Kudos to anyone who’s a video editing guru
My 74 year old father has been involved in technology for over 55 years. His patience for technology “advancement” however is wearing thin, let me tell you, I tend to agree more and more with his observations and frustrations.
“Logic has disappeared.” I think anyone who’s ever choosen a PC over a Mac can well understand this. Anyone who’s worked as a technical support person can WELL understand this as well. Beta test software anyone? I have. You’ll KNOW all types of logic are disappearing.
Maybe I’m not making any sense. Many might disagree with me (and the thoughts of my old man). However, this week I feel like I’m putting myself through a crash course in audio visual concepts that just *boggle the mind*. With all the “advancements” these days, we’re also dealing with many incompatibilities, many file structures, formats, conversations, encoders, decoders, codecs, … whatever techy techy catch phrase you feel like using, it’s all there.
Is it ANY wonder why my wife’s eyes start to glaze over when I get even remotely techy with her? My late mom used to say to my father “one of these days I’m just going to get a hammer and smash everything into tiny bits.” I really feel like she was onto something there.
So I’m in a sea of .VOB files, painstakenly ripped out of corrupted mini dvd’s from my dad’s camcorder that weren’t finalized properly. And it dawned on me what these camcorder manufacturers are trying to do. They have mini DVD cams for people who want to record, finalize the disc, and plunk the mini dvd’s into theorhetically any dvd player out there to share with friends and family. A perfectly simple concept: unless you have errors.
The bundled video editing software that’s included in the package doesn’t happen to read the DVD files (.VOB) format outright. you have to convert to mpeg or avi and THEN reauthor to dvd. If you’ve followed through this far, let me know because I’m confusing myself just writing about it all.
Sometimes the intent to be simple ends up being more complicated and the discussions that have ensued since with my father have been enlightening to say the least. We speak the same techy languages but just with different experiences and perspectives. As the appetite for technology of the average consumer increases, the dysfunction between hardware and software and “standards” will continue. As a quasi tech support person (because I still provide a lot of free technical support to friends and family) this frustrates me even though its this very dysfunction that helps me earn a living.
My dad has a lot of conspiracy theories about the manufacturers having built-in inconsistencies and incompatibilities. After the hellish week I’ve put myself through this week, I’m inclined to believe him. In the meantime, my personal crash course continues.