Discovering the simple elegance in chromecast-ing

I must admit I had been ignoring Apple TV, streaming, chrome casting and such. Unlike the supposed typical Australian net user I don’t use such technology to download pirate videos of the lastest TV show from the USA. So I am late coming to the wonderful little chromecast dongle. Rather than playing with streaming video, I came across the wonders of the chrome cast as a way to avoid cables and incompatibilities when giving a presentation (or training session) directly from my computer. What it can do is allow you to throw your screen onto any modern TV and most data projectors without a cable. Thus avoiding resetting screen resolution, cables not long enough or other such hassles. The TV, Big screen or projector just needs a HDMI input and most recent equipment will come with this. You just plug in the chromecast dongle into the HDMI socket (it generally needs to be connected to separate power supply, a charger is supplied with the dongle but any powered USB port is fine).

There is a downside, you need to have WiFi, both to set up the the chrome cast at a new location and carry the stream from your screen during the presentation. Most venues these days do have internet & WiFi but if they don’t and If you have a smartphone that can create a local hotspot that will be fine for running a powerpoint or a live demo of software. Perfect for a travelling trainer. However it could be a very expensive way to stream cast a full movie from somewhere else on the internet, depending on your phones data package.

You can broadcast from your phone or tablet via special apps, and you probably already have some of these. For example the You Tube app on android will direct the YouTube clip to your chromecast, no need to download it first. Google Slides, can make a slide show presentation located on google drive directly controlled from your from your phone (and yes it can read powerpoint files). The real power lies in the ability to send the contents of any chrome browser tab, to the chromecast, and thus big screen it is connected to. The current version also has the ability to send an application output or your entire screen (these later options are in beta release and can be a little laggy at times). So as long as you have a chrome browser you can send anything you can get on your PC screen onto a larger presentation stage. All without any fuss.

I also like the backdrop (aka screen wallpaper) settings on the unit which lets you use your own pictures from Google Photos, Flickr (or facebook if you must) or just stick with the google selected photo as a slideshow screen saver.

Google+ Stories, yet another “leave it to us” offering.

I noticed yet another autoawesome style offering from from google called Stories, which seemed perfect to add into my week of autoawesomeness. It is basically a on-line slide show that has been automatically prepared by yet another google algorithm to automatically select your best shots and is being prompted as a tool to  “brings out the richness of the memories behind the photos” and present them as “beautiful, interactive stories so you can relive your adventures”. Ok thats the hype, what actually happens? Well it does choose your adventures for you. At the moment you can not create your own from scratch! For me this is a very puzzling omission. You can however “tweak” the slideshow by adding or removing photos or videos and can change the cover photo. Thats about it!

 

The stories are supposedly about your “memorable” travelogues and it would appear these stories are triggered by either locations (geotags) information embedded in your photos or by landmark detection tools shifting through your images (and possibly including having your home address already known, eg. typed into google maps). Perhaps I am not the only one just a little concerned about who or what knows I’m not at home and when. 

This is an interesting in the context of a recent program titled “Digital photography: message and memory” on the ABC Radio National’s Series Future Trends. Which presents a different view, the rush to photograph every moment may be leading to us remember less and less. 

So should we leave our memories to google+ to manage?

Not sure I want that, and I worry many will not even realise their real memories have gone and been replaced by something else.

I guess the one redeeming feature is google+ stories (and movies) are private until you share them.

Coming to a Screen near you

I actually still have my original slide projector (not quiet 40 years old and still working well) and a portable screen. Once a set up like this and several boxes of slides would frighten the family and see guest making excuses to go home early the “slide night” certainly had a bad reputation. However good colour slides did have a magic charm and luminosity that prints could never match. I suspect the larger size of the projection and dimmed room just enhanced t

In the digital era, the two sides of the image display story have migrated to ink jet printing versus on screen display. The screens are whatever the computer has, perhaps an LCD screen on the back of a compact, or DSLR camera. With the advent of camera phones, such as the iphone and androids phones, more and more photos are being viewed on tiny screens.A very few images found their way onto the web at site likes flickr, then suddenly there where camerphone photos flowing everywhere, especially instagram. The IPad and other tablets have arrived and everyone started raving about the rich lushness of retina screens and portability, being able to instantly share your best work with others. Certainly its richer than an equivalent print of similar size, but they are is still small.
\
I have two LCD data projectors. My favorite is a high spec Panasonic, which has become the center of my “home theatre” system. It has a HDMI interface and the quality of image I can project from my computer is great, not only good resolution and the projected image 3m across, but it also has a higher dynamic range of colour saturation compared with most LCD screens. It definitely has that clean but richly saturated colour feel of a good old slide film. The second is a work horse, an older Mitsubishi branded projector, that has older interfaces, the ubiquitous 15-pin VGA connector, S-Video connector or RCA plugs . This is my portable unit that I take everywhere for training and talks. Of late I have found this is just perfect as a second review screen in lightroom. The resolution isn’t as great as my other projector but it is plenty bright enough to project a decent 1.4m image onto my portable screen above within the limited space of my studio. Being able to review any photo your tweaking at that size is truly liberating. I don’t understand why data projectors are  not more common, especially for home theatre use. Perhaps people are scared off by stories of the high cost of the replacing the halogen globes, but I haven’t found that they are all that expensive and being careful with a cool down to extend the globe life is easy enough.
The best screen in your house for enjoying and sharing your creativity at a larger size is probably that new flat screen TV. I have an older desktop PC (still running XP, but contemplting upgrading to Windows 8) with Windows Media Center running and little else other than a few browsers, common net tools and Picasa Sharing photos and video clips with a group of friends sitting comfy on couches is a great joy. However there is the responsibility to only show a few photos at a time, just long enough for then to say wow, and let the conversation flow.

PhotoProject :: SkyScape (video)

If you got a new camera for Christmas and have already amassed a lot of photos, plenty  of them great! Why not make them into a slide show movie. Often the software that came with you camera includes a “make movie” option, if not Picasa has a neat movie option, albeit without to much individual slide control. If you want a little more creative control The free t download Windows Live Essentials movie maker is worth a look, but I still think Microsoft’s Photo Story 3 for XP is the best slideshow maker around for free.

I made this very simple movie out of 10 hand held images of a stormy sky last night, I just wanted to see if there was anything new in Picasa 3.9 in terms of movie making (there isn’t that I could see). On the plus side picasa movie is very easy to use and takes very little time to create something interesting. It also takes care of the upload to you tube

Why not make your portfolio into a video!

Nature's Entryway
Originally uploaded by Reggiesgirl

Reggiesgirl from flickr has a used wonderful way to show her portfolio of nature photography, she made it into a video. With so many screens atound in modern life, making your still work into a video (or slideshow) is a great way to guarentee they will be seen (at least by your friends and family, but if you want your 15 seconds of "net fame" you cam also trust your arm on YouTube as reggie's girl did)



There are any number of good programs (too many to mention here) with which make your slide show and convert them into a video masterpiece. Try Microsoft's Photo Story 3 if you are looking for a free program to try out. At the very least you probably already have Movie Maker which can also do the job.

Immersive Slideshows?

So what are immersive slideshows, as opposed to ... I don't know drowning (in) slideshows?  They are the brainchild of Cooliris in the form of a browser plugin, called PicLens. It takes a number of common image intensive web places, social networking, photo sites, etc and converts them into a full screen "cinematic presentation" experience. It is very stylish, slick and unobtrusive (a watermarked "play" button is superimposed over the bottom right corner of images to indicate PiclLens can be run, just click your mouse on that, otherwise you don't notice its there)

The real fun begins when you start looking at your own personal images on say flickr, photobucket or picassa web albums. I particularly like the "3D" photo wall (complete with reflection of a virtual shinny floor).

My conclusion reflects that of a review in Wired Magazine, its "Fun and Addictive", but it is a pity it does not work with blogger.

Slideshows revisted

The old fashion slide shows can be really "sparkled up" these days with a number of photosharing sites offering fancier slideshows, like this one from photobucket, to decorate social networking sites like My Space and Facebook. Ok maybe its a bit over the top for this blog but you get the general idea.