Month: July 2009

Just one Cornetto, give it to me..

Posted by Martyn Drake – July 30, 2009

Haven't done a blog post in a while, so here's one to tide us over for a bit.

The past few weeks have been very hectic at work, but we've now taken on board a couple more sysadmins and already the overall load is being balanced out nicely.  I can now actually get around to doing internal tickets and project work which has been otherwise thwarted by the ever increasing support queue.  Had annual review which went well and everybody seems to be happy with me and I with them.

The electric bike is holding up well, despite recently suffering a puncture on the way home on Wednesday when a twig with thorns managed to lodge itself in the front tire and causing the inner tube to puncture and deflate by the time I got to Brookwood Sainsburys.  Luckily the bike shop in Knaphill was open and got them to change the inner tube there and then.

Hope to have some good news about Jennifer's job hunting progress soon.

Current queue of Blu-Ray films to watch:

Wanted
The Colour of Magic
Sweeney Todd
Die Hard 4.0

I continue to be impressed with Blu-Ray's quality and versatility.  I was particularly impressed with the 1951 original version of The Day The Earth Stood Still.  Truly wonderful sound mixing, some interesting documentaries and the film itself was presented exceedingly well given it's age.

Off to see Les Miserables in London tomorrow evening.  Have only heard bits and pieces from the show, so it'll be good to put them in the right order and see what it's all about.

Carbon cost of Downloads versus CDs

Posted by Martyn Drake – July 17, 2009

As a follow up to my previous blog post regarding newspapers being wasteful giving away free DVDs and CDs, my boss and managing director of Memset Ltd., Kate Craig-Wood, has posted a blog entry that reveals just how much energy is used in producing CDs versus downloading.

How does one plan for long term archival of photos, video, etc?

Posted by Martyn Drake – July 17, 2009

Reading Robert Llewellyn's tweets about his shiny new Drobo desktop RAID hard drive cluster, I was wondering just what people are doing about long-term archiving their photos, videos and other important valuable data? 

Back when I was working in the film industry, we were using near-line storage and tape backups to archive assets.  For the most part, this worked okay, but required a heck of a lot of room, was very complex (one full time person dedicated to the job) and during my time there, the kit evolved at least three times.  When I was working at previous web hosting companies/ISPs we used tape backups.  The type of tapes we used are now redundant and about as much use as a betamax video.

When I've been shooting video, I had been using Mini-DV for both SD and HD material.  Unfortunately I no longer have access to a Mini-DV system because my own camcorder has died (so I would need to repair or buy a new one) and the HD stuff used a specific encoding system.  If I back up what material I've transferred to DVD or Blu-Ray, I'd have a limited shelf life of around 100 years before the surfaces started to deteriorate and a new medium found.  These days I shoot on SDHC cards, but even these are evolving and new formats coming out all the time.

I like Blu-Ray as an archiving medium at the moment, but (a) it's too slow to write 50Gb of data, and (b) something's going to take over sooner rather than later as a superior format with a greater amount of capacity.  But at least it's a format that allows me to put all of my iTunes collection and photos onto a single disc.  And that's good enough for me.  At the moment.

The trouble is that storage is constantly evolving.  I no longer have access to a vinyl record player or even normal cassette tapes that we used to buy in bulk to record music from the radio (or if you were like me (probably not), record your own "radio shows" and give them to your friends to listen to – who would then do the same.  Hey, we were cheaper than Jonathan Ross back then).

The trick is to find a medium which is going to last, can be passed down the generations, and not cause our future relations to have to resort to building a tape, DVD or HD player from scratch to play their ancestor's video of a day trip to Canvey Island.

A prime case of rapidly evolving technology being a right pain in the arse.

Why can’t Microsoft keep current pre-order Windows 7 pricing for the duration of the OS’s life?

Posted by Martyn Drake – July 17, 2009

As soon as Windows 7 came available for pre-order on the 15th July, Jennifer and I secured our copies.  We have now pre-ordered two FULL copies of Windows 7 Home Premium (E) for £65 through Amazon.co.uk – £32.50 per copy.  Okay, we used a free gift voucher from Be to claim more money off, but nonetheless it's still a bargain.

The demand for Windows 7 has been such that the pre-order price has now gone up to £80 for the Home Premium edition.  When Windows 7 is finally released, it'll go up again.  But why?  Why have Microsoft's operating systems always been so damn expensive (especially the Ultimate editions of Vista and 7)?  In comparison, Apple's OS X have been cheaper, have no activation restriction (with the one exception being OS X Server).  You're forking out a fortune even before you've added any useful applications other than the media players, gimmicky games, and web browser (and even then, Microsoft have taken that out of the European edition of Windows leaving the user to use another computer or magazine cover disc to install one – they didn't have to do this, but Microsoft seem to be sticking fingers up at the EC commission at the expense of their customers).

If I had my way, Windows 7 would be completely free for existing users of Vista who have had to endure a very long time for an operating system which now promises to live up to being a good one.

Technology in film – friend or foe?

Posted by Martyn Drake – July 16, 2009

I'm currently following the progress of Kick-Ass, the latest movie adaptation from Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn.  Based around the creator-owner comic series by Mark Millar. 

I got into a bit of a debate on a forum related to the movie as to just how useful technology has been for filmmakers in fine-tuning their craft, but at the same time wondering if we're getting into a state where one can endlessly tinker with a film that one can never say it is truly finished (yes, George Lucas, I'm looking at YOU). 

The reason I got into the debate in the first place was that it is revealed that much of the blood splatter effects are being produced digitally through Double Negative, and Matthew Vaughn mentioning that he had been wondering if he should have done the effects live on set.  It kind of spiraled onto films that used entirely artificial environments (green screen stuff) and the use of technology, especially when it comes to tinkering and fine-tuning.  The "fix it in post" mentality which generally effects the bigger budget film.

I recall the times when I was working in post-production when directors would endlessly keep changing their minds, watching deadlines screaming towards us while all the time tweaking and fixing was going on until it's absolutely perfect in the eyes of the client.  All of this happening until the very, very last minute.

Of course with the advent of digital non-linear editors, you can go back and keep tweaking, re-arranging, adding and removing material at a whim.

Yet there was a time in film land when one had to plan everything out meticulously, shoot it, and spend time thinking about how the story is presented.  Every cut of the film required the editor and director to think about every shot before the physical cut is made to the film.  Re-shoots were expensive.  Special effects were even more expensive (and time consuming) to re-shoot.  Most of my favourite films were shot prior to digital technology came into the mainstream.

But not now.  Everything is relatively cheap (labour cost included) and any filmmaker can tinker until their heart desires.  Digital cinematography allows directors to shoot far more material than they would do so if they were using film.  It would certainly allow a director and editor to have more choice over the material they incorporate into the finished film – but also probably increase the number of deleted scenes on your DVD and Blu-Ray disc.

Also thanks to digital cinema, systems capable of self-editing are not far off.  By utilising often under-used meta-data on modern digital camera systems, and direction in the script, it's quite possible (using third party software) to produce EDLs (edit decision lists) which can be imported into editing systems to produce a very rough edit of your film.

Don't get me wrong.  I love digital cinematography and the digital post-production work-flow.  I also love a good digital visual effect when thought and artistic love has gone into it.  But I thoroughly dislike films which have had very little or no prior planning before shooting it, and everything is a mad dash in post to fix everything before the studio goes mad and wonders what the hell they were doing investing the money in this pile of junk in the first place.  And I've seen a few of THOSE kind of films go through my previous employers at one time or another.

The times they are a-changin’ – company standards are dropping

Posted by Martyn Drake – July 15, 2009

Over the past few weeks and months, it's been a real eye opener as to how standards are slipping as to how companies write to their customers, potential customers or potential employees.

One example was from the Insolvency Service who required a high level of accuracy in the job they were advertising.  Jennifer spent an age filling in many pages of the application form and sent it off, only to get a letter addressed to her with the title of Mr. as well as mis-spelling the address.  It makes you wonder if they ever bothered to read and process the application in the first place.  

In returning the faulty pushbike we bought, we had a letter from the company responsible for picking it up to invite us to call them to arrange the pick-up date.  It was signed by the General Manger (as opposed to "away in a..").

And why is that when you apply to a company for job, having filled in pages and pages of application forms, do they say that if you don't hear from them in x number of days or week that you've got to assume you've been unsuccessful?  I think it's a courtesy to the applicants that if they've taken the time to show interest in your company and having spent the time filling in whatever forms you want them to fill in that you take the time to write back regardless of whether they've been successful or not.