Results tagged “journalism” from Green Mesh

Some testing today of live streaming and a Droid photo zoomed in from a moving car.

paulkuehnel: Deaf & partially blind, she likes to help people and listen to their problems. Reads their lips & prays for them http://twitgoo.com/54tmp

paulkuehnel: Come 2 the conclusion: there are 2 droid reviews. 1 by iPhone users who want it 2 b an iPhone & those who dnt have an iPhone and like it.

This video was a last minute deal today at a news event that wasn't too active. My instant web update was satisfied and it was time to train baby Droid.

The DVD quality video (720x480 resolution) of up to 24 fps capture on the Motorola Droid offers great potential for capturing spot news.

This video was shot at double arm length. I was ganking a TV interview so standing in front of their camera would have been rude for the situation.

Twenty seconds in, I suddenly realized that I had the PoliceStream app running in the background when York County Control started blurting out of the speaker, two inches from my microphone on the Droid and six inches from the TV video camera microphone.

This is multi-tasking hell.

A quick spin around and regroup scrambling at controls I'm not familiar with and I resumed recording the interview.

I also changed the video limit to 30 minutes so it wouldn't cut off.

The Droid ran smoothly after that.

Verizon gives the Droid a 16 gig removable mini SD card and the phone can handle up to 32 gig card plus internal memory. I chose to open up the phone and pull out the card and use a generic USB interface. The phone also has a mini USB charging port for data transfer.

The Android operating system allows developers to come up with software that may better control hardware so there may be different Android video app solutions out there.

It would be prudent to make sure there weren't any background programs running on the Droid before shooting video. There are several free apps available though the Android Market to manually stop background processes rather than going into each app and shutting it down.

I like TasKiller. Advanced Task Killer Free is listed in the VCAST (Verizon) section of Android Market as a suggestion and easy grab for the Droid, but TasKiller skips a step of checking a box to quickly kill processes. It also give you a memory warning when it's time to start the killing.

Shutting down the ring and alert tones also silences the camera noises. I will also try setting the phone to airplane mode to avoid data transfer and a random call in the future.

Note that I "zoomed" in using my video editing software in the production process zooming in my 720 raw files that will ultimately become a 300 pixel video. Something not usually possible from the raw pulls of a phone camera.

Check back for updates as I start to use this mini computer.

I love small cars and motorcycles. Tools that can do the job with the smallest footprint for space and energy consumption.

I use Linux/Ubuntu on a Shuttle Computer Small Form-Factor system for my desktop that is about the size of a shoe box. For work, I am supplied with a robust Dell Inspiron 9400 that can handle video tasks. It's a laptop with a screen almost as large as my desktop screen, but wonderful for video editing.

A couple months ago, I resurrected a vintage Dell Inspiron 5000e with Windows 98 for my ultra mobile/higher risk needs like motorcycle trips. It was cobbled together with a pre-release version of Windows 2000. Although really slow with 128 MB of RAM, it was functional for browser functions.

In September, Dell debuted the Inspiron Mini 9, known as a UMPC (also known as a netbook. The tiny laptop measures Width: 9.13" (232mm) Height: 1.07" (27.2mm) front / 1.25" (31.7mm) back Depth: 6.77" (172mm). This computer is so tiny you could almost fit it into a pair of cargo pants with a large pocket.

I came to the conclusion that phone browsers aren't yet up to the task of doing all the tasks that I can do with a desktop/laptop. The only device that does this would be a mirror of my desktop/laptop, only smaller. The device would have a universal operating system like Windows XP, something that can easily accommodate Verizon's USB broadband and most of the mindset you have in place for working on a desktop/laptop.

The Mini 9 uses less power than a laptop and much less than a desktop. It uses Intel's smallest and lowest power consuming processor, the Atom. According to Intel, the chip is built with the world's smallest transistors.

The Mini 9 doesn't have a traditional hard drive with a motor and other moving parts. It uses chips to store permanent memory adding to it's frugal power consumption. Chips are also not subject to shock and the failures of mechanical hard drives in mobile applications.

My experience so far is 4+ hours of straight run time from a really tiny battery pack. The whole computer only weighs 2.28 lbs. (1.035 kg).