Notes On Video

Gizmodo has some video tests shots with the Nikon D90 . Interesting to see the depth of focus, as well as focus problems (there's no autofocus in video mode!), and the reviewers note about problems zooming smoothly and that a tripod really makes things easier. No, an SLR isn't going to replace a video camera perfectly. At least, not this one. And probably not the Canon 5D Mark II either. Meanwhile Amazon had been accepting pre-orders for the Canon 5D Mark II, but now it says it's not available, and you can be emailed when it's available. B&H doesn't seem to be taking orders either, though it says that arrival is "Approximately November." Of course, if the economy grinds to a halt next week, who's going to care?

Some people think Blu-ray is on it's deathbed, or at least that it will never reach the success of DVDs. They could be right; broadband is continuing to challenge physical mediums (sales of DVDs are down too.) On the other hand, Blu-ray is a useful format for HD content; the question is will a mass audience adopt it, or will it end up being used more by content developers? Blu-ray may just be a good way to back up large quantities of information. Not surprisingly, Sony thinks that Blu-ray's future is still bright. This article on Sony's Electronics Blog say's that everything will be fine: " Expect Blu-ray to Live on Despite Reports of its Imminent Demise ". Meanwhile, Apple still has no Blu-ray support, the biggest reason I have held off getting involved in the format. I just get by with anamorphic DVDs instead.

February 19 is the end of analog transmission television . All those stations are going to turn off. And if you’re still getting TV “off the air” and don’t have a digital TV, or haven’t bought a digital converter, then you won’t be able to watch television. And you will be better for it. At least one Senator is concerned They did a test cut-off in Wilmington Carolina early in this month that revealed some problems: "As the current administration winds down, both agencies must remain vigilant so that the next administration does not inherit a communications crisis." - Senator Daniel Inouye But it turns out that the problems were more mental than physical : According to the Journal, by mid-afternoon roughly 74 calls had been placed to two TV stations, WSFX-TV, a Fox affiliate, and WECT-TV, an NBC affiliate. The newspaper also reported the FCC received about a hundred calls on its toll-free help line in the first few hours after local broadcasters shut off their analog signals...

Someone just pointed me to the Cadbury advertisement with the gorilla playing drums to Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight." I like the mood of this; the way the camera glides over the gorilla face at the beginning; just not sure I get the connection to Cadbury chocolate. Particularly as the first thing I do notice in terms of product placement(other than the drums) is the headphones....it's looks like an iPod ad! Still, makes a nice change from some of the ads out there. UPDATE 3:59pm: and I just noticed that this is the second "gorilla" post of the day! Totally unintentional!

Sony has announced a third generation internal Bluray writer , the BWU-300S, which is priced at $400 writes at 8x and comes bundled with software. Very cool, but PC only. Me, I'm still waiting for Apple to do something about Bluray support. The Nikon D-90 isn't the only camera offering 720p video. The Kodak EasyShare Z1485IS (point and shoot) does it too!. Is Michael Moore's " Slacker Uprising " the first full-length movie to be released online for free? Or at least the first one intentionally released for free? Well, who knows, but it's out there. The Gorillapod is this really heavy-duty bendy tripod that will support a camera up to 11 pounds (the Panasonic AG-HMC70U is only 5.3lbs without battery.) Wow. That's pretty heavy duty, though it does have a heavy duty price: $149.95. You could get a real tripod for that!

I said I wasn't going to say anything more about the Canon 5D MkII and less than an hour later I discover that the video shot by Vincent Laforet is available on Canon's site . It's all pretty amazing and beautifully shot, but right at the end, there's a pan across the New York skyline and there definitely seems to be something going on there (though it could be enhanced by the shake of the helicopter.) Hard to tell. But there's a lot of other shots (several with the camera in motion) where you don't notice anything. Definitely check it out.

Funny that I mentioned RED the other day, because now comes news that they are completely redesigning Scarlet (the $3,000 video camera they had planned.) the market has changed and we have discovered a lot of things in the process. We have a new vision The news is on RED’s forum . Just to clarrify, RED has announced both Scarlet - a comparatively low-budget video camera - as well as the DSMC (Digital Still & Motion Camera) an SLR-type camera too. The thread is an interesting read as the forum members take turns trashing the Nikon D90 and Canon 5D. While I take what some of the fan boys say with a grain of salt, the references to the “ Jelly video ” problem of the D90 are worth noting. You can see an example linked from here . This frame capture shows the problem; the top part of the frame seems to lag behind the bottom as the camera is quickly panned left to right. Rather than capturing the whole frame at once, the image is being captured from top to bottom, and in that time the c...

There's a write up about photographer Vinvent Laforet's experience with the 5D Mark II at Gizmodo " A Taste of the Canon 5D Marl IIs mindblowing Full HD video ." It's depth of field control and low light performance look soooo cool. Someone posted in the comments: "A top commercial film editor who who regularly edits RED camera footage - and has seen the raw footage from the 5D MKII - says the 5D MKII is "far superior to the RED camera" in terms of low light performance…" RED is a company that's produced a comparatively low cost very high-res digital video camera, and they are supposed to be releasing some kind of SLR/video camera for around $3,000 either later this year or early next year (note that the comment is not relating to the new camera, but the existing one.)

The purchase of the Panasonic AG-HMC70U has meant the purchase of one more expensive item: a new camera bag. Turns out that the bag I have which is quite a bit bigger than the Sony HDR-FX1 I usually schlep around, isn’t big enough to hold the Panasonic. And – all things considered – it’s a big bag! So I had to get an even bigger one. A trip to a local camera store revealed a wealth of bag possibilities; though it turned out most of them were camera bags. I could pull out the dividers on some of the larger ones, but it seemed like you’re paying a lot for that padding. Even for the few straight video camera bags, it was obvious there was no cheap solution. I ended up focused (pun?) on a range of bags made by Kata. I hadn’t heard of them before; turns out they are owned by Bogen. They have a website that let’s you find bags based on cameras , and their selector recommended the: CCC-10-A ( about $240 street) for the AG-HMC70U. Interestingly, I managed to try the CC-195 at the store (abou...

Norwegian Broadcasting's technology site, NRKBeta , got their hands on some video clips from the Canon 5D Mark II and are very positive about what they see. Look better than HDV (25 mbit/s MPEG2) vs the 5DMkII 40 m/bit H.264 Canon says IS-Lense image stabilization is active. You can shoot stills during video, but there will be a break in the video. Meanwhile, on the Rob Galbraith site , it notes that clip length is actually half an hour, or a 4GB movie, but the amount of footage you can cram into 4GB depends on the subject matter. In testing this translated to 12 minutes. Other details: You can capture at 1920 x 1280 or 640 x 480. Canon is moving from Motion JPEG to MPEG4 on all it’s PowerShots. The stereo-in is a 3.5mm jack. Levels are adjusted automatically (no manual override) and there is wind noise suppression applied automatically (and cannot be adjusted or turned off.) White Balance can be set before recording, or Auto WB will adjust during recording. Shutter speed is set au...

While it's supposed to be out in November, there are already reports of high demand for this camera, which may mean you won't get one until the new year if you wait too long to order. Worse yet, it might take a while for the price to go any lower than the list $2,699.99. Meanwhile, the SlashGear site has some links to video shot using the camera . I really like those fish-eye shots.

Only a couple of weeks after Nikon announced the D-90, with it's ability to capture 720p movie clips, along comes Canon with their 5D Mark II a 21MP camera offering 1080p 1,920 x 1,080 video capture at 30fps (with a maximum clip length of 12 minutes.) The clips are QuickTime files, H.264; 38.6 Mbits/sec. Wow! The camera also has a mic input, while the D-90 only had a small built-in microphone (no word on whether it's stereo or mono.) EDIT: reportedly the audio is 16-bit PCM at 44KHz and stereo is supported with external mics. I'm intrigued by this camera because a) it's a Canon mount, b) the video capture could be interesting and sometimes useful, and c) it has a full frame sensor. It's list price is $2,600; more than the D-90, (which is not full frame) but less than the original 5D list price (which is now selling for about $2,400.) If I hadn't just bought the Panasonic, I'd jump out and get one of these; and yeah, I know it isn't practical as a prima...

The Nikon D90 I may have to switch camera brands. A little back story. When I first got into film photography, I really wanted a Nikon SLR because I was under the impression that they were THE camera for 35mm. I never did get a Nikon, and as luck would have it, I ended up getting a Canon DSLR partly because they were first to come out with a reasonably priced DSLR, and partly because I had one on loan for several months and loved it. I’ve been very happy with the Canon over the years, and always felt that the difference between the Nikon and Canon SLRs have been – at least from my perspective – mainly issues about UI and minor performance differences with no obvious winner unless you are at the extremes: if you’re a sports shooter versus a studio shooter, one camera may be clearly better. But unless you’re a pro-photographer, either brand will probably serve you nicely. But then Nikon went and announced the D90, which has one very interesting feature: Movie capture: 24fps 1280x720 moti...

I’ve had the AG-HMC70U for a couple of weeks, and shot the first project with it the weekend before last. Here’s some follow-up thoughts about the camera. The audio options are really nice. I put a wireless mic on one XLR channel, but was still able to use the internal mic for the other channel. While the internal mic is not the greatest, it did provide good backup for the wireless mic to record other sounds that weren’t being captured (like someone not on the mic.) I used auto volume control so I didn’t have to mess with things, and was happy with the results. It’s really good to be using a shoulder camera again. Particularly for man-on-the-street interviews. The first day I went out to shoot with the camera I was mainly doing experiments, and holding the camera in my hands as I’ve kind of gotten used to that with the FX1. I was disappointed with the results as the images seemed much shakier. I was much happier with the results this time; it worked much better being used how it was in...

I downloaded the trial for VoltaicHD to see whether it would be a better alternative to the Final Cut Express import process for AVCHD files (or even if it would be useful for converting AVCHD files that aren't recognizable by FCE.) Note: the demo is good for 10 conversions, with a maximum file size of 50MB First the good news: It converts .MTS files (native AVCHD files) no matter where they are, so that's a big plus over FCE and will be useful for archiving .MTS files. I copied a .MTS file from the camera card onto the Desktop and then successfully converted it. The program has a simple, but intuitive interface; drag the files into a list, where you can select them if you want to transfer them, and you can see a preview of the first frame of the clip by clicking the Details button. There's no In and Out point selection as there is in FCE, but I can live with that. The bad news: it takes much, much longer than FCE to do the conversion. A 15 second clip took FCE 32 seconds ...

To provide a little more illumination on how the SDHC conversion works in Final Cut Express; When you either mount the camera in disk mode (or have the SDHC card inserted in a card reader) and open the Log and Transfer window, the name of the volume appears with a spinning progress indicator: After about 20 seconds, a list of clips appears. You can preview them, set in and out points, or simply drag from the top window to the bottom. The bottom window is a queue of clips to be converted. Note that FCE only seems to recognize AVCHD files if they are contained within a valid file structure. If you try and copy the .MTS file into Log and Transfer from another location, you get an error message:

I had two concerns when considering getting an AVCHD camera: 1. Dealing with archiving all that video content that I could no longer just file away on the tapes on which it was recorded. 2. Editing the AVCHD content I’m still working on 1, but issue 2 seems to work okay…though there are issues. I’ve been using Final Cut Pro for a couple of years, and Apple announced support for the AVCHD compressor with the latest release of it and FC Express. That meant upgrading, and – long story short – I ended up buying Final Cut Express 4.0, because it was cheaper than buying the Final Cut Pro suite. After shooting some video with the Panasonic AG-HMC70U – and installing the software – I tried inserting the SDHC card into the card reader, mounting that, and accessing the files. The card mounted fine, and revealed a somewhat confusing directory structure, but I eventually found what I took to be the data files (.MTS) in a folder called STREAM. Unfortunately, these files were completely unrecognized...

The AG-HMC70U comes with a 2GB SDHC card. That should hold about 20 minutes of video at the highest quality setting. Not too bad for playing about with, but not enough for everyday use. B and H Photo (where I bought the AG-HMC70U), lists – amongst accessories - a Panasonic 16GB Class 6 card for $129.95. Considering what I’ve paid over the years for Compact Flash cards, that’s almost like giving them away, but I thought I could do better. A search for SDHC cards at Amazon came up with only a few 16 GB cards (though I think the number increases each time I go back there!) My first preference was for a name brand card. The SanDisk Ultra II seemed like the obvious choice, which they were selling for $89.99. SanDisk is a “known” entity; they have been around for a while, and I have several cards from them already that I have been happy with. But a little research revealed that this card is a Class 4, with a maximum transfer rate of 15 MB/sec. The AG-HMC70U maximum bit rate is 13, so in theo...

A few first impressions of the AG-HMC70U: It’s pretty big. I was expecting that, but it’s somehow bigger than I expected or imagined. I guess I’ve been spending so much time with “small cameras” I forgot how big, shoulder cameras tend to be. The size isn’t an issue when on your shoulder, but it does make it more awkward to schlep around, and though I have a large bag I carry the HDR-FX1 around in, it’s too large for that. Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised at how solid the body felt. Frankly, I was thinking that it might feel like a big empty plastic box, given that there’s no tape mechanism, the electronics are probably pretty small, and I imagine there’s a lot of empty space in that shell. Weight wise it’s probably a little heavier than the FX1, but not by much. Speaking of the body, it’s surprisingly devoid of buttons and switches (the FX1 is covered in them.) The BNC and XLR jacks certainly take up a lot of space on the back, but take those away and there are not many oth...

I'm not a big fan of those unboxing videos and articles that people keep doing, but since I got the thing and I had a camera near by... Unboxing the Panasonic AG-HMC70U: Open the box (left), and you find inside another box (right) that looks almost exactly the same; only slightly smaller Open the top, and you see the software discs, memory card (2 GB) and the side of the camera. The right-hand side compartment holds the power supply. Lift that tray out, and you see the lens cover and remote (right) and protective packaging: Take out the next layer, and there's the camera, sitting in a protective baggy: And here she is, right out of the baggy, with a piece of protective wrapping around the viewfinder arm (the rubber eyecup for the viewfinder isn't attached); Here's the camera, with all the parts in front, clockwise from left: * Manual and CD's (one has electronic manual and the other has software). * Battery * viewfinder eyecup * battery for remote * remote * should...