Notes On Video

Vimeo offers unlimited HD embedding Viemo this week offered some new features: New Default Preferences, Unlimited HD Embedding for Vimeo Plus Members and Access to Creative Commons (CC) Licensing. StudioDaily.com: Default Preferences, Unlimited HD Come to Vimeo Vimeo & YouTube video for iPad's and iPhone Want to embed video in your blog that iPad/iPhone users can view? People have been posting code that let's you do that. Here's info about Vimeo: EOS HD : iPad and iPhone Compatible Vimeo Embeds And here's info about YouTube: CNET: YouTube testing hybrid HTML5/Flash embeds VideON Sony has created a special web section on their site called VideON for promoting programs shot using Sony professional gear. The Sony VideON Online Network is a website dedicated to educating and entertaining the professional production community about Sony products through the dynamic use of video. The VideoON website will feature product tutorials, behind-the-scenes, trai...

Boris Continuum Chroma Key Unit 7.0.3 for $99.00 - 67% off The Boris Continuum Chroma Key Unit automates the creation of precise keys with a minimal amount of adjustment. Leveraging the processing capabilities of today's graphics hardware, the Chroma Key Unit strips away the complexity of chroma keying by automating the background filtering or matting, edge softening and refinement, and light wrapping and reflections to produce seamless composites each and every time.

AV3 Software is having a 30% off sale on  Red Giant Software , but the sale ends on Sunday 25th July. This includes the new Colorista II . AV3 Software : Red Giant Software 30% off

At last month's Boston SuperMeet , Rodney Charters, ASC, DP on the series " 24 ," was one of the stars of the show. He spoke in a seminar earlier that day, as well as at the SuperMeet itself. Little did I know that Rodney is also a former Kiwi, who as a student in London got his first job at the BBC. He had a chance at a job to relieve crews during the summer, but the only job they had available was in audio. He thought, ‘what the hell,’ and ended up at Ealing Studios as a dubbing recordist. Rodney Charters with a picture of his father taken during World War II The following quotes are from the seminar he gave prior to the SuperMeet. He covered all kinds of things, from focus pulling with still camera lenses vs film lenses, to the recent House finale. He gave tips on ISO settings, and Picture and Sharpness settings (dial Sharpness down to 0 to avoid moiré,) and even said that the studio accused him of costing an additional $500,000 for staying with film for the fina...

PCWorld is reporting that Panasonic will unveil a consumer level 3D video camera next week. PCWorld : Panasonic to Unveil Consumer 3D Camcorder Next Week

Red Giant Software has released Colorista II , a standalone color grading tool. If you find tools like Apple's Color too challenging, you might like Colorista II . Colorista II 's primary feature is a 3-Way color corrector that looks sort of like the 3-Way Color Corrector in Final Cut Pro , but with many added features. This release adds three separate color correction stages; primary, secondary and master. Each one is virtually a copy of the original Colorista ; Primary has the 3-Way and two HSL controls, Seocndary has the 3-Way and a power mask control and a Keyer, and Master has the 3-Way, HSL and Curves. They have also added features to the color adjust wheels, as well as numerical controls for adjusting RGB values. The White Balance tool is now an Auto Balance tool; you can sample something that’s white or gray and it not only changes the hilite color to balance out the shot, but also makes an adjustment to the black level as well. A good overview of the program...

Those of us making the transition from tape based recording (DV and HDV) to flash based recording (Compact Flash and SD) are having to come to terms with dealing with lots of LARGE files on lots of hard disks. With tape it was easy to "archive" the tapes in a box and not worry too much about the work files on our hard drives. But due to the cost of flash media, most of us can't afford to use flash cards like tape; i.e. keep the recording media as a back up. We have to transfer and backup these files on to other media. Unfortunately, depsite the plunging cost of TB hard drives, there are no cheap and easy answers. Even Philip Bloom at last week's workshop admitted he has this problem. He said that he likes to keep THREE copies of files on different hard drives! When asked about long term backup he said that he was looking at LTO systems, but hadn't done anything about it yet. For those who don't know, LTO are tape-based backup systems that can cost anywhere ...

The Open Video Conference is billed as a two-day summit to explore the future of video on the web, and will be held October 1-2 in New York. One of the speakers will be Damian Kulash, lead singer and guitarist of the rock band OK Go. OpenVideoConference

Firmware Version 1.2.2 incorporates the following fixes. Fixes a phenomenon in which the set aperture moves when shooting movies in manual exposure mode using some Canon lenses (such as macro lenses). Fixes the AF point-selection behavior of the C.Fn III-7 (Manual AF pt. selec. pattern) custom function when set to [1]. Fixes the AF point display for the viewfinder electronic level when shooting in the vertical position. Corrects misspellings in the Spanish and Thai menus for applicable products. The Version 1.2.2 firmware is for cameras with firmware up to Version 1.2.1. If the camera's firmware is already Version 1.2.2, it is not necessary to update the firmware. Note that cameras with the Version 1.2.2 firmware (and also Versions 1.2.0, 1.2.1) cannot be downgraded to a previous firmware version (such as Version 1.1.0). Canon: EOS 7D Firmware Update Version 1.2.2

This past Monday, the last roll of Kodachrome film manufactured by Kodak was processed at Dwayne's Photo Service in Kansas, the last photo lab processing Kodachrome film. And if you have any undeveloped Kodachrome lying around, you have until December 10th when Dwayne's Photo will cease processing the film. The Wichita Eagle: Last Kodachrome roll processed in Parsons

First there's reports of a laser damaging the sensor in a Canon 5D , and now Philip Bloom Tweets that his 7D that got caught in a rain storm in Florida is going to cost $1,000 to repair. Canon does say that the 7D is " weather resistant " not " water proof ."

At last weeks BOSFCPUG meeting, Patrick Inhofer gave a great talk on color grading. I came away with some new things to try, as well as some great tips. One unexpected tip was a Macintosh utility that I had never encountered before (even though it's included free!); the Macintosh DigitalColor Meter . If you have a Macintosh, and don't know about this tool - as I didn't - check the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder. When you launch the DigitalColor Meter , it opens a window that displays colors values as you move the cursor around the screen. You can see the results as: RGB as Percentage RGB as Actual Value, 8-bit RGB as Actual Value, 16-bit RGB as Hex Value, 8-bit RGB as Hex Value, 16-bit Y'PbPrITU-R BT.601 Y'PbPrITU-R BT.709 Y'CbCrITU-R BT.601 Y'PbPrITU-R BT.709 CIE 1931 CIE 1976 CIE L*a*b* Tristimulus Patrick Inhofer : www.taoofcolor.com NotesOnVideo : BOSFCPUG Meeting Report

The recent announcement of the Sony NEX-VG10 remains a hot topic in the video community; it even came up briefly at the Philip Bloom workshop this past weekend (Philip has an NEX-5 which he was using quite a bit at the Friday Meetup.) People are divided on this camera; some think it spells the end of the DSLR moment-in-the-sun, and that we'll all go back to using "real" video cameras...but they'll have larger sensors. Others aren't so sure, and the NEX-VG10 clouds the question even more because of it's limitations, of which it appears to have many: 60i video . A lot of people are moving away from interlaced video and using progressive. And many want 24p (though not all.) So the NEX-VG10 only supporting 1080i video is a bit of a puzzle. However it does appear that the video in the NEX-VG10 is really captured at 30p on the sensor, but encoded as 60i in the video file. If that's the case, then it's at least as useful as the original Canon 5D Mark II...

This weekend Philip Bloom posted a 90 second challenge; shoot a 90 second video about any single object over the weekend. He obliquely mentioned the project at the Saturday workshop I attended when he said that he'd left one of his cameras back at the hotel room making a timelapse of a clock in his hotel room. Then that evening he challenged readers of his blog to shoot a 90 second video that weekend. With nothing better to do, I decided to make a video of an object. I spent about three hours on shooting it; half of that was going to a fabric store to get the black cloth to shoot the object on. You can learn a lot from little projects: I discovered that I need a macro lens, or at least a lens that focuses closer that any of the lenses I currently have. I couldn't get close enough with any of my lenses. Black polyester fleece makes a good background fabric, and was cheaper than felt (it was on sale at the store!) 10 yards of fabric is barely enough to block off the back...

...never go to a video/film making workshop in the middle of editing a project. You end up going home and deciding that half the stuff needs to be redone, and the other half isn't worth saving...

Philip Bloom came to Boston and did two one-day seminars this past weekend. Here, in no particular order, are ten things I learned: 1. Avoid the Zoom H4n . It does not close the audio files if the battery goes flat during a recording; you lose your recording! Get the Tascam DR100 ; it also has level controls for both channels 2. Lenses: he still uses Canon lenses a lot, despite the fact that they are more difficult to focus due to their short throw (i.e. only a quarter turn goes through the whole focus range) and no end stops. He also prefers the Zeiss ZF (Nikon mount) lenses over the Zeiss ZE (Canon mount) because they have an aperture ring, BUT focus is opposite direction to Canon. You can also get the Zeiss lenses modified to remove the click stop sound. 3. Magic Bullet Looks isn’t cheap, but if you don’t want to spend time learning Apple Color it lets you do some cool color and filter manipulation to your footage through a simple interface NOTE: AV3 Software is havi...

Green Screen Digital Media World has an interesting article about the green screen work done for the movie Kick Ass. Digital Media World : KICK ASS - ALIVE AND KICKING FilmmakerIQ.com This site has collected an interesting variety of tips and videos, including: 22 Filmmaking Apps for the iPad & iPhone Tips for Good Sound Color Temperature Basics for Film and Digital Zeiss CP2 Lenses The new Zeiss CP2 lenses have been getting a lot of attention; but they are expensive and difficult to find. I was interested to hear Philip Bloom's opinion of them at the workshop he gave in Boston over the weekend. He said that the optics are the same as in the ZE lenses, just with a different housing with fully calibrated lens scales. That's interesting because the ZE lenses are 1/4 or 1/3 the price of the CP2 lenses. Here's a review: The Association : Zeiss CP2 lenses reviewed The House Finale The use of DSLRs on the House finale may be remembered as a turning po...