Notes On Video

New Creative Cloud pro video features now available | Adobe The updates to Adobe's Creative Cloud are coming out. The Prelude Live Logger iPad app sounds interesting: The 150+ new features in Adobe Premiere® Pro CC, After Effects® CC, SpeedGrade® CC, Prelude™ CC, Adobe Media Encoder CC, and Adobe Story CC Plus that were announced at IBC last month are available effective immediately via Adobe Creative Cloud. Today we are also delivering a new iPad app, Prelude Live Logger, which adds another tool to your arsenal for faster, more efficient production workflows. announcing the After Effects CC (12.1) update, one of several October 2013 updates for Adobe professional video applications | Adobe Among many other changes and fixes, this updates enables After Effects CC to run on Mac OS X v10.9 (Mavericks). This full update makes it unnecessary to install the previous After Effects CC (12.0.1) patch. Unlike the After Effects CC (12.0.1) patch, the After Effects CC (12.1) update ...

It was ironic that on my way to last night’s SMPTE meeting at Channel 5 Boston, I dropped off my cable TV box at a Verizon store. I am now officially cordless - no more cable TV for me! The only way I can see Channel 5's programming is on their website! The meeting was a presentation from Sony talking about 4K; specifically 4K TVs and projection. The message was; 4K is here, and NHK in Japan is working on 8K . They had a 65” 4K TV ($5K for 4K), the $650 “hockey-puck” 4K home video server (which only works with Sony content and a Sony 4K TV) and a 4K Projector (and it was not one of the big “Cinema” projectors, but one of their “home or business” units.) Up close the picture on both was very impressive. I’m still not convinced that you need 4K in the home unless you have a really large display, and/or sit very close to the display. It would make no sense to replace my 42” HD screen with a 42” 4K one. And, of course, given the lack of 4K material, buying a 4K display is mor...

Tomorrow night, Halloween, they are going to do a  recreation of the War of the World's broadcast at the Regent Theater in Arlington MA. Christopher Lydon, Joyce Kulhawik, William Martin, ChaChi Loprette, Laura Raposa, Allison Cahill and the rest of the cast are gearing up for a great night of entertainment as the live recreation of Orson Welles' WAR OF THE WORLDS lands at the Regent Theatre in Arlington at 7:30 this Thursday. Find out more at: The Orson Welles Complex Film Scoring & Music Seminar : Saturday, November 2nd High Output Studios Coffee & Bagels at 9:30 AM. Seminars from 10:00 AM – 12:00 Noon Creating the music and scoring for films is an art – but defining the sometimes-mystical quality that will help a music score succeed is difficult to quantify.  Join us for an open discussion with 4 top composers as they give you insight into how to approach scoring for films – from conceptualization to composition to orchestration – and the challen...

Blackmagic Design Cinema Cameras: Production Workflow Roundup | Premium Beat For a truly cinematic look it helps to shoot in a cinematic aspect ratio using anamorphic lenses. Redshark News offers some insights into working with the BMDCC cameras and anamorphic lens adaptors in this short post. In the video above DP Ryan Glover shot in Log Pro Res on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera with a Kowa/B&H 2x anamorphic adapter. EOS 7D Mark II Spec List Surfaces [CR1] | CanonRumors According to the rumor, the sensor is not yet confirmed, though it does mention it won’t be the same as the EOS 70D. Also a mention of innovative video features, something we’ve talked about previously. There’s not much new here as far as specs go, but at least the camera is being talked about. Consumer DSLRs “dead in 5 years” | EOSHD Until now the ‘smartphone problem’ had been pretty much isolated to the low end compact camera market. In my opinion this market is defunct and will vanish entirely withi...

I need another lens like I need another hole in my head, but a lens that does intrigue me is the new Sony E PZ 18-105mm f/4 G OSS Lens ($598). It's an E-mount lens, and it has at least four intriguing features: constant f/4 maximum aperture Optical SteadyShot image stabilization internal zoom operation powered zoom If you have a still camera, this lens probably won't excite you, but if you have a video camera such as the Sony NEX-VG30 , NEX-EA50 , NEX-FS100 or NEX-FS700 , this lens could be just what you're looking for. I have the NEX-EA50 camera, and it comes with the  18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 PZ OSS Alpha E-mount Lens  (as does the other cameras.) It's actually not a bad lens; zooms nicely, focuses pretty quickly, and it's nice and long. BUT, though it starts at f/3.5, it closes down to f/6.5 as you zoom. It also does something else when you zoom; it almost doubles in physical length. I don't know about you, but having a lens that extends as you zoom...

I've been experimenting with the DJI Phantom Quadcopter ($455.05) . One of the problems it can suffer from is a jello effect caused by vibration transferring from the airframe to the camera. This can be difficult to remove, as you'll see in the example below. Here, applying the Premiere Pro's Warp Stabilizer can actually make it look worse. I've written about the options for reducing this effect; one is to use some kind of anti-shake mount. These range in price and complexity from simple rubber insulators through to expensive brushless mounts. I tried a simple anti-shake mount, the  Anti Vibration Anti-Jello Vibration Isolator Low Profile Carbon Fiber Mount (below) and it does seem to make a difference. The two clips below show footage taken using the anti-shake mount. The first sequence is the "raw" footage; it still has some shaky moments, but that can mostly be removed using Premiere Pro/s Warp Stabilizer, as can be seen in the second clip. No...