In podcast, review, Video

Sometimes you don’t realize some of the good tools you have with you and you always aspire to get stuff that you almost never usually get. Take for example video blogging. I’ve been planning to get one of those Flip video recorders ever since I read good reviews about them and been scouting around for it in Chennai with no luck. And all this time, I’ve been sitting around with my N82 which has pretty decent video feature.

So, instead of waiting for the perfect solution, decided to play around with what I’ve got. And the right opportunity came by. I received the SanDisk 8GB SDHC card and decided to do a video review of it. If I had a little bit more presence of mind (and more patience), I could have done an unboxing video which would’ve been kinda cool.
Anyways, I took the product out for a walk around my apartment and here’s what I felt about the card.

For smooth viewing, hit play and then hit pause. Give the video a minute and then play again.

For you bums too lazy to see the video :), here’s my impression of the product.

1) Wow! This tiny thing can hold 8GB?? I still remember the computer exhibition that I went to where I bought a 4GB hard drive. We’ve come a long way.

2) Love the fact that there’s a tiny card reader that comes with the card. Plug it in and it turns into a thumb drive. The thing that I didn’t like is that the card doesn’t fit into the reader smoothly. You’ll have to kinda shove it in and parts of it juts out. Many who don’t take the effort to read the manual, would force it in deeper damaging the card.

3) Apparently, the card is quite strong I’m told, though I didn’t get around to testing it. It would survive a 10 foot fall. I’ll just take their word for it, thank you.

3) In addition to photos and videos, you can store word files, pdf and just about any file.

4) 2000 songs, 20,000 photos, Hours of video. There sure is a lot of space. Again, it just blows me how they could have so much space in such a tiny thing!

5) The card can be used in mobile phones from Motorola, Sony Ericcson, Nokia. Just make sure they are SDHC compatible. You could even use it in video games, GPS devices and DSLR cameras. Didn’t know that bit.

6) The transfer rate from the card reader to PC is 4MB per second. That’s one song a second. Not bad.

7) Add to the fact that there’s no additional software required to install, and this one get a thumbs up from me.

8) Now, the only grouse is that it’s so bloody tiny and for a guy like me who has the ability to lose a laptop, I don’t see this thing last with me too long! 🙂

Now for my experience and lessons from doing the video.

1) I put on a very strange accent, especially at the beginning of the video. That’s not how I usually talk. And I hate it.

2) I wrote down the key points I wanted to talk, on a Post-it note and stuck it to the side of the phone. That greatly helped me in the flow.

3) I shot this video at noon when the sunlight was directly over me. That created dark shadow and hence had to find a shadowy place. Even then, the buildings around were very bright from the sunshine and that caused the object in front (my mug) to darken. Early mornings or evenings would be a better time.

4) I had to hold the camera horizontally to get the video and that’s not a comfortable position to hold the camera. We are so used to handling the phone in a vertical position. Besides, holding the camera in an outreached position for a whole 4 minutes can get a bit painful. I overdid on my pushups exercise and that made it even worse!

5) The surroundings were fairly noisy, yet, quite happy with the sound clarity.

6) Realized that I should never move between a bright sun-lit area and the shadow area. The camera takes a little time to adjust and by that time, all you see is a black silhouette.

7) Realized that video is a powerful tool that helps you communicate certain things that you would never be able to do so in words. Like how the card fits into the tiny card reader to become a thumbdrive.

8) I hate the fact that the video sounded pitchy. Must remember to get more critical! 🙂

9) I should remember to hold the phone a bit higher. The view up my nose usually isn’t quite flattering.

9) And yeah, I should stop that f***ing accent and just be myself.