Say no more

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

From the marvellous XKCD:

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The end of a mini-era

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve been doing a column in The Canberra Times for fifteen years. Today is the last one. The paper is now owned by Fairfax, a company which seems to be trying to tighten its belt, so from now on the content I provided will be sourced from within the wider company.

It’s kind of amusing. I took the opportunity to write a little about the changes in consumer tech over that time. The paper selected for the pull quote the following:

The future will, I’m sure, be interesting. But one thing I have learned this last 15 years is that while I’m good at explaining what is

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, I am no better than anyone else at guessing what is to come.

And speaking of modern tech, I wrote and posted this from within the waiting room at a dentist where my daughter is being treated.

Posted in Admin, Misc | 1 Comment

M-Disc

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

M-Disc logoI’ve replaced the aging Blu-ray drive in my computer with a shiny new LG one. Amongst other things, this one burns Blu-ray discs rather than merely reading them. And, I see from the LG website, it also supports the new 128GB BDXL format.

But on the front was something I’d never heard of: M-Disc. A little googling around revealed that this is a new write-once recordable DVD technology that involves making actual pits in the recordable material

, rather than simply changing the reflectivity of dies. The advantage is longevity. They say that these are good for a thousand years and impervious to UV, light and temperature (within reason I imagine). They are 4.7GB capacity.

It seems that you need a special drive to burn them, but once burnt they are compatible with all DVD drives.

Wikipedia says that a Blu-ray version is on the way.

I see that the M-Disc people are selling blank discs from their website. Surprisingly, and pleasingly, they are not insanely expensive: $30 for a pack of ten. Pretty good value if they really are good for a thousand years.

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Ho Chi Cruise

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

Strange habits that I have, last night I was watching the very fair and even-handed 1969 documentary short 79 Primaveraseras. The title translates to ‘79 Springs’ or perhaps ‘79 Seasons’, and concerns the life of Ho Chi Minh, former North Vietnam head honcho who had then recently died. I know it was very fair and even-handed because it is a documentary, and documentaries are always fair and even-handed, and even more so because it was made by noted the filmmaker Santiago Álvarez, who was in good standing indeed in Cuba.

What particularly caught my eye, though, was this: what was Tom Cruise doing at Ho Chi Minh’s funeral?

Tom Cruise at Ho Chi Minh's funeral?

Tom Cruise at Ho Chi Minh's funeral?

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It ain’t all that hard

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

Shock Entertainment has sent me a number of concert Blu-ray discs that it distributes here, mostly from Eagle Entertainment. One I’m presently gathering tech info on is ‘Supertramp: Live in Paris 1979’.

Great sound: 24 bit, 96kHz in two channel LPCM or 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio, 126 minutes of great stuff.

But when you get to the end of the main title — which is properly presented at precisely 24 frames per second, rather than the more common Americanised 23.976fps — there’s an FBI warning against piracy. This, irritatingly, is presented at 1080i60. My projector takes about ten seconds to resynch to a different frame rate. I get the impression there’s something in the 21 second title that contains the FBI warning

, but I miss it because of the resync.

Would it be too hard for Blu-ray producers to put content like this at the same frame rate as everything else?

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Digital radio for the sticks?

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

Commercial Radio Australia is today launching a ‘national information campaign’ with advertising on 200 regional Australian stations to get people to pushing for the roll out of digital radio in the country areas. Sounds like a good idea to me. There’s a website to go with it: www.wewantdigitalradio.com.au.

I’ve just gone there and signed the petition

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, which also generates a form email addressed to your local MP, which I sent.

Of course, even though Canberra is regional, we are getting much of the digital radio service. But much is not all, it is only on a trial basis, and it is still quite low powered (3kW) with no provision for retransmission or repeaters. So rolling out fully to regional areas ought to mean better, richer digital radio in Canberra as well.

Because the fact is, it sounds so much better than AM and even FM radio it’s not funny.

BTW, it seems that Universal is launching the Blu-ray version of The Birds as a standalone (previously it has been part of a Hitchcock collection). I’ve got a test pressing here to giveaway. No box, no label, Australian postal address only. First to ask in comments.

Posted in Digital Radio | 2 Comments

It’s the hands that are the problem

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve just finished watching, belatedly, The Polar Express, which I recorded last year from digital TV.

This one is often fingered as representative of the ‘uncanny valley’, in which motion captured animation, and other almost-realistic animation, can result in a creepy looking walking-dead effect. The faces were definitely variable in their movement, and generally looked underdone. Nearly all the work went into the eyes and eyebrows, and far too little into the subtle movements around the lips and cheeks.

Nonetheless, I didn’t find it creepy or disturbing.

But what really does put me off was the hands. They just didn’t look realistic in grasping things. That was a 2004 movie. By 2011 in The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, the faces were better than ever, but not the hands. As I wrote in my review:

But the main reason for adding this movie to your collection is that it is a milestone in animation. The characters were driven from motion capture of real actors, and the ‘walking dead’ sense that this technique often delivers was completely absent. The eyes were especially well done

, the mouths a little less so, but still quite adequately. The only significant weakness was the hands. When picking up things they seemed clumsy.

Posted in Cinema | 1 Comment

Down memory lane

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

On 2 March 1983 the CD was launched it the US and Canada (it was October the previous year in Japan). Australia was not far behind. I bought the second CD player to be sold in Canberra, or so I was told by the retailer, on 25 May 1983. It was the Sony CDP-101. The other day I stumbled across the receipt:

Purchase receipt - Sony CDP-101 - 1983

Expensive

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, huh? According to the Australian Bureau of Statistic’s inflation calculator, that $1,199 in June 1983 is equivalent to $3,494 in December 2012.

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Cabasse in Sydney

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

Well I’ve just landed in Sydney to see what the latest goodies from French firm Cabasse are (see my last experience of La Sphere). I’m at T2 having flown here and they’ve arranged Uber transportation, which is apparently contracted hire cars which you summons by means of a smart phone app.

Which I’ve tried to do, the net result of which is a text message saying they can’t find a car for me ‘at this time’ and asking me to ‘try again soon.’ Lucky it’s 11:08am and I don’t have to be in the city until 1pm.

UPDATE: Third time lucky. After a cuppa at T2 I tried again and this time the car was just four minutes away. Very pleasant trip

, although it took a while to get into town (thanks to those cars that smashed not far from Bourke Street), and now just waiting for the whole thing to start.

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Another dozen reviews

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve been adding more of my reviews over on the appropriate page, a dozen in fact, including some damned fine movies. Just look for the bold ‘added’ items.

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