Notes On Video

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...

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

No Canon 7D Firmware update in sight According to Jared Adams at Cinema5D the firmware update rumored seems a ways away: After speaking with Nolan from Canon USA I can safely say that there is no firmware update for the Canon EOS 7D as of yet for USA model cameras. According to the canon rep, there may be differences in the firmware versions 1.0.7, 1.0.8, and 1.0.9 based on language updates alone. But this cannot be confirmed, as he is only able to speak for U.S.A. model cameras. Note that there may be two reports mixed up here; someone reported that they received a camera with 1.0.9 firmware (most U.S. models seem to have 1.0.7) and a Philip Bloom reported that he had heard that Canon was working on a firmware update that had something to do with 720p. JVC Picsio, another opinion The JVC Picsio has only been out for a few days, and already there's a negative review on Amazon for it: JVC PICSIO GC-FM1A The image was grainy and shaky (even though stabilization was on) [...] I'...

Is it just a year ago that I was madly speculating whether Apple would release Bluray hardware/software support? Why yes, it is! I even went so far as to say: If they don’t announce something October 14th I’m going to have to write Steve Jobs a carefully worded letter! And since then? Zzzzzzzzzzz. A few months ago, the rumors started up again, suggesting Apple might put something into upcoming iMac updates, but now those rumors have been crushed . Oh well :( In the mean time, a couple of interesting Apple patents : Appleinsider reports : " Apple has investigated a method to make imperfections in compressed video files less visible to the human eye, a new patent application revealed this week shows. " And MacWorld says : " Apple filed a patent application entitled Synchronization of Media State Across Multiple Devices, which appears to combine local iPod and iPhone synchronization with MobileMe and cloud-computing services. " All good stuff, but it doesn't qu...

I went to a joint meeting of the Boston Final Cut Pro User Group and the Boston Avid Users Group last night. It was held at Rule Broadcast Systems , who I think paid for the free pizza, chocolate chip cookies and soda. Full disclosure : If you're in the greater Boston area and you're interested in video editing, you should definitely make an effort to catch a meeting. They have had some interesting meetings lately. The featured speaker was colorist Alex Bickel of Outside Editorial, Soho NY. I’ll write more about that in a later post. Anyway, a couple of interesting things. Before the meeting I was talking to a guy about the Canon 7D and the new Nikon D3s and he was saying how he was using a small pocket Panasonic Lumix camera (similar to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS25 though I’m not 100% certain it was that model) and shooting sequences of still images and then turning them into video, and getting quite impressive results. He showed me a nice night-driving scene on his iPhone....

The Federal Trade Commission has revised guidelines regarding endorsements and testimonials. This has provoked some reaction because of it's impact on bloggers . Most importantly: A post from a blogger who receives cash or "in-kind payment" regarding a product (review) is considered an endorsement. While I'm generally in favor of full disclosure, I am concerned that the guidelines seem to treat bloggers differently to "traditional media" i.e. it appears that if a blogger is given a free book to review they have to disclose that, while traditional media would not be expected to . I don't see the difference. In fact, I can think of some journalists who I really think should do some disclosing: I'd love to see a full disclosure from Walt Mossberg of the value of software/hardware/meals/trips/t-shirts he's received from the companies he writes about. In the mean time, here at NotesOnVideo I will be filling out the Federal Trade Commission's Bl...

I hadn’t even heard of iFrame before this morning, and then yesterday Apple released an update to iMovie that added support for the iFrame format, and today Sanyo has announced two cameras that support iFrame: the VPC-HD2000A and the VPC-FH1A . There’s a support document on Apple’s site iMovie ’09: About the iFrame Video format . But it's hardly that informative: The iFrame Video format is designed by Apple to speed up importing and editing by keeping the content in its native recorded format while editing. Based on industry standard technologies such as H.264 and AAC audio, iFrame produces small file sizes and simplifies the process of working with Video recorded with your camera. And then adds to select: "960x540 30fps" Now the 960x540 size isn't exactly new to iMovie; it's the default "Large" video resolution that iMovie uses when you import video (iMovie converts all imported video into a format it prefers.) The step forward appears to be that App...