Roland Tanglao's Weblog

In a completely unscientific test, I took this original MPEG-4 video from a Drupal 5 screencast I made using Snapz Pro X and then uploaded it to blip.tv, Google Video, YouTube and Brightcove Consumer.

In the original MPEG-4 you can clearly make out the text. Only Brightcove's transcoded flash video has legible text. In the others, the text is very blurry and almost unreadable. I don't know anything about transcoding but could the fact that Brightcove transcodes to a slightly bigger size explain the fact that its text is not as blurry as the others?

Does this mean I'll switch to Brightcove Consumer for all my video? No! Why? Because I need the Creative Commons licensing and original file options that blip.tv gives me. And if anybody can improve their transcoding, blip.tv can!

See for yourself after the jump if you don't believe me!

blip.tv:

Click To Play

Google Video:

YouTube:

Brightcove Consumer:

Vox offers video upload via the Atom Publishing Protocol direct from your N93 and other Nokia N series phone with Series 60 v3 (e.g. N73, N80i, N93) and it works great (check out my one and only public Vox video so far - taken with an N93)! The only problem that I see so far is that the Vox Flash video player stutters badly in Firefox 2 and Safari on my 15 inch PowerBook running Mac OS X 10.4.8

Blip.tv, please implement this too. I think all that needs to be done (heh! easy for me to say) is to implement an Atom publish protocol endpoint.

Just hack the config file that Vox provides with your own APP endpoint.

I figure changing:

<protocol_options>
<protocol plugin="Atom" version="0.3">
<endpoint_path>http://www.vox.com/atom</endpoint_path>
<roundtrip_editing>0</roundtrip_editing>
</protocol>
</protocol_options>

to a suitable blip.tv endpoint will make it work! Ha! Just a small matter of code :-) ! Challenge to blip.tv and all the other video services; you now have no excuse for not having direct video upload from phones! And please increase the per video limit from 50MB (Vox's limit) to 100MB.

I've been sick and reading fiction books (I finished The Ash Garden before I slept at 8p.m. last night, recommended!) and not tech stuff but I had a dream last night that Nokia introduced the N999 blogaphone in 2007 with:

• 5 megapixel still camera with GPS and with a real xenon flash with lens and camera provided in partnership with Canon or Nikon and DVD quality video with a dedicated public/private button as I discussed in my blog post about ShoZu everywhere and the shoot-publish-respond workflow
• a full QWERTY keyboard like the E61 or an almost QWERTY keyboard like the Blackberry Pearl
• standard USB including power, standard headphone jacks and video out ports
• quadband GSM, UMTS, HSDPA and WiFi
• built in ShoZu technology that automatically over whatever the cheapest bandwidth the user has configured (which by default is WiFi, but those who are lucky enough to live in an area with affordable 3G could configure that too) uploads videos and photos with suspend and resume via the Atom publishing protocol to any website that supports this including flickr and blip.tv (blip doesn't support this today but I know they would in a heartbeat if they were the default for videos like flickr is with today's Gallery app)
• out of the box support for syncing with Mac OS X and Windows
• enough onboard RAM (which is about double the amount of RAM in the N93 I wager) to surf flickr.com/photos/roland :-) , run the podcasting client, run ShoZu in the background and the other apps mobile content power creators and consumers use
• 4 Gig of built in storage plus a micro SD slot for people like me who would put in even more storage, anything less than 2GB doesn't cut it for 5 Megapixel stills and DVD quality video
• costs less than $US 1000

I know I am dreaming (I have no insider knowledge about Nokia or anybody else in the mobile world's plans for blogaphone-like devices) and the N999 ain't coming soon but it is doable and I'd buy one in a heartbeat with my own money. This certainly ain't the Apple iPhone. Too power user and due to it's 'frankenphone'-like nature too cumbersome and harder to learn but I bet others want it.

Regardless, for me 2007 will be the year of the blogaphone for power users. Why pack a laptop when you can get all your multimedia consumption and creation done with a device like the N95? The N95 + bluetooth keyboard looks to be an early contender for 2007 blogaphone of the year!

[Assuming the pictures are better than an N93 and there's enough RAM to run the Series 60 browser, ShoZu, the wireless keyboard app and the camera app simultaneously which may prove to be an unwarranted assumption!]

Although I was initially a skeptic about the WebKit based web browser for S60, I am now a believer :-) since I can upload videos directly from my phone over WiFi to blip.tv

Who needs a desktop or laptop computer when you can upload videos over WiFi to services like the most awesome blip.tv? Well I do until I have decent text entry on the N93 or whatever video phone I happen to be using (and for now I guess that means a QWERTY keyboard of some sort although I am willing to bet there's lots of room for creativity here!)

All I can say is Go Web Browser for S60 go! And of course go blip.tv go!

Here's the proof:

And here's the video:

Click To Play

Add MyFabrik to the list of services that can't handle N93 MPEG 4 files. Check out my N93 video on http://www.myfabrik.com/roland/public/roland If you can get it to play, love to hear it! On Mac Firefox 2.0, if I click on "Video" and then the play button at the top right, nothing happens. Back to blip.tv for me!

YouTube Mobile Uploading doesn't work in Canada, *sigh*. Well at least it doesn't work with Fido (in my experiments anyway. I'd love to be proven wrong) since Fido MMS can only handle 300K and most videos are at least 1MB.

Supporting MMS is ridiculous, YouTube! Nobody uses MMS in North America (well at least no adults, youths and crazy Web 2.0 people that I know). Please support video upload using email like the fantastic blip.tv does!

FROM TechCrunch » YouTube Mobile Uploading:

QUOTE

YouTube announced a new feature today that allows uploading of videos from a mobile device that supports Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). Users need to create a moblie profile before uploading videos. Sign up here.

I use my camera phone to upload pictures directly to Flickr all the time (yesterday’s banana-yellow ridiculous rental car, for example). If my phone had the ability to create video, I’d be using this for YouTube all the time, too.

END QUOTE

[Cross posted automagically from blip.tv to test out the relatively new blip.tv cross posting to Drupal feature! Have I mentioned that blip.tv rocks? It does, they don't get the press of YouTube but they have many more features (like post via email, could we please have a video upload API that ShoZu can hook into) and are the service behind Geek Entertainment Televison and many other cool video blogs. Back to normal tech blogging, nothing to see here!]

I use my mobile phone (N70 thanks to the Nokia Blogger Relations program and my 7610 that I paid with my own money before that) to take short films so technically I qualify as a Piratopian and I take pictures of everything including what I am shopping for so I guess that makes me a High Street Hedonist. But since I don't have access to a 3G network (even though the N70 is a 3G capable phone), I don't strictly qualify!

From Smart Mobs: 3G mobiles 'change social habits'.:

QUOTE

-- Piratopians: Creative outsiders who use 3G phones to make short films and other broadcasts

-- High Street hedonists: Use phones to show off new purchases, take pictures of items or asked for instant opinions from a dressing room

The report's authors dubbed the new generation of mobile phone users Generation C, with C meaning content ".

UNQUOTE

[NOTE: Since I don't believe in whingeing :-), this will be my last post complaining about high mobile internet rates in Canada. My last post about this was: Wireless data in Canada is ridiculously expensive | Boris is right.]

I am very lucky to have my grandfathered unlimited mobile data plan from Fido of $50. Last month I used 252 MB of traffic (I am guessing about 75% was transmitting N70 cameraphone 2 megapixel photos via Shozu to flickr and 25% transmitting N70 cameraphone videos MPEG 4 of between 1-3MB each via Shozu to roland.blip.tv)

1. 500 KB plan: $5 + 251 * 30 = $7535
2. 5 MB plan: $25 + (252 - 5) * 10 = $2495
3. 25 MB plan: $50 + (252 - 25) * 30 = $6860
4. 50 MB plan: $75 + (252 - 75) * 30 = $5385
5. 100 MB plan: $100 + (252 - 100) * 30 = $4660

I guess the $50 that I pay is a lot cheaper than $2495 or even $7535 that others have to pay, eh :-) ?!?!

Not to mention the fact that you have to pay "4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally" (which I guess includes the US). I don't have to pay this roaming fee in the US with my grandfathered plan.

Very interesting and very depressing for Canadians who actually want to create and share their mobile phone's photos and videos using the mobile internet i.e. without going through the "mobile phone to PC via Bluetooth or USB" chain of pain. Can somebody do the math for Rogers, Telus and Bell? Love to know if they are any cheaper! But somehow I doubt it!

From Options you can add.:

QUOTE

Mobile Internet options
Within Canada and the U.S.

Combine any of these options
with your monthly package. 		Monthly charge
500 KB 		$5
5 MB 		$25
25 MB 		$50
50 MB 		$75
100 MB 		$100
hiptop option - Unlimited data
hiptop device required 		$20

Note 
	

Data transmission charges of 4¢ per KB apply for downloads. Options also available without a monthly airtime package (except 500 KB option and hiptop option), in which case, a system access fee of $6.95 per month applies.


  $5 per month for 500 KB
Combine this option with your monthly package
500 KB of data transmission
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally
Each additional MB costs $30

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

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  $25 per month for 5 MB
Each additional MB costs only $10
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
You can subscribe to the $25 package alone or you may, except in the case of a hiptop or world PC Card, add it to a monthly airtime package.
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

back to top

  $50 per month for 25 MB
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
You can subscribe to the $50 package alone or you may, except in the case of a PC Card, add it to a monthly airtime package.
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally
Each additional KB costs 3 ¢

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

back to top

  $75 per month for 50 MB
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
You can subscribe to the $75 package alone or you may, except in the case of a PC Card, add it to a monthly airtime package.
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally
Each additional KB costs 3 ¢

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

back to top

  $100 per month for 100 MB
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
You can subscribe to the $100 package alone or you may, except in the case of a PC Card, add it to a monthly airtime package.
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally
Each additional KB costs 3 ¢

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

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  hiptop option - $20 per month
Unlimited data
To surf, chat, manage your e-mail, stay organized, take pictures and download.
hiptop device required

Available with the hiptop device only; must be combined with a monthly airtime package. The Unlimited data hiptop option does not include text messages and is subject to certain restrictions. Taxes, international GPRS roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

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UNQUOTE