Notes On Video

There's an "unboxing" at Tracy and Matt's Blog of the HDR-TG3E (the Europena version of the HDR-TG1. I often find these unboxings pointless, but there were some interesting snippets: First impressions are that this is an amazingly small and light camcorder. The size and weight isn't achieved at the expense of build quality either as the TG3 looks and feels very solid, probably thanks to the chassis being made from titanium. [...]I recorded a few sample clips in low-light conditions last night and I'm very impressed how well the TG3 performs. [...] there are no obvious compression artefacts. As the camera uses no moving parts for recording there's no tape or DVD motor noise on the playback and it also means that recording is silent.

Some interesting bits of video news from the last few days: Canon has announced updates to it’s XL H1 camcorder Building on the success of its acclaimed XL H1 High Definition (HD) camcorder, Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging technology, has introduced the new shoulder mount XL H1S and XL H1A HD camcorders , which include new advanced features requested by professional users for improved operation and image control. Canon's new XL H1S and XL H1A camcorders feature an updated Canon 20x HD Video Lens with three independent manual adjustment rings (focus, zoom and iris), as well as enhanced manual focus and zoom control. Wicked cool looking, and wicked expensive. Expect the XL H1S HD in early June for $8,999, and the XL H1A will be out in mid-July for $5,999. Firewire news (“I’m not dead yet!”) I love Firewire; it’s how I connect all my video cameras to my Macs. When it first appeared it was amazing because of one thing: it just worked. Suddenly I could get video into a c...

Apple has just shipped Final Cut Server , almost a year after they were supposed to ship it. "Final Cut Server automatically catalogs large collections of assets, allows searching across multiple disks and SAN volumes, and enables viewing, annotation and approval of content from anywhere using a PC or Mac." There's a bunch of interesting tutorials on Apple's website. Cool that you can add a single Final Cut project file to server and it will automatically upload all source materials. At $999 for 10 users, it makes sense for a work group, but hard to justify for individuals. Like Final Cut Pro, you need a Mac to run the Server (OS X 10.5+) but there is a Windows client that works with the server (I guess for those creating assets on Windows machines.)