Thanks, dear readers, for all the comments!
As Marshall from Scandanavia says, “Myrff Myrff… The sound of a happy pig.”
***
I’m writing about vlogging (video blogging) in my novel Mathematicians in Love. At first I half-thought I was making this word up, but I checked on Google and it’s real. Indeed, I spent a fair amount of time yesterday looking at vlogger sites. Three that I looked at are:
Hello by Mica
This is Vlog by Shannon Noble
Scratch Video by Charlene
And these sites have endlessly more links to further vlogs.
I watched a couple of vlogs made at VloggerCon, which was in NYC last week. A woman named Chris speaks of “database cinema.” Mica talks about the paradox of finally getting to meet the people you interact with online, but since you’re a vlogger, you’re still looking at them on a screen, to wit, the viewscreen of your videocam.
***
Tech note: Most vloggers use the QuickTime *.MOV format for their videos as QuickTime is readily available and allows for a wide range of compression settings.
Of course the Windows Media Player can’t handle MOV files, so if you’re using Windows, you have to download the free Quicktime viewer from Apple.
After installing QuickTime in Windows, you still may need to open a Desktop Explorer window in Windows and use the Tools:Folder Options:File Types dialog to add the MOV file extension so that reluctant Windows will know to use QuickTime to read it. You may need to tell the dialog to use QuickTime to open these files.
If you want to post vlogs, you pretty much want to pay Apple $30 to activate the editing feature of your QuickTime viewer, and then you can load a big MPEG and save it as a MOV using various compression options.]
***
I keep updating this blog entry as I keep tyring to vlog something. I mpegged a scene with my little SONY Cybershot DSC-T1 pocket camera, as a 17 Meg MPG, and have been tyring to use QuickTime Pro to make it into a tiny MOV. This had turned into an endless nightmare with no happy ending in sight. I figured out how to to compress to a small MPEG 4 format less than a Meg, but then the audio gets lost, and I can't figure out how to get it back. Also, now my Monkeybrains memory is full, and I can't even upload the tiny-ass less than a meg MPEG 4 MOV file I mande. Oh, fuck it, time for my spring break (2/8/2005). Hats off to the vloggers.
***
Regarding my fictional imaginings of vlogging, here’s a passage from the novel. Our hero Bela has spent the day with a woman named Alma, and now they’re having dinner with Bela’s crazy mathematician friend Paul and with Alma’s outspoken friend Leni. Leni runs a web channel with lots of vlog reports. The passage introduces a not-quite-here-yet notion I’d like to see: the vlog ring.
***
“He really is cute,” said Leni, looking at me. “I wish you’d vlogged yourself surfing with him today, Alma. That camera’s shockproof and waterproof, you know. I want to get some people to start vlogging everything they do. Real reality TV. I’m getting these special wearable cameras called vlog rings.”
“Vlogging?” said Paul. “That means video blogging?”
…
“Tell me more about the vlog ring,” I said.
“Just like it sounds,” said Leni. “You wear it on your finger, and it has a bulgy little fisheye lens that pulls in this hemispherical field of view. Looks kind of like those tacky rings they try and make you buy when you’re a senior in high-school? My first girlfriend actually wanted to give me one. Ugh.”
“Doesn’t a fisheye image look warped on the screen?” I asked. “Like those acid-freak-out TV commercials of your parents pushing their faces up against you? Have you done your homework, honey? Did you take your meds?”
“The users download some software that flattens out the image,” said Leni. “And since there’s so much visual information coming from the vlog rings, the users can vary their point of view. Like you’re following a person around and deciding what to look at. It’s the latest tech. And today I found a way to get some vlog rings very cheap. For free, really.”
…
“Look at this,” said Danny, pointing to his computer screen. It showed a video window surrounded by buttons and controls. The video showed me looking at the screen, slightly lagged.
As Danny moved his mouse around, the viewpoint changed; he could effectively look in any direction from the viewpoint of my vlog ring.
The screen bore the caption “The Crazy Mathematician” in its title bar. On the left side were some links, a search bar, and a clickable calendar-and-clock interface for jumping to my accumulating vlog stream. Buzz had a automated system that bookmarked highlights of the vlog, using pattern and speech recognition to figure out names for the bookmarks. Database cinema. The lead link was labeled “Washer Drop.”
…
“How much do you remember?” Lulu asked me in a quiet tone.
Images and sounds blossomed from Lulu's question. Jen3 screaming into the night. A tumbling washing machine, growing smaller as it fell, thudding onto the roof of the neighbor's SUV, the front left corner of the roof. A sharp bang decaying into a slower crunch, followed by the sparkly tinkle of the shattered windshield. The startled car’s alarm hooting like its outraged owner. Thuggee standing on the parapet, guffawing, rolling back his foreskin, pissing down at him. The incredibly prompt arrival of the squad cars with their red-yellow-blue flashers. My stumbling, careening evasion down the back stairs. My hand grabbing a last pitcher of beer. Danny hustling me into his room. Oblivion.
“Oh oh. Did I vlog the washer drop?”
***
Re. the anamorphic blog ring ware, there actually was some software like that a few years back, written by Eric Gullichsen and used for the home page of Tonga, but just now I can’t remember the name of it, or find a link to it, or raise Gullichsen who, last I heard, was working with a traveling circus ship in the South Pacific.
February 2nd, 2005 at 11:27 am
Hi Rudy.
I am interested in your speculative fictions about videoblogging. But I must say from an inside perspective that the realitiy of this is stranger than any fiction, I could dream up. Keep looking for the circles and collisions, narrative crossovers and fine boundaries between the virtual and the actual, because I think the videos from the vloggercon events took this to another level entirely. I had many ideas when I embarked on this but the social aspect the emotional intensity is truly unexpected. I think a social history of vlogging will be in order soon. It is sure to be a marvelous piece of fiction or nonfiction, however you want to see it.
Best
http://publicaddress.typepad.com
February 2nd, 2005 at 11:43 am
Hi Rudy,
Yes, our world is not in need of fiction. It’s live. It’s real. It’s not.
But glad you came across our world. Enjoy it. We do.
You found the triangle.
Thanks
Charlene
http://crule.typepad.com
February 2nd, 2005 at 12:07 pm
Minor aside:
There’s a really weird, proto-cyberpunk sf movie by Fassbinder called “Kamikaze ’89,” in which Mr. F (playing a detective), slouching around West Berlin in his leopard-print suit, uses something a lot like a vlog ring.
February 2nd, 2005 at 3:05 pm
You’ve found the original “Vlogging Ring”. This triad. It’s becoming quite infectious as well. There is some chaos in it still and there are a large number that keep trying to mediate the process. We seem to attempt a re-mediation.
[strong]http://x.nnon.tv[/strong]
February 3rd, 2005 at 12:19 pm
From a technology view point i wonder if the vlog-beanie, or the vlog-third-eye, a third eye video camara on a headband would be more likely to work. Both of these could use the fish-eye feature to just as much advantage as a v-ring without the need to be conscious of where it is pointing. Everyone that has a video camara has significant ground footage, it seems that the v-ring would be very good at this, even with a fish-eye lense.
It seems certain that this will happen. I am taking a job next week at a company that is applying MP4 encoding to survalance systems. In very short order our whole lives will be captured on video. What happens when we equip our homes and offices with 3 or 4 fish-eye lenses and audio capture systems? What happens when we can replay the argument with our spouse? I know I have read some SF that explores this. I am looking forward to your treatment.
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Videoblogging is essentially not only present in this day and age, but eventually it will overtake blogging of this nature. People are going to have more of a presence on the web. Although it’s not necessarily 100% a positive (since people will be able to visually see you…for those who want anonymity), it will be a more concrete form of preserving one’s life here on Earth. The question that remains now is how we can use technology to our advantage to make it a streaming experience with no bottle-necking on one’s internet connection.