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DIY-WEBLOG:
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Minidisc.org is sponsoring a proposal and petition to Sony to get them to allow their new NetMD recorders to upload audio recorded to MD through the USB digital interface in faster than real time, rather than just download to the MD, which is all the system can do now. I hope Sony listens, because currently I have no incentive to go buy a new NetMD recorder, since most of my MD use is to record interviews and other sounds for use in radio pieces which are edited on my computer. Right now I have a Teac MD deck with optical digital out that allows me to record my MDs to the computer digitally in real-time, through my Sound Blaster Extigy, and I'm glad to stay with that if there's not going to be any improvements to NetMD.
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Saturday, April 20, 2002
It's sickening -- the clueless mainstream media is just drooling over dataplay disks -- the new music-disks for storing mp3s and albums that are supposed to replace CDs even though they offer no particular advantage besides being smaller. This is truly the worst of press-release journalism, as I strongly doubt most of the hacks writing about these things have ever touched them for more than a few moments. The geeks of Slashdot have weighed in and mostly lambasted this device, and you can read more of my opinion in this earlier post.
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Tuesday, April 09, 2002
DVD Creation? Looks like Macs have it right now. PCs behind the curve.
DVD Creation mag has a look at Apple's new iDVD2 software. This little quote sums up my experience at trying to create DVDs with my Win2k machine:
"We receive lots of e-mails from frustrated readers who are trying to author basic DVD titles using Windows computers. The majority of problems result from poor software integration with the OS, within programs themselves and with lame, stripped-down versions of DVD authoring programs. On the other hand, we never receive complaints from Apple users. The reason is very simple: There's absolutely nothing to complain about."
The problems I've had creating DVDs have been multiple and mostly stupid (and not due to my stupidity, even). I'm using Sonic Solutions DVDit SE, mostly because the entry level myDVD came bundled with the drive and the upgrade was relatively inexpensive. This software gets decent reviews compared to similarly-priced DVD authoring software. I was hesitant to go with more expensive $1000+ software simply because it's so early in the game, which I think has been a good decision.
My complaints with the DVDit software don't have so much to do with it's overall performance, but the encoding of your source files into DVD's MPEG2 format. Simply, the MPEG encoder in DVDit sucks -- it's sloooow and not very high quality. So, instead, I use an external encoder. I've used two different ones, neither of which thrills me. I have the Cleaner MPEG Supercharger, which is a PCI card hardware solution that gives good results, but really should be much faster. I also use Canopus' SoftMPEG which is bundled free with my editing http://www.justedit.com/products/dvrexrt.php3">Canopus DV-RexRT). It's about as fast as the MPEG Supercharger, but not as flexible or high quality in output.
The biggest bugaboo has to do with keeping the size of the resulting MPEG files small enough to fit in the DVD. If you're using DVDit's encoder then the software makes sure you're in range. But if you're using an outside encoder, then it's up to you to keep tabs. Unfortuately, due to sector size differences, the size of your file on the hard drive is not the same as the file size on DVD, and so I've been caught too many times with MPEG files too big to fit on the DVD I'm planning. Which means I have to go back and re-encode. A process that takes hours on my dual-PIII Xeon machine.
Right now DVD authoring is not one of my most important functions, so I can live with the current limitations of my software. But as the software matures and there's more data to make decisions on (I bought this stuff last Summer when there were very few published reviews or user reviews to go on) I'll consider upgrading to more professional-level software. Until then, my advice to anyone thinking of getting into DVD authoring is to wait at least another 6 months, or to go buy a Mac. But if your investment is in the PC it's best to wait if you can.
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Monday, April 08, 2002
Continuing to follow reviews of my new favorite USB sound card, the always thorough Tom's Hardware Review looks at the Sound Blaster Extigy, concluding that despite some mimor sonic flaws, it's a very good sounding card.
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Tuesday, April 02, 2002
USAToday has an article on the increasingly cheap and accessible home recording tools and software out there. It's not too bad for a mainstream press article and suprisingly gets its facts straight. Of course it focuses on the "success stories" like the established band (Jars of Clay) and the indie singer/songwriter who's made $60k in royalties from mp3.com. Although it naturally feeds into the "anyone can be a star" mythology (why does everyone have to be star? why can't it be enough to be creative, productive artist? that's a rant for another time), it nevertheless emphasizes the DIY aspect.
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