Status update for my Wie Is De Mol (WIDM) DVD: the first one is almost done! The goal of this project was to convert my collection of 11 WIDM Video CDs to DVDs with animated menu’s and such, and it has been going on without too much problems. I figured out the following transcode command works best for me:

transcode -i avseq01.mpg -V -y mpeg -F s -E 48000 -b 224 -o test

This converts the MPEGs to SVCD format, which gets me DVD-compatible MPEG files that are about 500 to 600 MB for one hour. That way, I can put 6 WIDM episodes on one single DVD with reasonable quality, which is quite nice (this as opposed to me previously using the -F v flag which spits out VCD files, and re-encoding a VCD file to VCD is definitely not a good idea as quality is concerned).

Today, I did some playing around with the newly-released GIMP 2.0 for Windows, and I must stay it’s pretty neat. It looks much better than GIMP 1.x, and the text tool is a huge improvement. Anyway, I did some cover art for the WIDM DVD, which I’m pretty proud of myself — most of the images are just from wieisdemol.nl, but I personally think my design is quite nice. You can fetch a JPEG here (150 dpi resolution, if you need better quality, mail me — the high-quality JPEG was about 2.8 MB, so I didn’t think it was a good idea to post it here).

One of my projects over the last week has been to try and convert my “Wie is de mol” season 4 VCD collection to DVD. Now that I have my own DVD burner, I thought it’d be kind of nice to have my own WIDM DVD with chapters, motion menus and all other kinds of neat stuff.

The first step in this process is to get the VCD material in a format DVD authoring programs are willing to swallow. This proved harder than I thought.

In my case, the Video CDs were recordings with PowerVCR I burnt with Nero Burning Rom. Now there are various guides, both Linux-centered and Windows-centered, that describe how to capture these and convert them to VOB. This consists of the steps of demultiplexing the data, re-encoding the audio with 48000 (48kbps) bitrate, and then multiplexing it again. But this got me into trouble: the steps worked fine allright, but the audio tended to be out of sync: it lagged behind the video, getting worse and worse throughout the video. Most of the guides don’t mention this problem at all, but finally I found one that did: Perfect AV Sync: Preparation is the key. In my case, it was more like ‘decent AV sync’ I wanted, but this did much apply to me. In short: I had lots of missing frames, so I had to re-encode my video to make it work.

Starting with a MPEG file (convert the VCD to MPEG using IsoBuster), I used the following sequence of command magic to convert it to a VOB file:

transcode -i avseq01.mpg -V -y mpeg -F v -E 48000 -b 224 -o test
mplex -f 8 test.mpa test.m2v -o test2.vob

Now, DVDauthor for some reason doesn’t recognize the aspect ratio of the resulting VOB, so in the DVDauthor XML file, I had to manually specify the aspect ratio:

<titles>
  <video aspect="4:3"/>
  <pgc pause="inf">
     <vob file="test3.vob" />
  </pgc>
</titles>

This solution seemed to work allright for me. Next step: making motion menus under Linux. Somewhere on the Gentoo forums there is a great DVD authoring guide, and I found some python script to generate the menus for me. Stay tuned for results.

From the Gentoo forums article about DVD authoring, I got a link to dvdanimenu, a _very_ alpha tool that is supposed to create animated (motion) DVD menu’s. Some experiences:

Getting it to run was difficult enough. I needed to hand-compile a new version of the Python XML module because mine was outdated. The Python script also required some module called output, but either it is Gentoo-specific or it is very obscure, because I couldn’t find it. So I had to remove the calls to the green, purple and so on functions. After that, the script ran fine. Problem is though it uses lav2yuv to get the images, and that program is for AVI files, so the program still needs some hacking to make it work with VOBs directly. Will have a try. Or some sleep. Probably a try.

A recent thread on the Gentoo forums described in detail how to author DVDs under Linux using only open-source tools, most notably transcode and dvdauthor. In a forum post, Bert announced an experimental python script called dvdanimenu that could generate animated DVD menus.

The original version of dvdanimenu has some irritating limitations: it can only generate motion menus from MMPEG files, not the VOB files you usually use to author DVDs. Plus it uses some Python package called output that was not available on my system. So, I hacked onto dvdanimenu a bit, with this result.

Using dvdanimenu is pretty straightforward, and in fact the original script comes with some documentation. Also, take a look at this example conf file. The result looks as nice as this.

Some things still need work though. I wanted to use the slowmo plugin from transcode to create a slow-motion effect, but that gave some problems. I’ve sent a message to transcode-users about this, so we’ll see what comes of this.

If you want a good laught, please _do_ go and see Pooier 666.

I first saw this band with some friends on the showcase of the Academy of Pop Culture in Leeuwarden, of which they were apparently students. Basically they’re a bit of a punk/hardrock band, nothing much special (not particularly bad either). What makes it so funny is the fact that their lead singer has a stupid leather mask, and that they make a point of taking themselves not seriously at all. Well, you get the point if you read the biography on their website:

No ambition, no talent, no motivation, no money and certainly no manners. No nail to scratch the butt, but one to open cans of beer. Cracking snairs, stinking garages, filthy rooms: the perfect suooundings for the very roughest and ??? punkROCK.

Well, really you need to read the complete biography, because it’s so funny! Oh, anyway, for the non-Dutch: Pooier translates to Pimp in English.

Anyway, after that performance, Pooier 666 kind of became a running gag for us, so when we found out they were to perform again, we had to go. So last week, I saw them again in Vera in Groningen with a friend — the only one who wanted to come for some non-obvious reason Well, we kind of misbehaved there, but with enough beer in you, Pooier 666 is _really_ fun! Some pictures from the Vera website:

They apparently did a performance in Vera last year as well that became known as the smoke concert, because that’s the main point: the compete place was filled with smoke so you could hardly see one meter in front of you. Now, I and my friend were on the first line so we could actually see Pooier 666, but the persons behind us certainly couldn’t. Now, they announced their songs like: “This song is about something you’ll never understand: Woooooooork”, “This song is about something you’ll never understand: Styyyyyle” and “This song is about something you’ll never understand: Hoooooooors”. Well, you get the idea. Other songs had such brilliant titles as “There is no beer in prison” and “Fuck you in the ass”. You’d probably have found it funny too if you had been there.

Of course, I did some google’ing on Pooier 666 as well, but it doesn’t raise much results. A couple of biographies here and there. Apparently they were on 5th place in the list of best Vera performances last year (author’s comment: “oddly enough, but funny”). The singer of Pooier 666 also makes paintings. That’s all, basically.

So, you ask, when can I see Pooier 666 live? Well, one of the band members announced on the Simplon forum that the next Pooier 666 performance will probably be in “De Dobbe” in Roden on 21 May. Their website doesn’t confirm this yet, and the Pooier 666 website says “probably if everything goes okay maybe”. Groverpopalso mentions this. More details to follow.

As a short follow-up on my previous rant about Timur, the evening DJ of 3FM: I listened to his program again today. Now, any normal DJ would have great difficulty losing his credibility in just 5 minutes, but for Timur, this seems no issue at all.

Now, I don’t know what’s wrong with this man, but his N.E.R.D.-obsession was coming on strong again today. Sadly enough, the N.E.R.D.-CD is the week CD on 3FM, so he had a reason to play the record, but the way he whines about it is just so irritating. And while he was at it misbehaving, in his pop news item, he mentioned the news of a “greatest hits” CD of the Verve being released. Instead of being positive about this great news, he said that as far as he knew, the Verve had had only two hits, and that they probably needed some money. While in itself the latter is probably true (as for the former, the Verve have released at least 5 CD’s acording to Amazon.com), it is kind of sad seeing Timurrr so mindlessly advocating N.E.R.D. while at the same time being so negative about a decent band.

What a complete ass.

Today we feature the snackbar in the Paddepoel shopping mall in Groningen. I’m afraid I quite forgot its name (something like “Snack corner” I think), I do have a report on its food.

I had to stay near my college yesterday, so I dropped by this snack bar for a quick dinner. Before I knew it I had already ordered a loempia rather than what I should obviously have ordered, a hamburger speciaal. My fault. Anyway, after I reminded them I was going to eat it there, I actually got my loempia served nicely on a plate with some salad with it. My french fries were already in a plastic box, but I thought that was allright. Actually getting your stuff on a plate really improves the feel to the food, I think. For the rest, it was just a snackbar, nothing much to tell.

The french fries tasted quite good. They had a good deal of salt on them, which I really liked, and which made a good combination with the mayonnaise, which was quite sweet, and the peanut sauce. The loempia was nothing special; I found it tasted a bit dry, largely due to it containing lots of meat (looked like some kind of chicken). Priced at € 4.60 in total I thought it was a bit expensive. I _really_ should try their hamburger speciaal some time soon to make a final judgement. For now:

Ratings:
Price: 6.5/10
Service: 6.5/10
Taste: 7/10
Ambiance: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

I wonder why the virus e-mails I receive are always of such poor quality. I got one today:

Dear user, the management of Babyrent.nl mailing system wants to let you know that,

Our antivirus software has detected a large ammount of viruses outgoing from your email account, you may use our free anti-virus tool to clean up your computer software.

Advanced details can be found in attached file.

For security reasons attached file is password protected. The password is “06761″.

Have a good day,
The Babyrent.nl team http://www.babyrent.nl

Which I found pretty funny, given that I am actually the person who runs the babyrent.nl domain. Anyway, I wonder why it is that these virus e-mails are _always_ written in bad English (”ammount”, “advanced details”). I mean, even if these people are apparently bad at English, just a spell check shouldn’t be too much of a bother, should it? Just as funny as those “official Hotmail staff” e-mails that never even get close to looking official. So, virus writers: please spell-check before you send!

I mentioned the reply I got from Hans Labohm yesterday already, but I also e-mailed him asking for a clarification of the “backdoor-stalinism” argument he used in the interview:

Climate change is a left wing issue, and the major part of the media are left wing as well. (…) If you don’t want that, if you’re begging for big government, then the doom image of climate change is a good thing. Because the only way to stop the supposed climate change is with a central plan economy. This way, stalinism, which we finally got rid of in 1989, is entering back in through the back door.

The trouble I had with this was that I found it a bit irrelevant to the point he’s trying to make about climate change not being a problem: if it were a problem, the fact that it would cause a need for a larger government would not be a showstopper for solving the problem. The reason this caused trouble with me is because a small government doesn’t so much fit my ideals as it does his, so this ‘doom image’ didn’t really impress me whereas for him the climate change problem would mean a choice between two evils, as he replied to me:

They (left-wing politicians) have a ‘prejuge favourable’ for solutions involving a strong, invervening government, so they will be more positive and less critical about ideas ultimately causing this than (classical) liberals like me, who favour a limited government.

Rules generally cost (a lot of) money, thus causing loss of prosperity. (…point about the nonexistence of the climate problem…). Apary from that, rules require a government to enforce them, thuis requiring a (much) stronger government. Ultimately, this means elements of central planning in our free market system, which I think is undesirable because it reduces our prosperity and (personal) freedom.

Well, I agree with the point there that the enforcement of climate rules is likely to turn out quite a mess. If he’d just said this in the inteview without resorting to the stalinism and the “begging for big government” thing (I mean, it’s an interview for a left-wing newspaper so you’d expect him to tailor his arguments to that a bit), it’d have been much more convincing, to me at least.

Not that I am principally against strong government control, and I think that if climate change is an issue, a the size increase of the government shouldn’t be a major factor in thinking of measures against it, but Labohm actually somewhat agrees with me on that, saying that measures would be “justiced if it could stop a catastrophe”, making his point seem a little hollow to me.

Quite nice to see him seriously answering my question on this, for which I want to thank him. Even though one may not agree with him, it’s good to see he is meaning to have an open debate on this issue. Of course, there’s him wanting to sell his book as well:

For the complete argumentation, I have to refer to our book. You know where to find it from my previous e-mail. I thought, by the way, Scheltema in Amsterdam has the book in stock.

The book should definitely be an interesting read though, so I am considering it.

One of those “:D”-moments: Hans Labohm, the person whose interview (key sentence: climate change, it ain’t gonna happen) I discussed last week sent me an e-mail about my comments.

First, this means Google has apparently been crawling my website last week, which is neat.

Secondly, about the e-mail. Very politely written. Basic point: we’re used to being criticised, and a newspaper article is too short for all of our arguments. He refers to his book: “Man-Made Global Warming: Unravelling a Dogma” (listed, though not orderable on Amazon):

I challenge you to read it and think about this again. Maybe you’ll see arguments you didn’t know and shed another light on the case, like for me, because I must confess that two years ago I thought we were on the edge of disaster as well. Then I started to read everything I could find about this topic, resulting in my current opinion.

I actually already mentioned the fact that I haven’t done any serious reading on this topic before, so it would seem like a good idea to read the book (and some Greenpeace folders just to keep things balanced), even though (and that was actually the main point I was trying to make with my previous discussion) I still find that the impression his argumentation makes on me isn’t really a strong one. Might see if I can get hold of the book somewhere in a library or somewhere.