
TED Talk: Ryan Merkley demos Popcorn - tambourine_man
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/10/19/ted_popcorn/
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moocow01
The idea of video timelines corresponding with external actions to create an
immersive experience is definitely not new although its always good to see
anyone trying to move the ball forward. I know advertisers get all wound up
about the potential of this stuff.

I do find it kind of disappointing that what is a decent and relatively
mainstream tech demo is featured through TED - I don't know just doesn't seem
TED-worthy to me personally. Looks good though.

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Evbn
Each item at TED is mainstream to people in the same field as the speaker,
otherwise the speaker wouldn't be famous enough to get the organizers'
attention.

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wdr1
I don't think that's true at all.

Salman Khan was certainly not mainstream (in general or in education) when he
gave his talk on Khan Academy.

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klearvue
Videos certainly deserve to be more tightly woven into the fabric of the Web
but my first interaction with the Popcorn-produced video did not end well.

The article gave a link to a TED video remixed with Popcorn so I decided to
see it in action. Shortly into the article a Wikipedia article popped out and
having hesitated for a few seconds I decided to click on it ... just as it
disappeared off the screen. Nevermind, right afterwards a link came up to some
frog. Intrigued, I clicked on it and a new tab opened with an amusing Youtube
video of a frog attacking an iPhone. The related video was about a bird
playing dead, then a Chinese soldier failing to throw a grenade, an amazing
goal being scored, a fight... What the original video that I'd set out to
watch was about I've still no idea.

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samstave
The "related" videos are likely from youtube's shit related videos system.

Youtube, while the largest - is a fucking nightmare of a service. HORRID
buffering, zero relevance with videos, spammy ad overlays etc...

Stop focusing on youtube lack of everything and focus on the fact that this
idea is a BRAND NEW service that looks like in a years time will kick
everythings ass.

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JonLim
I gave Popcorn a whirl after watching this video. For full disclosure's sake,
I'm a rather experienced videographer with years of experience using Final Cut
Pro.

I knew not to expect the moon with Popcorn, but they have a lot of work ahead
of themselves. I wrote a hefty block of text for feedback, but essentially,
the drag and drop interactions really needed work, the Events need more
elements inside of them, and there's no good way to get rid of Events other
than moving it to another layer and trashing the layer.

There were a few other points I made as well, but I hope they take the time to
really study how people interact with video editing software and emulating
that behaviour with Popcorn. As it stands, it's a tad too unintuitive to use
and remix with Popcorn.

Really looking forward to what they can do with this though.

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user24
I don't really see what's so great about this. We can already embed maps,
captions, links _around_ the video via html. Why is it so groundbreaking to
have it embedded _within_ the video itself?

~~~
TomAnthony
It is more that these can be triggered by events in the timeline of the video.

I don't think the demo that Ryan gave necessarily helps to highlight scenarios
where Popcorn would be helpful.

Imagine you are watching a 45 minute video of a presentation about some topic
in 1 pane in a window, in others you could have:

\- Another pane with the slides that the presenter is showing, in slideshare
type format, so you can see them clearly. Changing automatically in time with
the video.

\- A 3rd pane with a list of sources for that slide, with clickable links
where appropriate.

Now I can pause the video and look at the sources easily. I can see the slides
clearly at all times. I can send people a link to a particular moment in the
video, knowing they will have all this available to them also.

I could even introduce a 4th pane that allows people to comment on certain
slides, so discussions can be centered around certain topics in the
presentation.

My point is - the technology is cool, and opens up more options to us. Sure,
some people will use it in poor ways, but I think other people could make some
awesome stuff happen with this.

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user24
But you can do that already:

setTimeout(displaySomeImage, offsetInVideoWhereImageIsMentioned);

video.on('pause', pauseTimeouts);

Give me a few weeks and I can build a rich JS video control which allows all
that and more.

You can resize video elements, move them, respond to pausing, hovering.
Control the video from the page, the page from the video. All in HTML5+JS.

There's also things like this:

<http://taxi.ba.com/>

(feel free to use my postcode NN26JP if you need a UK postcode)

Which I feel take video beyond the static - it takes streetview data and shows
the plane literally taxiing down my street. Real time!

Or things like <http://www.takethislollipop.com/>

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epilepticrabbit
Popcorn.js is a javascript library, so someone who knows Javascript can do all
the things shown in the demo using the library. Takethislollipop is running on
popcorn.js. The neat thing here is that Mozilla is creating software for
people that are NOT devs, so that they too can be creative in bringing dynamic
data into a video, while at the same time learning about some of the open
technologies that power the digital world.

If you want to, and you have that few weeks, you can contribute:
<https://wiki.mozilla.org/PopcornMaker/QA>

~~~
user24
Aha! That explains a lot. I think my expectation from the ted vid was that it
was going to be something that wasn't already possible.

But while it's not quite that, it is still cool that it's a framework for non-
techies to produce richer video content

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31reasons
This type of tool could be great for education. Imagine an instructor typing
the program on screen and allowing you to change the code interactively.

~~~
brianmcdonough
Agreed. It's a great way to drive engagement, by allowing the viewer to
explore content non-linearly while maintaining the original intent of the
author.

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samstave
This looks really really promising.

I hate youtube, its a horrid proxy of the existing limitations of video.

I really am interested in seeing this succeed.

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andrewfelix
While this looks impressive, it seems to be a solution to a problem that isn't
particularly big or pervasive.

I quite like the existing distinction between video and interactivity. I like
that videos are static and non interactive. I like to be able to sit back and
absorb the content without distraction.

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andrewkkirk
Agreed. This technology looks amazing and sweeps you away.

But, when I think about the implementation, I cringe. I don't want video with
more info popping-up.

TV is not better because there is a running feed of "breaking news" or a
running stock ticker. In the same regard, I don't more info popping up during
video.

~~~
aik
>> I don't want video with more info popping-up.

In terms of info popping up, how is it any different than embedding the info
in the video? It's the same concept except now the info is actionable. The use
cases aren't as broad as encompassing all video (yet anyway), however in many
situations where videos are used, it seems like a very clear improvement to
me.

I could be wrong (and am curious what you have to say) however your line of
thinking sounds like fundamental resistance to the innovation present here,
ie. combining concepts/ideas to produce something that would be superior in
specific cases that disrupt previously separate and clear ideas/concepts in
your mind. Meaning the potential really isn't being understood.

There are so many use cases -- for example, for any learning environment, the
ability to interact with the lesson to achieve instant and dynamic feedback is
an incredibly useful feature in terms of ability to improve learning outcomes.

~~~
andrewkkirk
Perhaps my reaction was too broad and quick. The technology is amazingly and
perhaps there could be interesting applications of it that I failed to
consider.

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cwills
Some of the ideas presented here look promising. But I really don't see this
taking off in its current form. News and blog websites already wrap videos
with the related written content and links etc. And as one user described
above, clicking links half-way through a video really breaks the user's
attention to the video. Perhaps it would be useful if YouTube used machine-
intelligence to recognise the content of a video and provide links below to
related Wikipedia entries or news articles?

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quux
Interesting concept, and I agree that video needs to be able t o link into the
web and pull from it, but I watched the other ted talk they had Popcornized on
their site and found all the links and extra info distracting. After about a
minute I was looking for a way to turn the popcorn stuff off.

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saym
I see video at its core as being passive content. When I watch a video, of
academic or informational content, I typically need to give it my full
attention.

This is an interesting concept, but I agree with moocow01; this doesn't seem
like a TED-worthy presentation.

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brianmcdonough
Ask a TV editor how hard it is to build stable desktop software to edit video.
Despite the naysaying, everything in a browser is a very large step forward in
the accessibility and ease of use department. One giant step forward.

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TomAnthony
Mozilla Popcorn Maker:

<http://mozillapopcorn.org/popcorn-maker/>

~~~
epilepticrabbit
That's an old version of this tool. The 1.0 version will be released at the
Mozilla Festival in a month (<http://mozillafestival.org>), and they are
currently doing QA: <https://wiki.mozilla.org/PopcornMaker/QA> App is at
<https://popcorn.webmaker.org>

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donebizkit
+1 for the coding effort. However, generally speaking, stories are anchored in
time and don't need live changes. Think of a birthday, marriage, or graduation
for example. He's selling point is wrong. This should be more targeted to
niche cases where a live web stream is needed instead of advertising it as
story telling tool that everyone needs to use (plus I agree with moocow01 this
smells in-video ads all over it)

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PRTPRT
Awesome! I will definitly be using this!

