Holy crap! Am I the only person who has thought of this? How creepy, right? For those not in the know, those are The Gentlemen from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Hush. Great, now I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.
Gentleman McCain
Generally speaking, I am a big fan of Joss Whedon. Ever since I was introduced to Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV, I was hooked. He just knows his schtick very well, and he’s good at crafting new world’s and groups of people. Compare Firefly to Buffy. Both ensemble casts, but the similarity stops there. He’s very good and careful about trying to have some originality to his work. He’s also one of the few people that I’d consider a real, staple name of television. Though he only has a few credits there, how many other director/producer/creators can you name in televisiondom that you get excited over when they announce a new project? Heck, how many of the leading names in television do you even really know?
New project you say? Yes, I do. Turns out the chatter from before the writers strike has continued ahead nicely on the new show he’s pitching to Fox (collective groan) called Dollhouse. As of now, production should be starting on April 23rd, or so I am reading, and the internet never lies to me. Though the writer’s strike set things back some (production would have started in February), it doesn’t appear that it pushed things back too far. He’s developed it with the help of his lead, Buffy alum Eliza Dushku (Echo). The first seven episodes have been ordered by Fox, and though not necessarily written, they have been pitched, which means the ideas are already spinning into stories. And here’s where the interest builds:
In Dollhouse, Dushku plays a young woman named Echo, a member of a group of people known as “Actives” or “Dolls” who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas, including memory, muscle memory, skills, and language, for different assignments. They’re then hired out for particular jobs, crimes, fantasies, and occasional good deeds. In between tasks, they are mind-wiped into a child-like state and live in a futuristic dormitory/laboratory, a hidden facility nicknamed “The Dollhouse”. The story follows Echo, who begins, in her mind-wiped state, to become self-aware.
I watch very little TV, but what I stick to, I enjoy. Jericho, House… Well, that’s really about it anymore. What is getting more exciting is that new noise on the line indicates some other Buffy alums might be getting involved. Whedon has mentioned that he’d generally like the idea of a whole new cast, to avoid looking like he plays favorites or sticks to a core group. He called it “lazy” casting. Let me be one to join in by saying I have no problem with bringing back people. Grab some of the poor folks from Firefly while you’re at it, they all deserve a second chance too. Now that Joss has established himself, I don’t mind seeing chemistry reused that I am familiar with and know works well.
As it stands, here’s some information on the characters you can expect to see (minus Echo):
So, are you with me on this? Really, I’m just interested in something new from Joss. I can honestly say that I doubt I’d even care what it was about. Yes, I am that biased. You are too, and you know it.
Storing video can be one of the single most space consuming tasks you can do on a computer. If you do any video editing, you know the pain of storing 6+ hours of uncompressed DV footage for composition (not to even mention work in HD). That’s bad enough. At least once you are done with it, you can archive the footage on its original tapes, or select out the best bits and pieces for a scratch file to be used later, and dump the rest. Where I am running into more and more problems is backup of TV shows I record on my tuner and such. Rather than setting my VCR to record, it’s all too easy to keep up with a show’s torrent RSS. Once I’ve watched them, I tend to not get rid of them however (at least if I like the show), because once in a while I like going back and watching it over.
This adds up. Several seasons of a show will really pack on the gigs into a hard drive. Yes, you can buy it on DVD, that is an option I have exercised more than once. But sometimes shows on DVD are way overpriced, impossible to find, or not even released (has anyone seen the Drive season set yet, or anything past the first volume of Whose Line?). Thanks to my friend Rachel giving me a spindle of blank DVDs for Christmas, I decided to try my hand at burning my shows to DVD to watch on TV, instead of my computer monitor, and also free up the space on my server.
First, go here. It’s a tutorial at the VideoHelp.com forums. Though a tad dated (there’s a new version of TMPGenc Xpress out, and you don’t need Goldwave), it still gets you familiar with the process. It does help if you know a little about video encoding ahead of time. I’ve done a lot with the VCD format in the past, and done my share of editing and exporting. If you aren’t familiar with codecs and bitrates, I suggest starting in some of VideoHelp’s FAQs.
To give you an idea of what I was able to accomplish (I’ll explain my settings momentarily), I can fit 7-8 ~45 minute episodes on one DVD. Caveat: At my settings, the quality is above acceptable, in my opinion. But, I don’t have an HD TV (not that VCD, SVCD, or DVD supports HD in the first place), I’m not hell bent on perfect clarity, and I can probably tolerate more than some people. I actually use formating that falls somewhere between VCD and SVCD, and as far as I am concerned, it’s a fine compromise, but there’s a chance you would disagree. So, preview your transcoded video before burning it, or burn a sample disc, just to make sure you can live with it before sinking several hours of CPU time into settings that aren’t acceptable to you.
First, that tutorial I mentioned says to use Goldwave to rip the audio stream. That is unnecessary, as the new version of TMPGenc Xpress can do this all as a matter of course in one step. It rips it straight to an .mp2 file as well (by selecting “ES (audio + video)” instead of “ES (video only)”), removing the intermediate step of converting the ripped .wav you get from Goldwave into an .mp2. You can still follow the steps as laid out if you want, it just takes longer. Generally, allowing TMPGenc Xpress to do it all takes about half an hour for a 42 minute episode. By comparison, it’s roughly the same the original way, but you have to babysit it a lot more.
For the video encoding, I select MPEG-2 (which is the SVCD standard), but use the VCD resolution of 352×240 (for NTSC people) at a bitrate of about 1500kbps. You can use a bitrate calculator to figure out the rate best for you, or TMPGenc Xpress will show you in the lower right corner how big the output will be. With a DVD5, shoot for no more that 4500MB. On the older VCD standard, the bitrate is 1150kbps. For SVCD, it can vary, with 1600-2000 about normal. I go a hair under depending on how many episodes I’m fitting. Obviously if it is a shorter season, or you aren’t concerned about spanning several discs, you can stick to SVCD standard encoding. The result is video that looks just fine on a TV, right about what you would get from standard cable.
To create and burn the disc, you can use DVD-lab Pro (which is fairly easy) as suggested, or Adobe Encore, or whatever you are most familiar with. At that point, you can import the elementary streams you have encoded and create menus and whatnot as you desire. Then just build and burn. Before burning, you can also open up your built disc by dragging the folder to most DVD player programs (WinDVD works, or VLC Player can do it too) and test how it looks and runs. This can be handy if you don’t want to waste a disc if the output isn’t what you’d like. Be prepared to waste a disc or two if you really want to tweak your quality, as balance between resolution and bitrates can be a challenge.
Otherwise, this all worked out well for me. I can get a 16 episode season on two DVDs. This would change for half hour episodes obviously, which means I’ll probably be retweaking my settings again, heh. It runs about 4 hours of labor per disc, most of which is time spent transcoding from AVI to MPEG-2, which is a good task to let the computer do overnight while you sleep.
I’d be interested to know if any of you do something different, or have different settings, etc, that you find useful.
Well, my day was made today. There were many of us disappointed when Jericho met an untimely demise after CBS decided not to renew it for a second season back early this summer. This following a season where several shows thought it’d be a good idea to go on a several week hiatus in the spring before coming back with new episodes. All the shoes suffered ratings drops from it, and Jericho was one that got the axe for it, sacrificed to unholy TV production gods. What made it doubly bad was that the series ended on a cliff hanger not matched since the days of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was brutal to kill a show after that and leave us wondering where it went from there.
Then came the support. The internet turned out to be the proving grounds for a mass fan support campaign that resulted in something like 20 tons of nuts getting sent to CBS headquarters, if I remember my facts right. More than 40,000 pounds of nuts worked to change their mind, and CBS ordered a short run to follow in 2008. It’s not often this kind of thing works, but here it did, and we were ecstatic. And then we waited…
And waited…Every once in a while news would come out about the filming. Cast and crew were excited to be back, etc, etc. After a while, the filming of new episodes was done, and then there was nothing more to be heard. I was certainly beginning to get frustrated that apparently CBS was going to sit on this good show indefinitely, even in the face of the Writer’s Strike, which meant that if they got off their rump and gave it a slot, it could be one new show in a sea of crappy reality television. Well, today I got what I needed. I found out that CBS has slated Jericho to return Tuesday, January 12th at 9:00PM central time.
This is great, because it’s a low risk gamble. Sure, the WGA strike might be over by then, but the odds of new shows hitting the air by then is pretty low. That means Jericho will be one drama putting out new episodes each week, competing with worthless trash reality television. That gives it a good chance of bringing in good viewership. And even if it doesn’t, we get our short run, and we get some closure, as opposed to how it ended at the conclusion of season one. So yay!
This makes me think back to Firefly. Fox killed that off for some kind of illogical spite I think. Even if you wanted to watch it, you couldn’t, because they shifted the time slot around so much. But, Fox is notorious for that, and we all know it (anyone else get a kick out of how Bender’s Big Score started out?). Now it has a huge following. The Sci-Fi Channel has rebroadcast rights, as far as I know. This is my official announcement that they are idiots for not buying out the full rights, and putting it back into production. It would have been right at home there, and gotten the attention it deserves. The odds of that happening now are slim to none, with most everyone else off on other projects here and there. Such a waste…
Fingers crossed for Dollhouse though.
Raise your hand if you watch American Idol. Okay, fair enough. Now, raise your hand if you have been watching one of their latest spinoffs, The Next Great American Band. You know, I was sort of excited for this show, to be perfectly honest. The problem I have with AI is it’s little more than a diva singing competition. I’m not a big solo performing artist fan anyway, except in cases where people I already respect from established groups expand their repertoire through solo stuff. Except Scott Strapp. DIAF Scott Strapp. You suck.
If you can’t tell from my tone yet, the only reason it’s on right now is because there’s nothing else on worth watching. I have an antenna and get a total of four channels. And crap like this is the reason I don’t even bother paying for cable. First off, the title for this show is all wrong. It should be: The Next Great American Cover Band. How the hell can you really tell how good the groups are if you never get to hear any original stuff? And if you know anything about music, you know you can’t throw a dozen bands together and ask them all to perform a single artist next week. Come on, asking a metal band to do Elton John? They’re doing it wrong.
So I want to just do a quick once over on this week to show you what you are “missing” out on. Don’t expect this to be a weekly occurrence, I don’t think I have the stomach for it.
The Host/Judges
Dominic Bowden: Well, he’s from New Zealand. He hosted New Zealand Idol. Apart from that, if he has any musical background, it’s not really a top career note for him. But he’s a host, so no big deal.
Sheila E.: She’s a 50 year old drummer. She’s never been in a notable band (unless you count Prince’s backup band). She’s worked with the likes of Prince and Ringo Starr, but a lot of performers have worked with lots of famous people. Doesn’t give them instant credibility. When you hear about great drummers, you will never see her name along with the likes of Neil Peart, John Bonham, Shinya. But by Buddha, she’s helping find the next great American band.
Ian Dickson: He’s a producer and essentially a counterpart to Simon Cowell. Because that’s how the formula has to work. He’s not as much of an ass, but he does have an accent (English or Australian, depending on the night, but in all fairness he is an English born Australian citizen. Double points!) .
John “How Emo is My Hair Now” Rzeznik: How can I put this delicately? If I had to choose a top 25 of band frontmen to judge on this show, I would lay down $20 that he wouldn’t make my list. The Goo Goo Dolls are okay. I know their singles alright. I have several of their albums. But seriously, they haven’t had a good one since 1998. The only reason Rzeznik still has a career in the first place is because people like spelling his name on stuff. He’s an average vocalist and an okay guitarist, and little more. He’s right at home next to Sheila E. anyway, because neither one is fit to pick from talent that should, in theory, be leagues beyond them. Then again…theory….
The Bands
Dot Dot Dot: Jesus Christ…this band is the Sunjaya of TNGAB (that’s my clever way of shortening The Next Great American Band, because I don’t want to write it over and over). They refuse to die, despite all apparent logic. Their “frontman” is so androgynous that he gives David Bowie a hard on. Not to mention he’s a terrible singer, and their bassist looks like a used up 40 year old hooker. They’re like the special ed. version of My Chemical Romance. And I hate My Chemical Romance too. Every week I wait for them to go down in flames, and they keep coming back because every 12 year old idiot with a cell phone votes for them.
Denver and the Mile High Orchestra: I actually kinda like these guys. I like the big band quality to their music, and respect the work that goes into coordinating that much instrumentation. But the Mighty, Mighty Bosstones have been there, done that, and kicked these guys’ asses. Not edgy enough and too plain. Probably #2 in the show at this point though, however probably too unique of an arrangement to carry votes that far.
Sixwire: After week one (yes, I watched more than just this week’s episode, but I swear to Buddha that I don’t do it regularly), I said these guys would win. With who’s in the top 5, it’s a certainty now. The problem? Too country-rock. Big and Rich have already done it. But the fact that they are actually country doesn’t really come through, since 80% of the show performances are covers. They are a very tight, well rehearsed, generic band. They cover well, and play well together. I predict two albums before fading into obscurity.
The Clark Brothers: An acoustic three piece. Except…no. In fact, hell no. Sheila E. was speechless after their crappy rendition of You’re in My Heart. I can understand I suppose, I was pretty surprised by how awful it was too. Let’s name some famous three pieces, shall we? Rush. Green Day. ZZ Top. The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble. Cream. See, a three piece is pretty hard to screw up. Bass, guitar, drums. That’s sorta the essence of a trio. When you don’t have drums, and you don’t have bass, that pretty much makes you a novelty. They are pretty boys. They play their instruments fine, but there is no way that an acoustic three piece is the next great American band. I would stop listening to music if they were to win. If it weren’t for the musical poison that is Dot Dot Dot, these guys are at the bottom of my list.
Light of Doom: Okay, I am pulling for these kids. They are like Hanson, if Hanson was fueled by Satan. But seriously, this is a metal band comprised of 12 and 13 year olds that rock harder and play better than people I’ve seen twice their age. The down side, there’s a lot of growing up to do there. They can’t win, I don’t think, no matter how hard they try. In fact, I could see them dropping at any point. They didn’t even know who Elton John and Bernie Taupin were, not that I’d expect them too, but it was certainly funny when they had to say Bernie’s name. But you gotta admit, it’d be cool to be doing something like that at that age. But in the words of Denis Leary: “There’s a giant rehab festival just waiting to happen. Those kids are going to crash and burn, and it’s gonna be great. That drummer, what is he, six? They’re gonna find him in a hotel with an eight-ball and a hooker.”
Special Mention
Franklin Bridge: These guys got dropped three weeks ago. I only mention them, because they were my original #2. And in all fairness, I think they were the “surprise elimination.” They were probably the best band on the show, and the only reason I pegged them at #2 was because of Sixwire’s broader, generic appeal. Look them up, because they were very underrated, and sure as hell deserved to be on longer than Dot Dot Dot, Très Bien, and Cliff Wagner and the Old #7. They had a rocky-rap, funk rock, Lenny Kravitz kind of thing going on that worked really well for me.
So that’s that. I hope I didn’t spoil the fun for you. But really, there aren’t many reality shows that bug me like this one. Maybe because I enjoy music, and the fact that they think one of these bands deserves the break they’ll be getting is a mockery. In fact, none of the top 12 could really hold a candle against the likes of Aerosmith, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, or any other of the dozens of bands who’s music will live on longer than any of their members.
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