Notes On Video

Kai W at DigitalRevTV compares the video performance of the Panasonic GH2 to the Canon D60 and finds what several other people have already noted on the forums: the GH2 does a better job in several areas: In 24fps, the GH2 image is sharper with more detail GH2  doesn't suffer from moire nearly as much as the  60D Rolling Shutter problem is slightly improved 60D  white balance is better ISO 3200, noise is lower on the GH2 , BUT 60D goes to 6400 Both shoot at 24p,25p and 30p, but the  GH2  also shoots in 1080i at 50 and 60fps 60D's Screen is much better Stereo mic input on GH2 is not standard; requires an adapter In the video Kai notes that the GH2 is more expensive, but here in the US the Canon 60D - body only - is only $30 cheaper than the GH2 with a kit lens: Canon 60D $969 @ Amazon, body only , Panasonic GH2   $999.95 @ Amazon with 14-42mm lens Which to buy? If you're just starting out - and don't already have a collection of len...

Matrix Video , Canada, seems to be the first to have posted the Sony brochure for the PMW-F3 [PDF]

Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 3x Brian Troy gets a Zacuto Z-Finer DSLR viewfinder, and writes a review: Overall, the Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 3x is comfortable, reliable, magnifies your LCD screen, is easy enough to put on and take off, and it’s lightweight. It gives me confidence that my subject is in focus and the pros outweigh the cons by far. Will I be purchasing one? Absolutely! It is everything that I can imagine wanting or needing in a viewfinder? Yes. BrianTroy :  Zacuto Z-Finder Pro 3x Review USB Follow Focus Earlier in the week, the 5D Mark II Team blog team posted about a USB Follow Focus that works with Canon DSLR's, and would be "available soon." Soon is now, as Okii Systems LLC. has released today the Okii USB Follow Focus Controller . 5DMarkII : USB Follow Focus Controller Released Blu Brothers at L.A. SMUG Meeting, Feb. 10 Vu and Lan Bui adopted DSLR video shooting as soon as it came out (with the Nikon D90 ) and, with Smashface Productions , shot the fi...

Bloggie Touch Mac Software Sony has released Mac software for the Bloggie camera. This update is for current Bloggie Touch models that are on store shelves right now including the MHS-TS10 , MHS-TS20 and MHS-TS20K . When the new Bloggie Entry, Bloggie Duo and Bloggie 3D (aka MHS-FS1 ,  MHS-FS2 , and MHS-FS3 ) become available, the updated Mac-compatible software will already be included. Sony Blog : Bloggie Touch Software now available for Macs Magic Bullet Denoiser 1.0.1 This update fixes the following issues. In Final Cut Pro : When rendering a clip with Denoiser applied – canceling and then resuming the render causes the canceled frame to be black with blue specs in it. This can also cause blue frames in other areas of the output. Fix an issue where you often get an “Unable to sample” error while using Denoiser . When Denoiser is applied, it sometimes scrambles the output video. In After Effects : Denoiser can cause After Effects to crash whi...

Rule Boston Camera continues to post video's from their LearningLab Series , and the latest features Richard Schleuning , National Sales Manager for the America's for Zeiss. He talks about the history of the company, their ZF SLR lenses, and their Compact Prime Cine CP.2 lenses. The CP.2 lenses are expensive, but offer some notable improvements over the standard Zeiss SLR lenses: 14-blade diaphragm (vs 9) 300 degree plus focus rotation Common outer dimensions (for the majority of the lenses) makes it quick and easy to interchange a lense during shooting T-stops Calibrated Lens Scales Lightweight Interchangeable mounts There is no electronic communication between the lens and the body; this was done because they wanted to make the mounts interchangeable. Switching mounts requires a torque wrench and a test chart or calibration device to set the back-focus for the lens correctly. The first time a new mount is put on a lens, it needs to be adjusted using shims (p...

Rule Boston Camera's ongoing educational programs for February: Shared Storage Demystified Feb 2nd 10am - 12noon Rule's Tom Talbot covers various storage and asset management solutions. Creating An Efficient Audio Environment Feb 9  10am - 12noon Paul Stewart of Genelec and Jordan Tishler of Digital Bear Entertainment provide an overview of audio monitoring technology. Maximizing The Benefits Of Canon's 5D and 7D Feb 16 10am - 12noon Canon's Carl Peer highlights some of the benefits to filmmakers when shooting with the Canon 5D and 7D. Media assets And Shared Storage Feb 23 10am - 12noon Bob Russo , Avid Applications Specialist discusses the challenges and solutions for managing media assets in a shared storage environment. RSVP to events@rule.com

At a town hall meeting held for employees yesterday, the company rolled out a new space-less corporate logo that "is meant to represent the unity of its two main divisions." That's the official "rebranding" as a result of the Comcast merger. But the NBC peacock will remain part of the NBC brand, and the spinning globe continues to be used by the movie studio, which suggests that this logo will primarily be used for interoffice memos. Clearly great days are ahead for NBCUniversal, as employees were all given ...a "Big Idea Book" in which they were to record their own. YahooFinance : NBC Universal now NBCUniversal under Comcast

The 10th Annual San Francisco SuperMeet will be held tonight ! If you can't get there, the event will be streamed live, starting at 6:45 PM PST at http://supermeet.com/live/ While the event is run by the Final Cut Pro User Group Network , you don't have to be a Final Cut user to get anything out of this event. Presentations include: CANON Presents: Michael Blieden , Explorer of Light "Yes You Can Use Autofocus And Still Call Yourself A D.P. " Kevin Jardin and J ohn Stark present their video " I The Pro Res Maker. " Best of the Best – Tips, Tricks, and Secret Techniques in FCP 7 - Returning to the Stage: Abba Shapiro and Steve Martin ! What's Happening in 3D Production ? - Alex Lindsay " POST IN A FLASH " - Tony Cacciarelli , AJA Video Systems Smoke on Mac OSX -J osh Courtney and Marc Hamaker The New Up: "Bitch" - Peggy Peralta and Albert Lopez SuperMeet : San Francisco

Development of Lightworks , the - now - open source video editor continues apace. They have just released version 10.0.3 which has over 150 changes. The focus for this release has been on stability and reliability, but they have also attempted to address codec support issues: The other major issue was codec support… what works and what doesn’t. We realize that this is an important area for everyone and we are working hard to address it. As we said in our previous announcement, some things are just not straight forward due to legalities. In this version, we are much more explicit about what is and isn’t supported. We have made a major change that allows Quicktime files to be imported via ‘Create Link’. These changes also extend support for import formats to AVCHD (wrapped as .mov). The important point here, though, is that codec support is a major part of the work we are now focusing on and over the coming weeks and months you will see more support being made available. Please bea...

Panasonic AG-AF100 Focus Remote Control The Manfrotto 521PFI Focus Remote Control [B & H: $269.95 ] is a focus/iris remote control designed to be used with Panasonic prosumer cameras. Features include focus and iris manual adjustment, focus min and max adjustment, as well as re-write position references for the iris and focus knobs. Peter Lundström at the editman tried it out with the Panasonic AG-AF100  and found it works; as long as you have appropriate lenses like the Olympus 14-35mm and the Olympus 35-100mm lenses. He's happy with it, though he does note that using the internal lens motor to focus might make noise that's picked up in audio recording: I have to say that having this little device mounted at an ergonomic spot makes focus pulls much easier. You can also do repeatable focus pulls even with the 35-100. I've tried to use my Shoot35 FF unit but you can't do this because of how this lens works, but the 521PFI can! theeditman : Electronic focus...

I really like the imagination and creativity in this ad:

Sony isn't talking about the sensor design of the PMW-F3;  other than to say it has a "very interesting" color array design. But at the recent PMW-F3 preview they did talk about the sensor in their F35 Cinema camera, and that certainly got my attention as I wasn't aware of it's "unusual" design. The F35 is an unusual HD video camera with an unusual price; somewhere around $200,000. This camera has been used to shoot feature films, including Tron and Transformers 3 . To understand how unusual the sensor is, it's important to understand how most digital cameras - both still and video - currently work. CCDs and CMOS chips detect brightness, not color. To detect color, color filtering must be added. But this means that any one pixel in a sensor can only detect one color (Red, Green or Blue). Most cameras use one of two ways to calculate the RGB value for a pixel in the final image. Single-chip cameras Most single-chip cameras use a Bayer col...

Passive 3D TV Review Vizio's 65-inch XVT3D650SV ($3,700), the first mainstream TV equipped with so-called "passive" 3D technology gets reviewed at Crave , and while the glasses are lighter and the screen slightly brighter, resolution is severely impacted: We expected this difference because, as Vizio, LG, and other purveyors of 2011 passive 3D TVs admit, the system they use halves the effective 1080p resolution, delivering only 540 lines to each eye. We just didn't expect it to be so obvious. As Matt said, it makes you appreciate how good "1080p to each eye" looks CNET Crave : Passive 3D vs. active 3D: Hands-on TV comparison Read more: Meanwhile, Bud Light makes their own fun of 3D "safety": YouTube: Bud Light 3D Test Commercial HD Sundance and Kickstarter Sundance Institute announced a new program to connect its artists with audiences by offering access to creative funding and marketing backed by the Institute’s promotional suppor...

If you're looking to get some Blu-ray deals, checkout the sale at Amazon: Amazon Blu-ray Sale

Zacuto EVF - battery info Zacuto has issued another video in their series on the upcoming Zacuto EVF . This one's on batteries; they said they were looking for a battery that performed as close as possible to the Canon LP-E6 battery. They also revealed that they have removed the 12 volt input they had originally planned to include, and decided to use a dummy battery as a plug-in or external battery option. The Zacuto EVF is supposed to be released in March with a price of around $775. Zacuto : Z-Finder EVF - Part 5 'It's All About Power" More on post on "the final word on 3D" One more follow on from Roger Ebert 's recent column, Daniel Engber at Slate has jumped in to defend 3D. The first part of the article doesn't really bring any new facts to the discussion (arguing that we didn't evolve to watch 24 frames per second either, seems a little beside the point.) And, frankly, I don't care whether people like or don't like watchi...

At last Wednesday's SMPTE New England event held at Boston Rule Camera, Dr. Hugo Gaggioni CTO, VP Technology and Peter Crithary , Marketing Manager, Production, of Sony’s Broadcast & Professional Solutions Division gave a presentation on Sony's Super35mm cameras. While much of the event focused on the upcoming PMW-F3 , it began with discussion of CMOS vs CCD, their high-end Super 35mm camera the F35 , digital memory recording and S-Log. But everyone was really there to see the PMW-F3 , and participants did get to handle a pre-production model, and see footage that had been shot with a PMW-F3 . The Sony PMW-F3 is supposed to be shipping in February, and Sony seem confident they have a winner on their hands. It may not take on the Panasonic AG-AF100 (that’s the job of the upcoming NXCAM 35mm ) but it looks more like they are going after RED , and maybe the studios and independents that are using the 5D MkII . And they are still being coy about some details: Se...

Noise Industries has announced its latest FxFactory freebie plug-in pack, Manifesto . The brand new Manifesto titling plug-ins provide new and current FxFactory users with a quick and easy way to generate eye-popping titles in Apple Final Cut Pro , Final Cut Express , Motion and A fter Effects . Manifesto comes in two variants: a static title generator and a title roll/crawl generator. Manifesto Highlights Optional Keyframing: No keyframes are required for animation. The text of choice is scrolled in and out of frame automatically based on the length of the generator track. This feature also lets users match a title roll (or crawl) to the duration of a different clip. Use Existing RTF Files: Manifesto can reference an existing RTF file on disk, allowing users to rely entirely on an external program for text input and layout. Built-in Motion Blurring and De-Flickering: Create high-quality animations at any frame rate with built-in motion blur and the ability to reduce interl...

The DSLR Stealth Factor Andrew Reid argues that the important thing about DSLR video cameras is their small size and stealth abilities. DSLRs like the GH2 are pretty far from industry standards and professional A/V equipment as we know it. They are a complete break from what has become the norm at broadcasters, rental companies or film studios both large and small. As video cameras they throw the baby out with the bathwater as far as operation goes (they’re photographic cameras, after all). Convergence : Avoiding militants and dogma – The DSLR Stealth Factor Lighting for Video Adorama has put together a couple of videos on using HDSLRs, hosted by Mark Wallace. The first part focuses on shooting, and the second episode covers lighting (which will apply to any kind of camera you use.) Episode 48: HDSLR Pt.1: Shooting Video W/ a DSLR: Adorama Episode 49: HDSLR Pt.2: Lighting for Video: Adorama Photography TV HDSLR shot movie sold to Paramount “ Like Crazy ” a movie sho...

Rule Boston Camera is hosting a  LearningLab on Zeiss   lenses (notably the cine-style compact prime 2 series lenses) this Wednesday from 10am to 12 noon. RSVP to events@rule.com . Jan 26th - Zeiss Lenses Richard Schleuning covers Zeiss' manual focus lenses, including the cine-style compact prime 2 series lenses as well as the ZF series lenses.

Canon 5D Mark II Replacement I always love a good rumor, and there's been surprisingly few about the Canon  5D Mk II replacement, but now comes word form Canonrumors.com that - maybe - the 5D replacement will be called the 6D , have a 24 MP sensor, and appear in the first half of 2011... The only problem is that Canon's naming scheme seems to suggest to me that the better (more expensive) cameras have the lower number i.e. the 1D>5D>7D>60D. At least, that's my understanding of how the naming scheme works. There's no way a full-frame sensor camera with the same build quality as the 5D/7D could cost less than the 7D . So if there is a 6D with a full frame sensor, it would seemingly have to have lower build quality (and cost) than the 7D . If it was going to be a 5D replacement (with similar build quality), and they didn't want to call it the 5D Mk III , surely they'd call it the 4 D ? But even the idea of renaming it doesn't make sense; ...

3D Not So Bad, Maybe Walter Murch 's comments about 3D reprinted in Roger Ebert's column have, of course, provoked a reaction. Several people have questioned whether Murch has the science right, including David Newman , CTP of CineForm . He posted a response on Ebert's original article, as well as reprinting it in CineForm's blog: While there are issues with 3D presentation, the claim that the "convergence/focus" issue makes 3D unsolvable is false. There is an error made in the assumption that "the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen", while that is generally true for objects close to a viewer in space, it is not true for a movie screen "80 feet away." [...] With various ways of computing the hyper-focal range of the eye suggests that objects from around 15 feet to infinity will appear in focus. That means a 3D presentation that has objects appearing no close than 15 feet and beyond will appear in focus whether th...

.... The Social Network got 8. I haven't seen the latter, but I told you I thought The King's Speech was the best movie I'd seen all year! noteOnVideo : The King's Speech [ UPDATE : Corrected number of nominations for The Social Network ]

The Vimeo Festival Awards were held back in October 2010, and as part of the event there were several panel discussions. Vimeo has now posted video of these online, including: Making it Happen with Ted Hope and Brian Newman Documentary: The Agent of Change with Lucy Walker and Morgan Spurlock, (moderator: Jess Search) Inspiration Lightning Talks with Charlie White, Jamie Wilkinson, Neville Brody and Shane Walter Know Your Digital Rights with Lawrence Lessig and Paul Miller (DJ Spooky) (moderator David Cheah) DSLR Cinema: The new dawn of filmmaking? with Philip Bloom and Vincent Laforet (moderator: David Leitner) Each of these is approximately one hour long, though they have posted 10 minute highlights for each as well DSLR Cinema- The new dawn of filmmaking? (Highlights) from Vimeo Festival on Vimeo .

One of the things that Sony talked about at last weeks demo of the PMW-F3 , was the upcoming SR-R1 Memory Recorder . Sony SR-R1 Memory Recorder The SR-R1 will record at 220Mbps and 440Mbps to solid state memory cards. The unit will support Single Link 4:2:2, two HD-SDI outputs for 4:2:2 1080/60p, 3G and Dual Link RGB at 440Mbps. Simultaneous recording makes it possible to record two cameras at once for 3D productions Interestingly, when Sony reps were asked why the PMW-F3 did not record at 50Mbps (at the highest quality to internal cards it records 35 Mbps in 4:2:0 8-bit XDCAM EX format) Sony's response was that it would have added too much to the cost, but that with the SR-R1 (or other similar output options) those who need that sort of quality can get what they need. While Sony hasn't officially released information about the SR-R1 , it is covered in a 12-page special report from Film And Digital Times on the PMW-F3 , and the Sony reps clearly thought that t...

Film And Digital Times  have released a 12 page special report on the  PMW-F3 , (Sony reps distributed copies of this report at last week's presentation of the camera.) It's available for download in PDF format. FilmAndDigitalTimes:   Sony F3 Special Report

Reviews Musician and Filmmaker Sami Sänpäkkilä reviews the D|Focu s , an affordable follow-focus unit. I feel that for me the D|Focus does the job amazingly well, it should work with most cameras and lenses out there. Also you get fast responses and good info from David who makes them, which to me is the most important thing when buying equipment. samisanpakkila: D|Focus V2 – A superb affordable follow focus Daniel Freytag posts a review, with video, of the budget LCDVF viewfinder . It likes the magnification, magnetic frame and the budget price, and the only problem he has with it is that the viefinder sometimes gets fogged. F reytag-film: LCDVF – a cheap and solid Viewfinder For a bit more money, you could look at the Letus Hawk viewfinder , reviewed on planet5D : But after getting the updated Hawk with their new quick release, I can say that this is now my preferred quick release over the sticky frames. The design of the Hawk quick release is simple and very effec...

The End of 3D? Roger Ebert hasn't been a fan of 3D films, so it's perhaps not a surprise that he devotes much of his latest column to a letter he received from film editor Walter Murch ( Apocalypse Now ) The biggest problem with 3D, though, is the "convergence/focus" issue. A couple of the other issues -- darkness and "smallness" -- are at least theoretically solvable. But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen -- say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what. But their eyes must converge at perhaps 10 feet away, then 60 feet, then 120 feet, and so on, depending on what the illusion is. So 3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before. All living things with eyes have always focussed and converged at the same point. This column has provoked a lot of comments and repostings, and some interesting ...

Panasonic releases firmware update Panasonic released the first firmware update for the AG-AF100 . It fixes the following problem with SD cards: Software update for improvement of the SYSTEM ERROR The system error occasionally occurred on the camera side (AG-AF100 series) when SD Card File Recovery Software on the computer which is connected to the camera by USB cable was executed with SDXC card inserted in the camera. The SD Card File Recovery Software has been updated so that it can operate normally with the SDXC card. This system error will not damage the SDXC card. Panasonic : Software(Firmware) Update Data Panasonic: Firmware updates for AG-AF100 series and Option Lenses Firmware makes AF100 hack possible? Vitaliy Kiselev has taken a look at the firmware release and says it shares much in common with the GH platform, making it possible he could hack the firmware to increase the recording bitrate as he did for the GH1. EOSHD : Vitaliy Kiselev begins work on Panaso...

...it's always when you're up against a deadline that you: Can't find the cable YouTube/Vimeo  whatever is hung up processing the video You only notice after it's done that there's ten minutes of black and an outtake at the end of the video The DVD doesn't play because you didn't notice the project was set to PAL; just like the last project was

With the official completion of the " Beyond The Still " competition, Vincent Laforet has posted three movies: a compilation of all 8 Chapters as one final piece, the final (8th Chapter) alone, and a behind the scenes video of the Chapter 8 shoot with all of the six winners on set. The final chapter was written by all six of the chapter winners - the first chapter was made by Vincent - starred Judd Nelson, and was directed by Vincent with DP Joe Desalvo. Vincent Laforet: World Online Premiere of The Beyond The Still Final Collaborative Film

Thoughts on Documentary Editing Part one of a lecture  Steve Audette  gives on editing for documentaries. Steve has edited for Frontline and Nova since 1993. ArtoftheGuillotine: Part One ArtoftheGuillotine: Part Two USB Follow Focus for Canon Cameras The 5D Mark II blog has quite a bit of information about a wired follow-focus that connects to the USB port of Canon cameras and controls the lens focusing. They say they have been using it for a couple of months and are quite excited about it, though there's note: It’s important to note that a USB Follow Focus doesn’t work exactly as a mechanical Follow Focus, especially due Canon’s USB implementation and since the controller is electronic and not mechanic. Both have their own limitations and advantages. The user should read the detailed information provided by the manufacturer to understand the way this works, its possibilities, what it can and can’t do. That will be available on the official release. But they do...

Vincent Laforet ( @vincentlaforet ) tweeted the following from the Sundance Film Festival : Running into a LOT of HDDSLR crews and filmmakers... Total count @Sundance in past 10 minutes alone in 2 block radius: 14 5Dmkii/7Ds - 2 Nikons - 0 camcorders... All shooting vid interviews...

Singular Software recently introduced PluralEyes (the audio/video sync tool) for Media Composer , and as they have done in the past, there's an introductory discount; it's $119 until Feb 21st, then it goes to $149. Singular Software: PluralEyes

Circle your calendar: Bruce Sharpe of Singular Software [ PluralEyes and DualEyes ] is scheduled to be the featured guest at the next Boston DSLR Meetup on Thursday, February 24th . [ See below ] Singular Software Boston DSLR Meetup [UPDATED Feb  8: a BOSFCPUG + BOSDSLR mixer has now been scheduled for February 17th. UPDATED Feb 9: Bruce Sharpe is being rescheduled to another month]