Month: September 2009

Is it safe? Marathon Man’s still in the running as a great thriller

Posted by Martyn Drake – September 23, 2009

Thanks to LOVEFiLM, I'm only just getting around to watching some classic movies on DVD and Blu-Ray.  The most recent that I watched was Marathon Man, which is infamous for it's torture sequence and Laurence Olivier's infamous "Is it safe?" line.  The more cynical in me would have assumed that it was about a dyslexic man who eats a chocolate bar full of peanuts and ends up looking for his local Nazi dentist.  Marathon Man is none of these things, of course, and is actually a pretty creepy thriller involving diamonds, Nazi war criminals, the McCarthy hearings, rogue US enforcement agencies, and lots of blood.

The cinematography still stands up to the test of time, as does the sound.  The screenplay, direction and acting is flawless.  It was good to see Laurence Olivier in this kind of role, and Dustin Hoffman made an effective victim, caught up in all manner of political and criminal proceedings.

Is it safe? The break-in at Babe's apartment and the torture sequence (not at all gory, but what's implied and takes place is far more effective than filling the screen with blood) will not make you feel safe at all.

Let's just hope they never come up with a sequel: Snickers Woman.

The future’s bright, the future is non-scheduled broadcasting (aka Video on Demand)

Posted by Martyn Drake – September 21, 2009

When I read about Simon Cowell getting all upset about pitting X-Factor against Strictly Come Dancing, my thought was "how old fashioned".  In this day and age, more of us are watching television on Sky Plus boxes, on the various online "catch-up" services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Player or 4oD.

Scheduled broadcasting is so 20th Century.  Our lives are getting increasingly busier and we often do not have the time or inclination to rush home to stick the television on and sit glued to the TV watching X-Factor.  And there are those that like both X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing but obviously can't watch both at the same time.  PVR (personal video recorders) and VoD (video on demand) services are becoming increasingly popular ways to record and watch television programming at the viewer's leisure rather than at the convenience of the broadcaster. 

Additionally, BitTorrent has shown that there is a huge demand for episodic drama from around the world – feeding people's needs for programs either before they've aired in their own country, or for those desperate to catch-up without waiting for it to become a re-run on come out on DVD.  Unfortunately using BiTorrent in this way is completely illegal.

Additional benefits of (legitimate) video on demand include greater statistics and tracking of viewing habits, including audience ratings, etc.  Advertisers can get interactive with the audience by inserting links directly to web sites for those viewing on a computer or set-up box which connects to the Internet.

So is linear/scheduled broadcasting dead?  Not quite.  Some genres suit themselves nicely for this type of broadcasting.  Live sport, for instance, and home shopping.  In fact, any live event at all. 

TV is changing, and I don't think that Simon Cowell has much to fear from broadcasters airing popular programs live at the same time.  Not unless he's into the sports or home shopping markets.

Is it ‘have a go at cyclists week’ or something? Is the Daily Mail anti-cyclist?

Posted by Martyn Drake – September 17, 2009

First we have James Martin, a TV chef, having a good bitch about cyclists and advocating (for that is what the article implies) knocking cyclists off their bikes by distracting them.  He later apologised, stating that it was all misjudged humour.  Yet it certainly attracted a large number of people in the comments of the Daily Mail and The Register (and elsewhere) bemoaning cyclists (and cyclists bemoaning car drivers).

Today, the Daily Mail publishes this article about how the West London borough of Kensington & Chelsea launching a new scheme to allow cyclists to go both ways down one-way streets.  Now, I'm not particularly thrilled about this idea unless this scheme has some form of method to allow cyclists and cars to travel safely down such streets.  However, the comments in the article are very vitriolic against cyclists again.

As somebody who has chosen not to drive, does not own a car (by choice) and relies on both cycling and public transport, I must object strongly to all this negativity against cyclists.  There are plenty of excellent and well-behaved cyclists as there are car drivers.  And similarly, there are plenty of bad cyclists as well as bad car drivers.  I myself try to obey the Highway Code at all times.  I do not cycle through red lights.  I do not whizz through pedestrian crossings.  I wear reflective clothing when necessary, and use front and rear lights when dark.  I do not mount pavements and should and force pedestrians out the way.  In short – I try to be a good road user.

As for the lycra debate, I do wear lycra leggings for cycling.  These stop chaffing around the vitals (and as such, I also wear long T-shirts to avoid any embarrassments), keep the dirt, rain and mud off my regular clothes, and are light and comfortable.  Surrealist statement of the day: my leggings do NOT make me go any faster or slower than somebody wearing jeans or loose shorts.

I also wear a helmet.  Regardless of how effective or ineffective they may be in an impact, it's certainly better than not wearing one at all.

I try to keep my breaks and other essential components well maintained.  As such I pass my bike to a specialist bike shop for them to do the work.  This ensures that I don't muck anything up.

No cyclist or car driver is any better than one another.  What's important is that we both share the road amicably and according to the laws set out in the Highway Code.  Sometimes we both may not get it right, but providing everybody is paying attention, then accidents should be kept to a minimum.

What we do need is more bike lanes if I were to be honest..

London Calling – the video montage.. part one

Posted by Martyn Drake – September 15, 2009

Have edited together some of the video footage I’ve shot whilst at the Natural History Museum.  There is no sound, and haven’t yet found a good soundtrack to go along with it. Note: any slow-down/jerkiness (other than my wibbly camera work – the Kodak Zi6 has no image stabiliser – I’ll have to get myself a proper HD camera one of these days – is due to the Zi6’s somewhat temperamental H.264 encoder)

London Calling..

Posted by Martyn Drake – September 14, 2009

Jennifer and I have just returned from a wonderful weekend away in London.  We stayed at the De Vere Devonport House in Greenwich overnight and despite no air conditioning, it was a most comfortable stay.  That said, their breakfast menu has severe apostrophe problems.

On the Saturday, we went along to the Natural History Museum’s Butterfly Jungle and was amazed by all the different types of butterfly that were freely flying around (video).  We also visited the main NHM building and was most taken with the Small Mammals exhibition (although taxidermy still doesn’t sit right for me – especially when the animals are smiling at you). 

After the NHM, we took a river cruise from Westminster bridge up to Greenwich, checked in to the hotel, and got another river cruise back into Central London and went to Tootsies in James Street for our evening meal.   It was wonderful – Tootsies had produced some of the best food we’ve had in ages.  I opted for their Hereford Steak and Merlot pie, and the sheer size of the thing meant that I couldn’t find room for desert.  Or a starter.  We then made our way to Hyde Park to see (or rather hear, given the distance we were from the stage) Terry Wogan introduce Barry Manilow and John Barrowman perform a few hits (which saw groups of people leave the compound in droves at that time – seriously!).  It got a bit too cold after Can’t Smile Without You, so we decided to head back to Greenwich. 

On the Sunday we were going to go to the Movieum of London, but ultimately went for the Imperial War Museum instead.  It was a good choice.  We spent all day wondering around the First and Second World War exhibits before visiting the excellent Holocaust exhibition.  We even managed to find the record of my aunt’s death by a flying V2 bomb on Smithfield’s market (video) on the IWM’s civilian deaths database.

Overall an excellent weekend.  But it could have gone a little better if Boris Johnson and his mates at City Hall and London Transport didn’t keep doing these “weekend improvements” at the worst possible time.  And we had no idea that one could buy tickets on the bus – the details provided on the timetable/bus shelters provide no such information.  And we found buying tickets for the River taxis/cruises to be quite confusing too.  Again, a lack of information does not help.

iTunes 9 & iTunes Extras: Users short changed – Apple/film studios double dips

Posted by Martyn Drake – September 11, 2009

I'm sure my regular readers (all one of you – ha!) will know by now that I am very much an advocate for video on demand and content delivery systems.  I have been following (and using) iTunes for a good many years.  Similarly I have been using Apple products (iBooks, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs, Mac Minis, iPods, etc.) for equally as long.  I've come to see Apple as a company which tries very hard to provide the consumer with good value for money and fights to give consumers what they want.

With iTunes, we can rip our CD collections and organise our music.  We can now purchase DRM free music on demand (when iTunes started it was all DRMed to the hilt, but it brought convenience for the user of buying music on demand despite the inconvenience of locking everything down to a single portable platform and licensing system).  We can now rent and buy movies and TV shows.  We can even buy TV shows in HD (and I'm sure movies will soon follow).  iTunes is a media centre par excellence.

The downside to buying movies from an online store versus buying it on DVD or Blu-Ray is that you don't get the extras like audio commentaries, documentaries, etc. that come along with the physical disc purchase.  With the release of iTunes 9, this changes things – consumers can now buy movies such as Wall-E, Iron Man, Quantum of Solace to name a few, with extra features alongside the main film.

But what about consumers who have already bought these movies through iTunes?  Do they get to download these extras now that they've installed iTunes 9?  The answer is a big fat no. 

I've attempted to contact iTunes Store support to find out just what can be done about that, but so far I've had absolutely no straight answers from them.  All they've said is that they can't re-authorise the download of any films and that, when I got back to them to say that it doesn't answer my original question, they simply gave me 5 song credits to shut me up and once again avoided answering me directly.

I can only assume that if you have already purchased the movie via iTunes earlier than version 9 and want the extras, you're going to have to pay for the film again.  A neat way of making Apple (although to be fair, I doubt they see much of that cash you pay them – most of that goes to the studios) and their clients, the film studios, more money from the same content (you'll be paying for and downloading the film twice).

Given my previous post about how my boss, Kate Craig-Wood, has quantified the carbon emissions from producing CDs versus music downloads, I applaud Apple and the film studios for making video on demand more attractive.  But unless they either allow existing purchasers to buy the extras separately, or give them the ability to download them for free now, then I must question how well this system is going to work (one issue is that you can't resell these downloads unlike a physical CD or DVD).

We’re off to Nodnol to see the Neeuq..

Posted by Martyn Drake – September 8, 2009

A rare treat this weekend; we're off to London to catch a bit of the Proms (well, the last night in fact), to visit a few museums (including this one, which will probably feel a bit like an ex-busman's holiday), to eat, and to relax. 

We'll be staying in my old stomping ground of Greenwich (which is where I met Jennifer for the first time a little over nine years ago now) and taking river taxis wherever possible.  It'll be interesting to see what has become of the Cutty Sark after the fire.  I do know that my old employers are no longer in the area, as well as one of the finest pie and mash shops in London.  But it'll be good to see old Greenwich again.

Why should I pay to watch a film? Answer: meet the people behind it

Posted by Martyn Drake – September 7, 2009

Through the Pinewood Studios Twitter account, I was made aware of this article at the Guardian about a new campaign which is due to be placed at the start of DVDs and Blu-Rays to convince the "Generation Y-Pay" about paying for their films and musical legally, and not resorting to BitTorrent or other illegal methods for watching or listening to the latest music.

Sadly, I don't think this will work.   I have always found these types of campaigns to be next to useless other than to simply to give ad agencies something to do.   The current campaign doesn't come anywhere near to bringing young people to the people they want to see, which makes me wonder: why don't film, TV and music studios offer open days?  People, particularly the younger generation, have no idea of how much hard work goes into making a film.  The entire process is so far removed in documentaries on DVDs and on TV that it is often quite easy to assume that working in the entertainment business is quite cushy.  Actors are seen as having an easy life – particularly when you see them walking the red carpet at film premières having been driven up in a stretch limo. 

Behind all that glitz and glamour is a work schedule that would drive most office workers to insanity – let alone young people who have still yet to work or have just started working.  Everybody I've met, on all levels of the filmmaking business, have worked bloody hard to get where they are.  And it makes me appreciate how much work goes into getting a film (no matter how crap you may think it is) out the door and into cinemas and on DVD.

We don't just need a filmed/TV campaign, we need people in the industry to tell these people what it's like to work in it, and show them exactly what goes on to justify their money on seeing the end product.

Snow Leopard shows it’s spots..

Posted by Martyn Drake – September 3, 2009

On Tuesday I received my copy of Mac OS X Snow Leopard at the office and was itching to give it a whirl.

Having backed up all my valuable data to the external hard drive (still using the Iomega drive I bought with my Apple Store gift voucher given to me by MPC back in 2007 when I left), I did a complete clean install of Snow Leopard which took just over 42 minutes to install having opted to go for the default installation.  On reflection, if I had chosen not to install the additional languages and printer drivers, things would have gone much quicker.  As it is, the default install took up 11Gb of hard drive space.

Once install was complete, a reboot got me into the familiar Welcome animation, which is EXACTLY the same as with the original Leopard.  After going through the final bits of setting up, I then started copying back data from the hard drive.  I should mention that I would normally use Time Machine to restore my Mac data – but having recently moved over to using File Vault in order to comply with ISO security accreditation in the office, Time Machine's functionality is somewhat more restricted than for non-File Vault volumes.

Installed Office 2008 for Mac which initially failed to install properly and required a subsequent re-install.   Not quite sure why it failed the first time around, but given it's a Microsoft product, one can hardly be surprised at this sort of thing.  When Office was installed, ran the updater and all went well.

Installed Final Cut Express 4.0 which went without a hitch.

Everything else (Adium, CyberDuck beta, Firefox, Remote Desktop for PC, Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion, etc.) all installed and work just fine.

Snow Leopard is somewhat speedier in some operations.  Apple Mail, for example, is noticeably speedier when accessing large mail folders.  It opens much faster too.  Safari is a seriously nippy little bugger, but unfortunately I much prefer Firefox and therefore use that as my primary browser instead.

The downsides have been the inability to compile a few open source projects that worked just fine with Leopard, but I'm sure I can get around that with a bit of perseverance.  Likewise, I'm having to wait on a few developers to release Snow Leopard compatible binaries to ensure that any kinks don't crop up in day to day work (Growl is one such example).  Time Machine can still not backup File Vault volumes without having to log out first.  As such, I recommend an online backup service or third party backup software to perform as-you-go backups until Apple figure something out.  It's most annoying.

Oh, and OpenCL doesn't work on Intel GMAX3100 GPUs.  Grrr.

Snow Leopard won't set the world on fire, but it does what it says on the box and sets up the Mac nicely for a 64-bit filled, high performance future.