Are you a true geek - try this test?

For about a year, one of the links on the right (an unsponsored one - there just because it's the right thing to do) is for the 'Joy of Tech' daily(ish) comic strip.   They're funny, a bit too accurate sometimes, and often beautiful works of illustrative art.

And sometimes, as in today's brilliant example (permalink here) they involve a couple of minutes explanation for passing civilians/spouses to understand the joke.  

The June meeting

A surprisingly full and varied agenda last night, ranging from a preview of Avid's Media Composter, sorry Composer, 5, to Richard's demo of Vuvuzela* removal at a stroke (almost), taking in the Circle of Fifths on the way.

If you missed any of that - well it's gone, sorry.   Sometimes the Web just can't replace being there on the night.

Our (FCP shortcut) letters of the month were B G and T - careful Richard, you're going to use them all up soon.

Coming next month:   the Council of Elders have met and decreed a Variation to the Wefcpug rules, and the next meeting will be the First Monday of July - July 5th.   Think of it as Independence Day + 1.

We'll be setting up the design for this year's most-desired accessory (after the Vuvuzela), which will be the official wefcpug membership card.   Details to come.

In the meantime - welcome to the 100+ extra readers steered to this blog yesterday by the BBC's Internet Blog.  In your honour I've repainted the walls.   Further redesign will follow.

And do take a look at the newly fashioned wefcpug website - wefcpug.org.uk - and especially at the right hand column, where Richard is lovingly embedding links to YOUR WORK.   If he knows where to find it.

Which reminds me - I may have been dreaming, but I swear the majority of those present last night agreed that we should have an online film (filmette) tournament - go on, let's do it.

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*I checked on Wikipedia, so it must be true, the note of the much loved Vuvuzela is Bb - which, give or take an octave or so, is the C of the Tenor (and Soprano) saxophone.   I'm still weighing the significance of this little known fact.

BBC HD picture quality - now it gets personal

There's been considerable, and at times heated, discussion about the technical quality of the BBC HD channel, primarily related to changes in the Freesat feed (lower bitrate, change of encoder) - the general tenor of the discussion being that these have been downward steps in quality.

A group of the leading contributors (to the BBC's HD - since relocated to Internet - Blog) were invited to meet the BBC group they've been arguing with, and participate in technical tests.  You can read a first report of their meeting at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2010/06/picture_quality_on_bbc_hd_a_vi.html

It's worth noting the several references to tightening up on production companies to meet the specs (ie in camera / coding choices).   We'll see how this develops.

What they don't talk about is the choice of transmission standard for satellite feeds of HD - in the UK we use a standard known as DVB-S which is an MPEG2 transport stream.   Elsewhere, in Germany for example, DVB-S2 is the standard.   As you'd expect from the numbering, it's a later (and improved) development, and can include MPEG4 (aka AVCHD) streams.   It would appear that Sky and Freesat are moving towards DVB-S2 - and I'd assume that any receivers marketed as 'Freesat' will be dual capable.   If you want to see the results, the two German HD channels (Das Erste HD and ZDF HD) are currently transmitting in the clear on the Astra satellite system (19.2 E).