Bluetooth Problems with MacBook Pro Running Bootcamp (Windows)

For as long as I've been using my MacBook Pro, my Bluetooth has been abysmal. I run Windows via Bootcamp, but my wife uses her MBP as a Mac and she has the same problems (maybe worse). She got a nice little Jawbone Jambox Bluetooth speaker for Christmas and never even used it, because she couldn't ever get it to connect to her MBP (and for me to get it to work, it took some serious effort, and even then the performance was sub par).

I have several audio solutions set up around the house and studio, and Bluetooth is a fairly substantial part of the system(s), so today I decided to finally figure out what is going on, once and for all.

For those who come across this post with the same problem looking for a quick-fix answer, try this:

1. Go to Device Manager > Network adapters > Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter
2. Right click and select Properties.
3. Click the Advanced tab, go to Bluetooth Collaboration, and select "Enable" from the Value drop-down menu on the right.

 

After a lot of research, this seems to be the solution that works for most people.  And while it did help my problem, there are still major problems with my Bluetooth connection.

What it boils down to?  ANYTHING electronic (yes, I understand the computer is electronic, and that actually IS a factor!) will interfere with the Bluetooth Adapter's signal.  It really is just a matter of the Bluetooth hardware in earlier MacBook Pros being utter and total shite.

After I completed the steps above to enable Bluetooth Collaboration, I still had issues. I tried rebooting.  I tried altering other settings with both the network adapter and the Bluetooth devices (drivers on the MacBook as well as the devices themselves).  Then I remembered reading previously that a lot of people had problems with actual signal interference.  The MBP power block was sitting on the table (not near enough for me to think it'd be an issue, but still... on the table).  I moved it, and like magic, the music streaming over Bluetooth stopped stuttering.  But as soon as I started using my mouse (connected via wireless), the stutter started again.  So I unplugged the mouse receiver, but that didn't seem to help... and then I actually turned the mouse off via its physical switch, and the signal was smooth again... until I tried looking something else up on the web (using the MBP track pad instead of my mouse), when the stuttering started again.

So I am now better than where I started.  After enabling "Bluetooth Collaboration" for the network adapter, I can at least walk away from the laptop and stream a smooth music signal to my Bluetooth receiver and stereo.  However, if I touch the computer or put anything electronic anywhere near the MacBook, the signal will be interrupted and stutter like crazy.

 

Exact Audio Copy (EAC) Won’t Convert to Flac

If you are having trouble getting EAC to convert to Flac on rip, it may be that you are trying to rip to a NAS (network) directory.  It seems EAC doesn’t like using a NAS directory when converting files.  I assume it has something to do with no “solid” drive path to the file that needs to be converted after it has been ripped to Wav.

Everytime I hit “shift-F5” or clicked the CMP (copy selected tracks compressed) button, EAC would only rip the tracks as Waves (not convert them to Flac once they’d been ripped).

I having a feeling a command line change could solve the issue (some sort of change to the %source% and/or %dest% settings), but my quick fix for now is to map the music directory on my NAS to a Mapped Network Drive.  Once I did that and pointed EAC to the mapped drive instead of using the network path, everything worked fine.

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The Easiest Way to Convert MKV to MP4 (MOV)

I recently wanted to do a little content editing of an MKV file.  I really didn’t want to spend time converting the file (and losing video and audio resolution), but every “trick” I could find online involved downloading software for demuxing, converting, etc. (things that take time, and mostly things that alter the original video –not to mention things that often come from shady sources).

So I thought about it for a bit, poked around in some of the (free) software I had readily available, and found a solution.

An MKV file is just a container.  Thus, I figured I could just change the extension (.mkv) to something else more “useable” (like .mp4) and mess with it that way.  Just changing the extension made Adobe Premiere unhappy (header issues), but as usual, VLC handled it just fine.  Not only that, but VLC ultimately turned out to be the solution for what I needed to do.

In VLC, you can save a file (right click the file in your playlist and select “save” from the list), and under the “settings” options you have “convert” and “dump raw input.”  First I tried utilizing the RAW option, but when it went to “streaming” after clicking “start,” there didn’t seem to be any progress, so I tried the next option.

Using the “convert” option, you can select pretty much any preset to do what we want to do, but I wanted an MP4 so I chose the first thing on the list:  Video – H.264 + MP3 (MP4).  Of course I don’t want MP3 for my audio (I want to keep the original file format), but don’t worry!  The next step is to click the tools/settings button next to the profile drop down. There you will see tabs for “video codec” and “audio codec.”  In each of those settings, you can choose “keep original video track” and “keep original audio track.” Once you do that, you simply click “start” and you’ll see your progress bar tick away.  It took me about four minutes to ouput a 2 hour movie that was originally 17.8 GB as an MKV.  However, the new file was now 11.4 GB, so obviously something had changed (and I assume resolution was lost, thought the file still looked pretty similar to the original).

I actually created a profile called MKV to MP4 wherein I selected the “original video” and “original audio” options with an MP4/MOV container, and the subsequent “conversion” took only around 20 seconds.  I had opened and closed VLC several times, but I suppose the conversion could have still been using cached files.

UPDATE: If the original audio format (like the audio in the file i was using) isn’t an audio format that VLC has in its output codec selection, trying to utilize the “original audio” option will create a file with no audio.  I’m not sure why it does this, but to correct for the problem, I changed my profile to convert the audio, and set up the audio as a high bitrate AAC with a sample rate the same as the original (48KHz).  The resulting file was a bit larger than the previous and took longer to output (because it’s actually converting the audio), but now has audio and can be imported into Adobe Premiere.

It turns out that the RAW dump is actually the better option if you’re trying to keep the file exactly like the original (just changing the extension), it just wasn’t showing me a live process when it was outputing a file.  I tried the RAW option again, and sure enough, after about four minutes (the same amount of time the above “convert” option took), I found I had an MP4 exactly the same size as the original MKV.  Unfortunately the file still wouldn’t work with Premiere, althought now i just get a “generic error” when trying to import the MP4 into Premiere.

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Roku has a “Contra Code” Secret Screen for Wifi Antenna Settings

UPDATE (5-31-16): Gardner Lonsberry has created an info. graphic containing TONS more secret screens for Roku.  Scroll to the bottom to get the skinny.

Remember the Konami code that got you 30 lives in Contra (and other stuff in other games)?  Well there’s a similar trick for your Hulu Stick to get you to a “secret screen” with settings for the Wifi Antennas and a couple of other things.  It might not be as exciting, but it could be more useful (depending upon your priorities).

From the Home screen press…

• Home x5 (press home button five times)
• FF (not the pad arrow)
• Down (on the arrow pad)
• RW (not the pad arrow)
• Down (on the arrow pad)
• FF (not the pad arrow)

I was having a lot of frustration with the Roku in our kitchen dropping signal.  This is particularly aggravating, because when it happens the show you are watching disappears, then you have to wait a while for the Roku to reboot and get through the incredibly annoying “dancing Roku” screen, then you  have to navigate back to the content you were watching.  This is not fun when you’re just trying to watch something while quickly making a sandwich and getting back to work.

So after messing with the location of my router and trying to optimize it’s settings and power output, I went looking for tips on how to optimize signal reception for the Roku.  The Roku site basically blames your router and tells you to make sure it’s not by a window, in a sealed lead box (along with your kryptonite stash), or in your basement, but they don’t give you anything REALLY useful like the information here.

The secret screen is labeled “Platform Secret Screen” and the first screen shows you how your Roku us currently functioning (temperature, IP address, SSID, Channel, N, RSSI, SNR, remote MAC address, remote battery level, etc.).  There are also options for System Operations Menu, Disable Travel Connect, WiFi Remote Menu, and WiFi secret screen.  Unfortunately none of these let you change the four dedicated content provider buttons at the bottom of the remote, but the WiFi Secret Screen is extremely useful.

On the WiFi Secret Screen there is a signal level meter for combined signal strength, antenna 1, antenna 2, and also a meter for glitch/sec.  This allows you to move around your Roku to optimize your reception.

This page also has Resets, Interference, Radios, and Power, so you can optimize your settings.

Setting my radios at TX 1 RX 1 kept my signal strength consistently at 22/23 (other settings were around 16-18 and fluctuated a lot more).  After trying different interference settings, I found “reduce non-WLAN interference” to be my best option.

Obviously your settings will depend upon your specific situation.

p.s.  If after getting things where you want them with your wifi reception you want to check the signal speed of what’s coming into your Roku, Vudu (a free channel with purchasing options for content) has a speed test under “info and settings.”

…

Props:

When searching for a solution to my Roku drop-out woes, I found most of this information on Richard Loyd’s YouTube channel here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1GZO8e_KJo

The updated secret screen shown above is actually a lot more robust (there are more options, settings, and measurements) than the one Richard posted in his video from August 24, 2014.  This leads me to believe that Roku will be supporting and updating this feature into the future.

Transfering Data in the Field with Android (Media Card to Hard Drive)

I wasted pretty much a whole day figuring out how to transfer data from a CF card to a USB stick and/or hard drive using only Android.  I say “wasted” because I was trying all these things that in the end I found out I *DIDN’T NEED TO MESS WITH!*

All the research I had been doing regarding “dumping cards in the field using Android” (simply transferring data from a CF or SD card to a hard drive for back up and card reuse) led me to believe this was a very involved process requiring special cables, apps, altering the functionality of your device, etc., etc.

Almost none of that is true, or at least, it’s not ANYWHERE near as big a deal as people would have you to believe.

Long story short, if you plug a powered hub with a CF reader and USB ports (I’m using the Unitek USB3.0+Card Reader :: Y-3123) into your device via an OTG cable, it will probably work right off the bat (wish I’d have just tried that first!).

So why did this take me all day?

I thought I was being all clever rooting a Galaxy S5, installing CyanogenMod 12.1, and then downloading various apps that in combination would allow the transfer happen.  I thought I needed [root]StickMount. I even purchased the Pro version.  But at this point, I really have no idea what StickMount is even for.  Your device will likely read a USB stick as is.  There is no need for this app (or rooting your device for that matter).

In the end, the stock Samsung TouchWiz Lollipop OS worked great.  The stock OS on my LG Gpad (Kit Kat) also worked great.  In fact, with the Lollipop on the S5 (from Verizon), there is a really nice little area in “My Files” that allows me to easily pick between USB Storage A (the CF card) and USB Storage B (a USB drive)… though “My Files” doesn’t allow me to see my 750GB NTFS drive (see below for that bonus action).

This set up also works like a champ with my stock LG Gpad 8.3 (Verizon Kit Kat).

This means BOTH my devices, as stock (Lollipop and/or Kit Kat), are able to transfer data from a card to a thumb drive (either FAT32 or exFAT) via a hub (you may need a powered hub, depending on how much power your device puts out and how much power your card and USB stick require).

Here’s the bonus: if I use the Paragon Technologies GmbH plugin for Total Commander, my Galaxy S5 and LG Gpad 8.3 WILL allow me to read/write to/from the 750GB NTFS drive and it doesn’t even require root access to the device (very cool)!  I have found that I actually need to install two plug-ins for Total Commander to make an NTFS hard drive, a card, and a USB stick all work together.  You need USB Stick Plugin-TC by Ferenc Hechler to use both NTFS and FAT32/exFAT.  For some reason, if you install the NTFS plug-in, Total Commander treats everything plugged into the hub as NTFS, thus non-NTFS drives (CF card and USB drive) are not recognized.  Installing the Stick Plug-in restores Total Commander’s ability to see the card and USB stick with the NTFS drive.

If your device is rooted, there is actually a patch that someone on the XDA Developers forums has come up with that will allow Android to read/write NTFS, but the installation is a little more involved (dropping files and modules into particular directories on your device), so going the Total Commander route is just a little easier in my opinion.

All said and done, the actual data transfer takes a while, but by transferring directly from card to hard drive (or USB stick) you eliminate the extra step that a lot of people are going through when they transfer from a CF reader to their device’s SD Card and then back out to a Portable Hard Drive (though if your device’s SD card is big enough, leaving a copy of the files on the SD card offers additional back up).

On my LG Gpad 8.3 tablet I dumped 9GB from a 16GB SanDisk Extreme (160MB/s) CF card containing RAW files and .MOV files (from a Canon 7D) to a USB 3.0 (not that it matters –the connection is USB 2, thus that’s the speed limit) 16GB Transcend USB stick in roughly 23 minutes (not awesome, but probably fast enough to transfer while you’re shooting another couple of cards).  Later that day, I transferred a full 16GB CF card (600x Transcend) to a 5400RPM 2.5” portable HD formatted exFAT, and it actually took less than 23 minutes.

To reiterate: I am confirming that with both the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the LG Gpad 8.3 I can use a powered hub to plug in a 16 GB CF card (FAT32), a 32GB USB drive (exFat), and a 750GB external NTFS hard drive… all at the same time… and transfer data between all three devices (not to mention the device they are all plugged into).

Furthermore (and obviously the easiest way to go), if you format an external hard drive using exFAT or FAT32, your Android device will almost certainly allow you to dump data from a media card to the hard drive without making ANY modifications and by simply using the stock file explorer on your device!

I will also state (though I have no good reason for this), the transfer seems to work most consistently, without glitches, without having to try several times, on Kit Kat (with my Gpad).

While we’re on the topic, let’s explore this magical “OTG cable.”  It’s a cable that has a male micro USB B to go into your device, and the other end has a female type A USB.  That’s it.  The only thing special about this “OTG” cable is that pins 4 and 5 are jumpered.  In fact, as shown in this Makezine article, if you’ve got a micro USB cable and a USB 2.0 cable lying around, you can splice them together to make your own OTG, just be sure to jumper pins 4 and 5 (because: “When the sense pin is connected to ground, the USB OTG device attached to the cable enters host mode. If the sense pin is left in its usual disconnected state, the USB OTG device will remain in slave mode”).

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Scanning Multiple Photos at Once

Anyone born before 1984 has albums (or stacks) of printed photos.  Consumers didn’t start using digital cameras until the mid-nineties or so.  Therefore, anyone born before 1984 has probably wanted to scan in a ton of photos at one time or another.

The problem is, there are NO good options (time efficient, decent-quality, and inexpensive).

You can use a scanning service, but sending my precious photos out to some anonymous nit-wit in a lab somewhere is NOT a gamble I am willing to take (also, have you seen Red Dragon?! –I don’t want that guy handling my photos).  Not to mention, there is the intermediary of the carrier (USPS, FedEx, UPS, etc.) on BOTH sides of the operation, and in my experience, those guys lose things WAY too often to trust them with my treasured memories.

I am ASTOUNDED that there is not a HUGE market for a consumer device that would allow you to simply place a stack of photos in a hopper and have a scanner process images automatically.  Surely there are THOUSANDS of people who would pay a couple hundred dollars for this device.  And considering what scanners cost (they basically come FREE with your printer these days), I can’t imagine that there wouldn’t be a HUGE profit on this $200 item.

I also can’t believe there doesn’t seem to be a single review or blog post online discussing the possibilities of using a multi-sheet document scanner for scanning multiple photos in a single session.  There are TONS of people wanting to do this (scan multiple photos at once), but nobody writing about the possibility of using the available tools.

So here’s my contribution to the throngs of people yearning for a way to scan their thousands and thousands of photos into their computers.

The ideal solution is obviously a scanner with autofeed that can process a stack of photos in batches.  Anything I’ve found in the past decade that is of any quality whatsoever (mostly Nikon and Kodak products) is in the over-$2,000 range.  There have been cheaper “family photo” scanners that can do a small stack, but they are generally extremely limited and tend to have horrible scan settings (like 300/600dpi max and only one option to save to JPEG).  Not only that, but they seem to have gone the way of the Dodo; I can’t find a single one online at the moment.

The closest thing available are document scanners like the NeatDesk ($340 and a pretty low rating on Amazon) and Fujitu’s ScanSnap ($447 and a four and a half star rating from more than 1,300 reviewers), but they are specifically catered to documents, and thus scan at only 300-600dpi maximum resolution and only save to JPEG or PDF (and at the $300-$400 price point, I can’t imagine why in the world you would buy either of these things instead of a $99 all-in-one that also prints photographs).

For a while Epson had the Epson B11B172171 Perfection 2480 limited edition for around $500 (or you could purchase the B12B813372 for around $160 which was just the photo feeder lid that you could attach to either the Epson 2480 or 2580 flatbed scanner), but all of these have been discontinued and I could only find a few in weird places around the web (places I wouldn’t necessarily trust to buy from).  Actually, there are two used ones on Amazon, but they are  $475 and  $639 –USED!).  The B11B172171 was a flat bed scanner, but it had a 4x6 photo feeder in the lid, and could scan a stack of 25 photos at 48bit, 2400dpi resolution.  I am very curious as to why it was discontinued.  I’m not sure I would have gone for it, since the max photo size it could scan from the feeder was only 4x6, but I guess that’s better than the nothing that is available now.

[UPDATE]: I have found the B12B813372 in a couple of places for around $140, and it will work the Epson Perfection 3590 Photos Scanner (as well as 2480, 2580, and 3490) which you can still find in some random places on close-out (or perhaps even used).  The only downside is being limited to a max photo size of 4x6.

HP offered the 5500C ($300) for a while, which was very similar to the Epson (25 photo stack feeder), but evidently it jammed all the time, as all the reviews I’ve read for it are awful.

So today I did a bunch of research on “what’s out there” in the under $200 range for devices that offer a multi-sheet document feed for the on board scanner.  Full disclosure, for my photo printing needs, I switched from Epson (a prosumer grade, large format printer) to Canon nearly a decade ago, and I’ve been very happy with that decision (so I guess I may be a little partial to Canon).

The brands that I came across in my research were the ones you would expect to find: Canon, Epson, HP, and Brother.  After a couple of hours of online research, I decided to go with the Canon MX922 even though it only has a Contact Image Sensor (CIS) and a resolution of 2400x4800 for the flatbed (compared to a Charged-Coupled Device (CCD) sensor with a resolution of 4800x9600 in my older Canon MP990).  The specs for the Auto Document Feeder shows only a resolution of 600dpi x 600dpi, though looking at the way the ADF functions, I’m not sure why the ADF and Flatbed have different scanning resolutions; they seem like they utilize the same sensor.  From the specs, I’m also not exactly sure what 48-bit internal/24-bit external means (why would internal/external be different?), but that’s the same spec as my MP990.

Most importantly, the MX922 has a 35 sheet capacity auto-doc feeder for the scanner.

The price at Staples is currently the same as Amazon ($99) even though that’s the “regular” price on Amazon and a “special mark down” at Staples (where I guess it’s usually $199 –I’m kind of assuming it’s being discontinued?).  So I went to Staples, picked one up, drove it home and plugged it in (total time from leaving my house to printing the first test sheet was about 23 minutes).

Unfortunately, the Canon software does not allow using any of the scanner’s “photo” settings if you have selected “ADF” (auto document feeder) for the source.  This is INCREDIBLY annoying!  Also, the ADF only allows for a limited number of document sizes: Letter, Legal, A4, A5, B4, B5.  This means I had to set the feed guides at their smallest setting and then find something to set between the feed guide and the edge of my stack of photos to accommodate the 4x6 size.

As you can see from the scans below, the photo almost always rotated a bit, but I think with some creative engineering I can remedy this situation without too much trouble.  For the record, processing a stack of 24 4x6 photos from the ADF was no problem -though each photo was rotated a bit (oddly enough, when I scanned a bunch of photos at once, they were much less rotated than in the examples below).  I think I could have processed more photos at once (there was space); that just happened to be the size of the stack I grabbed.

For the time being, I’m focusing on scanner settings (not the physical feed/rotation problem) to see if a decent image can even be obtained from the Auto Document Feeder (since the whole point of this experiment is being able to load a stack of photos for automatic scanning).

I spent a lot of time scanning a single photo using various set-ups from the “Canon IJ  Scan Utility.”  All the scans below were from the same (bad) original photo from January of 2007 via Flickr printing (the physical photo was sent to me 7 years ago by a family member).  So the original image is of poor quality but should serve well for comparative analysis.  I purposefully used a “sub-par” print to illustrate various things like moire/banding, color correction, etc.

In the end, none of the scans from the Auto Document Feeder were really acceptable. Some people might be satisfied by the results using “Custom Scan, Source: Document, Apply Auto Document Fix, Reduce Moire” or a similar custom set-up using the ScanGear option (which is similar to Canon’s previous “use device driver” type menu), but I wouldn’t spend a lot of time trying to archive the entire family photo album collection if this is as good as the quality gets.

For only $99 I may end up keeping the MX922 because I like that it has a LAN option (I can hard wire it to my network so everybody in the house can use it), but I’ll have to see if I think the printer is as good as my MP990 (which I think does a great job for “snapshot” photos; I’ve got a Canon Pro 9000 mkII for my large format and “pro” photo printing).

After all this research, time, and work, I am wondering if the Canon scanner software can be hacked.  It would seem that ALL the limitations I ran into were software based (limited available selections/settings for scans utilizing the ADF source).  Magic Lantern has done AMAZING things to unleash the potential of Canon’s DSLR cameras, so perhaps there is a hack that could unleash all the potential of Canon’s scanners in a similar manner.  If only I had the skillz.  If this is up your alley, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail!

For now though, scanning a stack of photos automatically from an auto feeder remains a pipe dream.

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Scans from the ADF source (auto document feed) on the Canon MX922 scanner (click for 300dpi image)…

For comparison, this first photo is scanned from my older Canon MP990 platen using typical photo settings from the Device Driver menu

Also for comparison, this photo is scanned from the Canon MX922 platen (vs. the auto document feed) using a typical “photo” setting in Canon IJ Scan Utility (the same scan utility used for the remainder of the photos below)

Custom Scan, Source: Document, Auto Fix, Reduce Moire

Custom Scan, Source: Document, No Auto Fix, Reduce Moire

Custom Scan, Source: Auto, Auto Size, Auto Rez, Image Correct

Auto Scan, Image Correct

Auto Scan, No Image Correct

Scan Gear Advanced, Color Matching Profile (all filters off)

Scan Gear Advanced, Recommended Color Profile (all filters off)

Scan Gear Advanced, No Color Profile (all filters off)

Scan Gear Basic, No Color Profile

Scan Gear Basic, Recommended Color Profile with auto Correct

Scan from Windows’ Devices Menu (right-click scan from Windows 7 Devices Menu using custom created profile for “source: feeder”)

 

archiving family photos
multi-feed photo scanner
photo archiving
auto photo scanner
scan multiple photos at once
scan stack of photos

An Effective Cable Hanger

I’ve been looking for a solution to the millions of cables I have lying around the studio.

From USB to Sata to XLR to DVI to HDMI to extension cables/cords of all sorts I have a mess that makes Medusa look like Jean-Luc Picard.

The standard studio solution is a piece of metal, bent at a 90 degree angle, with lots of slits.  Most retailers want upwards of $20 for this $1 piece of flimsy steel.

One can easily enough craft one out of scrap wood (simply cut a bunch of 1/4” slits in a board), but I am hoping for something a little more interesting.

Points to this guy for making one out of a spring stretched on a piece of molding.  Probably my favorite of the online solutions I found, if for nothing else than innovation and using scraps he found laying around (he actually scavenged the spring from inside an old scanner –looks kind of like the same sort of spring that would pull grandma’s screen door shut).

I actually bought a bunch of hose hangers from Harbor Freight a couple of months ago when they were on sale for $.99 a piece thinking I’d use them to hang cables, but even mounted in an “x” pattern I’ve decided they’re too bulky and take up too much wall real estate, so they’re going in the garage and shed (for their intended purpose: hoses and extensioncords).

So for now I may try the stretched spring approach or break down and just cut a bunch of slits in a board or three.  In the meantime, hopefully some kind, inventive soul will come along and post a glorious solution in the comments.

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The Technicolor Profile (Greater Depth and Range from your Canon DSLR)

Recently a filmmaker buddy turned me on to the new Technicolor CineStyle profile for Canon DSLR’s.  (You’ll need the Canon EOS Updater to install it; here’s a post on installing the Updater Utility if you lost or simply don’ t have the original disk from Canon.)

I came across Vincent LaForet’s blog looking up information, and I found this useful information in one of his posts:

Once installed  set the following settings in your picture style:
Sharpness: 0
Contrast: -4
Saturation: -2
Color Tone: 0
And as always, shoot in multiples of 160 ASA.  (i.e. shot 160ASA, 320 ASA, 640 ASA, 1250 ASA, 2500 ASA etc – NEVER 100 ASA, 200 ASA, 400ASA etc – this applies to VIDEO ONLY btw.)
You will get SIGNIFICANTLY better results.   You’ll find that something shot at 320 ASA has less noise than something shot at 200 ASA (sometime better than 100ASA!)  That’s due to the sensor’s native sensitivity (of 160ASA.)
Also turn off Highlight tone priority and auto-lighting optimizer.
Remember to never overexpose (or “clip”) those highlights.  You’ll never recover them.  ”When in doubt, underexpose” is what I suggest.  I routinely underexpose by 2/3 to 1&1/3 stops (in extreme situations) to make sure I don’t blow out highlights – I know I can easily open mid-tones and shadows within that range.   No one can recover the highlights however – ever.

You will notice that when using the Technicolor CineStyle profile, your initial footage looks more flat (like viewing an untouched  RAW file vs. viewing a JPG).  This is because your camera is capturing more information.  This means you have more to work with when doing color grading.  While things don’t look as shiny when you immediately view the footage (without making any changes), you will be able to get better final results when using this profile.

p.s. Here’s definitive proof of that “multiples of 160” if you’re not buying it.
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Lost Canon EOS Updater Disk? No Problem

I can’t find the disk that came with my 7D, but I’m realizing I want to install the Technicolor profile, which requires the Canon Updater Utility.  You can download updates, but not the full program. Turns out though, each updater IS the full program, you just need to trick the updater files into thinking you already have the utility installed on your computer.

Download: Canon EOS Updater Utility

Edit your registry as follows:

Posted by Brian Choi

4:16:43 PM, Wednesday, May 09, 2007 (GMT)

What Canon calls updaters are actually full versions of their software. They simply check for the presence of registry keys. The following instructions work for Windows:

1) In your favorite text editor, paste the following:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\DPP]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\EOS Utility]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\PhotoStitch]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX]

2) Save the text file as Update.reg. Note that the extension must be .reg and not .reg.txt

3) Open the file. It will prompt you "Are you sure you want to add the information ...?" Click Yes.

Voila, now you can make clean installs of your favorite Canon applications straight from the updaters.

Another user wrote on May 7, 2011:

Although, he doesn’t say to add this to the first line in the txt editor:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

UPDATE:  I finally tried this and it didn't work for me.  After some online research, I found a comment in a thread that showed that Vista 64 and Win 7 required extra text, so here it is!

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\EOS Utility]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\DPP]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX\Settings]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\ZoomBrowser EX\Install]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\PhotoStitch]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\EOS Capture]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\EOSViewerUtility]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Canon\ODSK]

Also, some people have been confused about the "save as .reg" thing.  You need to select "*.* All file types" from the drop down menu for file type when saving your file, then type the full name as "Update.reg" then click on that file to make it run.

...

Why Thursday Might Be Even Better Than Tuesday

I'm a bit of a Thrift Store Whore, but it's rare to stumble across something like this. Cool vintage clothes, lamps, furniture, books, etc... yeah, all the time. I'm always making people jealous with my finds.

But the Millennium Falcon?! Ohhhhhhhhhh. Not to mention the added score of the original Darth Vader action figure carrying case.

It's missing the radar, the smuggler's cargo cover, the blue gunner's seat (the mechanism is there), the chess table, the lightsaber training orb and arm, and the ramp struts (I know that sounds like a lot), but it's got the top cannon, the top cover, the entrance hatch ramp and the cockpit hatch cover, the battery compartment still closes, and she can still make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs... so I'm happy.

It's funny how buying a toy that you wanted sooooooo bad when you were 8 can make you soooo happy now.


I also snagged an Underwood typewriter on the same visit. I'm tempted to build myself a steampunk keyboard, but it's in such great shape that it'd be a shame to tear it apart. We'll see.

ps as far as the keyboard mods go, this is my favorite (industrial, not steampunk; check out those hex nuts and transmission gears; nom-nom-nom-nom)