Clay's Blog - Video Tech

Dan Goldman's Interactive Video Object Manipulation Project

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:44:00-0600

Just ran across some amazing work being done by Dan Goldman, who did his doctoral work at University of Washington and is currently working as a Senior Research Scientist at Adobe in Seattle. The research is focused on interacting with video and with objects in video and relies on current work in computer vision. The technology allows users to interact in some really amazing ways with video for annotation and motion analysis. The process uses a storyboard metaphor to visualize a short video clip in a static image. The user can manipulate spatial relationships in the storyboard image in a natural way to interact with the video stream. Some details and references are available on the Adobe Technology Labs site. Check out the technology in action in this amazing video clip on Vimeo: Dan Goldman - Interactive Video Object Manipulation Project

Deep Linking in YouTube Videos

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:28:00-0600

Saw an interesting post on TechCrunch yesterday. YouTube recently rolled out a new feature that is a welcome addition to their toolbox: deep linking to a point inside a video stream. It's a very easy implementation, as well. All you need to do is add a '#' at the end of the YouTube URL and then reference the time code following the '#' sign. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1flVlL4Mf8k#t=0m20s Very useful!

Microsoft Image Composite Editor

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:51:00-0600

Microsoft Research recently released a great little panorama image stitching utility. You can check it out at the Microsoft ICE project site. The utility is a free download. One of the really nice features of this tool is that it can export to many different image formats. Once exported, one could bring the image into, for example, a video editing package to do pan and zoom effects for video. In addition, there is an export option for Deep Zoom Tileset that creates a series of stitched images and some XML data that allows the image to playback on the web inside of Microsoft's SliverLight 2 browser plugin. The result is a nice pan and zoom image similar to what one gets with a QuickTime VR movie. You might have seen this in Microsoft's PhotoSynth tool. And this is all free. Grab the software and have some fun! I'm hoping to get a couple of experiments up soon, but I'm waiting on a server configuration change for the SilverLight files to run correctly in the browser. I'll post them when that happens.

Speed, Flash, and Traffic: SIGGRAPH 2008 Wrap-Up

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:46:00-0600

Well, another SIGGRAPH is history. It's been a terrific creative battery recharge. Thursday and Friday highlights include a really cool Production Session on how the various visual effects companies that made Speed Racer went about replicating the look and feel of anime in a live action motion picture, a very entertaining and interesting overview on the use of Adobe Flash for animation, and an absolutely fascinating class on transportation visualization. [More]

Digital Projection, Spatial Augmented Reality, and Shape Grammar - SIGGRAPH 2008

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:38:00-0600

It's been an inspiring conference so far. The classes I've attended have been excellent. On Monday I attended the half-day course on projectors and spatial augmented reality for (I think) the 4th year running. Ramesh Raskar and Oliver Bimber were fantastic as usual. They were joined this year by Aditi Majumber who spoke about large-format displays and Hendrik Lensch who spoke on computational illumination for 3D scene modeling. One of the things I really get excited about in this class is what Raskar calls RFIG. In essence, this entails adding a photosensor to an RFID tag and then projecting structured light from a handheld projector on the photosensor in order to acquire a relative position for the tagged item. With the unique identifier and the relative position, we can query a database and then project useful information about the identified items directly on the items themselves using our handheld projector. All this is made possible by very small and relatively inexpensive handheld computers with wireless network access and attached projectors. You can check out their work, including the full-text of their book, Spatial Augmented Reality, on the supporting website: SpatialAR.com. Great stuff. [More]

SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:49:00-0600

I arrived at the Los Angeles Convention Center today and picked up my credentials for this year's SIGGRAPH Conference. If you're unfamiliar with the organization or the conference, it's a part of the Association for Computing Machinery; SIGGRAPH is the largest SIG (Special Interest Group) in the ACM. The full name is the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques, which is more than a mouthful. [More]

Digital Storytelling at Tulane

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:53:00-0600

At the beginning of last week, I had the pleasure of participating in a workshop hosted by the Innovative Learning Center on Digital Storytelling. The workshop was led by two great facilitators from the Center for Digital Storytelling based in Berkeley, California. Daniel Weinshenker, the Director of the Denver Office, and Jessica McCoy, an instructor based at the Berkeley office, did a wonderful job leading the workshop. If you're unfamiliar with Digital Storytelling, take a look at the Center's website. Jessica is also involved with an organization called Stories for Change. Both websites host several amazing examples of digital stories. [More]

The LucidTouch's Novel Approach to Multi-touch Interfaces

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:27:00-0600

Just read a nice article on New Scientist about work by Microsoft and Mitsubishi on a novel approach to handling the occlusion problem and the "fat finger" problem of current multi-touch interfaces. There's also a video of a prototype of the LucidTouch device. The current prototype device uses a camera on a boom focused on the hands on the back of the device. An overlay shadow is superimposed over the image showing the location of the hands without occluding the display. Active finger touch points are shown and a very intuitive method for showing the hand-off of selected items between fingers is also used. It's a nice glimpse of what's ahead in the multi-touch arena.

Embedding YouTube videos in PowerPoint 2007

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 09:14:00-0600

In preparing for a class on PowerPoint 2007, I ran across a little tutorial on YouTube outlining how to embed a YouTube video in a PowerPoint 2007 presentation. Unfortunately, the audio in the tutorial is really poor, so I thought I'd list the steps here and create a Captivate animation for it as well. To embed a YouTube video in PowerPoint 2007 follow these simple steps:

First turn on the Developer Tab on the Ribbon by clicking on the Microsoft logo at the top left of the window and selecting PowerPoint Options all the way at the bottom of the menu. Next put a check next to the unchecked item to show the Developer Tab
Go to YouTube and select a video to embed
Copy the URL
On the Developer menu choose "More Controls"
Select Shockwave Flash Object
Click and drag on the PowerPoint slide to add the Flash object
Right Click the object placeholder and select properties
Set the Movie property to the URL you copied
In the URL delete "watch?" and change the "=" sign to a ⁄
Adjust the options for Looping or AutoPlay if desired

Make sure to test the presentation and keep in mind that the video is streaming from YouTube, so an Internet connection is required at the time of presentation.

Multi-Touch Displays Redux

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 11:55:00-0600

In an earlier post, I wrote about Microsoft's Surface technology and work done at NYU on multi-touch display technology. Peter Hutterer at the University of South Australia's Wearable Computer Lab has just demoed a new version of his MPX, Multi-Pointer X Server under Linux. There's an article on his blog and a video of his multi-touch extension of MPX under Ubuntu. Here are the hardware details. Now I just need to get my hands on a compatible touch screen and try this out

Journal of Visualized Experiments

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:44:00-0600

Wired ran an article in the latest issue about a new website that takes the idea of user created video to the next level with a focus on experimental methodology in the sciences. The Journal of Visualized Experiments offers howtos on hardcore experimental methods. These methods have been bound up in tacit knowledge which is extremely difficult to extract from the brains of seasoned researchers. Now with a little work and a community of inquiry spirit, these bits of specialized expertise can be easily accessed as needed. This kind of site really brings to the fore the fact that video has reached the level that desktop publishing reached in the last decade. What's next you might ask? Desktop fabrication. Work has already begun on DIY open source rapid prototypers.

Getting Video on My New Samsung Sync Mobile Phone

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:37:00-0600

In preparing for our recent Faculty Symposium on Digital Trends: The Mobile Classroom, I took a video lecture that I had in AVI (Xvid encoded) format and converted it into several formats to play on portable devices to demo in the presentation. Getting the video on my iPod Video and Playstation Portable was straightforward and familiar. But the phone was new and even though I knew it could be done, it took some experimentation and an inexpensive hardware purchase. [More]

Microsoft's Milan Multi-touch Tabletop PC

Wed, 30 May 2007 11:01:00-0600

Microsoft recently hit the news circuit with an announcement of a new class of devices that feature touchscreen interfaces that allow for multiple simultaneous touchpoints. The project is called Microsoft Surface. Here's the ZDNet story on it. And here's a nice video of the system. I have been following the development of multi-touch display technology for a few years. I ran into the technology at SIGGRAPH a few years ago and each year have seen major advances. The project was based at NYU and was recently spun off into a private company called Perceptive Pixel. The NYU software ran on Linux (I seem to remember). I wonder if they will be able to get their systems to consumers at a reasonable price sooner than Microsoft. Either way, I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on one of these things.

Ripping and Encoding DVDs Redux

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 10:30:00-0600

So, I know some of my readers have used my original DVD ripping and encoding guide to get setup with the right software. But some of the recommendations are stale. At the very least I wanted to recommend a product to take the place of DVD Decrypter which has been abandoned by its creators under legal threats from the MPAA and their minions. I have been using an inexpensive tool from Slysoft to help with copying DVDs. AnyDVD is a lightweight driver that removes CSS, Macrovision, and Region Codes from DVDs making them directly accessible for conversion using any encoding utility such as Nero Recode 2, 1ClickDVDCopy, and others. For $30 it is well worth the price. The application is updated frequently to keep up with new encryption/copy protection schemes used by movie studios who want to tell you where and when you can watch a DVD you have purchased. Highly recommended.

Ripping and Encoding DVDs

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 18:12:00-0600

Ripping and Encoding DVDs can be a rather daunting task. Many of the faculty I work with really don't know where to begin. Let's take a look at what tools and resources are available to accomplish this rather complex task.

Before we look at the software available to rip and transcode, let me give you two pieces of advice. First, you are not going to be able to do this without a decent computer with a large hard drive in it. So, if you're sitting in front of a dinosaur, do yourself a favor and wait until you upgrade before you jump into this. I would recommend on the PC side no less than a 1.5 GHz machine (preferably a P4 at 2 GHz or above). For the Macintosh, I would recommend a G4 or above. With either platform 512MB of RAM and the latest OS (OSX or XP) are also really best for this kind of workload. The files you will be working with demand intelligent memory management that is only available in the latest OS releases. Second, familiarize yourself with the single best resource site for video on the Net: VideoHelp.com. This site will answer any question you have and provide you with any tool you might need.

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