dcinput

Happy St George’s Day!

Saint George is the patron saint of England, Georgia, Bulgaria, Portugal, and Catalonia and the 23rd of April is the aniversary of his death in 303. In England it is the National Day.

The legend of George and the Dragon tells the story of a town that was forced to offer a daily living sacrifice to a local dragon in order to get to get to the town spring. As the victim was chosen in a lottery eventually it was the beautiful princess’ turn. Only moments before the princess was gobbled up by the evil dragon, George, who happened to be passing on a white horse, interveened by slaying the dragon, saving the princess. The grateful citezens who had previously been Pagans all converted to Christianity.

NAB 2006 has started in Las Vegas and runs until till Thursday. From what I can remember fxguide podcasts will be doing podcasts or possibly live webcasts during the event. James Cameron, the famed director, will keynote the Digital Cinema Summit on Sunday. Mike Curtis from HD for Indies is there and has already posted very extensive notes for Saturday.

Kyle MacDonald started out just over a year ago with one red paperclip and set himself the challenge of exchanging it for a house, an island or a house on an island. The series of trades he has made so far makes for very interesting reading. What’s also really interesting is that in each case it seems that both parties get something out of the deal. Is there an ebay for trading stuff? That would be pretty cool though not sure how you would make money out of it. Maybe advertising but then advertising is so 1990 these days and I can’t see it really fitting in with the ethos of a site dedicated to swapping. In french bartering stuff is called Troc. What a great word.

If you’ve ever wanted to run Windows, OSX and Linux on a single machine, now you can with Parralels. What is great with Parralels is that as it’s VMware you can have all three running at one. It has to run on the new Intel macs. I wonder what performance is like? At $40 its pretty resonable too.

Marc E. Babej and Tim Pollak in Forbes: “Like other professional arbiters of taste, movie reviewers just don’t matter quite as much as they used to. Once upon a time, they were the point of origin for popular opinion. In an age of ratings Web sites and consumer-generated content, they are just one voice of many. Maybe a particularly authoritative voice, but no longer the popes they used to be”.

I wrote a few days back about how great it was that both Imperial College and UCL were suporting RSS. I’ve been reading the feeds for a few days now and though they are great what I really need is to be able to subscribe to certain departments as I am mainly interested in computer science and material science. I’ve sent an email to UCL Computer Science Department requesting they offer their news section as an RSS feed. Lets see what happens.

DCinemaToday: “Barco and Silicon Graphics announce that worldwide media company Deluxe Labs has installed a Barco DP100 2K D-CINE PREMIERE projector at its Hollywood facility through SGI Professional Services”.

Its nice to finally see some press releases from Deluxe and EFilm considering their considerable input into digital cinema recently which, especially in Europe, has remained under the raidar. I get the feeling that we’re going to be seing a lot of very interesting things from these guys in the near future. Key word in this press release: worldwide.

I’ve had many dealings with SGI in the last few months and I contiunue to be extremely impressed. Whether it be in times of exteme time pressure or periods of technical planning their engineers continue to produce the goods without fail. Their share price may be low right now but sending investments their way at this time might just make you some money in the next few years.

There’s a UK podcasters meet up with Adam Curry and the podshow massive happening in London this coming Sunday (3pm) at the Bricklayers affectionally entitled Curry Club. Great pub by the way. Sign up on the Wiki if you want to come. I’ll definitely be there…sounds like fun. Beer and darts…how could I possibly pass it up? I’ll see if any of the ICSelect crowd want to come down.

It’s also the London Marathon on Sunday so good luck to my two most excellent buddies Laurie Bantin and Tony Uberschar of (among other things) the fabulous Terra Plana. May the best man win. As much as I’d like to be there with you I’ll be in a far more sensible place: the pub.

Check out these most superb Terra Plana shoes.

LATimes: ” Historically, the porn industry has adopted new technologies more nimbly than Hollywood”.

DCinemaToday: “The QuVIS Digital Cinema System™ is part of the QuVIS Digital Cinema Solution, which includes the QuVIS Acuity™ and QuVIS QuStudio™ for post production, mastering, and content management, including encryption, secure distribution and key management. QuVIS QuShow™ provides screen management of content for in-theater scheduling and show playlist management; either standalone, or in conjunction with an existing system”.

I am mainly linking to this article from the New Yorker because I haven’t finished reading it and I want to go back to it later. It’s about possible US plans to attack Iran. Pretty scarry stuff.

It’s great to see that my old University Imperial College supports RSS! One for news and one for events.

Looks like Universty College London, where I did my Masters, has one for news too! It’s a little harder to find but it sure is there.

Want to know what files are being exchanged on the darknets? Check out Peer Mind which lets you see the popularity of music, film, software, games and ringtones on P2P networks. Om Malik explains that although they don’t yet give rankings that include Bit Torrent they soon will as well tracking Fast Track, eDonkey and Gnutella networks.

Om Malik: “Improbable as it may seem, but the bandwidth glut created by the telecom bubble of the late nineties might be coming to an end”.

I’ve just gone through my bloglines feeds and deleted just under half of them. Maybe I’ll sleep easier at night now.

Ever wondered what the inside of the Beeb looks like as you’re leaving? Check Kosso’s sidebar video.

I haven’t been writing much about documentaries recently. In fact since finishing my documentary making course last month I’ve pretty much haven’t even watched any. I do remain hugely interested in documentaries however, which is why I was so happy to come accross a link from loadedpun to a site called iamorlando which finds and makes available excellent documentaries that are on Google Video

Sure is refreshing to see content from a video sharing site that’s a little more serious. The “History of Video Games” one is great. Kind of reminds me of reading “Hackers” by Stephen Levy.

I’ve noticed that my adventures in webland over the last two years have given me the same feeling of interest and excitement as when I was reading this book. It’s almost as if the web itself was a documentary except you get to see events unfold as they happen and, should you wish to, you get to participate in them. If you decide to remain an observer you get to decide the direction of the plot by which links you click on.

I think its high time for a Web 2.0 equivalent of War Games. Anyone want to write a screenplay with me?

Google Video: The Easter Bunny Hates You [violence warning].

DCinemaToday: “Twentieth Century Fox International, chose Nordisk Film’s digital screens for their first ever international release in JPEG2000. A dubbed and a subtitled master of “Ice Age 2” were prepared and distributed by Deluxe in conjunction with Éclair Digital Cinema. The film opened successfully on 3 digital screens today, including, the Imperial, the largest venue in Scandinavia (1100 seats)”.

More coverage of the same event on Digital Cinema Matters and The Hollywood Reporter.

Cinematical reports that the court cases against The Da Vinci Code might not be entirely finished as religious groups in Korea have filed an injunction against the film’s release there saying that it “may disparage and insult the divinity of Jesus Christ,” and could also lead to confusion if viewers “believe that [the] fictional tale is historical fact”.

BBC News: “Shares in Walt Disney have risen on news the US entertainment group plans to offer some of its most popular TV shows online for free”.

Many on the web react to the news with aprehension as the topic makes the top of memeorandum.

Steve Jobs can’t be too happy about losing out on the sales of these downloads he’s recently been getting. In the words of a certain Disney majority shareholder as he looked at the market “you win some, you lose some”.

Frank Gruber analyses the various services that sell online music on TechCrunch in a two part piece. In this first piece he compares pay-per-download services. The next part will look at all you can eat subscription services. The outlook is heavy DRM and an AAC/WMA format war which is bound to end in tears for us users.

Dave Winer: “Instead of thinking of “user generated content” think of the Internet as an idea processor, and you’ll be much closer to the power of what’s going on”.

I’m always looking for different ways of looking at the internet and I like this one. Depending on who you are and what you do the internet can seem like very different things, and it changes over time.

When I first started going online in the early nineties I was pretty impressed but I soon got bored as I realised that really the internet was just a glorified catalogue. Websites were static and they just tended to show you things. You couldn’t really interact. I’m sure there were interesting things going on in the web then but I just wasn’t aware of them.

The web today is a very different place. People of all walks of life all around the globe are able to interact in so many different ways, share things, create things, do business and more. Its incredible that the web has so far met everyone’s needs. The pace of change is accelerating rapidly and the boundaries of what the web is are being pushed in ever more directions. The whole net neutrality issue is somehow related to this. Will the web continue to evolve as something for everyone? It’s an important question.

The web as storage in the clouds: Amazon S3 - Simple Storage Services.

Great audio interview by Dr Jobbs with Amazon’s Adam Selipsky about the new S3 service. I’m starting to see the big deal with this thing. I’m also starting to get some really good ideas for new projects. When you don’t have to worry about storage things could get a lot more fun for developers.

Looks like the Da Vinci Code will get released after all as Dan Brown wins his case at the High Court in the UK. Any publicity is good publicity.
NYTimes: “The authors of ‘Holy Blood’, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, had failed in their effort to prove that Mr. Brown had stolen their ‘central theme’ because they could not accurately state what that theme was”.

Rushi has compiled a great list of links for AJAX newbies and its kind of geared towards PHP programmers. Just what I was looking for.

Techdirt: Universal Pictures are trying to beat dvd counterfeiters at their own game in Russia by selling “cheap ‘n early” dvds at lower cost and quality.

I missed this post on Cinematical last weekend about the upcomming Shrek spin off “Puss in Boots”. I had wondered what had happened to this idea. While I was working at the Creature Shop last year I had a load of fun doing some motion capture tests for this. Due to the fact that cats have weird back legs that bend the wrong way, the physical department, which built the animatronics, had made a special Puss in Boots exoskeleton that a human wore and to which the motion capture sensors were attached. In this way the motion data that was captured would look like it was from a walking cat.

I ended up doing the initial testing for the exoskeleton as I was about the right size and had to prance about the studio with a pretend sword. When it came down to the actual motion capture shoot they got someone else in but I did get to try on the Honey Monster outfit that day too. Brings back such good memories.

Complete coincidence but I’m going to a reunion lunch of the Creature Shop engineering team tomorrow which should be interesting. Damn it’s such a shame that the place closed down.

BBC News: “Hundreds of thousands of people have signed up for new .eu domain name since it became available to the public on Friday”. Damn it some person with my name got the one I wanted. Imposter!

BBC News: “Digital download-to-own is the new holy grail of the film and TV industry as it fights to respond to the twin challenges of piracy and new market entrants”…”However, the consumer must be at the centre of all new strategies and DRM systems that are not sufficiently flexible are doomed to failure”.

Computer Graphics World: “This week, Autodesk launched Autodesk Toxik 2007, the latest version of its collaborative digital compositing software for feature film production”.

The interactive overview of Toxik on Autodesk’s website is pretty cool. You can really get an idea of what the product can offer through the tutorials and demonstrations. Having experienced the world of pain you can get into working on projects where not enough attention has been payed to data management and workflow, I was particluarly impressed with the automation, data tracking and collaborative framework that the software offers.

Collaboration and versioning is implemented using a publishing model which sits ontop of an Oracle relational database. I’ve worked in facitlies with a publishing model built into the infrastrure and it sure makes life a lot easier.

I’ve also heard that they are going to release a 64-bit version on Linux, though I couldn’t find this info anywhere in the specs. I’ve been looking for a 64-bit compositing application for a while now. With a filesystem thats well over 100 Terabytes you really need to be running a 64bit OS just to be able to address it and get maximum performance from 64bit render nodes.

Computer Graphics World has an RSS feed…cool! I wish other vfx and digital cinema sites would get with the program and do the same thing. It makes my life sooooo much easier.

CNet News: “Video upload site YouTube.com has received $8 million in funding from venture capital firm Sequoia Capital”. Still no obvious business model though.

Michael Thompson: “I’ve been doing storage here for six years, and I’ve found that people will use up whatever you put out there. We’ll probably be buying more disks this year”.  I know that feeling. Interesting article about ILM’s computer infrastructure. If you’re into that sort of thing!

Movie maker Jen Simmons talks about videoblogging at the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture conference Taking Liberties, as part of its “Cinema in Transmission: New Languages/New Reception” panel. It comes in two parts - part 1 and part 2. Thanks for Cinema Minima for the link.

Check out the orange vlogman icon I found!

Its vlog week this week. More on this later.

The plan was to write some more about videobloggingweek2006 today but after a grueling 14 hour day at the office its time for bed. Still loving the vlogman icon.

Follow the video blogging antics this week around the world at technorati.

Bre Petis and Casey McKinnon, two of my most favoritist vloggers are both participating in the vlogging fun this week.

Bre used to work at Henson’s in London just before I did and we met through our blogs and ended up meeting in London when he was over with his lovely girlfriend. He teaches art in school and I imagine he would be the coolest teacher ever. He’s just full of energy and briliant ideas.

Casey produces and stars in the Kitkast, a vlog aimed at a slightly more mature audience. I’ve found the approach she takes to her shows really interesting. She’s also got a really cool sounding project of a completely different nature that is starting very soon. I’ve been swarn to secrecy but watch this space because I have no doubt it will be fantastic. Much luck Casey!

Sometimes time sure does fly. I missed out on blogging some real interesting stuff the last couple of days due to an insanely busy work schedule. That really bums me out.

Its been a really interesting week for all things digital. Here in the UK for the first time ever a single has made it to number one based on digital downloads alone. Think about it for a second, they’ve got a number one and they haven’t actually made anything that you can physically hold in your hand. Far out.

BBC News: “US hip-hop duo Gnarls Barkley have become the first act to score a UK number one single on the strength of digital sales alone”

One of the interesting things is a massive shift in how the charts are formed. The charts for the last ten years have, for the most part, been defined by what singles teenagers are buying from the shops. With downloads playing a major role, the demographics of chart influence is moving to the 20-30 year olds. IMHO this can only be a good thing for music. But then I would say that wouldn’t I…

The other major news in the world of digital was the announcement that six major studios are clubbing together to sell movie downloads that you can keep.

NYTimes: “The studios are caught between a rock and a hard place”…”If they don’t make movies available electronically, piracy will get them. But they simultaneously have to take care of their brick-and-mortar customers. If the chain stores became angered”…”they might pull back from their heavy promotion of DVD’s”.

Lots of interesting chatter on the blogosphere about the development as the news makes the top of memeorandum.

Great piece by Scott Kirsner on CinemaTech - thats where I heard about it first. One of the best places for anything d-cinema related.

For the most part people are complaining about how rubbish the service is going to be: expensive and heavily DRMed. What people are missing is that this is really just the first step. The studios are just starting to “get the internet” but are treading very cautiously, and for good reason. The prices will come down, the market will see to that, in the end it’s just way cheaper to not actually have to physically make anything.

With companies like Amazon and Apple trying to secure deals with Hollywood this has the potential to drastically change things: jobs will be lost and companies without internet presence will go under. It’s going to be a roller coaster ride from here on in.

Dave Winer thinks that NPR are figuring out how to make money on the internet. The article of his on the fundamental law to making money on the internet (version 3) that he links to makes for interesting reading.

Damn I love the OPML Editor for blogging but it sucks so hard that when you switch to the normal Wordpress interface then back the the OPML Editor that all the work you did gets deleted. All the picks I uploaded just disapeared. Grrr. Now I have to put them back again.

Where does all the time go? I need a time machine. It’s nearly midnight and I have a few PHP/MySQL tutorials to get through before bed…in the end the master plan will come together it’s just sometimes juggling work, professional exams, personal projects and eating good pizza can leave you a bit thinly spread.

The best pizza in London town is the Furnace and you sure better had the pizza Porchetta its just so great. Mmmm.

I really should change my blogroll. I mean who are these guys? Matt, Donncha, Dougal. I sure don’t know.

Its April fools day today so watch out! I slept in till late so no one managed to get me.

I’m blogging using the OPML editor and it seems to work pretty good! Houray. You can find the instructions of how to set it up to work with your Wordpress blog here.

You might have noticed a lack of presence the last few days. I’ve been really quite ill all week and it’s been pretty unpleasant but I’m on the mend now, finally.

While I was ill I started buying good old fashioned newspapers and actually had time to read them cover to cover, with all the supplements. Really quite refreshing. Some interesting articles.

Did you know that in the UK the Sale of Goods Act offers rather a lot of protection against faulty goods even when the manufacturer’s guarantee has run out? The act says the goods must last a reasonable time and can be anything up to 6 years.

The article in the Guardian that I was reading gives the example of a faulty ipod. Even after the 1 year waranty has expired you should be able to demand a complete refund so long as the fault lies with the goods manufacturer rather than abuse to the machine. I’ve had to get my ipod replaced a whoping 4 times so far so this might come in useful for when it fails out of waranty.

I’ve ended up about a week behind in my listening to the Daily Source Code due to being ill. So I’m currently playing catch up. Adam is running a golden ticket competition. They have chosen 1 listener at random who ends up with a slightly different show to everyone else’s. I guess when this person listens to the show they get told they’ve won. Great idea for a competition.

Looking at his weblog no one has claimed the prize yet. I’ve still got like 5 shows to listen to…it would be funny if I was the winner.

Nice April fools from Scobble. I’ll admit he had me for about 2 paragraphs. It made the top of memeorandum.

I’m loving using the OPML Editor to blog but I can’t find an easy way to stick pictures in the posts. Maybe I’m just being dumb.

Looks like I didn’t win the golden ticket

Josh Oakhurst has been making good use of Netflix to do some documentary watching. He lists his top 10 great documentaries.

Fox anounce that they are going to make a Simpson’s movie.

The Hollywood Reporter: “Phone and cable company executives contend that they need to be able to charge some companies premium prices if they demand secure networks, virtual private networks or higher speeds for the transfer of movies or other large files. They contend that their pledge not to harm consumer access is enough”. Hollywood wakes up to net neutrality.

According to Joe Barton, who is pushing the Net Neutrality Bill, “We just had eight gentlemen that represent the largest trade groups and the brightest minds in the country, and not one of them gave a concise definition”…”We’re tied up in knots in this bill, potentially over something that we do not yet even have a universally recognized definition of what it is”.

Ha ha so no-one understands it yet. You got to love it. I’ve held my hands up all along saying that I was confused about this topic. I think the penny is starting to drop though. The one thought that I keep coming back to is that I don’t think people understand what the net actually is, today, as in now.

The question people need to answer first is “What is the Web?”. You might think that’s an easy question but I get the feeling that it’s actually a very big rusty can of worms.