What is Your Favorite Cirque du Soleil Show?

I get this question again and again, especially at my YouTube channel CirqueDuSoleilGuru, which is focusing on Cirque du Soleil almost exclusively. Simple question, isn't it? Or is it?

What is your answer to this question? Do you have favorite show? Have you seen more than one Cirque du Soleil show to be able to pick a favorite? Have you seen a Cirque du Soleil show at all or do you have no idea what I am talking about? If the latter is the case, go and check out my YouTube channel and also my Cirque du Soleil Primer Article.

I for my part cannot give a simple answer to this question. Which show I like the most, really depends  on the mood I am in.  To at least narrow down the list of 20+ shows to a manageable number, here are my general favorites:  "KA", playing at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, "O" at the Bellagio, also in Las Vegas; and the touring show "Varekai". I also like "Zumanity" at the New York, New York in Las Vegas a lot, so make it FOUR favorites, all right?!

• "KA" is the EPIC show
• "O" is the BEAUTYFUL show
• "Zumanity" is the "FRIVOL" show
• "Varekai" is FUNNY and has GREAT acts in it

If I would have to make a choice, because somebody puts a gun on my head or something like that, I'd pick "KA".

I have seen each of the shows above multiple times. The three Vegas Shows, twice each (life) and Varekai on DVD multiple times, but unfortunately never live yet. Varekai are at the wrong place on this planet at the moment.

I got a late start with Cirque in 2006 when they had left the country already. I'd like to see Varekai live though and hope that I will get a chance one day.

I have not seen "Wintuk", "Believe", "Zaia" or "Zed" so they might be contestants still hehe. I also have not seen the new show "OVO" yet, but from what I have heard is the show unlikely to be a contestant.

Learn more about:

KA	Full Show Video(s)	Buy Tickets
"O"	22 min Video	Buy Tickets
Zumanity	video 1, video 2, video 3, video 4	Buy Tickets
Varekai	Video 1, Video 2	Check for Tickets

Note: Zumanity is the only Cirque du Soleil show where you have to be an adult (18+) to be able to watch the show, because of its sexual content.

So, now it's your turn? What is your favorite? Leave a comment below and tell me! Thanks.

Cirque du Soleil Then and Now 1984-2009 from Carsten Cumbrowski on Vimeo.

Ovo Update! I took the 2004 "Then and Now" video from Cirque du Soleil's Midnight Sun, which covered 11 Cirque du Soleil shows and extended it to cover the missing 10! shows as well (12 actually, if you include the mentioning of "Le Grand Tour" and "Fascination).

This extended introduction to the world of Cirque du Soleil covers the following shows:
Le Grand Tour, La Magie Continue, Cirque Reinvente, Nouvelle Experience, Fascination, Saltimbanco, Alegria, Mystere, "O", Dralion, Quidam, Varekai, Zumanity, KA, Love, Corteo, Delirium, Kooza, Wintuk, Zaia, Zed, Believe and Ovo.

You can download this video in AVI format at http://www.mediafire.com/?w2x3m0zzno5

For more information about Cirque du Soleil and their productions, visit http://www.roysac.com/cirque

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Microsoft Internet Explorer Search Providers Import and Export

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and 8 and also Mozilla Fire Fox come with a feature called "Custom Search Providers" or Search Scopes. It allows you to add web sites and search engines to your search box to search them directly, if you need to. For example could you add Amazon.com search to your search providers and search the Amazon.com site directly from your search box, if you are looking for a book, CD or DVD and use Amazon.com as primary online shop for this kind of purchases.

You can get a selection of custom search providers at this Microsoft web site. There you can find a number of options for popular web sites and other search engines. Also available there is the option to create your own custom search provider for your favorite web site. This is possible, as long as the site provides a site search option and passes the search parameters, such as the search term in the URL.

If you have a web site yourself and want to offer your visitors the option to add your site search to their web browser, then you can do that as well. I did this for my small project SQLHunt.com, a MS SQL Server resources meta-search engine based on Google Custom Search Engine. See the link at the bottom of the homepage that reads "Widgets and Gadgets". One of the options there is to add the SQLHunt.com search to your web browser.

The search providers page for Internet Explorer on the Microsoft web site.

All nice and good and I made myself good use of this feature. I have by now probably 20+ custom search providers added to my search box. Some via the Microsoft web site, others custom or via the "add" option at a web site directly. There is unfortunately no easy way to copy your search providers to another computer or to back it up and re-install, if you do a re-install of your current system.

The search providers (or search scopes) are stored by Microsoft in the Windows System Registry. You can find your current search scopes and export them via the system tool RegEdit.exe to a file at

HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes

For each search provider exists a sub-key, in case that you only want to export specific search providers and not all of them. You can then take the exported file (with the extension .REG), copy it to the other machine and double click on it. You should be prompted to acknowledge that you want to import the file into the system registry. Do that and your search provider settings will be imported.

Here is a simple BATCH script to export and import your search provider settings.

SearchScope.bat Code

Download the source code for SearchScope.bat here (you need to remove the additional .txt extension of the file when you save the file to your local hard disk).

   1:  @echo off

   2:  CLS

   3:  if "%1"=="" (CALL :SELOPT) ELSE SET OPT=%1 

   4:  if "%2"=="" Call :GETFP   

   5:   

   6:  IF %OPT%==IMPORT Call :DoImport

   7:  IF %OPT%==EXPORT Call :DoExport

   8:  Echo Finished!

   9:  Echo.

  10:  pause

  11:  GOTO :EOF

  12:   

  13:  :SELOPT

  14:  echo Microsoft Custom Search Provider Import/Export Tool

  15:  echo by Carsten Cumbrowski aka Roy/SaC at http://www.roysac.com/blog

  16:  echo.

  17:  SET /p OTmp=Enter (I) to Import, (E) to Export or (A) to Abort: 

  18:  IF "%OTmp%"=="I" SET OPT=IMPORT&SET OK=1

  19:  IF "%OTmp%"=="i" SET OPT=IMPORT&SET OK=1

  20:  IF "%OTmp%"=="E" SET OPT=EXPORT&SET OK=1

  21:  IF "%OTmp%"=="e" SET OPT=EXPORT&SET OK=1

  22:  If NOT "%OK%"=="1" EXIT

  23:  GOTO :EOF

  24:   

  25:  :GETFP

  26:  echo.

  27:  echo Please Specify the name and path for the file to %OPT% 

  28:  Echo Enter "a' to abort.

  29:  echo. 

  30:  SET /P FNAME=File Name: 

  31:  if %OPT%==IMPORT (

  32:    IF "%FNAME%"=="" EXIT

  33:    IF NOT EXIST "%FNAME%" Call :GETFP

  34:  )

  35:  GOTO :EOF

  36:   

  37:  :DoImport

  38:  REG Import %FNAME%>NUL 2>&1

  39:  Echo Search Scopes Imported

  40:  Goto :EOF

  41:   

  42:  :DoExport

  43:  REG Export "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes" %FNAME%>Nul 2>&1

  44:  Echo Search Scopes Exported to %FNAME%

  45:  GOTO :EOF

Here is a more complex example script. It reads the settings from the HKEY_USER branch rather than the HKEY_CURRENT_USER one. The script looks up the SID for the current user and exports the registry settings, replacing the SID with a place holder to be substituted when imported again elsewhere.

This was more of a "proof of concept", since you do not have to go through all this length as the script above illustrates. I got the "inspiration" from the blog post "Working with Registry Keys in a Batch File" by "rhyous" at the LandDesk User Community.

However, this batch could be modified to export the settings from other users on the same machine. It was not easy to accomplish and very tricky to do. Just for a test, look at the code and tell honestly, if you understand every statement used there. :)

The only thing you would have to do, is replacing %%USERPROFILE%% with the path to the users home directory (e.G. "C:\Documents and Settings\UserName"

SearchScopesImportExport.bat Code

Download the source code for SearchScopesImportExport.bat here (you need to remove the additional .txt extension of the file when you save the file to your local hard disk).

   1:  @Echo off

   2:  cls

   3:  SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS

   4:  SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION

   5:  if "%*"=="" Goto :ShowUsage

   6:  if "%~2"=="" Goto :ShowUsage

   7:   

   8:  SET RootKey="HKLM\software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList"

   9:  Set Val=ProfileImagePath

  10:   

  11:  Call SET CurProf=%%USERPROFILE%%

  12:  SET CurSID=""

  13:   

  14:  Echo Determining Current User's SID ...

  15:  Call :GETSID %RootKey%

  16:  Echo The current users SID is %CurSID%

  17:  Call Set RegTmp=%Temp%\%CurSID%_SearchScopes.reg

  18:   

  19:  IF "%1"=="export" Call :ExportScopes "%~2"

  20:  IF "%1"=="import" Call :ImportScopes "%~2"

  21:   

  22:  Echo.

  23:  echo Done Processing

  24:  echo.

  25:  pause

  26:  echo.

  27:  Goto :EOF

  28:   

  29:   

  30:  :GETSID

  31:  FOR /F "tokens=7* delims=\" %%i IN ('REG QUERY "%~1"') DO (

  32:    FOR /F "tokens=2*" %%a in ('REG QUERY "%~1\%%~i" /v %Val% ^|FINDSTR %Val%') DO (

  33:       CALL SET ldclientdir=%%b

  34:       if "%CurProf%"=="!ldclientdir!" (

  35:         Set CurSID=%%~i

  36:       )

  37:    )

  38:  )

  39:  GOTO :EOF

  40:   

  41:  :ExportScopes

  42:  echo Exporting Search Scope Settings ...

  43:  REG Export "HKU\%CurSID%\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes" %RegTmp%>Nul 2>&1

  44:  Echo Replacing SID with place-holder CURRENTUSERSID ...

  45:  Call :SandR %RegTmp% "%~1" %%CurSID%% CURRENTUSERSID

  46:  goto :eof

  47:   

  48:  :SandR

  49:  ::1 = input file

  50:  ::2 = output file

  51:  ::3 = search string

  52:  ::4 = replacement value

  53:  if EXIST "%~2" DEL /Q "%~2"

  54:  for /f "tokens=1,* delims=]" %%a in ('"type "%~1"|find /n /v """') do (

  55:     CALL SET _result=%%b

  56:     if NOT "%%b"=="" (

  57:       CALL SET _fchar=%%_result:~0,1%%

  58:       if "!_fchar!"=="[" (

  59:         set "line=%%b"

  60:         if defined line (

  61:            call set "line=echo.%%line:%3=%4%%"

  62:            for /f "delims=" %%X in ('"echo."%%line%%""') do %%~X>>"%~2"

  63:         )   ELSE echo.>>"%~2"

  64:       ) else (

  65:           echo %%b>>"%~2"

  66:       )

  67:     ) else (

  68:         echo.>>"%~2"

  69:     )

  70:  )

  71:  goto :eof

  72:   

  73:  :ImportScopes

  74:  if NOT EXIST "%~1" GOTO :ShowUsage

  75:  echo Preparing Registry Data for Import ...

  76:  echo Replacing place-holder CURRENTUSERSID with SID ...

  77:  if EXIST %RegTmp% Del %RegTmp%

  78:  Call :SandR "%~1" %RegTmp% CURRENTUSERSID %%CurSID%%

  79:  Echo Importing Search Scopes ...

  80:  if EXIST %RegTmp% REG Import %RegTmp%>NUL 2>&1

  81:  goto :eof

  82:   

  83:   

  84:  :ShowUsage

  85:  cls

  86:  echo.

  87:  echo USAGE

  88:  echo   Script.bat import^|export IMPORTFILE.REG^|OUTPUTFILE.REG

  89:  echo.

  90:  echo Example Export of current Search Scopes to a file 

  91:  echo with the name MySearchScopes to the local directory C:\Data

  92:  echo.

  93:  echo   Script.bat export c:\Data\MySearchScopes.reg

  94:  echo.

  95:  Echo Example Import of Search Scopes from file generated via this script

  96:  Echo.

  97:  Echo  script.bat import c:\import\MySearchScopes.reg

  98:  echo.

  99:  pause

 100:  echo.

That's it. I hope that you will find this little tool and information useful.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

In Case You Forgot Adobe Photoshop at Home, don’t worry!

In the case that you forgot Adobe Photoshop at home and need to make some last minute tweaks of some nice and cool graphics for your blog or MySpace page, while at a friends house, who only has MS Paint installed on his Computer, then you don’t have to decide between no image or crappy MS Paint tweaked image anymore.

There is now a nice third option available. All that your friend needs is a web browser and an Internet connection… and who doesn’t have this nowadays. Finding a home with black and white television is probably easier than one with a computer without Internet, right?

Anyhow. There have been in the past already multiple attempts to provide a practical photo and image editor on the World Wide Web. Yeah, you could tweak photographs a little bit, remove some red eyes, flip the image, crop it and adjust the colors and contrast or brightness, but that was about it. Pixlr has something for that as well, called Photo Express, where you can do some last minute tweaks to a photo before you put it up on Flickr or Photobucket.

But if you had to do a little bit more tweaking to an image, you still required a desktop application installed on your computer. Pixlr provides a neat alternative to that. Their image editor is more than just a nice toy where you can draw squares and lines like in MS Paint. The Pixlr image editor supports Layers and has some features like its big cousins, the Adobe Photoshop’s and alike. The interface also matches closely the look and feel of Photoshop, which will make designers who live and die with PS, feel like home instantly.

I actually felt so much at home that I got stuck when I tried to use the right click context menu or keyboard short-cuts that I am used to. The editor is Flash based and not Ajax like Google Docs and thus not supports the right mouse button (I wonder how this works on a Macintosh :) ).

The first thing you do when you go to the editor on the web is to select if you want to start a new image, load a picture from your computer or directly from a web site (e.g. Flickr). Supported are the standard formats JPEG, PNG and GIF.

I can only suggest to jump right into it and play around with all the features available yourself. That’s what I did and it worked out pretty well. If you don’t think that it feels right or could work for you, you just leave and never come back. That’s the beauty of a web based (and free) application. There is nothing to uninstall or something like that, because you never installed anything to begin with.

Here is a screen shot of my experiments with the editor.

Here is a screen shot of the light weight Photo Express application for last minute photo tweaks. Notice the photograph? It’s the only photograph with that many SAC members in it. It was taken at the BDN Party 3 in Berlin, Germany (where I won the “Fast ANSI” graphics compo and a T-Shirt as a prize hehe).

A quick note for web masters and web developers. Pixlr provides a web API that you can easily integrate the image editor into your own web application. The API has some nice features that let you control, if the user can save the image on his computer or not, if he can change the title, or if you specify it for the user, the source (e.g. an image template that you automatically load or just the image that the user uploaded on your web site and wants to make some tweaks to it, without doing it on his own computer and re-upload the modified image again. The possible implementations are probably somewhat limited, but in those few cases where it makes sense, having the option to provide a pretty good editor versus none or just a crappy one comes in very handy.

So go and check it out. It’s free, no trial, no premium versus basic free features or stuff like that (at least I didn’t see anything like that, when I checked out their web site and products).

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Cirque du Soleil - Historic Time-Line 1984 to Present

This article is part of my Cirque du Soleil Primer Article Series.

Aurora

"Those who are able to walk on stilts can roam the earth unstopped by mountains or rivers. They are able to imagine flying and therefore to reach the Isles of the Immortals."

P'ao-Pou Tseu

In the early eighties, a group of young street performers pooled their talent and dreams and founded the "Club des Talons Hauts" or "High-Heels Club", aptly named because most of them were stilt-walkers. The Club also featured fire eaters, jugglers and other buskers. At that time, Quebec did not have a circus tradition as did several European countries.

So the Club members decided to organize a festival, where street performers could come together to exchange ideas and techniques. They called it the "Fête Foraine de Baie St-Paul" (the Baie Saint-Paul Fair). That was all a few visionaries needed to hatch the idea of bringing all this talent together under one roof, or - why not? - a big top! Cirque du Soleil was born.

 

Cirque du Soleil – Historic Time-line 1984 - Present

The story begins in 1982, in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec. In this haven of creativity whose rural charm attracts artists, art collectors and tourists alike, a group of young street performers mix with the crowd, walking on stilts, juggling and eating fire. Inspired by the spectators' obvious delight, the performers hatch the idea of organizing an entertainers' festival-the precursor of what is to become Cirque du Soleil.

1984

Cirque du Soleil is born with the assistance of the Quebec government, as part of the celebrations surrounding the 450th anniversary of Jacques Cartier's arrival in Canada. Cirque is based on a totally new concept: a striking, dramatic mix of the circus arts and street entertainment, featuring wild, outrageous costumes, staged under magical lighting and set to original music. With not a single animal in the ring, Cirque's difference is clear from the very start. The show debuts in the small Quebec town of Gaspé, and is then performed in ten other cities throughout the province. The first blue-and-yellow big top seats 800.

1985

After performing in Montreal, Sherbrooke and Quebec City, Cirque du Soleil leaves its home province for the first time to take its show to neighbouring Ontario. It performs in Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara Falls.

1986

Cirque du Soleil takes La Magie Continue to eight other cities across Canada, including Vancouver, where it puts on several performances at the Children's Festival and Expo 86. Cirque makes its name on the international stage too, as acts are awarded top honours at competitions and festivals around the world. As interest in Cirque grows, so does the big top, which now has room for 1,500 spectators.

1987

Cirque du Soleil visits its American neighbours for the first time. Having triumphed in five cities in Quebec, We Reinvent the Circus is performed at the Los Angeles Festival, and then moves on to San Diego and Santa Monica. Exhilarated by the Californian public's response, Cirque du Soleil is an overnight success.

1988

We Reinvent the Circus continues its North American tour, after a brief appearance at the Calgary Winter Olympics. It stops in San Francisco, New York and Washington, and spends several weeks dazzling Toronto. Wherever it goes, the result is the same: the performances sell out and the critics rave.

1989

Miami, Chicago and Phoenix are added to the We Reinvent the Circus tour. Since its beginnings in 1984, Cirque du Soleil has won many prestigious prizes, including Emmy, Drama Desk, Bambi and Ace awards, Gémeaux and Félix trophies, and a Rose d'Or de Montreux.

Cirque du Soleil's performers have taken part in and won several awards at various festivals throughout the world, including the Festival international du cirque de Monte-Carlo, the Festival mondial du cirque de demain (France), the Festival international de cirque de Vérone (Italy), the Festival international de cirque de Gênes (Italy), and the Wuhan International Acrobatic Art Festival (China).

1990

Montreal is the setting for the world premiere of a brand-new production, Nouvelle Expérience, in a new, 2,500-seat big top. The show then hits the road for an extensive run in California.

With this new production, Cirque du Soleil shatters all previous records for ticket sales, and it decides to make its first foray into Europe, staging We Reinvent the Circus in London and Paris. The overseas excursions have just begun.

1991

Nouvelle Expérience continues on its travels across North America, visiting Atlanta for the first time. By the end of an extensive 19-month tour of Canada and the United States, 1.3 million spectators have cheered the show.

1992

Cirque du Soleil crosses the Pacific and makes a name for itself in the Land of the Rising Sun with Fascination, a collage of the best acts from past shows. The show opens in Tokyo and then moves on to seven other cities, for a total of 118 performances in four months. Meanwhile, in Europe, Cirque du Soleil joins forces with Switzerland's Circus Knie and stages a show in over 60 towns throughout the country. In North America, 1992 sees Cirque du Soleil make its Las Vegas debut when Nouvelle Expérience kicks off a year-long engagement under a big top at the Mirage Hotel. Already juggling several productions, Cirque du Soleil adds a monument to its repertoire of shows: Saltimbanco. Premiering in Montreal, this latest production begins a lengthy tour of North America.

1993

Following Nouvelle Expérience's successful run in Las Vegas, Cirque du Soleil moves into a theatre built to its specifications at the new Treasure Island Hotel. A 10-year contract is signed with Mirage Resorts to stage Mystère, a gigantic production befitting this show business capital. Saltimbanco completes its 19-month North American tour of a dozen cities, receiving resounding ovations from 1.4 million spectators.

1994

Saltimbanco embarks on a six-month run in Tokyo in 1994 that attracts a great deal of attention. The same year, Cirque du Soleil celebrates its tenth anniversary with another production, Alegría. True to tradition, the two-year North American tour is launched in Montreal. Meanwhile, Mystère continues to create a sensation in Las Vegas, and Saltimbanco returns to Montreal for a brief run.

1995

While Alegría pursues its triumphant North American tour, Cirque du Soleil responds to a request from the Canadian government and creates a show for the heads of state gathered at the G7 Summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Also in 1995, Saltimbanco sets out to conquer Europe. Cirque's spectacular white big top with seating for 2,500 spectators makes its first stop in Amsterdam, followed by Munich, Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Vienna. Amsterdam becomes the site of Cirque du Soleil's European Headquarters.

1996

In April, Cirque launches Quidam in Montreal. After finishing its hometown run, Quidam heads off on a three-year North American tour.

Meanwhile, Saltimbanco continues its European tour, with stops in London, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Antwerp, Zurich and Frankfurt, while Alegría sets out to tour Asia for a few months.

In November 1996, Sylvie Fréchette, Olympic synchronized swimming gold-medallist, joined Cirque du Soleil as a performer and coach for the aquatic show "O".

1997

Quidam continues to capture the hearts of North American spectators, adding two new cities, Denver and Houston, to the tour. On the other side of the Atlantic, the curtain falls on Saltimbanco at London's Royal Albert Hall, marking the end of a two-year European tour. Alegría kicks off its own tour of Europe a few weeks later. But Cirque du Soleil's adventures do not end there. In May 1997, Cirque du Soleil announced that shooting would begin for a film inspired by its show Alegría. In Alegria the film, the magical spellbinding universe of Cirque becomes the backdrop for a tender love story between a street performer (Frac) and the lead singer of a travelling circus (Giulietta).

The year 1997 begins with the inauguration of the brand new International Headquarters in Montreal, the Studio, where all of Cirque's shows will be created and produced.

Construction of the International Headquarters was completed in late 1996, making it possible for more than 500 permanent Montreal employees to work together. It is there that all of Cirque du Soleil's shows are created and produced. Construction of the Headquarters represented an investment of approximately 40 million dollars.

Cirque du Soleil's International Headquarters are in Montreal. In addition, it has four regional headquarters: the Americas, Asia-Pacific, European and Las Vegas headquarters.

1998

While Alegría pursues its journey across Europe, Quidam finishes up its North American tour, which includes a stopover in Dallas, a first for Cirque du Soleil. During its three-year tour, almost 1,000 performances have been held under the blue-and-yellow big top. All in all, over 2,500,000 North American spectators have applauded Quidam.

Furthermore, in October 1998, Cirque du Soleil's second resident show, "O", takes to the stage of a new theatre at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. This production is Cirque's first aquatic show. In December of the same year, Cirque inaugurates yet another permanent show, La Nouba, at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Florida. Cirque du Soleil also restages Saltimbanco in Ottawa for a few weeks before sending it off on an Asia-Pacific tour scheduled to last three years.

In November 1998, shooting began on a first large-format (IMAX) film, which will feature performances by various Cirque du Soleil artists in natural and historic sites around the world. Journey of Man has opened in movie theatres in December 1999.

1999

Saltimbanco sets up shop in Asia and the Pacific and begins a three-year tour of the region in Sydney. In March, Quidam embarks on a four-year European tour in Amsterdam. In addition, Cirque du Soleil's brand-new production, Dralion, launches its North American tour in Montreal.

In May 1999, the Alegría production, which has already dazzled audiences on three continents, finds a permanent home at Beau Rivage, a new resort in Biloxi, Mississippi. This resort is a property of Mirage Resorts Incorporated, Cirque du Soleil's partner for its two Las Vegas productions. The dinner show Pomp Duck and Circumstance sets off on a European tour. To top it all off, the multimedia division Cirque du Soleil Images releases its first feature film, Alegria, inspired by the show of the same name. Incorporating actual Alegría acts, the film is directed by Franco Dragone and produced by Stéphane Reichel ("Crash", "Black Robe", "Quest for Fire"). Alegria the film was launched in theatres in April 1999.

Its dynamic team also produces Cirque du Soleil Presents Quidam, a spectacular television version of the show to be aired around the globe.

2000

Audiences on three continents continue to marvel at Cirque du Soleil's four resident shows (La Nouba, Mystère, "O" and Alegría) and three touring productions (Quidam, Saltimbanco and Dralion). In the year 2000 alone, close to 6 million spectators will attend Cirque du Soleil shows worldwide. Moreover, movie fans will enjoy seeing Cirque du Soleil in its first-ever large-format IMAX production, entitled Cirque du Soleil Journey of Man (Cirque du Soleil Passages in French). Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, the film will open in Montreal, New York and Los Angeles in May 2000 after a grand premiere in Berlin in January.

Since 1984, more than 23 million people from around the world have seen one of Cirque du Soleil's productions. On a typical weekend in 2000, some 50,000 people will see one of Cirque's several shows being staged simultaneously around the world. Cirque employed more than 2,100 people, including 500 performers, from several countries. The average age of Cirque du Soleil employees is 32.

2001

In Auckland, New Zealand, Alegría kicks off a three-year tour through the immense Asia-Pacific region. In addition, Cirque du Soleil keeps on growing with the February inauguration of a 14,000-square-metre addition to its International Headquarters in Montreal. Audiences on four continents continue to marvel at Cirque du Soleil's three resident shows (La Nouba, Mystère, and "O") and four touring productions (Quidam, Saltimbanco, Alegría and Dralion). In the year 2001 alone, close to 6 million spectators will attend Cirque du Soleil shows worldwide.

Since 1992, close to 2 million people have attended a Cirque du Soleil show in Asia.

By 2001 Cirque du Soleil has produced numerous shows: Cirque du Soleil (1984-1985); La Magie continue (1986); We Reinvent the Circus (1987-1989); Nouvelle Expérience (1990-1991); Fascination (1992); Saltimbanco (1992-2001); Mystère (running since 1993); Alegría (1994-2001); Quidam (1996-2002); "O" (running since October 1998); La Nouba (on stage since December 1998); and Dralion (1999-2001).

Cirque du Soleil has performed in over 120 cities throughout the world, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Tokyo, Osaka, Hong Kong, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Vienna.

2002

The touring show Varekai, by first time director Dominic Chapagne (who will continue to direct other Cirque du Soleil productions since then), premiered in April 2002 in Montreal.

During the creation process of Varekai, a film crew was shooting a reality TV series about some of the shows performers and their struggle in the process of the shows development and creation from start to finish. The series was aired world wide in the same year.

On 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).

2003

July 2003, Zumanity at the New York, New York hotel and casino in Las Vegas. First Cirque du Soleil production for adults only. Created by Dominic Chapagne and René Richard Cyr.

Cirque du Soleil creates it first ever production for Television called “Solstrom”. Solstrom is a 13 parts TV series featuring over 250 artists in over 130 acts from many Cirque du Soleil shows and elsewhere. It also includes a number of celebrity guest performances.

2004

On June 16, 2004 - Cirque du Soleil set a new record for the Guinness Book of World Records when they gathered 544 employees in the Montreal Headquarters and had them stilts walking at the same place, at the same time.

November 2004, the epic show and biggest Cirque du Soleil production to-date, KA, directed by Robert Lepage was launched at the MGM Grand hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cirque du Soleil celebrates its 20th birthday with the people of Montreal in the streets of their hometown and location of their corporate headquarters. The recording of this event is later published on TV under the name “Midnight Sun”  (Soleil de Minuit).

2005

The first touring show after almost three years was launched in April in Montreal, Canada. The name of the show is “Corteo” and has an “Italian theme”. It was created and directed by another new director for Cirque du Soleil, Daniele Finzi Pasca.

Cirque created and performed the special creation "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

2006

The Beatles “Love” at the Mirage resort and casino in Las Vegas. The first official collaboration with the Beatles since their last public performance on January 30, 1969. It is also the first Cirque du Soleil production that does not incorporate live music, since it uses original Beatles material that was mixed and re-arranged by Sir George Martin and his son Giles Martin.

Delirum, the first Music Concert and arena show production is launched in January of 2006. The concert show was created and directed by Michel Lemieux & Victor Pilon and is full of references to traditional Cirque du Soleil touring shows, visually and musically. Delirum will run for only two years and not continue to tour outside the United States (with the exception of its final performances in London, UK) for unknown reasons.

For the World Out-games 2006 - Cirque du Soleil performs the Hand in Hand Act. The opening ceremonies for the 1st World Out-games with 30,000 spectators was held in Montreal's Olympic stadium on Saturday night July 29, 2006.

2007

After another two years without a new touring show, Kooza, directed by David Shiner, debuted in April in Montreal, Canada. Kooza goes back to the traditional Circus theme and elements.

November 2007, debut of the seasonal resident show Wintuk at the Wamu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY.

The oldest active touring show of Cirque du Soleil, Saltimbanco is converted from a Big Top show to an Arena show. This will allow the show to visit new places where it could not go before, reaching new audiences to capture their imagination.

Cirque presented a 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.

On September 25, 2007 - 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, set a new Guinness World Record™ for the Highest Circus Act ever performed 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.

2008

First resident shows outside the United States opened in Asia. Zaia, a production for the Sands Corp. resort and casino “The Venetian” at the Cotai-Strip in Macao, China and Zed, a production for the Walt Disney resort in Tokyo, Japan. Also launched was the first production that involves a celebrity and star in his own right, the show “Criss Angel – Believe” at the Luxor hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Delirum, which tour ended earlier in 2008, returned, but this time in big-screen format. It is only shown for a few days at selected theatres within the United States in August and once more for another three days during its “Encore” performances in October the same year.

Cirque du Soleil's 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. In the same year, Cirque du Soleil performed during the day-parade, called "Awakening of the Serpent", for the "Water" Expo 2008 in public at the city of Zaragoza in Spain, Europe. Cirque du Soleil also created a special show for this anniversary, which was performed 5 times on three days at the Colisée Pepsi in Québec City. In December,  Cirque du Soleil presented an almost 1 hour long special one-time performance at the "La Notte Bianca" festival and street performances in Lecce, an ancient and annually celebrated event, in Italy, Europe.

2009

The big-top show Alegria is converted to an Arena show, like the other older Cirque du Soleil production “Saltimbanco” a few years earlier. A new touring show with Insects as theme, featuring Brazilian music and vibes, “OVO” premiered in April in Montreal, Canada.

Cirque du Soleil Articles in this Series

• Main Cirque du Soleil Primer Article
• Cirque du Soleil - Historic Time-Line 1984 to Present
• The Cirque du Soleil Story - Odyssea - The dreamer's Odyssey
• Cirque du Soleil Touring Shows (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Resident Shows (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Arena Shows (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Special Events & Performances
• Cirque du Soleil Releases for TV and IMAX
• Cirque du Soleil Documentaries (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil DVD Releases (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Music Releases (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil File Archive (Videos, Audio and Images)

VNV Nation Box Set – Reformation 01

I received today the Reformation 01 box set (limited edition) by my favorite band “VNV Nation” that I pre-ordered at Amazon.com, who still sells it for only $21.xx dollars. (This is not my first exclusive post about VNV Nation. You can check out the other ones to learn more about VNV here and here.)

The limited edition of the Reformation 01 box set by VNV Nation is a real bargain. For little more than the price of a regular album CD you get 2 CD's and a video DVD with 8 tracks recorded at live concerts in Europe (mostly Hamburg, Germany).

Backup Link to Video on Vimeo
Download this video in AVI format in High Definition (1280x720, 81 MB)

Video Notes and Credits: The video above was edited by me and includes snippets from the DVD  that is part of the Reformation 01 box set. It also uses various images that are not part of the box set and video snippets from the viral “Illusion” video with animations by Andrew Huang, which were unfortunately not included in this box set (it would have been the right place for it though :) ). All music by VNV Nation.

I also like to remark that the box set includes the first ever LIVE ALBUM by VNV Nation, so fans who prefer VNV Nation live over the studio recordings (like I do) do not have to fall back on the not 100% legitimate Live album solution by ripping the audio tracks of the previously released Pastperfect Live DVD :). Vnv Nation - Pastperfect Limited Edition.

The latter one was actually suggested by Ronan and Mark from VNV themselves, when I meet them by accident in Berlin and asked them (AGAIN) why there is no VNV Live Album yet. I think I sent them all in all 2 or 3 additional emails before I talked to them in person and after. Well, the message finally “found its way home” hehe.

Ronan Harris, the main guy behind VNV Nation, is very responsive to contact attempts and close to the fans and not such an arrogant and careless asshole like the guys from Depeche Mode (a band that I used to adore for about 20 years of my life :( ). VNV has a MySpace page where you get fresh news and updates via their MySpace blog and also some nice goodies sometimes, like a preview of upcoming CD releases via the MySpace audio player. They did this for this Box Set actually.

 
VNV Nation is also on tour soon. The 2009 tour is called “Faith, Power and Glory”. Some tickets are on sale via Fan Direct sale (cheaper) at a ticket solution that I developed for the most part (and my old company hehe). It’s an older and heavily customized solution, because of it’s unique use for fan direct sales by artists. More tour dates and link to regular ticket purchases are available at this blog post at the VNV MySpace blog.

A new album with the same title as the tour will be released by VNV Nation on June 23, 2009. You can pre-order "Of Faith, Power and Glory" at Amazon.com for only $13.99

Now back to the Reformation 01 box set :)

CD 2 of the set includes in addition to various remixes of known songs also some new material, which was previously unreleased.

Last but not least some comments about the box set itself. It's of high quality, compared to other box sets by other bands that I have seen myself in the past. It also contains a thick booklet that wouldn't fit into a regular CD case. The only bummer here is that the booklet is glued to the box set and thus hard to read in comfort because of the 3 discs next to it (when you unfold the whole set).

You can get a good idea about the quality of the box set by looking at the large version of the product image that was provided by Amazon. Use the zoom feature to get a real close look at the material and the "engraved" VNV Nation logo. That's why is the cover so dark, because it isn't printed color. You can feel it (if you bought it :))

p.s. Yes, the links to Amazon.com are affiliate links and I will get $1 or so commission if you decide to by the set from Amazon, right after you clicked on my link. This is not the reason for this post and if you know me a bit better, you wouldn’t even assume that I would do something like that. But for those folks who don’t know me, be happy about this unnecessary disclaimer and shut up :).

VNV Nation – Reformation 01 – 3 Discs Box Set - Track List

Reformation 01 – CD #1 (the Live Album) 01    Joy              05:24 02    Chrome           04:49 03    Testament        06:22 04    Nemesis          04:37 05    Endless Skies    05:58 06    Farthest Star    05:06 07    Procession       05:26 08    Entropy          05:17 09    Illusion         04:51 10    Arena            05:34 11    Honour 2003      07:06 12    Perpetual        08:47 Note: Sound samples for every track of CD 1 and CD 2 are available for free at the Amazon.com web site.

Reformation 01 – CD #2 (the Remixes) 01  Chrome (27.2 Mhz Remix by Modcom)          06:26 02  Chrome (Sitd Remix)                        04:58 03  Chrome (Apoptygma Berzerk Remix)           04:42 04  Interceptor (ABM Version by VNV Nation)    05:35 05  Nemesis (S.A.M. Remix)                     03:50 06  Carry You (Frozen Plasma Remix)            06:36 07  Still Waters                               07:36 08  Suffer                                     07:00 09  Precipice                                  05:40 10  As it fades (2nd Mvmt. by VNV Nation)      03:31 11  Main Theme (from 'Gene Generation')        02:45 12  Mayhem (from 'Gene Generation')            02:03 13  The Lair (from 'Gene Generation')          02:57 The songs in red are NEW and previously unreleased. I also do not recall the songs from track 10-13, but I wasn’t able to listen to all of them without being distracted to be sure. Well, three new songs as bonus is better than none, but 7 would be more than twice as good hehe.

Reformation 01 – DVD #1 (the Live Videos) 01 Farthest Star     05:15 02 Chrome            04:48 03 Nemesis           06:00 04 Illusion          04:54 05 Homeward          05:42 06 Arena             05:57 07 Honor 2003        06:54 08 Perpetual         08:49 Only Honor 2003 was previously available on DVD Video. It’s a different recording though. A previous live recording of Honor 2003 is one of the hidden “Easter Eggs” of the “Pastperfect” Live DVD. Oops, did I say that out loud? Sorry ;)

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

The Cirque du Soleil Story - Odyssea - The dreamer's Odyssey

Source: Cirque du Soleil

This article is part of my Cirque du Soleil Information Primer article series. See the main article here.

Odyssea - The dreamer's odyssey

The History of Cirque du Soleil in their own words.

The Cirque du Soleil story is about a group of young people who wanted nothing more than the freedom to dream a dream.  Beginning with a street kid from Montreal called Guy Laliberté, it's the tale of individuals who have come forward at special moments in time to move that dream forward, and share it with the world.

1979 - 1980: The inspiration

In the late 1970s, Guy Laliberté attends a concert by Zachary Richard, a musician from New Orleans. The show inspires him to organize a school trip to the city, which proves to be a big success. It's the first time he experiences bringing a group of people together for travel and entertainment, and it sets the teenager on his life path.

Chance encounters occur that will galvanize the still unformulated dreams of the people who are to found Cirque du Soleil.

It is a time of creative ferment and great energy in Quebec that is gathering momentum.

1980 - 1981: Artists gather in Baie-Saint-Paul

Guy Laliberté, barely 20, burns with a desire to entertain and travel. He leaves Montreal for the artist colony of Baie Saint-Paul where he comes together with a group of young street performers who have pooled their talent and dreams and founded “Les Échassiers de Baie-Saint-Paul” (the Baie-Saint-Paul Stiltwalkers).

The stiltwalkers’ group also features fire-eaters, jugglers and other buskers. The group includes Gilles Ste-Croix, who will later become Artistic Director of Cirque until the production of Dralion.

Riding the crest of the Quebec street entertainer movement—on a roll since the mid-70s—a group of young stilt-walkers, fire-eaters and assorted mountebanks is born.

They are loud, eccentric, brash, impossible to avoid.

1981 - 1982: An idea takes form

In 1982, Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix create another association to support their work with the Échassiers de Baie-Saint-Paul: “Le Club des Talons Hauts,” or the High-Heels Club. Through the Club, they decide to organize a street performer's festival, La Fête Foraine de Baie-Saint-Paul. Keeping a neglected tradition alive, they walk on stilts, juggle, and breathe fire to the crowd's obvious delight.

This talented group of young Quebec street entertainers has come together under a lucky star. Although a full two years pass before Cirque du Soleil as we know it today is created, its founders say that it was at that mystic moment in Baie Saint-Paul in 1982 that Cirque du Soleil was conceived.

The aurora borealis hits Baie Saint-Paul on the first day of La Fête Foraine. The sun has set but the sky is streaked with waves of otherworldly light. Green and silver refractions chase each other across the dome of the sky throughout the performance.

1983 - 1984: Cirque du Soleil is born.

In 1984, with the financial assistance of the Quebec government, Cirque du Soleil is officially formed by Guy Laliberté as part of the celebrations surrounding the 450th anniversary of Jacques Cartier's arrival in Canada. Guy is inspired to choose the name by the sun itself, a symbol of youth, energy, power and light.

His goal to bring together creative talent to delight new audiences in new locations takes a bold step forward.Cirque becomes a multicultural gathering point, with performers from Quebec, Belgium, Switzerland and Argentina.

The crazy dreams of a two friends begin to take wing. And maybe those dreams aren't so crazy after all. Maybe this idea about a different kind of circus is something that audiences will respond to. Maybe it will flourish.  Sometimes you just have to trust to fate and follow where your dreams lead you...

Youth, boldness, instinct, vision and a certain zany talent are their stock in trade.

1985 - 1986: Inspiration from abroad.

In 1985, Cirque welcomes Guy Caron as Artistic Director. Guy has toured the world and discovered new trends in live entertainment of all kinds. Cirque experiences a burning desire to return to the circus tradition the esteem and quality it knew at the beginning of the century.

Guy Caron brings in Franco Dragone to teach Cirque artists commedia dell'arte. Inspired by the best of what is happening internationally,  Cirque creates a new theatricality and adopts a vision whereby rules exist only to be broken.Cirque also performs La Magie Continue at the 1986 universal exposition in Vancouver

Guy Caron scours Europe and Asia to cast We Reinvent the Circus. He is looking for new ways of doing things. The mandate is clear: to produce a European-style professional show anchored in acrobatics, with original music and without animals.

From the Chinese we learned about perfecting the blend of presentation, music and choreography--about grace and beauty, gestures and smiles. We drew upon an Impressionistic sensibility, took everything that had existed in the past, and pulled it into today.

1987: Cirque decides to make it or break it in  L.A.

After years of honing its craft across Québec and in cities throughout Canada, Cirque du Soleil mounts We Reinvent the Circus. In 1987, Cirque takes the biggest risk in its history by agreeing to perform at the Los Angeles Festival, without the funds necessary for a return trip.

Its future will depend entirely on being successful in the U.S. market. The gamble pays off. The show is performed in Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Monica to rave reviews. It then successfully tours the U.S. for two years.

Franco Dragoné is now taking on increasing influence directing all major Cirque productions from Nouvelle Expérience to La Nouba.

Cirque du Soleil leaves its home province for the first time in 1985 to take its show to neighbouring Ontario. In 1986, Cirque du Soleil visits eight more cities across Canada, including Vancouver, and holds performances at Expo '86.

"Cirque du Soleil comes to us from Montreal, but surely via the moon or Mars."-S.D., Los Angeles Times

1988 - 1990: Nouvelle Experience:a new level of theatricality

Buoyed by its growing success, Cirque du Soleil begins attracting artists from around the world, particularly Russians whose proud circus and acrobatic tradition makes a valuable contribution. Cirque mounts Nouvelle Expérience, its most successful show yet.

Franco Dragoné becomes Director, pushing Cirque's theatricality to new limits. His impact is enormous: Franco's theatrical vision will inform Cirque's approach for years to come. Key to Franco's indelible stamp will be his successful creative association with set designer Michel Crête and, later, costume designer Dominique Lemieux. They will work together on every show until "O," after which new creators will take up the challenge.

Suddenly it begins to happen. The show, like a reluctant spirit hounded by a posse of mediums, slowly reveals itself. An organic resonance emerges: each act finds its place, a succession of moments as fleeting as they are eternal.

Long before the house lights go down and the excitement begins to build under the Grand Chapiteau, designers and craftspeople have put in months of work behind the scenes to create the perfect costumes and makeup to bring life to a cast of characters.

1990 - 1992: The magic continues: Saltimbanco and more

In the year 1992 alone, Cirque encounters success in Japan with a show called Fascination and kicks off a 12-month engagement in Las Vegas with Nouvelle Expérience at The Mirage Hotel. Then it introduces a new show in Montreal: Saltimbanco. Today, the show is still playing to audiences around the world.As Cirque grows, it benefits from a greater number of artists, performers and creators who bring their own spark to the creative fire.

Saltimbanco is a celebration of life. Designed as an antidote to the violence and despair of the 20th century, this phantasmagoric show offers an alternative view of the urban environment brimming with optimism and joy.

"It is a circus, but then again it's not. Unquestionably, Cirque du Soleil Nouvelle Expérience is a visual and audio mind-twister bent on stir-frying your senses into a frenzy." —Las Vegas Sun

1992 - 1994: Mystère changes Las Vegas

Having seen Cirque in action, the president of Mirage Resorts in Las Vegas, Steve Wynn, makes an offer: why not bring Cirque du Soleil to a permanent installation in Las Vegas? Cirque responds to the challenge of staging a show outside of the traditional big top, and resolves, in its own words, to "plant a flower in the desert."

In 1994, Mystère premieres at the Treasure Island hotel in Las Vegas, setting a new standard and changing the way live entertainment is presented in Las Vegas. Cirque du Soleil celebrates it 10th anniversary by staging Alegría, which premieres in Montreal.

Mystère's message is universal because movement, music and humor are universal. Mystère is so richly diverse that it can be experienced over and over again, every performance revealing something new and extraordinary.

Be obnoxious. Be stupid. Be sweet. Be nasty. Be masculine, feminine, androgynous. Be amazing.

1994 - 1997: New home, new media

Cirque du Soleil now has four shows running: Saltimbanco, Mystère, Alegría, and its newest show, Quidam. Cirque decides that its artists must have a single home in which to gather, create, rehearse, and dream. The Studio, its new International Headquarters in Montreal, is born.

All of the shows will be created and produced in the new facility.The year 1997 sees the birth of a multimedia division, Cirque du Soleil Images, and the release of its first feature film: Alegría.

It's done The move, carried out over three weekends, goes very smoothly, and all employees are now ensconced in the new Studio. A few last-minute adjustments and everyone is able to get down to work.

As its repertoire grows and it moves into new and bigger premises, Cirque’s plans become even more ambitious and audiences flock to the Grand Chapiteaus in ever-greater numbers.

1997 - 1999: New Benchmarks

Inspired by the success of Mystère, Steve Wynn, the president of Mirage Resorts, invites Cirque  to Las Vegas to mount "O" in a specially constructed theatre at the Bellagio Resort. "O" sets a new benchmark for excellence in theatrical entertainment everywhere.After almost 10 years of discussion, Cirque du Soleil finally teams with Disney to present La Nouba in Orlando.

The agreement occurs after direct intervention from Michael Eisner, chairman and CEO of Disney, who concedes to Cirque's long-maintained insistence that it retain creative control. Moreover, a custom-made theatre is built for Cirque’s unique requirements.

Quidam tours North America in 1997, while Saltimbanco ends its two-year European tour at London's Royal Albert Hall and Alegría kicks off its own tour of Europe. Saltimbanco tours Asia and the Pacific in 1999, while Quidam embarks on a four-year European tour.  Starting with Dralion in 1999, new creators like Stéphane Roy and François Barbeau pave the way for Cirque’s continued success.

Cirque’s performances are a unique balance of physical strength, art and beauty.

Audacity is deeply ingrained in Cirque’s culture. With Gilles' historic stiltwalkathon from Baie-Saint-Paul to Quebec City, Guy Caron's artistic instincts, and Guy Laliberté's go-for-broke gambling spirit, it's been there from the beginning. It's stitched into the very fabric of the Grand Chapiteau.

1999 - ?: The dawn of a new era.

Cirque also begins looking beyond live entertainment for new means to share their which wonder, joy and creativity. The team produces Cirque du Soleil Presents Quidam for television, and the IMAX film Journey of Man.Guy Laliberté declares 2001 the beginning of "Cirque du Soleil, Volume 2."

In 2002, Varekai, directed by Dominic Champagne in collaboration with twelve other talented creators, begins its journey. Since its origins, Cirque has been an unique meeting space for more than 50 creators with big dreams. Cirque du Soleil wows its largest audience ever when it presents a one-of-a-kind act at the 74th Annual Academy Awards® in 2002.

In 2003, the television documentary series "Cirque du Soleil Fire Within," an intimate and revealing inside look at the making of a Cirque show, wins an Emmy award plus two Gemini awards. While Quidam tours Japan in 2003, the adults-only show ZUMANITY premieres at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, and Cirque du Soleil Images completes “Solstrom,” a family-oriented TV series that merges acrobatic acts with dramatic comedy.

As the future approaches, Cirque prepares to embark on new projects and connect with new audiences everywhere. Dreams never die. Come along as they take on new forms with us

Final words from Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil

So long as we keep our sense of excitement at discovering new paths, we’ll never lose our determination to share that excitement with every audience, at every performance

Today, we have our place in the sun and a roof over our heads, but once upon a time the street was our home. I would say we took a little dusty carpet and shook it out pretty well We've shown the world that under the dust, something exceptional is coming out of contemporary circus. My mission has not yet been accomplished. I still have a lot of entertaining to do.

For more information about Cirque du Soleil, their shows, their TV productions, their Music, their DVDs and more, check out my Cirque du Soleil Primer article and subsequent articles.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Cirque du Soleil Articles in this Series

• Main Cirque du Soleil Primer Article
• Cirque du Soleil - Historic Time-Line 1984 to Present
• The Cirque du Soleil Story - Odyssea - The dreamer's Odyssey
• Cirque du Soleil Touring Shows (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Resident Shows (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Arena Shows (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Special Events & Performances
• Cirque du Soleil Releases for TV and IMAX
• Cirque du Soleil Documentaries (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil DVD Releases (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil Music Releases (Complete List)
• Cirque du Soleil File Archive (Videos, Audio and Images)

MS DOS Commands, Wild Cards, Input/Output Redirection and Variables

While I was looking for ways to make my life easier by automating things, I rediscovered the MS DOS batch features of the latest MS DOS release and even more extended version of MS DOS for the early Microsoft Windows 32 bit Operating Systems, like Windows 95, Windows CE and Windows 98 (dubbed MS DOS 7).

You can accomplish a lot of things right from the DOS prompt without needing to program fancy Windows Applications or something like that.

Many things where I thought the use of “real” programming languages like Visual Basic or VBScript would be necessary, can be accomplished by using sequences of MS DOS commands in a Batch File (.BAT).

BATCH commands are supported by any Microsoft Windows Operation System right out of the box. You do not have to install anything, not mess around with permissions nor do you require Administrator rights and permission to write, edit or execute batch scripts.

The Basics for Newbies

To learn about the available commands and functions that you can use in BATCH files, open a MS DOS window first. To do that, click on “Start”, then “Run”, type “cmd” and then press the ENTER key on your keyboard.

In the MS DOS window type “help” and then press ENTER. Returned will be a list of commands with a brief description of their purpose right next to each of them. Type “help COMMAND”, where COMMAND stands for any command that was listed by “help”, to get a detailed documentation and description of the individual DOS command. There is actually a BATCH file that was written by Rob Van der Woude, which generates a HTML document from those “help” commands, something like a documentation or reference, if you will. You can download the script source here. Save it as AllHelp.bat and then execute it. When it is done, you should have a new file with the name “allhelp.htm” in the same folder as the batch file itself. You can open the HTML file with any web browser.

That covers the basics. The rest of this post is more advanced and for people who are familiar with the basic MS DOS batch features and syntax.

MS DOS (and Windows) Wild Cards

I will explain the wildcards characters used in MS DOS and also Windows for File and Folder Filtering in commands like the "DIR" command and other file based operations. It causes sometimes for confusion and even confused me that I decided to look it up and also conducted some tests to verify the claims made by various people.

There are two (2) wild card characters that can be used for the file system commands in MS DOS and Windows; the question mark character (?) and the asterix or star character (*).

• ? Matches any single (1) character. It also matches no (0) characters (none), if it is being used in the leading or trailing position of the filter.
• * Matches matches any and no characters, regardless of its position in the filter

Here are some examples to illustrate the subtle nuances between each of the two wildcards.

abc*f   matches abcdf, abcdef and abcf
abc*    matches abc, abcd and abcde
*def    matches def, cdef and abcdef

abc?ef  matches abcdef but NOT abcef
abc?    matches abc and abcd but NOT abcde
?def    matches def and cdef but NOT abcdef (and also NOT bcdef)
??def   matches def, cdef and bcdef but NOT abcdef

File System Commands Input and Output Routing

Placeholders used:

• COMMAND stands for the command line command string, which could be anything from the "DIR *.*" command to "ECHO Hi"
• SRC stands for Source
• DEST stands for Destination
  
• STDIN (0) stands for Standard Input or channel 0
• STDOUT (1)  stands for Standard Output or channel 1
• STDERR (2) stands for Errors or channel 2

STDIN and STDOUT can be various different things, such as:

• NUL = Nothing (usually used for suppressing any output to anywhere)
• CON = Console or Screen
• PRN = Printer (Only works, if a DOS printer is configured on LPT1)
• AUX = Auxiliary
• COM1 ... COM9 = Serial Ports 1 to 9
• LPT1 ... LPT9 = Parallel Ports 1 to 9
• FileName = a File Name, File Path/Location & File Name
• Command = another Command

The character “<” (less than) stands for Input, the character “>” (greater than) stands for Output (with overwrite) and 2x “>” (greater than)  = “>>” also stands for Output, but without overwrite (appending).

COMMAND>DEST redirects the Standard Output of COMMAND to DEST (Overwriting Previous Outputs)
COMMAND>>DEST redirects the Standard Output of COMMAND to DEST (Not Overwriting Previous Outputs)
COMMAND<SRC feeds COMMAND via the Standard Input from SRC

If you redirect the output to a File for example, you maybe noticed that sometimes not everything is being redirected into the file and some output still occurs on the screen. The reason for that is that you only redirect the STDOUT channel, but not the STDERR channel, which some commands and applications actually use for their error messages output. If you want to redirect the STDERR output to the same output channel specified as DEST use the following syntax:

COMMAND>DEST 2>&1

COMMAND output ">" redirect to DEST (STDOUT), "space", 2, which stands for STDERR and ">" redirect to “&1”, which stands for STDOUT. (Update 7/18/2009: I updated the post and fixed a typo that I made before. I entered 2>&0 instead of 2>&1, which would crash the Batch, because you would feed the error messages back as input to the command. I apologize for this error.) 

Variables in MS DOS Batch

The basics are clear to most folks, like setting a new environment variable with Set VARNAME = VALUE, returning the current value of VARNAME via SET VARNAME or using the VALUE of VARNAME via %VARNAME% in the batch script code. Also the use of the runtime generated variables %1 … %X for the command line parameters that were passed to the batch script are basic BATCH script knowledge.

As you know, parameter values that include the space (blank) character, must be enclosed in double-quotes (“) to avoid that the BATCH script will interpret the individual segments before and after a space as separate parameters. For example BATCH.BAT C:\Documents and Settings would result in three (3) parameters in the Batch Script, like:

%1 = C:\Documents
%2 = and
%3 = Settings

You have to enter BATCH.bat “C:\Documents and Settings” instead to have the path only appear as one (1) parameter in the batch, which is accessible via %1. The problem is that %1 will also include the double-quotes, which are not really part of the value that you want to pass. In many cases this does not matter or is even good, if you invoke file commands for example, where the parameter should again be enclosed in double-quotes to work properly.

To remove the enclosing (“) (double-quotes) from a parameter, add the character “~” (tilde) after the “%” (percent) sign. For example: %~1

This does not work for regular environment variables that were created via the “SET” command. The following would not work and error out, if you try to execute it:

SET VAR=”VALUE”
ECHO %~VALUE%

Other characters that require that a parameter value will be enclosed in double-quotes are: &()[]{}^=;!'+,`~

Did you know that %0 also exists? %0 stands for the  command  itself. In the examples above, %0 would return BATCH.bat. Note: Calling the script via the command BATCH without the extension “.bat” is also valid, if no other executable with the same base name exists in the same directory or path (e.g. a BATCH.exe or BATCH.com). If the batch file is executed this way, %0 also would not include the extension and simply return the value BATCH.

The SET Command

Typical use would be this: Set Counter = 0  where the value of “Counter” would then be accessible in the batch script (and beyond!) via %Counter%

Using the parameter /A indicates that the variable has a numeric value and should also be treated as such. This is important if you want to do arithmetic operations with a variable such as: set /A Counter+=1

This is especially powerful in combination with the “Delayed Environment Variables Expansion” feature enabled.
See more about this option further down below.

set /P VARNAME=Prompt_String

Displays “Prompt_Sting”, then waits for user input (in DOS, not a Windows Input Box) and stores the entered value in the variable VARNAME once the user finished his input by pressing the ENTER key.

Arithmetic Operators for the SET Command

()                  - grouping
! ~ -               - unary operators
* / %               - arithmetic operators
+ -                 - arithmetic operators
<< >>               - logical shift
&                   - bitwise and
^                   - bitwise exclusive or
|                   - bitwise or
= *= /= %= += -=    - assignment
&= ^= |= <<= >>=
,                   - expression separator

String Substitutions

%PATH:str1=str2%  = Expands PATH and substitutes any occurrences of str1 with str2

String Offsets

%PATH:~10,5% = Expands Path and use 5 characters of the value from position 11 (offset) only

Left & Right String Functions

%PATH:~0,-2% = Expands PATH and uses all but the last 2 characters of the value

Other system environment variables

Other variables than %PATH%, which I used in the previous examples, which are good to know, but also require that EXTENSIONS were enabled via the SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS command or via cmd.exe parameter.

• %CD% = Path to current directory
• %DATE% = Current Date
• %TIME% = Current Time
• %RANDOM% = Expands to a random number between 0 and 32767
• %ERRORLEVEL% = Returns the current ErrorLevel value
• %CMDEXTVERSION% = Version of the current command processor extensions
• %CMDCMDLINE% = original command line that invoked the command processor

Delayed Environment Variables Expansion

Always disabled by default, but may be enabled/disabled via the /V command line switch (/V:ON; /V:OFF) to CMD.EXE or via the command “setlocal enabledelayedexpansion” at run-time. 

Qlemo pointed out correctly via a blog comment that you can also make a change to the system registry, to enabled delayed expansion of environment variables by default, if CMD.EXE is invoked. This can be set on individual user level (HKEY_CURRENT_USER) or machine wide, for all users (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE).

Key: HKCU or HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor
Value Name: DelayedExpansion
Value (REG_DWORD): hex:0x1 to enable or hex:0x0 to disable delayed expansion.

If you don't know how to change the settings in the registry, never mind, because only experienced users should make modifications to the system registry. Changes to the registry can cause the system to crash and worse.

Disabled delayed variables expansion means that variables will be expanded at the time they are parsed, which is bad, if the value of the variable is supposed to change within the batch script itself. Here is a nice example script to illustrate the different behavior.

   1: set VAR=before

   2: if "%VAR%" == "before" (

   3:     set VAR=after

   4:     if "%VAR%" == "after" @echo If you see this, it worked

   5: )

If you run this, the script should return nothing. The second IF statement never can become true, even though you have the “SET” command right before it that should have changed the variable’s value to make the IF statement true. Why? Because %VAR% was already set to “before” and because of that expands to “before” throughout the entire script. Now add at the very top the line “setlocal enabledelayedexpansion” and run the script again. Now you should get the text “If you see this, it worked” back as a result.

Here is another example of the implication of the “setlocal enabledelayedexpansion”  statement.

   1: set LIST=

   2: for %%i in (*) do set LIST=!LIST! %%i

   3: echo %LIST%

This script will not return the list of all files in the current directory. It will only show one file name of the directory. It would work the same way as if you would have made the FOR command statement to:

for %%i in (*) do set LIST=%%i

Add “setlocal enabledelayedexpansion”  at the top of the script again and run it once more.
Another typical use where enabling delayed expansion is crucial, are Counters and other mathematical operations and manipulation of values during the execution of a BATCH script.

The SHIFT Command

The SHIFT Command is probably difficult to get its head around it. The applications are versatile. Shift basically shifts the sequence of parameters to the left. Parameter 2 becomes Parameter 1, Parameter 1 disappears and Parameter 2 would be empty, unless there is another Parameter 3. This is hard to grasp, so here is a short sample batch that illustrates this behavior.

   1: @echo off

   2: Call :testfn 1 2

   3: goto :EOF 

   4: :testfn

   5: echo 1 = %1, 2 = %2

   6: echo shift

   7: shift

   8: echo 1 = %1, 2 = %2

Results:

 1 = 1, 2 = 2
 shift
 1 = 2, 2 =

There are other variables like the ones starting with 2x “%” like %%a or variables that are enclosed in “!” instead of “%”, like !VARNAME! instead of %VARNAME%, but that would require me to make this post much longer than it already is. Check the help for the “FOR”, “SET” and “CMD” commands to learn more about them.

Additional Resources to BATCH Scripting

• Rob Van der Woude Batch Files Page by Rob Van der Woude
  
• Batch File Examples at DosTip.com
  
• Windows XP Command Line Syntax by Simon Sheppard at SS64.com
  
• DOS Batch Lessons at Allenware.com
  
• Batch Reference at Allenware.com
  
• MS DOS Fasthelp at MS Technet
  
• Collection of BATCH file tools at Bookcase.com
  
• Advanced DOS Batch Pitfalls (article) by expert Qlemo at Experts-Exchange.com

I hope that you find this post of mine useful. Use the comment section below for comments, feedback, suggestions and expressions of appreciation :). Thank you.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

About Cirque du Soleil, the Guinness Book of World Records & a lot of Stilts

Well, the post title is actually very descriptive. This post is about Cirque du Soleil. Adding stilts to the mix should also not be surprising, considering that Cirque du Soleil was founded back in 1984 by a troupe of Stilts Walkers, dubbed the “High Heels Club”. You can now guess What Cirque du Soleil and stilts have to do with the Guinness Book of World Records. Na?  C’mon!   

Okay, I don’t want anybody to die stupid, without knowing the following facts hehe.

Background Information

On June 16, 2004 Cirque du Soleil set a new record for the Guinness Book of World Records when they gathered 544 employees in the Montreal Headquarters and had them stilts walking at the same place, at the same time.

544 folks on stilts is a lot, however, the record only lasted about 2 years, until 2006, when this record was being taken away from Cirque by a group of Japanese folks, who in turn lost their record also in 2008 to 625 youth from Ontario.

So 625 stilts walkers is now the official record and Cirque thought that things are somehow not right. 

2009 marks the 25th anniversary of Cirque du Soleil and they thought that they will be damned, if they will not be able to reclaim the record for them (for pride, honor and as a birthday gift for themselves).

The Upcoming New World Record Attempt

On June 16, 2009, five years after the original record was set, Cirque du Soleil is going to attempt to reclaim their record and will try to have more than 625 stilts walkers, made up of Cirque du Soleil employees from all over the world, walking on their stilts on that day.

In preparation for the employees and to announce to the rest of the world that it would not be Cirque du Soleil, if they would simply watch somebody taking this (for Cirque) important record and be living with it; Management created a casual video and published it on video sharing sites, such as YouTube.

The video explains the record attempt, how the hundreds of stilts are custom manufactured, decoration tips to personalize each set of stilts and a brief 101 on Stilt Walking, including the does and don’ts. 

• Backup Link to Video on YouTube.com
• You can download this video in .AVI format in 480x360 pixels resolution here.

I added to the original video released by Cirque du Soleil a short slideshow at the end with additional photographs from the original world record attempt on June 16, 2004. I also added the Guinness Book image at the beginning of the video :).

I wish them luck with this attempt and hope that they will re-“capture the flag".  

Here are some of the images from the 2004 World Record event in Montreal, Canada. Click on the thumbnail of the image to open the enlarged version of it.

For more stuff about Cirque du Soleil, check out my Cirque du Soleil Primer article and my YouTube channel CirqueDuSoleilGuru.

p.s. I hope you enjoyed the caricature that I made for the occasion :)

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

A Guide to Video & Audio for Microsoft Windows

What is this? Online video is booming and more dads become hobby “Spielbergs” every year. Dropping prices and increasing power and capability of video recording, playing and transmitting equipment is also doing his part to aid this trend.

Chances are good that it happened to you that you received a media file, audio or video from somewhere or someone that you wanted to play back on your computer, but couldn’t. Your friend opened it without problems, but you are getting a cryptic and technical error message instead, with no real solution offered to solve the problem.

If you started doing editing of videos and published your creations on CD, DVD, online or elsewhere, the problems encountered related to compatibility issues of your video and audio data that you are working on, probably increased exponentially compared to the time when you just consumed media.

That was at least what happened to me.

I found myself spending more and more time on solving those issues and less and less time on actually editing and publishing videos. I had to learn more about the subject than I ever wanted to, but I was kind of forced to deal with it anyway. I collected a lot of resources and experiences over the past months and even years and sat down one day to work on a consolidated article, post, guide or whatever you want to call it. Well, here is the result of this work that I actually enjoy: writing (and talking hehe).

I hope that this article and the provided information and resources will help you to solve some of the issues faster than I did and to get a general understanding of the subject in a much shorter period of time. I found many great resources, but none that is like mine. The resources that I found were often very detailed and very much technical, talking about my problems, but providing answers that I did not understand and asked me to do decisions for things where I did not understand the consequences of each choice that I could pick from. I pretty much had to rely on instinct, luck and trial and error, which is not a great way of fixing Windows issues efficiently and absolute.

I try to be more generic and only in a few cases specific, where I think I have to, but in the hope that I already provided enough general information that you got a pretty good idea of what the details mean once we get to them.

Feel free to use the comments to provide feedback, suggestions, praise or ask questions.

Thanks and Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

The Containers - Media Files

A video container contains the video images, the audio and any additional features and content for the presentation of what normal people call “a video”. The additional stuff is often not noticed or believed by many, not part of the video files themselves.

Those things include “closed captions” or “sub titles”, “chapter indexes”, “Menu’s” like DVD menus and “Metadata” like “Genre” tags, “Description”, “Copyright”, “Publisher”, “Author”, “Ratings” etc.

The containers are represented as video files with specific file extensions that helps (more the) users and (less so) the computer to be able to identify the different containers, used for a particular “video”.

 

Container	Name	Parent	Company/Consortium
3GP/3GP2	3rd Generation Mobile	MP4	3GPP/Mpeg
AVI	Audio Video Interleave	AVI	Microsoft
ASF	Advanced Streaming/System Format		Microsoft
DIVX	DivX Media Format		DivX
DV	Digital Video		Sony, JVC, Panasonic
DVR-MS	Microsoft Digital Video Recording		Microsoft
EVO	Enhanced VOB	VOB	Mpeg
FLV	Flash Video		Apple
M2TS/MTS	MPEG-2 Transport Stream 192 B		Mpeg
MCF	BSD/GNU Container		BSD/GNU
MKV/MKA	Matroska Video/Audio		Public Domain
MP4	MPEG-4		Mpeg
MPG/MPEG	MPEG Program Stream		Mpeg
MOV/QT	Apple QuickTime Movie		Apple
NUT	NUT Project/GPL		GPL
OGM/OGG	Ogg Media File		Xiph.org
PS	MPEG-2 Program Stream	MP4	Mpeg
RAT	ratDVD (based on VOB)	VOB	GPL
PVR/DVR	MPEG-2 Transport Stream 188 B, DVR (Digital Video Recorder) PVR (Personal Video Recorder)		Mpeg
RIFF	Resource Interchange File Format (AVI)	AVI	Microsoft/IBM
RM/RM VB	Real Media - Variable Bitrate		Real Networks
TS/TP/TRP	MPEG-2 Transport Stream 188 B	MP4	Mpeg
VOB	Video Object		Mpeg
WMA	Windows Media Audio	ASF	Microsoft
WMV	Windows Media Video	ASF	Microsoft

Container	Video Codecs	Audio Codecs
3GP/3GP2	H.263, H.264, MPEG-4	AMR-NB/WB, (HE-)AAC
AVI	MPEG-4, MJPEG, DV, Cinepak, Indeo	MP3, MP2, AD(PCM), AC3
ASF	Windows Media Video, VC-1, MS MPEG4 v3	Windows Media Audio
DIVX	DivX	MP3, AC3, PCM
DV	DV	PCM
DVR-MS	MPEG-2	MP2, AC3
EVO	H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2	(E)AC3, DTS(HD), PCM
FLV	H.263, H.264, VP6	MP3, AAC, ADPCM
M2TS/MTS	H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2	(E)AC3, DTS(HD), PCM
MCF	various	various
MKV/MKA	H.264, MPEG-4	MP3, AC3
MP4	MPEG-4, H.264	AAC
MPG/MPEG	MPEG-1, MPEG-2	MP2
MOV/QT	H.264, MPEG-4, MPEG-1, MJPEG, Sorenson Video	MP3, AC3, PCM
NUT	Anything	Anything
PS	MPEG-2	MP2, AC3, DTS, PCM
OGM/OGG	Ogg Theora, Xvid	Ogg Vorbis, MP3, AC3
PVR/VDR	MPEG-2, H.264	MP2, AC3
RAT (ratDVD)	XEB	AC3, DTS, PCM, MP2
RIFF	ANI, MPEG-4, MJPEG, DV, Cinepak, Indeo	WAV
RM/RM VB	Real Video	Real Audio, AAC
TS/TP/TRP	MPEG-2, H.264	MP2, AC3
VOB	MPEG-2	AC3, DTS, PCM, MP2
WMA	-	Windows Media Audio
WMV	Windows Media Video, VC-1	Windows Media Audio

Pretty much all containers support directly or via support tools variable audio bit-rates (VBR), variable video frame-rates (VFR) and b-frames.

FLV, MPG/MPEG (and TS) do not support chapters, those containers also do not support subtitles (or only very poorly via workarounds)

Wikipedia – Comparison of Container Formats

The Components

File Sources

Now I mentioned already that a container holds all the pieces together that we call a “video”. Now we have to start taking them apart and enter the dark side of video format land (slowly).

A file source is a special software component that is able to open one or multiple of the mentioned video containers and get them ready to be processed. It can read the header information of the container and check if it makes sense and what criteria the next components would have to meet to be able to process this media file. You already learned that many containers can handle multiple video and also multiple audio encoding formats. 

Let me use a modified version of a classic saying: "Not all .AVI files are made equal". There is usually not just ONE component that can handle ALL of the video formats an AVI container supports. Also, the container contains VIDEO and AUDIO data, which are two entirely different things (technically) that will have to be processed separately. They must be separated, split from one another, which is also referred to as demuxing.

Muxer, Demuxer (Splitter)

Let’s start it easy and separate just the Audio, Video.

Several of the media containers also support other types of data that are related to the video and/or audio content. Also more than one instance of each media type is possible. A good example is the audio selection on a DVD. Most DVD movies offer a choice of spoken languages and sound quality, such as Stereo, Surround Sound and Dolby Digital. Also available are typically a set of different languages for the sub titles or closed captions for the hearing impaired folks out there.

Captions/Sub Titles, Meta Data and Menu’s are still not unimportant, but less of a problem in my opinion. So I decided to move them to the end. Hey, that does not make me intolerant towards people who are impaired in their hearing. I am a collector junkie myself and love Meta Data.

The file source component that I mentioned before is often part of a splitter/demuxer, which does make sense. A file source already has to know the format of the container. It's from there only one more logical step to take the parts of the media content in the container and pass them over to the right next component to process it. 

The reversed process of the splitting of the content in a media container (demuxing) is the combining of the various parts that need to go into a container and wrap them together to generate a single file that has all the video and audio data etc. in it. This process is being called "muxing" and the component that does this is referred to as a Muxer. The muxer receives the data from the counter part where the demuxer passes the different data streams to.One gets the audio to deal with, the other one the video and maybe another one to take care of the closed captions. The Demuxer passes the data to a "Decoder", while the "Muxer" would receive its data from an "Encoder". An Encoder/Decoder or both is referred to as a Codec.

Codec

The word codec is short for compressor/decompressor but also referred to as encoder or decoder.

Codecs are in many cases not bound to a specific container, which does not make things easier and only more confusing, especially, if you consider the amount of Codecs and their variations that exist. A codec can be a hardware or software component, but in our case are only the software Codecs of importance.

That component can compress and/or decompress video using a particular compression algorithm.

Since all those Codecs and containers must be defined somewhere that the computer system and software can find out what it needs in order to provide/play back all the elements that make up your “video”. You probably noticed all the “aka” and “/” usages for the same or very similar thing. It’s a mess!

The codec tweaking tool GSpot Version 2.7 knows about 749 different FourCC video Codecs and 247 different audio compression Codecs. That gives you an idea about the scope of the problem. This does not even include any special filters, splitters, file sources; renderers and all that other stuff that is part of the system, playing a role in the process of bringing up the video from a file on your screen and the audio out of your speakers.

FourCC

To help the computer a little bit with making sense out of things, a system was devised that is called FourCC or 4CC, which means literally “four character codes”. The folks from the video game development company Electronic Arts introduced what is considered the father of the FourCC concept, called IFF (Standard for Interchange Format Files) in 1985 for the Commodore Amiga line of computers (“EA IFF 85”).

A simplified definition for 4cc could be: Every media component format will be assigned a unique 4 character code, which will be included in the media data itself, that apps and systems can look at a specific place in the media data to find out what format the data is in. It can then simply check, if it has the information for the format that is labeled with that 4 character code or not. If it does not, it will return an error and tell the system or user that it requires the specifications for that format to understand the structure and layout of the data in order to be able to process them properly (e.g. show images from your last vacation instead of a bunch of colored dots that look more like works by Escher).

A good list with Codecs, their FourCC designation, company name and website URL is available at FOURCC.ORG. 

The words “Filter” and “Codec” are unfortunately often used beyond their actual meaning, which only adds to the whole confusion even more. A “DirectShow Filter” might be a Codec, a file source, a splitter, a muxer, a renderer or maybe actually just a filter. The term Codec might be used in the same fashion, but usually implies that the actual encoding and/or decoding piece, is at least part of the software package. For example, if you download the DivX Codec from the DivX website, you get more than just the encoder or decoder, even more than the stuff that is needed by Windows to encode and create or decode and render videos using the DivX video compression algorithm. It comes with players, a converter, statistics and configuration tools along with it.

Why Do We Need All This in the First Place?

Video data are nice, but also have a flaw: they are huge and eat up a lot of space, so much space that it is even with today’s low hard disk cost and higher available bandwidth not feasible to work with raw video data all the time. Codecs reduce the size of video and audio in a flick significantly. There are a number of different algorithms out there and used for the compression, each with their own pros and cons. Some compress higher with less loss of quality, but suck up a lot more resources and demand much more powerful hardware to decode the flicks again for presentation that not all hard and software is able to support them yet, compared to other Codecs, that might not be as good with compression and loss of quality, but are faster and require much less computing power to do something with the crunched data files.

But it is also true that competition, patents and commercial interests play a significant part in this game as well. It does not have to be that messy as it is today.

Most popular Codecs on the Internet

(based on Codecs Database)

I will not mention every of the over 1000 or so video and audio codecs that exist. I will reduce it to one a few that are popular online and offline and cover well over 90% of the entire spectrum. 

Some Video Codecs

MPEG-1/MPEG-2

The video codecs used for standard DVD Video and VCD/SVCD. Typical file formats have the extensions: .VOB

or .MPG/.MPEG.

MPEG-4 Part 2

Most .AVI  files on the internet are using one of the following two video codecs, the commercial DivX video codec (4CC codes: DIVX, DX50, DIV3, DIV4 and DIV5)  and the open source Xvid codec (4CC: XVID, sometimes also xvid or Xvid, which should not but unfortunately does matter some times, if a software component is case-sensitive. I bitched about that elsewhere already).

Xvid is able to process many of the different versions of DivX, except for the really early ones

MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding)

.MP4 files and newer Apple QuickTime .MOV files (4CC: AVC1). You can rename a MOV file to MP4 for example, if a program causes trouble when you want to load a MOV file with it and it might does the trick for you.  Typical are H.264 format based codecs, like the open source X.264 codec  (4CC: X264) or the commercial Dicas H.264 codec (4CC: DAVC)

QuickTime Movies

.MOV (also .QT) files from Apple. The latest versions use the H.264 format, but Apple used in the past a propriatory format (4CC: SV10) and then versions of the Sorenson Video Quantizer  video codec (4CC: SVQ1 or SVQ3), with it's version 3 being already a variation of the H.264 format to make it the next logical step  for Apple and it's QuickTime product to use a standard video format and not continue with its own.

Flash Video

Probably mostly because of the popularity of YouTube who uses Flash Video for showing movies on its social video sharing platform and the general popularity of using Flash for video on the Web, .FLV transformed from exotic video format to a format most internet users are familiar with.

Flash 7 uses the Sorenson Spark video codec (4CC: SPRK) and Flash 8 the On2 VP6 codec (4CC: VP60)

Windows Media

Microsoft developed their own video and audio codecs, which are known as Windows Media Video and Windows Media Audio. They are used in the media containers WMV and WMA and ASF for streaming. 

Real Media

Like Microsoft, Real Network, the giant content portal on the Internet, developed their own video and audio codecs (4CCs: RV20, RV30, RV40). The .RM (real video) and .RA (real audio) file format is still the primary format for Real Networks Real Player. Real Video became popular because it was one of the first video formats that could be streamed over the Internet.

Some Audio Codecs

MPEG-1 Layer 3

Simply known as MP3 is the most known and used audio format today. Part of the credits for making it as popular as it is today would probably have to go to the former file sharing peer-to-peer network Napster and of course to Apple iTunes and their iPod portable MP3 audio player. It was developed by the Frauenhofer Institute in Germany and also made head-line new with it's patent disputes and lawsuits in the early 1990s.

(AD)PCM

Raw WAV files are usually encoded in PCM format. 

AC3

Better known as Dolby Digital (5.1). The popular sound format used on many DVD movies for high quality surround sound at home and at movie theaters. 

MPEG Audio (AAC)

AAC stands for Advanced Audio Coding and was meant to be the successor of MP3. It is today in wide spread use, for example in iPhones, iPods (and iTunes now) or the Sony Playstation 3 game console.

DTS (AC)

You probably know DTS from the sound options of many DVDs. DTS is a common alternative audio format, competing with Dolby Digital. DTS stands for Digital Theatre System -  Coherent Acoustics if spelled out. Similar to Dolby Digital 5.1, but some say that it is slightly better that 5.1. Mh. :) 

I mentioned Windows Media Audio already. 

Filters

There are multiple meaning of the word "filter" in video land. In DirectShow (see further down below), every component is called a "Filter", independently from it's function and purpose. So a DirectShow Filter could be a File Source, a Splitter, Encoder/Decoder (Codec), Renderer or actually a Filter in the true sense of the word.

A Filter in traditional terms is a component that alters the video or audio stream. Classic filters that you probably used yourself every time when you edited a video, sound or picture, without knowing that you used one. PhotoShop users will smile now, because they should have a pretty good idea of what is coming now.

If you resize a video for example, or change it's contrast, brightness, saturation, hue, color encoding, number of colors, or turn color video images to gray-scaled ones, deformations, slicers, blenders, mixers, volume adjustments, normalizers etc. etc. All those functions are performed by Filters. Something goes in, gets manipulated and then comes out and hopefully enhanced on the original output as we wanted it to do.

Renderers

Renders are responsible for the output of the video and/or audio stream data to a device that is capable of displaying or playing back the content, such as the video card that then renders the images on to your computer screen or display or to the sound card, which feeds your side speakers or your receiver and then out of your high-end speaker system that you can listen to the sounds and voices of the audio or video file.

Streaming

Streaming is only a special form of rendering that requires that the video data are rendered fast enough to allow the play back of the audio or video in real time, without the need to download the whole video or audio before I play it back. You might think that this is the normal way of doing it, but if you ever converted a video to a DVD or a DVD movie (e.g. MPEG-2/PCM) to a MP4 video file (e.g. H.264/AC3) for example then you probably know that this process takes still longer than the video material itself is long. A 90 minutes movie takes usually more than 90 minutes to re-code/convert from one media type/format to another. The conversion of a video file to HD DVD (such as Blu Ray) can take many hours or days, depending on the hardware equipment used for the conversion.

That is not an option for streaming, especially if the video is streamed while the content is being generated/recorded, such as a Live Event Broad Cast. You don't want to wait to see today’s ball game tomorrow, because it takes a day to recode the video images that you can watch it on your computer or TV, right?

Not all video formats can be streamed and the ones that can, need to be transmitted to the receiver in an optimized way to ensure that the video stream is constant to guarantee fluid video images and flawless sound. For the transmission of the video and audio data are different streaming protocols used, like RTSP, PNM, MMS  or HTTP.

Components Wrap Up

Now you have all those components and elements in the process and all these different methods and formats where non of them just by itself is anything but easy to do. It is already hard enough to get all those things work together in unison and as a whole that the least thing you would want to do is adding another layer of complexity to it and makes things even more complex than they already are, right? Yeah, sure, common sense tells you that this is probably a good idea, but since when was common sense applied to the real world? Think about it!

DirectShow (DS) - Filters, Video for Windows (VfW)

Now Microsoft thought that it could make things even messier… Aehm, I mean improve on them. But I will repeat what they say themselves in the introduction to their “Microsoft DirectShow 9.0 System Overview” at MSDN.Microsoft.com.

The Challenge of Multimedia

Working with multimedia presents several major challenges:

Multimedia streams contain large amounts of data, which must be processed very quickly.

Audio and video must be synchronized so that it starts and stops at the same time, and plays at the same rate.

Data can come from many sources, including local files, computer networks, television broadcasts, and video cameras.

Data comes in a variety of formats, such as Audio-Video Interleaved (AVI), Advanced Streaming Format (ASF), Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), and Digital Video (DV).

The programmer does not know in advance what hardware devices will be present on the end-user's system.

The DirectShow Solution

DirectShow is designed to address each of these challenges. Its main design goal is to simplify the task of creating digital media applications on the Windows® platform, by isolating applications from the complexities of data transports, hardware differences, and synchronization.

To achieve the throughput needed to stream video and audio, DirectShow uses DirectDraw® and DirectSound® whenever possible. These technologies render data efficiently to the user's sound and graphics cards. DirectShow synchronizes playback by encapsulating media data in time-stamped samples. To handle the variety of sources, formats, and hardware devices that are possible, DirectShow uses a modular architecture, in which the application mixes and matches different software components called filters.

DirectShow provides filters that support capture and tuning devices based on the Windows Driver Model (WDM), as well as filters that support legacy Video for Windows (VfW) capture cards, and codecs written for the Audio Compression Manager (ACM) and Video Compression Manager (VCM) interfaces.

The following diagram shows the relationship between an application, the DirectShow components, and some of the hardware and software components that DirectShow supports.

The “simple” concept of DirectShow by Microsoft illustrated

The DirectShow API media-streaming architecture was introduced with the DirectX SDK for 32Bit Windows operating systems. If you remember Windows 95 and 98 and played some games on it, then you will remember that DirectX was always required and the minimum version needed to run the game was even shipped with the setup CD-Rom’s for the games and part of the setup process.

The DirectX SDK kind of died as a package with versions etc. The last DirectX version released was a DirectX 9.0 update from February 2005. DirectShow was moved to the Windows SDK. Windows 2003 Server and Vista are the first systems where only the Windows SDK is used and no DirectX anymore.

DirectX was the successor of Video for Windows (VFW), which was introduced in 16-bit Windows (Windows 3.0, 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups). For backwards compatibility reasons to be able to run 16-bit apps under 32-bit Windows, do the 32-bit OS versions of Microsoft support VFV.

But, they did not leave VFV completely alone. Starting with DirectX, many of the VFV features were suppressed, causing incompatibility issues for some 16-bit video applications, if used in Windows 32-bit. They launch and kind of work, but at the same time not really, at least not as expected and most of the time wanted.

Getting your computer to process any type of video with the application that uses DirectShow or VFV does not make things work for applications, which uses the other model. This can get funny and made me scratch my head more than once. Phenomena like player X can play back a video in format Y after you installed an add-on (probably a Codec), but player Z remains unable to do anything with that video.

One uses VFW and the other DS. Both are separate frameworks and each must be supported specifically by any component that is part of your video experience. Some applications support both, but most use either one or the other only.

Because of this mess, do some applications do not use either of those systems and use their own system to process video data. Those applications are limited to what they come with and support themselves. Some allow third parties to create plug-ins to support additional Codecs and file formats. Nullsoft’s Winamp Player would be a popular example for this approach.

DirectShow is like Lego with all the same great attributes and possibilities and virtually the same flaws as well, because of these great possibilities. If you ever owned Lego and played with it, chances are that you owned more than one set. You probably also mixed the parts of different sets and did not keep them separate. With the time became it harder to get original sets together again, because the manual got lost and you had to start guessing which part goes were and was part of a specific set or not. Also parts got lost some times. You had to improvise, and substitute things, which was only possible to a limited amount, because you had to make sure that the parts fit.

The process is virtually the same with DirectShow. A set would be a video file for example that you want to play back with a DirectShow enabled video player, such as Windows Media Player. The components of the set are actually mini-sub-sets itself, like a set in Lego that was part of a theme, e.g. modern city or the knights theme. Imagine having other players coming and using your sets and/or bring some new sets or even modify some of the sets that you already built, because they did not like the way you did it.

Those other players can be any video related software (big app to small tool) that is using DirectShow. Even a small and not very important tool that you want to use for splitting a video into multiple pieces for example, might messes things up or cause the system do things different that it used to before. Stuff is most of the time changed without warning.

I do not have an answer to the problem, that you cannot sit down, make everything work the way you like and then keep it forever. I can only say that if you got everything to work how you need it, be careful what software you install in the future and leave settings related to video and audio alone.

And to make thinks even more interesting for the future, Microsoft decided to introduce yet another system to the mix with their upcoming operation system version dubbed Windows 7 with the bright and shiny name:

Windows Media Foundation. "It will make everything better, promise". It sure will. The only question remains is for whom it does. Mhh?!

Video Tools

Splitter/Joiner

There are also video and audio file splitter tools that do what their name implies. They let you slice up a video or audio file into multiple pieces (splitter) or combine multiple video or audio files into a single file (joiner). You cannot simply cut a video or audio file into pieces or copy different media files together (like with the binary copy command in DOS).

Media files have a header, data at the beginning of the file, which are crucial that media players are able to play them. A missing or corrupt header can make the entire media file unusable und unplayable. If you simply cut a file in half, then you would end up with one file that has now incorrect information about the media file and a second one with no information at all. Individual video frames also have multiple components and a header. If it is a compressed video file (what typically all video files that are used by regular users are), then it is even more complicated, because some frames are needed to render a bunch of other frames, so called key frames.

Cutting a file into pieces without considering all this factors would be like going to a butcher and have him cut the next best piece of a cow when you order X pounds of steak. No pretty picture, but I hope that you get the idea.

Cutting a media file into pieces is generally easier than joining them together (as with almost everything else in life, taking things apart is easier than putting them back together). As long as the Cutter tool knows the file format structure and knows where to cut and to rebuild the file header, things will be fine. If they are not recoding the slices in the process, cutting is also done pretty fast.

Joining files is tougher, unless you want to re-join the pieces that you just created with your cutter. This is rarely the case though. If you only want to slice a media file up for storage and transportation, because the media file is too large, then you should not use a media cutting tool in the first place. Breaking it up with your backup software or with tools like ZIP, RAR, ACE, HJSplit or MasterSplitter will do just fine.

Simpler joiner tools are only able to combine media files that have exactly the same format. When I say exactly, then I mean more than just having the same file extension. The to-be-joined files must be compressed with the same video and audio Codecs and also settings that determine the video and audio quality, such as Bit Rate, Frame Rate, Sampling Rate and Resolution have to be identical. If this is the case, the joiner only has to re-create the information and not to re-encode any audio or video data.

More sophisticated joiners are a bit more flexible and will make adjustments to the source media in order to be able to join them. Some even re-encode the whole video and audio and work like converter, compositing and rendering tool all-in-one. If the joiner has to re-encode anything, then the process can take considerably more time, but it provides the most flexibility regarding the video and audio sources that can be combined together, even allowing the joining of media in entirely different formats.

To join .AVI files that are in the same format, you can use the free tool VirtualDub. You can also use free compositing tools like Windows Moviemaker (also free), or professional software, like TechSmith Camtasia Studio, Adobe Premiere, Pinnacle Avid, Ulead Video Studio (now Corel) etc., but there you have to re-encode the results every time, regardless if it would be necessary or not.

There are many commercial tools available. I can recommend the Splitter and Joiner tools from Boilsoft, because they are very universal and support various video file formats, including .AVI, .WMV, .ASF, .RM and .MPG. They cost about $50 together and you can test them free for a few days before you have to decide whether you want to buy them or not.

The Video Joiner by ImToo is more flexible and re-codes the source video files to the format that you select and only cost $19, with a free trial period to test it yourself.

Resources

The drops of water on the hot stones in the video & audio encoding and decoding desert. Some drops might vaporize away without quenching your thirst, while others might provide just the little bit of water that you need to survive another day in this desert. :)

Codec Packs

It became clear to geeks and people with a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the subject matter that this is not something that you can expect from a normal user to deal with. A large number of people would probably not understand it and an even larger number of people do not even want to understand it to begin with. I belong to the second group that is not a part of the intersecting set with the first group. I just want to watch and edit a movie, that’s it.

The market failed, the competition lead to incompatibility issues and conflicts and the need to spend the equivalent of a college education in time and resources in order to be able to talk the talk and blame it on the other party.

Ordinary people stepped up and developed tools and build packages, most of the time absolutely free, that other people can download and install, to make many of the things work that usually do not, or at least make the problems smaller and easier to deal with.

They are called Codec Packs and are a collection of containers, Codecs, filters and tools that are pre-configured to work together and as many as possible components compatible to each other.

The problem is that Codec Packs, if not done right, can help making things worse. Some packs also think that doing their own thing, ignoring any other standards and best practices, creating their own little island is the solution to the problem. This lead to hate and love that you will get exposed to, if you are doing some of your own research on this subject. Some despise them, some hate them, others love them and calling them saviors. 

To sum it all up, Codec Packs might not a quick and general applicable solution to a wide spread problem as they tried to went out to become. From what I heard from "experts", other geeks and based on some experiences that I made myself with those packs, there are only a few that I would recommend. 

Some of the biggest and popular Codec Packs include:

• K-Lite Codec Pack (KLCP) – provides different packs with different configurations for the different types of users out there. They also have pages with name, brief description and download link for circa 300 video and audio Codecs, filters, splitters, Muxers and De-Muxers etc.
• Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP) is the pack that is praised the most (or hated the least) by people who call themselves expert in this subject. I was okay with it, but personally preferred K-Lite.

Other Codec Packs
Please use with Caution and check first, if they offer everything that you need, before you install them.

• Windows Essential Codec Pack (W.E.C.P.) 
• Cole2k Media - Codec Pack
• Gordian Knot Codec Pack
• MediaCoder Pack
• X-Codec Pack

Special Players and Codecs

• QuickTime Alternative
• RealPlayer Alternative
• nLite Windows Installation Customizer
• WMLite, TTPack and QTLite for light-weight versions of Windows Media Player, Apple QuickTime, Real Networks Real Player, FFdshow, Ogg and AC3
• Media Player Classic (MPC) and VobSub
• DirectShow FilterPack (DSFP)

I don't use codec packs today anymore. I install and deal with codecs one-by-one. This is probably the best way to go in the long ground, once you are familiar with the various available options out there and know what you need for your own purposes. The needs of video creators and consumers are not alway the same. I am both and experienced this first hand myself.

Info and Help Resources to Audio & Video

• http://www.doom9.org/
• http://www.videohelp.com/
• http://www.free-codecs.com/
• http://www.codecguide.com/

Advanced: Tools you got to have

Only for the geeks out there, tools to tweak and troubleshoot codec and filter related issues and tools to fix them as well.

• Media Info Lite
• Graph Edit
• GraphEditPlus  (commercial software, $60)
• GSpot Codec Appliance
• AVICodec 
• RadLight Filter Manager
• DirectShow Filter Manager
• Codec Tweak Tool (part of the K-Lite Codec Pack) 
• Sherlock - The Codec Detective
• WinXP Decoder Check  (alternative download)
• VirtualDubMod
  - DirectShow Input Driver for VirtualDub
  - VirtualDub MPEG2 
• MP3Tag
• abcAVI
• aviUtl

Codec Lists and Databases

• Codec Library
• Codecs Database
• Codecs.com
• abcAVI Codecs List
• Codecs Wiki at Multimedia.cx
• FourCC.org

Acronyms and Definitions

Source: http://www.fourcc.org/

Acronym	Definition
ACM	"ACM" files, also known as "Audio Converter Modules", are audio codec drivers installed on your system which export methods that can be performed on a particular audio stream. This includes converting audio from one type of stream to another. An example of this is perhaps an MP3 ACM which could convert MP3 audio to PCM audio.
ATSC	Advanced Television Standards Committee. The technical group that defined the high definition TV standard for US terrestrial transmission.
AVC	Advanced Video Codec. Otherwise known as MPEG4, part 10 this is the codec that most of the worlds broadcasters are moving to for HD transmissions.
AVI	Audio Video Interleave - a Windows file format used to store movies.
Codec	CODEC stands for COmpressor/DECompressor - a software or hardware component that can compress and/or decompress video using a particular compression algorithm. Though CODECS are generally thought of in the context of video and audio, they are not limited to this scope.
FOURCC	Four Character Code - an 8 digit (or 4 ASCII character) value used to identify the pixel format or compression standard (codec) used to store images or video files. FOURCCs are also used for a similar purpose in some audio applications.
HD	High Definition. This refers to a video picture size higher than SD (see below) and typically one of the set of resolutions defined by ATSC such as 1080i (1920x1080), 720p (1280x720) or 480p (720x480).
JPEG	Joint Photographic Expert Group. The standards group that defined the hugely successful JPEG still image codec.
MPEG	Motion Pictures Expert Group. The clever people who brought you the entire ISO standard Codecs that are used in TV broadcast today.
NTSC	National Television Standards Committee. The group which defined the 480 (visible) line video standard used for analog and pre-HD digital TV transmissions in the USA.
PCM	PCM is Pulse Code Modulation. This is basically an audio format that is pretty much "raw" audio. This is generally the format that audio hardware directly interacts with. Though some hardware can directly play other formats, generally the software must convert any audio stream to PCM and then attempt to play it. An analog audio stream generally looks like a wave, with peaks and valleys that are called its amplitude. These are generally sent to the audio hardware and are then digitized. The conversion basically samples this data stream at a given frequency such as 8000Hz, etc. This sampling will generally measure the voltage passing through so many times a second and generate a value based upon this. Remember, Im not an audio engineer so this is just a simplistic way of thinking about this. The PCM format, for example, I believe the base line is either 127 or 128 (in 8 bits per sample). This is the middle, silence. Anything going below is a low tone and above is a higher tone. If you take a bunch of these values and play them at a certain speed, they will make a sound.
RGB	Red Green Blue - a method of describing colors commonly used in PC graphics.
SD	Standard Definition. The size of a typical video image for a "legacy" TV system. In the US, this will typically describe an image with 480 lines (and one of a number of widths, 720 being the maximum, 480, 640 and 704 being other common choices). In Europe (and other areas which use PAL TV standards), SD refers to an image with 576 lines of resolution.
YCrCb	Color format typically used in video processing. A color is defined in terms of a luminance (Y, brightness) value and two "color differences" or chrominance values (Cr and Cb). One correspondent indicates that Y, R and B likely refer to primary colors yellow, red and blue and "C" indicates a color difference.
YIQ	YIQ is another color format and another way of defining a color and is commonly used in NTSC video systems as far as I can remember.
YUV	YUV also describes a luminance/chrominance color model. This is frequently used interchangeably with YCrCb though, technically, they are different.

Some Handy BATCH and VB Scripts for Organizing Files

Here are four scripts and batch files that come in handy sometimes when you organize or clean-up files and folders on your hard disk. You can use the provided scripts as you see fit. They are provided “as is” and are not supported. Also be aware that I will not take any responsibility for any damage or harm that the scripts might cause. You use them at your own risk. You are free to use, copy, modify and delete them (Freeware).

Move Files to Sub Folders Alphabetically

The simple batch script creates the sub folders A, B, C, D … Z and 0-9 in the current directory where the batch is executed and moves all files in that same directory to the corresponding sub folder.

For example, all files starting with “a” or “A”, like “Anna.zip” or “achim.gif”, will be moved to the sub folder “A”. All files that do not start with a letter from the English alphabet, such as numbers (“0", “1” … “9”), special characters like “!”, “_”, “$” etc. and foreign characters like “ä” or “é” are moved to the sub folder “0-9”

I wrote in march a post about organizing file collections on your computer and provided also some scripts to help you sort and catalog files. I found a much simpler way of doing the same stuff as the batch script “!organize.bat” and the VBScript script “!folders.vbs”. It does not replace the script “!dirlist.vbs”, which creates the file index. If you want to use “!dirlist.vbs” with this new and shorter script to move files into sub folders by alphabet, simply add the following line of code after line 7 (after “Move * 0-9” and before “goto :EOF”):

wscript !dirlist.vbs

This batch also does one thing slightly different. It moves to the sub folder “0-9” not just files that start with a number, but also all other files that do not start with a letter from the English alphabet.

MoveToAlphabetSubFolders.bat

   1: @echo off

   2:  

   3: for %%f in (a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0-9) do Call :MoveFiles "%%f"

   4: goto :EOF

   5:  

   6: :MoveRest

   7: Move * 0-9

   8: goto :EOF

   9:  

  10: :MoveFiles

  11: if NOT EXIST %1 MD %1

  12: if %1==0-9 Goto :MoveRest

  13: for %%f in (%1*) do move "%%f" %1

Remove Empty Folders and Sub Folders

This little batch file scans the directory that was provided as a parameter and all its sub-directories for empty folders and deletes them, including the provided folder itself, if it is empty as well (or became empty after all empty sub-folders were removed).

RemoveEmptySubFolders.bat

   1: @echo off

   2: set Folder="%~1"

   3: if %Folder%=="" @echo Syntax RemoveEmptySubFolders Folder&goto :EOF

   4: if not exist %Folder% @echo Syntax RemoveEmptySubFolders Folder - %Folder% not found.&goto :EOF

   5: setlocal

   6: :: REMOVE EMPTY SUBFOLDERS

   7: for /f "tokens=*" %%A in ('dir /ad /s /b %Folder% ^|Sort /Reverse') do (

   8:  RmDir "%%A" 2>NUL

   9: )

  10: :: REMOVE FOLDER, IF EMPTY

  11: RmDir %Folder% 2>NUL

  12: endlocal

Move Files to Folder and Auto Rename Duplicates

This tool requires Windows Script.

This little VBScript moves all files from the source folder, including all files from it’s sub folders to the specified target folder and renames files, if a file with the same name already exists at the destination directory. The rename also works, if you have several files with the same name (such as a file with the same name in several sub directories of the source folder). The renamed file is named FILENAME[X}.EXT, where X starts with 1 and increments by 1 if already another file with the same name exists. For example

1. Source Dir\file.zip
2. Source Dir\Sub Folder1\file.zip
3. Source Dir\Sub Folder2\file.zip

would be moved and renamed to “Target Dir” like this

1. Target Dir\file.zip
2. Target Dir\file[1].zip
3. Target Dir\file[2]/zip

If you specify the target directory to be the same as the source directory, the script will automatically ignore the files in the source directory root and only process the files in the source directories sub folders. This feature is quite nice, if you want to consolidate all files in a directory tree in the root directory of the tree itself.

If you run the script without any parameters, you will be asked to first specify the location of the source directory (it will show as default value the path to the current directory where the script was executed) and then the target directory (it will show as default value to parent directory of the entered source directory).

Execution of the script without any parameters:

Wscript.exe MoveFilesAutoRenDup.vbs

You can also provide the source and also the destination directories as parameters to the script and you won’t be prompted to enter one anymore.

Execution of the Script with source and destination directory provided as command line parameters:

Wscript.exe MoveFilesAutoRenDup.vbs X:\SOURCEFOLDER X:\DESTINATIONFOLDER

MoveFilesAutoRenDup.vbs

   1: Dim FSO: Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

   2: Dim arguments: Set arguments = Wscript.arguments

   3: Const ForAppending = 8, ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2

   4: Dim iFilesCount: iFilesCount  = 0

   5: Dim  sSrc, sDest, DC, sExt, sBase, oFOld

   6: Dim sTo, sFrom

   7:  

   8: if arguments.unnamed.count = 0 then

   9:   sFrom = "N*A"

  10:   Do While sFrom <> "" and FSO.FolderExists(sFrom) = false

  11:   sFrom = InputBox("Move All Files and Auto Rename " & _ 

  12:           Dupes","Enter Source Directory" & _

  13:           ": ", fso.GetAbsolutePathName("."))

  14:   Loop

  15:   if sFrom = "" then

  16:      WScript.Quit(1)

  17:   End if

  18: else

  19:   sFrom = arguments.unnamed.Item(0)

  20: end if

  21: if not FSO.FolderExists(sFROM) then

  22:    WScript.Quit(2)

  23: end if

  24:  

  25: if arguments.unnamed.count = 1 then

  26:   sTo="N*A" 

  27:   Do While sTo <> "" and FSO.FolderExists(sTo) = false

  28:   sTo = InputBox("Move All Files and Auto Rename Dupes","Source Directory: " & _ 

  29:         vbcrlf & sFrom & vbcrlf & "Enter Destination Directory" & _

  30:         ": ", FSO.GetParentFolderName(sFrom))

  31:   Loop

  32:   if sTo = "" then

  33:      WScript.Quit(1)

  34:   end if

  35: else

  36:   sTo = arguments.unnamed.Item(1)

  37: end if

  38: if not FSO.FolderExists(sTo) then

  39:    WScript.Quit(2)

  40: end if

  41:  

  42: Set oFold = FSO.GetFolder(sTo)

  43: if lcase(sTo) <> lcase(sFrom) then

  44:   ShowFiles oFold.Path

  45: end if

  46: ShowSubFolders oFold

  47:  

  48: Wscript.echo iFilesCount  & " files moved"

  49: '========================================

  50: Sub ShowSubFolders(Folder)

  51:   Dim SubFolder

  52:   For Each Subfolder in Folder.SubFolders

  53:     ShowFiles Subfolder.Path

  54:     ShowSubFolders Subfolder

  55:   Next

  56: End Sub

  57: '----------------------------------------

  58: Sub ShowFiles(sPath)

  59:   Dim oFile, oFolder

  60:   iFolderCount = iFolderCount + 1

  61:   Set oFolder = FSO.GetFolder(sPath)

  62:   iFilesCount = iFilesCount + oFolder.Files.count

  63:   For each oFile in oFolder.Files

  64:     sDest = FSO.BuildPath(sTo, oFile.Name)

  65:     sExt = FSO.GetExtensionName(sDest)

  66:     sBase = left(oFile.Name,len(oFile.name)-len(sExt)-1)

  67:     DC = 1

  68:     Do While FSO.FileExists(sDest) = true

  69:       DC = DC + 1

  70:       sDest = FSO.BuildPath(sTo, sBase & "[" & DC & "]." &  sExt)

  71:     Loop

  72:     sSrc = FSO.GetAbsolutePathName(FSO.BuildPath(sPath,oFile.Name))

  73:     FSO.MoveFile sSrc, sDest

  74:   Next

  75: End Sub

  76:  

  77:  

Determine the Short Path (8.3 DOS Name) of the Current Directory

This tool requires Windows Script.

If you still use some old 16bit or DOS applications that do not support the long file names of FAT32 and NTFS, then you know that in order for those tools to work, the short 8.3 DOS Name of directories and files must be used with the application. The dos command “DIR /X” provides that information, but only for the current directory. If you need to know the short name of the entire path to a sub directory a couple levels down from the drive root, this approach becomes pretty cumbersome.

Here is a little script that helps with that. You can execute it from the command prompt at the directory where you want to know the short name by typing:

wscript.exe c:\tools\shortpath.vbs

I assume that the script was saved in the directory c:\tools, if you saved it somewhere else, change the command accordingly. 

You can also add it to Windows Explorer as a shell extension like in this example below. How to install the script as a shell extension in Windows XP is explained in the last paragraph of this post.

Example for the Long Path in Windows 32 bit:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft

Short 8.3 DOS Path Equivalent (on my computer, might differs from yours)

C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\APPLIC~1\MICROS~1

The script returns the short path in an input box that you can easily copy and paste it from there into your application or document.

Here is the source code of the script.

shortpath.vbs

   1: Dim oFso: Set ofso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

   2: Dim arguments: Set arguments = Wscript.arguments

   3:  

   4: if arguments.unnamed.count = 0 then

   5:   Path = ofso.GetAbsolutePathName(".")

   6: else

   7:   Path = arguments.unnamed.Item(0)

   8: end if

   9:  

  10: Set tmpf = ofso.GetFolder(Path)

  11: PathShort = tmpf.ShortPath

  12: Set tmpf = Nothing

  13:  

  14: a = InputBox("8 Character DOS Short Path","Path:", PathShort)

  15: Set oFso = Nothing

Using the Tools from the Command Prompt

You can run all of the provided scripts and batch files from the DOS command prompt. To open a command prompt on your computer, click on “Start” and then on “Run”. Type “cmd” and then press “Enter”. If you copied the batch files to a location that is included in the Windows %Path% environment variable, such as the Windows system directory (usually c:\Windows) or the System32 directory (usually c:\Windows\System32) then you do not have to provide the path to the BATCH files in order to be able to execute them. You can simply type the name of batch file and Windows will find it automatically and execute it.

Make sure that you are in the right directory when you call the batch script. If you open a command prompt the way I described it above, you are usually located at your users home directory (usually c:\documents and settings\USERNAME, where USERNAME is the name of the current Windows user). You would have to navigate to the right directory using the “CD” command (type “help cd” and then press “enter” to open the help documentation for the “CD” command)

To execute a VBScript script from the command prompt, you have enter first “wscript.exe”, followed by the path and the file name of the script, even if the .VBS file is located in a directory that is included in the %Path% environment on your computer. “wscript.exe” is a tool, which is located in the Windows System32 directory (usually c:\Windows\System32) and processes the VBScript code. Unlike with .BAT files, Windows is not capable of executing VBScript code directly. If you get an error that “wscript.exe” was not found, then you have not Windows Script installed on your system (it is usually installed by default). You can download and re-install the Windows Script components from the Microsoft web site here.

To open quickly a command prompt in the folder that you selected in Windows Explorer, add a the “Command Prompt Here” Explorer Extension to your System Registry. If you do not know how to do it manually with the Regedit.exe tool from Windows, copy the code below and save it to a file with the name “CmdHere.reg”.

CmdHere.reg

   1: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

   2:  

   3: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Command &Promt Here]

   4:  

   5: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Command &Promt Here\command]

   6: @="cmd.exe /k cd \"%1\""

Double-click on the file and Windows should ask you if are sure that you want to import the contents of the file CmdHere.reg into the system registry. Acknowledge with “OK” and the extension will be installed and ready to use.

Add Tools to Windows Explorer Context Menu for Folders

The Paragraph before already showed you how to create a Windows Explorer shell extension for the Folders context menu, but let me show you some specific examples for the tools that I provided in the first segment of this blog post.

I assume that you copied all the scripts and batch files to a folder called c:\tools. If you want to use a different folder or file name for the scripts, simply adjust the .REG file samples below. Notice the two back slashes (“\”) instead of one? The second one is necessary to escape the “\” of the path name, that the script will not interpret it, but take it as a literal string value. If you forget to change a single back-slash to a double-back-slash, an error will occur if you try to execute/import it. You do not have to specify the path to the batch script at all, if you copied it to a  directory that is included in the %PATH% environment of Windows, such as the Windows directory and the System32 directory of the system.

You can also create one .REG file to install all the scripts and batch files to the Explorer context menu. Make sure that the line “Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00” only appears once in the file at the very top and not multiple times, because that would cause errors, if you try to import it to your registry database.

Here is an example for the registration of the MoveToAlphabetSubFolders.bat

The “Move to A-Z” that you see in the code below is the Label for the context menu. If you want it to say something different, replace the two instances in the code with your label text.

The other script “RemoveEmptySubFolders.bat” requires as parameter the folder name and location to process.
To execute the batch script for the current folder selected in the context menu, add the parameter "%1” to the command. Line 6 of the .REG file below would look like this. Notice the “\” before the (“), like for the “\” of the path is it necessary to “unescape” the double-quotes character to prevent interpretation of the character.

@="C:\\tools\\RemoveEmptySubFolders.bat \"%1\""

MoveToAlphabetSubFoldersInst.reg

   1: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

   2:  

   3: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Move to A-Z]

   4:  

   5: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Move to A-Z\command]

   6: @="c:\\tools\\MoveToAlphabetSubFolders.bat"

Here is the example for one of the VBScript tools. Notice that the command starts with wscript.exe followed by the location and name of the script. This is necessary, because Windows does not execute VBS scripts automatically like it does with BAT (Batch) scripts.

ShortPathInst.reg

   1: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

   2:  

   3: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Short Path]

   4:  

   5: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Short Path\command]

   6: @="wscript.exe c:\\tools\\shortpath.vbs"

You can download all BATCH files, VBScript files and REG files from this post as one ZIP compressed archive:

Download FileToolsCodeAndRegFiles.zip

Also included in the archive are the .REG files: MoveFilesAutoRenDupInst.reg and RemoveEmptySubFoldersInst.reg to install the other two scripts to the Windows Explorer context menu; the .REG file InstallAll.reg to register all 4 scripts and the “Command Prompt Here” extension to Windows Explorer and UnInstallAll.reg to remove all 5 extension from Windows Explorer.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Rupture by Andromeda Software Development and other cool Demos

I felt that it was about time again to write about demos, recent demos this time and no classics. Another great demo, which was only recently released trigger this post actually. The demo that did this is:

Rupture by the Greek demo group Andromeda Software Development (short ASD). The demo won the 1st place at The Gathering (TG) 2009 Demo Party Competition in Hamar, Norway this Spring. I created a nice animated gif with some highlights from the demo and also included a video recording of it further down below. I also decided to seize the opportunity and also introduce some other great great demos to you, including other previous productions by the top-notch demo team from ASD, but also from other groups that produced high quality PC demos in the past 5+ or so years. I hope that you will enjoy them.

The animated gif is nice as a preview, but the video below is probably better. Best is of course to download the original demo (see links at Pouet.net) and run it on your own PC.

Backup Link to video at Vimeo.com

You can find more information to the demo and a link to download the 25 MB program to run it on your computer in high resolution at Pouet.net. There is also a link to the high definition video capture of the demo in MP4 format and 250 MB in size. If that is a bit too much for you, download the lower resolution video in XVID .AVI format (61 MB).

If you enjoyed that demo, then you will certainly also enjoy what is coming next. :)

Now I have some great demos for you from previous demo parties, and also created  by the guys from Andromeda Software Development (ASD). I also highly recommend watching those, if you get around to it. You can find all of ASD's productions and links to download at their official web site at www.asd.gr by the way. They are Greek and lucky to be able to get the 3 character domain name at the Greek TLD :).

	Lifeforce by ASD (2007) The demo won 1st place at the Summer Assembly 2007 combined Demo competition in Helsinki, Finland. Wrote about Lifeforce by ASD in February  2008 (14 months ago), because I was so impressed by it. I also uploaded it to FaceBook.com and got feedback from non demo "sceners" about how cool it is. It was definitely a demo high light, not just in 2007 (Lifeforce won the title Best Demo of 2007 that year), but the several previous years. My 2008 post includes the YouTube.com Video version of the demo in lower resolution. A better version is available at my Facebook account and you can also download a even better version of the video at Pouet.net, where you can also the demo executables as well.
	Iconoclast by ASD (2005) This demo won 1st place at the Assembly 2005 combined Demo competition. Watch the video of this demo at my Facebook account and/or download a high resolution version or/and the demo executable at Pouet.net. Iconoclast is also one of my all-time favorite demos. Cool effects and nice music as well.
	Planet Risk (2004) This demo by Andromeda Software Development "only" won 2nd place at the Assembly 2004 Combined Demo Competition (The 1st place won the great demo "Obsoleet" by Unreal Voodoo, which I also highlighted in my History of the Demoscene article.   Again, more information and download links for the demo itself etc. is available at the Pouet.net demoscene database and repository.

More Great Demos

by other Demo Groups than Andromeda Software Development

	FR-41 Debris by Farbrausch (2007) This demo by the reputable German demo group (yeah! hehe) won 1st place at the Break Point demo party in 2007. Remarkable about this demo is also the size. It is almost small enough to enter the 64KB intro competition, but it's a full blown demo. The folks from Farbrausch wanted to make a point about debates about the file size of demos, which is increasing more and more in recent years. You don't need 20 MB to create a great demo. That's a myth and "Debris" debunked that myth once and for all :). You can watch the video of this demo at my Facebook account and/or download the demo at Pouet.net and run on your own PC in High Resolution.
	Fr-25 The Popular Demo by Farbrausch (2003) This demo won 1st place at the Break Point (BP) demo compo in  2003 A funky "Disco" style demo with cool lighting effects. Watch the demo in video format at my Facebook account or visit Pouet.net to download the demo and watch on your own PC.
	Final Audition by Plastic (2005) This demo won 1st place at the Evoke 2005 demo party compo in August 2005, which is like Break Point held in Germany each year. Great ambience, cool music and  breathtaking effects. I fell in love with the demo first time I saw it. Definitely one of the all-time best demos. Again, you can watch this demo at my Facebook account or download the high-res video and/or demo itself at Pouet.net.

I hope that you enjoyed the demos as much as I did and that you might got a bit more interested into the fascinating world of the demoscene. There are a bunch of resources and links to the subject available at my main web site, if you want to learn more about this underground art scene and its history.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC