If you are using Canopus Edius Neo/Pro v4 or earlier to edit your HD footage, here’s how to export for Vimeo/PS3/XboX360 in 720p HD.

Reader Marc Hens also sent us a tutorial for Edius 5 too.

Nine months ago I wrote a post about the 12th Cylon. In there, I presented my opinion that either Baltar or Cally would be the last Cylon.

Now the writers are showing Baltar on a different light: that of the sidekick one, who’s there to get the plot rolling and be the character that brings together the Cylons and the Humans — for better or worse. Similar to what Locke is for “Lost” pretty much.

Because of that, I think the last Cylon is Cally. The reasons why I believe so are:
1. She had a child with a Cylon, while Helo’s and Boomer’s child (Hera) was supposed to be “the only” child among humans and Cylons that could ever be conceived and that’s why it was “special”. This means her child holds lesser importance than Hera, and this could be an indication that she is a Cylon.
2. Cally could not sleep after the nebula, the same time the other four Cylons were hearing music. She’s also affected, but differently.
3. The writers said that the last Cylon is not included in this promo picture. They also said that Laura, Baltar, Helo, Starbuck, and the two Adamas are not Cylons. This leaves Cally, Dee, Admiral Cain, Romo Lampkin, Gaeta, Billy, Ellen Tigh, Tom Zarek, Kendra Shaw, and maybe Crashdown.

So, if I am not completely off base here, the writers are trying to pull a “Lost”-like WTF, having Cally waking up from the dead (not resurrected on a ship). Her story is more recent and more relevant than resurrecting, let’s say, Billy. Having Dee or Gaeta as Cylons is a bit too much of a boring choice. They would be the definite choices if this was a TV show in the ’80s, where everything was predictable.

We’ll see in the next few weeks.

Madonna’s new album, “Hard Candy”, comes out in a few days. There is a preview of 30 seconds of each of her new songs over at VH-M (not sure how legal this is, but it features previously unreleased pictures and a personal message from Madonna, so I would assume it is an official site).

So, for this album Madonna supposedly went hip-hop. However, with the exception of her first single “4 Minutes”, when listening to these songs, it’s not hip-hop that I am hearing: it’s early ’80s disco/funk. You know, these cheap pop songs of the early ’80s that were the only things that survived the disco era of the ’70s. The kind of music you would hear in clubs in Greece at the time, and would appear in the cheap straight-to-VHS Greek comedies of the time. Now, this doesn’t mean that the album is that bad. In fact, it’s pretty nostalgic and has nice melodies. However, this is like saying that you are going to eat the peanut butter you were forced-fed by your grandmother as a kid, just because you want to remember your childhood and not because you like peanut butter. It’s “liking” for all the wrong reasons. Having said that, I will be buying the record, as I do like Madonna’s sound.

Based on these previews (that I’ve listened a number of times so far), my favorite songs are “Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You” and “Miles Away”. These two songs are indeed miles away from anything else in the rest of the album. On the second tier, I like “4 Minutes”, “Give It 2 Me” (her second single), and “Dance 2Night”. The rest are pretty yawwwwn…

Speaking of Madonna. I remembered a pretty embarrassing moment from my childhood. It was summer of 1985 (I was 12), and “Like a Virgin” was in its heyday. All girls in my age were infatuated with Madonna’s look and style. My cousin’s uncle arrived from Australia to visit for a few days. As my english were almost non-existent at the time, I went on and asked him: “There is this nice song we hear on the radio. What ‘like a virgin’ means?“. The guy gasped. After taking a big breath, he said that he is not familiar with the word.

It took me another 2 years to find out what the word “virgin” meant. And when I did, my first thought was: “FUCK“. How ironic.

Before asking a basic question about video editing or camera usage on a forum, or via email, first read the fucking manual. If your answer is not there, then google your problem. And if you are getting nowhere, then, and only then, email others or post on a forum. Have respect for other people’s time by doing your homework first.

This is not to say that I don’t enjoy helping people regarding video (actually, this is my primary “job” lately), but when I repeatedly get silly super-basic questions that are covered in the manual, or questions that are SO specific that if you try it by yourself you will find the answer more easily than I would, it’s just disheartening.

I can manage with video editing and encoding techniques and various utilities because I researched and experimented all night long, not because I was born with the knowledge. The least you could do is to at least read the manual.

If you are a late bird like I am, you probably have seen these “Girls Gone Wild” informercials on cable TV. This is a reality soft-erotic DVD where it shows young girls “going wild” and do crazy things. Well, I never really “got” this DVD. What’s the point of it? Why would I wanna watch stupid young women doing stupid things?

But I gave the product the benefit of the doubt, thinking that I might feel differently if there was such a DVD with men, targeting women. So tonight, I saw this other informercial, “Guys Gone Wild”. It involved the same kind of stupidity and unnecessary nudity, but with college guys instead. I hated it just as much.

And this kept me thinking: even a third rate porn movie has more practical value than these (arguably popular) “reality” DVDs. Your IQ must be lower than 50 if you find these DVDs entertaining.

So, the first time we made love. No, not my first time (there is nothing worth blogging about it), but the first time JBQ and I made love: it felt so right. For the first time in my life I didn’t feel guilty, or dirty, or used, for having sex. It felt just right. And I cried.

Thanks to Stefan for the link of the big-time director James Cameron interview at Variety:

“4K doesn’t solve the curse of 24 frames per second.”
“I would vastly prefer to see 2K/48 frames per second as a new display standard, than 4K/24 frames per second. This would mean shooting movies at 48 fps, which the digital cameras can easily accommodate.”
“I’ve run tests on 48 frame per second stereo and it is stunning. The cameras can do it, the projectors can (with a small modification) do it. So why aren’t we doing it, as an industry?”

Cameron answers his own question towards the end of his interview here.

That’s where the copyright law and myself are clashing. There are a few things in life that should simply be either cheap, or free. Education is one of them. Healthcare is another.

I find it disgusting having publishers sue schools. But you say, “most schools are private, commercial entities”. Yes, they are (at least in the US). But this doesn’t mean that you will have to strip students of knowledge, who have already paid a large sum to the school itself anyway and he/she’s out of money already.

The solution is exactly the same as the one I discussed about movies/music a few weeks ago. You have a centralized service where schools can license ANY work for really cheap, or pay a monthly fee, to license part of a work and then distribute that to their students. The distribution allowance should be covered in the student’s tuition.

Anyways, education should not be impacted by the copyright law that much, even if it stresses the Fair Use doctrine. While the Greek schools are not that great compared to the west European ones, at least education is ranging from free to really cheap. And nobody gives a rat’s ass about copyright on books when it comes to education, exactly because it is considered a higher goal for everyone, education is a priority. Many times I have talked with sarcasm and bitterness about modern Greeks’ elitism because of their glorious ancient past, but damn, one good thing that have come out of it is total priority on education. It’s part of the culture. My parents lived on beans so I could go to college. Over here, education is just another form of business, and as such, it’s treated as business. Hence the lawsuits flying left and right and the unrealistic tuition fees.

All you have to do is spend four minutes to view the following video released by ABC. It recaps all four seasons of “Lost” so far, all in 4 minutes. Of course it has spoilers, so if you are going to start watching “Lost” in the future you want to avoid it. But if you want to catch up with the current episodes, it provides a good way to do so — in a funny way too.

At last. Comcast brought Sci-Fi Channel in HD in the Bay Area. I was bitching about it only a few days ago. Now we can watch “Battlestar Galactica” in HD. Only funny thing is that I noticed the rest of the channel quality (e.g. NBC) was reduced, and the timetable is that of the East Coast (so we can watch BSG 3 hours earlier). Other new HD channels added were CNN HD, AMC, TBS, Food Channel and Animal Planet.