Thunderbolt Raceway HPDE

just finished the HPDE (High Performance Drivers Education) at the NJ Motorsports Park Thunderbolt course, with the BMW Club. It was an eye opener.

Some photos...

A Blockbuster Riesling

I just had a mind-blowing delicious Alsatian Riesling: 2005 Marc Kreydenweiss's Alsace Riesland from Wiebelberg. A "fresh style" riesling had complexity and balance with spice (nutmeg)/butterscoth and plesantly oily viscousness. The spicyness reminded me of the Tiffenbruner Feldmarshall Muller Thurgau from Alto Adige.

It was $95 at The Modern restaurant at the MOMA. A great deal for a phenomenal wine.

First Impressions of the HF10

As usual, I dont' have much time for blogging, but I wanted to give a quick first impression of the HF10

• Image quality is stunning when compared to a standard camcorder. Requires good light. Low light, like dimly lit restaurants, indoors with only a lamp or two, the quality gets grainy/noisy. Apparently, this is largely true for any camcorder.
• It only saves to flash memory, and that's OK. It has internal memory and a SD card slot. I like being able to specify the SD card for photos, and using the 16 gig internal memory for videos
• The internal memory holds 2 hrs of highest quality video. Plenty for me.
• Transferring from internal memory is a slight pain. It requires the charger to be plugged in for USB mode, so if your charger is somewhere else, then you have to get it. I actually think an SD card would be much easier.
• Very small for a camcorder. I was surprised and impressed. Its easy to carry around. With such a small form factor, its hard to keep it steady, as with any small camcorder.
• Battery life isn't great. I haven't tested its limits, but it tells me i has about 75 min max. Since once isn't always shooting during those 75 min, the battery will be the limiting factor, not the internal memory.
  
• Accessories: An extra battery pack may be necessary. I may try the external hotshoe mike for close to $200, but not right away.
• Sharing the HD video will be difficult. Files sizes are massive. Compatiblity will be challenging. Downconverted to standard DVD for DVD players, AVCHD format on DVD to play on computers only. Blu-ray authoring using a good editing suite and buying a blu-ray burner.
  
• Included with the camera is Pixela Imagemaster software. I haven't use it much yet.
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Now, I'm fully 1920 x 1080. Whew!

It took awhile, but I'm finally there. 1920x1080. What does that mean? It means my Computer (incl. monitor), Plasma TV, Blu-ray disc and Video Camcorder are all what they call "Full HD."

How long has this taken? It seems like forever when looking back at the first murmurs of the new TV format called high def in what, the early 1990's? Affordable HD camcorders were the last piece of the puzzle, having come along in the last year-ish. Big, reasonably affordable HD tv's have only been around for the past two. Ditto for HD discs. Computers with the power to edit the new codecs, say 2 yrs also.

If I've got this equipment, you know that we as a culture have passed the point of inflexion. Because I'm not an 'early adopter', nor a 'laggard.' I jump on the bus when the price curve starts to flatten, and the standard appears in the distance, not a moment later.

Attention: We are now living in the HD World, and are never going back. We won't miss the SD world, though, it will probably be increasingly our visual code for nostalgia and history. So be it.

Well, I changed my mind. I bought the HF10 Why?

In an earlier post I proclaimed that I would be buying the HV30, even though the HF10 was, as I said, the one to get. Well, here's why I rethought that conclusion:

1) This baby is much smaller than the HV30. I didn't realize until I saw it in person and held it in my hand. The size difference (convenience) is significant. The smaller it is, the more likely I'll take it with me.

2) Though the "instant" backup inherent in a tape-based unit is convenient, it doesn't solve my backup problems for my digital photos and other random stuff. I accepted that I will have to have a digital backup strategy for those, and if so, I can incorporate the (significantly increased) requirements of digital video, too.

3) The picture quality is very, very close to the HDV format of the HV30 according to several reviewers. (Camcorder Info, Cnet)

4) The convenience of flash memory was getting more and more appealing over time.

5) I'm not worried about the editing issues of AVCHD format. It is truly the wave of the future. Editing programs will support it in the future, some do right now. And I have a Q6700-based PC, so I should (knock on wood) have enough horsepower to handle it. We'll see.

6) Front/Bottom mounted mikes. I'm starting to get a clue that sound quality is important to video. I may buy the $200 Canon directional mike, but I'll have to see if it is truly worth the money and hassle of shelppping it along.

I also made a choice between the HF10 and HF100, the latter offering no internal memory, a silver color, but being $160 cheaper. The internal memory was a nice feature (faster data transfer rate allow up to 1/2000 shutter speed vs 1/500 with the SDHC card). In the end 16GB of memory would cost around $80, so I paid $80 for black and the higher available shutter speed. In the end I really wanted black. Why? I want the camera to be as inconspicuous as possible. I believe this makes for less "self conscious" subjects.

I paid $860 plus $12 shipping and $20 for a modest Lowepro case, and no tax, shipped to my home in NJ, from B&H. This all in price was better than Costco or Amazon.

There! I fessed up!

Value wine of the month!

Each white wine drinking season, I find a wild hit in the value category. It must be cheap and it must be great. Last year it was the Thirsty Lizard Semillon/Sauvignon Blanc.

This year it just might be one of the whites from Indaba in South Africa.


I've only tried the Chard, but its pretty darn good, and not at all like generic Cali Chards.

More later!

I Watch My Computer Videos and Photos on my Plasma TV

How?

I use my Playstation 3 as a TV network adapter, if that's what it is called. Its more like a TV linked mini-computer. Anyway, I need two things to achieve this. A network (wireless or wired) and this incredible software called TVersity.

What is TVersity? Software that you run on your main computer that streams media to devices on your home network. I believe it is similar to Windows (Vista) Media Center ("WMC"). But WMC doesn't support the PS3 (Boo!) So TVersity is the way to go if you are a PS3 Blu-ray guy, like me.

Its this similar to an Apple TV? It appears so, though the Apple TV doesn't play games or Blu-ray disks, and TVersity has no on-demand movies. I would bet money that the Apple TV interface is better.

That said, the PS3 is an incredible value, combining a 1) top notch Blu-ray player, 2)'TV network adaptor' functions, 3) current generation game console, and 4) distributed computing node

If only WMC would support the PS3, I wouldn't have to deal with learning TVersity, which, now that we are on the subject, is time consuming to learn.