video - tm

[Updated] Posted on Vimeo (blown up to 1280 x 720) and then decided to take it down and re-upload it here as a standard definition file: [126 MB .mp4]

The video was originally made and posted in '06 as a 160 X 112 pixel .mov file (since removed).
A DVD was screened the same year at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. The above version is an .mp4 of that DVD's source file.

"Drum Machine" expresses a musician's contempt for video (art television) through bad camera work, worse reproduction, and self-referential navel-gazing about the "means of production." That said, more pieces are in the works where the process of electronic music making is explored as a not-completely-honest demonstration.

[post edited 6/21/19]

Posted on Vimeo.
An embedded version is here.
"HD" or hi def should be on by default (see button on right side of controller).
If it isn't initially showing HD on your player, please shoot me an email.

Click "download" to view the (much sharper) 1280 x 720 HD transcode.

Posted on Vimeo.
An embedded version is here.
"HD" or hi def should be on by default (see button on right side of controller).
If it isn't initially showing HD on your player, please shoot me an email.

The song was posted previously. It's short so I used it for further testing of Vimeo. Their transcoding decisions seemed designed to torture the sensitive artist. What they call "hi def" is 1280 x 720 pixels, but their player is 960 x 540.
So, trying to see if I could get my videos any sharper, I did screen captures of GIFs at 1280 x 720. The captures are flawless. When I mix them with music and save them as an .mp4 they are near-flawless.
Vimeo's mandatory transcode turns my 27 MB .mp4 into a 14 MB .mp4. It's a hair under near-flawless (you can see it under "download"). Then they downsize the .mp4 to fit the player and it's mushier (not flawless but acceptable, I guess).

An alternative is what I did in the first four videos I posted. Capture at 960 x 540; Vimeo's transcode enlarges it to 1280 x 720 and then it is shrunk to its original size to fit in the player and doesn't look near as sharp as the captures.

Getting fitted for my white jacket with the straps and buckles on the arms. Thanks Vimeo.

(The captured GIFs are recycled from my BYOB presentation from 2010. They had already been sized to fit a 1280 x 800 Netbook screen.)