Pedagogical Posturing

I discovered that Windows will import videos from my camcorder as in .wmv format as well as .avi. This makes a big difference because one hour of mini-DV tape takes up about 2Gb in wmv format but about 14Gb in avi format (which is just too big), you’d need a Blu-ray disc to store it). Consequently, I’ve been choosing the wmv option every time I download from the camcorder to my computer via the Firewire cable.

I had taken a series of short clips when leaving Samosir island and decided to collect them into a composite video for posting on YouTube. I used Windows Movie Maker, added some text at the beginning, end and in between clips and compressed the five minute file to a little under 15Mb. This option provided a resolution of 384 x 288 with 13 frames per second which seemed adequate for YouTube. I’ve been maintaining an aspect ratio of 4:3 and avoiding the 16:9 option on the camcorder because our TV is still 4:3 as is YouTube.

After uploading and viewing the result, I was quite disappointed with the quality and wondered what had gone wrong. A little investigation led me to this site that offered a very simple solution to the problem. It was to simply add &fmt=18 to the YouTube video’s URL and it worked. The difference was dramatic. This little trick forces the video to be displayed at a higher resolution with an option to view it at the standard resolution appearing below the video.

I then visited this site which contains the above trick and many others. I’m working through the information on the site and it’s apparent that there’s a lot to consider but for the time being I’m very happy with my new little trick and the revised URL (with the &fmt=18 added) is what you send to friends and it is what you use when embedding your video in a blog.

Here’s the lower quality video and here’s the higher quality video. Can you spot the difference?

On a final note, I must remark that I’ve been unable to access Edublogs for about 24 hours. I had no problem with any other site, only this one, and if it happens again I’ll be leaving Edublogs for good. There’s plenty of other free blog hosting sites out there that provide reliable access.

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In my university days, HD stood for High Distinction but nowadays it’s come to be associated with High Definition and it is the direction is which technological devices such as digital cameras, camcorders and televisions are all heading. Below is a shot of a newly released HD Sony digital camera.

The number that can be seen on the casing, 1080, is intimately associated with High Definition images and displays and refers to a resolution of 1920 x 1080. Because the aspect ratio of HD displays and images is set at 16:9, the number 1920 can be derived by multiplying 1080 by 16/9. The images taken with this Sony camera are ideal for display on a High Definition Television (HDTV).

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My implementation of Ubuntu 8.04 on my Toshiba Satellite laptop has been trouble-free. On startup, I get the opportunity to boot to Ubuntu (the default) or Windows Vista. The Ubuntu startup is much faster than the Windows and is the ideal solution if I’m mainly wanting to connect to the Internet and don’t have any Windows-specific things to do. It’s the best of both worlds.

The only glitch has been that the drivers for making use of the graphics card (a Mobility Radeon X1600) were missing and so I couldn’t make use of the cool visual specific effects. However, I located the right package on the Internet (xorg-driver-fglrx) and used the Synaptic Package Manager to download and install it. Even after rebooting the system however, I still had to go to Hardware Drivers (under Administration) and check a box to activate the driver (it doesn’t happen by default). The following message also appears:

Proprietary drivers do not have public source code that Ubuntu developers are free to modify. They represent a risk to you because they are only available on the types of computer chosen by the manufacturer, and security updates to them depend solely on the responsiveness of the manufacturer. Ubuntu cannot fix or improve these drivers.

So be it. The driver by the way comes from that champion of proprietary software, namely Microsoft Corp., which is not surprising given that Toshiba and Microsoft are in alliance. They have an agreement that some version of Microsoft Windows will be installed on a Toshiba laptop whether the user wants it or not. I’ve yet to test out the Bluetooth capabilities and so I’m currently downloading what’s called Kinputwizard, that has a five star rating and is promoted as “the KDE Bluetooth Framework that provides several easy tools to be used with Bluetooth devices”. I’ll report on the success, or failure, of the software in a moment as I try to connect my Nokia N73 to it … update … well, the immediate result is failure, but I may need to reboot the laptop so I’ll postpone judgement for the moment. I ‘m happy enough that the visual effects have been enabled.

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My Firewire adventure had a happy ending after I bought another cable for Rp100,000 from another shop. Later I found a cheaper cable in Gramedia for Rp89,000 but no matter, all I hoped for was that it would work and it did. The lesson learned was that all cables are not created equal and the Rp25,000 cable that I originally bought, even though it looked identical to my more expensive one, simply didn’t work. While I was purchasing my new cable, I noticed that the shop was also offering MEMORY STICK PRO Duo 2Gb for Rp185,000, whereas a couple of days earlier I’d purchased a similar product for more than twice that. When I queried the price, the salesgirl said that it wasn’t genuine but a copy. My eyes have certainly been opened to the dark recesses of the computer accessories world where anything that can be copied is and it’s difficult to tell the real from the imitation.

With my new cable, the wrapping was moulded plastic and there was a cardboard backing that announced among other things: Idol Data Cable – Ultra Hi-Speed Connection Japan. By contrast, my original cable came simply in a cheap, clear plastic bag. So I guess the packaging is a clue, even though this could be easily replicated. In my case, it was the price that aroused my suspicions and so this is another clue, although once again it would be easy to offer the product at a more credible price. I’ll certainly be ultra-cautious in future when purchasing computer accessories.

Having succeeded in connecting the camcorder to my laptop, the videos downloaded without difficulty in .avi format at a resolution of 720 x 576 which is far from high resolution but even at this resolution a 4min23sec clip occupied 938Mb of hard disk storage space. I guess that a high resolution (1920 x 1080) video of similar length would occupy 5 times that amount because there are 5 times as many pixels. That’s where terabyte hard drives that come as an option with the iMac are going to be more in demand and why processors with grunt will be needed to handle multimedia data for the forseeable future. With current Internet speeds, there is no way that gigabytes of data can be uploaded. The data needs to be edited to a manageable size on a laptop or desktop PC and then uploaded to the Internet. My new foray into video editing also gives me the opportunity to investigate the intricacies of the various file formats (avi versus mpeg for example) but I’ll leave that to a future post.

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All my experimentation with Ubuntu has largely taken place on a fairly old PC. I’ve run Ubuntu on virtual machines using Microsoft’s Virtual PC and VMWare but the only physical implementation has taken place on a PC with an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ CPU and an Asus A7V8X motherboard with 512Mb of RAM. The CPU clock speed is 1.53Ghz which makes it about equal to a 2.0Ghz Pentium IV. The graphics card that I’m using the most modern feature: an nVidia FX 5500 256Mb AGP 8x TV-DVI. Ubuntu has a Sytem Monitor that allows you to look at the CPU usage in real time.

I activated this while running a YouTube video in Firefox. Even with no other applications running, the processing of this flash video utilised about 75% of the CPU’s resources. When I tried to two flash videos simultaneously, the system crashed almost instantly. Subsequent testing with just one window open in Firefox and one flash video running caused the browser to crash but not the system (which is what normally happens). Before the crash however, there were many spikes in the visual display that touched or almost touched the 100% ceiling, even though the maximum stated usage was 95%. I think what’s happening is that the CPU is simply being overtaxed and in turn this caused either the browser or system to crash. This is not an original idea and I’d seen it stated in one of the help forums but only tested the idea out recently. It may well be that there is nothing inherently unstable about Firefox and Flash running in Ubuntu, instead the instability is caused by the limitations of the hardware.

I’ve taken a bold step and installed Ubuntu on my Toshiba laptop, while still retaining my Windows Vista Business Edition. I’ve created a dual boot system and am currently experimenting with Ubuntu in this new environment. With the dual core processor that I have, the average CPU utilisation is about 25% for each core although when the video first started up there a single spike to 100% in one of the cores but the other core remained at about 50%. So far no crashes but I’ll keep testing and if the system holds up then the previously stated theory is very likely true and if I’m to ever have any peace on my other desktop computer, then I’ll need to upgrade the CPU and motherboard. Of course that will mean new, compatible RAM but Ubuntu is not very demanding in terms of memory use. With nothing running on my PC, it uses around 194Mb of the 512Mb available. That rises to 230Mb when Firefox is opened and so swap file is being used. It would seem likely that Ubuntu would run with just 256Mb of dedicated RAM available to it.

Getting back to my old Athlon XP 1800+, it was first released on October 9th, 2001, and boasted 256Kb of L2 cache. By contrast my current 2Ghz T7200 Intel Core2 CPU has a 4Mb L2 cache. If Firefox and Flash hold up under new configuration then I’ll probably upgrade the old desktop but not right now.

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My Internet search for problems with Sony’s i.link connection quickly yielded results. Here is what one dissatisfied customer had to say:

BETTER LISTEN UP. I believe that Sony has a defect with the i-link firewire output port. One day I connected my camcorder to my PC and there it was, no device present (like the camcorder was DEAD and not even plugged in). Now I’ve always connected before and Windows always made that funny little new device sound, you know the one I mean? If you are having the same problem, this is no coincidence. Better listen up if your camcorders i-link still works. Before you connect your i-link, make sure the PC and Camcorder are OFF! Turn on the PC and then turn on the camcorder after windows has completed booted. NEVER HOT SWAP THE FIREWIRE CABLE. Doing so may cause you to blow out the i-link port in the camcorder like mine (although I cannot be 100% certain that hot swapping is the cause, it’s the only logical suspect I can conclude to. I mean really, how do you wear out an i-Link port, but that’s what Sony told me “maybe they’re all worn out.” Hello, I thing they’re calling us stupid.). I’ve read a lot of articles about this kind of connection complaint and have concluded the above to the best of my understanding. I’ve even done a full Firewire PCI Card change out in the PC with a new cable to which produced no change. I’m pretty savvy with electronics and hardware so I doubt that you or me are doing anything wrong, especially since the camcorders all worked perfectly last time we connected them. Ironically, I’ve burned up THREE very expensive Sony Digital8 i-Link ports doing hot swapping. Everything else on all camcorders work fine. The composite and S outputs still work just as they always have. Only the i-link blows. I called Sony, got no help except their offers to repair the units at $350.00 each. OUCH! They, I believe, are holding out on a problem they know full well about and are willing that we suffer. However, I would guess that only 1 in 10 people actually ever use the i-link, and likely not too often at that. Sony may not be too concerned about blowing off the few that use the i-link on a fairly regular basis; we’re the small guys, easy to kick in the head. On a second note, I’ve discovered that it may be safer to use a 4-4 firewire cable. I know many PCs have only that fat 6 pin port, but be careful using the 6-4 cable. I understand the six connector port has 12v DC so the problem may be more prone in this circumstance (doesn’t seem logical, but I don’t have a 100% cause)

Whether I’ve blown the i.link port on the camcorder, I don’t know but I doubt it. It simply never worked in the first place. If the connection from the camcorder to the computer doesn’t work, then the device is basically useless to me. The tapes are of course viewable if the camcorder is plugged into the television set but there’s no possibility of video editing on a laptop. I think I’ve been duped again. Just as well I didn’t buy the really expensive model. I really need to try another cable first I guess. I notice the going price for the 4-pin IEEE1394 cable is US$7.95 which is Rp74,000, decidedly more expensive than the Rp25,000 cable that I bought. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that there is a happy resolution to all of this but I’ve already got a bad feeling.

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I’ve finally returned to the world of camcorders after leaving it in the mid-90s. Back then, I had a fairly bulky analogue video camera, a relic from the 1980s, but it worked well enough and recorded onto VCR tapes that could be viewed on the television. There was no question of moving video footage to a computer, at least not for me. In fact, I didn’t even own a computer till 1995 and I doubt whether the Pentium-90 that I had would have been capable of processing analogue output from the camera. It was so bulky that I left the camera behind when I moved to Singapore in January 1996 and that was my last sustained contact with video cameras.

Digital video took over in the 21st century of course and over the past few years, I’ve certainly downloaded and edited digital videos taken with camera phones and digital cameras. I’d always felt that the 30fps 640×480 MPEG video taken with my Sony DSC-W1 digital camera (a bit of a dinosaur now at 5.1 megapixels) was good enough for short clips. However, pressure to record longer family events eventually led me to consider the purchase of a camcorder. What to buy? My investigations revealed three basic categories, defined in terms of the mode of data storage. These were mini-DV (digital audio tape), hard disk and DVD. I was dubious about the idea of a hard disk in a camcorder. I just imagined the recording heads crashing into the disk and rendering the whole device useless. I’d read that the DVD recordings were difficult to edit but ideal for playing back on a computer or DVD player. In the end I decided on the oldest standard of all, the mini-DV, that is not all that different from the first camcorder that I had except that the tapes are a lot smaller and the data is recorded in digital and not analogue form.

Once the mini-DV was decided upoon, there was the issue of what model and specifications. I inclined toward Sony from the beginning because my old digital camera had served me well and I opted for a single CCD (Charge Coupled Device) with a resolution of 1 megapixel. Of course, there are Sony models with 3 CCDs and 4 megapixel resolution that provide high definition output but I didn’t want to spend too much money and besides, we don’t have a HD television set at the moment. The DCR-HC62E was an economical choice coming in at Rp4,175,00 or about US$450 and it was getting very good reviews. This price by the way was through www.glodokshop.com, an Internet-based company here in Jakarta. The AGIS store in Pondok Indah Mall was wanting Rp4,999,000.

On arrival, the device was easy to use, producing clear video output to the television and also taking 1 megapixel (1152 x 864) still shots through the Memory Stick Duo card (I needed to purchase a 2Gb card separately at the local computer store). The problem came when I wanted to transfer the video to my laptop. I’d assumed that the supplied USB cable could be used to transfer the video but as I discovered this was intended to transfer the still images only. For video transfer, an i.link cable is required and this is not supplied of course. The name that Sony uses is a bit confusing because what Sony calls i.link is called Firewire by Apple and DV by camcorder manufacturers. All of these however, refer to the same IEEE1394 interface standard.

In fact there are two commonly used standards: one is IEEE1394a and the other is IEEE1394b. To explain the difference, I’ll quote from an external source:

Firewire 400 | 1394a
Also called i.link or DV, you get almost 400mbps as a top speed, but cable lengths are limited to about 15 feet. There are two connectors, a small 4-pin and a larger 6-pin connector. The 4-pin does not have power connections, so peripherals cannot be cable-powered, they must have their own power supply.

Firewire 800 | 1394b
Firewire 800 operates at a maximum of almost 800Mbps (100MBps!) and uses a 9-pin Connector. Cable lengths can be much longer than Firewire 400 (IEEE1394a) and Fiber Optic systems can run up to 100 meters.

So the i.link cable is an optional extra. No problem I thought, a trip to the local computer store should solve the problem. I was quickly shown a 4-pin Firewire cable that looked like it would do the trick. I bought it and took it home. However, I was disturbed by the price of Rp25,000 that I paid because I thought if the cable is that cheap, why didn’t Sony just throw it in with the other bundled accessories. My misgivings were confirmed when I got it home. Sure enough the software that Sony supplied for the laptop didn’t recognise the cable. I was disappointed but next day I confidently set out to the Sony Centre at Pondok Indah Mall. When I arrived, there was a space where the cables used to be but that space was empty and there was no telling when the space might get filled up again. A search of other stores in the mall proved fruitless. So the magic cable still eludes me but the search continues. Stay tuned.

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Yep, Flash and Firefox in Ubuntu are a toxic combination. Earlier this evening I was on my Ubuntu PC and visiting an online quiz-making site called MyStudiyo, which has a lot of interactive flash content. It was a disaster.  Crash, restart browser, crash etc. I’ve now withdrawn to my trusty Windows Vista laptop in despair. The alternative browser, Epiphany, was just as useless in dealing with flash content and I’m still uncertain what to do but I guess I should post a plea for help on one of the Ubuntu forums and see if there is a savior out there.

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No, I haven’t had an epiphany but I am using a web browser called Epiphany. I’ve done this in response to the repeated crashes of Firefox in versions 2 and beta 3 while running Ubuntu 8.04. The download of the browser was simple enough using the Add/Remove software feature in Ubuntu but that was the last I saw of the browser. There was no sign of Epiphany under Applications, where it should have appeared after installation, but I searched for and found it easily enough. Strange indeed but now that it’s up and running I’ll keep using for a while to test its stability. Of course, by not using Firefox, I don’t have access to Adblock Plus and Downloader Helper, both of which I find quite useful. However, I don’t intend to give up on Firefox, even though it certainly has major problems. I guess I can search for potential solutions using Epiphany. Because of the restore feature, it’s easy enough to pick up where you left off after Firefox crashes but still I find it unsettling to have the entire browser with all the open tabs suddenly disappear into a singularity and for no apparent reason.

PS: I’m back on my trusty laptop running Windows Vista because a little while after finishing the previous part section of this post and uploading it, everything froze: browser and operating system. I walked away. Here, on this laptop, I know I can blog away, download flash videos and do virtually anything I please and there won’t be a browser crash, a system freeze, a glitch or a problem of any sort. I can simply get on with things and be productive. Despite my dislike of Microsoft and my enthusiasm for open source software, I’d have to advise most people to stay away from Ubuntu, especially if they spend a lot of time on the Internet. For the moment, open source software running under Windows or Mac OS seems to be the way to go.

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The penny has finally dropped. All my software updates for Ubuntu have been coming from an Indonesian server, not the main server. My problems with the NVidia driver derived from the fact the driver was simply not on the Indonesian server. When I accessed the main server, the driver downloaded without any problem and after a reboot, I am able to activate all the visual features of the operating system. Because I reside in Indonesia, the default Indonesian server is used and to change this you need to go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources and reset it to the main server. It’s a tragedy that a country like Indonesia that desperately needs free software is not leading the world in promoting Linux but I don’t want to go into the politics of this in this blog. I’ve discussed this matter elsewhere.

I’ve also managed to download Tux Paint, a simple but entertaining graphics program for children. I wasn’t able to download that from the Indonesian server either but succeeded when I changed preferences. I’ve played around with it and it will certainly keep my five year old grand-daughter entertained. I’ll set her loose on it over the weekend.

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