Under construction
Social networks
Working Teams
Here are the people I work with, whether in research or teaching.
Research team RIMH (robotics and multimodal interactions towards disability) of VALORIA
- my supervisor Dominique Duhaut
- my co-supervisor Yann Le Guyadec
Teaching staff (Computer Science in department STID (Statistics and Business Intelligence) of the IUT of Vannes)
- Prof. Guiseppe Berio
- Head of STID Elisabeth Le Saux
- Yann Le Guyadec
- Supervisor of other projects of the action RIMH Dr Brigitte Le Pévédic
- Dr Thomas Burger
Hobbies
Writing a thesis while working is time consuming. But here are some links to activities outside of teaching and research. I hope this modest contribution can be of any use.
Retrogaming
I visited on Oct. 16, 2010, the temporary exhibition on 80s video games ‘MuseoGames’ at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in the CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers) in Paris. I could find again "my" Pong, Atari VCS 2600, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC 464, Atari ST 512 and Vectrex, Atari 7800, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Mega Drive, NeoGeo "of" my friends.
I discovered emulation of old computers in 1993 (Thanks to Gerton Lunter for offering to the Sinclair Research ZX Spectrum his first emulator with cassette reader: Z80). Retrogaming via emulator allows a few moments of nostalgia but also avoids investing time in understanding new games while avoiding hardware failures. After I had an overall look of it, I had been diverted from it for 12 years. In 2006, I plunged again into the subject. Meanwhile the quality of emulation, the diversity of emulated platforms (computers 8bits, 16bits, ...) had made huge improvements thanks to the Internet which linked together the enthusiasts. Nowadays the current trend is to provide graphical interfaces allowing to run the game via the emulator without being disturbed by the subtleties of it and those of the emulated platform as if we were using a game console, viewing books, jackets, videos, magazines, links to encyclopedia of video games or sites dedicated to them. Here are the current open source projects that I find interesting, especially those for their longevity:
- MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator): integrated emulators for arcade stations.
- GameBase - The Universal Emulator Frontend: graphical interface used to manage a game database with bonus (manuals, covers) for each platform (eg Research Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Atari ST 520, etc.) and to run several emulators in order to meet the required gameplay. The tool can manage multiple databases, allowing to reach a level of emulation much better than MESS.
- MESS (Multi Emulator Super System): integrated emulators of old computers. The development team of this Open Source project is seeking the fidelity of the emulation. Given the ambition and the difficulty of the task, MESS is not considered as the best emulator for a large number of computers. It is however the case for some old computers that had a small audience.
- SCUMMVM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine): The "point and click" adventure games (1986-1999) allowed to select via icons the actions to perform by using objects at a particular place. The known editors were LuscasGames, Sierra On Line. This project allows you to run such old games on various OS (Windows, Linux, MacOSX, etc.).
- DOSBox & DBGL (DosBox Game Launcher) can run old DOS program on current machines and on different OS (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc.). DBGL is a graphical interface written in Java that allows you to manage a database of old games and to launch them in the virtual machine DOSBox.
These projects are used in tournaments and are an alternative to online emulation sites. The emulators are then java applets or are written in Flash Actionscript and Silverlight. The most controversial aspects are abandonware and modification of ROMs to translate them.
Horror films of the years 50-70
The fantasy and horror genres are not considered minor in the English-speaking world. This is particularly due to the work of certain actors (Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee), directors (Terence Fisher, William Castle, Mario Bava) and producers (Roger Corman, the leaders of the Hammer Film Productions Limited) of this time . Below are a few sites about these films and a collection of trailers (
). 8 years ago, I started a collection of DVDs. The films of this kind did not come out in Zone 2 (Europe & Japan) but only in zone 1 (United States & Canada). Until two years ago, these kinds of movies were only present on the German and Spanish markets.
- The Hammer Collection: Site in French from Quebec about these kinds of movies. The Hammer has been successful thanks to the gothic atmosphere of its productions. Among these was the first color adaptation of Dracula in 1958, its first real success.
- dvddrive-in : Site in English of DVD reviews to follow the current DVD releases in zone 1.
Nowadays the actor Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton make regular references to honor these films. In addition, the current "remakes" are to be judged in comparison to their predecessors.
Multimedia Edition
The latter point led me to tackle multimedia edition in order to transfer data which are unreadable on French DVD players. I use preferably:
- The open source multimedia container matroska qformat that can handle an unlimited number of audio tracks, subtitles and chapter points. Though a support Menu was announced, it is unfortunately still awaited. This format is starting to be supported by current players (2009) but my use is exclusively on computers.
- the open source XviD video codec;
- the open source Ogg audio codec;
- The bitmap VobSub subtitles when possible because we have no surprises when rendering special characters. Otherwise the text format SRT.
Family & Friends
- Sister France Dubois
- Sister-in-law Valérie Mignon
- Aunt Marie-Eve Merle
- a friend from the ENS de Cachan Marc Budinger
- a friend from Montpellier Jérôme Sidobre
- two friends visiting me.