Videocracy Blog

Well, today is a sad day for me, I am going to put my analog Hi-8 video camera to pasture.  I got this camera 10 years ago…from my uncle.  It was the camera that I made some of my first films on, and also my first film I made in college was shot on this camera.  It’s a Sony Handycam, I’ve done a lot with that little camera…and at the time it was pretty state of the art and pretty expensive.  Now of course it’s just big, bulky and heavy.  But I still use it from time to time to look at old Hi-8 tapes.

I pulled it out today to do some transferring of video, and the LCD screen turned completely white…and after adjusting the brightness and contrast dial on the camera it doesn’t seem to get any better.

The camera can still be hooked up to a television to view tape…but I think its days of recording new video are over with…

My Super 8 camera that my dad gave me was put out to pasture about 3 years ago, and now it lives in my Film and Photo archive display…which is now where this little camcorder is headed.  I can’t get rid of it…so I might as well put it on display.

I was doing some reading and the term broadcast safe has come up…or Broadcast legal…and it occurred to me, that even though I’ve learned what this term is, I don’t really know or understand what it means.  That sparked me to look further into it’s meaning.

Broadcast Safe is enforced by the FCC or the Federal Communications Commission.  They put a regulation on how a video will look in order for it to be broadcast on television.

The requirements for NTSC (which is used in North America and various other parts of the world) are as follows.

There should be 525 Horizontal lines to the video.  Visibly this is also 480 pixels, as in 720×480, which is a standard size for video.

The frame rate should be 29.97 frames per second, which is standard for NTSC and television.  In Europe (also known as PAL standard)  it is 25 frames per second.

The resolution should be 720×480 which I stated above.

The Black levels should be at 7.5 IRE for NTSC - What this is, is a setup to properly make your blacks look right.  If they are set up too dark, then they become one massive lump of black instead of showing the necessary detail.

and the White levels are 75% Intensity - The amount of intensity of the white can actually take over the television signal, and not only cause the image to distort, but interestingly the audio will distort as well.  If the whites are TOO white, it will cause an ugly pattern on your television screen, and your audio will buzz like a fly.

These settings are set up so that you get the best image possible on the television screen, and it will help prevent it from varying the picture from one TV to the next.

I hope that helps you it, as much as it did me…

It was announced today that Toshiba will no longer be selling or manufacturing their HD-DVD players or HD-DVD media…which means that as of March, the HD-DVD/Blu-ray war is officially over…

According to the HD-DVD web site, they will continue to support the DVD players that were previously sold and they will continue to sell standard DVD players.

So I suppose that means that that HD-DVD will join the ranks of Beta, and Laser Disc in home video history…

Interesting turn of events…for more info check out www.HDDVD.com (a website we may not see for too much longer I suppose).

I learned something new in Final Cut Pro…

Over the weekend I was working with a friend on his Final Cut Pro editing machine, and I noticed that his layout was set up for a two screen display, a little bit differently then mine is.  The way I have it set up is that I have the Browser and the timeline in the usual place, but I have the Canvas Window set up to take up the entire right screen.  Then I moved the Viewer screen over one spot, and I filled in the hole where the viewer once was with the effects window.  This set up was alright, it allowed me to view my edits on the canvas while remaining on their own separate screen, however it prevented me from setting up my Final Cut Pro in the default manner which I liked and had gotten used to.

My friends set up was still maintaining the standard FCP set up, but he had a third viewer, that took up the entire second monitor, and basically mirrored the Canvas window.  Leaving you no buttons, no controls in the second monitor, just a playback image.  This sort of thing works out nice if you have a Television hooked up to your computer, or you are just trying to show someone what you’ve been working on without having all the FCP interface get in the way.

Well, I wanted my set up to look like that…and I did a little poking around and couldn’t figure out exactly how to set it.  Oh sure, I could have asked my friend, but then there is no fun in figuring it out myself…

I looked under the window setting thinking it was a window thing…and checked my user and system preferences and still couldn’t find it.  I finally found it in the View menu, all the way down at the bottom, in the Video Playback option…in there it gives you 5 options.

None - no Display

Digital Cinema Desktop Preview - Main: sets it up on your main screen leaving no FCP interface at all.

Digital Cinema Desktop Preview: This sets up a 720×48o preview on your second monitor with a black border around it.  This is the option I chose…

Digital Cinema Desktop Preview - Full Screen: Gives  you a playback image that fills up the entire screen.  This option I might use if I was showing of my work to a client.  Gives them more to look at, and they don’t have to be as close as I would be.

Digital Cinema Desktop Preview - Raw:  Gives you the same as the Digital Cinema Desktop Preview, but it seems to be a little clearer.  This option might be used for HD, and it probably uses more of your computers resources.

So if there is any FCP users out there who have had this same quandry, and wondered how you can make this work…now you know.  And it didn’t take long to find out either.

A hot topic around town these days is the idea of Copyleft…which would be the opposite of Copyright…

According to the dictionary copyright is…

cop·y·right [kop-ee-rahyt]

–noun

So the definition of copyleft is…

cop·y·left (k?p’?-l?ft’)

n. A form of licensing that encourages the distribution of software at no charge for noncommercial uses.

So basically, copyright protects your creation whether it be art, photography, writing, or anything else that is created… from being used by any other person. Whereas copyleft is when a person creates an entity that he or she allows can be used by anyone else, for anything else, as long as the original creator is attributed. This all falls under creative commons licensing.

Of course it’s a little bit more difficult then just allowing someone to use your work…you have to decide how you want them to use it. Do you want them to use it in it’s original form, as long as they attribute you and your work? Do you want them to use it, but not make money off of it? Do you want them to be able to modify your work? Do you want them…… The list goes on.

I discovered a website, that deals only with this issue, it is the Creative Commons Website… www.CreativeCommons.org

This site helps you determine the proper use of your item, and explains in further detail what Copyleft is, and how it can be used. And it even talks about creative commons laws in other countries.

It’s really interesting stuff and it’s worth looking into…

The best part of the site is their videos, they got a lot of really neat and informative videos to watch that help explain the idea of Creative Commons and Copyleft. Below is one by Justin Cone, called Building on the Past…and of course this and other videos along the same lines can be found at support.creativecommons.org/videos#past
I think from now on I’m going to think harder on how I want my work to be shared…I mean some work yes, I want to obtain the rights to it, but at the same time, there might be work that I’d like to see get used by other people in say a news article…It’s a great way to get your work out there to as many people as possible.

I encourage everyone to check out more on this topic, cause it’s an interesting one…

 

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I took another photo walk yesterday, tested the limits of the camera, and what it can do with the white of the snow…

I went up to the Kettle Moraine State Park, one of my favorite spots in the Wisconsin, I’ve camped there before, and wanted to see what it was like in the winter time.

I spent most of the time doing what I like to call “Curbside” photography, basically what that means is, if I see something interesting, I pull over…leave the car running, snap a few shots and move on…Part of the reason I did this is cause as soon as I got up there I got caught in what seemed like a small blizzard, definite  white out conditions…so I took it slowly, took pictures when I could, but for the most part got out of the park before it got too terrible…

On my way back as I was racing for a gas station, I came upon a farm with what looked like Yaks…basically they were long haired cows with giant horns, and boy were they curious.  They would all stop what they were doing to look at the guy on the side of the road.  I got a few really neat pictures of them doing there thing…

It was nice to be out and about in the cold…I like being in the cold, and exploring the area is always fun too…

More photo walks to come…pretty soon I’m going to go to the Zoo in Wintertime.

I discovered a site to help me learn more about working with blender, the site is www.BlenderArtisits.org the site is dedicated to users of Blender, and forums to help each other out…

I’m in the process of modeling the mesh on a microphone so it looks less like an ice cream cone, and I’m hoping that this site can help me out…

More to come on that one…

Had an opportunity to go out and shoot some photos yesterday…Wisconsin got hit with a snow storm on Wednesday, but by Thursday everything was fairly cleaned up…

I took a ride out to the Mitchell Park Domes in Milwaukee, it’s one of those things that exists in the city…but people often forget that it does exist.  Admission is $5 and you tour three domes (similar to a biosphere) that are temperature controlled and have various plant life growing in them.  One dome has a Tropical rainforest like atmosphere, and the other is an arid desert atmosphere…those two never change.  The third dome rotates through out the year.  And right now it had a model train set up in it…The Arid and the Tropical dome were a little bit more run down then I ever remember them being.  I got a lot of interesting photos…but for the most part, there is only so many ways you can shoot a cactus.

After I toured the three domes and got a few exterior shots I drove to Grant Park which is right off of Lake Michigan in  the South Milwaukee area…I didn’t plan on going there at first, but my aunt sent me an email which I got right before I left and it said that she took a ride through Grant Par, and it was beautiful…she said it would be a good time to go take photos there…So that’s exactly what I did.  I took a hike for about a mile taking photos of the snow covered landscape.  The snow was about 2 feet deep in some areas and I was pretty well covered in snow by the end of the hike…But surprisingly I wasn’t that cold.

I finished up my day by going down to the Marina…and taking pictures of the boats in storage and the frozen lake…This is usually a favorite of mine seeing different ways I can photograph the marina…it’s an interesting place with a great view of the city.  I also took a lot of photographs of the  Hone Bridge, from underneath mostly…I drove to the summer fest grounds where you have a clear access of the bridge from all angles…not a soul was around the festival grounds so I had my run of the place.

All in all it was a good day of photos…I haven’t looked at any of the close to 300 photos I took…so I’ll be curious to see how they turn out..

So I am a video guy, I create…I’m not a sports fan, never really was.

So if you ask me what I thought of the New York Giants vs the New England Patriots, I’d shrug and say I have no idea…

But if there is one game I watch every year, it’s the Super Bowl, but for two reasons 1) the Half Time show, and 2) the Commercials.

It started for me when I took a History of Advertising class, and I was required to write a paper about the Super Bowl Commercials, I learned about the Apple Computers’ 1984 commercial, and all other famous SB Commercials.  But from that point on I went out of my way to pay attention to the commercials during the big game.

And this year with a price tag of 2.7 Million Dollars per 30 second advertisement, you know they better be good.  And attention grabbing…but, I’m here to say that I was completely disappointed by the commercials I saw this year.

Often times we see  commercials that are both funny, and/or heavy on the CGI…with a few movie trailers thrown in for good measure.

This year was no different, except I found that most of the commercials were only mildly amusing, but yet still heavily laden with CGI.

Some of the commercials I did like, were the Career Builder Commercials, especially the one with the Jiminy Cricket like character coming to the aide of someone looking for a new career.  I liked the Macy’s Day parade commercial for Coca-Cola, where the Underdog balloon, and the Stewey Griffen balloon fight for a balloon of a coke, only to have it taken away from them by Charlie Brown.  I thought that was my favorite of the evening.

I did like the Pepsi commercial with Justin Timberlake getting dragged across the street, I thought that was a clever play on the idea of “Getting you closer to something”

Any of the other commercials that aired, if it didn’t get my attention or it isnt’ one I can remember, then chances are it wasn’t that good… And out of all the commercials that aired, those are the ones that garnered the most impact.  A lot of them I felt as though I’d seen before, a lot of them I probably have…

The Budlight commercials which in years past have come up with some clever advertisements,  and that remains to be true with one exception…Will Ferrell dressed up as his character for the new movie Semi-Pro, pictching Bud Light…that was clever in a two fold way, 1 because it advertised the movie, and 2 because it advertised Bud Light, and people like Will Ferrell so that could help out both campaigns…however the commercial wasn’t as good as it could have been.

Overall I was completely disappointed by the  commercials this year, I thought for awhile that maybe I just wasn’t paying attention, but reviewing the commercials that aired today, I find that that’s not true…I do remember seeing these commercials and they just didn’t do it for me…

Well there’s always next year.