Festival Previews Video Blog

In the beginning, Festival Previews sourced its preview videos exclusively from the performers themselves for display on their promotional pages. Many fine videos are regularly received but since some groups touring the festivals haven’t yet put together a video, we decided to add some of our own. So last year, we went out to the Edinburgh Fringe and videoed many of the preview performances during week zero.

For this, I chose the Canon Powershot S5 IS (American readers, click here), which was new on the market last year. Normally one would buy a camcorder and stretch it when wanting still pictures but I decided to buy a still camera and stretch it to produce video. I read many reviews on the Powershot and it didn’t look like I would have to stretch it very far.

I must say, that I have found the Powershot to be an excellent camera, with loads of ability, including an 8 megapixel sensor. I’ve enjoyed photographing nature, meteor storms, even historic documents at the National Archives and under computer control from my laptop using the supplied software which enhances its abilities even further. You can read the detailed review which sold me on this camera here. I can say that I agree with all of this review’s findings.

So, how did the videoing go? Well, again I loved it for many reasons but I found that the darkened, spotlight theatre environments with clapping audiences are much more challenging than the likes of bright beaches that perhaps this camera’s video capabilities are targeted at. You can see for yourself in the Edinburgh 2007 video section of our blog, though bear in mind that the compression software used to squeeze the videos onto the website causes a little bit of degradation as well as presenting the video at half the original resolution. Here’s a summary of the good and bad points:

Pros

• Power, it uses 4 AA batteries and it’s easy (and cheap) to carry around a bag full of rechargeable AAs.
• Storage, it uses industry standard SD memory cards. I used an 8 GBytes card (class 6), with a 4 GByte card in the bag, just in case and my phone has a 2 GByte card, which I could also use in an emergency. 8 Gbytes gives you just over an hour at best quality recording and highest resolution, twice that on the lower quality setting and twice again on lower resolution. It also downloads to the pc much faster than a camcorder would using tape.
• Superb 12 x optical zoom lens, no need to be near the stage, I usually staked out a spot at the back, which makes side to side panning much more gentle.
• Portability, very lightweight compared to a reasonable quality camcorder. I encountered many burdened camera operators lugging their equipment between venues, during the Fringe.

Cons

• The world has gone wide screen but unfortunately the Powershot hasn’t, yet. I’m sure a firmware upgrade could add this. In the meantime, it produces videos with a maximum size of 640 x 480.
• The auto focus sometimes loses lock in the challenging conditions presented by the spotlight stages.
• To change the batteries or SD memory card, the camera has to be removed from the tripod and the tripod attachment removed from the camera to gain access to these items.
• There is no socket for external microphones, which limits your options, though the in-built stereo microphones are excellent under good conditions. Where I found a problem was filming in a park with a howling wind. The wind noise reduction facility doesn’t help much.
• Humourously, a feeling of inadequacy when surrounded by national TV network cameras, as one can be on the Fringe circuit!

So, with festival season approaching again in the northern hemisphere, I think I’ll look to acquire a wide screen prosumer camcorder. I’m very impressed by Canon products and I’ve started looking at the XH A1 (American readers, click here). I’ll post an update once I have bought one, hopefully in time for the Brighton Festival Fringe. My Canon Powershot is certainly not retired, it will be left to concentrate on what it does best, producing stunning, high resolution, wide screen stills.

There was a rare 5.2 magnitude earthquake in Lincolnshire, England, early this morning, causing minor structural damage and a few injuries.

So what has this got to do with festivals? Not a lot really, except one of us here at Festival Previews has to confess to their “anorak” hobby of detecting earthquakes. Being just a few hundred miles north of the epicentre, a good graph was obtained and we felt we just had to share it!

Download

[Text of Video] Ever heard of Max Headroom? He was a big hit in the 1980s and recently came “out of retirement”. Max is a computer generated talking head. To see vintage clips of Max, visit his website at www.maxheadroom.com. I’m not sure where they got the computing power from in the 80s but we all now have enough to create our own Max and here’s one of ours! The software is called CrazyTalk, which seems quite appropriate. We’re all looking forward to having fun with it.

Many characters and alter egos can be created and ours will evolve with time and requirements. Hope you all approve and enjoy them.

Life is an endless cycle of change. Nothing remains the same. Important alone is the fact that when it comes to buying a new PC – where do you start? Okay, rather than give you a long winded tome I thought I would just give you the short cut thinking route instead:

1. What is my present PC usage? I use my PC daily and more than daily for both personal and business needs. I would say I am a heavy user of the PC. Running the Festival Previews website, I need say no more.

2. What are my requirements? I need a PC which is very fast, wide screen, mat screen finish (less glare on the eyes), video/DVD functionality, inbuilt video cam.

3. Where do I look? It is worth scanning PC magazines and checking out forum/fora websites with reviews to familiarise yourself with what’s out there. However, my top tip is to go to Dell’s Outlet site. There you can pick up “cancelled orders” – Dell machines at bargain prices.

4. What did I buy? I purchased a new Dell Inspiron 1720 costing £661.77 with VAT bumping it up to £777.52, including 3 years business warranty, saving me over £400 on the same machine from the regular Dell website – this is a bargain for a quality machine that will cope with my present level of usage for years to come and it only had a small scratch on the white casing!

The wide screen is wonderful with one drawback; I could not get a mat finish screen and so bought a shiny one instead – not great because my eyes will suffer but, hey, you sometimes have to bend to fashion. I can now have my mail box open on one side of the screen, work on a blog post or document on the other and take an occasional break and listen to and watch a performer’s virtual flyer playing away at the top of the screen – just brilliant!

5. Do I take out a 3 Year Warranty? Even though these are cancelled orders, they are new/unused and you can still purchase a 3 Year Warranty. Normally I don’t take our Warranties as they tend to be another way to drag more money out of your pockets. But Dell with its “superior service” and my considered heavy usage of the PC I felt it worthwhile. Total price £777.52 (with tax) saving me a massive £400!

Hope this helps - Happy PC hunting!

Following the hacker attack on its customer database, Fasthost has asked all customers to change their passwords. Yesterday we received the following:

Due to continued efforts to increase the security of our servers and the security/protection of all of our customers, on 13 December 2007 all mailbox passwords will be reset.”

Since mid-October we have been experiencing occasional problems accessing our website (writing up new web pages; setting up customer’s Virtual Flyers; and problems with our e-mail services).

We regularly watch the BBC2 programme Working Lunch, which reported on the problem, and we wondered if this was the reason for our email problems and being locked out of the website. The BBC reported that all customer passwords will be reset on the 13th which co-insides with what we have just been sent yesterday. Basically it would seem to boil down to: (1) they previously stored the passwords in plain text and (2) they’ve been hacked. Incredulity was expressed in the programme that the passwords were stored in plain text.

We can confirm that we are not aware of any intrusion on our website and that all our customer details are secure. We sincerely apologise for any slowness in responding to emails, writing up of your virtual flyers and your requests for new festival web pages.