Notes On Video

A review of the Sony RX10 which mainly focuses on the still photo side of things: Sony RX10 review: the everything camera | The Verge Does the RX10 always take the best picture, in every situation, no matter what? No. But I never found myself wishing I had a different camera. Just the opposite, in fact: using the RX10 is like having a DSLR and a bag full of lenses with me at all times. And while I would have otherwise been changing lenses on my DSLR, I just zoomed in, got the shot, and moved on. And here's a tear-down of the camera: Nikon releases a new mirror-less still camera that does highish frame rates. Nikon V3 features 120fps HD video | EOSHD The Nikon V3 will be the first mirrorless camera to feature 120fps HD slow-mo at 1280 x 720 resolution. Also available are 400fps and 1200fps at lower resolutions. Nikon have added an electronic stabilisation mode (called EVR) and 1080/60p to round out the spec. Now it appears that the train company didn't know a...

“The Delivery” Short Film – A Product of a Blackmagic Production Camera 4K Test | Planet 5D Adrian Tanner sent us this very nice Blackmagic Production Camera 4K ‘test’ he shot a couple of weeks ago. Pay attention to his description of shooting this as a one man band and shooting it without a ton of accessories. 4 KEY BENEFITS OF 4K VIDEO PRODUCTION | VideoMaker 4K video was a theme that was front and center at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. Retail electronics manufacturer's are starting to roll out the early stages of 4K video hardware. There are large screen TVs capable of displaying 4K resolution. Focal Reducer comparison on the Pocket Cinema Camera | Ruben Kremer Recently I took a gamble and bought a 0.72x focal reducer from an eBay store called Roxsen. It's the RJ Focal Reducer. Unlike the Mitakon Lens Turbo, this one fits without any trouble at all. Last weekend I got around to giving it a field-test whilst shooting a video for a client - an excl...

Assembling the Billing Block | New York Times The blurb at the bottom of a movie poster is called the "billing block." And while it might look like a bar code of haphazardly packed type, it is in fact the product of detailed legal agreements and intense contract negotiation. Shooting RAW with the Sony F55 and R5 recorder: Just how good is it asks Matt Allard? | News Shooter Shooting RAW on the F55 really was a pleasure and I was blown away by the results.  The downsides are of course the ginormous file sizes and the extra work involved in post.  I can do basic grades myself, but dealing with RAW and DaVinci Resolve is something that definitely takes me out of my comfort zone.  If you're interested in the PMW-F5 or PMW-F55 , then Sony is offering a promotion where you get a free Sony Prime lens with your purchase...but you don't get to pick which one. Many are speculating that this is a pre-NAB clearance thing. Offer expires March 31. NAB opens April 5...

This article seems to celebrate the pricing of Panasonic's GH4 4K camera by bashing Canon. And they have a point; pretty much everyone agrees that Canon has been sitting on their hands when it comes to the video capabilities of their DSLRs. On the other hand, as expensive as the 5D Mark III is, it still has a very large sensor with excellent low-light capabilities...it remains unique, and even if the Panasonic GH4 is 4K, and even if it's low light capabilities are as good, the Canon 5D Mark III still has a much larger sensor. So Canon can probably go on selling their camera for a year or more. UPDATE: Canon HDSLRs vs. Micro 4/3 Panasonic GH4 | HD Cam Team Sadly, Canon has been crippling the entire EOS DSLR line and selling them overpriced, taking advantage of their brand name and big line of lenses to sell. But when we look at the products themselves we found LOT OF THE SAME since many years ago, with some few exceptions of improvements in specific features. Meanwhile...

Last week the FAA's rule limiting commercial drone use was overturned, though as this piece points out you might want to be careful for the moment to see how it all shakes out: Lawyers on commercial drone ruling: proceed cautiously | PBS Adelman, chair of the Unmanned Systems Practice Group at the LeClairRyan law firm in Annapolis, said he would advise entrepreneurs to hold off on investing in production of more drones for at least a few more weeks. Looks like the pricing for the Panasonic GH4 should be official today. The GH4 will be $1698 and the add-on box (the DMW-YAGH) will be $1998 . The cost for the camera is impressive and you can save $399 by ordering the two together (though no that the camera on it's own is expected to be available prior to the bundle.) Panasonic GH4 pricing official – $1698 body only, $1998 for the external 10bit / XLR box   | EOSHD The bundle deal saves you around $400 and the GH4 body only is a full $300 less than I expected i...

THE TRAGIC DEATH OF SARAH JONES LEAVES UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ABOUT SAFETY ON SET | VideoMaker Safety goes far beyond location permissions. A live film set is a dangerous environment. There are numerous dangers, from equipment in motion to cable littered floors to suspended light fixtures. Any producer, at any level, needs to take the proper precautions and measures to ensure a safe set for all cast and crew. Careful preparation and planning do more than ease the workload, it allows the crew to enjoy what they do. Indie-darling filmmakers: Vimeo has $10M with your names on it | C|Net The company is carving out a $10 million fund to directly invest in films that either premiere at one of the top 20 US film festivals or garner $10,000 in crowdfunded support on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, in exchange for giving Vimeo a window of time as the only place you can go to see the videos through its Vimeo On Demand pay-for-play platform. New York Times Movie Reviews, $11,000 a...

Interesting development in drones - judge rules that commercial drones aren't illegal. Now what will the FAA do? Judge rules commercial drones are legal, undoing six-year ban | The Verge Today Judge Patrick Geraghty dismissed a $10,000 fine levied by the FAA against Raphael Pirker, a Swiss drone operator who used a camera drone to film on the University of Virginia campus. "At the time of respondent's model aircraft operation... there was no enforceable FAA rule or FAR Regulation application to model aircraft or for classifying model aircraft as an UAS," the judge writes. Other News ‘This Is the End,’ ‘Now You See Me’ VFX Firm Closes Doors, 100 People Laid Off | The Wrap Modus FX, a Canadian visual effects vendor that counts “Now You See Me” and “This is the End” among its credits, is shutting down after six years. ...The company was undone after a number of projects it was slated to work on were delayed. Deluxe to close Hollywood film lab | Los Angel...

4K is here! Blackmagic Production Camera Review | EOSHD I’m not sure how long me and Miss Blackmagic are going to last to be honest. She has some very bad habits… She drinks ALL the juice in the fridge. I have run out. Her sister, the Pocket Camera went through about 6 Nikon juice cells in a day once. This one is much worse. Then there’s her weight. I have to be very delicate what I say here, but she’s a little on the heavy side especially when she is carrying around that big juice carton all day in her handbag. Want another opinion on the Blackmagic 4K camera? Here's our second, independent, review | Red Shark News Before we start, we're going to have to come to an agreement. That agreement recognises the fact that the Blackmagic Production Camera is a very serviceable little device, and the fact that it's very cost effective. So, should I happen to write something even slightly less than positive about this camera, I want you to assume that the mitigating words “...

Things seem to be heating up in the drone world. And I'm not just talking about Amazon deliveries or Facebook . Just back in December the FAA announced that it was - finally - going to get a move on about drone regulation, and picked six test sites to evaluate drones. So we're all on track for new rules by 2015, or 2017: FAA names 6 sites for testing drones  | USA Today The Federal Aviation Administration named six teams across the nation that will host the development and testing of drones to fly safely in the same skies as commercial airliners. The announcement represents a major milestone toward the goal of sharing the skies by the end of 2015, in what is projected to become an industry worth billions of dollars. Meanwhile, everyone's buying drones, so some people think the FAA is in danger of losing the war: FAA risks losing drone war | Politico The result, observers and drone users warn, could be a Wild, Wild West in the nation’s skies. As small dro...

So Sony has 4K projectors , $30K 4K cameras , 84" 4K Monitors , 30" 4K monitors , $16K 4K cameras , an $8K 4K camera (if you ignore that fact you have to spend a lot more to actually record in 4K), a $5.5K 4K camera , a $4.5K 4K camera , and they will shortly start shipping a $2K consumer camera, the FDR-AX100 . Which got me to thinking; surely they will come out with a 4K version of the NEX-VG30 body pretty soon too? They've already had the VG10, VG20 and VG30 in pretty quick succession, so it must be a popular camera design. Surely, the only question is when - it's not an NAB type camera, but surely before the end of the year? And what will they call it? - the VG40 sort of ties nicely to 4K...though maybe they should drop the '0' at the end? Except that Sony has killed the NEX brand name for their 'still' camera line, so it's likely that the new model will have a different name altogether... Sony FDR-AX100 But if an "NEX-VG40...

Reader Paul Antico has been experimenting with his new Mac Pro and different hard drives and reports  some excellent results with Toshiba drives: So I got a pile of Toshiba 2TB drives for backup (I just put them in a USB 3 dock) recently, and just today tested them for speed. (They are $75 each - 2TB for sale at B&H, Amazon, Microcenter... the price varies within $10 [ At the moment they seem to be about $86.00 - Ed ]). Keep in mind they are empty, but still: 180 Mb/sec. That’s FAST for a spinning HD! These drives are very highly rated too; they are Hitachi (toshiba bought the plant) [ Hitachi are reliable according to this failure rate chart - Ed ]and have historically very low failure rates. I have old drives like 7 year old 1 TB drives that get 80MB/sec.

Here's a Better Edit Room | Tribeca Considering that an edit suite is ideally an environment where creative debate and collaboration is taking place, the default way they’re designed is, in my opinion, insane. The counterproductive setup of a normal edit room, even at the biggest studios and nicest post-production houses is a study in separation and walls. Canon C500 vs. Film Camera Test | Shane Hurlbut If we were to compare the C500 and film side by side, immediately you can see more of the different tonalities in the background. The C500 kept a much cooler tone in the shadows and the background, while the yellow forklift comes across as a very punchy energized color. The film on the other hand is more grey in the background and the color of forklift kind of blends in the background and doesn’t stand out. A piece about director Billy Wilder: The Wilder touch | Cinephillia and Beyond Wilder's method is a combination of gags, familiar slaps, games with sweater sl...

'Midnight Rider' Death: DGA Says Employers 'Ultimately Responsible for Ensuring a Safe Set' | The Hollywood Reporter The death of the assistant, Sarah Jones, has prompted concerns about the safety of crew members on film sets. While the DGA couldn't comment specifically on the Midnight Rider incident, noting that there's an ongoing investigation into the accident, they did express their sympathy for those who were affected. A petition has been started to get Sarah's name on the Memoriam tribute at the Oscars. The deadline is today: Petition To Add Sarah Elizabeth Jones To The Academy Awards Memoriam Tribute | The Petition Site The Diamond Brothers Dissect the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K | Filmmaker Magazine “The interesting thing about this camera is what happens when you change from ProRes 4K to just ProRes HD,” Josh said. “Surprisingly, in a good way, there is no field of view change. I don’t know how many people here have ever shot with a...

Two days ago there was news at TheStreet about Avid's de-listing from NASDAQ and its subsequent listing on OTC.  Avid has responded that some of the original information in their article was incorrect. Avid statement: The financial results being quoted in this article are erroneous. Due to the accounting evaluation and restatement process Avid has been going through, we have not issued any financial statements after Q3 2012. As we have previously reported, as a result of the restatement, previously issued financial statements are not accurate and should not be relied upon. We request that you delete any reference to Avid’s financial results, as your reporting is inaccurate. Avid’s de-listing from NASDAQ and its subsequent listing on OTC is the result of delays in the reporting of financial information -- it was not related to operating performance in any way. We are continuing to work very hard to correct the accounting, which is related to nearly 5 million transa...

Answers to some questions about the new top-of-the-line Nikon DSLR NIKON D4S – OUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED | News Shooter How does the video quality compare to the 5300? The video quality of the Nikon D4S compares favourably to the Nikon D5300.  Combined with the outstanding ISO capability and EXPEED 4 image processor, professional photographers are able to harness these camera features to produce higher quality images and video. I take a stab at explaining what VP9 is: The Future of Compression: Google Attempts to Replace H.26X… Again | Filmmaker Magazine For a second time, Google is attempting to pitch a compression format as the replacement for an H.26X compressor. They tried to do it three years ago for HD video when they pitched VP8 as a replacement for H.264 and had little success. Now they’re back with a new angle: VP9 is the format for 4K, and they are putting it up against H.265, the new 4K compressor that is also referred to as HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding). ...

Once again, things are looking tough for Avid. [ Updated Feb 27 : Avid released a statement ] Why Avid (AVID) Is Falling Today | The Street The technology company announced that it received a notification letter from NASDAQ in Feb. 21 that said the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Hearings Panel decided to delist the company. NASDAQ will suspend trading of the company's stock at the open of business on Tuesday, Feb. 25. Net operating cash flow has significantly decreased to -$1.38 million or 1167.44% when compared to the same quarter last year. Avid, Maker of Pro Tools, Now Losing Money Faster and Delisted from NASDAQ | Create Digital Music The really significant issues here are cash flow and earnings – and losing NASDAQ trading will only exacerbate the problem. TheStreet Ratings Team cites issues in this quarter versus same quarter last year including Accelerated losses: -$7.55 million to -$17.39 million (year over year) And as luck would have it, they just released...

Comcast’s deal with Netflix makes network neutrality obsolete | Washington Post The deal will also transform the debate over network neutrality regulation. Officially, Comcast's deal with Netflix is about interconnection, not traffic discrimination. But it's hard to see a practical difference between this deal and the kind of tiered access that network neutrality advocates have long feared. Network neutrality advocates are going to have to go back to the drawing board. Canon Announces New Firmware Updates for Cinema Cameras & Camcorders | CanonRumors Announced today is a new optional feature upgrade for the EOS C300 Cinema camera which will support Canon’s innovative Dual Pixel CMOS autofocus (AF) technology and enable continuous autofocusing with the entire line of Canon EF lenses and optimized for Canon’s stepping motor (STM) line of lenses when used with the EOS C300 camera. This optional feature upgrade is expected to be available in May 2014 for a cost of $500...

Netflix is paying off Comcast for direct traffic access, says WSJ | The Verge According to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix and Comcast have signed a multiyear paid contract allowing the video streaming service a more direct route to Comcast's network. The first indications of the new agreement came when App.net founder Bryan Berg noticed more direct traceroutes from the service, but Journal sources indicate the change is the result of a formal agreement between the two companies, and money has indeed changed hands. Netflix to spend $3bn on TV and film content in 2014 | The Guardian Netflix is committed to spending almost $3bn on TV and film content in 2014 and more than $6bn over the next three years, as the cost of securing international rights and commissioning new shows continues to mount on the streaming giant's balance sheet. FCP X: When to Use Optimized, Proxy, or Native Media  | Larry Jordan While Final Cut does transcode all files in the background, whic...