Why I Don’t Buy Digital Movies

With the availability of iTunes and other digital video services, I hear a lot of people talk about how they don’t buy DVDs any longer.  I hear things like “I don’t want to take up space with all of those cases” or “my kids destroy DVDs” – which make sense, but at the same time I can’t bring myself to give up my physical media.

For me, though, digital video distribution (DVD?) plays a supporting role rather than the primary role in building my video collection.  I don’t purchase movies digitally – I buy the discs.  Almost always Blu-ray discs, actually, since normally when I watch movies they’re being projected on a 100” screen, and DVD can fall apart at that size.  So do streaming services, to some degree, as well, but this isn’t the reason I choose not to invest in digital.  It’s more basic than that.

The main reason is that I don’t trust that these services are going to be around in ten years.  And I don’t want my investment to be lost.

History already tells us that we can’t rely on these services, no matter who is backing them.  Several big players have already tried and failed, including Wal-Mart and Target.  And when they fail, you lose what you’ve bought.

I know what you’re thinking… that Apple’s iTunes isn’t going to go away.  Maybe not.  At least not now.  But can you actually believe that Apple, if they’re still around in 20 years, is still going to be supporting a service that old?  They don’t support any services more than a few years old now.  There’s just no way that they’ll actually still make your movies available to you that far in the future.  Technology changes too fast.  Twenty years in the technology world is an eternity.  Very few tech companies make it that long. 

Owning the discs ensures that I’ll be able to watch them 10, 15, or more years in the future.  Even if (when) manufacturers stop making Blu-ray players in the future, the players I own today will still play those discs moving forward.  Yes, we’ll see improvements in picture quality with new tech like 4K and HDR moving forward, but Blu-ray is pretty good – it’s virtually the same level of quality currently projected in your local theater – and many movies have actually been shot in HD-like resolution, so in those cases a higher quality version usually doesn’t even exist.  And unless you’re sitting really close to very large screen, newer technologies won’t even provide any additional discernable picture detail. (Though HDR, if it catches on, has the potential to improve things considerably.)

The other big reason I still buy discs is convenience.  I don’t want to be without a way to watch a movie if my Internet goes down, I’m travelling somewhere where I don’t have Internet access, or it isn’t fast enough to stream a movie reliably.  Maybe in 5-10 years our Internet access will be more reliable and high speed will be more ubiquitous, but I just can’t count on it.  And will the streaming service you’ve invested n still be around at that time?  There’s no way to know.

That said, it isn’t like I don’t use digital video services, because I do.  They’re just my backup.  Most movies I buy come with a code to unlock digital versions.  And if they don’t, I’ve really found Vudu’s Disc-to-Digital program to be very handy.  (Tip: If you use the service, do the conversions at home on your own computer, and convert more than 10 discs at a time for a 50% discount.) I can’t convert all of my movies to digital, but I can certainly convert enough of them that I’m generally not left wanting when I want to stream a movie. I’ve got 241 on Vudu right now, so I’ve got plenty to choose from.

In any case, I know that everyone’s situation is different.  But I would encourage you to think about the future when making your video purchases.  Would you care if your selected service shut down in 5 years?  Would it bother you if you lost your investment because they’ve gone belly-up, or choose not to support it any longer?  It’s something to consider.

Photography Class Moved

Up until now, I’ve been hosting my Introduction to Photography classes on Google Video (YouTube doesn’t allow videos over 15 minutes).  Google is shutting the service down, so I have decided to upload the classes to Vimeo instead.  Each class is between 40 and 80 minutes.

Class 1: Introduction / Exposure
Class 2: Photo Composition
Class 3: Your Point & Shoot Camera
Class 4: Color and Lighting
Class 5: Photo Touchup (Photoshop)

The big upside to the move is that the quality of the video is much higher now.  The down side is that I have to pay to host the videos now.  Since I can’t advertise in the videos or on their site, I’d appreciate you clicking the Amazon links here on this blog when making purchases, especially electronics, to help offset some of that cost.  There’s now way Amazon referrals will cover the hosting entirely, but it will certainly help.

This class is freely available to all.  I’m on a mission to save the world from bad information.  With the videos hosted on Google, 30,000 people were helped in their photography education. Hopefully we’ll see the same with Vimeo. :)

2010

Since I’m really bad about getting Christmas cards and letters out (it has been many, many years), I thought I’d use my blog to publish what would have been my Christmas letter.  I can reach more people this way, anyway.

In many ways 2010 was much the same as the past several years, consumed mostly with my work responsibilities.  As many, but not all, of you may know, in late 2007 I got involved with a new business venture.  A friend of mine, Jared, contacted me to ask if I would be willing to create the cash register component of a Point-of-Sale system for a quick-service pizza restaurant being opened by a friend of his. Despite my hesitation to get involved in such projects in the past, I decided to undertake the challenge.  Soon we began to attract the attention of other franchisees in the chain, and before we knew it we were selling our product to others.  Since that time we officially organized Custom Register Solutions, of which I am part owner.  In 2010 we increased our size from 3 employees to a company with 15 people.  It has been quite a ride.  My brother Brent joined the company in June this year, helping to create the web site portion of our software.

In 2009 we were approached by some executives from the parent company of the same international pizza chain to see if our product could be adopted to some new and very specific needs.  It was pretty evident that we could, so since that time we’ve been working intimately with them.  We’re confident that we will be announced as their preferred POS vendor very soon (the only “iffy” part is when, not if).  Between the preparation for that upcoming announcement, the demand it will place on us when that happens, and our fast-paced development schedule in the company I have been working very long weeks for a little over 3 years now.  It is nice to be getting close to the realization of what was, at the time we started the project, an impossible dream.  We’re doing some very cool and innovative stuff, but I can’t talk about that just yet.

In spite of the many hours I spend working, I have still gotten involved in several other outside projects.  Everyone who knows me is well aware of my interest in audio, video, and photography, and I have always enjoyed working on any project that involved any or all of those three.  This year was no exception.  Early in the year I proposed the idea of a live Internet-streamed concert to an up-and-coming California-based artist named Sonnet who had become known in Utah for the soundtrack she provided for a popular television commercial, and she was gracious enough to accept.  Soon the project blossomed into an honest-to-goodness real music video as well, which my friend Dave would direct, and another friend Paul would shoot.  February through May included a lot of planning for those events, which took place the first through second weeks of June.  It was a very busy schedule, but it was also a lot of fun spending time with old and new friends as part of the crew.  Few of the final results have been posted on the Internet at this point , but I will be sure to let everyone know when they are.

I had the privilege of spending more time with family this year than most.  My youngest sister Christine graduated from BYU in Psychology in April, and my parents and sister Suzanne all flew to Provo to be there for that.  Christine was seriously dating her then-boyfriend Brennen at the time, and a week later they announced their engagement to be married in August.  Through the planning stages my mom came back to Provo to help Christine out for a few days.  The entire family came out for the wedding in August.  It was the first time that all of us had not just been together, but had the opportunity to go to the temple as a family as well.  It was definitely a memorable occasion which we are all grateful for.

After the craziness of the wedding wound down, it was back to work as usual for a couple weeks before I headed to Tucson for two weeks to help with the installation of our software in 13 store locations there.  It was hot and stormy the first week, and the second week it was hot and dry, but the condo we rented had no working air conditioning.  I spent many nights on the couch just trying to get comfortable enough to sleep, while working in the heat during the day.  I was glad to come home.

This year I also got to see one of my favorite musical acts, Celtic Woman, perform not once but twice.  They came to Salt Lake in May, and I took my friend Sarah as my date, and Dave and Paul tagged along as well.  Sarah spent several years in Ireland and enjoys Celtic music, so it was a treat for her to be able to go.  The girls in the group are pretty amazing.  I really enjoyed the concert, so when they went to Los Angeles at the end of August I decided to see them again.  This time I took Sonnet with me, who despite being ill that day had a good time.  It was also nice to see my new friend again and spend a couple days with her in her hometown.  We planned to work together to record a short Christmas album, but due to both of us having busy schedules that didn’t happen this year.  Maybe next year?

Other projects this year included shooting video for a handful of weddings, doing audio for an international dance/music festival in Sandy, UT, my annual trip taking pictures of fall leaves with my friend Dave, recording the commentary for a feature film, and being the regular sound guy for the Mountain Blue southern bluegrass A Cappella gospel group.  Mountain Blue kept me really busy in early December, with quite a number of performances in the first half of the month.  But I love anything involving audio, video, or photography, so any opportunity that comes is more than welcome.

I am spending my Christmas vacation at my parents’ home (as I always do) in Tulsa, OK this year, with nearly all of the rest of my family.  Only my sister Cheryl and her husband Blake and their kids won’t be there. Their family is getting big and it is becoming more difficult for them to all travel.  It’s sad that they won’t be there with the rest of us, but we understand why they can’t and they’ll be with us in spirit.  This year Christine will be bringing her new husband with her, so we’re excited to include a new family member in our festivities.  We’re very lucky that we have been able to have so much of our family together for Christmas for so many years.

Christmas is my favorite time of year, not just because I get to see my family, but also because it is the time of year when many people put their own desires aside and think of others, and because it is the time of year we dedicate to thinking about our Savior, Jesus Christ.  The spirit of the season is unique, and something I look forward to throughout the year.  It never lasts long enough.

Recent Product Mini-Reviews

I’ll refrain from publishing my long in-depth reviews of some of my technology acquisitions this time, but I’ll say just a little bit about a few toys I have picked up in the last couple of months.

iPod Touch (4th Generation)

I ordered the 4th Generation iPod Touch the day it was announced and it arrived about a week later, so I have had it for about 6 weeks now.  I still very much prefer my Zune HD for music (better, faster UI, an excellent music subscription option, and a lot more features like artist bios, photos, and automatic linking to similar artists and albums for music playback), but the iPod Touch is really the only game in town when it comes to apps so I try to keep up to date.

The new Retina Display is nice and sharp, but still suffers from color shifting off-axis as previous generation models did.  (The screen goes yellow or blue if you don’t view it straight on.)  The overall speed of the device is pretty good too.  I still believe that the “multitasking” added by iOS 4 is a gimmick, as it doesn’t really allow apps (other than a very select few categories) run in the background.  So much for true background Twitter updates, or instant messaging without annoying push notification alerts.  Steve Jobs' insistence that these things can’t be done without draining the battery is just flat wrong… plenty of other devices out there are doing it now.

As with the previous devices, the hardware is excellent.  Thin, and light.  But it still irks me that Apple insists on using a shiny back to the case, as it is incredibly easy to scratch.  Even being very careful with it mine has already gotten badly marred.  And the back cover doesn’t seem as durable as previous generations.  Mine is already dented, which never happened with either of my two previous Touches.

Having the front and rear cameras is nice, especially for FaceTime calls (which work well), but the low resolution of the rear camera makes it essentially useless for shooting photos.  If your intent is to video conference with other FaceTime users, this will work just fine.  If you want to shoot photos, you still need an actual camera.

In my opinion iOS is getting a little long in the tooth without a major update.  Sure the newer features are nice, but Apple is still making too little progress on making their operating system truly useful for productivity applications.  Annual upgrades are just incremental… they now need something bigger. 

I have had one pretty annoying issue with my Touch.  When I go into the App Store to download apps or update software I get an error message that it can’t connect to the App Store multiple times before it will finally let me in.  And then I get the same error again when I actually tell it to install updates or a new app, and it requires me to re-enter my password each time.  I have to go through the same process several times before it will actually work.  My iPad, running on the same network, doesn’t do that, and the Touch does it whether I’m at home, work, or connecting through my Verizon MiFi.  Definitely feels like a bug.

I still despise iTunes.  I believe it to be one of the worst pieces of software ever inflicted on the public.  It is so slow and bloated that it badly needs to be rewritten.  It’s unfortunate that the iPod Touch is so reliant on it for syncing content with a computer.

Sony PlayStation 3 Move Controller

I also recently picked up a Sony PlayStation 3 Move controller.  This is Sony’s attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the Nintendo Wii with its own motion controller.  Unfortunately, I don’t feel like Sony did a very good job.  It feels even more like a gimmick than the Wii’s.

For $100, the controller came with the required EyeToy camera and Sports Champions game.  It’s a pretty obvious attempt to copy Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, not necessarily with the same games, but with the same basic idea.  Some of the games can be fun, others can be incredibly frustrating.  I won’t blame the controller for that, though.  Extra controllers are $50, or the optional Move Navigation Controller (like the Wii’s Nunchuck) are $30.  If you were to buy the starter bundle plus enough controllers for four people you’d be dropping a pretty good chunk of change ($370, not including the cost of the PS3 itself).

What I did have a problem with is the way that the controller works in practice.  At the start of each game (or in the case of Sports Champions, each mini game) you have to go through a 3-step calibration procedure.  It doesn’t take very long, but after playing a handful of games, having to repeat the procedure over and over does get pretty old.  In addition to that, part of the calibration procedure involves making you stand in a designated (and pretty small) area of the view of the camera.  And you have to stay there.  This also means that you aren’t free to move around as you play a game… Once you put yourself inside of the on-screen box during calibration, you have to plan to stay put throughout the game or it doesn’t work quite right.

Response on the controller was pretty good (as long as you resist the temptation to step away from the spot where you were standing during calibration), but not any better than the Wii Remote with the Plus add-on.  Definitely better than the Wiimote by itself, but no better than what you get with Wii Plus.  Motion sensing was accurate.

The cost of the controller is a little on the high side, but not terrible. With the limitations in Sony’s implementation of motion gaming I can’t really recommend the Move at all, though.  Especially if you already have a Wii.  The controller does give Wii-like capabilities to the PS3, but, at least to me, the advantage of high definition gaming doesn’t outweigh the frustrations that come with Sony’s implementation of motion gaming.  If you can play a game without moving around, and don’t mind going through a calibration procedure before each game, you’ll probably enjoy the Move.  But if you already have a Wii, this won’t add anything.

Apple TV (version 2)

Several days ago I picked up the new Apple TV as a way to attempt to stream some my TV shows and videos from my computer to my living room television.  I say “attempt” because I still haven’t gotten it to work.  I suffered through adding all of my video content to iTunes, but as of right now my Apple TV either won’t see my computer at all, or when it does, it will only stay connected for a couple minutes before dropping the connection.  So watching videos from iTunes is pretty much out of the question at the moment unless the video is less than 60 seconds long.  I also can’t get the iTunes Remote Speaker feature to connect to my Apple TV either, even though it will connect to my brother’s previous generation Apple TV.

The device does play Internet sourced content just fine.  With my recent Internet connection upgrade, I can actually stream high definition, a major upgrade from being stuck with SD previously.  The Apple TV only supports 720p resolution content, though, so 1080p video is played with half its original detail.  Streaming rented TV shows, YouTube videos, and NetFlix all seem to work fine, within the limitations of a user interface designed for a simple remote and television.  But since I can’t get it to connect to my iTunes reliably and I already have NetFlix and YouTube video capability elsewhere, the box is mostly useless to me.  Even if I could get it to stream from my computer properly I’m not sure I’d recommend this to someone unless they already had a huge investment in iTunes video.  I’ll say more on that in a second.

There is speculation we’ll see upgraded capabilities with new software on the Apple TV in the future.  The hardware seems to be capable of a lot more than what it is doing.  I hope we do see some upgrades, because for less than the Apple TV’s $99 price there are other boxes with greater flexibility out there, like the...

Roku HD Player

A couple months ago I found an amazing Internet deal for the Roku HD video player.  I have had the ability to stream NetFlix through my Xbox 360s, PS3, Wii, and Samsung Blu-ray players for some time, but the Roku adds a bunch more other video sources.  Installation was very easy… plug in power and HDMI, and it’s off and going.

It works just like it supposed to.  I have streamed not only NetFlix videos, but also podcasts from TWiT, Revision3, shows from NASA, PlayOn, HGTV, Amazon-on-Demand (works like the Apple TV to rent/buy TV shows and movies), and many other sources.  And they are adding new channels quite often.  While most "premium” content is only available for pay through Amazon, the amount of free content is becoming extensive, especially when you add optional private channels through the Roku web site.

The best part is the price.  The box starts at $60.  Since it does a lot more than the Apple TV, I’m going to have to recommend the Roku boxes over the ATV unless you absolutely must stream content from iTunes, in which case the Apple option is the only one you have. 

Amazon Kindle (3rd Generation)

Not being a huge reader myself, the Kindle doesn’t necessarily appeal to me in the way that it would a lot of people.  It has appealed to me as a gadget from the day it came out, but I couldn’t justify the $329, $299, $249, or even $189 for a gadget I wasn’t sure I’d use much.  But when Amazon announced the Wi-Fi only version for $139 two months ago, I decided at that price I could get one to play with it.

I’ve read a lot of varying reviews of the device over the 2.5 years of its existence.  Most people absolutely love it.  Then there are some Apple fans who love the iPad so much they have to put down the Kindle.  Owning both, I find myself leaning a lot more toward the first group.  Yes, you can read books on the iPad, but it’s too heavy to hold for reading for very long, and its reflective screen can be a problem.  In other words, the iPad is not a replacement for the Kindle.

I actually really, really like the Kindle.  It isn’t perfect, but it is very good.  It is very light, thin, and the electronic ink screen (not backlit; looks and reads just like paper) is very easy to read.  If you haven’t seen an e-ink screen, there just isn’t any way to accurately describe it.  It really does look like you’re looking at a sheet of paper.  Text is crisp, and there aren’t screen reflections to worry about.  The words appear right at the surface of the screen instead of behind the thickness of a pane of glass.  At first the flash-to-black-then-white of the screen when turning pages was a bit distracting, but after I got into my first book the screen flash totally disappeared from my mind and I didn’t notice it any longer.  e-ink screens aren’t great for everything, but they are perfect for reading.  The fact that the Kindle runs for about a month on a battery charge because of the type of screen it uses is pretty cool too.

Purchasing content is super easy, and very fast.  The Kindle store on the device isn’t quite as fast to use as purchasing directly on the Amazon web site from a computer, but it does work very well anyway.  There is a decent amount of free content as well.  But my favorite feature is the ability to preview the first chapter of a book before purchasing.  So it’s kind of like browsing the shelves at the book store before committing to a purchase.  Books download in a matter of seconds, and if they are purchased online from a computer they appear on the device without doing anything… they just show up.

The Kindle is very cool.  It just might turn me into more of a reader than I have been in the past.  But probably the biggest compliment I could give it is to share the opinion of a friend.  When I told her I was buying it she swore to me that it is something she would never be interested in because she likes the feel of the paper in a real book, and likes to collect books and show them off in her bookshelf.  She said she could never envision herself reading books on an electronic device.  Then after I got my Kindle I showed it to her, and she fell in love with it and has decided to get one of her own.  At $139 it’s a great deal, and now that Target carries them in their stores, it’s even easier to pick one up.

That’s All For Now!

Well, that’s about it for now.  I know I have picked up other toys recently, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind.

First Video of Sonnet

I posted this forever ago on my Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts, but forgot to include it here on the old blog.

This is the first released video of the week with Sonnet.  There are lots more to come… you’ll just have to be patient with me.  I still have a bit of editing to do.  And the videos will be released periodically as Sonnet feels it’s time to do so.

So here’s Sonnet’s “Without You” as performed at her acoustic house concert in June.

This was a lot of fun to work on.  We had quite a few technical problems (don’t get me started), but the good things far outweighed the bad.  Not only did I get to get out my audio and video toys, and play with new video editing software, I got to work with some great people.  Sonnet is so much more than just a gifted singer and talented writer… she’s an amazing person as well, and I’m really glad that I’ve had the opportunity to work with and get to know her.  And I’m really looking forward to the other projects she and I have in the works.  I always enjoy working on projects with Dave and Paul… both are extremely talented filmmakers, and lots of fun to be around.  The music video they’re putting together is going to be fantastic!  And Brad is amazing as well… always so willing to help out with my little projects, and just brilliant when it comes to all things musical and electronic.  He was such a lifesaver helping setup for the house concert, and directing the camera operators.  Thanks so much to everyone!

So there it is… the first public release of anything we did that week.  It was such a whirlwind (I literally got 12 hours of sleep between Monday and Friday), but in a good way.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat… but plan to spread things out over two more days if possible.

How it came to be…

So a few people have asked me how this all came about… a girl I had never met from California getting hooked up with a group of guys from Utah… well…

Let’s backup to early summer 2009.  I’m watching TV late at night and a commercial for Lagoon Park comes on.  And it’s got this cute, quirky, catchy song for its soundtrack.  The sort of song you’d never pick for a theme park, because it’s just this sweet sounding girl with rich but subtle harmony and a piano, to a slow beat—far from the stereotypical loud in-your-face sort of song one might associate with an amusement park.  But extremely intriguing nonetheless.  I really liked it, so I looked up who it was.  It took a little digging, but I finally found out that it was a girl from Los Angeles named Sonnet (yes, that really is her name), that managed to land a contract providing the song for the 2009 Lagoon/Coke ad campaign.  I found her website, saw that she was on Twitter, and followed her (that’s how you “friend” someone).  And she pretty much immediately responded by following me too.  Kewl!

Fast forward a few months.  Over time I had made a few comments to Sonnet on Twitter and she always wrote back, and was always very gracious.  We didn’t have what I’d call frequent communication, but it was steady.  At one point I mentioned to her that I did sound and that if she ever wanted to do a concert in Utah I’d be glad to provide my services, but nothing more came of that (I assumed as much… she really didn’t know me from Adam, and knew nothing about my ability as a sound engineer). At one point she did come to Utah and performed a couple concerts at Lagoon, and despite how hard I tried to get there, I arrived at the park too late and couldn’t get in.  So I missed the one opportunity I had to actually meet her and hear her perform.  That was a sad day.

Anyway, as Christmas approached one day she tweeted (that’s how you say that you posted something on Twitter) that she was looking for an idea for a Christmas present for family and friends.  I mentioned to her (since she was a singer) that she ought to record a song and give that to people.  There wasn’t really time before Christmas to do that, but it started a little bit of a dialog about working together on recording a song together someday.  Completely hypothetical, but it did begin to open up the possibility that someday something could maybe possibly happen if I rubbed my lucky rabbit’s foot during a full moon while the planets aligned just so.  Long shot, but not impossible.

Fast forward another couple months to February… another girl I was following on Twitter had been advertising to her followers that she was going to be doing a live streaming concert.  She started announcing it several weeks beforehand, making it seem like a really big deal.  This other artist was better known than Sonnet, had multiple CDs out, a recording contract with a major label, and had recently landed a nationally-broadcast TV commercial with a huge company in a very public advertising campaign, so for sure this was going to be something big, right?  So I made a point to tune in, only to be very disappointed.  Instead of being something professionally produced (you know, with at least a real microphone), it was her sitting on her bed, playing her guitar, being recorded by just the webcam and microphone in her laptop under really bad lighting.  You could barely hear her sing or play.  My first thought was, “What a waste!  She has lots of fans watching, has spent a lot of effort promoting this event, and this is what we’re getting?”  It was technology heartbreak for me.

At that point I had the idea that her disappointing production was probably due to the fact that she didn’t know the right person to pull off something better.  And I also thought, “I have the equipment, the know-how, and other resources to pull off something much better.”  The problem was, this other artist was too well known to even bother responding to anything on Twitter, so there wasn’t any way that she’d even consider taking the time working with some no-name from Utah.  And frankly, her music wasn’t something that I really got that excited about, so I didn’t even really want to pursue that anyway.

So the next day as I thinking about the disappointment of the previous evening, I thought, “who do I know that is good enough to justify spending the time, has enough of a following for there to be interest, and yet is not so well known that they’d consider working with me to produce a streamed concert?”  Of course Sonnet came to mind, so I sent her a casual message on Twitter asking if coming to Utah and doing a live, streaming Internet performance was something she’d be interested in doing.  She said it was, so we connected via IM and started talking about the possibility.  Nothing definitive, but it got the ball rolling nonetheless.

I don’t really know what she thought of the whole thing at that point--I’ve never asked, but she was game for the idea.  And before long we started making plans.  Eventually we connected via email and on the phone, then started regular video conferences planning things out.  Once we found a location, and a suitable timeframe within her schedule and mine, things finally started coming together.

Sonnet was totally on board with the ideas that I had for what the concert was going to be like.  I wanted to keep it small (for many technical as well as other reasons) but completely professionally produced, with real lighting, multiple cameras, moving cameras, nice piano, high end audio equipment, shot in high definition at a nice location, etc.  The idea of just a small concert in someone’s living room struck a chord with both of us.  I’m really glad that she and I have been on the same page through the entire process… it has made it that much more fun.

Somewhere along the line I asked Dave and Paul if they’d be interested in running cameras for me for the concert.  They’ve always been really good about helping me out with projects when I ask, so they agreed.  But I think at first they just thought it was one of my silly little just-for-fun things that I do when I’m bored of the rest of my life, so there wasn’t a lot of excitement coming from them initially.

After a couple more weeks, I was frankly a little frustrated that they weren’t more excited about the project… I wanted them to be excited about it.  And to see what I saw in Sonnet—a sweet, beautiful, extremely likeable and talented singer with a catchy sound—so I showed them a couple of her YouTube videos.  Fortunately, they got it right away.  They saw the same things I was seeing, and they finally started to show some enthusiasm. 

So as we started talking about plans for the concert, somehow the idea of shooting a music video while Sonnet was going in town came up.  I don’t remember who it was that had the idea, but after asking her if she would be interested, plans for the video started coming together.  A song was picked.  Then a different song picked.  Then back to the first song.  Ideas for the story started to come and be discussed.  Too many ideas, in fact.  Later, two days before Sonnet flew to Utah her image consultant called me and Dave and we had an emergency two hour phone conference to simplify and focus things drastically.  Yes, two days before she got here we were making major changes.  Talk about flying by the seat of your pants.  Anyway, we landed in a place we were all comfortable.  (Okay, Doug, enough with the plane metaphors!)

Anyway, thankfully we had a lot of other people jump in at the last second to help out.  A few days before we started shooting Sae Sae volunteered to help, and she did some amazing recruiting… she found people to help with lighting and moving equipment around (grips), hair, and makeup.  We owe a lot to her making things go as smoothly as they did!

Honestly, I can’t take much credit for the music video.  Dave and Paul really took the idea of the video and ran with it.  I really didn’t have that much to do with putting the video together.  Other than providing some of the equipment, while it was going on my main job was to make sure that Sonnet was where she needed to be when she needed to be there, and that she was being taken care of.  Sure, I’d step in to run a second camera, or move stuff around, but ultimately my biggest role for the video was really making sure that Sonnet was comfortable.

The Internet streamed concert was another story altogether.  Where I took a back seat during filming of the music video, I stepped in and took charge for the concert.  That was really my baby of the whole week.  Multi-camera videos are something that the others do rarely, but something I do with some degree of regularity.  Fortunately I have acquired all of the equipment to do so over the last several years, even designing, building, and writing software for quite a bit of it as well.  And I actually enjoy working with audio more than video, so this was going to be my only chance during the week to do what I enjoy most. 

I’ll save the many stories from the week when we actually shot everything for another post (and maybe some of the other people involved will post something on their own blogs… hint, hint?).  It really was quite an adventure, but in a good way.  So much fun, and definitely an experience I will never forget.  Frankly I can’t believe we pulled off what we did in so little time.  And that we survived the week of no sleep, super late nights, in the heat, on little food, without hating each other by the end (much to the contrary, actually—we’re all better friends), is kind of a miracle in and of itself.

Looking for some assistance…

Next week, a very talented singer/songwriter named Sonnet (www.sonnetmusic.com, www.youtube.com/sonnetsings) is coming to Provo/Orem from Los Angeles to shoot a real music video and perform a house concert which will be broadcast over the Internet.  Sonnet is well known in Utah for her “You’re So Good For Me” song, which was featured as the music for the 2009 Lagoon Park advertising campaign.  If you were in Utah last summer, you most likely have heard the song.  Her other music is just as good.

My role in it all?  Well, I kind of organized the whole thing, and I’m providing the equipment to make it all happen.

This is going to be an affair that lasts for several days and is going to require a significant number of people to pull it off, so we’re looking for a few extra hands to help out.

Before you stop reading thinking, “I don’t have any technical skills, so I can’t be of any help” please do take the time to finish reading.  While we do require some technical skill for some tasks, most of those are already filled, and many of the remaining roles do not require any technical expertise. 

Music Video – Tues-Wed, June 8th & 9th

We’ll be shooting the music video for her new song “Seesaw” on Tuesday and Wednesday (June 8/9) at various locations in and near Utah valley.  We have technical crew more-or-less covered for these events, but we could use a few extra people for various other things that it takes to shoot a video: extras to appear in the background in a few scenes, people to hold reflectors and other lighting elements, someone to be in charge of music playback, people to move props and equipment, and maybe even run errands at various times both days.

Unfortunately this whole project is being done pro-bono so we can’t offer any sort of financial compensation.  You will, however, appear in the credits for the video, and food will be provided while we are shooting.

For the technically minded, we are doing something new and trendy: we are shooting the entire video on Canon digital SLR cameras, just like this season’s finale of House, and some feature films currently in production.  The video quality is amazing!  We’ll also be doing a significant amount of green-screen work.  This is the real deal here, folks – it’s going to be shot professionally, complete with special effects, and is going to look fantastic.

If you’ve ever wanted to be involved in the creation of a real music video, whether as an extra, or crew, this is a great opportunity.  And certainly something that can go on the resume of anyone wanting to do any video or film work.  We don’t require that you be available all day, but if you have a few hours to help out it, we would be very grateful.  We’ll have a schedule of events finalized by this weekend, which I will send to anyone who expresses any interest in helping.

House Concert – Thurs, June 10th

Rather than doing a big concert in a regular venue, we have elected to do a small, intimate concert.  House concerts are currently popping up everywhere, and are becoming quite popular, even for well-established artists, so that’s the directly we have elected to take.  Her concert will be next Thursday at 7pm in Orem.

Sonnet has invited about 30 guests, giving her the opportunity to actually interact with those who attend and talk about her music in an informal setting.  We will also be shooting and broadcasting that event over the Internet for any of her fans to view (at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sonnetlive).  The resulting video will be re-edited later and be uploaded to her web site and YouTube for all to see.

Even though it will be informal, from a technical point of view it will be very sophisticated: we’re going to be shooting on 6 cameras, have everything professionally lit, and audio will be first-rate.  It will have the feel of something small and intimate, but look and sound like a first-rate production.

We have most of the technical assistance we need (though we could use one additional camera operator), but are still looking for a little bit of additional help.  We need someone to welcome guests and make sure they are seated comfortably.  We need a few people to assist the camera operators by making sure that cables stay out of the way.  We need someone to help with the camera dolly.  We might need someone to help with controlling the lighting.  A few additional hands to move equipment in and out in the morning and evening would be very much helpful.  None of these are difficult tasks, but we’re a bit short on people-power.

Again, we can’t offer any financial compensation, but your name will appear in the credits, and you’ll get to attend a concert with excellent music, and meet the artist. 

Can you help?

If you’re at all interested, and are available any time Tuesday through Thursday next week, drop me an email at sonnetevent@djmail.org and let me know what interests you and when you’re available.  And if you know someone who is interested in this kind of thing and would be interested in being involved, please pass a link to this blog post along.

Thank you!!!

Zune HD vs iPod Touch

Just a relatively quick comparison between my Zune HD and the iPod Touch (2nd gen).  More information to follow sometime later.

• The OLED screen on the Zune HD is amazing. It is quite bright, and very vibrant. When I held my ZHD up to my Touch, the display on the Touch looked, well, pathetic. It hadn't ever been so obvious how much backlight seeps through until I compared it to a device without a backlight. And as a result of the backlight, colors on the iPod look very washed out and poorly rendered when compared to to the Zune. One quick photo to compare below… The original is on the left, Zune HD’s rendering in the middle, and iPod Touch on the right.
  
  
  
  I played with the camera settings to get a better image from the Touch, and I couldn’t do it.  Its display just isn’t very good.  I’ll be posting more pictures later.
  
• Brightness on the OLED is NOT a problem. At equivalent brightness levels (the Zune only has Low, Mid, and High to choose from) the Zune's display is at least as bright as the iPod's. The real plus side for the Zune is that picture quality doesn’t deteriorate at lower brightness levels like it does on LCD.  So you can comfortably use the Low setting and it doesn’t detract from the experience.
  
  In direct sunlight the Zune is a bit harder to see.  But the difference wasn’t huge, and who attempts to use their device with sunlight falling right on it?
  
• I have been trying for several days to take a picture that shows a decent comparison shot. But none come out quite right. The white balance of the two displays is quite different (ZHD tracks in at D6500, while the iPod Touch is closer to D5000), so either the iPod's display looks yellow, or the Zune's display looks blue when they are in the same shot. And for some reason the Zune's display shows up a little bit blurry in pictures, which I can't explain. When you see the display IRL it is extremely crisp and sharp.
  
• The Apps on the Zune don't even begin to compare to those on the iPod Touch. iPod wins hands down here.  Microsoft promises more apps later, and they will be free, but they’ll never catch up to where the iPod Touch/iPhone App Store is.
  
• The browser on the Zune is better than expected. It is a hair sluggish while a page is loading, but once the page is loading the Zune zooms and pans a lot faster than the iPod. Page rendering is fine, but it seems like a substantial number of web sites are serving up their mobile version to the Zune where they serve the full version to the iPod, so direct comparisons aren't really possible. On sites that serve the full version, though, the Zune page rendering seems fine. One obvious lacking on the Zune is that only one page can be open at a time. It doesn't attempt to mimic the multi-page capability of the Touch.
  
• The user interface on the Zune is much snappier and responsive than that of the iPod Touch. Where the iPod is rendering page transitions at roughly 10 frames per second, the Zune is easily doing 30 fps or more. Scrolling on the Zune is also at least 30 fps, where the iPod is less. The iPod Touch never really felt at all sluggish to me until I compared it to the Zune's interface.
  
• The experience of listening to music on the Zune is WAY better than the iPod Touch. Between having a more logical and flexible layout of the menu structure for finding music, and the additional features that MS has added to link between artists and provide information (and photos) about the artists in your collection, the Zune provides a much more pleasing experience. And these features are available without the Zune Pass subscription. If you add the Zune Pass subscription, the Zune leaps further ahead because you can not only download but stream any of the music in the Zune catalog in real time. So any track is available at any time so long as you have access to WiFi. And the Zune's Channels feature is a lot cooler than I had eve anticipated. It not only makes music suggestions, but it actually downloads the recommended songs directly to the device automatically so they can play anywhere even without WiFi. Apple ought to be taking notes here.
  
  I’ll be doing a full video or blog post about this.  The Zune HD changes the way you experience music.
  
• Video playback on the Zune is better primarily because of the better screen. It also does a better job of organizing your video collection, because you can manually tag video files as being movies, TV shows, music videos, or other. iTunes doesn't let you do that on your own; the only things tagged this way are the ones you download from the iTunes store. Letting the user catalog their own collection makes it much easier to find your way around.
  
• The Zune's battery capacity is technically lower than that of the iPod, but it seems to be better at managing it. After two hours of watching video my iPod Touch is dead (my unit could be an anomaly, but it doesn't seem to be). I watched more than 4 hours of video on the Zune HD and the battery meter hadn't fallen past half yet.
  
• The HD radio is cool, but I have a hard time picking up the HD feeds in my basement. Then again, I can't pick up stereo in my basement on any radio either. When I take the device upstairs or outside, the HD kicks in, and it is definitely clearer than the analog transmission. The primary benefit here is that all static goes away and you get a clean signal, and higher frequencies are much better reproduced in the digital feed.
  
• One feature on the Zune I find particularly useful is the WiFi syncing. It is very convenient to be able to click three buttons and have the device connect and download updated podcasts, music, and video from anywhere in the house.
  
• Another thing I noticed is that the Zune software automatically picks up on changes in files in the music and video folders, and reflects them in the software automatically and virtually instantly. So as I was moving files in and out of my music folders the tracks would instantly appear and/or disappear. It has always bugged me that iTunes doesn't automatically pick up on music or videos that I add to my folders.
  
• As demonstrated in my last blog post, the iPod Touch seems to have some issues with sound quality.  The Zune did much better in testing.
  
• The Zune desktop software is also significantly snapper than iTunes on Windows. And I think I like the design and interface better. With its polished interface, it is certainly snazzier and more refined. iTunes looks relatively dated at this point.

Complaints

My biggest complaint is mostly with touch-based devices in general, and isn’t specific to the Zune HD.  And honestly it is something that I’m surprised we don’t see talked about.  It’s the lack of physical buttons for navigating through music tracks.

Recently we have had the dangers of text messaging while driving crammed down our throats, and it surprises me that some of this hasn’t spilled over into other areas.  Attempting to operate a touch-screen music player while driving is just as dangerous.  In order to control the device you have to take your eyes off of the road for significant amounts of time.  And many operations on both the Zune HD and the iPod Touch require two hands to perform effectively.  Just adding two buttons for changing tracks would be huge in attempting to fix this problem.  But the current trend is to move away from buttons, and I believe this is a mistake.  I’m not asking for a device with 47 buttons for every possible function, but there really ought to be dedicated buttons for the most basic functions of the device.

I took my Zune HD with me the day I got it when I went out running a few errands.  I found that it was extremely inconvenient and potentially dangerous to do even the most basic of tasks.  This isn’t limited to the Zune, either; it is a problem with every touch-screen based music player, whether it be the Zune, iPod Touch, or iPhone.  It’s enough of a problem that I must publicly shun anybody that operates one of these devices while behind the wheel.  It’s dangerous, and it shouldn’t be done.  Apple and Microsoft both really need to rethink their designs a bit to make these devices a little more friendly to situations where full attention can’t be given to their operation.

As a result of this, I will continue using my previous Zunes in my truck.  The Zune HD will probably become my primary travelling device, but not the PMP that gets used the most.

Wrap-up

So to summarize, when comparing the Zune and iPod Touch, people looking for a device primarily for music and video, the Zune will provide a much richer and more interactive experience. For people looking to take advantage of the App Store, the iPod Touch can't be touched (hardy, har, har). So if you’re buying to listen to music, I recommend the Zune. If you’re buying for the App Store, the Touch is the only way to go.  For web browsing, the iPod has a bit of an edge, but it isn't much.  Both will provide a similar experience there.

If someone already has a significant amount of DRM protected content from the iTunes store that they want to keep, there is probably no reason to consider the Zune (though they need to get out from under the thumb of the music industry). But if someone doesn't care much about the App Store and their main focus is music and video, the Zune HD provides a significantly better experience for both. Since the Zune can play all of the file formats supported by the iPods (plus more), switching from the iPod to Zune isn't too painful, and it’s a switch that I bet a lot of people would be thankful to have made later on.

Apple Tablet: Small Mac, or Big iPhone?

There are rumors circulating that Apple will be releasing a tablet device sometime early next year.  There are certainly a lot of Apple fans that are very excited about such a device, even though they don’t even know what it will be.  (Can you think of anyone besides Apple that can get people excited about something that doesn’t even exist (and hasn’t even been announced) yet?)

There is very little information to go on at this point.  The rumors seem to be indicating that it will be a 10.1” touch screen device priced around $799.  Other than that we really don’t know much, including what it will do, or even whether it would run a full version of OS X or a modified version of the iPhone OS.  There is a rumor that the device will have some sort of cellular radio for Internet connectivity as well, but again, none of this is confirmed.

But even amidst Apple’s perpetual silence on future devices, I think there is a lot about it that we can conclude, should such a device actually come to pass.

The pricing alone could tell us a lot.  If it is priced at $799, it is $200 below the price of the white MacBook.  And about $200 over the selling price of the iPhone (price to carriers, not consumers). That alone tells me that the device will be one of two things: either it’s going to be a lobotomized netbook, or a large multimedia device.

I come to that conclusion based on the products that Apple already has in its lineup.  Think about this: the current Mac “netbook” is the MacBook Air.  In a lot of ways it is much like the PC netbooks that are on the market: small device, lightweight, low power, missing devices like optical drives and myriads of connectivity.  In fact the specifications on PC netbooks aren’t that far off of the MacBook Air, aside from the 13” screen that the Air offers where the screens on netbooks are usually 9-10”.  (Even the CPU isn’t that different between the two.)  An Apple netbook would have to be essentially a smaller, even more stripped down version of the Air at a lower price.

But we know that the device will have a touch screen.  That adds to the cost of a device.  And Apple won’t be happy if it doesn’t support multi-touch, and multi-touch capable touch devices are more expensive than the touch screens used on Tablet PCs.  For Apple to be able to release an OS X-powered computer that offers decent performance, plus a multi-touch touch screen, the price is going to be somewhere near where the MacBook Air is now, if not higher.  Nobody would buy it.

The other problem with trying to go the OS X route is that OS X just isn’t designed for a touch screen interface.  I develop software for touch screens and have learned a lot about what works and what does not work.  Menu bars, like the one that stays at the top of the screen all of the time in OS X, are totally unusable on touch screens.  Buttons, in order to be clickable, must be at least 3/4” wide and high.  A typical button in the OS X user interface would only be about 3/8” high on a 10.1” screen, making them too hard to press accurately.  A screen that size is simply WAY too small to even consider doing general purpose computing.  Even the 15” screens we use as part of my business are too small for that without software being designed specifically for that application.  Applications on OS X are not.

This, of course, ignores the fact that a tablet device lacks a keyboard.  Much of what people do on computers is based on having a keyboard.  People, especially Mac users, use their computers to browse the Internet, read email, write documents, edit photos, listen to music, and watch and create videos.  As we have seen with the iPhone, browsing the internet can be done on a keyboard-less touch screen device, but it is usefulness is limited.  Composing email without a keyboard is totally impractical.  And editing photos and creating video are both difficult (at best) on a low resolution screen, especially when the likely low capacity hard drive of the device is considered.  That leaves us with browsing (sometimes), watching video, and listening to music.  What does that list of activities sound like?  Yep.  There’s your iPod Touch/iPhone functionality.

Yes, I know the iPhone has an on-screen keyboard.  And that works okay for creating short text messages, or even short emails.  But for composing larger emails or documents, a touch keyboard just won’t do.  People like having the tactile feedback of actual keys to press when typing, especially as keyboards become larger than the screen on an iPhone.  A decent size on-screen keyboard on a tablet would fill more than half of a 10” screen, and that doesn’t leave any sort of room for software to run.  You couldn’t even rest your fingers on the screen because the act of just touching the screen would activate the capacitive touch sensor, so you’re left hovering your hands above the display.  This becomes very tiring very quickly.  Short of the tablet device being a netbook with a real keyboard, I just can’t see Apple trying to run OS X on a device this size. 

I think the prospects of an Apple tablet being based on the iPhone OS, however, are much higher than something based on OS X.  Nearly everything sort of falls in line with what we know. 

Since tablet devices are, by their very nature, touch-based, it would make a lot more sense for Apple to start with a product that is already based on touch.  OS X is not, and it would take a major overhaul of not only the OS but all of the applications that run on it to work in a touch screen environment.  The iPhone OS, on the other hand, is totally designed around a touch screen.  Touch, swipe, pinch; all of these are the fundamental operations that take place on a touch device and they’re already supported on the iPhone. 

One of the problems with the iPhone and iPod Touch is the small screen.  Watching videos on something that small is not fun, especially if you are trying to share content with someone else.  You can’t comfortably have a group of friends crowd around an iPhone to watch a video; it makes a lot more sense to take turns.  Or for Apple to release a device with a larger screen. 

An iPhone-like device with a 10” screen could be a very good multimedia player.  It’s big enough for the kids to watch in the back seat of the minivan.  Or large enough to watch a video comfortably on an airplane.  Or perhaps even large enough to become an ebook reader that competes with the Amazon Kindle.  (Yeah, battery life wouldn’t be as good, but I think most people are used to charging their electronics every night anyway.)

Creating such a device wouldn’t be without its own set of hurdles, though.  Something with a 10” screen absolutely has to have a higher resolution screen than the iPhone, so all of those apps in the App Store aren’t going to work without significant reworking to fit the larger screen (or look absolutely horrendous after being blown up to fill the larger display).  So should the mysterious Apple tablet be iPhone-based, expect that it will be limited to off-the-shelf iPhone capabilities for a while after release until developers have a chance to rewrite their software to fit the new screen.  But it would surely have music and video playback as well as web browsing built-in from the start.

But one of the biggest indicators to me that something like this will be iPhone OS-based is that Apple has a hole in their lineup of multimedia devices.  You can listen to music and watch videos on tiny devices like the iPods and iPhone, or something big like a computer monitor or TV by using the Apple TV.  There is a class of devices between the iPod and computer that is missing.  Apple wants to sell you iTunes content, but they don’t have anything that competes with portable DVD players.  The largest portable device (aside from laptops) for watching iTunes video is the iPhone. 

Also consider this… there are rumors that Apple is in talks with Verizon for a partnership for mobile data for the tablet device.  $799 might be a little steep for the average consumer.  But if the device were to be tied to a mobile data plan (like the iPhone is), that $799 might come down to $299 or $399 with Verizon contract.  That puts the out-the-door price right in line with the iPod Touch and Apple TV, and iPhone.  All of which target the same demographic they are already catering to.

I really don’t see Apple releasing a device based on OS X if it is strictly a touch screen.  And such a device certainly wouldn’t cost $799.  There is already a Mac-based device with a tablet display, the Axiotron Modbook.  It’s very expensive, and its only interesting to a very small segment of the market.  A $799 multimedia device is much more appealing to a nearly infinitely larger group of people.

The other thing that really leads me to believe that this will be a multimedia device rather than a computer is that tablet computing is not something that the masses are interested in just yet.  Microsoft’s Tablet PC features are very well implemented in Vista and Windows 7 and yet those devices are only being picked up by a very select group of people.  Outside of the world of doctors, salespeople, and maybe a few in the construction industry, a tablet computer just doesn’t make a lot of sense.  And among that group, a device at $799 might as well be $1999; they’ll pay whatever it costs.  Trying to target people for a $799 tablet just doesn’t make a lot of sense for Apple or its shareholders, especially considering how much they like their premium product markup. 

Since Apple likes to charge a 50-100% premium for their products, we ought to look at what’s in the market that would compete with a $799 product.  Yes, netbooks fall into that category, but not tablet PCs.  The other thing we find in that segment would be… you guessed it, portable video devices.

All of this coupled with the total lack of rumors or information leaks of Apple’s upcoming Snow Leopard having any sort of support for a touch-based Mac, and the rumors of an unidentified device running the iPhone OS lead me to believe that there is absolutely no way that a touch screen 10” tablet device is going to be running OS X as we know it now.  Aside from creating a brand new OS family for such a device, the only choice Apple has is to base something on the iPhone OS.  It makes perfect sense, while all of the other possible options just defy logic.

The light at the end of the tunnel

For the last 3-4 weeks I have been keeping myself very busy working on rebuilding my video production equipment rack.  “What is that?” you might ask?  I’m glad you did. 

There are two primary ways that video is created.  There is taped video production, and live video production.  Most of the people that I know that work with video do taped production primarily… making movies, commercials, and the like.  Each shot is planned out ahead of time, shot multiple times from different angles. Video made this way can take a long time to create.

The other is live production, where a crew of camera operators, a director, and other technical crew members will setup multiple cameras at some type of event and switch between the cameras live.  A director sits and monitors the different shots from the various cameras, selecting different shots to go out “live,” and giving instructions to the camera operators on what shots to get to make the video interesting and flow naturally.

I love working with video, but I’m not a huge fan of the editing phase, so focusing on live video production interests me more than taped production.  Not only that, but there aren’t very many people that do live production, so it’s a relatively easy market to create a niche in, especially for lower budget productions.  So I have concentrated on building an arsenal of equipment to handle live video easily.  It’s a lot more of a financial drain than taped production, as it takes multiple cameras and very expensive live switching equipment at a very minimum.  I have 7 professional quality video cameras (5 HD), and sometimes even that doesn’t feel like enough.

After a technical disaster I had shooting the graduation of a local college recently, I decided it was time to rebuild my existing rack of video production equipment.  We were having issues with the video from different cameras cutting in and out, problematic communication equipment, just to name two of the major issues that came up.  When I found out that my stake is having another conference a few weeks after that (this coming Saturday and Sunday) my pace for rebuilding was picked up drastically.

The 48 cables removed from the previous video rack.
These are NOT going into the new rack.  Good riddance!

This was also a great opportunity to upgrade the capabilities of my equipment.  The focus of the new setup is a 64x64 video router, which has inputs for 64 different video sources (like cameras, DVD players, etc.) and outputs for 64 different destinations (like DVD recorders, video monitors, etc.)  (For comparison, my previous router had 16 inputs and 2 outputs.)  I have had this thing for about two years but it has been sitting idle waiting to be used.   The router itself can be seen in later pictures; it’s the big blue thing on the back side of the rack, or the device with tons of blue wires coming in and out of it in the “inside” pictures.  Here’s a screenshot of some software I threw together to control the video router during the testing phase.

I had used some inexpensive cables in the old rack, and this was causing at least some of the problems I was having, so this time around I spared no expense on cabling.  I used extremely high quality video cable, with the best connectors available on each end.  Each cable was cut to the exact length needed, and the ends were crimped on.  Here’s an example of what a completed cable looks like:

I had to make about 80 of these cables in various lengths from a few inches to a couple feet.  Each one takes about 5 minutes to create.  A few shots of some of the cable after installation…

I especially like that last shot.  The 16 short cables all lined up like that are kind of pretty.  :)  But even with those, it still doesn’t look like there are 80 blue video cables in there… but there are!

The making of cables didn’t end there.  Because my rack also processes and mixes audio, I had two panels of various audio connectors, and a pile of cables to create for integrating an audio mixer.  The connectors in the next shot were particularly time consuming, as there are six individual wires that need to be attached to each one, in a relatively small space.

Instead of being crimped, the audio connections all must be soldered… on both ends.  That took quite a while to get all of that done.  I spent several days sitting at my workbench soldering connectors.

The rack also houses communication equipment.  A sort of intercom system that allows communication between the director and the camera operators.  None of that is visible directly here, but it took nearly as much time to wire as the audio connections did.

Those of you with a keen eye will notice that there is a considerable amount of twisted pair (CAT-5) cable in the rack.  This is because my former roommate Brad and I developed a system about 5 years ago that sends all of the audio and video signals over a CAT-5 Ethernet cable (one per camera).  Each cable carries two video signals (one from the camera, one to the camera), an audio signal from the camera, bidirectional intercom audio, and tally (the red light that lights up on the active camera).  An Ethernet cable is run from the back of my equipment rack to a small box of electronics at each camera.  Yes, we did build these from scratch:

This makes setup much easier, as once the production rack is setup, it’s just a matter of running a single Ethernet cable to each camera to get things going from there.  Much faster than running four or five cables to each camera, though I still do have that option if I choose to exercise it.

So here’s the finished rack…

One thing obviously missing is a video switching console.  I may be one of the only people on the planet that does video switching that doesn’t use a conventional console to do so.  I have come up with something much more innovative and easy to use.  It’s all done on a computer with a touch screen monitor.

One of the pieces of equipment in this rack takes up to 16 of the 64 video sources and compresses them down into a single signal that is sent to my laptop.  The laptop then displays these sources in a 2x2, 3x3, or 4x4 grid (depending on how many cameras I might be working with at the time), then the touch screen of the laptop is used to select video sources.  So all I have to do is touch the video I want to be “live” and the computer sends out the signals to the equipment in the rack to re-route the signals as needed to make the transition to the new video source.  I’ll try to remember to get some screenshots while I’m using it for conference this weekend, but it’s very slick (though VERY unpolished at this point).  It only takes about a minute to train people on how to use it, which is certainly not the case with conventional video switchers.  My system also announces (verbally) the typical instructions that directors give (“Ready 3…. Take 3…. Dissolve 2”) automatically over the intercom, freeing me up as a director for other tasks, like monitoring all of the cameras and giving meaningful instructions to the camera operators.

One other innovation I have come up with, and has been made possible by using the huge 64x64 router is the ability to send different video sources to the different camera operators.  Each operator has an LCD monitor mounted on top of their camera so they can see the live video that is being broadcast or recorded.  With this new rack of equipment I can now each allow operator to select which video source they want to see on their monitor, whether that be the live program feed, the preview feed (the next source about to go live), the feed from another camera, their own camera, or even a script or set list coming out of a computer somewhere.  But as of now I can also send a combination of these things.  Each camera operator can now see which video source is live, plus all of the other cameras at the same time should I choose to send it to them.  An example may help to illustrate:

This isn’t exactly what an operator will see, but it gives you the idea.  The top 3/4 of the screen show the program feed (active video program), and the bottom row shows feeds from three cameras (the same source is being used for all three here, but normally these would be different), and the preview feed.  So each camera operator can see what the others are doing, and know which source is about to go live.  That makes my job as a director a lot easier, as a good camera operator will make sure to give a different type of shot than everyone else, and especially different than the live feed. 

Another example of what can be sent to the cameras, this time using color bars:

Even though the rack is finished I’m still not done with the project.  I need to spend a couple days working on my switching software to make it work with the new setup, and take advantage of its capabilities.  Hopefully it will all go smoothly.  And if I remember I’ll post some screenshots to show just how easy to use this system is.

Conference

Last weekend was my stake conference.  (If you aren’t LDS and aren’t familiar with LDS terminology, just bear with me.)  And we had two general authorities visiting, one a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 

I’m in charge of video for the stake.  And part of that responsibility is broadcasting meetings from the stake center to the other two church buildings.  I was given several months warning that we would be having a VIP coming (though I was sworn to secrecy about who it was) so I would have plenty of time to make sure that everything was going to work perfectly.  So for about a week before Christmas, and for two weeks after I got back here after Christmas break, I was getting the various buildings and equipment ready to go.  Lots of time in the attics, in the tunnels, and on the roofs of the three buildings.  Thanks to Ryan for helping me run cable to the roof, and the deacons of my ward for doing most of the work running cables in the tunnels.  (They really loved helping, BTW.)

The first meeting that would need video services was the Saturday evening adult meeting.  So that meant I had to have everything working by 7pm that day.  But because this is a major event for me, I actually started hauling equipment over and hooking it up about 24 hours before.  The only major hurdle was the need to be out of the building at 1pm on Saturday for its security sweep.

When I say I go all out, I mean that we use four professional video cameras, and switch between them during the meetings.  All three camera operators and the director all have an intercom for communications.  We had three projectors going, along with at least a dozen televisions in various rooms in all three buildings.  I also provide graphics in real-time (words to the hymns, the text of scriptures being referenced), and setup an array of microphones to create a decent audio mix so the choir and musical numbers can be heard in the remote buildings and on the DVD recording.  (It looks like a general conference, except that it takes place in a stake center instead.)  We even had Spanish interpretation going on.  So it took several hours to setup the equipment, even with help from Brent and two others.  Not only that, but I was trying out some new technology which required me to build several new devices and assemble and test racks of equipment, as well as tweak and test the software I wrote for controlling the whole mess.  Which meant that I was awake most of the night Friday night.  And also that I was at the church building until 3am Sunday morning after the Saturday evening session installing the last of the equipment that was going to be used for the general session at 10am that day.  I think, in total, I got about 7 hours of sleep over three days while it was all going on.

Fortunately it all went off without any sort of major problems.  On Saturday night a power cord got unplugged, taking down a projector and my main camera, but other than that everything worked just the way it was supposed to.  Thanks to quick work of a couple people on the team, we were back up and running in just a couple minutes.  But it was very lucky that we only had one problem, because our visiting general authorities (as well as the stake presidency) were watching everything on LCD monitors placed on the stand.  If we made a mistake, they would see it.

After it was over it took about two hours to take everything down, even with about 5-6 people helping.  And two absolutely stuffed truckloads, plus one carload, to get the equipment home. 

But it was all worth the effort.  The apostle that was there made a very positive comment about what had been done.  And on his way out he thanked me again for my efforts, and gave a compliment on a job well done.  I was also told later on that he hadn’t ever seen anything like that done at a stake level before, and was very impressed.

After I got home Brent and I unloaded the truck and went to bed.  It was about 4:30 Sunday afternoon by then.  And I didn’t wake up until 11:00am the next day.  I was exhausted.

Now I’ll just have to go back and watch the videos to actually find out what took place during the meetings.  Performing the functions of a video director, audio engineer, or graphics guy all pretty much require the full attention of whoever is doing them for them to be done properly, and at any given time I was performing at least two, if not all three of those roles simultaneously.  So, honestly, I have no idea what was said in either meeting.  Good thing I’ve got that recording.

But thanks to Brent (setup, takedown, running a camera twice), Dave (directing Sunday morning), Paul (camera Sunday morning), Irv (setup and takedown), and Danny (setup, takedown, and running a camera twice) for helping with the whole thing.  I couldn’t have done it without you.

P.S. We even had a little fun with our visiting apostle.  He was watching the whole meeting on the LCD monitor in front of him, but if we put a video image of him on it, he would immediately look up at the crowd.  Several times through the meeting we would watch him do the same thing each time we went to a camera that included him in a shot.

World Class Apple Pie

It’s Thanksgiving, which means Apple Pie.   So here a video that Brad and I made a while back for his recipe for a world-class apple pie…  The resulting pie is truly amazing!  Enjoy!

Awesome!

Microsoft has just released the following commercial for their new Xbox 360 game, Lips:

I can't believe the awesomeness of  this commercial.  Mostly because of the song.  It's easily in my top 5 favorites from the 80s.  It's even my ringtone on my phone.  And it one of the best and most clever music videos ever made.

And then there is the literal version, and a zillion different covers.  But I like this parody:

TOTW #7: What's My File? / Better Video

Computer Tip: What's My File?

One of the things that drives me nuts about Windows is that it makes it difficult for people to distinguish between legitimate files and malware (such as a virus). In its default configuration you can't tell for sure just by looking at a file whether it is a document, or an executable program. If you end up double-clicking on a file with a virus, thinking it's a picture or a letter from Aunt Margaret, your computer is suddenly infected and it might take hours to remove the infection.

The easiest way to prevent this is to make sure that Windows tells you what type of file you are actually looking at. So instead of it showing "Picture at IHOP" you'll see "Picture at IHOP.jpg" telling you that it really is a JPEG-formatted picture, or "Picture at IHOP.exe" letting you know that the file is an executable that will probably do bad things to your computer. Fortunately setting Windows to display file types in the form of file extensions is an easy thing to change.

Under Windows XP, click Start, Control Panel, and choose Folder Options. In Vista, click the Start button, start to type "Folder Options" and it should appear in the list of search results at the top of the Start Menu.

From there, go to the View tab, find the option named "Hide extensions for known file types" and turn it off. Then click OK to save the change.

From that time on, you can tell what type of file you are looking at by it's extension. A few (but not all) types to avoid are: .exe, .com, .bat, .pif, and .vbs. If you receive an unexpected file from someone with one of those extensions, delete the file immediately!

The setting of this option carries over into Outlook and Outlook Express, so it will be much easier to tell what type of file you received in your email as well.

Multimedia Tip: Better Video

Here are a few really quick tips for much better quality video.

1. Use multiple short shots instead of one long one. We've all been bored to death by somebody's vacation or school performance video. Why are they boring? Because there is too much video. A better video would be one that only shows the most important parts of an event, leaving out everything else that isn't absolutely essential. So when shooting, only record the parts that really need to be there, and ignore the rest. But don't forget to leave a second or two before and after to make the video flow more naturally.

2. Use my "one move per shot" rule. In this context, a move would be considered a pan (movement left or right), tilt (movement up or down), or zoom. Few things scream "amateur video" more than constant zooming in or out, or multiple pans back and forth. So with each shot (remember that shorter is better here), only perform one move. One zoom in, one pan left, one tilt up, etc. If you need to make another move to tell the story of what is going on, pause the camera, reposition, and restart the recording.

3. Keep your moves slow. So every pan, tilt, or zoom, should be slow. Give your audience time to take in the scene rather than giving them motion sickness.

4. Change your position. Each time you pause the camera to change your shot, change something about the positioning of your shot, whether it be your physical position, or the zoom position of your lens. This will avoid what are called "jump shots" where two shots next to one another are too similar, creating a jarring transition that is awkward to view.

5. Use a tripod. Nobody can hold a camera perfectly still, not even the professionals. And getting to the point where you can hold it "relatively still" is an art that takes years to perfect. So take the time to get out a tripod. Or invest in motion sickness pills for the people you intend to whom you show your video. And if you don't own a tripod, use my 50 Cent Tripod Substitute tip from a couple weeks ago until you get one.