Panorama test

Playing around in making a panorama photo. I took the pictures with my iPhone.
For the first one, I used the iPhone app called AutoStitch. It’s a very straight forward app for the iPhone is creating panorama pictures, quite handy on the go. Although you can only see a low-res version of the resulting picture on the iPhone, syncing back with iPhoto gave me the full res picture.

Not bad for something that is done on a phone. There are obvious flaws, but again, considering you can do this just within the iPhone itself is pretty neat!

Next I used PhotoStitch, a software from Canon (it’s in the CD included with my S90) using the same pictures taken with my iPhone.

It’s a mixed bag. The sky on this one has an obvious seam from the stitching, but there are less blurring on the deck’s hand rail.

Lastly, I used my Canon S90, and stitch the picture using Canon’s PhotoStitch.

Obviously since the Canon can capture better pictures, it looks better.

Making panoramic pictures seems fun. If you have an iPhone, there are quite a few apps for this. 🙂

 

Video Streaming in HD

With my recent purchase of an HD camcorder, the Sanyo VPC-FH1A, I’ve been looking for video sharing sites that support 720p playback. After recording stuff in 720p, it’s really hard going back to 480p/standard def. Recording in 720p captures so much more details.
Browsing through bing, google, and wikipedia (by the way, Wikipedia has a really nice table comparing all the video sharing sites) I tried Viddler. Wikipedia says it supports 720p. Well, apparently HD is only supported under business/paid accounts.
Next is Vimeo. Vimeo does support HD on free accounts, albeit with some limitation (ie. only 1 HD video upload per week, etc). The problem is, during playback, the video player is still sized for low-res video, even with HD turned on. There’s no option for a larger player size other than full-screen. 😦

Now, I hate Google, and I hate Youtube, mainly because they deleted my account overnight without warnings. However, Youtube seems to have the best implementation for 720p videos. First, they don’t have as much limitations as Vimeo (assuming Google didn’t delete your video/account). Second, Youtube allows a larger video player where you can appreciate 720p content without having to go full-screen. So, yeah, the devil gives you the best solutions. *sigh The catch is processing your 720p video can take a while. A 5+ minute 720p video may take Youtube overnight to fully process for HD streaming. In the meantime, a lower-res version of the video is made available fairly quickly.

Streaming HD video takes a lot of bandwidth, and obviously Youtube (Google) is the only one with enough cash to support such services with the least catch and most features, for free. *sigh

 

Transformers Animated

I never liked the drawings of this recent US-made Transformers cartoon. It’s crap, period. Let’s face it, the Japanese did a much better job, to the point that previous Transformers “cartoons” were originated from Japanese anime. Let’s take a look at the US ver into:

Now, this time around, the Japanese is taking the US ver and dub it into Japanese. Check their OP:

What the? JAM Project? LOL. Thumbs up for the Japanese to crank up the production value of a mediocre US cartoon. The cinematography is tons better than the generic US intro. I probably still would not watch the series because I cannot stand the character styling, but it sure is nice to watch this OP.