We have high hopes for the Adobe Flash Player 10.1, now available in beta form for Windows, Mac and Linux. The new version is shaping up to be a winner in early testing; it appears to be vastly better about memory consumption and not putting my XP-based workstation’s CPU into a race condition (aka, “becoming a runaway process”). I’ll see how well it works on a 64-bit Win7 setup in a couple of hours.

AMD and NVIDIA have also both put out press releases indicating that a number of their graphics processors will play nice with Flash 10.1, which exploits both Stream and CUDA technology (respectively), and can also eke out a bit more video performance from Intel and Broadcom’s integrated chipsets as well.

Why care? Well, you have to use Flash for pretty much any web site you go to anymore, regardless of the scope of the web site. And Flash is the most popular way to show video online these days, and it’s not too hard to see why–it makes things simple. There’s no mucking through video codecs, because all of the necessary codecs for living in Flash-land are included in the Flash installer. And the codecs in question (Sorenson Spark, On2 VP6 and VP7) are all pretty good performers. And the paranoid (but nice) copyright cartel loves it because it’s relatively easy and pretty much seamless to the end-user to apply DRM to Flash video. (You didn’t really want to download that video, did you? You did? Oopsy.)

If you want to take the 10.1 plunge, Adobe’s release notes warn you to remove your existing Flash players before installing the Flash 10.1 beta. Let us know how your experience goes.

Next: waiting patiently for the 64-bit version of Flash to hit Windows…

As a tribute to vets everywhere on this Veterans Day, I thought I’d tell you about a video project that you can get involved in with very little effort.

From World War I to the current situation in the Middle East, many U.S. troops are out there with stories to tell of their experience on the battlefield. Some are stories of horrendous images and derring-do, others are stories of compassion or sorrow, while others are of more basic feelings of loneliness, hunger and fear. They all have stories, yet few actually tell their family and friends what they experienced, rather feeling it’s best left behind as they try to get on with their life. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes. We know. Web searching on TV has been around for a while. But not exactly in a way users have wanted it. Some call it “the last 10 feet”, bridging the internet from the computer to your TV in the living room.

The question has always been, how to get the internet to your TV in an easy, friendly and unobtrusive way. There have been huge boxes made just for that purpose, along with long download times, and some computers have the connectivity already in place, if you have to proper cables and your TV has the proper connection. However… these all proved too cumbersome for the average TV watcher and were received by the viewing audience in a less than enthusiastic manner.

Read the rest of this entry »

As I predicted, the larger part of our small-town lost power again last night in our first BIG storm of the season.

Not being able to use any electronics, instead relaxing in the semi-dark with candles and a roaring fire, sipping hot cocoa and roasting marshmallows made me realize that the Holidays (with a capital “H”!) are just around the corner.

So with the Holidays approaching,  you’re thinking you need a new camera to make sure you capture all the twinkle, sparkle, radiance and laughter during the over-commercialized season, right?

(Read our latest 2009 All Camcorder’s Buyer’s Guide here, that we just put online this morning, as an advancer for your early Holiday shopping pleasure!) Read the rest of this entry »

Part of my duty as Technical Editor here is wrangling the annual Best Products of the Year. Basically, any product that has passed through our doors is fair game, but the products must do what they do very well. It can get sticky from year to year and from category to category, but we always make it happen.

Nine of our 16-or-so categories have been chosen (no, I’m not telling you which ones.) In a break from years past, we are running the Best Products of the Year in the January issue this year. So think of it as a second holiday gift guide, if you will–we start with the camcorder buyer’s guide in December, and the Best Products story in January, combined with our first-ever pocket camcorder buyer’s guide (you know, those little cams that look like cell phones? Yeah, those. Generally speaking, the ones with fixed focus and no optical zoom that otherwise wouldn’t qualify to run in the full buyer’s guide.)

Anyway–back to writing copy. But we hope you enjoyed that little preview of what’s coming up. Stick with us in ‘10… we think you’ll like what you see. (And if you need to renew, give our friendly customer service reps a buzz at 1-800-284-3226!)

When someone new approaches me with a video project they’ve shot that they want me to gently critique I can always tell if that person has had any still photography training within just a few seconds. The first things skilled still photographers do is compose. They see the finished shot in their mind before they ever even put the camera to their eye. They instantly see the Rule of Thirds grid, or Divine Proportion, (also called Golden Rule), and they often say they “compose” shots everywhere they look, whether they are shooting or not. These are the people I call “The Eye”. They just have it, it’s in their brain, they “see” composition the way others see color.  Read the rest of this entry »