From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V8 #171 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Friday, July 18 2003 Volume 08 : Number 171 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Tori's Taxivision Contest [ToriVolta@aol.com] Re: TORI Announces Taxivision Winner! [broadway jack ] Re: TORI Announces Taxivision Winner! [Brian K Tanaka ] Taxivision [lou fauxbel ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 01:54:01 EDT From: ToriVolta@aol.com Subject: Tori's Taxivision Contest I got to watch all nine video finalists for the Taxivision contest. I downloaded QuickTime 6, even though I already had QuickTime. Some of the videos were choppy and got stuck then went to the next image, and some ran perfectly. The music skipped in and out (more out than in), so it was hard to see why they put that image at that particular moment. I could make out the progress of the song with the video where the Polaroid's would move b/c some of the people sang, and I could read their lips. I don't remember what video went with what director, nor do I remember all of the director's names. But, I really loved the first one with the old lady having trouble accepting her age. I got shivers. Someone mentioned liking this one the most, as well, because it didn't necessarily represent what you would expect from a song titled 'Taxi Ride.' They also said that that is what Tori does in a lot of her videos ... the unexpected. And I agree. Because of that, this video stood out for me. Who can explain to me what the winning video was about so I know which one won? That is, if any of you got the chance to even see them in the first place. Thanks for listening. Amanda ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 10:58:51 -0400 From: broadway jack Subject: Re: TORI Announces Taxivision Winner! still no luck capturing the streams (it's one of those new-fangled quicktime 6 streams delivered via rtsp which makes capturing it kinda tricky) but i was finally able to view the winning video this morning. the high bitrate stream cut-out quite a bit but the lower bitrate ones worked pretty well. the addresses for the different streams are dialup - http://stream.qtv.apple.com/qtv/sony/rtsp/taxivision/susanherbert_tr_vidfull_56.mov 100kbps stream - http://stream.qtv.apple.com/qtv/sony/rtsp/taxivision/susanherbert_tr_vidfull_100.mov 300kbps stream - http://stream.qtv.apple.com/qtv/sony/rtsp/taxivision/susanherbert_tr_vidfull_300.mov if you have broadband, try the 100kbps one -- the picture is not quite as sharp, but it should stream reasonably well without any buffering issues. anyway, even not seeing the other finalists, i'm not sure i would have picked this one. it's a very nicely produced video and the actors do a good job of presenting a wide variety of people with different stories and emotions in the same physical space (the backseat of a taxi) but, on the whole, it seems kind of, um, unimaginative and doesn't really speak to what, to me anyway, the song seems to be about. not that i can really articulate what i think the song is about, but it doesn't seem to capture that essence, whatever it is. woj ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 10:55:27 -0700 From: Brian K Tanaka Subject: Re: TORI Announces Taxivision Winner! On Thu, Jul 17, 2003 at 10:58:51AM -0400, broadway jack boldly wrote: > [...] > if you have broadband, try the 100kbps one -- the picture is not quite > as sharp, but it should stream reasonably well without any buffering > issues. Just so those who are reading about all the problems don't get discouraged before they even try, I can play (and have always been able to play) the highest bitrate stream without any rebuffering via DSL, so give it a whirl; you might be fine. Also, I don't know if this helps anyone, but in the Quicktime Preferences there's something called "instant-on". According to the blurb, "Instant-On starts playing streamed media without delay, but network congestion may reduce the quality of playback." I think this is on by default. Turn it off. That might help. Who knows? I'd turn it off anyway. Just on principle. ;-) When in doubt, take higher latency and a bigger buffer. > anyway, even not seeing the other finalists, i'm not sure i would have > picked this one. it's a very nicely produced video and the actors do a > good job of presenting a wide variety of people with different stories > and emotions in the same physical space (the backseat of a taxi) but, > on the whole, it seems kind of, um, unimaginative and doesn't really > speak to what, to me anyway, the song seems to be about. not that i > can really articulate what i think the song is about, but it doesn't > seem to capture that essence, whatever it is. I agree. I'd have liked it to have more directly enhanced what "the song seems to be about" too. But, on the other hand, it's sort of compatible with the dual-facet thing of the song itself. "Dual-facet" is my pretentious way of saying that the song sounds happy and "lite" on the outside (musically), but, as we know, deals with much weightier matters on the inside (lyrically). If you were a casual listener and you follow the lead of the music and don't dig in to the lyrics, you could walk away thinking, "oh, what a perky song about... I dunno... riding in taxis". In a weird way, this video does that same misdirection thing. Or maybe I'm insane. Of course I didn't think thing one about composing a video, let alone actually make one. No. That's not true. I did think thing one, but thing one alone. And that was that the video should have at some point a still of Kevyn. Just for a fraction of a second. Kind of like the flash of Sid Vicious' face in the live video of "Blind Justice" by the Business. (Remember that? Hrm... Maybe not.) What do other people thing of the winning video? - -- - - Brian Tanaka - - LiveLists: http://livelists.dyndns.org - - Thunder Wishes, Fire Thought: http://www.well.com/~btanaka/tori ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 19:00:16 -0700 (PDT) From: lou fauxbel Subject: Taxivision Hi, I'd like to apologize for the rant about Taxivision. It was completely unwarranted. My mood changes as much as our New England weather :-) You can read my storyline and see some Tori Amos pics at these links. Best Wishes, LOU http://community.webshots.com/album/74633770OmHsjj http://community.webshots.com/album/55990857vSzLgC __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V8 #171 *************************************