Kyte.tv goes 16:9 (video showing Opera’s latest now up)

Uncategorized 2 Minutes

This week I’m doing a ton of HD testing. Here’s the first piece of that test and is my first FastCompanyTV video on Kyte’s new 16:9 format player (wide screen). Looks pretty nice, but wait until you see these videos on some of the other systems that support 16:9 AND high definition!

I met with a couple of geeks from Opera last week. They are the browser folks. But I bet you didn’t have a good look at what they’ve been doing lately.

Perfect chance to play with my new Flip Minio HD camcorder. You can buy this for just about $230. I don’t use any external microphones. No lenses or filters. Nothing but that little tiny camcorder. It is really wild to be able to get video out to the world. This is mind blowing. 20 years ago you would have needed a $200,000 set of cameras and a TV station to broadcast it. Now anyone can do it.

One problem I found is that with HD the file sizes are massive (these two videos were 1.1 gigs in my camera). I tried to upload it to Kyte? Failed. Facebook, too big. Viddler? Failed. Vimeo? Too big. YouTube? Too big. So, I went back and split it into two pieces. That took a little bit of time, but isn’t hard.

Anyway, here’s the two parts:

Part I, Opera browser updates (here is the same video on Facebook, so you can compare quality — the Facebook one is a LOT nicer)
Part II, Opera browser updates. (Here’s the same video on Facebook).

One thing, if you are using one of these small cameras you MUST use a monopod or tripod to get them steady enough to look good. By using a monopod with these videos they look much more professional than if I had held the camera with my hand.

So, what will I be testing out this week? Well, like my friend Chris Pirillo did recently, I’m going to be testing out several HD camcorders. The Flip Minio HD is the first one. I will also test out a Kodak Zi6 and a Creative Vado (Pirillo likes the Creative the best). I’ll let you know about those tests later.

Why all the focus on HD? Well, Facebook, Smugmug, YouTube, and Vimeo now support 720p HD video and next week I’m going to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and I can’t bring Rocky (my video producer) so I’ve got to be able to shoot all my own stuff and carry my camera equipment too. That means going with small cameras like the Flip I used last week with the geeks from Opera.

More over the next week or so as I learn more about the cameras and see if my results match Pirillos.

[kyte.tv appKey=MarbachViewerEmbedded&uri=channels/6118/321312&tbid=k_1929&premium=true&height=500&width=425]

Published by Robert Scoble

I help entrepreneurs build their technology business' story, help with getting ready for investors, with other launch plans, and many other strategic things that can help your new startup. Call to talk: +1-425-205-1921 (text first).

Published

52 thoughts on “Kyte.tv goes 16:9 (video showing Opera’s latest now up)”

  1. I have the Flip Mino HD and the issue I am having with it for most is the FlipShare software, which is very “crashy” on Vista and does not easily (batch-wise) let you export the video clips to a decent editing program. I do a manual batch conversion via SUPER now (mp4->wmv).

    Flip support is telling me they are working on the FlipShare issues, but do not seem very responsive…

    Like

  2. I have the Flip Mino HD and the issue I am having with it for most is the FlipShare software, which is very “crashy” on Vista and does not easily (batch-wise) let you export the video clips to a decent editing program. I do a manual batch conversion via SUPER now (mp4->wmv).

    Flip support is telling me they are working on the FlipShare issues, but do not seem very responsive…

    Like

  3. I think you hit upon the problem with HD – it’s fantastic that all the big players support it now, but until they have systems in place making it easy to upload large file sizes, it only has limited usefulness to me. I don’t want to have to upload videos split into several pieces! I’d rather stick to lower format video if that’s the case.

    Like

  4. I think you hit upon the problem with HD – it’s fantastic that all the big players support it now, but until they have systems in place making it easy to upload large file sizes, it only has limited usefulness to me. I don’t want to have to upload videos split into several pieces! I’d rather stick to lower format video if that’s the case.

    Like

  5. I think you hit upon the problem with HD – it’s fantastic that all the big players support it now, but until they have systems in place making it easy to upload large file sizes, it only has limited usefulness to me. I don’t want to have to upload videos split into several pieces! I’d rather stick to lower format video if that’s the case.

    Like

  6. Robert,

    Have you looked at the new iMovie yet? It has new image stabilization capabilities that might dovetail nicely with these new cameras. (both are
    “on the list to get”)

    mike

    Like

  7. Robert,

    Have you looked at the new iMovie yet? It has new image stabilization capabilities that might dovetail nicely with these new cameras. (both are
    “on the list to get”)

    mike

    Like

  10. note*

    for $230 for the Flip you really suffer when it comes to the lens and how it sees light.

    I’d really like to see you test the Sanyo Xacti HD1010 (I have 3 Xacti’s HD1, HD1000, and the VPC2 waterproof)

    IMO the Xacti’s are the best cameras for social media (save the fact that the HD codec is not yet compatible with FCP Express or Pro) iMovie will take the 720p footage but takes awhile to create the Thumbnails. Freeware MPEG Steamclip conversion to Apple Intermediate Codec is the easy work-around and only adds minutes to your project.

    At $650 the HD1010 is more pricey but better quality footage increases the archival value of what you create.

    Flips are for kids.

    Like

  11. note*

    for $230 for the Flip you really suffer when it comes to the lens and how it sees light.

    I’d really like to see you test the Sanyo Xacti HD1010 (I have 3 Xacti’s HD1, HD1000, and the VPC2 waterproof)

    IMO the Xacti’s are the best cameras for social media (save the fact that the HD codec is not yet compatible with FCP Express or Pro) iMovie will take the 720p footage but takes awhile to create the Thumbnails. Freeware MPEG Steamclip conversion to Apple Intermediate Codec is the easy work-around and only adds minutes to your project.

    At $650 the HD1010 is more pricey but better quality footage increases the archival value of what you create.

    Flips are for kids.

    Like

  14. HD the file sizes are massive

    You nuts? No one uploads raw HD files, x264 compress with a mkv wrapper, or better yet, compress down to something small MPEG-4 avi’ish. Render times are bitches however (as we both well know). Parallel and render farming is really the way to go. Too many people treat video as 0 second broadcast, when it’s really not, post production is but the starting point.

    It’s Glidecam or Steadi or doesn’t get done, the software-correct stabilizationizers leave much to be desired, and come with all sorts of trade-offs. Never had much success.

    Flip is niceish hardware, but casual user, hardy something for slapping on timelines. New iMovie? Again, casual user. Oh, the Flip software works much better in Win7, btw, doesn’t crash as much, so lay part blame on Vista itself. But really just get Final Cut Express and be done with it.

    Like

  15. HD the file sizes are massive

    You nuts? No one uploads raw HD files, x264 compress with a mkv wrapper, or better yet, compress down to something small MPEG-4 avi’ish. Render times are bitches however (as we both well know). Parallel and render farming is really the way to go. Too many people treat video as 0 second broadcast, when it’s really not, post production is but the starting point.

    It’s Glidecam or Steadi or doesn’t get done, the software-correct stabilizationizers leave much to be desired, and come with all sorts of trade-offs. Never had much success.

    Flip is niceish hardware, but casual user, hardy something for slapping on timelines. New iMovie? Again, casual user. Oh, the Flip software works much better in Win7, btw, doesn’t crash as much, so lay part blame on Vista itself. But really just get Final Cut Express and be done with it.

    Like

  16. HD the file sizes are massive

    You nuts? No one uploads raw HD files, x264 compress with a mkv wrapper, or better yet, compress down to something small MPEG-4 avi’ish. Render times are bitches however (as we both well know). Parallel and render farming is really the way to go. Too many people treat video as 0 second broadcast, when it’s really not, post production is but the starting point.

    It’s Glidecam or Steadi or doesn’t get done, the software-correct stabilizationizers leave much to be desired, and come with all sorts of trade-offs. Never had much success.

    Flip is niceish hardware, but casual user, hardy something for slapping on timelines. New iMovie? Again, casual user. Oh, the Flip software works much better in Win7, btw, doesn’t crash as much, so lay part blame on Vista itself. But really just get Final Cut Express and be done with it.

    Like

  17. Hey Robert – Actually, your channel hasn’t yet been configured for 16:9 or HD support, which is why you’re not seeing the desired results. Ulysses will be in touch to get you going with both!

    Best,
    Gannon

    Like

  18. Hey Robert – Actually, your channel hasn’t yet been configured for 16:9 or HD support, which is why you’re not seeing the desired results. Ulysses will be in touch to get you going with both!

    Best,
    Gannon

    Like

  19. The typical consumer is going to shoot in whatever format they can use without transcoding. Chop it down into interesting segments and load it straight to their favorite sharing site.

    Sure you can get a much better result with a more expensive camera, better software, more editing time, etc. But the 2009 camcorders will be shooting 720p h.264, so why even learn about anything else (like whatever format last year’s models record into).

    It’s far cheaper and easier to just get a new camcorder than to build a setup to do quality transcoding on your computer. If you don’t transcode video or play games on your computer you’ll avoid the need for an upgrade for a long time.

    Like

  20. The typical consumer is going to shoot in whatever format they can use without transcoding. Chop it down into interesting segments and load it straight to their favorite sharing site.

    Sure you can get a much better result with a more expensive camera, better software, more editing time, etc. But the 2009 camcorders will be shooting 720p h.264, so why even learn about anything else (like whatever format last year’s models record into).

    It’s far cheaper and easier to just get a new camcorder than to build a setup to do quality transcoding on your computer. If you don’t transcode video or play games on your computer you’ll avoid the need for an upgrade for a long time.

    Like

  33. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  34. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  35. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  36. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  37. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  38. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  39. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  40. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  41. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  42. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  43. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  44. What the typical consumer does, is irrelevant to a good quality product. The typical consumer is actually going to get a $100 MP4 320×240 badly-compressed-all-to-heck shaky cam or do video from a phone. Only the casual-prosumer is going for the $200 to $600 market. But so? Still doesn’t mean it’s worth watching, home videos really.

    And the typical consumer uploads 5 meg .bmp pictures of cats too.

    Like

  45. People are going to press record on whatever they can buy for $150, and they’ll want to dump that video straight onto the Internet without doing any work. Within three years the average digicam will shoot 480p h.264, camcorder 720p or 1080p, which seems plenty good enough considering it’s on par with Hulu “high res” or broadcast TV. The question isn’t whether people will upload HD videos of their cat to Youtube, it’s whether Youtube can handle the load. Thank you Robert for testing the waters so we’ll know what works and what doesn’t when shopping for our next camera.

    Like

  46. People are going to press record on whatever they can buy for $150, and they’ll want to dump that video straight onto the Internet without doing any work. Within three years the average digicam will shoot 480p h.264, camcorder 720p or 1080p, which seems plenty good enough considering it’s on par with Hulu “high res” or broadcast TV. The question isn’t whether people will upload HD videos of their cat to Youtube, it’s whether Youtube can handle the load. Thank you Robert for testing the waters so we’ll know what works and what doesn’t when shopping for our next camera.

    Like

  47. People are going to press record on whatever they can buy for $150, and they’ll want to dump that video straight onto the Internet without doing any work. Within three years the average digicam will shoot 480p h.264, camcorder 720p or 1080p, which seems plenty good enough considering it’s on par with Hulu “high res” or broadcast TV. The question isn’t whether people will upload HD videos of their cat to Youtube, it’s whether Youtube can handle the load. Thank you Robert for testing the waters so we’ll know what works and what doesn’t when shopping for our next camera.

    Like

  48. People are going to press record on whatever they can buy for $150, and they’ll want to dump that video straight onto the Internet without doing any work. Within three years the average digicam will shoot 480p h.264, camcorder 720p or 1080p, which seems plenty good enough considering it’s on par with Hulu “high res” or broadcast TV. The question isn’t whether people will upload HD videos of their cat to Youtube, it’s whether Youtube can handle the load. Thank you Robert for testing the waters so we’ll know what works and what doesn’t when shopping for our next camera.

    Like

  49. People are going to press record on whatever they can buy for $150, and they’ll want to dump that video straight onto the Internet without doing any work. Within three years the average digicam will shoot 480p h.264, camcorder 720p or 1080p, which seems plenty good enough considering it’s on par with Hulu “high res” or broadcast TV. The question isn’t whether people will upload HD videos of their cat to Youtube, it’s whether Youtube can handle the load. Thank you Robert for testing the waters so we’ll know what works and what doesn’t when shopping for our next camera.

    Like

  50. People are going to press record on whatever they can buy for $150, and they’ll want to dump that video straight onto the Internet without doing any work. Within three years the average digicam will shoot 480p h.264, camcorder 720p or 1080p, which seems plenty good enough considering it’s on par with Hulu “high res” or broadcast TV. The question isn’t whether people will upload HD videos of their cat to Youtube, it’s whether Youtube can handle the load. Thank you Robert for testing the waters so we’ll know what works and what doesn’t when shopping for our next camera.

    Like

  51. People are going to press record on whatever they can buy for $150, and they’ll want to dump that video straight onto the Internet without doing any work. Within three years the average digicam will shoot 480p h.264, camcorder 720p or 1080p, which seems plenty good enough considering it’s on par with Hulu “high res” or broadcast TV. The question isn’t whether people will upload HD videos of their cat to Youtube, it’s whether Youtube can handle the load. Thank you Robert for testing the waters so we’ll know what works and what doesn’t when shopping for our next camera.

    Like

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