Unboxing the Sony HDR-SR1

general, toys, unboxing

I decided to go ahead and keep the camcorder that I spoke of previously.  With the coupon we used it wasn’t as bad as paying retail.  It pretty much paid for the extended warranty which also covers accidental damage.  It’s funny because the accidental damage warranty is all dependent on how you word things.  For instance, if I dropped it in the pool it wouldn’t be covered, but if I said, “I spilled a 20,000 gallon pool on the camera” it would be covered.  Okay, not really but it depends on the type of accident from what I was told.  Anyways, you came for the photos, so here it is, still in the box along with the extended life battery:

Next thing, you gotta really want this camcorder since it clearly states that there is a 15% re-stocking fee if you return it and the box is opened.

Following the cutting of the re-stocking fee warning sticker we have what greets us as the top of the box is opened:

After removing the manuals, CD, and other documentation you see the familiar message that the manufacturer does not want you to return the item if it doesn’t work as expected.  I guess retailers kick the manufacturers pretty hard if things get returned for no good reason or if it’s too hard to use so they return it.

Look how neatly all the cables are packed up and stuff.

Here’s everything in the box.  The only thing really missing that would have been nice would be an HDMI cable.  Considering how much this thing costs and the fact that the folks that buy this camera are going to have an HD television and the fact that Sony makes these cables they really could have included one.

Then here are some various angles of the camera. 

           

         

I took some simple video clips with it yesterday and they look amazing.  Even in just okay light they looked great.  I can’t wait to take some video outside tomorrow under natural light and see how they look. 

Editing

Unfortuanately at this time there aren’t a lot of options for NLE work just yet. I’ve read some stuff about how using PowerDVD 7 Deluxe that you get a driver that can help you convert the AVC video that the camcorder records into a normal format that Premiere, Vegas or some other system can handle but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet.  I think I’ll probably store raw video on DVDs or an external hard drive for now in the native AVC format and then just work with converted MPG video using the included software.  I’ll primarily be producing DVDs for family members so MPG is fine for them.  I doubt it will be that long before I see more support for the format in things like Premiere, though.

Image Quality (Stills)

Still image quality is pretty good, especially considering it’s a camcorder.  Focus in low light situations isn’t spectacular but it’s not meant to replace my primary still camera.

Overall

I just opened it last night so it’s too early to tell but I like the camcorder so far.  I’ll post some small videos in coming weeks to demonstrate the camera. 

Trying Out Windows Live Writer

general

I decided to try out a new editor for my blog today.  It’s Microsoft’s Live Writer.  It seems to work pretty well so far.  It definitely has that Microsoft feel to it. 

Here’s the same photo from my previous post of the HDR-SR1 camcorder in it.

Let’s see how this looks.  If it works well then this is a pretty cool tool that’s a bit easier to use than doing direct HTML markup in WordPress.  I don’t like the rich editor in WordPress anyways.

To Unbox or Not Unbox?

general, toys

So I picked up a Sony HDR-SR1 today at Best Buy since my old Canon ZR45 MC was really starting to show its age. We have a ton of family events coming up in coming months including a trip to Disneyland, a new member to my sister-in-law’s family, a close friend’s wedding that Myleene will be the maid of honor for and the list just goes on and on.

At this point I don’t want to upgrade unless it’s HD because I’m not going to buy a crappy camcorder and a good one will run pretty expensive anyways for normal SD. I also don’t like burning directly to DVD and tape is a pain in the ass. That leaves the hard drive option. I’d love a solid state HD camcorder but that’s just not in the cards anytime soon. This camcorder records in AVC format which is MPEG-4 basically. Editing software is not the most plentiful but there are options. Sony just announced some newer models that produce HDV on miniDV and some DVD models that produce AVC but no new hard drive based models that produce HD. The new AVC models don’t talk about increasing the bandwidth that they supply to the DVD so I’m guessing that it won’t be improved even if there is a new HDD model this year. I suppose I’ll leave it in the box for another day or two to see if there are any more announcements from Sony at CES. If I don’t hear anything I’ll go ahead and unbox it since they’ll announce any new offerings there for the foreseeable future. The SR1 also has the advantage that it has a manual control ring on the front and some other good inputs for things like shotgun mics and so forth.

I’ll show unboxing photos if I decide to keep it.

Yet Another New Look

general

I thought I would try out a new theme. I liked the functionality of Giraffe2, the previous theme but I really like the built-in look of Anaconda.

Let me know what you think.

Updated: I didn’t even realize it but my images and javascript directories for the theme weren’t permissioned properly. Oops. It should look much better now.

The Decline of the ThinkPad

computers, general, software

As some of you know I started a new gig a couple of weeks ago at teebeedee. One perk was that we could pretty much choose any laptop we wanted. The other two guys had MacBook Pros and while I almost got one of those I decided to just stay on Windows and I had been really wanting to get away from Dells and go back to a ThinkPad. They have the best keyboards and have always been rock solid from a build aspect.

Well, I would have liked to have tried out their new T60p or Z61p but it was not to be. Why you ask? Well, it never arrived!! I originally wanted a T60p but there was a minimum 4 week wait to get one from Lenovo and the new ones hardly ever make it into the channel or they don’t have the configuration I want. CDW had them but they were $3300 before adding RAM, a docking station and extra battery. Through Lenovo’s site that same configuration was about $2800 for everything. It’s not my money but jeez, I can’t in good conscience do that. I decided to compromise and get the Z61p. It’s not quite as small but comes with a 1920×1200 15.4″ screen and 802.11n draft support. Also, it should ship within 5-10 working days. I got it ordered in early November.

I started my job and it hadn’t arrived yet. Lenovo backed up the ship date to December 7th. December 7th rolls around and on that date they move it to January 9th. January 9th! So you’re telling me, Lenovo, that you didn’t know you were going to delay it again before the 7th? That’s pretty pathetic in my book.

At this stage I needed a laptop, though. I went online and find that the HP nc8430 is getting good reviews and the price is definitely right. I tried configuring one through HP’s site but the ship date was a bit far out. I was reluctant at first to use one of their resellers because of the markup I saw on the ThinkPad’s resellers but it turns out there really wasn’t any markup or at least it didn’t seem like there was that much. So on Monday I should get my Core 2 Duo (2.16), with 2GB of RAM, 100 GB 7200 RPM drive, ATI X1600 w/256MB, Wireless, bluetooth, CD/DVD writer, docking station and extra battery after ordering it yesterday (Thursday!) from CDW for less than they want for the base T60p (sans extra RAM, battery and docking station). The stats are almost identical with the only exception being that the ThinkPad has the FireGL 5250 which is an ATI X1700 with crappy directX drivers. The X1700 and X1600 are nearly identical so that’s not a big deal there.

Sorry Lenovo, but if you can’t manage your supply chain better people are going to find other options and if the quality is pretty close or as good you can guess what they’re going to do. So maybe the ThinkPad is still as good as it was before Lenovo took over managing the brand but I don’t really know since I was never able to get one from them.

What $11 Nachos Look Like

football, general

I went to the Raiders-Broncos game a couple of weekends ago with my friend Ryan and he had club level tickets which means you get to go in through a nicer entrance and the mezzanine level is carpeted, the food is good, the bathrooms smell good, etc. On top of that, if you want food and you’re already in your seat you can hand one of the stadium folks in the section an order sheet and they deliver to your seat! Basically, it’s an entirely different experience and how a game should be watched.

Anyways, while we were there we saw the nachos they sold. These just weren’t any old nachos, they were $11 nachos. And the bowl was HUGE. Just to show how big they are, I’ve included a photo which shows the bowl being held next to my head. Ryan and I tried to finish them but we just couldn’t do it. It was pretty good for stadium food, though. Two thumbs up!

The Raiders lost as usual although they teased us just enough to think an upset might be in the cards.

MySQL Has Gone Away

general, software

Don’t you love error messages like that? I got this error message today while trying to do a dump from one database to another that happened to have a lot of data in it:

ERROR 2006 (HY000) at line 44: MySQL server has gone away

Isn’t that special? Well, it turns out that my server wasn’t configured with a large enough memory setting for the variable max_allowed_packet in the [mysqld] section of the my.ini that is used to configure my MySQL server. I had set the max allowed packet size on the command line to be “4M” which is more than 1M which was set on the server so the connection would crap out during the transfer. In MySQL a packet is a single SQL statement sent to the client. The table in question has some large LOBs in it so that’s why I ran into the problem. In most cases the default value would work but of course, this isn’t most cases (see: link)

By resetting the max_allowed_packet variable to be 4M and restarting the server I was able to finish the transfer.

I Hate the Windows System Beep!

general, rant, software

Have you ever heard the annoying system beep that Windows will sometimes make? You know, the one that can’t be turned down through the volume control? (At least it doesn’t get quieter through the volume control on my laptop and install of Windows XP SP2) One example of where the sound will be generated when I make a mistake in MySQL such as trying to insert a row into a table and I forget a required column. For some reason on my Latitude D620 it is extremely loud.

I did a Google search and here is a list of how to turn it off. Follow this link.

It takes 13 steps to actually disable the beep. 13!!!!! Nice job, Microsoft.

Embarking On A New Adventure

general, work

On Monday I’m going to be starting at a new gig. The company is called TeeBeeDee. I just noticed they have a special invite-only signup right now. Before that it was just their logo. I can’t go into any real details right now but they’re really early stage and I like the energy I sensed when I interviewed there a few weeks back. Stack wise it’s a Java open source stack for the most part so it’s right up my alley as far as technical tools go.

Why did I leave NorthStar? I went to NorthStar about 19 months or so ago and it’s been pretty good. I’m not leaving because of the people or anything but rather I just kept feeling the pull to go back to a really early stage company. I like being there in the beginning and building the platform out. It’s why I came out to the Bay Area in first place. Now that Myleene’s job provides all the benefits I have the ability to take on more risk and hopefully the reward that can come with it.

Hopefully my new Thinkpad has been delivered by the time I start on Monday. I had the choice of laptops and went with the Thinkpad. I thought about getting PowerBook but both of the other guys have them and it’d probably help to have a Windows machine to help with platform testing. More than that, though, I’ll be much more productive in the short and medium term on Windows. The PowerBook was very compelling and I almost pulled the trigger on it. A Unix based OS with a really nice windowing system on top and then there is the 1″ thick machine itself with all the toys. What’s not to like?