Mike McMurray › Comments

I use Picasa, Evernote, and Dropbox. - Tyler (Chacha)

I use Flickr in preference to Picasa. Picasa isn't big enough either. - Ian May

Evernote rocks though. Not tried Dropbox, but I use Drop.io a lot. - Ian May

I use Flickr for online storage/display, but I use the PIcasa desktop app. Much better for looking through photos than Windows Explorer. - Jandy, ConcertMaven of FF

I'm sorry to admit i'm not an evernote user, but want to try it soon. - David Bisset (sn)

I use Dropbox. - Morton Fox

Dropbox and VLC apart, I believe all the others have some solid reasons to be underhyped. Especially, Songbird and OO.o 3.0 for being complete resource hogs thus getting ignored as viable alternatives because of this. - Berk D. Demir

LOVE dropbox! I use it daily from 3 machines at 2 locations. Flawless and could not recomend it any higher.... - Live4Emma (L4S)

Live Mesh has changed my life. Automatically syncs my files & docs between PCs, mobile, and cloud. Free. Oh, does remote desktop too. - Sarah Perez

Jim Begman - Well, first, it was filmed in H.264, not JPEG or MJPEG, so I doubt they're JPEG artifacts. :) Secondly, the camera records at ~40Mbps (same max. bitrate of a 1080p Blu-Ray), but since very few people have 40Mbps connections at home, SmugMug encodes 1080p video at 6Mbps. So there are multiple levels of potential artifact generation - low-light ISO imagery, H.264 encoding on the camera, H.264 encoding after editing but prior to upload, and H.264 encoding after upload. Whew! Complicated! :) - Don MacAskill

Thanks for the explanation! It does clear up the question of compression. I wish my bandwidth was ~40Mbps. T3's for everybody! - Jim Bergman

Holy crap! It looks gorgeous to me; I don't see any compression artifacts at all. Beautiful stuff. - Glen Mistletoe

Also, Jim, you did click the 1920 link, right? I just figured out that some people were simply hitting the 'fullscreen' button on the 640p embedded version and expecting it to automatically use the higher-rez versions - which it doesn't. - Don MacAskill

Excellent video! Thanks for taking the time to make, post and describe the lenses used in making the video. - Jeff P. Henderson

I want one, but can't afford a new DSLR right now. Wow, what great quality! - Robert Scoble

@Don, where did you get your cameras from? Did you by on line or retail? I placed my order for one on Sept 17 and am still waiting for it to ship from Amazon. - Jeff P. Henderson

That is truly amazing and beautiful! - Brendon Wadey

So how much is this camera in USD? - Brendon Wadey

@Brendon $2699 for the body only. - Jeff P. Henderson

Those are things where I wish I was rich. I would love to have that camera, but I can't even afford a normal/cheaper DLSR. Thanks for the info. - Brendon Wadey

WOW! That is great footage! & from a DSLR makes it all the more amazing! Thanks for sharing! - Chandler

@Brendon, You can get great deals on used gear a KEH.com. I have sold old camera gear to them on several occasions and they are very honest with the quality of the used gear they sell. You might be able to pick up a used Rebel or depending on your budget a used 5D for a good price. - Jeff P. Henderson

Oh yes I know many places to find good deals on DLSRs, but my budget still can't exactly afford them lol, maybe after Christmas and not so busy. Thanks for the KEH.com suggestion, I didn't know about them. I will for sure check them out. - Brendon Wadey

Man, I can't wait. I ordered mine from Adorama on September 25th, and it hasn't shipped yet. Go Go Go.... Hopefully it'll ship this week. :| - donato

Amazing quality. Anyone want to buy a 40D? :) - Andrew Smith

Great stuff, I really hope I get mine soon from Adorama, they told me it would ship Saturday, but no ship notfication so far, bleh! - Bill Pennington from twhirl

Don, yes I clicked the the full 1080p resolution link: http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery.... Here's a PNG screencap to show what I'm seeing: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3003... However, if I watch the video in HiDef, the image is much better: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3143... FYI, these screencaps were made while the video was in playback, not at the opening still image. Thanks for sharing the beautiful video! - Jim Bergman

Looks like the same issue as the commenter on the blog post (Another) Andy. The video is the 480p version upscaled, not the 1080p video, which I can't seem to find a link for. Sorry, I'm good at breaking things! Love what you've done to show off the 5DMII! I hope to get one soon too! - Jim Bergman

Damn, that's gorgeous. Grrr, I'm still waiting for my new 5D MkII from Adorama. Now I'm really going to have to bring my tripod wherever I go again! - David Sifry

Wow. The quality is amazing! - Jauder Ho

Somewhere, a storage company CEO just smiled a little wider. 40Mb/s!! - Mike McMurray

Yeah, sometimes I have my phone in my pocket so when I feel it vibrate, it messes up my internal count of how many message I have :) - Costa Walcott

Yeah, they added it in the 2.1 firmware update. It's ridiculously annoying! Here's to hoping they add an option to disable it in 2.2. - Dave Schumaker

Press and hold the button on the top until a slider appears on screen. Slide it to the right and it'll solve your problem. ;-) - ·[▪_▪]·

it also kills my battery overnight. went from full to dead in 8 hours without any other use. i should just turn off twitter updates completely i guess. - Veronica

they take the time to add that, yet still we wait for copy & paste. - Zee.

priorities! we must see the texts RIGHT NOW! ;) - Veronica

I was constantly missing txts during the day until the 2.1 update. I needed that feature way more than copy / paste. - Paul Wade

naa, i waste much more time writing things out again than I do checking my phone for missed calls/messages - that's just habit now. - Zee.

Don't get me wrong, copy / paste would be really nice. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't always feel the vibrate or hear the ding ding. Feature I want the most? Custom SMS ringtones. - Paul Wade

LOL, really custom sms?? Why? - Zee.

LOL. So I know if a txt is from Twitter, my fiancée, somebody at work etc without looking. :) For example, my calendar notifications come through SMS, it would be awesome if those txts had their own chime. All my coworkers can do this on various other phones such as the Dare. - Paul Wade

jail break for custom SMS tones!! Mines scares the crap out of me every time I get a message now, so much that I can't ignore it or it goes off again, scaring me. Although being able to do it without jailbreak would be better. - Simon Wicks

Yeah, I'm not in the mood to jail break my iphone. I can't afford it if it ends up becoming a brick at some point. - Paul Wade

Doesn't just lock out Linux users but also PowerPC Mac users I'd phrase the question as follows: 'Knowing that Flash has a greater installed user base than Silverlight and that, unlike Silverlight, Flash is available on Linux and Mac PowerPC platforms. Why was Silverlight chosen over Flash, and what *specific* advantages does Silverlight provide to end users.' - Paul Grav

Microsofts PR dept changed that logic Paul. Give PR enough money and they can work miracles! - Roberto Bonini

Gregory. For sure, but I'd still like to hear how they can spin a response to make it look like their actions benefits end users. They obviously wouldn't respond by saying 'MS gave us a bunch of money'. - Paul Grav

MS and NBC have long been partners. There is a cable tv station called MSNBC that was created years ago as MS foray into content creation. - Rob Diana

Silverlight works on Linux - http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlig... - andy brudtkuhl

I tried to watch soccer highlights and got nothing from NBC's player on Firefox 3, Mac iBook G4. I supppse there's all sorts of plug-ins and whatnot that I need to download, but F that. The thing needs to just WORK and it doesn't. - David Connell from twhirl

Ask them why it's such a pain in the neck to view their videos on nbcolympics.com. Youtube is a breeze. NBC, as do other networks, seems to enjoy making it a burden to view. - Charles Barthold from Alert Thingy

Of the live streaming video websites I've used, it's easily the highest quality video I've seen and I haven't had any buffering yet, so I can't knock their choice of tech. - Richard Lawler from twhirl

I like the videos and the underlying tech, it's just the UI that makes me want to smash my head against the wall. - Johan

The quality is awesome and the streaming is very reliable. The UI I am ambivalent about. Compared to flash the streaming looks great and the development cycle in Silverlight is much more robust. They may have alienated 10% of the market that can't play silverlight - but that's no loss to them, those folks will watch on TV then. - Soulhuntre

Just a guess on the "Why Silverlight?" question is that Silverlight implements Windows Media DRM (even on the Mac). Perhaps NBC wanted to protect their streams? - Tom Conrad

The video quality is great, but I'm with Johan and others on the UI. The issue is I expected something different, so I got off on the wrong foot with the site. I think I was wrong in assuming that the main purpose of the site was the live streaming. It's not. It has a bunch of commentary, news clips, and on and on. All this other stuff muddled the site for me. It wasn't until I realized... more... - Loren Heiny

agree with Loren. ncaab.com for march madness was primarily live streams of the games which i liked much better. costas said there are 1000 hd cameras covering the olympics. plenty of content to live stream with that.... - Tim Connors from mioNews

I'm using Aperture, so Apple's definitely gets huge points for convenience. Thanks for the comment on the quality! - James (@willia4)

I use Mpix.com almost exclusively, and I've always been happy with them. - Brian Johns

+1 to Brian. Used Mpix and really like them. I've used Adorama as well and was satisfied. - Justin Korn

I am a Shutterfly fan. I was also satisfied with some pictures I ordered from Snapfish. In a pinch I will upload and then pick up prints from Walgreens too. However I will never use Target again. I tried them once and the quality was horrible; very grainy and they had spots. - Becca

Thanks for the Shutterfly rec. I've ordered some prints for Mpix and am waiting to receive them now. I have high hopes! - James (@willia4)

B&W is hopeless on our printer and SnapFish from HP has been good to us. Fast service and good quality. - Mike McMurray

I know you have already ordered your prints, James, but just for the record: Shutterfly is #1 in my book, they have historically been best and most expensive, but have gotten more competitive with regular promotional coupons. Snapfish is also very capable and are very aggressive with their promotions. I use Costco upload and print service when I need prints quickly, they are usually ready to pick within an hour or two. Their quality is passable. I would not use their Auto Correct. - Alexei Tolkachev

I'll remember Shutterfly in the future. I'm happy with the prints that came from Mpix, though I personally am having issues dealing with the differences between what stuff looks like on screen and in a print. But I suppose I'll just have to accept that until they start making photo paper with backlights. :) - James (@willia4)

I've had great experiences with Shutterfly. Qoop (which hooks into Flickr) ain't bad either, though I only used them once and I was less impressed overall. Imagekind (also hooked into Flickr) does great custom framing. Smugmug also did a great job for me. Evidently I'm some kind of printer whore who can't find one service to stick with... - Eric P