I just discovered that double layer DVDs have significantly dropped in price since I last checked (that was about three years ago). When I originally bought my first DVD burner (the Sony DRU-710a), double layer writable DVDs cost about ten times the single layer discs. Now, Ritek Ridata (a very reliable brand) double layer DVD-R discs cost about $1.60 per disc when you buy them in packs of 100.
For those that don’t know, single layer DVDs hold about 4.7GB of data on one side. Double (or dual) layer DVDs can write/read from a second layer within the DVD to store up to 9.4GB of data on one side of the disc. Each layer’s data is completely separate, but from a user’s perspective it all appears as usable space on the disc. Many commercial DVDs are dual-layered to fit all of the movie and extra content.
Anyway, that is a very reasonable price for twice the storage capacity per disk than a regular single layer DVD-R. For comparison, the current price for a 100-pack of Ritek Ridata DVD-R is about $0.30 per disc (now – I bought a pack a year ago and it cost closer to $0.60 per disc).
This means that for anyone looking to produce and distribute original video content without paying for DVD pressing services, double layer discs are now a viable and potentially profitable option. The only real stumbling block left is professional looking DVD labels.
Posted at 12:26 am
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Portishead has been talking about releasing a new album for several years. I’ve been looking forward to hearing some new music from them but so far nothing has been released or even recorded. I just stumbled on their album’s MySpace page, which has two new tracks! Hopefully soon they will release a full album.
For those that haven’t listened to Portishead before, you should check out their “Dummy” album. I first listened to them almost seven years ago and I still listen to that album very frequently. There isn’t a good way to describe the style of the music, although the industry has dubbed it “trip-hop” (all trip-hop artists seem to hate that term – probably because it’s a generic category that is mean to encompass lots of different sounds that don’t fit neatly into existing styles).
If you’ve ever listened to Massive Attack, Portishead’s style is similar to some of their more downtempo songs. I’ll be watching Massive Attack live in a few weeks in Chicago; maybe if I’m lucky Portishead will tour soon and I’ll get to see them, too!
In my spare time, I’ve been working on creating a human model in Lightwave. My goal is to be able to cel-shade the model once I’m done to get an anime-type look in my rendered images. So far, I’ve done a lot of work in creating the head, although I still feel like it could use a bit more tweaking. I hope to only spend a little more time on reshaping the face before I move on to building the body for this model. Eventually I’ll add hair to her, too!
Here is a preview of the work-in-progress. Click on the image to view a larger version.
The site hasn’t changed much recently, but I have been busy. Unfortunately, I haven’t been busy working on the site. My day job has been taking up a lot of my time recently and my spare hours have been going into working on a new model in Lightwave. I’m working on creating my first good human model. So far, I have a decent amount done on the head, but I still need to do some shaping until I’m happy with it. Then I’ll move on to modeling the body.
The good news is that I should have more spare time in the near future. I still have a good amount of vacation days to use up before the end of the year, so I will have lots of long weekends in the months to come.
I hope to update more frequently once my schedule lightens up.
I’m back! I didn’t go anywhere, but I haven’t been posting for a long time. I’ve been crazy busy between my day job and other obligations, so I haven’t been able to focus on this site or any of my other projects. Hopefully I’ll have some new gallery posts in the near future (it’s been a really long time since I’ve added to that…. damn).
I found a new anime show that is published online, Revelation. The show itself is just okay. Although some of the stills are created with a 3D program, it is animated in Flash. Also, the storyline is overy driven by religion. Of course, only the first episode is available, so maybe it will get better….
Anyway, what I really find interesting about the site is the presentation of the episodes. You can watch each episode for free, streamed from the site within a slick Flash viewer. Or you can purchase downloads of each episode for a reasonable price, available in various formats. You can even download them in full HD and soon they are releasing a DVD (or maybe downloadable DVD format, I’m not sure).
I finished modeling a basic set for my animation (space surrounded by distant stars) and I moved on to creating an animation test. This is a pretty basic test, but it has the ship flying, banking, and doing a turn. I also changed the camera’s angle and zoom during the animation, as if it was trying to follow and watch the ship fly by.
I’ve been working on a short animation of a spaceship to force myself to get acquainted with all of the animation tools in LightWave, which is something that I have not dealt with yet. So far the vast majority of my renders have been still images.
I’m pretty close to finishing up this model, so I thought I’d share it before I move on to the animation stage of production. You can click on the thumbnail image to see a larger version of the model.
It’s amazing what you can find while watching late-night TV. If you need a super-size bottle to spray down your entire house for urine stains, you should work a little harder on training your pets. Or remember to aim for the toilet.
