Viva Las Vegas (8)!0

Hey everyone, just thought I’d write a little news post (and yeah, this one won’t be THAT long, since it’s pretty late while I’m writing this ) on filmmaking and some gadgets I’ve been checking out.

As I said yesterday, I bought the new version of Sony Vegas. I’ve tried it a bit the last day (but since I had a test on chemistry in school today, I had to study a lot) and it looks great so far. All the rendering stuff I had problems with earlier seems to be working fine now, and there’s now also a setting to work in a 32-bit colour environment. Basically, this allows me to grade and change colours in my films with pretty much no quality loss from the original master. I’ve regraded a few scenes from the original “16″ tapes, and it works great so far! Hopefully I’ll be able to render “16″ in full quality 1080p HD quality some day now, so I can finally get up the version I want you to see, with better quality and sharpness. More on that once I’ve actually done something about that, thought I’d talk a bit about the new film “Derby”. I havn’t really got around to start and seriously work on the script, but I have been using my special film notebook and been writing down ideas when I get them. Can’t say for sure when I’ll start with proper pre-production, but it shouldn’t be too long now. I’ve also been listening a lot to certain new soundtracks and film scores the last week or so and I’ve got inspiration to create a short film/test which will basically be an editing and cinematography test. Will have to remember to bring my camera next time I go to the countryside and film that scene (shouldn’t be longer than a minute or so), and I can show what I’m talking about to all of you!

I’ve been having some minor problems with my main computer the last couple of days actually. I’ve been getting about one or two bsod (blue screen of death) every afternoon saying something with ntfs.sys and DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. At first I thought it had something to do with the graphics drivers, but after doing some research I’m pretty sure it’s RAM-related. Going to do some diagnostic tests on the computer this weekend, and if it’s a faulty RAM stick, I’ll have to take it out and either try to repair it or order a new part. More on this as I get more infomation about it!

Lastly today I’d thought I’d write something about the new iPods Apple announced pretty much exactly one week ago today. They announced some new colours for their cheapest and tiniest model, the Shuffle. This really wasn’t very interesting, but some other product announcements were! Firstly, they announced the new iPod Nano, with a slightly larger screen and video playback. The big iPod was renamed the iPod Classic and featured some new design features, as well as increased memory space (there’s now an 80 and a 160gb version!). They also announced the iPod touch, which is pretty much an iPhone with that nifty multi-touch display, without the phone. Shame it’s only available in a maximum capacity of 16gb. Me and Johannes (who’s never been an Apple fan) went to Apple yesterday to see if the new iPods had arrived. The new iPod classic in the 80gb size had arrived, so we got to try it out and it sure is really cool. The screen seems to be slightly brighter too, but they didn’t mention this in the press conference last week. Johannes ordered an 80gb model and actually got it today from the store, so I went with him to pick it up. I still havn’t got any pictures on Johannes’ new iPod, but I think I’ll be able to get some tomorrow and post them in this news post. I was more interested in the 160gb model, so I’ve asked the Apple people pretty much every day if they know when they’ll get it in store, but they’ve pretty much said that they don’t have a clue when they’ll get it. So to be on the safe said and pretty much be guaranteed an iPod by at least next Friday, I ordered a black 160gb iPod Classic from the swedish online Apple store today. The website says it’s going to arrive either on next Tuesday or Wednesday, so hopefully that’ll be true. Anyway, I’ll post a full review on that when I’ve used it for a week or so. Hopefully Johannes will post his review on his new iPod on his own website soon, but considering he just got it today, it might take a little longer

I don’t really have much to write about gaming this week. I havn’t had enough time to sit down and play some games the last couple of days, due to the classic, old-fashioned massive school overkill! (will have to create some kind of acronym for that..)

In school I’ve been doing all sorts of things. Last Friday I had a presentation with a friend in Biology class, and just today we had a test in chemistry. I’ve also been doing some homework each day in the other subjects, to stay on scheadule. Up next is another Biology test on Monday, and another Biology test the following Friday! But fortunantly it seems like it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, unless we get some other crazy homework thing to do while studying for the tests. A pretty fun thing connected to school is that I’ve been writing a small essay on analyzing one of my favorite movies, “Reservoir Dogs”. I started writing today, and hopefully it should be done by tomorrow evening. It’s basically a text analyzing the different characters, locations and cinematography throughout the film, which is supposed to be finished next Thursday. But it’s too damn fun to write about movies!

Check back tomorrow in this news post for some pictures of Johannes’ new iPod, and I’ll talk to you when I talk to you, which will probably be in a couple of days! Until then, take care everybody and remember to watch as much movies as you can (without going mental of course)!

/Nils C