Notes On Video

Apple rolled out an update to the Apple TV software software. This features a major change in the top menu (which now lists your own content first in each media list, rather than last) and it also now supports Internet Radio. Apart from that, there’s no real new functionality. Unless you also count support for Apple’s LP format. I’d been curious about the iTunes LP format – kind of an interactive format for albums – since Apple had announced it, but had never gotten around to trying one out. With the Apple TV update, I thought it would be great to update my Apple TV and try out iTunes LP at the same time. I was wrong. Last night I updated the Apple TV software, and also downloaded the Dave Matthews Band album Big Whiskey and The Groo Grux King in iTunes LP format. Only problem was that after downloading it and going to the Apple TV, all I could find were the movies and the songs; no sign of the iTunes LP interface. In the end I wondered if I’d misunderstood, and that it just meant you...

Gary Adcock of Studio 37, Chicago (and Digital Cow) spoke at the New England SMPTE meeting last night. He was really brought there by AJA Video Systems, maker of the Ki Pro tapeless video recording device , but in introducing him, AJA’s Northeast Region Manager, Jay Ignaszewski said that “Gary isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.” He wasn’t far wrong. Working his way back and forth in front of the crowd like a preacher at a revival meeting, he proceeded to share the word; tape is dead , and if you aren’t going tapeless, or planning to go tapeless, then what kind of moron are you? This is the future, and it’s all going to be good whatever crappy camera you have! 1 What is the future? Well tape is dead. It wasn’t even worth talking about why it’s dead, it just is. So moving on, he talked about the profusion of compression and file formats from the different manufacturers (those fools!! 2 ) Why deal with that, when Apple has a perfectly wonderful compression format called ProRes (read his...

Gizmodo has the press release from Apple that they have released the Apple TV 3.0 software. The update reportedly works with all Apple TV's and updates the interface, as well as: you can now enjoy iTunes Extras and iTunes LP in stunning fullscreen with your Apple TV, as well as listen to Genius Mixes and Internet radio through your home theater system.

SMPTE/New England is holding a meeting tonight at Channel 5 Studios. Topic: A Taste of Tapeless Technology AJA KiPro and Apple Pro Res Gary Adcock, Digerati and principal at Studio 37 and Jay Ignaszewski, Northeast Region Territory Manager for AJA, will join us for a presentation and discussion on the technology behind the AJA KiPro. The KiPro is a tapeless recording device that creates professional quality recordings in full-raster 10-bit Apple ProRes 422 and Apple ProRes 422 (HQ). Refreshments at 6:30 and Presentation at 7:00PM Also, the New England Broadcast and Cable Expo is coming up on November 12.

I'm intrigued by the Sanyo VPC-WH1 , as I'm about to embark on a project that might involve getting a little wet. For about $350 the VPC-WH1 gives you a 720P camera that shoots underwater down to 10 feet. Rob at TorontoWalkAbout has a pretty favorable, and in-depth review with some good examples of the footage you can get with it. His sample clips can also be found on YouTube here - the clip part way through starting at the fence and going underwater is pretty amazing... And PCWorld gives it a 70 "Good" rating in their review . Downsides? image quality, image quality, and terrible still image quality. I don't really care about the latter, as I hardly ever use a video camera to take stills. And sure it's 720p, and even at 720p there are problems with the image quality, but the ability to get the camera a little wet is very appealing for some things. The image stabilization - which is digital - also gets some criticism. Again, it's something you can proba...

I meant to write about the Hitchcock Storyboard iPhone app a couple of weeks ago, as I'd seen it with the demo of Adobe Story . It's really quite cool. It was demoed by Jonathan Houser, who is the creator of Hitchcock . He said he got the idea for the program because he taught a class on film-making, and " everybody hates storyboarding " - everyone except Hitchcock . SUMMARY: Hitchcock has one purpose; the creation of storyboards in a quick and easy manner - on your iPhone . If that's something you want to do, it's a blast. If not, well there are worse ways to spend $20. To create a storyboard you either take pictures using the iPhone camera, or import them from your photo library, into the Storyboard workspace. In the Storyboard workspace you can then drag the individual images around to change the order. Each image is a Panel in your storyboard. You can set the duration of a panel (the default is 3 seconds), duplicate or delete it, and you can view the ...

Luka on Vimeo has a tutorial on How to increase the Canon 7D dynamic range by using Picture Styles . The tutorial shows how to use the Picture Style editor (just try and avoid a mental breakdown!) and how to download Picture Styles to the camera. At the bottom of the blog page there's also links to some Picture Styles.