BryanSays.com

Animoto creates slick videos

// March 26th, 2008 // View Comments // Blog, Internet, Music, Video

Animoto is a brand new video slideshow creation website created by techies and tv/film producers. The technology behind the site is based on “Cinematic Artificial Intelligence” that thinks like an actual director and editor. It analyzes and combines user-selected images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills & techniques that are used in television and film. The end result has the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.

Animoto is still in beta so you have to signup to use the site. You basically select between a 30 second video or full length video. The 30 second videos are free. Full length videos cost $3 per video or you can pay $30/year unlimited videos. I chose the 30 second video.The site tells you that you need 12-15 pictures for a 30 second video. I chose a mixture of pictures from friends and family.

You then pick the music that plays with the slideshow and you have to the choice of their collection of Creative Commons license music or from your own collection. It does make you verify that you have permission from the artist to use the audio. I just chose from their library to make it easy.

The last step is to give your video a name and description. You then click create video and wait. It takes a few minutes to create so they give you want they call “distractions” which are basically trailers while you wait. It took about 5-10 minutes to complete the process. Once it is done processing, you are left with a slick video you can embed in your own website, email to friends and also post to YouTube all on the same screen. Here is a link to my finished product on YouTube. Here are some screenshots showing you the process I went through on the site:

Below is my embedded video as well:

Happy Easter!

// March 23rd, 2008 // View Comments // Blog, Social Media, Video

Happy Easter you all! Here is a video to celebrate the holiday … Enjoy!

Thanks Kent Nichols

My Xbox 360 can blog?

// March 18th, 2008 // View Comments // Blog, Gaming

Yes its true! My Xbox 360 speaks to me and it does so with vigor and humor. It even makes me sad when I don’t play it every day. This is made possible by a fun little website called 360Voice.com The site basically uses your gamertag on Xbox Live to create an automatic blog per day, based on your activity. The automated system is written very well you would swear someone is at the keyboard writing these each day. I have not seen a repeated phrase yet. These automated blogs are what the site creators call Blogjects, which are basically “objects that write “blogs” about their interactions with the world and other devices just like humans write about their interactions with the world and other people.”

Whenever you play a game on Xbox Live, at the end of the day 360 Voice will make an entry in your blog similar to this:

I thought curs0r just wanted to listen to music or watch a DVD. Turns out he was there to game. With a gamer score of 2,403, I should have known that was the case. He rallied Call of Duty 4, and then the lightweight went to bed. Freakin’ wuss.

When you don’t play any games that day 360Voice will say something like this and make you feel like you ripped out its soul:

curs0r, there are 86,400 seconds in a day and you couldn’t find a few to spend with me? Lame.

If you add some friends to your watchlist you can also get some entries like this added to your daily blog:

It is probably better that curs0r didn’t play yesterday… it gives BlexBox360 an opportunity to add to that 3,320 gamerscore and increase the lead… Booooo!

If you want to see more of my blog on 360Voice click here. Oh and when you see the entries about Tetris Splash and Uno, that’s my wife. I wouldn’t play that crap.

Freemium games: Quake Live and Battlefield Heroes

// March 6th, 2008 // View Comments // Blog, Gaming, Internet

What are “Freemium” games you ask? Freemium stands for “free-to-play premium games” based on their most popular titles in order to attract new audiences and open new revenue advertising revenue streams. Games like this have been limited in the past to flash or 2D games. Implementing games such as these in the FPS market is a new venture and two of the biggest franchises are taking a stab at it: Id Software with their Quake and Doom franchises and Dice the makers of Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2, and Battlefield 2042.

Id Software is building Quake Live from the widely popular Quake III Arena engine and Dice is building Battlefield Heroes, a brand new “cartoon shooter” similar to the cell-shaded Team Fortress 2 from Valve. Both games will be offering a totally free to play, web based experience that is targeting a broader audience then their typical games which appealed more to the hardcore gamers of the world. This is becoming a popular trend now for gaming with the advent of the Nintendo Wii and more gamers opting to play console games over PC games due to the stringent PC specs required to run the latest FPS games. These games are hoping to capitalize on the idea of the FPS experience without the need for the top of the line PC.

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California Dreaming

// March 2nd, 2008 // View Comments // Blog

Sorry for the delay in posts. I have been busy with work and also out of town in California for work and visiting relatives. I had to go to Corona, California for a software installation for work and some of my relatives live in Corona as well. My sister recently moved there as well to start find a job. Perfect opportunity.

California is a beautiful place but I its a little too rich for my blood. While I was there I took my sister and two cousins to go to Hollywood to go star gazing at the Oscars but we got there too late. By the time we got to the red carpet area, the show had already started I did get some nice pics of the red carpet area and some of the sites. You can see my pics on my Flickr page. We did get to stop by the World’s Famous Pink’s Hot Dogs that my cousins were raving about.
I think the reason they are famous is because of their hour long wait and this was after 3PM! The hot dog was good but I think anything would be if you had to wait that long. At least I can say I went, right. It was good to see my relatives that I hadn’t seem in many years.