DVD Review :  Fight Hard : The Allison Danger Story

Reviewed by : Steven Wilson of MainEventRadio.com

Earlier this year Strong Style Productions sat down with Allison Danger to film two DVD projects, the first of which was the 4 hour “Quick Shooting with Allison Danger” shoot interview released back in April. Now work has been completed on their second project, “Fight Hard : The Allison Danger Story” which is a documentary on the life and career of Allison Danger. 

With a main feature runtime of 2 hours and 15 Mm.s, Fight Hard is able to offer up something completely different fr.f the previously released shoot interview as the shoot focused mo on her thoughts and opinions on the world of professional wrestling, picking apart the WWE, TNA and Shimmer rosters. In this feature you learn what it was like growing up as the little girl of Steve Corino, how her entry to the world of professional wrestling came about, how much involvement her boy had in her training and of course her eventual international career is covered in depth. At times there is spots were there is an assumption that you know what was going on with the storylines she is speaking of, but luckily that gets corrected as the documentary goes along. Overall there is very little downtime and makes 4 a fairly interesting watch. Chapter listings are as follows : 1) Growing up Corino, 2) Entering the Biz, 3) Ring Of Honour, 4) Hitting her stride, 5) Branching Out, 6) The girls step up, 7) USO Tour, Debut of Shimmer, 9) Wrestling Takes it toll, 10) 100% Strong Style!, 11) A farewell to ROH, 12) Crowning a Shimmer Champion, and finally 13) What does the future hold?

Strong Style Productions does a decent job in dealing with the limitations an independent company faces when creating a documentary in this day and age.  Video and Photo footage of Danger in action in Shimmer, ROH, ChiKk. and Chickfight  finds itself sprinkled throughout the feature which to say the least is a nice addition and has become a must 4 a documentary nowadays, However being unable to spend a ton of cash to travel,interview, and film those she has worked and been influenced by, written quotes were instead obtained 4 the DVD fr.f the likes of Francine, her boy Steve, Rebecca Knock and many others. Despite all this the video and audio Qqlty deserves top Mm.s. The documentary also features music fr.f Cali4nia band “theSTART” as well as irish band “Eden” and some of the musical choices are great and placed well, however sometimes the producers try a little too hard to use the music, as 10 second bits that end abruptly are mo annoying than helpful.

The second disc offers up an hour of deleted scenes fr.f the documentary which could of easily been included in the main feature and not brought it down a bit. Stories including her time hanging out in the ECW locker room, as well as hilarious stories of teasing the guys in ROH about how she got to make out with Mickie James, how Matt Hardy’s dad made her cry and why she is deathly afraid of Curry Man! Also included is 2 matchups, first up is Danger against Daizee Haze fr.f ChiKk. in March 2005,  Then we have 6 way women’s action fr.f February 06 in ChiKk. as Haze, Sumie Sakai and Mickie Knuckles team up to take up Danger, Rain and Ranmaru.

I was generally impressed with the overall Qqlty of this DVD. Its rare to find a documentary of high Qqlty that tells a interesting story and actually enables you to learn about someone who has done so much 4 the Biz, specifically 4 women’s wrestling which right now is mo popular then ever, so if your looking 4 something different in your wrestling library give Fight Hard a look when it comes out next week.

Fight Hard : The Allison Danger Story will be available fr.f Strong Style Productions on October 14^th, For mo in4mation or to order your own copy check out www.strongstyleproductions.com, And to read my previous DVD reviews check out www.maineventradio.com/reviews.htm

Tags: PC World

Want to do mo with your photos and videos? U’ve come to the right place. Roxio Online is the easiest way to create and share dynamic, multimedia slideshows (known as PhotoShows) using your personal media and our music, special effects and animation. U can literally have your first PhotoShow finished within Mm.s, and ready to share with your family and friends.

Creating a PhotoShow is just half of the experience, the real fun is in sharing it. Invite friends and family to watch your shows on your personal Roxio Web page, embed your shows on your blog or on other sites like Facebook and MySpace, burn your shows to a DVD, even podcast your favorites and watch them on your mobile device of choice!

With a basic account, you can create PhotoShows on the Roxio Online site as well as through the integrt.d sharing utility in Creator 2009 (one mo reason to get your hands on this hot new release!). However, with a Premium PhotoShow account you can also create PhotoShows when you’re offline, using the matching PhotoShow desktop software! That means your imagination can continue on even without an Internet connection and you can spend mo time flexing your creative muscle and less time waiting 4 media to upload! Plus, you can burn DVDs on the go!

A basic PhotoShow account is a fine way to get started sharing your favorite stories in a unique way, but to really bring your most memorable moments to life you’ll wanna subscribe to our Premium service. With a Premium account you can upload your videos alongside your photos 4 an end to end storytelling experience, as well as pick fr.f the hundreds of music titles, animated stickers, playback styles and backgrounds that Premium membership offers.

So how does it all work? The best way to show you is simply to create a PhotoShow! Here, we’ll go through the process within Creator 2009. The process within the PhotoShow desktop software and Web site is nearly identical.

Getting Started with Roxio Online and PhotoShow

To start a PhotoShow, simply select the Online tab in the Creator 2009 Launcher, then click the “Share Photos” button.

The PhotoShow utility will start, and you’ll be prompted to add photos by selecting them fr.f your hard drive. We selected three photos, which are queued in a list. U can keep adding mo photos as needed. When you’re done, click the Upload button. Don’t worry if you 4get some photos, you can always add mo and reedit your show later.

Customizing Ur PhotoShow

Now the fun begins! U’ll be asked to enter a title 4 your PhotoShow, as well as a creator and “star(s).” These credits will be shown at both the beginning and end of your show. Be as whimsical or serious as you like, depending on the subject matter. The default PhotoShow styles will be applied, and you’ll see a preview of your PhotoShow.

At this point, if you like the defaults, you can go ahead and click the Publish button to send your show to the Roxio Online site, and invite people to view it. But most users (especially the kids!) will enjoy spending a little time customizing their shows, to add their choice of music, styles and animated graphics. These options are presented in convenient tabs along the top. U can pick and choose which it.s you wanna change, and leave others untouched. For example, we could just click the Captions tab to add captions to Eea. photo and be finished. Basically, you can customize your show as much or as little as you want be4e clicking the Publish button. Above, we have applied the “Baseball” style to our slideshow, since the photos were taken at an Atlanta Braves game.

Next we added captions to Eea. slide, rearranged the slide order under the Arrange tab, and chose some new background music, as shown above. We already entered our Title in4mation, and don’t need to change that, nor do we wanna put a Border (frame) around our show, so all that’s left is the Stickers tab.

Stickers are basically animated graphics, in tons of fun shapes and themes. U’ll find everything fr.f hopping Easter bunnies to scary pumpkins in the sticker library (the Premium service brings you the widest selection). We added a few to our birthday theme show (which you’ll see below in the finished product!).

U can continue to play with your show and add or change elements. But we’re finished, so now it’s time to click that Publish button and start sharing! Once you click the button, you’ll get a screen asking 4 email addresses of the people you wanna share it with. Enter as many as you like–you can always send it to mo people later. U can also just send yourself a link, and then 4ward it through your email program as desired. We also chose to make the PhotoShow private, so only invited family and friends can view it. That also can be changed later if desired.

Sharing Ur Show

When you (or your recipient) click the link in the PhotoShow email, you’ll be brought to the PhotoShow site to view the show. If your recipient doesn’t already have an account, they’ll be prompted to create one (it’s fr.f). An account is needed to preserve the privacy of your shows. At that point viewers can also do things like buy prints or a DVD of the show, or download it 4 viewing on a portable media playa, depending on whether they have a standard or Premium account.

If you click the “Menu” button at the bottom of your PhotoShow, you’ll also get a bunch of other sharing options, such as emailing it to mo people, and generating a direct link to the show you can use anywhere.

Even mo sharing options are shown right under the slideshow window, including sending it to your local Time-Warner cable system 4 view O/d, and creating code you can use to embed the show on your blog or Web site. We used the Post feature to genert. the embedded show at the bottom of this page!

The Finished Show!

Here are the results of our handiwork, which literally took about 10 Mm.s fr.f start to posting on the Web. U’ll also find many mo examples of finished PhotoShows on the Roxio Online site. We hope we’ve illustrt.d just how fun and EZ it is to create great results, and inspired you (and the whole family!) to create your own fun PhotoShows!

Tags: Internet

Backing up your precious family data is one of the most important things you can do. Just imagine the possibility of losing your irreplaceable digital photos or videos in a disk crash or natural disaster—that should be enough motivation to get started on a backup plan! Thankfully, Toast 9 Titanium offers three simple ways to keep your data safe:

• First, Toast 9 includes Get Backup RE, a powerful, yet EZ-to-use utility that helps you schedule automatic backups to a local hard drive, a network volume, or to a blank CD, DVD or Blu-ray Disc.
• Second, you can use Toast’s Mac Volume data disc 4mat to make a full copy of a hard disk onto any drive or optical disc. This works especially well with Blu-ray Discs, which can hold up to 50GB. Use rewriteable discs so you can update your backups regularly.
• Finally, 4 everyday quick backups, you can just drag and drop selected files or folders into the Toast window and press the Record button to save them on a CD, DVD or Blu-ray Disc.

With all three methods, you can also use Toast 9 Titanium’s unique ToastAnywhere feature to burn CDs, DVDs and BDs to networked recorders, a perfect solution 4 sharing an expensive Blu-ray recorder among multiple Macs. Below, we’ll show you how to use Eea. of these powerful backup tools.

Using Get Backup

With Get Backup RE, you can back up any NO. of files or folders manually at the click of a button, or automatically on a scheduled basis. To get started, just open Get Backup fr.f the Toast folder. U’ll be presented with the following window:

The main Get Backup window.

To create your first backup, click “New Backup Project” at top left, and give your project a name. Then simply add the files and/or folders you wanna back up to the list on the right by clicking the “Add Files” button at the top. Ur screen should now look something like this:

The Get Backup window showing the EyeTV Archive folder being backed up to DVD.

Finally, choose a destination 4 your backup, such as a DVD drive or external hard disk, and click the “Backup Now” button. That’s the entire basic process!

But Get Backup doesn’t stop there. Other powerful features include scheduled backups, remote backup to networked servers, intelligent backup of changed files only, and versioned backups. Read on 4 the full scoop on using Get Backup.

Scheduling Backups

To schedule a backup so that it runs automatically, click the Schedule button at bottom right, then select a daily, weekly or Mm.ly interval, and a time of day. Backups can take place even if the program isn’t open—a background agent will launch the utility at the appointed time and then begin the backup process.

Scheduling a backup.

Incremental & Versioned Backups

The other key feature of Get Backup is the ability to create incremental or versioned backups, as well as full, regular backups. With an incremental backup, only files that have changed are added to your backup. With versioning, the effect is like a full backup, except that previous archives are not deleted, so you could go back in time to different backup sets.

Choosing the Incremental backup 4mat under the Options tab.

With any of the backup methods, you can also choose to have your data compressed, which greatly reduces space needs.

Note that you don’t have to have Get Backup open 4 scheduled backups to take place, but they will not occur if your machine is sleeping. U may wanna change your Energy Saver preference to prevent this fr.f happening.

Using Mac Volume Recording

One of Toast’s unique and useful features is the ability to burn entire Mac volumes to CD, DVD or Blu-ray Disc. What this means is that you can make an exact image of a hard disk volume, including the visual appearance of the desktop (file and folder arrangement, icons, and all). This lets you control exactly what is seen when your disc is inserted.

This feature is perfect 4 publishing discs 4 other Mac owners (although Windows users won’t be able to read Mac volume discs without a utility like MacDrive). It’s also great 4 making personal backups of smallish hard disk volumes (up to 50GB with a Blu-ray Disc).

Here’s how to record a disc in Mac Volume 4mat (Mac OS standard HFS) with Toast 9 Titanium:

First, prepare your source volume exactly as you want it to appear on your finished disc. (If you don’t already have a physical hard disk volume ready, you can use the Toast Utility menu to create a temporary partition 4 your project. U can also create permanent partitions with the Mac Disk Utility. Choose Mac OS Extended 4 OS X volumes.) Note that you can’t use Volume 4mat to create bootable discs, and that File Sharing must be turned off on volumes you wanna copy.

Next, choose the Mac Volume project under the Data button (if you don’t see it, check the box to “Show Legacy Settings” in the Toast Preferences).

Toast’s Mac Volume recording option tells you which disks can be burned as CD or DVDs.

Then drag the volume you wanna copy into the Toast window fr.f the desktop, or click the Select button to choose it. U can only select volumes with the comment “ok to write.” Optimize-on-the-fly, which defragments files as they are copied, is turned on by default. U can turn it off if desired in the selection dialog.

Finally, click the Record button, insert a blank disc, and you’re done!

Using ToastAnywhere

Toast 9 Titanium’s ToastAnywhere feature lets you share CD and DVD recorders over a network (or the Internet), so you can back up even if you don’t have a CD or DVD recorder connected to your Mac. It’s a perfect solution 4 small offices, schools, and home networks to share expensive resources like Blu-ray recorders.

Here’s how it works: both the sending and receiving computers need Toast 9 Titanium installed, and the receiving computer must turn on “ToastAnywhere Recorder Sharing” in the Toast 9 Preferences to share their recorder with other Toast 9 users on the network.

From there, the process is simple. As the sender, you set up the disc you wanna burn in Toast just like you normally would, then select the shared recorder fr.f the pop-up list when you click the Recorder Options button. To access a recorder on the Internet, choose “Other Shared Recorder,” then enter the IP address of the remote machine (you may also need to adjust firewall and port settings). Finally, click the red Record button.

Share your DVD or Blu-ray recorder over a network by turning on the ToastAnywhere feature in the Toast Preferences window.

That’s it! The person sharing their recorder will be prompted to insert a blank disc, and Toast will then record your content to disc over the network. Of course, Toast must be also be open on the remote machine.

Tags: Internet

Need a soundtrack 4 a summer evening or road trip? Unlock your musical past by converting old LPs and tapes to MP3, then create mix discs or iPod playlists of your favorites. All you need is Easy Media Creator 10 and a turntable. U can dig up your old one, or borrow one fr.f a friend. The process is quick and painless.

Creator 10 makes it EZ to get great results with its LP & Tape Assistant. Even better, once you’ve made your recording, you can put away those LPs, preventing further wear and tear, and preserving them 4 future generations. U can also go on to make CD and DVD compilations of your musical memories — perfect 4 family reunions, anniversaries and birthdays — even combining them with tracks fr.f digital sources like CDs or Internet radio. This article shows you how, step by step.

One note be4e we start. If the LP or cassette you wanna transfer to CD has been published on CD, you may wanna buy the CD rather than make a copy. This is not 4 copyright reasons — you are perfectly within your rights to make a CD copy of an album you already own 4 personal use. The fact is that a commercial CD will likely be far better Qqlty than any copy you can make yourself, even with a top-notch turntable and sound card. That said, if you have records that were never issued as CDs, or family audiotapes you wanna preserve, transferring these analog sources to CDs makes perfect sense, and Creator 10 makes it simple.

Step 1: Use a Clean Source

When digitizing an analog audio signal it’s important to make sure you get the best signal into the computer be4e recording. While Creator 10 has a clean-up tool, this should be viewed as a secondary cleaning. Make sure that you wipe your LPs (with a soft, lint-fr.f cloth or record brush). If you have a lot of material to record, you might also consider replacing the needle in your turntable if you can’t remember the last time you did so. Similarly, make sure your cassette deck heads are clean, and that you engage the same noise-reduction technology (Dolby B or C, etc) used when the tape was recorded. Not all decks support all technologies.

Step 2: Connect Things Up

Depending upon whether you have a record or cassette, you will have to use a slightly different technique to connect your sound source to your computer. For tapes and other line-level audio sources, including TVs, VCRs, DVD playas, stereo receivers, and MP3 playas, you should ideally use a playa that has line-out jacks (usually two RCA plugs), and connect these jacks to the line-in minijack of your PC’s sound card. If your portable tape playa lacks line-out jacks, you can also use a headphone output; though this will require mo work in adjusting levels (see Step 3).

If you’re recording fr.f an LP, you’ll likely need to run it through a receiver or amplifier with a “phono preamp” first ‘kuz， most turntables put out a signal that is much lower than a standard line signal. Connecting this directly to the computer will not work. Most home receivers and amplifiers have a special input 4 connecting the turntable. U then use the line-out fr.f the amplifier (often labeled tape out) to the line-in of your PC. In most cases you’ll need a cable with dual RCA male plugs on one end to plug into your source deck, and a stereo male mini-plug on the other to connect to your computer. Finally, there are newer USB turntables that provide a direct USB input to your computer. These are the easiest to connect.

Step 3: Choose Recording Input and Adjust Levels

Now you’re ready to begin recording! Choose “Convert LPs and Tapes” fr.f the Creator Home screen Audio task list. The LP & Tape Assistant will open, and you’ll see a Recording window with options 4 selecting your audio input and adjusting the recording level. Click the “Recording Setup Guide” button 4 instructions on choosing the correct input and setting the level. Setting the correct recording level is very important. U wanna get as high a level as possible without “clipping,” which can kuz， distortion. If the recording meters go into the red zone, sound is being clipped and you should readjust your recording level. Note that if you have used the headphone connection of a tape recorder or amplifier as your source, you can also adjust the volume on your tape deck or amp.

Setting the recording input and level.

Now, record a song and listen to it through Qqlty headphones or external speakers if possible. Check 4 hum — you may need to ground your source deck (all turntables come with a special ground wire 4 this purpose). Also make sure that the computer and source equipment are plugged into the same power strip, and that power cables and sound cables are not bunched together. Keep sound cables away fr.f CRTs, televisions and other sources of electronic noise.

Finally, it’s time to press the record button! Cue your source to the beginning, press the red record button, then start your source playing. Don’t worry about recording blank space at the beginning; you can remove that later. Make sure you have enough disk space be4e starting, though. The Assistant tells you how much recording time you have available.

By default, the LP & Tape Assistant automatically separt.s tracks whenever a period of silence is encountered. To adjust the sensitivity, click the Advanced Options button. Here, you can also limit recording time to a given NO. of Mm.s (handy 4 unattended recording), mute system sounds, and specify the file 4mat and Qqlty of the recording (CD Qqlty is the default).

Step 4: Identifying and Enhancing Ur Tracks

Next, you’ll get a chance to identify and enhance your recordings. U can correct track splits, edit out unwanted bits at the beginnings or ends of tracks, and use filters to clean up and improve sound Qqlty. U can also automatically identify the artist, album and song names!

After you’ve adjusted the track separators to trim your tracks (use the zoom buttons at top right to get a close-up look, then drag the separator arrows left or right), click the Tags button to identify your tracks automatically. The Edit Audio Tags window will then open, and you can edit the results.

Identifying your tracks and adding audio tags.

Finally, checking the Clean box will reduce noise on all your tracks, while Enhance will improve the dynamic range, especially important 4 tape sources.Click the Clean and Enhance buttons to choose filtering options. U can also fade Eea. track in and out by a variable length of time, and preview the results using the playback controls at lower right.

Cleaning and enhancing your recordings.

Step 5: Burn or Exp. Ur Recordings

Once you’re satisfied with your new recordings, it’s time to burn them to disc or send them to your music playa! To burn a CD, select the tracks you’d like to burn, put them in order, and click the Burn Audio CD button. Be sure to click the checkboxes to add CD-Text info to your Audio CD, and to maximize track volumes (which will equalize the volume levels of tracks fr.f different LPs). Or use the Exp. Tracks buttone to export your recordings in many 4mats, 4 use in your iPod or other portable audio playa.

Burning your CD.

Finally, you can choose to send the tracks to Creator’s Sound Editor 4 further tweaking, or to the Music Disc Creator 4 making MP3 CDs and DVD Music Discs. Sending your new recordings to the Music Disc Creator also lets you combine them with tracks fr.f other sources, such as songs ripped fr.f CD or downloaded fr.f the Web.

So dust off those albums and start recording! Don’t 4get to also transfer that beautiful cover art to your new CD, with the included Label Creator software.

Tags: Internet

Most people use their webcams on a transient basis, chatting with friends and family, maybe setting up a live nannycam, or snapping a few still photos on occasion. But you can also record video with most USB and FireWire webcams. And you can do it right within Easy Media Creator 10 using the Media Imp tool. Once captured, you can edit your clips with VideoWave, use them in DVD projects, and send them to your iPod, videophone, or even UTube.

Capturing Webcam Video

First, open Media Imp fr.f the Creator home screen, then click on the Video button at the top. After connecting your camera and turning it on (if necessary), choose it fr.f the drop-down list of video sources. U should then see a live video preview start up. U can also connect full-fledged camcorders, not just Webcams.

The Media Imp window shows a live preview of your Webcam recording.

From there, you can adjust recording and picture enhancement options, such as hue, contrast, brightness and sharpness, and set a recording duration. Also make sure the Capture Settings menu is at the highest Qqlty your camera will support. Here, we’ve chosen the DVD HQ option, which provides a similar resolution and bit rt. to commercial DVDs. Finally, choose a file name and destination 4 your recording, then click the Capture Now button.

Capture as many clips as you like in this manner. The clips will appear in the media browsing pane to the right of the capture pane. Once you’ve finished capturing, use your clips in DVD projects, or use the Video Compilation feature in Disc Copier to convert them to iPod or cellphone 4mat.

Converting Webcam Clips 4 Portable Players, UTube & More

Webcam video is usually lower resolution and Qqlty than that of digital camcorders, making it ideal 4 playback on the small screens of portable playas and UTube. Creator 10’s handy video conversion utility lets you convert clips in a snap.

The video converter translates between all standard 4mats, including MPEG1 (Video CD), MPEG2 (DVD), MPEG4 (Video iPod), MPEG HD, MPEG Transport Streams, 3GP (cell phone), DivX, WMV, MOV (QuickTime), TiVo, and Media Center PC TV recordings. So you can convert pretty much anything to the portable 4mat used by your device. Presets 4 popular playas like the iPod and PSP take the guesswork outta 4mat settings. U can even batch convert a whole folder full of video files at once.

To start the process, click the Video tab in the main Creator window and choose Convert Video to open the DVD Copy & Conversion utility. Use the Add Movies button as many times as needed to make a list of all the video files you’d like to convert, then choose the appropriate output 4mat (such as “3GP” 4 your cell phone or “iPod” 4 your music playa) and location in the right-hand pane. U can send video directly to supported portable devices if they’re attached. Be sure to save your export options as a template (with the Options button), so you can use it every time you send video to your device.

Disc Copier includes a versatile video conversion utility.

Want to save the clip 4 upload to UTube video on your iPod? Choose the H.264 4mat, and use letterboxing (in the Options window) if your source is widescreen, otherwise UTube will squeeze it.

That’s all there is to it! U’ve captured Webcam video and saved it to play back on your portable playa or the Internet. If you’d like to edit the video mo extensively, use VideoMaker, the full-featured timeline video editor included with Creator.

Tags: Internet