2010 Winter Games Live Streaming Requires Silverlight

Just when I thought the internet was headed to good pasture, I check out what internet streaming is going on for the 2010 Olympic Winter games here in Vancouver. What shall I find? But low and behold.. And I mean low. They are streaming using Microsoft Silverlight.

Until now I have refused to install it, I’ll probably end up installing it just for this and uninstalling it right after. But hey, they are streaming in 720p HD which is not bad. And I believe it’s even using H.264 so not a Microsoft specific codec. But still, I just don’t like it! This is bad for the open web, and bad for the non-Microsoft web. I know very well what Microsoft’s plan was for the internet. Thanks for the likes of Mozilla, Google, and Apple their plans have been thwarted. I just hope it continues.

How to Create Video Thumbnails Using VLC 1.0

Apparently creating video snapshots, thumbnails, whatever you want to call them with VLC 1.0.2 or later has really changed, and everything out there that I found simply didn’t work.

When I tried to use the documentation I found available the lovely error message came up saying:

The command line options couldn’t be loaded, check that they are valid.
Press the RETURN key to continue…

So I’m on a Windows XP virtual machine but this same thing applies to Linux and Mac OS X. So how can you easily from the command line script the creation of a thumbnail, snapshot, image, etc. from a video?

Here you go!

"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --video-filter scene -V dummy
    --scene-height=128 --scene-width=128 --scene-format=jpeg --scene-replace
    --scene-ratio 24 --start-time=6 --stop-time=7 --scene-prefix=thumb
    --scene-path="C:\thumbs"  C:\videos\video_file.mp4 vlc://quit

Now you are probably asking, can you please explain what all those flags and arguments mean? OK.

• –video-filter : This adds post-processing filters to enhance the picture quality, for instance deinterlacing, or distortthe video. In this case we’re using the scene filter for snapshots.
• -V : Specifies a video output module. We don’t want the video to actually play so it’s set to dummy
• –scene-height : The height of the snapshot in pixels
• –scene-width : The width of the snapshot in pixels
• –scene-format : Format of the image. Can be jpeg or png.
• –scene-replace : Replaced the resulting image each time. Remove this flag to have the file named in sequential order.
• –scene-ratio : Ratio of images to record. 3 means that one image out of three is recorded.
• –start-time : Start at this position in seconds
• –stop-time : Stop at this position in seconds
• –scene-prefix : Name the image file with this name. If scene-replace is not specified the file will be named prefixXX.
• –scene-path : Path on file-system to store the snapshots
• C:\video\video_file.mp4 : path to video input file
• vlc://quit : Quit once the process is finished

So, all the best as you try to script the creation of your thumbnail images!

More info: This is working with VLC 1.0.3.

eStarling TouchConnect

So, because I figured there’s many people on the internet just like myself, who want to get a video onto the eStarling TouchConnect device, (a connected touchscreen picture/photo frame kind of deal). Here’s some tips on video support as there is no documentation at all.

So they say they support MPEG-4 video, but don’t be fooled. That does not mean H.264. I tried many different encoding variations but to no avail. So when encoding video for the eStarling, make sure that you’re using plain old MPEG-4. And also make sure the file size is not more than 20MB as that is the maximum file size.

New Light Sport Aircraft

Icon Aircraft A5 aircraft. An amazing machine. One of the things I’m looking forward to is owning an aircraft, and Icon is part of the mission in making that possible. Check them out! Production starts in 2010.

http://www.vimeo.com/3011944

Video: Family Photos 2008

I can’t stop this, uploading to Vimeo is so much fun!

EPSON Scan Cannot be Started!

I purchased an Epson Artisan 800 and set it up today. It’s a great printer. It has a document scanner, flat bed scanner. Built-in fax. And a awesome CD/DVD disk printer which has Mac and Windows software. Best of all it has built-in Wifi which I believe is 802.11n compatible.

So I’m running Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and install the Artisan software on my Macbook Pro laptop. Printing works great, no problems. But when I try to launch Epson Scan, I get the following error message:

EPSON Scan cannot be started.

Please use the Troubleshooting Assistant to solve the problem.
Do you want to open the Troubleshooting Assistant?

[ No ]      [ Yes]

Here’s what you want to do. Click on No because the troubleshooting assistant is useless. Then here’s what I had to find out the hard way. Its not documented by Epson and realistically you should automatically be prompted to run this in the first place. But here you go.

Under your Applications folder you will find another folder called Utilites. Under Utilies you’ll find an application called “EPSON Scan Settings”. If you open that and setup the network scanner in there, you’ll be fine. This works for ethernet (cabled) networks and wireless network scanning. And here’s a little video to demonstrate it.

(Same for both the Artisan 700 and 800)

Australia Scenes Video

Just a short little one I put together for those asking for one.

Video Demo – SoManyPasswords.com

You’re probably almost sick of hearing about this project already, but the contest ends in a few days so it’s not too much longer

BTW you still have two days to vote!

Introducing Vimeo

I have recently discovered Vimeo through Mozilla.org. From the little bit I’ve started using it, it does seem to be much better than Youtube.
Just the fact that you can download the original file.

Here’s the most recent video I’ve made reposted on Vimeo. You can see it in Youtube on the previous post and as you’ll notice the quality is a lot better on Vimeo versus Youtube.

Cahuna Koala Park Visit

Video of us Driving in South Perth

Operation Cast Lead

Just trying to offset some of the propaganda out there by the media. I can’t believe how biased the majority of the media is against Israel. While there has been a lot of corruption in the government, I completely stand behind Israel. We are all united.

Also a recent article from JPost, please read it as well.