nito blog

for a limited time we are offering HALF PRICE (30.00$) for koingo’s utility package (nine wonderful applications)

this promotion only applies to registered users of hawkeye (if you register after the promotion has started you are still eligible for the discount)

the web setup will be a bit smoother tomorrow when i have time to work on it, including an actual description of the package and the applications therein (been a busy week, had to move to a different house this week so its been hectic)

to get this promotion hurry to this link

Alright this was the much needed bug fix release of hawkeye. Found some nasty bugs way too long overlooked. There was a bug for iPod as well as Apple TV that would only used the advanced settings chose for the first file out of a selected list of files, this bug has been fixed.

In addition there were Apple TV bugs related to unsupported widths being generated this should now be fixed as well. When 640 was chosen as width for Apple TV it was actually generating 680 (stupid typo) this is now fixed as well. The max pixels for 29.97 FPS Apple TV material was also rectified as well (wasnt allowing 960 to be used as a width for 29.97 material)

A long awaited fix is here as well, if you have changed to the mini window while encoding it will stay mini for all the files queued up.

and last but not least the progress text bugs should be fixed or at least improved (you’ll know what i mean when you use it)

i had some hawkeye 1.1 news but that will have to wait till tomorrow because its 3:00 am and this release took longer than anticipated.. more tomorrow.

just found some bad bugs in the current version of hawkeye, got almost all of them fixed so there should be a bug fix related update late tonight/early tomorrow. i’ll keep everyone posted.

So the hawkeye re-write is underway (finally!) And has made some strong strides today. To be honest it’s actually a very good thing that the re-write has been shifted back this far because there was a lot more we needed to properly learn to undertake the huge process of re-writing the entire application. We want to utilize many of the core technologies that we didn’t with our older code. (core data to store the information, core image to do some nice image effects for menus and such, and maybe even core video if we have time)

Thus far im still going to hold off on saying exactly which new features are going to make it into the vast re-write. I will say at very least each individual file will be able to have its own settings and not have to be lumped in with a large selection of items. We will also be merging some of the settings together since they have a lot of commonalities.

There is still much to be done with respects to maintaining and improving the current functionality of the application (fix some of the continuity, make the work flow of the application more common sense, things of that nature)

Hopefully we’ll make enough progress this upcoming week to actually be able to put up some screen shots of the new version, i can’t make any promises but we’ll do our best.

In addition for those who are paying attention, we are still working on PSP Commune but have hit a few snags here and there so we shifted some of the focus to concentrate on both PSP Commune and the new version of hawkeye… stay tuned.

sorry everyone apparently when i posted the new version of hawkeye the other night it posted the wrong dmg. the zip file that updates through sparkle was the right version, but the main dmg download link was still v14. I am very sorry for this mistake and currently in process of uploading the new proper dmg.

We finally got our Apple TV today so we figured wed release a quick update with the new encoding capabilities that the Apple TV encompasses. The files to Apple TV (Prepare for Apple TV) is a bit more intuitive then the DVD to Apple TV. (available under import to ipod). It is required to choose advanced to get to the additional resolution and bitrate choices for DVD to Apple TV importing.

For example if encoding from file(s) and the resulting frame rate is going to be above 23.976 then a size greater than 960×720 will not be allowed (it will be selectable, but once encoding starts it will drop to the maximum resolution possible. However for DVD to Apple TV doesn’t work as smoothly yet, it will allow you to choose over 960 for the width and will not factor down if the framerate is too high, in addition sometimes when 960 is chosen a height greater than 720 will be chosen. So in this case you need to force the height to 720. We will smooth these bumps out ASAP but we wanted to get this initial release out to get some feedback on how it works for everyone.

All the modes have been tested and have worked for our Apple TV but we have only done testing for a day so we need as much feedback as possible.

Okay a nice little update with a request filled for YouTube downloading. Now YouTube videos can be downloading in hawkeye via the new Tools menu. When you paste the URL from a YouTube site you need the entire URL (including http) ie: http://youtube.com/watch?v=2C3xz19NdFU

We also added the ability to demultiplex and multiplex streams. Demultiplexing will work for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 streams mainly. It works a little for other formats but is currently unsupported. Multiplexing only works for MPEG-2 streams (MPEG-2, SVCD, XSVCD, DVD) for the current version.

Support for other formats will come most likely in the impending super update to hawkeye (which is still coming, albeit extremely delayed) There will also be some more updates on PSP Commune in the upcomming days, plus a cross promotion coming next week that we’ll give you more information on as it approaches.

So it’s been quite some time since we’ve had any more information on PSP Commune, we’ve been swamped with many different projects in varying veins so it was on the back burner for quite some time, among other things that have been placed on the backburner as an externality (hawkeye major update, its still coming don’t worry)

PSP commune is coming very close to being ready for some type of beta testing cycle (which won’t run all too long) by that time hawkeye 1.1 will be well underway and we’ll unveil some of the new features that will be available in the new version shortly thereafter. I apologize for the late night convolution; here is what this post is mainly about- PSP Commune movie screen caps.

(videos open in a new tab or window)

Video One

Video Two

(keep in mind the graphics are still very rough and will change significantly between now and launch, these movies are just to get an idea)

The next update won’t take another month, we’re finally getting the workload down a bit so we’re getting caught up a bit more in the backlog of work. More soon..

Alright- a much overdue release of hawkeye was posted last night. We made some bad bitrate assumptions prior to this version so the desired bitrates set should be MUCH more accurate across the board now. (ipod/dvd etc..) We also clean up some left over pass logs for 2-pass encoding that hopefully makes 2-pass encoding more stable. also made some interface tweaks for the 2-pass display code as well.

Finally added FLV encoding to the mix, the quality is pretty solid and the speed is really nice. We’ll add more advanced settings for FLV later, just wanted to get this release out with those important bitrate bug fixes.

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okay onto general news. sorry again for the delays in releases- our custom projects we got for december / january hit some unforseen snags and took longer than anticipated. We will be wrapping them up very shortly but have finally gotten some breathing room to work on our projects again. We are also hammering out a new ticket based support system to keep better track of support inquiries.

thanks again everyone for your patience with us, more updates will come very soon.

Happy Holidays to everyone! Cant believe 2007 is almost here.
We apologize for the negligence of support for the end of this month, it has been a very hectic month and we have had very little time to check or answer our emails. (or the support forum)

We have also been working on some custom projects for other companies so we have had minimal time to work on hawkeye and to finish PSP Commune. January will definitely be a month full of updates and we will answer all the backlog of support mail. We are very sorry, we aren’t ignoring anyone we just havent had enough time to do everything that needs to be done this month we hope everyone understands and we will do our best to make up for missed time.

On the positive side of things the custom projects we have been working on have given us some fantastic insight to new ways to redo and greatly improve hawkeye.

we also want to open up a dialog about requests for new features or fixes in hawkeye, after PSP commune is finally done hawkeye being redone is going to be our first priority so we want to make sure we can properly cater to everyone’s needs as best we can.