from a Jumpcut press release

Jumpcut, the Internet’s first fully featured video editor (at www.jumpcut.com), today announced that it will power the first online movie trailer mashup contest to determine the best remix, remake, or recut of the film trailer for the upcoming Richard Linklater feature film, A Scanner Darkly, based on the novel by Philip K. Dick, which opens on Friday, July 7th, 2006. The winner will receive a trip for two to the film’s U.S. premiere and a Microsoft Windows professional video editing workstation. RES Magazine is sponsoring the contest with Warner Independent Pictures and Microsoft.

Contestants can use Jumpcut’s online video editor, or their own software, to submit entries. Information on how to submit entries, and the complete contest rules are available at scanner.res.com. The deadline for entries is June 7th, 2006. Winners will be announced by mid-June.

The film’s creative team will choose one winner and one runner-up, and Web site visitors will vote on an additional audience award. The Grand Prize winner will receive two tickets to the U.S. Premiere of A Scanner Darkly in Los Angeles, including roundtrip airfare, hotel, and transportation, and a Microsoft Windows 64-bit powered professional video editing workstation with Adobe Production Studio Premium featuring Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop and more. Runner-up and Audience Award winners will both receive XBOX360 video game consoles, Adobe Production Studio Standard software and an autographed A Scanner Darkly movie poster.

This morning left us one HVX200 and one FS-100 DTE heavier than yesterday. We’re eager to start using the two together, as the FS-100 is capable of recording up to 100Mbps HD video. Maybe we’ll just fill up the whole 100GB DTE drive with high definition slo-mo from the HVX200.

Both of these support DV video along with HD video, so we’ll see how easy it is to migrate between the two formats.

from an Octave Systems press release

Campbell, Calif. – Octave Systems, Inc., a leading technology innovator, recently introduced the Copy Master II Supreme Robotic to its line of high volume, competitively priced DVD/CD duplicators The Supreme offers all the exceptional abilities of the company’s renowned Copy Master II Robotic series, with the added benefit of a more modular design that will hold up to the pressures of a high volume, 24/7 commercial work environment.

The Copy Master II Supreme Robotic is an auto loading duplicator with a 1000 disc capacity and configurations of 4, 6, or 8 drives to maximize disc production. The stand-alone design requires no PC for operation, while improved, modular construction provides easy access for hardware upgrades or routine maintenance.

A Plextor 760A high speed DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW drive enables the Supreme to record to DVD-R, DVD-RW, +R and +RW discs with ease. It also works with dual layer discs, increasing the capacity of a disc from 4.7 to 8.5 gigabytes for even more storage space.

Multi-Master Recognition Technology (MMRT) enables the Supreme to load more than one master at once, to run multiple duplication jobs in succession, to process discs continuously without the need to load and reload, and even complete an overnight task unattended.

"When your business or organization requires the best in continuous duplication, the Copy Master II Supreme Robotic is the answer," said Paul Avery, marketing manager, Octave Systems. "This unit is the most robust in our line of auto loaders, and has been designed to perform under the most grueling, non-stop duplication conditions. With its more modular design, any upgrades, modifications, or repairs can be performed quickly and easily so that the unit is back in production with minimal downtime."

The Copy Master II Supreme Pro Robotic also features the largest buffer memory in the industry (128 MB); a 160 GB hard drive; auto DVD format conversion; password protection for different users; hard disk drive partition naming; multiple language displays; future drive upgrades; upgradeable DVD drive firmware; enhanced firmware in the controller that speeds duplication; and an auto counter that keeps running totals of successful copies. A revamped robotic arm and spindles that never need to be realigned ensures that the autoloader will provide years of faithful continuous operation.

Okay, who else out there is offering you this kind of deal? Really, let me know. We’ve put together 40 minutes of video, distributed over two vidcasts for you. It’ll all stream from the vidcast page too. Take it as a good way to see personalities behind the products, or just to get up to speed on what’s new. Part 1 includes interaction with fun robots, monorails and reps from Matrox, Zaxworks, Tapco, Petrol, Red Rock Micro and Apple. Part 2 will include interaction with SmartSound, Chimera, Sonic, Canon,Tiffen, and Videscence. The final section of each episode features Videomaker editors talking about the show.

Matt, Patrice and “Deen” the family terrier, were trimming a few over-grown trees last weekend when a bird nest plopped to the ground complete with 3 tiny newly hatched babes inside. Deen was intrigued, (and licking his chops,) and so Patrice whisked the birds, nest and all, out of harm’s reach and into protective custody.
The Yorks spent the next 12 hours first researching how to feed them, and then administering ½ hour feedings. On Monday, Patrice brought the birds to Videomaker where many of us contributed in the exhausting feeding duties, until we were able to finally find a wild bird specialist in the area to take over.
We were told that at this age their heads are so heavy and necks so small, they can only raise them for a few seconds at a time, but boy, can they screech during those 5-seconds!

True to baby bird nature, they took the startling changes to their life in stride, just raised they’re little heads once in a while and begged for nourishment. I’m thinking of naming them “Matt,” “Patrice” and “Deen.”  “”Deen” is the hungriest one, “Matt” the noisiest.  “Patrice” is patient and waits her turn.
Our wild bird expert said they were robins, and that they should be fine. We’ll keep you posted!

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