Rather than just providing another video sharing service that would stand very little chance of competing against the big boys (namely YouTube and, to a lesser extent, Vimeo) the people behind Howcast have created a video sharing service that provides quite a bit of extra functionality.

For a long time, YouTube have allowed people to link to a specific time within a video by allowing you to link to a video’s timestamp.

However, Howcast have taken that a good few steps further by providing simple title sections or chapters that you can very quickly jump to. Just hover over the dots in the grey bar above the timeline to view the chapters.

Publishers that use this service properly can display ‘steps’ under their video with the information that is relevant for each chapter or section.

As an example, check out this video from the people behind Foursquare that explains a little more about what Foursquare is.

You can also click on a green arrow icon in the video’s top right corner to view text versions of the steps.

If you watch the video on Howcast, you can see a heap more information and tools, like a simple ‘What you will need’ section plus detailed steps and tips.

There are already heaps of videos within a range of categories. Many of which have been created by Howcast to show off their service but it looks like their are plenty of other users as well. Check out this video on ‘How to Handle Awkward Facebook Friend Requests’:

And how about this useful and informative video on how to survive a cougar attack?

When creating your video, you can add tips (green) and facts (blue) that also appear as coloured dots on the timeline.

Pretty cool huh? Hopefully Howcast really picks up and we’ll see more and more businesses using this unique service.

As time goes by and we continue as best we can with our daily lives, it’s amazing how you start to forget that we haven’t seen Christchurch city centre for months.

Yesterday marked the 5 month anniversary of the 22nd February aftershock that caused so much damage to buildings in the CBD. And this month it’s been 10 months since some areas were closed off after the original 4th September earthquake in 2010.

Last week, after not being allowed access to our Tuam Street office since February, we were finally given the go ahead to retrieve essential equipment from the office. As we were escorted in by CERA (Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority) staff, I took this video out of the car window.

I posted this video to Vimeo. You can also see it on YouTube and Facebook.

So far I’ve only really seen photos of damaged buildings in the city centre and no videos. The photos I’ve seen only tell so much of the story. They each show a single location.

Hopefully the video above goes some way towards providing a bigger picture of how much damage there is in the city centre. After we collected our gear and headed out, I was pretty shell-shocked. There’s so little left that’s recognisable. It’s quite hard to get your bearings as many of the landmark buildings are no more.

For some reason, it’s almost more shocking to where a building used to be rather than the damaged building itself. Driving past the site of the CTV building was an eerie feeling. It was very strange to be driving along Cashel Street and look left all the way to Latimer Square.

Photos of the Earthquake Damage

Previously, I’ve taken a lot of photos myself and posted them in the Christchurch Earthquake set on Flickr. You can see those photos on the New Zealand Photos page, plus a few examples below.

This was my first impression of the city centre after the 22nd February 2011 aftershock. The clouds are made up of dust from buildings that have just collapsed. Cars have swerved across the road and people are gathering at piles of rubble.

I took this photo after the 4th September 2010 earthquake. It shows a damaged building on Manchester Street and then looks down into Sol Square. You can see how close you can get to the damaged buildings and imagine what it would be like to be close to this building at the time of the 22nd February 2011 aftershock.

Two members of our office carrying gear through the cordon. This was taken shortly after the 4th September earthquake. Police allowed us free access past the cordon and simply advised us to watch out for falling masonry. The access situation was much different after the February aftershock.

After the February quake, army soldiers man each entrance to the city’s red zone and allow access only to those with a pass, such as this truck driver. When we went in, there were huge trucks and diggers on every corner.

This photo was taken around May this year. It’s actually taken from outside the cordon on St Asaph Street, looking through the wire fence. The buildings are on Colombo Street and buildings like this further up can be seen in the video.

This photo was taken recently on Fitzgerald Avenue. Again, it’s amazing how close you can get to buildings that look like they are about to collapse. In the background, you can see that work has begun to remove the dome on top of the damaged Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrement.

Looking like a scene from a Terminator movie, this photo shows rubble from collapsed buildings on Moorhouse Avenue, next to Henry’s and Pak’n'Save.

Before the quake. This is one of my favourite photos. I took this from the top of the Cathedral Tower in early 2010. It’s near the time of the Busker’s Festival and shows a busker attracting a crowd in Cathedral Square.

I haven’t had access to the red zone before to take photos so most of mine are from around the outside of the cordon and the eastern suburbs. For photos inside the cordon, it’s highly recommended that you check out Ross Becker’s photos on Picasa.

Ross is a documentary photographer and was commissioned by the National Library to document the city’s rebuild. He has had access through the cordon to photograph the Christchurch CBD and his photos tell a sad story so far.

Note: The audio playing in the background for the first half of the video was audio that I recorded on 4th September and 22nd February. If you recognise the radio presenters, please let me know in a comment below and I’ll link to them from here and from the video descriptions.

The presenters did a stirling job dealing with callers at at time that was confusing for everyone.

For use of any of the material on this page or for further information, please contact me.

Firstly, what the hell were you wearing? And what was with your hair? Shame on you!

Secondly, for the love of all things awesome, please, please watch this video. It’s a video montage of men’s dating videos from the 1980s.

I really hope these people found love. They truly deserve it for the sheer awesomeness that flows from their videos.

I think we’ve lost a lot since these golden days. Facial hair and colourful clothing seem to play a large part. How is it fair that we live in such judgmental times that a man can’t even walk down a street in a moustache and dungarees without attracting ridicule?

There’s a lot to be learnt from these videos. I for one had never even considered such pick-up lines as:

I’m interested in most phases of data processing

And …

I’m not afraid to get sand on my tuxedo if you’re not afraid to get your hair messed up a little bit when I take the top down

Let alone dress up as a viking.

Strangely, the viking guy comes across as the most normal person in this video. Except for the costume I mean.

Where are they now?

Brilliantly, Ellen has tracked down three of the men that were in this video.

Check it out!

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. Not quite accurate – imitation by a Sesame Street character is the highest form of flattery.

To understand further, just watch these videos.

If you’re already pretty familiar with the ‘Old Spice Guy’ commercials campaign then you can skip the first, although it’s quite funny to see the two next to each other.

The Original Old Spice Commercial

As a re-cap, the first video is the original Old Spice advert.

Sesame Street Old Spice Video

Now you’re back up to date on the original, check out Sesame Street’s answer to the Old Spice guy.

Terry Crews Old Spice Commercial

And finally, here’s a sequel to the Old Spice series. I challenge you to watch this and not have “P-P-P-P-P-P-Power!” running through your head for days afterwards.

A friend shared this super cool video of Christchurch from before the earthquake.

Created by a Vimeo user by the ID of “lukaskaupenjohann”, the video is shot in a clever timelapse mode and makes the city look like a toy town with toy cars and trams racing around.

In their own words:

I shot this timelapse together with some friends on my exchange year in New Zealand. We had a lot of fun taking more then 10.000 photos and putting them all together to this timelapse movie. It was a great way to view this beautiful city and we had the opportunity to get shots from some pretty cool locations. Thanks to everyone who helped me and to all the offices and hotels that gave us access to their rooms. The stills were shot in about 2 weeks and the post production took me about one month.

Shot on a EOS 450D with kit lens and a 50mm F1.8 lens.

Edited with Photoshop CS4, After effects CS4 and Illustrator CS4.

Here’s the video:

Christchurch Timelapse ]]> http://www.nzraw.co.nz/videos/timelapse-video-of-christchurch-before-the-earthquake/feed/ 1 http://www.nzraw.co.nz/videos/talking-dog-video/ http://www.nzraw.co.nz/videos/talking-dog-video/#comments Tue, 17 May 2011 22:50:46 +0000 Mark http://www.nzraw.co.nz/?p=2315 Don’t you hate it when someone sends you a YouTube video and they’re all like “OMG this is hilarious, you have to check it out!” and you check it out and it’s actually not that funny.

Well … hopefully this isn’t one of those scenarios because far out this is funny. I’m just hoping it’s not just me that finds it funny because I have a German Shepherd. You know? Like it’s only funny in one of those ‘you had to be there’ type situations.

But hey, if you don’t find it funny, maybe you can just appreciate the skill that it takes to make this look like a proper talking dog. No wait, don’t go anywhere. It’s not one of those god-awful ‘this dog sounds like it’s talking’ videos where the dog’s just making muffled barks that could possibly sound like words when you’re a bit drunk or otherwise spaced out.

This dog really talks. Fo’ real.

Call of Duty is a highly successful first-person-shooter franchise that has had a bumpy ride and a roller coaster of feedback from fans, particularly following the release of the latest in the series, ‘Black Ops’, by Treyarch which took a lot of flack from Modern Warfare 2 fans (the release before this one) due to the apparent lack of change in the graphics and gameplay and the seemingly worse situation when it comes to lag.

Treyarch recently released the ‘First Strike’ add-on pack, also known as DLC (downloadable content) which has been gratefully received by Black Ops fans.

Say what you like about Treyarch, they certainly have some style and humour when it comes to promotion and marketing. Just take a look at this trailer video for First Strike’s Berlin Wall map, a music video spoof featuring Scorpion’s Wind of Change.

Turn up your speakers, hit the full screen button on the bottom right of the video and get a load of this.

Quality effort.

I actually looked up the original music video for Wind of Change by the Skorpions. Turns out Treyarch chose this song for a reason. The original, which has had over 16 million views on YouTube, also touches on the Berlin Wall as well as other war and conflict around the world:

This is the nativity story as told by the children of St. Paul’s Church on Symonds Street in Auckland and is created by St Pauls Arts and Media.

SPAM (St Paul’s Arts & Media) is a collective of individuals who have an interest in exploring arts and media and how it relates to contemporary expressions of spirituality. SPANK (St Paul’s Arts n Kids) is an initiative that has grown out of SPAM . It involves workshops and projects that engage kids creatively in all areas of the arts.

SPAM and SPANK. Gotta love it.

Merry Christmas to all and best wishes for the year ahead from Mark and NZ Raw.