Aug

9

How to record off your Motorola DVR with OS X and Firewire

Filed Under apple, technology | Leave a Comment

If you’re running a mac with OS X and have a Motorola DVR with Firewire ports on the back (such as the popular Motorola DCT3416), recording digitally from your DVR to your computer is very simple if you follow these steps:

1.  Download and install the latest Firewire Development Kit from Apple.  The download is free, but you do have to register first.  This download will include AVCVideoCap.app which is the software you need to capture and/or record from your  FireWire connected HDTV-tuner or DVR.

Once this file is downloaded and installed, when you connect your computer to your DVR or HDTV tuner via firewire and launch this application, the DVR should be automatically detected.  Simply press “capture from device” and whatever is playing on your DVR or HDTV tuner will automatically be recorded on your computer.

2.  If you just want to play back the file that AVCVideoCap.app creates (which is a *.m2t file), you can download and install VLC which is a very handy video player for many formats.

However, if you want to export and convert the file for use in another way (i.e. sharing with others as a quicktime move for example), you’ll have to do two more things:

3.  The MPEG-2 Playback component is required if you want the capability to convert the *.m2t file into another format (such as a .mov).  Its available from Apple for about $20.

4.  Once you have the MPEG-2 Playback compondent installed, you can download and install MPEG Streamclip.  This software will then enable you to not only watch the *.m2t file that AVCVideo.app created, but also enable you to “Save As” or convert to a number of other file types including *.mov

I would also suggest if you don’t already have it, purchase the upgrade to Quicktime Pro for about $30 so that you can export Quicktime movies for the web in the excellent H.264 format.

Jun

29

Phaseous on foxbusiness.com

Filed Under marketing, pete lacis, public relations, technology | Leave a Comment

Check out this article by Nancy Colasurdo on foxbusiness.com in which my company Phaseous was featured discussing the virtues of Search Engine Optimization, branding and putting users in control of their online communications.

“You Are Your Website”

Mar

5

Steve Jobs kills hopes of flash on the iPhone

Filed Under annoyances, apple, technology | Leave a Comment

iPhone Douche BagWith the release of the iPhone SDK just around the corner, many in the tech community were surprised (read: bummed) to learn that there will be no flash support on the iPhone (source: Steve Jobs CNN article). While there are arguments with respect to flash using up too much power (thus prematurely discharging the battery), I’d put my money on Adobe not capitulating to the financial pressures that Jobs is infamous for. Looking forward to the back-story on this one.

Feb

27

Egnater Amp Building Seminar, Premier Guitar Magazine & Video Feature of Yours Truly

Filed Under amplifiers, audio clips, music, musical instruments, pete lacis, technology | Leave a Comment

This past weekend I had the priveledge to attend the Egnater amp building seminar outside of Detroit, MI. It was an amazing experience to build my own JTM 45 - inspired amp, let alone to learn about all of the theory behind how and why these things work. I was amazed at seemingly how few of the amp’s components actually let to it sounding like a Marshall, Fender, Vox, etc. The amp sounds great as is, but I’m psyched to get back under the hood and start some tweaking!

In related news, Premier Guitar Magazine’s Joe Coffey was in attendance to participate and document the class. Afterward he asked be to demo my completed amp (with my Suhr Standard). I just learned that the magazine decided to put that video up as a feature on their site! Check it out:

Feb

16

The annoying thing about upgrading to OS X 10.5.2

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While overall I’ve been very happy with the results my new 200 GB hard drive, OS X 10.5.2 and Office 2008 install, I’m a bit annoyed that capability I had with my MacBook Pro out of the box with OS X 10.4 are now missing……namely iDVD, iMovie and iPhoto.  Sure, I can regain those capabilities via $99 family pack upgrade.  However, its the principle of having to pay for capabilities I already had (and had already paid for) that is just not right.  First the $200 penalty for iPhone early adopters, now this.

Feb

15

Upgrading the Hard Drive in my MacBook Pro and installing Leopard

Filed Under apple, technology | Leave a Comment

As a musician and multimedia creation expert, I’ve run into trouble attempting to maximize performance and storage space.  Specifically, my 17″ MacBook Pro had 90 GB hard drive at 7200 rpm.  It was speedy for sure…..but it was so loaded with apps that I had little to no room for data.  Being that I have almost three terabytes of external storage, somethings were just not as efficient as I would have liked (namely Native Instruments sample libraries for Komplete 4 had to be housed externally).  After much frustration and a bit of research, I recently pulled the trigger on a 200GB Seagate drive that runs at 7200 rpm.  After backing up things the old fashion way (I was running 10.4.11 on the old drive), I’ve replaced the drive and installed Leopard.  Stay tuned for how well the migration goes….Entourage 2004 is my primary concern (upgrading to Entourage 2008), but I have a LOAD of apps to install including NI Komplete, Ableton Live 6, Adobe Creative Suite, Macromedia Studio 8, MS Office 2008 and then some.

Jan

23

Blabbermouth.net and posting my content without credit

Filed Under music, musical instruments, technology | 1 Comment

I received an interesting lesson regarding free syndication of content today via Google Alerts. Apparently Blabbermouth.net chose to post some of my videos from my NAMM coverage. Fine, but not only did they not give any credit, they even posted my descriptions verbatim from my YouTube entries. I set the content up to be freely distributed in an effort to help spread the word about certain artists and manufacturers. That said, posting someone else’s content without citing a source or giving credit is totally wrong in my book.

Jan

17

Blogging The NAMM Show

Filed Under musical instruments, technology | Leave a Comment

Today marks the beginning of coverage of Winter NAMM 2008.  Stay tuned for all the latest and greatest news.  Quick updates will be posted via Twitter  with daily wrap-up articles posted here, complete with photos and video.  Stay tuned!

Jan

14

Possible Leak - Steve Jobs Macworld 2008 Keynote?

Filed Under marketing, public relations, technology | Leave a Comment

Twitter has been abuzz this morning regarding the possible leak of Steve Jobs’ Macworld 2008 keynote on wikipedia. If this turns out to be true, it marks an enormous change in the world of Apple pr, in that they have always been extremely tight-lipped about all things announcement related.  Leaks are a common way to build buzz, but it has never been Apple’s style….especially not Steve Jobs’.  This will be fun to watch.

Jan

13

AVCHD and the Apple Final Cut Fiasco

Filed Under pete lacis, technology, trouble shooting | Leave a Comment

While the AVCHD format is still pretty new, I was disappointed to learn that the version of Final Cut Express HD (3.5) that I purchased in August would not support this new codec. Then I learn that the new version of Final Cut Express 4 supports AVCHD, but actually has less features than v3.5 So this would lead one to believe that it costs $99 to “upgrade but downgrade?!” With this realization (and after researching about and drooling over Final Cut Pro Studio 2), I was all set to purchase the full-feature bundle when I found out that my initial full price investment in Final Cut Express HD would not be applied towards my $1,300 Final Cut Pro Studio 2 purchase. Needless to say, I purchased the $99 upgrade but downgrade so that I could use my new camera. That, unfortunately, would not be the end of the story….

Upon using Final Cut Express 4 for the first time to import video from my new Canon HG10, the software would crash at about the 20% mark. After a few hours of troubleshooting, I uncovered the fact that there’s a legacy Quicktime component called Perian that was causing the crash. Once that component was deleted, everything worked fine.

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