The Demoscene Came a Long Way

Boy, the demoscene came a long way since their humble beginnings in the early 1980s on archaic computers like the Apple II, Atari 800 and especially the Commodore 64 and later the Commodore Amiga 500.

If you want to learn more about the old days and stuff like that, check out my post about the history of the demoscene that I wrote about one month ago. My older post "Introduction to the World of Demos" is also fairly interesting IMO.

Well, the examples from my previous posts may be nice, but things improved a lot since those days. A very good example is the winner demo from last years Assembly demo party in Finland called "Lifeforce", created by Andromeda Software Development or short ASD or Andromeda.

I uploaded the demo to several sites, including Facebook. I am an Internet marketer and that is how I make my living. I have naturally many Facebook friends, who are also in advertising and marketing.

One of them watched the demo and left a comment, asking me, which "Agency" this "Video" created. I had to educate him that his "Agency" is a bunch of high school or maybe college kids from somewhere in Europe and that the "Video" is actually a program that creates all the visuals and stuff in real-time... and in a much higher resolution than you can see on YouTube, which only has a crappy 320x240 resolution for all their videos.

Too bad that I was not able to see his face, but it must have been quite a shock to learn these facts hehe, but I can't blame him for his thought, the demo is just amazing and you really cannot tell that this is NOT the work of professionals.

But now I will stop writing and let you enjoy the demo for yourself, in crappy 320x240, but you can go and download the demo yourself and run it on your PC in whatever resolution suits you.


Backup link to the video on YouTube


I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Software Piracy, Abandonware and Today's Messed up Copyright Laws

I was browsing in the Defacto2.net document archive of the PC scene and found a reference to an interesting article written by Stephen Granade titled "Warez, Abandonware, and the Software Industry".

The article discusses in detail the subjects software piracy, copyright with a few on it from a perspective of a new type of software piracy called "Abandonware".

Abandonware provides access to games that are old, out of print and not supported anymore by the software company who created it or owns the copyright. It provides multiple functions; one of which is to provide support for rightful owners of the software to get a replacement, if their copy was damaged or the disk where it was stored on is not readable anymore. It also provides people access to historic games that cannot be acquired legally anymore, since they are not being sold anymore. The third function is to provide current game designers with an archive to study how other game designers in the past worked and how they did things that worked or not.

Abandonwares sites often provide also the means to play the old games, especially if they are for hardware platforms that are also unavailable today, such as Apple II, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Super NES and other old Nintendo consoles, Sega consoles, old Sony Playstations, Atari game consoles and home computers. This means are emulator programs for modern computers (mostly Windows PC) that emulate the old hardware platform and load old game code to run on your computer. Even old PC games for MS DOS that don't run on modern Windows PC anymore require an emulator to make them work.

The problem is that this activity is illegal.

Copyright is valid for 75 years. No computer game has reached this age yet, because computers are not even around that long. 75 years are an eternity in the computer market where virtually nothing survives more than 5 years before it becomes obsolete and unavailable to purchase.

Old stuff is not profitable enough for companies to care about, but when it comes to copyright, some of them actually do care, even though they do not provide anybody the option to obtain the usage rights legally. There is no official body for the preservation of old software. There are some non-profit organizations that concern themselves with the preservation of old computer hardware.

If it wouldn't be for enthusiasts and Abandonware sites, many of the software from the past would already be lost forever and forgotten by most people. Maybe the name mentioned in a magazine and some eyewitnesses who actually played the game in the past would be the only thing that remains. This reminds me of my previous post, which is also about copyright, but specifically about an issue with music and the impossibility of an individual to get the required licenses necessary for a legal re-distribution on a small scale.

The copyright laws need to change IMO.

They are fuzzy when it comes to software anyway. Stephen explained that nicely in his article, quote:

"Intellectual property rights are more nebulous than traditional property rights. If I own something, it's easy to see the harm if my rights regarding it are infringed: I have lost something tangible. Intellectual property rights deal with intangibles, and as with all intangibles it's harder to see the direct harm. If I copy a game you wrote, you still have the code and can sell your game. What exactly have you lost?"

Who is enforcing the copyright anyway?

The two major industry groups are the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) and the Business Software Alliance (BSA). Both organizations take software piracy seriously. And they will continue to enforce the current copyright laws as long as its members want them too.

Another good article for further reading about this issue is "New Front in the Copyright Wars: Out-of-Print Computer Games" by Greg Costikyan from May 18, 2000, published at the New York Times Technology Circuit.

Stephens article also talks about Warez and what the difference is between Warez and Abandonwares. When it comes to Warez, I feel that I am also a bit qualified to say something about it. Stephen brought some examples up that were provided by the SIIA and BSA about the damage that software piracy Is causing for the software industry.

Here are some quotes:

Each year for the past six years, the SIIA and BSA have compiled statistics on business software piracy. Their figures show that world-wide piracy has declined over the past six years, from a rate of 49% in 1994 to 36% in 1999. Despite this drop in the piracy rate, the calculated cost of this piracy has remained nearly the same, from $12.3 million in 1994 to $12.2 million in 1999.

How are these figures determined? According to Peter Beruk, the Vice-President of Anti-Piracy for SPA Anti-Piracy, a division of SIIA, the figures are compiled by International Planning and Research (IPR), a Washington, D.C. firm. IPR calculated how many computers were being sold into a country for business purposes and how much software was being sold. IPR then compiled statistics of what software was being used in office settings. From this they could calculate how much software should be sold to match the number of business computers in the country. The deficit between the ideal sales rate and the actual one is the piracy rate. By multiplying that number by the street price of the software in question, they arrive at the figure for lost revenues. This is done on a country-by-country basis.

Peter rejects the argument that, even if you eliminated piracy, software sales would not increase, at least in the business realm. "We believe that actually all of that number [of pirated copies] would have turned into [legally-bought] copies. Why would a copy be made and sitting on a computer if there was no intention to use it?"

This calculation is BS and of course in favor of the software companies. Software licenses are in most cases outlasting the life of a computer. Many software companies also offer free upgrades to existing customers. There is no statistic for the average life time of software and hardware, but I can backup my claim with my own real life experience. Not just computers and software that I purchased, but also friends, families and companies I worked for or provided computer support.

Needless to say are claims that are made in court, if somebody is persecuted for warez distribution, also often totally absurd. Figures like number of downloads or copies made of the software are sometimes used as if everybody who gets a copy for free would (or could) actually buy the software, if no access to the pirated copy would have been available.

Most wouldn't buy the software if it would not be free, many also cannot afford to buy it. Stephen suggests that maybe 1 of 20 would have maybe bought it, but this figure is only an educated guess. I know that this figure is definitely lower when it comes to individual within the wares scene itself who are often not even interested in most of the software they swap around.

The free copies that are spread around also do not harm software companies in every case. The lost sales due to illegal copies are sometimes offset and exceeded by sales that were made thanks to the existence and wide spread of the illegal copy of it. I would like to know how many sales of let's say Adobe Photoshop are a direct cause of somebody using privately a pirated version of the software. Designers who come fresh from college are often experts in the use of the software and I don’t think that the majority of them owned a legal license for it when they were broke students who had no money to spend, but plenty of time to learn to use complicated software such as Photoshop.

When those designers start working professionally, guess what software they demand and get? The same software that they used illegally, but now licenses are purchased by the company because it is used commercially and the cost of it are justifiable, due to the revenue made because of its use.

With games does it work a bit different, but even there does the illegal copy sometimes help to increase sales. I don’t know who owned a legal copy of the original DOOM game by the shareware software firm ID Software, but I know that they made a lot of money with the franchise over the years. Doom 3 sold millions of copies and even a movie was created based on the game series. I wonder if those profits would have been made, if no illegal copies of the game would have been spread all over the world via bulletin board systems and copies made for friends in school. They would probably work today on Commander Keen Episode 54 with a three person team.

But here is the catch that comes with my equation. It does only work for good software titles and not with rip off and low quality junk. Unfortunately, the majority of software does qualify as junk. Did things changed dramatically in the last 10 years and I am wrong with this statement? I can only talk about my own past experience from a time when I saw every software title release that was released on a daily basis.

The laws are so wrong and it is about time for a change.

The recent announcement of a planned lawsuit of the Village People and Price against the Torrent search engine Piratebay.org, Operation Buccaneer and other operations like that by the BSA and SIIA, the suit of Metallica against Napster or the thousands of RIAA Lawsuits against consumers will not make it better for anybody. The issues will not go away and the anger of the consumers will only increase. Companies who make normal people to criminals will find a special place in the heart of their actual customers.

Legislation that allows this to happen is also not free of guilt, but we are only talking about the liberties of the majority of people here. They have of course to take a back seat in the face of interests of a few profit hungry individuals who own software companies and record labels. Democracy would be too nice, if it would actually be practiced, but it's only a word anyway, right?

I have only one thing to add to this and that would be this nice video here.


Backup link to video at YouTube.

What are your thoughts about this issue?
Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

About One on the Quest, to Burn a Legal CD

I had some fun with copyright laws over the past weeks, mainly regarding video productions I did or re-published. I experienced different things, but one reminded me of a short story that I read over a year ago in the German IT magazine "CT", which I am still subscribed to here in the US.

I first scanned the original article, but then decided to also buy the digital version of the main article, which included this short story on the publisher’s website at Heise.de. I paid one Euro for it, even though I own the print magazine and also the PRO CD-ROMs where the story should also be on. I basically purchased the story three times altogether.

I then translated to English as good as I could to make sure that the subtle humor is not lost because of my translation. I hope that what I did was enough to not infringe on any copyright for publishing it on my personal blog. Considering that this is also only a short "box story" within a main article, fair use might be applicable as well.

Well, copyright laws and its application are not only hard to obey, but also hard to understand and to know for sure, if you are doing everything 100% alright and perfectly legal, or if something is missing and you are infringing on somebodies copyright. Even if you know what you need, is it sometimes hard to impossible to acquire it. Enjoy the story.

About One on the Quest, to Burn a Legal CD

Uwe S. had a fine idea: To his 40th birthday he wanted to give to his guests a self-burned CD with thirteen of his favorite songs from the rocking 80s. To the selected belong Accept, ACDC, Bonnie Tyler, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, Stewart Floyd, Prince, Rod Stewart, Steamhammer, The Clash, The Who and the Tygers of Pan Tang.

Expected were between ten and fifteen guests - too many, to be able to consider the home-made sampler a legal private copy with a good conscience. From the campaigns of the music-industry scared, Uwe S. does not want to do anything wrong or illegal. Therefore, he tried to put his birthday-surprise on perfectly legal legs.

The reason-honest music-lover telephoned with the leading businesses of the music industry for one and a half days. Uwe S. was friendly, laboriously - and a little bit naive. Since something is written on almost every CD about GEMA ("Society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights"), his first telephone call was to them. The headquarters referred to the department "Audio Media-License-Industry", which is responsible also for consumer-customers. However, it was not attainable.

Then just directly the record labels. Uwe S. started with one of the real big ones. The first question was: "How many copies do you want to make? " - About 10 to 15 pieces. The conversation-partner suppressed a laughter audibly.

"Come on! That is a costly procedure. There you must state exactly how many CDs you want to produce, for which purpose and you would have to submit this in writing." Uwe S. already enraged wanted to hang up, as the man noted: "Actually, I should not tell you this. Your honesty is honorable, but nobody would care about it, you understand? Uwe S. understood: For a world-wide multimedia concern are 15 CDs only Peanuts.

Maybe smaller Labels are a bit shorter on cash and would be pleased about the additional revenue. Next, Uwe S. therefore called the smallest Label on his list. They had a rocker-cornbo under contract to who he owed many beautiful memories. A friendly lady listened to his concern at first and took him really serious. “We have done the same in the past, she confesses. However, the legal situation was not so strict earlier as well and pirates did not have to fear imprisonment as a penalty.

"Millions of people" do "this every day, the lady soother through the telephone. "A private copy is legal anyway." One, yes, but 15? "That is a gray area! The record companies will never find out if you do it.

With a correct license, Uwe nevertheless would feel better in his skin. After all, the musicians should get something in return, for complimenting his young years so devotedly. He already becomes almost mulish, however fails because of his good will: "That is praiseworthy, but something like this would be expenditure even for me. Quite honest, even if you put in such an application, we won't waste our time with it."

Uwe actually should become an Illegal-copier and should risk that he might spent his next five birthdays behind "Swedish Curtains" (in prison). "You must decide this for yourself. Maybe you should give away flowers instead." Then the lady adds quietly, that this conversation never has taken place.

The next one on the list is again one of the pretty-big record-companies. Among other things, he administers the works of a small, though spirited artist, who was "really big" in the 80s. First reaction to the inquiry: "Ah. One must clarify this first and let himself give a number to the call back. After a short time "formal statement: We cannot approve this." And unofficial? "I cannot tell you anything informally.".

Apparently, Uwe S. had interpreted the powerful emphasis of the word "officially" incorrectly.

The third big company called, admittedly promised to call back, but, however never did. But not everything was lost just yet. Five of the artists were under contract at the probably biggest record company in the world. It, however, referred the becoming birthday-child to the GEMA quickly. And this, although the GEMA, if it would have been reached, does not even has the necessary rights to give the required permissions.

Uwe S. called the GEMA over two dozens of times. After a while did he not even noticed the busy signal anymore. Again and again, did he try it also through the front desk. "I am sorry, but somebody is using the line at the moment, please try the direct line." When the line was free eventually, the announcement that nobody is responding, followed after a few beeps invariably.

Now, Uwe S. sits helplessly in front of the telephone, without an answer for his problem, how he can legalize his sampler. No one of the conversation partners had the obvious idea that he could buy the titles at a commercial download-service like Musicload.de (or iTunes) in order to then burn it on the allowed number of audio CDs. Such an attempt would have failed anyway: Not all artists are available online for purchase. AC/DC, for example, is only available at brick and mortar record stores. (uma)

Resources

• What is Gema?
• Link to original Article online at Heise.de

Translated from German into English by Carsten Cumbrowski

Original title: "Von einem, der auszog, eine legale CD zu brennen", written by Urs Mansmann (uma), CT Magazine, Issue 5/2006, Page 118.

CT Magazine is published by Heise Zeitschriften Verlag GmbH & Co. KG. Note: It was a short story box within the main article titled: "Die Grenze des Erlaubten" (Pages 110-118).

Major Windows XP and Microsoft Media Player 11 Rant.. plus some tips

I wasted today and in the past months a lot of time on solving a problem that is actually very simple and if you would believe the advertisements than there shouldn't be a problem at all or a simple solution right around the corner. Well, that is obviously not the case.

Lets start with an explanation of what am I trying to accomplish.

Part 1. The Simple Idea
I have multiple computers in a home network. They all see each other and permission are set that each computer can access resources and data on each of the other ones.


I also have a lot of media data. Music, Videos, Clip arts, Foley Sounds, Video Snippets etc. I converted most of my 300+ CDs to MP3's, but only converted a fraction of my 200+ DVDs for several reasons. Anyhow, what I already have is a lot and nothing that I could copy from A to B with a thumb drive or USB stick. I also don't want to have all those GB of data on each computer (which would not fit and does not make sense).

No problem, you can buy for a fair price something called Network-Attached Storage Devices, which are basically hard drives in a smart external casing that allows not only access to them via USB 2.0 or Fire-wire, but to hook them up into the network and make them visible via network share to any other computer in the same SUB-C class network, if it authenticates itself properly. Well done, now I have a nice network storage and all the data on it. I can browse it and play individual stuff.

Now I wanted to do the easy part (so I thought), creating a library with all that stuff in it. Nicely updated with the Meta Data that are already in the files themselves or from one of the large media databases on the Internet. Get the Album art for great looks, categorize stuff and can apply nice filters like "Show me all songs from artist XYZ that I have" or "Show me all the movies by director ABC".

Part 2. It Smells Like Trouble
Okay, there was one tricky part that I was aware of, the various video formats and also the increasing number of audio formats that compete with MP3. While the "Codec" world is still a mess, is it still possible to get a solution. I was able to manage to teach my computer to play back virtually any media format that I threw at it. It took some searching and digging sometimes, but it is out there.

There are various players that work great, but only few offer a good library option. Most are limited to play-lists. Well, some developers rather spend time on the ability to change the "skin" and every single optical aspect of the player by the user than provide stuff that is actually useful, but there is obviously a market out there that proves them right and that this is the way were money is to be made (at least from a financial point of view).

If you start adding DRM protected content to the mix or live streaming, the options regarding players which can play back everything and also offers a decent library feature is becoming rather small.

Actually it seems that it is almost impossible to get stuff to work without Windows Media player being involved at some point. The latest installment is Version 11 and the only improvement that I found so far is the looks of it. In almost any other aspect did the user lose something that wasn't trivial, but very important, only not used on a daily basis. With Microsoft Vista is only WMP 11 available and for XP users is it also getting harder and harder not to be forced to an upgrade from version 9 or 10 up to 11.

Well, lets say that I am stuck at this point with Media Player 11 and try ever since I started my project to make things work, only with marginal success to this date, unfortunately. I learned a lot of crap that I don't care about and didn't wanted to know about either, because it did not have to do with my problem and what I tried to accomplish. Only because you want to watch a European movie on your American TV, do you not know and learn what FPS, the unit of frequency that is equal to one cycle per second (Hertz), number of DOTs on the screen and stuff like that, right? I mean you just want to watch the freaking movie that you heard about or saw during your last trip to Europe and a friends house or movie theatre. Oh, if you want to know though, be my guest.

Lets start talking about the issues one by one.

Part 3. It Does Not Only Smell like ... It Actually Is ...
1st WMP 11 does not like network shares very much, also not the ones that are mapped to a local drive letter and reconnected to again, every time the computer is started. With XP is it possible to specify a mapped drive as path and WMP 11 automatically changes the drive letter to the path using the network share instead.

For example "Z:\My-Media\" on "Computer-A", which is share "Shared-Music" on "Computer-B" mapped as "Z:" will be changed to "\\Computer-B\Shared-Music\My-Media\".

This does not work so well under Vista from what I have heard and the solution some guys came up with sounded very similar to the one that I came up with myself for different reasons. More to that in a second. Okay, WMP 11 on Windows XP is always indexing your stuff using the network share. This might be better, if you do not map the share all the time to your computer, because Media Player would still be able to access the files from your library, as long as it can see the other computer in the network, but you cannot move the storage locations around or change the name of it, even if you mapped the drive to the same local drive letter and have the exact same file structure as on the previous storage location. The option to use either or would be the best for not only this simple reason, but others as well, which are much more severe.

The problem with WMP storing the network location instead of the local drive letter are that in some cases WMP can't playback videos with certain codec over the network share (\\share\) and in other cases is it able to play back, but the "seeking" does not work (WMV files). Both of those type of video files play back fine in WMP, if I browse to them via Windows Explorer and say "play with" and select Media Player, because it uses in that case the drive letters where I mapped the network shares to.

I found this MS Knowledge base article regarding this issue with the Intel Indeo video codec, which is the most severe, because the play back via opening it with a network path as reference does not work at all, WMP shows an error that does not make sense and that's it.

However I got also other issues with videos that were encoded with TMPGEnc MPEG-1 video codec and MPEG-1 Audio Layer 2 audio codec for example. The "seek" function does not work, but it works fine again, when opened via browsing the mapped drive and opening it from there.
Lets start talking about the issues one by one.

Part 4. A Solution that Creates Another Problem, Thanks You
Microsoft's recommendation is to not use a network drive (which is out of the question) or to convert all those videos to a different format using a codec that does not have these kind of issues. Fine, I would like to do that in one afternoon or over night in a batch job. So give me the list with all videos that were encoded with those codecs and I will use a converter that I bought in a bundle with other nice tools to convert it to something of your liking. Oh, you can't tell me... that's ... "inconvenient". No, I did not look through the library one by one yet, because I also have other things to do than sorting data by hand in an excel spread sheet. Oh, Excel has a sort and a filter option.. sorry guys, nothing against you (today).

So I thought to myself what happens, if I can get Media Player somehow to index files with the local drive letter instead of the network path. The add to library interface converts automatically local letters to network paths, but what happens if I change it back to the letters where Media Player stores to remember the paths it should crawl and check for new media files.

Part 5. You can't Trust ... Didn't Do Yourself
I found something. Search the registry (click "start", "run" and enter "Regedit.exe" , then press CTRL-F or F3) for "TrackFoldersDirectories" (it's different in Vista. See comments of users at this forum thread for details and info)

It should find a match like this (note: the search might run a while, depending on your computer and what you have on it).

HKEY_USERS\[s-some big numbers-dashes]\
Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\TrackFoldersDirectories

(line-break added for editorial reasons)

That value should contain as data a simple number. This number should be the number of folders that you configured to be scanned by WMP minus 1. So if you told WMP to check 10 directory locations where it should look for files, the data for "TrackFoldersDirectories" should say "9". There are circumstances where it does not match and shows a larger number, but that is nothing to get worried about.
Under the same key "Preferences" should you also find Values like TrackFoldersDirectories0, TrackFoldersDirectories1, TrackFoldersDirectories2 .... TrackFoldersDirectoriesXX. Each of them should be string and have as data one of the directory locations the library should check. If there are some that are empty, this would explain why the data for TrackFoldersDirectories shows a higher figure than the number of directories that you actually specified. "TrackFoldersDirectories" simply states what the highest value is for X as in "TrackFoldersDirectoriesX". It starts with "0", which explains why the number is less than the actual directory count. It seems that Media Player expects to find values from 0 to the data value of "TrackFoldersDirectories" in the registry. TrackFoldersDirectories = 4 would mean that you have to have entries for:

TrackFoldersDirectories0 = C:\DIR1
TrackFoldersDirectories1 = C:\DIR2
TrackFoldersDirectories2
TrackFoldersDirectories3
TrackFoldersDirectories4
TrackFoldersDirectories5 = \\computer\share\DIR3

Even if you only have 3 directories specified as in my example, but TrackFoldersDirectories shows 4 (=5 records), all 5 records must be there, even if they have no value. Just as a heads up, if you are going to mess with them as I did. I did exactly that, changed all paths etc. and WMP started indexing nicely files with z:\ etc.

Part 6. WTF?
Then it started to fall back to the same old behavior again and the network share names started to appear again. When I removed the files that were wrong (and for the most part duplicate) I killed (or WMP did) too much entries and lost some good ones. Media Player won't index some of the files for the sake of it, even though I specified that it should re-add files that were previously removed. I guess only a full rebuild will work. See: Rebuilding your Library after WMP 11 f*cked it up.

The odd thing is that when I click on "Add Folders" to see if WMP changed my z:\ settings back to the \\share one is that it still shows z:\ for the folder destinations to search in.

I contacted Microsoft about all this, but they didn't even know what I am talking about and played stupid. I even sent them illustrations and a step by step explanation of the problem with links to their various own articles that point out some of the issues, but offer no solution (convert stuff, don't create a centralized media archive with a network storage in a local network to be shared between your computers at home... yeah right).

Part 7. Enough is Enough
What ticks me of the most is the lack of the basic option to say "Add THIS file to my god damn library .. NOW!" Here is the Genre, Artist, Composer, Release year or whatever.. just go and add it. If I could do that with multiple files that would even be better or how about the content of a play-list? There it takes the local drive path all by itself, if loaded from the mapped drive via Windows Explorer. It stores the Network path, if you add it with Explorer from a network path. tsts. Well, this issue is still unsolved, but I was getting new ones during my quest to create centralized library.

I found this post, which explains how to get WMP 11 to create its library files on a removable storage device.

Now I got the idea that I want to move my library to the network as well to avoid the need that each computer has to index and monitor the same stuff. All have the same network shares mapped to the same drive = all paths are the same, but I am not so certain yet, what WMP says if he (maybe) realizes that his library files reside on a network share that is mapped to local drive letter Z: :)

Part 8. Drops of Water in the Desert
I got my Media-player to be able to play back .MOV and .FLV files what made me very happy. You can find links with details and downloads at the end of this post.

Now I have the problem how I can tell this stupid Library to add them to itself, because it still thinks that it cannot do anything with it... the player does, but the two do not seem to talk to each other very often or at least not very clearly.

Part 9. Swiped by a Sandstorm
You cannot backup DRM licences with WMP11, which is also great. I had to reinstall my laptop because of some other Windows "features" and could not save the licences. I did fortunately not buy anything from Google Video, my vendor is still in business, however, I can now go and contact him to get licences again for every single file. I think its two vendors, but I will find out once I played all files at least once to see who I have to contact because of a missing licence that I bought 2 years ago on some website.

Part 10. Radical Changes are in Order
I am seriously looking for practical alternatives to WMP, something that can handle large amounts of audio and video (I own a lot and converted all into digital format and mostly purchase stuff only in digital format now), it also must support the various video formats or must be expandable to add the support via plug in (AVI, MP3, MPEG, WMV, ASF, MOV, FLI, DIVX, WMA, WAV and now also the new RAT format) and last but not least be able to handle all this DRM bs. I started to look for unprotected versions of my stuff to be able to actually use it without the need to contact people, convince (proof) to them that I actually purchased the stuff to them get the honor again to watch or listen to what I actually paid for.

This is unacceptable and big time bull!

I started 16 years ago with MS DOS 5.0 and after all those years am I hearing that things get easier. This is simply not true. Back then I could fix stuff myself. This is today impossible, even as advanced user. It's a full time job to keep up with everything that can go wrong. The booming video/audio space is worse than most others and the current workarounds and tricks used by manufacturer to make it somewhat work is to sacrifice security and broadcast all your stuff virtually publicly to anybody who knocks on the door and asks for it. If you are "lucky" then they even let anybody "in" and take a stroll across your network and peek into your stuff on your computers.

Part 11. I Did NOT Trade Satan for the Devil
p.s. I use XP and and did not switch to the heap of bugs and junk called Vista, so the share your videos does not work.. well I can share with anybody but myself, because WMP 11 on XP is unable to access other shares. That works "great" if you have three computers with Windows XP pro and WMP 11 on them.. doesn't it.

Part 12. Apologies
Sorry for the rant. It feels much better now. I just had it. I spent obviously too much time on trying to find a solution for a relatively simple issue. The non-existence has nothing to do with "too complicated" or "too exotic", the Internet is full of forum threads that end nowhere a real solution. The missing options are because of greed and to protect businesses from "pirates".. the irony with that is that it only makes paying customers mad and turn to pirates to get fixes for the things that were artificially broken.

Part 13. Some Band-Aid for the Open Wounds
Okay, I will finish this (looong) post with something good, a list of very useful tools and resources to windows, codecs and windows media player.

• Windows Media Player Resources collection from Microsoft's website on Google Docs & Spreadsheets


• RAT-DVD Tools, Encoder and Decoder. The new revolutionary tool that lets you convert DVD's to a video file that has only 20-25% of the size, without noticeable quality loss. It's free and also has a plug-in for Media Player to play back the RAT DVD's there.


• Combined Community Codec Pack Project, a free codec pack with tools and a very good support infrastructure, resources and guides, such as this very detailed troubleshooting guide.


• FourCC (Four Character Code Codecs) list for a complete list of available .AVI video and audio codecs.


• Sherlock Codec Detective (actual download like, short .EXE file), a free powerful tool that shows you all codecs that are installed in your system and their status.


• GraphEdit (7zip compressed) draws the entire filter chain for you to look at. Only recommended for more experienced users.


• Free FLVSplitter (7zip compressed), which is a Flash Video codec. The archive contains "FLVSplitter.ax" and no install program. To install it, copy the file to "C:\Windows\System32\" and register it to Windows via "Start", "Run", "Regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\FLVSplitter.ax".
  Alternative: How to play FLV files Guide at Afterdawn.com.


• How to play .MOV (Apple Quicktime) files Guide at Afterdawn.com.


• How to get WMP 11 to create its library files on a removable storage device?


• Rebuilding your Library after WMP 11 f*cked it up.


• SolveigMM WMP Trimmer Plugin, is a nice plug-in that lets you cut and save parts of a movie from within media player. No need to fire up an external cutter tool while you are watching a movie and see a scene you want to cut out for other purposes. It cost $20 or so, but you can test it out for 30 days, free of charge (trial version download).


• Windows Media Player News Group at Microsoft's Windows XP Newsgroup. I guess I will pay those folks over there a visit and point them to my post here.


• Also nice to have handy, the list of Microsoft OEMs, computer manufacturers who deliver their PC's with a pre-installed Windows system (who doesn't?) May be they have some help available for your own issues, if you yell at them hehe.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Update 2/16/2008: I started working on the move of the Media Player library to a network location and share it between my computers. I found out the hard way, that there is by default no reference anywhere, including the registry, about the location of the media library. Media Player must look for the hard coded location "(User Directory*)\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player\CurrentDatabase_360.wmdb". The user directory is usually "c:\documents and settings\(username)"".

I found this interesting thread at a user forum, which first started to talk about how to speed up media player, but then became a discussion about the media player library in general. Along the way did I learn about a useful tool called Link Magic to create so called "Junctions" in NTFS (basically mounting a directory to another directoy). I also learned that you can (and how) create Mount Points instead of Junctions to get a similar effect from the disk manager of windows itself.

All that was not a good thing to mess around with when it came to moving the library to a network share.I already feared to reach another dead end, but then came the posr that saved my day. You can change the path of the library by adding an undocumented string value to the Windows Registry.

Open RegEdit and go to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences
Create a new String Value called "LibraryDatabasePath" and then open it to specify the location of the library. I simply entered the local drive, which is a mapped network share on the machine and sub directory that I created for the shared libary. I copied into that folder the local Media Player library of another computer and moved my local one to somewhere else to make sure that Media Player cannot find it.

When I started Media Player, it did really load the library from the network drive. Now I have to check how it behaves if I do the same with a second and later on a third computer. Multiple people accessing the same library might cause issues. To keep the potential problems to a minimum I will probably disable the check for new media files on all but one of the machines who will be designated as the sole indexer of new content for the library and then take it from there.

DefCon 15 Session Videos and Audios Update

It has been six months since the world largest hacker conference is over. I am referring to DefCon 15 of course, which was held on August 3 - 5, 2007 at the Rivera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The educational sessions where video-taped, converted to .MOV format (Apple) and pressed on 10 DVD-ROMs, which were then sold for $299 at the conference and for $499 thereafter.

Video DVD-ROMS on Google Video
I bought (pre-ordered) the DVD-ROMs at the conference and received the DVDs sometime in September 2007. I uploaded all of them to Google Video. You can find the links to the videos in this article and the three additional articles it refers to.

People were asking me constantly for the videos for download rather than on a video sharing site. Some people reported that the download of the original video files (yeah, it’s a trick and not visible to the general user hehe) was also not working for all of the files for unknown reasons. Google must have screwed something up, that’s why is Google Video still in Beta, right?!

Video DVD-ROM ISOs
So I spent countless hours to rip the DVD-ROMs, create nice ISO files out of them, then RAR and split them and finally ZIP and upload to Usenet. Ages later (no, I don’t have FiOS) were all ISOs finally up on the Internet. See this post of mine from November with all the details needed to download the ISOs.

Well, maybe because of the fast availability of the videos or maybe because the folks at the DefCon organizers crew got a bit smarter, I don’t know, but it also does not matter…

Getting to the Point, finally
What I want to say is that they already, only 6 months after the event, did they make the videos and audios available for download on the DefCon.org website. They created two separate RSS feeds, one for the videos and one for the audios. They posted it last Wednesday already, but I didn’t see it until today.

DefCon 15 Videos Feed (MP4)
DefCon 15 Audios Feed (MP3)

The videos are in .MP4 format and not .MOV, but those two formats are basically the same, with the only difference that Microsoft Media Player prefers MP4 over MOV (to say it nicely).

The two RSS feeds contain 122 videos and 122 audios in all. Here is once more the session listing in PDF format.

So, there you have it folks, watch the stuff online, download the whole ISOs or individual video recordings in MP4 or MP3 format, whatever pleases you.

122 + 3 = 125 - 122 = 3 ... WTF?
There is only one question left for me. Their feeds contain 122 items each. That was also the total I got when I posted the first videos to Google Video. I said it myself in my blog post about it.

I came to 125 videos and corrected my previous statement that there are only 122 when I was done with uploading and made my last post with links to the individual remaining sessions. See the post here.

Now there are 122 videos in the official DefCon.org RSS feed. I don’t get it and I won’t start counting again. I leave this mystery for somebody else to solve.
If you check out my posts to the videos from last year, have a good look at them, because I provided also some other useful goodies beyond the DefCon 15 video and audio recordings.

Enjoy
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Cirque du Soleil Primer

I wrote over one year ago already a pretty long post about the various Cirque du Soleil shows. However, I missed a number of interesting information, including some shows. Some other stuff was also simply not available back then. I have a lot of nice little gems in this new post about the Cirque.

Note: I am keeping the post updated with new developments and show updates. Bookmark this page and check back from time to time.

I have for example a lot more videos with actual show footage from shows where no DVD is available yet. I also not talking about short teasers that are 1-3 minutes long, no no, this time I have much better stuff.

If you read my blog in the past you would already know about them, because I was mention those special videos on a couple occasions already, like here and here. I provided in those posts a bit more background information about the videos itself, so it is worthwhile to check them out too.

Okay, let's get rolling. Here is a little video for starters. It is only a few minutes long and titled "Cirque Du Soleil Now and Then - 1984 to 2007". It is a brief history of Cirque Du Soleil, its very compressed, no talking. Well, if you have to cover 23 years of history in about 3 1/2 minutes time, you have to stick to the stuff that is most important ;).

From the humble beginnings in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec (Canada) in 1984 to the world wide fame and multi-billion dollars enterprise of today in 2007, the shows, the people and the entertainment.



Backup link to video at YouTube.com

Cirque du Soleil on DVD

Many of the Cirque's shows are available on DVD, especially the older touring shows. They also created some stuff for television and for IMAX theaters, which is also available on DVD today.

The DVDs are not a substitute for a real life show experience, but some folks did not have the opportunity to see the Cirque at all and the DVDs do a good job to give you an idea of what to expect.

I added links to online stores next to each show or special performance if there are DVD recordings, soundtracks on Compact Disc (CD) and/or tickets to the live show available. Some of those links are affiliate links, which means that I will earn a few cents if you ue my link to purchase the item. If you like my content and want to show your appreciation, just use the links provided here, if you decide to buy anything that I mentioned.

I also included links to online videos on video sharing websites, such as YouTube and Google Video, especially for the shows and special one-time performances where no DVD recording exists.

Here is a video trailer for the Cirque du Soleil DVDs. Very short and nicely edited. If you are not familar with the Cirque at all, I promise that you will enjoy the videos. Cheers!



Backup link to video at Google Video.

Cirque Du Soleil - Anniversary Collection, 1984-2005

Almost the entire Cirque du Soleil show collection in one set for a price of just a bit over $10 per DVD, that's less than half the price of what you would pay for the included DVDs, if you would purchase each of them individually. A great gift for a friend and a perfect starter kit for your own Cirque collection.

12 DVDs, Region Code 1 (USA and Canada), Note: some of the DVDs are RCE encoded, which means that they do not work with region code free DVD players.

Included in this package are the following Cirque du Soleil shows, special performances and documentaries: La Magie Continue (1986); Cirque Reinvente (1989); Nouvelle Experience (1991); Saltimbanco (1994), the 1994 documentary retrospective A Baroque Odyssey; the Amsterdam-set Quidam (1999); Allegria (1999), the live Sydney show; the Chinese-influenced Dralion (2000), in its standard, non-Superbit release; the relatively short IMAX film Journey of Man (2002); Varekai (2002), from Toronto; La Nouba (2003), from Walt Disney World; and Midnight Sun, strikingly staged outdoors at the 2004 Montreal International Jazz Festival.

The only Show available on DVD that is not included in this collection is the "Corteo" DVD, which was released after this anniversary collection.

The only other stuff left on DVD that is not part of the pack are the TV productions ("Alegria - The Movie", "Solstrom - The Series"), the documentary DVDs for the Las Vegas resident shows ("Flow", "KA Extreme", "The Mystery of Mystere", "Lovesick"), the 3 DVDs documentary "The Fire Within" and the latest touring show Kooza ("A Thrilling Ride Through Kooza").

Cirque du Soleil Touring Shows

	LeGrand Tour du Cirque du Soleil (1984-85, 16.Jun 1984, Gaspe, 14.May 1985, Montreal) - Director: Franco Dragone This show was more like classic circus. I am not aware of any recordings of it.
	La Magie Continue/The Magic Continues (1986, 20.Apr 1986/18.May 1986, Sherebrook) - Director: Franco Dragone Buy the DVD
	Cirque Reinvente/We Reinvent the Circus (1987-1990, 07.May 1987, La Salle) - Director: Franco Dragone Buy it on DVD - soundtrack
	Nouvelle Expérience/A New Experience (1990-93, 8.May 1990, Montreal) - Director: Franco Dragone Buy it on DVD or here - soundtrack
	Saltimbanco (1992-2006, 23.Apr 1992, Montreal) - Director: Franco Dragone Buy it on DVD - soundtrack
	Fascination (1992, 22.May 1992, Tokyo) - Director: Roger Parent Only toured in Japan. Acts were a mix of Le Cirque Réinventé and Nouvelle Expérience, but all new costumes and arranged by a new director. It ran 118 times between May and September of 1992 and no video recording was ever published publically.
	Alegría (1994-..., 21.Apr 1994, Montreal) - Director: Franco Dragone Buy it on DVD - soundtrack - Get Tickets
	Quidam (1996-..., 23.Apr 1996, Montreal) - Director: Franco Dragone Buy it on DVD - soundtrack - Get Tickets
	Dralion (1999-..., 22.Apr 1999, Montreal) - Director: Guy Caron Buy it on DVD - soundtrack - Get Tickets
	Varekai (2002-..., 24.Apr 2002, Montreal) - Director: Dominic Champagne 6 min video: Ikarian Games Act Buy it on DVD - soundtrack - Premium Ed. - Get Tickets
	Corteo (2005-..., 21.Apr 2005, Montreal) - Director: Danielle Finzi Pasca 1 min trailer video Buy it on DVD - soundtrack - Limited Ed. - Get Tickets
KOOZÅ (2007-..., 19.Apr 2007, Montreal) - Director: David Shiner 7 Min Special Video - 5 min video - 20 min press conference soundtrack - Get Tickets

Resident Shows of Cirque du Soleil

	Mystère (1993-..., 25.Dec 1994, Las Vegas) - Director: Franco Dragone special 20+ min teaser video - soundtrack - Live Album - Get Tickets Location: Treasure Island hotel & casino in Las Vegas, NV
	"O" (1998-..., 19.Oct 1998, Las Vegas) - Director: Franco Dragone 3 min video - special 22 min video - soundtrack - Get Tickets Location: Bellagion hotel & casino in Las Vegas, NV
	La Nouba (1998-..., 23.Dec 1998/28.Jan 1999, Orlando) - Director: Franco Dragone Buy it on DVD - soundtrack - Get Tickets Location: Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL
	Zumanity (2003-..., 31.Jul 2003/20.Sep 2003, Las Vegas) - Directors: Dominic Champagne & René Richard Cyr 9 min teaser video - soundtrack - Get Tickets Location: New York, New York hotel & casino in Las Vegas, NV
	KÀ (2004-..., 26.Nov 2004/03.Feb 2005, Las Vegas) - Director: Robert Lepage 30 sec trailer - 9 min videos 1 and 2 - soundtrack - Get Tickets Location: MGM Grand hotel & casino in Las Vegas, NV
	LOVE (2006-..., 02.Jun 2006/30.Jun 2006, Las Vegas) - Director: Dominic Champagne See 2 min teaser video & 10 min gala - soundtrack - Get Tickets Location: The Mirage hotel & casino in Las Vegas, NV
	WINTUK (2007-..., 01.Nov 2007, New York City) - Director: Robert Lepage See 9 Minutes Teaser Video - Get Tickets Location: WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY
	Believe (2008-..., 12.Sep.2008 Las Vegas) - Director: Serge Denoncourt Get Tickets Location: The Luxor hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV
	Zaia (2008-...,26.July.2008 Macao) - Director: Gilles Maheu Working titles "Cosmos" or "Macau I". Resident show at the COTAI ARENA® at the Sands Venecian Macao Hotel and Casino Resort at THE COTAI STRIP® in Macao, China Get Tickets48
	Zed (2008-...,01.Oct.2008 Tokyo) - Director: François Girard Resident show at the "Cirque du Soleil Theatre Tokyo" at Tokyo Disney Resort, Japan Get Tickets48

Cirque du Soleil Arena Shows

Arena shows are touring shows, but without the Big-Top. They are performed in existing venues, just like rock concerts and similar events.

	Delirium (2006-...) - Directors: Michel Lemieux & Victor Pilon soundtrack - Solarium/Delirium - Tapis Rouge Solarium - Get Tickets
	Saltimbanco (2007-...) - Directors: Franco Dragone & Carmen Ruest Get Tickets

Cirque du Soleil Releases for TV and IMAX

	Journey of Man (IMAX) - Release Year: 1999-2000 - Director: Keith Melton Buy it on DVD - soundtrack
	Alegria Le Film / An Enchanting Fable (Movie) - Release Year: 1999 (filmed in 1998) Buy it on DVD - soundtrack
	Fire Within - Making of Varekai (TV Series with 13 episodes) - Release Year: 2002 Buy it on DVD (3 DVDs)
	Solstrom (TV Series with 13 episodes) - Release Year: 2003 Buy it on DVD (5 DVDs)

See also: The Best of Cirque du Soleil Audio CD

TV Schedule for Cirque shows and Documentaries on public television around the world.

Cirque du Soleil Documentaries

Unfortunately are several of them not available anymore, because they are out of print. Documentaries are listed in chronological order.

	Quel Cirque (1991) - A look into the creation of Nouvelle Experiénce.
	Saltimbanco's Diary (1992) - The making of the award winning Cirque du Soleil show "Saltimbanco".
	A Baroque Odyssey (1994) - Buy the DVD
	The Truth of Illusion (1994) - (Documentary about the production Alegria)
	Full Circle: The Making of Quidam (1996)
	Inside La Nouba: From Conception to Perception (2000), a making of documentary for the Orlando show La Nouba, playing at Disney World Resort, Florida.
	Whatever 'Stie (2003) (a Parody of Varekai show acted by the technical crew only for the actual artists)
	KÀ Extreme (2005) - Buy the DVD A look behind the scenes of the epic Cirque du Soleil show "KA", it's challenges and accomplishments. KA is running at the MGM Grand hotel and casino in Vegas.
	Corteo - Through the Curtain (2005) a 25 min Documentary released on Cirque du Soleil's - Corteo official soundtrack double disc special edition (1 audio CD and 1 DVD)
	Imagine the Beatles in Love (2006) - Buy the DVD A BBC documentary, 51 min in length
	Lovesick (2006) - Buy the DVD A documentary about the artists and the creation of the Cirque show "Zumanity", which is still performed over 10 times per week at the New York, New York hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
	FLOW (2007) - Buy the DVD A tribute to the artists of the popular Cirque du Soleil show "O", shown at the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
	The Mystery of Mystère (2007) - Buy the DVD A film about the idea behind the subject of the show, featuring great interlectual and scientific minds of this century and the artists of Mystere, the oldest permanent Cirque du Soleil show and still running at the Treasure Island hotel and casino in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip.
	A Thrilling Ride through KOOZA (2007) - Buy the DVD A short documentary about the creation of the latest Cirque du Soleil touring show "Kooza", which debuted in Spring 2007.

Other Performances of the Cirque

	March 24, 2002 - Cirque du Soleil performs at the awards show for the 74th Academy Awards (Oscars) at the old Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood (Los Angeles, California)(2002-03-24) see full video (5 min)
	July 11, 2004 - Soleil de Minuit/Midnight Sun (2004-07-11). Cirque du Soleil celebrates its 20th birthday with the people of Montreal in the streets of their hometown and location of their corporate headquarters. Buy the DVD
	28. October, 2004 - Zink Magazine November, 2004 Issue Celebration With Artists From the Cirque Du Soleil show Zumanity (10/28/2004)
	June 15, 2005 - "Reflections in Blue" (Réflexions de bleu), a unique one-night water show as part of the opening ceremonies for the XI. World Aquatics Championships (FINA) in Montreal, Canada (2005-07-16). see video (10 min) (not the whole show)
	September 1, 2006 IFA 2006 Opening Gala - Cirque du Soleil as the new the marketing partner of IFA 2006 (Internationale Funk Ausstellung) presents exclusive show acts of the Special Event Department Montreal at the IFA Opening Gala in Berlin, Germany (09/01/2006)
	February 4, 2007 - Pre-Game Show at Super Bowl XLI (41.), the American football game to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2006 season at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion Indianapolis Colts (16-4) defeated the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears (15-4), 29-17. This performance was produced by David Saltz (2007-02-04) see full video (9 min)
	August 28, 2007 - Surprise Cirque du Soleil performance for the the Grand Opening show of the Venetian Macao Resort Hotel in Macau, China by the Las Vegas Sands corporation (Sheldon Adelson) (2007-08-28). see 1 min video excerpt
	November 2007 - Apocalyptica and Cirque du Soleil - an Eurovision Live Rock Concert Performance in Buenos Aires, Argentina. see full video (8:21 min)
	29 January, 2008 - UMW Re-Brands, Unveils New Identity - United Motor Works (UMW Holdings Berhad), a Malaysian Business in Automotive, Equipment, Manufacturing & Engineering and Oil & Gas unveiled their new identity in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The show included an extensive performance by the performers of Cirque du Soleil's Alegria touring show (01/29/2008). see full video (26 min)
	February 10th, 2008 - Cirque du Soleils tribute to The Beatles ”A Day In The Life” and Carol Woods & Timmy Mitchums (from "Across the Universe") performance of "Let It Be" at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, California (2008-02-10) See full video (7:45 min)

Note: The Cirque did more special performances than I listed here. I learn about other perfomances every now and then and update my list. Nobody else seems to keep a record of this, including the Cirque itself.

Okay, that covered the IS, but what about the future? Well, the Cirque has a lot of plans, so much I can already tell you. Several new shows are planned, touring shows as well as resident shows. The difference to what that did to-date is that the resident shows will not be limited to the United States anymore. New shows are being created for locations in Asia, Europe and Middle East.

Las Vegas has the lion share of resident shows and that will not change in the future. Two more shows who will call "Sin City" their home are in the making and add to the FIVE resident shows Las Vegas has already today. The Cirque will also continue to create smaller scale one-time events in the years to come. Okay, here are the details for what is known today already.

Planned Upcoming Special Events of the Cirque

• June–September 2008: Cirque du Soleil will have a daily parade spectacle called The Awakening of the Serpent to be performed for the duration of Expo 2008 in Zaragoza, Spain


• October 19, 2008: Cirque will perform a special one-night, one-time event as a closing ceremony performance for the La Francophonie Summit and part of the celebrations marking Quebec City's 400th anniversary at the Colisee Pepsi in Quebec City, Canada.

Upcoming/Planned Special Projects

• A Taste of Cirque du Soleil, a special 30 min performance on the Constellation & Summit Celebrity Cruises
• Cirque du Monde, a social action project designed to reach marginalized youth
• Revolution, a lounge concept designed for The Mirage resort in Las Vegas in which the Cirque cast members perform to the music of The Beatles

Upcoming/Planned Cirque du Soleil Shows

• August 29, 2008 - Scheduled Grand Opening for Cirque Du Soleil's new resident show "Zaia" (working titles "Cosmos" or "Macau I") at the Sands Venetian Macau hotel and casino on the Cotai Strip in Macau, China (Director: Gilles Maheu).
• September 12, 2008 - permanent show at the Luxor Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, called "Believe", featuring the increddible street performing magician Criss Angel. The director is Serge Denoncourt. You should search for Criss Angel on the Internet and watch some movies with his performances. The show will premiere on September 12, 2008. Learn more about the show at CirqueDuSoleil.com/CrissAngel or at this URL. Also see my recent blog post about Criss Angel's Believe.
• On October 1, 2008, "Cirque du Soleil Theatre Tokyo" will open in Tokyo Disney Resort, Japan. Director: François Girard. To commemorate the Grand Opening of this theatre, "The World of Cirque du Soleil" will be held. Some key elements from internationally acclaimed shows will be unveiled at Omotesando Hills (Main building B3F 'Space O'). "The world of Cirque du Soleil" opening hours: 4/26(Sat)- 5/6(Tue), 11:00-21:00, Closed at 20:00 on 4/27(Sun), 18:00 on 5/6(Tue)
  
  Tickets for individual visitors are scheduled to become available in early July 2008.
  
  Short facts:
  2,170 seats venue, 380 shows or more per year, 1-2 shows per day, performance time: about 135 minutes, including a 30-minute intermission, Creators: François Girard & Line Tremblay
  
  About the show:
  The show follows the journey of a character who ultimately brings two completely opposing worlds, the sky and the earth, together in reconciliation and harmony. This dramatic production will feature a colourful array of unique and lively characters in vibrant costumes for a truly dynamic performance.
• April 2009 - a new touring show will be coming (working title: "Cirque 2009") to be directed by renowned Brazilian choreographer/dancer Deborah Colker.
• 2008, 2009-2015 - the Elvis Presley Projects for Las Vegas' Project CityCenter. One touring Elvis show is planned for Europe/Asia in 2008, with one "Elvis Experience" outside the United States. One new Elvis Presley Project will open each year from 2009-2015. Director: Vincent Paterson.


• There are rumors about another Cirque show for Las Vegas in 2009 for the Mandalay Bay Theater at the Mandalay Bay resport and casino (next to the Luxor).

... and more for the year 2010 and beyond.

• Movie themed show at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, California, planned to run for 10 years
• A residency show at one of the hotels on The Palm, Jumeirah in Dubai with an initial 15-year deal is being created by Guy Caron (Dralion) and Micheal Curry


• Second resident show on Macao's Cotai Strip at a yet-to-be constructed hotel will premiere.
  I heard that the new show will be directed by René Simard, a famous Quebec artist (from such works as Elvis Story and Génération Motown, both produced in Quebec). Serge Roy will be the show’s Director of Creation and Robert Lemoyne the Production Manager.
• Cirque will co-create the Canada Pavillion in association with the Government of Canada at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China
• Date Unknown - Cirque du Soleil has proposed a theme park near Oropesa del Mar/Orpesa, Spain to act as a permanent location. The theme is "Illusion World", and it would be located in Castellon.

That's it and all there is at the moment. Not bad eh? If you did not see a Cirque show yet, go and make it an item on your "must see before I die list". The videos and DVDs are nice, but never replace the actual atmosphere and visuals of a live performed show. I watched a few Cirque shows twice already and it was never boring, because you can't notice everything at once that is going on live. Cirque shows are "notorious" for stuff happening in parallel to the main story and acts.

Additional Cirque du Soleil Stuff
See the Global Citizenship website of Cirque du Soleil for more information about the Cirque's community and environmental projects around the world.

World Record by Three Cirque du Soleil Teenage Performers

Did you know that three of Cirque du Soleil's contortionists, Natasha Patterson, 10, born in San Francisco, Julie Bergez, 14, from France and Dasha Sovik, 15, from Russia, who perform in KOOZA, the Cirque's latest touring show, attempted to and actually set a new Guinness World Record™ for the Highest Circus Act ever performed?

Well, they did just that on September 25, 2007 at the top of Toronto's CN Tower, the World's Tallest Freestanding Tower. This feat was performed in the Glass Floor observation deck, 342 meters (1,122 feet) above the ground and as high up on Toronto's CN Tower as you can get as a human without getting into serious trouble.

The CN Tower-Canada's National Tower- is standing tall as the defining landmark of Toronto with a total height of 553.33 meters (1,815 feet, 5 inches). This means that the record by the three teenage girls from Cirque du Soleil can be broken, but it would have to be a much windier and chilling performance in lofty heights and exposed to the elements, or somebody has to build a higher tower. Not an easy task obviously, because the tower was already built in 1976 and nobody built a higher one in over 30 years yet.

See full video of this performance.

*Note: Natasha might have been 11 and Dasha 16 already when they made the performance on September 25, 2007. I don't have their exact birthdates to say for sure.

Something Else

Okay, something else. I know that some people will give lectures for this (again), but I don't care.

Franco Dragone (the creator of the Cirque du Soleil shows Cirque Reinvente, Cirque Reinvente, Saltimbanco, Mystere, Alegria, Quidam, O and La Nouba) and Michel Crête left the Cirque in 1998 after finishing the resident show La Nouba for the Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Dragone created, much to the dislike of the Cirque, a Cirque du Soleil-like show for Steve Wynn's new propery in Las Vegas, the 2.5+ billion Dollars Wynn Las Vegas hotel and casino mega resort (which has it's very own golf course right next to the hotel). The name of the new show is "Le Rêve" (The Dream in French) and it premiered on May 6th, 2005.

The main difference to traditional Cirque shows is that rather than relying on few high profile acrobatics act that are hard to impossible to replace, does the show compensate for the lack of those acts with very elaborate acts with many performers at the same time, enriched with even more elaborate visual effects.

The side effect of this is that the show feels more like a real show with a theme that was not artificially added to existing circus acts. This also means that the circus aspect of the show falls very short of the expectations of those who expected to see a classic Cirque show.

Interestingly did I noticed that the much youger show by the real Cirque, "Love, which has the Beatles music and time era as basis, follows a pattern that is very similar to the one of Le Reve.

If "Kooza" in 2007 wouldn't have proven otherwise, I would have thought that this would be the "new" Cirque du Soleil trend. Kooza is a very traditional Circus experience, just FYI.

See: 20 seconds - 30 seconds teaser - 2:26 min teaser - special 9:30 min video

More: Buy the soundtrack* - Get Le Reve Tickets

* The CD on Amazon is overpriced. Its not official anyway. You can only buy the CD officially at the Le Reve Boutique at the Wynn in Las Vegas. They have no website, but you can order via phone, just dial (702) 770-3541.

Did you know?
Steve Wynn sold his other Las Vegas properties The Mirage, Treasure Island and the Bellagio to MGM, who also happens to own the New York, New York and the MGM Grand, all the hotels & casinos where the current resident shows of the Cirque are being performed. And how about this? .... The two planned shows for Las Vegas will also be for properties that are owned by MGM, the Luxor and the, currently under construction, CityCenter. If rumors are true and another show is being planned for Mandalay Bay, then it would be three new shows for three of MGM's properties. Funny, isn't it? A coincidence? I don't think so.

So why this long write-up all of the sudden, you might ask? Well, I spent a lot of time on creating Cirque du Soleil videos. I referred to a large number of them from this post. I also created just recently groups for fans of the Cirque at popuar video sharing sites and networks. I also learned a lot more about the Cirque since the last time I wrote extensively about it. I saw all shows so far, with the exception of "Wintuk", but I guess that it is a reason to go to New York City one of these days to be able to watch it, right?

If you are a fan like me and to get access to additional goodies (wallpapers, greeting cards, articles, news) and tickets before anybody else, join the official Cirque du Soleil Club. It's free and anybody can join!

Cirque du Soleil Fans Group at Dailymotion.com and Cirque du Soleil Fans Group at YouTube.com. Check them out and join (free of course)!

p.s. The Cirque is now heavily recruiting new and old talents. They created a special section on their website just for this purpose. It was very well done and is very elaborate and rich on multimedia content, including tons of small videos and more. Here is the URL to their new Casting/Recruitment website and to their open positions listings via Taleo.net. Here is the intro video from the site. Check it out!



The folks over at the Wynn in Las Vegas are also looking for performers for their show Le Reve. Their casting efforts are just as serious as the Cirque's. They even but their casting website for the show up on it's own domain, LeReveCasting.com.

More Cirque du Soleil Resources

• Cirque du Soleil Database at CirqueTribune.com has details and background information about artists and creators of Cirque du Soleil shows. CirqueTrubune.com also has a Wiki, Forums, Image Galery and a Chat Room, which is only open in the evenings from 5p-2a Pacific seven days a week.
• Various articles to Cirque du Soleil at the English language Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia that everybody can edit. See article index for the Category "Cirque du Soleil".
• My Cirque du Soleil Image Gallery at Google's Picasa Image sharing online service.
• YouTube video play lists with my Cirque du Soleil Videos and my playlist with a listing of numerous Cirque du Soleil videos from various contributors.
• The official Cirque Club site at CirqueDuSolei.com. Remember, membership is absolutely free! (Note: CirqueClub.com redirects to the same page at CirqueDuSoleil.com)
• Homepage of the Unofficial Fan Club of Cirque du Soleil at CirqueFascination.com
• Le Grand Chapiteau by Ricky "Richasi" Russo from Orlando, Florida. Cirque fan site with many information to the shows and Cirque.
• The Cirque du Soleil FAQ (TXT file) is a very detailed FAQ about the Cirque and its shows, videos, music and more, maintained by Ricky "Richasi" Russo.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC