Time-Lapse Etc.

GBTimelapse now supports days of the week

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:36:00 +0000

Now you can restrict GBTimelapse to capture only on certain days of the week. We've had many requests for this from people using GBTimelapse to monitor construction projects who didn't want to capture images on the weekends.

Look in "File/Preferences/Sleep Cycle" and check the days you don't want to capture.

But don't forget to check "Enable Sleep Cycle" under the Images menu.

Go online to GBTimelapse Download to download the latest version. Just install it over your previous version - you will not need to register again.

"People In Order" - A quasi time-lapse video

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:53:00 +0000

A very clever video showing 100 people from age 1 to 100. By Lenka Clayton and James Price (Portable Film Festival) on YouTube

Another TubeMogul Surprise

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:22:00 +0000

The benefits of using TubeMogul to upload videos has surprised me again. It wasn't until looking at my TubeMogul chart that I discovered my latest video, NASCARGOT, had see a surge of views on Myspace. (See the red line in the chart below).

That's nearly 100,000 extra views in one day. Without TubeMogul I wouldn't have bothered to upload to Myspace, but they made it easy. And without their report, I probably wouldn't have noticed the extra views. Although I did wonder why I was getting a bunch of Myspace friend requests.

Thank you TubeMogul!

YouTube Embeddable Player

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:58:00 +0000

I just discovered this feature in YouTube. It's a great way to make a custom "channel" for a collection of videos. I wonder what other cool things I'm missing out on.

To make one, go to "My Custom Players" in your account on YouTube. You can set it up and generate the embed code for posting on a web site or in a blog.

I wish Revver and MetaCafe had something this.

Huge Explosion

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:39:00 +0000

There is something immensely satisfying about crashing a car with camping trailer into a large fireball.

Video by IceShrapnel on YouTube.

Marching Band - Early Form of Pixel Art?

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:35:00 +0000

This Cal Marching Band video made me realize that marching band halftime shows were a pre-computer form of lo-res pixel art.

Here they pay tribute to a series of early videos games, starting with Pong...

Go Bears!

TubeMogul's Marketing Best Practices - One Example

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:02:00 +0000

TubeMogul published an excellent guide to Web Video Marketing which they summarize into a "secret formula"...

Success = .50C + .15M + .20T + .15P

One example is my "Puppy Photo Everyday" video published in August. Below is the TubeMogul viewership chart showing how it has done since then.

.50C or 50% Content - The content was solidly in the "kitch" category being a pet video.

.15M or 15% Metadata - I'm not sure I did a good job on this. I could use some advice.

.20T or 20% Thumbnail - YouTube doesn't give you much choice. It's not always possible to get a good frame in the exact middle of a video, but in this case I lucked out and had a cute thumbnail.

.15P or 15% Promotion - I'm lucky to have a couple of thousand YouTube subscribers - giving me a jumpstart. But the big bonus on this video was getting featured in the Pets & Animals category. This put the thumbnail in front of everyone who choose to look at the Pets page on YouTube. As you can see from the chart, the video had large numbers for the few days it was featured.

Is it viral now? It is still getting play with about 500 views per day on YouTube.

Tubemogul now uploads to twelve sites

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:30:00 +0000

Tubemogul has added three more videos sites to their uploading service. Now with just a few clicks I can upload my videos to YouTube, Yahoo, MySpace, MetaCafe, Google, Revver, Dailymotion, Blip, Veoh, BrightCove, Crackle and StupidVideos. This is a great time saver.

Before using Tubemogul, I had been focused on YouTube. Now I can get my videos on multiple sites just as easily. As a result I was surprised to see my latest video doing ten times better on Yahoo than on YouTube. See the TubeMogul chart below (the green line is Yahoo and the red line is YouTube).

I wish I could get similar viewership numbers on the paying sites like Revver and Metacafe.

Tubemogul, Rob Zombie and Video Tags

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:56:00 +0000

I use Tubemogul to upload and track all my videos. This chart below shows a bump in viewership on Halloween. What caused it?

It turns out that Rob Zombie was a guest editor on YouTube for Halloween. His first choice was a timelapse rotting pumpkin. It wasn't my rotting pumpkin video, but mine showed up as related (because of the tags) everytime someone watched the one he mentioned. That generated a big boost in views for all my videos.

What's ironic is that Rob Zombie is a good friend of my nephew Brian.

Postal Spy Timelapse

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:15:00 +0000

Tim Knowles, a UK artist, built a spy camera that took a photo every ten seconds during its journey through the postal system. It was part of a commission by Royal Mail.

Take a look at other work on his site . He has a unique way of finding patterns in ordinary places.

Dale Earnhardt Jr flies with the Blue Angels

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:11:00 +0000

You've probably seen a video like this before. Whenever the Blue Angels visit a city they usually take a local TV reporter for a ride. The clip winds up on the evening news to promote the air show.

This one is the best I've ever seen. Jr is a top Nascar driver and all around "good ole boy". His reaction to the high performance ride is hilarious. This is a guy who loves to go fast and push the envelope. He is laughing, chewing gum and having a great time for the whole ride - and he says he wants to join the Navy.

Sadly, the pilot that day was killed last week during a Blue Angels air show.

Parkour or "Pour Quoi"?

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:05:00 +0000

Pour Quoi, a funny spoof of Parkour, the free running extreme sport.

And the real thing, David Belle Parkour master, in action....

Prisoners Of YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 15:23:00 +0000

A great online article in Radar magazine about some of the more famous YouTube clips and how the resulting notoriety affected people's lives.

Just Hit 3 Million Views on YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 04:26:00 +0000

That should put my "Tlapse" YouTube channel in the top 100 all-time most-viewed director. Actually it should put me in the high eighties, but it's not showing up. I'm not surprised.

Perceptive Pixel Multi-Touch System

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:23:00 +0000

The ultimate user interface, forseen in some notable sci-fi movies, seems to be getting closer to reality thanks to Perceptive Pixel. Watch...

Fight Night At The Radisson Hotel

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:23:00 +0000

Several professional fighters train at my gym, so I arranged to take photos for them at the fights last week. It turned out to be one of the most difficult photo shoots I have ever done.

The promoter, Nasser Niavaroni, let me sit at ringside - the best possible spot. The ring was set up in a ballroom at the Radisson Hotel in North Sacramento. One bad thing about sitting ringside - the ropes are in the way half the time.

You can see my other photos on my SmugMug page.

The lighting was poor with just a few overheads shining directly down on the fighters. I was using an 85mm lens with the f-stop wide open at f1.2 aperture and ISO 1600 giving me a typical shutter time of 1/500 to stop the action. Because of the bright overheads, I had to use -2/3 exposure compensation to avoid blown-out highlights, but that left most of the image dark with abundant noise. To make matters worse, the ring canvas was bright red adding an annoying red cast to the fighters.

My camera, Canon 1D Mark II, is a "sports" camera designed to capture fast action. I set the focus point to the center of the frame and used AI-servo focusing mode to continually keep the center of the image in focus. The fighters moved fast all around the ring making manual focus too dificult. At times they were right above me on the ropes and within seconds they would be across the ring in the far corner.

I held the shutter button 1/2 half down and tracked one of the fighters in the viewfinder. When I saw (or anticipated) action, I pressed down fully to grab a few shots (at 3 frames per second). With an f1.2 aperture, the depth of field is very shallow making focus critical. Often I would adjust the frame to take in both fighters, but that would place the focus point in the background between the two bodies and throw them out of focus.

I shot over 1200 images and got maybe 24 that I think are interesting and printable. It gives me renewed appreciation for some of those great fight photos I have seen over the years.

Beer Launching Fridge

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 02:48:00 +0000

Is he really from Duke? Or just wearing the shirt?
This guy is obviously underemployed to devote so much creativity and energy to a project like this... and obviously not married.

Hell Holes - Clever New Web Episode Show

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 19:55:00 +0000

Thanks to Nalts for his post about this clever new show on Atom Films.
It's very well written, obviously low-budget, and short expisodes so it works well on the Web. I think we will see more of this kind of content.

Making the "YouTube Birthday Flaming Tribute" Video

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 20:48:00 +0000

I'm not sure how this idea started, but I think I wanted to do another time-lapse with candles. The goal was to create something to get a lot of views and drive traffic to GBTimelapse.com so I could sell more time-lapse software. We set out trying to make something short, funny and different.

Here's the video, if you haven't seen it yet...

and more than you ever wanted to know about making it...

Cynthia scrounged up some table candles and I did some test shots. The cheapest candles looked best by producing copious quantites of molten drippy wax. But, I wanted to make a video using a large number of candles (maximum overkill) and even cheap candles would burn too long (hours) and cost too much (over $1 each).

Since birthday candles were cheap ($.89 per 24 wholesale online) and burned quickly (about 15 minutes max) thoughts turned to doing an "over the top" birthday cake. Kristin discovered that YouTube's second birthday was coming up in mid February. At first I wanted to do some geometric designs with the candles, but Kristin thought it would be cool to reference some of the most popular names on YouTube.

I dropped the idea for a while, but Kristin bought me a test cake at Raley's to get me going again. I did a test to get the right camera setup and quickly discovered that a real cake was not strong enough to stand up to repeated flaming candle formations. The candle wax accumulated in pools on the frosting and the frosting carmelized and burned. This formed a hard wax crust making it difficult to place another round of candles. I tried using an electric drill to pre-drill holes for the candles, but the cake collapsed under the pressure of the drill.

In talking with the cake decorator at the local Raley's supermarket, I learned that they occasionally decorated fake wedding cakes made from styrofoam. I bought some styrofoam sheets, cut them into the shape of a full-sheet cake and covered the top with a 1/4" thick layer of Sculpty clay. The clay would provide a compliant layer to hold the candles and also insulate the underlying foam from the heat. The decorator did a great job with the YouTube logo. When she asked "What is YouTube", I told her and she replied "All I do is eat, sleep, and work so I guess I'm out of touch".

I set the cake up in the barn with lights and two cameras (a 400D and a S3) for the video and a third camera (A620) to document what happened. I made stencil patterns for each director to make it quick and easy to place the candles. The entire shoot took over six hours...

It went pretty well. The cake got so hot the candles were melting before they burned (as in the "Nalts segment"), so I had to spray water on the cake to cool it down between takes. The electric pre-drill technique became necessary as the wax layer accumulated and the Sculpty clay began to bake. It became clear that long names wouldn't work, so I discarded "lonelygirl15", "barats and bareta" and "blendtec". I was a bit worried that the styrofoam would catch fire at the end, but the fire extinquisher worked like a champ.

The hope is to get this video featured, but the odds of that are slim.

Queen Mary Slips In

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:47:00 +0000

Rather than watch the Superbowl last Sunday, we spent the day at the Golden Gate Bridge time-laps'ing Queen Mary 2's San Francisco arrival. It was my most ambitious time-lapse setup to date, with a crew of three running six cameras. The one minute film is on YouTube...

and also on BrightCove (much better quality)...

We expected a big crowd so we arrived at the bridge at 11AM to get parking spots and good camera locations. By the 3PM expected arrival there were thousands of spectators waiting and we had to vigorously defend our space to keep people from disturbing our camera setups.

I ran the cameras to the west of the bridge, Cynthia ran the ones from the Marin observation overlook, and Kristin was on the bridge.

Bill Owens joined me and shot his own footage of the crowd and the scene. Rosie helped Cynthia with crowd control and Kristin enlisted the aid of a SF couple in defending her bridge perch. We met a bunch of people and have some good stories about all this. Kristin found herself as the arbitrator of another couple's serious disagreement over where they should relieve their bladders.

Our gear included the six cameras, three laptop computers, various tripods and a couple of battery systems with AC inverters. Not shown in the photo was the other support gear - food, drink and chairs.

International Sportsmen's Expo

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 17:26:00 +0000

Every year we go to the International Sportsmen's Expo in Sacramento to see the latest new gear for fishing and hunting. We also talk to outfitters about trips we might want to take in the future. Going to this show is like a time warp, it doesn't seem to change much over the years - the same people, in the same booths, with the same stuff every year.

But this year a new outfitter caught my eye with this amazing display of Boar mounts. There must be a niche market that finds this display compelling...

Slow-Motion, the Opposite of Time-Lapse

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:25:00 +0000

Pleix is a virtual community of digital artists based in Paris who have done some really cool video work including this slow motion view of dogs jumping, titled Birds.

Another remarkable film is Netlag, what appears to be a map of the world is formed from time-lapse videos made from a web cams around the globe.

Thanks to Till Krueger for the Birds link.

The Yin and Yang of User Viral Ads

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 01:34:00 +0000

In a Beet.tv interview Scott Donaton, editor in chief of Advertising Age, talks about how viral ad campaings require "careful thought and consideration". That goes for encouraging user generated ads as well. Nalts, in his Will Video For Food blog,
cajols Apple to reward Happy Slip for her clever Mac ad parody.
The other day I stumbled upon the opposite, or Yin, to Happy Slip's Yang.
First the Yang, more than any company can hope for in a viral ad ...

and the Yin, a company's worst nightmare for a viral ad ...

Ok, the genders are crossed in this Yin/Yang comparison, so maybe "Beauty and the Beast" is a more apt description of this pair?

Mitchell Rose - Too Good For YouTube

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:38:00 +0000

I just ran across a very clever filmmaker, Mitchell Rose, on YouTube. He and his film company have created some great short films which you can see on his web site via streaming QuickTime. My favorites are his "Daydream" series

It's surpising that they haven't had many views on YouTube. Maybe it's because their pace and style require a bit of patience and investment by the viewer. That may be something most YouTubers are unwilling to give.
He began posting to YouTube in June, but has not had a large number of views, but his "Learn to Speak Body" film was featured today on YouTube. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Video Sites Compared

noreply@blogger.com (tlapse) — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:04:00 +0000

Which video sharing service should I use? Over the past several months I’ve tried several sites to see which one best meets my needs. I write and sell time-lapse software, so I need a video library to demonstrate what my software can do. Rather than doing advertising I post videos of my work to drive traffic to my site. People like to watch my videos, so I might as well make some money off of that too.

1) For my video library I need good video quality, easy and fast uploading and an attractive and flexible video player.
2) To drive traffic to my site I need a site with a big audience.
3) For extra revenue I need a site with an ad revenue sharing business model.

I haven’t found a site that meets all these requirements, so I use several. Here are my main choices, I've embedded a player for each one for comparison purposes...

BrightCove for my video gallery – Videos are encoded the excellent Flash 8 codec and are available for viewing within a few minutes of uploading. The player looks great, easily hosts a video gallery and has a neat interface for sharing and embedding videos. Titles are grouped into lineups, and lineups are grouped together into a player with tabs for each lineup. This makes for an easy to set up a video gallery or channel to hold multiple videos. Their content management tools are well designed (in contrast to YouTube). BrightCove is well financed (with a $59MM C round announced today), but the site is still in beta. It doesn’t have a big audience and its ad revenue sharing isn’t running yet. Uploaded files must be Flash8 and 480x270 in size with a 512kbps data rate. You can also upload WMV files for sale or rental at 1.4Mbps and 720x480 (I haven’t tried this yet).

YouTube for the high traffic – In less than six months I’ve had over 2.5MM views of my YouTube channel. Despite the poor video quality (Flash 7 codec) it drives a ton of traffic to my site. If they only had revenue sharing, this could have generated a lot of cash. A major downside is YouTube’s error prone interface. I get multiple notifications when a fan posts a comment or video response. Replying to a message or video response can be frustrating because of the system errors. But uploading is quick and easy. Uploads should be mpeg4 (including Divx) at 320x240 with MP3 audio. The file limit is 10 minutes or 100MB.

MetaCafe for extra revenue – I had the good luck to get my first video mentioned in the MetaCafe blog and that translated into some cash (I wish YouTube paid as good). Quality (Flash8) and uploading are good, but they take a couple of hours to approve because of their concern for copyright. One clip of mine got lost in the system took two weeks to get approval. It required a personal email and documentation from me to convince them that my music was royalty free. This is puzzling to me because many of the clips on their site use copyrighted music tracks. My last upload was approved two hours so maybe they have fixed their approval process. When someone plays one of my videos, they can click on my name to see my channel page (and then RSS subscribe). But for some reason my channel can’t be found by searching for my user name. Best upload format is mpeg4, but files can be mpg, mpeg, avi, divx, flv or wmv with a 100MB size limit. Rather than uploading a thumbnail image, you pick one from a number of choices generated by their software. Notice how the player gets it wrong and stretches this 16x9 content to fit a 4x3 aspect ratio...

I’m also uploading to some other sites to hedge my bets…

Zudeo for its 720p HD quality – This is a bittorrent site for the distribution of large video files. It’s one of the only ways to distribute HD quality video at this time. It doesn’t have a large audience and downloading content requires a high geek quotient (you have to download and install a client package), but I figure the audience is a good demographic fit for my GBTimelapse software. I haven’t found a way to create a channel yet and I’m not sure they have one. HD quality file uploads should be WMV at 1280x720 and 4Mbps.

Stage6 for its high quality – It uses the DivX codec at a 640x360 SD resolution so my videos look much better than the other sites, except Zudeo which requires a lengthy download. Uploads take 30 minutes to appear on the site and when selected, Stage6 videos play quickly. The site is still in alpha and has a small audience. My hope is that with the DivX codec and high quality it will catch on.

Revver for extra revenue – I’ve made a few dollars here, but it’s hard to get any traction. They don’t seem to have a very large audience (compared to YouTube). Quality is good, but the approval requires the video be watched by a human which delays the process. Uploaded files can be mp4, mov, mpg, wmv, or avi (including DivX) with a 100MB size limit. They are converted to Flash8 and QuickTime.

Google Video – Just because it’s Google. The web upload doesn’t have a progress bar, just a busy indicator; so it’s not clear what’s happening during an upload. But, the downloadable “Google Video Uploader” client application will batch upload a bunch of files with good progress feedback.

VideoEgg – Good quality, fast upload, and immediately playable. A quick and easy way to embed a video into a web site.

If you think there are better choices, please let me know.