Archive for category General Ramblings
48HOURS Finals Clip
Posted by in General Ramblings on May 26th, 2009
Fractured Radius, as the 2008 Auckland winner, created a special video to play at the 48HOURS Auckland finals. It is our guide to the competition’s trophy – The Apee
Sky TV and content filtering
Posted by in General Ramblings on January 19th, 2009
I have been a Sky subscriber a few times, most recently for the last few years. We recently even upgraded to their MySky HDi PVR service.
There’s one thing that has annoyed me frequently in the past and continues to do so – that is content filtering. I have made it a point to disable all the parental control/content filtering systems in my decoder (by default a PIN is required for anything beyond R16 or R18 I believe) – I have gone out of my way to indicate that I am happy to view whatever is on and whatever time of day.
However before 8:30pm the Sky decoder will still insist I provide a PIN if I switch to an R18 programme. This bothers me not because I want to watch titty shows at all hours, but because of one show in particular. The Soup plays on the E! channel at 7pm Sunday nights. It is followed by the R18 rated Girls of the Playboy Mansion – the problem is that The Soup consistantly runs 1-2 minutes late, meaning that at 7:30pm when the EPG says the show finishes the Sky decoder locks the channel and pops up a PIN entry demand. No matter how fast I find the remote, and key in my simple PIN number I still end up missing a presumably hilarious part of the show.
I’ve called Sky to inquire about this. Previously I’ve been told that it just works that way, with no further information about why. However yesterday I called again and was advised that it was because “of the law” and that R18 programmes would always require a PIN no matter what settings I had. I explained that I could watch the same show later without the problem. The call-taker was unsure. I requested a callback from a team leader.
Being that I have been involved in the production of television in New Zealand for the last 6 years or so, I am fairly familiar with the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s code of practice, at least as it applies to free-to-air television. In FTA broadcasting there is something called the ‘Watershed’ before which it is forbidden to adult-rated content. Basically that is 8:30pm on free-to-air channels.
I received a follow-up call from a team leader today, who clarified that indeed the policy was to conform to the BSA’s codes, and that it should only apply before 8:30pm. I expressed my opinion that I thought it was stupid that even though I am given a device with content controls built in, and enabled by default, that this was still enforced. He agreed, but said it was just what the code required.
I only just got around to looking it up myself, and as far as I can tell it is actually exactly the opposite of what the code requires – the summary of differences between pay-tv and FTA includes this:
- Filtering technology (eg. parental locks with PIN access) can be made available to protect younger viewers and limit access to unwanted content.
- Watersheds apply to content classified 18 if filtering technology is not automatically provided free of charge to subscribers.
- Subscribers are required to be aged over eighteen years.
Which as I read it basically says that because the technology is provided (content control) there is no watershed. In the section titled “Barriers to accessing content” there is the following:
(i) Where filtering technology is not automatically made available in accordance with Guideline (j) below, content classified 18 may screen only between 8pm – 6am, or 9am – 3pm (other than weekend days, school holidays and public holidays when it may screen only between 8pm – 6am).
(j) If filtering technology is automatically made available to subscribers free of charge, and regularly promoted by the broadcaster for subscriber use, content classified 18 may screen at any time provided other applicable broadcasting standards are adhered to.
(k) The filtering technology may be made available on the basis that subscribers elect to use it, provided that a subscriber is easily able to initiate use at any time through the television remote or similar device.
Which supports my earlier reading. Because, pursuant to Guideline (j), I have filtering technology available free of charge, and it is promoted then they can screen the material anytime (ie. 7:30pm on a Sunday). Then Guideline (k) says clearly that the technology may be made optional if I can easily enable it. Well it comes enabled by default, and it pretty easy to setup with the remote at any time.
Therefore according to the BSA Pay TV Code, by which Sky TV is bound, they are not in anyway obligated to enforce non-bypassable content filtering for R18 material before 8:30pm. They meet all their obligations (and more) by having the filtering available and enabled by default.
And lets not even get into the absurdity of having a show where you occasionally see blurred out nipples rated as R18 (or 18S by Sky’s system) while there is an entire channel that features graphic crime footage and documentaires all rated M and never restricted. I have seen footage on that channel of a person murdering another person. Actual footage. Up close. Repeated in slow-motion. No need for a PIN for that.
Sky, respect my ability to actually use the filtering system you give me to make my viewing decisions, and stop messing up The Soup for me.
The file-based problem
Posted by Dylan in General Ramblings on December 24th, 2008
File-based video formats offer huge productivity benefits in terms of faster-than-realtime ingest, increased metadata and data efficency, but there are also some huge drawbacks around the less tangible aspects of video production and post-production.
When we shoot on tape we always have the tape (as long as we look after it anyway) – we ingest what we need, at a lower resolution if necessary, and then put the tape on the shelf. If we’re short on discspace we can delete what we don’t need, and can always get it off tape again if we need it. If a drive dies we have the tape. Tapes are inexpensive, easy to source, easy to store and fairly easy to index and track. Files and memory card are much less so.
And as much as this is a problem in professional fim-making, it concerns me much more in the consumer market where flash-based and harddrive cameras have become increasingly common. While as professionals we can be reasonably expected to have the knowledge and skills to preserve our footage, the same can’t generally be said for consumers.
Are the next generation going to be able to rummage through boxes in the attic for the old home movies of them as kids? I doubt it. Think about it, have you got many or any of the files your treasured on your computer 10, 15 or 20 years ago? Of course, there are similar issues with consumer tape formats – can you still play Video8 tapes? Probably not, but at least if you have the tapes you can search for a player.
Are there any solutions being offered to consumers at large to make the memorys and moments they capture on their file-based camera anything more than temporary? I’m certainly not aware of any.
The moments we’re capturing now might not exist in any form at all within years unless we are especially careful to retain them for the future, and we take that responsibility upon ourselves. For professionals this is hard enough – have you taken reasonable steps to backup your P2 or XDCAM EX footage? Certainly for many the answer is no. And if we’re shooting file-based homevideos are we even half as careful with them? Would we expect our parents, siblings or friends to take the care and initiative to ensure their videos survive longer than their current computer?
When people ask me for a video camera recommendation now I don’t have an answer, but generally I’m still predisposed to something that shoots on a tape of some sort. It may be more limited in many ways, but there is some comfort in seeing a tape sitting on a shelf.
Labelling Tapes
Posted by Dylan in General Ramblings, Video/TV on October 29th, 2008
It’s boring and pretty easy to overlook, but when editing any video, at all, I strongly believe in the idea of serialised labeling. Nothing is more frustrating when revisiting an old project, or stealing footage from another job than to have the NLE ask you for “Tape 1″
Even for the small jobs, the one offs, I think it’s worth using simple and unique labelling that will enable you to find a tape again if you need it.
My guidelines for tape identification would be:
- Not related to content – a tape label reel id is just about finding the tape, it doesn’t need to tell you whats on it. You have clip names for that.
- Not repeated – this is the biggest one. You should be able to find the tape by knowing nothing more than the ID of the tape.
- Not too confusing – consider things like O and 0 and anything else that could lead to confusion later.
- Digitise nothing without an ID – stick tape ID labels on tapes before you capture them.
In choosing an ID scheme I would advise using only numbers and letters. Have at least 3 zero-padded digits in conjunction with letters, or at least four digits if using only numbers.
You could create prefixes you understand, perhaps a two-letter code for each job or client. The important thing if you go that way is to avoid repeating codes.
Go to the local stationery store and get the smallest label sheets you can find. Then using Word or OpenOffice or something make up sheets for of tape ID labels. Print them out and keep them handy. Whenever a new tape arrives, whack a label on it.
When you capture, use the tape ID either alone, or at the beginning of the tape name in the NLE. So rather than “Interviews GS0021″ make it either “GS0021″ or “GS0021 Interviews” – that will ensure the relavant portion of the ID survives any EDL or Metadata exports that might truncate it.
That’s it really. Just do whatever you can to avoid the dreaded “tape 1″ syndrome.
Setting up OpenFiler
Posted by Dylan in General Ramblings on September 4th, 2008
I’ve been setting up an OpenFiler server lately. I have mixed feelings, it is a slick and well put-together package, but if you go for the open-source version then you’re pretty much on your own. Most of the documentation is either available to commercial clients only or sold commercially. The open-source version has all the features, but none of the support or documentation.
So far here’s a few things I’ve had problems with…
My discs didn’t show up. They had previously been used in another system. It turns out that the backend script that pulls disc information got a little confused when it tried to read the partition information and didn’t like the setup of the disc, it threw an error and the OpenFiler GUI couldn’t see the disc information.
That was resolved by the ‘dd’ trick in this forum post: Hard Drive missing – Better error checking needed in list-disks.pl
The next problem (and one I’m just starting to tackle now) is LDAP authentication from the local LDAP server. If you’re like me and don’t really understand LDAP then none of it really makes sense, but this post is helping: Quick setup guide install with local ldap
Fingers crossed now, new fileserver should be setup soon.