YouTube Increases File Size to 1GB

YouTube will now allow you to edit metadata while uploading, and while they're at it, they're increasing the file size limit to 1 GB (previously 100 MB). It looks like video length will be held to 10 minutes (same as before), so I think we're seeing the Google making their first steps into high quality content streaming.
read more | digg story

This is pretty exciting as they also just increased the quality of their audio compression. Looks like I might have to take a look at YouTube again for sharing audio samples...

YouTube Amps Up Audio Quality

USA Today Agrees With Me a Year Later: Increase Productivity With 2 Monitors

How'd you like to increase your office productivity by as much as 50%? Add a second monitor to your computer setup. Once you do, you'll never go back to using only one monitor again.

Wow! This is some hard hitting DIY news! LOL!
Kim Komando tackles the controversial issue of hooking TWO monitors to your computer.
WHO CAN THINK AT THAT SPEED!?!?!?

OK, enough snark. She does make some good points, and I have to agree, once you go dual screen, going back to one screen feels claustrophobic.

Check out the 'read more' link for more info on going dual screen.

read more | digg story

And here's the story I wrote A YEAR AGO, that'll also give you a little more technical info on computer monitors, sizes, and screen resolutions.

The Easiest Work Space Upgrade YOU Might Be Overlooking - Computer Monitors

Human Giant - Foley Artist

It's been a helluva week...


Enjoy!

AGDC08: David Pizzuto, David Sobolov, and Mark Friedlander - Speaking Up for S.A.G., New Media

I meant to post this up sooner, but my pals Pizzuto and Sobolov were down in Austin for the Game Developer's Conference. They were manning the S.A.G. booth there, and talking to people about actor's increasing role in new media and video games.

In an industry where games like GTA 4 can gross $500 million in one week, production relying more and more on seasoned performers bringing their creations to life (yet still paying very little comparatively), and with new media contracts up for negotiation in the Fall, I think it's a conversation worth having.

Gaming blog Joystiq covered the booth, and even posted audio and video of some of these guys in action.

Here's the vid:


If you watch to the end, you can see the guy who replaced me as the booth director at Abrams, LOL!

Check out the rest of the post for audio samples of Pizzuto and Sobolov, and more coverage of GDC08.

AGDC08: The Screen Actors Guild Wants You To Hear Its Game Voice(s)

Living Room Laboratory: Preamps FIGHT! ART Pro Audio vs FMR Audio!

So this really isn't going to be a fair fight, not even a little.

If you read my blog, you'll know already, that I don't run a booth out of my home anymore, and no longer keep a lot of gear here. From bouncing around town though, I've been getting the equipment bug (I have Gear Acquisition Syndrome, if you will), and decided to throw down on some mid range consumer kit.

I've got a pretty well established mic collection, so I figured it was time to invest in a decent little preamp/compressor combo. After reading some reviews, and using one in a studio, I've been pretty interested in checking out the Really Nice Preamp and the Really Nice Compressor from FMR Audio.

So, I bought one of each.

I'm the proud new owner of an RNP8380 and an RNC1773. To start breaking them in, I figured what better than setting them up against my old workhorse the ART Tube PAC. I picked my two Sennheiser mics for the shootout, an MKH416 P48 and an MD421u5.

Usually for the Living Room Labs, I just record in my living room (get it?), but seeing as how we need to take a closer listen to the differences in tone between the two, I actually padded up a closet to do the test.

I tried to match the settings on the two different setups as close as possible. After hardware, no further editing was done other than to convert to 320kbps MP3.

Hardware settings for the 416:

• 30dB input Gain
• -15dB Threshold
• 3:1 compression
• "Fast" A&R (.2 sec attack and .1 sec release)
  
• 0dB output Gain

Lets take a listen!
MKH416 P48 on ART Tube PAC:

MKH416 P48 on FMR RNP/RNC combo:


I have to say I was really surprised by the sound here. First up, either ART's marked settings are way low, or FMR's are way high. On average there's about a 5dB difference between the two. That doesn't sound like a lot on paper, but I think you can hear between the two samples just how much louder the FMR combo seems compared to the PAC.
Ignoring the boxy-ness of the closet, I feel the FMR is a little harsh. If I hadn't been trying to match it to the PAC, I probably would've rolled it off another 6dB. I like how the tubes in the PAC smoothed out the 416 a little, but there's a lot more noise. Given a little more time to refine the sound of the 416/FMR combo, I'm sure I'll have a winner there. It's just SO much cleaner.

Hardware settings for the MD421u5 were the same except for an additional 8dB of output Gain.

MD421u5 on ART Tube PAC:

MD421u5 on FMR RNP/RNC combo:


WOW!
I've never gotten a sound like that out of my decades old MD421. I didn't know she could do that. The FMR brought a smooth, rich, clean sound out of a dynamic mic which has been knocked around since before I was born. I honestly have never recorded so "true" a sound at home. The FMR/MD421 combo is the closest I've ever come at home, with my own kit, to capturing what I feel I really sound like in real life.
The 421 on the PAC sounds AWFUL!

I'm kinda torn.
My voice on my most expensive condensor mic doesn't sound as good as my old beat up radio dynamic mic.
I'm not sure how I feel about that, LOL!

Just as a last note on the test, with no mics plugged in, the noise floor of the PAC was hovering around -70, while the FMR combo was hovering around -78. That sounds pretty good at first, until I considered that the FMR signal chain was being sent through two separate outboard devices, and STILL had a lower noise floor than the all in one Tube PAC. That's kind of awesome.

Now what I said up at the top is totally valid though. This wasn't a fair test AT ALL. You can pick up an ART Tube PAC for around $100, but picking up BOTH an RNP and RNC will run you closer to $700. More expensive doesn't always mean better, but even giving the PAC the benefit of the doubt, the FMR combo is around three and a half times more expensive per channel.

On the right mic it totally shows too...

Mel Brooks Re-Animates Spaceballs!

Woot!
I'm stoked to finally see this out. I remember working with Daphne Zuniga on this back when I was still at Abrams. She's really cool, and was a lot of fun in front of the mic.

The Schwartz is finally with us! After multiple delays, 'Spaceballs: The Animated Series' is finally airing in the United States.

read more | digg story

GARY OWENS ON THE EMMYS RIGHT NOW!

Nothing else to say.
I've worked with Gary.
This is kinda awesome!

Blade Runner - The Value of a Narration

I'm a little behind on this one, so bear with me.

I just finished reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K Dick, for the very first time. I can't say I loved it. The style of writing seemed to me like a bad translation of Ibsen with some futuristic lingo thrown in. It just seemed to lack the clarity of vision of a good Bradbury or Clarke story (though my fave classic Sci-Fi author is Asimov, so what do I know).

Anywho, having finished the book, I felt it would be a good idea to re-visit the movie Blade Runner. It's a movie I remember LOVING, and haven't seen in several years. As I don't own a copy, I was off to Netflix to throw it on my queue. I was shocked to find that Blade Runner had been added to the "Watch Instantly" list. Sweet!

I plugged my laptop into the TV, fired up Netflix, and sat back to enjoy the flick and do a little compare and contrast with the book I had just read.

Then Harrison Ford's narration clicked in, his horrible, awful, no good, narration.

I actually had to stop the stream and check out the movie details. The version Netflix had on Watch Instantly was the original theatrical version. I've seen Blade Runner at LEAST a half dozen times.

I've NEVER seen the original theatrical version.

I went back and finished the film, but it was pretty painful. Never before had I experienced such a poorly executed, ham-fisted, attempt at whittling down the IQ of  a story. Ford's VO is dispassionate, bored, and horribly incongruous with the tone of the film. It painfully states the obvious, and kills any attempt at audience involvement or imagination. It's insulting how little respect the narration has for the audience's intelligence.

I think I understand now why (at least one reason why) the movie was so poorly received at the box office when it was originally released.

So, ultimately the Blade Runner vs Do Androids Dream comparison experiment was a failure, and now I've got an order in for Blade Runner: The Final Cut.

We'll see how that goes...

Metallica Sucks! Let's Learn a Loudness Lesson From ANOTHER of Their Mistakes!

So, it should be pretty obvious by now, that I don't like Metallica.
I'm sure they are very upset about this, LOL!

Off a story (featured on Gizmodo of all places), it's come to the attention of Metallica and/or Guitar Hero fans, that the mix of their new single "Death Magnetic" (blarf! - stupid track name) sounds much better on Guitar Hero than it does on the album.

The culprit?

Brick wall limiting and compression.

Ian Shephard has an incredible write up of the "Death Magnetic" situation over on his Mastering Media Blog (just added a video in fact), but long story short, the track on the album has been smashed and compressed to death, whereas the track on Guitar Hero has not been smashed.

Ian posted this pic of the two tracks side by side:

Guitar Hero is on top, album version on bottom.
See those Spikes on the GH version? That's dynamic range. Sound is supposed to get louder and quieter. It's NOT supposed to stay at a constant level all the time. That's why TV commercials are so obnoxious.
By squashing the audio into a tube like form (the bottom track in green) you've made the quiet parts as "loud" as the loud parts, and the loud parts will sound distorted, as they've pretty much been cut off.

So what can we learn from this?

Don't over compress your audio!

I get it!
Compression makes you sound loud and full, but it can also REALLY work against you.
See, in audition land, chances are you wont be listened to on studio grade equipment, and in a lot of cases a producer's first round might be on the crappy seakers built in to a laptop or LCD monitor. What sounds great on pro gear (which has a lot more tolerance), is going to sound muddy and distorted on consumer gear.

Every time I see a home recorded audition like this--->
It kinda makes my head hurt a little...

Don't be like Metallica!

More info on dynamic range and "the loudness war".

Trailer for Bob Bergen's One Man Show "So Here's the Deal"

You can't be Porky Pig...

You're Jewish...

Re-Examining a Tax on File Sharing

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately.

I think we can all agree that the current media marketplace is broken.
The music and movie industries refuse to deliver on a system consumers want, namely something transparent and easy to use. When we get close, with services like Netflix, iTunes, or Amazon, there are either too many odd restrictions on how we can use our purchase, or there's a severely limited catalog of content.
Consumers have since resorted to file sharing, which offers a nearly unlimited catalog, no restrictions on use, is fairly easy to use, and depending on file, is as fast or faster than "legit" purchasing. Through the inactivity of the media industry, consumers have created the market they want to use. This is how people want to do business.

So why not monetize it?

It's become apparent, that left to their own devices, Industry solutions are insufficient, sometimes so broken the only reason for releasing them seems to be confusing the customer, scaring them away from digital distribution. The thinking being, if it's "too hard" to buy online, then we'll just go back to buying the discs.

If The Industry wont do it, why not internet service providers?

I know they're trying to deliver their own video on demand services, and have recently been instituting data caps on broadband subscribers, but they could stand to make a lot more money this route. The idea has been considered before, and a similar plan might go into effect in the UK, but the efforts all seem to stop at the idea of decriminalization. All of these ideas seem to involve a minimal annual fee ($20-$60) to "look the other way" for those that file share. Basically it would turn the whole internet into one giant Netflix. Unfortunately it seems that EVERYONE would be subject to this tax, not just those that engage in file sharing.

Of COURSE people wont like that. Why should we all pay for the actions of some. It would be similar to the levy imposed on blank CD's in Canada. It did decriminalize trading music via burned discs, but EVERYONE had to pay for it.

If we've learned anything from marketplace economics, we should be touting this as a feature (not shaming it), and then charging monthly for it. Let's borrow Netflix. If ISP's offered an optional "File Sharing" plan that you could choose to sign up for, and charged a fair rate for it, it would generate substantial revenue, and wouldn't be a burden on those not using the service.

Let's fudge some numbers.
Roughly estimating 110 million households in the USA, approximately 55% of households have high speed internet, or about 60.5 million households.
Let's set the "Digital Media Downloading" plan at an additional $25 a month.
I'd be willing to bet that by the end of the first year about 30% of broadband subscribers would sign up.

This would generate over $450 million a MONTH.

Almost half a billion dollars a month, and other than a hit to bandwidth, consumers would take care of everything. With file sharing you don't have to store a product on your own servers, the consumers do it. You don't have to advertise file sharing, the consumers do it for you. You don't have to rip music or movies, consumers do it for you. You don't have to troubleshoot or provide tech support, consumers do it for you.

In what other industry could you generate $5 BILLION annually for letting your customers do all the work?

How the Music Industry Spent the Summer Killing Itself

Yup, I'm a bitter consumer.

Ad Age takes a look at the backwards thinking the Music Industry employs in its constant march into irrelevance.
They seem focused on preventing customers from hearing new music, making it harder for customers to easily purchase music, and driving potential customers to file sharing.

It's been a depressing summer for the delusional record industry. We're seeing a total disconnect between labels' unrealistic, old-school revenue expectations and what the market can bear. On the streaming-music front, the sad reality is that advertising revenue may never fully support the music industry's wishful-thinking profit margins.

read more | digg story

Random Trivia Tidbit - Radio Waves vs Sound Waves

My Mom's a big ole trivia geek too...


She just sent this my way:

Because radio waves travel at 186,000 miles per second and
sound waves saunter at 700 miles per hour, a broadcast voice
can be heard sooner 13,000 miles away than it can be heard
at the back of the room in which it originated.

Neat!

Learning to Play Bass Guitar - Online Resources?

So, I'm keeping to at least thirty minutes of practicing a day, and so far so good.

I've found a couple online resources that have helped.

StudyBass.com and CyberFretBass.com both have incredible resources to help reinforce your studies.

And for those of you on six strings, you should really check out Songsterr.com.

Are there any other resources you guys have stumbled on?

Physicist's Gadget Lets You HEAR The Sound of a Perfect Golf Swing!

A new golf gadget developed by a Yale physics professor takes a different approach to golf training. Rather than focusing on the mechanics, the device literally allows players to "fine tune" the sound of their swings.

read more | digg story

AFTRA Responds to Michael Bell's Letter on INteractive Negotiation.

Just got this from my pal Holter Graham.
It's AFTRA's response to the letter Michael Bell sent regarding the upcoming interactive negotiation.
I hope to ask him some more specific questions later.

The discourse is getting interesting...

September 1, 2008

To AFTRA Members,

We are writing you on this Labor Day holiday as we celebrate the contributions American workers have made to the strength and vibrancy of our nation. Regardless of category or type of employment, like all union workers, AFTRA members stand strong for the basic principles of organized labor -- freedom to organize and bargain collectively and the right to have fair wages, protections, and benefits in return for their labors and talent.

As we celebrate Labor Day, we look forward to AFTRA members' new challenges and opportunities in moving those principles forward in our day-to-day work. AFTRA members and staff are working on implementing details of the new Sound Recordings Code, and moving forward our legislative work on copyright protection for performers. AFTRA will soon roll out informational material and programs for members who work under the AFTRA Television Agreement to assist you in understanding your new contracts in primetime and non-primetime programming. AFTRA members at CBS and other broadcast companies are coming together to address the impact of HD radio and new technologies on their working lives. AFTRA members around the country will soon begin intense preparations for negotiation of our Television and Radio Commercials Contracts, which have been extended to March 31, 2009. More immediately, we are preparing to address the AFTRA Interactive Agreement.

With respect to the Interactive Agreement, yesterday afternoon, an elected officer of the Screen Actors Guild Hollywood Division circulated an email regarding the AFTRA Interactive Agreement to performers around the country, many of whom are AFTRA members. The insertion by an officer of another labor organization into AFTRA’s internal collective bargaining processes has again generated unnecessary confusion and the dissemination of inaccurate information. It is hoped that the facts outlined below, will address any confusion that email may have caused you.

• The AFTRA Interactive Agreement has been in existence for two decades since AFTRA members first organized the area of interactive gaming to ensure that they, and the working performers that came after them, had the protection of union rates and conditions. AFTRA was the first performers’ union to organize and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with Electronics Arts and since then AFTRA members have continued to expand union protections for performers working in this field. The Interactive Agreement is not now, nor has it ever been, a contract negotiated under the Phase One Agreement between AFTRA and SAG.

• The current AFTRA Interactive Agreement is set to expire on December 31, 2008. In June 2008, the AFTRA National Board authorized the appointment of an Interactive Steering Committee (ISC) to guide strategic approaches for negotiations of the Interactive Agreement in 2008. In authorizing this Committee, the National Board was keenly aware that the Commercials Contracts expire on October 29, 2008, (now extended to March 31, 2009), and wanted an authorized working group of performers invested in the Interactive field to actively monitor and ensure that progress towards reaching a timely successor Interactive Agreement was not overlooked during the intensive preparations necessary for the Commercials Contracts.

• The ISC was appointed from among working AFTRA members who have substantial employment under, and working knowledge of, the AFTRA Interactive Agreement. The ISC consists of working AFTRA performers from the three major centers of AFTRA’s Interactive employment: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. During the month of August, the ISC also met with groups of working members from these and other cities. Every one of these members has substantial work experience under the AFTRA Interactive Agreement, and is also a dual card holder.

• Members of the ISC and working groups have provided their talents on games such as Grand Theft Auto, Gears of War , Halo II & III, Final Fantasy, Trilogy III, Mercenaries, Metal Gear IV, Speed Racer, Godfather II, Batman, Unreal Tournament, Halo Wars, Spiderman III, Lord of the Rings, CSI 3, Kane and Lynch, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars Force Unleashed, to name just a few. We are deeply appreciative to these working AFTRA performers who are volunteering their time to participate in and guide our process, and for sharing their extensive experience and understanding of this field on behalf of their fellow performers.

• The ISC has determined that it is in the best interests of working members to attempt to resolve a successor agreement sooner rather than later, and it would not be in the best interests of working performers to delay our work and possibly compromise timely implementation of any wage increases and improved conditions that are ultimately negotiated. To that end, it is in the best interests of performers to hold off-the-record conversations with representatives of the AFTRA signatory employers in early September to determine if a framework for reaching a successor agreement in a timely fashion is possible. Once we have had an opportunity to determine whether reaching an acceptable framework is possible (or not), meetings will be held for AFTRA members working under the AFTRA Interactive Agreement for their information and input. Those meetings have not yet been scheduled, but we anticipate they will be held in late September.

• The ISC members have also determined that, having successfully achieved more than 30% increases in base rates in our 2005 negotiations, establishing a structure for residual or “back-end” payments is one of the priorities that must be addressed in reaching a successor agreement in this 2008 cycle.

• We are all committed to executing a sober, thoughtful and strategic approach to reaching a strong successor agreement for working performers. As such, AFTRA will not engage in any discussions in the press, on blogs, or viral e-mails nor allow the AFTRA Interactive Agreement, or any other contract, to be used for political purposes. Official notices of informational meetings where AFTRA members can receive accurate complete information and provide their input will be sent to interested members later this month.

We were also pleased to learn that during recent discussions with FIA’s English-speaking unions, our sisters and brothers in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia are also committed to coordinating efforts in the future to raise conditions for performers worldwide.

We wish you all a safe and happy Labor Day as we celebrate the achievements and contributions of AFTRA members and the proud traditions of American Labor which enrich our society.

In Solidarity,

Roberta Reardon
Nation al President

Denny Delk
National Vice President
National Chair, Interactive Steering Committee

Spielberg Nears A Deal With Reliance

This is kinda huge.
Spielberg appears close to signing a lucrative package that would make India's Reliance Communications a 50% owner of his DreamWorks studio.

Here's the part that got me from the article.
What happens with DreamWorks Animation?

A Tale of Two DreamWorks

Spielberg still considers Universal his second home, say those close to him. The Twentieth-Century Fox studio (NWS) is considered a long shot to house DreamWorks. Whoever wins the contest to house the producer will likely strike an agreement with him to distribute the new DreamWorks' films in theaters, on DVD, and on the Internet. Spielberg's company maintains a long-standing relationship with HBO, which would continue to distribute DreamWorks films on its premium TV channel.
The new DreamWorks will be a private company separate from the publicly traded DreamWorks Animation (DWA), which was separated from the live-action unit in 2004. The newly created company being funded by Reliance would likely be nearly 50% owned by Spielberg, with his top production executive, DreamWorks CEO and Co-Chairman Stacey Snider, owning a small equity piece as well. Snider, a former Universal Pictures chairman, is considered key to the transaction and was also allowed to leave her Paramount contract as part of a "key man" provision that permitted Spielberg to take top executives with him when he left.

read more | digg story

RIP Don LaFontaine (August 26, 1940 – September 1, 2008)

I got to sit in on a session with "The Don" once. He was really funny, joking around with the people in the room and on the patch, making fun of his own signature "IN A WORLD". He even gave me a slight wink on his way out.

With sincerest respect and humility, best wishes for his family and friends. He was loved.

Here's the email Paul Pape sent out regarding Don's passing.

It is very hard to write these words. My friend, Don LaFontaine, the
husband of a most beautiful wife, Nita and the father of three
beautiful girls, passed away today at the age of 68. In a quite sudden
reversal of the progress he had been making the last few days, Don
took ill again and passed away at around 1:50PM this afternoon (9/1/08).

Out of respect for Don’s family, more details will be given at a later
time. Nita is a wonderful mother and she is being very strong for her
children at this moment. You would be proud of her. We need to give
her and her family some time to absorb their loss. As for me, thank
you very much. There have been so many spiritual warriors who have
given everything they have for my best friend. I will miss him very
much.

More details to follow...

Paul Pape

That pic of Don is my fave, as he sort of disdainfully examines an MXL990, LOL...