All the best wishes for a busy and prosperous 2010 to my readers, wherever you all are. Today is reputed to be the most boring day of the year (being the second day back at work after the holidays, and all reasonable excuses for avoiding work used up on the first day). But not on this blog...
To begin with matters arising:
If anyone can remember that far back, we had a good set of meetings in December. The Alan Roberts joint meeting with RTS was the official one - there'll be a write-up on the RTS website (when I've done it) - and the meal at Racks was the (slightly) less technical affair. Incidentally I wonder if anyone at Racks ever worked in TV OBs (Outside Broadcasts, that is) where 'Racks' is still the term for Vision Control - an engineering job that was one of the first I did, back in the (analogue) day. The camera then was the EMI 2001 4-tube colour camera, whose internal optics I was pleased to be able to identify as one of Alan Roberts' cabinet of curiosities. To his surprise.
Back to the Bristol Racks: the cineaste end of the table were discussing films noirs (well noirs et blancs to be accurate) - and by happenstance a couple of days later I came across this website, dedicated to films of the period. It's worth keeping an eye on because they seem to have freebies on offer every so often. I just missed the 'Stella Artois' mini season of classics, for instance. Most of the current offering of classic films are £3 to stream, but the trailers are free.
Are the iPhone/iPod Touch owners amongst you aware of the '12 days of Christmas' freebies at the Apple Store? Only a couple of days left - have to be honest, you've not missed much, though 'Labyrinth' the game has kept me amused.
A different sort of freebie app, by courtesy of those very very nice people at AJA. It's another video footage / data size calculator, but an app this time, very useful, very neat. The easiest way to get it is to type AJA into the search bar once you're in the apps section of the iTunes store. As opposed to typing AJA into the music section, which gives you results, but not the ones you expect.
In theory, provided the snow avoids us, we're back in business at the Beeb on Monday next, which is the 11th Jan in my calendar. Agenda yet to be decided. Though I'll certainly be showing off a couple of other TV editing related apps now residing on my iPod!
If you can't wait until then, and your brain is addled with too much undemanding TV viewing, there's 'another chance to see' the Apple 'Meet the Expert' featuring wefcpug-friend Peter Wiggins. It's now a QT stream (which you can save as a .mov) to be found here. Pete is talking about his editing of the Tour de France and other sports programming, as well as answering online questions that were sent during the original webcast. Some of the content will be familiar (especially if you heard the podcast I made at the Tour production in Summer) and the 'studio' setting is somewhat offputting (the standard Apple tutorial/demo 2 blokes in shirts at a bar with a MacBook in a white limbo set) but it's a good use of an hour of your time, IMHO.
