Friday, July 17, 2009

Jack on YouTube

Danny here again. This is now my SECOND blog post. EVER. So here's whats up: Jack on YouTube.

Background
Knowing I wanted to record our fun times with Jack, I started doing research on HD camcorders about a year ago, a few months after we learned Frances was preggers. I had my feature wish list all picked out: Full HD (1920x1080), a decent sized disk drive (no messing with memory cards), light weight, reputable brand, etc. But I planned on waiting as long as possible until actually purchasing anything because camcorders go the way of all electronic equipment: as time increases, cost decreases and quality and features increase. In other words, roughly speaking,

T = (Q + F) / c

HOWEVER. December 25th came and with ZERO prompting, my MOTHER bought us a camcorder as a celebration of that magical holiday where we all get presents. Now, upon opening up that gift, here's what went through my mind: "WHOA. A CAMCORDER. Awesome! Oh wait. How is this going to line up with my feature wishlist? Given the vast array of possible camcorders she could have purchased, the odds are fairly low." But after a cursory view of the specs, astonishment came over me as my eyes parsed the important parts: Canon HG20, Full HD, 50GB HDD. So naturally, I thanked my mom asked how in the world she ended up buying the perfect gift. She replied that she asked the salesperson at Best Buy which camcorder was a good one then WENT TO READ REVIEWS ON BEST BUY'S WEBSITE. Why in all caps you may ask? Because I work for the company that provides Best Buy with their superior online Reviews/Questions/Answers services (Bazaarvoice). User Generated Content (UGC) saves the day!

So since Jack was born, we have recorded several videos, and a few of them were quality enough to post on YouTube for family and friends. So I uploaded the first video file in its native format to YouTube, and it worked! Woohoo! Here it is:



After a few months, we recorded 2 more videos that I wanted to post, but YouTube changed their video processing at some point recently and they came out all garbled up. GRRRRRRRRR!!!! What this meant was that I either had to buy video converting software ($50-$100), or spend the time to learn how to convert each video to a YouTube friendly format with open source tools. Long story short, after a weekend and a few late weeknights of research, I figured out a way, and so here are the next two videos:






So sorry for not posting these earlier. We hope you enjoy them :)

4 comments:

Corinne said...

oh my goodness! I LOVE the videos! He is such a cutie! :)

Kim P. said...

Those videos are great! He's changed so much. I definitely have camera envy...haha. He is adorable! And I agree with Joe..I think he said hi to his dad in that video. He also got some great dancing skills!

Sarah and Eric said...

Wow, the MJ dancing is hilarious! What a cute little guy!

Unknown said...

Who says white boys can't dance??? So great! Love how he "winds down" before bed. Wish we lived closer so we could meet Jack!