We watched the “Some kind of Monster” Metallica documentary on Friday night. The 5 people “starring” in it just reminded me of us, our team of tech journalists at OSNews.

The singer James is Adam. Always taking life easy, being a bit liberal on ideas too.
Guitarist Kirk’s Thom. He doesn’t talk a lot, he just does the job he has to do and he is easy going.
Phil, the therapist, is David. He’s there to make sure everything goes as planned, and cleverly takes everyone’s place in internal disputes.
Bob, the audio console/producer guy is our admin Jon. He’s there when you need him, administrating everything.

And I am Lars, the drummer. Perfectionist. Getting pissed off very easily and asks too much from the rest. A real prick.

I didn’t like Lars.

“CSI:Miami” is not a super cop TV series, but it’s definitely the most good-looking one. It looks fabulous in HD. Online, there are a number of videographers who have expressed the question as to how this look is achieved. And the answer is that it is done via various ways:

1. Apply a warm look in-camera (if supported).
2. Apply saturation in-camera (if supported).
3. Saturate and boost gamma in post.
4. Boost contrast in post. (example: 1)
5. Use gradient filters while shooting (example: 1, 2).
6. Boost primarily the orange and yellow colors and use similarly colored lights to shoot: (example: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
7. For indoors scenes, always use a well-lit colored pattern as a background that you can later boost its colors in post.
8. Use a 35mm adapter if available for your camera, and the appropriate lens each time. You need a large sensor.
9. Shoot in 1/48th shutter speed and 24fps. If your camera has a “cine mode” like the Canon HV20 does, use that.
10. Selectively boost colors in post depending on the scene (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

Navigate the episodes here and check the indoor scenes. You will notice that the vast majority of them have specific pattern backgrounds that are lit from the floor with big lights. Then, the pattern color(s) (which they make sure that the actors don’t wear clothes with the same colors) are boosted in post.

Because lighting is one of the most mysterious arts in film making and because most people can’t afford these lights, this tutorial will show how to achieve a similar look for your outdoor scenes. You will need Sony Vegas to follow the small guide.

0. When appropriate, shoot with a gradient orange-sun filter.
1. Boost contrast by 15 to 20% depending on the scene (filter: “brightness and contrast”).
2. Boost saturation 20% and gamma 30%, tint the highlights knob towards “yellow” (filter: color correction).
3. Download the free Aav6cc filter and install it. In it, boost the yellow color (you can increase/decrease lightness of that color depending on the scene).
4. Using the Aav6cc filter again, increase the rest of the colors if they are predominant in the scene. E.g. boost blue for sea/sky shots and decrease or increase its lightness depending on the scene. Do the same for the other colors but with less intensity compared to the primary color(s).
5. Vegas Movie Studio comes with some NewBlue filters. Use the “Dream Glow” to give your scene a somewhat soft look if you shot it on video without cinemode. Settings: Blur: 10, Glow: 20.

Here’s my 720/30p video (62 MBs) with before and after live shots. And here’s another video of mine, put to practice (HD version available here):

And another one of mine (HD version available here):

I found out just a month ago, out of complete luck from the *US* consulate website, that my Greek passport that was issued just 2 years ago is invalid. I had no freaking idea about this. Apparently the Greek government issued a law last year that all passports issued prior to 2006 will be invalid after Jan 1 2007 because they wanted to move to biometric passports. I never knew about this Greek law. I don’t live in Greece anymore, and I don’t read Greek news too often. I have no Greek friends here in USA. The only people I speak on the phone in Greek is my mother and brother who just don’t don’t know about that stuff. In all truth, I had heard that Greece would move to biometric passports at some point, but I never thought, not in my wildest dreams that they would invalidate VALID passports. In fact, this is the only European country that has done this the last 30 years! The EU law that mandated the move to biometric passports specifically said that there is no reason to invalidate the older passports — but the Greek government was the ONLY EU country that did.

I am not holding accountable the Greek government about this as much though, but the Greek consulate in San Francisco. You see, THEY were the ones who issued my previous passport. Instead of sending a letter to the registered addresses of each Greek citizen who issued a passport with them in the last 4-5 years in SF, they kept mum. I don’t expect the Greek government to send letters about this to the Greek citizens, but I definitely expect the Consulates doing so, because this passport change can create a LOT of mess to citizens that live in a country other than Greece. It is their job to keep us informed about such important things. Important enough things that can end you up like Tom Hanks in the “Terminal”: stuck in international grounds of an airport, unable to enter or leave a country.

To get the new passport, it takes a month of waiting. Because I didn’t know about all this, I had already purchased a ticket to go to Greece in the end of August. This fiasco cost me $1100 as the ticket was non-refundable.

We had some good time at Ukiah, in northern California, this weekend. The place felt like being pretty “hippy” in nature and we liked it so much that we even thought of buying a house there. There was also a local band competition on the weekend and so we got our dose of live rock music too. This guy was amazing btw and I am going to be interviewing him soon.

On the not so bright points, we had no AT&T signal at all. Apparently AT&T has no cells in there and so they are leasing bandwidth from the local Edge Wireless company. Problem is that GPRS won’t work, pre-paid users are denied access to the antenna, and contract users will have to always dial the area code before they can use the network.

While we were coming back, I lost a unique opportunity to capture one of the best shots one could have of the Golden Gate bridge. While driving on it, we should have removed our Camaro’s top window so I can hold the camera outside of the car, looking upwards. And then shoot the actual towers: one was in the sun, and the other one was completely into fog and looked very otherwordly. We live close to the bridge, but we don’t go to the San Francisco City a lot, much less driving on the bridge. And we usually use our Ford Focus too which doesn’t have a top window to remove.

Anyways, I shot this video of the Golden Gate bridge with clouds fast passing by. Right-click to download the 8 MB 720p video. It’s in WMV format because none of my h.264 efforts worked. Long story, I spent 4 hours with the bloody thing trying to encode it correctly, but no cake.

Update: At last, an h.264 version of the 16x-sped-up video, in full 1080p or in iPhone/PSP format.

Remember my rant the other day about how bad iMovie ‘08 is in terms of features? Read the comments that people added over the last few days (”imovie ‘08 sucks” is the No1 google search that I get on my blog stats). The Apple iMovie forum is full of complaints, and blogs like on NewsVine or here and even the well known Apple-head David Pogue is dissing iMovie ‘08 like there’s no tomorrow. Make sure you read David’s article.

Apple did a boo-boo with the release of iMovie ‘08. And the worst part is, I don’t believe that they ever had any plans to add back the missing features, like the timeline, in future versions. Their current UI design reveals to me that they never had any such plans. Well, that’s what you get for not doing market research and check HOW your users are using your software. I wish that they were to add some HD fixes and AVCHD support on iMovie ‘06 and that would just be enough for most people. There was no reason for the complete rewrite of Frankenstein’s “iMovie ‘08″.

Late at night, when I am working with my Powerbook on my lap, I leave the TV on the background sometimes at the Music-in-HD channel. I usually watch this so I can get inspiration for music video clips that I could potentially shoot. At least once a night, they play videos from Fiona Apple. I don’t particularly like Apple’s music, as I personally find it weird — although I prefer it over Björk’s.

Anyways, one of her videos, “Not About Love“, is an interesting one to me (YouTube link). It’s a cheapo video clip, co-starring Apple and comedian of Greek descent Zach Galifianakis. It apparently was shot on video, and so quality suffers and I would not be surprised to hear that it was actually shot with a consumer widescreen DV camera (yes, the ones that cost $250). However the director does a good job in creating a funny, interesting atmosphere.

This is what I am after. Given the fact that I actually own a much better camera than he did when he shot the video, all it takes is some imagination on my part and some basic editing skills. Am I ready for it? I think so. Especially if JBQ helps me out during shooting with his photography skills, I think I can ultimately create something worth watching.

We were watching last night a documentary about the history of video games. Among the “subplots” discussed was an 8-year old kid (or was he 10?) that had game addiction. His addiction was mostly on FPS and MMORG online games (he had little interest in non-violent games). At some point the camera showed the kid glued to the Mac, with the father trying to get him away from it telling him that he had enough for today, while the kid was shouting not wanting to go away. The parents already knew that their kid had an addiction (a psychologist actually confirmed it). And yet, they still let the kid log in to Mac OS X and play these games and then they had to fight to get him away from the computer.

Why didn’t the parents take the following action instead?
1. Remove all games from the Mac except Chess.
2. Install a few freeware puzzle and table games just so the kid doesn’t die of boredom.
3. Remove his current OSX user account.
4. Create a new non-administrative user account with very limited Internet access. Internet access should ONLY be allowed for the following sites:
a. *.wikipedia.org (for help with his school work and personal education)
b. *.mail.google.com (for his email needs, friends)
c. *.cnn.com (for potential news interests the kid might have)

And that’s it. Let the kid cry his way out of this. He should accomplish nothing. He has everything that he needs, that a kid of his age should need that is, and nothing more. Heck, he can still connect his camera, load iPhoto and email a picture to his friends via Gmail. Or use iMovie and burn a DVD. Or write a document, or edit a picture. What more than that a kid should need? Internet access and application installation rights should be limited — especially in his case so that he can’t download or install new games.

Δωσ’του και δυό μπάτσες άμα δεν κάθεται καλά, και τελείωσε η υπόθεση.

For those who either do HD video editing, or they mostly watch TV on or next to their computer, this monitor is one of the best purchases one can make right now.

It is a 24″ 1920×1080 monitor selling for $399 after rebate. So far nothing special. The special treatment is all the extra TV-related ports it has: HDMI, S-Video and Component! It has no TV tuner, but it is perfect if you want to use the same monitor as TV-via-cable-box or plain PC monitor, and even more perfect if you are doing video work and you need to test the gamma values of your video via a component or S-Video signal. Using an HDMI switcher you can even connect the monitor to two of your graphics card’s DVI ports (via a DVI-to-HDMI cable), or one VGA and one DVI, or S-Video/Component out — depending what your graphics card supports.

And of course, the full 1080p resolution makes it great for 1:1 video zoom which results in better 1080p video quality. This is the cheapest solution today for 1080p testing with general usage also in mind. Two functionalities in one at a respectable price point.

I don’t work for Westinghouse or Newegg btw. But I salivate over that product.

“Madonna is reported to have started injecting herself with vitamins to boost her energy levels. The singer, who turns 49 on Thursday, is said to have surprised passengers on a recent flight from New York to London by injecting herself with a vitamin shot in her arm. Nutritionists said that such a drastic practice could have potentially harmful long-term effects on her health. […] It is understood that Madonna was injecting herself with B6 and B12 vitamins to boost her energy”, writes ThisIsLondon.co.uk.

This is the other side of “drug” use. And that’s not the only thing that Madonna overdoes. According to a physician’s opinion in a UK magazine 2 months ago, she is addicted to endorphins that are released after many hours in the gym (she spends 4 hours a day, everyday, in various gyms and that almost cost her marriage recently). Madonna does not smoke or drink much anymore, and she is against recreational drugs. But what she does with these injections, gym and her crazy macrobiotic diet (I hope that she doesn’t impose this to her children), she is not far off a “junkie” either.

For the 1000th time I will have to write this in this blog: Παν μέτρον άριστον (”all good things in moderation”).

I blogged about the AppleTV back in the day. My idea of using digicam clips instead of miniDV still stands, although since then I purchased an HDV camcorder so it makes sense to try to make use of it. Now that I can export real progressive 1080p videos out of my HDV 1080i camera I need a device that can manage 10 Mbps 1080p h.264 files. Unfortunately, the Quicktime engine is extremely slow playing back files created by the x264 encoder instead of Apple’s own encoder — no matter how you encode the file (with CABAC or CAVLC). So not only the AppleTV must be fixed to work better with h.264 but it must add support for 1080p too — currently it can go only up to 720/24p and iTunes will REFUSE to upload to the device a 720/30p file even if it was carefully encoded with less than 5Mbps which is AppleTV’s maximum bitrate. 1080p playback would probably mean that a hardware decoder must be used. 250 GBs of disk and ability to add DivX/WMV plugins wouldn’t hurt either. Give me that for $400 and I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

Update: And apparently AppleTV will refuse to work via an HDMI switcher that has no support for content locking (most cheap ones don’t).