Magazines
HD video cameras: as long as tech is this confusing, we’ll need people to cut through the bullshit
A while back, I mentioned that taking baby steps into “proper” photography made me weep hot salty tears of frustration and rage, until a bit of informed advice and a few magazines cheered me up and translated the crap into plain English. It turns out that the world of digital photography is the simplest thing in the world compared to video.
It’s entirely academic at the moment - I’ll probably have to mug some schoolchildren at lunchtime in order to afford a pint or two tonight - but at some point in the near future I want to buy a video camera. I’ve learnt from my previous mistakes - best summarised as “don’t buy on price” - and I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I want.
It’s not complicated. I want a camera that has these features:
* High definition, because if I’m going to shell out on a camera I might as well get one that’s reasonably future-proof.
* Card storage, because I hate DVDs and like the security of being able to carry a few spare cards around.
* Mac compatibility.
And naturally, I don’t want to pay a million pounds for it. Even window shopping is suffering from the credit crunch.
So off I trot to the wonderful world of manufacturer websites and product spec sheets. And what a confusing load of crap it all is.
In no particular order, here are some of the things you need to know about:
* HD means different things depending on what you’re looking at. This camera here is HD, with 720p HD! This camera here is also HD, but it has 1080p HD! But this 720p one has better pictures than the 1080p because it has better fps and that one is better than the other ones because it is not interlaced and over here this one is the very bestest camera ever because it has magic space pixies that live inside it!
* The jargon around video cameras is even worse than with still cameras. In addition to all the f-stop stuff and JPEG profiles you’d expect, there’s CMOS and CCD and 3DDNR and BIONZ image processors and X many frames per second and face detection and AVC/H.264 and DIS and OIS and OMGWTFINEEDALIEDOWN.
* It’s not enough to go “no, Sony, your memory sticks are evil” and plump for something that uses SD cards. Different cameras have different levels of SD support, so some max out at a particular level of storage, others are utterly pointless unless you get SDHC cards. And of those, some of them don’t really work unless you go for Class 4 HD cards. Class what?
* Mac compatible doesn’t necessarily mean Mac compatible, because the combination of the highest HD resolutions and the AVCHD format used by some cameras isn’t yet supported by OS X software such as iMovie (although this may have changed by now. I’m too confused to keep looking).
Kudos to Techradar*, T3**, the Guardian*** et al for trying to explain all this stuff sensibly in reviews and product comparisons, but I can’t help thinking that this is the best option:
* Instead of buying an HD camera, take lots of still photos, print them out and wave them around really, really quickly.
* Vested interest: I write for it, albeit not about video cameras
** Vested interest: I’ve written for it, albeit not about video cameras
*** Vested interest: I’ve written for that too, albeit.. you get the idea
ASDA wants to edit your magazines
Asda has come under fire from independent magazine publishers for proposed alterations to distribution arrangements that include the supermarket being given editorial space in the publications it stocks…
Asda’s demands include a request for two pages of editorial or advertising space each month in titles of the company’s choosing.
And there’s an increase in the bribes - I can’t think of a better way of describing it - it demands to put magazines onto the shelves.
shop space given over to a distributor’s titles will be subject to a “space contribution” of £10,000 paid to the supermarket.
Asda is asking for a space contribution for each new Asda store opened of £2,500 per magazine title to be paid to the supermarket.
The supermarket company is also demanding that any new title distributed in its stores will be subject to an “item set up” charge of £2,464.
I know I keep saying this, but seriously: if you value a particular magazine, take out a subscription. It’ll save you money too.
Perfect parenting: Brad, Angelina and the N-word
In much the same way I love trashy pop music, Mrs Bigmouth loves trashy magazines - particularly the ones with soft-focus shots of impossibly good-looking celebrities and their impossibly perfect offspring. She particularly enjoys looking for the N-word, which occasionally sneaks into the article and depth-charges the portrayal of perfect parenting.
The N-word is “nanny”.
There was a good one last week (sorry, I forget the magazine) where it talked - after a few pages going on and on about what great parents Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were - about how the couple were having to manage with “just one nanny”.
Just one!
At least the article actually mentioned the nanny (or nannies, in the case of Hollywood royalty. Apparently three nannies per child is normal - one for daytime, one for nighttime and one for the weekends). Most don’t, so you’re left with a few thousand words about how brilliant parenthood is. It’s not tiring, you always look perfect, you can resume your career in a matter of days, and the whole thing is a big happy adventure.
It’d be funny if it weren’t such a fuck-you to real parents who can’t just do a baby dump and bugger off to the gym whenever the little ‘un gets annoying, and who can’t just leave the baby in a separate wing of the mansion when they fancy a nap.
I know that actors are in the business of acting and that magazines - particularly ones aimed at women - are in the business of distorting reality, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a bit of truth for once? “God, early parenthood sucks,” said Famous Lady. “Even with a nanny to help out, I felt like punching Chrysanthemum Space Cakes through a hedge loads of times. But you know what? That stage doesn’t last long, and when it’s over it’s a hoot”.
Is this the future of magazine publishing? Probably not, but it’s still interesting
The Magazineer has put up an interesting post about MagCloud, a print-on-demand service designed specifically for magazines. The content available so far isn’t particularly inspiring, but the idea itself is quite interesting.
But there’s still something about paper. It’s not just because screens suck to read on (they do, but that hasn’t kept us from doing it all day). There is an intimacy about a good book, a pleasure to the glossy pages of magazines, and, ironically, a permanence to paper. (How many times has a website you really loved simply disappeared?)
So what if we could combine the best parts of the web (no waste, personalized content, open to all) with the best parts of print (sexy print quality, permanence, no batteries required)?
For the last year, I’ve been working on a project with HP Labs called MagCloud. The idea is simple, really. MagCloud enables anyone to start a magazine - real, live printed magazine - with no giant pile.
Lad mags in decline
Remember when lad mags ruled the world? Those days are gone, it seems: the latest circulation figures show massive declines almost entirely across the board. According to UK Press Gazette, the big losers include:
- FHM (down 25.9% in the last half of 2006)
- Loaded (down 29.9%)
- Maxim (down 29.3%)
- Arena (down 29.9%)
- Zoo (down 21.5%)
Looks like their readers have worked out how to find porn on the internet.
Podcastic
I spent a bit of time blathering yesterday for .net magazine’s inaugural podcast, which should appear on Monday (22nd January). It’s hosted by Paul Boag of boagworld.com and in addition to a clearly cold-ridden me, it also features people who actually know what they’re talking about: .net ed Dan Oliver and web experts Andy Budd and Chris Heilmann. For the first episode we’ve blabbed about the iPhone and whether it’s going to change the mobile internet, the problems of HTML handling in Outlook 2007, how to get work in web development and who would win in a fight between Sugababes and Girls Aloud. One of those bits may be a lie.
In best web 2.0 style we’re making it up as we go along, so any comments - what you’d like the podcast to cover, who you’d like it to feature - would be very welcome (via the .net site, not here - I’m a mere contributor).
Popjustice are flogging t-shirts
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That one made me laugh. More here.
Grazia magazine. Oops!
This week’s Grazia comes with a supplement featuring celebs saying the funniest things, including this quote from Mariah Carey:
“When I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean, I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”
She never said it, of course - it’s an urban myth. And now, it’s a libel!
So you want to write about fire engines video games?
Want to be a games writer? The various “So you want to be a games journalist” blog posts (all of which you’ll find linked from Richard Cobbett’s blog, where he offers his own advice) will tell you everything you need to know, assuming The Triforce don’t put you off the idea altogether.
I’d write a post about getting into tech writing in general, but the advice would be identical.
That britblog piece is online…
As promised, .net’s put my best British blogs feature online. You’ll find it here.