I’m a little bummed that I didn’t know about this project that happened in my Chicago neighborhood this past weekend – People’s Radio at Mess Hall:
People’s Radio will be a fully functioning radio station aimed at promoting alternative and local points of view, non-mainstream music, creating a dialogue about the “Commons”, and to demystify radio.
or, if you are in the vicinity, during the festival you can tune in at 104.7 FM
This is the culmination of two weekends of workshops conducted by members of Radios Populares. (www.radiospopulares.org) where people learned how radio works, how to build antennas, and how to set up a webstream.
I intended to get over to the Glenwood Arts Fest, but as many intentions go, it didn’t happen.
The webstream is down already and I’ll check out 104.7 FM when I get home, though I’d guess it’s no longer on the air either. I don’t know what kind of power they were using, if it was Part 15 (and therefore legal to use without a license) or higher. In any event, using a radio broadcast for short durations at events is a very effective use of the technology that mitigates many of the complications (and risks, if you’re using more than Part -15 power) associated with running regular or constant broadcasts, while also concentrating energies to demonstrate the power of broadcasting, especially when made accessible.
I hope the event was successful and might see a repeat.
Sanyo just announced a new Xacti camcorder that looks interesting due to the way it breaks from the company’s typical pistol-grip style camcorders and due to its lens. The VPC-PD2BK has a form-factor more like the Flip-style cams, but with a 3x zoom lens that looks like it came from a compact still digicam, therefore also featuring a faster maximum aperture of f/3.1 than on their pistol-grip style cams which usually start at f/3.5. Every little extra bit of light gathering helps.
As I’ve noted before, while I really like my Xacti VPC-GG10, I find that it’s lens is not up to the standard of the average digicam. In everyday use this matters less for video than for still pictures. But this better looking lens on the new PD2 gives me some hope that perhaps this cam will deliver better stills alongside full 1080p HD video (alas, only at 30 fps, rather than the cinema standard of 24p).
The PD2 also doesn’t include a mic jack or optical image stabilization–two features which would be very welcome. But at a pre-order price of $169 over at Amazon, if the quality matches or betters the VPC-CG10 (which is what I’d hope), the PD2 may still be a very appealing option for videographers looking for more flexible image control than available with the typical Flip-style cam.
Hey Sanyo, if you’re reading, how about sending me one for review? I promise to send it back ;->,
As I’ve blogged before, I’m having a blast using my Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 palm-sized HD camcorder. I’m starting to hear about other videographers who appreciate the CG10 not just for its cost, size and HD, but also for its manual control over exposure and focus.
I just read a quick post at the Frugal Filmmaker about writer and actor Curtis Hendley using some great DIY lighting techniques to shoot video on his CG10. Frugal FilmmakerScott Eggleston even points out the CG10′s manual controls. Also, make sure to take note of the fact that the CG10 in the photo is on a tripod, which is the best way to make sure your video comes out better and more polished.
I’m actually working on a blog post discussing how to put the Xacti camcorders’ manual controls to good use in just about any setting, and how that will make your video look just that much better than anything that comes from a Flip-style camcorder, or even a shiny new iPhone 4.
The interesting thing is that I shot this using an inexpensive “lo-fi” digital camera, the Aiptek Pencam SD. The design of this little cam is about 10 years old, shooting photos sporting all of 1.3 megapixels. There isn’t even an LCD screen to preview or review photos, just a roughly accurate optical viewfinder.
But I really enjoy shooting with the camera because of the combination of its simplicity and unpredictability. In many ways it’s a digital equivalent of a toy film camera like a Holga, frankly only less expensive. What I like shooting with such a camera is that it encourages you to let go of technical details and focus on taking the picture, often taking more risks because you can’t just review your photo and adjust.
The fact that anyone else likes the photo taken with this $19 lo-fi digital camera is just more evidence for the old adage, “the best camera is the one you have with you.”
Canon Elura, a classic miniDV cam from the early 2000s (photo credit: Capa_r2 / flickr)
When I saw the first miniDV digital camcorders in the late 1990s I was blown away by the edit-ready broadcast-quality picture they captured on tapes half the size of an 8mm videocassette and on cameras smaller than ever seen before. Yet, I couldn’t predict that only about a decade later we’d see the ability to shoot high-definition on tapeless cameras, with the ability to nearly instantaneously upload that video to the internet. In the previous ten years (roughly 1989 – 1999) we saw the evolution of the consumer camcorder from bulky shoulder-mount VHS and Beta cams to smaller, compact 8mm and Hi-8 camcorders. With Hi-8 we finally saw near-broadcast-quality video in compact cameras costing a few thousand dollars, rather than tens of thousands. That was certainly a leap, but still not as huge as what we’ve seen in the first decade of the 21st century.
Director Mike Figgis and his DV camcorder on the set of Timecode.
The ground-breaking quality and adapatibility of DV and miniDV camcorders caused many independently-minded filmmakers to use the format to shoot films that would probably have been too expensive to undertake using film. Indie films like Mike Figgis’ Timecode, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s The Anniversary Party and Richard Linklater’s Tape come to mind. All were more experimental, in some specific regard, than even most independent films of the time. And all used the small form-factor of DV camcorders, along with the low-cost of shooting multiple cameras, to do things that maximized the utility of these features.
Canon Rebel T2i
This reminiscence is sparked because this past week I had the opportunity to try out a colleague’s new HD video capable digital SLR, the new Canon Rebel T2i. The low cost and new HD quality threshold now transcended by video dSLRs are catalyzing a similar new wave of indie film and video innovation. So I was glad to finally have the opportunity to lay my hands on a video dSLR and put it through its paces, accompanied by my talented colleagues.
We tested it out in a studio with some studio lighting, using just a kit lens, to see how it would fare compared to HD video cameras that we use everyday, like the Panasonic HVX-200. The results were very impressive, arguably besting what I’ve seen with the current generation of prosumer HD camcorders used by educational and event videographers and indie filmmakers. Read more »
One of the biggest problems with most electronics product reviews is that the reviewer has a very limited amount of time to use and get to know a particular item. That’s why so many digital camera and camcorder reviews rest on technical specifications and relatively easy to measure qualities like resolution, image noise and sharpness. No doubt these are important aspects of any cam’s performance, but you can design a camera that has great tech specs but is also a pain to use.
That’s why I’m taking this opportunity to write about my Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 pocket camcorder, which I bought back in July. Although I had a positive opinion about the cam when I first wrote about it, I’d only had it for three weeks. Six months of regular use really makes the difference between an interesting toy and a useful tool. If a camcorder or other gadget proves to be too difficult, fiddly or simply un-user-friendly it’s likely to find a home at the bottom of a drawer or closet by the end of the year.
As one might guess from the very fact that I’m writing this update, I’m quite happy with this little camcorder after a half-year of use. Having a full 720p HD camcorder that fits into a small bag or large pocket is still really amazing. One of the features that moved me to choose the CG10 over one of the Flip or Kodak HD cams is its true 5x zoom lens. Though it’s hard to maintain a steady hand when zoomed all the way out, having the extra reach has really made the camera much more useful for me.
As a result, I think I’ve shot more video in my free time this year than I have in years. I’ve owned two miniDV camcorders over the last decade. While each got used, their relative bulk and reliance on tape meant that they still only were trotted out when I was absolutely planning on shooting video. By contrast, I’ve taken to carrying around the CG10 in my bag and shooting a little video whenever the moment strikes. Being able to easily import it to my computer as a file rather than capturing miniDV tape in real time means that I’ve been much more likely to actually edit and share my videos, too.
I’ve really come to like the CG10′s pistol-grip form-factor, finding it much easier to hold steady, especially with two hands, than the Flip-style camcorders. Yet, operating the zoom control is fiddly, making it nearly impossible to zoom smoothly. That’s one area where you can really notice the operational difference between an inexpensive pocket camcorder and a bigger, more sophisticated model.
Like I mentioned, I do really like having a 5x zoom lens at my disposal, with a focal range equivalent of 38 to 190mm on a 35mm camera. The quality of the lens seems about par for an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera. That is, it’s plenty sharp in the center of the image, but gets soft on the edges. It also shows some barrel distortion at its widest setting, causing horizontal lines to bow down at the edges. With video I find this less of a problem than with still pictures. But these flaws really aren’t bad for such an inexpensive camcorder.
Another feature that drew me to the CG10 was the availability of manual focus, exposure, white balance and sensitivity/ISO. In practice I use the manual exposure, white balance and ISO quite a bit. Especially with video it’s nice to be able to set these at the start and then not worry about the video suddenly getting darker or lighter due to small ambient light changes. The manual controls themselves are buried in menus, but you can set up the camera’s little joystick control to shortcut to four different manual controls. I have mine set so that pushing left adjusts ISO, pushing right adjusts focus, pushing down adjusts exposure compensation and pushing up turns the flash on and off. While I like this ability to customize controls, the joystick itself is kind of tiny and easy to accidentally trigger. The camera mostly doesn’t let you change these settings while recording. On the one hand this doesn’t let you adjust settings as conditions change. But on the other you also can’t accidentally change exposure in the middle of a shot, either.
Much more so than a Flip or Kodak pocket cam, the Sanyo rewards an experienced shooter because of the relative flexibility of its manual controls. Even a lot of more expensive tape, hard drive and memory-card based camcorders from bigger brands don’t let you adjust exposure manually. It does take some time and fooling around to set up the camera the way you want it to function. But once it’s done, it’s done.
Prior to buying the CG10 I had been wary of hard drive and memory-card based camcorders, especially HD cams, because of the challenges presented by working with their highly compressed files. Therefore I was happy to find that the .mp4 files from the Xacti played in Quicktime without any processing. They also import right into iMovie ’08 without a problem, letting you get right to editing immediately. The big drawback with iMovie ’08 is that you can’t export a full 720p (1280×720) video. It only gives you a 960×540, which is kind of “near-HD.” I don’t have access to the most recent iMovie ’09, so I don’t know if the situation improves with the newer version.
Still, iMovie ’08 is one of the worst versions of iMovie, and so I find it useful only for short cuts-only projects. For more complex editing I use Final Cut Express (FCE). Unfortunately FCE doesn’t not like to let you start editing the CG10′s .mp4 files right away, forcing you to render once you do any editing at all, adding lots of waiting to any project.
Luckily I found a very simple workaround that lets me use the CG10′s footage in FCE much more quickly. Using the free video transcoding program MPEG Streamclip I’m able to convert the Xacti’s .mp4 files into Quicktime .mov files in the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) very quickly. On my two-year-old MacBook Pro the conversion runs at about 10x real-time, which is significantly faster than FCE’s rendering time. While the AIC files are bigger than the .mp4 files, the AIC codec is native to FCE, so there’s no long rendering waits.
Since I’m primarily a Mac guy, I haven’t tried the Xacti’s footage with Windows. I’m interested to hear from any readers who have Windows experience to share.
After six months of using this little camcorder I can say I’m quite satisfied. It’s one main deficit is that it doesn’t have a microphone input. At the same time I haven’t yet had a project where that presented the problem. The built-in stereo mics are actually quite impressive, and you can hear in this video I shot of Chicago’s Environmental Encroachment marching band:
I’m not sure that the CG10 is the best camcorder for the newbie or someone who isn’t at all interested in manual controls. Out of the box the camcorder is set up to be pretty annoying, with a dumbed-down menu and lots of unnecessary beeping. But, then again, I think most digital cameras come that way. So, perhaps it’s less of an issue than I’ve supposed. I’m pretty sure it’s still the only under-$200 pocket camcorder with a real optical zoom lens, which is its other big selling point.
It’s completely unreasonable to expect a $200 pocket camcorder to perform like a $1000 model. Yet I’m very impressed with the CG10 overall. As an experienced videophile I’ve learned to work around its limitations, while appreciating the convenience of having a video camera with me much more often. And with such a low price-point, I’m more willing to carry it around to events and other places where I might hesitate to bring a more expensive camera.
I must admit I’m quite curious to see where these little pocket HD cams are going next.
Independent media comes in all forms, next to ‘zines, podcasts and blogs there are trombones, drums and batons. In parades, clubs and gatherings of all types across the US, and across the world a fresh wave of marching bands are bringing musical chaos to the streets.
Insurgent marching bands from around the globe are soon gathering in Boston for the Honk! Festival. One of those bands will be Chicago-based Environmental Encroachment. But before they head to Beantown EE is making a stop into the WNUR studios for an appearance on the mediageek radioshow.
As a Magic Circus Band, EE uses circus acrobatics, live music and costumes to create unique entertainment environments. At the same time they bring incredible marching band interpretations of classic and modern rock that you’ll never hear on a high school football field.
I find that Doug is articulating very clearly a lot of ideas that have also been rattling around my ahead for the last decade or so, but he’s made the effort to research them and flesh them out in print both in his book and in a growing series of columns and essays. What I like about his analytical approach is his willingness to attempt to get outside our contemporary assumptions about daily life and try to figure out when and how something, like the corporation, was brought into existence. I also appreciate that he’s willing to continue prodding at a question even when the answers are murky, showing a willingness to accept there are some apparent conflicts in the messy reality of daily life.
He recently wrote a piece for Publisher’s Weekly arguing that the publishing business is very ill-suited to corporate consolidation. He notes that book publishing is a sustainable business, but not a source of tremendous year-over-year growth of the sort a large corporation needs. But he remains sanguine about the future of publishing because the expert editors, publishers and writers haven’t gone away and are ready to rebuild the industry, perhaps with new independent houses.
I see some parallel with the radio business, although radio has been far more decimated than publishing. The root problem is the same: the large consolidating companies treated radio as a commodities business, seeking unreasonable profit growth that the business could not sustain. Radio differs from publishing in the fact that stations must be licensed and are therefore inherently limited in number, whereas publishing houses can be more easily started with less capital and require no licensing of any sort.
If new independents could start radio stations without having to try and pry licenses away from the likes of Clear Channel and Cumulus, I think we’d already be seeing some innovative rebooting of the industry. Unfortunately, radio is more like a neighborhood where the landowners have all let their properties get run down but refuse to sell them because scarcity still keeps the going rate artificially high.
In some sporadic cases we see innovation happening in public and community radio, where license holders can keep their stations sustainable but don’t have to rake in enormous profits. I just keep hoping that Clear Channel will finally bite the bullet and need to start shedding stations left and right, giving an opportunity for smaller, local and independent owners to get back into the game. Admittedly, it’s a more distant hope than the reinvigoration of the publishing industry, since another smaller consolidator, like CBS Radio, might choose to pack its stables, outbidding smaller players.
That’s the problem with licensing, and, to an extent, why the founding fathers organized against the Stamp Act of 1765. As it was designed, radio pretty much needs to be licensed because it was premised on scarcity partially imposed by the technological limits of 1927. But it’s not necessarily an inherent fact about radio. Perhaps the future of wireless communications will render this period of licensing a short historical anomaly. It’s an open question and no better than a 50/50 proposition right now.
Doug has his own relatively new radio show, The Media Squat, on the great noncommercial station, WFMU. In the interview we talked about his program and our shared challenged of trying to do an original weekly program on a completely volunteer, non-profit basis. That part of the interview will air on the next edition of mediageek. You can listen to it live on Thursday, Sept. 10, at 9 PM Central time on WNUR 89.3 FM in Chicago and online at http://www.wnur.org. Of course, the program will be archived online next week.
Of course, distributing new music on cassettes stands out only because the format’s been largely abandoned by the mainstream. I emphasize new music because I’ve certainly seen cheap cassette compilations of country classics and oldies still turn up at truck stops and dollar stores. Cassette-only labels were an underground music fixture in the 80s and 90s due to both the low cost of doing limited edition releases and the relative ubiquity of cassette players.
While mostly overtaken by CD-Rs and downloadable MP3s, cassette labels have survived. Plustapes is a Chicago-based label putting out new independent music on cassette each in limited editions of a hundred or so. Earlier this year the music blog Expressway to My Skull compiled a list of active cassette-only labels and places to find them.
Perhaps the greatest advantage of releasing music on cassette is that it’s possible to record and duplicate albums entirely in the analog domain easily and cheaply without a computer. If you want to get fancy you can find a cassette four-track at a thrift or pawn shop so you have more recording and editing flexibility. Then get a dubbing deck and you’re set. It doesn’t have to be about analog fetishism — it can simply be about being cheap.
Perhaps the enduring charm of the cassette has to do with its fundamental nature as a recording medium that is very accessible, but imposes real practical limits on its duplication. It’s easy for nearly anyone to duplicate several dozen cassettes using inexpensive dubbing decks, but quantities of much more than that require commercial duplicating services. Like ‘zines, cassettes can be a near-mass medium, where you can reach hundreds with a work that the creator still fashioned and touched with her own hands.
Now that we can take for granted the ability to reach a nearly unlimited audience with a perfectly-duplicable MP3 file, there’s something to be said for a sound medium that can’t be had by anyone with a ‘net connection, that didn’t roll off an assembly line. It doesn’t have to be a case of internet vs. cassette; I think there’s room for both to coexist, even in symbiosis.
So I set about investigating what might be going on, since Boulder has been the site of free radio innovation for quite some time. I’ve not been able to find any news reports on any bust, but a check of the FCC’s most recent enforcement actions turns up four virtually identical Notices of Unlicensed Operation (NOUO) dated May 8. Three were issued to individuals and one was issued simply to “Boulder Free Radio, Boulder, CO.” There’s no indication in the NOUOs that the FCC talked to anyone associated with the station or gained access to a transmitter. Unusually, there aren’t even any street addresses listed. Likely this means that agents didn’t mail the notices, but left them at the door.
This evening I received email confirmation from Boulder Free Radio that there was another FCC visit to a transmitter location last Friday, May 29, and that they’re off the air. They’re planning to stay off the air for the time being while they assess the situation. However, their web radio stream continues to broadcast (on the internet only, of course).
The current KBFR is operating according to a similar gameplan as the original station, using the tactic of separating the studio and transmitter using an internet audio stream as the studio-to-transmitter-link (STL). If the transmitter is visited they pack up shop there and move to a new location without the studio or the on-air talent being affected. This method ostensibly allows the station to have a sizable staff of DJs without having to divulge to them the location of the transmitter, or expose the DJs to liability for the unlicensed broadcast.
Indeed, with this method there really isn’t any need for the persons behind the web stream to even know the persons operating the transmitters. This method also has been employed during large protest actions, where a live webstream will originate from a convergence center or Independent Media Center which is then rebroadcast for the duration of the protest by anonymous, unrelated pirates.
Monk and the original KBFR were able to keep up this tactic for nearly five years of cat and mouse games with the unusually aggressive Denver FCC office. He finally called it a day in January, 2005. According to Monk, the FCC agent on their case
bordered on (and in talking to lawyers we know, actually crossed the line) illegal activity. He harassed private citizens at their work place (accusing them, to their bosses, of ‘breaking the law on company time’) and the aforementioned roommate of the original Monk from Five Years Ago. We’ve since learned that this ex-roomie of the original Monk actually had to hire a lawyer to protect himself from having just been the roommate of one of us. And HALF a DECADE ago. …
The reason we shut down is our fear of innocents getting blamed for things they didn’t do…
Who knows if the FCC will be that aggressive with the new KBFR, especially given that the FCC agent in question supposedly retired four years ago.
As for the second station Monk reports being shut down: I’ve found no other recent actions against unlicensed stations in Boulder in the FCC’s enforcement action list. However I have heard that another station, unrelated to Boulder Free Radio, was operating.
community radio, diy, pirate/free radio | Paul | 
August 23, 2010 5:30 pm | 
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Insurgent marching bands from around the globe are soon gathering in Boston for the 
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