Running and Passing.

The World’s Greatest Head Massage is a video that I’ve come back to a number of times over the past few months. It depicts a traveler in Pushkar, India receiving a head massage from a barber/masseuse named Baba. Apart from Baba’s comment to “Go Back, Go Back, Go Back, Relax”, the video is devoid of any dialogue. However, the ambient sounds and application of cosmic energy greatly enhance the performance.

Mirror Neurons: A neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron “mirrors” the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. (via Wikipedia:Mirror_Neuron)

If you dig around in the comments, you’ll find viewers claiming a general state of relaxation and occasional attempts to tie in the theory of mirror neurons. It’s worth noting that a high number of commentators claim to be are repeat viewers.

Other things that I find relaxing or mesmerizing include…

• people water gardens
• street sweepers (white noise)
• leaf blowers (white noise)

** Anyone interested in a collaborative project? I’m open to a range of topics and production methods. Ideally, this collaboration would mimic the read/write ethos of the creative commons and the resulting work would be licensed under agreeable CC conditions. **

In January, I blogged about my interest in licensing work via the Creative Commons and ended up settling on a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 license. I have since revised the terms and changed to a bit more open Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

The Commons are meant to expand distribution potential while maintaining a given level of control. This allows producers to publish work online while communicating to exactly what can and can’t done with the work. A large portion of my Flickr imagery is now under said license. For more info about the Creative Commons, I’d suggest examining their licensing conditions, case studies, and interviews.

Having only sent lifeless or insentient bodies through different zones of Time, the inventors where now concentrating on men given to very strong mental images. If they were able to conceive or dream another time, perhaps they would be able to live in it.

I will be brief because there are no doubt much better writeups and critques that address this classic film. La Jetee is a French science fiction film directed by Chris Marker. Released in 1962, it is  constructed almost entirely of still photographs. Apart from some mutters in German, it features only the dialog of the narrator and a well composed+timed soundtrack.

The original French versions with subtitles is available on various bit torrent sites. It is not hard to find and I suggest you seek it out as it is much higher quality. I found it just as enjoyable to read the narrators text.

Here are some of our thoughts on the Thirty Days of Smiles project.

• Time flew by, but viewing/making a per day video makes it appear much longer.
• Smiling became significantly easier as we progressed.
• When I look back at my videos I can’t help by smile!
• I either fixed by gaze upon a distant object/thought or looked directly into the camera.
• I enjoyed going off into my own head during the videos, thus organizing thoughts or allowing myself to unconsciously compute daily/weekly happenings.
• I think it’s cool to look back at all the past month and realize it was just a day by day process that I was able to smile through.
• Early on I realized I wanted to remain relatively still throughout the video. I really like the idea that the smile and time are the only active elements.
• I realized I can make a better effort to more fully display my emotions. I’m not sure if I always smile as much or as energetically as I should.
• I like my version of a smile.
• If anything, making videos presents a nice dose of reality and self awareness.
• You make smiling look like the easiest thing in the world.
• It was a lot harder to smile than I expected.
• I didn’t really focus on anything.  I’m sure a lot of my time was spent thinking about how it looked like I was barely smiling (and making myself try to smile “bigger”).
• I realized I spend the majority of my time at home in two places.
• I had no idea what I looked like when I work, I kind of like it.
• It hasn’t changed how I look at my own smile.  If anything, I like it even less.
• Watching myself for so long led to more negative than positive thoughts.  Yesterday all I could think about is how my one eyelid is bigger than the other (eczema makes it puffy and weird).
• Five minutes didn’t seem so long after a while.
• Doing this when I was sick was rough.  Took so much willpower.
• Overall I’m proud of myself for posting so much recorded time of myself online.  Not that anyone is necessarily looking at it, but the possibility is there.  I don’t put up 99% of pictures of myself because I think I look gross.
• I think my smiles are best with animals around.

You can view the videos at thirtydaysofsmiles.tumblr.com (recommended order) or in the Thirty Days of Smiles Vimeo Group.

Amy and I just wrapped up our Thirty Days of Smiles experiment.  During those thirty days, we refrained from disucssing the project, so it will be interesting to compare our opinions, intent, and overall impression of the smiles and the project itself. You can view the videos at thirtydaysofsmiles.tumblr.com or in the Thirty Days of Smiles Vimeo Group.

I recently did some investigating into h.264 decoding options for a aged Toshiba laptop that I have been using as my media center. The system in question is running Windows XP and sports an Intel mobile Celeron 2.2 Ghz processor (400mhz fsb + 256kb cache), 1GB Ram, Intel i852GM chipset, 82852/82855 GM/GME graphics adapter, and 4200 rpm hard drive. Hardly specs one would associate with any a modern media center.

The video card does not support hardware decoding of HD content, so I am forced to rely solely on processor power. However, I only outputting video to the laptops 15″ screen. My media center pc only needs to be able to handle my music collection, stream online media, and play a variety of offline video including, fairly low bitrate 720p h.264.

VLC is my media player of choice, but I was running into some problems playing 720p video. For h.264 playback, VLC utilizes the open source FFmpeg codec and does not support third party/system codecs. This is a blessing and a curse. VLC is well known for playing practically any media one can throw at it, but that comes at the price of not always offering the most efficient decoding options. This is not a problem in most cases, but I needed something highly efficient if my Celeron was going to have a chance at playing HD content.

In it’s default state VLC was unable to render watchable video. Processor usage was pegged at 100% and high bitrate scenes were suffering from constant frame drops. However, by utilizing the following tweaks, I was able to attain very watchable, good quality playback.

* Open the preferences
* Tick advanced in the lower right corner
* Go to “Input/Codec”
* Go to “other codecs” subcategory
* Go to “FFmpeg”
* Change “Low Resolution Decoding” to 1 or 2
* Tick “Allow Speed Tricks”
* Change “skip the loop filter for H.264 decoding” to all. <– aka Deblocking
* Restart VLC

Depending on system specs, one may not have to implement all of the tweaks. A good course of action would be to  enable one at a time, then try combinations until a efficient decoding process emerges.

Another alternative is to use a different decoder. The CoreAVC codec and Divx 7 are two third party h.264 decoders said to offer superior performance compared to FFmpeg. However, both codecs are proprietary software. Divx 7 is available as a free decoder download, while CoreAVC is available for $10.

To enable these decoders,  an different media player must be. My reliable fallback is the the aptly named Media Player Classic (MPC). In this case, I used Media Player Classic – Home Cinema. MPC is lightweight, open source, and most importantly, supports external filters/decoders.

After installing a 3rd party decoder, navigate to it’s start menu folder and you will be able to configure playback options, interlace methods, and deblocking preferences. Use the following steps to add decoding codecs to MPC.

* Click “View” -> “Options” -> “External Filters”
* Select “Add Filter” from the right menu and select your decoder
* You can then choose to ‘prefer’ or ‘block’  usage so as to ensure you are running the decoder of choice.

Between CoreAVC and Divx 7, CoreAVC was the clear winner. It succeded in blowing away both Divx 7 and FFmpeg.  Processor usage with CoreAVC was 20%+/- lower AND I was able to leave deblocking turned on, something I was unable to do while running either of the other decoders.

VLC, MPC, and the decoders are fully supported by all recent flavors of Windows (XP, Vista, or 7). Decoding speeds will vary according to cpu type, chipset, and ram and decoding codecs should be tested to ensure optimal performance. For example, at the time of this post (01/24/2010), the VLC FFmpeg codec does not support multi-core processing. Also, while real world testing does hold the trump card, GraphStudio provides an excellent base for benchmarking decoders.

Since I have both VLC and MPC installed on the system, I will continue to run both programs as needed. I still like VLC a bit more, but MPCs ability to utilize the CoreAVC decoder and thus provide slightly higher quality playback makes it a must for my lowly mobile Celeron. H.264 Bitrates higher than 3600-3800 kb/s still choke the system, but I am no longer limited to non HD content. Even on more high end systems, these tweaks and decoders can aid in playback and provide some options as to performance preferences.

Great resources for digital video conversation include : forum.videolan.org – forum.doom9.org – forum.videohelp.com

* Update *

11/01/2009 : I found a OpenCulture.org post from this past week that compiles a nice listing of Intelligent Video: The Top Cultural & Educational Video Sites

I have not subscribed to a cable television service, or for that matter owned a TV, for over 2 years.  As I am still quite enthralled with the broadcast news, entertainment, and the general educational possibilities that video can provide, I have compiled the following list of online video resources that I find most useful.

Fora.tv : The World is Thinking – Highly Recommended – Primarily an education resource, Fora features critical debate, lectures, and interviews from the world’s top universities, think tanks, and conferences. Topics range from the economy to technology to environment and nutrition.  They aim to “help intelligent, engaged audiences get smart” and I can attest to the quality of their unmediated offerings.

TED Ideas Worth Spreading – TED  started as an annual multidisciplinary conference featuring 18 minute lectures from the world foremost thinkers and doers. Similar in scope to Fora, TED covers science, politics, global issues, development, and more. However while Fora aims for insight critical discussion, TED functions primarily to disseminate contemporary ideas and innovations.

Myp2p.eu – Highly Recommended – Myp2p is an excellent resource for watching live sporting events. If someone is streaming sports video myp2p attempts to collate and organize those streams into coherent weekly schedule.  I primarily use this to watch Major League Soccer matches, Cleveland sports teams (Here we go….) and other major events. Many of the streams are available through justin.tv, ustream.tv, Veetle, or 3rd party programs. I have found TVU and Sopcast to be my primary streaming applications.

Channelsurfing.com – Channelsurfing offers basic streams for entertainment based television broadcasts. Featuring major sporting events and the nightly offerings from the (former?) big three networks, channelsurfing is a simple no frills outlet for live broadcasts.

Hulu – Hulu provides a broad range of content but is plagued by commercials and it’s connections to high-profile media players. It primarily features purely entertainment based video, however they do feature a decent selection of documentary features, journalism, and science+healthy related content.

I am interested in any other resources that offer similar programming to Fora and myp2p. I welcome your comments and suggestions.

PS22 Chorus – “Eye Of The Tiger” by Survivor

Jam PS22. Follow the emotional faces.
Read more about the PS22 Chorus @ http://ps22chorus.blogspot.com/

Capital Children’s Choir – “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns & Roses

Kids Incorporated – “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by the Simple Minds

Langley Schools – “Space Oddity” by David Bowie

Almost hauntingly beautiful.
Read more information about the Langley Schools Music Project @ http://www.keyofz.com/langley/
Watch a short three part feature from VH1. Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

DJ Tiesto – Suburban Train (feat Children Of Orpheus Choir)

Gifford Children’s Choir of Racine, Wisconsin – “No Surprises” by Radiohead