It used to be that I trusted Speakeasy’s Speed Test for accurate network measurements, but in light of recent results, I tend to trust Speedtest.net a lot more. To wit, these are the results from our recent switch to Comcast “Blast” broadband service (taken in alternating tests between the test services): Speedtest.net 11.75/2.41 12.94/2.46 14.04/2.59…
Downloading Movies from Dropbox
When you upload a QuickTime or other movie file to Dropbox, and then get the “public link” to give to someone else, Dropbox does a really cool thing and redirects the original movie file link to deliver a very simple web page with the movie embedded in it instead. Which looks great in a browser…
iPhone ///gs
The new iPhone announced on Monday is officially called the “iPhone 3G S” by Apple, but others (myself included) immediately started calling it the “///gs” — a combination of the Apple ///, and the Apple ][gs, two early pre-Macintosh Apple computers. This was too good an idea to pass up, so I’ve created iPhone and…
HDV Workflow
Quick word of advice. If you’re ever editing anything shot on HDV: NEVER EVER capture low-rez DV proxies and expect to recapture in HD clean at the end. Yes, I know the HDV decks have that hand-dandy feature to downconvert to DV over firewire. DON’T DO IT. NONE of these HDV cameras seem to record…
Zak McKracken Theme
The theme from the old LucasArts game Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders seems to be especially popular for latter-day remixes. Case in point — I was digitizing an old mixtape, and discovered I had both a basic remix and a “House” version created as Amiga MOD Tracker remixes by a friend of mine, Mark…
Twitter Suspension: Please Help Rob Rhyne
My friend Rob Rhyne has been suspended from Twitter for the past week or so because of circumstances beyond his direct control. I submitted this to their support ticket system today: I understand that you are probably very busy with support requests, but I hope to encourage you to look into a case where it…
Time Code Window for FCP
Many times in my edit review screenings, I’ve had a need to pull up a timecode display quickly and easily in Final Cut Pro, so the producer can see where we are and make notes about the cut with at least rough TC. But unlike Avid editors who are used to being able to easily…