We were watching some Audioslave, The White Stripes, and Oasis videos on Youtube tonight and I thought I check out iTunes to see if there’s a best-of album for Oasis. There is one such album, but it is not DRM-free, and it does not include the “Whatever” song which I like a lot. I ended up buying another album instead: Slade’s best-of, 21 songs for $9.99, DRM-free. A much better deal. Oasis have more songs that I like, but I am not willing to purchase under those terms.

C****m on Feel the Noizzzzze…

After buying me a beautiful necklace tonight, my JBQ took me out for an [expensive] dinner at a French restaurant. I told him that we should be careful how we spend money but he replied that he just doesn’t want to think about it because he is very stressed and calculating about work, and he just wants to relax and have some fun when he’s not working.

Eugenia: Maybe we should just move to Greece then. Nobody is stressed there, most people go to work whenever they feel like to, they have night life, live the good life — even with less money. We Greeks do nothing that we shouldn’t have to. We don’t invent anything either, we leave the cancer cure for the Americans to find. Then we import it.

JBQ: So you are telling me that you are retired as a nation. Hmmm…. it almost makes sense. You did what you had to do 2500 years ago and you lay back since then.

Eugenia: …

EA said that the iPhone is more powerful than the DS, and now Sega is saying that it’s just as powerful as the Dreamcast. It makes perfect business sense to me for Apple to create an addon controller that attaches to the port and adds buttons on both sides of the device, and what not. Then release an API for it too, and let people design or port games to it. Honestly, why not?

The NTSC HV20 cameras can record in 60i and PF24 modes, the PAL ones can do 50i and 25p, while the NTSC version of HV30 also adds PF30 support to the mix. The HV40 can also do true 24p. The common question that Vegas users have is “which project properties should I use for each mode before I start editing?”. So, load the “project properties” dialog and follow the info below:

1. 60i or 50i
If you shot using the default mode of your camera, simply use the supplied HDV 1080i template for either 60i (NTSC) or 50i (PAL). I recommend the “interpolate” de-interlacing method though and the “best” quality.

2. PF30
If you shot in PF30 mode with your NTSC Canon HD camera, select the HDV 1080/60i template, but change the “field order” to “progressive” and the de-interlacing method to “none”. Quality should always be set to “best”.

3. PF25
If you shot in PF25 mode with your PAL Canon HD camera, select the HDV 1080/50i template, but change the “field order” to “progressive” and the de-interlacing method to “none”. Quality should always be set to “best”.

4. PF24
By default, PF24 is just 60i, not true 24p. But if you do the extra work to remove pulldown (tutorial for HDV, and for AVCHD), you get a true progressive 24p stream which is and should be handled differently.
Case A: If you have not removed pulldown before you entered Vegas to start editing, then you should just use the supplied HDV 1080/60i template unmodified. I recommend the “interpolate” de-interlacing method for when exporting though.
Case B: If you have removed pulldown, then you use the HDV 1080/60i template, but change the “field order” to “progressive”, the de-interlacing method to “none” or “interpolate”, and the frame rate to “23.976” (type it exactly like this if it’s not available in the list). If Vegas does not recognize the footage as progressive, provided that you removed pulldown properly, look here for a workaround.

5. 24p
If you shot in 24p mode with your NTSC HV40 camera, select the HDV 1080/60i template, but change the “field order” to “progressive” and the de-interlacing method to “none”. Also, change the frame rate to exactly 23.976 fps (type it exactly like this if it’s not available in the list). Quality should always be set to “best”.

6. AVCHD
If you are using AVCHD cameras instead of HDV, use the “full HD” templates rather than the HDV ones (in the project properties dialog). For example, the full template will read 1920×1080 instead of 1440×1080, with aspect ratio 1.000 instead of 1.333. Only very few, older, AVCHD cameras are also 1440×1080 instead of 1920×1080 (e.g. the Canon HG10). Then, modify these templates the same way as described above.

7. Other cameras
If you are using a different source than HDV/AVCHD, then use step 1 of this tutorial to setup the right project properties.

And of course, if you are using these non-standard recording modes a lot, you can “save” a new template under a new name in the project properties dialog, so you won’t have to change these options again in the future manually, but you just pick them up from the template listing.

Some shit is flowing around about breaking compatibility for GTK+ 3.0. Imendio should stay clear of library code if that’s what they want to do. Thankfully, there are people who do get it, like Miguel de Icaza and Morten Welinder.

The hard part is keeping compatibility (something that even Apple doesn’t do right in between major OSX versions), and it seems that especially in the FOSS world, no one wants to do the hard things. In the world of Linux, coders should realize that it all comes down to “compatibility, compatibility, compatibility…” and not “developers, developers, developers…”.

My friend Dominique arrived with a present (thanks!) for me tonight: the Sony DVP-FX820 portable DVD player. Which of course I will be using as an external video monitor for my HV20 camcorder through its video-in port, rather than as a DVD player.

The screen is vibrant and high-res enough that even through the lowly RCA cable it delivers a very good image quality. This device is a must have for amateur but serious filmmakers, especially if there is a 35mm adapter in the mix, because not only the large 8″ screen helps with focusing, but also because you can rotate it effortlessly (don’t forget that most 35mm adapters record with the image upside down).

However, the most interesting point for me was something else. It was the fact that the Sony monitor has a wider display zone than the HV20’s LCD screen (less overscan). Many times I fell into the trap: I would frame a shot that looks great on screen, but when I see it on my PC’s LCD, there are crap objects outside the safe zone that were not visible in the camera’s LCD, and that ruin my framing! Having a safe zone on the LCD of the camera might have been a useful thing back in the day, but today’s videos that end up only online, or on TVs that have a “dot by dot” mode (like mine), doesn’t make sense to design camera LCDs with these limitations anymore. So I was happy to see that this Sony player can see “more” of the actual shot and helps you frame more accurately (especially horizontally).

You will need a “Triple Phono Plug Coupler” (aka a female-to-female 3-way RCA adapter) to connect your camera to this device. The only other problem this setup has is that it’s bulky, as you will have to dangle along a full DVD drive all the time, so you might need something like this. Battery life is pretty good for what it is (reportedly over 5 hours, I haven’t tested it as of this writing), and the device comes with a car charger.

More discussion and info about it over at HV20.com.

UPDATE 2: The video is done (haven’t slept all night, I was working on it). I am now waiting for final confirmation from the band.

UPDATE: Here’s a really small video sample. Work in progress! It’s 3:40 AM here. 🙂

For those who also read my husband’s blog, will already know that yesterday we had a great time shooting a music video clip for the all-female rock band Dolorata. We shot their song “You’ve Gotta Want It“. When we arrived at the band’s rehearsal space I was delighted to see that its exterior was all green! And so I used that fact to color grade it to the extreme and possibly add some chroma key elements too. Here are some ideas I got so far for post-processing:

For those who read my blogs for years, they know that I don’t give much credit to Greeks. But every few years they surprise me. They appear more organized than the usual disorganization you get in Greece, and more capable of pulling a clever trick to get the job done.

It is my personal opinion, that the doping Greek problem was and STILL is government-sponsored. In fact, Greeks come close to the inhumane doping policy that East Germany had. GDR was putting athlete’s health in danger to prove to the West that communism works. It was a political game. With Greece was also a political game, again to prove something: that Greeks are as good as the ancient Greeks and that the Olympics “belong” to them.

The story starts at the end of the 1980s. Before that, the Greek track and field was in the middle ages. The Greek records were not better than the youth world records, meaning that a good 16 year old American or Russian athlete could run rounds around a mature Greek track and field athlete of the time. But around 1988, the city for the 1996 Olympics was about to be decided. The Greeks wanted these “Golden” Olympics like crazy (100 years of Olympics). While Greece eventually was given the 2004 Olympics, the sour taste of Coca-Cola winning the bidding for Atlanta was never cleared off their mouths. One of the (good) points Atlanta made against the Athens bidding was pretty much this: “your sport performance sucks, Olympics in Athens would be a disaster if you don’t have good Greek athletes to get more spectators and interest”.

And so the Greek machine started working on it. Suddenly, Patoulidou won the 100m hurdles in Barcelona’s Olympics in 1992 –the first track and field gold after almost a century for Greece — an athlete who’s never ran nearly that fast before, not even after that win. Think of the not-so-good 12.96 and 12.88 performances set in the qualifying rounds that week were much better than her previous record in that sport. In essence, Patoulidou ran 1 whole second faster in the final than she ever ran before (that’s equivalent of her running about 7 meters ahead of her pre-Barcelona self). This is just hard to swallow. No one can get that much better in a month’s time. After Patoulidou, a whole new crop of athletes started appearing with world-winning performances. And not only on track and field, but also in weightlifting. Suddenly Greece was one of the big powers in weightlifting — out of nowhere. They all said that “Patoulidou was the example set and inspiration to get good performances”, but inspiration alone doesn’t make you faster.

The programme seemed to continue after Atlanta, and until Athens 2004. Fani Halkia wins the 400m hurdles, a hurdler who again, never ran nearly that fast, and neither did after that win (Update Aug 17th 2008: Today Halkia found doped with the exact same substance like everyone else in Greece: M3). When the Thanou and Kenteris case pretty much blew up the whole doping thing in Greece, the Greek sports took a back stage again. Except Deventzi in triple jump, there are no major Greek athletes today that can compete successfully in the international scene. There are a few who do some good times sometimes, good enough for world recognition, but who weirdly, perform very badly in international meetings. It almost doesn’t make sense. And I hate it when the Greek sportscasters talk about “lack of international experience” to cover the lack of pills and injections on these games — because of fear of getting caught.

And of course, in the beginning of this year, pretty much the whole weightlifting team was caught using a banned substance, and just yesterday, another athlete was caught too, using the exact same substance (this article was the reason I decided to write this blog post today). It is my opinion, that ALL the athletes who are part of the “pro” Greek team, are all doped. Consider this:

* GDR had something to prove, and so had Greece. Politics.
* Some athletes who won medals seemingly disappear afterward for one reason or another. This is not consistent with “big athlete” careers. It can happen once, or twice, but when it happens for 10-15 athletes something is smelly.
* Greece, like GDR did, trains their pro track & field athletes, together, in the same place, usually with government-sponsored coaches and programmes. Same goes for the Greek weightlifting. This is unheard of in other countries where an athlete has his/her own independent coach and usually trains in their hometown.

Is any of this proof? No, it’s not. But it is my personal opinion and analysis, and I am entitled to one: The government itself, or a branch of the government, sponsored doping so they can prove that Greeks still “got it”, and to prepare for the Athens’ Olympics. While some athletes still use banned substances, the programme is not as rigid and fool-proof as it had to be in the past. I believe that 1992-2004 was the “golden age” of track & field and weightlifting for Greece.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that all these other athletes out there, from US or China, are clean. I don’t believe that any pro sports are clean. Heck, possibly not even chess is. Wherever money is involved, there’s one more reason to beat your opponent by any means necessary.

I also would like to say that I am not against doping per se. I am just against drugs that actually do harm. If someone was to create a drug that makes you “better in any way” without any side-effects whatsoever, I would get some myself.

Update: And a funny note for Greeks who are good in history. View the Florence Griffith-Joyner video here at around 3:40 mark. Her voice is exactly the same as Sakorafa’s (a Greek athlete who broke the world record in javelin in 1982 and who also disappeared after that performance). Their voices are exactly the same, they both have this metallic male voice. Listening to Flo-Jo was like listening to Sakorafa. Makes you wonder what both they were on.

A few days ago Gizmodo was making fun of Android’s calendar application, which indeed, from what I see in the emulator, is nothing to cheer about. However, Apple’s Calendar 2.0 is not perfect either: there is no “week view”, the repeat function does not have enough options, and when you press the “previous/next” horizontal-looking arrows to go to the previews/next month view, the calendar scrolls vertically rather than horizontally.

I guess we might get the perfect calendar app around the same time we will get Artificial Intelligence.