Vidize Blog

The black statistics from Russia continue:

The AP quotes Oleg Orlov, head of the Memorial rights group where Natalya Estermirova worked, as saying that witnesses saw four men force her into a car in the Chechen capital of Grozny on Wednesday. She was later found lying on a road with two bullet wounds in her head, Russian police and activists say, the AP reports.

RIA Novosti, a Russian news service, reports that Estemirova had been investigating kidnappings and disappearances in Chechnya for Memorial. She had earlier worked with journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot to death in Moscow in 2006 and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was killed in the Russian capital earlier this year, the news agency reports.

It looks like misheard lyrics are bigger on Gootube than all the shows combined (like Ask a Ninja). Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the humor – especially when it comes at the expense of Scandinavian metal bands!

Russia remains in the spotlight as one of the most dangerous places for journalists.

Anastasiya Baburova (only 25) was shot on January 19 – minutes after a press conference at the Independent Press Center. She was walking towards the Metro station with a laywer, Stanislav Markelov.

Baburova apparently tried to stop the killer, who had walked past her after shooting Markelov; the man then shot her in the head, Kommersant reported, citing unnamed witnesses of the scene.

Markelov died immediately; Baburova died several hours later in a Moscow hospital. “It appears that Markelov was the main target,” Sergei Sokolov, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta, told CPJ. He added that the paper is waiting for the official results of the investigation to determine whether Baburova was also targeted.

Two hours before his assassination, Markelov had given a press conference criticizing the early release on Thursday of former Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov, a tank commander convicted and imprisoned in 2003 on charges of murdering a young Chechen girl named Elza Kungayeva in 2000, Sokolov told CPJ. Markelov represented the Kungayeva family and was planning to appeal Budanov’s early release.

If you’ve never seen the Argument Clinic sketch, brace yourself. Monty Python have decided to wage war on low-quality versions of their sketches and they are creating a whole new channel with high-quality versions!

Yes, the original song title is “Radio killed the radio star”. Without going into a deep philosophical discussion, here’s the video.

It’s certainly ironic that MTV launches their music video site sooo late. Anyway, enjoy the song.

According to BBC’s Trust, the company has overspent its new media budget by an impressive margin. It looks like Ashley Highfield got carried away with his task to move BBC beyond traditional media.

According to Guardian.co.uk: A review of bbc.co.uk published today by the trust shows that the actual spend in the 12 months to the end of March 2008 on the corporation’s UK web operations was £110m – almost £36m, or 48%, above what had been budgeted.

Of course, heads have started falling starting with Ashley Highfield. He’ll be replaced by Erik Huggers as the new director of future media and technology. In addition, a controller will supervise spending on new media.

Now that the Vidize is in beta, I plan to go over the list of recommended equipment.

I start with the absolute must-have – a Web camera.

A while back, there was a discussion about USB 1.1 vs USB 2.0 web cams. This discussion is mostly obsolete now as the majority of new web cameras are all USB 2.0. Keep in mind that being USB 2.0 doesn’t guarantee quality in any way. It simply means the camera can send more data to the computer (in theory).

Here’s what to look for in a Web camera:

• Speed: Since we’re choosing a webcam to record video online, the speed is the most important factor. You need a webcam that will do at least 30 frames-per-second (30FPS) when the lighting is adequate.
• Light sensitivity: The sensitivity to light is very important as most budget web cams give good results only in a VERY narrow window. It’s either too dark or too light for them.
• Control: In addition to getting a camera that is sensitive to light, you absolutely need to be able to control it. Look for cam that has a control panel where you can adjust the speed, the gain, and the white balance (the color of light).
• Pixels: As usual the more, the marrier but this is secondary to the points above. Anything over 640×480 is probably an overkill for web video at this time.

I have selected two different cameras that meet the requirements above. If you are not sure about a web cam you like, feel free to email me.

• Logitech Pro 9000: This is the latest cam in Logitech’s Pro series. It’s probably a bit of an overkill but it does have everything you need. It also has a lot of stuff you probably don’t – like adding a moustache effect.The list price is $99 but you can find it for less.
• Logitech Communicate STX: If you want a good budget web cam, the STX is an excellent choice. I own it myself and it does well even in low light.List price is $49 but you can find it for half that!

Nicolas Kayser-Bril has done a review of the Vidize beta (in French).

You can read it here although if French isn’t your first language, you can read a loose translation from Google.

Adobe has scheduled the beta test of the new Flash player 10 (codename Astro) for today.

There doesn’t seem to be any substantial improvements in the video department but here’s the feature list:

3D Effects – Easily transform and animate any display object through 3D space while retaining full interactivity. Fast, lightweight, and native 3D effects make motion that was previously reserved for expert users available to everyone. Complex effects are simple with APIs that extend what you already know.

Custom Filters and Effects – Create your own portable filters, blend modes, and fills using Adobe® Pixel Bender™, the same technology used for many After Effects CS3 filters. Shaders in Flash Player are about 1KB and can be scripted and animated at runtime.

Advanced Text Layout – A new, highly flexible text layout engine, co-existing with TextField, enables innovation in creating new text controls by providing low-level access to text offering right-to-left and vertical text layout, plus support for typographic elements like ligatures.

Enhanced Drawing API – Runtime drawing is easier and more powerful with re-styleable properties, 3D APIs, and a new way of drawing sophisticated shapes without having to code them line by line.

Visual Performance Improvements – Applications and videos will run smoother and faster with expanded use of hardware acceleration. By moving several visual processing tasks to the video card, the CPU is free to do more.