Puppet Kaos - a blog by Kelvin Kao about puppetry, video-making, and other randomness

Comments

1. Almah
   June 4th, 2008 | 6:48 pm

   I saw your comment on the problogger site…and because I like puppets, my curiosity was piqued and came on over. I love this video! I plan on checking out other ones. It makes me happy that there is someone in the world doing something like this. Inspiring and fun!

2. Kelvin Kao
   June 4th, 2008 | 10:20 pm

   Hello Almah. Thanks for dropping by. It’s always a pleasure to know there are other people that like puppets as well.

   This kind of stuff, although really time-consuming, is really fun to me. And I’m actually not the only one doing it. There are some other people doing puppet podcasts. I just might compile together a list one of these days.

   Do you have a blog? I’m wondering because you read Problogger…

3. pandaw
   June 8th, 2008 | 2:27 pm

   sigh…i dont know why you arent popular puppets are crazy fun
   wordcraft has been my favourite vid.

   love your stuff keep making them i hope you the best

   cya around

4. Kelvin Kao
   June 9th, 2008 | 1:14 am

   Haha, thanks. Maybe I should do more marketing?
   But really, all it takes is like, three loyal fans, to make me happy, and I’m sure I already have more than that.
   Thanks for visiting and dropping me a line!

5. Beckie
   June 9th, 2008 | 9:29 pm

   i like your use of background music in this episode. very effective! =)

6. Kelvin Kao
   June 10th, 2008 | 2:26 am

   Thanks, Beckie! I’ve always wanted to use more music, but sometimes it’s hard when the plotline or mood change so quickly in certain episodes…

7. Paul
   June 12th, 2008 | 6:08 am

   Hey Kelvin

   I really like what you’ve done with this one. The comic beats were very good and the edits were sharp. Very funny!

   RE: your troubles with YouTube — You should never have to upload a DV formatted file to avoid synch issues. I can imagine how frustrating that must have been. You might want to try sizing a version using Quicktime Pro as a 480×360 mov file with H264, key frames on auto, but limit the bitrate to 1600 or so kbits/sec (this should be fine for most videos). For sound, choose the AAC compression. These settings are different than what YouTube’s FAQ recommends, but I have had absolutely no problems (with synch or video quality).

   I also highly recommend BlipTV. I switched to them from Revver a few months ago and have had a very positive experience with them thus far. Their embed code works well and is quite flexible. Their Flash conversions look better than YouTube’s standard res, also.

   Oh yeah, and most importantly, unlike YouTube, Blip does not claim ownership of everything that gets uploaded to their system.

   I still cross post to both YouTube and Blip at the moment, but that is more of an attempt to build some interest in my characters and try to reach a few more people than I could with Blip alone. I’ll be phasing YouTube out at some point in the future, though.

   Anyway… sorry to ramble there. I look forward to your next video. Cheers!

8. Kelvin Kao
   June 13th, 2008 | 2:52 am

   Hi Paul! Thanks for dropping by. I really like your work with Chet!

   Yeah, well, this doesn’t happen often. I’ve always wondered if the quality would be better if I upload a DV file, so it was an opportunity to try it out. I will try out what you said in the next episode then. I think I’ve been compressing it to m4v format because I’ve tried making mov files and had the program crash on me before. I was going for the 320×240 resolution though. I figured that going from 720×480 to 480×360, and then again to 320×240 will create too much quality loss. Then again, I don’t know until I give it a try. I have no problem with synch up till this point though, so that was a weird case.

   As for BlipTV, I’ve toyed with the idea of phasing out YouTube as well. My current plan is to create a page for all the videos I’ve created. And on that page I will use BlipTV embed code because they seem more flexible, but I might still release new episodes to YouTube first. When I get the time to upload my old episodes onto BlipTV, I’ll consider the possibilities more. Right now my BlipTV account only has a camera test video in it.

   Haha, it’s alright to ramble here. In fact, this is quite informative ramble, and my reply sort of resembles one too. Maybe I should have just made this a post.

   Anyway, good to see you here. I look forward to your next video too!

9. Brad
   June 13th, 2008 | 7:28 am

   Chalk up another loyal fan. It was great to see another video pop up in my iTunes. I missed Mac and B Monster. Glad to see them back again.

10. Paul
    June 13th, 2008 | 8:00 am

    Hiya Kelvin

    Paul asked me to stop by and say that you may want to consider uploading the 480×360 size to Blip instead of 320×240. They use a larger screen than YouTube and you’ll be happier with the video quality.

    
    toodles

    - chet

11. Kelvin Kao
    June 14th, 2008 | 2:28 am

    Hi Brad! Again, thanks for the support. It means a lot to me. I’m definitely going to make more videos.

    Hi Chet! Did Paul mention that I’m a fan? Your new opera video is awesome!

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