digitising a cache of old video tapes

Whilst looking for space linked to the current kitchen upheaval, I found a box of old video tapes.

They are 8mm and Hi8 tapes, which use the same form factor and were compact formats used before DV came along.

I think the Hi8 actually recorded digitally onto the backwards-compatible 8mm tape format. There was a trick where punching out a hole in the tape cassette converted (cheap) 8mm to (expensive) Hi8 format. Fortunately I still have a Sony Hi8 camera, which I can use to liberate the videos.

It's an interesting example of where something inherently complex back in the days of use of the video format is now relatively easy. I can remember needing a special Matrox Card or a special box to plug into the then state-of-the-art PC to be able to ingest the tapes so that they could be shakily edited on Premiere Pro. Needless to say, it didn't happen very often.

This time I've used a basic Elgato video capture connection to process the analogue tapes into H.264 as they are uploaded into my Mac.

Nowadays its a very simple process.

Download the Elgato capture software, connect the camera via the special wire, hit play, and then hit record on the software. The video plays in little window on the screen, so I can see the progress, which is at real-time playback speed. It's the old 640 x 480 format, but this is all about the content.

It'll be interesting to see what I unearth from the video vaults.

As I type this, I can see some ancient video of a space shuttle being prepped for a launch...and now a Luau!

Here's the ancient, wobbly hand-held VHS NASA extract as a short video.

you say you want a demolition?

The kitchen project is now underway. We've demolished and cleared out the old one and have a skip piled high with rubble parked on the drive.

Another task has been the removal of an arched wall and there's another piece to go too, but the last piece needs a new lintel before it can be demolished.

The plumbing and gas has been stopped off, except for the water main. This means no water in the kitchen at present. Well, there's no sink so its all a bit like camping.

Okay, not quite like camping. The old fitted fridge has been temporarily repurposed as a stand-alone unit, but even making a cup of coffee is now complex, what with obtaining water from one part of the house and making the actual drink in another.

I suppose it is good for the step-count.

unbolted rather than unhinged

I decided to rerun (recycle?) my turbo test again. My grand plan was to add the iPad to the setup using that plastic frame thing that I'd found.

Big mistake.

I managed to get the middle generation iPad to work with the bike, communicating via ANT+. Not great because it didn't pick up my heart rate monitor and couldn't link to the virtual power readouts from Trainerroad.

It also said it wanted to recalibrate the turbo trainer. I let it run the diagnostic and it advised me to adjust the screw setting where the turbo connects to the tyre of the bike. Yes, I did this with the result that the screw/bolt thingy fully unscrewed and fell off.

Groan.

I tried refitting it in-situ, but realised I'd have to take the bike off the turbo first and turn the turbo upside down to re-secure it. Normally not a big deal, except I'd now got a rather fragile iPad attached to the handlebars.

Undo the iPad, then undo the turbo unit and refit the screw.

I decided the functionally less flexible iPad wasn't such a good idea after all and have reverted to the PC which works with everything. It was worth trying, but this is an example where an apparent simplification didn't really work.

Using the PC I can still, for example, run a Sufferfest video with Trainerroad. I can also watch a TV show, movie or listen to iTunes with Trainerroad still running. This are my two preferred modes because they are more or less immediate start. I can dial in Netflix and Amazon too, so I've a pretty wide choice of viewing.

If I really wanted to fiddle around I could let the TACX PC program control the bike and simulate gradients and terrain, with a video of the course, a Virtual Reality simulation or even a google maps display of a route. I've used these latter options in the past, but they take longer to set up, which kind of steals time from the turbo session.

As to the day's turbo cycle.

It's supposed to be the same as the one from a couple of days ago, but there's a lot more 'noise' at the start because I left the Garmin running whilst I experimented to get the turbo functional again. I noticed I'd somehow clocked up around seven miles before the start of the proper turbo session. There's a good 16 minutes of faffing around before the main session starts and then there's some spikes when I deliberately sped up across the hump back bridges in the warm up section.

Put this session down as 'mechanical difficulties'. At least I started getting the turbo working whilst there's still enough daylight to fix things outdoors.

repurposing drawer-ware

//CDRIVE DD DSN=MYDISK.IPHONE.PDS,
// UNIT=3330,DISP=SHR,VOL=SER=DISK01 *

Most people including reviewers don't yet have the new iPhone, so their commentary about it has to be on safe ground. All about things like memory size starting at a 'low' 16Gb. 'ring.

I have a different problem.

It's more to do with the residual devices. The ones with flat batteries that live in a drawer.

I've still got at least two older generation iPhones which strike me as perfectly good display devices.

What I'd really like to do is use one as a secondary monitor for the video camera kit that I've been building. There's so much circuitry and logic in any iPhone, that you'd think it could be repurposed. And the bike turbo could use an old iPad as its dedicated display device too.

The thing is, the older devices don't get capabilities needed to make it all work.

Yesterday I decided to put an old style ANT+ connector into my oldest iPad. It mechanically fits, but the software won't recognise it and can't be updated to a high enough version of IOS to fix it.

Instead, I'm continuing to use the oldest iPad as a media controller, plus a clapperboard/slate for the video antics. Although a 32Gb clapperboard does seem excessive.

Say cheese.

*The caption above is the IBM JCL for a once state-of-the-art 30Mb IBM Winchester disk drive used to run whole banking systems on big mainframe computers. That 30Mb equates to around 10 jpeg photos on the new iPhone.

getting the turbo ready for Sufferlandria again

I decided I'd better check that the bike turbo was still functional decided to use Trainerroad with a Sufferfest video.

Fortunately it only took a few seconds to set up and get going and the bicycle, computer, turbo, Garmin and tacx controller all talk to one another wirelessly using ANT+.

I anticipated that this resumption of use would be bit tough and took the precaution to dial the turbo down before I started.

I reduced its setting by 1.8%. It may not sound a lot, but it's a huge reduction based on the way it works.

I'd selected a one hour session with an accompanying video (it was Hell Hath No Fury). The first ten minutes were fine. I was thinkingthat maybe I could change the setting to something like minus 0.8%.

But no.

After about 20 minutes I was aware that the sweat was dripping off the end of my nose and that my arms were slippery wet. I was still keeping up with the required pace though, using some cadence and gears to handle the peaks in the hybrid Swedish/Spanish/French course.

I finished the first block and then there's a gentle 10 minute cool-down through some French countryside before the second wave started. I decided I'd just get to the end, without worrying about any super heroics along the sealed off dual carriageways of somewhere big in Spain.

Today was more about keeping a cadence and not stressing too much.

I'm planning to progressively remove the minus 1.8 setting and then it'll start to get rather tougher.

My metrics from today show a fairly consistent pedal speed and unchallenged heart rate. It'll be interesting for me to look at this again in a month or so to see what has changed.

The videos come from Sufferfest based in the country of Sufferlandria (oh, yes) and they do have a twisted sense of humour. I haven't ridden one since last winter, but I can tell they'll keep me amused later in the year.

more tsundoku with the tacx bracket

More of that tsundoku feeling when I re-discovered this iPad rack.

It's for mounting on a bike. Not to be used on the road, but suitable for use with a turbo set-up. I acquired it sometime last year but at a time when the bike was better suited to going on roads rather than being placed on a turbo.

I'll get it working this year, probably with the Tacx and Trainerroad software although I doubt whether an iPad will allow simultaneous playing of a TV show and the use of the trainer metrics. First job is to find an iPad capable of working with the ANT+ protocol so I can link it to the Bushido.

Hmm. Bushido, tsunduko, ant+, tacx - it's like I'm talking in 積ん読 code.

in which I try Windows 10 in iMac VM and it works fine

I've finally got around to installing a version of Windows 10 on my iMac in a virtual machine. After Windows 8 and 8.1, I decided to wait a while before attempting to swap across to Windows 10.

Actually my 'work PC' (and those of many colleagues) are still on Windows 7. I think it's indicative of the hopscotch that Microsoft has to play to try to find the right interface.

I've actually been pleasantly surprised with the transition to the Windows 10 experience. It's more like seeing the return of an old friend, maybe one that has been on a keep fit regime and returned super svelte.

Using Windows inside the iMac for productivity applications now seems to work properly. I've the updated version of Parallels as well and although there's various modes, I tend to keep Windows running inside its own box on the screen.

Booting a suspended Windows session takes maybe a couple of seconds and then runs at the same speed as the version of Windows 7 I still currently have on my Thinkpad. In other words, it doesn't get in the way and creates a perfectly usable experience.

I mentioned productivity applications because I'll usually only be using Windows with Office applications, plus related components such as MS Project and inevitably the MS browser, nowadays called Edge (i.e. no more Internet Explorer).

I've enabled Cortana too and just for fun asked whether Windows or Mac was best. MS may want to fix that response in the next update.

Another amusing aspect of the update has been reading some of the other reviews. My own history with Windows goes back to the early days, but clearly many reviewers of Windows 10 have a far more recent viewpoint, where some of the resurrected features are considered 'new'.

I guess that's the challenge now for suppliers into the consumer space. What else to do to make products look 'new' on an annual review cycle? Some didn't work so well, like the ancient Bob interface...

...although I know it was amusing for a while to add a desktop parody of it to Windows 8. And what about McZee...?

This week's new iPhone will be another case in point. Faster? Better camera? Thinner (or 0.2mm thicker)? More processor cores? More battery? Less bendy?

Not quite the game-changer snazziness that would have appeared with the earlier versions.

I guess the AVB (active virtual button) and sidewall display may still be another iteration away, based upon the Chinese usually correct pre-emptive clones.

gadget tsundoku

I have one of those piles of unread books from the usual combination of purchases, gifts, recommendations and similar. The above illustration is just a few percentage of the problem.

I've another virtual pile of reading matter on my Kindle, where I've ordered things, planned to start them and then stalled.

The Japanese have a slang word for these book heaps. Tsundoku.

There needs to be another word for the other random piles of stuff that get saved for later. Most of ours seems to migrate into the garage, to eventually get triaged into:

• Definitely useful
• No hope
• Possible use if adapted

My recent camera rig project has been mainly assembled from such bric-a-brac.

Although, come to think of it, next week we're getting another skip, in preparation for the re-build of the kitchen. And hopefully the kitchen won't be constructed from old parts stored in the garage.

Completing the camera rig for the Lumix GH1 (DSLR camcorder build - Part 8)

The re-chipped Lumix GH1 camera rig is pretty much complete.

I still need to add a black flexible donut ring (yep - that's how it is spelled). There's another term for it too, but I won't use that in this blog. Come to think of it they are also sometimes called bellows.

The donut/bellows is to block light between the lens and the start of the matte box.

My existing setup will work without it, but adding it will make things more free from flare. I estimate about £14 for that piece, which would just take me to the £100 mark for the entire camera.

Although this camera will already record stereo sound, I'll next be thinking about a better way to record separate sound, still on a budget.

Adding follow focus to the Lumix GH1 (DSLR camcorder build - Part 7)

I'm still figuring out the Lumix GH1 project. I've made a few small adjustments to the position of things on the home-made rig and just added the follow focus rack. This is one of those situations where photographic cameras and the movie camera business diverge, but a fairly simple change could make quite a difference.

Movie camera lenses are (a) expensive (b) manual (c) don't have many of the last 15 years of consumer advances incorporated, such as image stabilisation.

However, a major mechanical difference is that movie lenses have a gear built onto their focus ring. This allows a follow focus to be driven by an external wheel, and is the way that professional cameras (other than Electronic News Gathering) capture focus.

In order to implement this gearing on an SLR lens, there's a need to add a wrap around wheel with the gear teeth on it. In my opinion, it would be simple for manufacturers to build this into the original design of SLR lenses too, but I can understand why they don't.

A set of movie lenses consists of around 6 primes and for a modern set of Cooke would cost something like $60,000, or $10k per lens.

The lens above is a typical modern and brand new example, complete with a movie style bayonet mount. Notice the gears on the focus ring. Similarly, a set of Leica movie lenses will cost even more, perhaps $100,000. They also have the special gear teeth included.

I did check out the Canon set, which is a mere $30,000, although these use the Canon EF fitting instead of the standard movie one. Sure, these are fast lenses at f1.5, but maybe even these are outside of my budget.

That's where the plastic wrap around cogs and a zip tie come in.

My adaptation of a DSLR zoom lens cost about £6.

I know, it doesn't have the maximum aperture of the Canons or the Leicas, but it does fit straight onto my adapted m4/3 camera and work with the focus rack.

I'm nearly ready to try all of this in a few scenes, once I've put the matte box back on the front. The total cost so far is as follows:

So I'm up to spend of £86, so far. It would be good to finish the project for sub £100.

Plata o plomo en Narcos?

I'm watching "Narcos", the new series about drug dealer Pablo Escobar. I'm up to the part where he's moved from cigarette smuggling to trafficking industrial quantities of cocaine from Colombia to Miami.

It uses an American DEA agent to tell the tale with extensive voiceover to develop the story and provide recaps. I didn't mind this at the start, to get the plot up and running, but it gets more intrusive, along with freeze frames when the agent talks even more.

It's as if, because of frequent Spanish dialogue with subtitles, the producers thought that some help was needed to keep up. I wonder if there'll be a Spanish 'International' version of this series with all the subtitles reversed and the freeze frames removed?

Aside from that aspect, it's an interesting story of the initially small-time criminal who, in a few years, became a ruthless billionaire drug lord, operating his "silver or lead" approach (bribe or bullet) with anyone who got in his way.

He quickly had law enforcement, judiciary and media in his pocket, with any dissenters removed by his well-armed gang. The local area where he lived was bribed with street handouts of cash, extensive housing and other benefits, effectively building a wide zone within which he could live and operate with apparent impunity.

As a dramatisation of real events, it's difficult to know how much has been added, although key facts seem close to how it has been reported.

Escobar bought an island in the Bahamas to use as a stopping off point on his air route and upgraded from 'rented' light aircraft to lear jets and helicopters to ship the drugs. He famously had his own Piper aeroplane installed on the ranch-style entrance to his enormous Medellín home. That's the same plane that he used to personally pilot drugs along the smuggling route.

In a "can't make this up" twist, Escobar's old ranch is nowadays a theme park which still features a now safari-camouflaged plane over the entrance as well as a museum to the drug traffickers.

The series plays as drama rather than a documentary, albeit interspersed with actual footage of Escobar and others, typically during scenes from TV shows and news reports.

Where it struggles as a drama series is that there's no-one to feel sympathy towards.

The traffickers are all reprehensible hoodlums. The police and drug enforcers play fast and loose as well as receiving bribes and payoffs in all directions.

The dullard agent who gives the first person descriptions leadenly 'reads the lines' rather than creating any sort of personality. The appearance of his sidekick is immediately more interesting with perhaps only one fifth of the dialogue.

The dramatic gaps reinforce the sense that I'm watching an offbeat docudrama, yet I'm sure I'll see it through to Episode 10.

Adding a budget matte box to the Lumix GH1 (DSLR camcorder build - Part 6)

Clipping the Lumix GH1 into the cage and adding the matte box only took a few minutes.

The no-brand matte box I've used is extremely basic, although I think it will do the job. I seem to remember that it came with many of the other smaller components which I now store in that orange accessory box.

I don't want to get a replacement until I've checked whether everything else works and that could take some time.

Short term, the matte box and the rest of the assembly is starting to look like a proper movie camera, even if the underlying camera is an adapted five year old device. The fun part is that the same setup will also work with my other video capable DSLRs, although it is useful to have one permanently set up for video.

And cosmetically, looking at the picture, I think I'll need to swap out those blue plastic end-stoppers for the rails and start to think about how to add the follow focus.