Video Grandpa

Weird Video Tech Fact of the Day

2009-02-05T15:38:00.002-06:00

Turns out Japan has their own all-in-one component cable. Uses a D connector, and seems to be referred to as a D-terminal, D-tanshi, and I've also heard D-link.

Sidenote: this is the same connector used on some Canon component breakout cables, like those for the XLH1. So if you need to plug component into D, it's just a straight cable - no active converter box needed, assuming the D input accepts the format you're sending it.

Digital Projection Gets Some Backing

2008-10-07T10:29:00.003-05:00

Pro Video Coalition has got news that 5 major studios are willing to bankroll up to a billion dollars to help movie theater owners switch to digital project.

Beyond my immediate leap of joy is the hope that they actually do it, and do it well.

Digital projection is nothing short of amazing, and is the way every movie should be seen. In my view, the projection medium should have little or no effect on the actual content being projected - it should simply display the movie as it was meant to be seen by the director. No scratches, dust, sound pops - it should be the same every time, pristine and clear. I saw "Alien" in digital projection when it was re-released a while back; despite having seen that film multiple times, it was like watching a whole new movie.

While being much more into digital than film, I'm not one of those holding up the "FILM IS DEAD!!!" sign outside of Kodak. Film will always have its place as a tool of the trade - the rise of digital isn't about killing off film so much as providing a wider variety of tools to be used in realizing one's vision. But unless your vision is that your piece should visually deteriorate every time it's shown to an audience, film projection should be a thing of the past.

Copyright Calculator

2008-10-06T17:37:00.002-05:00

(via Pro Video Coalition)

Not sure if you can use something in your work due to copyright? Try the Copyright Calculator!

Just keep in mind that, if asked by a judge, "the Copyright Calculator said it was OK!" probably won't fly as your only defense.

The Future of P2P

2008-10-06T14:18:00.003-05:00

Great interview with Jon Newton of p2pnet.net, about where we are and where we're going with P2P technologies. He really hits it right on the head, quoting Bruce Scheiner: “Digital files cannot be made uncopyable any more than water can be made not wet.”

Full Interview Here

Also, I'm expecting an Eee PC 901 tomorrow, so look for some news on that soon.

My Take on the Presidential Debate of 9/26

2008-09-26T21:14:00.005-05:00

And that take is solely to nitpick technical details of the over-the-air HD broadcasts. Notice I don't have CBS - CBS transmits on VHF, and I'm too lazy to extend the VHF antenna dealies on my antenna.

NBC:
I'm not a fan of this graphic. It's like a jumble of fonts and barely-fitting text. And the split-screen that has to protect 4:3 looks awful.

FOX:
It's louder than NBC, and also a few seconds delayed from NBC. Also sounds worse in general - I think maybe over-compressed. The graphic pisses me off less, but it kinda looks amateurish.

ABC:
Louder than NBC, not as crappy sounding as FOX, and not delayed like FOX. But lord, that graphic is so badly up-converted/cross-converted/something. Really, no HD Chyron? And it's only part of it - the animated logo in the lower right looks nice.

EDIT: Sorry, that comment about protecting 4:3 actually applies to all networks, since they all got the same camera feeds - I just threw it into NBC since I watched NBC first.

RED Scarlet Gets Overhauled

2008-09-22T22:25:00.006-05:00

The RED people have announced that their forthcoming pocket-sized camera "Scarlet" will be entirely redone prior to actually shipping. So forget all the old renderings, like the one below - it's all going to change.

But in the words of Jim Jannard, "This will be like getting a second generation camera instead of a 1st generation. Actually, much bigger than that."

My apologies to every graduating DP who I've told "wait to buy a camera til Scarlet hits." Though actually, if this turns out to be cooler, then I apologize for nothing.

On second thought: I apologize for nothing, period. Get off my lawn.

Internet Audio and the Loudness Question

2008-08-29T01:39:00.004-05:00

OK, again I'm posting a slightly-old link from back when I didn't have this damn blog, but this time I promise I'll extrapolate. Anyway, last month Wired had an article about YouTube implementing an audio compression step into its processing of uploaded videos. And I don't mean compression in terms of file-size; compression in the audio world is an effect used to reduce the dynamic range of the material, usually utilized to make it as loud as possible. Listen to a record from 1980, then one from 1990, then one from right now. Notice how they get progressively louder? For the most part, we have compression to thank. The peak volumes aren't getting higher; there's just less and less dynamic range.

Now, Wired's article is about how this compression made the audio sound terrible. I don't care about that. What I care about is the overall goal of this step: the standardization of audio levels for web-based media.

It's an interesting concept, and one that I've seen looming for a while (since I'm a sound guy at heart). Film has standardized levels for mixing; so does television. Music does, sort of - they mostly have the standard of "make it as loud as possible all the damn time." Regardless, a basic standard.

Internet audio has none of that. Bouncing around the web, we watch a music video (LOUD), a clip from a film (soft), and a clip somebody uploaded of their kid to YouTube (who knows). The Internet inherently has a HUGE dynamic range, since so many content creators are throwing up media every second of ever day.

And for the most part, this hasn't been a problem. We're at our computers, within easy reach of a volume knob, so we just turn it up or down depending on the clip. It's become second nature.

The first inkling of a problem comes with sites like YouTube. On YouTube, you're not finding media every now and then; you're watching video after video after video. Essentially, you've tuned in to a channel, in much the same way you would on TV. So if the audio level is jumping LOUD-soft-LOUD-LOUD-silent-NOISY-LOUD, it can be somewhat disconcerting.

So I can entirely see why YouTube would love to have a compression scheme to at least partially even out the drastic peaks and valleys. But even then, you run into trouble. YouTube is increasingly partnering with professional media producers (like Northwestern University), giving them incentives to post their content. Thing is, a lot of this content is already professionally mixed. And since some of it is professionally mixed BY ME, I get a little irksome at the concept of an additional processing step that's entirely out of my hands.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Internet, in one way or another, is the media distribution mechanism of the future. YouTube is on AppleTV, Netflix is coming to Xbox - there's more and more ways to watch web content on your livingroom TV. But think about what that will mean, in a purely audio sense. Can you imagine lunging for the volume control on your remote every 20, 10, 5 minutes? That is NOT something we've been conditioned for, and it's going to be a nightmare.

As Internet content becomes more and more available to livingrooms, the problem of non-standardized audio is going to become very noticeable, very fast.

But is there really a solution? As much as I hate to say it, I think this will be a problem that has to be largely addressed by the content distributers, NOT the producers. Take YouTube as an example: yes, users were all yelly about this compression thing, but can you imagine if YouTube sent all its users a standards document on audio levels? And then refused to accept anything that didn't conform?

Yeah. It'd never happen.

So the way I see it, it'll have to be the job of the distributers (YouTube, Hulu, etc.) to police and standardize audio levels.

That statement just scared me. Being a professional sound designer, I'd hate to read that as part of a distribution policy. SO - how about some sort of "conforms-to-standards" flag when you upload your media? Say you're a trusted content producer: Hulu or whoever gives you the audio standards as well as an authentication key, which you use when uploading media. This auth key lets you bypass the audio compression used on regular users, since you're a trusted "pro user." Police it with spot-checks, like the FCC does with TV - suspend or revoke the "trusted" status if a breach of standards is found.

But really, I'm just throwing out ideas. This is all speculation, as we really have yet to see how, and in what form, digital delivery of media from web to TV will happen. But it's an environment where user-created content will have to live in harmony with media that's professionally authored, all in a way that won't piss off the average couch-dweller.

If nothing else - it'll be interesting.

Sony BMG, Less the BMG

2008-08-26T02:25:00.004-05:00

In case you didn't notice, Sony bought out Bertelsmann Media Group's share in Sony BMG, making Sony the sole owner of the second-largest record label in the world.

Usually, I wouldn't care about something like this. Corporate buyouts, mergers, whatever - boring details that affect little change. But the standout of this particular merger is the following sentence, from Wired's article:

"Since Sony sells so many things besides music, its bands could promote products from other divisions as part of their deals."

This may be the most disgusting thing I've ever read.

An Illustrated Guide to Every Stupid Cable You Need

2008-08-26T00:18:00.003-05:00

A bit old, but still relevant: Gizmodo posted an illustrated guide to common cables, which I've found invaluable. Not necessarily for myself; being a significant nerd, I know these by heart. But when asking a friend or relative "what kind of cable do you need?" provokes a prolific use of the word "thingie," it's a nice resource to have. So send it on to the circle of friends and relatives you inevitably provide free tech support to, and save everybody some time and confusion.

Unless your grandma uses a sync-on-green monitor. Then you're beyond all hope.

Gmail Ends the World

2008-08-21T22:36:00.002-05:00

Last week, Wired ran an article entitled 'Gmail Suffers Outage, World Ends.' Now I don't personally use Gmail, so I was unaware of any problems. But I offhandedly mentioned it a few times later in the week, to various Gmail users I know.

The looks on their faces?

Utter panic.

As it turns out, none of them had been affected, and the situation had actually been remedied by the time they even learned of it. But that initial reaction was enough to get me thinking about Gmail, and how pervasive it's become. Really, nothing says it better than the quote in Wired's article: “I’ve seen this twice today. Scares the bejesus out of me. Twitter is fun, but GMail is mission-critical.”

Seriously? "Mission-critical?"

Let's look at this. Gmail is a beta product, offered for free by a large American company. Not only that, but most people are accessing it solely through the webmail interface (note: I base this solely on the fact that almost everybody I know uses solely webmail, and cannot find any statistics comparing webmail vs POP3 or IMAP - please link in comments if you know of any). That means the only copy of those emails is on Google's servers. Server's down? Not only can you not send or receive mail, you can't even read your old mails.

Yet even with that description, people have climbed on board, trusting this system with arguably the most important communication in their daily lives.

Am I missing something?

I had this conversation with the esteemed Quinn Stephens, the one Gmail user I know who happened to be online when I was yelling about it. He brought up the following points:

- Google offers a great interface to users

- He's always used webmail, so he's used to accessing email that way

I guess my issue isn't necessarily with Gmail; it's more a drawback of accessing your email through only webmail, regardless of service. I responded to Quinn with the following analogy:

So if I build a nice-looking building: air conditioning, nice art, red carpet to the front door...and offer every person the opportunity to store their personal documents and records there...they all would? Oh, also...the building has undefeatable locks, which are currently unlocked...but I have the only key.

User interface, great, webmail's convenient, great - but at the end of the day, this is a system where the person who has the most invested in it also has the least control over it. Google decides to shut the thing down tomorrow? Too bad. Even says so in their User Agreement.

This is where the "free" aspect comes in. With paid webmail services, or even paid email services in general, you at least have some recourse if it goes away. It'd still be awful, but at least that's something. Google, however, is under absolutely no obligation to users except not wanting to "be evil."

Really, this is a criticism of free webmail in general - Yahoo and Hotmail users are just as guilty. Gmail, like Vizio, just presented itself as a convenient example for a broad rant. But regardless of the mechanism - in today's world where email plays a vital role in both work and leisure, I simply cannot fathom trusting it to a system with no guarantees.

And Quinn? As we talked, he was backing up his Gmail to his local machine. I strongly encourage that every Gmail (and Yahoo, and Hotmail) user do the same.

The Magic of How We Perceive Audio

2008-08-18T22:16:00.002-05:00

Yep, already cheaping out - this is just a link to an awesome article cause I didn't have time to write anything of my own. Anyway, over at Pro Video Coalition, Jay Rose has written a great piece on how we perceive sound, and specifically how that can directly relate to how we compress audio for delivery. Additionally, he didn't use nearly as many commas as I just did in the previous sentence.

But seriously - head on over and check it out. Even being a sound designer and knowing a lot of this, it still blows my mind.

ATI Radeon X1900 XT: The Meltdown

2008-08-12T17:23:00.010-05:00

Know what's real fun? Turning on your computer, and after only a few minutes, having it do this:

This is what it looks like when an ATI Radeon X1900 XT graphics card bites the dust. These cards were an option on Mac Pro desktops bought in 2007 and early 2008.

The Offender:

Over the past month, we've had three of these cards fail. These failures are not insignificant; in most instances, the result was entire machine lockup. Luckily, all of our machines are under Applecare, and it was very easy to get them to ship us replacement cards. However, after only two weeks, one of the replacements failed as well. The above video is from the replacement card - it is also the worst failure of the four cards.

As it turns out, this is a fairly widespread problem: xlr8yourmac.com, MacOSG, and even the World of Warcraft kids have extensively documented failures of these cards.

The problem appears to be linked to an insufficient cooling system on the card itself, perhaps exacerbated by the tendency of the airflow system to become clogged with dust. Yet our cards were not clogged, and the worst failure came from a completely clean card.

Most sources also maintain that this is a problem linked to Revision 1 of these particular Radeon cards; Revision 2 should have no problems. Here again, we buck popular opinion - our worst failure came from a Revision 2 card.

At this point, we will be abandoning the use of this particular graphics card. Due to our strong relationship with Apple, I've been able to work out exchanging our Radeons for comparable cards of a different model. We simply can't afford any more machine downtime due to this ongoing issue.

Now, I do realize that our experience could be an isolated event. It could be that those three cards exhibited the known Rev. 1 problem, and the Rev. 2 card was simply a random bad one. But when a particular piece of technology fails consistently and frequently, that piece of technology can no longer be considered reliable. And in the production world, if it isn't reliable, it's worthless.

**UPDATE**: In one of our computer labs, we have six machines with these same Radeon cards. I was informed today that three of them are showing the artifacting indicative of thermal failure. This brings our failure total to seven out of eleven cards - 64%.

**UPDATE 10/6/08**: We have finally received our new cards (nVidia 8800GT's) and have swapped them into all 10 machines that used to have these Radeons. All problems have vanished. Double prizes: the nVidias only take up one slot, as opposed to the Radeon's 2.

Vizio Makes a 'Splash' By Misleading Consumers

2008-08-11T23:39:00.005-05:00

Since I don't have cable, I'm rarely subjected to the horror of commercial breaks. But since NBC's broadcasting the Olympics in HD, and I'm somewhere that I can grab the signal out of the air, I've actually been watching television these past few days. Today I saw Vizio's 'Splash' commercial, advertising their XVT series of televisions:

Notice anything wrong with this commercial? If not, you're definitely not alone. This commercial, by showing its ugly face in my livingroom, has volunteered itself to be my example of how technology companies are taking advantage of consumer ignorance to sell product.

Let's look at the premise of this commercial. Basically, they're selling you on the concept that a 120Hz refresh rate on an HDTV is better. They go on to say "Why is faster better? Because when you're watching fast action, you get a better, sharper, blur-free picture."

STOP. Stop right there, Vizio. I call shenanigans.

Yes, HDTV's with 120Hz refresh rates were developed in order to make motion look better. But how? Well, most movies, as well as many television shows, are shot at 24 frames per second. Anyway, a regular TV refreshes at a rate of 60Hz, or 60 times per second. Notice how 60 is not evenly divisible by 24? That's where the trouble occurs. In order to conform something shot at 24fps to display on something that refreshes at 60Hz, a process called 2:3 pulldown is used. Since this isn't about pulldown, I'll skip how that works - but basically, this process can also introduce visible flicker, especially during segments containing fast motion.

120Hz TV's eliminate the need for this processing. Since 120 is evenly divisible by 24, no special processing is required to display the original 24fps content at its original rate. Thus, no motion flicker, and smooth nice motion.

OK, you're maybe wondering "What's the problem? Everything you said agrees with what Vizio is saying!"

Well, did you notice I didn't mention other standard frame rates when discussion the motion problems created by 2:3 pulldown? There's a reason: they don't exist. Other standard broadcast rates (30 and 60) are evenly divisible by 60 - no need for processing, even on standard 60Hz TV's, so no motion flicker.

See where I'm going with this? 120Hz HDTV's do provide smoother motion, but ONLY FOR CONTENT THAT ORIGINATES AS 24FPS!

This is the misleading part: trying to make consumers think that, with a 120Hz TV, they'll see smoother motion when watching sports on TV. The placement during the Olympics, the image of the diver - this message is very clear. And very wrong. Nobody, at least that I know of, is broadcasting sports at 24fps - it's just too slow for content that's always in fast motion. So when watching sports on TV, 60Hz versus 120Hz is pretty much a moot point.

Case in point: the Olympics, which are Vizio's clear example of the sports you should be watching at 120Hz. Yet let's take a look at how NBC is broadcasting them: 1080i60 (source). See that 60 in there? That's right, folks - you would see no difference in motion smoothness if you watched these Olympics on a fancy new Vizio.

It's really unfortunate that consumers are being misled like this. And Vizio is by no means the only offender; they just made themselves a convenient target in this specific instance. There's really not even a need for misleading the consumer here - Vizio's selling a technology that clearly has benefits, that most consumers would actually want even if they knew the exact details I just described. So what's the deal? Do they think people are too stupid to understand "it'll make your movies look good" versus "it'll make your everything look good"? Or did they maybe just provide a vague tech description to an ad agency and say "we can haz commercial?"

Regardless, it's unfortunate to see it happening. HD electronics cost thousands of dollars; when a consumer makes a mistake due to this kind of misinformation, it is not a cheap one.

Oh, and a final note: the Vizio 'Splash' commercial was originally authored at 24fps. So if you watch this commercial on your 120Hz Vizio, you'll see the smoother motion they're yelling about it. I guess that's something.

To start things out...

2008-08-11T20:27:00.005-05:00

A little remnant of my days working in a digital video computer lab. Thing is, this lab was open to the entire campus - so sociology majors, engineers, everybody came in wanting to make some videos. This resulted in more than a few interesting technical problems, like this one:

You may be thinking "wait...how does someone get a MiniDV tape that far into a DVCPro deck?"

The answer: she used a pencil to push it in.