Author Bronwyn Calder has taken the ebook plunge with her novel "Askar" by publishing on "Smashwords".
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/6580
Big decisions on pricing and policies. Bronwyn has priced at USD 2.99 with a free preview of the first 25% of the work. She has chosen the path of an ebook free from DRM digital rights management in agreement with the Smashwords philosophy that it is best to enable readers to enjoy their books without complex restrictions which may create unfair situations, and that most readers can be trusted with the work.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
CVSEJ-A4402 Low cost high definition Camera - first impressions
I am checking out a CVSEJ-A4402 video camera - low cost currently USD$177.50
http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/1080p-hd-video-camera-highres-video-camcorder-up-to-60fps
Of interest because it is representative of advances in cameras emerging from the Chinese electronics industry. My first test was to point it at line resolution charts EIA1956 and ISO12233. Good results, 700-800 line pairs rating which well qualifies this as "High Definition". I am digging deeper to check out the potential for educational use. There is no manual focus or focus lock but the auto-focus seems to work as well as can be expected for a low-cost optical zoom lens. I am seeing it hunt once for focus then lock in until a major change of view happens. Focus hunting takes longer in dark conditions. I wish it had a mic input port. The LCD view matches well with the framing of the recorded video - IMHO better than most cams which tend to record more than they show to allow for traditional TV cropping. The testing continues.
Update - Test shot now posted on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPyzZNFyd88
http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/1080p-hd-video-camera-highres-video-camcorder-up-to-60fps
Of interest because it is representative of advances in cameras emerging from the Chinese electronics industry. My first test was to point it at line resolution charts EIA1956 and ISO12233. Good results, 700-800 line pairs rating which well qualifies this as "High Definition". I am digging deeper to check out the potential for educational use. There is no manual focus or focus lock but the auto-focus seems to work as well as can be expected for a low-cost optical zoom lens. I am seeing it hunt once for focus then lock in until a major change of view happens. Focus hunting takes longer in dark conditions. I wish it had a mic input port. The LCD view matches well with the framing of the recorded video - IMHO better than most cams which tend to record more than they show to allow for traditional TV cropping. The testing continues.
Update - Test shot now posted on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPyzZNFyd88
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Kindle - hey Amazon, share the love!
EDIT - (22 Jan 2010)
NEWS - 15 Jan 2010 - Amazon now effectively does "share the love" by making the simple 30% USA withholding tax method available to international authors. We can now get started more easily and do the paperwork later if sales justify that.
ORIGINAL POST
Amazon is going international with its Kindle ebook reader. Tonight I downloaded their Kindle ebook reader for PC. Exciting ebook news but here is a negative. It is too difficult for writers outside of the USA to participate. To sign up you need a USA bank account and US Tax paperwork that is a bureaucratic drama to work through - I know because I am partway through this process. And this is quite unnecessary because Amazon's own Createspace print-on-demand service can invite anyone in by using the available simple 30% withholding tax regime. The Kindle needs to be one of the Createspace platforms and operate in the same way and I see no good reason why not. Hey Amazon, if it is good enough to collect money from all the world for ebooks, it is good enough to let all the world join in the creativity!
NEWS - 15 Jan 2010 - Amazon now effectively does "share the love" by making the simple 30% USA withholding tax method available to international authors. We can now get started more easily and do the paperwork later if sales justify that.
ORIGINAL POST
Amazon is going international with its Kindle ebook reader. Tonight I downloaded their Kindle ebook reader for PC. Exciting ebook news but here is a negative. It is too difficult for writers outside of the USA to participate. To sign up you need a USA bank account and US Tax paperwork that is a bureaucratic drama to work through - I know because I am partway through this process. And this is quite unnecessary because Amazon's own Createspace print-on-demand service can invite anyone in by using the available simple 30% withholding tax regime. The Kindle needs to be one of the Createspace platforms and operate in the same way and I see no good reason why not. Hey Amazon, if it is good enough to collect money from all the world for ebooks, it is good enough to let all the world join in the creativity!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Best results on Youtube - WMV format does well
I was helping my friend "Walnut the Clown" publish a band performance on his Youtube channel.
'The Amazing Frank E. Evans Band plays "Red Red Robin"'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpag4VA3yMI
We had problems with the video looking bad compared to our usual Youtube results. We deleted it, tried rendering different ways then uploading again - 4 times before we got an acceptable result, and that success is a little bit of a surprise being the Microsoft WMV format.
Our earlier efforts were:
1. MPEG-2, DVD-PAL format. MPEG-2 is one of Youtube's officially recommended formats and it seemed like a good idea to have one render cover both DVD and Youtube publication. .... er no!
2. DIVX format. This has been successful for us in the past but this time ... er no!
3. XVID format. Seemed better than DIVX for this clip, probably acceptable, but WMV was better.
4. WMV format. Our widescreen original render output set at 720 x 404 pixels, 30 frames per second progressive from PAL 50i original footage, bitrate 3500 kbps average VBR video with keyframe interval of 2 sec plus keyframes on cue and edit points and 192 kbps audio. This 3.5 minute clip came out to about 85 Meg.
The only reason I even thought to try WMV was that "Walnut" had uploaded some WMV videos he had edited in "Windows Movie Maker" and they look good - for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpVC7utjMnY
The surprise here is that articles I have read and people I have talked to have said that WMV does not work well with Youtube. These results tell a different story!
Walnut's channel - Comedy and Music:Nostalgia, Vintage, World, Folk, Jazz, Swing
http://www.youtube.com/user/walnuttheclown
'The Amazing Frank E. Evans Band plays "Red Red Robin"'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpag4VA3yMI
We had problems with the video looking bad compared to our usual Youtube results. We deleted it, tried rendering different ways then uploading again - 4 times before we got an acceptable result, and that success is a little bit of a surprise being the Microsoft WMV format.
Our earlier efforts were:
1. MPEG-2, DVD-PAL format. MPEG-2 is one of Youtube's officially recommended formats and it seemed like a good idea to have one render cover both DVD and Youtube publication. .... er no!
2. DIVX format. This has been successful for us in the past but this time ... er no!
3. XVID format. Seemed better than DIVX for this clip, probably acceptable, but WMV was better.
4. WMV format. Our widescreen original render output set at 720 x 404 pixels, 30 frames per second progressive from PAL 50i original footage, bitrate 3500 kbps average VBR video with keyframe interval of 2 sec plus keyframes on cue and edit points and 192 kbps audio. This 3.5 minute clip came out to about 85 Meg.
The only reason I even thought to try WMV was that "Walnut" had uploaded some WMV videos he had edited in "Windows Movie Maker" and they look good - for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpVC7utjMnY
The surprise here is that articles I have read and people I have talked to have said that WMV does not work well with Youtube. These results tell a different story!
Walnut's channel - Comedy and Music:Nostalgia, Vintage, World, Folk, Jazz, Swing
http://www.youtube.com/user/walnuttheclown
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Film Festival success for "How Europe Got Its Name"
Our short animated film "How Europe Got Its Name", 6 min, has been selected for public screening in the "New Beijing International Film Week". This is a big step forward for us and we are very very happy about it. You can see it in the festival program at:
Link to Beijing Fest 2009 Selected Movies
"How Europe Got Its Name" appears a little over half-way down this page.
Backgrounder for new readers: the democratisation of film-making makes production easier for us (yay), and easier for zillions of others(uh oh) so selection panels can be choosing as little as 5% of what they receive. Why Beijing? My 1980s successes were often in non-English speaking cities. Our movies this century have been collecting rejections from US and NZ festivals so when "How Europe .." was ready, I thought it was time to revisit the wider world. I liked the style of this festival and the film-makers connected with it - you can see what I mean by using the above link and looking around the festival site.
"How Europe Got Its Name" version 1 was made in 1 weekend when we were competing as "Team MITCIT" representing the Manukau Institute of Technology in the New Zealand 48 Hours Furious Film-making Competition. It was wildly ambitious to do a speed-film-making competition with modelling clay animation but we did get it all shot and we got a panic edit version over the finishing line with 2 minutes to spare. We won a small audience-favourite-vote award for 3rd place in our heat.
The Beijing Festival entry is the completed "Version 2".
We can not show you the complete movie on the web yet because we are exploring its film festival and commercial potential. I do plan to post about a 30 second sample soon.
Link to Beijing Fest 2009 Selected Movies
"How Europe Got Its Name" appears a little over half-way down this page.
Backgrounder for new readers: the democratisation of film-making makes production easier for us (yay), and easier for zillions of others(uh oh) so selection panels can be choosing as little as 5% of what they receive. Why Beijing? My 1980s successes were often in non-English speaking cities. Our movies this century have been collecting rejections from US and NZ festivals so when "How Europe .." was ready, I thought it was time to revisit the wider world. I liked the style of this festival and the film-makers connected with it - you can see what I mean by using the above link and looking around the festival site.
"How Europe Got Its Name" version 1 was made in 1 weekend when we were competing as "Team MITCIT" representing the Manukau Institute of Technology in the New Zealand 48 Hours Furious Film-making Competition. It was wildly ambitious to do a speed-film-making competition with modelling clay animation but we did get it all shot and we got a panic edit version over the finishing line with 2 minutes to spare. We won a small audience-favourite-vote award for 3rd place in our heat.
The Beijing Festival entry is the completed "Version 2".
We can not show you the complete movie on the web yet because we are exploring its film festival and commercial potential. I do plan to post about a 30 second sample soon.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
"Unsharp Mask" filter works well with digitised film
I have been doing more digitisation of Super-8mm and Standard-8mm movies dating back to 1962. I ran across "Unsharp Mask" in the GIMP manual and I find that Ulead Video Editing software also has this in its video filters. Looking good - on careful inspection results do not have any better detail but they seem to look better. I have found that other sharpeners do bad things with film grain but Unsharp Mask seems to handle graininess well. With "The GIMP", I am using the default settings. With "Ulead" IMO the default settings go too far and I am using relatively gentle settings of "15%, 15%" on the 2 controls provided.
Ref - info with image examples in "The GIMP" online manual:
http://docs.gimp.org/en/plug-in-unsharp-mask.html
"The Unsharp Mask filter (what an odd name!) sharpens edges of the elements without increasing noise or blemish. It is the king of the sharpen filters..."
Ref - info with image examples in "The GIMP" online manual:
http://docs.gimp.org/en/plug-in-unsharp-mask.html
"The Unsharp Mask filter (what an odd name!) sharpens edges of the elements without increasing noise or blemish. It is the king of the sharpen filters..."
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Music to my ears NOT
Maybe I am turning into a very old fogey, but does anyone else object to social conversation being made impossible by playing loud music? Bronnie and I got into a film-makers party at "Galatos", (well we are "emerging" film-makers!), and we had a great time meeting interesting people, but that blasting music meant that conversation was conducted by yelling at close quarters. We worked it out that we could escape outside into the street to talk and the street filled up with exiled smokers and talkers with it being a little annoying and a lot funny that the bouncers were obliged to deprive we street people of our drinks. It seems that smoking and intelligent conversation are now the twin evils of society requiring the perpetrators to be put outside. Nice party MIC but next time lose the music, we film-makers are not out-of-it nightclub bunnies requiring music to cover for an inability to communicate - we are actually the articulate ones.
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