Even if Google does some magic, all the but the fastest of Internet connections will give anything close to the same user experience as editing straight on your desktop. I can’t even imagine wanting to try. Editing images online isn’t even much fun; video couldn’t possibly be a better experience. Unfortunately for me, I moved about a month and a half ago and had to switch services. In the past two weeks, I’ve had regular problems with my AT&T U-Verse Internet service. In the past two days, it has been up and down every few minutes. While the tech CSRs have been really nice over the phone, the problem still persists, and I have to keep wasting time getting it fixed.

Even when my Internet service is working at its top rate of 12 mbps (I think), YouTube’s TestTube browser-based video editing web service is one that I just will not be trying. At least not until I have roughly 4 to 5 times the Internet connection speed I currently have. Desktop video editing serves me just fine. The same goes for trying to save a 500MB-2GB video file with a cloud data service: it ain’t happening. I’m happy to store some pics and pass around files using cloud storage, but humungous video files? If you’ve ever uploaded a video to YouTube, you know how long that can take for a video under 10 min. Imagine longer works or even full-length films. If your connection blipped during an upload, you’d have start again. A few regular blips would probably have you pulling out your hair. Now just imagine trying to edit video under the same conditions.

The predictions about iPhone 4’s memory is true: it’ll have 512MB of RAM, which MacRumors says is double what the iPad and iPhone 3GS have. This is going to be a necessity with all the killer apps and features the iPhone 4 will have — such as video calling, mult-tasking and, heaven forbid, video editing. It’s true: the iPhone 4 will have an iMovie video editing app made explicitly for this device.

Now, the iStat app running on both my 3GS and iPad WiFi-only devices seem to indicate that I have a bit more than 128MB of RAM on each, but I’ll take MacRumors’ word for it that it’s actually 256MB. Both devices serve me relatively well, expect when I run the VNC remote desktop app while lounge on the couch, watching TV but wanting to check in on my MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, because I run 2 external monitors with my laptop, the iPad runs out of memory while running VNC. It’s these occasions that I wish Apple would have designed these devices for memory upgrades — even if it made them a bit thicker. Well, at least for the iPad, if not for the iPhone. (On a side note, Toshiba announced a 128GB NAND flash memory module. Would that be nice to add to your mobile device’s non-RAM storage? Alas, Apple products don’t allow that. It was another surprise iPhone 4 only has 16GB and 32GB models — not even a 64GB model, which was entirely possible for their production cycle.)

Of course, from a marketing point of view, I can understand why Apple doesn’t make these devices memory-upgradable, but what does surprise me is that they tend to hide the specs during the announcement of a new device. Many of Apple’s customers are tech savvy and WANT TO KNOW that the company’s latest gadget has whatever speed and memory under the hood, for a variety of reasons.

For example, when the iPhone 4 was announced, I saw conflicting details from non-Apple sources, so I was surprised to hear that there would be an iMovie for iPhone app when the phone only had 128MB (according to some sources). But with 4 times that, video editing starts to make sense. There’s no way the current iPads could handle a mobile iMovie app, but with iPhone 4’s 960×640 screen resolution, improved processor speed, multitasking, front and back-facing cameras, 720p HD video recording and so on, it seems a bit more plausible.

Of course, now I have to eat my words from 2007 that video editing on a cellphone was a ridiculous claim. Not that it couldn’t be done but that it could be done well and that it would catch on. But with iMovie on the iPhone 4, it definitely seems to make sense — at least for short videos. However, with my wife being a filmmaker and my own interest in film, I’m really waiting for the next iPad, in hopes that it can handle video editing. What about you? Is video editing on a cell phone something you would do?

Current topics that I write about include:

1. Freelancing
2. Blogging.
3. New + visual media (podcasts and audio, web video, screencasts, maps).
4. Creativity and creative problem solving.
5. Mind mapping.
6. Web applications.
7. Film.
8. Productivity.
9. Learning techniques.
10. Business, particularly bootstrapping and entrepreneuring.
11. Website analytics.

My rates are pretty affordable, and I also write ebooks and books, and do screencasting. If you’re interested in hiring me, just drop off a comment here and make you use your email address when you fill out the comment form.

Add 10 guy-fi movies to your page

]]> http://www.rajdash.com/guy-fi-movies-video-mashup/feed/ 0 http://www.rajdash.com/celebration-time-come-on/ http://www.rajdash.com/celebration-time-come-on/#comments Sat, 10 May 2008 02:05:02 +0000 Raj Dash http://www.rajdash.com/celebration-time-come-on/ I heard that song, “Celebration” by Kool & The Gang, in the past two days, and it always sticks in my head. (See last video at bottom of this post.) But yeah, it’s celebration time for me. Why? The first two videos I’ve embedded below. The lighting on the host, Samantha, is really bad, thanks to my inability to fix that in video editing software – it was fine on my video camera monitor; I swear – and there are some really rough spots. However, these are my first two directed visual media works ever. (They were actually part of one movie review web show, but YouTube’s limits and the fact that I’ve got an Internet access provider that throttles my access meant I had to split them into two, even though I didn’t shoot two separate introductions.)

I know that I have a long way to go before I’m a true filmmaker, but you know the old saying: a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. And I’ve made several thousand-mile journeys in my life. This is the start of a new journey. Thanks go to Samantha, Bill, Amitav and Ryan.

One thing “experts” have been saying for at least a year is that video editing on mobile phones will be huge. Well, I don’t just enjoy being a contrarian, but when it comes to ridiculous claims against functionality, I enjoy contradicting even more. Beet TV says that both video editing and uploading via mobile phones will be big in 2008, if I understand the article correctly. (They are referring to other articles, so I’m not picking on them per se.)

Well I have a hard time believing this:

1. No way anyone wants to do video editing via their mobile phone. Repeated claims of this “hot activity” make me wonder if they’ll try to claim that people will eagerly shoot nails into their foreheads as well. I don’t know who is really pushing this agenda, but without an input device such as a mouse or sketch tablet pen, video editing isn’t exactly an easy activity, except maybe for experienced video editors.
   
   Do you really want to do anything more than very simple “editing” on a tiny little screen, with no suitable input device? Even if you’re graced with an iPhone, I’m guessing it won’t be easy. (And do you really want to transfer all your finger oils all over your nice shiny iPhone by using it for more than basic Internet browsing and looking cool?)

2. Yes, people will take more video clips with their cellphones cum video cameras. But while they might WANT easy upload to the Internet, not everyone has access to a reasonably priced cellular Internet connection plan. Sure that should change in the future, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be in 2008.

Seriously, wouldn’t you much rather work on a nice computer screen that’s not going to strain your eyes? And unless you fancy yourself a citizen journalist, is there any reason you absolutely have to upload your video from your cellphone, draining the batteries? You could purchase one of the new “wi-fi to go” types of modems that work on your carrier’s cellular network but don’t require a cellphone. All you need, once it’s activated, is an electrical outlet – which should be fairly readily available unless you’re in a vehicle or in a field somewhere.

[Image: Apple.com]

After thinking long and hard for the past few weeks, I’ve found the urge to write about visual media as much as possible, and decided that that’s what I’ll do right here on this blog. That said, I’m planning to cover all sorts of visual media: photography, film, video, Internet video, IPTV, and peripherally-related subjects including the tools of the trade. I’ll be adding a gallery of 3D animations over time and so on.

There will also be movie reviews, though the biggest problem for me right now is that there’s no theater nearby any longer, and not yet having a car means I’m pretty much out of luck for another month or two. So for the present time, I’m going to be writing about a variety of topics related to visual media, and maybe even run a few screencasts showing bloggers how to add visual media to their blogs. So I’m not giving up “how to blog” types of posts just yet.