I’m sure you’ve seen them, those little rectangular Flip cameras. They look more like a toy than a video camera, but these little guys actually shoot HD video at an aspect ratio of 1280 x 720. Compared to standard definition cameras, which are only shooting at an aspect ratio of 720 x 480, the Flip is a great camera for shooting quick home movies, and can even be used for some professional situations. Here is one of those situations.

For the past year I’ve been producing a daily web show for a local St. Louis radio personality, JC Corcoran, called “JC’s Daily Dose”. JC, like many radio personalities, has seen the value of supplementing his radio show with a web show. Having a daily web show keeps your fans coming back. If they miss your program that day, they can always catch up with you online later.

The web show doesn’t have to be fancy, as web viewers are used to this type of raw format, and have even grown to expect it. This is where The Flip camera comes in. Every morning at around 5:30AM, JC wakes up, sets up his Flip camera on a tripod, hits ‘record’ and then gives us the latest entertainment news happening around the world. Then, on the way to his 10AM radio show, he drops off The Flip camera here at MindActive. Here’s where my work begins.

My job is to edit the Daily Dose video and upload it to JC’s website. First I delete some video from the beginning and end, then I add an intro and outro title sequence. It’s a very simple edit, but before I edit anything, I must convert The Flip video file to something usable.

The Flip camera records an MP4 video file. To simply upload an MP4 file to youtube is a breeze, but if you want to edit your video, you must first convert it from MP4 to something usable by your editing program, because MP4 files are NOT editor-friendly! I use a Macintosh with Final Cut Pro as my video editor, so I require MOV files.

The Flip camera plugs right into a USB port on any computer, then acts as a hard drive, so you can click and drag the video files right onto your computer.

Now for the conversion process: I’ve found that MPEG Streamclip is the simplest way to do this conversion, and it’s free. Now since this video will be going on a web site, I can shrink it down to 640 X 360 pixels (exactly half its original size of 1280 X 720 pixels), it is much better to convert it to this size right away! It makes it a much smaller file size so Final Cut Pro can process it a lot faster. (Originally I tried to convert it at full size (1280 X 720) and this slowed my computer way down).

Once I have my MOV file, editing goes very smoothly. When exporting my final video, I use an h.264 codec for video and an AAC codec for audio. These are common audio and video codecs (for now anyway) that are easily uploaded and digested by transcoding programs all over the web.

After figuring out this conversion process, using the Flip camera for JC’s web show has been the ideal way to go!

JC’s Daily Dose

NY-based CoTweet provides an application that allows multiple people to access one Twitter account. The idea is that this idea works best for your “brand.” Company Twitter accounts built not just for individual users. They describe the service as “team workflow for Twitter”.

 Don’t just give a password out to anyone who needs to post to an account. The application is actually pretty slick – it tracks which person made the reply, offers the ability to forward tweets to certain people on the team to respond to, etc.

The service is currently in private beta but they expect to open next week.

DAS BOAT This £17million yacht that comes with its own supercar (but be quick, there are only going to be 6 of them) As far as freebies go, a luxury supercar has got to be near the top of the list. But if you’re already forking out £17million for a 122ft state-of-the- art super-yacht, you wouldn’t really expect anything less. This ultimate ‘buy one, get one free’ offer has recently gone on the market attracting attention from billionaires all over the world.

Double the fun: The incredible super-yacht comes with its own supercar which can be stored on board The luxury yacht has a plush Art Deco interior, boasts 4 large double state rooms, a reception area, salon, 52″ LED TVs and state-of-the art sound systems in every room – all of which can be personalised. The ship can reach top speeds of 43 knots, with its twin MTU 16V000 engine, and the ability to achieve 55 knots with optional Rolls Royce KaMeWa boosters offering a staggering 14,000hp.

The supercar is powered by a 880hp twin turbo V12 engine, has a top speed of 233mph. The matching supercar rolling off the docked £17million yacht.

The design can be changed to suit the individual buyer You can park your new car on board in its very own garage, located at the stern of the ship. Kurt Strand, founder of the Swedish company Strand Craft, said they had built the boat and car for the ‘very wealthy’. He said: ‘We have had a lot of interest from all over the world, specifically the Middle East. It was designed for luxury and people who want the best. ‘The custom-made supercar is the best feature, both the boat and the car are very high performance and the boat is very fast. ‘It is very unique as we are only making 6, so it’s exclusive. It has a very futuristic design and nothing like this has ever been made before. It even has bulletproof windows.

‘ The gigantic yacht easily dwarfs the waiting supercar on the dock The yacht has room on the deck at the back to soak up the sun, and pose for paparazzi.

Crashing through the waves the yacht can hit speeds of up to 43 knots Mr. Strand said that they would sell the duo on a first come, first served basis. ‘We have already 5 people interested and we will have meetings with them next week, it’s a very expensive boat to produce, it will be the most exclusive in the world. I am very proud of it!

Live present. Using new technology in a new way. Perceptive Pixel is a technology that will bring a common place to touch wall technology. Tradeshows need new ways to grab users and give them cool interactive ways of keeping them engaged while in a space. Even if you have a small 10×10 or 10×20 booth, having an high impact technology such as an interactive media on a multi-touch screen is a cool way to keep users and attract users to your presentation. Stop the giving away squeeze balls to attract users to your booth.

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