CNET official Audiophiliac Steve Guttenberg guest hosts today's ball-busting show. Steve brings his usual brand of random topics to the table today that include the most bizarre festival you'll never want to visit and the world's largest ketchup bottle. We also introduce another awesome band in our Becks/Last.FM semiweekly audio draft!
Today's show is very important, for three reasons. First, we're stoked to welcome Audiophiliac Steve Guttenberg who brings his expertise to answer all your high-end audio questions on the second half of the show, but not before introducing us to the most horrid festival that you'll never, ever want to visit. Let's just say that the subject matter of this food fair leaves room for plenty of punny jokes to be made, and we take that opportunity every chance we get (see:show title)--too funny!
Second, it's also a very important day because it's the first time we actually get a few bottles of Beck's Beer into the studio to sip on during the show! Don't worry though, we take things in moderation here at The 404 (yeah...), but no amount of self-control can prevent Wilson and me from getting the classic Asian glow.
Grizzly Bear's newest album, "Veckatimest"
(Credit: http://www.last.fm/music/Grizzly+Bear/Veckatimest)Finally, all of us are caught offguard when Wilson Tang, infamous for literally feeling indifferent about any music made after 1791, makes an executive decision and chooses Grizzly Bear for today's Semi-Weekly Audio Draft Pick, sponsored by Beck's Beer in conjunction with Last.FM.
Grizzly Bear is a four-piece band out of Brooklyn here in New York that has been slowly gaining popularity for its dusty mix of folk piano and a mix of other instruments including whistles and an intermittent banjo. After releasing several albums in the past few years, Grizzly Bear just released a new one called "Veckatimest," which includes today's song, "Two Weeks." The album retains Grizzly Bear's unique low-fi sound--mixing airy vocals with refreshingly creative arrangements that are rare to find in today's soundstage. We hope you'll enjoy Grizzly Bear as much as we do!
(Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET News and Reviews.)
One more thing: We'd like to congratulate newlyweds Elizabeth and Ian for getting hitched recently. They're both avid 404 listeners and while we doubt that Elizabeth walked down the aisle to our theme music, we're swooning with you and wish you guys the best of love.
EPISODE 379
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Nikon's D300 just started shipping, and a software update means Windows Vista can handle its raw images.
(Credit: Nikon)Software updates from Nikon and Canon this month bring Windows Vista support for "raw" images taken with the companies' newest SLRs--and in Canon's case, a number of older cameras as well.
Raw images contain more data than JPEG and give photographers more control over processing, but different cameras and manufacturers use different proprietary formats, making support a challenge. Microsoft relies on camera makers to supply customers with "codec" software that lets Windows Vista--and any programs that use its image-handling abilities--read the proprietary raw image formats. In contrast, Apple writes its own codecs, and Windows XP doesn't have any built-in support for viewing raw images.
Version 1.1 of Nikon's codec adds support for the new $5,000 top-end D3, due to ship imminently, and the $1,800 D300, which just began shipping.
The new version 1.2 of Canon's codec supports its new $8,000 top-end EOS-1Ds Mark III, also imminent, and the $1,300 EOS 40D that's been on the market for a few weeks.
The software also supports a number of older compact and SLR cameras from years past that supported raw files, said Chuck Westfall, a Canon spokesman and tech guru, and works with the Windows Live Photo Gallery software on Windows XP.
In addition, Canon upgraded a swath of other software, including its ZoomBrowser EX and ImageBrowser photo-browsing utilities, its Digital Photo Professional tool for editing raw images, its PhotoStitch software for joining photos into a panorama, its Picture Style Editor for adjusting photo color, and its EOS Utility for controlling cameras with a computer.
The new versions of these products bring support for the new cameras, and in the case of Digital Photo Professional, adds the ability to correct some lens aberrations, Westfall said. The other packages can be downloaded from camera model Web pages.
(Via Rob Galbraith.)
Kiss A2DP Bluetooth audio good-bye.
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)Bluetooth developer Open Interface announced today that it has a new lossless audio codec that leaves the existing A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) standard in the dust. The codec is called SoundAbout Lossless and promises low-latency, low-complexity, multichannel Bluetooth audio, without compromising audio fidelity. Open Interface's Chief Operating Officer Rick Romatowski ran a demo of the new Bluetooth codec at our CNET offices last week, and we were definitely impressed. Jasmine France and I viewed a few scenes from House of Flying Daggers and were blown away by both the sound quality and the undetectable latency introduced by the Bluetooth transmission (as low as 2 milliseconds).
The Open Interface Bluetooth prototype boards.
(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)The codec will be available for manufacturer evaluation within the next few months. There's good reason to be optimistic that this new Bluetooth audio streaming standard will be widely adopted in a short time. The SoundAbout Lossless codec doesn't require any additional hardware on the part of Bluetooth product manufacturers, it just needs to be flashed onto the product's Bluetooth chip in lieu of the A2DP protocol. It doesn't hurt that Open Interface already supplies the embedded Bluetooth software for companies like Apple, Logitech, Philips, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sharp, and Sony.
Headphone and home theater manufacturers will likely be the first to adopt the new wireless technology, with mobile phones and MP3 players soon to follow. Experiments have already been done using the new codec to communicate to multichannel surround sound speakers.
Pentax has released software that lets Windows Vista read and manipulate "raw" images taken directly from higher-end Pentax cameras' image sensors without in-camera processing.
Pentax's K10D digital SLR
(Credit: CNET Networks)Microsoft announced on its photo blog the availability of the Pentax codec used to encode and decode raw images.
Raw images are popular among professionals and enthusiasts who want more elaborate control over their photography, but supporting raw formats is tough, mostly because there's largely no standard from one camera to the next. Pentax is unusual in digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera makers in that its high-end model, the K10D, supports Adobe Systems' DNG (digital negative) format that attempts to bring some standardization to the raw image realm. The raw codec now available supports the .PEF format used in several Pentax digital SLR cameras.
Adobe and Apple write their own raw codecs, but Microsoft chose to partner with camera manufacturers to supply their own for the higher-end image-handling components in Windows Vista.
In addition, Olympus has updated its raw codec to support 64-bit versions of Windows, Microsoft said.
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