Rodfather Mobile

Here’s another contest that was announced today. No it’s not crude and immature like the one I may be doing.

Utterz is teaming up with SOBCon (Business School for Bloggers) by hosting a contest to create a commercial for your blog. The winner will receive a spanking new Nokia N95 phone.

SOBCon attendees and all website owners alike are invited to submit a commercial for your blog or webpage to the SOBCon Utterz “GET MY MESSAGE” contest. Entries will be reviewed and judged by SOBCon (Business School for Bloggers) attendees on Sunday May 4, 2008 in Chicago and one lucky website owner will win a Nokia N95 mobile phone.

Why Make Your Commercial
This is your opportunity to tell people why they should visit your site AND you’ll get unbiased advice on how to improve your message and drive more traffic. That, and you’ll get a lot of free promotion by being a featured participant in the GET MY MESSAGE Contest.

How Do I Participate?
Make a short commercial for your blog or webpage using Utterz – no longer than 60 seconds and 1,000 characters. Create your commercial using any combination of audio, video, pictures and text. Then, submit your commercial by tagging it “GET MY MESSAGE Contest” on Utterz.

Some suggestions:
- This is your value proposition. In other words, why do people care about visiting your website?
- Use a combination of media. Record some audio, make a video and upload an image – anything goes!
- Keep it short
- Get creative

What Then?
Commercials will be posted on Utterz.com and published to
http://getmymessage.blogspot.com/ so everyone has one place to view them. Before, during and after the event, people are invited to leave replies to each others’ commercials with words of encouragement, praise, or advise. User submissions can be edited based on this feedback right up to SOBCon on May 3 and 4. Please note, only one submission per person!

On Sunday, May 4, SOBCon attendees will have a chance to view everyone’s commercials in work groups. They will narrow the field to a set of 5 finalists based on the lessons learned during SOBCon ‘08. Then, we’ll ask everyone online and at SOBCon to vote on their favorite commercials in real time! The winner walks away with a brand spankin’ new Nokia N95.

For more information or questions about the SOBCon Utterz GET MY MESSAGE Contest or for questions about the Utterz service, email lizsun2@gmail.com and/or sim@utterz.com.

—–

I’m not sure if I will be entering. It’s good timing since I’ve been messing with video.. but what am I suppose to present? Visit this site so you can watch fishing videos and possibly win a pair of blue nuts?

Link

Pocketables gave away a small prize package for guessing Jenn’s next purchase.

Engadget is giving away a HTC Shift.

TabletBlog is pairing paired up with Dynamism to give away a Nokia N810.

UMPC Portal likes the idea too and is pairing up with Mobilx to give away a WiBrain B1 UMPC.

GottaBeMobile is even jumping on the bandwagon and giving away its own Matt Faulkner.. if they let him out of the cube.

So how about here? I’m not so sure about buying readers.. but I don’t want to leave my current awesome readers in the dust.. So I’ll try something. If this post receives 30 comments by midnight tonight, I will purchase the item below, probably do an unboxing video and first impressions, then do a give-a-way contest.

Read more »

I mentioned the announcement of this device along with a size comparison chart.

Also known as the Sony HDR-TG1, here’s an exclusive unboxing of Sony’s new ‘Full HD’ hybrid cam brought to you by Matt of Tracy and Matt’s Blog.

Big thumbs up for the built in ports. It includes USB, HDMI, component video, composite video, and a docking port as well.

It does appear a bit long. May not be fit well in jeans but should fit fine in a jacket pocket or cargo pants.

Tracy and Matt’s Blog :: Sony HDR-TG3E Handycam preview video (exclusive)

Want a quick and easy way to convert a video to H.264?

Copy the below text and save it to a batch file. I called this one H264_480_270.bat. Stick it in your SendTo folder which should be C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\SendTo if you are using XP. Of course, you’ll need VLC installed.

If you want to change the output resolution or bitrate, modify the appropriate values at the beginning of the script.

When right-clicking a video, navigate to “Send To” and then choose your batch file. After encoding is done, you’ll find a new file in the same folder but with “.mp4″ tacked on the end.

One downside is that the H.264 video VLC produces is not compatible with the iPod/iPhone. In order for it to work, you need to change the codec to normal MPEG4 (mp4v).

Note: The last three lines should be a single line.

For more information on encoding video for iPod, check this out.
—–

@SET vlcpath=”C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe”
@SET vcodec=h264
@SET bitrate=1024
@SET width=480
@SET height=270
@SET acodec=mp4a
@SET ab=128
%vlcpath% -I dummy -vvv %1 –sout=#transcode{vcodec=%vcodec%, vb=%bitrate%, width=%width%, canvas-height=%height%, acodec=%acodec%, ab=%ab%, channels=2}:standard{access=file,mux=mp4,dst=%1.mp4} vlc:quit

5×5 Windy Day from Rodfather on Vimeo.

First 5×5 Vignette. It was a very windy day so I took some footage of some plants & trees blowing in the wind.

Shot from Canon TX1 at 720P. The audio had a lot of wind noise even though I turned on the wind filter. It was ridiculously windy though so it was expected. My hat flew off twice during this time.

I did an experiment in post. Edited this with my 800Mhz Fujitsu U810 UMPC using Sony Vegas. While editing, the preview screen couldn’t really keep up but it wasn’t actually too bad editing HD footage on such a slow computer. I’m somewhat glad now that the Canon TX1 encodes to MJPEG. If it encoded to H.264, there would be no way I would be able to edit it since H.264 is so processor intensive.

I ended up encoding the final product to 720P WMV. It took 54 minutes to encode 25 seconds worth of footage.

I doubt I will edit HD footage on a UMPC in the near future, but it’s nice to know it’s even possible.

Download WMV from Vimeo page - 1280×720 30FPS (99MB)

One of big challenges for any videographer is reducing camera shake.  The need for stabilizers comes up very often.  I mentioned in another post a possible mini FigRig solution for the Canon TX1 using a Wii racing wheel.

I’ve compiled a list of links for cheaper alternatives to expensive solutions.  I’ll try to keep adding to the list as I find them.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/ - $14 Steadicam “The Poor Man’s Steadicam”.  The most popular DIY Steadycam by Johnny Chung Lee.

http://www7.taosnet.com/f10/steadycam/ - More elegant looking steadicam/monopod using a cheap Walmart tripod.

http://www.cartala.com/diy.html - Modification of the $14 Steadicam.  Uses a longer cross bar with additional weight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTR5EYO0rLc - Another variant of the $14 Steadicam.  Most interesting part is the there’s no drilling for the camera mount.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7TMa-v03aE - Another project by cinepegger.  Using a bicycle wheel for a Fig Rig.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shygantic/129121710/ - PVC FigRig.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=T1aPbwcqquk - Zero Cost Steadicam.  This is what I’m using in the meantime. :)  All you have to do is extend a tripod and hold it in the right place.  It’s not perfect but the result is a lot better than normal handheld.

http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/greyhandheld.htm - List of DIY stabilizers for handheld cameras.

Just noticed this tweet from Josh Bancroft of Intel and Tiny Screenfuls. He’s been in Shanghai all this time and has been updating his blog on his experiences there.

jabancroft World Exclusive: I got to play with the Lenovo and Aigo MIDs today at Intel Shanghai. Here’s a set of 33 photos: » link to World Exclusive: Lenovo and Aigo Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) at Intel Shanghai - a photoset on Flickr 4 minutes ago from twitterrific

There are some nice size comparison shots with the Fujitsu U1010 and the Samsung Q1U.

Update: Josh posted a writeup on his blog about the gallery..

World Exclusive: I got to play with the Lenovo and Aigo Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) at Intel Shanghai

jabancroft Quick blog post on my MID photos, with some more details. Will post more of a writeup, and the videos, after sleep » link to World Exclusive: I got to play with the Lenovo and Aigo Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) at Intel Shanghai at Josh Bancroft’s TinyScreenfuls.com 5 minutes ago from twitterrific

Cruise to bowling alley (unedited) from Rodfather on Vimeo.

Unedited.

My first video with my new Canon TX1. Took a cruise to bowling alley.

It was around 5PM, overcast, and raining. Basically just stuck in traffic. Somewhat of a good test to see if the autofocus would search all over the place. It wasn’t too bad though.

I had the camera mounted on a GorillaPod SLR. The video was very shaky but didn’t go into a mess of blur. The OIS did its job I guess. The shakiness was just too much.

I encoded the raw MJPEG file (2.48 GB!!) to H.264 at 3.5 Mbps with VLC player. VLC player is a very fast encoder but probably not the best quality. Especially since it only did 1 pass.

I did a bit of handheld toward the end. Someone was pulled over so wanted to see what the cops were up to.

Download MP4 from Vimeo page - 1280×720 30FPS H.264 3.5Mbps (274MB)

It appears the hybrid cam movement is in full swing. Sony announced the HDR-TG1 high definition camera.

Weighing in at only 300g, it’s appears very pocketable with its 32×119x63mm dimensions. This is now the smallest Full HD camcorder.

You can expect to record 1 hour and 50 minutes of 1080i 30 FPS video at 16Mbps on an 8GB MemoryStick. You’ll be able to snap 4 megapixel photos in camera mode and 2.2 megapixel photos while recording video. I’ll assume the video is not interrupted while taking photos like the Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1000.

As for the lens..

“Carl Zeiss® Vario-Tessar® 10x optical zoom lens and 2-megapixel ClearVid™ CMOS sensor with Exmor™-derived technology”

—–

The specs and functionality appear to be a combination of the Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1000 and the Canon TX1 which isn’t a bad thing at all.
Wish Sony would dump the MemoryStick and just go with SDHC cards though.

It has all the latest goodies such as an Easy mode and Face detection. I’m crossing my fingers for a 720P 60FPS video mode.

Using sizeasy.com, you can see it’s just a bit taller than the Canon TX1. This is most likely due to the Sony’s 2.7 inch LCD display.

Check out the video and gallery over at Akihabara news.