Tag Archives: Video

Skype now does video calls on the iPhone !!!

Skype 3.0 has now been released for the iPhone and it now supports video! Of course it supports the front and rear cameras on the iPhone 4! And it does the calls over 3G too! And it’s free. What are you waiting for? Go get Skype with video right now…

What’s New in Version 3.0
Improvements:

  • Make Skype to Skype video calls on WiFi and 3G*
  • Call Skype desktop users (Mac OS X or Windows) and other iPhone users.
  • Two-way video calls supported on iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 4th gen.
  • Receive only video supported on iPad and iPod touch 3rd gen, with no camera.
  • Make video calls in portrait and landscape.
  • kype video calling requires iOS 4.0 or above.
    *Additional Data charges may apply

What more can I say other than go try it out?

Actually, I could say “Where was this for the last 10 days when I was in Costa Rica?!?“.

VLC free video player for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Get it now (while you still can).

So a nice free video player came out for the iPhone (which also works on the iPad and iPod Touch) called VLC Media Player;
vlc-iphone.png
it’s the video player for Macintosh and Windows (IMHO).

What’s great about this program? It lets you play all sorts of video files on your iDevice without converting them first. The other bonus is that it lets you delete them when you are done, freeing up space for photos and video. It plays more than a few formats, but if you try some high-def Blu-Ray files it’s not going to have enough power to play them.

Here’s the problem, it might get pulled from the iTunes store due to some weird legalities*. So download it now. I actually think it’s been out for the iPad for a while, but it just came out for the

* Short answer with small words – The (source code) software is free and the program can must be freely distributed, but technically the iTunes app store puts on protection, so technically it’s not freely distributed, you must have an iTunes account.

Jewel in disguise

Jewel dresses up as a regular person and sings her own songs! It’s a little long, but pretty funny, especially if you’re a fan…

Click for a larger version.

360 degree videos of Haiti Earthquake

Here are a series of three videos taken in Haiti last week by CNN. They’re not of the earthquake itself but of the area afterwards.

What is so interesting is that it’s video and you can drag the mouse to look in all directions, but the video (and audio) keeps playing as you drag the video around. At 900×500 it’s pretty large video too, I can’t promise how it’ll play on your older computer. CNN put this together so maybe they’ll add more later.

cnn-haiti360.png

Video 1 in a three minute car ride through Haiti.
Video 2 on a three minute walk in Haiti.
Video 3 short car ride through Haiti.

It’s similar to the YellowBird demo I mentioned a few months back

Fring does one-way video Skype. The WRONG way.

So Fring lets you do video calls via their Skype connection. The software is free so it’s worth trying out.

iPhone_video-fring.jpg
The problem is you can only receive video. They say it’s because the iPhone doesn’t have a camera on the front, but I’d rather send video to the other person. I’ve got the portable device, I’m probably somewhere more interesting then they are, right? (Unless they are on their phone too).

I could still be filming where I am while watching their face (or whatever their camera is pointed at) so it seems silly to me. Or send my video when I’m talking (and vice-versa).

The other downside is that it only works over over WiFi, not cellular (no surprise there) another reason to consider a MiFi instead of paying AT&T for tethering.

Here’s the direct link.

Two other things:
If Apple has the API open, it seems like they could check the sensor that detects if the phone is near or away from you (the one that checks if the phone is by your face and turns the screen off) and figure if the camera is facing you or away.

The Fring App uses my BlueTooth headset (which also does A2DP) for sound effects but when a call starts it only uses the regular phone part.

Big Water Slide

This looks pretty awesome. Until I saw the target. Video looks pretty good though.


Direct link to the huge water slide launch.

It’s gotta be fake, a few feet short and you’d hit the platform. When I first saw it, I thought the pool was in a lake (so if you missed no big deal) but the wooden platform is just too much of a way to kill yourself if you missed (and it’s not a very big pool). So I vote “fake”…

Found at -273.

Aiptek HD 720p Video Camera – Review

So I’ve seen these Aiptek HD 720p Video Cameras around and they’ve had it at my local Target for $149 (it’s only $135 at Amazon), I figured if it was awful I could return it for their 15% restocking fee. Actually, I’m now thinking it’s my new camera to keep in my bag at all times.

It’s a

  • 720p HD video camera (which records to an SD chip) which is 1280×720.
  • 5 MP still camera.
  • Audio recorder.
  • and also records from a video source (haven’t tried this yet, but have read it looks great).

Quality is great but if you move the camera too quick it could compress a little better. But for the price it’s awesome and it’s better than I would have expected.

It’s got a record button on the front (where your trigger finger goes) and a record button on the LCD screen. On the back is a button for taking a snapshot at any time (other than when actually recording).

Other features: It’s got a standard tripod mount and comes with a charger (but also charges off the included USB cable), lens cap, carry strap, standard video cables and component cables. It’s smart enough when you flip the LCD screen to flip the video image for self recording.

Complaints: it sure could use image stabilization and audio-in for a microphone would be nice but I wouldn’t expect anything like that in a lower end product like this.

Other things: I’ve only played with it a little bit but the imaging looks a little better when moving the camera quickly in the lower quality modes (720×480 and 352×240). It looks like it has an IR receiver in the front (where your hand would be) but I don’t know if that’s what it is.

A Wonderful White Wedding

I thought this was funny. I usually ignore these but I clicked this one…

It was titled Funny Father Daughter Dance “A Wonderful White Wedding”. It takes a minute to get to the good part but it’s definitely different for a wedding.

On a (completely unrelated) side note Wedding Crashers is a kinda funny candid camera show on Monday Nights. You need to fast forward through the talking parts but the practical jokes are pretty good. If you’ve only seen it this week, try it again this weeks episode was kinda weak…