Disclaimer:

For you folks out there that are into tube amps and still spinning vinyl with $10,000 turntables, don’t read this. You’ll just get pissed.

iTunes Match is due for launch any day now, and one of the features of Match – the option to “scale” songs in your library up 256 kbps (if matched) – got me thinking about the whole music resolution issue in general.

Over the past twenty years or so we’ve seen kind of a “dumbing down” of music quality for consumers in general, brought about in no small part by the onset of portable music devices: first the ground-breaking Sony Walkman, then of course the iPod.

Back when I was younger, when we still relied on vinyl, the resolution was there – on the disc – it was a matter of getting it off at a certain resolution. There … Read More »

Absolutely buried with work these days but I did reward myself with a new lens this week: one I’ve been eyeing for a long time. The more motion graphics work I’ve been doing in After Effects and C4D have had me scrambling to find textures and materials appropriate for specific projects. Instead of feeding money to the stock houses (especially for video, which gets expensive) a good macro lens can be a god-send. And the Canon 100mm EF L Macro is easily one of the best out there (you get what you pay for).

Haven’t had time to really push it yet – e.g. on tripod or macro video – but I present here my very first shot with this thing out of the box. Depth of field is very tight (especially at the low apertures as … Read More »

Not much down time here lately, but with what little I have I’ve been working out all of the details of round-tripping HD video between a host of tools: Final Cut, After Effects, SoundTrack, Compressor, etc.  Also working with ProRes for transcoding for the first time which is pretty amazing.

This short is one of those tests.  Shot with a Canon 7D using an EFS 17-55 zoom, Manfrotto tripod with fluid head mount. (I’ll put that to use later …;-)

(Update: Wow, lot’s of iPad users out there already … thanks for pointing this out. If you’re here on an iPad, Vimeo has not released the embed code for iPad video playback. Until their new HTML5 version is out – soon they say – click on the Fountain link below. The HTML5 version plays fine from their website … Read More »

I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to decide on a new walk-around camera/lens setup, for both stills and HD video, but I finally pulled the trigger.  (Thanks to my patient wife who allowed me to dip into my allowance)

Went with the Canon EOS 7d – body only – with the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM zoom lens.

Looks like a great, portable, flexible setup.  If anyone has any comments (the photo / video crowd is easily one of the most opinionated I’ve seen, outside of the politicos) fire away.  And yes, I know it’s not full-frame…

I’m an old Southern boy, and I like my cars, but 20 years in California starts to mess with you.

My bad knees are a testament to lots of hard biking over the years – road and mountain. But I’ve never been a great commuter. I’ve been watching electric and electric-assist bikes for years now and never been really impressed by anything. The examples have either been bulky mo-ped like “scooters” or completely underpowered kits for regular bikes.

About a year ago I first heard that Trek was considering a “bespoke” electric-assiste bike. In other words, they wanted to take a great commuter bike and custom design an electric solution. They went to one of (if not the) electric motor sources out there (Bionx) and ended up collaborating on a great new form factor.

I managed to ride … Read More »

Our perception of refinement – a product or product category’s ability to incrementally improve – seems to be on some type of accelerated (if not exponential) curve like we’re used to with Moore’s Law in the tech world.

But some products seem to defy wholesale refinement on a fast track – and these objects tend to be what we often call “classics”.

Take the bike seat (or “saddle” as they were first called).  Weird I know, but stay with me.

I ordered a new bike recently to use as a commuter.  It’s somewhat special, and I’ll be writing about it after it comes in (it looks like it may be the first in Marin County, which is interesting given how bike-crazy this place is), but that’s not the focus here.  While waiting, I’ve been researching various components that might improve on the stock. … Read More »

Wow. Don’t get me wrong. I’m one of the biggest Apple fan-boys out there. But this morning’s announcement by Apple took the rug out from under me.

I don’t remember a major Apple announcement that didn’t make me want to go out and buy something that day. My response to the iPad? Meh.

Now, given my high hopes for a new device category (to in-part save the publishing industry which I’m really worried about – really), and my prediction – from 20 years ago – of what this thing should do, I was – to put it lightly – unimpressed today.

First impressions:

no phone?
multitasking?
no camera?
iPhone apps “pixel doubled”?
can that bezel get any bigger?
this is what print looks like in the future? (HTML? PDF?)
next gen print subscription models (I wanted the NYT 2010 reincarnation so bad …)

I … Read More »