Castaa's YouTube Channel Blog

Making HD Youtube videos on the cheap.

2011-11-14T23:21:00.001-08:00

New video by me about making HD videos for YouTube, on the cheap.

Tutorial: Recording 720p video @ 30 fps with your webcam

2011-10-02T01:59:00.000-07:00

I was recently able to purchase a Logitech C510 webcam for around $25. This model can record video at a resolution of 1280x720 (720p) at a maximum frame rate of 30 fps. Perfect for HD video on YouTube. (Check your webcam model's documentation to determine the maximum supported video resolution and frame rate.)

However, the supplied Logitech software doesn't allow recording at 720p and my computer's CPU is too slow to record and encode video real time at such video high resolutions using Microsoft's newest Expression Encoder 4 in Windows 7.

I did find a solution using the trusty and free Windows Media Encoder (WME) in Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 using the following settings under the Properties option:

(click on image for larger view)

For more detailed information on how to setup your WME recording, see my detailed blog post on WME HERE. The following WME settings enable 720p @ 30 fps recording, but my computer is too slow to compress in real time, video of this quality and resolution. However, there is another setting in the advanced tab in WME, where can you can defer video encoding until after the video recording is finished.

(click on image for larger view)

You want to check the 'Store content to hard disk temporarily' check box. And then check the 'Capture to hard disk first, then encode' check box. Note: 'path' for the temporary video data, ensure you can the write data to that directory. (Vista and Windows 7 can restrict write access to C:/, so use a path to your desktop or another folder you have created as an alternative.) You can change this to any folder path in which you have hard drive write access.

These setting options should allow people with much less powerful CPUs to still record 720p (or even 1080p) video, such as myself. I'm confident that this setup will work for the wide variety of the HD webcams, such as the Logitech C310, C615, C525 and C910 models, Microsoft's LifeCam Cinema HD models and Creative Live! HD webcams.

If your computer still struggles with recording 720p video. There are less CPU demanding widescreen (16:9) 480x360, 850x400, 864x480 or 1024x576 resolutions that can be tried that while not true HD, still offer a good resolution for video making on YouTube or Vimeo, etc.

Good luck!

The Secret Side of YouTube

2011-07-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

YouTube is obviously a great way to share your videos with a large amount of people. However, there are times where sharing something to the masses isn't desirable. So I wanted to mention a 3 ways to limit your videos to a more custom audience.

Private YouTube Videos

This is the most secure way to share one of your videos. Marking a video as private requires you manually list the YouTube users who can view your video. Private videos do not show up when searched by others.
Positives:

Absolute control over which user sees what videos
Video does not show up on your channel page

Drawbacks:

Requires each viewer to have a YouTube account
Maximum number of shared users is only 50 per video

Unlisted YouTube Videos

A second and more accessible way to share a video amongst a more limited audience is to mark the video as "Unlisted". This allows anyone with the video's URL to view the video. And like private videos, does not show up when searched for.
Positives:

An unlimited amount of people can view the video, provided they have the video's URL link which you give out
Viewing the video does not require a YouTube account
Video does not show up on your channel page

Drawbacks:

The video can be viewed by anyone that has the link
Video link can be shared by anyone

Invisible Channel Option

A third option is to set your channel to 'invisible'. This can be set in your channel page's settings tab. An invisible channel is one where the channel page can only be accessed by channel's owner. Invisible channel owners can still mark individual videos as private or as unlisted as described above. However, any videos marked as public on an invisible channel will show up in YouTube's search. This option is largely for people who want to greatly limit their presence from YouTube by marking all their videos as private or unlisted but still maintaining the benefits of owning a YouTube account.
Positives:

Removes public access to one's YouTube channel page
Allows user to upload videos, and comment on and rate others videos

Drawbacks:

Only removes public access to one's channel page
Public videos still can be found in YouTube/Google search
Not desirable for building subscriber base

Google/YouTube's new beta interface changes

2011-07-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

Google is rolling out a redesign for all its major websites. This includes Google+, YouTube, and Gmail. Google is also folding its Blogger and Picasa services into Google+. You can even get a sneak peak:

YouTube beta interface code named: Cosmic Panda!

Gmail users can simply switch to the new Preview theme!

I've been using the new beta YouTube interface for a little while. I'm not sure I like it. The channels are radically different. Not to say I like the current channel design. Actually I hate the current channel design. I still think the original channel design was best.

Checking out the newest Linux Distros

2011-05-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

It had been over a year since I had taken used any flavor of Linux. So this week, with the release of Ubuntu 11.04, I decided to take a fresh look.

I started with Ubuntu 11.04. Ubuntu is the most popular of all the Linux distributions. Like virtually all of flavors of Linux, it is 100% free to download and install. Ya, open source/GPL! So I downloaded burned the ISO disc image to a CD-R blank (700MB size required). Sadly, installation was not without issue this time around. I had issues with the installer saying it was unable to install the GRUB boot loader. This was frustrating because the drive was completely empty and had no MBR. After the 3rd try, it finally installed without issue. Though I'm still not sure why it failed or finally worked with my 3rd attempt. I haven't much issue with Ubuntu installs in the past. Upon boot up, I was surprised to see that Canonical (Ubuntu's maintainer) had to decided to forgo the standard Gnome desktop user interface for their new Unity desktop. While I didn't use it for very long, I was very much frustrated by the changes. It has more a Mac OS X feel, which is totally alien to me. So taken back by these changes, I decide to take a look at Debian Linux.

I had heard good things about Debian from a user that was running it at the cafe where I haunt. So I decided to install it and take a look. Again I burned the Debian 6.0.1 installer disc image to a CD-R blank. It's installer was much smaller in size but required a lengthy download process to fully install the standard set of Linux applications. Though I did not have issue with the installation. The desktop interface is very much like the previous versions of Ubuntu since it uses a more standard Gnome desktop. But there is where my enjoyment ended. It had a non-standard version of Firefox, called IceWeasel. It turns out that Firefox uses some non-free software which is antithetical to the Debian free software philosophy. So IceWeasel is a modified version of Firefox using 100% open source code, I assume. I could still manually install Firefox but I did having an issue which required me to manually edit the package dependency list to allow for its successful install on Debian, since the Firefox package is for its close cousin Ubuntu. I also had problems installing the proprietary nvidia graphics drivers. I couldn't even use the sudo command, without having to manually edit the sudo user list file. And even then I still wasn't sure it was using the nvidia drivers once I had installed them. Frankly at this point, I had enough. So I was on to my third option kubuntu.

kubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu but uses the KDE desktop interface and applications by default. Again I burned the installer's disc image to a CD-R blank and installed kubuntu 11.04. The installer did crash on the first attempt but the second attempt installed successfully. While the KDE interface is more like the Microsoft Windows interface, I still found myself struggling with the differences and found myself wanting standard Gnome UI. Though, I was able to easily install Firefox 4 and the nvidia graphic drivers. For the time being kubuntu is going to be my Linux distro of choice. Though as a test, I was unable to successfully capture video from my webcam using the recommended Cheese video recording application. I was unable to adjust my webcam's settings to produce a proper color video image and I could not get my audio to record at all even after fiddling with the system settings.

One area that Linux falls short is in the video capturing and editing department. It's not at all a friendly video maker's platform. So I definately would not recommend it for YouTube video makers. Though the YouTube website itself run fine on Linux.

What Constitutes fair use for YouTube videos?

2011-05-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

I get a lot of questions from YouTube video makers about what constitutes "fair use" in regards to their YouTube content. I'm not a lawyer but this new Stanford University video helps outline the guidelines of "fair use" and copyright. Check it out!

source: YouTube blog

New YouTube Annotation System

2010-12-10T14:31:00.000-08:00

A brand new annotation editor - based on user feedback, we overhauled the annotation editor and moved most of the functionality to a new side panel to streamline annotation creation, editing and deletion while leaving the player less cluttered.
New annotation type - “Title” - Title annotations enable overlaying headlines, videos titles, credits and other “big text” on top of your video, just like you would with professional video editing tools.
New Font size options - you can now select from a combined set of six font sizes.
New color options - annotations are now available in 16 background colors and 14 font colors.

This is good news for YouTube video makers. Annotations are an excellent way to convey more information and draw attention to things. Especially for corrections, links or clarification in video already uploaded.

via YouTube Blog

YouTube ups video length limit for users of "Good Standing"

2010-12-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

YouTube announced that accounts with good standing can upload video longer than 15 minutes. Where good stand means you have a history of not upload content that has been flagged as owned by someone use via their content ID system. This is great news for users than are not YouTube Partners. Curiously, they don't specify what the max length is, but I would assume it's only limited by the current maximum upload file size of 2 GB.

via the YouTube Blog

Directly download Adobe Flash Player

2010-08-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't noticed, Adobe installs their annoying and largely unwanted download manager when one try to update to a new version of their Flash Player. This is the application that plays YouTube video and is generally a good piece of software to keep up to date to get the most out of YouTube's features.

Well there is a solution and that is the hidden direct download links for Windows:

Enjoy.

YouTube ups video length limit to 15 minutes

2010-07-29T11:12:00.000-07:00

YouTube, today announced that it is raising maximum length a video can be uploaded. The new limit is 15 minutes, just under 11 minutes was the old limit. The maximum uploaded file size remains 2 GB, which should not be an issue for videos of 15 minutes or less in length. And this increase doesn't effect YouTube Partners since they can already upload videos of unlimited length.

Youtube Hash Tag List - New Feature

2010-06-02T10:58:00.001-07:00

YouTube recently added hash tag abilities to video comments. Hashtags are links to recently comments using the same hashtag.

As far as I can determine this list of special hashtags are:

#FTW
#CUTE
#FAIL
#OMG
#LOL

Example comment using these (hehe, classic):

Post any new hashtags you've found below in the comments below.

Fearless Technology prediction for the coming decade

2010-02-08T12:26:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit late for post like this. It's been a whole month already of 2010, only 119 months to go until 2020! But I thought I'd offer my opinions about what the technology landscape will (might) look like in coming decade.

Technology of course, especially on the web, moves very fast and is hard if not impossible to predict more than a few years out. We are still only about 15 years into the mainstream use of the Internet. I've read that historically it takes 30 years for a brand new technology to fully integrate into a culture. If I look back to 2000, there is only one website I still use regularly in 2010 my.yahoo, or maybe two if I count craigslist which I use a litte). And of course, I've bought many new computers and mobile devices in that time. I now spend the majority of my computing time on a laptop instead of a desktop. My desktop has a large HDTV monitor connected to it instead of a small CRT display from ten years ago.

Web based social networking didn't really exist yet in 2000. Neither did video sharing, nor blogging even.

And it also needs to observed that many important killer apps in the 1980's and 90's didn't change that much last decade. Word processors and spreadsheet applications are quite similar to their 2000 versions. The web browser itself has only marginally improved in the last decade. My Windows desktop interface shows only minor changes beyond the window style and 64-bit functionality.

So here are my 9 fearless and maybe somewhat obvious predictions for 2020.

1.) WhiteFi -- This is new freed up bandwidth spectrum that allows much wider coverage for broadband wireless Internet connectivity. I believe most all computer devices will be connected wirelessly to the web at all times and your other owned devices, like smart phones, cameras, HDTVs.  Wired connections will be largely only for electricity and charging.

2.) Beyond HDTV -- Much bigger is much better. 1080p video is nice but 4K format (4096×2304) is better for very large displays. I foresee a proliferation of inexpensive, large 80+ inch (2+ meter) displays by the end of this decade. This size of display will demand an much higher resolution to maintain a HD look.

3.) Television/Internet Integration -- Your video will all come through your broadband connection and your TV will have most PC functionality of course tailored to a living room environment. You are already seeing this become a standard for most Blu-ray players being able to play Hulu and YouTube videos. The Xbox 360 has Netflix streaming. I see this integration becoming virtually seamless and subscription based. With your smart phone being your TV remote control for complex interface interaction commands to your TV. Maybe even using voice commands for basic things.

4.) Video Proliferation -- Everything will have an high quality camera on it. This is almost already true for phones and laptops now. This goes hand in hand with all three previous prediction. Though I don't see video conferencing replacing most telephone conversations for two reasons. Proper eye contact is fundamentally difficult and off putting and people don't have to be presentable while on a traditional voice call.

5.) Cyber-Terrorism -- As the world's infrastructure is more ubiquitously tied to the Internet, the more ripe of a target it is to terrorists and organized crime. The current infrastructure is largely unprepared to guard against a coordinated attack to do damage to key pieces of infrastructure or a mass attack causing damage to user PCs.

6.) Internet Regulation/Censorship -- Since the web largely has and will become the dominate medium of communication, I think there will be a strong push to regulate and ultimately censor web usage. You already see this with China's great firewall. I think a cyber attack would make this much easier for governments to justify and corporate interests are keen on limiting user freedoms. This would include freedoms to subvert copyright protections or hurt government or corporate public opinion. This might create a system to reduce the opportunity for user anonymity on the web.

7.) Effects of Multi-core Computing -- With the proliferation many dozen or more multi-CPU cores in a single device has the potential to have a transformative effect on all aspects of user computer interaction. Possibly making robust speech recognition a primary method for human-computer interaction. Photo-real real-time render graphics and games become possible that combine with motion capture data taken real-time from the user's video cameras that steam directly into online MMO avatars as a possible example in 10 years.

8.) DNA/genetic Software -- With the acceleration of gene sequencing technologies, it will be common for all people have their entire genome sequenced in the coming decade. This will open the door for an explosion of genetic related applications from health, to heredity, to genetic genealogy maps. We are intensely interested in finding out things about ourselves and people we are close to, few things are as personal and hidden as our genomic information.

9.) Dynamic Social Networking -- Human beings of course love to socialize and the Internet enables the scope of our social nature to be wider than ever though possible. Maybe the biggest story in technology in the last decade was the proliferation of social networking based websites. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogTV just to name a few. These networks are largely text and still image based. With the proliferation of video recording devices and constant Internet connectivity, I believe you could see a much richer and real-time feed of information generated by people in your social network. A website enriched by real-time video or recorded video updates is maybe only the tip. The only limitation is desire for personal privacy. But I think you are going to continue to see the desire yield some of that privacy because openness and intimacy is rewarded by attention from others. As our social networks expand, I think data mining will be desirable to connect to new people and collect the ever growing pieces of content generated by our social networks/friends. Sadly, it's maybe impossible to envision the shape of the next big thing in social networking but all forms of media (video, audio, text, portability, connectivity) are now in play on the web and ready to mix and evolve.

What are your fearless predictions for the next decade? I want to hear them. =)

Tutorial for Windows Media Encoder: Recording High Quality Video using your Webcam for YouTube

2010-01-18T17:26:00.000-08:00

Windows Media Encoder is a powerful free tool for Windows users. Here are the basic steps for configuring your Windows Media Encoder to maximize the recording quality of most any webcam connected to your PC. Make sure you have your webcam's most up to date drivers installed.

Note: You can click on any image in this tutorial for a larger and easier to read image.

STEP #1:
Download and Install Windows Media Encoder

STEP #2:
Once installed, start Windows Media Encoder: Start Menu->Programs->Windows Media->Windows Media Encoder

STEP #3:

Once open you'll see this screen. Select Capture Audio or Video and then click OK.
(You might have to click on New Session first to bring up this menu but probably not.)

STEP #4:

Now select your webcam in the Video and Audio drop down lists. My webcam, for example is the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000. You can also select a separate audio source if you want to due a different microphone than the one included with your webcam.

Once your video and audio sources are selected, click NEXT.

STEP #5:

This next menu requires you to give a file name to your new video file you are about to record via your webcam. Enter in the desired path and the file name you wish to save it as. (For example, I'm saving the video named vlog.wmv to my desktop)

Click on NEXT when you are finished entering the path and file name.

STEP #6:

Now select Web server (progressive download) and Click NEXT.

STEP #7:

Select DVD quality video (CBR) from the Video drop down list.
(Note: We will customize our video settings in the follow steps, this is just a good starting configuration to begin from.)

Click on FINISH when done.

STEP #8:
Your webcam should now be recording a sample video at this point. Click on the Stop button in the menu bar to end the recording.

STEP #9:

Now click on the Properties button in the menu bar. This will bring up the Session Properties menu. Your webcam name should already be selected in the Video drop down list. Click on the Configure button next your webcam's name. This will bring up the properties menu of your webcam. It'll look something like mine but it can and will vary because each webcam has it's own features and functionality. Adjust these setting to achieve the best image quality. You will notice that as you change these settings, the Input video window (behind this menu possibly, so move it if needed) will show any changes you make in real time. Also make sure are well lit by the lights in your room in this set up because webcam perform best in well lit environments. Here is a basic tutorial of how light your room for best results. The above image is an example of the configuration settings of my own webcam. You can reset your webcam's setting by clicking on the Default button if things get too screwed up.

STEP #10:

Click on Advanced tab (if there is one, if not skip this step) in the same menu as above. The last part in setting up your webcam is to turn off any Automatic Gain Control. Manually set your webcam's exposure to 1/30 [s] (30 frames per second). Also, manually adjust your Gain by checking the Video Input window as a real time guide to achieve optimal brightness and video image quality. I also recommend turning off "ReadyLight" or anything other auto adjusting webcam features for best results. Gain is how sensitive to light your webcam's sensors are when recording. It'll help with balancing the brightness of your video.

Click on OK when finished.

Note: STEPS #9 and #10 are the most important to tweak and to spend time customizing to achieve the best image quality for your recorded videos.

STEP #11:

You can also adjust your microphone's recording volume if you wish by clicking on the Configure button next the name of your Audio source just as we did with the Webcam's video source. Note: Sometimes audio configuration will won't be option, because it's hardware specific.

STEP #12:

We are almost done. Just a few more steps. Now click on the Compression tab in the Session Properties menu. Then click on the EDIT button next to the destination drop down menu. This will bring up Custom Encoding Settings menu. This menu allows you to customize the codec formats you want the video and audio to record with. Add a custom name in the Name field. I recommend using Windows Media Audio 9.2 for your audio and Windows Media Video V8 for your video encoding. The latter because V8 requires a less powerful CPU to encode at our desired 30 frames per second. If you have a powerful CPU, you can try using Window Media Video 9 though the quality difference is negligible in my experience.
Side note: In this menu, you can also export a custom video settings file for Windows Movie Maker. How to this is described here in a previous blog post.

STEP #13:

This is the final custom configuration step and one of the most important. In the Custom Encoding Settings menu, select tab next to the General tab, this tab should display a bit rate value, something like "2073 Kbps". This menu allows you set your videos video bit rate and resolution as well as your video's audio quality. For example I use 128 Kbps, 44 KHz CBR for my audio quality. For my webcam recorded video, I use a resolution of 640 by 360 pixel (a 16:9 wide screen aspect ratio) and 3000 Kbps for my recorded video's bit rate at 30 frames per second. Notice, I also set my sharpness to a maximum value of 100 for the least blurry image results. But my specific settings may not work with the specific capabilities of your webcam. Some webcams can't record at 30 frames per second or capture wide screen video. You'll have to do some testing or read your specific webcam's documentation. Some common video resolutions to try. Try the ones in bold first.

960x720, 800x600, 640x480, 480x360 or 320x240 (4:3 standard)
854x480, 800x450, 640x360, 480x270, 320x180 (16:9 wide screen)
1280x720 (16:9 wide screen HD)

Once you have entered in your desired recording configuration settings, click OK. Then click APPLY at the bottom of your Session Properties menu. You can now close the Session Properties menu if you wish but it's not required.

STEP #14:
Now you are ready to start recording your video! You do this by simply clicking on the Start Encoding button and then clicking on the Stop Encoding button when you are finished recording. Remember: your recorded video file will be found where you specified in Step #5. Also you will need to rename the outputted file if you are recording more than one video since it will overwrite the previous video file if not.

Note: When you close Windows Media Encoder, it'll ask you if you want to save your configuration as a file which can be then manually loaded the next time you want to record with Windows Media Encoder. So save your configuration to a place where you can load it again and thus you won't have keep repeating the above steps every time you want to record.

Good luck and happy YouTubing! :-)

Trials HD Review

2010-01-15T13:27:00.000-08:00

I posted another short review of the PC and Xbox Live game Trials HD on my friend Rebecka's blog Nerdphilia.

Link to my review

Defense Grid Review

2010-01-01T12:15:00.000-08:00

I posted another short review of the PC and Xbox Live game Grid Defense on my friend Rebecka's blog Nerdphilia.

Link to my review

Torchlight Review

2009-12-27T17:31:00.000-08:00

I posted a short review of the PC game Torchlight on my friend Rebecka's blog Nerdphilia.

Link to my review

Extinction of Species

2009-07-27T14:39:00.001-07:00

As a naturalist, I appreciate the profoundness of our natural world. The amazing display of biological evolution is a wonder to me. So it saddens me to think that the coming centuries are almost certainly going to yield a mass extinction due to man made causes including but not limited to global warming. There have been five big mass extinctions in the earth's history. And this will likely be the first one cause by a single species, homo sapiens, us.

Extinction is a part of our common biological diversity as anything. It's as natural as speciation. Environments change in ways in ways that certain species cannot survive and it will always be this way over the long span of the story of live. But I hold possibly an irrational guilt when it happens in our age. A sense that most of it is our fault. That I am guilty. That others are guilty of this natural sin of sorts.

Reading the New York Times weekend article: New Creatures in an Age of Extinction reminded me of the sadness I feel. It is estimated that only 15% of our Earth's species have been recorded. Much of which will be extinct and lost forever. Never to be known by humans.

Allah Akbar? Well...

2009-06-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

From Nico Pitney's excellent live blogging of the Iranian election aftermath

10:54 AM ET -- An Iranian, unafraid (and suddenly religious!) From a reader in Iran:

despite the "leaders" words today I and I'm sure many others will be going out tomorrow...I never took much heed in what he had to say in the past and still don't. there are many in my family who fear for my safety when I go out as I'm only here for 9 more days. my answer for them is that it is my responsibility to march against an unjust regime...hell as a staunch atheist I find myself shouting Allah Akbar in the streets.

This expression has been used in other historic resistance or protest movements in Iran. It is literally shouted from the roof tops in Iranian at certain times of the night as show of solidarity and resistance as well as a common expression of Islamic faith.

It makes wonder as a "staunch atheist" myself whether I would be able to say "God is great!" as protest slogan? If this were in America, a similar chat would probably be something like, "Jesus is great!" or "In God We Trust!"

Maybe it speaks to where to where my true ideological loyalties lie but I don't think I could. However, would I would remain silent? Maybe I would shout, "Reason is good!" instead. Or even more apropos would be "Freedom is great!"

The Wire and My Neighborhood

2009-06-12T19:45:00.001-07:00

Over the last few months, I've been working my way through the HBO cop drama The Wire. The fictional series tries to give unvarnished look at both sides of an inner city police department and the lives of the drug dealing criminals they try to catch and convict. The characters in the stories are all flawed and few if any are treated as all bad or all good, cops and criminals alike.

What interesting is the neighborhoods are somewhat similar to neighborhoods where in live in San Francisco. San Francisco is largely gentrified except for a few neighborhoods. The somewhat humanizing face of the mostly inner city black drug dealers to me seem similar to the drug dealers that work the streets a few blocks away from where I live.

Unexpectedly, the series has made me feel safer in my neighborhood. Rightly or wrongly. Mainly because the drug dealers in the episodes don't want anything more than to make money. Since I'm not in way of that, I'm not a target for violence. However, this isn't entirely true because inner city crime isn't only about dealing drugs like the show portrays. The show is somewhat flawed in that its unvarnished look is mainly to advocate the ultimate futility of the government "wars on drugs" in a free society. So they gloss over the other elements of what inner city life is truly like. Or at least what I imagine it being.

Video Games and the Human Condition

2009-05-31T17:56:00.000-07:00

Profound insights about my life can come from very strange places. None stranger than from my current gaming obsession: Quake Live. It’s stripped if any AI or mission objectives or story. It’s a core a test of one’s first person shooter deathmatch abilities with other similarly skilled human opponents. Fights are unpredictable and usually last only a few seconds before you are killed or you kill your opponent. This relentless action is repeated over and over again. The very nature of playing Quake Live makes it a deeply personal experience because you skill is quickly put to the test dozens of times per match. It can be a rewarding, frustrating and even humiliating experience. Where match to match and especially inter-match can be wave after wave of emotional extremes.

I describe the essence of Quake’s game play because it’s important in describing the insight I discovered about me. When I’m not doing well in game, I find myself getting quite frustrated, angry and even distraught. I find myself quickly getting down on myself and frequently cursing aloud in frustration. Sometimes saying or thinking things to myself like, “you’re awful” or “you suck.” Conversely, when I’m enjoying success in game, I don’t say similarly positive things. My mind set is that I expect to play well as a default or I feel like I’m only doing well because the competition is below “average.” The experience of success isn’t as strong and the experience of failure and more importantly disappointment.

That right there might be a not so subtle insight of the fact that I do not have the best mental framework. And that my experience of playing Quake is a proxy for many other real life experiences all human beings go though. How one internally makes sense of the day to day journey and consequent struggles, disappointments, and failures in one’s life. How one retroactively explains the cause-effect of myriad differing outcomes.

However, this isn’t the new insight I found. The insight comes from a feature Quake Live offers and that is spectator mode. This mode allows anyone to passively observe the viewpoint of any player playing in a given match. You can experience a match from their exact same perspective. The key difference of course is that I am only along for the ride. I only experience the decisions and outcomes of the other player. What is most interesting about this viewpoint is how similar their game appears to my own. Sure, the player might be more skilled than me. But they also make similar mistakes and are killed in very similar ways. There's an eerie and profound similarity between my matches and their matches.

This is the perspective that I continually fail to accept and apply in so many situations in my own life. The insight is the struggles, successes and failures in life are profoundly universal and similar. Yet, I lack the ability to see the world from other people’s viewpoint like I am so vividly able to do in Quake. There is no rational reason to expect that their struggles and outcomes significantly vary in comparison to my own. The difference is that they explain or experience the same successes and failures of life (jobs, relationships, Quake!) differently. They don’t experience failure as a profound damning comment on them as a human being. The fruits of success are savored and are looked upon more a positive reflection of their ability.

My personal tragedy is that despite this insight. This more rational explanation of the universality of the similar of situation and experience isn’t enough to shift my fundamental thinking about myself in those same situations. I don’t trust the idea that my failures are utterly common and even unavoidable at times. I still view my successes as diminished because deep down those experiences are ultimately disappointing because each never supply a transcendent moment that renders all past and future failures irrelevant. To accept a similarity of failure and success would be to give up the fantasy hope of being protected from failure. Yet, Quake stares me back at me telling me it is a fantasy.

Tutorial: Using Windows Movie Maker to export movies at any HD resolutions

2009-05-28T13:43:00.001-07:00

While reading the Wikipedia entry on Windows Movie Maker (WMM), learned that one can use Windows Media Encoder (WME) to export video format profiles that can be used by WMM to save a resolution and video/audio bit rate you wish. After far as I can as ascertain, the video codec still needs to be Windows Media Video (WMV). But this is great news for those of us trying to optimize our video for the best viewing on YouTube.

How to create a custom video profile from WME for usage in WMM:

Open WME and create a Custom Session from the list of options
Click on the Compression tab
Click on the Edit... button in this tab
In the menu that comes up, edit the name and audio and video codecs you desire. I use Windows Media Video 9 for video and Windows Media Audio 9.2 for audio both with CBR (Constant bit rate)
Now in the same menu, click on the bit rate tab that right next the General tab on top of the same menu. It should say something like: 282 Kbps.
Select the audio format and bit rate you desire from the drop down list
Input the output video resolution, video bit rate and frame rate you desire. e.g. 1280x720 (720p), 1920x1080 (1080p) I recommend matching this to your source video resolution, bit and frame rate. The help button at the bottom brings up an good explanation of each value you can edit. I recommend using a sharper setting of 100 for maximum quality.
Once you have the settings you want, click back to the General tab and then click on the Export... button
Supply a file name for your new video profile and save this file to: C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared\Profiles (note: that you might have to create a Profiles folder before saving) For 64-bit Windows versions, the path will be C:\Program Files (x86)\Movie Maker\Shared\Profiles
Open Windows Movie Maker, and go to the 'Tools' menu and select 'Options'. In the popup options menu that then comes up, select the 'Advanced' tab. If you are exporting wide screen 16:9 videos, select the 16:9 option on this screen. Click OK to save.

Now load or create a WMM project. Import your videos and edit them appropriately. When you publish your Movie (Ctrl+P), select the This Computer option, set your movie's file name and on the final Publish menu, select 'more options'. Your custom profile named by you should be selectable from the bottom of this list. Now publish your movie with your custom settings!

I haven't tried all codecs and configuration options. So I'm not sure every possible configuration is possible. But this method does work with both Windows XP (WMM v2.1) and Windows Vista & Windows 7 (WMM v2.6).

I only wish I learned of this functionality sooner!

Also see my tutorial on how to use Windows Media Encoder to maximize the quality of your video record with your webcam: HERE

Best year to be born in the dawning the information age?

2009-05-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

Ralph Koster posted today that he thought the year he was born: 1971, was the best year to be born for a geek.

I too was born in 1971 (Sept. 21th, Peoria, IL). It was amazing time to grow up. The explosion of video game industry and the PC industry occurred right when we hit an age to being tinkering with it and enjoying it. The fact that my dad bought a TRS-80 Model 1 computer for his small business changed the trajectory of my life.

However, I would say kids born around 2000, have it better as budding geeks. The staggering amount of technically knowledge and the interactive geek community is vast. One of the limiting factors back in my early days was that technical information was sparse and not connected. Now high quality information and knowledgeable people are a web search away. Hardware is at least an order of magnitude cheaper and many orders of magnitude more powerful. Good software and source code (GNU/Linux, etc.) is free and plentiful. Plus, geek culture is much more mainstream and a socially acceptable pursuit in the present day and age. Including girls that are more open with their geekier pursuits.

Fred first YouTuber to reach 1M subscribers

2009-04-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

I read on the YouTube Blog today that YouTuber Fred passed the one million subscriber mark recently. I have to admit that if you to asked me when I first started three years ago what type of channel would be the first to reach a million subs, a channel like Fred's wouldn't have been a guess if I had ten. I would have figure some already famous like Paris Hilton or semi-professional web series receiving national attention plus a pretty face like loneygirl15 would have been my first guesses. Followed closely by a talented up and coming singer that achieved worldwide success through YouTube. Or a professional major network doing something like Hulu does but through YouTube.

I do not watch Fred though I have seen a handful of his videos. I personally don't find him very funny or entertaining at all. I honestly can't explain his tremendous popularity. I can only assume that the young teen demographic is a big part of his success. The one positive is that Fred is certainly a grassroots success and that is heartening in that fact.

Quake Live Review

2009-04-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

Positives

I've been playing deathmatch first-person shooter games going back to the original Doom until about the first Call of Duty game. The problem with Quake 3 was that the skill level between players made the experience difficult to enjoy at times. Quake Live's automated skill matching system largely mitigates this problem. The deathmatch gameplay shows the benefit of years of player play testing feedback and is tight, balanced generally improved over its Quake 3 forebear. For example, the player's run speed and air control has been has been increased over Q3. The Rail Gun's damage per shot has been reduced somewhat. As expected the game runs quite well on virtually any modern PC. Another benefit is if you live near one of the several Quake Live server hubs, like San Francisco, the network latency is near non-existent. There is also a robust "Xbox Live" like achievement system and robust match record keeping in the web interface that is nice for stats junkies. Quake Live also will tell you if any of your Quake Live friends are currently playing and with a single click allows you to jump into the map he or she is playing in. One of the biggest positives for Quake Live is that the game is completely free. id Software is attempting to make money by selling in game advertising and this would be a potential negative but so far the ads are by and large seamlessly integrated into the arenas and do not detract from the gameplay. The pacing of Quake Live can be considered a positive or a negative depending on one's personal preference. Personally, I like the furiously fast paced action but it might be a turn off for others that don't enjoy high intensity frag fests. Matches are always over in 15 minutes or less.

Negatives

The drawbacks aren't prohibitive but need to be mentioned. The game runs in a web browser and doesn't runs nearly as fast as the original Quake 3. This can pose a bit of a performance problem for laptops without dedicated graphics hardware. I've read that netbooks need have Quake Live configuration tweaking to run at even playable frame rates. Another limitation is that there are no private servers. Meaning if you have a group of your friends that want to play each other, you and your friends can't play either other without other random players potentially joining in. Also all the game types, maps and game settings are fixed. So, no player created mods or content is allowed. Finally, the maps are nicely done but a bit dated looking given this is a 9 year old game at its core. Modern first-person shooters make the Quake Live engine look dated by comparison. Although not as much as one might expect. The player characters are by far the most dated looking but thankfully one is rarely focusing on player model details while playing.

Summary

The gameplay is tuned and the game is free as in beer. It's hard not to be sucked into the visceral pleasure of well done deathmatch mayhem.

Overall, I give it a 9.0 out of 10.

Is Quake Live destined to be a niche game?

2009-04-01T11:36:00.001-07:00

A player in the Quake Live forums posted a question and statistics questioning whether the free online game of Quake Live was a failing. Or at least failing to live up to the projections.

Being that it's free and will play on virtually any PC or Mac assures it a significant long term audience. Also, id Software (the creators of Quake Live (QL)) can easily add more maps, weapons, game modes and player models cheaply and this only helps its longevity. Also, the largest investment has been made already. Now the only costs are a network admin or two and rental server costs. Which I'm sure isn't prohibitively expensive.

I quit playing Quake 3 (the original game from which Quake Live derived) because the skill level required to be at least competitive was very high. This has been largely alleviated by the QL skill based and dynamic tier system. I'm loving building up my skills again against players that are near my own skill level.

Saying this, I know a lot of PC game players and I'm the only one that plays Quake Live despite my multiple attempts to lure them into the game. Players that I knew back in the day were avid First-Person Shooter (FPS) players. QL's strength is possibly its weakness. The game play rewards hardcore FPS skill and not much else. The game is as fast a pace game as there is in all of gaming. Maybe this is too much to ask of a majority of FPS game players and potentially explains why slower paced and more tactical FPS games like Counter Strike and Call of Duty are so popular today.

Another possibility is that World of Warcraft continues to dominate and strangle the PC gaming industry because everyone spends their free time playing it.

If you do play Quake Live, you can invite me as friend via my Quake Live Profile.

Free Documentaries!

2009-03-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

Hulu, the free on demand TV and movie service, just launched a Documentaries section to their site! Announcement here. I did a quick search and they do indirectly off what is probably my favorite documentary of all time, Crumb. They even off it in 720p High Definition!

To me, Crumb is an amazing documentary not because of the subject matter of R. Crumb's artistic works and peculiar sexual fetish but because of how startlingly open and introspective the three Crumb brothers were in their interviews. They we were seemingly completely uninhibited in talking about their dark past. How deeply disturbed their family life was growing up and how it shaped them for the better and certainly for the worse in some cases. I have yet to see another documentary capture people talking about themselves so openly.

On a personal note, a few years back on a bus from Sausalito, California, I saw one of the Crumb brothers, seemingly homeless, smelling and looking like he hadn't bathed in many days. Sad to see.

'Don't Look Back' - Atari with heart

2009-03-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

Don't Look Back (Flash game)

I like this low tech platformer. It has a story without saying a word. I'm reminded how some Atari games used to be. This game is bit beyond what an Atari 2600 could do it's still reminiscent. It took me about 30 minutes to complete the game to see the ending.

How to determine device driver DPCs CPU usage

2009-03-03T22:20:00.000-08:00

I provide this for people that are having rogue driver problems in which a driver is using an inordinate amount of CPU time. This will manifest itself in the Windows Task Manager showing heavy CPU usage but no processes reporting equivalent CPU usage. This will allow to pinpoint the misbehaving driver in question. It won't "fix" your driver problem.

Here is what I did to get things working. Follow these steps and not go through the struggles that I did:

(Note: I'm running a retail copy of Windows Vista SP1 64-bit and you'll need to download the follow two Windows operating system packages appropriate to what OS version you are using!)

Download the "Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit x64 version" installer via:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/performance/default.aspx

And installed this package to default folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit

Downloaded the package: "Windows Vista SP1 RTM and Windows Server 2008 RTM x64 retail symbols, all languages" via:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/symbolpkg.mspx

I installed the downloaded symbol package to a local folder: C:\Symbols

Via an administrator command prompt:

cd c:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit
set _NT_SYMBOL_PATH=srv*c:\Symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
(note: http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols is the URL, it gets wrapped around here)
set _NT_SYMCACHE_PATH=c:\Symbols
xperf -on Latency
(*wait your desired amount of recording time here*)
xperf -stop
xperf -I \kernel.etl -symbols verbose -a dpcisr

My output:

xperf: Using symbol path: srv*C:\Symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
xperf: Using executable path: srv*C:\Symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
xperf: Using SymCache path: C:\Symbols

--------------------------
DPC Info
--------------------------
CPU Usage Summing By Module For the Whole Trace

CPU Usage from 0 us to 416624000 us:

CPU 0 Usage CPU 1 Usage
usec % usec % Module
13 0.00 0 0.00 ADIHdAud.sys
4 0.00 9 0.00 HDAudBus.sys
103 0.00 27 0.00 HECIx64.sys
3 0.00 0 0.00 HTTP.sys
125 0.00 0 0.00 NETIO.SYS
5 0.00 0 0.00 Ntfs.sys
4236 0.06 2804 0.04 USBPORT.SYS
89 0.00 0 0.00 afd.sys
1176 0.02 1365 0.02 ataport.SYS
30 0.00 0 0.00 btwaudio.sys
32 0.00 0 0.00 btwavdt.sys
804 0.01 732 0.01 dxgkrnl.sys
136 0.00 169 0.00 i8042prt.sys
3 0.00 0 0.00 luafv.sys
5445 0.08 5559 0.08 ndis.sys
84 0.00 0 0.00 netbt.sys
497 0.01 28 0.00 ntoskrnl.exe
40 0.00 36 0.00 rassstp.sys
64 0.00 0 0.00 rdbss.sys
4 0.00 2 0.00 srv.sys
2 0.00 0 0.00 srvnet.sys
4935 0.07 3095 0.05 tcpip.sys
1242 0.02 0 0.00 usbhub.sys

Viola! Good luck.

Twitter is dumb or is the world leaving me behind?

2009-02-19T11:03:00.000-08:00

There are times when I feel like a genuine Luddite. There are always periods of time where a new game changing technology/hardware/software comes along and gains a small measure of popularity. Followed by a wave of curmudgeonly skepticism by the people that were not the first adopt it and probably don't fully understand it. This brings me to Twitter.

For those that don't follow the latest Internet trends, Twitter is social networking site of sorts that revolves around micro-blogging. Where each micro-blog update is 140 characters or less (140 characters is the maximum cell phone SMS texting limit.) Subscribe to a person's Twitter updates or Tweets. These messages can be sent your cell phone as text messages, email, RSS reader or can be seen via your own Twitter account page.

Maybe this is key but I have never sent these Tweets to my cell phone because I have to pay for each text I receive. However even if it were a free service, I couldn't imagine receiving the 40-50 daily updates of my 23 Twitters I'm currently following. I could imagine a very small close network of friends using it but again I would only want very relevant information. The subject matter of these Tweets tend to not follow that rule.

Why I think Twitter has gained a following:

The media loves to hype and cover the next new Internet trend
The number of people following your Tweets is prominently listed. A measure of social status
People has very short attention spans on the Internet and generally speaking if you can deliver content that can be consumed quickly, the better.
Updates can be made remotely from any common text messaging cell phone
Updates can be consumed from any cell phone

This brings me to a similar feature in Facebook and it makes much more sense than Twitter. Facebook status updates are another form of micro-blogging. There are differences however. The biggest is that only mutually friends can see your updates. You can easily comment on another's update. You can also see all the other comments on the update. With Twitter, people can't see you updates unless they are following you. There is no reciprocal default relationship with the updates. This probably makes it better for high profile people to twitter because it more like a blog than a social networking site but the vast majority of users do not fit that category.

My biggest gripe about Twitter will make me sound old. Twitter reinforces the short attention span problem that is exacerbated by the Internet. Don't want to be bothered to read a book, then read a blog? A blog is too long and cumbersome? Micro-blogging! This has become a pet peeve of mine since I saw the data on how long people watch videos on YouTube. It's startling short. One wonders if the candy store of options on the Internet is creating information and entertainment snackers. Consuming the least informationally nutritious bit sized nuggets and shunning the sound meal. I wonder if this is having an effect on me and others?

Is this bad/good/neutral? I wish I had the answer. Maybe my blogging will solve it. ;-)

Who and how long?

2009-01-18T21:55:00.000-08:00

Two recent sets of data have been released by the video tracking site TubeMogul. The first is the amount of time the average viewer watches an online video. Slightly more than 50% of online viewers don't even watch the first minute of an average video. About a third of the audience doesn't even watch the first 30 seconds. Slightly less than 10% stick around to watch more than 5 minutes of a video. As a maker of generally longer format videos, this is somewhat discouraging and a bit surprising. However, I contacted the study's author and they do have any data of whether channel subscribers (aka likely fans of a video maker's video) watch more attentively. The author and I suspect suspected they do but the statistical differences if any are unknown.

The second is the demographic breakdown of who comments on YouTube videos. Going by this data, 68% of all comments come from persons 24 years old or younger. And of this group, approximately 56-60% are male. This would go along way in explaining the hater community that exists on YouTube. Immature and unsupervised minds at work. This age group in reality is likely higher since a young person is more likely to give an older age if they are under the age of 18. I see a noteworthy amount of obviously inaccurate ages given on YouTube.

What are my take home ideas from these numbers? One, is to get to the good stuff earlier in videos. Don't even do title type credits. Instead go straight to compelling video and ideas right away. Two, would be to think about topics that have at least some appeal to a younger audience. Three, keep your videos shorter than 5 minutes. All three of these things I have not done with most of my videos. I'm not sure I will since I made videos that I'm interested in seeing and not trying to cater to the largest possible audience. However, I certainly could trim down my intro credit time and I give more thought to shorter video ideas.

I got a new camera

2009-01-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

Though an unlikely trade via Craigslist this week, I was able to get my grubby little hands on a Kodak Zi6 HD camcorder. I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised with the quality of the video. I'm sad to say my 3 year old laptop cannot even play the recorded video because the CPU is too slow. Luckily my desktop running Windows Vista 64-bit is fast enough and can edit the video without too much pain. I am also pleasantly surprised how well Vista's version of Windows Movie Maker edits DivX video files with the k-lite codec package installed. This new version of Movie Maker exports high quality 720p movies.

I'm excited. My next documentary (I'm just starting on the new one) will be filmed and released in high definition. It's amazing how far video recording and YouTube video quality has come since I started making videos two and a half years ago. I can't wait to see where we are in another two years time.

Skeletons aren't real

2009-01-10T19:56:00.000-08:00

Click to Read...

True High Definition Arrives on YouTube!

2008-11-21T23:23:00.000-08:00

I figured out how to download the HD format from YouTube. Watch this video in fullscreen mode: 'Where the Hell is Matt? (2008)' to see the new format in all it's visual glory. It is indeed 1280x720 30 fps (720p) 2.06 Mb/s using the codec MPEG-4 H.264 with 232 kb/s MPEG-4 AAC stereo audio. Or a full 2.24 Mb/s internet download bandwidth is required to stream this new quality of video smoothly.

I do know two things. The streaming bit rate required for this new resolution is far beyond the maximum bandwidth of my DSL connection which is around 1.2 Mb/s and my 1.4 GHz Celeron M CPU laptop cannot decode it without dropping frames. Yikes. My 2.8 GHz Opteron CPU had no problems decoding and display the video. So this would mean this isn't the best format for the average YouTube user or vlogger.

Adding &fmt=22 to any normal YouTube video link will load the 720p version if one exists. Otherwise the quality will default to the lowest quality version of the video. Note that it is extremely rare right now for a video on YouTube to support this new format. A user would've had to originally updated the video as a genuine 720p video to YouTube.

Source: Link

Hater psychology revealed

2008-09-03T12:03:00.001-07:00

1 hour limits coming to YouTube Partners?

2008-06-20T07:03:00.000-07:00

Silicon Valley Insider is reporting that YouTube is testing 1 hour video limits for YouTube Partners. I have to say it's about time. I'm lucky because there was a point in 2006 when YouTube was offering channels the opportunity to apply to upload videos of unlimited length. I applied and was given that ability. Hopefully all channels will get this ability soon. It's a nice option to have because some ideas should not be forced to be under the 11 minute time limit or be awkwardly split into multiple videos.

CompanionlessNymph18 - Fake channel

2008-05-29T11:41:00.001-07:00

CompansionlessNymph18 is a YouTube channel I ran across this weekend. At first glance, I thought this was a new channel of an obviously well spoken and talented young video maker. All the while, I was overlooking a somewhat obvious and provocatively sexual channel name. A directly play on the name of the now famously exposed fake channel lonelygirl15.

As more videos were released, it became apparent to me that this is likely a produced show trying to be pass itself off as a kid in a room vlogging by herself. The subscribed channels are of fairly amateur video production company or companies. Not so subtle guys...but then again you probably weren't trying to be. Maybe the makers intended this to be an obviously produced show. Nothing directly indicates that however.

It's a funny psychological effect occurs when one encounters a person or group of people try to fool you. In this case, the deception is harmless. However, I think the psychological reaction we have as human beings is that we don't like to be fooled in these types of deceptive ways by people. Thus, I'm motivated to expose their channel in a way as an act of retaliation. So, sorry guys and girls producing this channel, but I'm exposing you.

New trend: e-begging?

2008-05-12T15:59:00.000-07:00

In the last week alone, I've witnessed two YouTube channels (both maintained by attractive women) make videos asking their viewers to give them money (via paypal) to purchase a single item they wanted but could not afford. (a new laptop and ~$400 "roller derby" roller skates for those that are curious.)

The person wanting the roller skates raised the money in a few days. With the other I haven't heard the results since her appeal started only 2 days ago. I assume she'll raise the money since she has 4-5K subscribers.

There is something unseemly about this behavior but I really can't think of a significant rational reason to be against it. The person doing the begging does take a risk in alienating his or her audience. I would guess that these two lost some subscribers as a result of their begging. However, both probably gained even more subscribers by the amount of discussion and debate this type of topic almost always creates. Thus throwing it higher into the YouTube top 100 ranks.

I guess my innate negative reaction is born out of two things. First, the disgust (possibly envy) of the ability of attractive women to fleece men out of money by skillful asking for it. Not that either channel would be considered sexual beyond the obvious physical attractiveness of both women. I have to admit that I'm subscribed to both because of the initial draw of their physical appeal. And two, I have an innate contempt towards people begging for anything. Especially something that is considered somewhat nonessential, like the items being requested.

Are these the reasons why this behavior generates so much debate and interest on YouTube?

Subscribers reordered on YouTube Channels

2008-05-08T15:05:00.001-07:00

I noticed yesterday that the familiar icon's on my channel's page had changed. No longer are subscribers listed in the order they subscribe but by the date of when the user created his or her YouTube account. With the oldest accounts being displayed first in the list. I find this an odd way to order subscribers.

While I was trying to determine what the new order was, I came up with an interesting idea. YouTube should display the subscribers that are most active within that channel. The "active" rating could be based on number of video responses, comments and video views of that channel.

The psychology of hating on YouTube

2008-04-20T02:14:00.001-07:00

The hater culture is a very interesting one on YouTube. Being in a very prominent position, like on the front page, only maximizes the amount one gets. It's usually not nearly that bad for all my other much lower profile stuff. Interestingly the vapidness of the hate is nearly the same for everyone. Frankly, I excepted more when my video was featured on the front page of YouTube. In my approximation, only about 1 in 20 comments would I classify as hater type comments. I would define a hater comment as a vapid, racist or sexist type of criticism in the video's comments.

I would love to see an academic study of the psychology of Internet hating. I've thought about the psychology quite a bit myself. I've wanted to make a video about it and maybe I will some day soon. I think it's largely the macho posturing of young teenagers, males mainly. Although of recently I've noticed profiles apparently of teen girls leaving similar hater comments. There's a phase to adulthood for some where one feels that belittling another is way to rise up the social ranks. Maybe it's even true to some degree. I think we tend to forget how open the verbal attacks were in middle school and high school. I think as adults, criticism becomes more nuanced and generally less frequent due to the social stigma of being too negative or appearing immature.

I think it's especially bad on YouTube because of two reasons. One, is there's no risk of retribution due to the anonymity. In the real world, one needs to be careful because saying the wrong thing to the wrong person could yield slap or a punch. Two, videos are more personal expressions and the hateful comment has more of an perceived impact by the hater. And videos make a more personal impact on the hater as well I imagine. So there is a double insentive to hate in my view. I don't delete the comments because it's part of the dialog in its own way.

Another aspect of hating that almost unique to YouTube is video response hating. Although I hesitate to compare this to the more vapid hating that goes on in the text comments sections of videos. This is a whole different class of criticism. I've seen mild mannered YouTubers get quickly sucked into rather vicious video response exchanges and drama. Interestingly, the response back is often in the form of another video response. Again I believe because it's more personal. I've been somewhat fortunate that I've never had to experience such an attack. And I'm vowed to myself that I will resist the temptation to defend (retaliate) with another video response. Maybe more easier said than done when it has happened.

My Glimpse Documentary is going to be featured by YouTube!

2008-03-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

Part 1 of my documentary is going to be featured in the Film & Animation category Thursday, April 3rd according to one of the YouTube editors that contacted me this week. I have been extremely fortunate in fact that this will be my 3rd featured video chosen by the YouTube editors. My channel was also featured for all new YouTube accounts last May. I gained over a thousand subscribers in the 2 days that my channel was featured. However, most of those accounts don't appear to be active. So my number of video views to subscribers ratio is much lower than a channel with a comparable number of subscribers.

With all three featured videos, I personally contacted specific editors at YouTube about a specific video that I thought might be worthy of featuring. Most recently at a party in San Francisco, I found out that at a friend was roommates with the head YouTube editor. That contact allowed me a path to get my video seen by a decision maker at YouTube. That's the take home idea here. Sadly YouTube featuring isn't entirely done through a meritocracy. Video makers need to beat a path to get seen by an editor. And at that point, one can just hope that it's a video they personally like.

I have also heard rumor that YouTube is doing away with the handpicked featured video system. They are going to a personalized algorithmic system similar to way Amazon.com shows you items you might be interested in purchasing based on your past purchases and items browsed. YouTube is going to recommend videos based your current viewing habits. There are major pluses and minuses to both a human system and an automated system. The human system is limited by the number of videos a small group of editors can view and any personal biases they may have. The automated system is potentially limited by only previous video watching habits and cannot do a good job in determining quality video that are outside of a person's viewing habits but would be still interesting to a majority of viewers. I don't see why they can't do both as they do now with the related videos displayed on video pages and at the end of a video as well as continuing to maintain the handpicked list of videos. Maybe it's simply cheaper to make it automated.

Add High Quality Video to any YouTube Video

2008-03-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

You must use Firefox. So using your Firefox web browser:

Install newest Flash Player if you haven't already: Version 9 Update 3
Restart Firefox.

Go to your YouTube Account settings:

My Account ▼ / Video Playback Quality option (far right column at the bottom)

Select:

[ ] Choose my video quality dynamically based on the current connection speed.
[ ] I have a slow connection. Never play higher-quality video.
[X] I have a fast connection. Always play higher-quality video when it's available.

Save settings for your YouTube account.

Install Firefox GreaseMonkey Add-on
(You might have to restart Firefox here)
Now install this GreaseMonkey YouTube HQ Script Notice the INSTALL SCRIPT BUTTON on the far right edge on the web page.

You are done! Test it out with one of my videos that supports HQ mode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pec7_5qN-5s

This script added: Switch to high quality: HD and various size options video option to all YouTube videos that support high quality video. If a video doesn't support HQ mode, then the script will tell you in the same spot on the video's YouTube page. Once installed, you can click on the video's title to download the video file. It will download the quality format you are currently viewing.

Notice: Sometimes news uploaded videos won't play in HQ mode for a few hours after they are uploaded.

Enjoy the high quality goodness.

Higher quality YouTube video seen in the wild (albeit rarely)

2008-03-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

I saw the higher video quality feature today!

The option randomly appeared with a video of a brand new channel with only one video that was uploaded today. I refreshed that video's page and the option disappeared. I did a comparison of the high and low quality versions of this video. It was noticeably crisper using the high quality option. I clicked on the original size icon for the video and it remained the same size as the normal video frame and didn't reduce to the scaled down 320x240 default resolution. I'm not sure if current video frame is the high quality version size or that feature isn't working properly with high quality video.

I also uploaded a video today and I haven't seen that option for my video. So I'm guessing it a random option and YouTube is testing it out sparingly before it becomes a feature for all videos. I have also read reports that other users have seen this option randomly appearing with other videos.

It's a long time coming and I congratulate YouTube/Google for working on this feature.

Re: tokenblackchic

2008-02-16T16:19:00.000-08:00

I received a response from Jamie (tokenblackchic) the other day. She was technically not paid for the video/commercial. She had received a free teddy bear from the company and she wanted to promote the company as a form of thanks. My initial response was a hasty and not well informed. I sent an apology to Jamie about my criticism.

While I haven't received official confirmation from any YouTube partner, I believe any YouTube channel explicitly advertising a product or company is prohibited unless Google consents. If anyone knows the partner rules please contact me. I would like to know what people are agreeing to abide by as a partner.

tokenblackchic sells out and crosses the line

2008-02-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

First of all, I'd like to say that I have been a long time subscriber to tokenblackchic on YouTube. She is one of the funniest video makers on YouTube. Sadly however, her recent video has crossed a line.

tokenblackchic has made and released a video via her channel that is essentially a commercial for website that sells stuffed animals just in time for Valentine's day. While the advertisement is clever, it's still an unabashed advertisement in what was previous a noncommercial YouTube channel.

While I cynically assume this type of behavior is inevitable, it makes me disappointed. Let's face it. This is not a trend that is not good for the community aspect of YouTube. To convert individuals on YouTube to commercial front men or women as the case may be for products. Is YouTube inevitably becoming less about a community and more about video makers selling stuff through their own videos directly to their audiences?

Glimpse Documentary Part 8 coming this week

2008-02-09T00:35:00.001-08:00

I'm working on installment 8 of my Glimpse Documentary this week. The question is: "What do you personally feel is the single greatest advantage of being beautiful?"

Glimpse Documentary Part 6 coming this week

2008-01-08T11:48:00.000-08:00

I'm working on installment 6 of my Glimpse Documentary this week. The question is: "What is the most common complement you receive about yourself and how do you feel about that complement?"

Video Game Developer Diaries

2007-12-23T19:07:00.000-08:00

Hi all. I'm going to be making a new series of videos about my new job and video game development. I recently took a new job working on the game Star Sonata. I'm going to giving a behind the scenes look at the development of this game and how video games are made. If people have any questions about game development, leave a comment and I'll try to answer it in a future video in my series.

YouTube annouces expanded partner program

2007-12-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

Today, YouTube announced that it is expanding its partner program. The partner program is an ad revenue sharing system that rewards channel owners for the number of times viewers click on an ad in one of their videos. I'm not exactly sure of the details but that is what I've read and have been told.

I have very mixed feelings on the subject of paying people for making videos for YouTube. The positives are somewhat obvious. It encourages more people with talent to make quality videos we all want to watch. I feel this can help everyone, because it makes YouTube an even more active and attractive site, and that potentially yields a larger audience for everyone. This is assuming people want a larger audience. But I assume most do.

However, with more people actually trying to generate revenue from their channel, I can see two main issues:

1.) The amount of spam on YouTube is undoubtedly going to increase. One just needs to look at the LisaNova spam controversy to see the top of the spam iceberg if you will. Obviously trying to lure regular YouTube users to watch videos, and thus generate ad revenue is now much more compelling. I get notified via email by every comment or message I receive to better engage the people that watch my videos. Spam is already very annoying for me and I don't want to see it get much worse.

2.) The second issue I have with users generating revenue is that it further encourages people to game the system. The top 100 lists are a life blood for people trying to gain an audience. People using artificial means to attain top 100 list status will push out the average user and thus hurt their ability to find an audience. I feel very lucky I started my channel last year rather than this year. It is much harder to gain an audience for a new channel due to the increasing difficulty for a channel or video to attain any type of top 100 status.

But after saying all of this, I guess this is inevitable in a free market type system. YouTube is trying to create incentives for the Internet video talent to remain with YouTube/Google and not jump ship for some other video sharing site. And I hope these changes do not ruin the "little guy's" experience on YouTube.

The next Glimpse documentary installment coming soon

2007-12-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

I've been busy with real life demands and I haven't had as much time to finish the next part. The next question will be, "With which physical aspect of yourself are you most happy?"

Sorry for the delay. Part 4 should be up this week.

New Flash player supports H.264

2007-12-05T14:12:00.000-08:00

Adobe yesterday released a new version of their Flash player: Flash Player 9 edition 3. While the update name seems a bit trivial, the added functionality is not. Adobe has also added H.264 codec support. Along with including multicore CPU and graphics hardware support.

This appears to pave the way for YouTube to support a much higher quality bit rate and codec that Steve Chen announced last month. We'll see. Video quality is probably my single greatest wish right now for YouTube as a video maker. Both my little camcorder and webcam, I use for my videos, record at a much higher quality that what's seen on YouTube.

Source: Electronista

YouTube announces better video quality coming soon

2007-12-05T13:44:00.000-08:00

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen speaking at NewTeeVee Live conference on November 14th, 2007 announced that YouTube will be adding a higher quality video in the next 3 months! He also said that YouTube internally stores all uploaded video at its original uploaded resolution!

So if you are uploading video to YouTube, it would be a great idea to upload it at the best quality one can. I always try to upload my video that's rendered at 640x480 @ 2.1 Mbps (megabits per second). This is excellent news now that any YouTube user can upload video file sizes up to 1024 MB using their new mutli-video file uploader plug-in.

Source: Webware

Vimeo takes a big lead in quality over YouTube

2007-12-05T13:14:00.000-08:00

Vimeo launches HD video for video sharing

The HD 720p (1280x720) video footage below was taken with this $300 HD camera (Sanyo Xacti HD700):

Example footage

Drools! Come on YouTube, time to catch up!

Welcome

2007-08-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

This is my blog that accompanies my YouTube Channel! Stay tuned for detailed channel updates, etc. here.