Streamed Live From John Harvard's

Here's a recording of a live stream that I broadcasted from John Harvard's in Cambridge while having a beer with Carl Weaver.

This technology is very exciting.

Thanks to Qik for enabling the embed code...

I just set up a page, Steve Garfield Live, that will broadcast my current live stream if I'm broadcasting, or an archived recording of my most recent broadcast.

Streaming with Qik

Blogger isn't diplaying the embed code so head over to the Qik page to see my first test videos.

Thanks to ATT for the SIM card and service, Nokia for the N95, and Qik for the live streaming service.

How To: Recording Sound on a Digital Camra

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The Farm

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Nokia N95: How to edit video

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This video shows you step by step how to edit video on the Nokia N95. You can see the edited video on Blip.tv too.

Featuring: Imogen Heap


Here's the video I made on my VOX blog.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov) 320x240, Quicktime (.mov) 640x480, MP3 Audio (.mp3), Flash Video (.flv), MPEG-4 Video (.m4v), YouTube.

Westin Grand Bahamas - Infinite Pool and Beach

Lumiere: Boston Common Baseball

VIDEO: Junkanoo: Grand Bahama Island

Steve Garfield's Video Blog: Junkanoo: Grand Bahama Island

Lumiere: Nantucket

Here is a video for the Lumiere Project (60 seconds max. • Fixed camera • No audio • No zoom • No edit • No effects). Remember this is a Lumiere video. This video contains NO audio. Feel free to leave your own music running.

Jamaica Pond Cars Rushing By

Cars drive by Jamica Pond, rushing to where their occupants are taking them.

Video on the N95

The maximum quality for video on the Nokia N95 is 640x480 30 fps.

It's a lot better than what I used to be shooting, 320x240 15fps

I think the photos and videos are excellent and have been using the N95 to shoot lots of video.

The format is mp4 which makes editing in FCP take longer than if I was capturing DV from my GL/2.

The audio/video seems out of sync in FCP's Viewer window, but after it hits the Timeline and I render all is well... I'm wondering if this is the case with all mp4 video in FCP.

You can edit the mp4 files directly in iMovie and I hear that you can edit mp4 files natively in the new FCP. I'd like to see that my self.

There are some new cameras out that capture H.264 and if the N95 did this it would be perfect.

Nokia Ad

Nokia N95 ad
from Jakob Lodwick

Baby Geese at Jamaica Pond

Baby Geese in a Pond from stevegarfield on Vimeo

Spices of Life Sky Cam

Spices of Life Sky Cam - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

In this episode from the archives of Nina Simond's Spices of Life videoblog, I used a Nokia N93 as a Sky Cam. Fun times.

Watch it here:
Behind the Scenes: Mahi Mahi and Mango Salsa

N93 Captures Nina and Steve

Boats

Boats - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Nokia N95 Peephole

Healthy American Food Exposed

I just posted a new video, Spices of Life - Pyramid on a Plate #2: Healthy American Food Exposed:

"I found it interesting that you don’t have to always order low fat salad dressing. After the shoot I go to eat the Artic Char. It was amazing. I got so caught up in the filming of the episode, I asked Nina waht kind of salmon it was because it tasted so good. She told me that it was Artic Char. HA! I really enjoyed it.

Technical notes: This episode was filmed using a Nokia N93. It records at 640 x 480 30 frames per second. I converted the .mp4 files to QuickTime .mov files using MPEG Streamclip, then edited the video with Final Cut Pro. When done editing, I exported using Compressor at 320x240 H.264 and uploaded to blip.tv. Blip.tv then converts the video to Flash and cross-posts... to Spices of Life."

Yay!

N95 in NYC at BXL

Personal Democracy Forum: Hallway Walking Videos

Personal Democracy Forum People - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

At the Personal Democracy Forum I did some hallway walking, and captured some fleeting moments in video.

This video is authentic and unedited. Captured on a Nokia N95 cellphone, that I'm evaluating for Nokia, I uploaded the videos to blip.tv, which automatically converted the .mp4 videos to flash and cross-posted them to my video blog.

It's easy to create this type of video and I'd enjoy seeing video like this from the candidates running for president.

Cross posted at techPresident.

Technorati Tags:
pdf2007

Videoblogging in 5 Minutes

Showed people how they could shoot, edit and upload video from the street using an N95 at the Personal Democracy Forum in NYC.

Tags: Personal Democracy, Personal Democracy Forum, PDF2007

Preparing the table

Preparing the table at Legal Sea Foods for shooting a Pryamid on a Plate episode of Nina Simonds Spices of Life videoblog.

Nokia N800 Displays N95 Flickr Photo

You know I love the Nokia N95, now I've displayed a picture taken with the N95, and posted directly to flickr, on the Nokia N800.

This is too much.

Kind of crazy.

It's the future.

Nokia N800 Delivers the News

The Nokia N800 delivers news of the moment via a WiFi connection and twitter.

Nokia sent me a Nokia N800 for evaluation. I'd experimented with bringing an HP Pavilion dv9000 down to the kitchen table to stay current with the news while sitting in the kitchen, but now with the N800, it's easy and convenient to bring the N800 with me where ever I go in the house.

The browser is quick, saves bookmarks and the text entry interface can be either character recognition or entry via a touch screen on a QWERTY keyboard.

I'm enjoying discovering the ease of use of having the N800 around with me.

Nokia N95 Live WiFi Video Streaming

Transatlantic and coast to coast:

This was amazing. I saw Chris Pirillo on Twitter say he was using Ustream.tv to broadcast himself live. So, off I went to see what was going on. Lo and behold, i saw Chris chatting away to people on the builtin webchat they had on his show page and also on irc. So, I hooked up my webcam and Skyped him. Then I could see myself on his screen too! We chatted away while others watched. Meanwhile, I was projecting the whole thing on my wall with one of my projectors (I love projectors). THEN, Steve Garfield popped up in the chat room and started using his ComVu account and a Nokia N95 to broadcast LIVE from his phone too!! At one point all three of us were chatting away, with some stilted lag here and there, but it was a truly trans-Atlantic and coast-to-coast broadcast! Three geeks wittering away! Heheh. Me in London, Chris and Seattle and Steve in Boston. GREAT!

This was very exciting. Part of it had to do with the immediacy of the live broadcast, part of it was the excitement of finding new uses for leading edge technology, and part of it was the fun of connecting to friends in real time in a unique way.

Panda

Nokia N95 One Camera Shoot with Tripod

I used the N95 with a tripod on a video shoot for the video blog Spices of Life. This episode will be posted on Friday.

iMovie Export Settings

These are the settings I use to export an MPEG4 movie that I've edited in iMovie after copying it off the N95.

After exporting I upload to blip.tv and they convert it to Flash for me. The original MPEG4 is also available on blip.tv.

Note: After exporting this file I got a QuickTime movie that was 153.3 MB, so I re-exported and limited the data rate to 300 and then got a 15.7 MB file. Much smaller and it looked good too.

Electric Pedal

Steve TV: Gas Station

Click To Play

This video was recorded on the Nokia N95. I then edited the video on iMovie on my MacBook Pro.

I learned a couple of things. An 8 minute movie, exported as 640x480 is a 266MB file. So I re-exported this as a 320x240 QuickTime movie using H.264 and it ended up as a 73 MB file. A better size for uploading to blip.tv.

I might switch to recording these Steve TV videos as 320x240 so I don't have to deal with the file size problems. The 640x480 quality is amazing, but for these little tests capturing life streams, I think the smaller size is fine.

I'm also being seduced by the ease of use that the N95 provides with it's internal editor. After having gone through all the trials and tribulations of logging and capturing, editing, compressing and exporting video with a desktop based system and miniDV based camera, it's freeing to be able to shoot, edit and post from one device.

Steve TV: Waiting Room

Steve TV: Waiting Room
The N95 did the title and credits. I used the menus to make this movie. First I merged two clips, then added the title, then added the credits. All without a timeline. Pretty sweet. There's a timeline based editor too, but I wanted to try this out today.

Also, part of this was edited in camera, meaning I shot a clip, then paused, then shot, then paused, and then saved. So I ended up with a clip that had three shots in it. very cool.

Boston from BostonNOW

Nokia N95 Spectrum Visualisation

Listening to Bang Camaro Push Push (Lady Lightning) on my new Nokia N95 via headphones with Spectrum Visualisation turned on. ROCK!

Coffeebabyyeah

My class at Northeastern shot and edited this short piece with the Nokia N93 (standard Ravi disclaimer from the Channeling Ralph Hinkley post).

Again, there seems to be some audio synch issues when editing clips (?).

Channeling Ralph Hinkley

As an avid preteen television viewer, I distinctly remember the harrowing dilemma faced by Ralph Hinkley in The Greatest American Hero. In the pilot episode he receives a magical suit from space aliens (I remember the space ship was quite impressive in that episode as was the iconic shot of him reaching upwards from his Jeep as they flew away).

The suit was capable of amazing things but he lost the manual, so was always scrambling to figure out how to use it. This led to comedic highjinks as he would fly into walls and such.

I received the Nokia N93 recently on a loan basis from folks at 1000heads (thanks to Steve). The enclosed manual is in Finnish so I've been kind of winging it, Ralph Hinkley style to figure out what I can do with the camera.

After gearing up with a universal charger and a 1 GB miniSD card (so I could charge the phone and shoot more than a couple of minutes of video), I shot and edited this piece (Sundays with Sonia) that represents a typical Sunday down at my in-laws. I've uploaded in it's unadulterated mp4 form that I downloaded from the phone to my computer via the USB connector cord.



Some observations:
• the editing is a little clunky, but hey -- it's on a phone!
• I couldn't seem to figure out how to save my project file (trimmed clips in a sequence); whenever I reopened an edited piece it was flattened to one clip
• There seemed to be some audio-synch issues that came up through the process of editing (see the clip where I'm thirsting for wine).
• I couldn't figure out how to "play" any text inserts to preview; hence the title text is oddly tiny
• Next I need to figure out how to post the video somewhere from the phone.

Note: I did find the user manual PDFs on Nokia's web site, but I was already too far gone with my Greatest American Hero riffing...

Broadcasting Live from Cellphone to the Web

Broadcasting Live from Cellphone to the Web - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

I can't believe I just did a live broadcast from my Nokia N93 over WiFi to the web. This is the future. Amazing.

Using the ComVu PocketCaster software I broadcast live audio and video from the secondary video camera to the web. I almost can't believe I just did it. But we have video to prove it. So it must have been real.

Here's the video from The future.

Here's my Personal Cellphone Webcast page where I also have a second video recorded with what ComVu calls the back cam, it's the bigger one on the side of the N93.

Demonstrating N95 Video Editing

David Tamés took this photo of me demonstrating the Nokia N95's video editing features at this month's Boston Media Makers meeting in Boston.

Here are his meeting notes.

Skiers

Taken with N95.

Spices of Life visits DriveTime

Here's a still shot from the SkyCam we had set up while shooting a new spisode of Spices of Life. I'm shooting the scene with a Nokia N93 while Nina Simonds is talking with Ravi and Sonia from DriveTime.

Green: Recorded and edited on a train with an N95

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I recorded this movie, edited it, added credits and a soundtrack on the Nokia N95 while riding the Orange line train from Green Street to Downtown Crossing. That's about a 15 minute ride.

This is an exciting development to be able to be able to shoot and edit a little video while on a train on a cell phone. I don't have cell service on the phone yet, otherwise I would have been able to post it to my blog too. Once we get free WiFi all around Boston I'll be able to use that to send the video via WiFi where ever I want. This is exciting because it allows video production from the streets.

I'd never used the N95's video editor and learned how to use it on the train ride. I shot a few clip and then did an assemble edit. Added transitions and credits. Then I took the song Let Go from Imogen Heap and added it as a soundtrack. I trimmed that down to match the length of the video, 28 seconds. MBTA Map.

Jonny Goldstein - The Claw

Taken with an N95. Small adjustments made in iPhoto.

Watching YouTube and Rocketboom on the Nokia N95 Cellphone

Click to Play

In this video I show how you can watch internet videos on the Nokia N95. First we look at a YouTube video and then an episode of Rocketboom.

I am so psyched to be able to show you guys this since it completes the circle of being able to record a video, upload it via WiFi, then subscribe, download and watch, all on the same device.

Sweet!

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), YouTube.

Tags: nokia, n95, vlog, youtube, video, rocketboom, rss, nseries, internet

Rocketboom on the Nokia N95

Rocketboom on the Nokia N95 - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Here I am watching Rocketboom, from February 7th, on my Nokia N95 via the N95 Video Centre. The N95 grabs the videos off the web and downloads them. I am using a WiFi connection. I also watched YouTube videos. These two vlogs showed up on the Nokia video Service Catalogue in a list of six feeds. Other feeds were Reuters, Startcooking.com, Unicef and Tagesschau.

Watch a video of me watching video on the N95. ;-)

Wine Expo - Nice Glass

This shot was taken with the N95 in close up mode.

More Wine Expo photos are over here.

Nokia N95 Dissected

Nokia N95 Dissected, a flickr photo set.

via [ RingNokia ] via [ Engadget ]

R & D Pub at MIT

Nokia N93 Tripod

I recently received an N93 tripod from Nokia for testing.

 

It's the Nokia DT-22 Tripod Adapter and basically adds the much needed standard tripod mount to the bottom of the N93. This adapter can fit on your standard tripod in addition to the neat little Nokia tripod.

 

If you've got an N93 and shoot video, you need this tripod. The legs extend too. One cool thing you can do is use the tripod to hold the camera out at arms length when shooting either a still photo or video of yourself.

I also used the adapter to attach a Bogen - Manfrotto RC2 Compact Rapid Connect Mounting Plate 3157N to the N93 so that I could attach it to my Bogen tripod. See the pic.

Christian Science Monitor Photo Shoot

Christian Science Monitor Photo Shoot - Originally uploaded on flickr by stevegarfield.

Melanie Stetson Freeman from the Christian Science Monitor came by this morning to shoot some photos for a story that Benjamin Arnoldy is writing about videoblogging. We had fun and I showed Melanie how I can shoot video with the Nokia 95 and post directly to my VOX blog over WiFi.

Once posted on VOX, I noticed there was a cut out in the audio which made half of the video out of sync with the audio, so I brought the mp4 file into iMovie and extracted the audio and cut out a second or two to put it back in sync. I posted the revised version over on blip.tv.

Note: The video was shot on a pre-production model of the N95 that I am testing for Nokia.

N95 Indoor Pictures with a Flash

Last night I went to a meeting in Boston, It was a good time to try out the N95 in a low light situation. The photos are much better than the N93.

It takes quite a while for the camera to display the image after taking the picture, but I'm sure that's just because this is a preproduction model. It seems that I have some focus issues too, but that might be because I put my subjects over on the side of the frame. The focus area is pretty big. I'll have to play around some more with this. If it's like any other camera, I'm sure I just have to focus on the subject and then move the camera to the side.

On thing I can tell you is that the N95 will make you very popular at parties. The meeting I was at was all about new software solutions in technology. One attendee told me that seeing the N95 was the highlight of his evening. It's a fun phone to show people.

At dinner after the meeting we were talkign about Imogen Heap and my friend hadn't heard of her, so I took out the N05 and played him one of her songs. I just set the phone down on the table and let the music play out of the stereo speakers. People liked it.

Jamaica Pond Ducks

Video: Uploaded via WiFi

Here's a short video I recorded on the street and uploaded to VOX via WiFi.

UMass Medical Center

Photos taken with the N95.

RICE

I captured this on the Nokia N95 tonight at a party and uploaded it directly to VOX via the phone.

Nokia N95 Second Impresions

I had some time to try a few more features of the Nokia N95 today.

MUSIC PLAYER
You can play music files from the Music Player or the File Manager, but I can't figure out how to get my mp3 files to play with the music player. Later, I figured it out. You have to put the files in the same directory as the music files. Pretty straightforward, but I first put them on the microSD card instead of on the phone's inbuilt memory. More testing is needed here.

VOICE RECORDER
I set the voice recorder to High quality and recorded my voice. When I tried to send it to VOX, I got an error saying that VOX only accepts images and video. That's not right. The recording was good.

CELL SERVICE
I thought that for Cingular, now AT&T, MEdia Net is the package I needed to get HSDPA. So I asked a few friends and Darla Mack wrote back to me:

"I have Cingular's Unlimited MEdia Net. I don't think that Cingular's 3G will work properly on the N95 because firstly, their 3G isn't available everywhere as of yet. Also, the N95 isn't programmed to work on the US 3G network."

Nokia N95 on Wikipedia
The Nokia N95 is an Nseries smartphone/"multimedia computer" by Nokia. It was unveiled in September 2006 and is scheduled for release in March 2007 at an estimated unsubsidized retail price of €550 (US$700). It is based on S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 software on the Symbian OS (v9.2) and is particularly significant for being both Nokia's first 3.5G (HSDPA) handset and also first GPS enabled handset.

Nokia N95 First Impressions

Unboxing the N95
This was fun. It turned into a multimedia experience.



I did a video with my N93 of unboxing the N95.



I have a lot of unboxing the N95 photos on flickr.

Here are some first impressions of some of the N95 features:



Micro SD card
When I took the Micro SD card out of the phone's memory slot to plug it into my card reader, I found that I didn't have an appropriate opening for it. I didn't even have an appropriate opening for a MINI SD casrd never mind a Micro SD card.

MUSIC
Listening to Moby, In My Heart, the Nseries theme song. I plugged in my own headphones and was presented with a choice of:

- Headphones
- TV-Out Cable
- Music stand

What's a music stand?

I dragged over a few .mp3 music files and they played with no problem.



LOADING APPLICATIONS
I wanted to find out how Darla Mack did those cool little screen shots of her phone so I could do them too on my review. So I emailed her and she gave me a link to Antony Pranata's Screenshot app. Here is the link.

http://www.antonypranata.com/screenshot.

It's an application that lets you take screen shots of your cell phone. That is very cool for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the Nokia N95 is an open platform.

I loaded the snapshot application, took a snapshot, and nothing seemed to happen.. So I clciked on the snapshot application and then it started running, so I took a snapshot and now I can't find it... Must be here somewhere...

Found it!

I sent it up to VOX, the blogging service that the N95 provides a pre-loaded blogging client for.

Here's the post over at VOX





RINGTONE
I don't have cell service for the phone, but I hooked up the USB cable and copied over the ringtone from the TV show 24. I can't get enough of that ringtone.

You can get the CTU 24 ringtone here for free.

I also copied over the song Let Go from Imogen Heap. Great song and it sounds really nice on the phone's stereo speakers.

GPS
I clicked on the world and zoomed into my house. The mapping function looks really sweet. Right now I'm searching for a local place to eat, let's see what it comes back with when it's done searching.



WiFi
I got on the internet using the local LinkSys router that I have in the house. I've got WEP security turned on, so I entered my password and was online to Google in a flash. One cool think about the browser is that it pre-types in http:// in the URL entry line so you don't have to. I liked that.

I also just set up the connection to my LinkSys router so I don't have to type in the password every time.

PHOTOS
I took a few photos and the Carl Zeiss 5 Megapixel lens seems nice. The flash seems to do a good job in low light too. I need to do more testing and bring the camera outside to check outdoor photos. No tripod mount though.



VIDEO
I had some trouble figuring out how to turn the video camera on. On the N93 you just flip open the viewfinder and depress the shutter. With the N95, you close up the slider and open the lens cover. It starts off on camera mode and you just press the selection button and you are in video mode. If you are in the music player and want to use the camera, it seems that you have to close and open the lens cover to reactivate the camera. No audio in.

I shot a video and uploaded it to VOX.

After uploading it I visited the site using the browser, but when I tried to play it I got the message, "This movie file is not accessible from mobile devices." Ironic.

Plays fine from my Firefox browser.