Notes On Video

DPReview has posted it's review of the Canon 7D and they seem to love it. Admittedly, this site is a photography site, but it's still good to know that the camera scores highly as a still camera. The beginning of the conclusion sums it up: If you are looking at the pros and cons list above you could be forgiven for getting the impression that we somehow struggled to populate the cons list with a number of bullet points that comes at least close to what you can see in the pros department. You are not mistaken. The EOS 7D is an excellent addition to Canon's range of APS-C DSLRs that is, in terms of build quality, speed of operation, ergonomics and image quality, a cut above Canon's previous APS-C flagship, the EOS 50D.

Back at the end of October, ShedWorx released version 2.0 of their AVCHD converter, VoltaicHD . New features for this release: ShedWorx now has an AVCHD Previewer which gives you a live preview of your movies. Edit your AVCHD movies prior to conversion. You can now send your movies direct to YouTube, iPhone, iPod and AppleTV. Improved conversion processing gives you even better quality results. Improved inverse telecine process for getting the best results from your 24p footage. You can download a trial version. If you have a non-Intel Mac, or want to be able to reimport AVCHD files that are no longer in an AVCHD file structure (the only way you can import them into Final Cut Express and Pro ) then VoltaicHD is worth checking out.

Gizmodo says that the Apple TV sucks, even with the 3.0 update (and I have to agree; if you thought 2.0 sucked, then 3.0 isn't going to change that opinion.) They've posted a comparison review of the WD TV Live, Seagate FreeAgnet Theater+, Popcorn Hour C-200, Patriot Box Office and Netgear Digital Entertainer Live in: HD Media Player Battlemodo: Apple TV Killers Specs wise, the Popcorn Hour scores high, with the Patriot a close second, but in testing, the WD and Seagate were given the win (a tie.) The Popcorn does well with a third, but got dinged on price ($300 compared to the WD TV's $150.) I did find it amusing that though the first paragraph says "When Apple TV 3.0 came out, we were unimpressed" the third paragraph begins: This isn't about photos and music. Apple TV is better at both of those than any of this stuff I've said this before, but I've been tempted to get a WD TV or WD TV Live, because of it's ability to play video files without havi...

Canon Tilt/Shit demo B& H Photo has a write up (and demo video) of the new Canon Tilt/Shift lenses . The 17mm looks like one fun piece of glass, but it’s $2,500! And as interesting as the article (and examples) are, I really wish that they explained the difference between the new models and the previous model(s) which are more than $1,000 cheaper. Unfortunately, the only reference to the other models is: The lenses' control wheels and lock mechanisms have also been improved over earlier Canon tilt-shift-series optics to provide smoother, more positive performance in both vertical and horizontal mode. And to help reduce ghosting and flare, the bulbous front lens element is coated with advanced SWC coatings. And who can afford to spend $1,200 just for smoother performance? The architecture photo example is rather old hat, but the examples using the lens to take some product shots were really interesting. Hands on with the Canon 7D David Flores has an article on the Canon 7D on Fi...

Nothing much to report today. Time Lapse Came across an interesting post about shooting time-lapse sequences with a DSLR: 7D Timelapse Experiment in Dungeness . Blu-ray I’ve been saying for a couple of years that I wasn’t going to jump into Blu-ray until Apple shipped something for authoring. But that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon. On a related note; I just bought the new Blu-ray release of North by Northwest , one of my favorite Hitchcock movies. Only problem; I don’t actually have a Blu-ray player, so that problem will have to be solved sooner rather than later. And if I’m going to go down that road, then getting a Blu-ray burner sort of makes sense; particularly as Final Cut Pro ’s Compressor utility will output Blu-ray content....and you might even want to investigate Adobe's Encore for it's Blu-ray output options... And 25GB Blu-ray discs may make sense for video backup and archive; yes, pros talk about tape backup, but those are really expensive!! Sooo….I wa...

Want to win a Canon 5D? Or maybe even a Canon 7D? The Kata bag company is sponsoring a bag design competition that runs from now until March 1st. Design a camera bag and submit the design to the Dream Bag Challenge website. 1st Price is a Canon 5D plus accessories, 2nd and 3rd prizes are Canon 7D’s plus accessories.

Colorist and Author Robbie Carman , has posted a couple of comments to the Cinema5D forum about grading DSLR footage, specifically the Canon 7D: … 7D footage does appear to have an initial contrast ratio that is less than the 5D. […] on my scopes the 7D does have an elevated trace of about 10-15%/IRE given the exact same exposure settings between cameras. […] The wild thing is that the difference appears to be only in the blacks in and midtones. This observation leads me to believe that the 7D is in fact applying a luma adjustment to midtones/blacks in camera, almost like a reversed S-Curve Both cameras suck when it comes to overall color latitude especially compared to RED native clips, but I guess that’s to be expected due to the 4:2:0 chroma subsampling. This has been especially frustrating for me getting good HSL keys for secondary corrections like skies, skin tone etc. But is no worse then HDV, XDCAM or HDCAM for that matter. He also felt that the sharpness of the two cameras was...

Apple rolled out an update to the Apple TV software software. This features a major change in the top menu (which now lists your own content first in each media list, rather than last) and it also now supports Internet Radio. Apart from that, there’s no real new functionality. Unless you also count support for Apple’s LP format. I’d been curious about the iTunes LP format – kind of an interactive format for albums – since Apple had announced it, but had never gotten around to trying one out. With the Apple TV update, I thought it would be great to update my Apple TV and try out iTunes LP at the same time. I was wrong. Last night I updated the Apple TV software, and also downloaded the Dave Matthews Band album Big Whiskey and The Groo Grux King in iTunes LP format. Only problem was that after downloading it and going to the Apple TV, all I could find were the movies and the songs; no sign of the iTunes LP interface. In the end I wondered if I’d misunderstood, and that it just meant you...

Gary Adcock of Studio 37, Chicago (and Digital Cow) spoke at the New England SMPTE meeting last night. He was really brought there by AJA Video Systems, maker of the Ki Pro tapeless video recording device , but in introducing him, AJA’s Northeast Region Manager, Jay Ignaszewski said that “Gary isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.” He wasn’t far wrong. Working his way back and forth in front of the crowd like a preacher at a revival meeting, he proceeded to share the word; tape is dead , and if you aren’t going tapeless, or planning to go tapeless, then what kind of moron are you? This is the future, and it’s all going to be good whatever crappy camera you have! 1 What is the future? Well tape is dead. It wasn’t even worth talking about why it’s dead, it just is. So moving on, he talked about the profusion of compression and file formats from the different manufacturers (those fools!! 2 ) Why deal with that, when Apple has a perfectly wonderful compression format called ProRes (read his...

Gizmodo has the press release from Apple that they have released the Apple TV 3.0 software. The update reportedly works with all Apple TV's and updates the interface, as well as: you can now enjoy iTunes Extras and iTunes LP in stunning fullscreen with your Apple TV, as well as listen to Genius Mixes and Internet radio through your home theater system.

SMPTE/New England is holding a meeting tonight at Channel 5 Studios. Topic: A Taste of Tapeless Technology AJA KiPro and Apple Pro Res Gary Adcock, Digerati and principal at Studio 37 and Jay Ignaszewski, Northeast Region Territory Manager for AJA, will join us for a presentation and discussion on the technology behind the AJA KiPro. The KiPro is a tapeless recording device that creates professional quality recordings in full-raster 10-bit Apple ProRes 422 and Apple ProRes 422 (HQ). Refreshments at 6:30 and Presentation at 7:00PM Also, the New England Broadcast and Cable Expo is coming up on November 12.

I'm intrigued by the Sanyo VPC-WH1 , as I'm about to embark on a project that might involve getting a little wet. For about $350 the VPC-WH1 gives you a 720P camera that shoots underwater down to 10 feet. Rob at TorontoWalkAbout has a pretty favorable, and in-depth review with some good examples of the footage you can get with it. His sample clips can also be found on YouTube here - the clip part way through starting at the fence and going underwater is pretty amazing... And PCWorld gives it a 70 "Good" rating in their review . Downsides? image quality, image quality, and terrible still image quality. I don't really care about the latter, as I hardly ever use a video camera to take stills. And sure it's 720p, and even at 720p there are problems with the image quality, but the ability to get the camera a little wet is very appealing for some things. The image stabilization - which is digital - also gets some criticism. Again, it's something you can proba...

I meant to write about the Hitchcock Storyboard iPhone app a couple of weeks ago, as I'd seen it with the demo of Adobe Story . It's really quite cool. It was demoed by Jonathan Houser, who is the creator of Hitchcock . He said he got the idea for the program because he taught a class on film-making, and " everybody hates storyboarding " - everyone except Hitchcock . SUMMARY: Hitchcock has one purpose; the creation of storyboards in a quick and easy manner - on your iPhone . If that's something you want to do, it's a blast. If not, well there are worse ways to spend $20. To create a storyboard you either take pictures using the iPhone camera, or import them from your photo library, into the Storyboard workspace. In the Storyboard workspace you can then drag the individual images around to change the order. Each image is a Panel in your storyboard. You can set the duration of a panel (the default is 3 seconds), duplicate or delete it, and you can view the ...

Luka on Vimeo has a tutorial on How to increase the Canon 7D dynamic range by using Picture Styles . The tutorial shows how to use the Picture Style editor (just try and avoid a mental breakdown!) and how to download Picture Styles to the camera. At the bottom of the blog page there's also links to some Picture Styles.

Christopher Breen has a review of the Flip MinoHD (120 minutes) and seems to be generally happy with it: ...the Flip MinoHD [is now] my new favorite pocket camcorder. Like other cameras, the results of its low-light shooting can be grainy. However, it compensates for the wild color shifts you get from some of these cameras. Under typical lamp light, for example, most pick up a yellow cast and a few over-compensate and bring too much blue to the picture. The new MinoHD gets much closer to the true color—white objects are white instead of yellow. All good stuff, but is anyone else getting confused by Flip's product line, and what does what? A look at their products page reveals the following models: Mino 60min MSRP$149.99 Screen : 528 x 132, Video: 640 x 480 Bitrate :4Mbps 3.94” x 1.97” x 0.63” (H x W x D) Ultra 120min MSRP $149.99 Screen : 960 x 240, Video: 640 x 480 Bitrate :4Mbps 4.25" x 2.19" x 1.17" (H x W x D) UltraHD 120min MSRP $199.99 Screen : 960 x 24...

Apple has released an update to Fin al Cut Studio 3: Pro Applications Update 2009-01 addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues. This update is recommended for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Server, and Logic Studio. Issues addressed in this update include the following. Final Cut Pro Addresses a problem when playing certain formats to the AJA Io HD. Fixes cases in which applying a speed change results in video playing backward. Fixes cases in which tearing can occur with Digital Cinema Desktop Preview on Snow Leopard. Motion Fixes issues that occur when using Depth of Field with an animated focal point. Addresses issues with text characters not being correctly displayed for languages that are not written from left to right. Fixes issues with image clipping, memory management, and image position that could occur with some third-party FxPlug filters. Compressor Fixes the ability to inspect surround sound job...

This Saturday, October 24th, is the Boston Book Festival , and Ken Burns is one of the participants in a panel: Documenting History Documentarians work to answer the question, “Who are we?” Ken Burns, lauded as “the country's most famous documentarian” by the Los Angeles Times , shows clips and talks about his latest film and book, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea . Journalist Scout Tufankjian tells how she reluctantly drove to New Hampshire in 2006 to cover a long-shot candidate named Obama. She stayed and became the only independent photojournalist to cover the entire campaign, chronicled in her book Yes We Can .

Unless you’re a movie director, or you’re working with a large crew on a project, this talk by Itay Talgam at TEDGlobal2009 is probably not going to have a lot of impact on your day to day behavior. And yet it is very compelling. In Lead like the great conductors , conductor Talgam shows the styles of different conductors and how they relate to leadership, authority, harmony and creativity within a group. And as the description says, it is also a charming talk. Well worth spending 20 minutes on.

I have an iPhone , but unfortunately, it's the 3G, not the 3GS - no video for me ! Still, ReelDirector looks interesting; it provides basic video editing capabilities; add a title, trim clips and add transitions. For $8, it's pretty neat, and the video's you can produce with it might even rival those we used to produce in Premiere 1.0! There's a short review at Salon.com: ReelDirector: Full-featured Video Editing Comes to the iPhone And a demo video on YouTube:

Well it’s Canon news today. First the Canon 1D Mark IV was announced earlier this week. You can read about it at dpreview . It offers the same video support as the 7D: • MOV (Video: H.264, Sound: Linear PCM) • 1920 x 1080 (29.97, 25, 23.976 fps) • 1280 x 720 (59.94, 50 fps) • 640 x 480 (59.94, 50 fps) • Max duration: 29min 59sec • Max file size: 4GB At $5,000, it’s too expensive for me, but I was curious to see that it uses an APS-H sensor with a 1.3 crop factor; the sensor is larger than the 7D, but not full frame. Interestingly, when rumors were flying around about the 7D, some suggested that it would have an APS-H sensor. It looks like the rumor mill might have mixed up the two cameras! The 1D Mark IV is expected in December. While it supports higher ISO than the 7D, I’m not sure that there’s any other reason to want to spend the extra money if your primary interest is video. I guess we’ll have to wait for more field reports and sample video. Vincent Laforet has done another video...