The latest big band breaking free from a label contract is Nine Inch Nails. After Radiohead, Prince’s rebellion, and Bruce Springsteen giving away the first single of his new album for free, things are just changing in the music business.

The importance of the labels is quickly fading away, and the digital music revolution (and piracy) had its part on it. And that’s a good thing, because the profession of a musician goes back to its basics: lots of touring and live performances, and no “star” status. If the big 4 labels go out of business, soon enough there won’t be stardom, but simply a profession that will earn you $150,000 per year if you are really good, and $15,000 if you are not.

Be gone will be the times that artists will be selling millions of copies, shoot expensive video clips, snorting cocaine and make big headlines about it, and played on the radio worldwide. Instead, being an artist will be all about being an artist.

This is not to say that some “stars” won’t be arising. Especially if you already have money to invest to your image, you can always hire a PR company that will push your image on the Internet, radio and TV, and a worldwide distributor of music so you can reach other countries too. But these “stars” won’t be controllable by labels where they have to abide to a certain look or do this kind of music or that kind of music. There will be a level of independence instead, an “indie look and sound”.

The truth is, the big losers won’t just be the labels in this case, but also USA as a country. USA’s main “product” is IP, not actual labor and cheap hardware (as it is in China for example). Art is a form of IP and it brings billions to not only the labels, but the US government too. I don’t feel bad about this loss though. Labels have created a status quo, a social behavior, that’s simply not natural. For example, there is no reason for a 16 year old to pee herself when she sees Ricky Martin from 2 meters away shaking his booty. And there is no reason for a 16 year old boy to have long hair and start smoking just because that’s what Guns ‘n’ Roses do. And yet, many teenagers do. Even some adults will wear similar clothes to what a particular star or music movement does. And everyone capitalizes on that.

If labels go away and artists become simply artists, not only the strongest artists will survive (which is a good thing for the consumer as the quality of the music will go up), but things will go back to normal at a social level too. I don’t WANT to go to cnn.com and read about Britney Spears. There is absolutely NO REASON why she should be making headlines. She is not the first neither the last junkie in this world. The fact that she happens to be a singer or a “pop star” is irrelevant to me. And yes, this is how everyone should be thinking too, so the paparazzi stop following her and CNN stops caring. It is disgusting that CNN did not report in their front page about her new album or single (which is the only thing that we should be caring about), but instead everything else that’s none of our business. I am no Britney fan, neither a Lohan or Hilton one. I see no reason why we should be learning everything about them. When you get a job as a secretary you are not asked what’s your religion, your color preference or who’s your boyfriend. So why an artist should be under this scrutiny?

Another interesting article about this is here.

NTSC HDV is 60 fields and 60 or 30 frames. However, most applications only endorse editing and exporting in 30fps. Here’s how I managed to export a full 60fps progressive WMV file via Vegas:

Set the Project Properties to “Progressive Scan”, “Best” rendering quality, “Blend Fields” de-interlace method and 59.9400 frame rate. Pull the clip to the timeline and do your editing as usual (although previewing will be slower).

When your final cut is done, export (let’s say, in WMV) by selecting the 720/30p WMV template. Click the “Custom” button. Select “Best” as the rendering quality. On the Video tab select as frame rate the 59.94 option. On the bitrate tab select 8 Mbps and then render out (it will take quite some time to finish rendering).

Previewing the resulted WMV 60fps video (on a very fast machine), it will playback smooth as butter. To make sure that no duplicated frames are there, load the resulted WMV back to the same Vegas project, pull it in the timeline, and by using ALT+arrow-keys move frame by frame to make sure that no duplicates are there.

It should be possible to do the same for MP4 h.264 video too, so this way you can burn a 720/60p Blu-Ray disc as this high-frame rate format is part of the BD standard. 1080/60p is not a standard yet although it will be in a few years.

Some results for your viewing pleasure:
Non-smooth 30fps: video.
Smoother 30fps after disabling “resampling” on the clip’s properties: video.
Smooth, true 60fps: video.

I wish more people were color grading their digital pictures.

Picture by schizoform, released under the CC-BY license:

Picture by foxypar4, released under the CC-BY license:

Graded under Sony Vegas:
Contrast: 0.05
Saturation: 1500
Gamma: 0.800

The most popular HV20 sample video is Solomon Chase’s “Rainy Day“, which I have blogged about before (720p version here). He never revealed exactly how he color graded his footage, so tonight I got to work and tried to reproduce it. Here’s my result:

And here’s how I graded it.

“Track star Marion Jones pleaded guilty Friday to lying to a federal investigator about taking banned substances”, writes CNN.

The problem with removing her medals from Sydney’s Olympics, is that the person who will receive her gold medal is Thanou, of Greece. A person, who in my completely personal and unproven opinion, took the THG too at the time.

So there was this guy at a camcorder forum, asking what he can do to use his 24p HV20 footage with iMovie HD on the Mac. Well, bad luck, iMovie does not support 24p timelines, and even worse, not even Final Cut Express HD does. To get 24p editing support on the Mac you have to either pay $1200 for Final Cut Studio or $1600 for Adobe After Effects/Premiere CS3.

So, I gave him the following advice: go buy a Dell PC, as I was able to configure a powerful video editing station right now for $520 (without a monitor), and then buy Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum for another $100 in the open market.

So basically, for almost HALF the price of what you would pay on the Mac to have access to 24p editing, you get a dedicated video station with the right software.

Ok look, I like the Mac, but this is just sad. Hopefully Apple will add 24p support on the next Final Cut Express HD.

I tested the Kodak Z1275 digicam tonight, which has the unique ability to record 720/30p video. Video comes out ok, although there is no image stabilization, autofocus when zooming in/out is problematic, and the on board microphone is not good. But as long as you use a tripod, you are interested in sceneries with background music and no voice, and you don’t zoom too much, it can substitute for a camcorder (it records 15 mins of HD video on a 1 GB SD card — that bitrate could have been better too).

I also posted a review of Cineform’s NeoHD over at FreshDV.

I mentioned last week that it would be nice to have a consumer camcorder geared towards the amateur filmmaker/artist. Here are some specs of the envisioned product:

* A body like the JVC Everio HD7. A hybrid between a consumer camcorder and the Canon GL-2. Painted dark red, mmm…
* 2/3s CMOS chip (or at least 1/2″) which enables a good amount of background blur and adjustable DOF. CMOS is preferable over 3CCD because in order to get the same amount of background blur with 3CCD, the chips will have to be 3x the size, and that would make the camera and lens way too big for the kind of product I am talking about. CMOS quality is good enough.
* Enough dynamic range. How much is enough? Well, as much such a sensor can give me.
* Somewhat-wide-angle built-in good all-around lens, that allows for 52mm or 58mm filters. Filter thread must be metallic and not plastic. It has to be a FAST lens (big aperture size please)!!
* No more than 5x optical zoom is required for this kind of targeted product (especially because with the 2/3s CMOS it would be difficult to offer anything more than 5x, or the lens would be huge). I am willing to lose zoom range for a bigger sensor.
* Optical image stabilization.
* A focus ring. This is a must have.
* A removable lens hood (or as an optional accessory).
* 80 GB non-removable iPod-sized hard drive, or 64 GB flash storage (good for 7-8 hours of 1080p AVCHD). An additional SD slot just in case you run out of space.
* Two rocker-style dials for controlling aperture and exposure (they don’t have to be rings on the lens but they have to be easily controllable without the need of software menus).
* ND filter switch button for OFF, AUTO, 4x and 8x.
* A focus assist and turn on/off manual focus button.
* Full HDMI 1.3 port, USB 2.0, headphones jack, mic-jack, RCA in/out. Also full hot advanced shoe.
* An on-board stereo mic with included wind muff (I don’t care if it would look like a hairy vagina).
* A 3.5mm microphone jack (no reason for XLRs).
* An easy to reach button that immediately brings a special quick menu screen where you can quickly adjust: aperture, ND filters, exposure, shutter speed, gain, white balance and audio levels — independently.
* An easy to reach button that immediately brings a special screen where you can quickly adjust: contrast, brightness, sharpness, saturation, R,G,B color settings, cinemode gamma settings etc.
* Shutter speed up to 1/4000th (HV20 only goes up to 1/2000th, and that’s not enough for some scenes of rock music video clip look).
* Zebra support.
* A basic flash light. It’s not a very useful tool for filmmaking-purposes anyway.
* A big enough, comfortable viewfinder.
* A battery that lasts 120 mins.
* A 3″ widescreen LCD with some controls on it, and the ability to FLIP the picture (so we can use 35mm adapters).
* A kind of zoom control button as found on the Canon prosumer cameras.
* Ability to record progressive full HD 1920×1080 at 60i, 30p and 24p, at 24 mbps (AVCHD’s maximum quality). 30p/24p must be TRUE 30p/24p, without wrappers to 60i or needed [inverse] telecine. We had enough trouble with that pullup/down shit already all these years and especially with the HV20.
* A tripod locking pin in addition to a tripod hole.
* (optional) 200/240 fps at 960×540 resolution, with an option to save the stream either in 50/60i or in true 200/240 fps stream.

That camera is within the reach of Canon for $2000. I would call it the “Mini” and it would be geared towards hobbyist artists (which are one step below true indie filmmakers). Kinda like how the D200 and 40D DSLRs are, geared towards hobbyists who know a thing or two more than the mass market and their point-and-shoot no-background-blur digicams, but yet, they are not true professionals. Know what I mean?

Then, throw some XLRs, 120 GB removable drive or 128 GB SSD, ability to also record in AVC-Intra at 50 mbps, 10x zoom with a bigger body, better built-in mic, more buttons and custom presets, and sell that “pro” version for $3000 and go against the RED Scarlet camera by wooing the indie filmmakers in.

Currently, neither Panasonic, Canon or Sony have anything that caters this new amateur filmmakers or poor indie filmmakers. Their semi-pro cameras don’t have big-enough sensors for the film-look purpose. Only Panasonic comes close with its DVX/HVX series, but these cameras are still far from ideal. I hope Canon listens, because there is such an unsatisfiable market right now. Check for video samples from that underground scene here and here.

Ok, this one is good. “The Townies” is a sitcom shot by a bunch of friends on their spare time. Very good work for first timers. Also shot with the Canon HV20. It’s amazing what you can do these days for $900.

“Gabriel asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of [CD] music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.”

Give me a freaking break. It’s as simple as that.