dirtystylus

Converting Canon T1i Video for the PS3

Joseph and Kristen have been experimenting with their Canon T1i’s video lately. The MOV files don’t have native support on the PS3, so Joseph and I went digging for a way to convert them. The default PS3 setting in Handbrake resulted in unreadable files, so we experimented with a variety of things: custom recipes for the Handbrake CLI, ffmpeg (that’s technical quicksand, right there). It turns out the solution was pretty simple. I’ll summarize what this thread revealed. The thread was focused on the 5D mk II, but it appears that both cameras use the same file format.

The primary issue appears to be the dimensions of the files: when loaded into Handbrake the size is interpreted as 1920 x 1088, not 1920 x 1080. It turns out that cropping those 8 pixels makes all the difference.

So, based off the suggestions in that thread I created a new preset in Handbrake, starting with the default PS3 setting. I clicked 2-pass encoding, bumped the bitrate to 17000, and in the Picture Settings did this:

Crop set to 8 on the bottom setting, and in Size set Anamorphic to Strict:

That’s it. 8 pixels. Not sure why the size is reported differently to begin with, but at least there’s a workaround.

When I first created my preset I forgot to save the Picture Settings from the current encode, so I lost the crop info. So remember to set Use Picture Size to Current when making your preset:

Changing Filename Case in SVN

This one has bugged me for a long time. During a project where things get passed from developer to developer or designer to designer things often get renamed to the same name, only with a different case. For example, myFlv_IN.flv becomes myFlv_in.flv. I used to think you had to move the files away, rename them, and then re-add them. Turns out if you simply include the full path to the repository it'll do the rename in place for you.

For example:

More details can be found here, at the Subversion FAQ.

Ghost in the Shell

Every now and then you find funny stuff in the trace() logs from the flash player. Usually it's just frustrated debugging statements, or the occasional one-line "Stop looking at my underwear" statement to fellow developers. But this one takes the cake, an inspired full-on Ghostbusters-themed ASCII invite to apply for a job at blip.tv. Nice.

Das Keyboard III

Das Keyboard, Take Three. If this had been announced a month ago I might have paused before importing the Filco. It appears to use the blue Cherry keyswitches, which are a bit clickier (and consequently louder) than the brown switches on the Filco. It also has a USB hub, which the Filco lacks. It would be nice to try one, if only to feel (and hear) how it behaves.

More importantly, the new Das comes in two flavors, one of which has the characters printed on the keys. I can appreciate that not having the keys marked would make you a better touch typist if you stuck with it, but I like that they're finally giving users another option — especially if they're less concerned with touch-typing elitism and just want a great-feeling keyboard.

As for the Filco, I've settled in after a period of adjustment. It's a bit higher than the Macally Icekey that it replaced, so my hand position had to change slightly. The keys have a very "light" feel — it doesn't require much pressure to type a character, so I find myself bottoming out less unless I'm really typing fast.

svn:externals and the Versions svn Client

Update 2008-06-16: The latest beta of Versions (1.0b2 (31)) now allows you to set a different program for comparisons. I set mine to Changes, which I find a bit easier to work with than FileMerge.

I recently stumbled upon Matthew Weier O'Phinney's explanation of svn:externals and how you can use it to mix stuff from multiple repositories in one project. This helped me when I was setting up a new project at work, since we keep a lot of core code in a centralized repository, but of course each project gets its own separate location. Matthew's explanation should be included in the svn documentation, which (as he points out) lacks a simple example of how to use svn:externals.

The gist is to navigate to the folder into which you want to check out the external library, and then execute:

svn propedit svn:externals .

Within the editor session you need to add one line for every external library. The order goes: name of local folder, path to external library, like so:

extlib http://www.foo.com/path/to/external/libary

After you save and exit, an svn update on the directory will pull the external library into the folder you named in the property declaration.

I ran into one small issue — the propedit command requires that the environment variable SVN_EDITOR is set, otherwise it'll bail. I added a line to my bash profile (export SVN_EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi) to point it to vi. You can also point it to TextMate if you wish, just use export SVN_EDITOR='mate -w' instead.

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