I never thought that getting a brand-new USB key to work could turn into a configuration nightmare, requiring trips to four separate utilities and two operating systems. This is what happened last week with the SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2GB USB Flash Drive. This USB key uses a SanDisk-developed technology called U3 (obnoxiously marketed with the slogan “It’s what’s next. It’s what’s smart.”) What this piece of code does is allow Windows XP users to launch applications directly from the USB key, therefore allowing them to "leave no personal data behind". Unfortunately, not only is this a Windows-enhanced technology, it is actually incompatible with Mac OS X. And getting this thing to work on Apple’s OS is an exercise in frustration. The whole idea of a USB key was to replace portable rewritable media like floppy disks, which were universal in their hardware implementation (regardless of OS-specific formatting and file-system). This was true for USB keys as well, at least until U3 arrived.
When you plug a U3-enabled USB key into your Mac, what you get is the (expected) disk image, accompanied by a second icon, a CD image, called "U3". If you’re like me, you buy this thing to quickly get a couple of portable gigabytes of storage, and the last thing you want to care about are "enhancements". It’s like buying a hard drive (or, if memory serves, a floppy disk): you just want to connect it and format it for the file system you’ll be using. But what happens after a quick formatting trip to the OS X Disk Utility is that you’re left with an unusable piece of plastic. No matter what you do, you’re stuck with a drive that won’t mount and, more annoyingly, can neither be erased nor partitioned. The USB key is now read-only. Plugging it into a Windows machine, downloading "uninstallers" from the SanDisk website, cursing the innovation-obsessed IT market, whatever you do, the key is dead. Even the Launchpad Remover, distributed on the U3 website, won’t be able to do anything with it. It’s important to note that this is not a SanDisk-only problem; it happens on several (maybe all) models of U3-enabled keys.
The outrageous part of all this is that while the packaging clearly claims Mac OS X compatibility, as you can see on the left, an angry trip to the SanDisk support website is all that’s needed in order to find out that the very same manufacturer actually states the opposite. This is an ancient way of making quick money: sell something which you acknowledge doesn’t do what you say it does. I wrote an email to SanDisk customer support about this glaring inconsistency between their own two statements. Their reply, which arrived surprisingly fast, suggests that they might rethink either the technology, the packaging or their marketing information in the future, which is a good thing:
The U3 part of your Cruzers are not supported on MACs, but the removable drive part will work and is supported on MAC computers. We would like to thank you for pointing this out to our attention. We have already forwarded this information to the proper personnel for review.
As of now, we cannot give you a definitive answer concerning the matters you have presented but rest assured that the personnel for this matter will greatly consider it for our product improvement.
And since I’d rather not wait for the SanDisk product improvement team to fix this, I searched the internet again, and again, and finally found a post on the Canadian ehMac forum. The author, Mark Rushton, had the exact same problem with the GXT Mobile Disk USB 2.0, and posted a quick and (almost) hassle-free solution. All you need is a Windows machine (I found one which had Parallels Desktop installed and it worked fine) and the Drive Key Boot Utility from HP (45mb download, no registration required). Just plug your dead USB key into a Windows XP machine (real or virtual), run the app, click through all the recommended options and let the software pulverize the drive’s U3 enhancements into oblivion. Don’t worry if it takes several minutes (with no progress bar) or if the program stops responding; just wait until it’s finished. Go back to the Mac OS Disk Utility and do whatever you want with your new, fully functional USB flash drive (which is what you wanted in the first place). Thanks Mark.
UPDATE: Apparently it’s possible to accomplish the above using Terminal without downloading anything, as suggested by Damien in a comment to this post. I haven’t tested it myself but it does seem to be a very simple solution. Thanks Damien.
After several trials and tribulations, I finally managed to get an independent Python 2.6.1 version running smoothly on Ubuntu 8.10 (“Intrepid”), without interfering with the system’s reliance on Python 2.5 and without breaking the entire package dependency system. The procedure described here has been successfully carried out on the Easy Peasy distribution of Ubuntu (ex-”Ubuntu-eee”), specifically tailored for the Asus EEE-PC. It should work, though, with any other 8.10 version of Ubuntu. It has also been tested successfully on Ubuntu 8.04 (“Hardy”).
Using timecode in Excel
In the mad technological rat race for high-definition, video compression and desktop compositing with infinite layers and undo levels, it’s not very often that you stumble upon a 20-kilobyte file from 1996 that can change the way you work. In the process of editing documentary films, I spent a while looking for the right way to enter timecode values in an Excel spreadsheet. This can be extremely valuable when working with historical archive footage. Most of the time the editor will be working with files which have “hard” timecode (numbers burned-in on top of the image to prevent illegal broadcast). When the film is done, it is usually up to the editor to dress up a list of all the shots he or she has actually used, so that the final footage – a “clean” frame, free of timecode – can be ordered from the appropriate footage agency.
If you’re the organized type, dressing such a list in Excel can be a pain. For each timecode value entered, you have to type three separate colons so as to obtain, e.g. 10:00:00:00 (asking for a clip that starts at 10000000 will usually get you nowhere). Moreover, if you want to do a few basic calculations (e.g. finding the total duration of all footage coming from a particular agency), you have to go through them with a separate timecode calculator and then waste half a day copying and pasting. I’ve tried to create a formula which would handle all of that but I got lost, quickly, in Excel’s cryptic syntax. And I didn’t feel like learning how to program Excel.
Luckily, as often happens on the third paragraph, an easy and effortless solution exists. A Swiss company, Belle Nuit Montage, has posted on its website an invaluable little macro which goes by the positively baroque name of TC.XLA 1.1. (with Drop-Frame). This little marvel was written more than a decade ago by Matthias Bürcher and will take all timecode formatting and calculating tasks in Excel off your hands. There are versions for Macintosh Excel 4 & 5 – and even DOS! – however the version called “Macintosh Excel 5, downloadable for OSX” is working perfectly well in a more up-to-date environment (in my case, Excel 2004 running on OSX Leopard).
Unfortunately, the English version of the webpage comes with very few instructions (the French version is much more explicit). The idea is very simple: you have to launch the XLA file (either by opening it or by adding it to your default macros). This adds two new styles (which can be found using Format > Styles…), called Time Code and Time Code DF (for Drop-Frame). All you have to do once you’ve applied these styles to your cells is to type the timecode without the colons – much like you would do in Final Cut Pro or Avid – i.e. typing 10000000 will result in 10:00:00:00 being displayed. This isn’t half the story, though.
TC.XLA running in Excel 2004
TC.XLA adds a dozen of new and handy functions that are very simple to use. You can now easily add and subtract timecodes, convert between frame rates and even find the value of a timecode in feet for 16mm or 35mm film. The macro seems to support all standard drop and non-drop frame rates, although I’ve only worked with it in 25fps (which is the rate the code defaults to if you don’t specify another one).
The syntax for the functions is very simple and is described on the Belle Nuit Montage website. As an example, entering “TCminus(E4;D4)” into a cell will give you the timecode difference between the values in E4 and D4. Presuming the two cells represent IN and OUT points, the result is obviously the duration of the shot. You can then easily add up a list of those durations with TCsum. This last function doesn’t seem to refresh properly when changing values upstream, but forcing a recalculation (Command-=) solves the problem. This is a minor niggle, though, compared to the ease of use and practical value of this tiny piece of free software.
Update: The above works fine for Excel 2008 as well, however you must press Command-Option-T after creating your workbook in order to enable the macro. The status line should respond with “TC-XLA 1.1″ followed by a URL to confirm this.