Notes On Video

As promised, the Panasonic AG-AF100 ( AG-AF101 in Europe) started arriving in the hands of happy customers around the 27th of December. Note: it's availability is limited; B & H still lists it only as available for pre-order. Over at HD Warrior , Philip Johnston has been wowed by it's low light performance, and general fit and finish, though he's found a few interface/design quibbles. In general, he seems to be happy: The AF101 excels in every way, solid punchy pictures, sharp as a tac and with the odd NOKTON lens shot for that Hollywood shallow depth of field and best of all it’s not a heavy camera to use so you dont feel as tired or sore after a days shoot and a client who is very happy with the new look. Note that Philip is also the creator of the website: www.101crew.co.uk , which is devoted to the AG- AF100 ( AF101 ) so he might be a little biased! HDWarrior : Something I wasn't expecting HDWarrior : Early conclusion on the Panasonic AF101 Seba...

Sony PMW-F3 According to Sony: New, important information about PMW-F3 coming on Monday No idea what that will be. [ UPDATE 1/17 : Sony now says the information release has been pushed back to Tuesday ] Meanwhile, there's a growing collection of video clips about/made by the PMW-F3 on Sony's site. And Sony is looking for established filmmakers who would like to shoot with the PMW-F3 and to be judged for an upcoming Sony film contest. They provide the camera! If you're in the USA, drop an mail to education@am.sony.com Finally, at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival , Sony is throwing a party to celebrate the PMW-F3 . Date : Sunday, January 23, 2011 | 6pm - 9pm | Screening starts promptly at 7pm Location : High West Distillery | 703 Park Ave, Park City UT 8406 If you would like to attend RSVP here You’re invited to Sony's PMW-F3 celebration at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival! Sony : PMWF3 35mm Camcorder

Rode Microphones already have a video mic (the VideoMic [$149.00]) that's been popular with a lot of DSLR users, and now they have released the VideoMic Pro [$229.00], which is smaller and lighter, with a redesigned shockmount. The +20dB mode improves gain for recording on some cameras. Philip Bloom says: It’s smaller than the VIdeo Mic, the perfect size for your DSLR, has better rubber bands for suspension and overall sounds A LOT better  Features: Broadcast recording quality condenser microphone Compact design (only 150mm/6" length) Ultra lightweight (only 85g/3oz) 9V battery powered, with up to 70 hours battery life (alkaline) Integrated shock mounting Integrated foam windshield 3.5mm stereo mini-jack output (dual mono) Two step High Pass Filter (flat, 80Hz) Three position level control (-10dB, 0, +20dB) Camera shoe mount with 3/8" thread for easy boompole mounting Free DeadCat VMP furry windshield* Ten year warranty* *following online registra...

Advanced Photoshop After Effects Color Magic Richard Harrington's latest podcast shows how to use Lab Color in Photoshop Extended CS5 to do some secondary color correction. Richard then imports the PSD into After Effects to do some additional compositing. This is one of my most advanced, deepest, and most useful techniques. I show you how to isolate the color of a single object in moving video and swap it to anything you want. The magic is done with LAB color mode and tracking mattes. If you watch only one Motion Graphics or Video tutorial this month... this is it. Creative COW Podcasts: Photoshop for Video Podcast (SD) Another Swat At Google Following up on Google's announcement that it wants to use "open" video formats in Chrome rather than H.264 , Tom Sneath at Microsoft has a little fun suggesting that the United States should adopt the Esperanto language. TomSneathBlog : An Open Letter from the President of the United States of Google Sony...

Yesterday I came across a Sony video from CES which seemed to suggest that the output from the 3D Bloggie was only viewable with Red-Blue Anaglyph glasses, even on 3D TVs. Sony has since informed me that this is not correct. According to Sony: The 3D Bloggie records the 3D video in a side-by-side format in an MP4 file (i.e. a full regular frame is divided in half and the left image is stored on one half, and the right image is stored on the other half.) Note that this essentially halves the resolution being recorded, but is also one of the easiest methods to implement 3D encoding using existing file formats. When connected to a 3D TV, you can watch the video using active shutter glasses. When uploaded to YouTube or played on a 2D PC, you use anaglyph glasses. The built-in screen uses a "parallax barrier" to enable viewing the 3D image without glasses. NotesOnVideo : Engadget's curious "Best of CES"

Engadget has published a "Best-of-CES" list, and since they were actually there you'd figure they would know. ...BUT, their Best Camera List is puzzling: BEST: Sony Bloggie 3D (and other 3D Handycams) RUNNERS-UP: RED Scarlet and Olympus XZ-1 Let's take a look at the runner-up list first. Putting the RED Scarlet on any list makes little sense, but you cannot give a "Best of Show" award to a camera that was pre-announced two years ago, has been through redesigns, repositioning and repricing, still doesn't have a firm ship date, and wasn't formerly on the show floor. They weren't even showing footage shot with the thing! On to the winner, the Sony Bloggie 3D . Engadget did give themselves a bit of wiggle room by sort of including the "other 3D Handycams"-  i.e.  the HDR-TD10 -  but they pictured the Bloggie and only wrote about it, and I'm sorry but I'm not convinced it's going to be anything but a toy. Does it h...

Sony's view on DSLR's DPReview interviews Masashi 'Tiger' Imamura , President of Personal Imaging & Sound Business Group and gets some interesting perspective on Sony and their Alpha and NEX cameras. He even mentions the NEX-VG10 : 'As well as the easy-to-use and DSLR capabilities, we're also thinking about the camcorder style shooters and technologies. The NEX VG10 is one example of that. The barriers between compacts, DSLRs and camcorders will merge - not necessarily in a single device but with technologies and capabilities being shared between them. Our mission is to create new markets - we don't want to make the same products as everyone else and just cannibalise each other in the existing market.' DPReview : Sony looks to change the world of DSLRs Luca Visual FX Announces Film FX 2.0 Film FX Transitions Pack 2.0 provides 23 unique "grungier" film effects, including more light leaks, film burns, scratches and dirt. With th...

I mentioned this monitor that was shown at CES yesterday, but Sony has now pushed out a press release on the device. It doesn't confirm the price, though it does suggest that it will work with other manufacturers devices. Certainly, the pics with the NEX-VG10 suggest that it's not just for the Alpha cameras: The CLM-V55 with the Sony NEX-VG10 The CLM-V55 is a portable video monitor featuring a high-resolution WVGA (800 x 480) (5”) LCD panel. Attaching easily to most Interchangeable Lens Digital cameras and compatible HD camcorders via the supplied adaptor, it displays video footage during shooting/playback with excellent clarity and a wide viewing angle. Pixel magnification mode assists with accurate focus confirmation, giving an enlarged pixel-perfect view of a selected portion of the Full HD image. It’s complemented by a colour peaking function that highlights the edges of accurately-focused areas of the video image. An intuitive control wheel allows quick, positive...

According to a report on AppleInsider,  the developer pre-release of iOS 4.3 includes gestures for app switching and going to the Home screen. That's exciting news. I was enthusiastically looking forward to the arrival of multi-tasking on the iPad  because - unlike the iPhone - I found I was often switching between apps while doing tasks (or just popping over to check mail while writing something.) Quitting and relaunching apps - particularly those that open documents - adds seconds to the process. But the multi-tasking as first implemented in the last iOS update (not that I'm complaining) requires that you double-tap the home button and then choose the app you want to switch to from a tray. Oddly enough, that's not as smooth, easy and fluid as you'd like. The new release evidently allows you to swipe to switch apps. That will be so cool! And , they changed the orientation lock switch to an audio-mute button. In the new release, you can "switch" it bac...

3 Minutes is a three-minute feature produced with no budget. An interesting plot and some imaginative effects, it's definitely worth watching. Even if you don't enjoy it, check out editor Ross Ching 's website, where he explains in some detail how the movie was made and how some of the effects were produced. RossChing : 3 Minutes

B & H is currently including a free NP-FV100 battery ($98) with the Sony NEX-VG10 [$1,998.00]

Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Review Scott Simmons has posted a very detailed review of DaVinci Resolve , comparing it to Apple's Color . He's impressed by it's powerful features, though it may cost much more than it's $995 list price due to hardware requirements, and users of Color trying to switch might find it more difficult to learn and master. When compared to Apple Color , Resolve's power comes at an expense: the expense of buying the proper hardware to get optimal realtime performance out of Resolve and the expense of a necessary control surface (sorry, there are no iPad apps out yet for control). And then there's the ultimate expense: the time to learn and use Resolve to its full potential. I think it's safe to say there are a lot of Color users out there who will not be able to afford the full monetary cost of installing Resolve for the Mac. StudioDaily : Review: Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve for the Mac http://vimeo.com/1855092...

First Major  iPhone  Movie? I know that lots of people talked about making a feature-length movie, but was South Korean director  Park Chan-Wook  it first to actually produce and premiere an  iPhone -created major motion picture? He seems to think so.  Night Fishing  cost just $133,000 and 10 days to finish. “The quality of the cinematography is quite good, except for a little shakiness in the beginning. And the fact that the screen is coarse works to the film’s advantage, especially on the night scenes given its life-and-death theme.” HollywoodOutbreak :  FIRST MOVIE SHOT BY IPHONE IS SHOWCASED PhotoCineNews :  A movie shot solely on an iPhone

Baby it's snowing outside here in the Northeast. Maybe time to watch a movie? Here's some movie making news: Ghostbusters 3? Dan Aykroyd and Sony want to make a Ghostbusters 3. Bill Murray isn't so sure it's a good idea, and Sony says they won't make the movie without him. IndieWIRE : ‘Ghostbusters 3’ Reportedly Budgeted At $150 Mil; Sony Won’t Make Film Without Bill Murray Thunderbirds are.....Go? If you're a male of a certain age, you might have a fondness for the Thunderbirds TV series made in the 60's in "Supermarionation." A live action movie made in 2004 flopped, but Gerry Anderson - who is 81 - yesterday told a radio show that he's working on a new series. No details on whether it will be animated. TheTelegraph : Gerry Anderson to make new TV series of Thunderbirds The End of Independents The age of the independents may be over. With the closing of New Line Cinema, Miramax, Fine Line Features, Picturehouse, Warner Inde...

The Chromium Blog has announced that Chrome will be moving to WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs in the next couple of months, and dropping H.264 support: we are changing Chrome’s HTML5 <video> support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies. John Gruber at Daring Fireball wonders what a move away from H.264 would mean for mobile platforms: The big problem WebM has versus H.264 is that there are hardware decoders for H.264. This is key for mobile devices. It’s the hardware video decoding that allows mobile devices to get such long battery life and smooth performance for video p...

Canon has announced that its XF305 [B&H: $7,499] and XF300 [B&H $6,499] camcorders have been added to the BBC list of approved HD cameras, allowing them to be used to produce programs for broadcast on the corporation’s HD channels. Both camcorders were approved in June 2010 for use by independent productions , but have now also been accepted for internal BBC production use . The broadcaster has bought some XF305 camcorders, the first of which were delivered in December 2010. Canon UK : Broadcaster adds Canon’s XF305 and XF300 to list of camcorders approved for both internal and external HD production

Rule Camera's LeanringLab  Media Assets & Shared Storage that was scheduled for tomorrow, Jan 12th has been postponed to February 23rd due to weather. Here in Boston we're expecting a "biggish" storm with maybe a foot or more of snow tomorrow, much of it falling during the morning commute. I've seen several other events cancelled or postponed already. Everyone, be careful out there!

BG Renderer for Adobe After Effects Stu Maschwitz of the prolost blog says that if you use After Effects "you need [ BG Renderer , it's the] best Jackson you'll spend on something you can't drink." BG Renderer is a script that allows you to render your Render Queue items in the background while you can continue working in After Effects . It runs as a dockable panel that is saved as part of your workspace. There are two versions: With the basic version you can just render your queue in the background. Simple and easy and works every time. If you need options, then the Pro version is what you want. Besides being able to set prefs for the render, the pro version offer the very powerful post render actions which allow you to get growl notifications, send email (with log), send sms and even iPhone push notifications when your renders are done or you have an error. They are introducing the new version with an introductory price of $4.99 for the basic vers...

Peachpit Press is offering an "eBook Deal of the Day," and this week the title is Richard Harrington's Motion Graphics with Adobe Creative Suite 5 Studio Techniques . The book sells for $41.99 on Amazon, and $37.79 in the Kindle edition, but you can get it this week for $9.99 at Peachpit : Motion Graphics with Adobe Creative Suite 5 Studio Techniques NOTE : If you go to Amazon [this link:]  Motion Graphics with Adobe Creative Suite 5 Studio Techniques you can "Look Inside" to see the contents of the book.

35 Years of Digital Cameras Macworld  has a visual history of digital cameras,  and I remember most of them - though not the first one! If I was putting together a list, I would add at least a couple more; while the  Canon  EOS D30  was significant, it was the  Canon  EOS 10D  that was the first DSLR to drop below the $2,000 price point; in fact it dropped below $1,500 (and was also the first digital DSLR I bought!) And an important development that they overlooked was the arrival of video on DSLR's with the Canon 5D and Nikon D90. Macworld :  Looking back at 35 years of the digital camera Arri Alexa At the Prep Shoot Post blog, Eric Escobar talks about his experiences with the Arri Alexa , and also bashes the flood of camera demo reels set to emo-y guitar music on Vimeo Prep Shoot Post : THE CINEMATIC SOUL OF THE ARRI ALEXA AND HOW IT WILL END CAMERA TEST VIDEOS ON VIMEO The visual effects behind “V” A short piece about the...

Planet5D Chat with Philip Bloom today There will be an online chat with Philip Bloom at Planet5D in the HDSLR chat room Monday January 10th - 4pm EST - 21:00 GMT Planet5D Stereoscopic at San Francisco Cutters, January 11 SF Cutters is San Francisco's Apple Final Cut Pro User Group. This months meeting is on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 from 6:30 PM - 10:00 PM (PT) at Adobe Systems, 601 Townsend at 7th An Evening of 3D with Kevan O'Brien, Marek Poray and Karl Soule Special Guest Filmmaker Jon Felix SFcutter : website DigitalVision2011 Virtual Trade Show January 19 This virtual trade show includes several online chats, including: Tools for DSLR Post — DV Magazine Large Single-Sensor Cameras — Videography Live Sound: Digital Mixing and Virtual Processing vs. Outboard Processing As well as Conference Sessions; What's Next in 3DTV Program Production, Distribution and Retail HDSLR Cameras and Lenses Information & Registration: DigitalVision2011

Sony PMw-F3 If you can't get to the Boston event to see the PMW-F3 on January 19th, you might want to check your local Sony Pro Dealers and see if they have special events planned. I know of at least one other event being held at Professional Video & Tape, Oregon on the 20th . 3D Without The Glasses Toshiba has something to show you at the Consumer Electronics Show — televisions and a laptop that can display 3-D video without requiring the viewer to put on glasses Sounds interesting, even though: A shortcoming of a no-glasses approach is that only one person at a time can see the 3-D effect, and another is that you cannot move around too rapidly. But right after I saw that article, Alex Buomo , tweeted: Sorry Toshiba: glasses-free 3D lenticular screen = headache in 5 minutes. FAIL. NYTimes Gadgetwise : 3-D Without the Glasses Letus Hawk Viewfinder Review Robin Schmidt takes a look at the new Letus Hawk [B & H: $364.95]: As you can probably tell I’m no...