Demi Moore, known as @mskutcher in the twittersphere just launched a cool web video project:

Basically, Demi was asking what guys want and girls want in their partner.

What is really awesome in this one is the fact that Demi Moore, a Holywood top actress, is just shooting away a webcam video to youtube, without fancy lighting, top camera, or even script (noticed how many times she asked guys to keep it clean)? You actually see the study room of the Kutcher family in the background.
Her ex, Bruce Willis,  who obviously have a worse webcam, posted this one:

Yes, it is a part of promotion to her new perfume, called WANTED. But it is done in such an adorable way. Authenticity in its best.

Wish we'd see more of the real life of those who we see on the screen.

Last night I received a nice email from TokBox, the video chat company, about new features just released. A year ago, when I first tried out the platform I was pretty excited.

TokBox is offering a simple to use video chat, that is now embaddable in third party sites. It is also offering the ability to create threaded video conversations, chat, and public messages. And the good thing - it works like a charm.

These features are important to every video site, conference, or event. As we are working now on a major virtual event, I was delighted to see that these guys are still alive, even though they suffered recently and fired half of their engineers.

However, at the current state, I will never use it for business, nor recommend it to my customer.

Their site, though technically works great, is ridden with content that I wouldn't like to see my customers associated with - from teenagers to pseudo  adult content.

Reliable, socially distributed, embeddable video chat solution is defeinetly needed in the industry, especially after Seesmic turned its back to this market and focus on the Micro blogging market.  But no one in its right mind will put its content with teenage girls and questionable content.

If TokBox's business model is video chat UGC, I personally don't believe in it, but it is just me. But if they want to attract high profile customers, they need to do a clean up, and get more resources to manage the content in their platform, or create a seperate brand and site for these customers.

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Recently I've been asked by several people which video camera should they buy in order to shoot online videos. So, instead of answering only on Twitter I've decided to write this post series. This post will cover key considerations, and the next one will review some of the models sold today. I will focus on sub $1,000 gear considerations, which is around the amount of money new entrants are willing to spend on such an equipment.

But, before we start, let's put one thing straight:

No camera can save a bad script, horrible talent, or plain bad experience — some great things are done with cheap cameras (1938 Media for example), and some horrible pieces of moving pictures were done in huge budget (did anyone say "The day the earth stood stil[5.6/10 rating][5.6/10 rating]l"?)

Equipment can make your life easier, make some things feasible, but that's it. Nothing can replace talent and knowledge. in other words - IT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS WITHIN THE CAMERA THAT IS IMPORTANT, IT IS WHAT HAPPENS IN FRONT OF IT.

Ok, with that out of the way, let's get started:

Number 1 Consideration - Audio

Yes, it sounds strange but the most important thing in video is actually Audio. If your image is not that good but your audio is excellent, people would watch, or at least listen. However, you can be Gordon Willis and have amazing images, but bad audio will make people just close the browser.

So, when you are considering buying a camera, check if it has an audio jack. It doesn't have to be a professional XLR input (three pins socket), it can be a plain 3.5 mm one. But without it you will have to count only on the external mic of the camera - which is usually awful. This is one of the reason that I am not a huge fan of Flip Mino, Xacti, Kodak Zi6 and so on. They are great for mom and pop videos, and maybe for very hot news coverage, but personally I won't recommend them for other uses (unless you figure out a way to connect an external mike to it). A way to bypass this issue is by recording audio with a separate mike, and then sync it. If you have the equipment, time and patience - that's great. But then it might be worthwhile just to buy a different camera.

High Definition (HD) vs. Standard Definition (SD)

True - in many cases the web is not exactly the best HD experience. But with Vimeo, HQ YouTube, and podcasts, more and more people see online originated HD videos on their computers. So if you buy a camera now - go HD. Which brings us to the next consideration

My choice - I've bought an HD camera, didn't think twice.

Tape vs. Tapeless, HDV and AVCHD

Now we get to the juicy part, that is not an issue only for amateurs and semi-professional creators but for the whole industry. There are no clear rules here, but let's start with explaining the differences between these methods:

Tape - an established, cheap to use media. You can buy a MiniDV tape in almost every electronics store, and the best thing about it — it is a great archive solution. Now, MiniDV tapes were originally created for SD format, but, there is an HD format called HDV that records an hour of HD on a MiniDV tape (the same as in SD format). So, if you go tape, you usually go HDV. The main pitfall of tape is the capturing process. When you will need to deliver the footage to your editing system, you'll need to play the material from the camera to the system, a process called capture. This process takes the same amount of time as your footage length. Another pitfall with Tape based cameras is that they can't be too small as they have a limitation — the tape size.

Tapeless - tapeless cameras are using different media for storing its footage — hard disk, flash memory, or DVD. These cameras allow you to connect your camera to your computer and drag and drop the images to your editing system. It saves a lot of time, as you don't need to wait for the capturing process. However, the main issues with tapeless are:

1. There is no good archiving solution — remember when you lost all of your old MP3 in the latest HD crash? The same can happen to your footage — your videos are just files on an HD. This is an industry wide issue, not just for us, prosumer guys.

2. The format is very resource intensive (meaning, not so much fun to edit) — most HD based cameras are using a format called AVCHD. In short, this format is heavier on the processor, and requires a stronger machine. Mac users also know that many of the editing applications automatically convert the files from the camera to an Apple Intermediate Codec, a time consuming process as well. So all in all, I am not certain that the reduced capturing time worth the editing hassle later on.

3. If you are in a long trip, or have no way to offload your camera, you might be stuck with a great tapeless camera with no room for new footage. With tape based solution you just put in a new one—.

My decision - I've bought a tape based, HDV camera. BUT if you are not editing a lot, have a strong enough computer, offload your camera a lot, and not concerned with archiving your material — tapeless might be the answer for you.

Tripod and Monopod

Tripod, like audio, is the kind of thing that goes a long way in improving your production value (a cool way to say looking better). Make sure that whatever you do you get a camera that can be connected to a tripod. You might not buy one now, but you need to have the possibility to do so.

In the next post in this series I will review some of the popular cameras out there, up to $1,000. You can see my equipment in this post.

Michael Rosenblum is the godfather of video journalism. He was a one man band video crew back at the 80's and since then he trained and taught generations of video journalists this craft.

Though poorly shot, here is a great presentation he did to UK journalists where he describes the history and reality of video journalists :

Michael Rosenblum @ Society of Editors 08 from Paul Bradshaw on Vimeo.

Michael Rosenblum @ Society of Editors 08 pt2 from Paul Bradshaw on Vimeo.
Michael Rosenblum @ Society of Editors pt.3 from Paul Bradshaw on Vimeo.

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The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard did two great pieces about the philosophy, workflow and tools that digital journalists, usually a one man show out on the field. If you are suckers of neat kits that allow you to basically do everything on your own, as well as interested in learning more about the best way to be a one man gang kind of producer, check these videos out:

NBC's Mara Schiavocampo: Her digital workflow from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

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NBC's Mara Schiavocampo: Inside her digital toolkit from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

Schiavocampo is a digital journalist with NBC News.

According to this great post her kit includes:

— A Sony HVR-V1U HDV camcorder (about $4,000). This camcorder is standard-issue at NBC; she describes it as “halfway between DV and HD” and capable of producing visuals suitable for broadcast as well as the web. The camcorder has two add-ons: A Rode AA-battery-powered shotgun microphone ($250), and a Sony wide-angle conversion lens (about $500) that threads on the front of the camcorder.

— A lightweight Libec video tripod (7 pounds), as well as a monopod ($300 total).

— A Litepanels MiniPlus camera-mountable LED light, daylight balanced ($800).

— An Apple MacBook Pro laptop with Final Cut Pro, and an extra charged MacBook battery ($3,000).

— An external hard drive for the laptop ($200).

— Apple earbuds.

— A Fujipoint-and-shoot camera (”I almost never use it anymore”) as a backup ($300).

— XLR cables, and XLR adapters that can input into a small audio jack on her laptop for voice-over (”I always have spares”).

— Two wireless lavalier microphone sets (about $500).

— An array of white-balance cards in blues and green, to either heighten the warmth of skin tones or adjust for fluorescent light.

— Bags of spare connectors and cables.

— Lots of spare tapes, in HD Mini-DV format.

— Plug converters (”You need them if you’re in another country on assignment”).

— And, though every ounce matters, the manual for every piece of equipment she has in the bag (”Never leave them at home”).

Pretty cool isn't it?

Take a look at this short video - if you are a video editor, you would definitely love it.

Edit Day in Final Cut Pro from Glenn McElhose on Vimeo.

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Video comments are a tricky thing - they allows users to leave comments in video instead of text, and meant to enrich the conversation in blog's comments. However they are not that straight forward as text comments.

I've been using Seesmic as my Video Commenting system, but didn't really promote it till now. Other sites such as Techcrunch are using the same product.

What's your opinion?

If you support video comments - please leave one! Also - I'd love to see the faces of my readers for a change :)

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Om Malik anounced a new venture today called NewTeeVee Station, an editorial driven guide to online videos:

...NewTeeVee Station is your guide to online video, pointing you to hot new memes, following the emerging stars of the web, and just generally indexing this new entertainment medium. Whereas in the past we covered online video shows like Ask a Ninja, Obama Girl andWallstrip from a business perspective, now we’re also reviewing content for content’s sake...

....NTV Station features editorial reviews of online videos written by a team led by Liz Shannon Miller, who comes to us from Variety and the Daily Reel. We eliminate the static and bring to you videos that are actually good — but also the stuff that’s so bad it has everyone talking... When you visit the front page of NTV Station, you’ll see in one glance what’s hot at that very moment. Our editors monitor the online video universe and refresh the site with new videos throughout the day. A special widget developed using the VodPod API allows you to scroll through all of our past video picks....

I am a big fan of sites trying to make some sense of all the videos out there. In a past, I wrote a hotly debated post where I asked when would someone create an online HBO equivalent, and gang all the best video shows to one site. This is a form of content discovery in my opinion - a way to bring the best videos to my computer screen. Would Om answer my prayers?

Challenges ahead

Value

There were several initiative in this area, one of them was Jeff Pulver's Network2.tv. While N2 was aiming at being a definitive guide to all episodic video on the web, it seems that Om's effort is a mix of being IMDB and an editorial driven site, that does some filtering for the audience. What I am missing here is a clear value proposition, or, in other words, what exactly should I expect - the best videos? The hottest videos? All the "good" videos?

Definition of Quality

One of the trickiest issues in the world of online video is the definition of quality. How can the editor in NTV know what's good for me? Though philosophical in nature, it is a major challenge, that I'd love to hear Om's opinion about.

User Interface

Last but not least, user interface is one of the biggest challenges in online video today. Looking at the current interface of most video recommendation sites, one would see the same scroll down page with x amount of videos. This interface works for YouTube, but in my opinion should be improved. NewTeeVee is built as a blog, and as such it is well designed. As a video interface - not so good IMHO:

1. Almost one-third of the screen is dedicated to promotion, ad space, and other money making machines.

2. Viewers need to scroll down in order to see recommended shows.

3. Video player is covering a small amount of the screen - while it is supposed to be the dominant experience

4. Users need to click at least twice to start playing a video

My belief is that online video interfaces should be, well, video interfaces. I'd like to see a site with a dominant video player, where users could navigate and find the best videos for them. This way, the video experience is the dominant one, and not the textual interface.

I hope that Om will be successful in this project - the web certainly needs one!