February 27, 2007
Three free PlasmaFX filters
There's a new tutorials for Digital Anarchy's PlasmaFX at Creative Mac that includes three free PlasmaFX filters used. The bad news is this is only for Mac users on Final Cut Pro, Motion, and After Effects because PlasmaFX uses Apple's FxPlug architecture and OS X’s Core Image.
Apollo Engaged
John Dowdell was right: a Techmeme cluster has surfaced with more articles on Adobe Apollo, with additional notes at TechCrunch.
Update 03.02.07: some are concerned with an Adobe dominated web as much as a Microsoft one.
Update 03.02.07: some are concerned with an Adobe dominated web as much as a Microsoft one.
The Wilhelm Scream
FreshDV posted background notes on the "Wilhelm Scream" sound effect, found in movies since the 50s. There's a partial compilation posted at YouTube. Hollywood Lost and Found has a comprehensive list and posted a clip on the scream from "Masters of Horror."
February 24, 2007
File info for FLVs
I've tried various utilities and players (VLC, Riva, FLV Knife, etc) to show file info for FLVs (Flash Video), but without much luck on many files. One hope was FLV MetaData Viewer (FLVMDV), a property sheet extension DLL for Windows XP that adds an 'FLV Details' tab to the file properties dialog of FLV files. But I couldn't get it to work at first.
Happily, I noticed that FLV Player (Windows) does show video data rate and dimensions. And when I installed the handy SUPER, another Windows compression utility that uses ffmeg (command line on PC) for some tasks, the "FLV Details" property tab finally showed up in newly created -- or copied files (CTL-drag) -- files but only in SUPER's output folder!
Now I get info on sample rates and AV codecs used (On2 VP6 or Sorenson H.263), but I still need FLV Player for video data rate, if that metadata is added by the authoring tool. It sure seems like Adobe should be making this stuff easier -- if they see a future in digital video.
Update 03.12.07: VLC does give basic info, except average data rate, on almost all files (FLV1 is the Spark codec). VLC just has trouble playing and scrubbing some FLV's.
Once reason for concern with Flash metadata is that there's been bugs in most FLV compression software possibly since so many, like YouTube apparently, rely on FFMPEG. Duration and dimension metadata of a file is not always correctly saved, according to Jeroen Wijering, hence the concerns with FLV Knife and FLV Metadata Injector. He also notes: '...on movie scrubbing; Flash seems to only scrub to keyframes. So if you compress a movie with very few keyframes, the scrubbing won't run very smooth. Compress with more keyframes (can be set in nearly every compression tool) to get rid of this problem." My lack of understanding all the problems wth Flash encoding, players, cue points, seeking, and preloading prevents me from preferring Flash over QuickTime or even Windows Media.
BTW, WinFF is another freebie GUI for FFMEG. Mac users have it easier (fewer but better freeware) with ffmpegX and Visual Hub.
Happily, I noticed that FLV Player (Windows) does show video data rate and dimensions. And when I installed the handy SUPER, another Windows compression utility that uses ffmeg (command line on PC) for some tasks, the "FLV Details" property tab finally showed up in newly created -- or copied files (CTL-drag) -- files but only in SUPER's output folder!
Now I get info on sample rates and AV codecs used (On2 VP6 or Sorenson H.263), but I still need FLV Player for video data rate, if that metadata is added by the authoring tool. It sure seems like Adobe should be making this stuff easier -- if they see a future in digital video.
Update 03.12.07: VLC does give basic info, except average data rate, on almost all files (FLV1 is the Spark codec). VLC just has trouble playing and scrubbing some FLV's.
Once reason for concern with Flash metadata is that there's been bugs in most FLV compression software possibly since so many, like YouTube apparently, rely on FFMPEG. Duration and dimension metadata of a file is not always correctly saved, according to Jeroen Wijering, hence the concerns with FLV Knife and FLV Metadata Injector. He also notes: '...on movie scrubbing; Flash seems to only scrub to keyframes. So if you compress a movie with very few keyframes, the scrubbing won't run very smooth. Compress with more keyframes (can be set in nearly every compression tool) to get rid of this problem." My lack of understanding all the problems wth Flash encoding, players, cue points, seeking, and preloading prevents me from preferring Flash over QuickTime or even Windows Media.
BTW, WinFF is another freebie GUI for FFMEG. Mac users have it easier (fewer but better freeware) with ffmpegX and Visual Hub.
February 23, 2007
Video Fingerprinting
Video fingerprinting was an interesting topic this week. CinemaTech continues it's wide ranging coverage of developments in distribution, but GigaOem's NewTeeVee is coming up strong on just the web end.
I guess just writing "YouTube, Inc" into FLV files isn't enough, even though these little fuzzy movies seem like great ads for the DVD quality versions.
I guess just writing "YouTube, Inc" into FLV files isn't enough, even though these little fuzzy movies seem like great ads for the DVD quality versions.
Amen Break
Can I Get An Amen? is a fascinating 20-minute video that "narrates the history of the 'Amen Break,' a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music -- a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip."
Some may enjoy another project by Nate Harrison that uses the Artbeats catalog to "meditate on the construction of visual meaning in today's very fluid (and increasingly template-driven) image economy."
Some may enjoy another project by Nate Harrison that uses the Artbeats catalog to "meditate on the construction of visual meaning in today's very fluid (and increasingly template-driven) image economy."
Free FLV web services
Services like KeepVid let you to save an FLV from it's website.
VIXY goes a step ahead and lets you submit an url then they convert the video and download the converted file automatically to your hard drive. VIXY allows you to convert a Flash Video FLV file (Youtube movies,etc) to MPEG4 (AVI/MOV/MP4/MP3/3GP) file online. VIXY is using a compressed domain transcoder technology and converts FLV to MPEG4 faster with better quality than a typical transcoder.
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