Comments on: San Francisco Zoo, revisited

By: Eugenia

Eugenia — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:10:10 +0000

Hey Robin, thanks for passing by. Yeah, if you are on a slower DSL line, it can be a problem. HD Flash needs 2mbps sustained.

I am glad you are using Vegas btw, it’s a good software. Kino does not support HD though, from what I know…

By: Robin 'Roblimo' Miller

Robin 'Roblimo' Miller — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 14:44:09 +0000

Vimeo has great image quality, but on my DSL (in the Florida hinterlands), watching Vimeo videos is an exercise in skip & stop frustration. That’s why I stick with Blip.tv, whose encoding and delivery are good enough for the work I do, and can be viewed by almost anyone with any kind of “high speed” Internet connection, not just cable people or those blessed with big-city DSL.

BTW, I have a Sony A1U, not a Canon HV20. Today I’d probably buy the Canon… but then I’d need to spend $250+ on a powered XLR adaptor because I love my phantom power XLR mics…. essential when taping live music performances.

Editing software: I’ve tried all of them. Kino (on Linux) is now good enough for simple head-shot interviews at conferences and that sort of thing, but for my commercial video work I’ve become a firm Vegas Pro fan. It gives me the best bang:buck ratio of anything out there, plus a wide variety of rendering output options.

Keep up the good work, Eugenia!

By: Eugenia

Eugenia — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 23:27:44 +0000

I just discovered TheHDWeb btw, sponsored by Akamai (the guys who have lots of bandwidth to burn). Unfortunately, they encode their videos in ridiculously high bitrates so it’s almost impossible to stream, even on a fast Comcast cable connection. If they don’t start encoding at 4mbps for 720p and 8 mbps for 1080p, their experiment won’t catch on — except for people with Internet 2 and fast T1s.

By: Eugenia

Eugenia — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:51:47 +0000

Yup. Vimeo HD has just replaced Revver as the final destination of my videos. I use YouTube for tests and other random stuff, and Vimeo HD as the last stop for my “good” videos.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:09:41 +0000

With vimeo, I think that amateur video comes to a whole new level. Most of the videos posted there are good, best or even brilliant. (Sometimes I think professionals sponsored by Canon are behind the avatars, but that is b.s. of course).
These amateurs are good at filming, editing and sometimes music too. In a way, they are better than professionals, because those guys stick to one discipline. They are all of them good, respectful people, helping out and taking care of the language and words they use.
The HD section, of course, is brilliant. It is as if HD reaches (or goes further than) the limits of human perception. I look at it, if I focus on any detail, it there, razor sharp. It is really like I have been there.
For all those reasons, I would call HD (and vimeo) a real revolution.
(I feel it in my bones that Youtube will move to HD soon also, if they don’t, this is a major strategic error.)