NetVideoMaker.Com

Online Video for Small Business

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:05:00 +0000

Diane Chiasson, FCSI, President of Chiasson Consultants Inc., is credited as the founder of the foodservice merchandising profession in North America. I'm honoured that she asked me to write a guest post for her newsletter (Feb. 2013) on using video in a small restaurant/food service business. We agreed that including a demonstration video made sense. The one I chose was done for a south-eastern Ontario family resort, to promote their get-away options, showcasing the property, its amenities and food services. If you have any comments or questions about either video in your business or the blog post (available to download below) call me direct at 416-823-3100 or send an email to david@faceliftmarketing.ca Online Video in Your Small Business

According to a recent 3M study on Facebook, videos are shared more often than photos, status updates or links. Sharing builds your fan base, so the more the better. And video is unique in its ability to communicate information and personality at hyper speed. According to the same 3M study we process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. In an age when grabbing someone’s attention in an instant is critical, visuals work, making video a stellar idea.... (View the post in PDF).

Light Field Camera Comes to Market

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 17:37:00 +0000

Not long ago (August 27, "Frame, Shoot, Focus" - video available) I profiled the young inventor of a camera that captures ALL the available light, allowing the image to be altered by an algorithm, changing the focus by in effect sliding the "lens" toward or away from the subject. Today an email from Future Shop offers a version for sale by pre-order at a price of $499. View the ad here.

Do-it-Yourself Cartoon Strips

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 15:37:00 +0000

I've taken a bit more time at www.bitstrips.com today and built a strip with considerably more detail than my first effort below this post.

For a better look and more on social media marketing, visit Facelift Marketing on Facebook.

You in the Comics

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 19:54:00 +0000

You can do this.Thanks to www.bitstrips.com you can create your own comic character(s) and build panels and strips with a remarkable range of tools for every visible element. This took me five minutes.

The Tom Mihalik Story

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:41:00 +0000

Over the past several years I've had the pleasure of knowing Tom Mihalik, owner of Tom's Place in Toronto's Kensington Market. Tom has always generously shared his success with his community, having become a much loved and greatly admired Toronto asset. I recently discovered that a documentary had been developed around his life story. It airs a final time for now on Sunday, September 30th. Here's a peek into it:

Frame, Shoot, Focus

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 11:37:00 +0000

Imagine a camera, still and video, that captures images you can alter focus in after the fact. The lens inventor Ren Ng created captures light in four dimensions and saves it to a sensor. The software simulates moving the lens closer to and further from the original scene, altering what is in focus. Watch an explanation in video here.

Online Video Hosting adds Music File Uploads

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 13:23:00 +0000

My current preferred commercial online video hosting platform is viddler.com. Among several upgrades they recently announced was the ability to host music files. I naturally have to see what that looks like. So embedded in the HTML of this post is the code provided for my upload. The file is a recording studio version of the Alice in Chains tune "No Excuses", with me singing lead along with League of Rock bandmates Colin, Gavin, Ivan and Scott.

LazBerry!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 12:13:00 +0000

Last Sunday afternoon, while using its eBook reader on the train from Ottawa to Toronto, my Blackberry Playbook reported zero remaining memory. I shut it down. This morning, three days later, I was finally able to restart it. Mind you, EVERYTHING on it is gone - but it works. I have a backup less than a month old and that's good. But all record of a weekend spent with my brothers and their families, all photos, all video has forever vanished. I think I know now why you don't want to shoot anything for money on a device that can do this to you.

Never Say Never

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 15:09:00 +0000

I wrote recently that while the new mobile device video cameras captured moments that would not be available without their ease of portability they weren't suitable for commercial work. What do I know? Last week I watched a videographer shooting live bands for a client. One of the two cameras covering the stage was the size of a deck of cards, duct taped to a tripod in a fixed position. When I asked him about it he said it "only" shot 720p but the footage mixed fine with his larger prosumer 1080p unit, which he shot handheld. Having fixed coverage of 100% of each act meant he could move around with the handheld cam, filling in what he missed while doing so with footage from the locked down mini. In a matter of a week or so the band members will get links to their performances on video (edited in Final Cut Pro he told me) and he'll submit an invoice. So I guess it won't be long before I'm gaffer-taping my BlackBerry Playbook to a tripod in search of my fortune.

I was among the performers being immortalized at session 21 of Toronto's League of Rock finale.

From the left we've got Colin, me, Gavin, Ivan and Scott. We did a four-song set in front of a lively and generous crowd composed largely of friends and family of the 25 or so band members involved in five separate groups. A few days prior to the showcase we were in Toronto's Noble Street Studios with the opportunity to record one of our tunes with professional production and engineering. We have David Barrett and Douglas Romanow to thank for those monster contributions to the outcome. Our selection, "No Excuses" by Alice in Chains was for me a tribute to the late Layne Staley, the band's lead singer. You can give our version a listen right here.

Inside one of Toronto's finest Recording Studios

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 19:53:00 +0000

Ever since the first kids birthday and family vacation videos there has been a mass of content of interest largely only to those who appear. The emergence of social video, largely thanks to mobile devices with video capability has only deepened the pool. My birthday present this year was a session with League of Rock at Toronto's Noble Street Studios. What a gorgeous, amazingly equipped, comfortable, special place it is. Kudos to owner Henry Gooderham and to our producer Douglas Romanow and thanks to David Barrett who made us sound better than we had a right to. Having collected some clips with my trusty BBerry Playbook I slapped something together for myself and my bandmates. But you're welcome to take a peek too.

Video Goes Mainstream Social

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:49:00 +0000

Once upon a time video was either on tape or on TV. Then along came digital, the web, DVD, then mobile devices and plentiful wireless bandwidth. Now video is everywhere. Contributing to that fact is the relative ease with which almost anyone can create and share video content. On the creation side smartphones and tablets come equipped with HD cameras. Very sophisticated editing options are available in software like Adobe's Premiere Elements 10 for around $100. I recently took advantage of a B&H promotion and bought the bundle of Premiere and Photoshop Elements 10 for about $70. That's just crazy. If you don't want to spend anything on editing you can upload to YouTube and use their online editing tools. There's even a stabilizer option for smoothing out the shaky bits created by hand-holding these smallform devices. Once you've banged out your masterpiece you can share it across multiple platforms from Facebook to YouTube, Vimeo, Daily Motion, Twitter....and that doesn't count the commercial options such as Viddler, which I mainly use, Brightcove and a host of other online hosting platforms. The best of them sense both the device calling the player and the bandwidth available to it, serving the best possible quality at that moment in time. So here I am sharing a short clip from a recent Sunday visit to Toronto's waterfront where two of our Maritime Provinces got together to sponsor a weekend of food, drink and music.

Enjoy.

Retail Magic at the Register

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:37:00 +0000

Since I first saw Tom's Place owner Tom Mihalik reduce prices at the cash register, one item at a time, I've wanted to capture the magic of the moment. Customers who already think they're got a great deal based on the price tags are shocked and happily surprised as they get further discounts, a free tie, no charge alterations and so on. I finally got the chance during Tom's recent 56th birthday celebration sale event to which I was invited to create stills and video for the store's Facebook page. I had a career in the retail business and I don't recall seeing anything quite so effective. Take a look:

This clip was shot on a Blackberry Playbook tablet. Both audio and video quality are exceptional given the hardware involved. And the small form factor makes it far more likely that you'll have it with you when you need it than with prosumer camcorder equipment. It certainly can't replace higher end gear for much of the work videographers do but it has opened up a place for itself in the YouTube universe. For the record I host client video on the Viddler platform because I can control the environment around it.

If you don't see a video player follow this link: http://www.viddler.com/v/f13d2555

One Site Fits All - about responsive WordPress templates

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:28:00 +0000

If you're on the web, particularly with doing business as your objective, you already care about the explosive growth of smartphone and tablet use and what it means to how your pages display across multiple device types. And you are absolutely going to LOVE what I have to tell you.
A huge number of people use WordPress to build their blogs and many now use it to build websites too. And new to the world are website templates described as "responsive". What does that mean? Allow me to show you:

That's right, children. The web template knows what device it's loading on and adjusts accordingly, just as video does today from YouTube and other advanced platforms. Various template design houses are beginning to offer responsive templates and prices that seem ridiculously low. If you're interested but not technically proficient in this area feel free to let me know. You can find out more watching the video, and see a number of sample templates from the site on which it is hosted.

League of Rock, Toronto - "The Accessories" at The Silver Dollar Room

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:47:00 +0000

In mid-April my League of Rock colleagues and I performed at Toronto's Silver Dollar Room with the other bands in our LOR session. I'd almost forgotten that the evening was videotaped as part of our session fee until today when Terry (the founder) Moshenberg sent me a link to Vimeo. Here is the three-song performance in HD. In case it makes a difference to whether or not you view it, we did "Unchain My Heart" by Mr. Joe Cocker, "Slide Away" by Noel Gallagher of Oasis and "I Am Disappeared" by Frank Turner.

Another option for stabilizing shaky footage

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:04:00 +0000

All videographers know how difficult it is to avoid unwanted motion in handheld footage. In the era of standard definition, stabilizing clips in editing software was of minimal help because the process involved zooming in and very quickly that degrades the image noticeably. But today even pocket HD and tablet cameras shoot 720p and that's sufficient resolution to get far better results. YouTube has offered a stabilizer in its online editing tool but in my experience it's not the solution if you want to retrieve stabilized clips to continue with an edit in your own software.
Enter Adobe Premiere Elements 10. I recently took advantage of a deal from B&H in NYC, purchasing the Photoshop/Premiere Elements bundle for under $100, having first assured myself that Premiere had a couple of tools I wanted. One was the Ken Burns effect that allows for animating still images with pans and zooms, another trick made easier with high resolution stills readily available. If you zoom into a 720 X 480 SD image you get blur almost immediately. But start with something 3000 pixels wide and you have considerable freedom to walk into the frame. The other was the motion stabilizer. I've proven to myself in recent days that I can shoot in good light with my Blackberry Tablet and get footage easily good enough for online presentation after using the stabilizer where necessary. Of course the combination has its limitations. There is no zoom available and panning must be done slowly to avoid jerky artifacts, but for a great many situations, material that would likely have gone unrecorded may be captured and edited into perfectly presentable, even commercial content - as in someone will pay you for it. I know I sound like I belong on the geezer farm when I say it, but ten years ago I would have read this as science fiction.

High Def, Tiny Lens - the cost of convenience

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 13:07:00 +0000

Nearly ten years ago I came in from work knowing that my new Sony camcorder had arrived earlier in the day. I clearly remember the pleasure of opening the packaging and beginning a journey of discovery that continues today. But so very much has changed. I still have the camera and still use it occasionally. But it shoots video in the standard of its day, the 4:3 aspect ratio of the CRT TV set virtually none of us watches anymore. To replace it with a similar quality unit shooting HDV (high definition video) can be done for half of what I paid back then, and of course for as much or more, depending on the unit of choice. And the editing software I used with it won't ingest the file format created by HDV camcorders so more than a camera purchase is required. But, as I've shown in earlier posts, HD video can be acquired by various devices far less expensive than prosumer or professional cameras. Under ideal conditions units such as my Blackberry Playbook produce good looking output. But low light and a tiny lens take it out of contention for anything serious. That said, almost no Videographer has a rig at hand all day every day. Devices like the Playbook make that possible. So video like the piece below gets captured and for those who care about the content that's significant. Significant too is a price one tenth of what I paid ten years ago. And that standard definition Sony doesn't collect email, isn't an ebook reader, doesn't browse the web...
This piece is an example of the experience offered by a company called "League of Rock" and coincidentally, its co-founder, Terry Moshenberg, shot the sequence for me. The League offers amateur musicians weekly ten-week turnkey access to the rock and roll experience - fellow band members, fully equipped rehearsal studio space, showcases in live venues with coaches' feedback, a final live performance with a live audience and a recording studio session to create a keepsake of the experience. In this piece, one such group performs three songs in the second live event with coaches present. Those of us performing are glad to have a record despite the degradation of low light and a tiny lens. If you don't see a video player you can view the segment here.

My First MeetUp

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 19:56:00 +0000

I'll try to keep this from becoming a shaggy dog story but it does run off in all directions. I recently had coffee with Kaltura's Director of Sales, Scott Bishop, a video veteran who's right up to date with online video today. During our chat he asked if I had run across a site called meetup.com. When I returned to the office I headed straight there and I'm still absorbing the implications. Wherever you live in North America there's likely a local site so check them out.
My first meetup was of a group called Hackernest. About 150 of the more than 800 registered members jammed into a second floor office space at 8 pm on a Monday night. Amazon was there with a ton of free beer and jobs to fill. The conversation was at roaring level and I was a happy guy, surrounded by so many people who spoke a similar language - and I don't mean English. Anyone whose passion is a bit specialized knows the feeling of wishing for someone to talk to. Not a problem in that room. So, for those who attended, for those who couldn't and for the curious, here's a minute of the scene, shot with a Blackberry Playbook at 720p and exported at 480p, to fit the blog page.

Blackberry Playbook Video Output

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 20:59:00 +0000

When I joined the smartphone set I chose Blackberry because of family members using them. So, when I decided to join the tablet generation, and BB had just finally released version 2.0 of the Playbook operating system, I chose the 32 GB version. At half the price of an iPad it was an easier call than it might sound. Rosetta and I have been together about 24 hours now. I love her. She isn't perfect but I know that as the days pass I will come to cherish her more deeply.
But this post is about video. Specifically my first video shot on the Playbook using the front facing camera (one of two on board) that records stills and video, the latter at 720p. I've uploaded to my new Viddler account since Veeple warned of imminent demise. I miss the interactive elements Veeple offered buy delight in Viddler's device sniffer, that serves the right file format to whatever device asks for it. As I write the file is being ingested wherever Viddler's servers live. I'm going to have to offer a reduced size here because of limitations on the width of the blog page.

I've confirmed that this link presents a larger screen size. I am anxious to see how it plays on the Playbook via my wireless high speed connection, but I have to publish it to get there, so off it goes.

QR Magic

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 15:02:00 +0000

QR (Quick Response) codes may not sound like an online video subject but in fact a large proportion of those in use exist to bring a video up on a mobile device. Let's take a second to get caught up (if you aren't already) on their history and future.The following is lifted from the i-nigma.com website:

QR codes - It all started in 2002 with the Japanese network carriers (NTT DoCoMO, J-Phone) handset makers (Panasonic, NEC, SHARP), and a number of service companies (Denso, MediaSeek, 3GVision) collaborating to create innovative uses for the new cameras in mobile phones. Their favorite idea was an idea to turn a camera phone into a barcode scanner, delivering encoded information - including URLs that could connect direct to the mobile internet.
The style of barcode that was adopted is called QR (short for Quick Response) and five short years later, QR codes are recognized by over 90% of Japanese mobile users - and used by over 50% of them - for fast and easy access on the move to encoded information on the internet. More people in Japan now surf the web from a mobile phone than from a PC and QR codes are found everywhere - in advertising and promotional materials, on product packaging and vending machines - to deliver "Quick Response". The Japan Story - 3Gvision's barcode reader, now called i-nigma was developed to be pre-installed in handsets supplied by all of Japan's major mobile manufacturers - in collaboration with them - to the specification of the Japanese network operators. As a result, this barcode reader has become the standard for camera phones in Japan - in over 80 million handsets, with over 90% market share - creating a marketplace phenomenon that the rest of the world is now embracing.

There are many code scanners available for mobile devices, some supporting multiple platforms and some not. The "i-nigma" scanner is the third I've installed on my Blackberry Torch, and by far the fastest. Knowing its adoption in Japan makes me comfortable with the choice. Their site offers, in addition to the scanner itself, a page for creating free QR codes of your own. The one that appears below links directly to a YouTube video made recently to help sell an RV.

If you have a scanner installed on your mobile device please give it a try - and even better if you leave a comment about the result. If you don't yet have a scanner onboard the i-nigma is a great start, free of concerns about unwanted hitchhikers on the file. Unlike my former favourite, i-nigma only offers to scan for you. There are no other live links to software you might download in error.

More Viddler

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:33:00 +0000

I've been reading the help section of the Viddler site, getting to know my likely next online video hosting platform provider. Because I can, I'm going to use this post as a host for embedding the one video I have on their server to date - just to see how their embed code presents the player.

Hello World

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:50:00 +0000

    Let's just say it's been a while. Something I stumbled on this Super Bowl morning made me return to the blog. YouTube claims that every second of every day, one hour of video is uploaded to their servers. They have created a website to graphically illustrate the fact, at onehourpersecond.com/ I'm not sure it's worth the pixels involved but that's your call. It did remind me of where I've been video-wise for some of the missing nearly a year since my last post.
I've lost two system drives in two separate PCs since mid-December. I have an infection in my video editing platform that is likely to require a reformat of that system drive. This latter issue caused me to think about the video software I'd choose to install on a blank drive. Change is constant as we all well know. Last week my video hosting platform of choice, Veeple, announced its demise. I don't have a ton of material on their server but enough to make having to move it less than welcome. I'm sorry too that Doug Broomfield and the crew at Veeple weren't able to attract financing or partners to keep a great application online. Veeple, as I blogged about long ago, offered the option of adding interactivity to digital video - clickable icons that took the viewer out of the video to present other material, then brought her back. They aren't alone in the space but they did it elegantly in my view. Right now I'm checking out Viddler, who don't offer that same functionality, but do serve your file in multiple formats, including mobile, which is, likely thanks to iPad, becoming a bigger issue for video makers than it seemed likely to be a year ago.
Skip this paragraph if you aren't posting video online. The Viddler trial provides a URL for video you upload. That single URL works on multiple devices, seemingly detecting the device type and serving an appropriate file format. The one video I've uploaded since beginning the trial period I've viewed on a PC and a Blackberry, using the same URL in each case. Try it if you're so inclined: Buy my friend's RV
    So, what software to install? I have used Adobe Premiere for nearly a decade and Photoshop for longer. Both have little brothers called "Elements", currently at version 10. I yesterday installed and worked with Premiere Elements (trial), specifically to test its usefulness in creating video from still images. For a few years I've been using "Imaginate" from what was Canopus when I purchased it. Imaginate delivered the "Ken Burns Effect" to digital video, making panning and zooming quick and simple with sufficiently large still images. Each sequence could be exported as an avi, then brought into Premiere and added to the timeline. Like my favourite stand-alone green screen app, Ultra 2, the Imaginate technology was swallowed up and taken off the market, integrated into a larger software suite, and upgraded to HDV capability when DV was supplanted by HDV in the camcorder world. Thanks to Premiere Elements, it is now possible for a C note to export to HD frame sizes video made by animating still images - with multiple video and audio tracks, titling and effects. For another $50 one may add the Photoshop version of Elements to the purchase. Just as Moore's Law has steadily and dramatically improved desktop editing at ever lower prices, software developments like these two apps have made the process so much better and easier for in this case a quarter of the price I paid a dozen years ago to put a proprietary (Canopus DV Raptor) Firewire card into a PC, so I could capture digital video from a Sony DV camcorder. The card and the camera cost two thousand together, far more than an editing PC needs to cost today.
    I need a bit more time with Elements before drawing firm conclusions about its place on my clean hard drive. It seems to render very slowly, and one export format failed consistently. If I can fix these issues I'm definitely sold.

Netflix Posts Internet Milestone

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Wed, 18 May 2011 18:21:00 +0000

Since the web came into being the majority of content has been free. Thanks to Netflix that's no longer true. The online video service has grown to 22.2% of all US broadband traffic, overtaking peer to peer file sharing for the first time. At peak times, Netflix hits 30% of all traffic. This news comes the same day that Forrester Research released a white paper suggesting that serious cord cutting pressure will arrive by year-end 2012. Cord cutting is the industry term for cancelling cable/satellite TV services. Cord shaving is the step before, describing the paring down of packages to remove pay-for movie channels as viewers become more comfortable with movie content from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus and Redbox, to name major players. While not all of these services are offered in Canada presently, Netflix alone has made great strides here, and deservedly so. Driving this shift is the ubiquity of game consoles, connected to the 'net for the purpose of playing against others all over the world. Once that connection is made, adding a Netflix account takes a few minutes and costs pennies a day. I use a Wii to connect my 42" flat screen to the web and to Netflix. I don't game online. My interest was in bringing the web to my TV and having seen it, I'm not impressed yet with that option. Netflix is a whole different matter. For those who haven't seen it, the interface is far more user friendly than my Rogers VOD for example, because it is web-like in its interactivity. I can page through movie choices by category, hover to read descriptions, cast and ratings and bring up a film with DVR-like control (FF, RV, Pause etc) and trash it for another one if it doesn't grab me quickly. I'm not paying by the movie or the minute. I'm paying by the month. It's where we're going and I'm happy to be on the bus.

Amateur Videographers Rejoice - YouTube now fixes shaky footage

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:42:00 +0000

The Gooderham & Worts building, Toronto

Among the mistakes made by amateur videographers, two are particularly annoying. YouTube has just come up with a free fix for one of them, the shaky clip that results from hand-holding the camera when it should be on a tripod or otherwise locked down. Last weekend I took my Kodak Zi8 to Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market. After carrying my groceries for a while I found that I couldn’t hold the pocket-sized camera steady with my overworked arm. Let’s take a look at what I got, then at what the YouTube stabilizer did with it.
Here is the original clip. And here is the stabilized version. You may notice that the processed clip has had some zoom-in applied to it. All the stabilizing software I've seen in the past ten years employs this approach. In the days of standard definition it often softened the image. With the detail inherent in high definition resolutions this is unlikely to occur unless the original clip is so shaky that only a high degree of zoom will fix it. If you want to give it a try, you'll find the editor here. You will of course need to have or upload at least one video in order to drag it into the editing window.
And, for those of you who don't know what the other annoying mistake made by amateur shooters is, it's the fire hose approach. Swing the camera back and forth, never stop for long enough to actually capture a scene. Guaranteed to make viewers queasy.

Is this thing on?

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurdon) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:44:00 +0000

    Forgive me. I'm fasting ahead of a routine procedure scheduled for tomorrow morning. Perhaps I'm feeling faint. And I'm experimenting with a new HD pocket cam acquired to more easily add quality imagery to the blog and elsewhere. Like the Flip cams one sees everywhere today, this Kodak Zi8 has few of the features of a consumer/prosumer video camera. No flip out screen, for instance, making it a challenge to shoot toward yourself. A table mirror placed behind the camera let me see where I was in frame, but to set up the camera and mirror quickly I had to choose a desk top, which meant getting low, as you'll see. I was also just off my ski machine, hair wet and workout "T" on, so I don't expect Hollywood to call soon. But for the price I can't say enough about the image clarity. See for yourself right here. If you have the bandwidth, be sure to check it out at full screen.
    The audio comes from the on-board mic, which is a bit noisy. Earlier clips with an external mic plugged in (great feature) offer clean audio. Normally I'd embed a video clip but the 720p resolution is too large for the blog's width. The camera will shoot lower resolution but usually that's not what I'm going to be looking for.
I should mention that the unit ships with an HDMI cable so you can view clips on your flat screen TV, where they look surprisingly good. It also takes an SD card to expand the hours of material you can gather. I've got a 4GB card in mine for the moment, about $13 at Staples.
    I promise to shoot something, or somebody, more attractive in the near term.