A good editorial by SyFy Portal’s Wayne Hall about the future of sci-fi on TV (and apparently movies, as this year there was not a single one space-oriented major movie). Some excerpts:

“…the future of science-fiction on television is “Eureka,” not “Battlestar Galactica.” As costs to produce expensive shows like BSG continue to escalate, we’ll see more and more Earth-based shows like “Eureka,” [...] ” The question is, is it science-fiction?” [...] “But if every episode worries about how they are going to pay their bills and survive action-oriented plots, is that any different from a cop or mystery show?”

Worth a read.

Tonight, the most hyped show of the new season aired on FOX: “Fringe“. Its pilot is the second most expensive TV pilot ever that cost $10 million (”Lost” is first with well over $10 million). “Fringe” is primarily a detective story with parapsychology and sci-fi elements, and a background story arc. It is, as you have heard, similar to “X-Files” in many ways.

Unfortunately, the good things end here. I felt almost no connection with the main character, as except knowing who her lover was, we know or feel nothing for her. Then, the whole story felt out of place. From one side you have some X-Files-like science that is acceptable (as it’s part of what you expect on a series like this), and from the other one you are shown a Terminator-like robotic arm — a robotic arm that’s not questioned by the lead character when she sees it in front of her. If Scully was to see this robotic arm she would say “this is impossible, we don’t have the technology for this yet”. And yet, the lead character just looks at it, and then she just goes away like nothing happened. This scene in itself shows that the show is not taking itself seriously. It is not making the unbelievable “fringe science”, believable to us.

And then, finding some gross excuse to have the lead character take off her clothes, or the stupidity of having the FBI not be able to visit a mental hospital patient with a warrant. Both excuses are shallow, and especially the second one, that serves as a plot device, is underestimating our intelligence.

All in all, “Fringe” is an expensive production, it feels bad ass at first look, but it doesn’t leave you with a feeling of wanting to shout: “Awesome!”.

What bothers me even more is that JJ Abrams is pulling this like he did on some of his other series too: he writes the pilot and the main story of the series, and then he doesn’t bother again with it. That’s ok with me, but I hate it when I hear “JJ Abrams’ Fringe” or even worse, “JJ Abrams’ Lost”, when he hasn’t written a word of script after the initial 3-4 episodes. JJ seems to me like this mythological creature that’s here to “bless” a film project (for a hefty fee, of course) and then hop to the next one. Like a priest. Or Tinkerbell.

In all honesty, “Fringe” is not bad. It’s just an expensive TV series and it looks like one. But it’s also not great. It’s a very average series, made (possibly) for less intelligent people (e.g. FOX executives). If I was a FOX share holder I would feel ripped off. It definitely is no “Lost”, and it won’t enjoy not even the moderate success of “Heroes”, let alone “Lost”’s first season mania.

JJ Abrams is overrated.

A few days ago Nikon did a splash in the camcorder circles with the announcement that its D90 DSLR can also grab 720/24p footage. Many videographers were quick to think that they can finally replace their bulky HD camcorder and digicam with a single device.

While there is definitely value in the “one device does it all” camp, the video feature in the D90 is under par for serious enthusiasts (serious enough that they paid over $1000 for a DSLR too). Some of the problems:
1. Can’t focus continuously.
2. Focus breathing.
3. Discrete exposure. This is extremely problematic and visible on any sample file. The camera does a lot of exposure decisions, and this creates these “flashes” of exposure compensation during recording.
4. It does not record in 23.976 but in 24.000384 fps. This is a huge problem in editing, as editors will try to resample when you try to export to “proper” IVTC 24p frame rate at 23.976, and resampling means “ghosting” artifacts. I have the same problem with my Kodak camera that records in 30.xx fps (xx is always a variable, to make things worse) instead of NTSC’s 29.97 exactly.
5. MJPEG eats away storage. It’s extremely inefficient. AVCHD at 12 mbps would have been a better choice.
6. No microphone input, for those who might want to go a bit further with filmmaking.

On the other hand, quality is not too bad (better than Kodak’s HD digicams for example). And eventually, maybe in 3-5 years, the problems above are fixed. But for now, the video element on a DSLR remains a toy, a “by the way” feature for semi-pro photographers who might want to snap some video clips occasionally for one reason or another. But it definitely can’t replace an HD camcorder, even if it is convenient for being a single multi-function device. For more serious amateur videographers (like many are on Vimeo for example), this device is a no-go.

The Duran Duran were my favorite band in the ’80s — no need to mention that I, as most of my friends at the time, also wanted to marry bassist John Taylor when I would grow up. “Save a prayer“, and “Come undone” were always my favorite tracks, but I never realized, until tonight when I saw them performing it on TV at “live at Webley 2004″, how good “The Chauffeur” really is. A very little known gem. Even the Deftones did a rock cover of it apparently.

I am not into MMOs, but this game really sounds exciting. “Eve Online” is a space saga, and in all accounts, a 3D online re-implementation of the classic “Elite“.

It’s not only its theme that I like, but from what I read online it’s the MMO for “smart people”. Where all the “normal” people might play Everquest or WoW, this one is meant for players who can handle complex situations.

It would be great the day where an MMO could offer a pretty complex infrastructure in space, not just traders and pirates like in Eve, but a place where government officials, police, doctors, and a multitude of judges (voted on/off by the players) are all played by real gamers. In other words, try to create a realistic world, within that mostly-trader space game. That, ad-hock additions, and user-created plugins that allow creation of objects shouldn’t be too far away.

Saturday, 6:30 PM: Sitting at the office, with the iTunes AppStore open in my screen. JBQ and I are laughing at the people who bought the most popular app for the iPhone, a fishpond simulator. We make a note as to how useless this app is, and how easily people buy crap.

Saturday, 7:15 PM: JBQ is in the living room using his Wii. I enter the room, and not long afterwards JBQ buys a fishtank simulator for the Wii via its online game store.

No comment.

In spite of what some of you might think, I love my country. A country filled with orange and lemon trees. And yet, I ask you: why the hell orange juice is so bad in Greece?

The only kind of orange juice I could find is the water-down version with a half a kilo of added sugar in it, heavily concentrated. Fruit juice brands like “Amita” rule in Greece (Coca-Cola owns the brand), and yet, they have nothing in common with the quality we can get in UK, France or in USA for the same amount of money. It’s a bit of a mystery to me how a country that has so many fruit trees can’t get their recipes right.

Then again, it might just be a “used to” thing. You see, I am old enough to remember the first time fruit juices were actually available in the shops at my town in Epirus: mid-’80s. Before that time, if you wanted a fruit juice, you needed to pick the fruits from the tree and make it yourself. Given the financial capacity of most people at the time, it might have made business sense for companies like Amita to introduce these cheap, watered-down crap juices. Problem is, 25 years afterwards Greeks are used to these unhealthy juices and either would never consider a more expensive but real orange juice (with pulp in it and all), or they are not even aware of them (e.g. my mother never had a good glass of bottled orange juice).

Now, I am not saying that there aren’t any “real” orange juices out there, but I haven’t found any at the shops I looked at for (ranging from the local shops, to “Lidl”, to “Marinopoulos”). I must also mention the orange juice we had at our hotel in Athens during our 2-day stay there: an even worse, more watered-down, smelly even, version. JBQ noted during our breakfast there: “this is disgusting”.

* Bad, really bad cold. Fever, tendency to throw up, unable to stay awake but also unable to sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time, couldn’t breath when lying down, and heart arrhythmia (I was feeling that my heart was stop beating when falling asleep). I caught the bug from JBQ, but I really think I had a worst time than he had… He was driving to work and all, I was unable to even walk as far as the toilet.

* I am thinking of buying the DELL Mini 9 for $480 (fully spec’ed) when my 12″ Powerbook dies. I prefer it over the Acer Aspire One as it also has Bluetooth and a 3G card onboard. I guess the next big thing in these nettops are the 1280×768 resolution at 10″. The res is the main reason I prefer XP over Ubuntu. A large number of GTK+ utils just don’t fit on 600px vertically. And this is something I was shouting at the Gnome devs for years now, and they were coming back to me to say “nobody uses 800×600 anymore”. Well, too bad for you, but the latest trend is 800×480 and 1024×600 res nettops, and some of your badly designed utils don’t fit. So I am going with XP.

* [Spoiler] Ancient Egyptians will be seen on the new season of “Lost”. Man, can’t wait for February.

As you know, I try to help out people with my video tutorials. But the dumbest question that someone could ask me, and usually I am asked via email, IM or on forums, is this:
“How to export my video to get the best possible quality“.

If I was to take that question literally, the right answer would be “use a lossless codec, like Huffyuv, or uncompressed”. This would create a file that’s several GBs per minute.

But that’s not what these people want as an answer. They usually ask this question meaning how to export in a codec that it’s viewable at a reasonable bitrate, and it’s web (youtube/Vimeo), DVD, PS3/XBoX360, and PC friendly — and by retaining a good visual quality.

Problem is, there is not a single format or way that covers well all these viewing platforms. Depending what the user wants to do, different options or codecs must be used. In general though, h.264/AAC in the MP4 container, progressive, is the best way to export. In detail (assuming HD camera):

DVDs: just use the way your video editor usually exports for DVDs. On Sony Vegas for example, you export separately audio (AC3) and video (mpeg2 template), and the Sony DVD Architect app puts them back together.
Vimeo: 1280×720 at 4-5 mbps MP4. Example.
iPod/iPhone/YouTube: 640×360 at 2mbps MP4 is more than enough. Adapt tutorial above.
PS3/XBoX360: Same as Vimeo above if you own a 1080i TV, or 1920×1080 at 12 mbps if you own a 1080p TV. These devices don’t support h.264/AAC in MOV btw, but only in MP4.
PC/Mac: Like Vimeo if your computer is not very fast, or in 1080p if it is.

Of course, then there’s the problem of your video editor not supporting h.264/AAC in MP4, in which case you might want to investigate XViD AVI or WMV. No matter the codec used, just use the same bitrate/settings as discussed above.

If you don’t use an HD camera, then it gets more complicated as PAL/NTSC use different resolutions and there’s the point of 4:3 vs widescreen. Some ideas here.

So next time you want to ask me this question, always tell me four things:
1. Format that video was shot (e.g. miniDV PAL 50i, HDV NTSC PF24).
2. Aspect ratio of the said video (e.g. 4:3, widescreen).
3. Video editor or video tools owned.
4. Target viewing platform.