Tell Membership

Sign up for the FREE Tell Membership and receive benefits that include the digital edition of Tell Magazine sent straight to your inbox, product giveaways, coupons and much more!

 
 

Put yourself in the movies with Yoostar, a DIY green-screen system

.

Ever wanted to sidle up alongside Rambo in ‘Nam? Maybe you wanted to be part of the Goonie gang and add your own truffle shuffle? Perhaps your gaming skills could help fight the Kodan Armada? Whatever your cause, the Yoostar can make it happen.

Yoostar is a “studio grade” webcam (their description, not mine – I didn’t even know studios use webcams), portable green screen with a stand, and a remote control. It works like this: Step 1: search for and purchase scenes from the Yoostar website. Scenes cost $2.99 each and users can choose from movies and television shows as well as just backgrounds and commercials. The selection isn’t huge but there are some pretty interesting choices from Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America” to Charlie Sheen’s “Major League” to Stalone’s “Rocky III.” The company says there are hundreds of choices and does take suggested movies you’d like to see added.

Video: Casio’s Dynamic Photo green-screen-like technology

At Casio’s press conference, founder Kazuo Kashio wowed us with the company’s latest development in portable video — Dynamic Photo. Dynamic Photo is similar to a feature in Apple’s Photo Booth you may be familiar with. First, you capture a video of someone using one of their new point and shoot cameras, then you take a picture of the background without them in the frame, let the camera do some processing, and whala — you can make the background disappear. The technology finds the difference between the frames in the video and the picture you took, and creates a “cut-out” of the person, so you can place them on top of any other picture. This is similar to the technology Hollywood uses with green screens, however sans the green screen. Check out the video demonstrations and let us know what you think.

Dynamic Photo will be available in many of the company’s new products, including the new EX-FC100.