Furillen’s movie screen

Some great videos have been made of Furillen – or simply using the sim as a backdrop. So it seems perfectly natural to me to put them on display at the sim.

It’s an extension of idea of art in situ that I talked about last week.

However, sharing movies and watching them together is much harder in Second Life than seems justified.

I won’t bore you (and myself) with the details, but the problems with playing movies inword include

• the video format;
• not being able to stream from certain websites (Vimeo) while being stuck with ads and autoplay on others (YouTube);
• the need for everyone to have certain software installed, such as Adobe Flashplayer and Quicktime; and
• last but not least, some arcane difference between PCs and Macs which usually leaves owners of the latter staring at a blank movie screen inworld.

Having spent way too long trying to find a workaround this week, I was saved from eternal frustration by the ingenuity of someone who came to Furillen whom I hardly know, who goes by the name of Rinnuendo. Her intriguing new blog can be found here.

Rinnuendo built a movie screen for use at Furillen that will enable me to show movies to anyone who visits – regardless of whether they are using PC or Mac. In addition, once we have uploaded them to a server, visitors will have the opportunity to choose from a selection of movies.

Super Rinnuendo, indeed …

Please go and try this inworld as soon as you can, because we really need your feedback on a couple of things – whether it actually works for you, and what you think of the ‘outside cinema’ that I set up for the purpose.

This won’t be a permanent feature of the sim. For now, it’s an experiment. The idea is to use the screen when I have something new to show: when a new video has been made, for example, or to show something for a special occasion, or even to hold movie nights.

But before you go pressing buttons, please note a couple of points.

First, you definitely need Quicktime to view these movies, whether you are using a PC or a Mac. If you only hear sound, this is the most likely reason. So install Quicktime from here before you even try viewing inworld.

Second, there is a set of easy-to-follow instructions on display next to the screen. Please follow the simple steps in exact order.

Over the next few days, I’ll be showing some movies that have been made of Furillen, together with a movie (or two) by Tutsy Navarathna, a Furillen regular whose work I really admire.

So … catch this while you can.