The Day There Was No News

The Day There Was No News
Originally uploaded by Pixelsurgeon

This video is striking. To quote the description...

"Today there was no news. And here is the proof."

THE CUTTING EDGE: the magic of movie editing (pt1)

This is "Part 1 of a fantastic documentary about movie editing." The other parts of this are also possibly available on YouTube. This documentary gives the history of and an emphasis on the importance of EDITING as an art form and an important piece of any film-making.

Fiftieth Post!

Doing some maintenance on the site earlier and I noted that the post earlier this month on Video on Flickr was this site's FIFTIETH PUBLISHED POST. There are a variety of drafts in progress that will be dated earlier than today, but I wanted to announce this fact briefly with some --albeit humble-- self-congratulatory nods.

Please stay tuned and keep the cameras rolling.

Video on Flickr! « Flickr Blog

If you haven't heard of Flickr yet, it's one of the best photo community sites available right now that is actually taken seriously by professionals. Certainly there are competitors out there (like Photobucket) but they are usually frequented by MySpace teens.

However, Flickr has not had the technology or infrastructure in place to allow video uploads and sharing, something that their competitors have had a head start with. But that has just changed! You can now upload videos albeit in a slightly limited fashion. Read more about it at the announcement on Flickr Blog.

Watch Higher Quality YouTube Videos

Do you like YouTube, but would like to see the videos in a higher quality? The answer is at Wired How-To Wiki. The news and reference stuff here is really of big importance to those videophiles who upload their videos to the site.

Domain Resolving - ColorBurst Video

This is just a quick post to note the fact that as of today, the domains for ColorBurst Video are now resolving to the site rather than redirecting.

Prior to today, when you typed in either - http://www.colorburstvideo.com/ - or - http://www.colorburst-video.com/ - these addresses would redirect to http://colorburst-video.BLOGSPOT.com/. Although the site is still hosted on the same server, the domain will propogate properly.

This is a small technical change, but it will help with our long-term plans. It will be a brand new year for ColorBurst in 2008.

Video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English | Common Craft - In Plain English

The Common Craft Show is about simple video tutorials in "plain english" that introduce consumers to new technology products. Common Craft is a small company run by a married couple who are passionate about explanation.

Our business is explanation. We are hired to take a fresh look at a situation, problem, product or service and create a video that explains the issue in plain English so that a maximum number of people can understand it.

On a recent update, they turned their unique style and technique to the task of explaining Social Bookmarking with services like del.icio.us.

We made this video because we want others to feel the power of social bookmarking and how it works to make web pages easier to remember, organize and share.

Tools like these make the whole internet much more useful. Introducing these tools to the uninitiated is made less daunting using these videos from the Common Craft Show. See their site and other videos at CommonCraft.com - In Plain English.

More Information on Hard Drive Camcorders

I've got an update on a recent post:

Review: Panasonic Camcorder Features 30GB Hard Drive

I admit that I didn't even know they made these yet, but it makes sense as a natural evolution of video technology.

Here is some more history on the subject:

Hard drive camcorders have actually been around since the '80s. They were first used (somewhat experimentally) by television news crews early in the electronic-news revolution. They were high-end broadcast quality cameras (high-priced) and included -removeable- hard drives. This allowed a news editor to have instant access to the footage without having to transfer from tape to computer. Of course, at that point in history, computer-video editing was in its infancy, and very high-$. Hard-drive technology was still rather fragile - imagine the typical drive bouncing around in the back of the news van speeding back from a breaking story. Video quality equivalent to your current camcorder was a challenge for these $100K+ systems. After some very costly trials, the technology was shelved waiting for more reliable and cheaper stuff.

Video is now more 'democratized' and we are starting to see numerous video formats - several different versions of HD, SD, widescreen, etc. Its not uncommon for some (upper-end) consumer camcoders to be able to switch between US, British, and French video standards, sometimes with the added choices of widescreen and high-def. Some of these choices don't easily translate to a specific tape media. At the same time the internet has eased the problem of transporting the various international television "standards" to other locations. Add to this the much lower cost of reliable drives, and you have a natural migration to consumer camcorders with built-in HDs. The only real limitation to these is the amount of video that can be contained on the drive. I also wonder how many people will be disciplined enough to regularly move the video off their camcorder before they need the space for the next event - Let's see... do I erase Reese's kindergarten graduation, or do I not tape Livvi's first day of school...

What will really be cool is when they offer a consumer version that gives you a choice of tape, HD, or maybe flash-memory card / flash-card HD. Probably late 2008 or early 2009.

This sounds like good news. I'm a bit behind the curve on the knowledge on this one, so I'm glad to get more input from the expert. Now, when will we see more common posts from said expert?

Help on Video Editing PC

Here's a good question.

i'm planning on buying a computer system for video editing. here are the specs:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
  Dual Core 2MB L2 Cache, 2.13 GHz, 1066MHz FSB
• Asus P5VD2-MX VIA Motherboard
• 512MB DDR2 533 Memory Apacer (i would add another 512mb ddr)
• 512MB Asus EN6200TC512 GeForce 6200 PCI-E 512MB Turbo Cache, TV/DVI

do you guys think that this system is fast enough to hadle tons of video editing? do u have any suggestions of a better computer system for video editing? and do u know a free video editing software that has functions similar to adobe premiere? thanks!

Read the community's answers at Tech Support Guy Forums.

Review: Panasonic Camcorder Features 30GB Hard Drive

I admit that I didn't even know they made these yet, but it makes sense as a natural evolution of video technology.

(CNET.com) -- Hard-drive camcorders have been slower to catch on than I would've thought. Sure, they cost a bit more than their DVD- or tape-based equivalents, but the convenience of having such a large storage capacity -- and not having to deal with tape -- make them appealing.

Read the full review on CNN.com.

Zombies! How-to Special FX on the Cheap

Here is a good tutorial on creating movie studio quality makeup effects for zombies in your movie projects.

BackMoves.com

Here's a new site I've stumbled upon.

Backmoves.com is one of the world's first and largest collections of digital stock footage libraries and animated backgrounds. Our mission is to provide video editors and production houses with high quality motion graphics and 3D animations they need to further unleash the power of 3d animation.

Backmoves was founded in 2001 and headquartered in Dokki, Giza, Egypt by a professional team work who wanted to provide Clients with creativity without boundaries, to provide clients with high quality motion graphics at affordable prices with extraordinary customer service and technical support.

Our FREE libraries include Abstract, Blur, Water Effects, transitions and many others that are randomly rotated every month, FREE animations are downloadable in DivX format.

Update (2008-02-13): This site appears to redirect to a different site called Help3D.com.

BizIII Podcast - Video Tips - Lighting and Background

Here is a podcast from Wizard-Creek.com that covers some great tips on lighting and backgrounds for your video shots.

Tips on lighting and backgrounds when creating video.

• Duration: 3:55
• Monday, March 26th, 2007
• Download MP3
• Tags: video, tips

Source: BizIII - Play Podcast.

Search | Firefox Add-ons | VIDEO

Most video sharing sites make it very difficult to nearly impossible to download a local copy of the video files they are displaying. This is good news for those directors who want to keep their content protected, but bad news for those interested parties who want a local copy for reference, backup source material or outright copyright infringement (not recommended).

Those videophiles and collectors that use Firefox will be interested to know that there are several extensions available that make it easier to manipulate video files on the most common video sharing sites like YouTube, Google Video as well as many others. To get an idea, try the following search on the Mozilla Corporation Firefox Add-ons Site. There are currently over 50 results.

So keep this in mind when you share videos through these sites. They can be downloaded and then archived or re-shared onto a different site. You don't use Firefox? You should! Get it today--

Tutorial: Create a Stop-Motion Animation Movie using Digital Camera or WebCam

Have you ever wanted to create a stop-motion video? You can create many effects with toys and stuffed animals. Kids love them because they are an easy way to tell imaginary stories. Here is a good tutorial on how to start creating stop animation short films.

Sometime back, I created a stop-motion animation film with the soft toys of my 2-year old son playing the lead roles. This 19 second movie was done using just a digital still camera (not video camcorder) and Windows Movie Maker

Read the full post at Digital Inspiration.

Use YouTube to Learn Photoshop

I've found a great directory of links to YouTube videos that can help you learn to use Adobe® Photoshop®.

Both YouTube and MetaCafe have a lot of photoshop video tutorials and while not all are the best quality video, the ability to see techniques in action with video is great for quick learning.

To sample a few of the links and to get started, visit etc - quick links to good stuff.

Colorburst Video Blog is One Year Old

This is just a quick note to point out the fact that as of this month, Colorburst Video has been around for one whole year. Take a look back at the beginning.

Queensbound Seven: The Next Step in Pro-Sumer Video

Here is an interesting blog post debunking a recent CNET article.

I wrote a post not long ago about the rise of pro-sumer video over the last 15 years, and the impact it's making right now on the web video revolution.

Well, this CNET article fortells the coming of a second wave of pro-sumerism... and I think they totally miss the point.

They're talking about evolution of internet video editing tools like eyespot and jumpcut, and asserting that these will open up the exclusive world of video editing to 'the rest of us'...

I'm very suspect of this assertion - Editing is about choices. That takes experience and training. The tools you use to edit are pretty much irrelevant.

Read the full post at Queensbound Seven.

The Perfect Editing Station - Expert Help by PC Magazine

Jan Ozer at PC Magazine has an article on the perfect setup for video-editing.

Are you a filmmaker? Or a video enthusiast? Or the greatest thing to hit YouTube since that Star Wars kid? You've been editing video for a while, perhaps producing short films, training videos, or maybe even a wedding or two, and the only thing standing between you and an Independent Spirit award is the limitations of your current gear. It's time to jump-start your career with an upgrade.

The first step in your transformation into George Lucas is clear: You'll need a superfine digital camcorder. But once you've spent a cool thousand dollars on the latest and greatest from Sony, Samsung, or whichever manufacturer you favor, you've only just begun your journey from taking cute home movies to making great videos. That camera is only going to get you halfway. But that's why I'm here. I'll show you how to build an awesome editing station to take your video to the next level.

Read the full article at The Perfect Editing Station.

Unable to Load Archived Video

dnix71 asks:

For some as yet to be explained reason, none of my video stored on my hard drive will load into the editing software. This just began happening recently. Cannot even load sample stuff! CPU locks up and must be re-booted.

I have been using WinDVD creator for over a year without probs, tho I am aware of its shortcomings, it worked for me. I have attempted to load any video clip from my drive to Movie Maker and ShowBiz with the same results.

For the full post, please visit VideoHelp.com.