MANGLERMIXER

so over the past few weeks i’ve been trying to tackle bluray authoring using adobe encore. i’ve been a dvd studio pro user since almost day 1(2001 maybe?). and my brain has been programmed with its workflow. i can slap together a basic dvd in no time flat. and i was hoping my leap to encore would be just as easy. boy was i wrong… now i’m sure authoring an SD dvd is probably a little bit simpler. but that was not my goal. what exactly was my goal? to make a simple bluray with a menu with 2 buttons and with 2 videos tracks for a certain clothing company that recently released a bmx video. 

so i did what any other computer geek would do when challenged to learn new software. i google’d. i came up with numerous tutorials from adobe’s site and even put to use my works lynda.com account. but you know, nothing i watched or read was simple. everything relied on prebuilt menus and stuff like that. no “hey, here’s how you make a menu from scratch” or “here’s how you export your mpeg-2’s for 720p material”. nope, nothing. 

so 9 exports later and i’ve finally come to proper work flow for encoding. yay…. but i’m still trying to make sure i have my menu stuff proper. i’ve posted on a couple of forums and most replies ensure me that the preview is not to be trusted, etc, etc.. 

so whats a d00d left to do? first off i’ve got my exports exporting right now at home and on my laptop. i think i have my menu setup properly. and now when i get home from work today i’m hopefully gonna burn that puppy to a bluray(rewritable of course!) and then test it on multiple devices.

so if all is well and everything works then i will prepare a nice tutorial that gives the entry encore user a real “whats up wif encore and dem 720p filez yo!” tutorial. stay tuned…

so i was a dick to chad michael murray.

but i didn’t know who it was, does that make me more of a dick?

so i’m filming this wedding, which i do about 15 times a year(for the cake of course). and i’m filming some ladies sign the guest book at the reception. i’m rockin my hvx, along with shoulder mount. and this dudes like, “oh cool, you made you a little home made shoulder mount, i’ve never seen something like that for those little cameras, i’m used to seeing big cameras on shoulder set ups”. my reply, “nope, actually these are fairly popular and a lot of companies make these.” of course i wasn’t giving him my full attention, nor partial for that matter and didn’t even make eye contact. my thoughts were who’s this douche and why is he trying to act like he knows what a big camera is. then i forgot all about it. as i usually do since i have a terrible memory.

later on, the guy i’m shooting the wedding with says something along the lines of, “my little sister is so pissed i didn’t bring her, she loves chad michael murray.” the name sounded familiar, and yup, sure enough. i dissed chad michael murray over my little camera and shoulder mount.

funny thing is, i filmed him a couple of years ago at a one tree hill basketball game, he even did some promo’s and stuff for my station for me.

so sorry chad, its not like you’ll ever read this. your imdb page definately kicks my imdb pages ass.

chad’s wife is bff with 2009 miss north carolina, and they are both bff with the bride. weird huh?

i’m bound and determined to have the longest running blog with the least amount of hits.  the most i’ve had in 1 day is 17 hits. my total hit as of a few minutes ago was 57. hell yeah!

last thursday, bright in the AM baby moose and myself jumped in the TL-88. destination? Gianna’s Grill. was that the main focus of the trip? to get vegan philly cheesesteaks? you betcha! oh yeah, also to do bikes. and by bikes, i mean the 4th edition of the ever popular bmx web series, “Inside/Out”.

with 3 episodes under our belt is was probably time for a crappy one.  its not that we didn’t have a hoot of a time, but the weather was probably not the best. rain was forcasted for the first 2 days. forcing us to find indoor spots to ride. wiz took care of us on friday with a private indoor ramp setup. tight little 5 foot mini with a side of vert wall/street spine/6’ quarter combo. nifty little setup.

day 2 we were on our own, seeing as wiz had to work. so we ventured to west chester, yes, thats where bam lives. he didn’t return our calls about riding his driveway tranny. but union ramp park did atleast answer the phone. and by answer the phone i mean to tell us that an animal demo/benefit jam was going down at 5 that day. so we rode some street while the clouds parted at west chester U. then we rode the park with the animal crew till pretty late in the AM. i actually stunted some. its weird that i mostly ride my bmx when i’m out of town. 

day 3, the final day left us with sunny skies and howling winds in our high rise ghetto days inn. we hit the streets of fishtown with wiz, pedaling from spot to spot. leaving me mumbling of complaints of, “i wish my TL-88 were with me right now..” under my hooded protection of the “meteorologist” jacket as seamus calls it. but the spots were awesome, and stunts got done. tried to ride a pool but got the boot as we rolled up. seamus, kelly and leigh were already gettin their swerve on. so off to more spots in the philly industrial like burbs. nightfall got closer as we got further from the TL-88, so we headed back to wiz’s pizza spot for some nom nom.

we ended the day doing wrap up interviews in the hotel room, using my ghetto film making techniques. and then watching family guy.  all in all it was a good trip. on the way back baby moose and i crashed at pucks house for a couple of hours. in the AM we hit up sheetz for $1.83/gal gas, not too bad eh? 

for your links hit up

day 1
day 2
day 3