October 2008 Archives
October 29, 2008 9:25 AM
Red Scarlet news coming November 13
RED Digital Cinema's Jim Jannard has posted this tantalizing info on the RedUser.net forums (thanks Andrew):
We will announce the new Scarlet and Epic programs on Thursday Nov. 13th.
I want to say that no one has any idea how incredible this announcement will be. Call this hype... please. I am quite sure that the announcement will be called a "scam". Should be a lot of fun to hear the reactions. I can't wait.
The Scarlet, Red's budget-minded 3K RAW digital cinema camera, was dragged back into secrecy for retooling recently, due to changes in the market (in other words, increasing competition from SLR camera manufacturers). Now we're being promised that the newly souped-up Scarlet will be so outrageously cool, that our little minds will explode faster than an HDV camcorder in a hot car. I can't wait, can you?
Jannard promises that the news "makes the RED ONE announcement seem small by comparison". That's good, because the people hanging on for the Scarlet (indie filmmakers) can't afford a One anyway. The stakes are high, but one thing's for sure: it's not going to be worse than the DV camcorders we're using now.
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0 commentsOctober 28, 2008 1:49 AM
Why does Windows Vista allow you to place files and folders on the desktop UNDER the Sidebar, making them, for the most part, unclickable?
More to the point, why did I even enable Windows Sidebar in the first place?
October 22, 2008 7:30 PM
It feels so wrong but also so right
I need to run a Mac-only program. So I bought a MacBook Pro.
This will actually be the third Macintosh I've owned. My second computer when I was 3 years old was a Mac Classic. And, back in early 2005, I was bored of my PC and wanted a change, so I bought an iMac. There was no real need to do so, but fueled by my interest in computers in general, and the overblown promises from Apple's marketing department (and OK, some annoying rundll32.dll errors), I decided to dive in head first into the Apple paddling pool.
Two days later I immediately backflipped out, repulsed by the slow, unstable machine that I'd just paid a premium for. The rabid Apple cult (which sadly does exist, by the way, and plagues the credibility of these already curious machines) suckered me in with nonsense like, "You can't compare the performance of G5 processors to Intel ones", a feat I accomplished by using a stopwatch.
No matter how pretty the operating system could be, the facts were that it was actually crashing more for me, and was taking its sweet time to do so. Throughout the experience,I was constantly thinking, "Just think of the kickass PC you could have assembled for this ridiculous price". Oh, and the way the operating system handled my mouse (my own mouse, with two buttons and a scroll wheel, for that matter) made simple use intolerable very quickly. Furthermore, I was kidding myself when I thought I could live without Windows. I can't, it's a fantastic operating system with bucketloads of useful software which runs only on it. And this is coming from someone involved with video. I imagine in other areas (gaming, anyone?), Windows is even more essential.
Well, a lot has changed in 3 and a half years. It seems that now, you CAN compare the clock speeds of G5 and Intel machines, because after Apple switched to the latter, they themselves used taglines such as "Up to (number of times) faster!". That would seem to have solved the performance issues, and has famously solved the issue of Windows dependability, because you can run Windows on an Intel Mac anyway. And now that Apple have finally introduced a two-button mouse with a wheel, applications on the system actually support this functionality.
So, since I was looking out for a laptop anyway, I thought it would be smart to get a great deal on an Apple one so I can use any OSX programs I need to, and also run Windows for when I don't. A 2.4ghz / 2gb Macbook Pro is on its way to me. I got one hell of a deal on it, by the way - on one of the outgoing models, not the ones with the mirror screen and the silly track-button-pad. I look forward to using the hardware and giving honest impressions of Mac OS X.
By the way, I'm installing Windows on it so I can encode high quality MPEG-2 (OK, there's the new CinemaCraft plugin for Compressor, but not everyone has that sort of money), do a lot of niche video processing tasks, and run Sonicstage to transfer music to my Sony Walkman (shut up, at least my MP3 player has usable buttons on it).
And just to have a change in case I accidentally overdose on pictures like this one and have to escape for a while. They may have taken my body but they shall never take my soul.
October 14, 2008 4:35 PM
Sleeping Beauty on BD: (mostly) astonishing
I just got to check out a copy of Sleeping Beauty on BD this morning. On the whole, it looks astonishing. Disney has used scans of the original negatives to create a very video-like, but very pleasing presentation of this film. Cel animation in 2.55:1 is just gorgeous.
For the most part, you can expect to see this sort of quality:
There is one very harshly degrained optical shot, which only lasts for a few seconds. It's interesting when the filtering processes used get exposed like this. It looks like Disney have used a spatial median filter to de-grain the cel-based portions of the image. The advantage to this is that such a filtering method will not create time-based smearing. The disadvantage is that, if the threshold is set too high (or if the original shot was incredibly grainy), the end result will look a bit rough. (The same filter process appears to have been used on The Nightmare Before Christmas BD recently).
Such a filter works by blocking out the frequencies in which the grain lies - and retaining only the info the operator wants to keep, in this case, the paint and the outlines. That works well for most of the film.
This is the worst looking shot. The reason for this one looking so weird is that the original source was an optical special effects shot (so, much more grain). Since Disney were intent on removing all the grain, compromises result.
And here's what happens on an out-of-focus shot (look at the eyes):
I can't wait to watch it tonight - this'll be the first time I've seen this film in years. Kudos to Disney for creating a (mostly) stunning video presentation.
BTW, there's a great article on The Digital Bits about the cleanup process.
October 10, 2008 11:28 PM
Bloggy McBlog Blog PLUS: Panasonic DMP-BD50
This site needs to be more bloggy-like and mention more personal things like it used to. So from now on, I'm going to talk about things like that time I went to the post office to post a parcel, but the girl at the desk said I didn't have enough stamps, and then I saw my friend Adam who works at the post office now and I said "Hey Adam, we need to get together and play video games again like we used to do at school".
Oh, and I have to clean up the few outstanding layout issues, too. Anyway, I have that killer cold that's going around here right now. I'm all mucusy, it's delightful. Me and my buddy Douglas (who was one quarter of our University TV production group, and one half of the useful members of it) are laying down the groundwork for another short film, which will be much like the last short film only this time will be an original story and shot on HD video, instead of a hastily adapted story shot on nasty miniDV. The cold does not help, but things are moving nicely and we hope to assemble actors and such soon.
And speaking of movies, that leads us on to the review of the Panasonic DMP-BD50 which I just did. It's good to see more affordable, relatively speedy Blu-ray players appearing.
That's all, enjoy!
October 3, 2008 8:09 PM
Remember how I got an Onkyo TX-SR875 to drive my new audio setup? Well, it had an "E2PROM ERROR" which meant it lost my settings whenever I turned it off (fantastic!), and it's a discontinued model. So for a small upgrade fee, and to say sorry for taking a little longer than they should, the store cut me a really good deal on an Onkyo TX-SR876.
You will notice that the 876 has one number higher than 875. If you needed any more solid concrete evidence that it is infinitely superior, then this upgraded version features a second HDMI output (so I can drive my TV and my projector both at once), ISF video controls for greyscale calibration (which I've already done on both devices anyway, but never mind), and more of the Reon video chip's functionality enabled, in the form of Mosquito NR, Block NR, and Temporal NR functions, for when you want to watch "Coal Black" from your illicit Video CD.
When it arrives on Monday, I'll actually be able to finish "running in" my recently bought but barely used speakers. So, if you just bought an Onkyo 875, and want a cut-price upgrade to the latest model, just turn it on and off. Apparently the error is relatively widespread; you may get lucky!
Oh, and better yet, the replacement I'm getting is in black, not silver. That alone makes it all worthwhile.
