An Older Video

I am planning to get (well, really, hoping to get) a few videos of me at the piano recorded, edited and published so I can share them here.  Right now we have too much noise from outdoors entering our living room for me to do any music recording in the house so I'll have to wait until the weather is cool enough to block out all noise (which means winter).  Closing all the windows and doors will mostly resolve this issue.  In the meantime, I'm playing around with settings and editing techniques in preparation of that project.  I haven't shared a video in quite some time and, unfortunately, a bit has changed since that time.  I'm quickly realizing that there are significant changes with my blog's formatting, with video editing, and with my video hosting website.  This means I have a bunch of new stuff to learn.

I need to point out that it is incredibly and too often needlessly exhausting for an unhealthy person to keep up with these types of constant changes.  The HTML language seems to be constantly evolving.  I feel like I finally get one step past where I was encountering problems and then I am pushed backward two steps which naturally leaves me feeling as though I am always far behind the curve as well as wasting much needed energy.  

The first thing I wanted to try that was new to me is a wide CinemaScope aspect ratio.  This is a video editing sort of thing and has little to do with HTML here in this blog but this was the first new thing to learn.  I quickly found that cropping is the best method for converting to this wider format.  After some algebra, I figured out what needed to be done to convert to this wide cinematic format.  

It is also time to start upscaling my videos to at least 2K.  I have had a 4K monitor for quite some time already and my old videos are now just tiny thumbnails on this 4K monitor.  Even full HD video looks ridiculously tiny on this monitor.  It won't be long before monitors in the 6K to 8K range become more mainstream so I need to start working toward 4K home video.  Incidentally, my Sony cameras are Full HD so I don't even have a camera that can shoot 4K natively.  I need to upscale my Full HD videos to 2K/4K.  There are many wrong ways to do this so the key is finding a procedure that works well to meet my needs.  Anyway, I think I figured out an acceptable way of upscaling during the final render of my video editing so it is now on to HTML blog stuff.  

Uggg...  I'm already having difficulty trying to figure out some of these changes in HTML so I can insert the video into this blog.  On my "Compose" screen, somehow inserting the HTML code for the video has created all sorts of space between this text and the video placeholder.  I don't get it.  Hmmm...  maybe this is a ridiculous quirk of my Blogger blogging website and not an HTML issue.  Regardless, it would be nice to figure this out.  

On the positive side, Vimeo can now provide me with a "Responsive" embed code as opposed to a "Fixed" embed code.  This allows the user to resize their screen while viewing my blog and the embedded video will resize as well.  So that is good news.  I don't think my videos did that before I had this new "Responsive" embed code option.

Wow...  this is frustrating.  I guess I'm going to have to do some research so I can attempt to figure out how to insert and adjust these videos effectively.  You'd think this sort of stuff would get easier and easier (meaning more user friendly) but it always seems to work out the opposite way.  

Here, to the right, is a screenshot of what I am trying to resolve.  You can see the video placeholder down on the left with all that blank space above it.  Oddly, that big blank space does not show when I publish my blog.  It seems to publish correctly (as you are reading it on this published page) and only shows this big blank space on my "Compose" screen.  Why?  On the positive side, it still seems to publish correctly but it is frustrating seeing all that blank space while I am composing my blog post.

I think I'm just going to publish this blog post before I even resolve this issue to see if I see any unforeseen problems with the published version.  I'll test it on all my devices too...  phone, tablets, Kindles, laptops, desktops.  

Anyway, about this particular video...  This was when the kids were about four years old.  We were at the lake house and were getting ready for dinner (you can hear me cutting up vegetables on a cutting board in the background) and the kids were playing with some blocks in front of the wood stove.  Lukey was really testing us this particular evening which you can see clearly near the end of this short video.  On the positive side, although Kenzie had a good reason to be angry, she showed unusual patience this time around rather than yelling, screaming and fighting.  So, it is a short video that is probably a bit boring to most people unless you enjoy evaluating behavior.  This cinematic format looks pretty good too.  

I'll probably need to further refine my settings to get the best upscaled videos but this one is looking pretty good for a first attempt.