Odds & Ends

Nothing much to report today.

Time Lapse

Came across an interesting post about shooting time-lapse sequences with a DSLR: 7D Timelapse Experiment in Dungeness.


Blu-ray

I’ve been saying for a couple of years that I wasn’t going to jump into Blu-ray until Apple shipped something for authoring. But that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon.

On a related note; I just bought the new Blu-ray release of North by Northwest, one of my favorite Hitchcock movies. Only problem; I don’t actually have a Blu-ray player, so that problem will have to be solved sooner rather than later. And if I’m going to go down that road, then getting a Blu-ray burner sort of makes sense; particularly as Final Cut Pro’s Compressor utility will output Blu-ray content....and you might even want to investigate Adobe's Encore for it's Blu-ray output options...

And 25GB Blu-ray discs may make sense for video backup and archive; yes, pros talk about tape backup, but those are really expensive!!

Sooo….I was looking at the Blu-ray burners available for the Mac from OWC just a couple of days ago. And today, along comes the announcement of an updated 12x version of their Pioneer based external burner that has Firewire, USB and eSATA connections. Just $350 for the drive, or $450 with a copy of Toast Pro.

Macworld generally liked the 8x version, saying that it had an attractive user-friendly case (high praise indeed!), they did note that they had problems using it connected via USB. I’ll probably just use the Firewire connection.

So now I just have to get up the courage to order something...


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sony GV-D200 review

Image
Sony GV-D200 I've been using a Sony GV-D200 deck to transfer old Video8 and Hi8 tapes. Some of these tapes are over twenty years old, and no longer having a Hi8 camcorder that worked I was concerned that if I didn't do something about transferring them to a more modern format soon, I might never be able to. While Sony no longer make camcorders that use these tapes - that I know of - Sony does still sell the GV-D200 deck (or Video Walkman, as it's sometimes labelled.) They also offer the GV-D800, which is almost identical but adds a small LCD screen for about $120 more. I didn't think I'd need a screen since I was using this to capture to the computer, but you will need an external monitor when you first set it up. Physically, the device is small. At 5 7/8" wide, 5 3/8" deep and 2" high, it's the smallest video deck I've encountered. I used to have a Video8 deck that I thought was small; and it was twice as deep and twice as high. The t
Read more

Response: Which iPhone to Get?

Image
In response to my iPhone musings, I got the following reader email which actually sums up a lot of my second and third thoughts too: You might have a point about the fancier camera, but otherwise I would buy the smaller model. Its screen is about the same size as that of my Nexus 4, and I don't feel at all like it limits me with a too-small screen. But I do sometimes stretch to get my thumb the reach to the other corner of the screen. It is plenty big for a phone. A phone is a pocket thing. (Well, in my case it lives an ancient REI soft sunglasses case that I have on my belt.) Ubiquitous, handy, convenient, almost always with me. Small is crucial for all of that. Certainly a large screen is cool, but you need a place to put it: don't break a fundamental feature of a pocket phone by getting too big. That is what your small tablet is for. I have my phone with me almost always. I have my Nexus 7 tablet with me nearly as much. The bigger screen is great, yet it fits in some
Read more

Should you buy the Sony NEX-FS100 Kit Lens?

Image
The Sony NEX-FS100 is available in two configurations: B & H : NEX-FS100U Camcorder only $4,999 B & H : NEX-FS100U (with 18-200mm lens) $5,599 But what does that extra $600 get you? It get's you this: Sony 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Zoom Lens for NEX Camera This lens is also available separately for $799.99, so at $200 off you'd think everyone would be jumping on it. But not so fast... In his article about switching from the Canon 5D Mark II to the Sony NEX-FS100 , Paul Antico  at Need Creative says of the kit lens: 7) Its 18-200 F3.6-6.3 kit lens absolutely sucks and should be avoided (thankfully, you can order it without one) [ 1 ] But is it that bad? At B & H 's site, 43 reviews give it an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars. That's not a bad rating, though many of these people are using it for stills, and the most common complaint noted is how large and heavy it is. Of course this feeling of size would be exacerbated when you put it on a tiny camera
Read more