Notes On Video

Part 3 of The Great Camera Shootout is up at Zacuto's website, and like the other episode's it's well worth your time (it's 34 minutes long). Clearly a tremendous amount of work went into it; just check the credits list! For me, the interesting things were (in order of appearance): While talking about the resolution test comparing enlargements of the HDSLR output and film scanned at 2K and 4K, the participants said a couple of times that on the web we wouldn't be able to see the differences, but at least on my MacBook I could see a very noticeable difference. This web video isn't so sucky! 4K was clearly better than 2K, and 2K was clearly better than digital. That said, no one seemed overly concerned The Color tests were interesting - and positive - though the comments from the colorists who worked on the tests suggested that the film was easier to work with, and there was more you could do with the film than you could with the digital Similarly,...

Camcorderinfo.com reviews Canon T2i

Camcorderinfo.com and DigitialCameraInfo.com take a look at the Canon T2i video performance, and find it to be pretty darn good - for an HDSLR - though maybe not quite as good as the Canon 7D [ What a relief for those of us that spent almost twice the price for the 7D! ] Scores were close (higher is better), with the two returning similar numbers for Color Performance, Motion Performance, Low Light Noise and Sharpness (where the T2i was actually slightly better than the 7D.) But in Low light Sensitivity, the 7D performed quite a bit better, as well as in Low Light Performance and Video Noise. Of course, I'm basing this on the difference between the reported numbers; the numbers themselves mean little to me! 7D T2i % diff Video Color Performance 8.31 7.45 10 Video Noise 12.65 10.68 15 Motion Performance 10.05 9.5 5 Sharpness 9.98 10.19 2 Low Light S...

Next Apple TV to be AppleTViPhone?

Engadget reports that Apple is working on a replacement for the Apple TV that will be based on the iPhone OS, store files on the cloud, support 1080p and cost about $99. I'll believe it when I see it. Yet it's not exactly surprising. Moving the AppleTV to the iPhone OS would almost seem to be a no-brainer, though I'm not too sure just how effective the iPhone OS is with a remote control as your input device. They don't seem to think it will be announced at the World Developer Conference on June 7th, so there's really nothing to see here... yet . Engadget : The next Apple TV revealed: cloud storage and iPhone OS on tap... and a $99 price tag

Great Camera Shootout 2010: Part 3 - it's close

If the Zacuto main page is to be believed, Part 3 of the Zacuto Great Camera Shootout 2010 is just 23 hours away... If the Shootout page is to be believed, it's just 8 hours away... If past experience is any indication, it will be up sometime this weekend... Keep An Eye Out: The Great Camera Shootout 2010 [ UPDATE ] The power of Twitter : the countdown timer is gone from the main page, so it must be 8 hours...

Magic Bullet Grinder

Grinder is a batch processor for footage from Canon DSLRs. It can convert to ProRes, add timecode, and create low-res with window burn proxies for offline editing. You can also use it to conform (not convert, i.e. no frame blending or motion interpolation) clips to one frame rate, so your 30p and 60p shots can become slow-mo clips at 23.976fps. It's $49. The Scott Simmons at the EditBlog has a blow-by-blow article, and explains why you'd want to spend $49 on this tool: Magic Bullet Grinder grinds your DSLR footage into a more editable format

Sony HXR-NX5U Ver. 2.0 Firmware Update

User Firmware Update Ver. 2.0 is now available on the NXCAM micro-site. This user installable software updates the HXR-NX5U firmware version from 1.0 to 2.0. It is available here: Sony | Micro Site - NXCAM A minor software issue has been discovered affecting the HXR-NX5U when used in conjunction with the optional HXR-FMU128. A "Buffer Overflow" message will be displayed in the viewfinder and the unit will fail to record content as required. Although this issue has been identified in only a very small number of units, Sony takes all technical issues seriously and, as a precaution, is offering a software update for all existing camcorders within a specific serial number range. Units with serial numbers higher than 111585 are not affected. Note: this "Buffer Overflow" message may also occur when defective or incorrect type SD or Memory Stick cards are used. This software update will not address the use of defective or incorrect type SD or Memory Stick cards. App...

Pimp my Camera

Zacuto has a new cage called the Z-Cage , and they pimped it out in the extreme to show the flexibility: The Z-Cage pimped out with the Canon 5D MKII, a Z-finder, iPhone Cradle, iKan Monitor, 3 wireless plates with 2 wireless receivers, Switronix LED light, Zoom H4N, Z-focus, Double Mount, Red Plate, Battery Plate, Switronix Battery. Check the video @Zacuto.com: DSLR Z-Cage

Adobe Events and Training Videos

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium Roadshow June 3: Vancouver, B.C. June 8: San Francisco, CA June 10: Los Angeles, CA Register here: http://www.adobecs5roadshow.com/ Adobe Night at Editor's Lounge June 25, 2010 Los Angeles, CA Learn how Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium extends the Final Cut Pro editing workflow with native 64-bit processing, the lightning-fast Mercury playback engine, and seamless integration between applications. Learn more @ http://www.editorslounge.com/ Can't make it to any of those events? Adobe has thoughtfully put together some training videos that you can watch Adobe TV : Post-Production on Avatar with Adobe Video Tools This is sort of interesting, but it's very general about techniques and tools, and much more about what was done, rather than how. 3:28min Learn Premiere Pro CS5 18 movies of between 2 and 8 minutes long. Notable movies include: Optimize a Computer for Mercury Playback Engine Using Final Cut Pro...

Autodesk Smoke demos in Boston, June 3

HB Communications is hosting a series of demos on Autodesk Smoke for Mac OS X on June 3 in Boston. Autodesk Smoke software is a creative editorial finishing application for high-quality commercial and broadcast projects. With an intuitive, timeline-based workflow, Smoke offers an all-in-one editorial finishing toolset for standard and stereoscopic 3D work. Smoke is available as a software-only application for the Apple Mac OS X operating system or as Autodesk Smoke Advanced, a turnkey solution on the Linux operating system. Location : 225 Franklin Street, 33rd Floor, Boston, MA 02110 Times : 9 AM, 11 AM, 1 PM, 3 PM, and 5 PM You must register by sending an email to events@bhcommunications.com AutoDesk : Smoke HB Communications : Autodesk demo in Boston

Philip Bloom's 10 millionth visitor competition

Philip Bloom is having a competition - with prizes - to celebrate the 10 millionth visitor to his site. Prizes include: Kessler Crane Cineslider Zacuto Target Shooter GoPro Camera Letus Direct DSLR view finder Letus Direct DSLR Cage Red Giant Software's Magic Bullet Looks BUT , you have to answer 19 questions (taken from his blog) correctly to be in the drawing! Happy reading! PhilipBloom.net : 10 million visitors big prizes competition!

Movie Reviews and ratings

The Boston Globe 's movie critic, Ty Burr, has written an interesting column about that necessary evil of the movie reviewer; the star rating system. It's an interesting perspective on the limitations and miss-uses of the system. He also mentions a movie review site that's takes a different tack; Movie Review Intelligence attempts to break down reviews from different people: The brainchild of media researcher David Gross, the site collects all the major reviews and ratings for a movie and slices them into infinite pieces of pie. MRI’s page for “Robin Hood,’’ for instance, assigns an aggregate rating (55.1 percent out of 100 possible points overall), then breaks that number down among Broad National Press (56.2 percent), Local Newspapers (60.7 percent), Alternative/Indie (63.9 percent), Highbrow Press (35.0 percent), Movie Industry (43.5 percent), and major, semi-major, and mini-major urban markets. Even that method of rating doesn't fully meet Burr's requiremen...

Studio Lighting with Zack Arias

CreativeLive has been doing a series of interesting webinars on different subjects; three weeks ago they hosted a three-day event with Vincent Laforet . Interestingly, you can watch these live for free; but they sell a download of the edited program if you want to be able to watch it again; or at a later date. Now they are planning a three-day Studio Lighting event with Zack Arias on June 11-13 . If you can't watch it on the weekend, it's $79 to pre-order the download, or $99 afterward. While this is probably oriented towards photography, much of the information will translate to video. If all the worlds a stage - I want better lighting BE THERE FOR FREE : they are also having a competition to find six people to attend for free (no word on whether you have to cover your own expenses to get there, but I'm guessing you do so you should probably live near Seattle...) "I’m going to be teaching a studio lighting class. White seamless and beyond. Models, bands, etc. In ...

Sony HXR-NX5U - Firmware update coming - here?

Marshall Levy at dvinfo.net posts an update on the firmware to fix the buffer problems with this camera. He says it should be available officially in 7-10 days. The firmware evidently fixes a problem in the camera - not the FMU - and takes about 3 minutes to install. dvinfo.net: NX5U Firmware Update Particulars & Process [ UPDATE 5/27 7:15AM ] Philip Johnston at HD Warrior says it's available now and provides a link to the Sony Europe support site BUT you need to register to access it, and you need a PC to carry out the Firmware update. HD Warrior : Buffer Overflow problem in Sony NX5 Solved… Firmware V 2.00

Apple vs. Microsoft

@ 2:15PM EST AAPL $227.10 billion, MSFT $226.72 billion via : 16x9cinema@twitter Interesting - doesn't help me decide if I should switch from Final Cut Pro to Adobe Premiere though...

New Final Cut plug-ins

There's a couple of new filters out for Final Cut Pro/Express (and in Freebie Pack 1 's case, After Effects ) Freebie Pack1 Five FxPlug filter/generators for Final Cut Pro , Final Cut Express , Motion and After Effects . - World : A sun lit Earth generator in 3D space with clouds and city lights. - MultiSpace : Puts two inputs into 3d space with global & independent XYZ & rotation. Planes can intersect too. The only way to animate two images or movies to move together in 3D space in FCP/FCE. - iSight Live !  Get a live input on your timeline in FCP/FCE/Motion/AE. Very handy for picking a colour off a client’s brochure. - Rack Focus : Racks the blur from one input to the other with one parameter. Both blur values for each input can be independently set. Great for highlighting text over a picture. - Opposites : Two input basic parameter linking - move one left, the other goes right. Rotate one clockwise, the other one goes anticlockwise. You can assign a behav...

News from Here & There

Boris FX Introduces Final Effects Complete 6 AE Boris FX has announced Final Effects Complete 6 AE (FEC 6 AE). FEC 6 AE brings 120 designer effects and transitions to Macintosh and Windows versions of Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro CS5, CS4 , and CS3 . The new release features 12 new filters and transitions, faster rendering, audio-driven keyframe generation, customizable animated presets, and a new Compare Mode feature that enables users to compare the filtered result with the unfiltered source via either a side-by-side view or a live split-screen view. Each Final Effects Complete filter has been re-engineered for 64-bit operating systems. Boris FX: Press release Kessler Crane Motorized timelapse Philip Bloom has been playing with Kessler Crane's Motorized dolly to take timelapses, and has put up a new example: Philip Bloom: Kessler Crane’s Motorized dolly and tripod systems now shipping! Zacuto Z-Finder Jr. First Impressions Ross Chapman needed a viewfinder f...

1st Video iPhone Video Editing App