Notes On Video

I just got a Blu-ray player (finally) and was able to watch my first Blu-ray disc; the 50th Anniversary edition of North by Northwest . I have to say, the results were mixed (both for Blu-ray, and for this particular disc.) Resolution I have a 36” Sony tube HDTV which is getting on in years. One problem is that 36”, when you’re sitting across the room from it, isn’t really stretching the limits of DVD resolution. Yes, there was a noticeable difference up close; I could read quite easily body copy on a newspaper that was very blurry on the DVD. The resolution was there, but I really need either a bigger screen, or to sit right on top of the TV to see it. All those with 50” TV’s, run out and get Blu-ray. Color This edition is remastered, and from the get go the differences are very obvious; the hideous green of the MGM logo in the previous DVD release is replaced by a much more pleasing green in this new edition. Through the rest of the picture the colors are more vibrant, and there’s mu...

The Sony Sportspack is an underwater enclosure for Sony brand camcorders. This is actually the third model, which works with most Sony camcorders made after 2006. The Sportspack provides protection from rain, snow and sand, and can be used underwater down to 17 feet. This is really a bit of a mashup between an unboxing and a First Look, as I have yet to do any serious testing of the Sportspack. The Sony Sportspack arrived at the end of a couple of very wet weeks, and immediately the weather improved. I was really hoping for some heavy rain to give it a test, but since then, we’ve had two very fine weeks, with a threat of a third, and I can’t help thinking that the camera gods are having a laugh at my expense. Anyway, it’s a very cool piece of gear; all clear acrylic and white plastic. It opens at the back, and there’s an O-ring that you are supposed to inspect and grease (and replace after a year.) The camera sits on a large plastic shoe, and several different shoes are included to mat...

Just saw the Cohen brother's latest movie " A Serious Man ." I enjoyed it, though it's a black, black comedy, so I'm not sure I actually want to watch it again(!) What I found particularly interesting was the color work that had been done on a lot of the scene's; Cyan and Yellow have been removed so that it looks like aged film. This was done throughout the movie in varying degrees and it's particularly noticeable on some of the exterior scenes like the car crash below. But check the shot below. The flesh tones look as though they have been manipulated like much of the rest of the film, but the blue of the dress (and probably the wood behind) has not been altered. (You may want to click on it to look at the larger file.)

Carefully took my (still) camera to an event this morning and when I went to turn it on discovered there was no memory card in it - oops! Well, at least I had my iPhone.

In the third quarter : spending on home entertainment down 3.2% spending on DVDs down 13.9% spending on DVD rentals UP 10% I own quite a few DVDs, but my purchase rate has gone way down over the last few years, and I'm not sure it's the economy. A lot of the movies I bought in those early days were back-catalog items, not new releases. And to be honest, my purchases of new movies may have been goosed a bit by the fact I was buying quite a few movies regularly. But then I kind of fell out of the habit. And I'm not downloading them from the net, and my rental rate hasn't gone up that much either. I think it was just a new technology and a new availability which spurred me to buy things, but now that urge has mostly been satisfied. I'm resisting saying " they don't make good movies anymore ."

In Music industry bows to point-and-shoot cameras , Daniel Terdiman takes a look at where we are with cameras at concerts. At last month's huge U2 show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., how could you tell the difference between the professional photographers and your average amateurs? Answer: the professionals were the ones whisked away after Bono and friends finished their third song, and the amateurs were still there, happily shooting to their heart's content. As the article points out, with everyone carrying cell phones with cameras, and the increasing quality and resolution of small cameras, it's both getting harder and harder to stop people from taking pictures, and the line between professional and amateur is getting smaller and smaller. I remember several years ago going to a concert at Radio City Music Hall where they made people check in their cameras. At the end of the show, we all lined up while they tried to find each persons camera; which took a long time a...

Interestingly enough, right after camcorderinfo.com came out with it’s Select Awards 2009 , and gave the top award to the Panasonic HDC-TM300 over the Canon HF S11, Macworld came out today with their own review of the HDC-TM300 , and though they gave it four and a half mice (out of five) and praise it’s “impressive resolution, smooth motion, accurate color, and low noise” they actually rate it ½ a mouse below the Canon HF S10, saying that it’s image quality “slightly trailed” that of the Canon. Note: the HF S10 and HF S11 are essentially the same camera, with different storage options.

Camcorderinfo.com has come out with it’s Select Awards 2009 . To be honest, I’m a bit wary of reading too much into these; they don’t list how they decided to select the cameras - if it’s only the cameras that they have reviewed, then the pool isn’t a large one. They also don't describe how they went about making the decision. Despite those concerns, Camcorder of the year went to the Panasonic HDC-TM300: Not only is the video performance impressive in all lighting conditions, but it also offers a seamless and enjoyable operating experience—for novices and experienced users alike. Runner up is the Canon HF S11 with it’s improved optical stabilization and an edge in sharpness and motion. But they dinged it for lack of a viewfinder and poor performance in low light. JVC scored well in the overall competition, with a runner-up in Best Value, and a win in Mid-Range and Standard Definition. I was most interested in the video-enabled DSLR win that went to the Panasonic GH1, with the Canon...

Seems there's an update to Apple TV 3.0 which fixes prevents "content from temporarily disappearing until it is resynced." To update to 3.0.1: Reboot your Apple TV (unplug the power cord and plug it back in) Select Settings > General from the main menu Select Update Software Select Download and Install

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.