Hi, I’m Roadette.
I’ll be going to Virginia on September 25 and staying until October 23. I’m taking a month off my job to videoblog daily from the James Webb campaign trail. My YouTube channel for the videoblogs is: http://www.youtube.com/roadette. I posted a :12-second spot to troubleshoot the system and you can link to it directly at: http://youtube.com/watch?v=d_aDZYivELM
(I hope ya like it!)
In 2004, I spent 6 weeks on the road doing the same thing for a Dem voter registration drive in 38 swing states. I can’t believe how much the technology has changed. The camera is the same (Pana DVX 100A) but everything else is amazingly different.
My PC was a 1.7 MHz Pentium that choked a few times a day. And I edited in an RV, using USB enclosed 3.5″ drives that slid across the dining table whenever the freeway curved or the driver passed a car. I had a horrible time uploading the video. The site itself needed some work to get the videos to play. I couldn’t find many hotspots where I could upload the videoblogs from the road. Half the ones in Starbucks didn’t work (Amarillo: ‘Gosh, I b’leve the manager put some of that kinda stuff in the back, but it’s still in them boxes…’).
This year, I edit on a 3.1 MHz Toshiba, using USB-powered Seagate portable drives — so I don’t need any additional power to run them. They’re tiny and I’ve put little rubber feet on them, but basically, they can rest on the floor of the passenger seat. I have a Sprint broadband card. All this means I can shoot an event, go to the car, edit a minute of the footage, use the Sprint card to get on the Net and upload to YouTube at 550 megabits per second or thereabouts. This is so amazing!
Happy Highways, Roadette
