don’t forget to show everyone the elevator/escalator and the “Jetson’s” style moving sidewalk. Or have you shut them down for the sake of the diet and exercise plan?
Begging you as well at some point to show me a Burger Land Shawarma… PLEASE!!!!!!!
Re(3): First VLOG, trial at video blogging
[quote]you guys are missing OSCAR material and a free tour of my garden if you can’t get it to work! Malik, forget islam, muslims and any other crap and just concentrate on getting to see my first ever superduperfantabulousearthshatteringvlog! [/quote]
LOL! I am trying. I have thought of everything but I cannot get it to work. I have “Windows Movie Maker” I tried, didnt work. I will keep on it! The whole vlog concept is actually really cool. You could do your usual or do a monologue everyday and provide the links to go with it. You could also do a video version of “Pit Babes” and interviews with them and others. Maybe a video of the montly bloggers get together? That would make it all very interesting.
Get QuickTime 7!
Just discovered that you might need to update your QuickTime plugin to version 7 as that has the MPEG4 codec. I’m not sure if 6 or 6.4 had it as well, but I couldn’t play it on Frances’ windows laptop. I’m downloading QT7 as I’m typing this and will let you know if successful. You could too.
Re(4): First VLOG, trial at video blogging
hehe.. I might just do that Malik. Get QuickTime 7 (as you’ve got a very high speed connection) if you could and make sure that it has MPEG4 in the package. The easiest way to do that is to run QuickTime and choose “Update software” from one of the drop down menus.
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
My verison is 6.5 and there are no updates available according to the UPDATE button.. I bet version 7.0 isn’t available for Windows yet.
***You have to go to the QuickTIme website and download ver 7.0. Everything works fine now.***
For some reason you can not update to 7.0 from the version on your computer.
[Modified by: Bonsaimark (Bonsaimark) on June 09, 2005 06:01 PM]
Re(5): First VLOG, trial at video blogging
[quote]hehe.. I might just do that Malik. Get QuickTime 7 (as you’ve got a very high speed connection) if you could and make sure that it has MPEG4 in the package. The easiest way to do that is to run QuickTime and choose “Update software” from one of the drop down menus. [/quote]
Yeah, have to do that when I get home. The system here is pretty picky about installing new software and applications. Thanks for the advice. I would love to see some video of your resident birds!
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
I couldn’t get it to work on my Quick Time either. It played on Windows Media Player 10.
Maybe that has something to do with it?
new version in progress
I’m uploading (rather slowly, thank you Batelco, at 7.4kbps although I’m paying for a 512kb connection, 128kb up) a new version which is standard quicktime .mov file. I’ll put up a note just under the movie whenever the upload is done, and if it’s successful.
Sorry about the hassle, as I said, it’s proof of concept, and we know that a lot of computers don’t like mpeg4 for some reason. Now how do I get iMovie to encode in wmv is beyond me! I’ll have to re-start using the PC it looks like, which is a shame…
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
works great.. nice footage – the film director and all actors deserve full standing ovation from the audience 🙂 really enjoyed it – keep coming with new episodes.
andyv at xaraya
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Shame you couldn’t fit a wind jammer onto your IXUS 400. Anyhow thumbs up for your first Vblog! – It played fine after a single click on the still shot. Please dont encode for wmv! 🙁
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
sad how windows people can’t get a video playing .. mp4 plays in quicktime, real player & windows media player
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
hahaha…mp4 seems a bit beyond my PC right now!….I will try again in about a week once my exams are over!
Seems like a really good idea though
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Loved it. Give us more, please
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Perhaps one day you’ll get at good as this guy, [http://homepage.mac.com/shanenick1/VB11.mov], He can drive, videoblog, drink coffee, change the channels on the radio, oh, you get the idea.
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Mahmood, I got the sound to work just fine, crisp sound but no BLOODY picture! what’s the deal here?!
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Salaam Mahmood
I finally managed to watch the whole video; I love the tour and the chronicles of your battle with the dogs. The garden needs some time to mature and I hope you’ll enjoy it. It seems you spent so much on the Palm trees, they are huge.
Don’t worry about the Plumeria (the one which you brought with you from the old house) She is still in shock and will take some time to pick up; it is a hardy plant so she’ll be fine.
You’ll have to watch for the Delonix Regia (the Flamboyant tree, or the Royal Poinciana), it get so messy; the small leaflets are hard to clean.
From a landscaper point of view, I think you need some more hard surfaces and some shaded areas. Do you have a BBQ area?
overall, it is a nice vlog and I wish to see some more
Fuad
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
[size=24][i][b]Mahmood…VideoBlog the PIT BABES!!![/b][/i][/size]
Give us American guys who love Middle Eastern women something to look at.
– http://www.theamericanhawk.com
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
so the experiences are varied so far. I guess if you have the latest QuickTime you won’t have a problem playing the file, the same with Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 10 or indeed any other MPEG4 capable player. If you invest some time in installing QuickTime’s latest version, I think that you won’t face a problem.
For the future, what I’ve done is the following:
1. Installed the latest Avid Xpress Pro 4.6.1 on my Mac
2. Installed Sorensson Squeeze compression appliation (comes with XPro)
Now I can edit in a much better environment than iMovie HD (crap if you ask me, but is ok for very infrequent work) and can compress the resulting file into Flash (SWF), MPEG4, and QuickTime’s .mov.
I’ve done a trial run with the Flash compression and have uploaded it, you should see it come up in another post just to compare and see which format most people prefer, then I’ll stick to that.
Thank you all for your support. I enjoyed making the vlog and I think that seeing how the response has been, I’d better start on the next one!
Re: First VLOG, trial at video blogging
would love to, but that’ll have to wait till the next F1 event here! 😉
Re: First VLOG, trial at video blogging
although the flash file is uploaded, I couldn’t find a way to embed a “start/stop” button or even just double click a picture to start the movie other than physically right-click and selecting ‘play’ which is ugly. I don’t have much time to spend on this just now as I’m about to go and fire the BBQ!
maybe tomorrow, for now, work on getting your MPEG4 player (http://apple.com/quicktime) working, you’re going to thank me once it’s all set up as the quality is actually much better. And of course you do that only once.
later…
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Clicking on the picture didn’t work – probably because I’m still using Jaguar (v. 10.2.8) and you need Panther to run Quicktime 7. The regular Quicktime version started fine – nice quality picture and sound – then the picture froze on the fort garden, the same as what others described. But your lovely voice continued on. I don’t know whether it’s worth your effort to fix the regular Quicktime version, not knowing how many Jaguar users want it, but I sure would appreciate it. Not being able to see what you’re describing is making me too curious. 🙂
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
It works fine at the begining, but the picture freezes on ‘Mahmood’s Fort’ although the audio commentary carries on regardless.. any ideas anyone?
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
That was great, and I would welcome more!
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Salaam Mahmood
It is so nice to hear and see the man who kept me in touch with Bahrain for the past two years (since I found your blog site). The video works till the 36th second and then it continues as audio only. I love the fort and the Japanese grass.
Take care and have a good weekend
Fuad
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
[quote]It works fine at the begining, but the picture freezes on ‘Mahmood’s Fort’ although the audio commentary carries on regardless.. any ideas anyone?[/quote]
I also experienced this very problem with Quicktime 6.5 on WinXP.
I downloaded Quicktime 7, uninstalled QT6.5, restarted and installed QT7.
You need to download the whole package because current Quicktime 7 is only a “preview” version. There is no automatic update from 6.5 to 7 so far.
I got it from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/preview/
I could watch the whole tour. Thank you Mahmood.
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Mahmood,
Please try with an audio blog! We all know what you look like! – It was great to actually hear what you sound like for those who have never spoken/met you in real life. Go lock youself in your office, press record on your little voice recorder and start rambling!!! 😀
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
I tried to download the file but we have a very slow speed dial-up!You look great in the backyard.
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Why don’t people follow advice? QuickTime 7 is a good free download for windows and your video works just fine with it. I am amazed at the quality of picture you have achieved.
When I was little, in Awali, we used to bring grass seed from the UK and my father grew a lawn. Trouble was it had to be watered most of the day so you couldn’t actually walk on it. It did look nice.
You will have to grow some Australian Paper flowers, they thrive in Bahrain
Tony Tindale
I love it!
Mr. M ~ I love the vlog! They came out GREAT! I haven’t stopped by lately and what a nice surprise! Thanks!
Re: I love it!
thank you Sandy, and welcome back. I promise to put up another vlog soon!
First VLOG, trial at video blogging
Mahmood,
Welcome to the vlogosphere!
I am thrilled to see your videos, and your day-to-day life.
It’s only fair that I show you my yard and garden, too.
No pool though. 🙂
http://blogumentary.typepad.com/vlog/2005/05/prelude_to_gard.html
Cheers,
Chuck