4K Video Downloader

Those Youtube videos you love can be taken away at any moment. The best tool to get a copy of them before that can happen is this one: 4K Video Downloader. It lets you keep a copy of the video and download subtitles. The free version is a little limited but still useful.

4K Video downloader lets you download a single Youtube video, or a playlist, and you can also include subtitles. It's very simple to use. You just copy the link from the title bar and are prompted to choose the quality and which subtitles to use, and where to store the video. Unlike other tools, this one isn't limited to 720p. 1080p videos look great and I've never had a problem with sync. 

On the negative side, from time to time an update on the Youtube site breaks the program and it make take the developers a few days to fix the issue and release a new version. Luckily as of writing this blog, 4K Video Downloader is under active development. Support is also quite responsive and I've had replies to my email in under a day.

Example of 4K Video Downloads

Here is where you can get it.

https://www.4kdownload.com/products/product-videodownloader/?r=free_license

But do make sure you're not breaking any local or international laws where you live by backing up content.

When the technology doesn't work

I love my Dell Inspiron 9400....when it's working.

Recently the hinge broke. I had the top level 3 year warranty, so I got that fixed, but it wasn't done properly. The rubbers that sit between screen and keyboard with the cover closed started falling off. So Dell shipped me another rubber...but the screen developed a dust spot behind the LCD that you can't clean off. While trying to replace that the technicians stripped the thread on a screw, so it had to go in to the shop via courier which was a pain. A week later I get the laptop and everything looks right, except it's covered in dust. So I clean that off. Only dust has clogged and jammed one of the fans and it starts overheating. Luckily i managed to work out what was happening and unjam the fan without opening the case and before the thing fried. The overheat protection seemed to kick in slowing the whole thing down which is how I noticed there was a problem. (Forget 3D gaming - after a few minutes it became a slideshow).

So far in just over 2 years for this laptop I've had
- 2 hard disk replacements
- 2 new screens due to dust issues
- A broken hinge cover
- A stuck fan
- Strange problems with memory leaks and blue screens (Took literally weeks of spare nights to find and fix the issue which in the end was resolved by reseting the BIOS)
- Blue screens due to bad video and/or wireless card drivers.

With an NVidia 9800GT graphics card this thing is a gem when it works, but I don't think I can call it a good purchase after so much hassle. I seem to spend a few weeks using it, and a few weeks working out what's wrong to fix it. I think it's my last Dell.

Taking lots of photos doesn't mean you're rubbish

Posted to a photography discussion forum...

There have been a lot of threads I've read here lately that suggest that if you take more than a couple of hundred shots in a day you must be just blindly taking pictures and hoping for the best aka "spray and pray". Lots of advice on slowing down. Lots of criticism of anyone that takes a lot of pictures, to the point of implying or outright saying a photographer doing this must be rubbish.

To be honest it's wearing thin, even when it's well intentioned. You don't get better at taking shots by reducing the amount of time you spend taking photos or just by taking less shots. Part of getting better at photography is getting experience and if you're shooting once a week you're not going to get that experience shooting 30 pictures in that whole week ESPECIALLY when your photos are not living up to your own standards. It takes time and effort to work out what does and doesn't work for you.

People are also confusing their inability to manage and organise a large number of photos with better photography. That's insanity. It's a definite positive thing that digital lets you shoot thousands of images a day and review it instantly. I bet some of the biggest names in photography would have done cartwheels if you could some how go back in time and hand them a current basic digital SLR with a nice fat memory card.

ONE method of taking better photos is to slow down and consider what you're doing more. This works for certain people and for certain shots that require setup. If you don't give yourself time to work out what you're trying to do and constantly jump from one shot to another, sure your shots will suffer. There may have been a better angle. You may mess up your settings shot to shot. You may not think of a better way. But if you review your settings between scenes and pay attention you can overcome that, gain experience more quickly than you could have in the film days and instantly re-shoot if you're not sure it's right.

There are a lot of times when shooting less is awful advice. One that comes to mind is nature photography (be it in the wild or at a zoo) when you never quite know what the animal is going to do (unless you've literally spent at least a few weeks with the animal and can reliably predict their behaviour - but even then they'll surprise you). Most people - even many pros - don't have the time to spend days with one animal to get that perfect shot. That doesn't mean all their phtoography is totally wasted.

Another time is with young children, particularly candids. You never know what they're going to do. Really young ones you can't pose, and you can't always recreate the shots you want with the older ones either.

Yet another is sports. Modern DSLRs shoot 4-8FPS and EVEN THAT IS NOT ENOUGH. Take a look at reviews of the Casio high speed cameras that shoot 30-60FPS at high res. It's the photographers using SLRs that do a fraction of that speed that are relying on "spray and pray" hoping that their millisecond timing happens to coincide with that bat striking the ball etc.

...and no you shouldn't be deleting photos as you go UNLESS you know it's completely ruined (totally under/over exposed) etc. The heat of the moment is rarely the right time to make that decision. To my mind, the best way is to take HOWEVER MANY photos you think the situation warrants - go nuts - experiment - do it thoughtfully and with purpose. Then take your shots home, create a best of folder for the shoot and move or copy the best shots there as you review them. Only delete a photo you know is complete trash otherwise archive it out of the way under folder that includes date and brief description as part of the name. If you get 30 out of 1500 photos, that's fine. No one cares about the other 1470 if you don't show them and should you ever decide you want a second look they're there!

Shooting heavily (as an amateur, not a pro) this way I think I'm creating 200-300 Gig a year, and that's shooting RAW, occassional video, and storing an automatic conversion to JPG of every photo. That's nothing. It'll take a couple of years to fill a 1TB drive. Use the techology for all it's worth.

Some common sense needs to apply too. If it's disruptive, shoot less. If you're feeling frazzled, shoot less. If your pictures are rubbish, stop and work out what you're doing wrong. "Chimping" is only bad if you're not doing it to work out how to improve your next shots.

Some people seem to think there's no value in taking a photo unless you know it's going to be perfect. How many better shots are those people missing following their own advice? Sure offer this technique as ONE way to try to improve, but it's crazy that this is the standard wisdom.

Unprofessional paid photographers

I am sick and tired of so called "professional" photographers who feel threatened by amateurs

Take a look at this thread:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1014&message=32263324

I started it off saying my faith in professional photographers was restored. They had to show me that I was mistaken.

Heaven forbid I should mention that I had bad experiences with so called professionals or that I would not deal with a professional that didn't provide RAW files, or that a professional might do work for free for friends or family. (This apparently is a cardinal sin that has you expelled from the church of the photo professional).

What I got for my trouble was a viscious flame that included name calling, misrepresentation of what I said, ridicule of my profession and anyone associated with it, and ridiculous diatribe about trusting photographers and not requiring raw.

As far as I'm concerned, any professional photographer that wants to do work for me must

- Be polite and professional to all including amateur photographers
- Shoot in RAW and provide the RAW images to me
- Give me unrestricted rights to use the work
- Understand that the customer hires them to do a job, not for the privilege of becoming their personal revenue stream
- Not feel threatened that amateurs are willing to give away for free

Apparently, this is too much to ask even at a few thousand dollars a pop. What you get instead is not worth describing. These people overvalue themselves and will price themselves out of the industry as digital equipment continues to improve. You'd have more honesty and less back stabbing at a convention of used car dealers.

If people really are willing to pay USD36000 for 200 pictures of cats, then they're equally responsible for creating these prima donnas. My God, how good can a well exposed picture of a cat be worth? How much better are you going to do than any other pro with a decent lighting setup?

If you hire a professional photographer for an event, and they refuse to discuss what you want, or if they start telling you about how they don't release the RAW files because it will violate their artistic vision or because they're doing you a favour providing you with their edit view of your event, walk away. The only reason they're withholding those files is so they can make a profit. They aren't artists. They're fools who think you're stupid enough to believe that withholding something from you is for their own good.

April Fools

I'm not big on April fools jokes. It's too easy for people get carried away and do irreversible damage. Most of them aren't that funny. Then there's the fact that I'm not great at them. This morning I made my first attempt at an April fools day joke in years. I sent my wife the following SMS:

"Good morning my love. Have decided to start a political party based on flight sim interests and want you to be party secretary. Need your help picking a name."

She didn't realise it was a April fools day but picked it as a joke, so I didn't get a telling off or a worried by supportive SMS back. Oh well, better luck next year.

Hobbies Getting Banned Or Limited

I'm getting tired of all the hobbies I enjoy being banned or limited either because people:
1) are abusing the privileges they are granted,
2) have become so risk adverse that it's a wonder they make it out of the house
3) are too greedy to see beyond the short term.

Last Year

All Work and No Play
- I'm no longer able to play chess with my colleagues at work (out of hours of course). Long story...not for this post.

No Point
- The government in my state banned green laser pointers - anything 1mW and above is banned. Actually reclassified as weapons - with searches permitted if you're suspected of having one and 14 year jail sentences for possession without a permit - because idiots were getting their kicks trying to shine them at pilots eyes.

Link: Wikipedia Article

How about cracking down on the illegal use instead of making the tool illegal?!? Apparently since it's harder to prove law enforcement would rather just ban things. I'm surprised adults are allowed to buy scissors. Someone might run with them!!!

This year

Crash and Burn
Microsoft Flight Simulator - a 25 year old program that had constantly been improved and upgraded and around which an (expensive but fun) entire hobby industry had grown around was killed off. All but six members of the development team were fired (though some got the option of looking for work within the company for a month before being kicked out).

Ex-team Manager's Blog

How short sighted! I've blogged plenty about this, so I won't elaborate further.

This week

Ewwww, germs
- My local remote control flying club has been banned from people putting money in to have a barbeque lunch. The Penrith council have forced compulsory food regulation even if the price of food is just to offset the cost. This means upgrading canteen facilities to meet food safety regulation and only cooking there. Unfortunately the canteen's not open every day that people fly. Of course they make it all sound feel good but the end result is that having a day where you fly remote control planes and spontaneously put a few sausages on the BBQ is now a thing of the past. To make matters worse an individual at the club - which is large and has many sections - has to be personally responsible for ensuring this.

Council Link 1
Council Link 2

In fact at the club there is more and more open worry by section leaders that they'll be personally held responsible for illegal and dangerous acts by members, which has led to increases in restrictions all round.

Go Fly A Kite....If You Can Find A Place To
- Kite flying has been banned at 5 Sydney beaches by Randwick council. Apparently this actually happened last year and targetted 2 string kites which could potentially be "flown agressively". However the signs they are erecting at ridiculous expense do not mention how many strings, leaving everyone confused.

Newspaper Article

What next? Beach cricket, volleyball and soccer???

Conclusion
On a personal and selfish note I'm left with less and less ways to blow off steam when I need it most. On a less selfish note, if they regulate everything fun out of existence, what do they expect kids to do to stay out of trouble???

Flight Simulator post to a newsgroup...

I was going to post this to a newsgroup I use to frequent. I need to vent but I'm also loath to break my word about never posting there again...so I'll post it here instead.

I've only recently learnt of the demise of Aces studios.

Some of you might remember me from a couple of years back when I use to post regularly. At the time I was flamed, called a crackpot and paranoid for my rants about activation, use of copyright soundtracks in video, the over-commercialisation of FS killing off the hobby.

(Then there was that rather nasty very personal business where my then fiancee now wife's mental stability and the genuineness of her illnesses were attacked as "made up" by people who had never met her and admit that they wouldn't give up a specific food for a couple of hours to make someone's plane trip possible. I still think certain individuals on this group are just plain ***** - they really couldn't have done better to put me offside).

I've dropped in here from time to time and even noticed a couple of people post wondering what happened to me. Well if anyone still cares I got married, had a wonderful honeymoon (even visited 3 flight museums) and we have a little boy of 7 months old and though things have been rough on some fronts and great on others, I love my family.

Getting back to what's happening it's funny how those things have played out. Youtube's deleting any of your flight sim videos that MAY contain copyrighted soundtrack. (I wonder if they're deleting creative commons stuff too), and Aces after around a quarter century and multiple economic downturns is suddenly disbanded in the first round of MS layoff ever. I'm no grand oracle. I didn't see the specifics. Even I've been struck by how soon it happened. However the big picture was, to me at least, an obvious consequence of the decisions large companies were making at the time.

Am I bitter? YOU BET. Am I just here to gloat? No. None of that will bring back the simulator. None of that mean my boy will have the same opportunities you and I have had. Here's another little prediction for you guys. In 5-7 years those quaint screen shots of old versions of early versions of the flight simulator will be joined by quaint screenshots and museum articles of FS9 and FSX and you'll have trouble running them on anything modern. Long before that it will require the use of illegal means to install FSX as the activation servers will eventually be terminated, just like the dev staff.

...and no I'm not heartened by messages that some of the Aces staff have been re-hired on some secretive project. You'll either be looking at pricey commercial simulation, or online flying games NOT a flight simulator in the sense that the hobby knows it today. That's if it materializes at all. What about the other sims? Flightgear and X-Plane? Oh they'll enjoy some increase in growth and no doubt some developers, but just as many freeware developers left the hobby when they found it required extreme effort to continually redevelop software to cater for changes in FSX service packs, the payware developers will leave in droves as the sim dies and will be reluctant to stake their livelihood on a fragmented niche market. Expect cutbacks and closures in the FS addon community in the next 6 to 12 months. Would you stake your family's future on such an enterprise, seeing as how things have played out?

Yet people still rant on about a bright new future while the ship sinks below the water line. Pathetic. There is a difference between realistic optimism/never giving up, and just plain lying to oneself.

The golden age of the PC flight sim is well and truely drawing to a close. Some would say it's long been over, but MSFS was one bright shining beacon - a flagship product with a world wide audience that simulated most of the world's airports and many of the world's planes....at least up to FS9. After the FSX debacle (debate all you like but it was a debacle), what needed to happen was a re-focus on producing a sub-$100 flight simulation experience that ran well and reliably and allowed communities to share aviation knowledge (No locking out kiosk mode to make more profit trying to sell it at huge price).

In the end as a community the best we can hope for is an open source product taking off (pun intended) so that no company may ever again hold us prisoner. Unfortunately people get greedy both for money and for the chance to make money out of doing what they love, so I doubt this will happen. If I'm proven wrong, and boy do I hope I am, it'll take years if not decades.

In the meantime the standing joke in our household that my son will grow up saying "Microsoft Flight Simulator" as his first words and telling his kindergarten class about his virtual flight and the "Cross Wind Landing" for show and tell have a brand new sad edge. I've always wondered if my son would share any of my passions. Now I'm wondering if he'll share any of the opportunities I had.

End of an Era - Dark Ages for a Hobby

A couple of months ago I read about the first layoffs ever at Microsoft. At the time I took no notice of what teams had been laid off. I assumed they were getting rid of support staff. So when I read a couple of days ago that Microsoft had closed Aces Studios - the team that's been building Microsoft Flight Simulator for decades, I was caught somewhat by surprise.

I shouldn't have been. I'd predicted the death of the franchise when they released a buggy, resource intensive, half baked, DRM crippled, activation encumbered monstrosity that was Microsoft Flight Simulator X. I also saw that the addon developers had started to get very greedy, charging hundreds of dollars for multiple products while Microsoft spokespeople babbled on about a brave new world where payware would be the way forward. I even saw the teamup with AVSIM as anything but good as it removed AVSIM's credibility as an unbiased organization. My musings were not popular at the time with the online flight sim communities (actually mostly just one community) that I frequented, and over that and some other trolling and more personal nastiness that you get when people aren't having to deal face to face I left that group.

Make no mistake though. Microsoft Flight Simulator and all its code bases are dead. People are still trying to put positive spin on how some kind of phoenix may rise out of the ashes. They're delluding themselves. It'll take decades before anything of similar sophistication and wide ranging appeal can be written. Those that contributed to freeware and even payware addons this time around will be less willing to spend their time and effort on something that they now know from experience could be killed off at a whim.

So why did this happen? Why did the era end after decades of the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise being a flagship vehicle for the company? Well as far as I'm concerned the company drove the product into the ground with greed. FS2004 had a kiosk mode that allowed schools and museums to set it up to display a flight without any user input. Not only was there no such mode in FSX but Microsoft wanted to charge much more money to permit such use. FS2004 required one patch through its life (though it could have used more) and there were no significant changes to the engine or requirements for addons. FSX had 2 service packs and an "Acceleration" addon that required changes to addons each time. Both required advanced hardware at release, but FSX was buggier and had ridiculous unmeetable requirements for smooth running which only improved with the release of the service packs. The franchise up to FS2004 had relied on a great deal of good will freeware development (though there were certainly commercial addons). The emphasis shifted from the modding community to the commercial vendors supplying addons and their prices spiralled upwards. Where did they think such developments were going to lead???

I'm actually less happy about the loss of the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 code base. It had some immensely irritating bugs and limitations but an effort starting from it as a springboard would have had a much better chance of producing something great than starting from a half polished, buggy development driven by dollar signs aka FSX.

There is another important issue here - activation. FSX was the first and only version of the simulator that required that it be activated online. I'm very much against this kind of copy protection mechanism, because if a company goes broke or changes direction, it may no longer be possible to activate the product. Though it was unthinkable when FSX was released - I was ridiculed as some kind of tin foil hat nutter at the time - this now appears to be exactly what has happened. So now how long will people be able to use the simulator legally without resorting to hacks and cracks?

I have a young son who I hope to see grow up sharing some of my own interests and hobbies, even though they can often be expensive. There's a standing joke around here that the first words my son would utter might be "Flight Simulator". By the time he's old enough to sim, I imagine it will be quite difficult to find an environment which will readily run any of these old flight simulators. If something doesn't fill the void flight simulation on a home computer might be an antiquated hobby enjoyed by only the most dedicated people. He may never get the joy of playing and learning I've experienced, and that saddens me.

So far I've only considered my own selfish motivations. So I'd like to conclude with a word about and to the poor blokes who lost their jobs building something many of us love....good luck finding new ones in these tough times. You don't deserve to be fired like this after giving us such a rich evironment to play in. Your work will still get some use over the next few years. Thank you.

A place to rant

Well I finally decided to create a blog just to play around. I often post to message boards and the like but I wanted one place to collect my rants I mean thoughts. Only time will tell if I've found a home here...or wether anyone will want to read my rants. I've never liked the idea of keeping a private journal and I'm not sure how I feel about a public one, but sometimes life is about experimentation...