Thursday, April 08, 2004
Review: Shuttle ST62K XPC Zen - including build experience
Review: Shuttle ST62K XPC ZenWhat makes this special is he describes the barebones system AND how he built it. If I were to buy another XP machine, this would probably be it.
HeadRoom | Headphone info by gurus
HeadRoom | Home
Very professional layout and great content from serious users.
Very professional layout and great content from serious users.
Mirra - personal server
Is Mirra for me » Mirra. The first Personal Server: "With the release of Mirra Personal Server 1.1, Mirra just got even better -- easier set up, thumbnails for improved photosharing over the Internet, better performance, and much more."
This is clever. I presume it's a Linux box with some big drives. They bundle some custom software for backup/versioning and some tunneling software so you can server images and access files form inside a software using an external Mira Proxy. (Probably a Linux VPN solution.)
Nice packaging of hardware and software. This is very innovative use of basic technology.
The drawback of the backup is that it appears to be on-site only. There's no reason they couldn't setup a companion off-site service for an extra fee, that may come later.
This is clever. I presume it's a Linux box with some big drives. They bundle some custom software for backup/versioning and some tunneling software so you can server images and access files form inside a software using an external Mira Proxy. (Probably a Linux VPN solution.)
Nice packaging of hardware and software. This is very innovative use of basic technology.
The drawback of the backup is that it appears to be on-site only. There's no reason they couldn't setup a companion off-site service for an extra fee, that may come later.
Usenet posting on Acrobat 6 JPEG 2000 compresion - poor results with grayscale images
From: jfaughnan@spamcop.net (John Faughnan)
Newsgroups: adobe.acrobat.windows
Subject: JPEG2000 and grayscale image size growth
NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.138.188.194
Message-ID: <5c0dbfb4.0404081405.1e8f3bd@posting.google.com>
I did some initial testing using the most extreme (low quality) JPEG
2000 image compression settings with Distiller 6. (JPEG2000 is new in
Acrobat 6. A primary potential application is scanning color documents
including maps.)
I first scanned a sample document at 200x200 16 bit color, producing a
10MB tiff (lzw compressed) file. The JPEG 2000 PDF of this image was
only 160K. The text in the 160K file was quite readable. I considered
this to be a very good result, almost a 70 fold compression with
preserved text readability. In my past experience JPEG compression of
a scanned text image makes the text unreadable due to jpeg artifact
even with moderate (10 fold) compression. This is a qualitative
improvement over JPEG. (For reference, past experience using B/W
images scanned with CCITT 4 compression produces typically a 40K image
of the same test document.)
I then scanned the same document at 200x200 gray scale. This resulted
in a 3.6MB TIFF (lossless compression). The JPEG2000 compressed PDF,
however, was 1.77MB! A JPEG PDF of the same file was only 300K (and
was quite readable). Something's wrong here - I expected a JPEG2000
maximally compessed PDF of this grayscale image to come in at about
60-80K. I suspect a bug in Distiller's handling of JPEG2000 compressed
grayscale images. I wonder if Distiller is not honoring the
compression setting for grayscale images.
Has anyone seen anything like this?
john
jfaughnan@spamcop.net
meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, jpeg2000, jpeg 2000, pdf, jp2k, lossy
compression, scans, scanner, scanned image, acrobat, adobe acrobat 6,
text
Newsgroups: adobe.acrobat.windows
Subject: JPEG2000 and grayscale image size growth
NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.138.188.194
Message-ID: <5c0dbfb4.0404081405.1e8f3bd@posting.google.com>
I did some initial testing using the most extreme (low quality) JPEG
2000 image compression settings with Distiller 6. (JPEG2000 is new in
Acrobat 6. A primary potential application is scanning color documents
including maps.)
I first scanned a sample document at 200x200 16 bit color, producing a
10MB tiff (lzw compressed) file. The JPEG 2000 PDF of this image was
only 160K. The text in the 160K file was quite readable. I considered
this to be a very good result, almost a 70 fold compression with
preserved text readability. In my past experience JPEG compression of
a scanned text image makes the text unreadable due to jpeg artifact
even with moderate (10 fold) compression. This is a qualitative
improvement over JPEG. (For reference, past experience using B/W
images scanned with CCITT 4 compression produces typically a 40K image
of the same test document.)
I then scanned the same document at 200x200 gray scale. This resulted
in a 3.6MB TIFF (lossless compression). The JPEG2000 compressed PDF,
however, was 1.77MB! A JPEG PDF of the same file was only 300K (and
was quite readable). Something's wrong here - I expected a JPEG2000
maximally compessed PDF of this grayscale image to come in at about
60-80K. I suspect a bug in Distiller's handling of JPEG2000 compressed
grayscale images. I wonder if Distiller is not honoring the
compression setting for grayscale images.
Has anyone seen anything like this?
john
jfaughnan@spamcop.net
meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, jpeg2000, jpeg 2000, pdf, jp2k, lossy
compression, scans, scanner, scanned image, acrobat, adobe acrobat 6,
text
Mac OS X: Computer Won't Start up After Resetting PRAM
Mac OS X: Computer Won't Start up After Resetting PRAM
If you have a RAID scheme set up, your computer may not start up if you reset parameter RAM (PRAM) when you restart.
Restart your computer while holding down the Option key to select your startup system.
If this doesn't work, restart your computer while holding down the Command, Option, Shift, and Delete keys.
Startup disk info is stored in PRAM, so if a Mac can't find it's startup disk try these methods, then try zapping pram if they fail. I think there's also a key combo that will select classic vs. OS X on dual boot startup.
If you have a RAID scheme set up, your computer may not start up if you reset parameter RAM (PRAM) when you restart.
Restart your computer while holding down the Option key to select your startup system.
If this doesn't work, restart your computer while holding down the Command, Option, Shift, and Delete keys.
Startup disk info is stored in PRAM, so if a Mac can't find it's startup disk try these methods, then try zapping pram if they fail. I think there's also a key combo that will select classic vs. OS X on dual boot startup.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
BYTE Media Lab 2004 Imaging Awards: Analog to Digital Converters
BYTE Media Lab 2004 Imaging Awards, Part 2
I looked into this a while back. The various alternatives are using a service to burn video to DVD (but what if the priceless original family video is lost or damaged?), using a digital camera in pass-through mode, or using a PVR. It's really, really, tough to find knowledgeable reviews comparing the alternatives.
This is a big vote for the Canopus. I've got a pile of 8mm SuperVHS home video I need to move to digital media, then edit to DVD. Part of the equation is a future Mac (a high end G4 laptop or a G5 server) and FinalCut Pro, but this may be another part of it. Not cheap, so I can wait a while.
Best Video Product
The Best Video Product goes to Canopus for its $549 ADVC300 analog to digital video converter. Pros and consumers alike have mountains of analog video tapes that need to be converted for both archival and production purposes. We've used a variety of systems to accomplish this task over the years, but the ADVC300 is the best implementation we've seen.
The right way to apply signal and image enhancement corrections to flaky analog signals is on the way in via hardware during the capture stage, but few products give you this option. The ADVC300 cross-references each NTSC frame with the frames immediately preceding and following it, applying digital noise reduction and image stabilization using Line Time Base Correction (LTBC). You can control brightness, contrast, saturation, noise level, and other settings via software. The unit captures to DV tape or disk, and it's compatible with Final Cut Pro, Avid Xpress DV and Adobe Premiere Pro, as well as Canopus's EDIUS editing system. It works on both Mac and PC.
I'll be discussing analog video capture in greater depth in an upcoming article, but based on our initial tests, the ADVC300 stands head and shoulders above its competition.
I looked into this a while back. The various alternatives are using a service to burn video to DVD (but what if the priceless original family video is lost or damaged?), using a digital camera in pass-through mode, or using a PVR. It's really, really, tough to find knowledgeable reviews comparing the alternatives.
This is a big vote for the Canopus. I've got a pile of 8mm SuperVHS home video I need to move to digital media, then edit to DVD. Part of the equation is a future Mac (a high end G4 laptop or a G5 server) and FinalCut Pro, but this may be another part of it. Not cheap, so I can wait a while.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)