Category Archives: multimedia

microsoft, multimedia

An Office Ribbon macro to control audio in Word

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I wrote a macro to control audio via keystrokes in Word. Its main use is for transcribing interviews, but you could use it for music as well – easy to pause a song when the phone rings. The idea is that you can pause, play and rewind an audio file from keystrokes in Word, which saves switching applications or reaching for the mouse.

It’s work in progress, hence the smiley faces. Even so, I found it interesting to do. The ribbon is great for macro developers, but could do with a visual editor. I used the Office 2007 Custom UI Editor.

There is a little more info and a download link here.

microsoft, multimedia

Another pro musician gives up on Vista audio

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I occasionally highlight interesting comments to this blog, because they are less visible than new posts. This one for example:

After months of struggling with Vista, I have now completely removed it from my quad-core, purpose-built audio recording PC. With all the same hardware, XP 64 bit edition is working as I had hoped Vista 64 would. The machine now records and plays back flawlessly.

The question I originally posed was whether Vista audio problems are primarily to do with poor drivers, or indicate more fundamental problems. Initially I was inclined to blame the drivers, especially as Microsoft put a lot of effort into improving Vista’s audio. However, read this post by Larry Osterman. He mentions three problems with audio in XP, and says:

Back in 2002, we decided to make a big bet on Audio for Vista and we committed to fixing all three of the problems listed above.

However, only one of his three problems is unequivocally about improving audio. The first is actually about Windows reliability:

The amount of code that runs in the kernel (coupled with buggy device drivers) causes the audio stack to be one of the leading causes of Windows reliability problems.

Therefore, Microsoft moved the audio stack:

The first (and biggest) change we made was to move the entire audio stack out of the kernel and into user mode.

though he adds that

In Vista and beyond, the only kernel mode drivers for audio are the actual audio drivers (and portcls.sys, the high level audio port driver).

So, not quite the entire audio stack. Some pro musicians reckon the removal of the audio stack from the kernel is the reason for Vista’s audio problems.

However you look at it, it is to my mind a depressing failure that a year after Vista’s release you can find pro musicians giving up, and even vendors (who have an interest in Vista working properly) making comments like this one from Cakewalk’s Noel Borthwick:

Vista X64 (and X86 to some extent as well) is known to have inherent problems with low latency audio. We have been in touch with Microsoft about this and other problems for over a year now so its not that Cakewalk hasn’t done their bit. There are open case numbers with MS for this issue as well.

It does look as if, for all the talk of “a big bet on audio in Vista”, Microsoft does not care that much about this aspect of the operating system.

Anyone tried audio in Vista SP1 yet?

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apple, microsoft, multimedia

Wired votes for Zune over iPod

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Wired Magazine, home of Cult of Mac, has declared the Zune 2 a better buy than the iPod Classic.

This may prove any number of things. One possibility is that Microsoft has a winner. After all, it the company’s modus operandi. Windows 1.0, rubbish. Windows 3.0, word-beating.

Then again, perhaps articles with unexpected conclusions just get more links. Like this one.

Not that I care – there is no Zune for the UK.

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apple, itunes, multimedia

Camera, Flash, Action: review of the LG Viewty

I’ve reviewed LG’s new camera phone here. I found this an interesting device because it has a Flash UI, one that for the most part works very well. It also has an excellent camera. No wi-fi, which is a shame.

The Viewty is bound to be compared to the iPhone, because both have touch screens. The Viewty is cheaper and has more features (though it is missing a few as well), but to my mind its biggest handicap is that it lacks the polish and attention to detail which typifies Apple’s products.

Back in 2004 I reviewed the iRiver H140, a great MP3 player that was superior to Apple’s iPod in several respects. It had both digital input and output. It had a better battery. It had FM radio. It had a remote with controls and an LCD display. It had a built-in microphone and a mic input – I still use it for recording today.

The H140 was a modest success, but nothing in comparison to the mighty iPod. Why? It wasn’t just the marketing, or the looks, though both were factors. Another issue was that the H140 and its successor the H320 have perplexing controls that almost seem designed to catch you out. The iRiver also came with PC software that didn’t seem to do anything at all, though in fact it inserted some right-click options into Windows Explorer. It was a far cry from the slick iTunes/iPod integration.

The Viewty pays more attention to usability than the H140, but there are enough niggles – like the dangling stylus holder, the awkward jog wheel, or the error-prone LG PC Suite – that you wonder if these lessons have been learned.

On the positive side, the Viewty is an excellent phone, camera, and portable entertainment device. It proves that the Flash UI concept works, and that the day will come when I no longer need to take a standalone camera to conferences and the like – paying attention, Canon?

PS does anyone know how to take screen grabs from the Viewty? If I can figure it out, I’ll post some examples of the UI.

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amazon, internet, multimedia

First thoughts on Kindle: Amazon’s play for downloadable content

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I’ve read the blurb, downloaded and read the manual, and watched the video. Here’s my first reaction.

Let’s take it on trust that Kindle, Amazon’s new eBook reader, is light and compact, easy on the eye, simple to use, has long battery life, and is highly readable in low light or bright sunlight. That’s no small achievement, but even if that is the case I have reservations. Here goes.

1. Documents

Here is what Kindle can read:

  • Kindle (.AZW)
  • Text (.TXT)
  • Unprotected Mobipocket (.MOBI, .PRC)
  • Audible (.AA)
  • MP3 (.MP3)

So what do you do if you have a Word document you want to transfer? Answer: you send it to Amazon, which converts it and emails the result. It’s a free service unless you want it emailed direct to your Kindle, when there is a small charge. What can Amazon convert:

  • Microsoft Word (.DOC)
  • Structured HTML (.HTML, .HTM)
  • JPEG (.JPEG, .JPG), GIF (.GIF), PNG (.PNG), BMP (.BMP)

If you have a PDF you are out of luck. Not even RTF is supported, which is bizarre since it is a subset of .doc, which is supported. Don’t bet on your CSS-formatted HTML converting nicely.

Note: you can connect your Kindle to a computer and transfer documents. So there is a way to grab existing text documents such as those at the Gutenberg project and transfer them for free.

But it’s just plain text. Fine for novels, but not too good for other kinds of content. The .AZW document type on the other hand supports formatting. What is .AZW? I am guessing, but let’s consider three things:

  • Kindle supports the Mobipocket formats
  • I downloaded an .AZW document and opened it in an editor. It contains the word BOOKMOBI in the header.
  • I downloaded a .MOBI document and opened it in an editor. It contains the word BOOKMOBI in the header, in the same position.

Looks like Amazon did a deal with Mobipocket.* That’s good, in that you can download a free document creator from there. You can also convert documents (including PDF) to .MOBI using the free Mobipocket reader. Maybe if you change the extension to .AZW it might still work? Perhaps I’m too optimistic, but you never know; it’s not a big issue since the Kindle reads .MOBI anyway.

How about books you purchase from the Kindle store, are they DRM-protected? My guess is yes, but I’ve yet to confirm. I don’t see anything in the manual about reading your .AZW documents on your PC. (Update: Yes they are DRM-protected).

Personally I will not consider purchasing a book from the Kindle store if I cannot read it on other devices as well. No matter how great the Kindle is, I may be out and about with just my laptop, or just my Smartphone. I may be at my desk and want to read my Kindle content from a desktop computer. If it is similar to Mobipocket, that may be possible to some extent, but there is all that activation/DRM stuff to deal with.

*Update – Amazon actually owns Mobipocket. So why is it not using a single format with compatible DRM (or better still, no DRM) throughout? Curious.

2. Design

Even if Kindle fixes things like daylight reading (which I believe Sony has also fixed), there is still an issue with design. I was convinced by a session at Mix07 that design is a huge issue for bringing print content to the web or other electronic formats. Kindle is at a disadvantage because it is currently monochrome. Further, I’d encourage anyone to have a play with the Times Reader to see how this WPF-based application makes for a better reading experience than PDF, which is essentially an on-screen rendering of print design and combines the disadvantages of both, or even HTML.

3. Value for money

Is an .AZW book good value at $9.99? That’s not a bad price, but when I picked one at random (Musicophilia) I found that I could buy the real book for $15.60 (free shipping) or second-hand for $11.60; a lot less than the $26.00 the Kindle store claims. If I buy the physical book, I can sell it or give it away when I’m done. The deal is more marginal than it first appears. If the content is locked to the Kindle device, that’s a deal-breaker.

What if Kindle goes colour in future, as is hinted, and better Kindle editions appear as a result? Will I be expected to buy the same content again?

4. Reading blogs and browsing the Web

Using Kindle you can subscribe to a blog for $.99 per month at the Kindle store. As a professional writer and blogger, I must say I like the idea of folk paying a subscription to read my stuff. As a user, I hate it. Why should I pay for what I can get for free on any other web-connected device? Further, my blog isn’t a “Kindle blog”, and I’m not sure how I can get it on the list.

Never mind, Kindle also has a web browser:

Your Kindle comes with an Experimental application called Basic Web which is a Web browser that is optimized to read text-centric Web sites. It supports JavaScript, SSL and cookies but does not support media plug-ins (Flash, Shockwave, etc.) or Java applets.

So you can browse to http://www.itwriting.com/blog and read it anyway. Hmmm, why would I pay for a subscription if I can browse to the blog for free? Just for offline?

Especially as the blurb says:

No monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitments—we take care of the wireless delivery so you can simply click, buy, and read.

So Kindle has free mobile data access? Now that really gets my interest, especially if it goes global. Just wait for some hacker to convert Kindle into a free wireless modem for your laptop.

5. Device convergence

I’m longing for convergence. I’m fed up with carrying a phone, a laptop, a camera, an MP3 player. We are seeing some convergence – better cameras built into phones, Apple’s iPhone which is also an iPod – but it is early days. Unfortunately Kindle is the opposite: yet another gadget to carry. I don’t mind the existence of the reader, but Amazon needs to support other devices too (as Mobipocket does) so that the convergence dream is not lost.

Amazon’s play for downloadable content

Now we see another facet to Amazon’s music download store. The company wants to be your one-stop online shop for downloadable content: music, periodicals, books, the lot. Note that Kindle plays music too.

Will it work? I have huge respect for Amazon; it has the infrastructure, the customers and the vision to make something like this work. At the same time there seem to be some awkward gaps in this initial release, and to date the public’s enthusiasm for electronic books has been limited. I doubt that Kindle 1.0 will change that. Kindle 3.0 maybe. Even so, I can’t wait to try one.

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gaming, microsoft, multimedia

Which games console this Christmas?

Which games console is the smart choice this holiday season? With four or maybe five serious contenders there is plenty of choice, and that’s good for buyers because (with one exception) it’s keeping prices down. Here’s my quick guide, in alphabetical order.

PC

I admit, it’s not a console, though you can come close if you get a media-centric computer designed for the living room. The downside, let me say at once, is that you have all the maintenance hassles which go with a real computer – patches, maybe mysterious crashes and hunting through Google in a desperate attempt to discover what “Error 9999999 could not initialize device” might possibly mean.

I include it here for one simple reason. Many of the games released for the leading consoles also come out for the PC, and they cost less. Example: FIFA 08, a reliable bestseller, on sale now at Amazon.co.uk at £39.99 for the PS3 and Xbox 360, £29.50 for the Wii, and just £24.99 for PC (or currently £18.99 if you go second user). In addition, PC games sometimes get patches and downloadable updates that their console cousins lack.

Let me just add the traditional advantages of the PC. It’s upgradable, and when you tire of playing games will do duty in the study or for setting up Linux and Slimserver like you’ve been meaning to for ages.

If you get a PC for gaming, I highly recommend not scrimping on RAM or the all-important graphics card; and don’t forget the excellent Microsoft controller, same as on the 360.

Rating: 6

PlayStation 2

Pah! Old stuff. True, but the console is small, quiet and cheap, and the games are fantastic, especially if you content yourself with trade-ins. Consider: when Microsoft and Sony were trading stats about whose next-gen console had flashiest graphics, Microsoft (fractionally on the losing end) made the point that in the end, it’s the quality of the games that counts. Nintendo then proved the point by slaughtering both in the market with the underpowered Wii. But if it’s the games that count, why not just get a PS2? Or stick with the one you have already. The bargain-hunter’s choice.

Rating: 5

PlayStation 3

Now I’ve got your interest. How does Sony’s bet-the-company console stack up against the competition? Let’s be honest: this is very much in the same camp as the Xbox 360, so that’s the thing to compare it with. It’s about superb graphics, media-center pretensions, and some neat extras like a web browser. In its favour, the PS3 seems better made than the 360, and offers a little bit more considering that it also plays Blu-Ray high-definition movies. It also comes with a larger hard drive than the 360’s parsimonious 20GB. It’s quieter too, which is a considerable advantage in your sitting room. Further, it has at least some compatibility with all those old PS2 games, though it is imperfect in most editions after Sony dropped the embedded PS2 chip for cost reasons.

The case against? It’s the most expensive console; the graphics aren’t noticeably better than the 360; it’s big and unbeautiful; and the Blu-Ray capability which makes it expensive is probably something you don’t want or need in a games console. Sony included it to get an advantage in the HD wars, not for your benefit.

Admittedly Sony is subsidizing the PS3 to get the price closer to a 360, but in practice you will find Microsoft’s offering significantly cheaper – though at least PlayStation Network is currently free, whereas Xbox Live is subscription based.

The biggest problem with the PS3 this season is that the choice of games is not there yet. The 360 has more and better games; and where the same title has come out for both platforms, there is usually little to choose, or more often an advantage to the 360. A notorious example is Pro Evolution Soccer 2008, which most agree has smoother action on the 360. Is it because the 360 is easier to program? Or that the PS3 is getting 360 ports? Probably both; but you don’t care about the reasons.

Rating: 8

Nintendo Wii

So this is the gadget that is winning in the market, thanks to Nintendo’s creative approach to console design. The Wii is far smaller and quieter than the PS3 or 360, and a good bit cheaper, though in practice the price advantage can be eroded by shortages; nobody needs to offer a good deal on the Wii. Is it the best? Well, the Wii has a few things in its favour. First, it has a motion-sensitive, position-sensitive controller than enables a level of simulation that no other console can match. Swing your arm for bowling or golf, wave your racket for tennis. There is real physical involvement. Second, the culture of the Wii is about family fun. Third, Nintendo has paid attention to detail in its console software. In particular, The “Mii” concept is beautifully executed. A Mii is a character representing your profile, and you can spend ages designing a Mii to look like a convincing caricature of the person it represents. These little folk can appear in-game as well as in the management screens. In other words, the personalization is great.

The Wii is the console of choice for filling the argumentative void between lunch and evening on Christmas day itself.

Unfortunately, the Wii is not really a replacement for the PS3 or 360. For starters, the graphics really are noticeably inferior. Second, the range of available games is inferior, though it is catching up a little. The Wii Sports game that comes free in the pack is wonderful, but it is hard to find others that are as good. Third, the motion-sensitive controller can be annoying when it is applied to everything. Fourth, there is no equivalent to the online gaming found in Xbox Live or PlayStation Network. After the thrill of Sports wears off, you could be disappointed.

Rating: 7

Xbox 360

Microsoft’s console has a lot going for it. You can’t fault the graphics; it has the best games; it has the best online experience (though you have to pay for it); it has great downloadable games in Xbox Live Arcade; it has the best controller; and in conjunction with a Media Center PC it serves as a decent all-purpose living room device as well. You can also plug in a good value HD-DVD add-on to get your high definition movie fix.

Two things spoil the 360. First, it has suffered reliability problems, so much so that Microsoft has had to extend its warranty for the common “red ring of death” issue, which most agree is caused by over-heating, thanks to a design fault in the way the components are laid out internally. This could have been forgiven if the company had moved quickly to fix it, but it seems that it continued to manufacture consoles likely to fail prematurely for long after the problem was known. Are today’s consoles better? Almost certainly, though we may not be truly out of the woods until smaller, cooler processors are fitted as standard.

Second, this console is the noisiest. That’s partly because of all the fans fitted in a vain effort to fix the overheating, and partly because of the noisy DVD drive.

I still think this is a good buy. You don’t hear the noise when playing a game, and Microsoft mostly foots the bill for hardware faults. Especial kudos to Microsoft for its controller, which in my opinion is that teensy bit more responsive and comfortable than that on the PS3; it does matter when you are hammering it hard.

I have heard from multiple sources that 360 games are easier to code than those for PS3. That means less time making them work, and more time to making them good.

If and when Microsoft issue a second edition 360 (not just the disappointing Elite) which runs whisper-quiet and properly fixes the reliability issue, I would rate this an easy win over the PS3. For now though, it is a close-run thing. Still, the 360 wins on the value front so it is arguably the better buy.

Rating: 8

microsoft, multimedia, software

Windows Media Center madness

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I use Windows Vista Media Center with a digital TV card. It had been working fine for a year, until last week.

Then it started playing up. Browsing TV recordings would raise an error: “A critical Windows Media Center process has failed. Please restart the computer and try again.” In addition, one particular TV program was reported as still recording, days after it had ended. Nothing was being written to the drive, but nothing else would record.

Needless to say, restarting the computer fixed nothing. For all the song and dance about self-healing applications, Windows Error Reporting, and the rest of it, the reality is that Google searches and fiddling with the registry and configuration files often remains the only way to fix things.

After a couple of a false trails, I found the help I wanted on the Green Button site. Stop the Media Center services, delete the files recording.xml and recording.bak in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\Recording, restart Media Center. All is fine, except that any existing recording schedules are lost.

A small price for domestic harmony.

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multimedia, software

Programming Slimserver from .NET

I did a short article for Personal Computer World (Christmas 2007 issue, just published) on how to use the Slimserver API from VB.NET. This example app is the result. It is sadly incomplete but could be a starting point for an app that controls Slimserver.

Why would you want to do this? Well, Slimserver has a good web UI but programmatic control is useful as well. One possibility would be to create a smart remote using a Windows Mobile device. Operating a Squeezebox using the supplied remote is fairly arduous. I also like the idea of a really capable rich client for Slimserver, with advanced search, playlist management and so on.

Just in case you don’t know Slimserver … it’s a great way to manage your music on a network. It’s free, cross-platform, understands lots of music formats including FLAC (my favourite), and supports multi-room playback using either the free Softsqueeze, a Java player, or the Squeezebox hardware. It can also transcode to an MP3 stream, so that all sorts of devices can play what’s on your Slimserver.

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microsoft, multimedia, windows

Why does audio glitch in Vista?

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I eagerly read An Overview of Windows Sound and Music “Glitching” Issues by Steve Ball, Senior Program Manager for Sound in Windows Vista, hoping to find out. Sadly, it offers no insight other than saying what a tough job it is for a busy operating system to play back audio smoothly.

I’d like to highlight a few of the comments to his post

The last time I remember my MP3s glitching was back when I had a P75mhz (which should be of no surprise). The only other time I had my MP3s glitch was when I upgraded my PC to Vista. This same machine (exact same hardware) which had XP running on it, *never* had an MP3 glitch. On Vista, sound **constantly** glitched. Merely scrolling web pages caused sound issues…honestly my mobile phone can play MP3s, while I surf the web, on a call and text message; all without any glitches. [from ateharani]

and this from explorer5:

Steve – Thanks for posting this article.. I’m hoping that in the second part of the series you will mention how and why “glitching” is appearing (sounding) on Windows Vista computers when those same exact computers when Windows XP was installed had no issues with sound quality.

and this, from divil:

When MS first announced that Vista could guarantee glitch-free media playback because of new kernel scheduling APIs my first thought was “what glitching?” since I’d never experienced it outside of DOS on slow machines. Now ironically, with Vista, I do get that wonderful experience. On a new PC.

Couldn’t agree more. See here for my earlier post: Audio in Vista: more hell than heaven.

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internet, multimedia

A musician speaks out to defend Oink

Seen the reports of a major file-sharing site getting busted? You should also read this post from a musician and it seems a former Oink member, DJ/ Rupture:

About a week after I shipped out orders of the first live CD-r Andy Moor & I did, it appeared on Oink. Someone who had purchased it directly from me turned around and posted it online, for free. I wasn’t mad, I was just more stunned by the reach… and usefulness of the site.

I don’t doubt that Oink breached copyright laws. However it appears that the powers that be have been misleading the public in some respects. It particularly irks the Oink community that the site was widely described as “extremely lucrative” – in the BBC story this is part of a remark made by “A Cleveland Police spokesman” – when in fact it was an enthusiast affair.

DJ/ Rupture comments on the new economics of the music business:

My library metaphor for Oink makes more sense than economic analogies: for digital music & data, there’s lots of demand but no scarcity at all, which either requires that we rebuild an economic model not based on supply & demand, or start embracing commons analogies. I like living from my music but I also like libraries, the ideas behind libraries…

Personally I have long believed that only an all-you-can-eat subscription or license makes sense for legal music downloads and sharing, if indeed people will pay at all. The success of iTunes seemed to disprove that, but debate has reopened, following the opening of Amazon’s DRM-free music store, and Radiohead’s whatever-you-want-to-pay experiment. I appreciate that neither of these alternatives is an all-you-can-eat subscription, but the possibilities seem wide open again, and I still think that is where we will end up – something close to the library concept described above.