The Idea: One online Marketplace where Buyers can find Programmers to fulfill the needs of their software projects. This is the basic idea although rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) also has other types of providers on their site as well, (i.e. writers, personal assistants, marketers, etc.).

So how does rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) work? Simple. As a buyer, you sign up for a new account, post a bid request which offers details about your project and service providers place bids on the project. There are all sorts of terms and options you can choose from to make sure your project goes as smoothly as possible. There are also help documents throughout the site on what to do to help your project along and what your options are if something goes wrong. Sound good? Well, what no one tells you up front is that all of this is irrelevant once you have accepted a coder’s bid and have put your hard earned money into rentacoder.com’s escrow system (a system they put in place because they were robbed).

When something does in fact go wrong with your project, the “arbitrator”, some non-technical individual (arbitrator confirmed they are a non-technical arbitrator), gives you two options. The first option is simply a time waster that will no doubt cause you to loose the arbitration and your money (i.e. lets spend weeks going over what the coder has done so far, just to have us decide they’ve done alright in our eyes because we can’t do what they can do). The second option which seems to be the true standard with rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) is the “wait until the coder fails” option. This option forces you to continue with a coder even if they tell you they can not do what you are asking them to do or if it’s very clear that the coder doesn’t understand a word you are saying. What that translates into to me is that there is no arbitration. When you pick a coder, you are stuck with them. It doesn’t matter what it says on their website. When you pick a coder at rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder), you are STUCK with them!

Alarm bells should be ringing in your ears right now. If the obvious is evident when you start the arbitration and it is ignored by the arbitrator or deemed “O.K.”, how will they make the best decision for everyone when the deadline comes? To make this a little more clear… if you see a gaping hole in the road and no way around it but to take another road, how can you trust the navigator to do the right thing when they tell you to keep going on the road with the crater until you fall in?

In addition, the website pumps buyers up, telling them to make sure they are diligent in making sure their project is going the way it should. The rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) site throws around phrases like “It’s your project”, but in the end, it’s the coder’s project in the eyes of rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder). If you ask the coder to give you an “accurate” mock-up (a requirement for the project that you choose when you set it up) and the coder fails to deliver this mock-up, “So, What?” says rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder). If you ask the programmer to confirm understanding on various important aspects of your project (the rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) site strongly suggest buyers do this to make sure they get what they expect from their programmer) and they do not do this at any time , “So, What?” screams rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder). If you ask the coder “Hey can you add this link to the front page?” and their answer to that is “I like apples on Tuesdays with cheese and crackers.” because they don’t understand a word you said, “Pay them!” says rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder)!

This is the bottom line rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder)! When people post projects on rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) and pay their money for that project, it is absolutely unacceptable to force them to use a coder who clearly can not do the job. It is also unacceptable to make buyers waste time and wait for the coder to fail especially when you have an arbitration system in place. Currently at rentacoder.com (Rent-A-Coder) as a buyer, you have no control over your project once you choose a programmer and the only thing you can count on is your time will be wasted with a high probability of your money being stolen from you (Yes, if you force me to pay for a box of coal when I’ve asked for a box of diamonds and the money I’ve given you is in fact the appropriate amount for a box of diamonds, then you have stolen from me).

*Note* A similar site is scritplance.com. They do the exact same thing only they don’t make you wait until the coder fails, they just make you wait and wait and wait. Deadlines don’t matter at all at scriptlance.com. Eventually they do give you your money back but they make sure they punish you sufficiently first.

Update:
In light of some of the hostile comments and mail being left about views expressed in this article, I felt it necessary to add a little more. There seems to be a misunderstanding here. Some seem to think I have reading and comprehension problems or that I have not tried the magic formula that would have surely made my experience better. However, these are mere misunderstandings. I do not have reading and comprehension problems and did in fact read all of the help documents provided by the site before getting started. There is so much to choose from while setting up a bid request you have no choice but to jump over to the help pages to make sure you are choosing the best option for your project. Also because I was coming from a rather insane experience on scriptlance.com, I was definitely all over the information about how the site works and the mediation/arbitration feature. It all made sense and sounded good as written. However, Rent-A-Coder is not following their own documentation.

As for this magic formula…. it made me laugh. The magic formula is: Look at the programmer’s reviews, at their portfolio, how many jobs they’ve completed or didn’t complete, the details of any disputes they may have already had, etc. This is very helpful and one would be a fool not to do this. However, it is not the magic formula to success. Project success relies on all involved. There are many ways to create programmer accounts with all of these in order and still not be a the best programmer or the best programmer for every job applied or bid on. Some issues come not from deception or incompetence but from poor judgment. It seems many programmers want to do the projects they bid on, but for whatever reason, bid with completion times they can not meet, unreasonable rates (too low for the amount of work they have to do) or just become “yes” men/women and later after they’ve accepted a job, realize it is more than they can handle.

However, this article wasn’t directed at programmers or buyers, although it seems those who are angry about this article are programmers or those who provide outsourcing who use Rent-A-Coder. So because they rely heavily on it, or it works for them, how dare I talk about it not working for me. *Smile* There are less than honest programmers out there, just like there are less than honest buyers or buyers who don’t know what they want or who haven’t read the site documents. There is no arguing that. However, you can’t assume that everyone who has a complaint did not understand what they were getting into or did not use the magic formula.

Let me restate the issue. Rentacoder.com does not follow it’s own documentation. Rentacoder.com has a faulty and useless arbitration system. Both of which makes their services not worth using.

Update: 2
Rentacoder.com chooses to be the robber instead of doing the right thing. I’ve been forced to pay the cancellation fee because the programmer doesn’t have any money in his account (he lost the arbitration). How convenient! So any lousy programmer can open an account, never keep money in it and fail to deliver what they agreed and never have to pay for it. And if they want, they can go ahead and open a new account under a different name (yes I had a person message me and say he works with two different accounts on Rentacoder.com. It doesn’t matter if they say it’s not allowed they need to have a way to keep it from happening). Rentacoder.com could easily make the programmer’s account negative or even be smart like odesk and require everyone to have a registered form of payment and make these deductions when the arbitration is lost. It is just unacceptable to make the winning party of an arbitration pay a cancellation fee because the loosing party doesn’t have the money in their account (especially if nothing is in place to make sure Rentacoder.com can get their fees in such a situation). What a pathetic business this has turned out to be.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So, I’m planning another trip out of the country and the fist thing that came to mind was how heavy my bags and gear were on my last trip. After my last trip, I’d already decided that I absolutely had to travel lighter on future international excursions.

I have always made an effort to travel light however, my trip to Germany and Ireland in 2007 was the first time I officially traveled as a filmmaker. I took with me my Panasonic DVX100B, full sized tripod, mini tripod, one full sized high wattage light, 15″ laptop, and a whole host of other gear I never used. It was the first time I’d carried a large suitcase as well. The suitcase needed to be large enough for my full sized tripod to fit collapsed. That’s still a pretty big bag. I didn’t like it at all.

So now I’m planning what looks like a trip to Singapore and Thailand and I have to travel light. Here are some of the issues I faced on my last international trip.

1. I worried about overweight baggage fees every time I had to catch a flight. At my home airport, I had to run to a gift shop, buy another bag, and transfer some items from the large bag to the new smaller bag to avoid paying $80 in overweight baggage fees. Later, I ended up having to pay $250 Euros on my trip from Ireland to Frankfurt because of my overweight bag. That was almost $200 Euros more than the actual cost of the plane ticket! **The airline was Lufthansa which does well on long flights (I flew from the US to Frankfurt with the same bags with no charges) but does not do well on short flights (I guess you have to travel damn near naked on short flights).

2. I had to lug around a heavy bag and my backpack. I did plan ahead with this as best as possible but the reality is, my bags were heavy. The smaller bag I had to buy at the airport fit on top of the larger bag and the large bag had wheels so I could just pull them around but again, the bags were heavy and I felt like I was running a marathon anytime I had to move them. I also stayed in a 3 story hotel in Germany with no elevators (yep I was on the top floor), and a 3 story B&B in Dublin with no elevators of course (and on the top floor again). So it was quite unpleasant trying to get my bags up and down the stairs. My backpack was also heavy because in it were my Panasonic DVX100B, 15″ laptop, batteries, tapes, microphones, etc.

3. I drew too much attention for my taste by using my fancy camera and carrying around my tripod. This by far became the biggest issue for me, although I had no idea I would be bothered by this prior to this trip. This is more of a personal preference if you will. I know many filmmakers who have no issues with drawing attention while they film, it comes with the job. However, I do not like this at all. For me there are some safety concerns as well as creative concerns. Some things to consider… I was grilled at the airport in Frankfurt about whether or not I’d filmed anything when I went to the Reeperbahn. My camera is always thoroughly checked at the security check points. This means pulling out all your gear for everyone at the check point to see (Not very safe; especially when they do it while you have to take your shoes off and on and you can’t glue your eyes to your stuff).

A funny thing… I was carrying around my tripod in it’s bag while in Dublin and I was riding the buses a lot. I got on this one bus and the driver asked me “Is that a gun?”. I had to laugh, it did look like a rifle bag. But what was really interesting is that the driver was serious but he didn’t seem at all concerned if it were a gun. Funny those Irish folks are. :)

Related posts:

1. The Making of Two Docs I’
2. Setting The Standard: Reclaiming the Art of Filmmaking What doe

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I never thought I would need to write an article of this nature, however, due to the overwhelming flood of snore inducing e-mails from readers hoping for publishing deals or to obtain acting and/or film crew jobs, I feel I must offer some advice.

I’m not exactly sure what is being taught in school these days but how to write effective letters and inquiries must not be one of them. When I was growing up, we were indeed taught this in school (and I’m not that old). So let’s say you are my age and you skipped school those days or you are younger and are a victim of modern substandard schooling and you find yourself writing gems like this (Yep, I’m using a few real e-mail messages):

Your e-mail:
“I’d like to be a part of “XYZ” film. Thanks, Some lazy person”

“Interested in working on “X” film and “Y” film.”

My Response:
So what?

*And let’s not forget the messages sent entirely in capital letters.

Your e-mail:
“Hi, I have a book proposal for “XYZ” book for “ABC” audience. It’s serious info. presented in a slightly comical manner. Are you interested in hearing more?”

My response:
Why on earth would I? You’ve given me little or no reason to be interested.

I’m typically all about anti-conformity and pro-creativity, however, when it comes to getting someone to invest in you and your craft, you have to get their attention. That means being both professional and creative at the same time. If you are professional and creative in how you present yourself and it is clear that you value your craft and its place in your life then you are on the right path, even if others still choose not to invest in you. *If your art (writing, acting, and/or film crew member) is all about business than you are on a hustle plan I can’t help you with (for example, if the only way a filmmaker can make a film (i.e. do their art), is to get funds from investors for which they have to pay this money back and then some, then your art has become a business deal. Whereas if you make the best film you can make with your own money or from “gift” money, then your art remains art (and this art may become financially viable as well).

I find that people who do not take time to present themselves in professional and creative ways such as with the examples listed, usually lack the energy, commitment and drive that is vital to a working relationship and to their craft. Publishers and filmmakers see far too many inquiries from short-term energy sucking individuals and are conditioned to weed them out based on a set of warning signals. I personally feel these are valid warning signals unlike those used in 99% of standard job interviews (yes that’s a little jab. *smile*).

Ok, so now that you’re face has been ripped off, let’s put you back together here. It’s all about being helpful. At the least, you want to practice BASIC letter/inquiry writing. That means picking up a book or two or surfing the web and finding info on the correct elements required in your basic professional letter or inquiry. You also want to always use your spell check and double check your grammar. An e-mail or written letter is not an instant or text message conversation. Do not use “web” or “mobile talk” outside of your cell phone or instant message. This is the bare minimum to at least get people to respect your inquiry (now there is a word no one seems to be familiar with anymore).

If you are an author looking to be published there is absolutely no excuse for making unprofessional inquiries. The Writer’s Market and many other books have provided step by step instructions on how to write query letters for the publishing market. The Writer’s Market also provides information on how to contact publishing companies to obtain their guidelines for submissions. In addition, publishing companies with websites, usually list this information directly on their sites.

Those serious about acting should always write a professional letter to gather information about the production and to provide some information about your abilities. If possible, send a demo and resume and definitely a head shot. For acting talent, I’m personally less interested in the resume and more interested in a demo. I definitely put a high premium on a demo. Demos help filmmakers visualize how you might fit into their production. In this case the professional letter is a formality that commands attention and respect. From there, your demo helps me make a tentative choice.

Do not take rejection personally when you have done the right thing. Not everyone will be interested in what you love to do. That is a simple, unavoidable reality. Even if NO one is interested, it does not mean you have to change how you feel about your craft. You should be doing it for yourself anyway (no matter how cliche that is).

None of us can afford to give in to lazy people with power. Have you ever, in searching for a job, happen to read any of the contradictory articles about how to write a resume? The US is relatively the only country that uses what I call the “lazy man’s” resume. Whereas most other countries require a Curriculum Vitae to apply for jobs or universities. Upon reading the contradictory articles one thing stood out. The bulleted resume is for lazy people with power. CVs can and are concise but at the same time give the most accurate level of information for making hiring decisions. We must always present ourselves with the most accurate level of information. Period. Before you shift into powerless mode, ask yourself… Do I really want to develop a working relationship with anyone who can’t spend 20 minutes reading about me and my craft? (because just like how not being professional and creative says something about you, not taking the time to choose the best talent and crew or new author says a lot about them). In addition, presenting yourself to publishers and filmmakers with the best level of information will also give you an opportunity to review your accomplishments. This is always a good thing.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m just about finished getting Our Side Of Joy down to two hours or less. It’s still a very tough process. It feels as if this film is really two complete films in one and most likely that’s pretty much what it is.  It has caused me to think about my documentary career. Before I think I just looked at making documentaries from the perspective of choosing a topic and trying to cover as many aspects of the topic as possible. In the end, I think this is fine for multi-volume and academic releases. But I need to be extremely careful in the future when I shoot films for the film festival cuircut. I never have it in my head that my films will be available for theratrical release. I’d be lying if I said I cared about having my films in theaters. The reality is… I don’t. I do like the idea of having my films show at film festivals, on TV and availale on DVD for retail sales. With that in mind, I must decide on topics and how they will be filmed based on where and how I plan to release them.  I should have shot Our Side of Joy differently for festival and TV release. DVD releases are awesome because you don’t have to compromise on content.  I did initially feel I was going to film Our Side of Joy for the festival cuircut but I didn’t think enough about content in terms of the extent to which I would cover topics and how they releate to each other. In order words, my initial goals for this film in terms of topic coverage was just way too broad. Now I have goo-gobs of very useful footage making it a nightmare to carve down to less than 2 hours for film festivals and TV broadcasting.

Related posts:

1. Creative Writing Exercise - 24 Hours to Live Exercise

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m back to share with you all that has happened since Part 3 of this project. *Smile* Several things… First, I received the 26″ HDTV and realized it was enormous. Then I opened it up and realized it was scary. Then I fixed it for $21.99. *Insert Diabolical Laugh Here* The 26″ HDTV did indeed have an issue with the 8 CCFL inverter. One of the 8 transformers on the PCB board was bad so for $21.99 I bought a new replacement transformer, desoldered the bad one and soldered on the new. Now I’m using the fantastic TV to write this post. *Smile* I have also written an Instructable on how to test and replace the transformers on the inverter in this TV (It is a very common inverter board that is present in lots of name brand LCD TVs and the transformer problem is a known issue for this board). You can check out the instructable HERE.

Alright, so this quest has rewarded me with a 26″ HDTV for roughly $60. Not bad. But what about my production monitor project? Well, it’s still on and poppin’. I received the Proscan controller board and inverter and hooked it up to my LCD panel. The only problem is, I have no cable to hook the inverter to the mainboard where it will draw it’s power from. So I was basically back to square one and had to order the connector cables today ($2). I don’t anticipate there will be an issue with this setup once I get the cable and I think I can move on to building a case for my monitor once I’ve verified it works with the new controller and inverter. … Well, I take that back. I did do something silly. I blew a capacitor on the Proscan board by plugging this high powered 12V adapter into it. It sounded like a cheap handgun going off and spewed its powdery guts all over the place. Neat. *Insert Diabolical Laugh Here* But I soldered on a new higher voltage capacitor in it’s place and will use a more appropriate power adapter if I haven’t killed the board. It didn’t look like the rest of the board was damaged but we shall see. The Proscan controller also has a DC connector and uses a laptop style power adapter. This is just what I wanted. If I’m feeling really lofty, I may build a solar powered UPS battery backup with two-stage battery charging for the monitor for extended use applications.

Lastly, I’ve abandoned the idea of using a laptop LCD for a production monitor. Simply put, it is the difference between choosing a car that just needs a new fuse to fix the head lights or a car that needs an engine and a battery and on top of that, the car in the worst shape will cost you more. *Smile*

Once I have the LCD guts working I can focus on building a rugged case to survive vigorous production use.

*NOTE* You may want to consider the size of your finished production monitor if you plan on traveling via the airlines. Mine will be 15-17 inches and I wouldn’t take that with me if I was flying anywhere. You could ship it and hope no one gets the hot fingers with it. *Smile*

I also want to add that my economic goal for this monitor is for it to cost less than $100. I admit that had I known as much as I’ve learned since I first started this, I would have spent far less than I have so far. Right now the cost of the monitor project is at about $75, if I stick to using the Proscan controller and inverter. However, if I just repair the original PSU, then the cost would be about $30-40 (but I would have to plug the thing into the wall all the time. Booooooo!). Also, if I’d known then what I knew now, I could have gotten a similar Polaroid TV with a good PSU for dirt cheap and swapped it out. But know YOU know and you should be able to avoid my costly mistakes.

*If some elements to the right block your view of the photos below, scroll down until they are off the screen. The image will stay in place.

Related posts:

1. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 3 There ha
2. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 2 A few da
3. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 1 Back in

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

There have been a few new and exciting developments in my quest to create my own production monitor. First, I have to say up front that it is cheaper to buy a broken LCD TV (with a good LCD panel and controller board) and fix it, than it is to try to use a laptop LCD as an independent monitor (Independent of the laptop).  Also, I was browsing the web and someone came up with a rather simple idea for using a laptop LCD panel as a monitor (although this doesn’t allow for camera hookups). They simply removed the harddrive and anything else that wasn’t necessary for the operation of the LCD and mounted the rest in a new custom case. But since I’m making a production monitor for my camera, that easy solution won’t work.

I’ve learned quite a bit more since the last post. Making an LCD panel work (outside of fabrication of the components), is both simple and not simple. All you need to make an LCD panel work is an LCD panel, some kind of backlights, an Inverter to run the backlights, a controller board to control all available aspects of the display and process signals, and a power source. What an LCD panel from a laptop lacks is the controller board since the LCD on a laptop is controlled by the video card and/or motherboard of the laptop. But if you look at an LCD TV, the only thing that is different is that it has a controller board to manipulate the display instead of a component on a motherboard that can’t be removed like with a laptop.

So, I went on Ebay and started looking for controller boards I thought would work with my LCD panel. It’s not that doing so isn’t worth it, it is just time consuming. If you are like me and don’t mind hunting for something and having to learn tons along the way, then this is no issue. But if you just want everything laid out before you (i.e. like you would with buying commercial products), then this venture is not for you.

In the process, I learned what backlight inverters do and why they may or may not be important. They sound important until you realize they are just powering the little CCFL lights that make the screen bright enough for you to see. Then they don’t seem so important because if you really want to, you can always get around it by using cheap CCFL lighting effects kits like this person, or doing something really gangsta like this person.

As for the LCD panel, it’s simple. If it’s broken, it’s useless, throw it away. If it’s not, it’s good, keep it. That leaves us with the controller board. This is the big pain. The good news is, they are being sold on Ebay from cheap to “get the f**k outta here”. The bad news is, they may only work with specific LCD panels. The other good news is, many commercial LCD TVs use panels from the same few companies, like Hitachi, Samsung, etc. I will have more on this when I get the controller board I bought on Ebay for $45. The board also came with the keypad and for $20 more I bought the inverter for it as well; all with free shipping (I’ll be using this board set with a larger LCD panel). I’ve ordered an new inverter for the IBM screen (the exact same part the laptop came with) and I’m going to use a controller from a similar size LCD TV. More on that when it’s done.

The point here is this … if you have an LCD panel from a laptop you want to turn into a LCD monitor with AV inputs, go on the web and buy a LCD TV with a broken LCD panel. They are cheaper than the controllers themselves where the seller has simply pulled them out of an LCD TV with a broken LCD panel or dead inverter. (If you look at the picture of the items I bought on Ebay, you’ll see the controller board I bought was more expensive than the LCD TVs I bought that just have bad inverters.

It’s also important for you to get a controller board that already has the power connector on the board. Some LCD TVs have a separate power supply unit (PSU) and you just don’t want to deal with those at all. You want a completely self contained board so all you have to do is plug your LCD panel into it and plug in a power adapter (which can be found anywhere on the cheap).

While I was out hunting the vast universe for a controller for my LCD panel, it started appearing far easier to buy an LCD TV that has a bad inverter. You would be getting essentially a working LCD TV without the backlights working. At the most, it would be a $20 fix. Even if it cost you $60 to fix, it be worth it. For instance, I bought a 26″ HDTV TV for $0.99 (you see it right)! The shipping was $39 (the TV is 33lbs so that’s not too bad). And the only thing wrong with it is… yes, the inverter is bad. So, I’d say it is a steal if I even had to pay $60 for a new inverter but I won’t, so it’s even better.

If you buy an LCD TV with a bad inverter, when you get it, simply dismantle the TV, replace the inverter and mount the LCD panel (w/backlights), inverter, and controller board in a custom case of your making or choosing. Viola! You have your very own high resolution production monitor for dirt cheap!

While I was editing this post, I received the first LCD TV I bought off Ebay. It is a 15inch Polaroid HDTV. When checking around the web it seems these TVs are not very popular with consumers and from the looks of how many are for sale on Ebay for the same problem, I can see why. But another man’s junk….  I plugged the TV in and a nice red Polaroid screen comes up and then one that says “no signal” and the screen goes black. I shine my trusty LED flashlight on the screen and I can see “No Signal” moving around the screen. So yes the monitor is still on and working but the backlights are not. Because the screen does light up momentarily, I think I can safely say the CCFLs are fine and that there is definitely a problem with the inverter. I can’t believe folks give away TVs for this issue but hey, it means a cheap HDTV for me, doesn’t it? *Smile*

Well I’m off to dismantle this thing. The other issue I’ll have to address is that this TV has a plug similar to ones used on computers. I’m going to have to figure out a way to use a 12V battery pack I have. Stay Tuned!

*If some elements to the right block your view of the photos below, scroll down until they are off the screen. The image will stay in place.

Related posts:

1. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 4 I’
2. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 2 A few da
3. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 1 Back in

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A few days ago I went ahead and dismantled the IBM ThinkPad T21 I had lying around. The laptop still worked but there was a problem with the backlight and it had some serious wear and tear. The backlight issue can easily be fixed with a new inverter. So with that in mind, I proceeded to take the laptop apart.

I pulled out the hard drive, memory, speakers, LCD Panel, LCD panel supports, and couple of miscellaneous parts. The LCD Panel is in good shape. The Gallery below shows the dismantling process.

The greatest challenge is the LCD controller. Before I started this project I had no reason to learn how LCD monitors worked or what made them work. But since I pulled this panel, I’ve had to figure out what I would need to not only make it work, but how to get a signal from my camera to it. Throughout the the process I learned a few things I will share with you (bare with me, I’m also still learning).

From what I’ve learned, one could get a LCD controller board that simply has jacks on it so that you can hook it up to a PC. They are plentiful and pretty cheap. However, if you want AV jacks for using your panel with a camera or other input devices, you need an LCD controller (or A/D board) that has multimedia jacks. If I understand correctly (we’ll see when I test it), these are just the boards that come standard with all of the LCD TVs. These boards however are not regularly sold outside of an LCD TV. Some places (literally about 2 places) do sell them direct to consumers at acceptable prices but I’d rather shoot for affordable.

In light of this information, I feel I can safely assume one could simply get not only the A/D board from an LCD TV and use it on any compatible LCD panel but also pull with it, the inverter, button bar, and power board (if required). Of course you wouldn’t do this with just any LCD TV. You want to obtain an LCD TV with a cracked or broken LCD panel (only) OR any problems not related to a faulty board. If the LCD TV has a backlight problem, no big deal, you will just have to replace the inverter and in some cases, maybe the light tube itself. I will stick to only cracked or Broken LCD panels or ones with inverter problems since this part can easily be replaced. Any TVs with A/D board issues defeats the purpose of what I’m trying to do.

The back up plan is being able to just buy the A/D board new from one of the places that sells them at an acceptable price. But lets try to be a little more thrifty with this project, shall we? I’ve bid on some great broken LCD TVs on Ebay. It’s been forever since I’ve used the site but the prices for these TVs are very reasonable and so is the shipping. I also wanted to get an A/D board that would support the maximum resolution my LCD panel is capable of (1024×768). Getting an A/D board that can support this resolution and higher is a plus because I can always just update the panel at some point.

So right now, I’m waiting to win an auction and get the TV to pull parts from. Stay tuned for part 3!

Related posts:

1. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 3 There ha
2. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 4 I’
3. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 1 Back in

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Back in the day I used to own a Fuchsia 1977 Chevy Impala. That’s right, Fuchsia. *Smile* The car was having some problems with the carburetor and so I decided to buy a kit to rebuild the carburetor. I admit, I was motivated by the ridiculous prices I was being quoted by mechanics.

So I bought this kit (a mere $10 or so) and removed the carburetor from the car. I had my Chilton’s manual and my kit and went to work on cleaning it and replacing the old parts with the new ones from the kit (an extremely easy task).  When I was done, I went out to the car to put the rebuilt carburetor back on. While doing that, one of my roommates said to me “What if your car doesn’t work?”. It was a strange question to me. My response “Why wouldn’t it work?”.  I wasn’t being naive I just felt like if I’d informed myself (i.e. knew what kind of carburetor I had, knew what kind of kit to get for that carburetor, had the Chilton manual with exact steps on what to do, followed them, etc.) there is no reason why it wouldn’t work. It worked before I took it off (however terrible) and it should work better when I put it back on. It did indeed work fantastic when I put it back on.

I told this story specifically for this post because it has two important relevant elements. 1. You may be attempting to do something considered mystical by the average person, and 2. You may be told it can’t be done, it’s not worth doing, or you just should buy a new one (I was told all three of those things in regards to my carburetor issue).

Lets get a little more backstory shall we? If you search the web to find out about how to convert an LCD panel from something like an old laptop into a LCD monitor for whatever you want to use it for, you will find “it can’t be done”, “it’s not worth it”, “it’s easier just to buy a new monitor”. Those things may have been true at one point but it no longer applies today.

Low budget filmmakers often want and need to find cheaper solutions for production monitors. Let’s face it, they are very expensive. The CRT ones are not only very expensive but usually very big, bulky and heavy and not really what you want to take on shoots (however just fine for post production work). So then we will consider LCD options. The cheaper portable LCD monitors are still a little expensive but if you happen to find one at a reasonable price such as the ones http://www.LCD4Video.com carry, then the quality is only good enough for framing. If you’d like a higher quality monitor for focusing you are looking to spend well over $500. I know in a world, used to paying big bucks for electronics, there are still many of us who believe we are being ripped off in that regard. I’d go into that but it would be quite a novel.

Many thrifty filmmakers then decide to use commercial LCD TVs or monitors …um… the big ones, to avoid paying the high costs for the small LCD production monitors. But who wants to lug a big ole LCD monitor or TV around? And we are still talking somewhere between $180+ for one of those unless you can find something used.

So then there are those of us who want to take an old laptop LCD Panel and make our own affordable LCD monitor that has a high enough quality for focusing. LCD panels can be had from old and new laptops that are no longer working but still have good screens. You can obtain these all over the internet for as little as $8. These are the main things to consider for your project:

1. LCD Panel - Any resolution; but for focusing you may want a bare minimum of 1024×768.
2. LCD Controller - This just isn’t any ole LCD controller. You need one with multimedia ports. The bare minimum for making a production monitor would be one with just AV ports (yellow, red, white). This is the primary component that makes people think it’s not possible to pull a laptop screen out and convert it for other use.
3. LCD Inverter - The Inverter lights up the fluorescent tube inside the LCD screen. These are actually already present in the laptop. If it is still good, pull it out with the LCD Panel and use that instead of buying a new one, unless your controller comes with one then just use the new one.
4. Button Bar - This little board connects to the LCD Controller and adds button functionality for controlling your LCD Panel. These can be obtained dirt cheap as well.
5. The LCD Case - You just need something to put everything in for a finished monitor. The beauty about a DIY monitor is that you can make a case that fits your gear and you can be mindful of where you plan on mounting it or how you plan on using it.

So our task here is to build our own focus quality production monitor using an LCD panel pulled from a laptop and to build it at an affordable price. I must mention that there are at least two companies selling LCD kits that include focus quality LCD panels, controllers, inverters and button boards. These kits are indeed made from LCD panels from Laptops and they work great.

This will be a multi-part tutorial as I’m in the process of making this monitor. Stay Tuned for Part 2!

Related posts:

1. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 3 There ha
2. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 2 A few da
3. Do It Yourself LCD Production Monitor: Part 4 I’

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m working on one of my docs and I’m glad that I’ve been experimenting with other films in between because I learned about a simple feature Adobe Premier offers (Multiple sequences in a project. A basic feature, I know.) that has helped me tremendously with organizing the footage for this doc and helping me know where my concepts are and how much footage I have for each key concept.

So I’m working through all of the footage and I think I should be done with categorizing this week. I can then work on importing and categorizing the B-roll and hopefully work on my story flow by the end of January. I’m hoping to have a final version of this film done by July.

I’ve been watching more documentaries and it’s still tough to get a feel for how I want to present this story since all the docs I’ve seen are hours of bad road (i.e. negative). But it did make me feel like a positive documentary is even more important right now. Its not a good thing to live in a society where art takes you to the abyss and never brings you back.

Related posts:

1. The Fun Begins: Editing My Docs Well I s
2. Back to working on documentary, Our Side of Joy Well I

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Well I’m doing my Aries thing as usual. I didn’t shoot “Old Wounds”, instead I shot a video on how to make fake intestines for HowCast.com (so not worth it), and I shot a short film called “Anything”. This was originally supposed to just be a one weekend shoot but I think I’d like to extend it. There were some scene we didn’t get and I’d like to play a little more with the story. I also have a new idea for my next short film. I’m also considering entering the LossFest over at DVXuser.com.

Related posts:

1. New Short Flim I’
2. First Trailer Finished! Finally
3. The Fun Begins: Editing My Docs Well I s

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.