Here’s a really quick and simple example of an HTTP redirect using PHP.

The British Geological Survey publishes live data from its seismographs, located in many parts of the UK. The URL for the latest data changes daily, and is derived from the calendar. So it’s easy to reconstruct the URL. But I’d like to access the current day’s data for my local area from an unchanging, static URL.

Therefore, the static URL needs to create an HTTP redirect to the current day’s data from the location I want to use, my local seismograph at the former Royal Observatory at Herstmonceaux, Sussex. Here is the code to do that. The method ought to be self-explanatory. To be precise, this code causes the Apache webserver to instruct a client (your web browser) to follow a 302 Redirect.

You can give this page of PHP any name you like. My URL is http://johnwarburton.net/did-the-earth-move.php

$DIRECTORY = "http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/helicorder/heli_dir_shz/";
$PREFIX    = "HMNX_SHZ_GB_00.";
$timestamp = date("Ymd");
$SUFFIX    = "00.gif";

$redirectUrl = $DIRECTORY.$PREFIX.$timestamp.$SUFFIX;

header("Location: ".$redirectUrl);
exit;

I have upgraded my binary distribution of open source multimedia utilities to include a proper installer, not just an archive. This distribution is for Windows 64 bit only, and is tested on Windows 10.

MultimediaTools-mingw-w64-Open-source.exe

These are usually very recent compilations of best-in-class open source programs for multimedia conversion, manipulation and exchange. Within this bundle are extremely full versions of: FFmpeg, SoX, x265, x264, x262, the Fraunhofer AAC encoder (including HE-AAC and HE-AAC2), the mpv player, LAME, GraphicsMagick, MP4Box, DCP-o-matic and many others. Many of these are world-standard programs, very actively maintained, and in constant use by broadcasters and multi-media companies on every continent.

These are all open source and free (as in both beer and speech), so you are welcome to download and use them, and much else beside, without any consideration beyond obeying the legal licences accompanying them. The licence usually forbids you from withholding the source code if you modify anything, and this is a very important rule that you must obey. If you just use the binary programs, you need probably not worry about anything else.

The source code for my compilation is available from GitHub, and the README file is fairly up-to-date. It contains information about other packages you will need to make some of these run (a Perl and a Python interpreter, for example).

GitHub source: https://github.com/Warblefly/MultimediaTools-mingw-w64

README: https://github.com/Warblefly/MultimediaTools-mingw-w64#readme

Binary distribution (download and run this installer): http://gallery.johnwarburton.net/MultimediaTools-mingw-w64-Open-source.exe

Some Samsung monitors automatically dim the backlight when the displayed video falls below a certain brightness. For professional editing, this is a nuisance. Here’s how to prevent it, at least on the C570 series e.g. T28C570

In picture settings, find “Movie” mode. This stops the dimming. Then, you must recalibrate your monitor’s saturations, contrast, brightness, sharpness, etc., as before.

My settings, for an HDMI input from an Intel HD560 graphics chipset, are:

Backlight

20

Contrast

95

Brightness

45

Sharpness

0

Colour

45

Also, turn off anything to do with “dynamic”, noise reduction, enhanced contrast, etc.

UPDATE: now uses an .xz archive: much more efficient compression, though users need the xz program to open the archive (or a utility such as 7zip).

UPDATE: Easier to open archive: now uses .zip files readable by Windows Explorer.

Please see the GitHub page for other updates.

Up-to-date Windows binaries of the FFmpeg multimedia suite and many other tools used here on a daily basis are now available for download. Some of these binaries are statically linked, but the larger programs are dynamically linked. They’re Windows 64-bit binaries, and are tested on Windows 10.

The best thing to do is read the README file in my GitHub repository:

https://github.com/Warblefly/MultimediaTools-mingw-w64/blob/master/README.md

The REAME above is more up-to-date. But, best of all, look inside the archive.

To use these binaries, just use the compressed installer. You’ll want the xz program (or an archiver such as 7zip) to decompress it before installation.

http://gallery.johnwarburton.net/MultimediaTools-mingw-w64-Open-source.exe.xz

The installer sets these (and other) environment variables for you:

FONTCONFIG_FILE=fonts.conf
FONTCONFIG_PATH=C:\Users\—YOUR-USER-NAME—\AppData\Local\fontconfig
FREI0R_PATH=C:\Program Files\ffmpeg\lib\frei0r-1
TESSDATA_PREFIX=C:\Program Files\ffmpeg\share\
TERMINFO=C:\Program Files\ffmpeg\share\terminfo

The entire set of scripts and patches used to generate these utilities is available as a Git source tree for anyone’s use or modification.

A GNU/Linux machine running Fedora is used to compile the binaries, using scripts that owe much of their writing to Roger Pack and the Zeranoe team. I have modified Roger’s script to include, additionally, some extra programs and libraries used here. It is fair to say that the script is almost entirely Roger’s, and I’m very grateful indeed for its development.

Built by the script and, therefore, included in the binary distribution are the following programs among others. In the case of FFmpeg, just about every optional library has been compiled in, including the libfdk_aac audio codec. In most cases, each library or piece of software has been retrieved from its latest development sources so it is very up-to-date. I try to test all binaries; if you find that one you’re using is unsuitable for production use, please contact me and I’ll attend to the problem, or send you an earlier version.

Download the FFmpeg, mpv, sox, x264, x265 and many other binaries here:

http://gallery.johnwarburton.net/MultimediaTools-mingw-w64-Open-source.exe

To clone the Git source tree, install Git and do this:

git clone https://github.com/Warblefly/MultimediaTools-mingw-w64.git

Browse the tree here:

https://github.com/Warblefly/MultimediaTools-mingw-w64

LICENCES

Everything is open source. In the cross-compilation script, there are links to every source code distribution. There is no charge for source code, and no charge for these binaries. Please read the licences.

Harold & Lillian — A Hollywood Love Story

Honesty is sometimes the best policy. When a marriage in infamously fickle Hollywood survives for sixty years — as it did for the protagonists of this documentary — the magic combination of perseverance, optimism and honesty is well-rewarded by an honest telling of the story. Director Daniel Raim manages this not only in his interviewing technique, pulling in genuine tributes from A-listers including Danny DeVito (executive producer of this film), but also more subtly in his approach to constructing what might otherwise be an uncritical paean to a highly talented couple.

Against considerable odds, amusingly and refreshingly related on camera by Lillian, mid-20th-century American society finally permitted Harold Michelson to marry her and take her across the nation to Hollywood, where Harold’s career as an artist was intermittently moving forward. His talent was picked-up in World War II, when his paintings created during his time as a gunner in aircraft were noticed by his commanding officer. The skill of combining art with the precision of understanding angles of view as seen through a gun-sight translated perfectly to the optics of Hollywood cameras. Throughout Harold’s career as a storyboard artist then as a production designer, directors could not get enough of his visualisations of scripts that allowed cinematographers quickly to create iconic scenes that have gone down in history. It is his idea that saw a young Dustin Hoffman viewed through the triangle created by Mrs. Robinson’s legs, and it was Harold who gave us the commanding of the Red Sea’s turbulent obedience in “The Ten Commandments”. In fact, from the 1950s to “Star Trek”, it is impossible to overstate the influence of his art — often uncredited — on our collective movie memories.

Lillian’s first steps into motherhood in her new life with Harold are painfully documented by her exposé of once-fashionable treatments available to her autistic child, while her feminism shines through as she fights against the confinement that 1950s mothers were expected to suffer in a male-dominated society. Her breakout discovery of a volunteering opportunity in a film studio research library was the start of another career of great influence in film-making: she became the unofficial dean of accurate research over many decades of famous movies. When a ballroom needed re-creating, Lillian’s library had the answers; when war scenes needed to be shot, her shelves of expertly-catalogued books showed exactly how to make each uniform and each prop. And when one studio would decide it no longer needed a comprehensive research library, Lillian’s reputation and persuasive skills would find it another home. If this lovingly-curated collection were to be broken-up in Lillian’s retirement, the film industry would lose its great Library at Alexandria.

The director’s good sense allows us to spend much time with both Harold (in well-respected archive footage) and Lillian, through whose attractive personalities many stories are told whose value last far beyond the end of the screening. Lillian’s observation of Tom Waits’ conversation as, “everything that came out him sounded like it should be a police confession”, and her delight in using her library to “float among the centuries” are nuggets that give hope to anyone beginning a career in a supporting role.

I will turn to the evidence of honesty, and its subtlety, in a moment. But first, Daniel Raim’s talent rises far above the genre of legacy films, in that he not only takes the trouble to discover the lessons that Harold and Lillian leave behind for all people who seek successful relationships, but also commissions sympathetic contributions from the cream of Hollywood’s directing and artistic talent who have lined up to be interviewed. Perhaps their motive is not entirely altruistic, because the strengths of the Michelsons, if rediscovered in younger form, would serve another two generations of film-makers well.

However, more than merely the icing on the visual cake is the work of modern-day artist Patrick Mate, whose frequent storyboard-style drawings of our protagonists’ real-life story resoundingly capture Lillian’s charm and personality, and simultaneously reflect Harold’s habits, practical nature and sometimes salty comments. This art is worth a book of its own.

Illustrating the honesty of the medium of film is difficult to manage subtly, but director Raim achieves this by allowing the cracks to show just sufficiently. He demonstrates the point that film-makers use artifice to suspend disbelief, but sometimes it must not interrupt the truth of the documentary. For example, jump-cuts are permitted in vision, so we are aware that sound-bites are constructed to allow reality to fit into the short spaces of our busy lives. The lavalier microphones are visible in-shot, rather than hidden beneath clothing, so we are reminded we are observers on a formal documentary film set, not merely guests invited to tea. Occasionally, the camera wobbles (it is easy to nudge a tripod in a small room), but the shot is not cut around; and footage taken from the Internet or from preview sources has not been replaced by the raw clips, possibly a measure to save thousands of dollars in budget without destroying the impact of the images. These are few and far between.

Although visual thrills are not the point of Raim’s documentary, there are enough great viewing and listening pleasures for an audience to be grateful for the honest manner of telling this story of hard work, hard talent, social history, and glimpses behind the edges of the proscenium arch. If storyboard artists, production designers and researchers have not been sufficiently acknowledged before, the top directors in this film might be starting to assuage their guilt on screen for all our pleasures in this documentary.

Harold & Lillian — A Hollywood Love Story (official site)