Friday, 20th May, 2005

Demuxing

Over the last few years, the audio-visual output from the course I teach on has grown and grown. When I first started there (as a student) I was the only one doing video-stuff, but as time's gone by, more and more students are delving into AV work.

As a result, rather than having a studio full of pictures and objects each year, most of the work is coming in on DVD.

What I find fascinating, is how this transition to DVD has occured. When I was doing things, it was all about digitizing analogue video, messing around with it, then going back out to VHS tape. Lots and lots of frustration was the order of the day, as we struggled with codecs and capture cards — in particular, I almost cocked up my entire 2nd year submission by not realising that I had to keep the bitrate down below 1MB a second otherwise the miroMOTION capture cards couldn't handle it.

But now, of course, the whole process is digitized — we have any number of students running around with DV camcorders, pootling around in Final Cut Pro, and jumping headfirst into the sometimes-confusing world of DVD Studio Pro.

Trouble is, it makes my life (as chief-putter-together-of-audio-visual-promotional-material person) hell

"Why?" you ask ... and since you do, I'll tell you...

Basically, as time has gone on, and more and more students are sorting themselves out with DVDs at the end of the three years, I end up with a big pile of DVD boxes to work with — rather than a bunch of useful files.

(Useful, in this sense, means Quicktime DV-PAL files, or at the very least, MPEG2 files)

You see, the stuff that actually gets written to a DVD (go and check if you like) is a bunch of weird .VOB files, some .BUP files, and the occasional .IFO

I have no idea what the .BUP and .IFO files are, but I do know that the .VOB files are the multiplexed video streams — converted from the original MPEG2 audio and visual files.

The problem I've always had, is how to take a bunch of DVDs and extract individual films from them, in order to make a compliation of the students' work — and equally, how to go back a stage, after a student has finished a DVD, but they want to change something.

Guess what I found over the weekend...

MPEG Streamclip

This, my dears, is the software I've been dreaming about for the past couple of years All the faffing around with OSeX, Mac The Ripper, ffmpegX and stuff like that is now absolutely redundant. MPEG Streamclip even lets me extract full-frame DV-PAL QuickTime video from a DVD.

Obviously, it won't work on DVDs that are copy-protected. Oh no But for what I need to do, it's perfect

I have one gripe with it though...

Is that a shit icon or what?!

I might have to see if I can come up with something, and send it to them

...

Were I the type, I'd write some kind of review — but I'm not What I might do, however, if I get the time (she says, fully aware that she's five days away from her annual four month holiday) is write a quick tutorial on how to use it. After I've worked it out, obviously

(Quick note, just there, when I was getting the link for ffmpegX, I noticed that it's been updated — so I'll have to re-assess it as a tool — the words "VOB to DivX" in big letters on the home page got me all excited )

I Take That Back

(Part of it, anyway)

I should have checked out ffmpegX before I said anything disparaging about it. The new version is quite simply stunning

It's not quite the ease and simplicity of demuxing .VOB files that MPEG Streamclip is, and I don't think I'll find myself using it for just taking stuff off DVDs to put on compilations. But for other things, It's perfect

I love, for example, the way that when I drop a file — no matter what format it is — into the top-left 'LCD' thingy, it pulls all sorts of information about it. This is how software should be, I guess: "I want to do this" — and then it happily sorts it all out for you in the background.

...

Am I a geek? Probably — but at least I'm a geek in a very swishy skirt

a positive famine of them recently

I know, I know — it's just that, well, I've not been In The Mood™ It's not that I've not been dressing — in fact, I've been dressing a lot recently — it's just that, well (and I hope you guys understand this), I've kinda had things going on. Ya know?

There's a sense, in my head, that next Thursday is a bit of a 'marker' for me — a point that I need to just get through so I can start building things up again.

I was about to type "building things back up again" just there, but it occured to me, as my fingers hovered over the keyboard, that that would be a bit of a lie. Things have never been at a point where they can be built back to, really.

I know that sounds a little melodramatic, but I can't think how else to put it.

What I'm trying to say, is that I'm quite excited about the things that are going on at the moment — there's one or two things that are really making me feel good about myself right now. Things outside of my own personal sphere of influence. Things that I've wanted for ages, but never really known how to achieve.

Dressing is just something I do — swishiness or just plain jeans — and I know I haven't taken any pictures recently, but I promise I will. Soon.

But, I think I must mention this: I take the pictures for me...

...I'm a paranoid person at the best of times, and I suppose it's probably no surprise that I religiously check my stats pages (all generated by Analog, thankyouverymuch ) — but guess what host is invariably at the top of the list.

Mine

Troll-feeding

I asked for it didn't I?

OK, remember my little diatribe against my new-found friends from a school (that even though I know, I won't mention) last week?

Well, they came back...

HOW DARE U!! SIOBHAN U TRANNY CUNT! D HEAD ON YA! UR FUCKIN ROTTEN!! WEN U WER BORN D NURSES HAD 2 FEED U WIT A SLING SHOT U UGLY MUG!! EUGHHH UR A HUMAN TRANNY BA! HOW DARE U SCRIBBLE OUT R MESSAGE, WE'RE ONLY LEAVIN R FREE OPINION U CREEP! HOW CUD NE PPL FINK UR GUD LUKN, UR ROTTEN.COTTEN/HONKIN...I FINK DEY JUS PITY U DAT U TRY SO HARD, BUT REALLY U R FUCKIN SERIOUSLY HUMMIN! IF DER WAS NE1 IN NEWRY DAT LUKD LIKE U DEY'D GET SUM BEATIN BA! NO1 WANTS SUM TRANNY CUNT GOIN AROUND ACTIN THE FOOL! GO GET A LIFE, REMOVE THE MAKE UP AN ACT UR REAL SEX NOT A FUCKIN WOMAN!! IM LUKN 4WARD 2 UR REPLY!! YA FUCKIN SKEET!! HAHAHAHA BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE GAY CUNT!

Glorious eh?

So, rather than just launch some kind of internet-based attack on them, I thought I'd take the high-ground and level a bit of "Oh FFS, grow up" advice in their general direction.

What I did, you see, is script things so that the little angels would get their very own version of my website, that read:

Dear Emzos, Siobhan and Aisling,

Well, it would appear that excluding your school from
acessing my website wasn't enough, you had to come back
and once again behave like children.

You know, the Internet is a big and nasty place, full of
people who (unlike me) take things very personally and
seriously, and don't react too well to children who muck
up their websites with pathetic profanity.

Personally, I don't give much of a shit what you write,
although I think it's a little naive of yourselves to
get all indignant that I've scrubbed out your comments.
It's <em>my</em> website, and I'll do with it as I
please thank you very much.

From reading what you've written, I'm guessing you're
each about 14 or 15 — in which case you've got a
<em>lot</em> of growing up to do. One of these days
you're going to realise that things in this world aren't
quite as black &amp; white as you might think they are
now — people aren't one thing or another, there's more
shades of grey that your heads can deal with at the
moment.

Finding a transvestite called Siobhan Curran by accident
is only the top of the iceberg — you're going to meet a
lot more scarier people than me over the next few years.
I only hope that when you do, you've developed enough
maturity to treat them with the respect that they
deserve, rather than lashing out like spoilt children.

Now, go away and don't come back until you've caught
yourselves on a bit.

Which, I think you'll have to agree, is quite a reasoned and considered response. It would have been far too easy to launch into some kind of ranty scolding, and resort to name-calling — but I'll leave that to the under-twenties...

But I noticed a new message just there now:

hey siobhan, very sorry to tel ya, but fuck me u r scary
lukin, my weee cuzin started to cry wen he saw ya, u
dont suit being a women, u'll neva get a fella lukin
like dat, try being ur real sex, then maybe u'll hav sum
luck. take da advice r rather shoot urself, put
everybody out of misery.lol byeeeee, u fuckin
werido.Laughin my ass off.

I know, I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I think that's kinda only applicable to situations where things are clear-cut (if that makes any sense?)

Trannyism is still in its infancy in terms of being something that one can feel proud about, and I think I ought to reply in some fashion to this latest assault from my home-country.

(I can tell it's from Northern Ireland — it's the "weee" that gives it away )

So, without any further ado, and after a great deal of soul searching, here is my response:

(sorry, couldn't resist it )

The thing is, what annoys me about this kind of thing, is that there's no attempt to engage in the debate from the other side of the fence. There are a hundred and one things you could take me to task over — things that bother me ever day whenever I think about them, things like "is what I do inherently misogynistic?", things like "how far do I let my self-delusion go?"

There are so many debates that I could have with someone who finds what I do unpleasant — but why the fuck does it always degenerate into a personal thing? Why can't someone (like our new friend melissa — who doesn't respect herself enough to give herself a capital M) actually take the time to get to know the subject of her aggression a little bit before she launches into it?

Ack, fuck it, permit me to respond...

very sorry to tel ya, but fuck me u r scary lukin

OK, first of all, try and learn your way around the keyboard a bit more. There's a key down on the bottom left (in fact, I think you might find there's the same one on the bottom right) called "Shift" that let's you do capital letters. You know, those things that are supposed to start sentences?

And you know what? I'm not "scary lukin" — I know I'm not particularly conventional in the way that I look or dress, but I think you must have led some kind of über-sheltered life if you find me scary.

And I think, if you'll just look a bit further up the list of things that people have said to me over the years, that at least some people disagree with you. Now, I know that things like that should be taken with a pinch of salt, but really — you expect me to drop everything I'm doing just because you don't like looking at me?

And while we're on the subject — if I'm so repulsive, why did you spend fifteen minutes looking through my photographs and playing with my dressing-up page?

my weee cuzin started to cry wen he saw ya

You subject your young relatives to adult material on the web? You need help.

u dont suit being a women

I'm not a woman. What part of "I'm not a real girl" didn't you understand?

u'll neva get a fella lukin like dat

I beg to differ. But that's not important. What I think is important is that you seem to have a belief that people look the way they are to attract a partner — that there's no sense of the individual doing things for themselves, that the point of being a woman is to attract a man...

...and I think my girlfriend would have something to shout at you about that.

But equally, you seem to believe (I'm extrapolating here) that me trying to look like a woman is an attempt to attract men. If that's the case, then can I suggest that you've seriously underestimated what transvestism is all about, and if you'd read one fucking thing that I've written over the past four years, then you'd find out how wrong you are.

Transvestism is a selfish, self-obsessed, pursuit — it has nothing to do with what kind of partner you prefer. Some of us are gay, some of us are bi, some of us are straight. But we do this for ourselves

try being ur real sex

You want to define for me what that is? You want to tell me what it is that a man should and shouldn't do? You'll probably be wanting to tell me what women should and shouldn't do next — which isn't that surprising, considering that I'm coming to the conclusion that you're someone who's personal beliefs haven't quite progressed from a Victorian era.

shoot urself, put everybody out of misery

Oh pulease — you want a serious response to that?!

Suicide within transgendered circles isn't something to make light of. Depression is a big issue within our world. And it's people like you that are the cause of it.

u fuckin werido.Laughin my ass off.

See, that's where you're most deluded. I'm not a "fuckin werido" — at best I'm a fuckin wierdo

But even then, you can laugh your ass off as much as you like, but I know I'm better than you. It's not something I think about most people — I spend most of my life in full acceptance that I'll never be half the person that a lot of people are, but in your case I'll make an exception.

You, my dear (she said, being intentionally patronising), are a bigoted, narrow-minded, waste of three hundred and forty key-strokes.

And, I think I've wasted just about enough energy on you already

Motherland

Actually, you know what pisses me off the most about that recent comment, and the comments from my Three New Little Friends™ from a few days ago? It's that they're Northern Irish.

I'm usually very proud of who I am, and where I come from — but occasionally, I'm reminded just how intolerant and bigoted a place The Province is.

And it saddens me — it really does.

Northern Ireland is a beautiful country — full of magic and wonder, and scenery and great big hexagonal rocks

But it's also full of people who act like children.

And, without wishing to open a can of worms here, I'm deeply ashamed sometimes about the people who come from what I call "home"

Northern Ireland pisses me off.

Northern Irish people (in a rash, sweeping generalisation, which I know is flawed) piss me off.

There are, spread thinly across the country, a disparate collective of radical, left-wing thinking, free-spirited people. But on the main, the country is full of narrowminded ass-holes.

People who have been so wrapped up in their own petty world of hatred that they've failed to realise that the rest of the world has shifted out of the 1890s (some would say 1690s), and progressed to the Twenty First Century.

...

Dear Siobhan, Emzos, Aisling (which I know is pronouced "Ashleen") and Melissa,

I'm from Belfast. But you make me ashamed of that.

I'm sorry that this page is full of hatred and spite and remorse, but it's how you, and many others like you, make me feel.

Now go away and grow up. OK?

Or engage me in a debate — but don't just leave pathetic excuses for "opinions" in obscure parts of my website.

Glorious — especially the "been working networks longer than you've been alive, k?" bit

Thing is though, I know this is futile — I know that these are just a bunch of kids who think it's fun to taunt a trannie, safe behind the anonymity that the web provides...

...(I know where they live )

And I know that I shouldn't engage in stuff like this, I should just delete the comments (or scrub them out with handy <strike> tags like I have been doing), but, well...

...it feels like an open sore. It feels like a Thing™ that needs addressing, really. If this whole site was just some kind of Mac vs PC ranty-space, then I'd think "fuck it" and put it down to fanboiism.

But, at the end of the day, there's more to it than that — despite there being any lack of cohesive argument or debate in these little crop of recent coments, they feel like a personal insult.

I mean, at the end of the day, I am a transvestite, and any attack on the core of transvestism is going to ruffle my feathers — especially if it's a pathetic, un-thought-through piece of verbal shite.

I just feel like I can't let it go — not yet anyway. If it were an issue of sexuality, then I think I could retreat into all the arguments that have gone before (if that makes sense) — but transvestism hasn't yet got a leg to stand on, and if people are going to take the piss out of me for being something that I can't defend, to their face, then well, I reserve the right to get a bit ranty

Please keep us updated... please.

You know, I'm not really expecting a response from them Rachel

They just want attention, starve them and they will die.

I know honey — but do you get what I mean by "an open sore"? I just don't think we're at the point where we can shrug that stuff off yet. It's like (an I was ranting myself to sleep on this very subject last night...) if we were gay then we could fall back on all the arguments, reasoning, acceptance, activism that's gone on over the years. Being gay is no longer (in enlightened circels anyway) something that's intrinsicly derisable.

But being a trannie is — it's still something that's an insult.

Know what I mean?

OK, take the very first comment from my Three Little Friends™:

SIOBHAN U TRANNY CUNT!

Leave off the profanity for a second (and, perhaps, leave out the sheer offensiveness of that word) — but basically, what they're using against me, as an insult, is something that I am.

It's like they're starting from a point where no matter what I say, I'm the object of ridicule.

I know that troll-feeding is a futile waste of RSI-inducing key-strokes, but I think there's something going on here that needs scrutiny.

The issue I'm trying to get at here, is something along the lines of "how do we get past the unpassable barrier that trannie=insult?"

I don't know where I'm going with this — I'll have to come back to it at a later date, unless someone wants to pick it up for me?