CNN’s “Future Cities” and Helsinki

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:16 pm

CNN’s Future Cities, hosted by Richard Quest, “gives us an inside look at how cities are adapting to tomorrow’s challenges”. Helsinki has been featured twice so far:

Helsinki’s battle with the snow (YouTube)
Helsinki’s underground master plan (YouTube)

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simon · Post by **simon** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:46 pm

He has a really annoying voice

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 1:53 pm

simon wrote:He has a really annoying voice

...and an equally annoying wardrobe but at least he is wearing an overcoat in that video.

I thought it was quite interesting. Shame he was pointing at concrete when talking about the "bedrock" in the beginning of the film

It made it look like Finland was built on some kind of bubbly limestone rather than granite. He could've shown Kamppi bus station, you can see the granite quite easily along the escalators that go down into the metro. Also when you walk from Kamppi to Forum to Sokos to the railway station etc you can see it.

In Espoo too - there is a huge sports complex under Tapiola. Way, way under Tapiola.

Bubba Elvis XIV · Post by **Bubba Elvis XIV** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 3:00 pm

simon wrote:He has a really annoying voice

30 seconds or so was enough.

skandagupta · Post by **skandagupta** » Tue Feb 15, 2011 4:12 pm

I thought he(i.e. Quest) perished in the wtc-blast 2001.

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 10:32 pm

Another episode:

Expanding Helsinki’s horizon (Youtube)

Hpslm · Post by **Hpslm** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:44 pm

Gotta give the man credit for pronouncing most names correctly or - in my opinion - close enough to be in the ballpark. But yes, otherwise his style sounds a bit theatrical. Thanks Jukka for the links.

*edit: typo

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:51 pm

Hpslm wrote:Gotta give the man credit for pronouncing most names correctly or - in my opinion - close enough to be in the ballpark.

Except maybe for Vantaa which sounded like he was bungee jumping...

Hpslm · Post by **Hpslm** » Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:53 am

penelope wrote:
Hpslm wrote:Gotta give the man credit for pronouncing most names correctly or - in my opinion - close enough to be in the ballpark.
Except maybe for Vantaa which sounded like he was bungee jumping...

Hence I added the qualifier most in that sentence. But most (har har) tv reporters don't seem to care that much of getting things right so I guess that's why it stood out.

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 6:53 pm

Yet another. This time, it’s about coping with the darkness:

Helsinki’s battle against the darkness (Youtube)

(Bah... you weaklings! Winter is the best time of the year.)

otyikondo · Post by **otyikondo** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 7:27 pm

skandagupta wrote:I thought he(i.e. Quest) perished in the wtc-blast 2001.

Not heard that one, but his career nearly perished following an unfortunate incident in Central Park involving crystal meth, a rope tied to his gonads, and a fun non-doctor toy in his shoe.

And I second the irritating voice comments*. But he seems to know his stuff.

*Edited to add: it's not really just his voice - the entire rhythm and cadence is straight out of that nauseating "stress every third word regardless" school of SkyNews journalism, attempting to con us into believing there is more meat in the message-sandwich simply because the words are underlined and in bold.

It's repugnant.

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 7:37 pm

Thanks!

BTW... what's the easiest way to copy a YouTube video onto a DVD ? (I'm clueless about that kind of thing)

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 8:19 pm

penelope wrote:BTW... what's the easiest way to copy a YouTube video onto a DVD ? (I'm clueless about that kind of thing)

Do you want it to be a “real” DVD Video disc, playable on any standard DVD video player – even the older ones which do not support any computer video formats? Or just something you can play on a computer?

Anyway, here are the first steps:

Install Firefox (if not already installed.)
Once installed, open Firefox, navigate to this address using it and install the “Video Downloadhelper” plugin. This plugin adds a button to your browser which lets you save YouTube videos – and video clips from many other video sites – permanently on your computer. See here for further instructions.

Once you have saved the video on your computer (note that YouTube usually has the same video available in multiple resolutions and formats so you get to pick and choose which version you will actually want to download... Pro tip: .mp4 is a more future-proof format than .flv!) you can then either burn it on a DVD-R as a regular file or further process it into an actual DVD Video disc playable on any player, just like those sold in stores.

For the latter option, you need a DVD Video authoring program, such as one in this list. Some authoring programs are all-in-one style packages which would take the downloaded .mp4 file and process it into a DVD Video-compatible MPEG-2 stream automatically, some others may require you to do this conversion step separately with video encoding/transcoding tools such as those listed here.

In any case, download those video clips first... you could ask further technical questions later once you have that part behind you. (And are you using a Windows PC or a Mac, or some other system?)

Edit: There are many free tools for this kind of conversion but many of them also require some technical knowledge to get the job done. As for commercial (and yet simple and capable) DVD authoring products, I’d recommend trying out Womble EasyDVD or Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD, both of which are available as free, fully functional 30-day trials. Both of them can handle .mp4 files and make regular Video DVDs out of them.

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 8:49 pm

OK, I think I can just about cope with that (I'm on windows xp pro). I already have firefox and the videodownloadhelper installed (the icon jiggles around when I watch YouTube videos but don't think I have ever actually used it). I want to make a DVD that mum and dad can watch on their telly so I guess I need to convert to mpeg-2. Anyway I think that with your advice and the support of my children I should be able to get there! One of my kids already copied the videos onto a stick for me in mp4 format so I'll try and figure out the next bit. Thanks.

P

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 9:04 pm

penelope wrote:OK, I think I can just about cope with that (I'm on windows xp pro). I already have firefox and the videodownloadhelper installed (the icon jiggles around when I watch YouTube videos but don't think I have ever actually used it).

There’s a small arrowhead (triangle) next to the jiggling icon. That should open a list of downloadable videos for the page you’re currently looking at. For some reason, though, the default configuration of “Video Downloadhelper” is such that pressing the actual icon opens a list of video sites the plugin supports – which is not really too useful. This behavior can be changed by clicking the icon with the right-hand mouse button, selecting Preferences and then going to the Behavior tab where there is an option “Upon clicking on the icon... Display supported sites”. Change that last part to “Open menu” and it will thereafter open the list of videos simply by clicking on the jiggling icon. Also, if the jiggling distracts you, you might want to uncheck the Icon animation option on the Appearance tab.

penelope wrote:I want to make a DVD that mum and dad can watch on their telly so I guess I need to convert to mpeg-2. Anyway I think that with your advice and the support of my children I should be able to get there! One of my kids already copied the videos onto a stick for me in mp4 format so I'll try and figure out the next bit. Thanks.

OK. Feel free to ask more advice if you get stuck.

Are you parents living in the UK? If so, and if you’re going to try out the Womble DVD authoring products – or any other DVD authoring application – make sure to choose a PAL project instead of an NTSC project in the beginning so you’ll get the DVD Video disc in the correct video standard for the country. (NTSC would be for the Americas and Japan.) Note that you could also convert video clips from a modern video camera or even video clips shot with a still camera to the DVD Video format in the same way.

Edit: If you’re going to “author” DVDs and try out some of the more advanced and complicated things – such as creating chapter menus or other kinds of menus where it is sometimes easy to go wrong – it is a good idea to buy some rewritable DVD+RW or DVD-RW discs for trying out your designs before finally burning them on a DVD-R or DVD+R which cannot be erased. Using rewritable/erasable discs for testing prevents you from spending money on “coasters”: discs which didn’t turn out as you intended and are now only good as beverage coasters.

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