[Tim Wilson]

[Sam Lesante Jr.] ” It would air on a local cable channel and possibly a broadcast station like WFMZ in Allentown”

You’d really need to check with those outlets. A local cable channel could well be fine. I saw a regular community access cable station with an entirely naked talk show, because it fit that community. (I’m not going to name the community, but its initials are NY NY.) Since the FCC has no jurisdiction over the cable channel, you’d have trust them to know their community’s standards….which probably aren’t the same as the standards in the unnamed town whose initials are NY.

As an example, I did a couple of shows for a local cable station in Key West, Florida, and they got very nervous around footage of people in bathing suits. Clothing (or lack of clothing) that’s okay on the beach isn’t the same as what’s okay for dinner time viewing.

Along those lines, for the local broadcast station, even blurs might be too explicit. The law is the law, but these guys have to live with the sensibilities of their viewers and advertisers. WFMZ or other local broadcasters know what’s okay and what’s not, and won’t be shy about telling you.

[Tim Wilson]

[Michael Hancock] “[Richard Herd] “I can only afford 1 Avid license and 1 ProTools license. Whereas I prefer Apple OS, I want to make sure I purchase the correct one for the TV and Film industry standards. It’s what my students want to learn, at risk high school kids.”

When you buy Avid you can install it on either Windows or Macs. You get an installer for both. In addition, you can install it on all of your computers but only one can be activated at a time. Student using it on the iMac? Awesome. When they’re done they deactivate the license and another student on a PC can start Avid and activate it. Rinse/repeat. No limits on installs or OS, just one activated at a time.”

And as a reminder, because every time this comes up, somebody is surprised because they had no idea:

Academic licenses for Avid Media Composer are $295, and includes 4 years of upgrades. (I said $395 in an earlier post – it’s TWO ninety five.) That price is good for students, institutions AND TEACHERS. Some details here.

Same price for Pro Tools academic.

[Tim Wilson]

Hi Charles,

See the sticky post at the top of the forum.

Although, since you’re here, this is what’s in that post:

Wondering where a forum is? The answer is….
….in the hands of the manufacturer.

It couldn’t be simpler.

CreativeCOW.net forums exist when manufacturers work with us.

CreativeCOW.net forums go away when manufacturers decide to stop working with us.

Don’t see a forum you’d like to see? Sorry to see a forum go away? Have them talk to us, let’s figure something out.

So there you go. Be sure to let Stardom know that you want their forum back in the COW. We’ll be happy to turn it on as soon as they wish to work with us.

Regards,
Tim

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

Hi Jeff,

We’ve answered this on other threads, so I mistakenly assumed I’d answered it here. To make sure I don’t miss this again, I’ve created a sticky post, which you’ll see at the top of the page.

But since you’re here, this is what’s in that post:

Wondering where a forum is? The answer is….
….in the hands of the manufacturer.

It couldn’t be simpler.

CreativeCOW.net forums exist when manufacturers work with us.

CreativeCOW.net forums go away when manufacturers decide to stop working with us.

Don’t see a forum you’d like to see? Sorry to see a forum go away? Have them talk to us, let’s figure something out.

So there’s your answer. Sonnet decided to not to work with us, or answer phone calls or emails to see if they wanted the forum to continue. We’ll happily bring them back when they get in touch.

Thanks,
Tim

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

The FCC’s authority is limited to over-the-air broadcasting. HBO, Comedy Central, all those guys — they make no impact on spectrum, so, generally, the FCC has no jurisdiction over cable. If you want to dig into this, the FCC actually has a very good website, with all of their rules posted and explained in lay terms….if still stated a little stiffly. You’re looking for Section 76.

The rules and regulations set forth in this part provide for the certification of cable television systems and for their operation in conformity with standards for carriage of television broadcast signals, program exclusivity, cablecasting, access channels, and related matters. The rules and regulations in this part also describe broadcast carriage requirements for cable operators and satellite carriers.

The exceptions are where cable meets over the air, especially for things like signal leakage.

There a couple of other weird ones. The FCC hears complaints about Equal Opportunity employment violations, and the percentage of commercials in children’s programming. The former makes no sense to me — what does that have to do with either signal OR program content? Shouldn’t those complaints be heard by a labor board of some kind? The latter surely wouldn’t hold up to review — the Court has held consistently since 1977 (the famous HBO vs. FCC case) that the FCC has no jurisdiction over cable content. But I have a feeling that kids-oriented networks are in no hurry to challenge the rules on this one.

There’s also a concept known as the FCC’s “reasonably ancillary jurisdiction,” admirably covered here, but mostly in relation to the “siphoning” rules that the FCC tried to exert over cable on behalf of broadcasters, but was shot down. In other words, yet another statement of the FCC’s limits on control over cable, and actually, a pretty fun read if you’re inclined.

So for now, yeah, no bosom-ation on broadcast, end of story. (The exception is wardrobe malfunctions. The Supreme Court ruled in June 2012 that FCC has no enforcement power over acts or words that the broadcaster couldn’t have reasonable foreseen.) The tendencies of premium providers to restrict adult content to certain hours is just that – a tendency, nothing legal. And with DirecTV, you can get most of that stuff on the west coast before dinner time anyway.

Or on the internet.

Probably more than you wanted to know, but I really enjoy this stuff….

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

Hate to say it man, but as somebody with 50 already in the rear view mirror, and some education in physiology, one reason why stuff feels heavier is that we’re getting weaker.

Lighter gear will help, but strengthening your core will help a lot too. I’m a big fan of squats and deadlifts with lightweights, but have also found that stretching, all by itself, makes a big difference. Even if your job mostly involves sitting in a chair.

I’m just saying.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

[Gary Huff] “5DtoRGB can do it on Windows…for free. Though, admittedly, only one file at a time.

EDIT: Tim beat me to it.”

🙂

And, “Another GUI” (that’s the name of the free software) is a free downloadable front end for ffmpeg (the same free software underneath 5DtoRGB) that’s quite nice, and supports batching.

Sorry to be repetitious, but I think this is pretty cool stuff.

tw

[Tim Wilson]

With the academic version of Avid Media Composer, after you graduate, it becomes a full commercial license. Note that this deal is also good for teachers.

[Shane Ross] “But if they want to work in TV/film, they need to learn the Avid.”

Which is what makes the $399 Media Composer deal such a no-brainer.

The myth of “no ProRes on a PC” really does need to die. In addition to Episode, Telestream Vantage and FlipFactory all encode to ProRes on Windows. Harmonic Rhozet ProCoder (formerly Canopus, then Grass Valley) integrates straight into Premiere, so you can encode ProRes on Windows directly from the timeline.

Slight catch: you have to be using a server version of Windows, which CS6 doesn’t technically support, but I’ve seen many reports of it working in grand fashion. Of course, you can also run the server version of the OS on a render machine or garden…no different than thousands of you are already doing with render stations/gardens/farms already.

These can scale up to enterprise-class infrastructures of course, but you can also use the free 5DtoRBG, which puts a nice interface on top of FFmpeg, which is not only free but open source.

Note that FFmpeg is not exactly pretty for non-nerds. Lots of command line. It’s also limited to 1 file at a time. However, downloading “Another GUI” (that’s the name of the free software) as the front end is pretty slick, and supports batching.

These are all a lot simpler than I’m making them sound LOL, but there really are quite a few very good options for encoding ProRes on Windows, from massive server-based batch encoding, all the way down to single-file DSLR exports, and several stops in-between.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW

[Tim Wilson]

[walter biscardi] “60 hour work weeks are welcome respites from the usual never-ending workweek.”

It’s funny that the phrase “60 hour weeks” keeps coming up, because my wife and I had a joke about that around the video production company we ran:

What do you call a 60-hour week? VACATION!!!

The lightning round:

• Every client reduces the flexibility of your schedule by half
• You have a potentially infinite number of bosses
• …and none of them is in a hurry to pay you, no matter what.

Bob’s example of his mother-in-law’s illness is a good one. “Making your own schedule” means that you get to choose WHICH half hour you get to visit her in the hospital…but that’s it.

If you’re lucky, you can push a deadline out a day, then cram two days work into one just to catch up. But you can’t always change deadlines. Not only because of crazy clients who hate waiting. Maybe your clients are jolly and supportive — but TV stations, ad contracts, events and trade shows where your video might run — none of these will move a single second, for any reason. You HAVE to hit that deadline.

Look, I wholly relate to having soul-crushing jobs, and have left jobs because I felt myself slipping away. But if I’m being honest, I got into some of THOSE jobs because working alone was killing me. I had great clients, worked in exotic locations, had a great relationship with my wife — yet because of all those long hours in the dark by myself for so many years, I thought I was going to die.

This isn’t some “Are you man enough?” macho bs. This will AGE you. You will have LESS freedom, not more. Your mind will never stop humming, and the mental discipline to stay focused will take a physical toll on you. It’s fine saying you’re not working for the money — but that changes when you don’t HAVE money, and the only way to get any is to beg and lower your standards to compete with well-educated, highly skilled children who are doing this while they’re living at home, and don’t need the money to stay alive. You need the money to keep a BUNCH of people alive, and you will do what it takes, and it will take its toll on you.

Sticking with the “soul” language, there is a higher spiritual price to pay for this than is generally discussed, and we (especially as men hovering somewhere on either side of middle-aged) pay an even steeper price for not discussing it.

[Tim Wilson]

“iPhones map fails” is an official web meme. Here are a few places you can dig into them. I’ve never seen anything like some of these examples, and I bet you haven’t either. Just a follow a couple of these links to see why they generated an actual apology.

Although, the fact is that you’re really NOT holding it the right way.

My favorite is currently this nicely curated collection from HuffPost, “Apple Map Fails: 19 Ridiculous Glitches Spotted In Apple iOS 6’s Anti-Google App.” It’s still being updated, and is now up to a couple of dozen. They also invited you to add your own…but they’re being added in so many places around the web that this collection is still far from definitive. Still, gotta love that real-time reporting.

Close to definitive: a Tumblr devoted to Those Amazing iOS Maps. Some truly astounding stuff, and lots of it.

Apple Maps’ 6 Most Epic Fails, Forbes. Most of the fails noted here are linked to other articles, which include even more fails. The Forbes author is being a bit of a drama queen when he says he hopes nobody loses their lives relying on these maps….but I hope nobody involved relies on keeping their jobs.

If you can read Japanese, here are hundreds more. An English translation of a few of the most epic of them — and there are apparently many hundreds of them at truly epic scale –reveals that among the fails, Apple doesn’t even include Narita Airport in Tokyo, one of the world’s busiest. It’s just not on the map at all.

Even Apple lapdog Pogue weighs in with 8 pretty good slides.

Those are just off the top of my head, but I’ve never seen anything like this. You’ll have a alot of fun digging into these. A nice way to waste a couple of hours on a Saturday.

Enjoy!