Video: Wonderland of Trees

Posted by Philip Anselmo on November 25, 2008 - 4:18pm
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Every few weeks we stop by the Holland Land Office Museum and chat with Pat Weissend, the museum's director, about some artifact or other interesting something going on at the museum. This time, there was really only one thing to talk about: the Wonderland of Trees. From now until January 3, folks can head down to the museum—check out the Web site for hours—to tour the Wonderland and help raise funds for the museum.

Now, before we get to the video, we would like to ask your help. We've been finding a few problems with the videos uploaded to blip.tv—which is otherwise flawless, with great quality and a large viewing screen. Unfortunately, the videos seem to skip on some computers. Here, we've loaded our video with Pat into both YouTube (top) and blip.tv (bottom). Which looks and runs better for you?

 

Posted by Darrick Coleman on November 25, 2008 - 5:01pm
WinXP Pro, Firefox 3, Flash 10,0,12,36

YouTube was smooth all the way through.

Blip was very choppy. The video stopped a few times but the audio kept going. I even paused the video to let it buffer completely and then hit play and it was still jerky and choppy. Blip looks much better though.
Posted by Brian Hillabush on November 25, 2008 - 6:05pm
I had issues with the blip Philip. I like how the videos are so crisp when they work, but this one was choppy and kept pausing.
It makes me wonder if I should go back to YouTube for my sports videos.
Posted by Chris Olin on November 25, 2008 - 9:19pm
I've never had any luck with videos hosted on Blip. They always lag.

Anyway, on Firefox the YouTube video doesn't show up embedded, though I feel that's due to one of my many anti-script/anti-ad/etc extensions. I switched over to IE and had the same results as everyone else. The YouTube video buffers and plays back fine but has horrible quality, while the Blip video has great quality but lags like a 56ker in an online FPS.
Posted by Russ Salway on November 25, 2008 - 9:32pm
If you get a chance you should stop by with your family and friends to the Holland Land Office for the Wonderland of Trees! My kids and I always make it a part of our holiday schedule along with ringing the bell for the Salvation Army! Great job Pat as always!
Posted by Kelly Hansen on November 26, 2008 - 11:42am
We will definitely stop by and check out the trees again this year. Smileys Our 10 year old son is a history buff and we haven't been to the HLO for a year - seems the perfect time.

Using firefox, blip hung up and youtube worked fine.
Posted by Daniel Jones on November 26, 2008 - 3:57pm
I can't ever get Blip to work, YouTube always runs just fine.
Posted by Brian Schollard on November 29, 2008 - 8:44am
The You Tube worked fine Blip jumped and made my browser bog down
I have an iMac G5 with osx 10.5.5 & Safari 3.2.1
We will definitely go and check out the trees
Posted by Tom Gilliatt on November 29, 2008 - 11:52am
The blip video was choppy and it ran in slow motion but youtube worked like a charm

O/S Win XP PRO SP3
Posted by Brian Hillabush on November 29, 2008 - 7:37pm
I'm going back to YouTube for sports. I just uploaded a video and the Web site has really improved. Check out my O-A girls preview to see the new quality.
Posted by Philip Anselmo on December 1, 2008 - 9:30am
Thanks all.

Nearly a week later, this Blip video is still choppy and screwed up. Yet I don't think it has anything to do with lag on a slower connection. Not all the Blip videos behave this way for me. From what I've gathered, the site recently switched to a newer version of Flash that can cause these sort of problems with some videos.

In the meantime, we'll get back to using YouTube (ugh), but I will keep on with Blip to see if this problem can't get resolved — the quality is just too good to give up on just yet.

Thanks again.