Sounds encouraging but the trend for all software is to subscription models.  This goes along with "cloud" based features that can be updated for everyone at the same time.  Buying and owning your own copy of the Software, in general, is gradually being replaced. Old Serif users are not use to this.  Grumble. Grumble.  You'd think subscription models would fail as it seems so much better to pay once and own it.  But instead, subscription models are becoming the norm because you can get started for a low price and quit when you want.  Personally I don't like subscriptions.

what's your take on this Alfred?  It's the end of Serif, right?

53

(722 replies, posted in MoviePlus)

It has been quiet around here.  I just watched one of my old videos from about 15 years back.  If you've got 9 minutes, here it is:

Dublin in 9 min.
https://youtu.be/tp_OxVLMFk0

54

(2 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Thanks Tom but nothing worked.  I did delete the cache (didn't work). 

These suggestions were written up in 2018 so my menus look different. 

I'm thinking I need an expert on Google Assistant on the Samsung S23 model.  There are dozens and dozens of setting -- at least it seems that way.   My guess is that something got updated automatically to create this problem.

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(2 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Does anyone have a Samsung S23 or S22?  I have a problem with my S23.  The problem is Google Assistant.  I was able to say "Hey Google" to wake the assistant up and I still can.  Then I could ask a question like "How old is Ringo Starr?"  Then my phone would talk back to me and say "Ringo Starr is 83 years old." ... THe problem is that it doesn't talk back to me anymore, it just shows me the answer on my screen.  I like hearing the answers.  I can't find the setting that has gone bad.  HELP!

I fixed the story.

The theater director stared at the two young women standing before her on the bare stage. Their auditions had been impressive, displaying a natural talent for dramatic interpretation that was quite rare. The director saw great potential in casting them as the twin sisters in the upcoming production of the classic play.  But they clearly were not twins.  One had Auburn hair, the other blonde. 

"Ladies, I think you both captured the essence of the sibling rivalry and complex relationship between the sisters magnificently," the director said, eyeing them thoughtfully. "I can already envision the powerful dynamics you'd bring to those pivotal roles.  It’s a shame you aren’t twins.  I’m sorry but we need twin sisters.  It’s really a shame.  But thank you for an entertaining audition.”

"Thank you for this opportunity," the auburn-haired sister replied graciously. "We've workshopped those characters extensively and aimed to highlight their contrasting personalities."

The director shook his head.  "But Didn’t you hear me?  I said we need twins for this.  I didn’t mean to suggest that I could give you the parts.  I can’t.  We need twins.  I’m afraid you’re wasting my time."

The two young actresses beamed, embracing each other tightly in their excitement. As they pulled apart, the blonde sister said with an impish grin, "We understand you want twins.  And in fact we are twins.  But you did not say that the twin sisters should be identical twin sisters!"

This from an AI named "Claude 3 Sonnet" .. It's tepid and the ending doesn't fit.

The theater director stared at the two young women standing before her on the bare stage. Their auditions had been impressive, displaying a natural talent for dramatic interpretation that was quite rare. The director saw great potential in casting them as the twin sisters in the upcoming production of the classic play.

"Ladies, I think you both captured the essence of the sibling rivalry and complex relationship between the sisters magnificently," the director said, eyeing them thoughtfully. "I can already envision the powerful dynamics you'd bring to those pivotal roles."

One had auburn hair while the other was blonde. Their facial features showed distinct individuality, from the shapes of their eyes to the lines of their jawbones. Clearly, they were sisters, but not identical twins.

"Thank you for this opportunity," the auburn-haired sister replied graciously. "We've workshopped those characters extensively and aimed to highlight their contrasting personalities."

The director nodded firmly. "Well, I'm convinced you are the ideal pair to portray the sisters. Welcome to the cast." She offered a warm smile.

The two young actresses beamed, embracing each other tightly in their excitement. As they pulled apart, the blonde sister said with an impish grin, "But you did not say that the twin sisters should be identical twin sisters!"

Alan Hodkinson wrote:
pberk wrote:

Alan -- you got me thinking about "looping" dialogue.  Here's an example from about 15 years ago.  We were on a cruise.  I wanted to make a short film drama.  I soon realized there was no place on the ship that was quiet enough to shoot "live sound" .. So I "looped" the whole thing.  Meaning I recorded the dialogue separately and then sync'd it to the picture by hand.

Zoey's Secret .. 5 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03qWrDCwGto


pberk, Great, that's really really good, well done. That's topped my efforts

                               Any More ?

Any more?  OMG .. yes ..

Perfectly Safe .. 7 min.
https://youtu.be/YLb8jdR3xBU

KarenPL wrote:

Yes, I have found it very useful to follow the Ukrainian You Tube videos I am subscribed to.

I did complete the Duolingo Ukrainian course in just under 300 days last year so I can recognise a few phrases, but, for me, it's not an ideal way to learn the general language. There is no real explanation of grammar and quite a few of the sentences it comes up with are weird, to say the least. I'm not sure how often I am going to want to say "This is a strange flower that grows on a tree", for instance. There seems to be a paucity of standard meaningful phrases you might need to use in conversation.

I am now starting to continue my learning process in a more structured way via text books. It is very similar to Latin grammatically, and I am also going back to refresh my schoolgirl 'O' Level Latin, partly to help with the Ukrainian, but also to be able to understand some of the older sources as I scramble through my family tree.

So there is a mix of the modern way of doing things, which can also include translation apps, and the old-fashioned way. Keeps the old grey cells ticking over, at least. I actually impress myself with how much of the schoolgirl French I learned has stuck in the brain. Typically for me, I only got a B grade in the living useful language, and an A grade in the 'dead' one. But listening to spoken French, and /or reading written French I can still get the gist, even if I can't do a full translation.

Carry on Karen .. use it or lose it ..

Alan -- you got me thinking about "looping" dialogue.  Here's an example from about 15 years ago.  We were on a cruise.  I wanted to make a short film drama.  I soon realized there was no place on the ship that was quiet enough to shoot "live sound" .. So I "looped" the whole thing.  Meaning I recorded the dialogue separately and then sync'd it to the picture by hand.

Zoey's Secret .. 5 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03qWrDCwGto

Alfred wrote:

Thanks for the link, Paul. As you say, an interesting piece.

pberk wrote:

I don't understand the French

YouTube’s auto-translated closed captions (CC) aren’t too bad. By default they’re at the bottom of the video, so they obscure the French subtitles that are included in this one, but you can simply drag them to another part of the screen if you want to be able to see both.

To enable CC, click on the icon to the left of the Settings cog in the control console. When you click on the Settings cog itself you should find that Subtitles/CC is set to ‘French (auto-generated)’. Click on that option to display a menu where you can change it to ‘Auto-translate’, and then scroll down the list that pops up until you find English.

Thanks Alfred.  That works.  An amazing age we live in ..

I recently discovered my daughter has edited a video called "Learning French through stories: Keith Haring".

Haring was an American artist who died in 1990 at the age of 31.

I don't understand the French but the piece is still interesting.

This is not your Grandfather's French class.  Only 2 1/2 min.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyPwuxgCnYg&t=15s

Alan Hodkinson wrote:

Thank you both, Here's another little Lip Sync I did for a bit of fun. Many years ago I did an Old Time Music Hall, I did an act Impersonating the old music hall artist Gus Elen, the show was recorded, a few years ago I downloaded an old film of Gus Elen and had a go at trying to Lip Sync the old audio recording to the 1930's film.

It's not very good as the phrasing was difficult to match, but I got the speed right adjusting the film and the audio tape, but keeping the tone of the voice right.

Just to point out, this was under my stage name, Alan Clark

           https://youtu.be/uhBFX0mdD6E

Bravo Alan Clark.  Well done all round.  A labor of love, I'm sure. I didn't know anything about Gus Elen -- and that's a great big shame.

Alan Hodkinson wrote:

This is a little project I did with MoviePlus, In the early 70's I filmed my wife in our garden and had an Audio tape recording her conversation, a short time ago I came across the film and the audio tape, digitised the film and put them both into a Project to Lip Sync them.
Sorry about the Aircraft noise, we lived at the top of a large hill not far from Luton Airport.

Here it is    https://youtu.be/JJCCsoduahA

Nice job.  Nice family memory.

65

(722 replies, posted in MoviePlus)

ericlnz wrote:

Our hot sticky weather continues.

A recent visit to an historic home, Highwic.  Well historic for NZ but fairly modern for those of you with older histories.

https://vimeo.com/916153261  or  https://youtu.be/RovAiHXAnSo

The Devon connection is interesting for me as my mother was born in Devon at "Up Exe Rowe R.D".  She was only there briefly as her family moved to London.

Well done Eric .. the pacing and intelligent narrative is always welcome.  Never boring to me.  I wonder if your appeal is for seniors only?   Do you ever get comments from the younger audience?

Alfred Buckland must have been quite a guy. I was motivated to do some research and discovered his older brother was a Member of Parliament in NZ .. that must have helped.

My copy of Microsoft Word 2010 doesn't always pick up the grammar error using affect and effect.

No grammar error in Word:
He affected an Irish accent.
He effected an Irish accent

Grammar error detected in Word:
His language skills had no effect on his success.
His language skills had no affect on his success.

67

(8 replies, posted in MoviePlus)

Alan Hodkinson wrote:
pberk wrote:

Yipes.  I first used a Sony PortaPak in about 1967 while a grad student at UCLA.    Talk about analogue.  There was no way to edit that stuff. It was 1/2" I think but later on it was 1" .. Not sure. But it was helical scan so you couldn't physically edited the tape as it generated a horrible roll bar as the helican scan caught up.  But it did give us a "cheap" way to shoot.  It was B&W but it was sound and picture.  We learned to do "optical transfer add-on edits" in our TV studio which had a 2" broadcast standard VCR.  I shot something like 30 hours on a particular documentary, did the laborious "add-on"editing in the studio and the show aired on our local PBS station.  Nifty.


That's very interesting, thank you, my first days with film was cut and splice with film cement, the same with my early audio tape recording

My brothers Wife's Brother was a film editor, started with Gainsborough Studios, went on to edit the Hammer Horror films, his name was James Needs.

Wow! .. James Needs was born on October 17, 1919 in Holborn, London, England, UK. He was an editor, known for Horror of Dracula (1958), The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967). He was married to Mona Reilly and Wynifred Rose Makin. He died in 2003 in Ynys Mon, Anglesey, Wales, UK. 

Internet Movie Database (IMDB) keeps all this info -- apparently in perpetuity so a thousand years hence, Jim Needs will be still be part of the data.  Who knew back then?

It is heavy. And thin enough for the printer.  Works out well.  Nice effect. Or is that affect?  I forget.

Alfred wrote:
William wrote:

350 gsm paper (like thin card)

I regard 350 gsm as quite thick! Many consumer-grade printers won’t handle anything heavier than 200 gsm or so, even if the paper path is a straight one.

I use this "canvas" type paper for things where I want a "canvas" art look.  It's textured like canvas.   
It's 340gsm and works well in my HP8740 printer.


https://i.postimg.cc/k6b7Cq6F/Ink-Jet-Canvas-Document-2024-02-18-114119.jpg

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(8 replies, posted in MoviePlus)

Yipes.  I first used a Sony PortaPak in about 1967 while a grad student at UCLA.    Talk about analogue.  There was no way to edit that stuff. It was 1/2" I think but later on it was 1" .. Not sure. But it was helical scan so you couldn't physically edited the tape as it generated a horrible roll bar as the helican scan caught up.  But it did give us a "cheap" way to shoot.  It was B&W but it was sound and picture.  We learned to do "optical transfer add-on edits" in our TV studio which had a 2" broadcast standard VCR.  I shot something like 30 hours on a particular documentary, did the laborious "add-on"editing in the studio and the show aired on our local PBS station.  Nifty.

71

(722 replies, posted in MoviePlus)

Hang on Snoopy.

72

(722 replies, posted in MoviePlus)

The trick is that AI's need electricity.  In this sense they do "eat". The power requirements are going to be substantial when AI is running the world, and there are literally millions of them.  The costs will not be "peanuts".

This use of Bard is, perhaps, a glimpse of the future.  In a state of grief, Bard (now Gemini) can be counted on to be of help. 

I lost my only brother some decades ago.  He was only fifty. Everyone expected that I would say something.  I remember having that pressure thrust on me.  I certainly would have welcomed Gemini to help me through it.

I'm sorry for your loss. Any one who can make a good apple pie, surely will be missed.

74

(722 replies, posted in MoviePlus)

This is my latest video piece.  ChatGPT helped me write the script. 

It also uses "text to speech" and "speech to speech".

I think it shows what can be done using these new technologies and a green screen.

Phone Phobia .. 7 min. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX8uGeAwM9s

I've been working with ChatGPT to write short film scripts.  This piece is one of the results. 

This piece also uses available technology to do "text to speech" and "Speech to speech".

Phone Phobia  .. 7 min. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX8uGeAwM9s