As I said in another post on this topic, I'd love to recommend Be, but there's no FireWire support. I believe Adamation has a video editing program for Be, but their "professional" software is delayed until we see Be FireWire support.
I'm going to take a look at it, but I don't expect to use it seriously until I see FireWire.
You're lucky you got all those educational discounts - I believe Premiere is something like $695 and After Effects is $ 1,000. So a non-student would have to pay about $ 5,000 for your system. The cheapest G3 nowadays is somewhere in the $1,600 range including a FireWire card as compared to your $1,200 for the system plus $300 for the FireWire card, so Apple's definitely competitive even with the bare bones system you mention. If you're not wedded to Wintel for other reasons (bearing in mind, of course, that you can always get PPC Linux), I'd definitely recommend that system. Then you can get EditDV Unplugged for $ 99 and be good to go.
But I think you forgot disks - you need at least one additional disk besides your system drive, and it should be an enormous one - 20GB would not be excessive. I have an 11GB disk and it mysteriously keeps filling up:-(.
Isn't the capture card you're referring to the DV300? I don't remember hearing about a DV200. From trolling the newsgroups, I've heard a lot of bad stories about the DV300 and Pinnacle support in general. Your system probably is the best low-cost PC-based solution, but I'd be wary of recommending it to others. How difficult was it for you to set up?
My FAQ is definitely biased strongly against low-end equipment like Sony Digital8, simply because I don't like the quality and ergonomic design of the cameras themselves. I would certainly recommend Digital8 over a standard analogue camcorder - raw picture quality out of the camera is no better, but quality of the recordings is likely to be far superior.
The answer to the question of what hardware and software you need for video production depends largely on your needs. A high-end prosumer setup, such as what I have, dedicates a computer to video editing, uses a fancy three-chip camera, and costs about $ 10,000. In the process of putting this together, I wrote the DV FAQ, which you can find at http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html .
If you want the highest quality video possible, you need to use FireWire, which is the direct digital to digital system. Unfortunately, Linux support for FireWire still does not exist. The capture card mentioned in the article is an analogue unit and won't give you the level of quality possible via FireWire.
Remember that video production takes up enormous amounts of system resources. When I put together my production system, I decided to dedicate a machine to the function. Because of that, I decided on a Macintosh G3, which is probably still the best machine for low-end video editing. (High-end is an Avid; you're talking mid-five figures before their salespeople will even talk to you).
I definitely don't recommend using a Windows machine for video editing. That is the way to madness. I'd like to recommend BeOS, since it's a great operating system and its multi-threaded nature is going to give you superior performance; unfortunately, they don't have FireWire support yet either.
So the Mac is the only platform left standing in the end. I really wish I could recommend a Be-based solution, because I love the BeOS, but the time isn't ripe yet. (If you are doing one, though, send it to me and I'll incorporate it in my FAQ -- I really want to see one).
In terms of cameras, get a three-chip model if you can possibly afford it. Colours are much richer and more vivid. I have the $4,000 Canon XL1 and swear by it; fortunately, the Sony TRV900 and upcoming Canon GL1 provide three-chip functionality for about $2,000.
More details are in the DV FAQ - see the URL above.
I visited your web site, and it looks like all your products are free - so how did you make $37.20?
Maybe you need to make products for Linux? My impression is that the Windows market for what you're producing is pretty much saturated, thus the low revenues. Unfortunately, Linuxoids want it all for free.
You might want to consider BeOS - there aren't that many people buying it, true, but those who do are comfortable with paying for software.
In the final analysis, turning a profit means that you've performed a service that people are willing to pay over your costs for. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course if you just want to do something cool, first figure it out, then co-locate a server where there's plenty of bandwidth, and you can develop it for costs in the $ 200/month range. Once you get big enough to be noticed, you'll have higher bandwidth bills, but at that point banner ads should be able to pull in money.
You don't really need a big company to do something useful. Check out my web site [ http://www.amazing.com ] - I have FAQs and information on subjects from cruising yachts to digital video, and people find all of it quite useful. All it costs to put up is my bandwidth bill. In fact, this was basically how Slashdot was started, although obviously Rob is much more successful at creating a system attractive to his market segment than I've been.
Now, if you want to feed, clothe and house yourself, that's another matter. That requires a profitable company.
Basically, what you need is a revenue model - where's the money going to come from? With amazon.com, it was sales of books. With eBay.com, it's auction fees, with recycler.com it's early access subscriptions and ads from auto dealers. Once you've figured that out and put together a realistic business plan, you have something worth looking at.
Hope that helps. Hey, if you got a really good idea, I have bandwidth to spare at the moment.
Could be the filmmakers made it for $ 30k and the studio then massaged it for $ 270k. Something like that happened to Rodriguez's Mariachi movie (I have a slightly more detailed explanation elsewhere in this discussion).
Of course the important thing is that $30k was all the filmmakers needed to raise to get the movie to the point where the studio was interested. So from their point of view, it took $30k of their money to do the film.
I have Java turned off on my system because it seems to crash Netscape all the time. I can tolerate silly applets not running better than I can tolerate crashes.
Even when it's not crashing, it's slow as molasses. Perhaps it will like me better when I upgrade to a R10000 one of these days.
The Kiersey tests (the ones resulting in a four-letter code, INTP in my case) are quite informative. I think they're most valuable in noting that people are radically different from each other - by reading the profiles of different types of people, we can get a better understanding for how they think.
To give you an idea of how it works:
I = Introverted - you get energy from within, interacting with people consumes energy. Extroverted is the reverse. If you go to a party, spend an hour or so, run out of energy and want to leave, you're introverted. If you stay until 3am, you're extroverted.
N = Intuitive - you think of things as they should be, not as they are; you can visualize your ideal world and want to live in it instead of the real one. It is this that sends me effortlessly out to houses in Malibu (picture-perfect views; mudslides; fires; cheapest home: $ 350,000) and West Hollywood (cheapest home with picture-perfect views: $ 495,000) that are suitable for people with triple my income; I am thinking as though I already had the money, and these homes are quite a bargain compared to Tower Grove Drive, Beverly Hills (picture-perfect views; cheapest house: $ 1,500,000). A Sensing person, on the other hand, would look at her or his actual income, and only visit affordable areas like Van Nuys (hideously ugly; no views; boring; cheapest home $138,000). Spoilsport! It is difficult for an Intuitive to relate to a Sensing, since they are always trying to pull us out of the clouds where we prefer to stay. At the same time, it may be important to have a sensing type of person around so we don't sign the check for that Tower Grove house without checking the current account balance first.
T = Thinking - you make decisions by thinking them through. This contrasts with F, where you make decisions based on how they affect the feelings of others. F types are fun to be with because they are always attentive to the nuances of your feelings; but they will also shade the truth so your feelings don't get hurt. They can be dangerous to deal with, but intuitive/feeling people are generally the best lovers.
P = Perceiving, as opposed to Judging. This is perhaps the clearest attribute. If you're a slob, you're perceiving. If your house is neat as a pin, and you're the person doing the work, you are judging. Judging people think in terms of deadlines. Typically, the programmer is Perceiving, while the PHB is judging.
In short, I find the personality tests to be pretty enlightening. What they say about me is clearly true.
The Star Wars test is just a minor rework of their "normal" personality test; the same questions are asked. It would have been a better idea to rework the normal test so that it added the Star Wars stuff instead of making the curious take both tests to get the appropriate results. In other words, they should have given the personality results along with the Star Wars. But I have to admit, it was a cute idea.
Actually, the original idea of putting the admin information in whois was so that if I made a technical error in, say, my routing that bogged down the network, people who saw the problem would know who to contact. That's perfectly sound. Of course that was in the good old days when everyone trusted everyone else.:-(
I run my own domain and mail server, amazing.com. There has always been only one valid email address for amazing.com, the rather obvious david@amazing.com . Recently, I've seen spams to other users at this domain, like brian@amazing.com . So I can only assume spammers are just inventing addresses in the hopes that they will work.
I find it interesting that people are selling these addresses to spammers - I would think the poor fools who buy these lists have a valid cause of action for fraud.
I agree about SGI's fonts - I think SGI's fonts are roughly comparable in quality to Apple's fonts, with Microsoft's fonts trailing them. Of course, Linux font technology trails even Microsoft's:-(.
SGI's fonts are a major reason I still use a 1994 Indigo2 running Irix instead of Linux as my workstation. I find it much more comfortable to read stuff.
The big difference is that they used digital video, not film. Rent a DV camera at $ 100-150 a day, buy ten MiniDV tapes at $ 15.99 each, and use the balance for props and lunch for the cast and crew. (I'm not joking about that last; read any book about small-time filmmaking, and you'll find one of the most essential things to provide in even the lowest-budget production is good meals. Have Spago cater your film and all else is forgiven).
Blair Witch used at least some 16mm film. 90 minutes or so of 16mm film costs about $ 7,000 to purchase and develop. In addition, you have to use an expensive to rent film editing studio instead of being able to use your $ 3,000 PC [including editing hardware/software] for the editing.
Rodriguez [sp] made his $ 7,000 movie by buying the film and developing it, buying a small number of props, and begging, borrowing and/or stealing everything else. Unfortunately, one of the consequences of this was that he didn't have the funds for synch sound equipment. As a result, when the film was released, Columbia had to pay $100,000 to fiddle with the sound track in order to make it acceptable. Rodriguez planned originally to release it only on video, so he edited it using free video editing time from a public access TV station. So the film had to be re-edited for release.
I should really put a link to my DV FAQ here: http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html . Lots of information for DV fans.
For some interesting insights on independent movie making and movie costs, I recommend 'The Unkindest Cut' by Joe Queenan. Hatchet-man film critic tries to make his own movie, spends $ 65,000, falls flat on his face. Oops.
I haven't seen it and don't want to - I hate scary movies. Give me a funny one any day of the week.
What I admire about the production is that they took their disadvantages and made them into advantages. Have a cameraperson who can't shoot? No problem - fold bad shooting into the plot. Have only 16mm and cheesy video equipment? Fine, make sure the plot requires it. Fantastic idea. Wish I'd thought of it.
However, I don't see this as being an easily duplicatable success, since it's really a one-idea movie. Copies of it are just that, cheap copies of a cheap concept. I'd only make a $30,000 movie (and yes, I could if I wanted to) if I had a unique concept. Too many clones of this will appear, and they'll all fail.
Thinking about this, I wonder how a parody of this would do? Seems like you could do almost the same thing, play it totally for laughs, and have a watchable movie that could still be made for next to nothing.
Arriflex 16mm cameras are for sale cheap on eBay... volenteers should be easy to find... only problem is the cost of film. And the script.
With all the competition about to bleed out of the woodworkd, it had better be good. Bear that in mind if you want to do one of your own.
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PS This might not be news for nerds, but I think it is stuff that matters. I appreciate Jon' coverage of this issue. Just wanted to say that due to the large number of people slamming him about this story.
Perhaps it is business as usual, but I think Slashdot readers should be aware of Bill's latest antics.
If you don't like a story, you can always skip it. Rob doesn't put a gun to our heads to force us to read everything posted here, after all. Indeed, I doubt that it would be possible, even as a full-time job, to read everything on Slashdot now.
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Anybody got an old Microvax or MicroPDP?
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For nostalgic purposes, I'd love to get one, but they're hard to find. Not even sure what I'd do with one, I just want to have it.:-)
I think it's important to understand the reasons behind the attitude of the PHB. The character appears entirely irrational to most technical types, and yet there are reasons for what PHBs do. The good news is that, in my view, PHBs are coming around, for reasons you will shortly discover.
See, the person who gets me most of my work is a somewhat enlightened PHB. He's intelligent, has a lot of business savvy and knows a lot about where the bodies are buried. I'm slowly starting to understand his point of view, which is likely to be useful to my future - after all, you can't stay a coder forever, not if you want that inexpensive house on Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollywood Hills [minimum price $495,000 and rising], anyway.
The primary concern of any boss is to keep the business running. The boss's nightmare is if the IT staff either quits or holds him up for more money. The boss knows that as long as there are plenty of MSCE's ready to help him out, his current IT staff can be replaced. If he uses technology nobody's ever heard of, that requires people that are difficult to locate, then his head is on the corporate chopping block.
Now, note that this doesn't require the executive to like Microsoft. He may find the company's products every bit as wretched as we do. But he knows that he can always find people who can use the stuff, even if the worst happens and his workers all leave.
There is a second, related reason bosses like Microsoft: Applications and software tools are inexpensive and plentiful. Oracle, Sybase and SQL server are all cheaper on Windows than any other platform due to the level of competition that exists. This is, again, something bosses love. They can pitch the salespeople against each other.
Finally, they have someone to blame when things go wrong. I'm not sure how much satisfaction they get from blaming Microsoft, because the company certainly isn't going to help them much, but the idea is there.
These strike me as valid reasons to use Microsoft, even if you hate their products. The good news is that it looks like the younger computing generation has rapidly assimilated Linux, thanks to its extremely low price and compatibility with existing Unix systems they may have in school. This is, no doubt, why MS is trying so hard to get people in academic environments to use their stuff - but they have met considerable resistance. From the perspective of people like Steve Ballmer, who I'm sure can see this as clear if not clearer than I can, this is disasterous news, far worse than any tiresome antitrust trial.
So the good news is that I see a very hopeful future for Linux and free software. What's happened in my own office is instructive - two additional people have been hired, both of who have an interest in Linux. So we are starting to get a critical mass of rebel geeks in the organization I work with, which has traditionally been a "Windows Uber Alles" type shop.
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PS: You're probably telling me, "David, everyone knows MSCE's are incompetent boobs who studied very hard to pass a simple multiple-choice test." And I'm sure you're right. But at least it means some minimum level of ability, and that reassures the PHB. ----
It takes a lot for me to volentarily put my hands in my wallet and support Bill, but Teledesic - satellite internet access at 2mb speeds for the entire globe - just might do it. At the rate telcos and cablecos are sabotaging their chances through exceptionally poor service and availability, I see Bill cleaning up. Much as I despise Bill and his current product line, I have to cheer him on here.
I just hope he won't require Windows to access it. Argh!
Sadly, nothing really interesting. A Microsoft Windows logo, an ugly greyish colour scheme, and a tiny amount of information about the challenge. The layout conformed to the ultra-boring Microsoft graphical and layout standards.
Strangely enough, on the one time I was able to access it, it was running really fast - maybe people were giving it a break. But I have tried many, many other times (including yesterday evening) without getting through. You're bound to be disappointed if you put much effort into it.
Someone did put up a mirror, though.
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The uses of NT - and, dealing with a semi-PHB
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Well, the main reason for NT is to make Microsoft money, and to crush Unix. (I'm honestly not sure which is more important to Bill - he has a vindictive streak a mile wide, which is a major reason so many of us hate him).
The reason people buy in on NT is that there are billions of applications and server programs for it. It's pretty easy to write database-driven web sites in ASP or Cold Fusion, which I think is the main reason NT has acquired market share as a web server. Of course it's also easy to write the same applications using mySQL and PHP-FI or mod_perl, but these technologies are not well promoted in the marketplace.
I tried to convince one of the people I work with to consider PHP/FI. He said that he hadn't heard of it and it didn't have "market power". He wants to use the technologies that have "market power", whether they work or not. I guess the idea is that if clients have heard of a technology, it's an easier sell for him. I told him Apache is the number one web server. He wasn't convinced. Any idea how to convince him? I don't think he's a true PHB, but he does see things from a business perspective, not technical.
Peter Drucker is a well-known management guru. I read http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0887306187/ qid=934124320/sr=1-14/002-7959264-563220 5 Innovation and Entrepreneurship some years ago and thought it was quite good. The link has a few reviews, although if you want to buy one of his works, I'd recommend getting the omnibus edition ($22.95 for three of his works including I&E).
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PS Anyone know why links don't work in comments anymore? Sigh. ----
Yes, it provides you with the standard command.com shell and nothing more.
It can be useful to do things like remote pkzipping of files.
I believe you can get the Bash shell for NT, but you apparently have to add the whole suite of Unix command line tools in order for it to work.
Incidentally, please reply to this message if there's a free or at least cheaper NT telnet tool out there - I'm loath to pay $ 189 for it, and there are times when it would be helpful.
Slashdot Mirror
As I said in another post on this topic, I'd love to recommend Be, but there's no FireWire support. I believe Adamation has a video editing program for Be, but their "professional" software is delayed until we see Be FireWire support.
I'm going to take a look at it, but I don't expect to use it seriously until I see FireWire.
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You're lucky you got all those educational discounts - I believe Premiere is something like $695 and After Effects is $ 1,000. So a non-student would have to pay about $ 5,000 for your system. The cheapest G3 nowadays is somewhere in the $1,600 range including a FireWire card as compared to your $1,200 for the system plus $300 for the FireWire card, so Apple's definitely competitive even with the bare bones system you mention. If you're not wedded to Wintel for other reasons (bearing in mind, of course, that you can always get PPC Linux), I'd definitely recommend that system. Then you can get EditDV Unplugged for $ 99 and be good to go.
:-(.
But I think you forgot disks - you need at least one additional disk besides your system drive, and it should be an enormous one - 20GB would not be excessive. I have an 11GB disk and it mysteriously keeps filling up
Isn't the capture card you're referring to the DV300? I don't remember hearing about a DV200. From trolling the newsgroups, I've heard a lot of bad stories about the DV300 and Pinnacle support in general. Your system probably is the best low-cost PC-based solution, but I'd be wary of recommending it to others. How difficult was it for you to set up?
My FAQ is definitely biased strongly against low-end equipment like Sony Digital8, simply because I don't like the quality and ergonomic design of the cameras themselves. I would certainly recommend Digital8 over a standard analogue camcorder - raw picture quality out of the camera is no better, but quality of the recordings is likely to be far superior.
Glad you liked the FAQ.
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The answer to the question of what hardware and software you need for video production depends largely on your needs. A high-end prosumer setup, such as what I have, dedicates a computer to video editing, uses a fancy three-chip camera, and costs about $ 10,000. In the process of putting this together, I wrote the DV FAQ, which you can find at http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html .
If you want the highest quality video possible, you need to use FireWire, which is the direct digital to digital system. Unfortunately, Linux support for FireWire still does not exist. The capture card mentioned in the article is an analogue unit and won't give you the level of quality possible via FireWire.
Remember that video production takes up enormous amounts of system resources. When I put together my production system, I decided to dedicate a machine to the function. Because of that, I decided on a Macintosh G3, which is probably still the best machine for low-end video editing. (High-end is an Avid; you're talking mid-five figures before their salespeople will even talk to you).
I definitely don't recommend using a Windows machine for video editing. That is the way to madness. I'd like to recommend BeOS, since it's a great operating system and its multi-threaded nature is going to give you superior performance; unfortunately, they don't have FireWire support yet either.
So the Mac is the only platform left standing in the end. I really wish I could recommend a Be-based solution, because I love the BeOS, but the time isn't ripe yet. (If you are doing one, though, send it to me and I'll incorporate it in my FAQ -- I really want to see one).
In terms of cameras, get a three-chip model if you can possibly afford it. Colours are much richer and more vivid. I have the $4,000 Canon XL1 and swear by it; fortunately, the Sony TRV900 and upcoming Canon GL1 provide three-chip functionality for about $2,000.
More details are in the DV FAQ - see the URL above.
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They want to develop for KDE because it's the most pervasive Linux windowing environment. Heck, I'm using it right now.
They probably want to develop using GTK because it doesn't require C++. I know that's my position - I'm much more comfortable with regular C.
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There actually is a company that has an ASP implementation for Linux. I think they advertise on Slashdot occasionally.
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I visited your web site, and it looks like all your products are free - so how did you make $37.20?
Maybe you need to make products for Linux? My impression is that the Windows market for what you're producing is pretty much saturated, thus the low revenues. Unfortunately, Linuxoids want it all for free.
You might want to consider BeOS - there aren't that many people buying it, true, but those who do are comfortable with paying for software.
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In the final analysis, turning a profit means that you've performed a service that people are willing to pay over your costs for. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course if you just want to do something cool, first figure it out, then co-locate a server where there's plenty of bandwidth, and you can develop it for costs in the $ 200/month range. Once you get big enough to be noticed, you'll have higher bandwidth bills, but at that point banner ads should be able to pull in money.
You don't really need a big company to do something useful. Check out my web site [ http://www.amazing.com ] - I have FAQs and information on subjects from cruising yachts to digital video, and people find all of it quite useful. All it costs to put up is my bandwidth bill. In fact, this was basically how Slashdot was started, although obviously Rob is much more successful at creating a system attractive to his market segment than I've been.
Now, if you want to feed, clothe and house yourself, that's another matter. That requires a profitable company.
Basically, what you need is a revenue model - where's the money going to come from? With amazon.com, it was sales of books. With eBay.com, it's auction fees, with recycler.com it's early access subscriptions and ads from auto dealers. Once you've figured that out and put together a realistic business plan, you have something worth looking at.
Hope that helps. Hey, if you got a really good idea, I have bandwidth to spare at the moment.
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What's the point?
Is this to distract stockholders from the Iridium disaster?
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Could be the filmmakers made it for $ 30k and the studio then massaged it for $ 270k. Something like that happened to Rodriguez's Mariachi movie (I have a slightly more detailed explanation elsewhere in this discussion).
Of course the important thing is that $30k was all the filmmakers needed to raise to get the movie to the point where the studio was interested. So from their point of view, it took $30k of their money to do the film.
Still a pretty good return on investment.
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I have Java turned off on my system because it seems to crash Netscape all the time. I can tolerate silly applets not running better than I can tolerate crashes.
Even when it's not crashing, it's slow as molasses. Perhaps it will like me better when I upgrade to a R10000 one of these days.
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The Kiersey tests (the ones resulting in a four-letter code, INTP in my case) are quite informative. I think they're most valuable in noting that people are radically different from each other - by reading the profiles of different types of people, we can get a better understanding for how they think.
To give you an idea of how it works:
I = Introverted - you get energy from within, interacting with people consumes energy. Extroverted is the reverse. If you go to a party, spend an hour or so, run out of energy and want to leave, you're introverted. If you stay until 3am, you're extroverted.
N = Intuitive - you think of things as they should be, not as they are; you can visualize your ideal world and want to live in it instead of the real one. It is this that sends me effortlessly out to houses in Malibu (picture-perfect views; mudslides; fires; cheapest home: $ 350,000) and West Hollywood (cheapest home with picture-perfect views: $ 495,000) that are suitable for people with triple my income; I am thinking as though I already had the money, and these homes are quite a bargain compared to Tower Grove Drive, Beverly Hills (picture-perfect views; cheapest house: $ 1,500,000). A Sensing person, on the other hand, would look at her or his actual income, and only visit affordable areas like Van Nuys (hideously ugly; no views; boring; cheapest home $138,000). Spoilsport! It is difficult for an Intuitive to relate to a Sensing, since they are always trying to pull us out of the clouds where we prefer to stay. At the same time, it may be important to have a sensing type of person around so we don't sign the check for that Tower Grove house without checking the current account balance first.
T = Thinking - you make decisions by thinking them through. This contrasts with F, where you make decisions based on how they affect the feelings of others. F types are fun to be with because they are always attentive to the nuances of your feelings; but they will also shade the truth so your feelings don't get hurt. They can be dangerous to deal with, but intuitive/feeling people are generally the best lovers.
P = Perceiving, as opposed to Judging. This is perhaps the clearest attribute. If you're a slob, you're perceiving. If your house is neat as a pin, and you're the person doing the work, you are judging. Judging people think in terms of deadlines. Typically, the programmer is Perceiving, while the PHB is judging.
In short, I find the personality tests to be pretty enlightening. What they say about me is clearly true.
The Star Wars test is just a minor rework of their "normal" personality test; the same questions are asked. It would have been a better idea to rework the normal test so that it added the Star Wars stuff instead of making the curious take both tests to get the appropriate results. In other words, they should have given the personality results along with the Star Wars. But I have to admit, it was a cute idea.
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Actually, the original idea of putting the admin information in whois was so that if I made a technical error in, say, my routing that bogged down the network, people who saw the problem would know who to contact. That's perfectly sound. Of course that was in the good old days when everyone trusted everyone else. :-(
I run my own domain and mail server, amazing.com. There has always been only one valid email address for amazing.com, the rather obvious david@amazing.com . Recently, I've seen spams to other users at this domain, like brian@amazing.com . So I can only assume spammers are just inventing addresses in the hopes that they will work.
I find it interesting that people are selling these addresses to spammers - I would think the poor fools who buy these lists have a valid cause of action for fraud.
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I agree about SGI's fonts - I think SGI's fonts are roughly comparable in quality to Apple's fonts, with Microsoft's fonts trailing them. Of course, Linux font technology trails even Microsoft's :-(.
SGI's fonts are a major reason I still use a 1994 Indigo2 running Irix instead of Linux as my workstation. I find it much more comfortable to read stuff.
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The big difference is that they used digital video, not film. Rent a DV camera at $ 100-150 a day, buy ten MiniDV tapes at $ 15.99 each, and use the balance for props and lunch for the cast and crew. (I'm not joking about that last; read any book about small-time filmmaking, and you'll find one of the most essential things to provide in even the lowest-budget production is good meals. Have Spago cater your film and all else is forgiven).
Blair Witch used at least some 16mm film. 90 minutes or so of 16mm film costs about $ 7,000 to purchase and develop. In addition, you have to use an expensive to rent film editing studio instead of being able to use your $ 3,000 PC [including editing hardware/software] for the editing.
Rodriguez [sp] made his $ 7,000 movie by buying the film and developing it, buying a small number of props, and begging, borrowing and/or stealing everything else. Unfortunately, one of the consequences of this was that he didn't have the funds for synch sound equipment. As a result, when the film was released, Columbia had to pay $100,000 to fiddle with the sound track in order to make it acceptable. Rodriguez planned originally to release it only on video, so he edited it using free video editing time from a public access TV station. So the film had to be re-edited for release.
I should really put a link to my DV FAQ here: http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html . Lots of information for DV fans.
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For some interesting insights on independent movie making and movie costs, I recommend 'The Unkindest Cut' by Joe Queenan. Hatchet-man film critic tries to make his own movie, spends $ 65,000, falls flat on his face. Oops.
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I haven't seen it and don't want to - I hate scary movies. Give me a funny one any day of the week.
... volenteers should be easy to find ... only problem is the cost of film. And the script.
What I admire about the production is that they took their disadvantages and made them into advantages. Have a cameraperson who can't shoot? No problem - fold bad shooting into the plot. Have only 16mm and cheesy video equipment? Fine, make sure the plot requires it. Fantastic idea. Wish I'd thought of it.
However, I don't see this as being an easily duplicatable success, since it's really a one-idea movie. Copies of it are just that, cheap copies of a cheap concept. I'd only make a $30,000 movie (and yes, I could if I wanted to) if I had a unique concept. Too many clones of this will appear, and they'll all fail.
Thinking about this, I wonder how a parody of this would do? Seems like you could do almost the same thing, play it totally for laughs, and have a watchable movie that could still be made for next to nothing.
Arriflex 16mm cameras are for sale cheap on eBay
With all the competition about to bleed out of the woodworkd, it had better be good. Bear that in mind if you want to do one of your own.
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PS This might not be news for nerds, but I think it is stuff that matters. I appreciate Jon' coverage of this issue. Just wanted to say that due to the large number of people slamming him about this story.
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Perhaps it is business as usual, but I think Slashdot readers should be aware of Bill's latest antics.
If you don't like a story, you can always skip it. Rob doesn't put a gun to our heads to force us to read everything posted here, after all. Indeed, I doubt that it would be possible, even as a full-time job, to read everything on Slashdot now.
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For nostalgic purposes, I'd love to get one, but they're hard to find. Not even sure what I'd do with one, I just want to have it. :-)
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I think it's important to understand the reasons behind the attitude of the PHB. The character appears entirely irrational to most technical types, and yet there are reasons for what PHBs do. The good news is that, in my view, PHBs are coming around, for reasons you will shortly discover.
See, the person who gets me most of my work is a somewhat enlightened PHB. He's intelligent, has a lot of business savvy and knows a lot about where the bodies are buried. I'm slowly starting to understand his point of view, which is likely to be useful to my future - after all, you can't stay a coder forever, not if you want that inexpensive house on Sunset Plaza Drive in the Hollywood Hills [minimum price $495,000 and rising], anyway.
The primary concern of any boss is to keep the business running. The boss's nightmare is if the IT staff either quits or holds him up for more money. The boss knows that as long as there are plenty of MSCE's ready to help him out, his current IT staff can be replaced. If he uses technology nobody's ever heard of, that requires people that are difficult to locate, then his head is on the corporate chopping block.
Now, note that this doesn't require the executive to like Microsoft. He may find the company's products every bit as wretched as we do. But he knows that he can always find people who can use the stuff, even if the worst happens and his workers all leave.
There is a second, related reason bosses like Microsoft: Applications and software tools are inexpensive and plentiful. Oracle, Sybase and SQL server are all cheaper on Windows than any other platform due to the level of competition that exists. This is, again, something bosses love. They can pitch the salespeople against each other.
Finally, they have someone to blame when things go wrong. I'm not sure how much satisfaction they get from blaming Microsoft, because the company certainly isn't going to help them much, but the idea is there.
These strike me as valid reasons to use Microsoft, even if you hate their products. The good news is that it looks like the younger computing generation has rapidly assimilated Linux, thanks to its extremely low price and compatibility with existing Unix systems they may have in school. This is, no doubt, why MS is trying so hard to get people in academic environments to use their stuff - but they have met considerable resistance. From the perspective of people like Steve Ballmer, who I'm sure can see this as clear if not clearer than I can, this is disasterous news, far worse than any tiresome antitrust trial.
So the good news is that I see a very hopeful future for Linux and free software. What's happened in my own office is instructive - two additional people have been hired, both of who have an interest in Linux. So we are starting to get a critical mass of rebel geeks in the organization I work with, which has traditionally been a "Windows Uber Alles" type shop.
D
PS: You're probably telling me, "David, everyone knows MSCE's are incompetent boobs who studied very hard to pass a simple multiple-choice test." And I'm sure you're right. But at least it means some minimum level of ability, and that reassures the PHB.
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It takes a lot for me to volentarily put my hands in my wallet and support Bill, but Teledesic - satellite internet access at 2mb speeds for the entire globe - just might do it. At the rate telcos and cablecos are sabotaging their chances through exceptionally poor service and availability, I see Bill cleaning up. Much as I despise Bill and his current product line, I have to cheer him on here.
I just hope he won't require Windows to access it. Argh!
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Sadly, nothing really interesting. A Microsoft Windows logo, an ugly greyish colour scheme, and a tiny amount of information about the challenge. The layout conformed to the ultra-boring Microsoft graphical and layout standards.
Strangely enough, on the one time I was able to access it, it was running really fast - maybe people were giving it a break. But I have tried many, many other times (including yesterday evening) without getting through. You're bound to be disappointed if you put much effort into it.
Someone did put up a mirror, though.
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Well, the main reason for NT is to make Microsoft money, and to crush Unix. (I'm honestly not sure which is more important to Bill - he has a vindictive streak a mile wide, which is a major reason so many of us hate him).
The reason people buy in on NT is that there are billions of applications and server programs for it. It's pretty easy to write database-driven web sites in ASP or Cold Fusion, which I think is the main reason NT has acquired market share as a web server. Of course it's also easy to write the same applications using mySQL and PHP-FI or mod_perl, but these technologies are not well promoted in the marketplace.
I tried to convince one of the people I work with to consider PHP/FI. He said that he hadn't heard of it and it didn't have "market power". He wants to use the technologies that have "market power", whether they work or not. I guess the idea is that if clients have heard of a technology, it's an easier sell for him. I told him Apache is the number one web server. He wasn't convinced. Any idea how to convince him? I don't think he's a true PHB, but he does see things from a business perspective, not technical.
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Peter Drucker is a well-known management guru. I read http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0887306187/ qid=934124320/sr=1-14/002-7959264-563220 5 Innovation and Entrepreneurship some years ago and thought it was quite good. The link has a few reviews, although if you want to buy one of his works, I'd recommend getting the omnibus edition ($22.95 for three of his works including I&E).
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PS Anyone know why links don't work in comments anymore? Sigh.
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You can buy a third-party telnet tool for $ 189.
Yes, it provides you with the standard command.com shell and nothing more.
It can be useful to do things like remote pkzipping of files.
I believe you can get the Bash shell for NT, but you apparently have to add the whole suite of Unix command line tools in order for it to work.
Incidentally, please reply to this message if there's a free or at least cheaper NT telnet tool out there - I'm loath to pay $ 189 for it, and there are times when it would be helpful.
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In what way are they competing with Dell?
I thought Dell was installing Red Hat on some of their machines!
Obviously they're competing with Microsoft, and that's enough to worry any company. But Dell? Gasp.
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