SDHC Card Super Deal!

Wow!  This past weekend (after Black Friday) I was shopping for a reasonably priced 16GB Class 10 SDHC card to give as a gift at Christmas.  After checking all the sales flyers and retail websites I settled on a deal at CompUSA.  They were offering the Patriot PSF16GSDHC10F LX Series SDHC Card for $17.99 after a $10 rebate.

That in itself (to me) is a great deal.  Well imagine my surprise when I arrived at the store and picked up a sales flyer at the entrance.  There in print was the same card - but the stated price was $13.99 after a $10 rebate.  Even better!

But hold onto your hats - I went to the aisle containing all the SD Cards and USB flash drives, found the Patriot 16GB card and was surprised even further!  The placard posted next to the cards showed the $23.99 - $10 rebate = $13.99 price... but under that in red print it said $3.99.

What what what????  A customer standing nearby noticed me staring at the placard and came over.  He too could not understand what the $3.99 meant.  It just seemed too good to be true.  We summoned a sales associate over and he went on to explain the cards are $13.99 after rebate, then pointed at the $3.99 and said "I don't know how they figure that math."

No problem - $13.99 is still a really good deal, so I picked up the card and headed to the register expecting to pay $23.99. 

But sure enough it rang up as $13.99!  I was genuinely excited - somebody must have priced it wrong!  So now I've filed for the $10 rebate and in the end that card will cost only $3.99!

Legoland Florida YouTube Video

I took the footage I shot at Legoland Florida recently - all 65 minutes of it, and scaled it down to a 7 minute video.   All of the shots were limited to roughly 2-5 seconds each.  Included one shot at the very end of the merry go-round left in place from the days of Cypress Gardens.

Added a basic title screen and used Pinnacle Studio 11 for the editing.  Also used the ScoreFitter music generator to create a background track for the video.  As much as I like the sound of real artist-composed music I'll always try to stay away from using copyrighted music if possible.

Here it is on YouTube:

Legoland Florida in HD Widescreen

Legoland Florida

Through a deal offered to Lego VIP Club members we were able to visit the new Legoland Florida recently (one free ticket, two discounted tickets).  Very nice theme park for kids and anyone who is a fan of Lego blocks!

Many different rides for all age groups.  One of the neatest things there was a Lego city complete with streets, lego pedestrians, and little Lego cars just the right size for children to drive.  Not on a track either, nope - they get to drive all over the city.  When the driving experience is over they can then get their very own Legoland drivers license!

Another neat experience was the boat ride.  You and a passenger get to pilot a Lego boat through a river course.  Just like the Lego cars - the boats are not on a track.  Very very cool.

So many other things to see there - the miniature Lego cities that were represented must have taken a long time to build.

I brought my video cam along and tried to film as much as I could for a compilation video I'll post on YouTube.  Unlike my Universal Studios Simpson's Ride video, I'll try to use original music this time.
I'm trying to move away from using copyrighted music for videos that end up on YouTube.
I should be able to start work on it tomorrow.

The Harry Potter Pinata Fail Video

I just threw a quick video together, only 9 seconds in length and uploaded it to YouTube.  It's a clip from my sons birthday party when one of the kids swings a bat to hit a Harry Potter horcrux pinata and ends up hitting the girl sitting behind him.

Fail videos seem pretty popular on YouTube.  Let's see how this one does.

PTA Reflections - version 2 and 3

I'm surprised.  I posted a short 1:40 promo for PTA Reflections on YouTube and have now had a couple requests to customize it for different schools!

Not a major change really - just to the "Due by" date that appears at the end of the video.  Simple to do when you have the source files saved on your computer.

One of the requests from a PTA member in New York had her 8 y.o. daughter screen the video.  The daughter pointed out that some of the screens passed by too quickly to read, so the mom asked me if there was a way to slow it down.

I ended up with version 2 and 3 because of her and another request, and really the video plays much better.  By snipping out some of the still photos and then prolonging the time the info screens stay displayed it flows much better.

See it here:

PTA Reflections - Diversity Means - Version 2

After making these few changes for the various schools, I uploaded them to my free box.net account where the requester was able to download the video from.  Box.net makes it real easy to share files. I have a feeling I'll be using it more often!



Facebook Wedding Intro and StageTools MovingPicture

When I filmed the wedding of our friends Allison and Dave, I wanted to open it with something personal to them.

Facebook had been and still is something they are constantly using.  Seems they are posting on it most hours of the waking day.  As I started to look through their wall posts I noticed that they were always posting sweet nothings to each other.  That seemed like a good starting point.

I used a free program I found via Google that lets you download any friends wall history into text form.  After I had their entire history I loaded it into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, sorted it by date and then removed most of the irrelivant (non-mushy) posts.  Change the font style to match that of Facebook, added a profile picture to each post and then exported it to a graphic format, finally converting it into a JPEG.

So now with 8 or 10 JPEG of their Facebook posts on chronological order it was time to animate the opening. 

For that I used StageTools MovingPicture - a plugin included with Pinnacle Studio 11.  MovingPicture allows you to zoom in and out, rotate, and pan around still pictures in way that lets you bring it to life so to speak.

The StageTools MovingPicture interface

By placing keyframes throughout the sequence you can set the zooms and pans to however you like.

It is a very simple plug-in to use and brings your photos to life!

Check out the first part of Allison and Dave's wedding video where I use their Facebook history to tell the story leading up to their wedding day.

Allison and Dave's Wedding Video - Part 1



HDMI Cables

HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface.  It's the type of cable used to connect for example a Blu-Ray player to an HDTV.  It is one of the best connections available for transferring video and audio to the TV.

When the cables first came out it was common to find them priced as high as $80 for a 6-foot cable!  CRAZY!

But when we purchased our Blu-Ray player a few months ago I checked around and found one at our local Big-Lots for just $9.99!  I was a little skeptical at first - the brand was TriQuest, one I had never heard of before.  But for ten dollars I took a gamble and purchased it.

That $9.99 cable works perfectly - HD movies look like HD movies.  And the price - you just can't beat it!