Update - 11-11-05 - OK I haven't received one email from you guys - is it that you don't have time? That you can't email movies from your phone? That you think your movies aren't good enough? :-)

No seriously, just shoot some video and email it to "demo@vemobile.com" and then wait to get the SMS message back, retrieve it, and email me at "lisa@lisarein.com" with the Video ID number. -- thanks!

I've been messing around with Type Pad's new video upload feature, courtesy of Video Egg, but my friends close by with camera phones are having trouble emailing their videos to me...

So I'm just going to put out a general call to my readers to please email their camera phone video to demo@vemobile.com, and then email me the "Video ID" they will SMS back to you. Then I can enter it into my test blog interface. (See my test blog here to bring up the clip.)

So far, I'm both excited and discouraged by this video upload implementation. It's definitely exciting for Type Pad to offer this kind of service -- a packaged blogging and video upload service.
It's the right idea, for sure. But there are a few annoying details of the implementation.

For instance, only clips of two minutes or less are permitted (which greatly reduces the probability of my using the service, to be honest), but that's not my main concern, which is this; I have a problem with the use of Flash as the delivery format, because it effectively kills any hope for reuse of the video footage.

In addition, Video Egg is compressing the video before it wraps it up in Flash, and the effect it has on the video is quite significant.

Check out the original version of this clip (Wendy Seltzer from Foo Camp 2003). Then compare it to the VideoEgged version on my typepad blog.

Nevertheless, this development is quite significant, and I'm looking forward to testing out the Mobile upload feature. I had to borrow a PC from a friend, since Type Pad's Video Egg plug-in doesn't work on the Macintosh platform yet. There are some features I haven't tested yet, like the Digital Camera upload, or the Mobile Phone upload, which I hope you're going to help me sort out today and tomorrow (while I've got my friend's PC laptop close by).

Thanks in advance for sending me some great videos!

lisa

It's my first new post for O'Reilly's Digital Media website:

How To Shoot Broadcast Quality Music Videos On A Camera Phone

This is a pretty neat story from beginning to end -- a lesson in what can be accomplished when someone sticks to a vision and sees it through to the end. Right on to Blast Records and The Presidents of the United States of America (P.U.S.A.) for taking a chance too!

Check out the Making Of video that Grant let me host, too.

This development is more than a novelty. It's a working demonstration of the natural artistic progression towards the integration of new mobile video technology within existing art forms.

I predict that it will soon be commonplace for bands to shoot mobile phone-based video of interviews, practices, performances, songs-in-progress, or whatever, and post it to their websites...

Mobile phone cameras can only record at 1/3000 of standard broadcast quality, and don't capture movement very well. In addition these phones only recorded at 10 frames per second, even though the manufacturer had promised that they'd record at 15 fps.

During the shoot, the phones were so temperamental that they'd just turn off at any point without warning, so Grant had the band play the song 24 times at half speed in order to provide enough footage to edit together one good take of the song.

Update 9/27/05 - video can be found here.

Beware that it requires Quicktime 7.

Or dispell the myth that it exists.

thanks!!

Here's what I have on it:

Camera phone enters new creative territory

That record's been out for a year already, so I guess it's a new video for the old song? Help me out here...

NEW YORK--Billboard magazine has learned that rock band the Presidents of the United States of America shot its latest video using only mobile phone cameras. The video for the track "Some Postman," culled from the band's last studio album, "Love Everybody," was filmed in Seattle in just one day using a variety of Sony-Ericsson mobile video phones.

Director Grant Marshall of Film Headquarters said he had spent 18 months looking for a band willing to go along with the mobile-only film concept. The band currently is playing limited U.S. dates and is planning to tour in Australia in October.