i was just asked if a "game that has copy protection can be installed on multiple machines".
let me try and explain everything that is wrong in that short little sentence:
1. we spend a LOT of money protecting our games to keep the average consumer from making copies and installing on multiple machines.
2. per my blog name, i'm in manufacturing. i handle the PHYSICAL build of product; i have nothing to do with the code on the disc or how it works.
3. OF COURSE YOU CAN'T FUCKING INSTALL A FUCKING COPY PROTECTED GAME ON MUTLTIPLE FUCKING MACHINES MACHINES SINCE THE DISC IS FUCKING REQUIRED IN THE FUCKING DRIVE TO FUCKING WORK.
have a nice three day weekend
5/17/2009
was just asked by someone in sales about the packaging configuration of a title (how many units in a box that gets shipped to retail).
two things about this question; first, EVERY console title is packed the same way, 12 units to a box. second, there is a set up sheet that sales sends to their accounts so that the accounts set up packaging configuration on their end and that they order correctly. the person who asked is the person who APPROVES these set up sheets.
am i taking crazy pills? you set something up, you send to your accounts, you approve back to us saying "A-OK" and then you have to ask if the work you did was accurate?
the seventh seal has been broken people, the end is nigh
two things about this question; first, EVERY console title is packed the same way, 12 units to a box. second, there is a set up sheet that sales sends to their accounts so that the accounts set up packaging configuration on their end and that they order correctly. the person who asked is the person who APPROVES these set up sheets.
am i taking crazy pills? you set something up, you send to your accounts, you approve back to us saying "A-OK" and then you have to ask if the work you did was accurate?
the seventh seal has been broken people, the end is nigh
5/15/2009
Douglas Spotted Eagle's HDV: What You Need to Know
In mid-2006, VASST published the second edition of Douglas Spotted Eagle's HDV: What You Need to Know (this time subtitled The Complete Guide), and it's a landmark release for anyone with HDV ambitions. As one of the principals of VASST and Sundance Media Group, Spotted Eagle has provided not only hands-on live training in HDV and other digital video production and post technologies around the world, but he has also produced some of the leading DVD-based training tools in the market, and developed several key workflow-enhancement plug-ins. Although most closely identified with their Sony Vegas training and workflow products, VASST's, well, vast array of current training titles run the gamut of popular NLEs. The Absolute Training series alone includes a seven-volume set of DVDs designed to educate users in the intermediate-to-advanced use of Apple's Final Cut Studio and the assortment of tools therein.
The Complete Guide greets an HDV world that's similarly multifaceted, with HDV cameras at multiple price points and varied feature sets populating the landscape; prosumer NLEs from Adobe, Apple, Avid, Grass Valley, and Sony embracing the format; and all kinds of accessories that have been designed with HDV in mind. Spotted Eagle meets that market with a book that is in fact three books in one: targeted technology overview, buyer's guide, and--most importantly--focused field guide for DV producers making the jump to HDV.
Essential to the positioning of the book is that it assumes you've worked professionally with DV in the past, and want to hit the ground running with HDV, making immediate adjustments to your shooting style and production and postproduction workflows as needed to accommodate the differences between the two formats, and to take immediate advantage of HDV, even if your ultimate delivery medium is SD DVD.
One of the key advantages of HDV acquisition, even for videographers who are delivering in DVD or another SD format, is that when you work with HDV in post, you have a lot more wiggle room in an HD image to reframe or tighten a shot without encountering unwelcome pixelation. Along these lines, we can imagine Spotted Eagle's book as a wide-angle HDV image that's ultimately zoomed in post for a shot that's equally crisp and clear, but much tighter in focus.
Spotted Eagle begins the book with an examination of what HDV is, explaining how LongGOP MPEG-2 compression works, and a discussion of the differences between the two HDV formats and interlaced and progressive video. He also touches on more math-intensive issues like pixel aspect ratios and the necessity of pixel shift in 1440x1080 images. But no matter how technical the topics get, Spotted Eagle keeps the explanations clear and digestible, and the tone appropriately light. He even gives the reader advanced warning every time he's about to throw in a little unavoidable math.
The buyer's guide section of the book kicks in next, with a run-down of the various cameras on the market as of this book's mid-2006 publication date and some significant feature comparisons between the different cameras. Even though a number of new cameras (Canon's XH A1 and G1, Sony's V1U and FX7, and JVC's HD110 and HD200, to name a few) were introduced at IBC or thereabouts this year, the book doesn't suffer from their absence. Most of the issues that define an HDV camera purchaser's decision tree (1080i60 vs. 720p24; audio input support and level controls; lens issues such as filter size, focal length, manufacturer, maximum aperture, and interchangeability) were already on the table when this book was written, and those distinctions are well-examined.
The book does a good job of describing the cameras and the differences between them, and the tone remains balanced and objective throughout. But where it makes the leap from useful buyer's guide to indispensable field guide is in its discussion of how to shoot HDV effectively and how that's accomplished with each of the cameras, right down to the correct settings to use. He provides terrific tips on framing 16:9 shots; he also warns against taking too lightly the increased detail that HDV allows, in that it's more likely to expose a cheap or worn set that might not have been noticed with lower-resolution DV. He also speaks directly to the limitations of highly compressed video in high-motion scenes, and recommends using stabilizing devices or increasing the shutter speed, and avoiding "whipping" the camera around at all times. (This is a recurring theme in the book.)
As useful as this kind of instruction is, readers will appreciate the "Standard Operating Procedures" for cameras and "NLE Workflow" sections the most for their unexpected wealth of specificity and detail. Spotted Eagle gets right down to business with each camera, describing not only its features, but how to make them work, how to modify settings, and what all the settings should be. Sometimes this takes the form of explaining, for example, what Black Stretch is on the Sony Z1U and how it can be used to increase detail in dark or black areas. Or it may mean going into custom settings for advanced looks in the JVC HD100 like, "Bleach By-Pass: Master Black -6, Black Compress 3, CineLike Off, Color Matrix and Gamma at Standard, Level Max, Color Gain-8, R Gain and R Rot. -2, G Gain 1, 24p or 30p." This might sound like too much information if you're not a JVC shooter or aren't familiar with the effect he's discussing, but if you are a JVC user with a yen for film effects (and that describes a lot of EventDV readers), it's exactly what you want to read in a book about HDV, and probably didn't expect you would find in a book that's ostensibly designed to cover the topic so broadly.
The same goes for the "NLE Workflow" section, which describes briefly, but with just the right sort of detail, how to ingest HDV into your system, whether you're using Premiere Pro, Vegas, Final Cut, Liquid, EDIUS, or Xpress Pro, what settings you'll need on your PC or Mac and in your NLE, and how to work with the video once it's in there. Spotted Eagle also gives plenty of coverage to the issue of using intermediate codecs as opposed to editing HDV in native LongGOP MPEG-2, and explains how to convert to intermediate codecs in each tool, as well as the usefulness of faster third-party conversion tools like CineForm's AspectHD and workflow enhancement software like VASST's GearShift plug-in for Vegas.
Any book that purports to tell you all you need to know about HDV would be remiss if it didn't discuss the technologies and techniques used to create a "film look" in the digital format, and any review of this book would be remiss if it didn't mention how well Spotted Eagle explores that issue. Right away he makes it clear that there's much more to making digital video look like film than shooting in 24p. However real the technical differences between interlaced frame modes and "true progressive" shooting modes may be, they're largely imperceptible to the naked eye. Furthermore, he points out that as much as the indie film community (and, I'd add, some advocates of "cinematic" wedding and event video) are championing 24p, big-budget Hollywood is taking pains to distance itself from it.
But the "Film Looks & 24p" chapter isn't primarily an anti-24p polemic. The meat of it is a brief tutorial on all the other things involved in producing a credible film look besides shooting in 24p, such as filters for film-like diffusion; shutter speeds; and techniques for getting a shallower, more film-like depth of field. Essential reading for any HDV adopter with filmic leanings.
HDV: What You Need to Know, The Complete Guide closes with a quick look at Blu-ray (and an even quicker look at HD DVD) as the next-generation technologies for those who deliver on DVD. The book is nearly six months old as I write this and it's ironic that with all the swirling hype surrounding Blu-ray and HD DVD in that time, the book hardly seems dated in that respect. Not much has really happened with these technologies at all in terms of real market impact. They may be growing up in public, but their market isn't maturing any faster because of it.
A year from now, the HD delivery landscape will look significantly different. If 2005 and 2006 were the years of HD acquisition's initial explosion into the prosumer mainstream, thanks to HDV, 2007 and 2008 should bring about the same sort of shift for HD video delivery as Blu-ray and/or HD DVD take center stage, and seasoned HDV videographers will be ready to make the most of it. Those with Douglas Spotted Eagle's Complete Guide in hand are well on their way already.
HDV: What You Need To Know, The Complete Guide (2nd. Ed.) is available from amazon
The Complete Guide greets an HDV world that's similarly multifaceted, with HDV cameras at multiple price points and varied feature sets populating the landscape; prosumer NLEs from Adobe, Apple, Avid, Grass Valley, and Sony embracing the format; and all kinds of accessories that have been designed with HDV in mind. Spotted Eagle meets that market with a book that is in fact three books in one: targeted technology overview, buyer's guide, and--most importantly--focused field guide for DV producers making the jump to HDV.
Essential to the positioning of the book is that it assumes you've worked professionally with DV in the past, and want to hit the ground running with HDV, making immediate adjustments to your shooting style and production and postproduction workflows as needed to accommodate the differences between the two formats, and to take immediate advantage of HDV, even if your ultimate delivery medium is SD DVD.
One of the key advantages of HDV acquisition, even for videographers who are delivering in DVD or another SD format, is that when you work with HDV in post, you have a lot more wiggle room in an HD image to reframe or tighten a shot without encountering unwelcome pixelation. Along these lines, we can imagine Spotted Eagle's book as a wide-angle HDV image that's ultimately zoomed in post for a shot that's equally crisp and clear, but much tighter in focus.
Spotted Eagle begins the book with an examination of what HDV is, explaining how LongGOP MPEG-2 compression works, and a discussion of the differences between the two HDV formats and interlaced and progressive video. He also touches on more math-intensive issues like pixel aspect ratios and the necessity of pixel shift in 1440x1080 images. But no matter how technical the topics get, Spotted Eagle keeps the explanations clear and digestible, and the tone appropriately light. He even gives the reader advanced warning every time he's about to throw in a little unavoidable math.
The buyer's guide section of the book kicks in next, with a run-down of the various cameras on the market as of this book's mid-2006 publication date and some significant feature comparisons between the different cameras. Even though a number of new cameras (Canon's XH A1 and G1, Sony's V1U and FX7, and JVC's HD110 and HD200, to name a few) were introduced at IBC or thereabouts this year, the book doesn't suffer from their absence. Most of the issues that define an HDV camera purchaser's decision tree (1080i60 vs. 720p24; audio input support and level controls; lens issues such as filter size, focal length, manufacturer, maximum aperture, and interchangeability) were already on the table when this book was written, and those distinctions are well-examined.
The book does a good job of describing the cameras and the differences between them, and the tone remains balanced and objective throughout. But where it makes the leap from useful buyer's guide to indispensable field guide is in its discussion of how to shoot HDV effectively and how that's accomplished with each of the cameras, right down to the correct settings to use. He provides terrific tips on framing 16:9 shots; he also warns against taking too lightly the increased detail that HDV allows, in that it's more likely to expose a cheap or worn set that might not have been noticed with lower-resolution DV. He also speaks directly to the limitations of highly compressed video in high-motion scenes, and recommends using stabilizing devices or increasing the shutter speed, and avoiding "whipping" the camera around at all times. (This is a recurring theme in the book.)
As useful as this kind of instruction is, readers will appreciate the "Standard Operating Procedures" for cameras and "NLE Workflow" sections the most for their unexpected wealth of specificity and detail. Spotted Eagle gets right down to business with each camera, describing not only its features, but how to make them work, how to modify settings, and what all the settings should be. Sometimes this takes the form of explaining, for example, what Black Stretch is on the Sony Z1U and how it can be used to increase detail in dark or black areas. Or it may mean going into custom settings for advanced looks in the JVC HD100 like, "Bleach By-Pass: Master Black -6, Black Compress 3, CineLike Off, Color Matrix and Gamma at Standard, Level Max, Color Gain-8, R Gain and R Rot. -2, G Gain 1, 24p or 30p." This might sound like too much information if you're not a JVC shooter or aren't familiar with the effect he's discussing, but if you are a JVC user with a yen for film effects (and that describes a lot of EventDV readers), it's exactly what you want to read in a book about HDV, and probably didn't expect you would find in a book that's ostensibly designed to cover the topic so broadly.
The same goes for the "NLE Workflow" section, which describes briefly, but with just the right sort of detail, how to ingest HDV into your system, whether you're using Premiere Pro, Vegas, Final Cut, Liquid, EDIUS, or Xpress Pro, what settings you'll need on your PC or Mac and in your NLE, and how to work with the video once it's in there. Spotted Eagle also gives plenty of coverage to the issue of using intermediate codecs as opposed to editing HDV in native LongGOP MPEG-2, and explains how to convert to intermediate codecs in each tool, as well as the usefulness of faster third-party conversion tools like CineForm's AspectHD and workflow enhancement software like VASST's GearShift plug-in for Vegas.
Any book that purports to tell you all you need to know about HDV would be remiss if it didn't discuss the technologies and techniques used to create a "film look" in the digital format, and any review of this book would be remiss if it didn't mention how well Spotted Eagle explores that issue. Right away he makes it clear that there's much more to making digital video look like film than shooting in 24p. However real the technical differences between interlaced frame modes and "true progressive" shooting modes may be, they're largely imperceptible to the naked eye. Furthermore, he points out that as much as the indie film community (and, I'd add, some advocates of "cinematic" wedding and event video) are championing 24p, big-budget Hollywood is taking pains to distance itself from it.
But the "Film Looks & 24p" chapter isn't primarily an anti-24p polemic. The meat of it is a brief tutorial on all the other things involved in producing a credible film look besides shooting in 24p, such as filters for film-like diffusion; shutter speeds; and techniques for getting a shallower, more film-like depth of field. Essential reading for any HDV adopter with filmic leanings.
HDV: What You Need to Know, The Complete Guide closes with a quick look at Blu-ray (and an even quicker look at HD DVD) as the next-generation technologies for those who deliver on DVD. The book is nearly six months old as I write this and it's ironic that with all the swirling hype surrounding Blu-ray and HD DVD in that time, the book hardly seems dated in that respect. Not much has really happened with these technologies at all in terms of real market impact. They may be growing up in public, but their market isn't maturing any faster because of it.
A year from now, the HD delivery landscape will look significantly different. If 2005 and 2006 were the years of HD acquisition's initial explosion into the prosumer mainstream, thanks to HDV, 2007 and 2008 should bring about the same sort of shift for HD video delivery as Blu-ray and/or HD DVD take center stage, and seasoned HDV videographers will be ready to make the most of it. Those with Douglas Spotted Eagle's Complete Guide in hand are well on their way already.
HDV: What You Need To Know, The Complete Guide (2nd. Ed.) is available from amazon
5/13/2009
The Rules of Bureaucracy
1. Preserve thyself.
2. It is easier to fix the blame than to fix the problem.
3. A penny saved is an oversight.
4. Information deteriorates upward.
5. The first 90% of the task takes 90% of the time; the last 10% takes the other 90%.
6. Experience is what you get just after you need it.
7. For any given large, complex, hard-to-understand, expensive problem, there exists at least one short, simple, easy, cheap wrong answer.
8. Anything that can be changed will be, until time runs out.
9. To err is human; to shrug is civil service.
10. There's never enough time to do it right, but there's always enough time to do it over.
2. It is easier to fix the blame than to fix the problem.
3. A penny saved is an oversight.
4. Information deteriorates upward.
5. The first 90% of the task takes 90% of the time; the last 10% takes the other 90%.
6. Experience is what you get just after you need it.
7. For any given large, complex, hard-to-understand, expensive problem, there exists at least one short, simple, easy, cheap wrong answer.
8. Anything that can be changed will be, until time runs out.
9. To err is human; to shrug is civil service.
10. There's never enough time to do it right, but there's always enough time to do it over.
5/02/2009
salewoman in Arizona
A saleswoman was driving toward home in Northern Arizona when she saw an Indian woman hitchhiking. Since the trip had been long and quiet, she stopped the car and the Indian woman got in. After a bit of small talk, the Indian woman noticed a brown bag on the front seat.
"What's in the bag?" she asked.
"It's a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband," said the saleswoman.
The Indian woman was silent for a while and then said, "Good trade."
"What's in the bag?" she asked.
"It's a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband," said the saleswoman.
The Indian woman was silent for a while and then said, "Good trade."
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