Peadar O’Loughlin and Ronan played last Thursday night at the Philadelphia Irish Center. My friend Denise Foley and I shot photos and recorded digital audio and video.
This was our first shot at digital video. Honestly … neither one of us thinks the video quality is all that great. (OK, it stinks.) We’re a couple of amateurs with much to learn in that department. However, the sound quality is OK. And the sound quality on the MP3 is also pretty good. Not CD quality, but plenty good enough for the Web. You might like the photos, too.
I really enjoyed all the stuff about the concert. The only thing I would say about the video is if there is some way you can get closer that would be worth trying for. But you might not be able to do that without distracting and disturbing others which obviously you would not do—I don’t have any knowledge of making videos. I didn’t think it stank, it was just kind of far away from the performers. I thought the article was nice too–it gave a feeling for what they are like in person. Their CD’s are two of my favorites.
Was there no mixing board that you could have plugged into for the sound portion? I have seldom been able to pull a good sound file from the back of a room, especially with all those people talking, and the room not shaped for sound.
Ronan’s album The Wynd You Know has some of the best playing you’ll ever hear on UPs, especially his version of The Wild Geese. Someday in my next lifetime I will catch up with him.
Honestly, we know next to nothing about video. But you make a great point, and based on our first and only experience, it’s absolutely something we’re going to look into for next time. And good point about getting close, too. When I shoot still photos, I’m pretty much in your face. Why didn’t we do it this time? We are concerned about being intrusive. Somewhere along the line we’ll find a balance.
The video and its audio are very compressed. If you put another track on the web it might be worth experimenting with different settings (a higher bit rate) especialy for those wth high speed connections. The current clip is 38Kbs - 128kbs would look and sound a lot better.
I know I mentioned this before, but I certainly wouldn’t want to encourage you to be intrusive and either bother the musicians or the audience. It is horrible to be listening to something really important to you and to have someone fussing around and moving things or making even little noises. Better no video than do something like that. So I think your concern is very valid.
Thanks for putting the stuff up!
Agree about the sound on the video, it’s like they’re playing underwater. I’d be willing to wait a while to get some better quality, sure.
Your audio’s file name is quite something, too: e4242c22-843b-aafd-6a49-dd1cf962fe60.mp3
How come all of these pipers’ club videos use that Lord of the Dance Celtic typeface?
I’ve actually learned something, bitrate-wise, and I am going to take the advice and tinker with that later today. The sound board advice is also very useful. And it’s funny someone should mention the font. Looks very Irish-y, don’t it? Sadly, for the purposes of this exercise, it’s illegible. I realized that not long after I posted the thing. I won’t make that mistake twice. I really appreciate all your good advice.
Hope to have better stuff to show off in the future. (And if it looks better, you all can take the credit.)
