I have seen the future of live performance and U23D is it. Why spend $20 on parking, hundreds of $ on a ticket, and still need a set of binoculars?

Concerts in IMAX are incredible. The sound rumbles your seat as if you were there. Flying cameras give you the most intimate experience you can get without being on stage with the performers.

Let’s hope this is the start of a trend.

It seems as if every 80s band decided to reunite or tour in 2007. Upside is seeing shows I hadn’t seen “back in the day” and downside was the most expensive year ever for tickets.

Roger Waters

By far the best show from a theatrical and performance perspective. Who can beat a flying pig and Dark Side of the Moon?

Genesis

Best show for nostalgia. Phil Collins went up a notch in my book - he’s quite a showman and works the crowd. The set list was excellent spanning all the history of Genesis. It’s been said that Genesis was better without Gabriel and Gabriel was better without Genesis. With the exception of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway I have to agree. Worst part… Rained out at the Hollywood Bowl just before Carpet Crawlers and what’s up with Tony Banks? The guy never looks up from his keyboard. Ever.

Van Halen

Diamond Dave is one of the best frontmen to ever walk on stage. Eddie was top notch, Dave wasn’t overpowered by the amps, and Wolfgang played well. This was the most fun of the shows and even the most diehard VH fan would agree the playlist was excellent.

The Police

The Police can do no wrong in my book but Sting likes to meddle. I think the intention was good - give ‘em some variety - but, come on, we want it the way it was played in the day…period. By far, Stewart Copeland stole the show with Wrapped Around Your Finger and aside from the gray hair and glasses, the same old Stewart. Andy Summers shred in Phoenix and blase in LA. Sting was…well…Sting.

It’s Friday evening and a sudden thought occurred to me. Has anyone blogged about OS X 10.5’s support for A2DP? Google to the rescue…

It’s confirmed if you believe a post by claudej in the Apple Discussions forum a few hours after Leopard’s release. Also found a reference at iPhoneApps (with unlinked credit to Engadget). Snippet:

Just installed Leopard & the 1st thing I checked is…

Bluetooth profiles supported by Apple Bluetooth software
Apple’s Bluetooth software supports the following profiles on client devices:

Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP): Controls stereo audio headphones.

Audio Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP): Controls the buttons on headphones and other devices.

My copy of OS X 10.5 won’t arrive until the ACN mails it out (next week I hope) and the rest of you get a chance to kick the tires so I don’t have to. In any event, I’m charging my Bluetooth stereo headsets as I write this. Rock out, recharge, and realize that wired headphones don’t need a power outlet.

I’m guessing an iPhone update is just around the corner to coincide with Leopard’s support for A2DP.

Apple’s tech support article describes it the best. FCP cannot playback an MP3 file in real-time due to the compression. As a newbie this seems strange since the DV codec requires decompression as well but I guess the assumption is that MP3 files aren’t appropriate for video projects so they didn’t optimize it for RT.

Since I’m working on something “straight-to-YouTube” I really don’t care that my soundtrack is of the highest quality but rendering audio is no fun either. Rather than re-rip the music from CD media I’m converting the MP3 to AIFF as described in the tech article using QuickTime Pro. The result was surprising: a 6.9 MB file in MP3 format was 133 MB in AIFF format.

On a whim I created a batch job in Compressor 3 and the same file took mere seconds to convert and was half the size: 61 MB. I expect to be using QT Player less and less.

It’s craziness that OS X 10.4 (Tiger) doesn’t support stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) headsets. There is a hack to get something working but it should really be implemented by Apple at the system-level. When OS X 10.5 (Leopard) is released this month it will finally include this capability - no more hacks or mono headsets.

At this point I’d forego Leopard’s other features just to get Bluetooth stereo support. It’s a wireless world and so should be your stereo headphones.