One of the things I’ve really grown to appreciate over recent months is the rich communities on Flickr and Vimeo — Flickr for stills, Vimeo for videos. Each of those, incidentally, has very active groups around free visual tools vvvv (for Windows) and Processing (for everything). Unlike "big bucket" sites like YouTube, Vimeo in particular has had some really terrific niche crowds of people.

Of course, now Flickr has gone and added video. I don’t see this becoming anyone’s primary video uploading site, given a more restricted feature set, the mixture of videos and photos, and the 90-second length cap. But as a supplement to, say, Vimeo, it’s interesting — especially given the number of times I’ve wound up in someone’s photoset staring at a still image and wondering what the thing looks like in motion.

Personally, I could easily see doing long-form or "feature" videos on Vimeo and adding photos to Flickr where it makes sense in my photostream — it’s all about context for me, rather than dumping lots of random stuff everywhere.

How do you feel about Flickr video? Are you using it? Are you staying away from it? Any first impressions? Videos you’ve got I’m you’d like to share with the CDMotion community?

Don’t forget the CDMotion Flickr Group; we’ll be watching for videos there.

At top: one the first people in my contact list to use Flickr Video is interactive artist ("slash" many other things) Jaki Levy, who is doing HD video for Ralph Lauren’s flagship store here in New York — see his blog.

For no particular reason, we’ve gone super-Mac/Apple-centric here on CDMotion this week, so to even the score, I’m curious: what Windows-only tools do you choose for your visualist needs? The awesome DirectX-based free modular environment vvvv immediately springs to mind, along with our VJ app fave Resolume. Windows also happens to be a great gaming platform, which has interesting implications for visualists — anyone building custom 3D visuals in Microsoft’s XNA framework, for instance? I also like DirectX for video input at the moment.

But what else do you depend on, whether big apps or little tiny utilities?

(Hey, at the very least, Mac users, you’ll have a reason to boot Boot Camp, now Leopard-only.)

Peter’s post on projector orientation myths prodded my memory on an issue I encountered while picking up my shiny new camera. While finalizing the lease paperwork the sales guy went out of his way to bring my attention to a slice of A4 treeware contained within the box. The text printed on it prophesized a dire future for anyone plugging a firewire cable into their camera while the computer is switched on.

Dan’s recent letter on the subject prompted me to post this to get some feedback from the visualist community. Has this happened to anyone? Has a manufacturer denied you warranty service because they say you plugged in your firewire cable backwards? Here’s the full text of the warning which came with my camera:

Sony Corporation of Hong Kong Limited
Broadcast and Professional Pacific Asia Company

Date: September 1, 2006

Precaution: i.LINK Cable Connection

- Before connecting the i.LINK cable to a computer or Sony unit, please check the direction of the jack. The i.LINK connector on the computer may be damaged or cause the unit to malfunction of you forcefully insert the jack. Please align [up arrow] mark of the i.LINK cable with [down arrow] mark on the Sony unit before insert the i.LINK cable.

- Please connect the i.LINK cable to a computer before connect it to the Sony unit. If you connect the i.LINK cable to the Sony unit first, it may cause the unit to malfunction caused by static electricity.

- When you connecting the Sony unit to any equipment with a 6-pin type i.LINK jack, always connect the cable to the 6-pin i.LINK jack first.

- When you connect the Sony unit to any equipment with a 6-pin type i.LINK jack, always power off the equipment and remove the power cord from the AC outlet while inserting the i.LINK cable. Fail to do above action may result in high current flow between the cable and the equipment, which may cause damage.

… Huh? I thought that hotplugging was part of what makes Firewire so great? Do other manufacturers have issues with this, or have Sony just done something daft in their design and not fixed it? The helpful guy I bought my camera from told me that you can buy a special surge-isolating firewire cable to prevent this, at a price of several hundred dollars.

In an informal poll of a variety of people, I’ve been unable to get agreement on a pretty fundamental question in projection:

Is it bad for a projector to hang it vertically?

For instance, to project on the floor, your first temptation would be to hang the projector perpendicular to the ground, with the lens pointed downward. But some projectionists argue this can increase the failure rate of the projector. Why? I’ve heard to explanations: one is that it’s “bad for the electronics” and somehow unnatural and evil. That one I have an extremely tough time with: the lamp, internal electronics, and fan themselves would have to be pretty poorly put together to be unable to withstand something this simple. The most delicate electronics are all solid-state. The second argument I could believe: that airflow in the vertical position is different than airflow in the horizontal position, increasing heat and reducing the life of the projector. The obvious argument otherwise would be that the fan should still operate and convection will continue to move air around. But there’s enough doubt here that I wouldn’t want to experiment on a projector to find out.

So, brave CDMers, what do you think? Is this just a projectionist “old wive’s tale”? Or is there truth to this somewhere? (And is it best to err on the side of caution, swallow my pride, and just use a mirror?)

The answer: a definitive “yes, it is in fact bad.” I’m satisfied now in that we not only have a “just because” answer:

• Manufacturers specifically advise that this is bad.
• Airflow and lamp orientation provide specific technical reasons for why this could reduce lamp life/increase failure rates.


• Some of you have shared specific anecdotal experience.

Thankfully, mirrors easily solve the problem.

Thanks to everyone for writing in!

Hello Internets! I’ve returned from gallivanting around the country and have a couple of weeks while we refuel and plan the next leg of the tour. One of the first tasks I’ve set myself is to get a better video camera, and was all set to pick up a Canon XH-A1 when I found out that it doesn’t have S-Video in or out. That cuts down my options a little for live visuals, as I wouldn’t be able to mix in this camera’s output without an expensive scan converter or going via Firewire, which introduces latency and creates cabling issues.

So now I’m in a quandry, and with that seed of doubt sewn, I’ve opened up to many possibilities: Sony’s HDR-FX1, Panasonic’s HVX series, or perhaps something compact and tapeless, like JVC’s Everio series.

I had a chat to Peter, who suggested that I ask you, dear reader. What are you using for your video capturing needs? Have you gone HD? Compact? Cheap? Expensive? Tapeless? What are you liking and disliking in today’s video cameras?

This weekend I’m diving deeper into Apple Motion 3 in Final Cut Studio 2. So far, lots of great new possibilities with match move, genuine 3D (i.e., with a Z-axis you can actually do something with), and vector paint — and, of course, I’m looking for ways to abuse all of it. Expect some “How Not to Use Motion” tips and techniques soon. Because, really, you don’t want to look like the presets.

Theoretically, there are people using Motion for live visuals, but I’ve yet to meet someone who’s actually doing it as opposed to just talking about it or demoing it lecture-style. I should have a MacBook Pro very soon for testing. That would allow running Motion stuff on one machine while keeping another piece of gear handy for more traditional video (while you load new Motion projects, for instance). With the new 3D stuff, I could see creating some dynamic, live stuff. Easy? Necessary? Probably not. Worth doing because it’s there? Heck, yeah.

Motion does look promising, as well, for generating footage. I love programming generative visuals in Jitter or Processing, but you do occasionally want to produce visuals in less time-consuming ways. As opposed to previous versions, this is a release where you won’t immediately say, “I can do that in Quartz Composer!”

Anyone else out there working with Motion yet want to share impressions? (Even using it … properly?)

The tour with Bobby Flynn is hotting up now. Over the weekend we had two shows: In Brisbane and the Gold Coast, which meant that I spent about 8 hours of my weekend setting up and tearing down my rig, aligning projectors and screens, running cables, and running around. The tour map currently displays 16 gigs down Australia’s east coast, and we will have another 35 or so joining them over the next week or so as dates are finalized. The cardboard box protecting my V4 during transport has already torn, and I’m sick of plugging and unplugging cables. So I need to get this stuff cased up, for the protection of my hardware and my sainity.

The current list (left to right, top to bottom):

• Wii - for pre-show warmups and after hours fun. Need to organize a wireless sensor bar.
• Behringer BCD2000 - Ghetto, but functional.
• Behringer BCR2000 - less ghetto than the BCD2000, and more functional.
• Numark AVM02 - Reviewed here.
• Samsung 940n 19″ LCD Monitor
• Lacie 200GB External Drive - Several years old, so should probably be replaced
• Macbook - Main Laptop. Running VDMX, Max/MSP/Jitter, Ableton Live etc.
• Thinkpad - Backup laptop. Running Ableton Live, Max/MSP/Jitter, Processing etc.
• Korg Kaoss Pad Entrancer - Video/Audio effects unit.
• Edirol V4
• Small Form Factor PC
• Voxson portable DVD player/monitor