HD For Indies

CinemaTech: The DGA's Digital Day

Coverage of the Director's Guild of America's Digital Day.

LOTS of good stuff, read his synopsis then the full article if you want more. He has lots of good quotes etc.

-mike

Macworld UK - Be begins 24Mb London broadband trial

A UK firm is doing trial runs with new subscribers for a 24 megabit/second (that's 3 megabytes per second, just barely shy of a realtime HDV stream) down, but only 1 Mb/sec upstream (so 0.125 MB/sec uploading) broadband system based on ADSL2+.

And just 20 pounds a month.

Still, promising for the future of digital movie downloads and other broadband applications.

-mike

CinemaTech: Videogame / Movie Convergence

Another great link - this time to an article about how LucasArts (George Lucas' game division) and ILM (the visual effects folks) are sharing resources and techniques in their new common space in San Francisco.

Chief among them - using the realtime engine from gaming stuff to hand directors a previs (short for previsualization) tool - move the camera around the scene in real time, record camera lense choices, settings, and moves, and be able to hand off that data, rather than pre-rendered scenes, to the VFX crew. So instead of "here's a little movie that looks like what I want, reverse engineer it to make your finals", it is "Here's some scene and camera data with an animated camera path. Plug that in as a starter kit for the shot."

Very very cool.

Read Scott's thing, then go read the article. All good.

ILM is at the forefront of digital moviemaking technology in a lot of ways, I'd expect for someone to have some kind of indie viable software available over the counter in 3-8 years based on this kind of stuff.

It all trickles down.

-mike

OK, gang, I finally have some critical research to share -

As we prep, I have his 19" JVC studio HD monitor in my studio at the moment.

So I FINALLY have a "real" broadcast monitor to compare to the other offerings.

I set up a quickie interesting test yesterday to view the same HD signal in several different ways. I have a DeckLink HD Pro Dual Link card in my dual 2.5 GHz G5. When working in 4:2:2 mode (normal video), EACH of the two HD-SDI outputs both output an HD signal. So I can run two individual HD-SDI cables to two different HD-SDI sources. In this case, I'm running one to a BlackMagic HDLink plugged into an Apple 23" LCD display (1920x1200), and the other to an AJA HDP converter connected to my Dell 2405 24" 1920x1200 LCD panel. I can also see the footage onscreen on my computer.

And guess what, folks? They ALL look dramatically different. So which is right? The JVC CRT monitor is what is typically used to color correct footage, so that is our reference (even though I have yet to calibrate it, which I will shortly).

The HDLink/Apple setup is, by default, too bright. Dropping it to minimal brightness gets it closer, but not the same. The Apple is pinker than the CRT (I hear newer Apple 23's, even of the same aluminum frame vintage, are more yellow than pink after a manufacturing change).

The AJA/Dell combo is even brighter - I have yet to dial it in at all, so I'll justg say it is really, really bright for now.

The onscreen (computer) display is pretty bright in comparison as well.

The biggest difference I notice on the CRT is how much more rich and saturated the colors are as compared to the LCDs.

I have yet to plug the Dell LCD's analog inputs to compare, but I imagine I'll face similar issues there.

This is just a quick, uncalibrated, not too scientific look at it.

But in general, the LCDs are not a dead-on match for the CRT, ESPECIALLY using the default setups.

I'll see how close I can tune them to the CRT once the CRT gets calibrated.

But good stuff for comparison's sake.

-mike

HDTVexpert :: HDTVexpert: A FOLLOW-UP (on the 1080p HDTV article)

Last month's article on 1080p HDTVs was interesting, and he follows it up with some audience Q&A.

A good read to understand the consumer side of things.

All of this leads me to a couple of conclusions (for now):

1.) Most consumers can't afford a big enough HDTV to see all the benefit of the HD-ness -- that is, they can't afford a big enough HDTV to resolve all (or enough) of the detail at the typical viewing distances. I'm sitting about 8 or more feet away from a 36" SDTV. If I had a same sized HDTV in there, could I eyeball the difference? Enough to cost justify it?

2.) I think HDTV's rollout will continue to be slow. I think there will be a tipping point when 42" or larger HDTVs, with at least 1280x720 resolution, get below $1000, AND there is a clear winner in the Blu Ray vs HD DVD format war, AND players for that winning format are $200 or less.

...and I think that'll take 3-5 years.

This also makes me think that 720p as an acquisition format, for projects intended for home viewing, is not a serious detriment as compared to 1080p or 1080i - since most home viewers won't be able to discern the difference on their sets as they watch from their couch.

Visual effects production, projects intended for theatrical viewing, limitations of current 720p systems all affect the validity of the statement I just made, but in general I think it'll apply.

-mike

TECHNOLOGY CORNER - The elusive film look

Argues that HD video cameras can capture a film like exposure lattitude (well, I'd argue HOW well it does that), but more interestingly discusses the how and why of skin tone reproduction in film vs video. It discusses WHY skin tones look harsh in video and less so in film. So this gives some clues as to how to improve skin tones in video.

Anyway, an interesting read for the DoP and post production set.

-mike

AJW's HDV Info: 1080i Monitoring with HP (and other) LCDs

Adam Wilt has a nice write up on the HP & Dell 1920x1200 pixel monitors and how they work for HD image viewing.

Some good detailed info on how to use an LCD panel to watch your 1080p or 1080i video.

-mike

MacNN | G-Tech unveils quad-interface G-DRIVE

This is cool - USB 2.0, FireWire 400/800, and now eSATA all on one external drive. Groovy!

G-Tech makes really nice stuff, very solid.

-mike

DigitalProducer.com has a review of Sony Vegas 6. The author is already a fan of the software, so it is a largely positive review.

HDV is now supported, but is transoded using the Cineform codec and software. Cineform uses a wavelet based codec to convert the native HDV into their codec for all usage - playback, effects rendering, everything. So HDV is supported, but it is not natively supported.

Nested projects, new media manager, support for VST plugins, 60i to 24p conversion, support for DeckLink SD & HD hardware, and other new features are discussed.

Vegas is a pretty solid little editing app. I wish it edited HDV natively, but it doesn't, so that's that. But for folks on the PC side wanting a reasonably priced editor, this is pretty good.

It's primary competitor, Adobe's Premiere Pro, offers copy & paste integration with After Effects, an excellent motion graphics/compositing program. Integration with AE is a big deal - After Effects is a powerful program, I made my living based on it for a good 6 or 7 years.

Avid also technically competes in this arena, but Vegas' bang for the buck is tough to beat at this price point.

One of my main concerns with Vegas would be its ability to offline for online elsewhere - Avid projects hand up to higher end Avid products pretty seamlessly, and Final Cut has all kinds of exporting capabilities for EDL, XML, After Effects and Final Touch SD/HD integration.

I just don't know what all Vegas will hook into (and maybe it tells us in the article, I didn't have time but for a quick skim).

But if you're working in the Wintel world and on a tight budget, Vegas should definitely be on your short list of editing applications.

-mike

CinemaTech: An update on d cinema in the UK

...and along the lines of changing ways of movies being seen, here's an update on D Cinema in the UK.


-mike

CinemaTech: Stats on high-end theaters

Scott over at Cinema Tech reports on a Time article, and pulls some interesting stats:

In a down market, the boutique theater chain Muvico, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., company with 12 theaters in three states, has managed to boost attendance 2% this year. National Amusements, run by Viacom heir apparent Shari Redstone, is expanding its upscale Cinema de Lux brand of theaters, which sells 35% more tickets per theater than its sibling brands. At Pacific Theatre Co.'s swinging ArcLight Cinemas in Los Angeles, attendance has swelled 25% over the past two years.


Why am I blogging this? Because I see a change coming in the way movies are going to be watched over the next 10+ years. It's starting now - attendance at regular theaters is down, home theaters with big screens and DVD players are providing competition to going out to a movie theater (at least for the non-teenaged set that wants out of the house), cable and HDTV content are offering more compelling options for our leisure dollars, and especially our time.

Elsewhere in the article:

"It's counterintuitive--if attendance is down, why would you invest more in a theater?--but this template is one that is working."

...and that makes sense to me. If movie theaters are losing out to a better home experience, the fix is NOT to drop the price and amenities to make going out cheaper, but to compete head-on with the at-home experience....by making the going out epxerience NICER than staying at home.

If you have a big screen and comfy, sprawling couch at home, why not offfer a bigger screen, and at least a comfy, sprawling chair for going out?

If you have a fridge of beer and snacks at home, why not offer a full restaurant menu and full bar and waiters at the theater?

Compete by making the going out experience BETTER than home. THAT'S how to win.

(And that's why I love the Austin based Alamo Drafthouse chain so much - I have beer, pizza, wine, salads, waiters, etc. 5 minutes away from my house with a screen arguably wider than my house is long.)

: )

-mike

Cory Doctorow: Microsoft Research DRM talk

OK, this is a fun read for Freedom Phreaks like me. It talks about why DRM (Digital Rights Management) will be a Bad Business Decision.

It points out that only the movie industry thinks that they are so special that they feel they should have the right to disable your information reading device - after the sale.

I could get all wound up and screaming here, but Cory does it in a nice, patient, explanatory way.

DRM is bad.

-mike

Sharp Ships PN-455 Pro 1920x1080 LCD Monitor

Full 1920x1080 resolution LCD monitor, $9595 list, aboutg $6300 online (Google it). My dream wall display....

-mike

Cinema Minima PODCAST - Cyndi Greening & Mike Curtis on DV/HDV for Indies (Part 2 of 2)

Part 2 of our loooong conversation (mostly me technobabbling) is up and ready for download.

From Cyndi's ever-so-patient breakdown of what we discussed:

Post Production Color Correction Partnership using Final Touch HD

Understanding DV/HDV Compression
Uncompressed image data possible is 240 MB/sec
HDCAM tape formats compress data to about 20 MB/sec
HDV camera data is compressed to 3MB/sec

Can't color correct what was never captured and/or saved

Understanding compression nomenclature (e.g. 4:4:4 vs. 4:1:0)

Brightness and Color, Chrominance and Luminance, YUV, RGB
(for each four consecutive pixels, the compression algorithm uses
the first value to determine how many pixels to capture the brightness value and the next two values for how many pixels of color)

HDCamSR (can) capture 4:4:4 (as well as 4:2:2)
DigiBeta and DVCProHD captures 4:2:2
DV captures 4:1:1
DVD displays and HDV captures 4:2:0 (which isn%u2019t really 0, its on every other interlaced line)

Impact of compression on GreenScreen projects

Panasonic SDX900 sometimes called the 'Poor Man's DigiBeta'

Digital Cinema Initiative (studio) consortium agreements on digital projection and distribution

Projection Options:
2K size 2048x1080; 4K size 4096x2160;
CIE XYZ color space, frame rate, 12bit per channel format
Security issues to avoid copying
Nothing for an Indie Producer to worry about producing themselves for about a decade; distributor or studio will pay for enlargement/conversion

Digital projectors not an advantage for theater owners under current leasing plan

Danger of dark screens because of technical problems and/or security issues

Macintosh conversion to Intel Processors; possibly PC Express, quad processors

How he came to work in HD

Future SXSW Panel Discussion; HD/DV Camera Shoot Out

Direct to Disk Recording to Gain Resolution and 10 Bit per Channel color

AfterEffects vs. Shake vs. Real Time Color Correction with Final Touch HD

Stay tuned! Read the HD for Indies FAQ for more information!

Got this as a comment on the blog today:

Why would Apple wait to roll out high-end Intel Macs? Intel just announced new processors: 64-bit, increasing numbers of cores. If they'd stop gouging for multiprocessing, there's no reason that a dual-dual Intel Mac couldn't be available in 2006


...which is an entirely valid question to ask.

Here's some answers as I perceive it:

1.) OK, so imagine if Apple released a dual dual (two chips each with dual core CPUs) Intel box in January, 2006: what would you run on it? The high end apps that could take advantage of it: Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, Maya, Shake, etc. - probably won't be ready at that time. And if they were rushed to be ready, how optimized would they be for the new platform?

2.) Apple has some nice hardware in the pipeline - the dual core, PCI Express Macs that I suspect (but don't have proof) will be announced this month should offer a speed increase. And if they ARE twin dual core models, they could offer a SUBSTANTIAL speed increase - possibly offering twice the performance in real world usage as compared to today's high end offerings. Perhaps, looking at the roadmaps of the two CPUs - one G5 based, one Intel based - there was a logical crossover point at which the Intel roadmap started to really (moreso than today) kick butt over the G5.

3.) There may be some logic to a careful transition also - by starting with the lower end products, where speed is less mission critical (laptops, consumer minis & iMacs), Apple can adapt to the new platform at an easier pace. To roll out the top end machines first might be to invite the transitional difficulties on your pickiest clients - not a recipe for good PR. While the high end folks might clamor for the high end hardware first, it might not be in anybody's interest to rush this gear out to them first. Is this fobbing problems off on consumers? Not quite - consumers are less likely to be picky about things like bus transfer speeds etc. than the high end folks.

So in the meantime, I think it makes sense for Apple to stay on IBM at the moment - until both the hardware and software are out there, Intel based Macs do no good for the high end users.

-mike

First Impressions on JVC HD-100U Camera

They got theirs and started to play with it.

They thought the honest 24p mode of this camera looked better than the CineFrame on the Sony HDV cameras, but the Sony cameras did better in low light. No full auto more - "This is not the type of camera you can hand to a novice, tell them to
keep it in Auto, and have them produce good results. You got to know what you're doing to use this camera."

Lots more observations and details in their write up.

Looks promising as a camera. But you'll have to get some extra software to get that 24p goodness into FCP - 720p24 is NOT innately supported in Final Cut Pro. Lumiere HD was showing some stuff at NAB to get it into FCP, however, so I'm looking forward to that.

-mike

Cinema Minima PODCAST - Cyndi Greening & Mike Curtis on DV/HDV for Indies (Part 1 of 2)

Cyndi has posted up the first part of our long interview from yesterday as a podcast.

From her breakdown/description of what we covered:

Various Flavors of HD
Various Resolutions of HD
720p = 1280x720
1080i or 1080p = 1920x1080
Currently, Panasonic Varicam Camera very popular 720p camera
Progressive versus Interlaced
(p) = Progressive; whole frame at once, more like film
(i) = Interlaced; every other line, traditionally for broadcast video
Early Canon XL2 and Sony DVX100A conversions from 30i to 24p possible but lossy
Also, other considerations must be in place, cannot change frame rate and so on
As an independent filmmaker, where to begin thinking?

Where do you want to go with this? What do you want for a deliverable?
Sony HDR-FX1 and Sony HVR-Z1U reasonably priced cameras for independent filmmakers
HVR-Z1U offers better controls and better inputs (XLR for audio) and better post-production options like true timecode.
Also, HVR-Z1U records at both 50i (interlaced) PAL and 60i NTSC frames per second allowing for PAL interlaced recording, converted to 24 progressive with a slight speed change
Comparison between higher end Sony F900 ($100,000 camera) and inexpensive camera; sensor, lenses, recording formats, latitude and sensivity
Discussion about Panasonic SDX900, larger sensor, 24p, better light latitude, uses DVCPro50
In Mike’s opinion, the best low budget cameras:
Sony PD170, Sony PD150
Canon XL2
Panasonic DVX 100A
HD for Indies Five Camera Shoot and Comments & Pictures
Post Production Tools for DV and HDV
Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, AVID and AVID Express editing
AJ and Black Magic DV input cards
F900 camera editing challenges because of cost of converting HDCAM to DV
Challenges with FAST storage
Right Camera, Right Editing System, Final Deliverable

American Cinematographer article on color space issues. Part 1 is a lengthy history of color reproduction and technology throughout the last century or so. The last few pages are the good stuff to my mind.

Part 2 is where things get really interesting, and starts talking about how film works with light, where gamma comes from, how camera negatives, interpositives, internegatives, print stock all interact, etc. Really, really good stuff.

If you want to start to understand how digital intermediates, film, and digital all work together, this is a great, GREAT article.

Some juicy geeky bits:

Let’s begin with analog camera negative as the recording medium. As of now, there is no proven digital equal to the dynamic range of camera negative. The negative records as close to an actual representation of the scene we place before it as the emulsion allows, but it is not necessarily how we see things. Film does not take into account differences in human perception, nor our eyes’ ability to adjust white point, as discussed in Part One of this article.

....

Negative film is not tasked with having to display the recorded image. To do so, the negative must be directly printed onto positive print film or, for releasing large numbers of prints, go through the intermediate photochemical processes of creating an interpositive (IP) and then mulitple internegatives (INs). A check print is made from the IN, and then the images found on the original camera negative finally can be displayed. Print film does not reproduce everything that was recorded on the negative. “The purpose of the negative is to capture a virtual scene,” says Kodak image scientist Douglas Walker, “but there is no practical way to reproduce those same luminance ratios. A scene can have a dynamic range of 100,000:1 or 1,000,000:1, and it would be cost-prohibitive to try to reproduce that in every theater. So you need a way of creating a rendition of the scene that is convincing, yet more practical to re-create. The purpose of print film is to do just that.”

....

The sensitometric curve of print film is much steeper than that of negative film. Just compare gammas: .6 for negative vs. 2.6 or more for print. As a result, highlights and shadows compress in the toe and shoulder of the print stock, respectively (see diagram a, diagram b and diagram c). “This is kind of the ‘film look,’” says Technology Committee chair Curtis Clark, ASC, “which still has gradation in the shoulder and toe, whereas with video it just clips. That’s something I think we have grown accustomed to culturally and aesthetically as well — having that ability to see particularly in the highlights and shadows because there are vital nuances and details there.”

....

Scanning at 2K resolution has been the most popular and feasible. A true 2K frame is 2048x1556x4 or 12,746,752 bytes in file size. (It is x4 because the three Cineon 10-bit RGB components that equal 30 bits are packed into 32 bits, which is 4 bytes. Two bits are wasted.) 4K 4096x3112 is fast becoming viable as storage costs drop and processing and transport speeds escalate. Spider-Man 2 (AC July ’04) was the first feature to undergo a 4K scan and 4K finish. Bill Pope, ASC screened for director Sam Raimi, the editors and the producers a series of 2K and 4K resolution tests, and all preferred the 4K input/output. The perceived improvement in resolution is that obvious. Beginning with 6K, that perception starts to wane for some people. There are scanners on the market that can scan a frame of film at 10K resolution. But scanning an entire movie at 10K right now is as rapid as using the Pony Express to send your mail. The ideal scanning resolution is still a topic for debate, though 8K is favored by many. “In order to achieve a limiting resolution digitally of what film is capable at aspect ratio, you really need to scan the full frame 8000 by 6000 to get a satisfactory aliasing ratio of about 10 percent,” says Research Fellow Roger Morton, who recently retired from Kodak. Limiting resolution is the finest detail that can be observed when a display system is given a full-modulation input.

....

“Pandora’s Box is open,” says David Stump, ASC, chair of the Digital Camera subcommittee. “The future is going to be digital somehow, some way, and will at least include a hybrid of film and digital cameras. However, there is no reason to give up a perfectly good toolset for one that does less. As a cinematographer, you can always raise an eyebrow by suggesting compression. The bad kinds of compression create sampling errors and the okay compressions use a little less disk or tape space.”

....

If compression is necessary, it is best to apply it as close to the last stage of the workflow as possible. Remarks Kennel, “From an image-quality standpoint, it’s risky to apply compression up front in the process, whether it’s in the camera footage or in the image being used in the visual effects compositing process. It’s better to stay with the whole content of the image while you are twisting, stretching, color correcting and manipulating the image. If you apply compression up front and you decide to stretch the contrast or bring detail out of the black during a color-correction session, you may start seeing artifacts that weren’t visible in the original image. I think compression is a good enabler and cost reducer on the distribution side, just not a good thing up front.”


...which is why, if you are going to shoot on HDV, you better get it as close to final look as possible in camera on set - since twisting the color later is likely to bring out artifacts. (Mike's Note)


“Every transfer from one color space to another color space, even if it’s the same color space, runs risks of sampling errors,” says Stump. “By re-sampling to any other color space, especially a smaller space, you can concatenate (link together) errors into your data that then cannot be reversed. They cannot be corrected by expanding that data back into a bigger color space. Some people will argue that you can correct the errors using large mathematical formulas, but I don’t think that is error correction. I think that is error masking. That’s a lot of work to correct an error that didn’t have to be created in the first place. On the Cinematographers Mailing List, I read something that was well said: ‘You should aspire to the highest-quality acquisition that you can afford.’ There are numerous hidden pitfalls in post.”

....

I’m probably not going out on a limb by saying that image quality on earlier 1K projectors was lwss than ideal — low contrast, obvious low resolution, a visible screen-door effect from the fixed matrix, and annoying background crawl on panning shots. The consensus on the 2K DLP projectors of today is that sequential contrast, roughly 1,800:1 (D-ILA has less) in a typical viewing environment, is approaching the appearance of a Kodak Vision release print. Vision print stock actually has a density contrast ratio of 8,000:1, or 13 stops, but the projection booth’s port glass, ambient light and light scatter caused by reflection reduce it to a little over 2,000:1. The more expensive Vision Premier print stock has a contrast ratio of about 250,000:1, or 18 stops to the power of 2. (Humans can distinguish 30 stops.)

Geeks, read this. Excuse me - Read This. Obey!

-emperor mikey, after watching "Rome" on HBO tonight

DMN Interview: Martin Bock, CEO of Medea:

Somewhat interesting article discussing storage and HD. Salient quote:

DMN: Is the move to HD accelerating now?

Bock: Both from a production standpoint as well as a broadcast standpoint, the answer is yes. It won't be long before the viewer at home will not be satisfied with anything but HD content. Obviously, given the choice he will want higher resolution. For this reason, the content must be developed in HD now, or it will be dated. The cost to deliver all HD to the consumer at home, however, will be driven by the delivery cost. This is in the process of maturing, but it is under way. We see the demand for storage support for HD broadcast rising rapidly today.


...what I've been advocating all along.

King Kong vs. the Pirates of the Multiplex - New York Times

NYTimes article on movie piracy.

Interesting to note that the studios netted $84 billion last year, and claims a $3 billion loss from bootleg DVDs. Then they say 6 of 10 movies lose money...and its the bootleggers and movie downloaders fault?

I don't think so.

Most folks that don't see movies in the theaters are content to wait for the DVDs.

That and the lame Hollywood fare is probably what is why sales are down.

Blah. Anyway, a good read.

-mike

Funky control surface - for Windows systems only - FresHDV writes a bit about this cool new gadget:

It's a "gamers keyboard/input device" with keys that can be stuck anywhere on a graphics-tablet-like base. The keys actually stick...they have a special mechanical adhesive on the bottoms, using the same technique that a Gecko uses to climb a seemingly flat surface. They stick tight anywhere on the pad, but remove with a twist. Keys are wireless and are powered by inductive coupling power.

"The Cave" CG effects done on Macs - Yahoo! News

A little blatant Mac plugging - they used Shake, Maya, and other Mac based tools to do set extensions and creature animation for The Cave, which I saw on Friday night (OK film, decent effects execution, wait for the DVD).

-mike

MacInTouch has a user comment about a concerning glitch copying large files to FireWire drives - when copying files over 1GB to a FireWire drive, they are not identical matches. Something to keep track of.

-mike

FresHDV | Recent surveys point to slow consumer adoption of High Def DVD formats.

Normally I try to avoid posting links to links to articles, but one of my new sites of interest is FresHDV.com. He's covering a lot of stuff I'm interested in.

He's got a story with links to two different articles about slow uptake of high def DVD players and burners.

Bummer.

-mike

JVC GY-HD100 24p Footage available for download

Not by me - from the folks over at DVXuser.com.

Some clips with explanations about them. NOT professionally shot, so keep that in mind. But a place to see some footage.

-mike

Scott Kirsner over at Cinema Tech was talking about larger films using blogs and video blog (vlogging, vodcasting) entries to drum up interest in their productions. Along the way, he mentions both King Kong and SuperMan Returns and their vlogs.

One of the entries concerns screening Panavision Genesis footage and the workflow involved, and the delays in their post production pipeline.

An interesting thing to watch, and see the realities of production with this newer kind of gear.

-mike

Studios Mull Changes to Movie 'Windows' - Yahoo! News

It is interesting to hear Robert Iger, the CEO-elect of Disney, talking about the possibility of releasing DVDs on the same day a movie hits theaters.

Of course, the theater industry loathes and fears this idea.


Before Iger's remarks, studio executives spoke of releasing DVDs simultaneous with a theatrical run only in the context of fighting piracy. Many studios are already premiering films around the world on the same date to undercut pirates who distribute illegal copies of films in China, Eastern Europe and elsewhere.


I think it's coming. I don't know when, but it'll be interesting to see.

How exactly will this affect indie producers? Will it be better or worse for them? I'm not sure. Have an opinion on this? Chime in on the Comments section, link immediately below.

-mike

TV Technology has this article on real world HDV usage.

Some good quotes:

So although the 25 Mbps of HDV is sufficient for acquisition, the artifacts from elaborate blurs and dissolves gained while editing on an HDV timeline can sometimes be too much.

Mike's note - this is why editing uncompressed pays off

"We have a highly tricked-out system to work on," he said, "and even using the 1080i/60 rate for improved graphics, it's as easy as cutting DV."

"I own 15 $100,000 cameras, so I am not all that happy that now I have a $4,000 camera that can sometimes compete with them. It all goes back to what you are shooting. If I'm at a rock concert getting a low-angle shot of the kick drum, HDV is fine. I might want the bigger cameras for the glamour close-up of the lead singer, though."

A good little read for those thinking about producing HD content using HDV cameras.

-mike

Intel's CPU roadmap for 2006 | MacMegasite

OK, still catching up - Intel revealed their CPU roadmap for 2006. Since 2006 will be the first year of transition for Macs from IBM/Freescale (used to be Motorola) chips to Intel CPU chips, this starts giving us clues as to where Macs will go.

For instance, I'd expect some of the first Intel based Macs to be based on the Yonah CPU, and either be a portable or a mini.

I don't expect to see PowerMacs on Intel until sometime in 2007 based on what I've read so far.

If Apple announces dual core (possibly twin dual core, so four processors) with PCI Express at MacWorld Paris Expo next month, that'd be a great high horsepower machine to buy (assuming it all works OK) and use for a couple of years until the heavy duty Intel PowerMacs ship sometime in 2007.

-mike

I missed this one, it's from last month - but the ever helpful staff over at Sonnet let me know that they had posted some benchmark results from testing their latest 8 port eSATA card with both Raptor and 7200.8 drives. The Seagate 7200.8 drives are my current preferred drives for HD usage.

There are detailed instructions on how they tested, and several pages of graphs showing the kinds of read and write performance that can be expected from 1, 2, 4, and 8 drive arrays.

Also very handy are the charts showing array performance falloff as data is written towards the "end" of the array - as regular readers know, a drive's performance decreases as it starts to fill up or write towards the end of its capacity. These graphs show exactly what kind of read/write performance to expect at any given point in the drive.

This is very useful information for figuring out where, in an array, performance falls below what you need for your given usage (such as your frame size, rate, color space and bit depth).

Geeky, but very straightforward information and useful information.

-mike

CinemaTech: Box office skid: Due to smarter audiences?

As always, Scott Kirsner is catching intersting things from around the web.

Busy today, not much time for comment, just blogging in a hurry. But an interesting read.

Macworld: News: Rimage CD/DVD autoloaders get Mac software

Mac software for bulk DVD burners (as in, make stacks of them).

Not relevant for everyone, but got me thinking about self publishing some specialty DVDs for indie related topics.

-mike

I just spent an hour on the phone with Cyndi Greening of Cinema Minima.

She'll edit out my ums/errs/ahhs and wildly tangential geeking and have a podcast of it up for Monday or so I think.

As soon as she sends me the link, I'll post it up here.

We talked about camera formats, the DV revolution 2.0 (HDV), the DCI spec, post production issues, how to pick cameras, etc.

I also discused that I'm working on some training DVDs for indies - including a "special edition" that will be shot on HDV, edited in FCP, and authored to a DVD Studio Pro 4 high def DVD.

Hopefully we'll do another interview in a couple of weeks, and I'll have more to report.

-mike

Yesterday I sat down with a 20 year veteran colorist and we had a nice long conversation about potential workflows, business models, and ways to work together. More on that once things are nailed down, but I think it will lead eventualy to a service that I'll be offering to you folks (and other filmmakers, etc.).

We also sat down and worked with Final Touch HD some more, and as a longtime veteran DaVinci operator, he's excited about working with it, and familiar with the workflow, and expects it to meet his quality expectations. We're going to be working with a short film project I'd previously worked on in order to run through a full project and find all the hidden gotchas and quirks of the software and workflow.

I briefly posted an article about the RAID 10 (really, 0+1) capabilities of Tiger because I thought it didn't have any. Then I was corrected by an astute reader and pulled the article and did some more testing, which is looking promising. At last, at last, a way to have high speed, fault tolerant storage on the Mac for something like $2/GB. As in, fast enough for uncompressed HD work. More info on how to, and performance testing, coming up on that one.

I've already posted two articles I'd previously started on about What's Wrong With High Def DVDs and DRM etc. A day of pessimistic griping. I think the industry should change it's path, but I don't think they are going to. Which means a year or three of slow sales for the industry and sucky, expensive hardware for us. Poop.

-mike

Sony, Toshiba give up on unified DVD format-paper - Yahoo! News

Well, no surprise to any regular readers, but there will be no HD DVD and Blu Ray compromise format.

Since the two technologies relied on very different approaches to fitting more data on a disk, and adopting one or the other would have meant giving up on the basis of one side's technology, since so much of the data structure and formats were the same.

HD DVD is based on a physical media similar to today's CDs and DVDs, with the actual readable part of the disk 0.6mm under a protective plastic covering.

Blu Ray relies on a more tightly focused beam reading closer to the surface, just 0.1mm under the surface of the disc.

And never the twain shall meet.

If a compromise standard were to have been developed, it would be what, 0.35mm below the surface? A whole new round of R&D to perfect it. Not gonna happen.

So both sides apparently are preferring a format war that will stall the adoption rate of the technology.

Mix that with the fact that the physical DRM is so severe that the media won't play on the vast majority of the existing HDTVs, nor on ANY existing computer monitors (won't THAT be fun!), that I think these are niche formats at best, if not DOA.

And I hate to say that, because I think high def movies in the home are going to be (or could be) a great thing.

As I've said before, LaserDisc 2.0.

-mike

Got an email from SoftRAID about the latest version of their SoftRAID RAID formatting software (that I like, use & recommend):


The 3.2.1 release is a minor bug fix release. We fixed one problem that
could result in a kernel panic. We also fixed a problem where after
running Software Update to update the OS, sometimes SoftRAID could not
get the proper permission to run. We believe we have solved this problem.
We changed or added a couple dialog boxes to make it easier to use
SoftRAID, and improved some error messages.

There are no major driver changes in this release.

On Windows Vista, DRM, and new monitors

I've had this one floating around in my drafts folder for a while, so in the midst of testing I'll (finally) get it done.

Ars has a good article on what the digital rights management is likely to be in Windows Vista, the next generation operating system for the majority of computers in the world. I'd guess that in about 2 years this will be what ships on all new computers, so PC users will have to deal with this stuff.

The main sticking point from an HD perspective is this: the DRM (digital rights management) is so severely strict that if you want to watch a bought/rented high definition DVD, you won't be able to watch it on any currently shipping computer monitor. Why? Because the resolution of the screen isn't high enough? No. Because it isn't a digital flat panel? No. Because it won't have some extra hardware that verifies it is a secured, locked down, no passthrough device. They want to use DVI or HDMI (a similar plug) with HDCP (hardware device copy protection). If your monitor does NOT have this technology (and right now, there aren't any on the market as far as I can tell), you'll only be able to watch a downsampled, standard definition version of it. Since there are no present computer monitors with this hardware, if you ant to watch an HD movie, you'll have to buy a new monitor.

So I digress from here into more home theater issues, off topic from the article -

So this is a good article covering the issues, but it stops short of asking the logical follow up - if the studios are so hell bent on excluding virtually all known HD display hardware, don't you think consumers (both home and professional/business) are going to simply ignore it as not worth it? If you have to jump through so many hoops, both technological and financial, then why bother? The player costs more, there are fewer titles than regular DVD, high def DVDs cost more, and it doesn't work with your current receiver and/or HDTV. Uh huh. Pass.

There's the issue of playback on PCs and Macs impossible without buying costly new displays. Uhh,riiiiiiiiiight.

There's the very real issue that, for one reason or another, you might not be able to play back content that was legitimately purchased due to the severity of these DRM systems. Look at how well DRM is (OK isn't) working for downloadable music in the non-iTunes Windows world. Now factor in multiple hardware manufacturers assembling stuff from multiple vendors and trusting that it'll all work all the time OK together. Okey doke.

Home theater stuff is devilishly complicated enough as it is withOUT DRM issues - optical or coax digital audio? DTS, Dolby surround, or both? Surround, center, and subwoofer connections, oh my. Consumers are just getting used to this stuff enough to plug it in and get it to work, but now there will be an extra layer that INTENTIONALLY makes some stuff not work. Or just the fact that it is so complicated that regardless of whether you do or don't have the right parts, you plug it all in and can't understand all the hidden gotchas of the DRM stuff.

As I was writing this, I was thinking how nice it would be to have some kind of a configuration assistant - plug in a new device and it auto configures itself based on the capabilities and plugs involved. Instead, the industry is heading the opposite direction, making things even harder to work.

All the so-called "liberal" features of the new DRM -- check in/out, ability to make downrezzed copies to laptops, portable media players, move it on a home network, etc. - are likely just a smokescreen for the severity of these DRM scenarios. Those "ease of use" features are possibilities within the spec - but based on Hollywood's current behavior, do you really think they will all be enabled and/or permitted on titles?

Then, there are the two, incompatible disc formats, with both sides committed to promoting theirs over the other guys.

And finally, there's the issue that the general viewership doesn't care about HDTV, doesn't know what it is and/or can't tell when they are seeing HDTV or some 480P picture, anyway, much of the time, unless it's on a really huge front projection screen. The size and native resolution of an HDTV that most folks can afford presently, combined with the typical living room viewing distance, results in a "perceived quality" that won't be that much better than regular DVD on a nice TV.

Which leads me to a further statement -

Until prices drop to get LARGE screens (greater than 42") for $1000 or so, most folks are literally not going to be able to see the difference, or at least enough difference to justify the price.

Add all this up? It's a recipe for a complete disaster.

Unless there's some hidden benefit somewhere that hasn't been discussed, I see a coming fiasco for the industry trying to push it, and a big pass coming from consumers. LaserDisc 2.0.

Joe & Jane Consumer, who made Hollywood rich from DVD sales, won't buy into this expensive, confusing, and quite frankly insulting scenario.

As much as I want all this to work out, I don't think we're heading towards the optimistic future that I was hoping for.

If I'm not looking forward to buying a new HDTV with HDCP to replace my current set, who will? And I'm certainly not going to be buying two playback decks, one HD DVD and one Blu Ray, especially at the anticipated $500 to $1000 price tags. Maybe, maybe at $200-$250 apiece, if I didn't have to buy an HDCP equipped TV.

Harrumph. That's my pessimistic take on it for today.

-mike

SOME WORDS ON POWER INTEGRITY FROM THE FIELD, more specifically from the School of Lessons Hard Learned, aka

"Hey Kid, see this scar right here? Ya don't wanna do that."

or perhaps

"Maybe 41 hard drives is a bit much to have plugged in all right next to each other"

Woops, actually popped a circuit breaker for the first time in the studio doing testing tonight. The fans in the dual 2.5 were spooling up dramatically, then everything went dark. Schizen.

Fortunately, I have 5 UPS (uninterruptible power supply) devices in place, and they mostly worked. One died immediately, I had too much stuff plugged in or something. But all the others kept on goin', just beeping most plaintively at me, like angry giant chicks hungry for more.....and NOW. The most important reason why I run it worked - a RAID 5 (SyncRAID) was in the middle of copying files across the network, and it was Stayin' Alive.

In the five minutes it took me to figure out what happened and reset the breaker, everything worked. The one shortcut I'd taken in my quickie setup in the studio (it's a mess as I prep for the colorist tomorrow, I've been shovelling terabytes around), I hadn't plugged monitors into the UPS devices. So when I came back in and turned them back on, I was so very pleased to see a copy progress bar still in motion, meaning that two computers and their arrays had survived just fine through the power outage.

My fear is that a power outage/interruption could cause directory damage that would hose the RAID 5, or at least require a rebuild - a biiiiiiig time consuming thing.

So, as always, keep all your stuff, ESPECIALLY if you have RAIDs, on UPS devices.

Most important are RAIDs, then computers, then single drive volumes (FireWire etc.), etc. on down to monitors last. And don't overload your UPS device, or when the power goes out it'll just blink off and do you no good.

There's a place that sells refurbed/reconditioned UPS devices, RefurbUPS.com, that sells reconditioned UPS devices. Normally, I STRONGLY recommend against used hardware. But an old UPS almost always dies simply because the batteries are toast. RefurbUPS just puts new batteries in and resells'em. I haven't bought any from them but a couple of friends have and rave about what a good deal it is.

So even if you're on a budget, it's no excuse to NOT protect your power.

Even after I got additional power outlets AND upgraded the electrical capacity of my house after buying it, I still have UPS devices, because you never know when you're gonna need'em.

This is the first time I can ever recall popping a breaker in the studio, but then I looked around and realized I had five computers, four large (19-24") monitors running....and a total of 41 hard drives*. A-ha, woopsie. Time to load balance all the plugs around the room a bit more.

File that under Things I Should Know Better Than.

: )

...but I do get Brownie Points (or more accurately, Scout Points) for Being Prepared and not losing any critical data.

-mike, one more scar averted (and I got PLENTY, believe you me)

* 41 hard drives equals:
-two internals in dual 2.5 GHz G5 (2)
-two internals in dual 2.0 GHz G5 (4)
-four internals in Server733 (an older G4) (8)
-two internals in G4/867 (10)
-two LaCie 1TB Bigger Disk Extremes (four in each, so 8 more, total 18)
-an 8x300GB array (26)
-an 8x400GB array (34)
-a 5x160 array (total 39)
-two more standalone FireWire drives (41)

Why'd I have all this crap plugged in? I'm pushing data around to consolidate it all in one place to I can tell what I have where, archive off stuff I care about, toss things I don't want or have archived somewhere, and have my two 8 drive arrays (finally) configured the way I want them.

OK, a little late not blogging while I push terabytes of data around the office to set up for some new testing. Man, the ability to hook two G5's up directly with a single standard Ethernet cable and copy files back to back just KICKS ASS. The gigabytes just slide by....anyway, on to bidness:

ATI Displays for RADEON - Read Me First

ATI has released version 4.5.5 of it's Radeon software for Mac based cards. I noticed that the X800 card that I have is NOT listed as supporting VersaVision display rotation capabilities - so much for my dreams of using my rotatable (just grab the side and turn it 90 degrees) Dell 2405 as the Ultimate Bins Monitor in tall mode with my X800. Gotta have an 850, not an 800 for that.

Gallingly, tons of older cards support it, but not the 800 per se.

Harrumph. Anyway, it's the latest. Keep checking sites like Accelerate Your Mac for reader reports on weirdness. And DON'T be the first to install new software, unless you have a backed up boot disk from beforehand!

-mike

Not much posting going on today - I'm actually back to real, hands-on lab work (Yay!).

I'm testing the new LaCie Biggest S2S (their 5 removable SATA drive enclosure and card combo). They were oh so very nice enough to send me the BIG one, 2.5TB, with five 500GB Hitachi 7K500 drives. Preliminary tests are interesting - I'm getting around 180 MB/sec transfers using my favorite benchmark, BlackMagic's Disk Speed Test Utility. This unit has some interesting and unique features with connectivity and fault tolerance. Full review on the way.

I'm also doing an in depth review and hands on nitty gritty with the Sonnet 8 port eSATA controller, with their latest v1.2 firmware. I'm finding I'm getting different speed results under 10.3.9 than I am under 10.4.2. I've also now got my own full set of Maxtor Maxline III 300 GB drives with up to date firmware, FINALLY, and that was it's own little adventure to get it going.

I also bought 3 more Seagate 7200.8 400GB drives, so I have a full set of 8, and I'll be testing those with a variety of hardware as well (Sonnet, Highpoint, Firmtek, etc.)

I had a loooong conversation on the phone with Roland from Silicon Color about their Final Touch HD color correction software, and while I can't share the details, it was a very satisfying conversation that gives me a lot of confidence about their future.

I also am doing some testing with a 23 year veteran color corrector who is looking into buying a Final Touch HD system of his own, that should yield some VERY interesting stuff about how well FTHD works for an experienced veteran, and how well all my indie/garage tech setup works compared to a more expensive, higher end setup.

All that is happening this week, so stay tuned!

-mike

FootTrack - capture, catalog, organize and search your digital video

Found this from a link on link on MacInTouch - it gives you a searchable database of all your footage. You can recompress footage to keep low res copies on your hard drive or server, search for clips using Spotlight, etc.

If you had a LOT of footage to keep track of (documentaries anyone?), this sounds like it might be useful. Haven't played with it yet, however.

-mike

The HD For Indies FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) has been updated once again. What I've changed:

I've added links to BUNCH more articles I've written/linked to having to do with workflow, why HD, Digital Intermediates, etc. I've also added links to the tape formats section that offer much greater detail on the cameras/formats/resolution issues involved, especially the "what's missing here?" article.

I also rearranged some stuff, but there is still much organizing to be done.

But if you haven't seen it yet, check it out - a LOT of questions answered in there.

-mike

Blu-ray wins two more backers, while HD DVD looks doomed

I wouldn't go so far as to say doomed, but things are looking up for Blu Ray and not to hot for HD DVD.

-mike

Everything Apple: CHUD tools reveal Apple's 970MP Quad Power Mac

A reader posted in the comments (thanks Russ!) the above link to some evidence about quad processor Macs - a couple of screen grabs in the developer tools, back from March 10th. So this all looks good that we MIGHT be seeing a quad processor Mac in the not too distant future...

Final Cut Pro News (Phila FCP Users Group): Sudden Motion Sensor and video editing performance

...as in, turn it off if dropping frames.

AppleInsider reports that IBM is ready to deliver dual-core PowerPC G5 processors.

What's this mean to us?

POWER.

The article states that these machines may be rolled out in September. It's already been confirmed by Apple that Steve Jobs will be keynoting at the Paris MacWorld. Steve only shows up at these gigs if there is major new hardware to roll out.

More importantly, AppleInsider claims to have seen a product roadmap that included TWO dual core chips, for a four processor Mac. Now, I don't know if Tiger supports four processors, but it'd be awfully nice to have four processors chugging away on our digital video needs. (I don't think it does, and I don't know that we'll see quad processors on Macs until the next major OS rev, but wait and see, wait and see.)

I also believe that these new Macs will be the first to have a PCI Express bus.

What's PCI Express? A new, faster bus than PCI or PCI-X. This will mean that more data can be moved around faster.

How does this help? For one, it means that applications that are presently limited by bus speed performance, such as Final Touch HD, will run much faster. My goal for Final Touch HD is to see it deliver realtime performance out of a BlackMagic Multibridge Extreme over a PCI Express bus in 1080i HD.

And even just dual processors would deliver on this potentially.

-mike

I met today with a client, a film director, full DGA member, who had looked at my site and couldn't make heads or tails of it - it was, as I imagined he parsed it, "all geeky stuff about computers, DVD players, and alphabet soup stuff I don't care about."

So why am I covering all this other stuff?

When I first started getting into all of this HD stuff, I was excited about the possibility of making movies for a bunch less money and doing a great job with it - being able to do things like control your own edit & color correction, do your own (or have someone else do) your visual effects for less, total control, edit in-house, stuff like that.

But the basic underlying assumption was that the ability to produce the film was a barrier to filmmakers, and to reduce the costs of making a good looking feature would help more good films get to market.

I was somewhat naive, to say the least.

The more I've learned about all this stuff, successfully completing the film is only a small part of the battle. Most films never make it to theatrical distribution. This is much more OK in this day and age of DVDs, Netflix, online downloads, etc.

Even Hollywood makes most of it's money from video formats, not theatrical releases. So why not you? While a theatrical release carries a certain cachet, and creates a sense of validity to a film, but it's not necessarily mandatory (but it certainly helps).

The business side of the equation is huge and not to be ignored.

I've also been spending a LOT of time and attention on the next generation DVD formats - HD DVD and Blu Ray. Why? Because I think that this will where a lot of indie films go in the future - or they should at least be available on this format in addition to standard DVDs (which I think will be around for years and years to come.)

High definition video needs a high definition playback format. And that format needs to be accessible and affordable to the general population in order to all work out right. So that's why I pay so much attention to the arcana of playback outputs, encryption, DRM (digital rights management), etc.

As for the whole Macs on Intel thing, well, I just think it is interesting, since Macs are my editing/compositing platform of choice. But it is relevant to editors and digital filmmakers, because it affects what they'll be working on in the future.

And all the other hardware/software stuff? I think it is interesting for the hands on, do it yourself types out there.

If you're looking for information on how to make your own movie, start with the HD For Indies Frequently Asked Questions. There's a link at the top right of every page. If you don't see it there, dig into the over 1300 posts available on this site by using the Google search bar at the top of every page as well.

If you're looking for general information about how and why to shoot HD, there's a nice section in the FAQ that links to some of my earlier rants/editorials on the subject. Or, just go back to the archives and look at my first dozen or two posts, there's a lot of good theory in there (although some of it is dated, wrong, or obsolete by now - much changes in a year or two in this industry).

And if you still have questions that can't be answered, feel free to drop me a line as well (mike at hdforindies dot com). I dish a lot of free advice if I think the questions are interesting (or at least easy to answer), but I may well respond that I don't have time to answer it for free but can do so on a consulting basis for a fee.

-mike

LAFCPUG Next Meeting

on Aug. 24th.

Toast 7 includes DivX, iLife browsing, much more - Yahoo! News

an official summary of the new features. Of note/interest to us:


Roxio’s Popcorn software enables Mac users to burn complete 9GB dual-layer DVDs to a standard 4.7GB DVD by compressing the video. That functionality has been built into Toast 7 Titanium, as well.

Motion Pictures HD is the latest version of Toast’s technology for creating slideshows from still images. You can use motion effects, transitions, titles and background soundtracks — what’s more, you can also add collages of multiple photos in a single frame (what the Roxio folks call the “24” effect, after the popular Fox television shows intros and outros). These slideshows can be burnt to DVD or DivX HD in standard and high definition video formats, for maximum detail.

Toast 7 Titanium includes ten different DVD menu styles that let you create your own custom DVDs similarly to iDVD. You can add chapters and slide menus using a slideshow shuffle mode. And because Toast now recognizes Video_TS folders, you can import individual chapters from DVDs you’ve ripped to your desktop, making it possible to create “Director’s Cuts” containing just the content you want.

Also new to this release is support for DivX, the popular MPEG-4 based compression technology that’s seen wide support on the PC platform and from some DVD player manufacturers, as well. Toast 7 Titanium enables users who have downloaded DivX content to drag and drop those files and burn them to a DVD that can be played back in any DVD player. The Toast 7 installer includes DivX 6 Pro encoding software for the Macintosh, which hasn’t yet been released to the general public.

Roxio has also incorporated DivX HD support into Toast 7 Titanium. DivX HD is a true high definition playback technology that lets you view content at 720p resolution — 1,280 x 720 pixels using progressive scanning. Roxio anticipates this will come in particularly handy for Mac users who have are working on iMovie 5 projects, which supports HD content, as well as Final Cut Pro 5.

Video DVDs containing DivX HD content can be played back on DivX HD-certified DVD players, which are already available. It’s important to differentiate these devices, which support regular DVDs and recordable DVDs encoded with DivX HD content, from HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, two competing high definition DVD formats that aren’t yet commercially available.

Toast 7 Titanium’s video conversion doesn’t end with DivX, either — you can convert videos to versions suitable for playback on 3GPP-equipped cell phones and handheld devices, H.264 players and Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP). You can also extract audio tracks from video for use in iTunes or other audio applications, audio CDs and more. A printed Getting Started guide even offers detailed instructions for PSP users who want to move video onto their game players using a USB 2.0 cable.



...as well as direct integration with iLife apps - playlists, photo albums etc. show up in Toast and are burnable from Toast.

-mike

Movie Slump Stirs Tensions in Hollywood - New York Times

Theater owners bristle at the idea of simultaneous theatrical and DVD releases - they feel it's a death threat to the theatrical run business model.

There's a nice summation/good quotes over on CinemaTech.

-mike

Macworld: News: ATI realigns Mac retail roadmap

Quick MacWorld article summarizing the new ATI product line-up:

-X800 XT Mac Edition now $400 instead of $500, supports Apple 30"
-Radeon 9800 Pro (G4 & G5), 256 MB VRAM, DVI, VGA, s-video out, $300, supports Apple 30"
-Radeon 9600 Pro Mac Edition - 256 MB VRAM, $130, PCI not AGP, no Apple 30" support, but VGA, DVI and S-Video interfaces

I still prefer the top of the line X800 XT card for heavy graphics work, especially if you're going to be working with Motion, where it makes a huge difference.

-mike

At the end of every article is a little link that says (0) Comments (or (23) Comments or whatever).

If you click on it, you can read the comments that others have left about that particular article, or post your own.

PLEASE feel free to add to the discussion if you have any comments, questions, additional information, vaguely related tangents, or anything relevant to the topic at hand.

If you have a question for me that is not related to the article, feel free to email me at the address at the top of this page (mike at hdforindies dot com).

I'm getting increasing amounts of comment spam, including some that just drops a meaningless note and then says something to the effect of "please read my blog at blahblahwhatever.com." Some of these sites look suspiciously blank, like possible malware loaders.

So, in order to prevent possible damage to the Windows users out there (about half of you) or just garbage for you to read, ANY COMMENTS THAT AREN'T GERMANE AND HAVE LINKS TO WEBSITES NOT DIRECTLY RELATED TO HD OR ARTICLES WILL BE PROMPTLY DELETED, usually within a half an hour or so.

If you want to say you like or dislike something I write, disagree or call bullshit on something, or even the occasional "nice article", I encourage you to do so - just please don't post something to the effect of "that was nice" with a URL - it will be deleted for the reasons stated above.

If you want to say "That's interesting, I've covered the same topic at my blog, see link below" I welcome and encourage that - it's relevant and adds to the discussion.

OK, end of editorial ranting.

It just peeves me to have my blog used, abused, or misused by spambots or "see my blog" egotists.

Cuz on my blog, I get to be the egotist.

One per.

: )

-mike

Accelerate Your Macintosh, Think Secret and MacInTouch all have details of the new Toast 7, even though it isn't mentioned yet on Roxio's page yet.

User report on Toast 7 from Accelerate Your Macintosh -

Toast 7 is just starting to ship, and has long been the premiere disk burning software for Macs. OS X has added features that compete with it over the years, but Toast has always had a little extra to make it do more than the built in OS X support.

From the reader report:

Now for HD content: Toast 7 automatically recognizes 16:9 content and encodes video DVDs properly for 16:9 playback on widescreen TVs and letterbox 4:3 on standard TVs. I used Apple's VirtualDVHS 2 to capture HD streams from my Comcast/Motorola 6412 PVR. Toast 7 doesn't recognize these streams (although I'm told it will recognize EyeTV TS streams). I opened the captured TS stream in MPEG Streamclip and chose Export to MPEG. This converted the stream to an HD MPEG file which Toast 7 recognized. Toast re-encoded the MPEG to an SD 16:9 video for DVD with no difficulty. Toast also retained the 5.1 AC-3 audio from the original.

I also tested with 1280x720 HD DV files in iMovie HD. I was able to drag the video straight from the iMovie timeline as well as drag the iMovie Project file to Toast. In either case Toast correctly encoded the video and properly retained the 16:9 aspect ratio.

I tried a mix of 16:9 and 4:3 movies to be burned on one DVD with Toast. Using Toast's Automatic setting, the aspect ratio was correct for each of the movies.


Think Secret also has an article on Toast 7, including screenshots. From their article:

Dolby Digital encoding and decoding will also be supported with Toast 7, as well OGG and FLAC audio CDs and audio DVDs, while Toast can also convert audio between formats and sports a number of options for doings so.

Toast 7 will also feature the ability to convert video between a number of formats, including DV, DV 16:9, HDV 720p, HDV 1080i, QuickTime, MPEG-4, H.264, 3G, and DivX, with special pre-set options for converting videos for Sony's PlayStation Portable and iTunes (an interesting option in light of rumors surrounding a video iPod).

New menu settings and options for video DVDs and CDs include automatic and custom encoding settings, as well as easy to create iDVD-like themes. Otherwise, however, the interface of Toast 7 remains largely like its predecessor.


From a reader report on MacInTouch:

Toast 7 seems to have vast improvements over v6 in terms of video support. You are able to control compression rates as well as whether video should be reencoded at all. I burned a few mpegs downloaded from my Tivo and Toast was more than happy to leave the video alone while fixing up the audio. The results seem pretty good although I haven't fully tested the DVD yet.


-mike

I was reading a little article about BenQ planning to ship Blu Ray players in the first half of 2006 when I came across this snippet:

Sony, the key member of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), also plans to offer PC-use Blu-ray drives in the first quarter of next year, local industry sources pointed out.


The article didn't stipulate whether those were read only or burners, but I'd wager that burners would be available pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, this also looks like it means the PCI Express based Macs due this fall (and I got some confirmation on that, along with confirmation that there WILL be SOME kind of Apple video iPod type device) will NOT include Blu Ray SuperDrives. We'll have to wait until a MacWorld SF product launch for that kind of product. And, if Apple is true to form, they'll be announced at MWSF in January, but not available to Mortal Man until April or so. Doubt me? It's been that way for 5 plus years with spiffy new high end models.

-mike

Liked the Movie, Loved the Megaplex - New York Times is an interesting article in the NY Times about movie theaters that offer more than movies, soda, and popcorn.

Reserved seats, beer/wine/alcohol and real food are some of the perks being offered by theaters around the country.

Personally, I like the Alamo Drafthouse chain here in Austin - fun everyday food and wine/etc. for movies, including what I'd consider New Movie Food - pizza, beer, fried cheese, Italian sodas, wine, etc. Want to eat healthier? Veggie sandwiches and salads are available too. If a movie I want to see is showing at an Alamo (4 in town), I go there over other theaters, even if it's a drive.

Read that article, then read CinemaTech's comments on the same article::

(from CinemaTech):
Here's my prediction, which I don't think is too daring: over the next ten years, a brutal and severe movie theater shake-out will take place - the result of our increasing preference for enjoying movies at home. We'll go from 36,000 theaters in the U.S. to less than 10,000. But those that survive are going to be *fab*: giant screens, cushy seats, great sight lines, tasty food (not to mention booze), intelligent programming, and frequent visits from directors. (And along with it all, premium pricing.) The blah theaters will vanish.

I think this is a believable theory - 10 years may be too short a timeframe, but I think the gist of it is correct. I'd peg that timeline at more like 10 to 20 years, but we'll have to wait and see. I'm sure that high def home theaters and more movie delivery options (Netflix type services getting more popular, downloadable movies via TiVO/Apple iWatch/DVR/etc.) will have a pronounced affect on the rate of theater shrinkage.

It will be interesting to see these two forces competing - the uptake of digital projection with it's opportunities to showcase a wider variety of movies, while more options and better quality in the home compete from the other side. If one factor moves faster (move to digital projection with more movie choices) it will prolong movie theaters' lifespan in America, if the other (better home choices) moves faster it will hinder theaters' demise.

-mike