Yoga - A little help please. Multimedia Yoga Lessons, Yogatoday.com for linux/mac

Author

A little help please. Multimedia Yoga Lessons, Yogatoday.com for linux/mac

omjaroo

2006-07-13, 9:24 pm

I received the following response (within a short time :-) to an
inquiry I made about viewing the yogatoday material on linux or mac.
They have a very nice presentation and appear to be very interested in
user feedback at this stage.

>From: Kimberly Whitman
>
>We are currently working on putting our show up as an RSS feed and will also have it up on iTunes
>within the next week or two.
>
>For now, check out the low-res version on the archive page on our website. If you have QuickTime,
>the media will stream directly on the page within the player right away. If you would like to stretch
>theshow to full-screen, save it to your desktop and open it in QuickTime.
>
>Let us know how you like it... we are really interested in feedback as we are still developing our
>show and site.
>
>Kim www.Yogatoday.com

For some reason I am not able to download the .mov files from their
archive. When I right click I do not have an option (firefox) to
download the file. If I could I then would open the .mov in VLC player.
If I put the URL of the .mov file into the "open network stream" option
in VLC, I do get the video to open but it does not feed correctly and
stops after a half minute. If someone can get this working on their
linux box and let me know how they did it, I would appreciate it.

Notwithstanding the problem I am having it appears that their material
should be accessible to virtually all platforms. Would someone please
check this out and let me know what's happening

Also a review of their material (on any platform) would be most
helpful. This might be just the ticket for someone who wants/needs a
"tv show" type daily lesson in hatha yoga.

Thanks

Jared
o
^

Richard Corfield

2006-07-14, 2:30 am

On 2006-07-14, omjaroo <omjaroo@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I received the following response (within a short time :-) to an
> inquiry I made about viewing the yogatoday material on linux or mac.
> They have a very nice presentation and appear to be very interested in
> user feedback at this stage.

One SuSE 10.1 with the Pacman additions I was able to play the archive
version in both MPlayer and Kaffiene - the two players I have installed.
MPlayer was without sound though, suggesting I recompile with qdmc
enabled. Will have to put Xine on some time as that was my preferred
player on 10.0. (Haven't had this 10.1 system long)

MPlayer will attempt to play in the browser, though likes to prebuffer
a lot if not the whole thing. I copied the link location and used wget
to download the first 20M or so. At 280M those on limited broadband
connections will quickly use up their alloted capacity. It's a 40 minute
download on my connection.

wget
http://downloads.im.com/partner/yog...gatoday_038.mov

Because Linux has sensible file locking you can watch it at the same
time as downloading it.

It's obviously supported by advertising - something you're perhaps used to
in America but we're not so used to over here. With the Linux tools it's
easy to skip over these (2:40 in the example above including the YogaToday
intro and safety notice). The adverts are filmed, or at least transcoded,
at higher quality and I think take up most of that initial 20M, so I only
got the getting comfortable bit of the lesson. I can imagine advertisers
demanding higher quality transcoding. The adverts I saw were all at the
start, though I've not seen the whole thing. I'd like to congratulate the
FeDeX sound designer though (oh, and lighting and everyone else as well).

If someone else can preview the main content that would be interesting.
From the few minutes I've seen this looks very interesting, and if I
had an uncapped broadband connection it could be a good way of making
sure I do get a good amount of daily practice.

- Richard (who used to do sound design for a local rep theatre, now
does village panto)

--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard Corfield <Richard.Corfield@gmail.com>
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ except in the Twighlight Zone

danijel dubicanac

2006-07-14, 2:30 am

i've contacted them with question about older files being unavailable in the
archive and never got the response
if several of you guys would try the same, they might answer, so please do

omjaroo

2006-07-14, 8:28 am

Richard,

Thanks for wget. That one goes directly to the "life saving" linux
commands doc :-)

I downloaded the video, however I did not have audio in either kaffiene
or VLC. I couldn't stand to install another video player as every time
I do I end up breaking something :-( So I installed the latest version
VLC, after all the requisite change sources file, apt-get update,
install, etc. etc. Finally however I did get audio. But now the program
doesn't work exactly right so its another linux two hour learning fest
until its fixed :-) I'll tell you what, linux (unix) is really where
all the years of yoga pay off. Patience, focus, consentration,
unpeturbability and starting with dos/cpm86 20+ years ago also helps
:-)

I thought the fedex ad was very good and very funny! The other ads were
pleasent enough. The instruction video was good, calming, easy going.
Lacked "old-school" finesse of Hittleman and Lilia but I'm sure they
will get better and better at it.

I still don't see how one can do a routine with such a small screen
size and all the drawbacks I sited in the other post still apply. I
find it hard to follow what is happening with the shots being so far
back. More close-ups would be good. But it was great to see that the
gal on the left was making real mistakes and being gently corrected.
(Although I was embarrassed for her.) This is more like reality. I
didn't see the guy get corrected but I skipped through pretty fast so I
could get this post off.

I know they have a flow they think they must maintain, but I would like
to see more examples of doing it wrong and the corrections. More
discussion about mistakes and how we should view them, etc. Perhaps
even a cut away to the studio where there is a close up of various
mistakes which are made in this posture and how to correct them. After
all we learn from mistakes not from doing it correctly. Also
discussions of preliminary positions before before we are able to make
the "real" ones.

Jared
o
^
Commander and Chief of my little world and www.omjaroo.com

Richard Corfield wrote:
> On 2006-07-14, omjaroo <omjaroo@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> One SuSE 10.1 with the Pacman additions I was able to play the archive
> version in both MPlayer and Kaffiene - the two players I have installed.
> MPlayer was without sound though, suggesting I recompile with qdmc
> enabled. Will have to put Xine on some time as that was my preferred
> player on 10.0. (Haven't had this 10.1 system long)
>
> MPlayer will attempt to play in the browser, though likes to prebuffer
> a lot if not the whole thing. I copied the link location and used wget
> to download the first 20M or so. At 280M those on limited broadband
> connections will quickly use up their alloted capacity. It's a 40 minute
> download on my connection.
>
> wget
> http://downloads.im.com/partner/yog...gatoday_038.mov
>
> Because Linux has sensible file locking you can watch it at the same
> time as downloading it.
>
> It's obviously supported by advertising - something you're perhaps used to
> in America but we're not so used to over here. With the Linux tools it's
> easy to skip over these (2:40 in the example above including the YogaToday
> intro and safety notice). The adverts are filmed, or at least transcoded,
> at higher quality and I think take up most of that initial 20M, so I only
> got the getting comfortable bit of the lesson. I can imagine advertisers
> demanding higher quality transcoding. The adverts I saw were all at the
> start, though I've not seen the whole thing. I'd like to congratulate the
> FeDeX sound designer though (oh, and lighting and everyone else as well).
>
> If someone else can preview the main content that would be interesting.
> From the few minutes I've seen this looks very interesting, and if I
> had an uncapped broadband connection it could be a good way of making
> sure I do get a good amount of daily practice.
>
> - Richard (who used to do sound design for a local rep theatre, now
> does village panto)
>
> --
> _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard Corfield <Richard.Corfield@gmail.com>
> _/ _/ _/ _/
> _/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
> _/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ except in the Twighlight Zone

Richard Corfield

2006-07-14, 8:28 am

On 2006-07-14, omjaroo <omjaroo@yahoo.com> wrote:
> VLC, after all the requisite change sources file, apt-get update,
> install, etc. etc. Finally however I did get audio. But now the program
> doesn't work exactly right so its another linux two hour learning fest
> until its fixed :-) I'll tell you what, linux (unix) is really where
> all the years of yoga pay off. Patience, focus, consentration,
> unpeturbability and starting with dos/cpm86 20+ years ago also helps

Ah, that will be Debian, or something Debian based. My Debian system
doesn't have the CPU power to do much like video so I haven't tried
there. For package management I prefer Aptitude nowadays due to its
auto-cruft-handling.

I think any system takes patience to learn, though I can now picture
you sitting cross legged in front of the PC meditating and being one
with /etc/X11/xorg.conf ;)

From the bits I've seen (I allowed it to download and have skipped through
quickly since posting my last) I recognised a lot, so I wonder if it
can be used as just a guide for the more experienced - what postures to
use when for how long, with the images available for quick reference.
Lesson format looks familliar which is good. Noticed Namaste being
referred to as "remembering your intent".

The players do enlarge to full screen though it gets quite pixelated.

- Richard

--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard Corfield <Richard.Corfield@gmail.com>
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ except in the Twighlight Zone

NBennett

2006-07-15, 4:27 pm

jared
i stopped short of downloading their viewer because i have enough crap
i dont understand on my computer, but i could easily watch the 3
classes in the archives. i clicked on them and they opened
automatically. i dont even know what program they're running on. the
display is small, but the instructor gives good explanations. i'm
finding i dont have to watch, only listen. i wonder if they always
keep only 3 in the archives - which is pretty good - or if they're
building it up.
i like it.
nancy

omjaroo wrote:
> I received the following response (within a short time :-) to an
> inquiry I made about viewing the yogatoday material on linux or mac.
> They have a very nice presentation and appear to be very interested in
> user feedback at this stage.
>
>
> For some reason I am not able to download the .mov files from their
> archive. When I right click I do not have an option (firefox) to
> download the file. If I could I then would open the .mov in VLC player.
> If I put the URL of the .mov file into the "open network stream" option
> in VLC, I do get the video to open but it does not feed correctly and
> stops after a half minute. If someone can get this working on their
> linux box and let me know how they did it, I would appreciate it.
>
> Notwithstanding the problem I am having it appears that their material
> should be accessible to virtually all platforms. Would someone please
> check this out and let me know what's happening
>
> Also a review of their material (on any platform) would be most
> helpful. This might be just the ticket for someone who wants/needs a
> "tv show" type daily lesson in hatha yoga.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jared
> o
> ^

omjaroo

2006-07-16, 2:26 am

NBennett wrote:
> jared
> i stopped short of downloading their viewer because i have enough crap
> i dont understand on my computer,

Hi Nancy,

Some times I think it would be easier to fix world hunger, wars and
injustice, than it is to keep the junk off of our computers :-)

> but i could easily watch the 3
> classes in the archives. i clicked on them and they opened
> automatically. i dont even know what program they're running on.

That's great! That's the way its supposed to work :-)

> the display is small, but the instructor gives good explanations.

This s good to know. I was favorably impressed with the instructions
also.

> i'm finding i dont have to watch, only listen.

And this is interesting. I didn't even consider this as a possibility.
I suppose you have to have some significant experience for this to
work. Do you think?

>i wonder if they always keep only 3 in the archives -
> which is pretty good - or if they're building it up.

That has come up before. Hopefully they are watching the thread and
will be forth coming with a response.

> i like it.

And that is the bottom line :-)

Thanks for your help.

Jared
o
^
Things that go bump in the night (part 2) www.omjaroo.com