Year of the OX in Netherlands

It was a beautiful day out in The Hague. Bit chilly but better than the previous weeks. It was also a Chinese New Year weekend thus we had a bit of a walk around. There were cultural performances around the Stadhuis thus we brought the girls for a bit of an adventure. It was fun and almost necessary discovering new asian stores around the region. One of them was Amazing Oriental supermarket which stock just about anything I'd miss from home. From Singa Beer to Maggi Chili Sauce! That'd mean lighter luggage bags for future visitors from home. : )

Air and Simple Gifts - A complete package for Obama.John William's homage gesture to Aaron Copland.

Pre-recorded or not while being performed on stage doesn't matter. Its a great composition and no one does it better than John Williams. I'm more amazed that the recording turned out pretty good despite the fact that it was recorded in some Marine Barracks in WA. In the end, it didn't really matter since the playback was going to be done to a cheering crowd of thousands. Shows to proof that you can record anywhere when there's good idea and talents on the job. Yep, mobile recording IS the way of the future!! I am curious however if they actually DID play on stage... Why bother with the fancy microphones and cablings then? Can anybody that was seated on the inaugural platform tell us how it was?

Television or not, the beautiful melody we all heard was pre-recorded on Sunday. Mr Perlman predicted a disaster if it was performed live based on how acoustic instruments would tinker in cold weather. But I also believe JW may already got a planned date with Sony Studios for a proper recording before its seen fitted to go on sale in iTunes. Either that or some WA Marine Barrack is now garnered as John's next fav'd recording studio. ; )


Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

The melody that Aaron McGill played on the clarinet is undoubtedly from 'Simple Gifts' which is a ballet score from 1944's Appalachian Spring done by Copland. That very tune was weaved in beautifully with the opening material. And yep, guess who Obama's favourite classical composer is. Will this mean more support for classical music and the arts with Obama's administration? But there's more to this. In 1953, a pre-inaugural concert by the National Symphony Orchestra at Constitution Hall, a concert attended by then president-elect Eisenhower, was to have included a performance of one of Copland's most popular works, A Lincoln Portrait. But a Republican congressman (from Illinois) objected, suggesting that Copland was too liberal and maybe even Communist-friendly, so the piece was pulled from the concert.

Inserting the touch of Copland into the Obama inauguration, Williams told Variety last week, offers "a completed circle of events that is nice to think about."

I look forward to hear the official release on iTunes. For the time being, I'm happy with what I've captured on tele. Congrats America. God speed Obama.

Air and Simple Gifts
Featuring Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero and Anthony McGill

Right Click to Download (4:30min 5.2MB)

Microsoft TAG re-invents the QR Code

- "Let's re-invent the wheel when it works..." Right? And re-veal it to the world! -

Came across an announcement on the release of MicroSoft TAG app using HCCB technology. On first glance I thought, " Now, why'd they have to do that?"

I remember 2 years ago when I got my N95 that it had this BarCode reader function built-in. Did anybody in Europe actually use that technology? For a while, I thought its going to be the future of super market shopping! Tag your product and then scan your payment through at the cashier(less) counter on your way out. All by using your smart phone. Right??! Nop. The technology just never caught on here.


Apparently, that is how its being used in Japan. You scan the product you intend to buy then place it in your shopping basket then complete your payment via either scanning your bank code at the cashier or (like in Australia) complete that retail purchase via encrypted sms banking as introduced by NAB.

Dutch supermarket franchise Albert Hein is almost close to this. The only exception is that you pick up the chunky bar code reader from the front of store. You then scan as you shop, with your cart's value and item listed on the scanner, and then swipe your card at the exit without having any human intervene at all. The bar code reader is returned to its dock and its batteries re-charge for the next registered shopper that comes in. Scan and Go. Clean - but not as green. They COULD eliminate that bar code reader altogether in future equation with the emergence of secured mobile banking and of course the application of this codes in todays' smart phones. Each tagged product would not only show its pricing, but when purchased, also be given the opportunity to 'advertise for free' by leaving URLs that could be accessed later on whenever the customer please. There is more to this. Since the data exchanged can be used for a broader spectrum of possibilities, just think what companies could do with efficient market research data collection. Of course then, there need to be a buyer and distributor agreement for such a transaction to take place. But that's definitely the near future. And a lot of security measures to be planted on privacy issues of sort.


QR Code two years ago was already the future in Japan. You get codes printed on bus ads, banners, magazines, food products, etc, you name it. The codes are great because they're small. It gives designers the complete canvas to be creative with ideas without the clutter and worry of text placements for that dreaded boring URL. OK I may be exaggerating there. But after scanning, interested customers are quickly brought into the product realm within their mobile device. Given the lightning speed of mobile communication in Japan, large information could be transfered instantaneously. They could be watching the video advertisement directly from the clouds of your very own server, further saving the costs for magazine prints, radio or tv adverts.


With the emergence of more 3G phones globally, Microsoft tries to add some color to the rest of the world. And of course by that, they'd want a piece of pie to control this upcoming trend. Its a new and improved way of selling the idea of an already existing system. Only this time, polished by MS. Enter Microsoft TAG...


The Tag creation option is currently available for free on its Beta stage. You need to have a current Microsoft Live or hotmail account and you're set to create your TAG. The fact that you can place a duration date greatly helps. This will void a TAG which becomes handy for fixed-date product promotion. Think stickers or badges. Even though I prefer the looks of the QR code more than MS's colored forms, there's more behind its 'pastel' technology. Right now its just a matter of form over function. And definitely a great great plus for advertising companies.

With QR Code, the only way to monitor its response is from the date of event itself. With MS TAG you can monitor in real time. You log into your tag account and on the statistics chart it shows how many times somebody actually flashed their phone to 'view' your advertisement.

This becomes a highly important statistics for advertisors. How often have companies placed their ads in magazines and blindly left to guess how it did in response to sales? Chances of consumers viewing the picture/slogan and going on to the following page or bulletin is left to chance. On the other hand if its MS TAGged, the information is relayed to the advertiser right away. By default that adverts would remain in the mobile device for later viewing. How many times have you forgotten to clip that coupon where that perfume or DVD is going on 50% discount, just until you got somewhere near the store and say, "Damn, that ads sitting at home!" Now you can tell if the ads placed on say the train station is less effective than what's placed in front of the ladies restrooms!

Here's what it says on Microsoft's page. "Creating tags is easy, and during our beta, free! Just supply the text or the URL to a mobile page you want to display when the Tag is snapped, and we’ll instantly create a Tag you can use. Come back and monitor Tag analytics or create some more."


Chart above shows how many times the Microsoft TAG I created in Flickr has been scanned for 'viewing'.


Thus TAG creators can now see in real time how many times your TAG has actually been scanned. It works similarly like Google analytics for URLs visits. THIS is a huge step forward. THIS MONITORING OPTION IS NOT AVAILABLE WITH QR CODES. It gives a cost effective way on how or where to improve your ads. And remember, this is your phone sending the 2 way data to Microsoft each time you scan an ad. Its just time before you get GPS input on which location the TAG is most 'viewed' at.

But crikey!? Would this give rise to a customer privacy issue? Only time will tell. This wold mean that Microsoft have upper hand info on what you've scanned, collecting data from individuals, knowing exactly what ads you've scanned based on interest. Remember that web-based mobile devices has its own IP to be able to be on the web for such data transfer to happen. Yes, somebody is watching over you. Should we be worried. Who will MS give this data to? Next thing you know, advertisement pop-ups will start appearing on your mobile cell phone. Or even through your home mail box. Did telephone companies say they will not share your home address? Yep its definitely possible. Your information is value to one business or the other. Information trading is big money these days.

Tag Reader is available for free download for most mobile phones and on iTunes for the iPhone. And whether you're going to go with QR Code or Microsoft Tag, I think its all a matter of what's trendy and what's not. But many in the applied field of business marketing and advertising seems to have already chosen.

Hope its not that too complicated to see who's tagging you. Thanks for reading.

* PS I am in no way a marketing surveyor. But it doesn't take much to read and understand onto which direction information technology is going, especially when its handled by Microsoft. Do leave a comment if you agree or disagree about this blog. And don't worry, it just helps me to know if I'm blabbering all for the wrong/right reasons. ; )

NIN 405GB HD videos for free online!!

Nine Inch Nails "Gave Up" Portland, OR 12-7-08 from PDX Taper on Vimeo.

Was just skimming around T Reznor's page and little bird brought me here. The ultimate deal. Get your own footage of the concert, mix it and release it for the www.

The video above is just first few released from the p2p video share. I hope to have some time to edit em few after its down on my server! You never heard that from me or Mr Reznor himself... ENJOY!

Let Me See!

I guess it all goes down to the final servings.

Try to watch GZ-HD7 consumer video posts on Vimeo. It has better resolution as opposed to youtube which does not deliver HD playback. There are groups in Vimeo that are evidently enjoying their camcorder. And if you must compare them to let's say the HV20 videos. Then do just that! Evidently videos posted on Vimeo are more well directed for community of users. So you definitely see better quality edits and professionalism in the posts there as opposed to youtube. You get optimum video if you on a fast connection and a good video card. Due to the odd downsized ratio in my blogger, the video might not play as good as it is in full screen. Also try to let the flash buffer bar finish uploading if you're on a slow connection.

Brussels from rastAsia on Vimeo

Go ahead and view the rest of my posted videos on Vimeo. Feel free to comment on this blog or Vimeo about the HD7. I'm no video professional but I try to keep my creativity at flow. If you don't own the camera and need to know more about it, you're more than welcomed to eMail me with your questions. But of course its best if you address your technical questions to JVC themselves. Thanks for visiting my review blog.

Controlling the shots

The HD7 is by far an achievement for pro-sumer video enthusiasts. It has created a a wave of excitement for the video enthusiasts being the first Full HD cam. But despite the claims, there are flaws which should have been fine tuned by JVC. I guess in the real world nothing is perfect, except for my mom's cooking!

If you fall in the 80% of users who claim that the HD7 is not a good camera - then you are. There is nothing to change that scope of thought unless JVC themselves make the effort to address the existing weakness of the cam. It uses three 1/5-inch 16:9 progressive scan CCDs designed for HD use in a diagonally offset pixel configuration to generate the high resolution image for recording in full HD. There is only so much that 1/5 inch CCD can capture at one time. These are the figures released by Canon on their new CCDs performance :

Newly Developed Progressive Scan CCD Overview

Image size: 1/5” Diagonal
Aspect ratio: 16:9
Pixel size: 3.28 microns x 3.28 microns
Total number of pixels per CCD: 1016 x 558, approximately 570,000 pixels
Number of effective pixels per CCD: 976 x 548, approximately 530,000 pixels

RATTLING HANDS? GET YOURSELF A STAND!



For a camera that fits the size of your hand, that's a lot of pixel crunching if you multiply that to do 30x in a second. And that's just for one CCD. There's 3 of them that needs to be interpolated to give you that final viewing you see. While its capturing and converting all those pixels, then comes the wall of a task that didn't seem to have been worked out correctly by JVC. Image Stabilization.

Before we scrutinize this biggest weakness of the camera, lets go back to the derived design of the HD7. Idea came from broadcast cameras. How JVC has came about letting you carry those huge studio cameras in the palm of your hand is a feat on its own. Fujinon lens used in the JVC system is also used in broadcast HD video cameras. The incredible minimal F. No. is F1.8 wide open and F1.9 for telephoto. This is only made capable due to the indexed aspherical lens giving superior optical performance on the entire zoom range suited for an HD system. JVC designers can now keep the lens small and at no loss of light when you zoom in to your subject. To understand this, take your DSLR into AV priority mode with a zoom lens. The higher your zoom, you'll see a significant drop in Aperture and thus the need to add gain - resulting in unwanted noise. This is not the case for the HD7 lens.

Now come the biggest grudge about this camcorder. JVC has this selection included in the OIS menu option, but many (including myself) would swear that we don't see any change with this option turned ON or OFF. In fact I keep mine constantly on OFF mode since I now only shoot the camera with a monopod. But when I do come to situation where it has to be shot handheld, I will turn it on and try not to breathe - but hope! Why JVC has not addressed its HD7 users about this lousy claim of an IS is yet to be heard about. But knowing its normal not to have a built in stabilizer in broadcast camera has helped me to forgive the claim. But looking at JVC's page advertizing its great IS Mode gets me fumed to have the camera returned at times. IT IS JUST NOT THERE JVC!! Their claim of the OIS meant for hand-held shots is highly not visible here. Even when I tuck my hands to my chest, I fail to get it stabilized. I guess I have minute parkinsons disease!

So I hear claims that the OIS works only while on a tripod or monopod. But come on JVC, that'd be the 1st I hear about Image stabilization. Maybe I deserve a T-Shirt too for buying myself a monopod. But that's exactly what I did - an experiment and I'll only let you guess the outcome.

PIxel Shift Tech
The Red and Blue imaging CCDs are shifted a half-pixel both horizontally and vertically relative to the Green imaging CCD. Because the pixel-shift system uses progressive scan CCDs, signals are processed first as 1920 x 1080p progressive signals, then converted to 1920 x 1080i interlace signals for recording. Thus it is progressive upon capture but when recorded, its interlaced. This explains the need to de-interlace the video when its being exported for playback.

As a result, JVC developed a new HD-specific processing circuit to process high-density interpolation signals for brightness and color. The circuit separates low frequency and high frequency components of the brightness signal to create an image with exceptional color reproduction and less moiré. The analog front end (AFD) uses 14-bit signal processing to produce HD high-quality resolution.

Continue to... LET'S SEE IT!

JVC GZ-HD7 Full HD camcorder

There is so many negative reviews on this cam. But yet I bought it despite the reviews I read. Why? Simple. Coz it sells so much cheaper in the US than in does in Europe and even after the import tax imposed!! Before jumping into the review about the camcorder alone, I'd like to touch about video formats in US and elsewhere in the world.

NTSC VS PAL SHOPPING:

Few people have asked if I'm not worried about compatibility when shopping in US with its NTSC format while planning to use it in Europe or Asia when we're clearly with the PAL format. Its not a big deal really. In fact its better to buy NTSC than PAL for compatibility.

I remember some 8 years ago, I purchased a miniDV camcorder while living in the US. I bought a Sony DSC-PC115 which was the PAL version of the DSC-PC120BT obviously due to my worry about playback formats. I was new to video, thus I followed the guideline on format requirements. I was so gutted months after my purchase - I'll tell you why. Firstly PC115 did not come with the Bluetooth transfer option which was about the same price for the PC120BT. Due to fact that we lived in the US, our new TV a Sony Wega only played NTSC and not Multi Region switchable. Meaning, from root of the footages I shot it was set to be in PAL and even when I edit it using Pinnacle Studio set to PAL, it was no longer playable on my TV. Of course I only realized this after I burnt the PAL-DVD format.

So I can only play my edited videos on my computer and that sucks!!

BOTTOMLINE. Television is huge in the US but when it comes to playback compatibility, US is last in the queue. You actually have to pay additional when you seek to buy a Multi Region TV or DVD player there. And not to mention the Step Down Converters that you'd need to get if its a 230V appliance. I still have my 2000W converter with me today! It does come in handy sometimes.

SOLUTION: If you're an Asian living in US and plan to get video capture devices, think twice before buying PAL formats there. You pay extra but end up getting limited usability for your own pleasure. I am not suggesting this, but based on experience, if you get yourself an NTSC format hardware, chances are the playback appliance that your sibling and friends have back home is most likely already multi-region enabled. TV in Singapore has always been multi-region enabled for as long as I know. But on the reverse, if your friend send you a PAL encoded video to the US, chances are that you might not be able to play it back. Coz your TV is not PAL enabled..

EUROPE'S ELECTRONIC PRICING OVERKILL:

So now its a different war altogether being a pro-sumer. I've learnt my ways going about the video formats. But what about pricings when living Europe then??

With my camcorder purchase in the US, I saved about EU500 if compared to buying it here in Netherlands. With the package offered by 42nd Street Photo in New York, it was an obvious choice. At a price tag of about US$1500 inclusive of the Pro Shooter accessory kit with extra 4 Year Extended MACK International warranty, I took the leap. It comes down to about EU965 with the exchange rate when the camera alone would have costed EU950 easy in Holland. Just comparing those prices between Dutch and US electronic retail pricing, it was a no brainer to get it while in the US. Think about the currency exchange rates.

GZ-HD7 BUILD, CONTROL AND USABILITY:

Technically the GZ-HD7 gives me much more custom handling as compared to the rest of the HD camcorders available on that same price range. Period.

Out of the box the camera feels solid in your hands. Definitely not a toy! Its really well built. Not plastic screwed together like the competitors make. There's no rattling parts. You get the solid black metal gear you payed for. The main chassis enclosing the lens mechanism is made of solid brushed metal. The Hard Drive housing on the right where your hand would be at most times is made of rough-textured plastic for non-slip handling. The flip-open LCD on the left is also encased in plastic. This time in well-polished black encasing the 16:9 widescreen LCD inside. The Fujinon lens is complimented with the lens hood that helps cut out glare and ghosting when shooting in bright light. The Manual Zoom focus ring is smooth and absolutely a plus for creative shots when in Manual Mode.



The manual flip-up lens cover is great help especially when changing lenses and filters keeping the dust out. My only wish here is for improvement on the viewfinder, that it should have been flip-able upwards at an angle when shooting in bright light for better focus. Its an awkward position to have it upright perpendicular while shooting with the LCD closed.

continue to... CONTROLLING THE SHOTS


Meanwhile you can see some of the videos I've made with the HD7 on Vimeo. You'll notice too that most of the FullHD posts in Vimeo is prominently sent by HV20 users. Make your comparisons? And let me know what you think.

I'll tell you more soon. Be right back!!