Video Ephemera and the FFF

Posted July 29, 2010 – 05:00 in: Famicoman, syndicated

Like I stated in my Video Packratism post, I do have a certain knack for accumulating video. Not just any video, however: the hard-to-find, the rarest of rare, and the crappiest of crap. What I’m getting at is video ephemera, a wordy term for video that was not mean to be saved. So think about store training tapes, out-of-print film, amateur audition videos, home movies, store giveaways, instructional videos, safety videos- the list goes on. Anything weird and wacky that nobody would ever think somebody would save and watch more than once in their own lifetime.

To me, these videos are more than just something to be discarded. Every video has its own personality and story that could all be lost with the compacting of a trash truck. So call me crazy, but I strive to save these types of videos and share them with others. I’m not alone in my efforts, as others are doing the same thing. Right now, there are people capturing trashed VHS tapes to a digital format in an attempt to put old blood in an otherwise glossed-over body of modern video. It isn’t an easy task doing something like this, and while knowing how to hook up a VCR might take you through some of the ride, there is still more to consider.

You need to know your hardware and your software, how to make old components talk to newer ones, and how to be patient when a recording goes wrong two hours in. Different players are always needed and sought, such as Laserdisc, Betamax, CED, Hi8, and VHS. Then you need to break this down even further. VHS decks with quasi s-vhs playback, or an s-vhs deck all in itself, 4-heads, flying erase heards, etc. Combine that with Macrovision defeating gear, time base correctors, video processors, and detailers to get the best picture, and then pipe it all into a DVD recorder, a capture card, or a camcorder. After a while your head will start to spin.

I’d have to say that part of video ephemera is the challenge. From hunting down a diamond in the rough to fighting tooth and nail to get a good quality rip in digital form. There is also the excitement of watching a video that few have seen, and was not meant for your eyes.

Having said that, I’d like to bring your attention to something called The Found Footage Festival which is an event hosted by two filmmakers who share all sorts of strange videos they have found at garage sales and thrift shops. They show little bits of tapes edited together for the best video (who wants to watch an hour long video for one interesting scene?) and provide commentaries during and in between the segments. These commentaries go from purely informative to observational humor. In a way, FFF is keeping ephemera alive. Many people simply chalk it up as a common video mixtape (a mix of video clips assembled into a video which is then released online) but I think that the commentary and research done for the different segments sets FFF apart. Other people are unhappy with the idea that many segments in FFF could actually other people’s uploads which have been spread online already and are simply taken without credit. Personal views aside I can put myself behind any mixtape, whether it be released freely or with a set price.

Video ephemera is not for everyone. Some people may not be interested in the thought of clunky VHS tapes winding up and down to produce a jittery image. For most people these days, if you cannot get a high definition digital download, a video is not worth seeing. For those of you who trip over Laserdisc players in the morning and trade war stories about circumventing copy protection, digitizing your analog media might be a fun and interesting project for you.

Please rewind this tape and remove it from the machine.

Via Famicoman from Famicoman.com

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Pioneer One

Posted July 27, 2010 – 04:20 in: Famicoman, syndicated

About a year ago there was a stir of a new movie on Bittorrent sites. This movie was called The Lionshare and got a lot of attention because it was only released via torrents. That’s right, no DVD release, no theater time, just a torrent download for anyone who wanted it. It was distributed by this interesting company (I guess you could call it a company) called VODO that distributes indie films via torrents. Now why you would need some sort of service like this, I do not know. I suppose that this kind of thing may help get your film out there, but I don’t even know how many people had heard of VODO before The Lionshare, and I wonder if The Lionshare helped out VODO more than vice versa. I do understand the need for a like-minded distribution site. It can be hard to track down more of the same genre of stuff when all you have to go on are torrent links and word of mouth.

So as for The Lionshare, I watched it a few months after I downloaded it. I was mostly deterred from the reviews. The minority seemed to like the film and praised it as an honest look into the life of a twenty-something in modern day, but the majority of reviews I read said the movie was nothing more than a bore, and showed the limits of releasing a film in this manor. I got around to watching it and have to say my opinion lies somewhere in the middle. I think that the movie starts out beautifully, but loses momentum before you really start to learn anything about the characters. Without ruining the story, I’ll tell you that a guy goes on a blind date with a girl, and she invites him to a torrent site, and it follows the guy. This might be as far as this reflects the life of someone today. Women and technology are always good subjects, but I feel that the movie starts to get too hip considering anything besides this.

About two months ago, I found another link in The Lionshare’s universe. There was a Kickstarter (see my previous post) project dealing with a new science fiction show released only on Bittorrent. At this time, internet only television has become an interest phenomena. I’ve seen billboards all over the sity for a show released only online called Reinvent The Wheels which looks to be more of a mainstream thing following a niche concept. This science fiction show, Pioneer One, is a television episode by the same crew that pulled off The Lionshare, and I have to say that I like this work much better. Without giving away too much, it has a watered-down X-Files vibe that I really enjoyed, and centers around a strange piece of debris that lands in the United States. The production value for this is also much higher and looks professional, there there are hiccups. After watching the first episode, I was sad that there were no more. The Kickstarter was only made to produce one episode, so who knows if more will ever be created.

So give these videos a try if you see something you like. Both are available freely on torrent sites and I’m sure there are direct download links up somewhere by now. You might just end up having some new favorite media.

Via Famicoman from Famicoman.com

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July Already?

Posted July 1, 2010 – 23:41 in: dhp1080, syndicated

I suppose I’ve been taking my summer break from writing here. June passed without any articles, sadly. So to placate those of you who hang on my every word (you’re out there, right?), here’s my midsummer update.

Personally, I have less than two months before school resumes. My summer thus far has consisted of a relaxing vacation to South Carolina, the repeated fixing and modifying of kimages, and some occasional design and coding projects. In addition, I’ve continued reviewing products for ConnectReviews.

kimages

First, let me mention kimages. The site has grown in popularity over the past year. However, this growth has led to multiple outages due to extreme server load. Now, the code that runs kimages is relatively simple and similarly resource unintensive. The real problems lies in the fact that millions of images are served each month, leading to excessive amounts of bandwidth. So much so, that Apache even starts to struggle under the requests.

Now the only logical solution would be to throw more bandwidth and hardware at it. It’s a great solution. The problem lies in the funding, however. So that’s my existing predicament with kimages. Hopefully anyone who uses the service and occasionally sees downtime will understand why now.

iPhone 4

Call me a fanboy, but I ended up pre-ordering an Apple iPhone 4. It arrived June 23rd, a full day earlier than the public release. Boy, did I feel special.

Upgrading from the 3G is a huge leap. Now I have all sorts of iOS 4 goodies, along with a fantastic camera, amazing processor, and solid Jonathan Ive design. The sheer speed of the phone is a shock, with apps launching in a quarter the time it typically takes, photos instantly being saved to the camera roll, and webpages scrolling with very limited re-rendering.

I’ll admit that I suffer from the "death grip" as reported by many iPhone 4 users. Judging by Apple’s responses to customer complaints, there is a fix in the works in Cupertino, and we’ll be seeing that in the coming weeks. In the mean time, I’ll continue gripping the phone slightly strangely to avoid those pesky dropped calls and data losses.

What’s Coming Soon?

Not quite sure to be honest. Maybe a reincarnation of CloudGate? Probably not. I’ll probably just continue to tweak existing projects, maybe do a bit of third party design work, etc. We’ll see how things progress.

I plan on attending a few more Cubs games and enjoying whatever nice weather Illinois throws my way. Who knows, maybe I’ll even end up posting again by the end of the summer? A bit of a stretch, but anything is possible.

Until next time…

Via dhp1080 from 1080degrees

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Kickstart Your Project

Posted June 25, 2010 – 21:41 in: Famicoman, syndicated

There is a site that has been drawing attention among a few groups of people called Kickstarter. Kickstarter works using a process called crowdfunding, which means a project is funded by a large group of people. So lets say I have some sort of project. It can be a video project like a movie, an audio project, art, food, an event, technological advancement- the list goes on. Now, I have my project but it requires a certain amount of money to get started. So I could go to Kickstarter, explain my project, provide some images, and say that I need a certain amount of money to make it all happen.

This is where Kickstarter gets cool. After you say how much money you need, people can pledge certain amounts, and Kickstater keeps track of how much more needs to be funded. This is all done over a predetermined time allotment. So I have my project up, I need $10,000 and have 80 days to get the donations I need. If at the 80 day mark I don’t have the funds, everyone gets to keep their money. But, if at the 80 day mark I have hit the goal or even gone over, I get the money to finish my project.

But why would people donate, and how does Kickstarter make money? Aside from people wanting to fund a project because of their own interest in it, they can also be offered incentives. So If you pledge $25 I could send you a t-shirt for my event, or if you pledge $50 your name gets to go in the credits of my movie. Kickstarter makes money by trimming off 5% of the funds for a successfully funded project. So if your project raises $20,000, Kickstarter still makes a significant amount to stay afloat.

I first found out about the site through Jason Scott’s Sabbatical to complete his new documentary, Get Lamp. I have been coming back to the site infrequently, and noted other projects that I am interested in such as The Waterman Movie, which is based on a popular web series and has been in development for years, as well as a Documentary on “The Thief and the Cobbler”, “The Thief and the Cobbler” being a film that was in development for three decades and eventually pulled away from the director and chopped up into different movie. Every once in a while, a new project pops up that grabs me, and it gets me thinking. Really, this service is truely amazing. There is no better way to reach people to create a niche project that reuires funding. I can just imagine how much more would have been accomplished had this site been around ten years ago, and how much it will accomplish over the next ten years. I also consider that I may one day be able to utilize it. I can fathom a few projects that could take advantage of this as a way to reach people, though they may be a long way off.

I hope to see Kickstarter thrive, and help out some truely unique projects as time goes by. I do have to mention that the site does not take pledges using Paypal because of how Paypal handles refunding. A credit card is needed for now, though other options are being looked into. Check out kickstarter yourself and see what you find, you might be surprised.

Via Famicoman from Famicoman.com

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More TNXT Updates

Posted May 14, 2010 – 22:20 in: Moonlit, Uncategorized

Woot, TNXT now has the ability to read Twitter (and, as a side effect, RSS feeds in general), meaning current, non-static content! Here’s some screenies, PuTTY on Windows and Gnome Terminal on Ubuntu respectively:

To make it look right in Gnome Terminal, you must set the colour scheme to XTerm and the codepage to something like CP437, CP850, CP853 or some other codepage capable of box drawing. The latter also applies to PuTTY, or any other terminal you wish to connect to TNXT with, if you don’t do those things, it will not work correctly, it will look awful. Setting the terminal width to 40 is now optional and purely aesthetic, having 80 columns shouldn’t affect the layout any more.

Via Moonlit from The Moonlit Code

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Update

Posted May 12, 2010 – 15:20 in: IPTV Archive, syndicated

Well, I guess it is time to wipe off the dust around here.

As for uploading new stuff, I’m trying to go through Rant Media videos, but most of them seem to be hated by blip.tv. The transcodes seem to always timeout, so I have to convert to flash on my end, upload the flv, cross my fingers, and hope everything works before I can go on to the next video. There are roughly 60 videos from Rant that I am trying to upload, so this is a long tedious process that I hope to get a new start on soon.

The secret project I discussed last blog post has hit a snag as well. That project is ThinstackTV. ThinstackTV is a combination of ideas. The first being something akin to a production house. So ThinstackTV will hopefully one day play host to a bunch of daughter shows that are produced by members of the Thinstack community. So all of these shows are under the ThinstackTV network. Also what comes into play is a 24/7 video stream. This stream will feature these shows, older shows from this archive, open source movies, podcasts, etc. This is still in the development stages, and has an active IRC channel.

I am also starting work on my own IPTV show called Obsoleet that is currently in production. This site uses a domain Noobelodeon.org which I purchased and am using as a point for a few video projects. From the main page, you can see links to Obsoleet, Techtonic Shift (A show by Patt), and an IPTV Documentary. I like to think of the domain as a loose way to tie these projects together.

~Famicoman

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Teletext returns from the dead. Again.

Posted May 12, 2010 – 15:20 in: Moonlit, Uncategorized

So! I figured it was about time I fired up the compiler and the ANSI editor again and resurrected my TelNEXT project, the one that simulates a teletext-like system but via telnet (since I don’t have any teletext inserters or, you know, a TV network). I did a little work on both sides, bugfixing and tidying on the code side and being almost artistic on the content side. I’ll let the screenshots do the talking:

I plan to add a lot more pages over the coming days/weeks/months, maybe even throw in some kind of content bridge to pull in comments from Twitter for a “letters” page or something, I don’t know yet, I’ll just see what happens.

I’ve figured out that, while it has less features than PabloDraw, TundraDraw sucks a whole lot less at actually keeping page designs to 40 characters wide, so if your terminal isn’t set up for 40 characters wide, it won’t make the pages look totally garbled any more. What will still make pages look totally garbled on the other hand is having an incorrect codepage. Use DOS/CP437, it makes the pages look how they’re supposed to. In fact, if you use Putty for Windows, here‘s a registry file that’ll set up a Putty profile called “Teletext” which is set up absolutely perfectly for using TelNEXT on the same machine as Putty. If you want to run the server on another machine or connect to someone else’s server, just switch up the IP address in Putty. That reminds me, it’s not called TelNEXT any more, it’s TNXT now, because… well, because.

Anyway, that about it for now, I’ll try and come back more often now, my ever rotating todo list has swung back around to trying to be productive, so we shall see. In the meantime, you can grab the latest version of TNXT (contains a few test pages) right here, and if you want to make pages for it, go check out TundraDraw for Windows or your favourite ANSI editor elsewhere – remember, 40×22, anything bigger will look like crap!

Via Moonlit from The Moonlit Code

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obsoleet

Posted May 12, 2010 – 15:00 in: Famicoman, syndicated

My IPTV show idea has taken shape, and it is called Obsoleet. A bit earlier this month, I filmed a segment and did some graphics for it. That was last weekend and the week before. I didn’t do anymore filming because of a cold I had, but that is only a small speed bump in this whole process. I have the gear for another segment set out and am currently planning more segments. I am also in the planning stages for an intro sequence, though I’m not too sure what will come of that.

Updates for the show will be available on a separate site, http://obsoleet.noobelodeon.org/ so more information can be found there. Searching the site will let you find an rss feed and a twitter account, so you can stay in touch through a few ways.

Via Famicoman from Famicoman.com

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Pagination: Right vs. Wrong

Posted May 11, 2010 – 14:40 in: dhp1080, syndicated

Good vs. Bad

Pagination is an increasingly popular method of breaking up content into multiple pages. Specifically, I’m addressing the method of navigating to older content using single buttons.

Above, "the good" is from the tech blog Engadget, while "the bad" is from The Unofficial Apple Weblog. In the good example, the buttons are specifically labeled "older" and "newer", with the older posts being located on the left.

On the contrary, the bad example is simply labeled "previous" and "next" with no indication as to which will display older content. In practice, the button on the left here takes you to newer content. This is entirely backwards with respect to the good example.

Here are my guidelines for page-to-page navigation:

Clearly label buttons with "Older" and "Newer" to differentiate the direction of content navigation
Keep the button that leads to older content on the left

Consistency in site navigation is very important, and these little changes can help users navigate with less confusion.

Via dhp1080 from 1080degrees

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Howto: XCache in a Lighttpd Chroot on Debian

Posted April 12, 2010 – 05:20 in: Nullamatix, syndicated

Whether you’re pressed for resources on a virtual/dedicated server, or simply looking for ways to improve web application performance, XCache is guaranteed to produce the desired result. Within minutes of installing XCache: page load times were cut in half, PHP/MySQL RAM consumption was under control, and overall PHP rendering/output performance dramatically improved. In this post I’ll go over the process of installing, configuring, and enabling XCache in a php5-cgi+Lighttpd chroot jail on a Debian Lenny web server.

What is XCache?

Hopefully you’re already aware, but just in case… :

XCache is a fast, stable PHP opcode cacher that has been tested and is now running on production servers under high load. It is tested on linux and supported under Windows, for thread-safe and non-thread-safe versions of PHP. This relatively new opcode caching software has been developed by mOo, one of developers of Lighttpd, to overcome some of the limitations of the existing solutions at that time; such as being able to use it with new PHP versions as they arrive.

Assumptions / Conditions

This tutorial assumes Lighttpd (>= 1.4.23-3+b2) is already setup and running in a chroot environment with php5/fastcgi enabled and working. Also assumes a minimum of 64 megabytes of RAM is available. If you’re looking for a Lighttpd chroot setup guide, I highly recommend this one.

Install XCache

[184][vps ~]:# aptitude install php5-xcache

Put XCache in the Lighttpd chroot:

[185][vps ~]:# cp -avr /usr/share/xcache /chroot/usr/share/
[186][vps ~]:# cp -avr /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/xcache.so /chroot/usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/
[187][vps ~]:# l2chroot /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/xcache.so
[188][vps ~]:# cat /etc/php5/conf.d/xcache.ini > /chroot/etc/php5/conf.d/xcache.ini
[189][vps ~]:# vi /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

Create an alias to access the XCache Administration pages:

$HTTP["host"] =~ "some-domain.tld" {
	alias.url = ( "/xcache-admin/" => "/usr/share/xcache/admin/" )
}

Save changes to lighttpd.conf and quit (:wq!). See this page for the l2chroot script.

Setup XCache

Generate a password using the “md5sum” command and create/edit xcache.ini settings file.

[190][vps ~]:# echo -n "your_desired_password" | md5sum
c889e0b89df36eaa47f3a71675d1e9f4
[191][vps ~]:# vi /chroot/etc/php5/conf.d/xcache.ini

The following settings work for my purposes. You may need to consult the XCache docs and adjust according to your environment. Plenty of information out there – use the goog.

[xcache-common]
extension = xcache.so

[xcache.admin]
xcache.admin.enable_auth = On
xcache.admin.user = "xcadmin"
xcache.admin.pass = "c889e0b89df36eaa47f3a71675d1e9f4"

[xcache]
xcache.shm_scheme = "mmap"
xcache.size = 96M
xcache.count = 8
xcache.slots = 8K
xcache.ttl = 0
xcache.gc_interval = 0
xcache.var_size = 16M
xcache.var_count = 1
xcache.var_slots = 8K
xcache.var_ttl = 0
xcache.var_maxttl = 0
xcache.var_gc_interval = 300
xcache.test = Off
xcache.readonly_protection = Off
xcache.mmap_path = "/dev/zero"
xcache.coredump_directory = ""
xcache.cacher = On
xcache.stat = On
xcache.optimizer = Off

[xcache.coverager]
xcache.coverager = Off
xcache.coveragedump_directory	= ""

Finalize & Test

If a /chroot/dev/zero special device doesn’t exist, go ahead and create one, now. Finally, restart Lighttpd and visit the XCache Administration page (the alias created above).

[192][vps ~]:# mknod /chroot/dev/zero c 3 4
[193][vps ~]:# /etc/inti.d/lighttpd restart

A page resembling the screen-shot below should appear after logging in (click for full-size).

The Lighttpd wiki suggests setting 1 “max-procs” and several “PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN” in 10-fastcgi.conf. For some reason that particular setup only lasts 20 to 30 minutes before crashing. Here’s the setup used at the time the screen-shot above was taken which happens to work for me (so-far).

server.modules += ( "mod_fastcgi" )
fastcgi.server = ( ".php" => ((
	"bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php5-cgi",
	"socket" => "/var/tmp/lighttpd/php5-cgi.socket",
	"max-procs" => 2,
	"idle-timeout" => 20,
	"bin-environment" => (
		"PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN" => "5",
		"PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS" => "5000"
	),
	"bin-copy-environment" => ( "PATH", "SHELL", "USER" ),
	"broken-scriptfilename" => "enable"
)) )

Result is 2 parent php5-cgi processes with 5 children each:

/usr/sbin/lighttpd -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi
	 \_ /usr/bin/php5-cgi

Enjoy! Comments are open…