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Acid Pro is the Windows equivalent of Garageband. In fact some of the guys who wrote Acid worked on Garabgeband for Apple.

Brian "Head" Welch" (the ex-Korn guitarist who found Jesus) allegedly recorded his new album entirely in GarageBand. Maybe he will release his stuff too, being that's the Christian thing to do and all.

" Apple is able to leverage a huge catalog of artists and genres"

And Sony owns a movie studio!! What possible excuse could they have to NOT have a shitton of movies, popular and not?

If 57% of Amazon's sales come from books you can't buy at B&N, what on Earth makes you think that most of ITMS's sales come from popular music? Can you cite anything on that at all?

Sony's Sound Forge has a filter called Wave Hammer which will bring up the soft spots. Note: Wave Hammer does not come with the studio version.

And "Star Ship Troopers" still gives me nightmares about the terible bastardization they did with it.

Have you seen the sequel?

1. If you haven't already bought the board and can afford it, get an Intel system instead. They're faster for doing video encoding.
2. Unless you're overly political about software, I'd say forget doing it under Linux and do it under Windows. Windows editing software works out of the box, saving you having to do lots of tweakage.
3. Software-wise, if you have a few beans, Sony Vegas is a really good balance between phenominally easy to use and high power. Buy the DVD-Architect bundle, because then you get an AC-3 encoder basically for free.

XBoxes outselling PS2s? Hmmm, it couldn't be because the PS2 installed base is so large that there aren't many more people to sell to.

XBox 2 before PS3? Clearly the PS3 is doomed, just like the Sega Dreamcast doomed the PS2.

The iPod is killing the Walkman? A clear sign of doom. Hey, I heard that the iPod is also killing 8-tracks! The end of the world is nigh!

And of course, the PSP's failure is the key. Sure, Sony has managed to exist all of these years without a portable system, yet suddenly it's absolutely critical and proof that they're doomed.

We'll see where we are in a year or two, but I'm confident that Sony will be alive and well. Sony will remain profitable. In a worst realistic case scenario Sony might fall to second place in total installed base, but even then it would be a close race.

I wonder if the remake was inspired by Wee-Man on Jackass? Or are screenwriters just running out of good ideas?

Look at DVD-A and SACD as another exampe of this argument.

Check out CD vs. SACD vs. DVD-A

HD-DVD on it's own would probably have sufficient bandwidth for an HD movie, but take the space off for the ordinarry DVD layer and you just have to reduce the transfer quality to fit it all on. I guess this will be the Superbit equivalent of DVD.

If your a Home Theatre geek link me you want the best transfer possible. Unfortunatleley the mass market wins.

I've seen some demo's of Vegas working with some of the under $5k prosumer HD cams and it is amazing.

This was originally made by Sonic Foundry (of Soundforge fame) but the company was bougt by Sony a year or two ago. Surprisingly they have not appears to break this family of tools.

Ah, so you see guys like this only in computer games like CS?

I don't see where the game comes in. If one wants to play the blamegame, why not blame a movie or a book, for instance?

On the July 13th show, Ken said that he and his wife made flashcards for drinks just for the potent potables category.

More info here (Jeopardy forums)

Combustion is the desktop offering from discreet, the folks who make the ultra-expensive Flame and Inferno compositing systems. Same mind-blowing color corrector. Node-based compositing without the price point of Fusion or Shake.

Cleaner is another discreet product (bought out from someone else), but the previous poster made an excellent case for some alternatives.

Can you imagine what they will do given the ability to fly?

You could do this with a script in Sony Vegas http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/sho wproduct.asp?pid=914. You could use VB.NET or JavaScript to write a script that loaded your long MP3 on the timeline, diced it up into shorter samples, and rendered back out. You could also apply normalization or companding filters along the way, and even include video showing the time-of-day or whatever.

Was it Vannevar Bsuh who said that computers would be as big as the Empire State Building and need to be cooled by the water flow of Niagria Falls?

Let's Google and find out!

WikiPedia sez: : "Vannevar Bush has an unfortunate eponym: vannevar [1] owing to his habit of overestimating technological challenges. He asserted that a nuclear weapon could not be made small enough to fit in the nose of a missile as in an ICBM. He also predicted "electronic brains" the size of the Empire State Building with a Niagara Falls-scale cooling system."

And he was a Scientist who should have known better, partiularly the comment about computers. The folks at Bell Labs had demonstrated the transistor previously to Bush's statement. The implications of the transistor were well known in the scientific community at the time.

I guess Bush missed that memo from the Terran Science Council.

Scientists are proved wrong every day. That's how science works.

And as for 'office' politics, well, we all of us know how absolutely apolitical scientists are, solely devoting all their scientific energies to making new discoveries in the Field of Science! (Gratuitous reference to The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra . Collect 'em all!)

Same-old microsoft play. Take the idea someone else creates and call it innovation when you include it in the OS that 95% of PCs use.

Apple "stole" Acid's Lead Developer for Soundtrack and GarageBand (which is, as a result, *extremely* similar).

And have you already forgotten that Watson and Konfabulator (regardless of Mac zealot's wishes) were basically stolen from their authors without permission or compensation. Yes, yes, I know, Sherlock already could search, so exactly duplicating Watson's functionality is just a logical extension of that, and Apple has prior art on widgets with their Sticky Notes and Calculator. Yeah. Right.

But the threads on Konfabulator and Watson were largely apologetic and supportive of Apple, while I highly doubt MS will get any support for displaying the exact same behavior.

Spider-Man 2 showtimes

Spider-Man 2 on-set photos

Spider-Man 2 filming pics from lower Manhattan

Official site for Spider-Man 2, opening June 30, 2004.

Spider-Man 2 politics

That said, I saw Ghost in the Shell 1 and never was as bored in all my life. Sure the animation is good and the visuals are atmospheric, but the English dialogue was bordering on the hypnotic. Big overlong monologues that go on and on and on..... zzzzzz. And I got halfway through the film and still hadn't figured out what the hell they meant by a 'ghost.' I kept asking, 'okay, ghosts are an important part of all of this, I get it, now will you kindly tell us what the f@*# a ghost is please?' But no. Just more pseudo-intellectual waffle.

I strongly warn against anyone watching this stuff if you want to get into anime for the first time. This yawn-fest is not representative of anime. Watch Cowboy Bebop instead. It's a lot more fun, the animated cityscapes are stunning, and it doesn't take itself very seriously.

Why go through all this? Do it the old school way.
You get force aspi, you get Audiocatalyst or Audiograbber, you rip your CD, and you burn a new one DRM free, or you encode it straight to MP3's.
Done! You have a CD that can be replicated indefinitely.

You may have to use Sound Forge or your favorite sound editing app to remove any DRM induced pauses/noise, but that's rare.

I'm gonna go put on my tin foil hat now...

I wonder what particular anti-Apple axe the slashdotters will have to grind today. Surely this can't be good news!

Just check this site tomorrow. The axe is getting ready to fall already...

Gee, none of this has ever been done before... I'm CERTAIN Apple didn't bump this announcement early to deflate the rumored debut of Vegas 5 tomorrow. What have they to fear? {/sarcasm}

Gee, none of this has ever been done before... I'm CERTAIN Apple didn't bump this announcement early to deflate the rumored debut of Vegas 5 tomorrow. What have they to fear? {/sarcasm}

Ah, nice. This is much better than the old trailer ("teaser trailer") I saw a couple of months ago that started off with Peter and Mary-Jane in a diner with a car crashing in. Although that one isn't bad at all. Check out the movie's website and click on "watch it now" under the Full Length Trailer section to see the original teaser and some other stuff as well.

What is the best software to use to create such a beast on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems?

For audio CDs, SoundForge formerly of Sonic Foundry, and now owned by Sony Pictures seems to be the industry favorite, and is generally considered the best multi-track audio sequencer around. Here is a review. You will also need Roxio or some other CD burning software to create the CD.

And conversely, has anyone used any of the music software on these platforms to actually analyze the contents of commercial subliminal CDs?

For that, you need some sampling software and some oscilloscope software. Talk to the DJ at your local club (the kind who has two decks and a microphone and a laptop). Your local DJ should be able to sample and analyze the CD for you, although it's not all that usefull... Audio signals layers get flattened to a single layer when burned to a CD, and it's difficult to separate the layers afterwords. That being said, we often times just used WinAmp to analyze audio signals. When analyzing audio spectrum, we would often run it through a video oscilloscope... Personally, I like to use G-Force as it's easy on the eyes and can analyze amplitude, frequency, and phase, at the same time. There are some software packages which people have written to try to seperate a flattened audio feed into seperate channels, although they usually don't work well (i.e. most of them are crap).

One common method of creating a "hidden message" is to write a short track and layer it inside the base by decreasing it's frequency and putting it below normal speaking range, down in the base range, with the drum beat. You can also take a message and put a white-noise mask over it, although signal loss is obviously a problem with that method. Obviously, you can also distort a message's temporal length, and make it veeerrrryyy sssllllloooowwww or vry fst. And you can also phase shift it, although that gets kinda weird.

A really good method for creating a good subliminal message, however, is to use symbolic messaging rather than embedded messaging. Basically, you separate your message into "chunks", and divide the chunks between different layers. As a somewhat silly example, which illustrates how this works, imagine that my subliminal message was "Impeach Bush". I would then chunk the message into "Impeach" and "Bush" obviously... Then I would sample two music clips, such as some dude saying the words "bush & beaver" and some chick singing the words "I'm just a wild peach". I'd loop the guy's sample to create one of those kinda annoying euro dance beats, and use the chick's sample as part of the refrain. If the refrain was sung three times throughout the song, and the last line to the refrain was "I'm just a wild peach", there would be three subliminal messages in the song, as the words transitioned from the girl saying "wild peach" to the guy saying "bush and beaver"... With the end effect of three subliminal messages in the CD approximating the impression "Impeach Bush".

By the way, there are a lot of twits on the slashdot forum today who are posting stuff like "subliminal messages are bullshit" and "subliminal messages don't work". I used to work at the National Opinion Research Center which is a demographics research center, and monitored things like commercials and subliminal messages. That was part of my job. Granted, we tended to concentrate on visual feeds, rather than auditory feeds. However, I can guarantee you that subliminal messages are extinsively used in communications. Often times, people create a subliminal message without even realizing it. Other times, they are sneakier and craft

What is the best software to use to create such a beast on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems?

For audio CDs, SoundForge formerly of Sonic Foundry, and now owned by Sony Pictures seems to be the industry favorite, and is generally considered the best multi-track audio sequencer around. Here is a review. You will also need Roxio or some other CD burning software to create the CD.

And conversely, has anyone used any of the music software on these platforms to actually analyze the contents of commercial subliminal CDs?

For that, you need some sampling software and some oscilloscope software. Talk to the DJ at your local club (the kind who has two decks and a microphone and a laptop). Your local DJ should be able to sample and analyze the CD for you, although it's not all that usefull... Audio signals layers get flattened to a single layer when burned to a CD, and it's difficult to separate the layers afterwords. That being said, we often times just used WinAmp to analyze audio signals. When analyzing audio spectrum, we would often run it through a video oscilloscope... Personally, I like to use G-Force as it's easy on the eyes and can analyze amplitude, frequency, and phase, at the same time. There are some software packages which people have written to try to seperate a flattened audio feed into seperate channels, although they usually don't work well (i.e. most of them are crap).

One common method of creating a "hidden message" is to write a short track and layer it inside the base by decreasing it's frequency and putting it below normal speaking range, down in the base range, with the drum beat. You can also take a message and put a white-noise mask over it, although signal loss is obviously a problem with that method. Obviously, you can also distort a message's temporal length, and make it veeerrrryyy sssllllloooowwww or vry fst. And you can also phase shift it, although that gets kinda weird.

A really good method for creating a good subliminal message, however, is to use symbolic messaging rather than embedded messaging. Basically, you separate your message into "chunks", and divide the chunks between different layers. As a somewhat silly example, which illustrates how this works, imagine that my subliminal message was "Impeach Bush". I would then chunk the message into "Impeach" and "Bush" obviously... Then I would sample two music clips, such as some dude saying the words "bush & beaver" and some chick singing the words "I'm just a wild peach". I'd loop the guy's sample to create one of those kinda annoying euro dance beats, and use the chick's sample as part of the refrain. If the refrain was sung three times throughout the song, and the last line to the refrain was "I'm just a wild peach", there would be three subliminal messages in the song, as the words transitioned from the girl saying "wild peach" to the guy saying "bush and beaver"... With the end effect of three subliminal messages in the CD approximating the impression "Impeach Bush".

By the way, there are a lot of twits on the slashdot forum today who are posting stuff like "subliminal messages are bullshit" and "subliminal messages don't work". I used to work at the National Opinion Research Center which is a demographics research center, and monitored things like commercials and subliminal messages. That was part of my job. Granted, we tended to concentrate on visual feeds, rather than auditory feeds. However, I can guarantee you that subliminal messages are extinsively used in communications. Often times, people create a subliminal message without even realizing it. Other times, they are sneakier and craft

Plum Island is home to a Bio-Safety Level 4 (BSL-4) research facility... a three-hour power outage... the air filtration systems are inoperable.. decontamination procedures break down... the seals in the pressurized airlock doors start to deflate... workers were desperately sealing the doors with duct tape...

Plum Island, Raccoon City... either way, I'm duct taping my windows and kneeling under my desk as per the Umbrella Group's safety instructions.

To the guy that said $60 was "pricey", don't bother reading this. Vegas is expensive. But if you compare the prices of "consumer" MiniDV cameras at around $500 or less, to "prosumer" ones in the thousands, anything under $1000 for DVD authoring should be considered a bargain (IMHO).

Check out this review. Now sold by Sony Pictures Digital Media Software, it's originally by Sonic Foundry, makers of some seriously kick-butt audio software. It's under $600, or about $800 if you get the version with the Dolby Certified AC-3 Encoder. Definitely worth checking out.

Now before you all flame me, he did say "prosumer" and that he would consider Windows software. Given those two consideration, I chose to ignore the cost factor :-) But seriously, for what you get, this is an incredible deal, as far as I'm conscerned. And if you're a student, check out Pricewatch for some great Academic version pricing. Even if you had to go with an older version, I'd recommend it.

Sorry I do not know of any good authoring tools for Linux, but I too would be interested. Although I hope to just get a new G5 soon.

I end up using windows and Sonic Foundry's products. Or I should say 'Sony' now. I've tried lots of video editing apps from high-end to low-end. The best one I found was Vegas Video without a doubt. Its not cheap however, but not as much as Premiere, and its definitely more usable and has good plugin support. For authoring DVDs I use their DVD Architect software. I've been able to make some really nice menus with it.

Sorry I do not know of any good authoring tools for Linux, but I too would be interested. Although I hope to just get a new G5 soon.

I end up using windows and Sonic Foundry's products. Or I should say 'Sony' now. I've tried lots of video editing apps from high-end to low-end. The best one I found was Vegas Video without a doubt. Its not cheap however, but not as much as Premiere, and its definitely more usable and has good plugin support. For authoring DVDs I use their DVD Architect software. I've been able to make some really nice menus with it.

"Sony, a manufacturer of consoles,"

Sony is also a manufacturer of TV shows and movies

"Sony, a manufacturer of consoles,"

Sony is also a manufacturer of TV shows and movies

working on crazy new things for iLife (like GarageBand).

I can't see GarageBand being a reason to switch to the Mac. GarageBand is a toy for people who are already Mac owners. Windows owners would have to give up the following (better) software packages when they switched to the Mac:

Reason 2.5
Sonar 3
Vegas 4

As well as loop software like:
Acid 4
Fruity Loops

I think far more people would use OpenOffice on a mac than GarageBand.

working on crazy new things for iLife (like GarageBand).

I can't see GarageBand being a reason to switch to the Mac. GarageBand is a toy for people who are already Mac owners. Windows owners would have to give up the following (better) software packages when they switched to the Mac:

Reason 2.5
Sonar 3
Vegas 4

As well as loop software like:
Acid 4
Fruity Loops

I think far more people would use OpenOffice on a mac than GarageBand.

Oh yeah, I guess you could run windows on your AMD XP XXXX+ and use Windows Movie Maker...not!

No, maybe not. Ya see, Windows Movie Maker is the 'Notepad' of movie editing on Windows.

But you could use Magix video deLuxe PLUS, Magix Movie Edit Pro 2004, Sony Screenblast Movie Studio, Ulead Videostudio, Pinnacle Studio, Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator ...

Speaking of Acid Pro; did anyone notice the similarities in the screenshots?

Check:
here and here.

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

S

Did anyone see the ad for Resident Evil Apocalypse where it looked like some sort of Jergens skin care commercial? The thing had me completely fooled (I guess I should've noticed the "T-cell formula" part).

And then it has the "possible sideeffects" where the woman turns into the zombie. Cool stuff.

Just wonder if it will blow as much ass as the first one (Milla beaver shot excluded).

To those poor heathens who have no idea what this is in reference to, check out the Cowboy Bebop: The Movie page as well as this pretty good page. Of course, you can also check out AnimeFu's Cowboy Bebop pages... =) Excellent anime if I do say so myself. Worth at the very least a rent.

Go here to get the trailer straight from Sony Pictures.

RADIO 's not learning from us. We need to learn from him! :D

then why do doctors sometimes come to the conclusion that something beyond medicine was the cure in a case where a family prayed to some saint-to-be, allowing that person to be promoted to sainthood?

• 9) This completes the investigation of the candidate's earthly life. Now, the Congregation undertakes the investigation of the two posthumous miracles, if they have occurred. If not, they wait. The first miracle earns the candidate beatification, the second assures sainthood.
• 10) Miracles are intensively scrutinized by both religious and scientific authorities. Medical miracles are examined by a board of five doctors who must unequivocally determine that no other possible explanation for a cure exists.
• 11) All cures must be instantaneous and complete (One potential candidate's miracle - restoring the sight of a blind man - was rejected because the sight was only 90% restored). In the case of cancer, a ten year waiting period must assure that the patient doesn't come out of remission

Jokes about restricting free speech aside, stealth marketing is the much more likely (and insidious) response to the people tuning out mass media hype and tuning into their webs-of-trusting-friends.

And by the way, my fellow slashdotters, Gigli is actually a GREAT movie! I really can't recommend it enough! Don't believe the critics or those lame spoofed SMS text messages either! See it tonight fer shizzle!!

--

Here's a better picture.

no, they're aliens, along with the postal workers

In addition to the official T3 website (which is pretty deep content-wise), the terminator people have an interesting site up that allows you to take a 2D picture of your face, extrude it into 3D and then damage it to see an endoskeleton inside. Pretty cool. Check it out. Does anyone know what technology is used to A recognize the face and then to extrude it so that the head can be rotated 360 degrees?

Could we be starting to develop Nerve Attenuation Syndrome?

On this direction, this movies The 13th Floor have solved the mystery in 1999 in a much better presentation and a shorter time too.

For the rubber-monster challenged, here's a picure for your reference and edification.

Go see Sony pictures Daddy Day Care! The Family Research Council says "its excellent".

--
The dads are in charge. And the kids are all right.

Charlie (Eddie Murphy) and Phil (Jeff Garlin) are so consumed by their high profile advertising jobs that they are completely missing out on the joys of fatherhood. In the wonderful new family comedy Daddy Day Care, however, their kids provide them with a crash course in child rearing, with uproarious and heartwarming results.

After failing to excite the public about vegetable cereal, Charlie and Phil are fired from their ad jobs. That means no more expensive day care for their sons at the exclusive Chapman Academy, run by the harsh taskmistress Miss Gwyneth Harridan (Anjelica Huston).

While floundering aimlessly in search of employment and tending to his four-year-old son Ben (Khamani Griffin) during the day while his wife Kim (Regina King) is at work, Charlie has an idea. If he and Phil can handle taking care of two kids, how much harder can it be to supervise ten?

Much harder than they ever imagined. Every kid is different and every one is a hilarious challenge, whether they're suffering from sugar rush, fantasizing about being super heroes, or just demolishing everything in sight, Charlie and Phil soon realize they are in over their heads. Way over their heads.

But slowly they get the hang of it and their new venture "Daddy Day Care" thrives, siphoning kids away from the stuffy Chapman school. As the number of kids increases, they bring in a third caretaker, Marvin (Steve Zahn), who seems to speak the children's language, probably because he's just an overgrown kid himself. They teach the kids how to read, play games, interact, and have fun at the same time.

Charlie and Phil gradually bond with their sons, coming to fully appreciate the priceless joys of fatherhood.

However, the better "Daddy Day Care" works, the more threatened Gwyneth Harridan becomes, which leads to a showdown.

Now it's the daddies against the baddest mother of them all.

Simply because the Tomb Raider franchise was so successful in theatres doesn't mean that the film and game industries should start making babies.

There are many, many things specific to Tomb Raider that helped build its success as a movie. Primarily, there is a popular need for additional female-driven action movies.

Jinx, played by Halle Berry, from the James Bond series is a good example of things to come. She's also looking at Catwoman. Ashley Judd in upcoming The Blackout Murders and, of course, there's always Charlie's Angels.

Anyway, it isn't affirmative action for the sake of affirmative action... It's a need...

Good luck to these movies, though.

justen

Real Video, High Quality

Real Video, Low Quality

Windows Media, High Quality

Windows Media, Low Quality

Enjoy.

~Berj