Meal Ticket

I know I promised that my next work of art would be a podcast. Hey, I lied. I can’t help it — videos are just so frikkin’ easy to make! Post-production is simply connecting the Clie to my PC via USB and doing a cut & past job in QuickTime Pro. I save it as a self-contained hinted movie with MP4 video and audio encoding.

Well, I was in Shibuya a few nights ago after work to buy a wide angle lens so I can shoot panoramas. I didn’t have my mics, but I did have my Sony Clie PEG-NX70V, which as you can see I’m really starting to enjoy using as a video camera. Even with plenty of other data on the 128MB Memory Stick (text articles off the web, e-books, WAV files from the voice recorder, Atok for handwriting recognition in Japanese, etc.) I still have enough room for about 40 minutes of video. Granted, it’s only 160 X 112 pixels big, but it doesn’t look bad at all when viewed at double size, does it?

So I decided to do a wee little videocast of a Japanese style fast food restaurant. This is really mundane stuff to me, but I know there will be lots of people diggin’ it because it’s different and it’s a glimpse into the daily life here. I like that I can whip out my mics or camera practically anywhere and just start talking. It took a while to build up the guts, but I’m completely over the self-consciousness now!

OK, the next one will be a podcast, I promise.

VIDEO (10.3 MB)

Rich Pav

Richard has been living in Japan since 1990 with his wife and two teenage sons, Tony and Andy.

7 thoughts to “Meal Ticket”

  1. I have an upcoming holiday to Tokyo soon and was wondering how I was going to cope with these machines when I inevitably stumble upon them 🙂

    The NX70v has a great camera, the video was surprisingly watchable in full screen mode on a 12.1″ powerbook. If only my Clie UX-50 had a decent camera.

  2. Hey, I really liked this videocast the framerate really made up for the tiny resolution. Just wanted to give you a heads up, incase you hadn’t noticed, iTunes downloaded this video as part of the podcast feed and played it full screen for me.

  3. Hey, don’t ask how I found this video (del.icio.us was involved) but I really like it. I did an internship in Japan last year but I didn’t even have the guts to take a picture in a crowded train.

  4. Very cool videos Rich. My 10 year old son and I are digging them. We want to visit Japan and your audio and video casts are chock full o’ great insite. What’s mundane for you is really eye opening for us. Thanks for sharing.

  5. Rich, I love this video stuff. It’s a little portal to the other side of the world for me. It’s very cool that you feel comfortable enough to walk around talking to yourself and pointing a camera in people’s faces, they might not always appreciate it, but I assure you that I do.

    The stuff in the restaurant is really fascinating. I get the feeling I’m learning something while watching this, but I’m not sure what it is.

  6. Wow. I know this is old at this point, but oh well. I was surprised to see that there was so much food I’d actually be willing to eat in Japan, considering I love Japan but hate seafood. Thanks for the insight.

Comments are closed.