10 July 2010 •0 notes • Comments
This is the pop-up you get right-clicking a Tumblr-hosted Flash vid. Very cute. But you know what would be more cute? Access to the display code for the embed so I could make it look right.  Cuter yet, have it not be Flash at all…

This is the pop-up you get right-clicking a Tumblr-hosted Flash vid. Very cute.

But you know what would be more cute? Access to the display code for the embed so I could make it look right. 

Cuter yet, have it not be Flash at all…

Filed under \ flash \ tumblr \ embedding \ video \

19 June 2010 •8 notes • Comments
mattmcinerney: This is a simple dynamic graphic I coded using Simplepie and Processing.js to visually track recent earthquakes using data from an XML feed published by usgs.gov. I think there a lot of possibilities for Processing taking over a lot of what flash is doing on the web. Hopefully some more Processing experiments soon. I am seized with a sudden urge to make something using Processing.

mattmcinerney:

This is a simple dynamic graphic I coded using Simplepie and Processing.js to visually track recent earthquakes using data from an XML feed published by usgs.gov. I think there a lot of possibilities for Processing taking over a lot of what flash is doing on the web. Hopefully some more Processing experiments soon.

I am seized with a sudden urge to make something using Processing.

Filed under \ javascript \ flash \ dynamic content \

23 May 2010 •Notes • Comments

Using UStream Broadcaster as an iPhone Video Camera

Cycorder is by far the best video camera application available for iPhone 3g. It’s simple, free, its frame rate slays, its got sound, and it doesn’t leave crappy watermarks all over your videos. 

Yes, you need a jailbroken phone to install it. But if your phone isn’t jailbroken, you get what you have coming to you. Unfortunately, Cycorder seems to have a bug that prevents it from working on firmware 3.1.3, at least for the moment. 

As far as I can tell, your next best bet is the UStream Broadcaster, available in the iTunes App Store. By using the local record mode, you can save videos with OK frame rates, no crappy watermarks or time limits, and a so-so resolution of 320x240—the best free combination on the App Store.

After recording, these videos will be saved on the iPhone filesystem (access it through SFTP—your phone is Jailbroken, right?) at private/var/media/Applications/. Unfortunately, Apple hates its customers, so each application folder has nonsense string of characters for a name. Rather than dig through each one, your best bet is to look at date modified—the last UStream Broadcaster update was around 5/20/2010 as of this writing. 

The real curious part is that the videos are saved in Flash (.flv format)—something you’d think The Steve wouldn’t be OK with—and yet there it is, right there in an official App Store app! They even play back on your phone, though I think they’re converted on the fly to .mp4, which is why it takes a few minutes to preview them.

Once you’ve copied the files to your machine, you’ll probably get the best results from opening them in QuickTime 7—still miles better than QT X—and exporting them as .mp4 (Miro, VLC, and MPlayer will do desktop Flash playback, but it’s not great.)

I actually had an aspect ratio error with one of my videos after this export, which can be corrected at Window Menu > Show Movie Properties > Video Track > Visual Settings:

Save it all as a self-contained .mov once the aspect ratio is corrected, and you get a barely-passible-but-at-least-watchable video that should run trouble-free on any Mac, iPhone, iPad or PC with QuickTime installed—no web sharing required.

Filed under \ iphone \ ustream \ video \ cycorder \ apple \ flash \