I’ve been playing with my HTC Hero the last few days. I installed a lot of popular Android apps (about 80 of them), and tried to see how they feel compared to my iPhone’s.

Basically, the iPhone apps are more mature/stable. Developers seem to be spending less time testing for their Android ports, and more for their iPhone’s. However, on the other hand, Android has more free apps than the iPhone. If you can have a bit of patience with them, you will save money. Basically, it depends if your time is worth money or not.

The iPhone is not perfect though. Here are my three major gripes with the iPhone. All these features are supported on Android (#3 is done via 3rd party apps):

1. Background apps. From Twitter, to IM and VoIP apps (that are simply impractical to use with just PUSH), background apps are a must have. If anything, create an Android-like security system and services’ server that keeps control of misbehaving services.

2. Let the device operate as a USB-based device so we can drop files in there. Then, make some sort of file access/management accessible to third party apps. For example, what if I want to just copy a few random-format VGA videos on my iPhone, and there’s an app like VLC that can read these files while the iPhone video viewer can’t? I don’t want to transcode to h.264/AAC, I just want to play them as is via an app that can understand these formats. And that’s just a multimedia example. The same kind of example can exist for office or other documents too. And recently, I became aware that the first real video editor for the iPhone, ReelDirector, has no way to add music to the videos because Apple doesn’t offer access to the iPod music, or to a storage facility like the one suggested above.

3. AVRCP/PAN/LAP/Obex Bluetooth support. I need to be able to send a picture, or other kind of whatever-format file (see #4) to someone else’s phone (not DRM’ed files of course). Even dumbphones have support for these Bluetooth profiles.

4. Some kinds of apps are missing exactly because of #1 and #2. If Apple listens and fixes these two issues, we will see *useful* utilities and complex apps entering the AppStore, as opposed to yet another game or unit converter.

5. Just under the search box, I’d like to see a list-view with various app/phone notifications. Something between Android’s and Palm Pre’s, but with Apple’s touch. Again, for that we’d need #1, since PUSH won’t cut it in all cases. Originally I thought that a widget system for that empty space under the search box would be nice, but I think that a well-designed notification list view, makes more sense in that limited space.

On the other hand, the Android ecosystem is missing more stuff:

1. Not as good of overall usability/ergonomics as in the iPhone. Apps are more stable, beautiful, and with more features on the iPhone. On Android they feel like patchworks. Especially games, which is a shock!

2. I’d like a media player that makes sense and is a joy to use. The current media player sucks goats compared to the iPod Touch usability. Oh well, at least it can read all album art (Nokia phones, and even Sandisk players can’t).

3. AppleTV/iTunes Remote (TunesRemote on Android doesn’t work with my AppleTV, which is our main audio server in our home — we don’t use our AppleTV for video).

4. Skype via Wifi. Currently, Android’s Skype only works via GSM on the Android, because it was released around a time where not all VoIP-assisting APIs were completed on Android. Version 1.6 of Android does have the necessary APIs completed, but and I don’t see Skype getting fixed, since the company even removed their Android web page! Here’s hope they will wake up and add WiFi support.

5. Google Voice currently doesn’t work via VoIP/WiFi. Therefore, it’s completely useless for me right now since I need it to call my mom in Greece, and I only have a PayAsYouGo AT&T account.

6. No video editor is possible for Android (even if it doesn’t have iPhone’s file-system limitations) because not all needed media APIs exist (AFAIK). Plus, I’ve yet to see a single Android phone that shoots better video than the iPhone 3Gs anyway.

7. While there’s a task killer available, I want to also control apps to not automatically load on the background when the phone starts. Surely, that’s something that the app itself should offer me in its settings as a preference, however, very few implement it. So I’m now faced with apps that eat my RAM and I don’t want to be loaded (but I do want installed, e.g. Google Finance). That extra utility should be Google’s job, as it was Microsoft’s when they wrote msconfig.exe to carry out the function. If Apple adds the ability of background apps, they should implement this too (along a task killer).

And some things that both platforms need to implement. Who knew! They have something in common!

1. Get their shitz together with audio/video on multi-IM/VoIP. How more should we wait for A/V chats via WiFi? It’s 2010 already God damn it. I’m not even asking overloading 3G towers, I just want it via WiFi!

2. Adobe Flash 10.1. With GPU acceleration please. Android’s getting it according to Adobe, but until I see Vimeo working with it at 30 fps (VGA, non-HD videos), it has to stay in this list.

3. UPnP support. Both as a server and a client.

I have a bunch of Kodak HD digicams lying around (they cost just $100-$150 these days), but I don’t really use them because they are so slow to edit. You see, on the PC side, editors use the Quicktime engine to decode the MPEG4-SP format. On the Mac side these files are re-encoded during import to a friendlier format, so it’s not a big deal there, but on the PC side it is, since Quicktime for the PC is very slow. Not only that, but under Sony Vegas, using these MPEG4-SP MOV files via the Quicktime decoder is crashy.

So obviously, I needed a way to losslessly re-wrap (NOT re-encode) these MOV files to AVI, in order to force a more sane decoder to take over the decoding job under Vegas. So today I found a way to make these 720/30p HD files REAL TIME on my 5 year old Pentium4 3Ghz PC under Sony Vegas. From 2 fps previewing speed when using Quicktime under Vegas, to full 30 fps when using ffdshow instead! And it’s mighty stable! Here’s how:

Main method

1. Download ffdshow. Use the latest CLSid version for your operating system. Here’s the current 32bit version (as of this writing), if you are lost and you don’t know which one to download. Install it.

2. Download and install SUPER (use the RO server, the US one is corrupted). Load the app, right click, and set “Output file management” to any newly created folder (this will be the folder that will hold all your AVI files). For example, e.g. C:\myvideos\holidays\france\

3. Create another folder in that folder, call it “originals” (so now it becomes something like C:\myvideos\holidays\france\originals\). Copy the Kodak .mov files from the SD card to that “originals” folder.

4. Navigate to the “originals” folder with Windows Explorer, and drag-n-drop all the MOV files to SUPER. Set up SUPER exactly as shown below in pink, and press “encode active files”.

Update: If the created MJPEG AVI files are reported as 600 fps by your player/editor, then use MEncoder instead of FFmpeg in the above screenshot.

Now, transcoding will commence. Transcoding to AVI will be really fast, since we only re-encode the audio (Vegas can’t decode the original ulaw audio format without Quicktime you see, and these AVI files don’t use Quicktime). Also, this conversion is completely LOSSLESS, you won’t lose quality at all by doing so.

5. Load Sony Vegas (or any other PC video editor that uses the “Video for Windows” technology), and load the newly-created AVI files in it (not the MOV files). Load the Vegas “project properties” dialog, and manually set resolution to 1280×720, frame rate at 29.97, field order to “none/progressive”, quality to “best”, de-interlacing to “none”. In the “audio” tab, change the audio resampling & stretching to “best”. Leave any other fields found in that dialog as is. Click “ok”.

6. Now edit (previewing is going to be stable and faaaaast when using the default preview/auto mode). When you are done with editing, you MUST select ALL clips in the timeline (either by using the “edit mode”, or by using the SHIFT key), and right click on them, select “switches” and then “disable resample”. This is very improtant because otherwise you will get a “ghost” image out of these clips (because these stupid Kodak cameras don’t record in a fixed frame rate). When done, export for PC viewing or Youtube/Vimeo/PS3/XBoX360 like this under Vegas. For other video editors look here.

Alternative method

Windows 7 has problems with SUPER. Also, some people just hate it, or don’t trust it. So, here’s the command line edition of the same workflow shown above. It requires some small knowledge of MS-DOS usage.

1. Follow #1 from the first method.

2. Download the latest build of ffmpeg. Create a folder called “ffmpeg” somewhere, and unzip the contents in there.

3. Inside that same ffmpeg folder, create another folder, called “videos”.

4. Copy the Kodak .mov files from the SD card on the ffmpeg/videos/ folder.

5. Open a DOS prompt, navigate to the ffmpeg/video/ folder, and run the following command for each and every one of your MOV files:
..\bin\ffmpeg.exe -i kodak_001.mov -f avi -vcodec copy -acodec pcm_s16le kodak_001.avi

Substitute the “kodak_001” file names with your video file names. E.g. the 100_132.mov will become 100_132.avi, etc. You will have to manually do that for every one of your files, unless you are proficient with MS-DOS scripting/programming, in which case you can automate it using “batch” files. If you don’t know what I’m talking about scripting here, just do the job manually. Here’s a batch file you can run though, save it on notepad, name it thejob.bat, save it on the ffmpeg/bin/ folder, and drag .mov MJPEG files into its icon (script by Michael Burgess):

echo off
echo hello
IF EXIST %1 GOTO THEJOB

:JOBDONE
EXIT

Transcoding to AVI will be really fast, since we only re-encode the audio (Vegas can’t decode the original ulaw audio format without Quicktime you see, and these AVI files don’t use Quicktime). Also, this conversion is completely LOSSLESS, you won’t lose quality at all by doing so.

6. After the conversion to AVI is done for all files, move all these newly-created AVI files in another location, e.g. where you usually store your video projects (e.g. C:\myvideos\holidays\france\ whatever).

7. Follow #5 and #6 from the first method. Read the important notes. You’re done.

Tutorial for MJPEG MOV files

IF you’re having speed/stability issues with HD MJPEG MOV digicams too (e.g. Panasonic LX3, Nikon D90, and many other digicams), you can apply this tutorial too to create AVI MJPEG streams. This would result in previewing these files twice faster. You need to do two changes to the tutorials above:

1. After installing ffdshow in step #1, load ffdshow’s “VfW Configuration” panel, click the “Decoders” tab, click “Codecs”, scroll down to find the MJPEG format, and change it from “disabled” to “libavcodec”. Screenshot.

2. When you set the frame rate on your Vegas or other PC video editor’s project properties dialog (just before you edit), you must figure out what is the source’s footage frame rate. Vegas tells you what the original is if you select it in the Project Media tab, and read its status bar. It will say something like “30.000 fps”, or “24.000 fps”. Type in the frame-rate field that number. Set up the rest of the project properties as shown in the tutorials above. At the very end of editing, after you “disable resample”, export at 29.97 fps if the original reported frame rate was 30, or at 23.976 if the original was 24. Leave at 25 if it the original was 25. This will ensure sane, standard-compliant, frame rates.

Everything else is the same as in the tutorials above.

Important notes

1. While editing, the gamma will be different than the original Kodak MOV files. This is normal. Quicktime has a known problem with MPEG4 footage, rendering them with a lower gamma value (looking washed-out). What you will get with AVI and Vegas, is how the camera REALLY recorded the footage — which is a good thing.

2. This method only offers speed and stability under PC editors for MPEG4-SP & MJPEG files, not for MPEG4-AVC/h.264 files. Please note that the Kodak digirecorders, like the Zi6/Zi8/Zx1 are h.264-based, not MPEG4-SP based like their actual Kodak HD digicams. Therefore, for these Z-series digirecorders you’ll need something like Cineform NeoSCENE (costs $99) to go around the editing problem.

3. SUPER might trigger your anti-virus. This doesn’t mean it has a virus or that it’s malware, it’s just that it doesn’t always play nice with some anti-virus apps.

4. Vegas Platinum 10 has a bug with the ffdshow MJPEG decoder, so you might see slowness when that version is used. Previous versions of Vegas don’t have the bug. I don’t know about newer, or Vegas Pro 10.

After just 4 hours of overall shooting time, but 2 months of various setbacks, the music video I shot for local Bay Area artist Andy Kong, is finally up. Andy is a great singer/songwriter, so if you like the song, go ahead and check his music on iTunes!

Video was shot with a bare HV20 (just an ND filter was attached to it) in 24p, and in 60i for the slow-mo scenes. There are a few shots that I’d like them to be different, but overall I’m reasonably happy with the result. HD version here.

I had a 3-hour nap yesterday, and during that time I had the weirdest dream ever (although I’m known to have adventurous dreams). I saw some gangs that some of its members were hideous monsters, I saw my mom telling me that the little girl that’s part of one of these gangs was my twin sister that I never knew I had. While trying to free her (with… Adam Lambert’s help), I got chased and I had to swim away and fight the bad guys like a ninja.

By the time I got out of the water, the gang boss, none other than Samuel L. Jackson, took away my mother and my sister and he wouldn’t tell me where they were. Myself and some ex-gang members… tortured him, to no avail. Then, another monster comes in, and told us that Jackson has a secret place in his basement, a labyrinth. To get in and out of there without getting lost, you need to be accompanied by a kid that was a twin (and that was the reason he had kidnapped my supposed twin sister as a baby). I decided to go in.

It was an amazing place, and for the first time in a long time I did not realize that I was dreaming. It felt real. Some of it had places where you fall “up”, some of it had floors that would break apart and re-arrange itself, some of it had corridors with doors that monsters would come out and bite you, and the rest had a lot of stolen art, technology and what not. Even Adam Lambert was stashed there, and couldn’t find the exit. I asked him if he saw my mom and sister, he led me to them, and with my excitement for finding them, I woke up. I guess we’ll never know if I was able to lead these trapped people out.

Wow, just wow! A mixture of real footage and motion design, inspired by the look of Dutch ’70s postcards and class photos. Shot with a Canon HV20. HD version here.

There’s this idea on the internets the last few years that if you’re a musician you must give your music for free, and then try to make money off of live performances and special packages for fans who are collectors. I personally don’t share this idea. I don’t believe that anyone can be a Radiohead or NiN. These bands are already established with a known number of fanatic fans who would buy anything. But the reality is that for the 99.99% of the rest of the artists, this won’t work. I, and anyone I know, would never buy collector’s items. It’s not our style, I guess. We follow a musician for his music only (ok, and for those dreamy eyes).

Live performances only bring so much money too, and all we know how bad music sales are these days. So, you ask, how can the music industry survive? And my answer is: it can’t, and it won’t. Why is it so hard to acknowledge that times changed, and no matter what, only a handful of artists will make it big, and the rest should keep their backup jobs? The age of rock’n’roll and Hollywood glam are over. Just like being a weldor was a cool job back in the Middle Ages, and it’s not anymore. Times changed.

Just the other day I was reading on BBC what journalists and music industry specialists suggested that should be done in order to save the music industry. They suggested from subscription streaming, to universal licensing, to anything else you can think of. And guess what: none of this will work. Nada. Reasons being: 1. Over-saturation of the market, 2. There’s already enough legally free music out there, 3. Streaming a problem in a non-100% internet-connected world, 4. Piracy.

In my opinion, trying to be a musician that can sustain a family financially, is a very difficult thing to do, and it’s only going to be more difficult. And if you happen to have a drug habit, well, good luck with your cheapo MacDonalds daily diet and still look young & sexy in your ’30s. However, if you still feel that you want to give it a try in that industry, here are my suggestions.

Production

1. Experiment with new sounds, new instruments. If you’re just another 1 guitar, 1 bass, 1 drums, 1 vocals band, well, good luck with that. Oh, and stop seeing rock with keyboards as “pop/disco” (and therefore “bad music”). Keyboards is just a tool, it can be very flexible sound-wise, and so use that to your advantage. On the other side of the spectrum, violins are still cool.

2. Chances are you’re not a new Elvis or Nirvana. Therefore, you’ll have to play within the constraints of the current market. This means that you will have to write music people WANT to hear — even if you don’t. Oh, shut up already with your “I won’t sacrifice my artistic integrity” bullshit. Do you think Leonardo daVinci only created the stuff he wanted to create, or did he also got side jobs for governors and the church, and had to abide within the rules and needs of these employers? Because, he totally did, and you’re no different. Today’s “employer” are the consumers. And today’s consumers are so overrun by their hectic life, that they simply have no time to decode your experimental/avant-garde/whatever-weird-shit you’re writing. They need HOOKS, melodies that their brain can hold on to after a SINGLE LISTEN. The rule of thumb here is this: if you can imagine your neighbor being able to sing your song in his shower, then you have a marketable song. If not, go back to drawing board and rewrite it. Now, I am not saying that you should only write “pop” music (by “pop” I mean “easily understood”, it could be any genre, including heavy metal or punk — more explanation on all this in the comment section below). But you need to write such music in order to make a BUCK, so you can then produce the music you REALLY want to make available (e.g. Blitzen Trapper took off when their last two albums became more accessible musically). You can do this via two ways: have 3 out of the 10 songs on your album being the music you really want to make, and poll your customers what they thought about it. The other way is to give away your not-very-commercial music via your web site, and then see the reactions of your fans. If that kind of music sells, consider it for your next album. If not, keep making “pop” music, write the music you want on the side, and give it away for free, and await for another 20 years until it gets appreciated. If you’re not willing to do that, then I wouldn’t consider you a wise professional. There’s no shame in making a living. The shame only comes when you are a musical fanatic, a “purist”. Nothing good ever came out of fanaticism.

3. Learn how to use recording software, e.g. Logic, Pro Tools etc. It is absolutely possible with today’s equipment to record in very high quality on your own home. You will only need professional mixing and mastering to be done by others.

4. Design your own artwork. If you’re a true artist, it doesn’t matter if you’re a musician and not a painter or a Photoshoper. Let it come out. Improvise. Or, ask your fans to do art for you.

Business aspect

1. Avoid label contracts (including with indie labels), unless you’re 100% you are getting a good deal. Majors never offer a good deal btw, avoid them like the plague.

2. Avoid managers. If you need to be told what to do then this is not the right profession for you. Being a professional musician today means more than just writing music. If you’re only interested in writing/play music, then keep a day job, and play music on the weekends. Do employ a manager/helper when you become too successful and can’t take care of the daily business all by yourself anymore.

3. Hire a PR company to do specifically the TV/magazines/radio promotion for you (there are 5-6 good ones in the US), a live-show booking company, a licensing company, a distribution company (e.g. CDBaby, who will also get you to Amazon, iTunes, Spotify etc). If you’re successful, also get legal counsel.

Your side of promotion, online

1. Send ONE mp3 to music blogs from your new album. IF you can give away more, give away up to three mp3s from your album, but there has to be a 1-2 months of space between the freebies. Otherwise, overloading listeners won’t work well, and you might give the wrong impression that your music doesn’t worth much to give it away so easily. It’s a bit of a mental game. You will have to keep listeners think “oh, I remember these guys, they had this other mp3 a couple of months back“. Very important: always tag your mp3s properly, including with album art.

2. You must spend time to find the top-100 music blogs out there to send your info, mp3s for reviews or for freebie promotional reasons. The top-5 such blogs will probably ignore you, but the rest 95 probably won’t. If the top-5 can get you 1000 new fans, and the rest 95 combined can get you 2000 new fans, it’s still a good plan despite the extra work. As for the top-5, that’s why you hired the PR company suggested above.

3. While commercial FM radio might be inaccessible to indie artists (even with a PR company is difficult), college & internet radio are not. Send your free CDs or mp3s to these radios. There are hundred of thousands of listeners in these radios these days. This should also include services like Pandora and Last.fm which are not internet radios with the normal sense of the word.

4. TV is also inaccessible for indie artists, but Youtube/Vimeo are not. And I am not talking here about just shooting a music video or capturing a live performance. Instead, contact top amateur videographers and ask them to make videos off of your songs. The band Barcelona became more known in the last few months just because a videographer used their song for his video (currently, the most “liked” HD video on Vimeo ever). The interesting thing here is that this is NOT the best song off of the album, and yet, AFTER that video became popular, that song became their No1 sale on iTunes. One big thing that ticks the music industry is the unauthorized usage of RIAA music by amateurs. This is a major point that the indie artist should use against his major artists’ competition! If they don’t allow people to use their music with their random non-commercial videos, then the indie artist should! All you need to ask is for attribution, so your new fans will know who plays that song.

5. Always maintain at least a Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter account. Twitter must be updated regularly. It’s very important to actually reply to your fans there (I personally unfollow bands that don’t reply to fans). Then there’s Imeem, purevolume, hypem, ilike etc. You can use a web site like ArtistData to manage them all at once. And of course, have a main band web site, that uses NO Flash. Flash takes ages to load and it doesn’t work with mobile phones. Keep it simple, and accessible. Also blog.

6. Do shoot 2-3 official music videos from your album. There are amateur videographers out there in your area that do want to shoot your official video, for free, or for very low cost. They get to brag that they shoot real music videos for artists, and you get a music video. And if the outcome is not stellar, it’s still better than nothing. Upload to both Youtube and Vimeo.

7. Sign up for sessions with Daytrotter or HearYa, then make these sessions known to your fans so they can download them for free. Just the other day I bought the EP of ‘Magic Wands‘ after I heard them for the first time at Daytrotter.

8. Tell your label or your PR company to give away for free 1-2 mp3s to mp3 manufacturers. If you can get 1 of your mp3s onto the Sandisk players (which usually come with a few mp3s for free), or an Android or Nokia phone, then you will get *millions* of new listeners, for free. Bay Area’s Loquat made a name for themselves by giving away their single via the Sandisk players.

9. For the top-5 or top-10 of the music blogs/mags, along the CD send an actual mp3 player with your top-3 songs in there, asking for a review (and mentioning which one of the 3 songs is to be given as a freebie for the blog/mag’s audience). See, if you send just a CD, no one will rip it, it will be ignored. If you send an attached mp3 on an email, it will get wiped out by their firewall. If you send a link to an mp3, most probably it will be ignored too. But by sending an actual mp3 player, no one will say “no” to a free gadget. They will feel compelled and *obligated* to listen to what’s in there. These days, you can buy a cheap 512 MB mp3 player (which is way bigger in storage than what you need anyway) for $10. Geeks.com had some a few weeks ago for $7+tax+shipping, they are out of them now. But they might still be available elsewhere.

10. Do shows. A lot of shows. And don’t shun the rural America, since most bands don’t go there, and so you can get new hungry fans there, while you least expected it to. Not everyone’s listening to country over there.

And finally: look good. The ladeez like seeing good looking men up on the stage. Sorry mate, part of the job too.

Don’t know which VdSLR to buy? Here’s a rundown of common knowledge and in my experience (both hands-on, and based on footage/tests found online):

Canon 5D
Noise: 9/10
Resolution: 8/10
Frame rate: 5/10
Bitrate/format: 7/10
Manual controls: 8/10
Audio gain control: 5/10 (requires firmware hack)
Live HDMI-out: 5/10
Rolling shutter: 6/10
Ergonomics: 6/10
Mic input: 7/10
Focusing: 5/10
Average Rating: 6.45

Canon 7D
Noise: 8/10
Resolution: 8/10
Frame rate: 8/10
Bitrate/format: 8/10
Manual controls: 8/10
Audio gain control: 3/10
Live HDMI-out: 6/10
Rolling shutter: 7/10
Ergonomics: 7/10
Mic input: 7/10
Focusing: 5/10
Average Rating: 6.81

Canon 500D/Ti1
Noise: 7/10
Resolution: 8/10
Frame rate: 4/10
Bitrate/format: 6/10
Manual controls: 2/10
Audio gain control: 1/10
Live HDMI-out: 5/10
Rolling shutter: 5/10
Ergonomics: 5/10
Mic input: 4/10
Focusing: 5/10
Average Rating: 4.72

Panasonic GH1
Noise: 7/10
Resolution: 8/10
Frame rate: 6/10
Bitrate/format: 2/10
Manual controls: 8/10
Audio gain control: 5/10
Live HDMI-out: 5/10
Rolling shutter: 6/10
Ergonomics: 7/10
Mic input: 6/10
Focusing: 8/10
Average Rating: 6.18

Nikon D90
Noise: 6/10
Resolution: 5/10
Frame rate: 3/10
Bitrate/format: 2/10
Manual controls: 2/10
Audio gain control: 1/10
Live HDMI-out: 5/10
Rolling shutter: 2/10
Ergonomics: 5/10
Mic input: 1/10
Focusing: 5/10
Average Rating: 3.63

The average rating puts the Canon 7D ahead the 5D with only a few points. However, when you also put into account the fact that the 5D costs an additional $1000, then the 7D is the clear winner. The 5D will stir clear the GH1 competition when the promised firmware upgrade comes out next year.

UPDATE: Just for fun. You get what you pay for:

RED One
Noise: 9/10
Resolution: 10/10
Frame rate: 10/10
Bitrate/format: 10/10
Manual controls: 10/10
Audio gain control: 10/10
Live HDMI-out: 8/10
Rolling shutter: 8/10
Ergonomics: 7/10
Mic input: 10/10
Focusing: 9/10
Average Rating: 9.18

This is a list of 30 rock bands that I would try to sign if I had a music label. The list is comprised mostly by completely unsigned artists, while few artists do have contracts with majors but they have been fucked up by these labels in many ways (oh, I’m aware of some good cases alright). Here are the bands in question:

– AG Silver
– Andy Kong (local)
– Arman Bohn
– Bang Bang Eche
– The Boxer Rebellion
– Cloud Cult
– The Crash Moderns
– Daddysmilk
– Dangermaker (local)
– Dizzy Balloon (local)
– Dolorata (local)
– Dredg (ex-major, local)
– Drist (local)
– Fono
– Girls are Robots
– The Golden Filter
– HIJK (local)
– The Hoodies
– Longwave (ex-major)
– Loomis and the Lust
– Low vs Diamond (major)
– Magic Wands
– Malbec
– Music for Animals (local)
– Rantings of Eva
– Rock Kills Kid (major)
– Solid Gold
– Sounds Under Radio
– Veil Veil Vanish (local)
– Wiretree

One thing that bugs me with the 720/30p MPEG4-SP format found on Kodak digicams (not on their digirecorders, as these use h.264), is that it’s very slow to edit on Windows. Most Windows video editors use the Quicktime engine to decode that MOV format, and Quicktime on Windows just plain sucks ostrich balls. I mean, sure, if you have a very modern, very fast PC, you’ll get some acceptable performance out of it, but on a modest PC, you won’t get more than a few fps on the editor’s preview screen. And besides, Sony Vegas is super-crashy when using the Quicktime engine. Every time I had to edit footage from these Kodak digicams, I had to use proxy files. The MPEG4-SP format is NOT a heavy format (it’s even lighter than XViD, which in turn is much lighter than h.264), it’s just that PC’s Quicktime somehow sucks with it.

These days, I am preparing a laptop to give to my mom. She’s 54, she’s never used a computer before, but she wants to learn. So I’m thinking of giving her my HP 1120NR netbook (1.6 Ghz Atom, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB flash storage, 1024×576 res, latest well-configured Ubuntu). I have already left with her the last time I was in Greece my Kodak Z1275 too. It’s a digicam with 720/30p recording capabilities at 12 mbps (no manual controls in video mode, not even exposure compensation). I think she would really enjoy shooting pictures and videos with it — something she didn’t do so far since she had no computer to enjoy them (she just has a 14″ TV with no A/V inputs, but she might buy a 32″ HDTV soon).

So while I was preparing that netbook, I also installed PiTiVi, the only easy-to-use GTK+ video editor that can do HD. KDEnLive is a bit overkill for her I think. So while I was testing PiTiVi with Kodak’s MPEG4-SP format, I found that at least ffmpeg/gstreamer were able to playback the format easily, even via a video editor (which usually adds performance constraints to the decoder), and even with the usage of an Atom CPU. And when removing the toolbars and making its UI “fullscreen”, even at a 1024×576 resolution, video editing was very acceptable! Only one screen needs to be trimmed down to fit in that resolution (the Project Properties dialog).

Of course, PiTiVi, has no support for transitions, effects, or titles. It’s just a straight-cutter right now. But for someone like my mom, I think that would be good enough. It’s fast for the specific video format, somewhat stable (not amazingly though), and it can export back in a 720/30p format (XViD) that the Atom CPU can handle in real time either via VLC or Totem (720/30p h.264 is too close of a call with that CPU, plus, the latest Ubuntu “unrestricted” ffmpeg package has removed AAC support once again). So I envision a scenario of my mom shooting some video, editing it with PiTiVi, exporting as XViD to a 16 GB SDHC card, deleting the working files to save space in the measly internal storage, and playing back the XViD file from the SDHC card on a (new) HDTV via the HP-2-HDMI dongle (if I ever find to buy it, since it’s a rare hardware addon for that netbook model).

As for still pictures, I’m excited about the new F-Spot that features basic image manipulation tools.

Not sure if she will ever manage to learn all that stuff, since she can hardly use her Nokia S40 cellphone, but hey, why not? JBQ’s grandmother learned how to use a PC with Vista at her mid-70s, so it’s never too late.

I have decided to re-license portions of my blog under a “Free” license.

Definitions

“Me”, “My”, “I”, “Myself” means Eugenia Loli.
“You” means an individual or entity exercising rights under the Licenses mentioned below.

Details

1. The actual blog posts’ text that I have written (not including quotes by other publications) is licensed under the Creative Commons “Attribution” 3.0 license.

2. The blog comments’ text that I have written (not including quotes by others) is licensed under the Creative Commons “Attribution” 3.0 license.

3. The blog comments written by people other than myself are owned by whoever posted them; I take no responsibility for them, and I claim no ownership over them. I do retain the right to remove them in whole or in part though if I find them offensive, or edit them for clarification (e.g. fixing a bad link).

4. Embedded videos, audio, or Flash applets are owned by whoever created them, and are governed by their respective licenses.

5. a. Pictures/images that are obviously not shot or created by me (e.g. PR shots of a product, celebrities etc), or that are already mentioned to be under a different license, are owned by whoever created them and are governed by their respective licenses.
b. Pictures or images that I did shoot/create but feature recognizable people, or recognizable trademarked products/logos, or artistic works (e.g. collage) are “all rights reserved” by me.
c. The rest of the pictures/images in the “Recipes” category, and all other eligible pictures/screenshots/images that I have obviously shot or created myself are under the Creative Commons “Attribution” 3.0 license.
d. If in doubt, send me an email. If I’m dead, or I don’t respond to your email within a week, use your best judgment.

6. Especially for blog articles that are obvious product reviews, you must also clearly mention the date of the original publication as shown below, if you are going to copy them away.

Important Notes

1. The Creative Commons “Attribution” 3.0 license’s legal code states that: “You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author’s honor or reputation“. I plan to exercise this right in all the common sense ways, but also please note the following: for the articles that are obviously “tutorials” or “recipes”, feel free to do whatever you like with them (to the extent that the license allows). I encourage enrichment/corrections/etc on my tutorial/recipe articles. But for all the rest of my blog posts/comments, which most of the time represent personal opinions, you have all the rights that the license allows you, including translations, creating derivative works, and even grammar-fixing, BUT, you can’t change the meaning of my writings. Changing the meaning of my writings would be considered “distortion” by me.

2. Regarding this blog’s privacy: to the best of my knowledge, this blog never ran any ads, weird javascript, or other questionable software. However, the two third party statistics services I’ve used might (or might not) collect some information. Take it up with them (StatCounter in the past, and WordPress.com Stats currently).

3. The Creative Commons “Attribution” 3.0 license allows the licensor (me) to define the way he/she wants to be attributed. Here are my wishes:

Originally by Eugenia Loli
eugenia17@NOSPAM.gmail.com
<a href=”original article LINK”>original article TITLE</a> [IF applicable]
Original publication date: [Publication date of the original article goes here]
http://vimeo.com/eugenia [IF you are using a video-related article]

4. My FTC 16 CFR Part 255 disclaimer, for those who need it.