Topic: Who is CaptainEO?
started by: editor
Posted by editor on Apr. 11 2002,04:34
So I'm done posting for the moment and I'm just lurking a bit, when I see that EO is online... Who's that? Seems he does computer animations.< His link. >
Posted by editor on Apr. 11 2002,04:50
He has great video; try the small files as they take forever...great direction, sound quality, perfect animation...
IMHO, you could use a professional narrator, though. Yes, I read the credits on the comet video...at least get a mic with more bass.
sorry, but --
Demi Moore comes to mind.
Posted by CaptainEO on Apr. 11 2002,06:11
Yeah, heh, thanks... I'll be updating that site soon; I just finished a new version of the Mars Rover 2003 video. It is a real shame I'm not allowed to distribute the audio track - we came up with a score that matches the video perfectly - Lenny Kravitz's "Fly Away" for the launch, and Holst's "Mars, Bringer of War" for the landing (try playing Fly Away along with the launch video - the edits will line up perfectly with the music =)... The soundtrack version will be going out to K-12 schools though!Maybe some of the more web-savvy people here can help me out with the downloadable videos... I've been having fits lately about the lack of a decent digital video format that works for most people... Any ideas how I could distribute the videos better?
MPEG-1 - quality sucks, files are large, but it plays everywhere thanks to public domain implementations (or so I thought - my latest client said he couldn't get large MPEGs to play on a Windows box...)
Quicktime Sorenson - quality is great - but I think you have to shell out $400 for the "pro" encoder to really reach its full potential (all the Quicktimes I try to encode come out looking like trash, not like the apple.com movie trailers...) - Windows users must install the Quicktime Player, and all other OSs are out of luck...
DiVX - good quality, but everyone has to install a codec... Which used to be an easy matter back in the good ol' days of DiVX alpha 3.11, but now there are three mutually-incompatible DiVX codecs, the open-source ones don't work, and the patents & licensing situation surrounding DiVX is questionable...
WMV 7/8 - great quality, works out-of-the-box on Windows (but nowhere else :[ ); the encoder is painfully slow...
VP3 - good quality, open-souce codec (including patent licenses!
, but nobody's heard of it, it's not bundled with anything, and most people still can't seem to figure out how to install a codec...RealVideo - *shudder*, the player software is ubiquitous but so crappy I don't want to touch it, much less the encoder...
Ogg Tarkin - currently vaporware
Any others?
Posted by editor on Apr. 11 2002,06:16
Know what?I like you so much that I, by the powers vested in me by purchasing the Detnet URL, grant you special dispensation to cross-post in the Geek Forum.
Maybe we'll just pin this one for a couple days.
BTW, here's another sexy picture.
Posted by CaptainEO on Apr. 11 2002,06:24
The second image you posted - the Delta upper stages in front of the sun - was my homage to the Star Wars Episode I trailer. (I was trying to copy the part where the Naboo ship flies in front of the sun, and you see a huge lens flare :] )The first image is the landing vehicle entering the Martian atmosphere. The plasma trail is based on what physicists think it actually will look like... (in general I tried to make the computer animation as realistic as possible; the only major unrealistic element is that the time scale is very compressed... As anyone who watches NASA TV knows, real space missions are incredibly boring in real-time...)
Hehe I bet I'll find my cable modem melted into a puddle tomorrow morning... The server can definitely take it though =). (some of the video files are hosted on another site I think)
You may also want to check out the < official Mars Rover mission site >
Posted by editor on Apr. 11 2002,06:27
You are your own server? No wonder it's slow! 
I specifically picked out that shot for it's cinema-ticity.
As a photographer I was counting sides on the flare images, thinking, "hmm, about f/5.6".
Posted by Beldurin on Apr. 11 2002,07:10
Did anyone else notice that the narrator on the Contour video sounds like Mr. VanDriesen (the hippie school teacher) from Beavis and Butthead?
Posted by CaptainEO on Apr. 11 2002,19:48
| Quote (Beldurin @ 10 April 2002,23:10) |
| Did anyone else notice that the narrator on the Contour video sounds like Mr. VanDriesen (the hippie school teacher) from Beavis and Butthead? |
OK dammit I get the hint =)... Better mike and professional narrator next time... Mmmmkay?
Posted by editor on Apr. 12 2002,03:18
heh heh, everything else was professional...Did you watch a show on Discovery a couple years back on the F-117 Stealth? Remember the woman narrator? I watched the show a second time just to hear her voice!
Posted by veistran on Apr. 12 2002,09:13
| Quote (CaptainEO @ 11 April 2002,00:11) |
| Maybe some of the more web-savvy people here can help me out with the downloadable videos... I've been having fits lately about the lack of a decent digital video format that works for most people... Any ideas how I could distribute the videos better? |
there really isn't much choice, mpeg-1 is the only thing that is going to give you real flexibility and not be from real.
If all you're worried about is windoze and mac users you might find some alternatives, but otherwise you're stuck with mpeg-1 really.