In LA

I’ve previously written on this blog about the Creative Vado HD solid-state 720p video cameras. I enjoy knocking mine about (both above and below the waterline) and I tend to recommend them to people who just want to capture moments with family, or to those looking for a simple video camera to give to a future filmmaker, or to folk who want a camera cheap enough to risk destroying in unsafe conditions¹, or to anyone who simply wants a convenient tiny video camera. The reason I particularly like the Creative Vado series as opposed to the now-defunct Flip cameras and other competitors is that the Vados feature the widest-angle lenses in this class of camera. I thought these were a good deal when their price fell to $129 a couple of years ago. Today I noticed refurbs are available for 1/3 that price. Perhaps they’re being cleared away due to the fact that some popular smartphones record video of equivalent quality, and are eating away the market? Regardless the reason for the discount, I think these cameras are fun, useful, and a great value.

The Creative Vado HD 8GB (refurbished, first generation), is currently² listed at $40, and the third generation Vado HD (refurbished, available in several candy colors) are on sale for $50.

Both of these are solid-state video cameras that charge and transfer video to computer over a concealed USB connector and record pretty nice (for the price) 720p HD video at 30 frames per second. The older Vado records to mpeg-2 codec and includes 8Gb of storage space (~2 hours of record time), and the 3rd generation records to mpeg-4 and includes 4Gb of space (also ~2 hours, possibly at the same or better visual quality than the older model due to the more efficient mp4 codec). I haven’t yet used a 3rd gen Vado HD, but it appears to include an improvement that was at the top of my wishlist for the earlier Vado HDs: improved dynamic range and some manual exposure control. These cameras clip highlights³, it’d be nice to be able to minimize that issue and knock the exposure down a peg.

Also available at a discount right now, and possibly of interest to anyone with a small camera or phone, is the Creative Labs Vado HD Underwater Pouch. This item has for some reason⁴ dropped in price to $10. I believe it is a rebranded Aquapac Mini Waterproof Camera Case, an item which normally sells for about $30 (under both the Aquapac and Creative brand names).

This pouch is basically a fancy polyurethane bag, with a strong seal⁵ and very clear vinyl windows on front and back. It can hold small cameras easily, and I’ll probably be using mine next month to keep my iPhone dry while kayaking.

For an example of the 2nd generation Vado HD and this pouch in action together, check out this a Green Sea Turtle video I shot in Hawaii. I also recently loaned out my Vado and pouch to The Perennial Plate, and they used it to shoot some underwater footage of an urchin diver for their web series.

1. such as underwater in a fancy plastic bag [↩]
2. last I checked — the price could change any moment due to the way Amazon operates [↩]
3. a characteristic of all inexpensive digital cameras [↩]
4. momentarily? [↩]
5. I trust it more than I would a couple of ziplocs, FWIW, and have had no problems with mine over a couple of years of use. [↩]

This won’t count as important news for most folk, but a while back I had a bit of dry skin and a friend who was studying dermatology recommended I try “DML Moisturizing Lotion“. No local store carried it, and I ended up ordering from some place on the net that charged a pretty penny for shipping.

I like the stuff; Very light, non-greasy, no smell, and one 16oz bottle has lasted me a couple of years –but today it ran dry. I went searching the net, and am happy to note that finally some wholesaler is selling it via Amazon, and since I’ve got Amazon Prime I get free 2-day shipping. Neato.

Small victories FTW.

Now if only DML could stop trying so hard with their circa 1983 graphic design and simply package it in a plain colorless bottle, all will be well with the world.¹

1. With the exception of wars, plagues, and the design of the even worse “DML Forte” packaging. Is that gold Tekton with a pink squiggle? Ew ew ew. [↩]

Edit 9/21/2010: This deal now dead. They’re now selling on Amazon for $74.99.

Because I’ve bought or browsed similar items in the past, Amazon.com just sent me an email to let me know that the “Deal of the Day” is the Ultimate Ears SuperFi 4 Noise Isolating Earphones, which they’re selling today for $39.99. The email says this is 69% off the list price. I don’t know what Amazon’s regular price for these is as they’ve already changed their price for today’s deal, but I do know that these same earbuds go for $121.10 at buy.com, and they have sold for around $80 new on eBay¹. So this really is a significant price drop for what is normally an expensive item.²

The market has gotten pretty crowded since I first started using high-quality earbuds, and this particular pair is one of many I’ve never tried, but the reviews for the SuperFi 4’s look to be promising. For half price or less they may be a good choice if you’ve been considering a set of better earbuds than those which come with the iPod/iPhone/Zune/etc.

I like and recommend using earbuds over headphones when monitoring audio recording in a noisy environment, when watching or listening to a media player on a plane or train, or when listening to media in bed³. I’ve had very good experiences with Shure earbuds and with the Future Sonics Atrios. My Shure e2c’s I bought very cheaply on an earlier deal, and I use them for running⁴. The Atrios are part of my production kit, and I also use them when traveling. The fact that earbuds block a lot of surrounding noise, just as do earplugs, allows me to concentrate on listening at lower volume and without distraction. If you’ve got the need, these might be worth looking into while they’re discounted.⁵

1. My favorite way to determine the going price for an item is to do a search on eBay for completed auctions. [↩]
2. The last sale a search turns up for this item was back in July for $59.99. [↩]
3. I’ve slept with earbuds in and iPhone alarm on before when traveling or when sharing a room to avoid waking others. [↩]
4. Which I really need to get back to doing on a regular basis. [↩]
5. Or as Amazon says, “…while supplies last.” [↩]

Amazon just knocked %20 off the price of the Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Receiver With Heart Rate Monitor, which lowers the price of this handy runner’s training tool down to $125, the lowest I’ve seen. MSRP’s a laughable $299, the watch seems to sell most places for $160-180.

I have the less-full-featured version of this watch, the Garmin 205. When I’m running regularly and am in good shape, I find this watch to be handy. I can look at it at any moment to see my current pace and make sure I’m not running too fast to go the distance and avoid injury. If I’m running a particularly interesting or novel route I’ll connect the watch to my computer and look at the path I’ve taken overlaid on an online map alongside an altitude/time/pace graph. It’s also handy for biking. The Garmin 305 builds on the features of the 205 and adds a heart-rate monitor (which is recorded along with the other data for later review on your computer) and the ability to communicate with wireless accessories (such as the Garmin GSC 10 Speed/Cadence Bike Sensor). I find running to be a much more enjoyable activity when it’s combined with data collection.

If you’re in the market for such a GPS watch now¹, I think this is a good buy at $125² .

1. and don’t feel like waiting a few years for the watch to get discontinued and show up at a local garage sale so that you can then buy it for 1/3 the price but live with reduced battery life due to the advanced age of its rechargeable battery pack [↩]
2. i just can’t bring myself to write “$124.99″ for some reason. $124.99 is effectively $125. Can someone explain to me the marketing benefit of ending all prices in $0.99? [↩]

For those who’d like to buy a Canon Rebel T2i without the kit lens, it looks as though Amazon’s now taking preorders for the T2i body:

Canon EOS Rebel T2i (Body Only) – $799.99

I’d expect the fact that they’re taking preorders means they have a shipment coming to their distribution centers from Canon. Just a guess.

When I bought my T2i, it seemed only the kits with lens were available for purchase. I decided I didn’t mind having the extra lens, as then I could loan my Rebel XT to people with a decent lens that I didn’t care too much about. But maybe that was just rationalization and if the body-only version of the T2i were available I’d have gone for it.

My previous post, on how to get a discounted price on a Canon T2i, might still apply (if you want to buy the camera on eBay).

For those wondering why I’m so excited about this camera; It’s because the T2i is a way to shoot decent HD video with a relatively large sensor and great lenses for under $1000. Such tools for good-looking budget filmmaking are hitting the streets and will change the nature of online video, if not also segments of television and theatrical film.

I was surprised to see this item at its position in Amazon’s bestsellers in Electronics, so I tweeted about it. I added this image, which went straight to posterous, which autoposted here. I’ve changed the date to push this post into the past so that it doesn’t show up on the front page of my blog. Even I set limits for how uninteresting a post I’ll leave sitting on the front page.

I like writing, sketching, and I like to play with the odd electronic gadget, so I thought this IOGear “Mobile Digital Scribe” (AKA the GPEN200N) seemed an intriguing device. This weirdly technologized pen can be had for $44.95 at Amazon.com, at least until the end of September.¹

I bought and received mine, taking funds from my geeky-and-probably-unnecessary-device budget. A close look reveals that there are two parts to this gadget; The pen and the base station. The base station clips to a piece or pad of paper, and is used to record the movement of the pen, it features a single button that can be held-down to turn the base station on and off², and can be pressed quickly in order to indicate that the user is sketching a new page (up to 50 pages worth of scribblings can be recorded at a stretch). The base connects to the computer via USB cable, and the included software will instantly transfer any recorded notes to a specified location on the computer as TIFF images. The USB connection also charges the base station’s internal battery. The pen uses a couple of those tiny watch or hearing aid batteries, and shuts itself off whenever its not moving, so apparently they don’t need to be replaced often.³

I connected the base to my computer, updated its firmware to 1.76 so that it’d work with Mac OS X, rebooted my computer, unplugged the base, clipped it to some paper, wrote a bit, then plugged the base back into the computer. Everything I wrote transferred over to the computer automatically as a tiff file (deposited into a folder I’d pre-designated), and looked very very good. I’d guess that the base unit stores pen movements in a vector-based format, which is then rendered to a tiff file after it’s transferred to the computer.

I tried the bundled OCR⁴ software, “MyScript Notes Light” on Windows XP inside VMware Fusion. On my first test, it worked surprisingly well. Subsequent tests were not so successful. I think it gets confused when it tries to emulate the layout of text written in lines that are not completely horizontal. I also scribbled a couple of Chinese characters (ni hao) and it recognized those and converted them to text (in a separate pass with the OCR software set to simplified Chinese). There’s no reason that the high-resolution TIFF images created by the pen couldn’t be opened in more capable OCR software, perhaps resulting in more usable transcriptions.

Mouse mode does work, the pen can be used to draw and drag on the computer. A click can be executed by pressing the point of the pen down or by clicking the pen’s side button. There’s a bit of lag, which would suck for gaming, but mouse mode could potentially be of use with photoshop (note: the pen is not pressure sensitive).

I half-busted one of the base unit’s clips trying to clip it to a stack of paper larger than it can accept. So my recommendation would be “don’t do what I did”. Other than that hiccup, my thoughts on the IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe (or GPEN200N) are positive so far.

1. It’s currently marked down from $129 (WTFLOL) to $64.95, and then there’s a $20 mail-in rebate. [↩]
2. It took me a day to figure this out –the little guide it ships with says nothing about this, and holding the button produces some bizarre twiddlings of items on the base station’s LCD display, animations that don’t appear to portend an imminent shutdown, before it indeed shuts down. [↩]
3. Whether or not those batteries will ever need to replaced will depend on whether or not I tire quickly of this new toy or actually find it useful and take notes with it daily. [↩]
4. Optical Character Recognition – it converts one’s writing into text. [↩]

I’ve not only just purchased a restaurant supply pack of three 1-liter bottles of my favorite salad dressing, but I am having it sent to me here in Michigan while working on location. As if that doesn’t already sound a little extreme, I also made the purchase as a “subscription”¹ at Amazon, so that the price drops another %15, and an order will automatically be placed for me every 6 months².

If you’ve never had Annie’s Naturals Shiitake & Sesame Vinaigrette, and you like your salad dressings savory and tangy, I’d highly recommend giving it a try. Once you’re addicted, the most economical way to satisfy your craving is the aforementioned 3-liter pack at Amazon.com.. Your supermarket likely has the 8oz bottles for around $4ea, or 50 cents an oz. My seemingly insane purchase gets the price down to about 20 cents an oz. Cheaper than water! I might just drink the stuff straight for the first week after delivery. The second week it’ll be on the rocks.

Suffice it to say that I eat a lot of lettuce and other tortoise-approved foods.

1. I can cancel it any time I want to. I just don’t want to. [↩]
2. which is about how long it’ll take me to get through 3-liters of the stuff. [↩]

The other day I unexpectedly received a CD in the mail, from a sender whose name I didn’t recognize. The band: “Letters vs. Numbers”, album: “Bone Tired”. The back of the sleeve was a handwritten list of other recipients along with a printed request that the recipient rip the album to their computer, add their name and location to the list, and send it to someone else.

Always one to obediently follow directions, I ripped, signed, and sent. I also listened, and damned if it isn’t a great little album. Here’s the first track, “Forget Everything”, for your streaming or downloading pleasure¹ :

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

download mp3

I’d highly recommend that you receive this album by mail from a friend or an anonymous source. Failing that, the mysterious band² has a website, a myspace page³, and the album is available at both the iTunes music store and the Amazon MP3 store.

1. Hit the triangle button to play the track in your browser, or the download link to download the mp3 file [↩]
2. Their myspace page doesn’t list the names of band members, their number, or even a location. [↩]
3. The album can be listened to on the page in that icky myspace music player widget. [↩]

The title kinda says it all. For some reason Amazon.com is selling the Criterion Edition of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Blu-ray for $14.99¹

This particular release includes 2 discs. The first includes the film with audio commentary from director David Fincher. The second disc is all supplementary material, with hours of video and still photo galleries covering all aspects of production. A taste of these extras can be found on Amazon’s page for the film, where one can watch a 6-minute excerpt of the making-of featurette about some of the film’s visual effects.

I don’t know what prompted this price drop, but I’d be happy to see many more Criterion titles fall into such a price range. Criterion discs are known for the quality of their extra materials and featurettes, and they generally cost more than the average disc. I like the idea of lowering the barrier to entry to give more people access to high-quality behind-the-scenes information that can illuminate the filmmaking process.²

1. Disclaimer: I worked on this film. I’m in the credits and everything. I mean to minimize the gloatiness of this “disclaimer” by making it a footnote, set in small type. Yeah, that oughta do it. [↩]
2. I’m looking forward to receiving my Blu-ray disc, and I am hoping it includes a 2-hour featurette on the Excel spreadsheets and web apps I coded to help track VFX clips in the timeline. (Kidding.) Given how often I end up using Excel on productions, I may have to put together an exciting spreadsheet sequence for my editing reel. (Might be kidding.) [↩]