Video Comes to the EFB

[Revised - Wed 4 Jan 06]

We have seen the future and it is...video.

My Nokia N70-1 phone has a 2 megapixel camera and a VGA video cam built in. It is also one of the first 3G (wireless broadband connection) phones, and does video calls as well. It was some surprise when a month or so ago the phone rang and it was an incoming (first-ever) video call, from BMWOR teammate Bertrand Pace (FRA). He, too, has a Nokia N70. Was driving when the call came in, and upon seeing Bert's face live on the phone screen I, no joke, about drove off the road.

Leslie and Meg both received new phones for Christmas. Meg's, while not quite as advanced as the N70, also has a decent cam (1.3mp) and so-so video capability.

Yesterday I began to research video blogging. After "googling out" how to do it, we shot a video of Meg acting, I guess, like the lion in the Wizard Oz -- ferocious one moment, playing dead the next. It was surprisingly easy to post on here, but almost immediately took it down in deference to Meg's not wanting to look silly online. However, it is saved as a draft; so, Meg, you'd better be extra nice to me as it is only a few clicks away from re-appearing on the EFB!

To get even Meg took a quick vid of me, in my bathrobe, unkempt, and looking and sounding equally silly. For a while yesterday that video was up on here but now has been deleted for the sake of decorum.

This morning we shot a rather more dignified video -- Meg using her favorite Christmas present -- which we now present as the first official (really!) video post on the EFB....



The technology is very cool and remarkably simple. The video above was shot then edited -- merged two clips, shortened one of them, inserted the transitions -- all on the N70! The whole process took only a few clicks and a couple minutes on the phone.

With three more clicks on the phone the edited video was sent wirelessly (via bluetooth) to the laptop, again taking only a few seconds despite being a nearly 1mb file. From there it took only a few moments to upload to the new free video-sharing service, You Tube, which automatically generates cut-and-paste HTML code for embedding a viewer, and the video, into the blog as above.

All in all, easy peasy. Writing blog text is more difficult, and takes a lot longer.

No doubt this will lead to more video posts here on the EFB, as well as on the BMW ORACLE Blog and the CCB.

Indeed, what hath God wrought?