HHeeeeere's ANDY !!!
 

I recorded Andy's appearance on the NBC Today Show, morning May 24th. And have put a video file (AVI type) up on a site from which you can play it or down load it and then play it. No, it is NOT on youtube, sorry, I don't "belong" to youtube. Anyway, this link will get you to a window which will ask you if you want to download it.
http://www.mediafire.com/?iz8e7c66vn8iv4s

You can try to play it directly from there. But don't know about bit connection rate/speed required.

Or, you can download it saved to file and after all downloaded play it from file. It is rather large at 60MB so may take 20 minutes to download. It is in a common AVI format. Enjoy.

regards - tom

Thanks Tom - it was a good (short) tv spot. Love the photo of giraffes Andy! Nice that you brought some cameras in a range of prices to show. I've never watched the Today show, but I can see Andy was lucky to get much of anything said in such a short spot with those two chatterbox hosts.

You're welcome. Was short, close to 4 min. I bet Andy thought he had just sat down when bang it was over!! I never watch the show either. No reason to unless one of us is on it !!! Andy did mighty fine, those gals are talkers, can't have even 1 sec of no talk.

Andy says use "fill flash". Sure, like those gals and 99% of snap takers have a clue. A good camera for most people would be one where the default mode is flash all the time. And if you -don't- want it you have to switch it off for that snap.

regards - tom

Andy, you were great!! This too was my first time watching the show, and honestly, I am surprised that you managed to get a word in edgewise! I came away from the show in general with an impression that there isn't too much substance in that show - I was REALLY intersted in what you had to say, and poof - it was over. I guess that's what the NOW generation likes though. I guess.

Maybe this will lead to a longer spot on another show where we really can learn something about vacation photos from you! I'm hoping so anyhow - you are a natural!

Andy - do you have any lectures/seminars/classes someplace this year?
How about instructional DVDs?

regards - tom

Tom, thanks for taking the time to record the show. Extremely nice gesture, because I actually forgot to set my own DVR to record. Doh!

It is likely that I will have a lecture at B&H in NYC in mid June. We are working on the dates right now.

Thank you Tom. Somehow I could get only audio and the visual was a bunch of colors and shapes on my screen.

Even with only audio, it seemed like it was too short, not enough substance and too much chat by the hosts.

How can I hope to improve my photography when I can't even see the photographer?

atln- Sorry to hear you had problems playing it. I downloaded it from there and it played fine on my PC using - Windows Media Player, KMPlayer, and VLC media player. Do you know the program that tried/failed to play it for you?

And yes, it was too short, and the hosts must put their stamp on everything. yuck.

regards - tom

oh, and, anyone else have problem playing it, or has it played ok for you?

regards - tom

I use a Mac and had to download a program called DivX in order to play it. After that it played fine. I didn't mind downloading this program as there are so many video formats that you often need secondary programs to open them, especially if you are using a Mac.

Tom, I just checked and QuickTime player doesn't natively play it without a codec, but VLC works just fine.

FWIW, the file's codec is XVID, name is XVID ISO MPEG-4.

regards - tom

Oh Andy! Why June in NYC?! We'll be in S Africa. We've been hoping to attend one of your lectures at B&H. Drat.

Some perhaps useful info for someone converting a TV video file into a type of file I made here, an AVI XVID type file. A learning opportuntiy for me at least !!

The idea was to compress the original video file for putting on the web. But it came out much larger than I expected/wanted, i.e. 60MB. I now know that most of this size was due to the audio, the audio -not video- part of the conversion. Of the 60 MB, 45 of it is audio !!! Because the audio is CD quality audio, very high bit rate, 1,536Kbps at 44100 Hz.. If I make it instead like an mp3 music playing file not 1,536 but 160kbps, the size of the audio portion then goes way down from 60MB to 5MB !!! Wow, that would have made the size of the file I put up for downloading not 60MB but 19MB!!! On-third the size !!! Furthermore, with that size savings I could make the video part higher quality and still be way less than half the original size.

Just thought you'd like to know :)

regards - tom
ps - if I had put this up on say youtube, they would have done all this automatically for me. (I think).

I ferried the segment from my TiVo to my computer, and then uploaded it to Vimeo. Here is a link:

http://vimeo.com/24315782

I am still scratching my bald head about the goofy guy comment. Oh well!

You said close to end, listen close (everyone is talking of course !!!) - "get goofy". They picked it up, quick those gals, especially with their mouths :) .

regards - tom

The vimeo and the other link Tom posted both work now. I guess they are "playing natively" now.

You are right I think they called you a goofy guy, Andy. I think their mouths just spun out of control toward the end and most anything might have popped out.

That clip was the first time I ever saw these two and will probably be the last unless they decide to invite the "goofy guy" back on.

lynn -

Their mouths are always spinning out of control! One never knows what might pop-out! :)