Is it any wonder the broadcasters are terrified...?
One of the significant paradigms that allows for an understanding of
how networks of communication gain power and influence derives from
Metcalfe's law.
This
principle simply states that 'the value of a telecommunications network
is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system
(n2).' Now for a broader discussion we can put aside the specific
mathematics of Metcalfe's Law (which are in constant debate) and
instead focus on the conceptual fundamental as it relates to mass media
broadcasting.
Big screen good, Small screen bad.... But does size really matter? Or, more accurately (and sans puerile penis joke), does the size of the screen on its own tell the whole story?
This graph from HD4Indies presents a very interesting set of information on the relationship between resolution and viewing distance; effectively arguing that whilst size might still matter its not everything. The graph shows the proportional relationship between size and viewing distance and points towards the intersection distance>size when resolution begins to be noticeable and 'important'.
What this graph doesn't show or explore however is the opposite direction; it covers SD to HD but doesn't apply the same ideas to small screens. The Sony PSP might be an excellent example for whilst it's a small-screen device, its wide screen aspect coupled with the near distance viewing in proportion to its size and resolution potentially makes it a relatively 'bigger' viewing experience than a theatrical projection.
Small screens are often dismissed for their size but size is a relative thing to the distance at which it is viewed.
Tip of the Week. Freehand Enevelopes in Acid and Vegas
This weeks tip is so simple and so effective that I'm surprised other software applications havent moved swiftly to copy the idea. Virtually all timeline-based video and audio production software tools use Enevelopes of some sort (sometimes called rubber bands). Effectively this is a way to graph and control a property or parameter over time and whilst traditionally associated with audio as way to automate mix levels of tracks they are often used for visual processes as well such as frame-rate control. In Sony's Vegas and Acid the creation of envelopes can be as easy as drawing them with a pen.
Quicktime idiocy, negligence or deliberate sabotage?
Quicktime, RAID and Vista.... who would have thought that a lethal combination? But indeed thats what it is.
If you're running Windows Vista on a RAID array of hard drives and just happen to wish or need to play a Quicktime video file (hardly an uncommon siutation) then be prepared for meltdown. It seems that there is a fatal flaw in the Quicktime code architecture that means when a *.mov file is played it not only crashes the QT player it causes a RAID drive failure on your system which, needless to say, could result in some serious data loss.
I know this first hand. I have such a system.
Of course Apple point the finger at Windows but the fact that both VLC and Quicktime Alternative have no problem playing *.mov files shows Apple's assertion for what it is....
There are an array of sites reporting the issue - Here, Here, and Here.
But, my bigger picture concerns are simple questions....
1. If such a major destructive problem caused by a product happened in any sector other than the Software-sector there would be class-action law suits up the wazoo! So why is this perfectly 'acceptable' with Apple seemingly not in any hurry to fix the issue? Why is it that Apple cant be held responsible for losses caused by their product when they know and admit the problem exists?
2. Is Apple so focused on consumer electronics now rather than their core business that they have starved their software development teams to the point of delivering a disastrously faulty product to market? We all know they had to delay the latest release of OSX to pull software engineers to work on the I-Phone. We can only assume long standing tools such as QT are being similarly neglected by the new corporate shareholder driven imperative.
3. Am I cynical enough to believe that this is not over-sight but a deliberate disparaging tactic on Apple's part to deliberately hobble their own product on a rival platform; subsequently relying on people's ignorance to believe that the problem is with Windows and not with Apple's own piss-poor software coding...? Despite the fact that QT was always intended to be a cross-platform, OS independent media architecture.
Quicktime has always been problematic and buggy - regardless of what OS it runs on. Version after version has had painful bugs and anomalies on both OS's. Certainly its powerful and very useful but its also bloated, inefficient, convoluted and very often unstable. But this latest flaw is just absurd...!
Film vs Digital? (and why are we still bothering to ask?)
My interest in film vs digital debates is not about attempting to argue one way or the other since I see viability in any persepctive that film is a dead anti-creative, restrictive medium that will pass into history as soon as the dieheard purists get over themslves :)
But the debate facinates me on a more cultural and philiosophical level. here are four articles that look at Film vs Digital from a varierty of pop-culture perspectvies. All have interestign things to say and yet somehow I find it strange to read any notion that there is even a question that film is dead. (flame on...)
As an educator involved in not just teaching the conceptualization and production of cinematic media but also designing courses and education programs that attempt to engage more fully with everything cinematic media can be, its often very easy (somewhat ironically) to become divorced from the learning process itself. In other words, spending so long as the teacher focused on the teaching that you lose an intimate sense of what it is to be learner and the process of learning.
I stumbled across this blog site, called Video Student Guy, which i have found enormously fascinating as a way to see in detail the journey-like process of learning through the direct eyes (or, rather, the podcast voice) of a student. The author is a student at the Centre for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston Universityand he posts a very regular podcast on-line detailing what he has learnt that week both technical and conceptual his thoughts, ideas and even philosophical musings on the moving image and the process of learning how to create it.
The truth is much of the author's perspectives on the media production industry are very naive and ill-informed. But this is absolutely not a criticism, instead rather its actually the point! The power of the podcasts from week to week is the steady evolution of the author's ideas, knowledge and perspectives. Seeing how they grow, mature, expand and evolve is watching the learning process in action.
The blog really is a superb example of the empowerment of self-reflective learning; I have no doubt in believing that the blog's author will gain far more form his education as a result of making the blog and indeed may well learn more form his own blogging analysis than he will from the classes themselves. Perhaps not immediately but certainly in the long term.
In the meantime I already feel a better educator from being able to step outside the teaching box every now and then to watch, from a students perspective, the process of learning about the moving image.
I'd warrant there's few who really give a shit. But for me at least the blog now feels like a worthy repository of thoughts, ideas and internet cherry-pickings.
For those that have been reading, I thank you and hope it was worth the effort.
All video editors love to laugh at them but at some stage we have all been guilty of Transition Crimes - the un-lawful use of tacky bad-wedding-video transitions. But here we have a music video that takes the us of video transitions to new heights involving a trampoline (or has Homer would say "Tramapoline") and a great deal of physical lateral thinking.... :)
Pixel Aspect Ratio, by any survey, would have to be very close to the top of the list when it comes to tricky technical tidbits that cause problems for newbies (and old-salts too for that matter). Then throw into the mix the process foc reatign still iamge grpahics for use in video productions and the whoel thing becomes even more confusing.
I am very often a harsh critic of software developers, particularly the major players - Adobe, Apple, Avid, Sony etc. I pour scorn on their poor choices and cry foul at their deliberate consumer-screwing tactics. But a recent experience has prompted me to see a more human side to the faceless technology corporations.
The company and individuals shall remain nameless but the situation was not an uncommon one for writers and journalists - a briefing presentation on new features in a particular company's product line.
Whilst I'm always keen to grant praise where it is deserved I'm also quick to pounce on a weakness, failing or flaw and point out such short comings without mercy. But what was brought home to me in this particular recent presentation discussion was that behind the faceless corporation and underneath the cold corporate direction are individual software designers and developers who genuinely really do give a shit about what they make. Who really do sit around and try and work out what would be cool, what would make things easier or better? Who really do genuinely feel enormous pride over what they've made. The person in question wasn't overtly pushing their product, answered questions when able and promised to investigate further when unable. Most significantly their response to my criticisms, concerns and tough comments was not the usual brand-loyal defensiveness but rather a genuine enthusiasm to see how things could be done better next time. A genuine excitmnet for what else might be possible.
This is of course not to say that many great ideas and forward thinking perspectives get trampled by an overriding corporate agenda that often places the needs of users far below profit margins. But I was reminded in this recent case of the human side of how the tools we use are made.
Our expectations as users are very high and as a critical journalist I see it as a solemn duty to have standards and benchmarks even higher. But we shouldn't forget or loose sight of the fact that the tools we use today - regardless of form, type or brand - are nothing short of extraordinary and indeed bordering on the magical.
So to you faceless software developing corporations I will continue to declare that Adobe is bloated, Apple is narrow minded, Avid is backward thinking and Sony is careless and erratic. BUT to each and every software designer toiling away in those companies I say Thank You for creating extraordinary things. One day Ill have nothing left to complain about :)
Sometimes a software utility comes along that is so clever and so
useful that once accustomed to using it you wonder how you ever
functioned without.
One of the potentially painful issues that afflicts many digital
producers is the weight of multiple software apps coexisting and
attempting to compete with each other on a single system. Not to
mention that the more active applications present on a computer the
slower and less efficient it becomes.
This invariably goes triple for journalists charged with the task of
regularly reviewing and testing software tools - good, bad and ugly.
In an age of production where hybridization and integrated self
sufficiency (in other words needing and using a barage of tools; from
video to audio, imaging to animation) is increasingly the norm this too
demands computers be saturated with tools and applications of all forms
and functions. The days of a system dedicated to just one creative task
are over.
The problem this presents is a cluttered and inefficient workstation of software detritus.
Gaming, Economics and the Future of Cinema - FPS Creator
I wrote yesterday about really adventurous and innovative software
development rarely coming from the established standards but rather
from the small adventurous fringes. As a case in point today I present FPS Creator from 'the Game Creators'
FPSC is a
game development system for construction and development of first
person shooter genre computer games. This is not of itself totally
unique, there are a range of game development systems on the market and
have been for some time. What makes FPSC special is sheer functionality
combined with some very forward thinking conceptual ideas.
[Read More]
I've seen a lot of software pass across my various computer desktops
over the past decade. Of all flavours, forms and types - from video, to
audio, imaging, interactive and 3D. From small utilities to major
integrated software suites. I have, over the years, become a regular
and un-ashamed software slut.
For the most part however this milieu of applications run a banal gamut
from dull to derivative. Most software releases are sadly, at best,
subtle shifts and, at worst, gratuitous bloating.
Further, whilst every category of software has its dominant brand names
(often labeled with that great title of irrelevant, pointless absurdity
- 'industry standard') it is, in my experience, almost never these
dominant names that present the most forward thinking or adventurous
technological shifts or approaches. In fact quite the opposite...
[Read More]
The shifting and blurring of traditional cinema production roles and
structures is something I have written about many times here on The
Digital Basin. The evolutionary breakdown of traditional hierachies and
stratified processes is something absolutly central to conceptualizing
and engaging with contemporary cinematic media practice. And we see
this re-shaping and re-forming nowhere more profoundly or immediately
than in the role of the cinematographer. Where once the very name of
cinematography was directly correlated to the camera as photographic
apperatus, we now find ourselves where this definition is increasingly
problematic as the 'camera' itself becomes just one way of capturing an
image amoung a spectrum of means.
[Read More]
The ability to control the volume of a sound over time is one of the fundemental process of audio production. What was once known as solid-state mixing and done with automated fader mixing desks is now very much part of the mouse-driven digital age. But whilst the ubiquitous audio envelope or 'rubber band' is built for infinate control, often there is a faster simpler way to create simple Attack Sustain Release (ASR) curves for audio parts.
[
