Notes On Video

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

Apple rolled out new iMac’s , new Mac Mini’s a new low-end MacBook, and a new Mouse . The iMac’s are interesting because: 16:9 screens They changed the aspect ratio of the screens to 16:9. Which is great if you’re working with 16:9 video. Otherwise, not too sure how it really helps/hinders the average user. 21.5 inch display is exactly 1920 x 1080 The previous model - the 20 incher - had a resolution of 1680 by 1050 pixels, not so good for watching/editing 1080 video. Core i5 and i7 quad-core processors If you have the cash, you can get a quad-core processor. Unfortunately, not a whole lot of software makes full use of these…it will be interesting to see whether these chips make a significant improvement in compression times 21.5 model has 8-bit video Previously, the lower-end iMac video was only 6-bit, so for those looking to use a low-end iMac for video or image editing, that’s good news. You can connect a second external display using the mini DisplayPort 27-inch can be used as an

Alex Bickel is a Colorist for Outside Editorial . He recently spoke at a joint meeting of the Boston Final Cut Pro User Group and the Boston Avid Users Group . Wearing a bright yellow Steelers cap [ inserted for color – Ed], Alex’s talk was primarily about going from Avid to Apple's Color application, but he spent most of his time on the Color application, and really it was a talk on color grading . As well as talking about the process, he offered several tips and tricks. The demo featured material from an ad that had been shot in four different acquisition formats; a 35mm film camera was used for ease of use in low light, while a Red Camera, a Sony EX3, and the Canon 5D Mark II were used for other material. Interestingly, he noted that the footage from the EX3 was slightly sharper than the Red, and had to be softened a bit to match. Color 's interface consists of Primary and Secondary rooms that are used to apply effects and adjustments. The rooms are applied in order an

Sooner than later... Firmware Version 1.0.9 incorporates the following fixes. Improves AF accuracy during Live View shooting. Corrects a phenomenon where in rare instances, movie images shot by the camera may exhibit abnormal colors. Corrects a phenomenon that at certain timings, the shutter cannot be released when the camera's built-in flash or an external Speedlite is used for shooting. Firmware Version 1.0.9 is for cameras with firmware up to version 1.0.8. If the camera's firmware is already version 1.0.9, it is not necessary to update the firmware. http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/firm-e/eos7d/firmware.html