Canon announced today a few new P&S digicams and camcorders. What do these new models mean for video? Apparently, absolutely nothing.

The flagship of the new announcements is the G1 X, a large sensor G-series camera. The only new video-related feature it’s got is its upgraded bitrate: it now uses the same bitrate as in the Canon dSLRs, at around 45 mbps. But there’s still no manual control, or 1080 @ 25/30p and 720 @ 50/60p (in addition to its 1080/24p and 720/30p). Video-wise there’s absolutely no reason to buy this camera compared to the Canon S100 I’m afraid. Sure, it’s got a bit more bitrate, but that extra 20% more bitrate isn’t worth an additional $400 IMHO. Yup, there’s a big sensor in there now, but if you can’t manually control the aperture, and instead we have the camera go automatically to high shutter speeds outdoors (and closing down the aperture), what’s the point of it?

Update: According to this article, the G1 X does not even have exposure compensation for video. It’s one, big, fat, expensive, JOKE. Update 2: DPreview updated their article saying that exposure compensation does work, but only when the camera is in movie mode, and not when you simply click the record button in any of the other modes. This is how it’s supposed to work, but the way they wrote the original article showed that the dpreview guys are in need of a video-specific reviewer…

Regarding the cheaper 520 HS, 310 HS and 110 HS, there are highly disturbing news I must report. Not only exposure compensation + lock is STILL MISSING from these models (remember, up to 2010, Canon P&S digicams did have this feature for video, but then it was removed from most of their new models), but bitrate was also botched down! Where in the past all Canon P&S HD digicams would feature 21 to 24mbps bitrate for 720p, and 35 to 38 mbps for 1080p, now we have TWO of the NEW models (520 HS & 110 HS) offering just 18 mbps for 1080p, and about 12 mbps for 720p. In other words, Canon made their consumer digicams WORSE than they were last year (again, video-wise).

I made quite a few frienemies by evangelizing the Canon P&S digicams over the last 2-3 years, but starting last year and continuing with this year’s models, I can’t suggest these cameras anymore with a straight face. Canon is trying to save their camcorder department by butchering what it was the best P&S video digicams in the market. They had the basics right, but now they aren’t better than other manufacturers. We were going so well in terms of adding video features on digicams in the last few years, and then, not only there’s a stop, but there’s regression too. Sad…

As for their new camcorders, none of these new models offer anything really new, that’s just recycling we see there. The HF G10 from last year at $1500 still remains their best semi-consumer camcorder ever released, but they didn’t update it this year (it would have benefited from a bigger sensor and a full-size hot shoe).

Conclusion: Buy older Canon digicams if you must have a digicam for video, the ones that still have the basics in place. These basics are, I list them again:
– Exposure compensation + lock
– Focus lock
– Custom colors for “flat” look (at least for saturation, contrast, sharpness)
– 720p at over 20 mbps, 1080p at over 35 mbps
– 24p and 30p options

I mean, really, is that too much to ask? I never even mentioned manual control for A/V, or built-in ND filters, or mic-inputs, or any other “crazy” feature. Just the damn basics needed to make a video that doesn’t look like total amateur hour! Even the iPhone can do most of that now via third party apps!

So, which P&S digicam to buy? If you only shoot random family videos, anything will do, but if you want to do art, go for last year’s SX220/SX230 HS which sells at $200 now (1080/24p, 720/30p), or last year’s A1200 which sells for $90 (720/24p). If you have the extra money, you can consider the S100 too at $430 (same video features as SX230, plus ND filter). For camcorders go for the one I mentioned above, the HF G10, the rest are laughable for anything serious (at least from what you would expect from a camcorder compared to a digicam).

But the best advice would be to wait and see what the new T4i dSLR will be able to do in February. From leaks we know for sure it’s going to have the new Digic imaging processor, but if an updated sensor/body comes with it to complement it (which would translate to less rolling shutter, no line-skipping, continuous autofocus), then there’s no reason to get a P&S digicam. Save your money, work extra hours if you have to, and go for the T4i in that case.

I wish I was able to suggest P&S digicams instead, for young people who just start with video (I will be teaching a videography class soon to kid-artists), but these new models don’t allow me to do so. They’ve taken a step back.

When I’m at my local farmer’s market I behave like a kid in the candy store. I want a bit of every thing and every variety of it too! Right now my fridge is super-full, and I’m afraid that some of all this food will go to waste. So I decided to make a weekly diet plan that maximizes in nutrients, and also offers a plan for vitamin supplementation that makes some sense based on what’s to be eaten any given day. I’m no doctor or a nutritionist, but I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge in the last 4 months while trying to fix my health issues through the Paleo diet. Some notes to self:

– This is a rough guide for the main courses, there can always be fruits, soups, salads, raw honey, lactose-free goat yoghurt/cheese, nuts, fermented foods etc.
– There’s only one pork main dish because sausage/links/bacon/ham would be consumed during breakfast almost daily.
– Beef marrow bone broth would be used extensively. It would almost be a daily companion to most recipes.
– Coconut oil for cooking, extra virgin olive oil for salads.
– Chamomile (morning), Kombucha decaf (tea time), and Greek Mountain Tea (after dinner). Enough water.
– Must prepare my own wakame salad with sea-vegetables (commercial one has wheat-based soy sauce in it — makes me sick).

I’m also thinking of going ketogenic if my weight continues to refuse going down (although weight loss is not my primary goal, gut health is). In this case, some additional steps are required for a Paleo-ketogenic diet:
– Supplementation with L-carninite 2-3 times a week.
– Never miss the sauted Swiss chard & beet greens twice a week for more Potassium.
– Always use iodized salt, and never miss the sea vegetables.
– Pancakes, honey, and most fruits (except berries) are a no-go in keto… Coconut oil is a must. Fermented foods, more water too.

I have also signed up with Cron-o-meter (free account), where I can approximately find out which vitamins/minerals I might be missing, after I input in the system what I eat daily. Then, I can supplement accordingly.

Today was my JBQ‘s birthday, so I made him a Paleo birthday cake (recipe, I substituted maple syrup with honey). It was the first such cake I had since I went Paleo, and the first one I ever made. I usually cook food pretty well, but I’m not great with desserts. This one turned out good, although we think the cake dough needed more honey.

Happy Birthday sweetie!

Last night I also made some almond-flax crackers. My JBQ, as a real French-man, he loves his cheese, so as we’re gluten-free in this house now, I’m making Paleo cheese crackers once a week. I added sesame seeds, finely chopped thyme & sage, oregano, and 1 TBspoon of olive oil to the base recipe. These came out great!

As much as I’d like to sell my sci-fi script to Hollywood, at the same time I hate all the lawyering and politics behind it. I now read that Warner Bros will make its DVDs arrive even later on Netflix than usual, and that Apple, like Google & Amazon, is unable to secure deals for TV/movie content in any manner that makes financial sense. Big Content is trying to keep back progress as much as it can, by only licensing its property to traditional outlets.

There is only one solution for this chicken-and-egg TV problem: make your own content. And when you start winning, Hollywood will come and beg you to carry their content! Netflix is the first company to go this route by re-creating content: by shooting its own TV series. Google has already pledged $100mil via YouTube for original web TV series too. Apple hasn’t initiated anything of sorts so far, neither it’s in its style to do so.

There are three possibilities here:
1. These original series will only make a blip, and nothing really changes.
2. Big Content gets a clue and embraces the new mediums for lower licensing costs.
3. Studios abroad start creating Hollywood-worthy content, for cheaper, and initiate a cultural revolution that brings American media to its knees.

Of course, option #1 is the most likely one to happen unfortunately. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I believe that if all four (Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Google) come together to share costs, they can put $1 billion aside per year for the creation of TV series and movies. Content that would be shot and post-produced abroad, using mostly non-Union unknown American actors & writers/directors. Unlike media companies that are on the brink of financial disaster, these tech companies HAVE money to spend.

As I’ve written before, I truly believe that great quality television can be produced for $1mil per episode, or even cheaper, when shooting abroad on a place like the Balkans, South America, or China. As for a full-length movie, with enough talent you can do miracles from anywhere $1mil to $3mil per movie. $1 billion dollars per year gives enough room for 50 ten-episode-per-season TV series, and 250 movies (or 100 movies with higher budget). Of course, for higher quality content, fewer of these can be made, but still, you can do a lot with $1 bil if you’re smart.

Such content would be free from MPAA and FCC regulations too, allowing for free expression and radical ideas in the work, something that’s missing from networked TV series and movies today in the US. Not to mention that duration of an one-hour TV show can go back at 55 mins, instead of the laughable 42 minutes we get today (a few location/user-specific ads can run at the beginning of the show, but not during). And there won’t be any reason for streaming IP restriction for any country! As long as a show is released, everyone with a smart TV everywhere in the world gets it!

Such a large amount of on-demand products is enough to bring people to these new “smart” TV devices, they are enough to make the viewers “cut the cord“. In the beginning, they will be few doing so, but as the numbers will grow, the cable TV industry will start to crumble, because their sourcing media companies still operate with huge budgets that are unsustainable, while at the same time their customers would wither away. Those who will still remain subscribed would mainly be sports viewers, but if in year 2012 you’re still avid fan of professional sports, in my mind, you’re entertainment-retarded (hate away).

Bottom line is that content is king. And I believe that Apple/Google/Amazon/Netflix can go for such a pact together. But they have to be united for this to work. Hollywood would have no alternative but to join away eventually. There would be 3-5 years of adjustment for everyone, and a few flying lawsuits of course, but eventually, content must be freed one way or another. If common sense doesn’t work with Big Content, if enough money on the table doesn’t work either, then competition WILL work. Have the motherfucking sharks in Hollywood die off of a streaming starvation.

The general consensus among Paleo dieters is that dairy is a Neolithic food, and so milk, yoghurt and cheese are not allowed (although butter, ghee and sour cream are still consumed by most Paleo dieters). Even the Primal faction of Paleo, which is more relaxed, suggests caution when it comes to dairy. The main disapproval for dairy on Paleo is its lactose and casein, both known allergens and inflammation agents.

The idea is that when you go Paleo, you’re supposed to eat brassica vegetables & spinach daily, eat the heads & bones of sardines, and that your gut will take care of absorbing calcium better now that you got Paleo. Even with all that, a Paleo dieter gets about 60% of the RDA for Calcium daily, but then they come and tell you that the US RDA number is unnaturally high and was measured against modern dieters, not Paleo ones. Funny how the die-hards don’t use the same argument for all the other vitamins!

Honestly, these suggestions are kind of laughable. Who eats broccoli daily, and who eats sardine heads daily? And what about all of us who came from the Standard American Diet (SAD) and have leaky and damaged guts after years of eating grains, and we can’t absorb nutrients as well yet? My teeth were transparent like glass when I first found Paleo!

My home-made lactose-free goat yoghurt rocks with raw honey, berries, nuts!

To get adequate calcium and phosphorus on the Paleo diet one must drink slow-cooked bone marrow broths from grass-fed cows or wild game. It’s the main way to get any serious amounts of minerals and vitamins, and I suspect that this was the main way our dairy-free Paleolithic ancestors were getting by too (and by eating eggshells too).

But the problem is that the vast majority of Paleo dieters don’t take the time to cook bone broths (or eat offal). A lot of people come to Paleo for weight loss and not for its amazing health benefits, and so they omit such basic requirements. They simply remove foods from their diet (e.g. grains, beans, sugar etc), but they don’t add other foods that are needed (e.g. fermented foods, offal, broths etc). That’s not Paleo that they’re doing! It’s SAD-lite!

Now, in all fairness, the Paleo arguments about lactose and casein are valid. Lactose is a complex poly-saccharides sugar (gut bacteria love these, as lots of it goes undigested in our bowels), and bovine casein is even more difficult to break apart, since the right enzymes are usually not present in our stomach (because the milk was pasteurized, and its enzymes were nuked).

But there’s a workaround, and it’s what I’ve been using myself with great success (for my gut, bones, and teeth). Remember, Paleo is a template, not a hard-line religious dogma. This has been more evident lately, as more and more Paleo dieters have been adding more kinds of foods in their diet, as long as their bodies seem to tolerate them. Dairy seems to be popular in the Paleo world as of late too, but this is my regimen on how to get the most out of dairy, without accumulating any of its negative effects too.

Step 1: Don’t eat bovine dairy, but go for goat/sheep dairy. Goat/sheep’s casein chemical structure is closer to that of humans’, so we are able to digest it way easier than cow casein. Some people who are allergic to cow casein are able to have goat/sheep dairy without a problem! There are some cows that produce the “right” casein, but these cows are not bred much anymore. We are the victims of 10,000 years of cow un-natural selection! Buffalo have the right casein, but who can milk a buffalo?

Step 2: Limit lactose. Go only for harder goat/sheep cheeses (which contain only traces of lactose), and make your own, home-made, lactose-free, multi-probiotic goat/sheep yoghurt (fermented for 20-24 hours so the bacteria have time to consume most of the lactose & galactose sugars). Or even better, kefir, which is more potent than yogurt!

Step 3: From cows, only have grass-fed butter or ghee, and sour cream (if you can tolerate cow casein). Sour cream usually has very little lactose left in it (this is the lactose-free one I personally buy). If I could find butter/sour-cream from goats or sheep (or buffalo/bison), I’d switch in a second!

Step 4: Never drink pasteurized animal milk, unless it’s raw goat/sheep milk, *and* you can trust the farm you bought that milk from! Raw milk can indeed be dangerous, so you must be sure that what you’re drinking is safe. Preferably, go for coconut milk instead, and use it mostly for cooking.

Step 5: Don’t forget the bone broths! A lot of other bone-related minerals are found in bones/marrow that can’t be found in dairy! You can also get almond & coconut drinks that are enriched with calcium.

Alternatively, you can buy a vitamin that includes Ca+D3+Mk4+Mg (all elements are needed to absorb calcium), but such a pill is not ideal either. For example, phosphorus is as important as calcium for bone health, but it’s very rare to find it in most vitamin pills. Eating real food is still the preferred way to get mineralized.

We had this Paleo-friendly salad for lunch today. JBQ said that he hadn’t had this dish for many years (he used to have it in France), so I decided to try it out as our main dish (we had thinly-sliced smoked duck breast as an appetizer). It all came out really good.

Ingredients (for 2, 10gr of carbs per person)
* 10-12 large shrimp
* 1/2 of a cucumber
* 1/2 of a pomelo or a whole grapefruit
* 2-3 TBspoons of fresh chopped basil
* 2 heaping TBspoons of mayonnaise
* 1-2 TBspoons of lime or lemon juice (optional)
* Freshly cracked black pepper
* Salt to taste

Execution
1. Boil your shrimp in some boiling water for a few minutes. When done, put them in a colander and let lots of cold water run through them. Remove their shell and their vein on the back of their body. If you are using fresh, de-shelled and already-cooked shrimp, omit this step.
2. Place the citrus on a steady surface and hold it from the top. Using a big knife cut the outer part of your citrus fruit from top to bottom, all around it (it’s ok if a bit of the fruit goes to waste using this method). Then cut it in the middle (height-wise), and remove the skin from each segment. Place the main fruit (without any skin) on a big salad bowl, in chunks.
3. Peel the cucumber, cut it in two length-wise, and then two more times (so you get 4 long segments). Run the knife through each of these segments to remove some of the seeds (you can eat these while you’re preparing the salad…). Slice the cucumber segments in 1/3″ slices.
4. Add the cooled shrimp in the salad bowl, the cucumber, and the chopped basil. Crack some black pepper, and add some salt. Taste a small bit of the citrus fruit. If the fruit is bitter, then you don’t need to add the lime juice. But if your fruit is rather sweet, then squeeze some lime or lemon juice (1 or 2 TBspoons depending on the sweetness of the main citrus).
5. Add the mayo (home-made is best, but if you must buy it, strive to find a full-fat one without additives that is made with real eggs and olive oil), and carefully mix everything well using a spoon. Add more mayo if required. Serve immediately and enjoy!

I wrote an article a few months ago about the amazing health results I got from Paleo in just 6 weeks of using the diet. In the list, there were some items that were marked as “work in progress”. Well, here’s an update on these health problems on the 4 month mark.

* Eczema: Gone.
* Teeth sensitivity: Gone.
* Muscle atony on right arm/hand: Gone.
* Fibromyalgia-like pain: Gone.
* Sugar addiction: Gone-enough to be thinking of trying a ketogenic version of Paleo.
* Period pain: Comes and goes, depending on the month, but not as strong anymore.
* IBS-D: Depending on the week, and how careful I am with my probiotics, I might get one bad incident, or not.
* Alopecia: No new hair (yet), but they don’t fall as much anymore. (update: new hair is here!)
* Sleep apnea: This is reduced compared to pre-paleo, but it has returned, I get it about 2-3 times a month. It should go away as I keep losing weight (I’ve lost 16 lbs so far).

I will update again on the anniversary of the first year. If it continues like this, I expect sleep apnea, period pain, and IBS-D to have gone completely by then. The only real question-mark is if I will ever get new hair…

Android and iOS are taking over the world as the devices of choice for most people, and especially on the iOS front, still photography with an iPhone is taking off. The quality is “good-enough” to get something respectable out of it that FlickR audience would appreciate.

For video though, things are not as peachy as for still photography on smartphones. Video requires a few extra features to make it usable for artistic usage. These are:
– iOS: 24p/25p/30p fps selection (the FilmicPro app hacks this, but it’s not the real output of the camera). Low contrast/saturation/sharpness “flat” mode. iOS supports exposure compensation + lock, tap-to-focus and focus lock, and high bitrate.
– Android (most models): 24p/25p/30p fps selection. Higher bitrate (24mbps). Low contrast/saturation/sharpness “flat” mode. Exposure compensation + lock, and focus lock. Some models have tap-to-focus, but not much else.

So between the two, iOS wins so far easily on video by offering more control, but it’s still not perfect. I mean, we’re not even asking for full manual control here, just the basics to be able to get good video out of these phones. iOS only needs a few things to get it right, but the Samsung/Google/HTC/etc camera engineers really need to get a freaking clue about video and select hardware for their devices that support these features.

I know some people will argue that cellphones are not great to use for art, but I disagree. It’s the artist that matters, not the hardware. However, the artist can NOT fully open his/her wings and use the hardware to the fullest if the BASIC FEATURES are missing. For still photography things are easier, since fewer features are needed for people to get a good output. But for video, some extra stuff are needed, that are easily doable with modern hardware, but somehow they’re not taken into account by the engineers or project managers so far.

The text below was meant as a comment reply to my friend Glenn, but I think the subject warrants its own blog post:

Art becomes problematic when money is the object, because in order to make money, the artist must “comply” with the mainstream pop culture & limits of the time. Wild experimentation would result in a financial disaster, so no risks are taken. But it’s that experimentation that propels both art & our world forward. See, if you do pop music exactly because it’s easily consumable, and because you want to make a buck, then no, what you do, is not art. It’s a product.

My previous article was meant to go against the powerful mechanisms of capital and power in particular, who would manufacture “art” in order to sell to the masses, rather than because it’s good art. Just today I was reading this, where 6 media giants (in cahoots), get to decide 90% of the entertainment that gets served to the population. This is not just money we’re talking about here, but it’s POWER. When you control that much of the art people use, then you control these people, plain and simple.

That’s why I mostly listen to bedroom pop these days. 90% of my music experience is music written by young people in their bedrooms, who give their music for free (usually, but not always), and self-publish mostly via Bandcamp. These artists don’t even offer a picture of their faces to accompany their albums or their Tumblr blogs, while these one-man projects are usually hidden behind a pseudonym. In other words, this is 100% antithetic to what mainstream show business are. Plus, this kind of “chillwave” music speaks to me volumes about our situation today, about how we feel, or how we want to feel, rather than a sterile Katy Perry or a Lady Gaga song would ever be able to do so.

Regarding video we are still in the dawn of true indie video. Good cameras have just become to become affordable. For video, it’s like we live in 2003, in terms of computer music tool availability. Consider that chillwave took off in 2009. So by 2018 or so, I think we should be having amazing short films or other artistic videos, mostly for free on Vimeo. Sure, we already do have some (e.g. Matthew Brown’s work), just not as many.

I mean, just like with bedroom pop, I expect that artistic indie video will go to a different direction, to a new dawn of cinematic experience where the aesthetics, senses and emotions get 10x higher than in a normal narrative movie — for those who can “decode” the style. Chillwave was never about competing with mainstream pop, instead the Internet-sprouted genre was surprisingly current, and much more emotional: I listen to “Skin” by FiveNG for example, and I get transcended like I’m on a voodoo ritual. I listen to Washed Out’s “You & I“, and I get so fucking horny, that no other music ever managed to do so. I listen to “New Theory” by Washed Out, and my eyes fill up with tears with nostalgia about a place and time that was, but never really was. No other kind of mainstream music, ever, was able to do this to me. Maybe it helps that I’m a synesthete, I don’t know. Or maybe it’s because I give music a chance to open up to me. But since this hasn’t happen with any other genre or mainstream art before, I do give the credit for these high emotions and thoughts they inflict on me to the very fact that bedroom pop was created by real humans for a multiplicity of reasons (but all these reasons were pure), and not by an established capital power encouraging the masses to simply consume and obey.

To make it more visual: mainstream pop is like eating donuts. Full of corn syrup and wheat flour, among other additives, fried in PUFA oil. You eat some, your insulin spikes, and an hour later you need more because that’s what sugar does to you! You end up fat, sick, and dead inside. You become a slave of the system, of a chain of events that only stop when you die. True music instead is like eating a steak with a mix of veggies as a side. It’s a less interesting proposition at first, but it provides true nutrition, and after a while, this “real food” is the only food you eat, but you don’t necessarily “crave”, because craving itself is a symptom of the metabolic syndrome.

So similarly to music, I don’t expect this new kind of video art to try and compete with Avatar or Star Wars, but instead, be truly different. We live in the dawn of a new kind of filmmaking, which is truly impressionistic in nature. The people who will have their brains and eyes open, will feast on it. The rest, they can stay slaves of the powers of capital, who mostly serve pedestrian love war-stories. Good luck to them.