I saw a post from Variety this morning. Hong Kong director, Johnnie To (Infernal Affairs) slammed the government over the weekend for its support of the “Batman” production. “The government can offer 100% support for them, but they can’t even offer 1% to us locals,” To said. “It’s discrimination, because we Chinese are not worth as much cash to them.”

Thousands of letters have been sent out by the film’s production company telling residents that a helicopter and a C130 aircraft will swoop low over downtown areas to film the city’s evening skyline.

If what To is saying is true, then it’s really disappointing. I’ve seen many good quality Hong Kong action films, too many, in fact. But too few of them has really well thought out characters and plots in their stories like To’s “Infernal Affairs”. Perhaps because the filmmakers are always pressured to produce the same type of product to avoid too much risk. But unless local movie goers start supporting their local talents like how the Koreans do, it’s not likely to see big changes in the future.

Related Posts: HKFilmart

I wish I had known how to do this before I bought VisualHub which cost me around $25. It was just a few hours later that I figured out how to get the same job done for free. A question from a reader compelled me to do more testing. This works on Windows as well, although the menus may look a little different from this one (Mac). Here goes:

1. Download VLC Player for free. Great software available in MacOs, Windows, Linux.

2. Open the program.

3. In VLC, go to FILE and then OPEN.

4. Select the file you want to convert and click Okay. (In my example, I opened the “Kiss Goodbye” music video by Wang Leehom).

5. Once the video starts playing, PAUSE IT immediately.

6. Go back to FILE, select STREAMING/EXPORTING WIZARD.

7. A window will pop up, select TRANSCODE/SAVE TO FILE, then click NEXT.

8. Click EXISTING PLAYLIST ITEM, then highlight the video file name (in my example, “Kiss Goodbye”), click NEXT.

9. A transcode window opens.

10. Select TRANSCODE VIDEO and choose MPEG -4 Video. Then, Select TRANSCODE AUDIO and choose MPEG -4 Audio. Click NEXT.

11. In Encapsulation Format window, select MPEG 4/MP4. Click NEXT.

12. Enter the file name and directory where you want the converted file to be saved.

13. You will see a Summary window, click FINISH.

14. You will see the file streaming in the VLC controller.

15. You’re done! Just import this file into itunes.

Let me know how it goes!

I’m real excited today. After an hour of trial and error, I’ve finally figured out how to add videos to this my new red ipod nano. The unit didn’t come with detailed instruction. Searching tutorial websites helped.

The biggest question for me is how I can view my Asian dramas to my ipod. To me, that would be the coolest. It would justify making the purchase. Most of my collections are .avi, .mp4 or .wmv. But even the .mp4 didn’t seem to work. It wouldn’t sync to the nano.

Being the determined person that I am, I google searched under “convert video to ipod format” and found several results. I tested VisualHub on Coffee Prince. (Of course, I’m testing it on Coffee Prince!! After each conversion, it creates two files. One that ends with a simple .mp4, and another .mp4.mp4. The second one syncs fine with ipod. Audio and video works great! I’m excited to start watching my videos on this neat little toy on my commute to work. I love this product - it’s small, lite and I can listen to my music and watch my videos, all in one! Oh…it can store my address book and calendar too. Slick.

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