Hardware
by PVC Staff
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
HPA Tech Retreat - Day 1
3D, AudioScope, CES, and the Analog Shutdown
On this, the first “real” day of the HPA Tech Retreat, we were treated to 3D cinema demos and discussions, a CES review, a phased-array mic for sports recording, and more.
more »Business • Cameras • Distribution • Hardware • Motion Graphics • Post Production • Production • Visual Effects • (1) Comments • Most recent comments by: Yanni, • Permalink
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
HPA Tech Retreat - Day 0
LCDs, Radiosity, and the AMPAS IIF
This 3M film is used in the diffuser of a 23” LCD panel
“Day 0” of the 2008 HPA Tech Retreat in Palm Springs offered four sessions; I attended three: Euredjian on LCDs, Poynton on Radiosity, and AMPAS on the Image Interchange Format.
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Friday, February 15, 2008
Favorite Technical References
When you need to settle an argument, there’s nothing like the facts.
The video industry has saddled us users with some truly ugly numbers to deal with (such as 720x480, 29.97, and so forth) when working with digital video. Making matters worse, these numbers are often misquoted or misunderstood.
Thankfully, there are a few web sites out there with some truly valuable, correct information on digital video standards. Here are the sites we refer to most often when we need to know the inside scoop:
Distribution • Hardware • Production • (0) Comments • • Permalink
Monday, February 11, 2008
The “Air” Apparent
First things first, I completely agree with Mike Curtis, that the MacBook Air isn’t for us. Except that....
Excuse me while I hit the way-back machine and meander down memory lane to the days of yore, when if you wanted a great NLE machine, it made sense to make that machine, your only machine. If you planned to do any business, script writing, Quickbooks, spreadsheets, well then you must have another machine my friend, as the NLE will likely crash if things aren’t just so. Perhaps you remember those days? Or perhaps you’re lucky enough to only live using a new MacBook Pro (or insert top of the line PC here), with the latest Office, Logic Pro, FCP Studio, After Effects, Photoshop, InDesign, etc. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Today’s top end PC or Mac could run a small country, and at the same time, slice bread, produce the next Grammy-winning album, er CD, er, MP3, oh - and concurrently output the next top grossing feature film. Perhaps I want my ultra-portable computer to write scripts, handle my day to day email on the road and not have to worry about lugging around my editing machine, when maybe my next trip is finding the right client, not editing on the airplane.
Bear with me here....
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Friday, February 01, 2008
Pardon the Interruption: UPS Musings
Newer computers need larger-capacity UPSs to keep running.
We’re having the hardwood floors in the office refinished. They brought in a huge electric sander that didn’t even have a plug; they wired it straight into the circuit breaker panel. Needless to say, every time they turned it on, the lights dimmed.
This brings up the subject of battery backup power for your computer workstations, commonly known as a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). In short, you should have one on each computer, keeping it and your drives alive when the power blips. You can’t work all day off of them (unless you have a truly huge one), but they’ll keep you up long enough to hit “save” - rather than suffer through a data loss.
We used to have UPSs in the 450 to 650 VA (volt-amp) range. They were fine for our Mac G3s and G4s. Things weren’t so rosy when we started getting multi-processor G5s a few years back: One power blip, and everyone was dead. We’ve had to move up to supplies with at least a 950 VA rating. Higher ratings mean longer running times, plus more future-proofing for when you buy an even more powerful (and power-hungry) computer in the future.
These beasts are a lot less expensive than they used to be, especially if you buy refurbished models. We get ours from UPS For Less, where used units are dirt cheap - roughly $100 for a 1000 VA unit (normally $500+) is a common price. Replacement batteries (which you will need every few years) can be had from a number of places; just Google them.
Here’s a dark secret about most UPS devices: The power they output is not as “clean” as the outlet on the wall; they fake the sine wave of the alternating current. This isn’t a problem with computers, but can cause noise… more »
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
AppleTV Take 2: New Software, Same Hardware
I very carefully and duly noted when Steve Jobs, during an interview, said that Apple had 3 businesses (Macs, iPods/iTunes, and iPhones) and a hobby (AppleTV).
If that wasn’t a tacit, explicit admission that a product hadn’t done as well as they’d hoped, I don’t know what is. To launch a product and then call it a hobby, you might as well say “Dude - it tewdally tanked.”
And with good reason - more expensive than a DVD player, with less content available, AppleTV didn’t add up to the sum of its parts in consumers eyes.
For high end users, it made for a nice way to have a good interface to their iTunes library that was constantly available, and also display pictures in high def on an HDTV. As bonus round, it could play movies in a pricey, low quality format, and Oh Cool! - it also could play back purchased TV episodes if you missed them. This was how I perceived it when I bought mine, and quickly realized I wanted a MUCH bigger hard drive than the 40GB unit it came with. * I was enamored and excited about it enough I even started a blog about it called AppleTV Hacker (which I haven’t updated since last August).
So I was pleasantly surprised to Steve Jobs spend some time talking about AppleTV again at this year’s MacWorld, as he described it as AppleTV Take 2.
more »Hardware • (3) Comments • Most recent comments by: Pliny, Richard, Richard, • Permalink
