Tech, Gaming and Bile!
Archive for March, 2009
Major overhaul of equipment
Mar 27th
The money finally came in… and quickly went out as I splurged on some much needed hardware and software.
First up was the single most needed item – a real camera!
Bye bye lil’ webcam at last! 
In the end, instead of the 200 to 300 quid I wanted to spend; it turned into 450 as I stumped up for a Canon HF100 flash based HD camera. What made me break the limit? A mic input! This means I’ll be spending on a tie-clip mic tomorrow and hopefully retiring my samson c03u mic from general use in the shows.
In the most recent show I used the onboard mic from the camera in order to gauge the capabilities (sucky!) which is why I’ll be looking for some mics to plug into it and didn’t sync up separate audio from my samson because of the next purchase…
A macbook and a copy of final cut express 4.
Yes, Vertical Slice has gone dirty and is no longer produced 100% on windows.
And because I had a whole new video editing app to contend with, I didn’t lump syncing audio onto my shoulders too – as it turns out, the only things to give me trouble were the differences in chroma keying and garbage matte between Premiere and Final Cut. That and a little flap about where the videos were hiding on the memory card – it wasn’t an outright video file, imovie nabbed them easily tho after Final Cut claimed there wasn’t any devices to capture from >.<
Still, the result of a brand new camera and editing platform can be seen here below… well worth it I think!
Oh, and I’ll post pictures of the latest edition uber shiny to my network. (the screen is the only thing I find annoying about this macbook!)
A call for help – new camcorder
Mar 21st
In preperation for when I finally get my hands on the cash I’m owed from my now ex place of work, I’m looking around for a new camcorder to finally provide decent quality video footage and help take Vertical Slice to the next level.
Currently I’m using my trusty Logitech Quickcam Pro 5000 for the video, which has allowed me to get the taste of creating my footage in digital files rather than piss about with tapes, which is one of the reasons why I won’t use my old minidv camcorder – the other being its worse performance than the webcam when it comes to lighting!
So, my choices are between a flash and a HDD based camcorder without breaking the bank (looking at a limit of about £250 to £300).
One that caught my eye is the JVC GZ-HD10KE
Problem is, I don’t really have much experience looking for these so a little advice would be greatly recieved. If you have any suggestions please drop them off into the comments 
creating a video show – the long, hard struggle.
Mar 20th
As I’m sure some of you are aware, I’m trying to get my Vertical Slice project off the ground and generating money – with extra impetus since I lost my job back in Feb.
While creating a show that is watchable has been a challenge on a budget of almost zero, it pales in comparison to the biggest problem… getting eyeballs.
Even though the response from those who have watched it appear to be universally good, it still struggles along and pretty much never breaks 100 views on youtube – how can I be beaten by cats on roombas or trainwreck video shows? OK, so maybe I can understand the entertaining power of internet kittehs and human perversions of pain. That’s not the point! 
A certain amount of this will be down to my sucky tagging – no matter how much I know, I just never seem to hit the right combo – but the overwealming amount is due to no-one really knowing of my name.
Which seems strange cause I have been on the net for over a decade, I’m active in social media places such as twitter and friendfeed yet I still remain pretty much invisible – off the radar to everyone.
Hell, even my main blog doesn’t get anyone reading it, (which brings about interesting questions of my sanity) so this mini rant of sorts will never really impact on any of it!
All of this tells me that it certainly isn’t a case of “if you build it, they will come” as they’ll never come if they don’t know about it.
But then, you also encounter the catch22 – how do you get known if you suffer from lack of radar coverage? I’ve tried submitting links to digg and mixx, but it just dies a death there due to the political nature of the place. Spewing it forth onto social sites turns up little, as do comment trawling and forums (even if I’ve been there for years), submitting to popular sites doesn’t even get you a response due to the volumes they deal with.
A chunk of this can be explained away by a lack of participation, but is it really participating when you click “digg” or add a “me too” comment here and there? It just gets swallowed up in a sea of numbers. Even where I’m active (FF, forums and twitter), I’m lucky if I get a single “like” or comment.
Which brings about the ultimate question, is it just me? Am I just uninteresting/annoying? Would this video show succeed with a more charismatic or pleasent on the eyes person behind it, promoting their bollocks off?
I think I know what the answer is, but the stubborn side of me will always give a middle finger and keep making them, even if no bugger will watch them!
Maybe this is the trainwreck I need to get attention? Or perhaps this could be an interesting project, charting how those with zero contacts attempts to build something on the net.
I’m pretty sure this won’t be the only whining outburst on this subject ;P
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