Notes On Video

In response to my iPhone musings, I got the following reader email which actually sums up a lot of my second and third thoughts too: You might have a point about the fancier camera, but otherwise I would buy the smaller model. Its screen is about the same size as that of my Nexus 4, and I don't feel at all like it limits me with a too-small screen. But I do sometimes stretch to get my thumb the reach to the other corner of the screen. It is plenty big for a phone. A phone is a pocket thing. (Well, in my case it lives an ancient REI soft sunglasses case that I have on my belt.) Ubiquitous, handy, convenient, almost always with me. Small is crucial for all of that. Certainly a large screen is cool, but you need a place to put it: don't break a fundamental feature of a pocket phone by getting too big. That is what your small tablet is for. I have my phone with me almost always. I have my Nexus 7 tablet with me nearly as much. The bigger screen is great, yet it fits in some...

The iPhone 6 (left) and iPhone 6 Plus schematics (right) next to an iPhone 4 (in it's case.)  Lack of depth doesn't help with comparison! My iPhone 4 is a bit long in the tooth, and I’d already decided I’d replace it when the new model was released, so today’s announcement was rather perfunctory for me. Except Apple has gone and released two models, one quite a bit larger than the other. This wasn’t a total surprise as people have been rumoring a larger phone for months now. But there’s a big difference between reading rumors and an actual announced product, and even more so when it comes to sitting down and making a decision about which one to buy. Which one should I get? I’m not sure. I think I might need to hold them in my hand to be sure. I even went so far as to print out the schematics of the phones to try and get a better idea of just how large they are. A friend, who recently upgraded from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 5, was complaining about how much larger ...

It's IBC week , so expect some equipment news this week. Sony is going to announce a new camera tomorrow. Is it a FS700 replacement, enhancement, or something else? Initial rumors have been about a 4K FS700 II that will be priced about $10,000, but I was curious after seeing the teaser video that seemed to focus on web bloggers. A few very successful web bloggers might spend $10,000 on a camera, but I don't think the vast majority will. They are more likely to be thinking about a7S money. Maybe there's two cameras coming? I was at the Mass Media Expo on Saturday and saw a presentation on the AJA CION , a $9.000 camera. The camera was supposed to ship this summer, and as they said, summer is over this month. They had no ship date, but the camera is being shown at IBC and it was suggested that there might be an announcement there. The new Panasonic Varicam starts shipping this month, so there should be news about that too. Panasonic thinks it has a competitor to t...