Cocktail Confessions

Since I still have yet to decide on what flash-media camcorder to buy, I am fortunate enough to have my friend Brian lend me his Kodak Playsport this last week for a test drive.  For those that don’t know what flash-corders are, they are basically pocket sized video recorders that instead of using tape or CD media, save the files digitally to internal flash or SD cards.

They generally retail for sub $200 and target people on the go who who want to record video clips or still pictures on the go without lugging around a larger, more professional camera or camcorder.  They aren’t meant to make you the next Cecil Demille, but for those that like to share memories via FaceBook, YouTube, smaller emails and the like.  Features are generally limited and is really meant to do one-touch recording on the fly.  Think social sharing teens, soccer moms, and dads on the hunting trip.  If you understand this, then you should know what to expect and what not to.

The big three are considered to be Kodak, Sony, and Cisco.  All the others are poor imitators, and you get what you pay for, so don’t expect superior quality in both recordings or durability if you go with one of the off-name brands.  Out of the gate, I eliminate all the Cisco ‘Flip’ brands because of the cost factor.  There is nothing that the Cisco ones do any better than the Kodak or Sony models other than cost more.  They may have made it virtually ‘idiot proof’, but with the various Flips, you sacrifice pure 1080p HD recordings and as a reward for stripping down to the most basic features, you actually pay more.  That being said, many people do like their Flips for their simplicity, and no one can argue their marketing machine made a splash as the Flip Mino and new HD Slyde are practically household vernacular…but that doesn’t make them the best.

I’m torn between the lower end Sony Bloggie and new Kodak Playsport.  Both have pros and cons that on paper seem to cancel each other out.  From what I have read the Bloggie has superior video qulaity whereas the Playsport has better audio pickup.  Both have 4 recording settings that are identical, have zoom features, have editing software, have the ability to take 5 megapixel still shots.  Bloggie has a built in USB connection, whereas the Kodak uses a cable.  Kodak is roughly $40 buck cheaper and is has one additional feature that extreme outdoors people may indeed like…it is waterproof up to 10 feet under water making it ideal for the beach, skiing trips, and backyard pool parties.

So now that you get the idea, here are my preliminary findings on the Kodak Playsport:

1) Lowlight conditions do not favor this camera.  We used it once at night in my backyard with the only light source being some tiki torches, bleed over light from the kitchen to the backyard, and some decorative overhead hanging lights.  The Kodak did not fair very well.  I suspect the Sony may not do much better as neither has a flash or floodlight function.  Perhaps too much a battery drain?

2) However filming at dusk seemed to be okay.  The raw format for the Playsport is .MOV files, friendly to Apple and Quicktime applications.  The following video was taken at the San Clemente, CA pier this past Sunday at roughly 6:30pm.  I think the colors turned out pretty well, and the raw playback footage on my PC (prior to YouTube uploading and conversion) was nice, albeit it somewhat shaky (more on that in a second).

3) Now the shakiness.  You’ll note that even with EIS turned on, it stills seems very jerky even though my panning was fairly smooth.  I have heard this from other people as well and that the Sony Bloggie may indeed do a better job at image stabilization.

4) Here is the second video taken just a bit later.  Again, looks good other than a bit shaky:

Miscellaneous stuff: comes with a wrist strap and a very small and somewhat generic manual.  Visiting the Kodak support page, I noticed that a new firmware patch was released in March of this year, shortly after the the Playsport went public.  Too bad I couldn’t find anything at the Kodak webpage that informs users what the firmware upgrade actually does, but here’s to hoping it addresses the EIS and the reported false battery charged readings.  That is, some people are stating that the battery doesn’t seem to charge 100%, or even if the indicator does register that the internal battery is 100%, only minutes after use, the icon shows it’s already 25% spent which may make some users wary how the long the battery life actually is.

The nice thing was that that plugging in the Playsport to my PC via a USB cable, Windows XP detected it immediately and there was no additional software I needed to install.  I was able to go in to the media storage and quickly drag and drop the .MOV files over to my PC.  That was pretty seemless.  I did not have a chance thus far to play with the actual camera for taking still shots, nor did I use the included editing software that is built in to the Playsport to alter my videos.

Now I also created a YuoTube account and uploaded both movie’s there as you see embedded above.  One thing I did note…the raw .MOV files are much sharper than the YouTube videos you see here.  I assume YouTube has some type of conversion and compression process and in the end you may notice a bit more pixelation and muted colors.  That could be because YouTube uses the .FLV format or something else.

Part of me feels like I sold out to the Media Man.  I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ve been fairly proud to have gone thus far so long without jumping on the Twitter bandwagon.  There’s a couple of reasons why I never felt the need to jump on this trend, and I suppose on the technological front it was because I never had a smart phone prior to my Droid and there was no way in hell I was going to use my regular phone (sans QWERTY keyboard) to attempt and fumble through pecking out a tweet.  It didn’t help either that Verizon charges like $.10 for every text message as well if you don’t have a data plan.

The second reason was more of a social ego thing for me which of course goes both ways.  On my side of the coin, I’m not sure what I would ‘tweet’ or why I would in the first place.  I’m not of the generation where this technology is second hand nature to kids have my age.  It seems that ‘tweeting’ was the next step in evolution for teens who were already maturing beyond Myspace, and now had a mobile way to keep friends updated.  I’m pretty sure that if I were 16 again, I’d really be into Twitter.  On the flip-side of things, it seemed Twitter became all that when celebrity douche’s like Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton and John Mayer got on-board and felt the need to tweet about everything they came into contact with.  Soon, ‘entertainment’ news shows such as Access Hollywood and Extra started to report the often mundane and sometimes insane musings of so called celebrities and hung on every word as if the ability to tweet now turned them into wise old sages that we as a culture needed to hang onto every word.  It was no longer about what we could do or experience for ourselves, but we were more interested, (for whatever reason) in “What would Ashton do?” or “What does Brittany think?”, as if somehow we were actually no closer to them, understood them, and now could tell others we were friends.

So why did I succumb if I am so against it?  Well, like all things, even my opinions change over time.  I still think Ashton and John Mayer are douches, but I cam to realize that there are other people out there that actually do write about things that interest me.  There are people I am interested in following as it comes to discovering new technologies, new restaurants, new clubs and venues, and even news that affects my world.

So who the hell am I following then?    Funny you should ask.  For the first time, it seems I have the ability to ‘interview’ who I want to follow on a trial basis.  Some may come, some may go.  For example, I don’t think I could follow a John Mayer even if I like him because my phone would be chirping upwards of ten times a day on just him.  Now suppose I began to follow 10 people, or maybe 20, or even 30.  If they even just tweeted once a day, I’d be inundated with chirps that would drive me up the wall.

The current list I have is relatively small (10), and there wasn’t all that much thought put into it.  Some of them I added like Neil Patrick Harris, because he actually has something to say and it has content, not like Kim Kardashian who peppers here with just links and nonsensical crap like advertisements.  I looked at a few dozen random celebrities in different fields and here’s my list thus far:  Nikkie Jackson (fitness model), Catalina Cruz (Internet entrepreneur), Niel Patrick Harris (actor), Bobby Flay (celebrity chef), Denise Richards (actress, model, animal lover), Kevin Smith (director, comic buff, actor), Blair Herter (TV personality, comic geek, video games), Adam Sessler (TV personality, video gamer), Aziz Ansari (comedian, actor), Guy Fieri (celebrity chef, tv personality).

I also realize it’s a great self marketing tool.  I’d love to get more people to listen to my podcast and if I can even attract one person via Twitter over to CocktailConfessions, then by measurement, it worked.  I doubt I will be personally be ‘tweeting’ much, I mean what possibly do I have to say to the masses who don’t even know I exist?  If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get a few followers, although I suspect they will be friends and I can share with them some new eats I’ve discovered, or inform them of a new podcast, or perhaps an occasional mobile picture….but isn’t that what we have Facebook for?

On my Droid phone I installed ‘Tweetcaster lite’, a freebie version of Tweetcaster Pro.  It seemed to get a lot of positive ratings 4.5/5 and seems failry intuitive to use.  Not sure if it is the best one out there as it seems a few people said it doesn’t have the ability to upload video’s to Twitter….but do I care about that?  Maybe it will come with an upcoming patch or release upgrade?

Anyway, now I’m looking for an appropriate and easy Twitter plug-in for Wordpress.  I’ve already seen a few, but I need to decide which one will suit my needs here.  Don’t be surprised if you see one or two come and go over the weeks as I decide which one is for me.  However, in the meantime, if you so choose you can follow me on Twitter at ‘@alonedisciple’.

Finally, if you were to become a follower of me, what would you want me to tweet about?  Recipes?  Grilling?  Cocktails?  Funny crap?

Zune HD

Not that money is burnoking a hole in my pocket but sometimes I get this intense urge to purchasea shiny new gadget and it’s very hard to satiate or assuage that feeling until a transaction has been made.  Therein this dilemma lies a few various issues that bounce about within my noggin that I begin to wonder if I stumbled upon some warped psychosis of myself: 1) Do I ‘really‘ need a new gadget?  2) Do I have a mild case of ’shop-a-holic’ syndrome usually discussed by various yentas on shows like The View or Maury Povich?  3) Am I making an intelligent buying decision or do I wait for the next model?  or 4)  Do I shove this current desire deep down within and wait for something completly different at a later date…perhaps something I’m not even aware I need or want yet?

That’s where I seem to be at this point, and while I am proud I did not make fall into temptation today and make an impulse purchase while I was at Best Buy earlier today, I’m also kinda bummed I didn’t at the same time.  See, for Christmas I was gifted a new Playstation 3.  I would normally have kept this gift and be very excited about it, however, it was not a Playstation Slim.  I also own a Xbox 360 and Wii and really can’t afford to start buying yet another consoles games at $60 a pop.  And the fact that my wife purchased me a Panansonic Blu-Ray player doesn’t help my argument either.  So begrudgingly I did return the PS3 and received a store credit in the amount of $300+.

Now what to buy with it?  A few thoughts crossed my mind: 1) new Xbox hard drive and some games?  2) Use it sparingly over time to purchase some DVD’s and reduced games once I play and tire with the current games I own and haven’t yet completed?  3) Buy a Zune HD player (a few months ago I almost would have done anything for a Zune 32GB)?  4) Buy a Cisco FlipHD handheld camcorder, or now something I just learned today, 5) Buy a Sony Bloggie 360 camcorder?

Well, I learned that Best Buy doesn’t currently carry 100GB Xbox hard drives and data transfer kits, so that’s out.  I’ll have to look for that separately another time.

I think I recently changed my mind on the Zune HD 32 as well.  The price is still a bit high at $289 and I can’t help but think that over the last few years I’m lucky if I even have picked up any MP3 player.  I have an older 4 GB Rio that works just fine and I don’t go to the gym as much as I used to either.  I also have my new Motorola Droid which I can listen to LastFM, and various other audio and digital podcasts (which I currently do at work now).  The Zune 16GB ($199) may be better for me as by the time I actually fill it up to say 40% of songs, the price may drop even more or a new model may be announced.  I do like the idea of placing many of my CD’s onto it, being Droid independent, and its ability to hook into my Ford Edge’s SYNC system.  I currently use a small 256MB USB memory stick in my car that holds quite a few songs, but clearly not as nice as a Zune.  I also have a Zune account on both my PC and XBox 360 and fancy myself going back to the gym more often here in the future and being able to watch video podcasts on the run is very attractive.

FlipHD

Then there is the Flip UltraHD cam from Cisco.  Up until CES 2010 (last week) I was liking the idea of having a Flip.  Not that I video anything much now because I don’t have a portable device or an account on YouTube, but I recently discovered the use of my Droid’s video capture abilities at a trade show I recently attended and found it very cool.  I’ve been doing more on Facebook recently as well, and have ideas of including vodcasts here and another site I’m working on.  However, it’s a Cisco device and although very popular right now, I can already sense that it is overpriced by the nature of it being Cisco and I feel a new model is under development.  As a matter of fact, with Sony’s ‘Bloggie’ announcement last week, Flip has already dropped it’s price from $199 to $149 at Best Buy.

Sony Bloggie

I figure the price drop is to compete against the newest version of Sony’s Bloggie that was announced for $169 for the base model and $189 for the 360 kit.  Now that I know about the Bloggie and its superior resolution (5MP pictures and 1920 x 1080 video resolution), 4x digital zoom, rotating 270 degree lens and 360 video accesory feature, of course now I think the Flip is now out.  It also comes with a 4GB memory stick (upgrades to 8GB), editing software, and it’s ability to immediately share to YouTube, Shutterfly, and Picasa makes it very attractive for our social networking generation (Facebook, Myspace, etc..)

So I didn’t buy anything today.  It’s between my desire to possibly buy a Zune 16, a future Bloggie, or upcoming Blu Ray DVD’s and Xbox 360 video games.

Through the miracle of digital crack addiction phenom known as Facebook, I was able to recently reconnect with an associate I knew back in highschool some 20 years ago.  I learned that he has his own podcast over at teh website: SkurvyMonkeys.  A variety show chock full of music, comedy, and random musings between two dudes. 

I’m currently listening to the episode entitled ‘A Christmas to Drink by (part 2)’, and am very impressed.  This episode has some particularly funny holiday themeds music ranging from Disney to The Kinks.  A nice change from the ever so predictable Howard Stern crapola.

Production sounds a helluva lot better than my own futile attempts (Erik, don’t mind if I hit you up on some podcasting questions at a later date).  You can find their podcast on iTunes and I’ve included the links (skurvymonkeys.com and blendedmonkeys.com) in the right margin right here.  Anyway, go check them out!

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