VeoGeo - Gone but not forgotten?

Hi everyone,

As you can see from the placeholder, VeoGeo is no more. At least for now. My apologies to everyone who had activities up there. Especially to people like Esther Polak who went to great efforts to come up with a very entertaining work of art - which can still be viewed here.

We are working to make a phoenix rise from the ashes of VeoGeo - feel free to drop me a line if you have some comments / commiserations / ideas. I can be reached at brad@veogeo.com.

Thanks and bye for now!
Brad

YouTube Capability Broken

I'm sorry to say that YouTube videos within VeoGeo are broken. YouTube has changed how they do things, so we can't use their videos at the moment. This won't be fixed any time soon. However you can still link to your own FLV files or upload the videos to sites such as www.veoh.com

Update

Well it's been a year since anything major has happened here at Veogeo.com. In case you're wondering - VeoGeo is just an idea started by a few guys working at another company - not something we have been able to pour any more resource into at this point! In the meantime, a few companies have launched a similar idea - it's is great to see synchronized GPS and video catching on.

So is there life left in VeoGeo? In short - we don't know! We have always had a hundred ideas we would love to implement... an embeddable flash component to embed activities on your blog, facebook integration, applications to run on iphone 3Gs, GPS-enabled Nokias or GPS-enabled Windows mobile devices that would send activities directly to VeoGeo. There are a few other ideas ticking away that if we can somehow find the resources, could breath new life into the website.

Thoughts / ideas / responses? Happy to talk! Email me at brad@veogeo.com

Recording a Bus Ride

Recently I was in Hong Kong and recorded a few activites for VeoGeo.

Shopping at Mong Kok at night:

A bus ride down Nathan Rd during the day:

A bus ride up Nathan Rd during the night:

A walk down Apliu St Technology markets:

Part of a bus ride to Sha Tin:

To show you how the bus recording was done, I snapped the photo below. I was using a normal camcorder, along with a screw-in wide-angle lens (0.6x). The GPS was a Garmin Forerunner 305. The camcorder was clamped onto the bar at the front of the bus using a Pedco Ultraclamp.

Beta Open for Public Use!

I'd like to officially welcome everyone to the Beta release of VeoGeo.
Website registrations are now open, so join up and show us your world!

Please feel free to give us some feedback on the forums or even to drop us an email at support@veogeo.com

How to record your world for VeoGeo

VeoGeo will be going ‘Beta’ soon – so get out there and start recording some activities! Mountain Biking, Driving, Karting, Skiing, 4WDing, Skydiving… almost anything you can think of can be recorded and uploaded to VeoGeo.

So – how do you do it?

You need two basic things – a GPS device and a Video Camera.

GPS

The GPS you use must be able to log data (once per second to achieve the best results). Then you must have a way of downloading the data from the GPS to your computer and saving it as a ‘GPX’ file.

I use a Garmin Etrex GPS or a Garmin Forerunner GPS and ‘GPSBabel’ software to save the GPX file.

VIDEO

For recording video, you can use your normal digital camera, your camcorder, or any of the newer solid state based devices. Some of the cameras I use regularly are the the Canon SD600 and the Samsung SC-X300L (The Samsung is great because it has an external rugged, waterproof camera you can mount on your helmet / handlebars etc). You just need a way of getting the recorded video file onto your computer – something most people have no problem doing if they are using digital cameras.

RECORDING THE ACTIVITY

When you’re out there ready record, here’s a few things to remember:

1. Ensure the GPS and Camera’s batteries are fully charged
2. It may help to synchronize the times of your camera and GPS. The GPS time is incredibly accurate, so set your camera time to match the GPS time. This can help to synchronize the files later.
3. Take the time to set them up properly – ie ensure the video camera is framed properly and that the GPS has a good clear view of the sky. There’s nothing worse than recording a great activity only to find out the camera angle was all wrong!
4. Turn on the GPS, ensure it gets a fix, then start it logging (some GPSs log track data automatically)
5. Turn on the video camera, press record, then commence your activity!

A few other notes:

• Use a low quality video setting, as this video will be streamed over the internet, so smaller sizes are better
• Activities of 10 minutes or less are ideal (there is a 10 minute / 100MB limit on video sizes)

We’ll continue posting hints and tips here on the VeoGeo blog.

Good luck recording your world!

VeoGeo Beta coming VERY soon!

Thanks to those that have viewed VeoGeo Alpha, and thanks for the feedback. We're working hard on the Beta release at the moment and hope to have it live in the next couple of weeks! With the Beta release of VeoGeo, you'll be able to register and upload your own activities to share with the world!

Stay tuned!