Forms from video synthesizers

Via Video Circuits is some old school form, "LZX Visionary - Vector Rescanning Experiments," and for extra fun "Scan Processor Studies:"

Update: And for even more extra fun, something done in Trapcode Form:

Silver Black Cycle from Rhett Dashwood on Vimeo.

Video of San Francisco Final Cut SuperMeet

Via The Editblog, there's Live feed of San Francisco Final Cut SuperMeet mentioned here last week. Update: the recording is available too, as are some oldies on MacVideo.

Live TV : Ustream

BBC 'Life': 2-year timelapse, 96 layers in After Effects

The 'Plants' episode from the BBC nature series, Life (with David Attenborough), features a making-of segment that shows a 2-year timelapse of plant growth that is composited in After Effects (via @tomguilmette). Here's that segment and a preview that discusses how other state-of-the-art techniques help capture extraordinary images:




Life - A preview of the series. from Documentally on Vimeo.

Easy download of video from US warplanes and drones

As the Pentagon is busy trying to control lightning, Wired notes that it's easy to download video from US warplanes and drones using a $26 app; see Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes and Insurgents Intercept Drone Video in King-Size Security Breach.

Wired also posted this 2002 video from CBS, showing an intercept in the act:



Update: there was a segment on The Rachel Maddow Show too, just the night before,



Update 2: According to the NY Times the Military Is Awash in Data From Drones. Newer drones are expected to record 10 directions at once, and many more in the near future, which should encourage research into storage, metadata, and organization.

The Underutilized Power Of The Video Demo

Advice from a TechCrunch writer on communicating product information with concise video intros is in a recent post, The Underutilized Power Of The Video Demo To Explain...

The comments on this article go farther and discuss strategy and examples, like videos by Say It Visually! and Common Craft, who explained Google Docs in 2007:



Update:In a related vein for visualization see The New Mediators.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II in the real world

If you're interested in the idea of a shooting video with a DSLR camera but follow the developments sporadically, Oliver Peters has a meaty illustrated overview of one camera in Canon EOS 5D Mark II in the real world.

His other recent posts have provided good coverage of FCP plug-ins and more.

MotionDSP video enhancement software

MotionDSP has shut down FixMyMovie.com (mentioned 2 years ago in AEP post Video enhancement for web movies) in favor of standalone software vReveal, $49 video enhancement software for Windows consumers. vReveal helps heal video that is shaky, dark, noisy, pixelated, or blurry. They have some demos that show stabilizing and basic tonal correction, and a 30-day trial version to see for yourself. It's hard to tell what can't be done in After Effects (even with the poor scaling in AE), but vReveal seems easy, and fast since it's CUDA-enabled.

MotionDSP says that their software "dramatically improves video from a wide range of sources -- from mobile phones to surveillance cameras." Better quality can be had in the more expensive & patented multi-frame video enhancement technology available in Ikena, their $7,000 video forensic solution. Background on MotionDSP can be found in last Saturday's The New York Times: Those Big Bright Eyes May Soon Be Brighter. (h/t to Carl Grunbaum)

Lone wolf feature requests haven't led to improved videosyncracy enhancements inside AE & Premiere -- made here since before Algolith AE filters came and went -- but it might still be worth a try since Adobe has a powerful research unit.

Update: Filed under not sure what this means... On March 27th, 2009 MediaLooks posted that a QuickTime Source Filter [was] Licensed to MotionDSP:

"MotionDSP has licensed MediaLooks’ QuickTime Source DirectShow Filter for one of its products. MotionDSP is a privately held company backed by NVIDIA and In-Q-Tel, headquartered in San Mateo, California."

Pocket Projector for iPhone & iPod

Core77 notes the Optoma Pico Pocket Projector for iPhone/iPod, live at the Apple store:

CasparCG: the free Flash-based video app

CasparCG is a free open source Flash-based video app that is being used in Swedish national TV broadcasts for lower-third name signs, election results, game show scores, and channel idents. Still unseen here at AEP, the website describes it as an app that can play common movie formats, with alpha, as well as both SWF’s and FLV’s, in realtime as your hardware allows.

Until now mostly only referred to obliquely on Twitter, Filmmaking Central interviewed developer Olle Soprani. Here's the interview -- and be sure to check out Filmmaking Central's rollout of a variety of NAB goodies, including particleIllusion coming to After Effects and Jerzy Drozda, Jr (maltaannon) on 3D Serpentine.

After Effects intro videos in 6 languages

Todd Kopriva points the way to video tutorials in several languages in his recent post, After Effects video tutorials, esercitazioni, tutoriales, didacticiels, Lehrgänge, チュートリアル. In English, he points to searches for videos using Adobe Community Help and to the Adobe AE Help page Services, downloads, extras, and video tutorials, which organizes Adobe (and partners) video tutorials into categories forming a comprehensive introductory "course."

Another free intro course (in English) is Basic Training, offered by Andrew Kramer and Video Copilot.

Kaleidoscopic creatures & Mad Men

An icon of one view of a hypercube, to go with selections from Year-end motion bits: Kaleidoscopic creatures, Mad Men, & more by John Nack:


Larytta's «Souvenir de Chine» video, directed by Körner Union




The Simpsons Spoof The Mad Men Intro

Broadcasting live video from phone

Broadcasting live video from a cellular phone seems like it'll hit big soon. Someone did live podcasting from a Flash conference last year with a Nokia device I think, but I lost the reference and froze perhaps in fear of being Scobilized.

Now the LA Times is reporting on investments in Qik, "a service which is championed by celebrity technology blogger Robert Scoble, has gained in popularity particularly as it adds new features such as integration with Twitter, YouTube, Mogulus, MySpace, Orkut and Justin.tv. Qik is used by a wide array of users, called Qikkers, including both professional and citizen journalists." The video below is from Qik (on "jailbroken" iPhone support); Beet.TV has an interview with a Qik rep.

Similar services include the Silverlight-oriented Livecast (was Pocketcaster) and Flixwagon, which is covering Nokia and like Qik "jailbroken" iPhones.



Update: Poynter Online reports that the Washington Post and Newsweek started posting live video reports via phone during the Democratic Convention. A Post rep told Beet.TV, "We will be using cell phones equipped with a live streaming application from Comet Technologies," and built complete TV studios at the conventions for continuous coverage from reporters and blogging guests.

This should change with more smart phones, like iPhone 3.0.

Update: NewTeeVee adds another player to the list, Aylus Networks, in One to Watch: Aylus Mobile Video.

Field order & video misconceptions

Trish & Chris Meyer are posting their library of tutorials on After Effects and video onto their ProVideo Coalition blogs: Creating Motion Graphics and CMG Keyframes. The latest ones debunk common misconceptions on field dominance, field rendering, and time code; others clarify luminance, float, aspect ratios, and more.

Plus there's Favorite Technical References if you want extra geek.

They also have a video/DVD explaining all this quite effectively: VideoSyncrasies, The Motion Graphics Problem Solver.

Google's TV plans + 8 Internet TV Apps

Read/WriteWeb affiliate Last100 surveys 8 Internet TV Apps in 8 Weeks and speculates on Google's TV plans in Google wants to do for TV what it did for the Web.

Update: earlier Last100 also covered Microsoft's TV plans in 2 parts; the 1st was Microsoft on your telly: a history of the company’s Internet TV strategy.

Update 2: Read/Write also had a roundup of online video editors with Video Editing 2.0: 8 Ways to Remix Online Videos, and later added a review JayCut: Online Video Editing with Export.