100th post.

I've been sitting here for a few weeks, since I saw that my blog postcount was in the 90s, and I've been thinking about what I should make my 100th post about.

At first I was thinking of doing something about Megan, but I had second thoughts about that because I was unsure of whether or not I really wanted to do anything epic and long about that whole situation.

I was also thinking of doing something computer related, but that would involve me finding something pretty much epic to write about.

I was thinking about doing a reflection on my Freshman year of college, and while that's a pretty good idea, I don't know what I'd say - I've been recording my thoughts on it all year, and I will probably be able to do an even better overview in the next few weeks when it's actually all over. (Thank Goodness, too!)

I could also write about the 68kMLA and its downtime. It came back up today, and I still haven't added it back to my bookmarks bar. I also haven't completely decided whether or not I want to make my hiatus "official." I am fairly certain I am going to do so, however.

I also could write about my struggles in finding something to do this summer - the Summer RA job fell through, so I am definitely going to go home to Kingman. I am unsure about the video thing though, there was also talk about a pool job, and I'm sure there are other opportunities for employment over the summer.

Of course, it looks like instead, my 100th post is actually about the things my 100th post is not about. The only thing I haven't written about is how the 100th post is not about my experimental film.

NAB!

The National Association of Broadcasters tradeshow and other related events is happening this week, and I'm here to provide some reactions.

Apple's announcements are obviously very interesting to me, so I'll start there.
Final Cut Studio 2.

That is pretty much it. - well, that and Final Cut Server, along with Apple's new Codec ProRES 422 and the special i/o device for that codec, AJA's new io-HD, which looks like it was actually designed by Apple.

The RED Digital Cinema Camera is apparently finished. It looks cool and it's really inexpensive for what it is. The base unit is $17,500 - which is about as much as you'd pay for a high end XDCAM or Panasonic P2 camera, but this camera's got an actual 12-megapixel more-than-4k resolution sensor, and can record an uncompressed full resolution signal. If this, in combination with "inexpensive" computer editing gear and software like the MacPro Final Cut Studio, isn't basically the best thing ever to happen to digital cinema, I'm not sure what is.

This could even bring cinema-quality shooting to Electronic News Gathering, or to more independent filmmakers. I'd love to use one at some point in time, it seems like a reasonable size, and the image quality from it must be AMAZING.

In other news, Sony is apparently expanding its XDCAM lineup to include a new prosumer product that will apparently be able to record onto a new 8 or 16 gig flash medium. With two 16 gig cards, recording times are apparently about 120 minutes. I am interested in seeing it for sure, it looks like Sony is trying to bring the XDCAM to the places Panasonic's P2 system is already at, but with better recording times.

Oh - one final note regarding Apple's announcements of the past week. No Leopard means no 64-bit Final Cut Pro, and no 64-bit Final Cut means limited addressing space for users dealing with redcode and other high-def files. I can't wait to see how Final Cut flies on systems with 8 or more gigs of ram, once we get Leopard and 64-bit Final Cut.

DV Recording

I've got a really cool toy to play with this weekend. It's a Canon GL2 in what I think is basically the most awesome configuration ever. It's got an MA-300 Microphone adapter, and two dynamic mics (One lav and one hand held), plus the appropriate (long enough) XLR cables.

I am going to use it on Sunday to film a pilot episode of a talk show for UTV62.

Until then, I've got Camera+1 sitting here in my room, so I've decided to do a few things with it.

The first thing I shot with it here in the dorm was actually a screen capture of the old Toshiba laptop (aka TWL) booting IBM OS/2 Warp 3 and loading one of the IBM Works applications. The screen cap worked fairly well and it made me realize exactly how slow that old laptop is.

After screen capping the Toshiba, I decided I'd try a different method just for fun. The GL2 has an S-Video input and when the camera is in VCR mode, it can do analogue input for recording to the DV tape, or for recording straight to computer. So I got out my trusty new S-Video cable and the PowerBook G3, and did a few OS X screen captures in the camera's VCR mode. This was definitely interesting because it was essentially a perfect example of Mac OS X's failings in a low-resolution setting. The default size for everything is basically awful when outputting at 720x480.

Bored with screen capturing, I performed what I think is the most important and interesting of the tests - a direct comparison between the DV and Video8 formats, and of course the Sony HandyCam I've got and the Canon GL2.

For the comparison, I set both cameras up at about the same height on tripods, each in a different enough location so that I could look back and forth to make it seem more like a legitimate multi-cam shoot. I then got the dynamic hand held mic and the Canon Mic Adapter. I decided I wanted a direct comparison of the audio as well as the video quality, so I actually took the headphone output of the GL2 and attached it to the Microphone input of the HandyCam. I pressed record on both cameras, sat down and just talked about the setup for a few moments.

Doing such a shoot is definitely interesting, I am certainly happy to have a comparison done, and I can't wait until Monday when I can start to capture the tapes to hard disc. I'll have to capture at the comm building, and then bring the footage back to my iMac on the iPod or something.

At any rate... I certainly can't wait to do the actual talk show shoot, but I am concerned because I received a phone call today (after the EM checkout desk closed) saying that for the show, three cameras and a minimum of three microphones (two lav if possible) will be needed, so I hope the now-wimpy one camera, one lav and one hand-held will be acceptable.

If we were allowed to shoot S-VHS, I'd run out and buy another S-VHS tape and shoot with two or three of the big 3-chip S-VHS cams, but I don't think NAULive has enough tripods for that, unfortunately.

Hiatus from the 68kMLA

Some of you might know that I've been an active member of the 68kMLA online community... almost forever. I'm working to change that, or at the very least, reduce my own urge to visit that community. I am officially announcing here that I am on hiatus from the 68kMLA.

Suffice it to say that I have been frustrated with the changes in the general attitude of that community, and basically, I've come to the conclusion that it's is pathetic for me to place so much importance in an online community. It's great that I'm committed to something, but that community has proven time and again that I really need to find something better to do with the majority of the time I spend at my computer.

So what am I to do?

I think I may start by blogging more often, a lot of stuff happens in my life that I'm just sure the whole world needs/wants to know about. (Yeah - as if.) It is also a good process of self documentation, and I am sure there is something about my actual writing skills it will help.

I also might actually work more on my experimental film, whatever it is and whenever I actually intend to do something about it. I really want to get some stuff done for that so I can have an actual product, something I can say "I made this and it's not just random recordings, and it's not for NAULive"

I could also work on my classes more, I've got loads of work for a lot of my classes I need to do, and not being at the 68kMLA would definitely be a good inspiration to actually do work.

Well, we'll see how long my hiatus from the 68kMLA lasts. I may force myself to stay gone long enough to actually do the experimental film.

Travel Plans

I am going home for spring break - I get to ride the Amtrak Southwest Chief train from Flagstaff to Kingman on March 18th, and I'm going to come home a few days later, on the same train.

I'm going to bring my camera and video camera most likely, who knows - there may be other implements of awesomeness involved. Portable computer, anyone? I may attempt to make a video blog of the trip.

Thoughts on HDV.

Hey Everybody! This is actually something I wrote as a forum post, and then liked, so here it is on my blog. If you'd like to follow the discussion, click here.

This evening I was reviewing the procedure for getting video from my sony handycam (video8) onto the computer, and usable by a nonlinear editing system such as Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express. One of the things I discovered is that FCE/FCP doesn't like plain mpeg4 DVD rips, so my procedure for using (any analogue video source with a composite or svideo output really) Video8 now includes using Quicktime Player to convert the .mp4 file to a .dv file.

My main concern with this is that it has become a bit of a time consuming process to prepare my video for final cut, and that the filespace advantage of using a ripped DVD file (which is about 700megs/hour) versus a .DV file (which is about 13 gigs per hour) is now gone, without any of the actual quality advantages of having imported from a real DV camera.

I've been looking at newer camcorders, and what I've seen is that while DV (and digi8 too, if I were going to go that way...) is become less expensive, so are DVD cams, hard disc cams, as well as HDV cams.

DVD cams are interesting because they seem to promise nice, DV quality, but they don't use tape. However, I've noticed that those don't mix well with the iMac. Plus, that only eliminates one (admittedly the least fun) part of the current process.

MiniDV cams are attractive because they are inexpensive (bhphotovideo.com has one for $199) but I am concerned that this format (along with all other things standard def) may be a bad investment (at least to buy new) because of the growing popularity of all things high-definition.

Hard Disc camcorders are significantly more expensive, one of the cheapest ones around is $430 and this is still standard definition. Unfortunately what I've learned is that the current hard disc camcorders are extremely difficult to use with Macintosh video software, and they're even difficult to use with PC software, but very slightly less so. The idea is good, but it's still not been executed properly I think. Add to that, these units are still standard def, which could mean in the long run, it'll be a bad investment.

This brings me to HDV. I've noticed that there is now at least one HDV camcorder for under $1000, the Canon HV-10 for $800, and the Sony HDR-HC5 for $999. Canon's upcoming HV-20 is also going to be available soon, for $1099.

This format seems to be the future, it uses MiniDV tapes (though higher-grade "HDV" tapes are available, which supposedly improve the quality of the format significantly), and it can record 1080i or 720p (I bet it can record 1080p but the low end cameras don't do that apparently.)

My question is whether or not it seems like HDV is really worth it yet, especially for those of us who might already have access to other high def equipment, if some hypothetical person is interested in getting a camcorder sometime within the next few years.

Naturally, there are not really any HD-capable disc burners within a reasonable price range yet, but for displaying HD works on the TV, there's always the component video output on the camera, and there isn't anything saying that bluray or hddvd burners won't come down in cost in the coming years.

Another thing that may be worthy of noting is that HDV is the same data rate as DV, so in the end (storage-wise) if I record an hour of video with my handycam and put it on the computer (after converting to the .dv file), and an hour of video with an HDV cam and put it on my computer, they take up about the same amount of space. (at least this is my understanding, it may or may not be correct.)

I think if I were to adopt HDV today, I'd go for the Canon HV10, it's a smaller size than the Sony offering, as well as being better in a few ways even than its upcoming big sibling, the HV20. The HV10 has the ability to record analogue audio/video from its line-in port to a DV tape, for example. In fact, just about the only down-side to the HV10 is its lack of a microphone port, but that isn't that big of a deal for me, considering I only first started using an off-cam microphone a few weeks ago. Plus, another advantage I've got is that I'd still have the old handycam hanging around if I needed to make recordings using the microphone.

I like the idea of the extra video quality that HDV offers, especially if I intend to do some sort of independent or experimental film at some point in the future, but I am unsure if it's really worth it right now, especially given the fact I've already got the Handycam... well, handy.

Return of the iMac

The yet-unnamed iMac has returned. It's weird though... all of my data is gone, and I'm going to be spending a very long time getting everything returned to normalcy, I can tell. It is really unfortunate that what happened did, because it really reduces my trust - not only in computers in general, but specifically in this computer. This computer was less than 90 days old and it failed completely and totally - as a result of BootCamp with Windows XP, I had to get the motherboard and the hard disc replaced.

Unfortunately, replacing the hard disc means that all of my important data that was on the hard disc is gone. These include such awesomenesses as the UeberWiki, my entire iTunes library (minus whatever I may be able to derive from old archives), and a few of my photos.

It's somewhat devastating, but I guess that this is a good lesson for me in BACKING UP! I am going to start a backup plan this evening, where my home folder will be backed up on a regular basis. I also intend to back up the UeberWiki at least once per week, and create archives of files I am no longer using on DVDs, which will help reduce confusion and uncertainty, and maintain order and whatnot.

Luckily, I've gotten some network things sorted out (this also prevents unauthorized people from using my printer) and gotten the UeberWiki back online! http://134.114.127.122/ is the new URL. I'm going to create a new intro page, and that'll probably host my potential future video podcast or something.

Epic Video Game

Hey Everybody, this is just a little note to say that I recently acquired an epic "video game." It's the kind of video game you play with a camcorder, apparently! It's this interesting 1990s thing called "Camcorder Helper" it comes with a little handbook, a sound effects CD, and little cards that suggest scenes to act out, among other things. It is from the creators of Magnetic Poetry, and the packaging suggests that it's a combination of an awesome party game, and a "Video Chemistry Set."

I need to throw a mini Camcorder Helper party some time.

Also, an update on CraGNoWriMo, which is now called "ProCraGNo" (Project: Crazy Group Novel.) Brandi has notes about our main characters, and the setting and basic premise. In upcoming meetings, we will discuss more of the technical details about what we will write the novel on, as well as when we plan on starting and stopping the novel-writing madness, and we will also discuss some of the ideas for chapters, specific events, etc. I might even bring notecards to that meeting.

Last Post of 2006!

Oh my goodness! I can't believe it's my last post of 2006! I've had 60-or-so posts on this blog since January, probably more than two thirds of which hve been since August, so I think I'm getting better at this blogging thing. Also - it helps that there's a bit of a reason to use this blog - every other piece of software I've tried on almost every other hosting service has been massive fail, plus now that blogger is out of beta, it integrates with my Google account quite nicely, and I can compose posts in Google Docs, or just email them from my gmail page.

Well... enough about the wonders of blogging, eh? What exactly do I want out of 2007? Well, hints from the gifts would say that my family wants me to go jogging or walking or something, so I might say that one of my resolutions is to go jogging.

Of course, year-round, my resolution is 1440x900.

Another thing I'd like is for working at the TV station to go well, or for me to find an actual paying job somewhere on campus. Naturally, I'd also like for my application to become a residence assistant to be accepted, and to get into that - it'll help tremendously I think.

I've got a few creative projects I want to work on more in 2007. Given that I now have a super-fast computer and a legal copy of Poser 7, I think that it is necessary I start working on such creative projects as 'A Man and his Mac' (the necessary props can be created with Shade LE or something.) I'd also like to start on more ueberfriends projects, including writing some episodes of the anime, and possibly starting to come up with the characters of it.

Another thing I'd like to do is work on my ideas for CraGNoWriMo, and NaNoWriMo - I've got a few interesting ideas, but I am not totally sure how they'll go over. I want to start making notecards of the plot for at least my NaNo idea, and see how far I can really take the plot. My next NaNo novel will really depend on the ability to create compelling characters that, if introduced in the right order and in the right way, that they can create their own compelling storyline. I have at least one idea that is somewhat feasable for my writing needs, but I've got ten months to come up with some things, right?

In 2007, I'd like to make a movie. Luckily that's been made possible for me by way of an old camcorder and a DVD recorder, so digitizing analogue video will be fairly easy. In addition, there isn't much of an excuse not to at least use iMovie for sequencing shots, and I can use GarageBand for the audio portion of my film, if that's the direction I am going in. (Though, Final Cut Pro is much more impressive, and I think it offers more options for me.)

I'm sure there's more I have to say, but I got caught up in a project helping mom, and I want this blog post to show up before 11:30 so that it has a chance show up on facebook before the new year.

Sayonara, 2006! I'm ready for 2007!