Tenolian Bell

Resistance is Futile.

The other shoe will drop at some point. Electronics is a tricky industry. Its can be very difficult to engineer a new product with few manufacturing defects. Then roll out large orders of the product and have them work reliably. Arri and Panavision usually do extensive tests of their gear before they do a large roll out. Arri tested the Arricam for a couple of years before it began taking a lot of orders for the camera.

I didn't say it does not work. I'm essentially saying I've heard actors complain about this style of working, because they don't feel they are getting the amount of attention they would like. My talking about framing, focus, and exposure was not intent to be a slight on your talent. Depending on what you are doing these are challenges for everyone. You are not strictly focused on the actors performance while re-framing a dolly move and racking focus. Sometimes focus is soft. Actors don't always hit their marks. Especially when dealing with less experiences actors. I often have to explain the entire concept of why they need to be in a certain spot at a certain time. I'm sure certain actors would complain about his way of working. Soderberg also has the benefit of working with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and so on. Who are all seasoned, he may not even give them much direction.

The camera and its needs can also put a distance between you and the material. When I'm operating most of my concentration is on framing, focus, and actors hitting their lighting marks so the exposure will be correct. I would find it difficult to pay close attention to every little nuance of their performance. I've heard actors complain about directors being too distracted with the camera or tech toys on set, they have to compete for equal attention. I've heard some older actors say back in the day they had the directors full attention and could generally always see his/her face. Now they complain that the director is more often hidden behind the video assist monitor and they cannot always see the director while they are trying to communicate.

Movie used to work that way more before the 1980's. The filmmakers would allow you time to get to know the characters, before the inciting action began. That would help you get to learn about them and grow sympathetic for them. It was often used as a device to trick you into being sympathetic for someone who turns out to be the antagonist. You end up being sympathetic for the bad guy. They try to do that today but because character development takes a far back set to a tired plot you end up not being that sympathetic for much of anyone. The first group of girls all of the things we learn about them and their relationship with Stuntman Mike. For me that led up to the surprise of what end up happening to them. From getting to know them we did not expect that would happen to that particular group of girls. The second group we get to know. They seem more like a group of girly girls, at first they look like stereotypical movie girl victims. The conversation in the diner they reference 70's Grindhouse movies that involved extensive car chases and crashes. In that conversation they also give us information that helps with events that happen later. In referencing those old movies they give the reason as to why they get involved with what happens later in the movie.

I liked Death Proof much better than Planet Terror. I think Tarantion is probably a bigger fan of this genre and has a better grasp of it. The direction, pacing and story development of Death Proof was better. I liked that their were minimal scratches and dirt. Print slices and jump cuts were controlled to keep them from being too annoyingly distracting to the story. The really bad lighting was really effective. I think Death Proofs use of the missing reel was highly effective and much better than PT. All of that talking was story and character development. Its a dying art.

This is way off the topic at hand, but I do want to clear up some things. OS 9 was an old antiquated OS with many problems, it was fundamentally the same OS from 1984. Disk fragmentation was a problem under OS 9, which required defragmentation software. OS X is a huge improvement in this respect. OS X uses a sophisticated file allocation system that helps prevent fragmentation in the first place. OS X places the most used files on the inside of the spinning disk platter, this is where the disk spins the fastest, and data recovery is the fastest. It's been shown that OS X used over a year with no defragmentation there could be as little as 5% file fragmentation. Normally file fragmentation can be as high as 25%. I have seen debates if defrag software should be used with OS X. Some people say its not necessary some people say you should defrag at least once a year. I've seen the cautionary warning that if you do use defrag software you should only use software that has been made specifically for the version of OS X you are using. Older defrag software won't understand the file allocation system of a newer version of OS X and can end up making matters worse. It seems you are comparing the relationship of OS X and 9 to Windows NT and DOS. The current Windows OS is not built on DOS but it does still use DOS extension as legacy code, so that programs built for MS-DOS can still work on Windows today. When Apple transitioned from 9 to X they used a virtualized OS 9 called Classic to help ease the transition into X. That gave time for software developers to build applications for X and people could still use their old apps built for 9. After the transition was complete Apple ended all development of 9. Apple no longer supports Classic and there are no extensions built into X that will support software built for 9. No software developers currently make any software for 9. For Apple, Mac OS 9 is completely dead. Microsoft never owned 51% of Apple. In 1997 MS was in trouble with the government for anti-competitive practices. MS invested $150 million dollars into Apple, at the time Apple was at least a $2 billion dollar company. MS invested the money as a political move to show that it does support competition and soften any punishment for its past anti-competitive practices.

I like the theme song of "Greatest American Hero", :)

You referencing this story from John Dvorak? Where supposedly some secret insider told him the iPhone has a lot of problems. He's known for being very critical of Apple. In 1984 when the Mac was the first computer to use a mouse he wrote that he saw no evidence that people would want to use a mouse. A few years ago he predicted that Apple would give up Mac OS and use Windows. Because of his reputation for publishing stories of how Apple will fail, I wouldn't be surprised if he's telling the truth and someone did give him that information as a joke on him.

Yeah I guess it really depends on what you want/need. The computer could be on a different level of you house from your television and make sending wires difficult or impossible. Apple TV can also wirelessly network with five computers. There are two obvious signs Apple has more intentions for ATV. ATV runs OS X. It doesn't have a desktop, dock, or finder, but its underpinnings are exactly the same with a Front Row media interface on top. OS X is over kill for what Apple TV currently does. To play media it really only needs simple software and interface like what the iPod has. OS X gives Apple TV the power and potential to use complex software in the future. Apple TV uses a general purpose Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU. Which are also over kill for what Apple TV currently does. There are plenty of dedicated chips for playing media, even up to 1080 HD. But dedicated chips don't have the flexibility of a general CPU/GPU. Which gives Apple TV headroom for more functionality in the future. But I agree I can wait a little longer to see what happens.

Component would be preferable to S-Video but its a little more convoluted to make it work. Here is what I've found. mini-DVI to full DVI adaptor ($19) DVI-Component adaptor ($13.99) on Amazon. Xtreme is known to make really good cables and selling them a good price ($19) You will also need to adjust the screen resolution for video output in system preferences. To make it easier you can use Display Config X .

Even though Apple does not list in its materials Apple TV does work fine on standard def 4X3 televisions. Here is an article about it. Rogue Amoeba As far as HD. I imagine that is a limitation of current software and bandwidth. The Xbox can stream 1080i from the Xbox Live Market but I've read it does not consistently work well. From David Pogue: It?s very cool that some of the Xbox store?s TV shows and movies are available in high definition (for 50 percent more)?in fact, Microsoft says that its store is the ONLY online legal source of high-def movies. But they were balky in my tests. When I tried to rewind or fast forward, the movie bombed out and produced this message: ?Can?t play this content because it may not be supported. Status code: 69-00-80004005.? Looking at the iPod as an example. There were mp3 players that could store pictures and show video before the iPod could. But the workflow of managing, storing, and importing the pictures and video were not well thought out. Apple seemed to wait until the technology of the entire workflow was mature enough to allow pictures and video to be used on the iPod in a easy and intuitive fashion. It was fully thought out from software as well as the hardware. I imagine Apple TV will follow the same course. It uses OS X which is a clear indication its functionality will be expanded with additional software. Codecs and resolution can always be extended with software upgrades. Its likely for right now Apple just wants it to work perfectly as a computer media extender. In the future as technology improves its highly likely Apple TV will offer more features.

Oh if you are really interested in plugging your computer into your television, that's simple to do. Depending on what connections your television has. For optimum quality you can use a DVI to HDMI connection: and a Toslink optical audio connection You'd be sending a pure digital signal to your television and able to access your media through Front Row, which will play any codec Quicktime will play. If your television only has analog connections you would need a DVI to component or S-Video adaptor. You can use the analog audio port.

Uh oh we gotta' watch out for that. LOL. The fact that good quality video files are so much larger than good quality audio. To send video around wirelessly and have it work consistently problem free, and available for people to use easily, I'm sure isn't easy. I've seen it speculated that being the reason why Apple has placed such restrictions on which files Apple TV will play. I'm sure as the competition in this market heats up everyone will figure out ways to make it easier and work better.

From the Apple TV website: If you want to watch video from another computer, you can stream it live to your TV via Apple TV. Streamed media travels over your network to your TV ? without taking up space on Apple TV?s hard drive. It does both live streaming and storage on its HDD.

This is the Elgato Turbo.264. It is the beginning of peripheral devices that will spawn from the influence of Apple TV. It is a dedicated video encoding accelerator. It plugs into the Mac through USB. Its specialty is encoding movies into H.264 faster than the CPU alone. It accelerates encoding 2 to 4 times faster. I'm sure the perceived speed depends on how quickly your computer can already encode. The Turbo.264 can work with any software that uses Quicktime to encode and output H.264.

I've seen post houses that set up comfortable rooms to preview rough cuts instead of the client sitting in the editing bay. They have a wired connection from the editing bay into the preview room. The whole point is to send the signal without physical media. This seems like an inexpensive way to do much the same thing wirelessly. There is no way (that I know of) to wirelessly stream and instantly play media from Mac to Mac. The mini is more expensive and Apple TV has a better graphics card for decoding MPEG-4 files. It can pretty much play any standard def MPEG4 file. There are several software encoders that can convert any codec into MPEG4. So you can pretty much play anything. The iTunes Store makes money for the content creators its pretty much break even for Apple. Apple makes it money from hardware, the software helps sell the hardware. The Xbox is more expensive, sounds like a wind tunnel, and doesn't necessarily come ready to perform this function. Starting with the core Xbox system ($300) you need to add a hard drive ( additional $100) and wireless networking (additional $100). Xbox wireless connection is the older 802.11g standard. Apple TV uses the newer and faster 802.11n standard. The Xbox does not currently offer the superior HDMI connection. There already were plenty of mp3 players on the market when Apple launched the iPod. That does not necessarily mean Apple TV will have the success of the iPod but currently no leads in the media PC market. Right now its up for grabs by anyone. I think the most difficult part of this is the fact that most people haven't thought of streaming media from their computer to their television as a problem that needed to be solved. I agree that none of these devices will be big sellers until most people are convinced of the value and convenience of streaming over physical media. I don't see how the Apple TV is too late currently no one dominates this market. David Pogue from the NY Times did a test between Apple TV, Xbox 360, and a Netgear media player: Apple TV Has Landed He states of the three Apple TV has the least amount of functionality, but because of the limitation it actually is the easiest and most logical to use, and the most consistently works with few problems.

I loved the texture of the grain. Especially in these days when flat clean look is so popular. I'm also really happy to see it was on the negative and not strictly digital grain. I'm sure it was really difficult to keep consistent across so many lighting setups and speed ramps, but you did an excellent job.

Actually it does have a 480i mode. But your television has to have component in. You are only completely SOL with S-video.

Could be useful for presenting rough cuts on a monitor. Wirelessly send video to the Apple TV for presentation on a monitor in another room from a Mac or PC. Apple TV can stream video for immediate viewing or sync video from iTunes to save on hard drive built into the unit. Apple TV can connect using HDMI, component video, optical audio, and RCA analog audio. The limitation of AppleTV: its maximum resolution is 720P 24fps, it can only play MPEG-4 or H.264 video. Which requires a fairly powerful computer and some time to encode. ATV can only receives video from iTunes.

Adobe Premiere Pro - first on the Mac Adobe will not only be returning Premiere Pro to the Mac with the launch of Production Studio later this year, the new version of Adobe?s real-time editing solution will be available on the Mac before it is available on the PC. ?It will be a new version,? confirmed Adobe?s Premiere Pro product manager Giles Baker. ?The Mac will get the next version of Premiere Pro, the Windows product will follow suit later.? Both versions will be identical in features, confirmed Baker: ?The intent is wherever possible to have exact parity between the Windows and the Macintosh versions.? Back to the Mac Baker went on to confirm why his company had decided to bring Premiere back to the Mac three years after deciding to stop support for the platform. At that time the company cited Apple?s increased efforts in the digital-video market, particularly with Final Cut Pro. However, the landscape has changed in the intervening years, and Adobe has seen an increased interest in its video products from sectors that previously had no need for video tools. It is this ?bigger picture? that Adobe is addressing. ?What we are seeing is more and more people from traditional print and web backgrounds moving towards video,? explained Baker. ?Adobe is embracing the move towards publishing video online.? ?A lot of the traditionally print-oriented organisations now have a web presence, and they need to move towards motion video and graphics. They also need to get content onto mobile devices. We have the technology for all of that,? added Baker. Adobe has watched as the interest in its video applications on the Windows platform has increased, and anticipates that the interest from the Mac platform could be equal or even greater. ?In 2006 we saw a huge amount of success with Production Studio. On the Windows platform our business last year went up 50 per cent as a result of the new version,? claimed Baker. ?We also saw a huge amount of demand from Macintosh customers, and if you look at the creative community it?s about 60:40 Mac, and these Mac users who?ve traditionally been using the Adobe tools are now starting to look at video,? he added. Baker believes that, since these publishing professionals are already using Adobe products (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator), adopting other Adobe products will be a natural choice for them. ?As they think about moving into video it?s inevitable that they are going to look to us,? he said. ?We make it easy for people to go from one product to another, rather than having to go to a different company and learn a different application.? Similarly, ?Dreamweaver is pretty much the standard for any level web authoring,? said Baker, suggesting that web developers would also be more inclined towards an Adobe (previously Macromedia) product. But it?s not just people new to video publishing that these video products will appeal to. ?It?s a suite that doesn?t only make sense for people starting out with Adobe products, but for anyone who is using Avid or Final Cut to do their video production,? added Baker. Also, since Mac professionals already use After Effects, Baker believes the new Production Studio suite will appeal because they will be able to take advantage all of the other tools that come as part of the bundle. Production Studio will include Adobe After Effects Professional, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Soundbooth, Adobe Encore DVD, and Adobe Illustrator software. Baker confirmed new versions of Photoshop and Illustrator would be included in Production Studio when it launches. Timing is everything It isn?t only the increased interest in video that lead to Adobe?s decision to bring Production Studio to the Mac, however. ?Apple?s decision to put Intel processors in the Mac was something that helped us in our development,? confirmed Baker. ?I don?t think it was something that would have changed the fact that we would have come back to the Mac, but it definitely makes it easier for us. Plus we have a ton of expertise with Intel processors that we?ve built over a number of years on the Windows platform, and that translates across.? ?The speed bump that you get when you go to an Intel processor or an Intel-based Mac is quite amazing. We?re literally blown away by the new Intel processing performance, it?s really fantastic,? added Baker. Notably, it is just as the Mac has become a more interesting proposition to Adobe that the Windows platform has become problematic. Currently Adobe is aware of ?major problems with Encore? in the current version of Production Studio when running on Vista. ?The current version of Production Studio will work with Vista but the simple reality is that we shipped these products a year before Vista came out. We are working with Microsoft to ensure that all of the problems found are worked around in Vista, to make sure that our products work. The best solution will be the next version of our products, which will be fully tested and engineered for Vista.? Baker went on to confirm that this next version of Production Studio for Windows will be identical to the soon-to-launch Production Studio for Mac, but is likely to follow some time after that product ships for the Mac.

Its great Premiere is coming back to the Mac. The Mac in order to survive needs major platforms like Adobe Production Suites to develop for it. PC's are still the far majority. Apple is expected to sell around 5 million of the 70 million computers estimated to be sold in the US this year.

Here is an article that details the differences between Windows and OS X. It clear show that despite the fact Mac use the same hardware as most other PC's it works under its own design philosophy. In fact it influences design for the rest of the industry. http://www.informationweek.com/news/showAr...&queryText=

Since the Intel transition there have been a myriad of price comparisons. Generally what's found is that a similarly configured Mac and Dell are roughly the same price. Sometimes the Mac can even come out cheaper. Dell_vs_Mac_Pro.tiff Dell_vs_MacBookPro.tiff OS X and Windows interface, layout, and design elements have some significant differences. Adobe will have to redesign Premiere. For one it will have to be Quicktime based (like it originally was) instead of AVI based. And the interface will have to cooperate with OS X layout and design. In the end the software is not exactly the same. That is a lot of effort for something that is pointless. As far as the hardware costs. Even though Dell and HP sells millions of $500 computers. Those are not in any shape or form the same computer Apple sells. To buy a Dell or HP similar to the Apple you have to pay a similar price.

Most all Mac users really like OS X. Most of whom never use Final Cut Pro. Are you seriously making this claim when Apple is using Intel Core Duo and Intel's latest chip sets. The exact same processors and chip sets that everyone else is using.