This is a JPG captured from a video clip recorded onto a high-definition Flip Camera, one of several that are now available for loan at the circulation desk of the USF Library.
Cameras such as these make the process of video capturing and finishing a pleasure that takes only moments to complete, depending on the size and speed of your computer processor. The Flip Cameras do require a computer that has a bit of heft to it, and the video clips may play with only jerky stop-motion quality if the computer is not up to the task. But, with the Flip Camera's built-in software you can edit some interesting videos, and load them up to YouTube with hardly any effort. I produced this video following a trip downstate recently:
And, look Ma, there's no tape. Videotape has become virtually obsolete with the advent of small portable video cameras. Instead, video is recorded onto postage-stamp sized "SD" disks, or similar types of storage, or onto built-in Flash memory, the same as you have on your jump drive. The departure or absence of video tape is welcome to many; it removes the last major impediment to immediate gratification, the real-time digitization of video from tape into your computer. But it does gobble up memory on your hard drive, faster than you might like. Weeding out old videos is a necessity that must be maintained constantly.
Technology has changed at so rapid a pace it's almost impossible to keep up. It is impossible. Just 20 years ago I hefted around a shoulder-mounted video camera, attached by an umbilical cable to a separate "VTR" (Video Tape Recorder) that used 3/4-inch tapes as big as Bibles, all of which weighing in at 60 pounds. Then came VHS (remember that?), and life was beautiful. Now come these HD palm-sized gidgets whose video quality is double that of the old three-quarter-inch, and which weigh a few ounces.
It's a good thing; it's a bad thing. It's a blessing and a curse. For those of us who have to deal with technology, it's also a fact of life.
0 comments:
Post a Comment