Notes On Video

Panasonic earlier this week announced the AG-HPX370 (MSRP $11,700) and already there are reviews! Barry Green at dxruser says Panasonic has taken a brilliant but flawed camera and fixed all the flaws: ...they've created a 1/3” chipset that matches and even outperforms the competition's 1/2” chips. They've fixed the flaws on an otherwise brilliant camera, and they've added the most-requested news-oriented features. The HPX370 is a solid performer that matches its bigger-chipped competition in imaging, and easily outstrips it in performance in most other categories. Philip Bloom does a video review of the AG-HPX371 (the international version of the 370 which shoots all the different frame rates you could need.). He got to play with it in California and was impressed with the improvement in video noise over the previous model as well as the general usability: It's probably one of the most ergonomically pleasant cameras I've ever used. It's the right weig...

Sign up for the "exclusive global launch" on Monday, April 12th at 8am PDT.

Apple may be raining all over Adobe's parade right now, but things aren't going to remains all Apple's way, and the arrival of Premiere CS5 might give Apple's Final Cut real heart burn. When I first saw the Mercury Playback demo (which uses a computers GPU to accelerate various processes) I was intrigued, and it seems others are as well. Philip Johnston writes about his own feelings about the upcoming release: Apple are a long way off bringing FCP anywhere near 64bit and as it stands Compressor and DVD Studio Pro are a joke. The one sole program that saves FCPs butt is Motion. Motion is streets ahead of After Effects and far easier to use but for this one program I for one would kiss good-by to FCP and who knows if the £3K became accessible that jump may be sooner than later. And this Monday we get to find out more when Adobe officially rolls out CS5. I know I will have to spend some time with Premiere to see if I want to switch; or just use it for some tasks. ...

...even though there has already been the major announcement expected from Canon , and a bunch of others along the way from Panasonic and JVC, there's still much more to come, and surely Sony must have something more interesting than 3D software up their sleeves. Maybe something interesting will appear at the keynote: Hiroshi Yoshioka, Executive Deputy President of the Sony Corporation and President of the Consumer, Professional & Devices Group, will deliver the keynote address at this year’s NAB Show Opening event. His address will focus on the global and US demands for 3D technology . Mr. Yoshioka will further discuss Sony’s "lens to the living room" vision for 3D and present exclusive 3D footage.

Jared Abrams over at Cinema5D has a post (and video) of a shot he worked on using these three different cameras, and challenges viewers to pick out which camera was used for which shot...

A service program Canon offers to Still Photographers has now been expanded to include Videographers. Canon’s Professional Services (CPS) offers three levels of service benefits: CPS Silver Offered free-of-charge to qualifying videographers, cinematographers and filmmakers. Welcome kit Access to CPS phone hotline 20 percent discount on repairs. CPS Gold Equipment evaluation loans for a limited trial period Expedited three-day turnaround on service items 30 percent service discount, Two free Check & Clean vouchers and backup loan equipment, when available, if repair or service exceeds the three-day turnaround. Annual fee of $100 CPS Platinum Rriority access to equipment evaluation loans for a two-week trial periods 60 percent discount on repairs Expedited two-day turnaround on service items (available in June) Platinum members can request backup equipment while their equipment is being serviced. Requested backup equipment is sent out upon the service center’s rec...

Stu Maschwitz at ProLost has written a post about his experience with the iPad for the past week. In particular he looks at viewing PDFs (of scripts) as well as writing scripts on the iPad . He seems to like the document reader  ReaddleDocs for viewing PDFs. He also talks about script writing tools; there's a couple of iPhone script tools, but there's no iPad  specific application, yet . But there is always Pages , and Joke and Biagio have created a template that works in Pages . Note that if you have the Mac version of Pages , it comes with a script format template and I have transferred that across to the iPad and it seems to work okay.

Here's a trivia question for you: Q: Who are the oldest living Best Actress and Best Actor Oscar winners? A: Luise Rainer and Ernest Borgnine. If you like old movies [ ouch! what a segue! -Ed] and live in LA, you might want to check out the TCM Classic Film Festival , April 22-25. There will be several screenings with various stars, including this one, which I really wish I could go to: Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau will share their memories of working with Alfred Hitchcock at a screening of North By Northwest (1959). On a related note, last weekend I saw Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer . If you're a fan of Hitchcock's movies I recommend you check it out. There's lots of echos of Hitchcock in this movie! Hopefully they'll never try and rework North By Northwest into 3D, but if they do [ and Turner would be the one to do it -Ed] then In-Three might be the company that does it. They are responsible for several of the 2D to 3D conversions that ...

From Still to Motion promo movie The authors of the book From Still to Motion have put together a short movie where they talk about the book, the goals behind it, and why it can be difficult to shoot with a DSLR . It's on Facebook: Video posted by From Still to Motion SmallHD 5.6" DP-SLR monitor Looks like this NAB show will be the show of high-quality small LCD monitors. First Marshall was tweeting about a 5" monitor they will be showing, and now there's information leaking out about SmallHD's upcoming 5.6" 1280 x 800 monitor. Both are expected to cost about $800. There doesn't seem any info on SmallHD's website yet, but the HDWarrior blog has a detailed post . Kata bags I like Kata bags, and they have some interesting new bags they will be rolling out at NAB: The D-Light Capsules are billed as being intended for HDV camcorders ( surely they mean flash memory camcorders?! ). The D-Light Capsule-183 is a lightweight, case designed to c...

Sony wants to sell 3D TV sets, but to do that, they need a lot of 3D content to get those suckers customers to upgrade. Sony Creative Software has just announced two authoring application that will be available in June: Blu-print 6 The Blu-print 6 upgrade will author 3D titles in accordance with the 3D Blu-ray format standard Profile 5, import new MVC encoded streams, and work with Z Depth for 3D subtitle authoring. Z Depth 3D for Vegas Z Depth allows you to edit and record the offset metadata file for placement of subtitles and interactive graphic menus in the 3D space of a Blu-ray movie. The BD spec offset metadata files created by the application can be used in any 3D Blu-ray Disc authoring application that follows BDA specifications Profile 5. Availability Blu-print 6 and Z Depth will be available in June 2010 through Sony Creative Software Professional Services. LINKS Sony: Z Depth 3D Sony: Blu-print 6 Sony Creative Software Professional Services: Homepage

The International 3D Society (I3DS) says that just four 3D films captured 33% of the total domestic box office since the December 18 release of "Avatar". The films -- " Clash of the Titans ," " How to Train Your Dragon ," " Alice in Wonderland " and "Avatar" generated $1.2 billion in domestic ticket sales out of a total $3.587 billion. During that period, 127 general market movies were released. Interestingly, I haven't seen any of those movies.

CamcroderInfo.com has a "first impressions" review of the new Canon XF300 flash memory camcorder. This is much more a summary of feature highlights than a review, and there's no real discussion of image quality or actual operations. However, they like the manual controls and big LCD: The camcorder has a wonderful LCD and viewfinder setup, excellent manual control features, and many quick-access dials and switches to make settings as easy to adjust as possible. CamcorderInfo: Canon XF300 First Impressions Camcorder Review

Vincent Laforet is taking part in CreativeLIVE's creation education internat channel offering a class on HDDSLR Cinema, which runs from Friday April 30 through Sunday May 2nd. In this course, first time filmmakers and photographers making the transition into video will be introduced to many of the core building blocks necessary to make their first short films. We will discuss a small amount of cinema theory and we will also look into different types of gear that will allow you to pull off more consistent results with HDDSLR Cameras. We will discuss the use of a variety of lenses, fluid heads, external monitors, follow focus units, JIBs and Sliders . Students will come away from this online workshop with a good understanding of what tools they need for their productions, and when and how to best use them. It will be free to watch live - but cost money later if you want to buy it. CreativeLIVE: An introduction to HDDSLR Cinema with Vincent Laforet Note to that they are offe...

Canonrumors says that 1.2.0 is legitimate, and fixes issues with third party batteries and adds support for upcoming remotes, accessories and lenses.

The second part of the three-part " Great Camera Shootout 2010 " is up at Zacuto's website. They switched things around though; this episode is all about low-light (not the color, resolution and green-screen tests they'd promised in Part 1; those are now said to be coming in Episode 3.) In this episode they stretch the low-light and ISO capabilities to the limit. All of the cameras do better than film, but it's shocking to see how well the Nikon D3s does in very low light! Worth watching if you're thinking of buying a camera, jump to the middle for the key stuff! The Great Camera Shootout 2010

Sony and 3D World magazine have teamed up for a 3D competition . Create a stereo 3D short film and you might win a 3D Home Entertainment system, (as well as fame and glory.) Okay, you probably won't get any of that, but you might learn a thing or two, and you have until July 9th to enter! Most interesting is that the site has a bunch of resources that might help those looking to dabble in 3D. PDF tutorials include: Ben Kitching explains how to create a stereoscopic camera rig in your 3D modelling app of choice, so that you can create a stereoscopic 3D film Red Star 3D's Ben Smith explains how Dracula 4D, a spooky action comedy, was given the stereoscopic treatment Mark Ramshaw looks at the fresh challenges, the new grammar and the wider implications for the CG industry. Video Tutorials : Eric Bacus builds a LightWave S-3D camera rig Creating stereo 3D with Gary Noden Cinema 4D stereoscopic workflow Modo401: stereoscopic workflow Maya: go stereoscopic [ UPD...

Toshiba has entered the US digital camcorder market with the budget CAMILEO line: CAMILEO S20: At two-thirds of an inch thin and 3.5 ounces it has a 4x digital zoom and takes 5 megapixel digital still photos. ($179.99 MSRP) CAMILEO H30: The H30 is 8 ounces, has a 3-inch LCD touch-screen, 5x optical zoom and 4x digital zoom, and takes 10 megapixel digital still photos. ($249.99 MSRP) CAMILEO X100: The X100 is 9.5 ounces, has a 3-inch LCD touch-screen, 10x optical and digital zoom, as well as takes 10 megapixel digital still photos. ($399.99 MSRP) The cameras are available for pre-order on Toshiba's website . Product shots can be found here: Flickr: toshibaaccessories NOTE: I seem to remember these cameras being covered briefly some months ago when Toshiba first introduced them outside the US. At the time the only information I could find about them suggested that these were based on (or rebadged) cameras made by another company, and the reviews of those cameras were less tha...

Vincent Laforet Vincent Laforet says he will be speaking for Canon "and others" at the NAB show, and to come say "hi" at the Canon booth. Ninth Annual Las Vegas SuperMeet The SuperMeet takes place on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 in the Amazon Ballroom at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV. Doors open at 4:00PM and presentations begin at 7PM. Tickets are on sale online for $15.00 each, (plus $1.36 ticket fee) or $20.00 at the door.Presentations will include: Canon : Alex Buono, 10-year veteran Director of Photography for NBC's Saturday Night Live Film Unit talks about shooting for broadcast with Canon EOS DSLR cameras. Adobe product evangelist Jason Levine will highlight new features useful for the Final Cut Pro editor (including Round tripping to/from FCP and native DSLR HD video support) in the just announced Production Premium CS5. There will also be presentations from: Avid (AMA plugin architecture with Sony XDCam HD and Canon EOS 7D), Apple (Appl...

In light of the announcement of the new Canon tapeless camcorders , don't think that Canon is abandoning all those folks with tape-based HDV and DV cameras. Canon and Focus Enhancements have announced the Focus Enhancements FS-CF and FS-CF Pro portable Compact Flash DTE recorders for Canon’s HDV and Mini-DV camcorders. The FS-CF units support 1080 24F, 25F and 30F, 50i and 60i frame rates in both QuickTime and M2T file formats. Additionally, 1080 60i and 50i are supported in the MXF OP Atom format. Focus Enhancements already offers other tapeless recording units that they claim work with Canon's cameras. [It's unclear what specific features these units add when compared to those units and their site does not yet include these new models.] The FS-CF and FS-CF Pro are expected to be available through Canon authorized dealers in late April for an estimated retail price of $995 and $1,295.

Sorenson Media's blog has an entry that covers video on the iPad from Sorenson Squeeze, Squish and the 360 online video platform. For Sorenson Squeeze there are special iPad presets available at their Preset Exchange .