Growing up, my musician brother started out experimenting with music using a four-track tape recorder that he used to blend together guitars, keyboards, and vocals--something that normally requires an entire band, or some advanced audio-mixing equipment. Tjoon is an interesting new Web service, aimed mostly at musicians, that attempts to do the same thing using Webcams. It splits up a video workspace into four quadrants, and lets you, or others, come together to record four 30 second clips, all within the same shot. Instead of trying to do this simultaneously, like eJamming (coverage), Tjoon is completely asynchronous, meaning you can pass along your work to others to let them add their own matching clip.
The service was created by the same folks who did Floorplanner.com (review), and was designed specifically for the musicians you tend to see on YouTube or other video services, showing off their Freebird solo skills. Tjoon steps it up a notch, letting users can open up their creations to anyone who wants to record their own tracks alongside the original. As admin, you can also delete any additions you don't like. Other Tjoon users can also comment on a video and rate it up or down, with the most popular and top rated videos making the front page.
There are some obvious limitations to this service in its current form, but I still think it's a really fun way to experiment with video, and multitrack recording. The biggest downer is the 30 second cap on video clips, which just isn't going to cut it if you're actually trying to record a full length song (~3 minutes). You also can't push out your video to other video hosting services without using third-party screen capturing apps, although there is an embed option. Regardless, the idea of asynchronous jamming makes a lot more sense for the casual user than eJamming's model. While the service doesn't seem to want to go in the direction of professional recording, I think kids with instruments and Webcams are going to love this for its simplicity.
Below is an example of a one-man harmony made using the service:
When Apple started putting iSight cameras on the top of its iMac desktops and portable notebooks, one of the fun apps that came along was Photo Booth. This tiny program emulates the experience of good old-fashioned photo booths, the kind you run into in malls and amusement parks. Seenly, which launched yesterday, is a fun service that does nearly everything Apple's Photo Booth does, except it runs in your browser, and as a result works on PCs too.
There are 10 presets to play with, from a simple mirroring mode to a timed nine-exposure shot that will snap nine separate pictures of you in the course of a few seconds. Your shots reside in a little queue at the bottom of the screen, where you can save them straight to your hard drive, or grab the links to share with others.
Seenly also has a Facebook application. Once installed, it performs just like the full version, although your shots can be posted to your profile or sent to friends. Your friends can paste their own pictures to your Seenly Snaps box, which contains the last three shots that have been taken. If you want to post more, you can bump the limit up to nine.
As good as Seenly is, it's missing two of the cooler features you get with Photo Booth. The first is the neat screen flash, which flushes the LCD with white to emulate a typical camera flash. The other is the group of warping effects that I think are the most fun of the bunch. Hopefully Seenly can add these in later down the line.
[via DownloadSquad]
Scare yourself and others with Seenly's photo booth.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
BlogTV is a new livestreaming service that's been making a splash at the Supernova conference here in San Francisco. It's the latest in several live broadcasting services that have popped up, including uStream.TV, Veodia, Mogulus, and Stickam. Like some of its competitors, BlogTV is combining live video and chat in one window, along with a way to embed the entire module on your blog or Web site. It also lets content creators team up with two Webcams at once, a solution that opens up the service for co-hosts, live interviews, or multilocation coverage.
The BlogTV interface is made up of three panes, with live video, chat, and a related videos playlist. To see it in action, click the read more link at the end of this post.
(Credit: CNET Networks)BlogTV isn't just limited to live streams, though; users can record bits of their live broadcast and publish them in an archive. Like YouTube and other video services, users can then comment and rate clips, as well as mark them as favorites. There's also the option to subscribe to an author's channel to keep tabs on future content or see when he or she is broadcasting live. Content is split up into nine different "channels," and users have the options to sort through live and archived clips for each.
BlogTV's embeddable player isn't quite up to snuff compared with some of the other livestreaming players I've seen. While it does show you how many people are watching a program, the integrated chat is a one-way experience. You can see what others are typing, but you can't type back or see who is in the chat room. To participate, you need to venture off-site to the broadcast's page. That being said, BlogTV's chat experience is really well-done. Channel owners can give certain users operations privileges (akin to IRC), kick users, and users can chat privately with one another. There's also all sorts of emoticons and quick options to share with or invite friends to the broadcast.
BlogTV is currently relegated to your computer, although the team behind it is working on a mobile version. I'm expecting something along the lines of Kyte.TV and Veodia, although if there's one thing we've found in testing these services, mobile Webcasting can get a little tricky.
I've embedded a sample BlogTV livecasting module after the jump. Since I don't want to bore you with a CNET office cam (not to say me typing isn't exhilarating), I'm embedding a live broadcast of the Supernova conference from Nir Ofir, one of the founders of BlogTV.
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