I watched the Moment video yesterday. Mindblowing. I couldn't take my eyes off it! Watch it in a dark room with a good pair of headphones, fullscreen. That's the best way to do it.

For those who haven't seen it, watch this video:
http://blogs.wnyc.org/radiolab/2009/08/14/16-moments/

(Make sure you click the HD button)

Lately I've been spending a lot of time worrying about how much free space I have on my drives. As drives have been getting cheaper and I've been buying more drives, I've been facing a growing storage and backup problem. For a while, I looked at building a NAS (Network-Attached Storage Unit) with RAID, but I ended up not doing it for one primary reason:

I love portability! I love the flexibility I get in my day when I can do my animation, audio, or video work on trains, in coffee shops, and while I'm out of town. My solution was to get a few 2.5" external USB drives, and carry them with them. I've been using them almost constantly, so I took the next logical step and attached them to my MacBook Pro. I used velcro, so I can always remove them. Granted, it adds a bit of bulk, but I think the convenience is worth it. Pictures below:

One of the most useful features I've found in any video compression program is the ability to do batch compression. This is extremely powerful. Without batch, you have to manually compress each video for upload, one by one, and you have to wait until it's done to start on the next one. The idea behind batch is implemented in many different ways, and for several applications. For example, in Final Cut Pro, you can do a batch capture. You scrub through your tape (or clip) and set in and out points for the sections you want to capture. Then you press "Batch," and it captures it all for you, while you get a nice cup of coffee at your local coffee shop. Similarly, with Batch for video compression, you can set up a list of things for the computer to do, and it will perform them sequentially, without wasting your time, or CPU cycles. In fact, I'm convinced that the real reason for batch actions is for getting coffee!

Here are step-by-step instructions for using MPEG Streamclip (an amazing, free, compression program for Windows and Mac) for compressing videos specifically for upload to Vimeo. You can use this same process for Youtube.