Matt interviews Howard Scott Warshaw
 

The wait is over.

Matt got a shirt eventually and made a new episode featuring Howard Scott Warshaw.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ_WHY7nhM8

(Seems like YouTube messed a bit with the encoding, but content wise it is another great one. :great)

It wasn't YouTube, Skype connection was really crap this time according to Matt: http://goo.gl/I06o

I had considered that, but at 4:51 are similar artifacts, and that part probably wasn't skyped.

While we're at it, something around 3:19 is strange. :blased :lol

128 Bytes - cool

I've not seen the footage till now and don't see any problems besides oddities on the Skype footage. I'm seeing YouTube on HTML5, not Flash, so that could say something.

I think I isolated the problem to a changed setting in Camtasia, the tool I was using to record the Skype. I had set it to use a different codec than usual and apparently that was the problem. I've set it back to techsmith now, so hopefully it won't be a problem going forward. Does stink, though, considering how great the HSW footage is.

Hm, cool person to interview (had to look him up of course). I wonder what he does nowadays.

Interviews...? :D

Actually, I've got a memory of reading a mention of something software or games-related a while back (though to be fair, it could have been an old text and, er, *cough* an unreliable memory). French toast, please!

A quick search didn't return any reminders for me, but I did find a rather cool interview over at Digital Press. If that interview is anything to go by, Mr. Warshaw will be very busy indeed! I haven't yet noted a publishing date on the piece, but it's clear that the interview is several years old (his 'Once Upon Atari' video was in production at the time). In any case, I hadn't seen the interview before and found it interesting, pertinent and... saddening as the talk moved to marketing and 'box-fitting'. It's a decades-old phenomenon (for just one far-from-unusual example, see: Atari in the early '80s!) and I suppose things have improved a touch recently through download services and direct selling but viewing from a distance as a now only occasional gamer, it does look and feel pretty bad to me as I see line after line of 'Yet Another <insert genre> Game'. I could have said that just as easily in 1984 and I certainly don't intend to suggest anything of the quality of modern games (they weren't - shock! - all good back then, either!), but it felt and still seems like there was a greater portion of non-clone games than is the case today. Oh well, it all comes around and goes up 'n' down - and fingers crossed, the great games don't disappear or become unplayable and new ones that aren't unimaginative retreads or entirely marketing-lead will appear from time to time. Hey, there's thousands of good or great titles behind us - it's always good! :)

Short answer without digression: "I don't know but would like to, and would be happy to hear that a man with such a creative and active mind can find the incentive and a place in the gaming scene today."

Part II of HSW Interview
 

Hi, guys. Here's part II of my interview with HSW:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUKPZFva9JA

As you can see, he's quite sad about what happened in the wake of ET. No surprise there, I guess, though I admire his resolve not to let it destroy his confidence. :)

He also talked about Raiders--guess I might try to work that footage into the next podcast.

I want to play ET now! :D

(And the video trouble went away, too. Looks much better when Howard's face doesn't melt every 5 seconds.)

Nice vids. He seems like a real cool guy. (:

MRB!

Yes, I don't think the problem was with Skype after all, but merely a codec issue. I re-saved the footage with virtualdub and it was much improved! Too bad I didn't think of that for part one.

MRB indeed. :spin