Archive for the 'Web' Category

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Codecs

Published on July 26, 2004 in Tech, Video and Web. Closed

One of the most important discoveries I made in working on Vidget Version 1 was the H.263 Quicktime Codec. For this sort of work it was very important to use a codec which didn’t require a huge amount of CPU power, provided fairly good quality images, at low data rates and which could be played both forward and backwards. In the case of most codecs the rule seems to be: “fast, small, good, pick two”.

Sorenson 3 video features excellent images at small file sizes but requires quite a bit of CPU (I’ve found it gets a bit choppy when I try to do too many things at once but others such as jeanpoole
swear by it) and is no good at playing backwards.

I used to think that the Photo-JPEG Codec was good because it was able to play well backwards or forwards but it only looked decent at high bitrates and was quite CPU intensive.

3ivx D4 4.5 is a 3rd party MPEG 4 codec which produces better images than the standard Apple MPEG 4 codec at quite low bitrates. This is largely due to the fact that it features two pass variable or constant bitrate encoder. I definitely plan on using this codec for future linear works but it is a bit too CPU intensive for this project.

H.263 will soon be joined by H.264, which has designed to be scalable from limited bandwidth applications like video phones right through to HD. I can’t wait.

About Widgets

Published on July 12, 2004 in Tech, The role of the producer, The role of the user, Video, Vidget - Discussion and Web. Closed

I was familiar with the term ‘widget’ as both a kind of gadget to be used in examples (I always picture being in a year seven information processing and management class doing a graph with the title ‘Widget Sales up 17%) and an element of an interface (eg. a play/pause button widget), but recently the term has become quite a trendy buzzword and is used to describe a class of applications or desktop accessories which sit somewhere in between being ‘content’ like a basic web page, and ‘application’ like a word processor or design tool.

For the past couple of years a program called Konfabulator! has been providing Mac OS users with a suite of functional widgets and the tools to create their own. Check out their site and download the free version. Some great examples of widgets developed by the makers of Konfabulator are weather forecasts which automatically update themselves drawing on weather feeds, photo viewers, calculators and iTunes remote controls which display song information in real time. I had heard of Konfabulator ages ago but I wasn’t reminded of it until I watched the Apple WWDC Keynote presentation. In a very long presentation focussing on the the next version of Mac OS X, Tiger , amongst a number of very cool new features was one called Dashboard.

From the website:
“One Dashboard, Many Widgets
The Dashboard is home to a new kind of application called Widgets. Widgets are mini-applications written in JavaScript that are designed for fun as well as function. They keep you up to date with timely information from the Internet such as stock quotes or the latest view from your favorite Web cam. They can also provide quick, simple access to frequently-used applications such as a calculator, a playback controller for iTunes and a contact look-up for Address Book.”

One of the best things about widgets such as the ones developed by Konfabulator and copied by Apple is that they know their place on the desktop and in the network. What I mean by this is that each widget has a single function and does it well, and that it is able to interface with other programs and files on local and remote systems. A good example would be the standard calculator which comes with the current version of OS X. While a basic calculator is a useful tool, making a calculator which is ‘aware’ that it is on a computer which is connected to the network means the user no longer has to look up currency conversion rates manually because the calculator program can automatically update rates from a remote service.

I don’t think this ‘new kind of application’ is all that new, but it is definitely an interesting one to be explored in art practice.

Call for submissions: Experimenta New Visions 2004

Published on June 19, 2004 in Note to self, Research Methods, Video and Web. Closed

Again from the Electrofringe list (join here):

EXPERIMENTA
2004 NEW VISIONS COMMISSIONS
Call For Submissions
Deadline: 12 July 2004

Experimenta is inviting emerging digital artists, new media artists,
filmmakers, video makers and animators to submit project ideas for the 2004
New Visions Commissions program that reflects upon the concept of illusions.
Continue reading ‘Call for submissions: Experimenta New Visions 2004′

Call for works: Elecroprojections & Electrofringe Net.Art

Published on June 19, 2004 in Note to self, Video and Web. Closed

From the Electrofringe list:

Electrofringe call for
1. Screen Works
2. OnLine/Net.Art

30 September 30 -  4 October 2004 in Newcastle NSW Australia.

1. ELECTROPROJECTIONS
Electrofringe is looking for innovative video and screen based works. Send us your cut/up, arthouse, pop kitsch or glitch documentaries, animation, whatever and if selected your work will be programmed into the ElectroProjections screening program.

2. ELECTROFRINGE NET.ART
Submit your online artwork for consideration in the Electrofringe 2004 Net.Art exhibition.

… Closing date for submissions – 25 JUNE 2004.
Continue reading ‘Call for works: Elecroprojections & Electrofringe Net.Art’

Wired Quicktime Examples

Published on June 15, 2004 in Tech and Web. Closed

Wired QuickTime Examples

Quicktime Blogroll

Published on June 9, 2004 in Tech, Vidget - Discussion, Vidget - Download and Web. 1 Comment

Using the same techniques as before, this movie accesses my BlogRolling blogroll RSS feed. More on this later – time for bed.

Random Site – An XML Reading Quicktime Linker Movie

Published on June 7, 2004 in Tech, The role of the producer, Vidget - Discussion, Vidget - Download and Web. 2 Comments

I’ve finally got my head around getting Quicktime to read XML files!

This has been a long and frustrating process as for a while any mention of XML would cause LiveStage Pro to unexpectedly quit. I’m still not sure what was going wrong there but I think the key to making everything work smoothly was using lots of strings to remember the paths to different information stored in the XML.

Here it is:

Continue reading ‘Random Site – An XML Reading Quicktime Linker Movie’

StumbleUpon

Published on May 25, 2004 in Web. Closed

StumbleUpon is a socially moderated ‘channel surfing’ interface for recommending and finding cool websites. When you sign up you select a number of topics you are interested in, and a series of buttons are added to your browser’s toolbar. The most interesting one is the ‘Stumble!’ button which, based on your interests sends you to a random site. If you like a site you can give it a ‘thumbs up’ and its URL is added to your personal StumbleUpon blog and you can make a comment. The URL is also added to the pool of sites which can then be suggested to other users. If you find a site you like you can also see who else suggested it and look at their other suggestions.

I first read about StumbleUpon ages ago when Jill wrote about it. It took me a while to sign up because it doesn’t work with my regular browser, Safari so I downloaded Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is not bad but I find it struggles a bit with media rich sites so I still use Safari mostly.

Flash interactives

Published on April 10, 2004 in Design, Tech and Web. 1 Comment

ClownStaples is a source of many interactive flash animations. My favourite (while not strictly interactive) is a pun on the loading of flash animated splash screens. It proceeds in an increasingly complex series of loading screens without end. Unfortunately since the site his hosted by Geocities it is often unavailable due to limited data transfer.

Video Content Management Sytems

Published on March 30, 2004 in Design, Film, Tech, Video and Web. Closed

A while ago Adrian Miles’ posted Video Blogs, Vidblogs and Vogs, presenting an ongoing discussion about the nature and definitions of video weblogging.

He writes:

“At the moment all video blogs are video inside text orientated CMS [Content Management System] engines. But here’s a simple idea (more complex backend), you make a movie that has a sprite and a text track. The text track is there to show a number. The sprite reads an external XML file which simply indicates how many trackbacks that video has.”

So I set about looking for examples of alternative content management systems which deal natively with video rather than text. I’m still working out how to get Quicktime movies to read and write to my own XML databases using Livestage Pro.

WaterCooler provides a very slick looking and functional interface for their content management system in a small 265k host movie.

Navicast provide another ‘aqua’ styled interface to their CMS, this time with more controls such as three levels of compression quality and playback size. The selection and organisation of clips is, however, not as well executed as WaterCooler (for example the first movie loads by itself – slowing down access on a slow connection before the user has made a choice).

The two sites provide good examples of what is possible using the Quicktime Player as a front end for content management, accessing online clips and data. While both feature linear movie clips, a similar approach could be used to deal with interactive and dynamic ‘hyper’ media. This is a direction I am looking to explore as I learn more about the tools.

videos.antville.org

Published on March 17, 2004 in Video and Web. Closed

videos.antville.org is an endless source of music video goodness. It’s a video weblog of sorts, using a weblog content management system and anyone can sign up as a user and post links to interesting clips and comment on posts. The site also features links to well produced ads and is categorised by both artist (music) and director.

Customising Moveable Type templates with CSS

Published on February 19, 2004 in Design, Tech and Web. Closed

This looks like a really helpful resource for making Moveable Type weblogs look a bit better than the default settings. I’ve still got a bit of a way to go making this blog a bit prettier but I think this will help.

mediatinker.com

Bluish (and Robbie Williams .movs)

Published on January 30, 2004 in Music, Tech, Video and Web. Closed

I was looking around on the Apple QuickTime – What’s On for some innovative and clever uses of quicktime when I found Robbie Williams – Live At Knebworth promoting a live DVD. This page automatically opens up the Quicktime Player and loads a very pretty custom skin. Quicktime allows the author to customise the apperance and function of the player window almost limitlessly. You may stick to the traditional rectangular window with a playbar controller at the bottom or you may design something of any other (ie, non-rectangular) shape. The Robbie Williams skin is a very complex and detailed shape with similarly designed functionality. Rather than simply playing a single music video clip or film trailer, this .mov allows you to select from a variety of live clips, behind the scenes footage and packaging design photos. Another important aspect is that each element of ‘content’ is loaded dynamically, that is ‘on demand’, so if you decide you only want to see one song, you only have to load one song. The .mov itself is only 228.7k and automatically scales the main ‘content’ area to suit the viewer’s connection speed (this can also be set manually via a series of buttons).

The Quicktime was authored by Bluish. Their other work includes sites and .movs for Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Flaming Lips and more Robbie Williams (more links from site).

Robbie Williams – Come Undone features another custom skin, this time at only 140k. This time the .mov is promoting a single and features a music video, commentary and behind the scenes footage (Warning contains a ‘clean’ version of the song and video complete with pixelated boobies).

I think examples like these show that just as DVD extras have added value to movies (I’m thinking of things like The Criterion Collection more than the average DVD’s promotional ‘featurette’) well designed and authored Quicktime .movs can add effectively value to other content online.

Panse – Public Access Network Sound Engine

Published on January 7, 2004 in Design, Music, Tech, Video and Web. Closed

I found this link through the Oxff mailing list which is a discussion space for real time video performers (vjs etc) and programmers using patching and coding based software such as Puredata (+GEM) and Max (+Jitter).

panse – public access network sound engine

From the site: PANSE is an open platform for the development of audio-visual netart, open to all

The PANSE experiments are made up of various browser windows which each feature a flash animation and or controls such as sliders and buttons. These windows each control (or are controled by) an audio synthesiser which sends a real time generated MP3 stream back to you. The more of the little windows you have open the more complex the sounds and visuals become as they interact with one another. This sort of thing makes me want to learn Max or PD! I love the way anyone can post their own projects to the site and they can work alongside everyone else’s.

WAXWEB

Published on November 26, 2003 in Film, Video and Web. Closed

– - – W A X W E B – - – D a v i d _ B l a i r – -
“The first online feature-film since 1993″

I don’t think I could watch this in its intended form so I’m not sure how much I can comment. The idea for the film seems to be a feature length documentary styled narrative which lets you explore a particular scene or idea by clicking on the video. Unfortunately on my computer the result is a javascript error. It is interesting to note how heavily the site promotes a CD-ROM version of the film:

“The movie is much larger and cleaner, the sound is better, and your speed of access will improve.”

I think it sort of makes the whole “first online feature film” a bit misleading. Maybe it was the “first CD-ROM interactive feature film online”. Like many similar projects it seems like a fairly good idea that never really took off, partly because of technological limitations and partly because the work seemed to be a ‘re-re-mediation’ from the start. A film, in a CD-ROM interactive, on the web.

In my research project I am looking to produce works which are specifically designed for the web. These will invlolve re-mediation of techniques and content but hopefully the outcome will be works which are ‘comfortable’ on the web and ‘conscious’ of their medium.

If you can get Waxweb to work please comment!

Affordances and Design (part 2)

Published on October 24, 2003 in Bibliography, Design and Web. Closed

Affordance, Conventions and Design ( jnd.org )

Affordances and Design

Published on October 24, 2003 in Bibliography, Design and Web. Closed

Affordances and Design ( jnd.org )

Peter Lunenfeld Interview

Published on October 16, 2003 in Web. 1 Comment

frontwheeldrive.com: peter lunenfeld interview

Lunenfeld talks about what he calls Vapour Theory: where people get caught up in the hype about the possibilities of a new technology or medium to the point that they lose sight of its actualities. He uses VR and the .com boom and bust to illustrate his point, but notes that “Often, it’s after the general public’s attention has been raised and then dashed that artists, technologists, and yes, even entrepreneurs, can go back into the wreckage and make interesting, even lasting interventions.”

Amorphoscapes

Published on September 15, 2003 in Design, Video and Web. Closed

amorphoscapes by stanza

Kinda generative audiovisual flash thing…

Research Paper

Stanza: The artist

Listen to a movie

Published on September 12, 2003 in Web. Closed

Lab360.com :: The Digital Laboratory of Axis360.com

This site allows you to listen to the soundtrack of about 20 different films. By soundtrack I don’t just mean the music, I mean the whole thing, dialogue and all. Good for when you want yet another thing to do all at once when online. Features a very good selection of movies including Fight Club, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Dude Where’s My Car? And then… And no and then.