So, this site keeps trying to discover why it still exists. When I first thought up Tightbytes ages ago, I envisioned: “help site”. Then it sort-of became “hey, look what I’m into now” site.

Now… not really sure where to go with this, but I’ll keep trying to run with that help-site notion a bit more.

So, today, I’m having a go at video. My initial efforts are definitely not all that great (pretty lame, actually), involving long takes of where we live, but anyway, it’s a video. My target audience? family… the ever-patient, ever-long-suffering curators of all that’s deemed somewhat creative amongst us.

So, here ya go. Anyone keen to see how this was done?

I’ll do better next time. By the way, the video was shot with a Canon T3i (now sold). You might notice some takes aren’t the sharpest. I didn’t realise just how unclean the lenses had become and what an impact it would have on the image quality.

Live and learn!

The next step was stabilisation: shaky video is just a pain to watch, so I’ve invested in proDAD Mercalli V3 software. I have a number of issues with this software, the interface being a major one, and the lack of Linux support being the inevitable drama, but it sort-of gets the job done. I’ll be finding a Linux solution soon. Certainly not upgrading this rather pricey software, nor would I endorse this product, either… but as I said: for now, it gets the job done. Only just.

I have been doing my video editing in Lightworks, but for my purposes, it’s really overkill. I’ll probably not renew my subscription but just use the freeware version of it and in the meantime:  edit in… Blender. Yes, Blender! As this little effort was edited in.

The video currently playing is 45 mB. Given the bandwidth limits of this website, I’ll have to keep this videos fairly short. Still learning about how to reduce bitrate, etc, so less bandwidth is needed. Youtube will do this for you, but I’m striving to be a bit more independent.