Cyzor – Page 2 – Jay Petronis

miroMOTION DC20

Posted on 2016-01-09 by Petronis

In the 1990s, playing full-screen digital video often required specialized computer hardware. One such solution was a PCI card called miroMOTION DC20, which supported video capture, editing, and playback at a pixel resolution of 640 x 480 at a smooth 60 fields per second in 24-bit color.

The DC20 encoded video data using a proprietary motion JPEG format, readable only on computers also containing a hardware decoder. Computers without the appropriate hardware would display blank video or fail altogether.

dc20_panel_failure_os8

quicktime_10_failure

Fortunately, there are some workarounds to recover orphaned DC20 video files. If software solutions like the DC30 Xact Driver for Mac G4, Morgan M-JPEG codec for Windows, or OS emulation are unsuccessful, the approach below may help.

Legacy QuickTime Pro + Handbrake

This method relies on access to a Mac running OS X 10.6 or older using QuickTime Pro. If such a machine is unavailable, it might be possible to run a virtualized copy of OS X within VMware instead.

First, open an unplayable DC20 video file in QuickTime Player. Ignore any error messages about missing software. If the application refuses to even open the video, you may have to try an even older version of QuickTime.

QuickTime Pro 7 on an Apple Xserve G4 running OS X 10.4. — QuickTime Pro 7 with blank video on an Apple Xserve G4 running OS X 10.4.

dc20_inspector — QuickTime 7 movie inspector panel.

qt_miromotion_properties — DC20 movie properties in QuickTime 7.

Next, re-save as a self-contained movie.

save_as_self_contained — Save as self-contained movie in QuickTime Pro 7.

Then open the newly-exported movie in a video transcoder like Handbrake.

handbrake_queue — HandBrake 0.10.2 queue on OS X 10.11.2.

Inspect the image quality using Handbrake’s video preview. Try exporting in a more recent video format like H.264.

handbrake_preview — Handbrake image quality preview.

Sadly, no transcoding process can rescue old video files from filesystem bitrot, the silent corruption of electronic data over time.

corrupted image data — Casualty of filesystem bitrot.

Illustration

Magazine Sketches

Posted on 2016-01-06 by Petronis

Title page for a feature for Albuquerque the Magazine from 2009:

Simplified, more cartoony final version. — Simplified, cartoony final version.

Arranged in After Effects for an animated reveal:

After Effects Sketches Alphas 2012 — After Effects overlapping animated alpha channels.

Test animation from 2012:

Illustration

Codpieceware

Posted on 2015-12-28 by Petronis

Branding project from 2001 for a New York-based software development company called Codpieceware:

The company’s name was a reference to Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film “Clockwork Orange.” The blue X shape borrowed from Apple’s liquid-themed system software branding, and the red figure was a nod to Beastie, the BSD daemon mascot.

Logo closeup.

Stencil Codpieceware logo.

Codpieceware logo layers in Illustrator.

Codpieceware sought to help users take advantage of the UNIX functionality within Apple’s new operating system. One of their applications was a system diagnostics and analysis utility called “Logg.app.”

Early conceptual branding ideas:

Preliminary cartoonish logo.

Codpieceware "Logg.app" icon concept development. — Codpieceware “Logg.app” icon concept development.

Codpieceware logo concept development.

Illustration

Girl with Arrow

Posted on 2015-12-24 by Petronis

Attempt to copy an engraving by John Buckland Wright called “Girl or Nymph with Arrow” from “Cupid’s Pastime” (1935):

Line Art Girl — Imitation from 2007 of an engraving from “Cupid’s Pastime” by New Zealander John Buckland Wright.

Application drawing layers. — Document layers from Scribbles.app.

Scribbles.app drawing from 2007. — In-progress document from 2007.

Illustration

Derry

Posted on 2015-12-23 by Petronis

Drawing from 2002 of Derry the cat in the style of American author Wanda Gág:

Attempt to imitate Gág's drawing style. — Attempt to imitate Gág’s drawing style.

Derry had a penchant for wearing baskets on his head whilst napping.

derry_basket_body_2002 — Incomplete drawing development.

Preliminary sketch of kitty wearing a basket.

Drawn using Fractal Design Painter 5.0, probably with gritty charcoal brushes.

Brushes palette for Fractal Design Painter 5.0. — Fractal Design Painter brushes.

Uncategorized

Illustrator Multi-Display Fix

Posted on 2015-12-20 by Petronis

On a multi-display computer setup, Adobe Illustrator sometimes presents dialog boxes on the wrong monitor. Application dialog boxes repeatedly appear on the secondary display, even though the system menu bar, Dock, and document windows reside exclusively on the primary screen.

OS X Displays PrefPane — The primary display is on the right, but Illustrator erroneously places dialog boxes and other interface elements on the left. OS X 10.11.2.

Discarding application preferences usually fixes this sort of interface annoyance. But beginning with Illustrator 19.1, that approach stopped working reliably. A conflict with Adobe Cloud synchronization is a likely suspect, but turns out not to be a factor in this case.

Snooping around Adobe configuration files reveals some candidates that relate to monitor state:
~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator 19 Settings/de_DE/WSMgrCfg/WSMgrCfg ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator 19 Settings/de_DE/DVADialogPrefs.xml

WSMgrCfg contains some keys called CurrState and IdealState that contain pixel resolution and position information. In this situation, those coordinates erroneously refer to the secondary monitor. Note the negative value of -2560 pixels, which means it’s the left-hand monitor:

Ai WSMgrCfg Bad — Incorrect Illustrator settings.

One solution is to edit WSMgrCfg using the values from DVADialogPrefs.xml. (This file treats a 2560 x 1600 display as only 2503 x 1577, presumbaly the full pixel resolution minus the height for the menu bar and Dock.) After editing, CurrState and IdealState refer exclusively to the primary display.