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Monday, 10 August 2009
Superannuation co-contribution cheque arrived
A cheque for DWs $1,501.80 superannuation co-contribution arrived in the mail today from our SMSF administrator, eSuperfund. I can only assume the extra $1.80 was due to interest accrued while the $1,500 government co-contribution was sitting in a holding account for some time. There is always a significant delay between when the $1,000 undeducted superannuation contribution is made and when the co-contribution payment is eventually received. That's because the individual who made the contribution has to lodge their tax return (which confirms if a deduction is being claimed for the contribution, and the individual's taxable income for that year) and the super fund has to lodge it's annual tax return (which presumably includes any deduction claim paperwork) before the ATO can finally decide how much co-contribution to pay out.
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Panasonic NV-DS15 mini-DV camcorder 'reboot'
After the aborted attempt to "upgrade" to a new (but cheap) HD camcorder, I'm concentrating on making better use of the video equipment I already have. The two new batteries I ordered from estore.com.au arrived within a couple of days of my ordering them online. Charging them up only took a couple of hours and they each provide around 90 minutes of intermittent recording time when fully charged.
To download my miniDV tapes to PC I decided to use the camcorder's firewire connection, as using the serial connector and the video editing software that came with the camera when I bought it in 2000 would be v-e-r-y slow (I think it's really just meant for downloading the 6-second "photo shot" still images that can be recorded with the camcorder). It was a bit off-putting to see that Panasonic had a special document entitled "Cautions for Connecting a Video Camera to a PC" that stressed that the PC should be turned OFF before using a firewire cable to connect the PC to the camera - otherwise there "may" be potential for static electricity damage to the camcorder! Not exactly "plug and play" ;) In practice I've had no problems when unplugging the firewire cable from the camcorder the normal way - using the Windows "disconnect USB device" tool and then turning off the camcorder before unplugging the cable.
The recommended IEEE 1394-1995 i.Link cable from Panasonic (VW-CD1E) is apparently discontinued, and in any case was simply an overpriced 4-pin firewire cable (apparently it cost around $100!). I purchased a generic 4-pin to 6-pin Belkin firewire cable from the local JB Hi-Fi store for $16.95 and it works perfectly. It was a relief to find that Windows Vista detected the camcorder device as soon as it was connected, and installed a working device driver without any problems.
I'm using Windows Movie Maker to download the mini-DV tape contents to my Dell PC. In AVI format a standard 60-min (SP) miniDV tape will occupy approx. 13 GB of harddisk space. Unfortunately the 1TB drive is formatted with Fat-32 file structure, so the maximum size for a single file is apparently 4GB (~19 min of recording time). I found this out when trying to download the first miniDV tape. So I'm splitting each tape into 4x15 minute segments, with a 1-min overlap to make editing easier. As I have around 26 used miniDV tapes this will result in approx. 100 raw video segments in total! As the play-back/download process occurs in "real time" I'm only transferring one or two of my 1-hr miniDV tapes each evening. If I saved the downloaded video files in WMV format I could store each complete 1-hr tape in a 1GB file, but I'm not sure how much the image quality would be degraded using WMV rather than AVI format. I've already had one of the miniDV tapes get damaged (tangled during tape ejection) and was lucky to be able to still rewind the tape and download it without further problems (the data in the damaged section of tape was unusable), so I think its best to make a "master" copy of each tape in AVI format. As I'm storing all my video and digital photo raw files onto my external 1TB harddisk file size isn't an issue yet. For data backups I'll eventually need to buy a second cheap 1TB HDD when ALDI has one on special, and store the second drive off-site (in case of a house fire). But I may put this purchase off for a while as storage media keeps getting cheaper each year. I still remember paying hundreds of dollars for a tape drive and tapes to back up my old 3.5" FDD last century, and the technology was continually being superseded by larger capacity media that were much faster and cheaper (per MB) than what had been available the previous year.
I found manuals for the various Panasonic NV-DS15 camcorder models online, although I eventually also located my original hard copy manuals.
So far we've just been enjoying viewing the unedited tape segments as I download them. Once I've finished all the data transfers from tape to HDD I'll start playing around with editing some footage (meterage? byteage?) using Windows Movie Maker (DS1 is already an expert). My first project will be editing last year's European vacation tapes and burn it the result onto a DVD. I'll insert some relevant still digital photos that DW, DS1 and I took, and maybe make up some graphics showing our journey (I recorded daily way points using my GPS and kept the road maps) and some title frames. Dubbing in some background music and commentary might make the end result look more like a travel documentary and less like the old-fashioned "home movie". The DVD burner software apparently lets you create a DVD "index" to make the finished product look more like a "professional" (rental movie) DVD, but I suspect that the more "professional" I package the finished product, the more obviously amateur the actual camera work will appear! I've been reading up on basic camera techniques (pans, tilts, etc) and will make sure I use a tripod on our next holiday. I'd gotten used to making do with hand-held recording while on previous back-packing holidays, but nowadays we travel by car (or camper van) so there's no reason to leave the tripod at home. Another benefit of using a tripod and remote control for the camcorder (if I can find it!) is that I'll appear more frequently in our holiday movies.
Depending on how the finished DVD turns out, I may just send a copy to our relatives, or maybe we'll even make some of our friends suffer through watching a "home movie" ;)
To download my miniDV tapes to PC I decided to use the camcorder's firewire connection, as using the serial connector and the video editing software that came with the camera when I bought it in 2000 would be v-e-r-y slow (I think it's really just meant for downloading the 6-second "photo shot" still images that can be recorded with the camcorder). It was a bit off-putting to see that Panasonic had a special document entitled "Cautions for Connecting a Video Camera to a PC" that stressed that the PC should be turned OFF before using a firewire cable to connect the PC to the camera - otherwise there "may" be potential for static electricity damage to the camcorder! Not exactly "plug and play" ;) In practice I've had no problems when unplugging the firewire cable from the camcorder the normal way - using the Windows "disconnect USB device" tool and then turning off the camcorder before unplugging the cable.
The recommended IEEE 1394-1995 i.Link cable from Panasonic (VW-CD1E) is apparently discontinued, and in any case was simply an overpriced 4-pin firewire cable (apparently it cost around $100!). I purchased a generic 4-pin to 6-pin Belkin firewire cable from the local JB Hi-Fi store for $16.95 and it works perfectly. It was a relief to find that Windows Vista detected the camcorder device as soon as it was connected, and installed a working device driver without any problems.
I'm using Windows Movie Maker to download the mini-DV tape contents to my Dell PC. In AVI format a standard 60-min (SP) miniDV tape will occupy approx. 13 GB of harddisk space. Unfortunately the 1TB drive is formatted with Fat-32 file structure, so the maximum size for a single file is apparently 4GB (~19 min of recording time). I found this out when trying to download the first miniDV tape. So I'm splitting each tape into 4x15 minute segments, with a 1-min overlap to make editing easier. As I have around 26 used miniDV tapes this will result in approx. 100 raw video segments in total! As the play-back/download process occurs in "real time" I'm only transferring one or two of my 1-hr miniDV tapes each evening. If I saved the downloaded video files in WMV format I could store each complete 1-hr tape in a 1GB file, but I'm not sure how much the image quality would be degraded using WMV rather than AVI format. I've already had one of the miniDV tapes get damaged (tangled during tape ejection) and was lucky to be able to still rewind the tape and download it without further problems (the data in the damaged section of tape was unusable), so I think its best to make a "master" copy of each tape in AVI format. As I'm storing all my video and digital photo raw files onto my external 1TB harddisk file size isn't an issue yet. For data backups I'll eventually need to buy a second cheap 1TB HDD when ALDI has one on special, and store the second drive off-site (in case of a house fire). But I may put this purchase off for a while as storage media keeps getting cheaper each year. I still remember paying hundreds of dollars for a tape drive and tapes to back up my old 3.5" FDD last century, and the technology was continually being superseded by larger capacity media that were much faster and cheaper (per MB) than what had been available the previous year.
I found manuals for the various Panasonic NV-DS15 camcorder models online, although I eventually also located my original hard copy manuals.
So far we've just been enjoying viewing the unedited tape segments as I download them. Once I've finished all the data transfers from tape to HDD I'll start playing around with editing some footage (meterage? byteage?) using Windows Movie Maker (DS1 is already an expert). My first project will be editing last year's European vacation tapes and burn it the result onto a DVD. I'll insert some relevant still digital photos that DW, DS1 and I took, and maybe make up some graphics showing our journey (I recorded daily way points using my GPS and kept the road maps) and some title frames. Dubbing in some background music and commentary might make the end result look more like a travel documentary and less like the old-fashioned "home movie". The DVD burner software apparently lets you create a DVD "index" to make the finished product look more like a "professional" (rental movie) DVD, but I suspect that the more "professional" I package the finished product, the more obviously amateur the actual camera work will appear! I've been reading up on basic camera techniques (pans, tilts, etc) and will make sure I use a tripod on our next holiday. I'd gotten used to making do with hand-held recording while on previous back-packing holidays, but nowadays we travel by car (or camper van) so there's no reason to leave the tripod at home. Another benefit of using a tripod and remote control for the camcorder (if I can find it!) is that I'll appear more frequently in our holiday movies.
Depending on how the finished DVD turns out, I may just send a copy to our relatives, or maybe we'll even make some of our friends suffer through watching a "home movie" ;)
Subscribe to Enough Wealth. Copyright 2006-2008
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
Net Worth Update: July 2009
My net worth increased 8.65% during July, due mostly to the massive rally in the Australian and global share markets. By 31 July my NW had increased to $702,509 (up $55,938). But that's still about 41% below the peak NW figure I reached in 2007, despite having saved a considerable amount into superannuation in the past two years.
My retirement account (SMSF) gained $18,745 (+6.93%) to $289,256. The gain was mostly due to the stock market rise, with our recent small investment (~$5,000) in 7 ASX200 index CFDs (IQ) contributing around $2,000 of the gain. The overall change in SMSF valuation was also boosted by getting three months backlog of employer contributions deposited into the SMSF bank account in early July, but was held back somewhat by the negative impact of paying out the SMSF tax assessed for FY 2007/8 and also making a provisional tax payment for the 2008/9 FY.
The estimated valuations for my half of our real estate assets (house and investment property) were up $7,662 (+1.00%) to $774,468 in July, and recent sales data indicates a similar rise will be recorded for August. There are some indications that our real estate portfolio valuation may continue to rise during 2009/10, with the gap between new housing construction and the underlying demand for housing supporting house prices in Sydney. However gains will be tempered by the rising unemployment rate. The balance of my half of our real estate mortgages decreased slightly (-$86 or 0.02%) to -$362,944, with all our loans currently "interest-only" and the majority at a fixed rate for the next several years.
My leveraged stock portfolio finally moved back into net positive equity during the month (Woo-hoo!) to have a net value of +$1,729 (a gain of +$29,445 for the month). The gross value of my stock portfolio is around $450,000, so stock market movements have a massive impact on my net worth. The recent rally has been exceptionally steep, reflecting the recent sharp rebound in consumer sentiment and hopes for a rapid recover in the real economy. Although the market may continue to rise (if the economic recovery materialises and unemployment rates max out lower than previously projected), there must be considerable risk that the market will pull back significantly if there is unexpected bad news (or even if the recovery is modest). In the medium term (2-3 years) I think the market might get back to pre-GFC levels if the economy moves back into long-term average growth rates and company profits recover. However, inflationary pressures resulting from the government's deficit-funded stimulus spending could significantly lower the market's p/e requirements in future, limiting growth in stock prices as profits recover. That could lead to another decade of poor stock market performance, similar to the 1970s.
It will be interesting to see how unemployment rate trends as the economic recovery gets underway. It was only a few years ago that economists were predicting labour shortages in the coming decades due to the aging workforce. The current spike in unemployment is likely to lead to a few years of reduced immigration levels, which could exacerbate labour supply issues in the medium term. That could also lead to inflationary wage pressures as the economy recovers and unemployment starts to trend down.
My retirement account (SMSF) gained $18,745 (+6.93%) to $289,256. The gain was mostly due to the stock market rise, with our recent small investment (~$5,000) in 7 ASX200 index CFDs (IQ) contributing around $2,000 of the gain. The overall change in SMSF valuation was also boosted by getting three months backlog of employer contributions deposited into the SMSF bank account in early July, but was held back somewhat by the negative impact of paying out the SMSF tax assessed for FY 2007/8 and also making a provisional tax payment for the 2008/9 FY.
The estimated valuations for my half of our real estate assets (house and investment property) were up $7,662 (+1.00%) to $774,468 in July, and recent sales data indicates a similar rise will be recorded for August. There are some indications that our real estate portfolio valuation may continue to rise during 2009/10, with the gap between new housing construction and the underlying demand for housing supporting house prices in Sydney. However gains will be tempered by the rising unemployment rate. The balance of my half of our real estate mortgages decreased slightly (-$86 or 0.02%) to -$362,944, with all our loans currently "interest-only" and the majority at a fixed rate for the next several years.
My leveraged stock portfolio finally moved back into net positive equity during the month (Woo-hoo!) to have a net value of +$1,729 (a gain of +$29,445 for the month). The gross value of my stock portfolio is around $450,000, so stock market movements have a massive impact on my net worth. The recent rally has been exceptionally steep, reflecting the recent sharp rebound in consumer sentiment and hopes for a rapid recover in the real economy. Although the market may continue to rise (if the economic recovery materialises and unemployment rates max out lower than previously projected), there must be considerable risk that the market will pull back significantly if there is unexpected bad news (or even if the recovery is modest). In the medium term (2-3 years) I think the market might get back to pre-GFC levels if the economy moves back into long-term average growth rates and company profits recover. However, inflationary pressures resulting from the government's deficit-funded stimulus spending could significantly lower the market's p/e requirements in future, limiting growth in stock prices as profits recover. That could lead to another decade of poor stock market performance, similar to the 1970s.
It will be interesting to see how unemployment rate trends as the economic recovery gets underway. It was only a few years ago that economists were predicting labour shortages in the coming decades due to the aging workforce. The current spike in unemployment is likely to lead to a few years of reduced immigration levels, which could exacerbate labour supply issues in the medium term. That could also lead to inflationary wage pressures as the economy recovers and unemployment starts to trend down.
Subscribe to Enough Wealth. Copyright 2006-2008
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Down with the (swine?) flu
DS2 woke up with a temperature on Sunday morning, and it had hit 39.5C by early evening and wasn't going down with Panadol and cold towels. So we dropped DS1 at my parent's house at 8:30pm and drove to the local hospital's emergency department. The car park was completely full and there were people wandering outside wearing face masks. I left DW and DS2 in the car while I went to check out how long the queues in the emergency department waiting room were (I've had to wait over six hours to see a doctor on previous occasions), but didn't go past the entry due to a large sign stating that anyone with a cough of temperature could not enter unless they were wearing a face mask. There weren't any masks available at the door, so I decided to drive home to either collect some face masks, go to a local 24-hour medical centre, or call the locum to make an after-hours house call.
The locum service advised that they were very busy and it would be at least four hours before a doctor could attend us. Since it was already after midnight I decided to wait until Monday morning and visit our GP instead. By this time DS2's temp had dropped slightly and he was sleeping.
This morning we made an appointment with our GP in the morning for 11:30am, and I took DS2 in for a check-up. His chest and ears were fine, and the doctor thought it more likely to be a gastric virus than swine flu. We were given a prescription for a course of Tamiflu for DS2 "just to be safe" (since it's from the government stockpile we didn't have to pay anything, other than the normal GP consultation fee), and DW and I should go back to the doctor tomorrow if we're feeling worse (we both have a slight cough and temperature, and DW has some aches and pains). I was having bad chills last night, but was feeling reasonably OK today (although the cough seems to have settled in my chest), so I suspect we may just have the normal "seasonal" flu rather than swine flu that is spreading around Sydney at the moment. I had a seasonal flu vaccination last month, which would explain why I'm not as sick as DW or DS2. DS1 is still feeling OK, so he's staying with my parent's for another night. Fortunately it's school holiday this week, so my parents had previously arranged to have him during the day anyhow.
Hopefully we'll all be feeling better tomorrow morning.
The locum service advised that they were very busy and it would be at least four hours before a doctor could attend us. Since it was already after midnight I decided to wait until Monday morning and visit our GP instead. By this time DS2's temp had dropped slightly and he was sleeping.
This morning we made an appointment with our GP in the morning for 11:30am, and I took DS2 in for a check-up. His chest and ears were fine, and the doctor thought it more likely to be a gastric virus than swine flu. We were given a prescription for a course of Tamiflu for DS2 "just to be safe" (since it's from the government stockpile we didn't have to pay anything, other than the normal GP consultation fee), and DW and I should go back to the doctor tomorrow if we're feeling worse (we both have a slight cough and temperature, and DW has some aches and pains). I was having bad chills last night, but was feeling reasonably OK today (although the cough seems to have settled in my chest), so I suspect we may just have the normal "seasonal" flu rather than swine flu that is spreading around Sydney at the moment. I had a seasonal flu vaccination last month, which would explain why I'm not as sick as DW or DS2. DS1 is still feeling OK, so he's staying with my parent's for another night. Fortunately it's school holiday this week, so my parents had previously arranged to have him during the day anyhow.
Hopefully we'll all be feeling better tomorrow morning.
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