The dream is alive. If you don’t hear from me for a while, at least you’ll know why.
Newton2, which now features joints, springs, and convex hulls, is available for $249.99 at aescripts.com.
RØDE smartLav
Perhaps one of the most controversial posts I’ve ever made here was Production Audio is Ripe for Revolution. I admitted that I’ve always found production audio confusing and asked gear makers to take my money in exchange for making my life easier.
It seems that RØDE Microphones was way ahead of me, as they have since announced two very interesting products, the iXY stereo microphone, and—of much greater interest to filmmakers—the smartLav lavaliere mic. Both attach to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch and use the RØDE Rec iOS app.
Are we done? Not even close. There’s ample room for further innovation, but this is a great step. The terrific news is that now, with these hardware devices, RØDE can continue to develop the app and add new features, such as (who knows?) remote monitoring and control, integration with a slate app. And a shotgun model would be a welcome addition to this line.
No pricing or specific release dates (beyond “early 2013”) are available yet, but I’ll keep you posted.
Update
on 2013-02-04 04:40 by Stu
Just after I posted this, RØDE tweeted:
The RØDE smartLav is $60US & will be available in March.
Courier Prime
John August has just released Courier Prime, a free typeface designed specifically for screenplays. John calls it “Courier, but better.” I think it’s beautiful.
Screenwriting began in the era of typewriters, and it’s always been served raw. What the screenwriter pulls out of the typewriter isn’t a manuscript to be sent to the publisher — it’s the final product.
Over the years, the tools have changed, with the advent of computers and printers and PDFs. But we still expect scripts to look like they came out of a typewriter.
It was for a typewriter, not a high-fidelity screen or printer, that Courier was designed, as John goes on to explain. I’ve always had a love/hate thing for Courier, and John’s history lesson helps explain why. Give it a read, and give Courier Prime a try.
Update
on 2013-01-29 03:00 by Stu
The designer, Alan Dague-Greene, is a gentleman and a scholar.
4K in the Home
Read this cnet article by Geoffrey Morrison called Why 4K TVs are stupid. Read every word. Because it is smart.
Have no doubt, manufacturers are going to start pushing 4K (some already are). The thing is, though, you don’t need 4K, because in the home, 4K is stupid.
Morrison goes on to back up this assertion with wonderful facts and math. If you bought a 60″ television, you’d have to sit about four feet away from it before you’d perceive the full benefit of 4K over good old 1080p.
My favorite part of the article is this:
A few years ago I did a TV face-off with trained TV reviewers and untrained participants with Pioneer’s Kuro plasma (768p) against several 1080p LCDs and plasmas. Not one person noticed the Kuro wasn’t 1080p. In fact, most lauded it for its detail. Why? Its contrast ratio was so much better than on the other TVs that it appeared to have better resolution. The difference between light and dark is resolution. If that difference is more pronounced, as it is on high-contrast ratio displays, they will have more apparent resolution.
Those same few years ago, I would use charts like this to guide friends shopping for TVs toward a comparatively inexpensive 720p Panasonic plasma, because the deep, rich blacks matter more to our perception of sharpness than pixels too small to resolve at normal seating distances. Those who followed my advice were invariably happy with their choice.
I never doubted that last year’s push of 3D televisions would fall on its face, but I do worry about consumers being tricked into thinking 4K matters, because they were with 1080p. Many friends ignored my advice to go for the crisp plasma blacks of the 720p plasma and instead opted for a 1080p set, due to the same inability to shake the sense of more-is-always-more that drives consumers to buy increasingly high-megapixel point-and-shoot cameras.
Back when Morrison was conducting his experiments and I was pushing 720p, we were already fighting a losing battle. No one wanted 720p TVs, even if their viewing experience would be better. 1080p became a buzzword, a must-have—charts and math be damned. Now you needn’t even check if a TV is 1080p “full HD”—they pretty much all are, because that’s all that would sell.
And today, that’s not such a bad thing, because the contrast levels of 1080p sets are now quite good. There are worse things about modern TVs than their excessive pixel counts.
Is 4K unilaterally worthless in the home? Not if you’ve got a projector, a huge screen, a close seating distance, and perfect eyesight. I’m building a new home theater, so this stuff is on my mind. I’m considering a 134″ screen and a seating distance of about 15 feet. That puts me right on the very edge of wishing I had more than 1080 pixels across my screen.
A case can be made for 4K with larger screens at home. At the moment, though, light output limits screen size far more than resolution. For home projectors, let’s just shrug and ask, “OK, why not?”
The answer to that rhetorical question is, of course, that 4K is expensive/unavailable in the home just now. But that will change. Eventually, all big TVs (and projectors) will have more pixels than the bare minimum for 1080p, and eventually this won’t be something you need to pay a premium for, or for which you’ll have to give up other features that matter much more, such as contrast.
In the meantime, buy your TV (or projector) not for its pixel count, but for its black level, and you’ll be happy.
Race Around the Track: 20 Years of After Effects
Adobe After Effects is celebrating its 20 year anniversary. I’ve only been using it for 17 of those years, but I’m pretty sure I’ve packed about 100 years of use into that time.
After Effects is my go-to creative tool for almost everything I do, from designing the user interface of Magic Bullet Looks 1.0, to crafting visuals for my films, to creating my Christmas cards. I was delighted to be able to sit down with Adobe’s Michelle Gallina and tell the story of how I came to meet this creative partner that I’ve relied on almost every day since.
The story I didn’t tell is how happy I am to have become friends with so many members of the team that makes After Effects. A heartfelt congrats to the amazing team of Daves and Non-Daves at the plabt. Here’s to another 20 years of me giving you a hard time.