Life is Complicated

TVGuardian: A possible key to broaden closed captioning requirements.

2009-03-26T18:43:00.000-07:00

TVGuardian® technology may be what we need to get CC on streaming videos.

If you're deaf like me, you want closed captioning everywhere such as TV, DVD, Blu-Ray, Cable, Satellite, Cellphones (iPhones), and most importantly on the Internet. Broadcasters and Movie Studios have done pretty well with providing closed caption on most of their shows on TV and DVDs. But as we all are aware, they are moving more and more towards online streaming and download services like NetFlix, Hulu, and more recently, Blockbusters via TiVo and thats where we are being left out with no Closed Captioning.

Well, TVGuardian® may change all that. TVGuardian® is a patented, award winning technology that automatically mutes out offensive language... while you're watching your favorite TV shows or DVDs. Here's the exciting part, this technology works by reading the Closed Captioned data transmitted from the broadcasting station or video source such as DVD.

The FCC wants comments from the public on whether tools such as TVGuardian should be required in a wide spectrum of video products, such as: TVs, DVD Players, Blu-Ray players, cable, satellite, computers, the Internet, cell phones, iPods/Mobile Video Players, Gaming Consoles (Xbox/PS3/Wii), DTV converter boxes, and DVRs.

Yeah, TVGuardian® is designed to allow you to choose whether or not you want your kids to hear or read the 1034 "F" words in the movie Departed, thats neat. But if we want Closed Captioning to be made law on all video products then we better voice our support by clicking here.

This is where you can read the full FCC Notice of Inquiry.

Lance

Netflix's Watch Instantly now on Mac! Closed Captioned? Not!

2008-11-05T21:24:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I was really excited about the Watch Instantly feature finally being available on the Mac when I first found out. It is currently in Beta so this is where I'll provide my feedback. A couple of things worth talking about:

Netflix computes your bandwidth and figures out which movie quality to send you. This is actually very nice, it sets your expectations on how good the video will look based on how fast your internet is. I have somewhat slow internet so I get the Basic Quality most of the time. Today my internet was faster so they streamed a higher quality video for me. This is determined automatically. The basic quality is pretty similar to the YouTube quality... well, maybe a little better.

The Watch Instantly library is pretty limited to several thousands of movies that no one really watches anymore. But give it time, the list will grow and Netflix struck some recent deals with television studios such as Starz.

While a lot of streaming movies and TV show web sites are adding Closed Captioned features, Netflix has pretty much ditched us Deafies on this. I understand that studios have the option of providing CC content for the internet and such but Netflix is responsible for providing the technology to allow CC to work on it's streaming video players. So Netflix, we all know you're pretty much the last to do this so pull some strings will ya?

Wait, the snapshop above has closed caption!? Yeah, I figured that while I wait for the CC to be implemented I'll just explore the foreign movies genre where most of them are English Subtitled anyway. I normally don’t watch foreign movies so maybe I’ll discover a newfound interest.

So for all you Mac users with a bit of free-time check it out!

Lance

Why I am voting this time.

2008-10-21T21:23:00.000-07:00

Who will our next President be? Obama or McCain? Man, there's so much information out there, full truths, half truths, half lies, and all lies. Its tough to make a decision with all that crap out there. I wish the signs were more obvious like one wearing a Darth Vader outfit while the other dressed like Obi-Wan Kenobi then the choice would be obvious! Pew Pew!

Personally, I've never voted before, I never planned to. I figured, like more than half the rest of you, the majority will pick who they want and I'll go along for the ride. That strategy worked out pretty well so far in my life - you know how it is, when you're young Presidents don't really have any direct impact on your life so whoever ran the United States didn't matter as long as you could do whatever you wanted. Well that's one of the greatest things about being young. Now I'm almost 30 and have responsibilities and after seeing gas prices push me into the bus everyday, my home value dropping, banks failing, CEOs partying, watching my 401k take a nose dive, and then watching everyone panic! I feel like The Force isn't working with Bush anymore and it's time for a true Jedi to take his place. The worse part is I've actually been affected this time - now that I'm a responsible person.

Being deaf isn't so easy, I'm pretty lucky to actually have a job and can pay all my bills but if these problems keep up that luxury isn't gonna last. So this time I'm voting, maybe my finger on the button will make a difference, who knows. Maybe the person I'm voting for will screw up or he will succeed I can't predict that but at least I'm going to try.

So... (ahem) Go VOTE!

Just for fun I posted a Poll on the right - vote for who you think would be a good actor as Obama in some movie someday - I'll bet that regardless the outcome there will be a movie.

Lance

Article: Fannie Mae's story on the Bailout.

2008-10-05T09:43:00.000-07:00

I came across this excellent article that that describes how Fannie Mae failed. I find it interesting that there were a lot of players involved in the story, even congress, who put a lot of pressure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy risky loans which ultimately failed.

The media seems to point the blame to Fannie/Freddie for popping the housing market bubble while this article shows that Fannie and Freddie were being pretty much threatened to pop the bubble. The article is 4 pages long and pretty easy to read. Let me know your thoughts.

Lance.

The Financial Crisis: Layman's terms of how it all happened.

2008-09-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

A lot of my friends have asked me how this whole financial crisis came about. I've decided to try and explain it in layman's terms because it is pretty complicated but hey, Life is Complicated right? First of all, I'm not a financial guru and don't claim to be any kind of expert in this area but I do have a pretty profound interest in personal finance and I am always on the edge of the economy to make sure I understand how screwed up or corrupted CEO, politics, or even neighbors affect my financial life. Well, believe it or not, the financial crisis today will affect you, mostly negatively but sometimes positively if you know what you're doing.

So, How did this all Happen?

The best way to explain is to make up an imaginary family, the Adams family, and a scenario.

In 2004 Bob Adams got a job in Phoenix, Arizona making $35,000 a year. The Adams Family were living in an apartment. The Real Estate Market started to rise in value, the average home prices in his area went from $150,000 to $200,000 in 6 months and Bob Adams started to worry that if he didn't buy a house now he would never be able to afford one. He decided to jump on the boat.

The Adams family found their dream home at $210,000 and went to their Mortgage Broker, Joe. Joe told Bob that his monthly payment will be $1,430 a month plus taxes, insurance, and PMI which could run up to $1,550 a month. This is more than half of Bob's monthly paychecks. Joe tells Bob about some other options he has such as an ARM Loan with the option to pay only the interest for 5 years which will drop the payment down to about $900 a month. Bob Adam figures that the home value will keep rising to about $350,000 in two or three years so he takes the loan with a plan to sell the house in a few years to make some major profit.

So the Adams Family moves into their new home and enjoy their cheap monthly payment of $900 a month. Their home value increased $20,000 in 3 months and they are thrilled! Bob gets this idea that if he remodels his kitchen the value will increase even more! So Bob takes out a $10,000 loan using his home equity line of credit to start the remodeling project. Another two months pass and their home value increased even more! You get the idea here.

2006 the Adam's Family home is now worth about $300,000 and the Adams Family owes about $230,000 because they picked the Option ARM loan they did not pay off any interest. Plus they went a little wild with their equity line of credit. Suddenly, home values were too high because most people's income were not increasing the same rate houses were. So people weren't able to sell their houses as quickly, then came the drop in home values. Investors saw the drop and started to panic then everyone wanted to sell their homes to make a profit. Now there are too many homes for sale and not enough people with money to buy. So home prices dropped significantly.

2007, The Adams Family panicked, their home value is now at $250,000 so they put it up for sale. Months after months no one bought it so they dropped their price to $240,000 the exact amount they owe. Still no one bought it. Bob, lost his job and now he was desperate. He had to sell his house or lose everything. After 3 months Bob still couldn't sell and could not make his payments so the bank seized the house and Bob was forced to move out and his credit was crunched.

Now, the bank owns a house worth less than they loaned to the Adam's Family. The Bank finally sells the house at an auction for $180,000 losing $50,000.

Now, what happened to the Adams family happened to millions of families, they were forced to bankrupt their homes and the banks had no choice but to sell the house for far less than the amount the bank loaned the family. So now the banks were losing billions of dollars because of bad loans. This hurt the banks pretty badly so other banks.

Now about banks, the economy requires money to flow from one bank to another, they borrow and lend money to each other to keep the system running. So, as an example, Washington Mutual was in trouble, they lost billions of dollars and needed more money to keep the cash flow in their system, the problem was, other banks knew they were in trouble so they wouldn't buy loans from Washington Mutual. Washington Mutual was pretty much dead and failed. This had a domino effect on other banks in similar troubles. Many banks failed because they made bad loans and no one wanted to buy them.

To sum it all up, the financial crisis is here because of greedy banks giving out way too many bad loans to people who couldn't afford it.

What happens now?

Well, the government had to intervene to make sure banks stop giving out bad loans, to people who wouldn't be able to afford it. Banks got greedy during the real estate bubble, they thought that home value was going to keep rising and it was going to make everyone rich, especially the banks. I don't think they cared if they thought the housing market was going to failed because they were counting on people to pay back the loan regardless. So now the government is figuring out whether they should pump in $700 billion or more into banks to get the cash flowing again. Once property values start to rise again (it will but much much slower this time) then banks will get back on their feet again. The government will also make lending much more stricter, so people like the Adams Family won't get loans they can't afford. This is where it affects all of us. Over the next few years it will be harder to sell our homes because it will be harder for potential buyers to get a loan. Businesses will also have a harder time getting loans, if small businesses can't get the loans they need to operate, they may go out of business and that can mean job losses.

How can this be positive for those who know what they are doing? Well, the stock market is down, certain stocks are cheap and that means that if you pick the right stock and get in the right time it can really pay off. For example, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG stocks has made some people a lot of money! My brother knows someone who bought FNM stocks at .50 cents and sold at $2.50 he made 5 times the amount he put in. I wouldn't invest in those stocks now, its too late but the concept is to watch, now is the time to find those opportunities.

Anyway, thats basically how I see this financial crisis. My 401k was with Merrill Lynch and my funds took a nose dive, thats how I've been affected so far but I'm hanging in there because I'm confident that the market will come back, it always has. If not, well, then money will be worthless anyway and I'll wish I owned gold. Life moves on.

Feel free to correct add comments if I've missed anything. My goal is to explain the problem in a way that helps people understand. The more educated we are about this the better prepared we can be.

Lance

Some NBC and Fox Online Shows have Closed Caption!

2008-09-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of NBC's Heroes and I was very excited when I found out that NBC offered Closed Captioning on selected shows (Heroes is one of them)! I'd like to personally thank NBC for making Closed Caption possible on some shows, especially Heroes.

Fox also has some online videos with Closed Caption options available to a limited selection of online videos. But hey, it's a start! I'm just excited to see the CC technology grow. I will continue to hope that the CC video libraries online will continue to grow.

So again, my sincere thanks to the studios that offer Closed Caption. Anyone reading this can check it out at www.nbc.com and www.fox.com. I prefer the NBC Captioning style and TV shows selections better. Now, if only I could figure out how to get those shows with CC into my AppleTV or iPhone.

Lance

Closed Captioning look and feel on AppleTV and iTunes

2008-08-07T19:42:00.000-07:00

Deafmac.org posted a question on what people thought of iTunes Closed Captioning. I don't think a of people knows what it does look like but would like to see. Instead of trying to describe it in words I decided to post pictures and show that AppleTV's closed caption is a bit different from what we are used to. So first off, iTunes does support Closed Captioning as well as QuickTime, kudos to Apple for taking that step for the rest of us. Even beyond that, iTunes Movie Store has a small list of Closed Captioned movies. There is an easy way to find them all, in the Movie section of iTunes Store you'll see "Power Search" in the right column under the "Quick Links Section". Click on "Power Search" and you'll see a check box that says "Search for movies that contain closed captioning". Simply check the box and press the "Search" button. You'll see the list of all movies that are available with CC. Anyway, I bought Stardust so I'll use a snapshot of a scene from Stardust to display what CC looks like:

iTunes Movie window with CC looks like this:

As you can see it looks exactly like the CC we see on a TV! Now, my previous post was about the AppleTV, I actually did have a lot of friends ask about CC abilities on AppleTV and how it looked, below is a quick snapshot of the Closed Caption from my wife's iPhone - keep in mind that this is NOT the actual quality you get from AppleTV, this is just what happens when you take a picture of a TV with a slow camera. But you'll get the point with this image:

So you can see that the CC looks a little different, kinda stylized with shiny edges. At first I didn't like it because it was different and gave me a different feel, but after watching this movie I got used to it and didn't mind too much. So thats it folks, What do you think of the new CC style? I'm curious whether the new look of CC is acceptable or not for you. Personally, I prefer the standard style but I would like to have the option to fade the black background like some TV offers.

Oh and one last thing, Closed Captioning on iPhone looks just like the iTunes snapshot in case anyone was wondering.

BTW, Apple is open to suggestions on this so send them a note if you want to change the look. I think I will too.

UPDATE: 1/2/09 - I feel really stupid now. In the Settings of AppleTV I discovered that there are two modes you can set for subtitles "Standard" and "Enhanced" the Closed Captioning above for AppleTV was set to "Enhanced" by default. When changing to "Standard" the captioning style is just like the image shown in iTunes what we are all used to, very nice.

Lance

Review: Is AppleTV Deaf-Friendly?

2008-07-14T21:23:00.000-07:00

Question: Is AppleTV a Deaf-friendly device? I was skeptical for a long time and passed the first and second generation AppleTV. A friend of mine purchased the first generation AppleTV and after playing with it I couldn't see the benefits of it other than watching my photos being nicely displayed. I never gave up on it though, the idea of having some kind of Home Theater PC has always interested me but I never saw anything out there ready for my needs, namely CLOSED CAPTION!

Then one day iTunes finally announced subtitles support for iTunes and AppleTV. Then I read on Deafmac.org that you could record TV shows from EyeTV which will preserve the Closed Captioning lines and works on QuickTime, iPhone, and AppleTV. Movie studios also started to release movies with CC in the iTunes store. Okay, Apple got my attention. Although, there aren't very many titles with CC, it is a good sign that the industry is supporting this technology and trying to make it work.

The lack of movies being released with CC kept my money in my pocket for a while longer. Then I discovered Handbreak. Handbreak is a little free application that converts your DVD to a format playable on the AppleTV (.m4v) and you can turn the subtitles on so it will playback with subtitles. So I let go of my wallet and bought the AppleTV Take 2.

My first impression was how easy it was to set it up. I did have a problem finding a quick way to transfer my DVD Collection into the AppleTV. The process was easy enough but took forever since it takes about an hour to convert a DVD to .m4v format, then another hour or so transferring and syncing the movie to the AppleTV. Eventually I figured out how to do it much faster (wired instead of wireless). Anyway, because studios won't give me movies over the internet with CC I had to do it myself with the DVD's I own and purchased of course.

The end result: Once I got a lot of movies into my library I couldn't stop. My wife and I became addicted to feeding our new movie library. We now have 50 movies in there with 200 more to go. The quality seems better than DVD (impossible, I know but it's true). I purchased Stardust from the iTunes store so I could get a feel of how the subtitled feature worked and what it looked like. I was impressed although it was a different look and feel than what we are used to. There is a larger black box behind the text and the font is different. At first I didn't like it but I gave it a chance and eventually I found that the font was pretty easy to read and I didn't feel like the design was interfering with my movie. Oddly, when playing the movie in QuickTime on my laptop, the CC looks very normal.

I have a 53" rear projection HDTV made by APEX and in the 4 years that I have owned it, I have never experienced High Definition movies on it. So I decided to download the HD version of Indiana Jones 4 preview. The image quality was stunning and beautiful. I was shocked at how brilliant and how much details my TV displayed. I was very impressed, now if only HD content in iTunes were subtitled!!!

AppleTV can also display photos and play music. Who cares about the music, anyone? The photos were fun to upload and watch. I can also watch Deaf videos on Youtube... uh no comment here.

So is AppleTV Deaf-friendly? *Yes, Apple has prepared their technology for closed captioning and subtitles but the movies available for iTunes are not with the exception of a few, but if you're willing to learn the few tricks and work-around the CC issue and have a little patience then it's definitely worth it and impressive to visitors on movie-nights. If you are Deaf and have the AppleTV but have problems with getting movies with subtitles on it, drop me a line, I'll do the best I can to explain how my workflow works. If you're hearing and don't give a dirt about CC, go get it.

Lance

*Edited - I liked Chad's comment below.

The Blue Box movie update

2008-04-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

The Blue Box short film was completed on March 30th. It is approximately 21 minutes, complete with sound-effects and original musical score. We had a successful private premier on April 1st! The second viewing will be held to the public at the Deaf Studies Today! conference at Utah Valley State College at 3:55 pm. To view the full film festival schedule please visit the website here. The Festival will be followed by keynote speaker Anthony Natale.

We have received a pretty strong number of inquiries about purchasing a DVD for this film. We would love to distribute this film to the public, however, in order to make this possible, additional funding is needed. We are currently open to exclusive or non-exclusive sponsors whose advertisement will be duly added in the DVD release and other means of distribution. For more information please feel free to email us at info@remfilms.com.

Lance

Movie Trailer: The Blue Box

2008-03-13T21:53:00.000-07:00

Here it is! The trailer for my upcoming film, The Blue Box. It will be shown at various Film Festivals, starting with the Deaf Studies Today! Film Festival in April. This is a short film about Lisa who finds herself in the midst of criminal charges including the murder of her own husband. The problem is she doesn't remember what happened. This film was written by Sean Benson and myself and is being directed by me.

Enjoy!

Lance

My Letus 35 is here!

2008-02-07T23:04:00.000-08:00

I couldn't wait to get home from work after my sweet wife told me this morning that I had a package from FedEx. When I finally came home I quickly opened the box to find my new Letus35 Extreme lens adapter along with the Letus Rail Support system. Let me start off with why I picked Letus. I first contacted my usual sales rep, Phil, for video equipment and asked him for some kind of adapter to make my movies look more film-like. Before contacting him I sent an email to Red Rock asking for recommendations but didn't hear back from them for several days. Phil told me that he doesn't sell them because you usually have to by them direct, he recommended alternatives such as Letus35 and the Brevis35. I read both websites and did as much research I could but you'll soon find that there is a lot of debate on which was better. I was leaning towards Brevis because they were somewhat cheaper and they actually had some great sample videos on their site while on the Letus website there was only a sample video with Chess pieces. I still hadn't heard back from Red Rock and already decided not to buy from a company that wouldn't respond to their customers (being kinda new to the industry I need as much support I can get). Brevis and Letus both responded quickly but Letus was more detailed about their product and how they compared to the others. Then I discovered another Letus site that had a lot more sample videos and they looked stunning! I was sold.

So I ordered the Letus Extreme for my HVX-200 and they were able to send me the adapter within 9 days (I had to basically beg them to send it to me since I have a shot coming up soon) which I greatly appreciated. Soon after I ordered I bought a 35mm Nikon lens and a 50mm Nikon lens from eBay to start with.

Back to my story, the packaging was pretty simple, the Letus was safely wrapped in a foam box, I'm used to Apple's packaging style so this was a humbling experience for me. The adapter was lighter than I expected, people say most adapters were heavy but this wasn't too bad. It included instructions and wasn't too hard to figure out, they did hide a screw that attached the rail support to the adapter, I called them thinking they forget to ship that piece but they knew exactly what I was talking about as if this had happened before and told me it was attached to another piece. It took me about an hour to set up (because I'm a slow learner and too careful not because it was difficult). It wasn't long after that that I began to shoot and experiment with the 35mm lens. I will be shooting a short film in two weeks which is when I'll be able to come back with a real review on this. But I've got a video below on what I was able to get out of the Letus in my pajamas in my basement with no special lighting (just my desk lamp from the keyboard shot and the natural window light on my kids).

Please note that I'm not a professional (yet) and my opinion or ignorance is from a perspective of someone who thinks he can make a movie. If you have any questions or feedback I'd love to hear from you.

Lance

Lets Make a Movie! Workshop

2007-12-23T13:22:00.000-08:00

Starting March 27th, I will be hosting and teaching a Lets Make a Movie! Workshop in Salt Lake City, Utah.

This will be a 5 week course with 2 hour class each week. We will spend the first 3 weeks learning about the stages in movie making. The last two weeks we will make a short film.

Stay tuned for announcements!

Lance