Mike Allison did his CD Release party at the Pub last night for his first professional CD, "Things That Move Us." There was a very good crowd, and it was a great show. The sound was good, and the people were excited to hear Mike. He's very talented, and will go far in the music industry. I think I'm going to try to put together a small promotional video for him over the next couple weeks, to have available on the website.
After the show, one of my friends, Jill Cassidy, came back to our place. She was a bit drunk, and somehow managed to flush some of her money down the toilet. I still haven't quite figured out what her money was doing in the toilet in the first place.
Tour Tech East Trade Show
on Friday, January 13, 2006
I was out of the province earlier today attending a trade show. Two specific seminars caught my attention.
Al Dripchak of Maxell was talking about the impending conflict between Blu-Ray & HD DVD, but then went on to show off a very interesting technology that Maxell is going to be releasing to the public in October of 2006. It's a disc, similar in diameter to a CD-ROM, but thicker (at least half a centimeter). It is a "holograph disc" which will be able to store, in its initial configuration, about 300 gigabytes of data. Kind of like a DVD-ROM, but about 80 times the capacity. Instead of spinning, the holograph disc shakes and wiggles while the write head etches holographic data streams into the gel inside the disc. Successive generations should see the capacity of a single disc increased to almost 2 terabytes within 3-4 years.
And speaking of large storage, Tab Bulter of SeaChange was talking about his company's hard drive system (used in video-on-demand systems like The Movie Channel and The Weather Network). His large system stores 350TB. Yes, you read that correctly: terabytes, not gigabytes. I can't even begin to imagine filling that. I was pretty happy that I picked up a 250gig portable drive a couple weeks ago for $129 after rebate. His drive system (RAID 5 striping) is the equivalent of 350,000 gigabytes!! I have about 20,000 (legal) MP3's and they only take up about 100 gigabytes or so. At DVD quality (which is a compressed video format, of course), his system would hold enough video to play for about 60,000 hours (6.85 years). Now THAT is a hard drive configuration to brag about.
On the way out, I was looking at a nice 24-foot stage with rigging system, full monitoring system, light show, 48 channel sound board, full lighting board, and laser system. It was pretty cool. On the off-chance that I could afford one for the house, I asked about the price tag. The lighting guy figured that it wouldn't be much more than one million dollars. Too bad my Visa is at its limit.
I love trade shows ...
Al Dripchak of Maxell was talking about the impending conflict between Blu-Ray & HD DVD, but then went on to show off a very interesting technology that Maxell is going to be releasing to the public in October of 2006. It's a disc, similar in diameter to a CD-ROM, but thicker (at least half a centimeter). It is a "holograph disc" which will be able to store, in its initial configuration, about 300 gigabytes of data. Kind of like a DVD-ROM, but about 80 times the capacity. Instead of spinning, the holograph disc shakes and wiggles while the write head etches holographic data streams into the gel inside the disc. Successive generations should see the capacity of a single disc increased to almost 2 terabytes within 3-4 years.
And speaking of large storage, Tab Bulter of SeaChange was talking about his company's hard drive system (used in video-on-demand systems like The Movie Channel and The Weather Network). His large system stores 350TB. Yes, you read that correctly: terabytes, not gigabytes. I can't even begin to imagine filling that. I was pretty happy that I picked up a 250gig portable drive a couple weeks ago for $129 after rebate. His drive system (RAID 5 striping) is the equivalent of 350,000 gigabytes!! I have about 20,000 (legal) MP3's and they only take up about 100 gigabytes or so. At DVD quality (which is a compressed video format, of course), his system would hold enough video to play for about 60,000 hours (6.85 years). Now THAT is a hard drive configuration to brag about.
On the way out, I was looking at a nice 24-foot stage with rigging system, full monitoring system, light show, 48 channel sound board, full lighting board, and laser system. It was pretty cool. On the off-chance that I could afford one for the house, I asked about the price tag. The lighting guy figured that it wouldn't be much more than one million dollars. Too bad my Visa is at its limit.
I love trade shows ...
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