Shawn has been using the camera on his MacBook Pro to record and upload to YouTube. However, recently it's gone from 16:9 to 4:3. Leo says that it could be the software that Shawn is recording from. He's been using the recording utility with Flash. It sounds like this is a known bug in that Flash utility, so Leo recommends using iMovie for recording.
Adam started a movie video podcast with his daughter called Piper's Picks TV and they've been doing it for years. They're moving to YouTube because they can monetize it, but YouTube is starting to take down videos because of complaints from others.
Tammy is going to Europe for about 8 months and wants to know if the SlingBox would be a good way to watch US TV. Leo advises getting the Slingbox 500. It has HDMI, HD, and WiFi and it's easy to set up. And yes, they'd be great for accessing a DVR at home while they're traveling. As long as they have an internet connection, they can access the Slingbox.
Mike wants to know what software would be best to do motion tracking. Leo says After Effects can do it, but it's pricey. FilmRiot has a great tutorial that shows how to do it.
There's also an open source solution called MultiBlob GridFlow PD.
Create Digital Motion is a great source for animators and motion tracking.
Liza wants to get a new video camera and wants Leo's recommendation. Leo says it depends on what she's planning to use it for. Camcorders are disappearing as more people rely on their still cameras and smart phones. Both of which do really good video these days. Liza says they don't shoot for very long, though. She wants to record soccer games from beginning to end. Leo recommends the Canon Vixia HF-R300 for under $300.
Leo says Laura needs a camera that accepts external audio like the Canon Vixia. She can then plug the mic in. If Laura needs wireless, then the price goes up, and cheap wireless is a bad idea. Leo uses Lectrosonics for wireless microphones. They're very pricey ($1000 per mic), plus the receivers, plus the mics.
John is a photographer for a local high school and he shoots images. He needs to organize both stills and videos and get them up to the cloud. Leo says that putting video up to the cloud just isn't practical. He'd need what Leo calls "more bandwidth than God" to upload video. Upload speeds are just too slow. According to Wolfram Alpha, at 50mbps (which is high), it would take almost two days to upload 1TB of data if nothing else was being done. Slower connections could take up to 61 days for 1TB! Rely on backup hard drives that he can take off site. It's far cheaper as well.
Richard has a lot of DVDs and he wants to get them onto his Samsung Galaxy Note II. Leo says Richard needs to "rip" them. Slysoft has a utility, which can bypass the copy protection so he can rip them, but it isn't free. Handbrake with VLC is the best way to do it for free. Once Richard has the video on his computer, he can sync it to his phone.
Dan got a new 802.11n router and when they stream Netflix at night, nobody else can use the internet because it gets too slow. Leo says this is because of his bandwidth. Netflix uses a ton of bandwidth, and after 6pm, over 40% of all internet traffic is Netflix. Dan could use a hard wired connection from the router to his PlayStation, but he only has so much bandwidth. He could pay to get more, but Netflix may just increase the picture quality if it gets more bandwidth and he'd be back to square 1.
Leo recommends checking out the Roku Channel Database. There's over 1200 channels available and he can learn how to get them onto his box. Roku also has the Roku Stick, which will enable him to watch streaming video off the internet via a small HDMI stick.
