How to set manual control shortcuts on Sanyo Xacti camcorders

This is part two of my video series demonstrating how to use manual controls on Sanyo Xacti camcorders. I used the CG10 model, which I own, but this should work for the newer HD models, too, such as the CG21, CG20 and CG100.

In this video I show how you can assign a particular control to a direction on the control joystick. For instance, you can assign manual focus to the right positions of the joystick, so when you push it to the right you can access the focus controls. This is much more convenient than having to dig into the menus to change the focus.

Unfortunately, these adjustments are only available when you’re not shooting — you can’t change aperture, shutter, focus, ISO or exposure control while recording. In practice I haven’t found this to be a significant constraint, since I rarely am taking long shots. If I’m going to shoot something like a lecture or performance then I might either be able to set the focus and exposure for the whole the event, or I’ll use autoexposure so the camera can respond to changing lighting conditions, with minimal impact on the image quality.

Cassettes Are a Weird Way to Distribute Music?

My, oh my, where has the time gone. Sure, cassettes might be nearly obsolete and decidedly retro. But weird?

Wired’s Epicenter blog recently compiled “10 Weird Ways to Distribute Music.” But, really, the list might be more accurately characterized as “10 Unique Ways,” rather than weird. Seems that some popular indie bands like Dirty Projectors are now releasing some albums on cassette again, making the format #8 on Wired’s list. At least blogger Eliot Van Buskirk had the good taste of linking to my somewhat tongue-in-cheek 2007 post titled, “Next Big Retro Thing: The Cassette Revival.”

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.

Cheapskate Audiophile

As a geek videophile audiophile there’s the tendency for that interest to be conflict with my critical side that questions our modern consumerist capitalist economy. I believe that balance can be found, as long as one accepts that it’s nearly impossible to be entirely non-comsumerist without checking out of modern technological society altogether. Yet, it is possible to temper the consumerist side while still having enthusiasm for good audio and video and the aesthetics of sound and vision.

In particular, I think I’ve always been an audiophile. I’ve been obsessed with sound and music since I was a child, and I’ve always been interested in finding better, more pleasing, more realistic sound reproduction. While in high school in the mid-80s I bought my first component cassette deck, amplifier, CD player and turntable. All of this gear was decidedly “mid-fi” by audiophile standards, but still whet my appetite for sound that was significantly better than the boomboxes and discount-store compact stereos used by most of my peers.

While I’ve been willing to spend some amount of disposable income on audio gear, I’ve also been hestitant to lay down the kind of cash required to buy in to what is considered the “high-end” of audio gear. This is the world of $1000 CD players, $5000 turntables and $10,000 speakers. Certainly, the kind of craftsmanship and design excellence that goes into many of these products has real value. At the same time I think much of it is the audio equivalent of Ferraris and Lamborghinis — semi-impractical exotica meant to give the affluent something to spend their money on, while giving the less-affluent something to aspire to.

My experience in slogging around in the low-end of the high-end has proven to me that good sound does not have to be an exotic rare commodity only for the rich and golden-eared. In fact, very pleasing and accurate sound can be had for as the same or less money than it costs to buy a home-theater in a box system at Wal-Mart or Best Buy.

There are multiple paths to being a cheapskate audiophile, many of them DIY. The more industrious or crafty amongst us build some of their own gear, either from kits or from scratch. Others perform minor modifications on mass-market gear that results in sonic gains.

Possessing neither the skill nor patience to take these routes I instead keep my eyes and ears open for the bargains — gear that achieves unusually good results at an unusually low price-point. The ‘net is a real boon for all of us cheapskate audiophiles by giving us easy access to this sort of info that otherwise would come by word-of-mouth, technical books or low-circulation specialty magazines and newsletters.

To demonstrate I’ll show off my current cheapskate system which I use in my home office for music listening and audio production. The core cheapskate item in the system is the Sonic Impact T-Amp, which I’ve written about before. It’s a cheap, plastic $25 stereo amplifier based on a new digital amplifier design that rocked the audio world three years ago by producing sound more like an amp some 20x its price. The T-Amp is rated to produce 15 watts of power, and I think that’s probably stretching it. More likely, it delivers around 8 watts into most speakers. But they are still an incredibly clean, transparent 8 watts.
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Flip weighs in with pocket-size HD

The folks who brought you the original pocket-size, one-button Flip camcorder have now released their high-definition version. For the last couple of years I’ve expressed skepticism at both tape-less video recording and the true viability of HD in inexpensive cameras. But recently I’m coming around to the idea, primarily because the cost (under $250) is starting to jive with both the utility and convenience of these camcorders for all sorts of independent media production purposes.

Kodak made the first salvo in the pocket HD-cam arena with their Zi6, which has received decent reviews. Flip’s new Mino HD camcorder just received praises from the New York Times’ gadget reviewer David Pogue. The reliable Camcorder Info also gives it a positive review, ranking it ahead of Kodak’s HD cam.

While it doesn’t seem to offer HD on par with what you’ll see on DTV or with one of the HD camcorders from a major player like Sony or Canon, both reviews emphasize the higher quality than any of the standard-def pocket cams. One strange design choice that both reviews note is that there is a video out jack for standard-def video, but not for high-def. So you can watch your videos directly on your TV, but not in HD. To view HD you have to download the video to your computer.

Each time I write one of these posts I say something like, “I’m going to have to check one of these out.” But I’ve yet to do so. Maybe the holiday season will lead to some super discount deal online that I can exploit, though buying a camcorder is not high on my list at the moment.

Since there is no manual control or microphone input, these cameras are best for recording video in situations where a typical camcorder would be too unwieldy, inconvenient or impossible. However, I think that paired with one of the new-generation digital audio recorders (like a Zoom H2) you might be able to do a decent job recording a lecture or similar event. Just put the audio recorder up close to the subject (or near a PA) speaker, then sync the sound in your editing application, like iMovie or Premiere. Sure, the audio recorder is one more thing to carry. But together with the camcorder they’re still smaller than a typical miniDV, DVD or hard drive camcorder alone.

Catching Up

It seems like all of my available mediageek energy has been poured into the radioshow lately, the result of having a firm weekly commitment to dozen stations. Were the radioshow a non-broadcast podcast I’m not so certain I would be so diligent.

At least I can say that I’ve had a couple of great guests recently that you really should check out if you haven’t already listened to the shows.

Faythe Levine was my guest on August 22 where we talked about her upcoming documentary film and book, both named Handmade Nation. The project’s nice new website just went online. Faythe was also featured in today’s New York Times Home section in an article looking at the DIY craft phenomenon and connecting it to her own home design. She scanned in the print article to her Flickr site.

One of the hardest working folks in the media reform, Gigi Sohn, was last week’s guest. Gigi is the executive director of Public Knowledge, a public interest group that does great work on issues like spectrum use and preservation, intellectual property and broadcast ownership. On this show we talked about the FCC’s recent sanctions against Comcast, and why that decision deserves recognition as an historical moment in the modern media reform movement.

I have another interesting interview slated for this week’s radioshow, too. My friend Sarah Kanouse will tell us about Voices of America, a participatory radio remix project she put together along with Lee Azzarello of free103point9. You can listen live to the show when it first airs on community radio WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign, IL on Friday at 5:30 PM CDT, either over the airwaves or over the internet. It will be available online at the radioshow page shortly thereafter.

DIY Spiderlite and Softbox

This one’s for the video/photo geeks. Back at my last gig we used a pile of Spiderlites, which are pretty easy to use and relatively inexpensive lights that accommodate five bulbs, switchable in banks, that can be either incandescent or fluorescent. They’re not super-cheap–several hundred dollars–but for flexible continuous lighting they’re not bad.

Lighting is really the key for anyone who wants her indoor video (or photos) to take the next step up in quality and go from looking like a home movie to something shot on pro-grade cameras. Too many people stress about getting the best HD camera without realizing that without decent lighting your so-called HD footage won’t look any better than half the videos on YouTube shot on cheap camcorders.

But you don’t have to break the bank to get decent lighting, especially since Spiderlites use essentially the same compact fluorescent bulbs you can buy at the discount store. One way to go about it is to simply get an inexpensive reflector lamp from the hardware store, with the caveat that you can only get one bulb in a lamp, which may not be enough light.

So I was impressed to see this DIY Spiderlite put together by blogger Alex Campagna. It does require some woodworking skills to replicate, but I bet with a little ingenuity one could work up something similar from different materials. The base parts — the sockets and bulbs — are inexpensive and easy to get. (via DIYPhotography.net)