Archive for April, 2005

Not having read the books, partly because I can’t remember where I placed the eBook versions… I’d give the film an 8.8/10. Could’ve used more Zooey really. Quite liked Bill Nighy’s character. At any rate go see the film it’s worth watching. At the same time, I suggest you look for a couple snogging in front of you during the previews. This specific couple was most entertaining, they honestly could’ve booked a private room and private viewing or something, they most definitely could’ve used a pause button. Half-way through the previews before the film starts they’re just going at it. So much so you can hear them over the trailers. So what do you know the music kicks in for Episode III and they both just stop and turn and watch the trailer. Dom, Mike, and I just most definitely all started laughing our asses off internally at this point. I point it out to Mike who I’m sure already noticed anyway. The trailer ends, then no more than 10 seconds later the guy is brushing his face against hers and they start going at it again. Just as the movie is starting they get up, walk passed everyone in the packed aisle, then as soon as they hit the stairs they make a mad dash to the nearest dark corner for what I’m sure was probably a most entertaining movie, well for them at least. Sigh, I just don’t understand why anyone would pay $18 to see a film then walk out after 3 minutes.

Oh and I almost forgot. There’s one scene with Marvin all alone on the ice and there’s the nice scene in the background, I’d kill to have a flawless screenshot of that at 1920×1200. That would make one hell of a background.

I finally put up the 3rd Dell 2405FPW and decided now was a good time to take a photo of the set up. I’ve uploaded it to Sean’s Media Center Flickr Pool as I said I would. I decided I didn’t really like Flickr, even though the notes weren’t bad, but I think I could probably do the same with some DHTML and what not.

So yeah, it’s a massive set up, and it’s on a massive desk, and there’s a massive load of wires. Plus it’s all in my two bed room apartment’s living room. It’s only there now because Andy will be taking the extra room for a bit while he’s here on his internship. Plus side is that I’m right in the sweet spot for the 5.1 set up. Cable management will probably start once I manage to get some extra time, probably on Sunday sadly. Meanwhile I think it’s time for bed… The wonderful fire alarm last night totally messed up my sleeping pattern.

Basically the process is the same but I used a well known tool call BeSweet which also suggests BeSweet GUI. It takes the AC3 stream and in one process converts it into the 6 mono channel WAV’s which I can then process using Adobe Audition 1.5. Sadly I’ve not been able to get the DTS decoding to work using BeSweet though I should be able to. It’s much quicker than using Graph Edit since that produces a WAV file that does actually have 6 channels but you have to use the WAV2WAV6 to split the channels out into mono WAV’s. And like I said previously it mixes up the right and center channel which can be confusing at times.

Since I posted a DTS sample, here’s a nice AC3 sample.

Eric Clapton – Layla
Windows Media Audio 9.1 Professional
VBR Quality 75, 48 kHz, 5.1 channel 24 bit 1-pass VBR, 14.0MB

I’m not quite sure what provoked the desire to start converting random DTS and DVD audio CD’s to WMA Pro 5.1. I’m not even sure why anyone would really want to anyway. I mean it would be just as easy to copy the entire disc 1:1 than it would be to actually convert. I suppose there was a cool and wow factor involved. It probably started from the time I first found out about Pink Floyd – Money being released in WMA Pro 5.1. Sadly it was only for a very limited time, during which I was in England on dial-up and never noticed. I did finally get to hear it and plenty other 5.1 WMA tracks since coming to Redmond though and I’m just in love.

I try not to get into the entire stereo vs. 5.1, analog vs. digital, DD vs. DTS, and MP3 vs. WMA arguments. I just enjoy the music.

I’ve got a couple DTS and DVD audio CD’s which really do sound fantastic but sadly any time I want to listen to them I’ve got to pop the disc in and that means getting up and finding it. Plus in this form it’s not indexed, it’s not in WMP or MCE, and it’ll never get listened to regularly. To solve this I used a couple tools to backup and convert the 5.1 content to WMA 5.1.

I found one guide on the net along with some of the tools to do the process here. Granted some of it may be a bit shady but I just had to try and see if I could get a good quality 5.1 WMA out of it. The guide while extensive, missed the bits about converting from the 6 discrete mono WAV (channels) to a single WMA. To do this I used Adobe Audition 1.5 which has a great Multichannel Encoder (CTRL+E), you just add the 6 tracks to a multi-track session, pop up the encoder, set the channels correctly then encode. Sadly one tool which just refused to work for me during the night was the Windows Media Encoder, I’ve totally lost all faith in it.

Besides Audition a copy of InterVideo WinDVD 6 Platinum is also required. Along with DTSParser (questionable usage), Graph Edit (Microsoft no less…), WAV2WAV6, and DTS2WAV. Not to mention the two filters DTSSource.ax and WAVDest.ax. Putting everything together and after much frustration you should get something like…

The Eagles – Hotel California
Windows Media Audio 9.1 Professional
VBR Quality 75, 48 kHz, 5.1 channel 24 bit 1-pass VBR, 17.8MB

If you have a proper 5.1 set up hooked up to your computer and you’ve set the speaker settings to 5.1 by going to Control Panel then Sounds and Audio Devices then Advanced under Speaker settings, you should get the full surround sound experience. Otherwise WMP10 will auto down mix it to stereo… Then, well, I feel your pain. Regardless the quality is still there to enjoy.

Sean and I were discussing what’s behind this over lunch a little while back. Today he sent me the URL to the site. At first it didn’t register. Clicked. Wow. They’ve done it. I’m really excited about this one. Simply because of what it could mean for us a little while from now if all goes well and the ideas work.

Without going into any detail, I’ll just provide a hint. IDSA. Check it out, it’ll give you some ideas. Just keep an open mind.

It’s really nice to see some thinking going into doing something inspiring and sexy coming from the Microsoft corner. I just wish the video was in WMV HD for that extra hot factor. This is a perfect example of what the WMP10 WMV HD showcase videos and all future videos from MS should be like when it comes to marketing. The music is just awesome as well. I almost wish I had an entire full length album of it. Then again that might be pushing the geek factor too far.