Frankie went to Hollywood April 17, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo , add a commentFrankie Roberto spent a week in California, which is why his blog etc has been quiet ( I don’t think they have Internet in LA yet) but upon his return he’s posted this cool Vlog which is well worth a download and a marvel really, that it was entirely shot and edited on his mobile phone.
Great stuff.
Communities of Practice PART 3 February 13, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo , add a commentIt has been said that the thing to do with communities of practice is not to create them, but to join them.
I recently found and joined a community which was a wonderful discovery. It’s a community for videobloggers, people who are developing the practice of making quick video for publication on blogs in various ways.
Although only in existence for less than a year, the community has a great sense that they are pioneering something which will come into its quite soon. They are creating their own tools, swapping experience, building a pool of knowledge and when somebody suggested a face to face meeting it turned into a seriously organised conference with members flying in from Europe at just a couple of weeks’ notice.
This is the mailing list page on yahoogroups
Mac OS 10.3 users can also download this freeware to watch videoblogs: AntNotTv.org This application lets you subscribe to your favorite video feeds and downloads new video to your computer automatically. It comes with some great default feeds.
This is the state-of-the-art Video RSS aggregator portal
and here’s the link to vloggercon 2005
Southbank movie October 15, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo, movie clips, London , add a commentThis was shot at the same time as the stills in the previous entry, I’m interested in the comparison. Does the low quality movie - with movement and sound - add anything of value to the sequence of high quality stills?
No Internet October 8, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo, movie clips, learning, internet , 1 comment so farDays of no internet access can be interesting and productive. I tried something today which I’d known about for years but never had the opportunity to try out - using Flash with movie files. I remember getting excited about the potential of this when Flash MX first came out in 2001 but it remained just that - potential. The exciting idea is that once imported into the Flash library, a film clip becomes an object just like any other type of object - graphic, text, Flash movie , which can then be animated on the stage and manipulated along the timeline. Mindblowing isn’t it? Embedding a film clip within a Flash movie may have efficiency benefits as well, it’s another option in the sometimes tortuous route from camera to web page.
So all I did as an initial experiment was to import the Hampton Court Maze movie ( you can see the original properly on the CuttySnark blog ) and place several copies of it on the stage at different sizes, offset a little along the timeline. It worked straight away, just like that, and I found the split-screen view effective so here it is.
Friday rush hour October 8, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo, transport, London , 7commentsFriday afternoon and everybody just wants to go home.
(only 1.5Mb, but possibly tedious)
Full sized still photograph accessible from thumbnail below :
( gone from ultralab server )
No Emissions October 5, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo, transport, London , 2commentsAbove is a Hydrogen Fuel Cell zero emissions bus, of the type currently being trialled on several routes in London. It may not look much different to an ordinary fossil fuel bus, but take at look at my VIDEO HERE
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That’s pure steam or water vapour coming out of the exhaust at roof height. Post-space-age meets steam.
More information from Transport For London in a pdf document
Oh, all right then - I’ve typed it all out for you…
Partners in Progress
London Buses is part of Transport for London,
and is responsible for achieving environmental
targets and standards for the whole of London’s
bus fleet, as required by the Mayor’s Air
Quality Strategy.
First operates around one sixth of the London bus
network. Their experience, support and expertise
in transit management is crucial in ensuring the trial
is conducted and assessed to rigorous standards.
BP is providing the hydrogen-refuelling facilities
for the fuel cell buses. BP is an infrastructure
partner in five of the nine CUTE (Clean Urban
Transport for Europe) cities and is demonstrating
a range of different hydrogen technologies in
each location.
Energy Saving Trust is supporting the project
through grant funding from its new vehicle
technology fund programme.
Daimler Chrysler has developed and manufactured
the buses and will provide technical support during
the trial.
The European Union has co-financed the trial,
with the support of the European Commission
Directorate-General for Energy and Transport.
Fuel cell buses on Route 25
Route 25 between Oxford Circus and Ilford has
been chosen as the first fuel cell trial bus route
for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it’s important to test the buses in different
inner city areas. Route 25 is a busy route that
extends all the way from the centre of London,
through the East End and onto Ilford. It’s a long
route that offers a wide variety of traffic conditions
in the largest city taking part in the trial.
In addition, fuel cell buses will run alongside
conventional double-decker buses on the
same route. As a result of all these factors,
the operating and environmental data gathered
will play a major part in helping the project to
gain experience of how the fuel cell propulsion
system actually performs day-by-day.
Once the field trial is well established London
Buses will begin to run the fuel cell buses on
other routes in order to test their operational and
environmental effectiveness more thoroughly.
Like most of the London bus fleet, fuel cell buses provide full low-floor access.
London leading the way
London is taking part in a pioneering project to
reduce air pollution and noise by testing the first
generation of zero emission fuel cell buses. This
important initiative is a key part of the Mayor’s
Transport and Air Quality Strategies, which are
designed to help give Londoners a cleaner and
healthier future. Not only is the fuel cell bus trial
a significant step towards achieving that goal,
it also demonstrates that London is leading the
way in alternative forms of public transport.
Energetically efficient
Nine cities in Europe are taking part in the fuel
cell bus trial, making it the largest project of its
type anywhere in the world. The reason it’s so
important is because of greenhouse gas emissions
and inner-city noise levels which are a major
source of complaint.
The project brings together over 40 organisations
including the bus manufacturer, operating
companies, hydrogen suppliers, fuelling and
storage facilities, and universities. It is part of the
ongoing development of clean urban transport
systems which combine energy efficiency with
cost-effectiveness.
The fuel cell buses will be subjected to rigorous
ecological, technical and economic analysis,
which will then be compared to conventional bus
transportation. By the end of the trial London will
have made a major contribution to a much-needed
initiative, the results of which are eagerly awaited
by transport authorities and governments across
the globe.
Fuel cell buses can travel more 125 miles before refuelling.
How fuel cell buses work
The new Mercedes Citaro buses, which have
been built by Daimler Chrysler especially for
this trial, use the latest fuel cell and hydrogen
production technology.
Do they really run on hydrogen? Yes
[ useful diagram ]
Hydrogen can be made in a number of different
ways including steam reforming of natural gas
and the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen
(electrolysis). The hydrogen is then liquefied by
cooling it down to a very low temperature.
The liquid hydrogen is delivered to the fuelling
site where it is dispensed as a gas into pressurised
cylinders. These are the cylinders you can see
on top of the bus, along with the fuel cell system,
coolers and other components.
The only emission from a fuel cell bus is water,
which forms a vapour cloud as soon as it leaves
the exhaust and enters the atmosphere.
Just as importantly, the infrastructure and support
systems needed to conduct the trial
Bridge Revisited September 27, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo, transport, movie clips, learning , 3commentsReturning from Cornwall means crossing the Tamar in the opposite direction over Brunel’s bridge again. I think the twin ferry ports of Torpoint and Saltash look quite pretty from above. ( Note the genuine accent from the train manager, not much like the people on Doc Martin )
<< view brunel-m.mov quicktime movie >>
The picture quality is an improvement on “stepping stones” through using the following process:
*DVcam records onto DV tape
*Capture to ‘Image mixer’ software which comes with camera. - rough edit to retain only usable footage
*Exports only as mpeg ( mixed sound and video )
*input to Cleaner, export as .dv ( takes hours, but only way to retain the synchronous sound )
*import to iMovie - further editing
*export as quicktime movie in DV quality ( big file )
*open in Quicktime Pro - tiny edits for finishing
*compress and export using setting “DSL medium quality”
Final copy is 4Mb+ , 2 minutes video with sound at size 320X240 without much pixellation or blocky compression patches.
The process involves 4 pieces of software, which is one more than would normally be necessary if using more compatible kit such as a camcorder which can be captured straight into iMovie or Final Cut.
Stepping Stones September 19, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo, movie clips, wildlife , 3commentsThis is a short film I made last holidays, in Penpol creek, Cornwall. It has taken ages to find a way of producing a compressed film with sound in quicktime format from the original muxed mpeg with the equipment available to me. The final result has poor quality video for the file size, and the sound drops in one or two places but I’m publishing it anyway because I feel it demonstrates progress in other ways.
I decided to experiment with this technique of talking through the camera after viewing Linda Hartley’s “the tasting garden”
( For those on dialup, there’s a slightly smaller version here )
shifting sands July 7, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo, movie clips, Music , comments closedshifting sands asf”
I want to get this over and done with. It’s just a demo - ok, a way of getting the song down on tape somehow. Ideally there would be images from Whitsunday Island on the video, and some orchestration with perhaps my friend Alex helping out on the vocals but some vital components of the technical apparatus are still missing. Beggars can’t be choosers.
So here’s the photo I took of whitesands bay, and the cessner light aircraft. Whitsunday Island is an uninhabited nature reserve off the coast of Queensland, Au, near the Great Barrier Reef and I had the privilege to camp there for four nights.
Fantastic. Nothing to do with the song though, which is all about setting off to Bilbao, Spain on my own.
Urban Seabirds June 17, 2004
Posted by Andy Roberts in : soundvideo, wildlife, London , comments closedhref=”http://firstclass.ultraversity.net/%7EAndy.Roberts/urbanseabird-H.asf”>large medium
Urban foxes are well known these days, there’s probably one in every street and they seem to be getting more and more casual about walking around in broad daylight. This little film is about urban seabirds. Since living in London I’ve started to notice more kinds of birds making themselves at home in the city, birds which would normally be associated with the ocean, countryside or other environments. Kingfishers on the canal in Hackney, increasing numbers of Heron too. Sparrowhawks circle the tower blocks and Terns swoop down to fish the waterways.
I first saw Cormorants as a child around the Isles of Scilly, way out at sea or sitting on inaccessible rocks drying their wings. So I didn’t associate them with inner city estuaries like the Thames. Around London Bridge they can be seen most days, flying past, bobbing about in the waves or diving for fish. Just before sunset seems to be good time to catch them doing this, on my way home from the evening sessions but I sometimes spot one flying over from my morning journey too. It makes me feel good and smile whenever I spot one, I don’t know why. I even wrote a few verses about them, on an airoplane bound for Bilbao. It’s one of the batch waiting for another clear week in order to compose the music. The video is realtively lengthy at just under 3 minutes with sound, so I’ve made two versions available, one at 6.2Mb and one at 9.5Mb for broadband users.
Thanks for reading Andy Roberts articles about soundvideo
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