They really are you know. And here’s the proof…

It’s really about the ewoks. No one likes bloody ewoks. Even Caps Shift on my keyboard doesn’t like them.

If you haven’t seen Jedi since you were a kid, you’re sitting there, enjoying the movie – the Han rescue, Yoda’s death, the plans to attach the Death Star – it’s all thrilling stuff right up until the annoying furballs turn up (I spoke about this on the SF/Cult podcast Thumbcast a while ago) and it goes downhill. And you’re pissed, double pissed in fact because you had forgotten that these muppets were in it and now you have to sit and watch the rest with them in it.

Second kids are like that – you’re (mostly) enjoying yourself with the second one – gurgles, looks cute, you’re excited, it’s all happy thoughts – and then the other stuff starts – the wailing, the crying that won’t stop, colic, the green poo that smells worse than anything else – all the stuff you had forgotten/blocked out from the first baby. And it ruins a lot of the previous goodness. Because once the bad stuff comes back to mind, it just won’t leave as you know there’s more of it come – just like the ewoks.

They also appear to lead to your death – kids that is, not ewoks. If memory serves, Leia beats Luke out the womb. Leia’s a perfect daughter – she tells her dad where the rebel bases are and everything (even if it was under torture) but Luke? His dad has to go up against his boss because of Luke and that leads to him dying. Nice one Luke.

There’s also the unspoken worry – just as Lucas followed up ROTJ with the original prequel, you’re left terrified about how bad your next sequel might be…

I ordered the Zi8 in black (but it’s also available in raspberry and aqua blue, though I would imagine the black is the most popular) and I’ll spare you the usual unboxing nonsense – you get the cables for hooking up to HDMI (HD) and normal TVs, a little strap, a manual that’s straight from the Apple book of minimal decent content and that’s pretty much it, which is what you want to be honest – packaging out the road, jump in and play!

The phone itself is about the size and width of a Blackberry or thicker/wee bit shorter than an iPhone 3GS.

(The main reason for getting a Zi8 was that I was impressed by it having an external mike socket. Having played with Flips, I thought the sound was the weak issue, so the Zi8 lets that be addressed.)

But you won’t get to play for long – the battery’s pretty run down, so it needs a charge, so add two hours to the “I just wanna play with it” moment. And then make sure you have a SD card for it as the internal memory is good for about 5 seconds of footage (get Class 4 or higher for best video recording). Oh and then, you might notice that your machine doesn’t have the latest version of the firmware installed (way to go Kodak!) as they appear to have shipped 10 billion models with the 1.03 firmware (1.06 is the latest and, judging by online reaction, is considerably better).

This is where the Mac/PC difference comes in: there’s a bunch of software preinstalled for the PC, nothing for the Mac. Also, go here and you’ll see that the Mac upgrade installations – which include buying a memory card reader – are far more of a pain in the backside than the PC version.

However, that’s a load of nonsense, here’s the simple guide to upgrading Kodak zi8 firmware on a mac:

1. Attach camera to Mac
2. Turn it on, backup anything on your card
3. Create a folder called SYSTEM onto memory card on Zi8
4. Copy firmware download files over to SYSTEM on card
5. Turn Zi8 off, disconnect
6. Turn Zi8 on and you’ll be prompted to upgrade – basically go with the green tick each time
7. Once done, reformat your card

After all that, you can get going and it’s ACTION!

I’ll let you watch the clips (all of which are available in HD) and then I’ll post my thoughts. Each of them was filmed at 720p/60fps as that appears to be the best setting, especially for YouTube videos. Apart from the last video, the microphone used is the internal one. No tripods were used in any of these shots – it’s all handheld with Kodak’s Image Stabilisation software, EIS, turned on.

Kodak Zi8 in test at night

The first chance I had to play was at 2am in the morning. Now the Zi8 has no flash or lighting aid – either built-in or attached. Apart from the car at the end, there’s little movement. I had been told that the Zi8 – due to the small lens – would be rotten at night so this held no surprises for me.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luQHy7y2Z_4[/youtube]

Kodak Zi8 in recording a panto

(oh no it doesn’t! Oh yes it… oh shut up)

Junior received a play puppet theatre kit and has been putting on ad lib shows at every opportunity, including this gathering at the inlaws on Jan 1. Now the lighting is low in this (just one corner lamp) but it gave me a chance to play with the zoom. What surprised me was how much the colour dipped when zooming in. The zoom is also a bit jittery, but as with all digital zooms, you really shouldn’t use it anyway.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdca2xD_tMY[/youtube]

Kodak Zi8 in average light test

Heading kind of says it all. Average living room light (basically one halogen corner lamp about 6 foot)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHL8koIA3Gg[/youtube]

Kodak Zi8 in bright light test

Heading kind of says it all again. The aforementioned light with also the main overhead living room light on.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g38rN-sVpr4[/youtube]

Kodak Zi8 and motion 1

Five year old girl doing five year old things.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRNHO5oIgMw[/youtube]

Kodak Zi8 and motion 2

Five year old girl doing five year old things, will be mortified when she hits 12.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ6jT9nqB84[/youtube]

Kodak Zi8 tested with external mike

The start and end of the segments have the internal mike being used but from 0:50 to 2:20 a clip-on lapel mike (£25 from Maplins) was used. I thought the sound from the internal mike was decent and was disappointed by the Maplins’ external mike. However, it may well be that it will work better for one-on-one interviews (which throws it back into the realm of work related stuff) and I’ll cover that over at Contently Managed.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gB1shxE10Y[/youtube]

Kodak Zi8 as a camera

In all honesty, it’s as decent a camera as you find on the likes of the N95 and slightly better than the iPhone 3GS, both of which were trumped by the 4 megapixel Canon ixus I have from about six years ago.

Other points and notes:

1. Uploading HD to YouTube takes forever and a day. Well, longer than normal anyway. The panto clip here took 30 mins to upload (the one at the end took 40 mins). I’m dreading a longer video (I may even try and get a physical broadband connection again instead of wifi to see if that speeds stuff up)
2. This is a dinky little camera
3. Suggestions for the Zi9 would be: external earphones socket (for checking levels but also watching long videos) and some form of lighting. However both would boost the price probably. A larger lens would be a real winner, but again, that’s me being greedy (probably).
4. Raspberry and aqua blue? WTF?
5. As this just deals with .MOV files – that’s what it creates – I wonder if it could also be a movie player if you added a film in that format to it. Makes it a rather cheap movie player for trips (You could load it up with about 64-80GB of movies for the same price as an iPod Touch)
6. Getting the HDMI socket open is a nightmare, well a pain and hassle, if you don’t have nails.
7. The USB port looks well dodgy (see pic). It’s very short, rubbery and unless you have the computer and USB connector on a flat table, you’ll be paranoid that the connector is going to fall/break. If there is such a thing, an extension cable might be handy.
8. Having to upgrade the firmware out the box is ridiculous.
9. The more bright light you an give this camera, the happier it will be.

Is it worth a buy? I don’t regret it, put it that way, but I will probably end up using it more for work than personal stuff. But I will have it in my pocket when possible to catch some moments because it’s far better than the iPhone 3GS (which, to me, is a far poorer video camera than even the Nokia N95 from a few years ago). I also like the idea of carrying around a few memory cards instead of tapes for a big video recorder.

If you want to see some comparison videos, here’s some more video links:

Kodak Zi8 Review

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7qPzfjtDmI&feature=related[/youtube]

Flip Mino Killer: Kodak Zi8 Review

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ2NV463deQ&feature=related[/youtube]

Flip UltraHD vs. Kodak Zi8 – Review by HighTechDad

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oar_2atL7lo&feature=related[/youtube]

GizmoDuck Review : Kodak Zi8 vs Creative Vado HD

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX_lPBb06-o&feature=related[/youtube]

First thoughts:

In terms of weight and ease of use, there’s nothing between the two of them. If anything, the Flip is a tad lighter. It’s also a little easier to use in that you press the ‘on’ button, wait a second or two and off you go. On the N95, startup (from off) takes a good 30 seconds. If the phone is already on, going into video camera phone can take up to 10 seconds.

Both are straightforward point and shoot efforts. You point at what you want and you digital zoom in if you need to be closer. On both the digital zoom is average at best and best avoided.

The thing to bear in mind with what you see below is that how they look after YouTube is not how they look on my machine. I’ll let you judge what the YouTube codecs has done to them yourself when I talk about colour and sound on the clips, it will be as how they appeared on my machine.

On that note, the first thing worth pointing out is this:

Size of Flip image versus N95 on 15inch laptop screen

That was the first surprise -when you set them to actual size to show on your machine the Flip is quite happy to more or less take up the full screen – and looks decent too – while the N95 takes up a smaller space and still looks a little blocky (machine used was a MacBook Pro 15-inch)

Picture and Sound Quality:

This actually surprised me. I was expecting the Flip to romp this, but it wasn’t that cut and dried.

Interior, dark
I won’t bore you with the video from this as both were awful (if you insist – that was the Flip). Darkness just doesn’t work for either of them, so strap on a torch if you want to re-enact the Blair Witch Project.

Interior, average light
Here’s the shots from my living room. The child in the video when sitting was around six feet from me and when doing starshapes at the end was about two feet away from me. If you want to sync the videos up, the N95 one should be started at 1:00 while the Flip one should be at 1:57 – but you get to see some sound/audio before that if you want to watch the lot.

N95 Living Room

Flip Living Room:

I thought the Flip would romp this but the N95 actually had the better colours. Sound was equal on both.

Flip Goldfish
(Goldfish in this start at about a minute in.)

N95 Goldfish

In the Goldfish, I didn’t think there was much in it – the Flip seemed to have a slight edge, but nothing I would say was significant. (The noise in each shot is the fishtank filter)

Overall for the house shots, I was surprised on this because while the Flip seems to have the better shot and perspective, the N95 actually had better colours. The Flip’s colours appeared a little more washed out, while the N95′s were more realistic.

Exterior shots

N95 Flowers

Flip Flowers

For me, the Flip was the winner here. The colours looked just a tad more vivid and real. Sound was more or less equal on them both. However, after YouTube has done what it does, the N95 actually appears to have better colours online.

N95 Uddingston External

Flip Uddingston External

The Flip was the winner here again. There just seems to be a little bit of sharpness, contrast and better colour than the N95. The perspective also seems a little better – judge the oncoming car in both for example.

Conclusions and Notes:

For all I’m a fan of the N95, I fully expected the Flip to wipe the floor with it. It didn’t and that surprised me. Don’t get me wrong, it has a lot going for it – better perspective, better outdoor colours, HD at 720 – but I wasn’t blown away as I would have expected. They were both 50/50 when used on a Standard Definition TV – perhaps some slightly better colour on the Flip.

Where the Flip does score is in convenience – the USB plug pops out, plug it in and off you go – the software’s even built in. The N95′s file structure on the other hand is horrific – and slow if you decide to use Bluetooth.

Both machines use mp4 file format – h264 if memory serves – so they are easy enough to edit in external applications. The software that comes with the Flip is very basic in that regard – but it does the job if need be.

if I had any other phone, I think a Flip would be a no-brainer but if someone has a N95 I don’t know if there’s any great need to fork out extra cash. If you only had an iPhone, a Flip would be a great addition.

I see Flip have updated their range to include a two-hour HD camera that appears a little bulkier but also a little cheaper, which may be an acceptable trade-off for some.

For a person caught needing quick web-ready video, either of these would do. If I suddenly needed a video quote off someone and only had the N95 with me, I wouldn’t panic as I know it would do the job. Similarly if I’m a reporter running about with space for only one bit of kit, the phone wins it as it does more than just be a camera. Both are capable and competent for the job of YouTube-sized web video. It just so happens that one can also do audio, calls and a million other things – and is cheaper.

There are other cameras that some consider including the Creative Vado HD and Kodak Zi6. Here’s some links to other reviews of them – Flip Mino HD (vs Creative Vado HD and Kodak Zi6) and Flip Mino HD, Kodak Zi6, Griffin Clarifi. Those are both video reviews but a fantastic text review (with screengrabs) can be found here.

Anyway, if anyone has decent examples of what these pieces of kit can do, feel free to post examples in the comments section.

From Think Geek

Becoming More Emotional

Boy, no kidding on that one – and this totally took me by surprise. At first, for guys, when a baby comes along, it’s pretty much business as usual. There’s a wee person about the house that you have to get up at all hours to feed but that’s really it. They cry a lot when you pick them up and they are just… there. And you know you have to look after them.

But somewhere along the line some gene in you flips. Now for everyone it’s different but for me, anything that involves a father and daughter now cracks me up. This first became obvious after rewatching one of my favourite fun films Armageddon and as it approached the end, I was in a flood of tears, totally uncontrollable. Fricking Armageddon! Since then, I’ve noticed it in other things – The Time Traveller’s Wife for example. God knows what The Road will do to me…

I used to joke with Graham Lindsay at the Scottish Daily Mirror about this as he told me that parenthood made him unable to read tales about child cruelty. I thought he was talking bollocks until junior came along. I can still read those stories, but dear God they get my blood boiling more.

Much amusement for the wife and friends. Much embarassment for me.

Child(ren) Come First

This is a bit of a combo of Tara’s points 2 and 3. But yeah, I’ve seen every part of my life ’suffer’/benefit from having a kid. I don’t go out as much as I used to and if I do, I go out after the little one has had her two bedtime stories and cuddle for falling asleep. I’ve seen me walk out the door at clocking off time (knowing I’ll have chunks to do in the early hours of the morning) so I can get home and play tig or princesses or something like monster hunting down the woods with my wee best pal. I’ve gone without things I’ve really wanted because I saw a nice top or toy for junior. I’ve taken her and her pals out when someone else was equally happy to do it.

It’s also probably made me more selfish because if I get the option of anything to do, playing with junior is the first call (though I am going off the swimming lessons at 8am on a Saturday morning after two years of taking her).

(three things that have surprised me though: how little sleep I actually need at times when dealing with the wee one – though I’m sure that’s taking its toll in its own way . Also, how much I always hear madam moving about or talking in her sleep, even if I have been sleeping (again, sure that’s talking a toll) and how well I operate with a hangover and children (though the way round that one hasn’t taken a toll – less drinking or nights out!)

Made Me More Intolerant

My personal politics used to be fairly left-leaning (that’s not a statement of political party alignment but my own personal politics) and I’d like to think they still are, but having a kid does make you less tolerant of other people’s foibles – especially if they are a parent – and it’s practically a full-time job to haud one’s wheesht as they would say in Scotland.

Things like the woman who let her children die in a dirty nappy? In the past I may have moaned about the system and so on. Now? I’d kill her and sack every social worker involved in that case, making sure the world knew why they were sacked. Come in home from work tired and don’t want to play with your child? Tough. You have a child, relax later (though why you wouldn’t find playing with your child fun and relaxing I don’t know). Want to watch a TV show/surf the web/do something solo while your child is awake and not doing anything else? Get to hell. That child’s a gift to you and never asked to be born to you, so you owe it your time while it’s awake. Farmville, Smallville and Coronation Street can all wait until your child/ren are in bed.

(See what I mean about intolerant?)

What about the other parents who read this? Has parenthood made any changes to you that surprised you?

It might sound unlikely – and I really hope so – because I’ve had two really vivid dreams where I (appear to) die (and I really hope they aren’t bad cases of Deju Vu) and in one of them, my last word was ‘Abigail’ (crazy imagery beforehand – buildings all rising up and falling, being pushed forward by a wall of whiteness. Was like something from a Grant Morrison book) as I took shelter behind a wall.

But waking up made me realise something: she may be five but she would be useless at looking after herself. Would she know how to get to another house? What if her grandparent’s house was down too? What if her friends couldn’t or wouldn’t take her? Would she have the savvy to break a window to get shelter? Could she work out a tin opener? Could she work out how to dial some one that might be able to help her? Could she keep herself warm or would she just hit Channel 71 and watch Cbeebies until something happened. What’s her school’s policy for apocalyptic scenarios? Does even asking them that question get you marked as a mentalist?

And that’s the big one – what about bump? It won’t even be able to look after itself for five years minimum.

Some people on Dan’s blog say “Don’t worry about it,” but it’s one of those things that once it’s in your head it just doesn’t shift.

(and yes I know the whole point is moot because if I’m dead there’s nothing I can do about it, but no-one told me when I was signing up for the world of parenting that I would sit and lose hours worrying about my children if I wasn’t here to look after them.)

Anyway, word reaches me that I’ve been put forward for a MAD award (best new blog), so I’m all chuffed. Or I was until I looked at the amount of entries and the quality of the competition (warning, if you go blog reading in the links there you’ll lose hours) (and if you do do that, don’t forget to vote for me first ).

Nah, who am I kidding? I’m still chuffed.

Anyway, the point is that there’s some top entries over there well worth reading if you’re into the dad/mum blogging scene (The awards are on Twitter too.) and if you’ve ever wanted to dip your toes into the blogging water then there’s a guide there for that.

Now is it unethical to create email addresses for your unborn child and have him vote…

We’re both educated in various religions and the thought is if the children want to pick one when older and fully informed, they can. It’s their choice and we’re not brainwashing them (of course, living in the West Coast of Scotland so adds to that challenge, but that’s a post for another day).

Anyway, despite going to a Protestant non-denomenational school, which you would imagine teaches all faiths (as long as they are Protestant) we had our first major hiccup with the Muslim faith the other day…

Dear Daughter has weekly swimming lessons (and she’s not bad, can’t swim in a straight line to save herself though) and two of her wee pals there are lovely little girls raised as Muslim. The mum – from Lanarkshire – is a great mix of Muslim faith and Scottish practicality, so we all get on fine and fab, though I’m sure to some halfwits in this country, even speaking to someone who can spell Muslim marks you out as a terrorist sympathiser.

Anyway, last weekend, the girls were pointing out that they receive chocolate eggs – as you would for this time of the year – but they get to eat them before Easter Sunday because they don’t believe in Easter (a simple explanation is here but basically Muslims don’t believe Jesus was killed on the cross or resurrected as such.) which quite intrigued madam.

Fast Forward to Easter Sunday dinner and she’s speaking about how the girls got to eat their Easter eggs early “because they don’t believe in Easter and that means Muslims don’t believe in the Easter Bunny so they get to eat their eggs early.”*

Now, I always thought these kids you hear of who think Christmas is about Santa and so on were a wild myth, but now we have it that Easter is all about the Easter Bunny (come back next year when we do the Stations of the Cross and crucifixion with a bunny.)

On the one hand, parent me finds it hilarious (as does agnostic boy) but the part that’s about knowing your culture/other religions is mortified (what makes it even worse is that she was at church with the school on Wednesday. Clearly paid a lot of attention there then).

I think it will be Mel Gibson’s The Passion instead of Muzzy tonight…

* The writer in me was mortified at her leap in logic though: if they don’t believe in the Easter Bunny surely they shouldn’t receive eggs as there’s no bunny to deliver them. That’s what she should have been asking…

Graeme Rose sent me a tweet yesterday

The Dundee Contemporary Arts is inviting people in with under-18 month old kids to see Kick Ass on May 6. (That TBA at the end isn’t for the certificate BTW, I think it’s telling you that the words t*t, bas**rd and ass probably feature lots in the movie.) (Yes, that was a gag.)

For those who don’t know, Kick Ass tells the tale of a teen who decides to become a superhero – but without the powers – he gets beat up, tries again, gets filmed on YouTube, becomes a celebrity and then discovers there are other vigilantes in town, including a foul-mouthed, ultra-violent little girl. I did a review here.

Now I know it’s great that parents get a chance to see films in the cinema. I appreciate that. I would just find a babysitter, but not everyone is that fortunate that they can find at least one person in this world to watch their child for two hours or so.

But this is not a film to take kids to for a few reasons:

1) Under-18 months or not, kids still pick up on stuff. And if this is anything like the comic, there will be some very choice language.
2) It’s violent and if you have a kid watching the screen, do you really want that going into your kid’s head?
3) What are you doing letting someone so young watch a screen anyway? (this one, I’ll admit is just me. Many people have no issue with young kids and TV)

Now it’s nice that the DCA is helping to promote a film created by a Scot, I applaud the idea of cinema for parents, but the concept’s a bit weak here. I accept that it might be cost-prohibitive to build a softplay for the kids so adults can go and watch the movie for a while without the cries of a child.

But this is not a movie for wee ones.

(I still remember the kids aged 6-10 going into see The Dark Knight. Not many lasted past the scene with the pencil. And again, what were the parents thinking…)

Now Graeme thinks someone at the DCA just went ‘oh it’s based on a comic, it will be OK’ but they haven’t. The text for the event states:

It has everything you’d want from a traditional comicbook adaptation but it also has a wicked foul-mouthed sense of humour.

Whoever picked this, knows exactly what the film is. Now this might just be a PR stunt – shame on me then – but if not, it’s incredulous. No doubt some people will say I’m being over-protective and so on, but I don’t think so. This is a very violent/strongly-worded film. You let a kid watch this, you might as well let them watch anything. Good luck with the psychiatry bills.

*As you may have guessed – here’s my review of the movie script from back in 2008 – I didn’t like Kick Ass as a comic or a script. It’s nothing against Mark Millar, he’s a very nice guy, has written some really good stuff and I wish him all the best. Kick Ass though, just didn’t appeal to me. Even worse, I can already see some of the stunts that will happen around this film, the inevitable Daily Mail outrage and so on.

And before anyone asks – this isn’t about anti-gay or anti-sex (I’m very much in favour of both as long as it’s with consenting adults) – it’s a) about not having to worry about what the little one is looking at online (even though she never is at home, only at school) and b) that we have such half-wits in charge of branding at a Government level.