archaeologist, tech geek, cornishman
Posts tagged video
Stonehenge at the Summer Solstice 2009
Jul 22nd
It’s just over a month since the summer solstice, and, if you have never spent the night at Stonehenge with 35,000 other people, this short film should hopefully give you a hint of the sights, sounds and atmosphere.
The film starts in the evening as the sun sets, through to partying in the dark of the stones, a cloudy sunrise, and is rounded off with morris dancers and a very early bus.
A short tour of the British Museum made shorter
Mar 10th
A short tour of the British Museum made shorter from Tom Goskar on Vimeo.
I took a little wander around the British Museum’s Great Court and some upper galleries, and filmed as I went on my cameraphone. The original video was 11 minutes long, sped up here by 800%, so I suppose it’s a 24mph walk about the BM…
The music is appropriately by A Single Voice, the musical guise of archaeologist and author David J Knight.
Live streaming video from the Nokia E71
Jan 4th
Recently, while on holiday in Penzance, I saw some spectacular waves breaking on and over the sea defences. It was so amazing, I wanted friends and family to see it as well. I’ve had Qik installed on my phone for a while, going largely unused, so I thought that I’d load it up and give it a try.
Qik allows the E71 (and other S60 phones like the N95) to stream video direct to the web, where people can view it via an embeddable Flash player:
I had a good 3G signal on my E71, so I muted the sound in Qik’s settings (so that we could talk without the world hearing me say “wow!” repeatedly) and set it to “normal” quality (which is less than 320×240), then hit the “stream” button, and away it went, beaming live video to the world.
Qik’s interface on the phone is very simple. It tells you how long you have been streaming for, and what the delay will be for people watching via the web. Sometimes there is a delay (perhaps due to network congestion), but I found that it didn’t take long for the network to catch up, and the streaming video to be more or less instantaneous.
So how do people know that you’re broadcasting live video? When I opened my Qik account (which is free, by the way), I linked my Qik account to my Twitter account. Whenever I broadcast a video, a tweet is sent from my account to all my followers with a link to the live feed. In turn, my Twitter account is linked to my Facebook account, so people on Facebook can see too.
If people want to, they can chat to you while watching. Qik allows viewers to use a text chat window next to the Flash viewer (if you’re watching on Qik’s website) to interact with other viewers. All chats are displayed in the viewfinder on your phone, superimposed over the lower half (not on the streamed video itself, or the archived video). You can then answer questions (with your voice, of course), for example.
When you have finished streaming, the URL for the live stream remains the same, but links to an archive of the stream, which can be watched at any time.
There are other solutions out there for the E71 (I’m aware of Stickam and Kyte.tv) but since I’ve been so impressed with Qik, I’m not sure I’ll try them!
Link: My videos on Qik
Video: The water of Chalice Well Gardens, Glastonbury
May 27th
While at Chalice Well Gardens in Glastonbury, back in April, I captured some video of the water that flows out of the well on video. Visit the film on Vimeo to watch it in HD.
The water of Chalice Well Gardens, Glastonbury from Tom Goskar on Vimeo.
Public Acts of Surrealism
Feb 1st
Frozen Grand Central:
Frozen Grand Central from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.
[tags]surreal, video, freeze, ImprovEverywhere[/tags]
BBC Flash iPlayer
Dec 14th
The BBC have just launched a Flash-based version of the iPlayer. You can’t download programmes yet, but at least you can watch them in your browser. Being a Mac user, I’m pleased that at least we have something!
HD Video Sharing
Oct 22nd
Tired of those tiny video offerings on YouTube? 320×240 video at 15 frames per second is starting to look a bit tired on large screen resolutions. At work I’m lucky enough to have a new iMac with a 24″ screen running at 1920×1200, and trust me, YouTube starts to look a little… inadequate… on my screen.
Vimeo, an alternative to YouTube, has always offered, IMHO, better quality videos (they’ve been 460px wide and seem to be encoded at a higher bit rate). A few days ago, they announced the introduction of HD (720p).
To find out why this is a Good Thing, this example sums it all up rather simply (then view it directly on the Vimeo page, and switch to full screen):
HD Explained! from dalas verdugo on Vimeo.
At the time of writing the Vimeo website is running a little slower (why on earth might that be, hmm?) than usual, but run some of the movies full screen to see the difference this makes.
Video from the top of Salisbury Cathedral’s 404′ spire
Jan 15th
Scared of heights? Don’t watch this video, taken by conservators working at the top of Salisbury Cathedral’s 404′ spire. That’s a long way up, with not much to hold on to. With lots of wind.
To those familiar with Salisbury, here’s a closer view of that little red light we see way up in the sky when it’s dark.
