Barak Epstein

IBC/ BUT 2011

2011-09-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

so, I'm probably the only guy in the biz who has gone to the Netherlands three years in a row for both IBC in Amsterdam and The BUT Film Festival in Breda. There's not too many other people around who need to see the new Sony/Panasonic/Red/ whatever and then take a train an hour south and watch a John Waters/Jorg Buttereit or Nick Nedd film.This year I was doing triple duty by carrying around a camBLOCK Pan and Tilt motion control system in my satchel and doing adhoc demo's on the IBC show room floor as well as shooting some timelapse shots at the Film Fest.

Here's a few quick highlights:AJA had a good slew of solid product announcements including the IO XT - the portable IO for Thunderbolt with Loop through! its shipping in Q4.

AJA also demo'd a new (free!) software gui called CONTROL ROOM that will make it easy to deal with video in, out and convert and (soon to be playlists?!) in this multi-software-the-same-machine-wtf-do-i-do-with-FCPX-new-world.

Also on the thunderbolt front was Sonnet, who are inching closer to shipping the plethora of devices they announced at NAB. This one is particularly cool :

its a 1RU Mac mini chassis that has room for the Sonnet Thunderbolt to PCIE box that will hold your full lane card. This is how you make an Xserve in 2011/2012.

Panasonic previewed another hand-held Stereo 3D camcorder, the HDC-Z10000. This one will come in at about $3500 (vs $22K for the 3DA1) It does not have dual HD-SDI like the 3DA1 - other comparisons forthcoming, but this could be the compact stereo cam that finally makes a dent in the predator market.

and, RED showed their Epic with an EF mount that controls Iris and everyone gathered around to bow down to it. Cumon Panasonic - make one of these for the AF100!

Tangent Devices wins the award for the coolest looking booth. Its a castle! oh, and the also previewed a new line of modular control interfaces called Element. The Element's should hopefully be ready for Resolve, Scratch and Color (?, RIP) and others by the time they ship.

Sachtler wins the award of tricking me into learning about new tripods by way of free Toblerone. The new ACE tripod does look pretty slick and affordable.

The Sony HXR-NX70 is already a shipping product. Somehow I missed the spec before about it being rain and dust proof. Pretty cool!

hey kids! this is a film flat bed! you can use it to edit and view 35mm and 16mm film and yes companies are still making and marketing them! This unit is made by Kinoton.

This is James Cameron and Vincent Pace talking about how awesome 3D is and why you should hire them on your next big budget Stereo shoot.

The Netherlands in Sept is the only place in the world where you can see hollywood giants like Cameron on stage and then an hour later see underground film legends like Nick Zedd.

(Cameron screened a future movie of Cirque Soleil with some impressive stereo effects with RealD and Christie Digital rigs. Zedd screened a ton of stuff at the BUT, including an insanely analog triple 16mm film with cassette tape non-sync audio experimental film.)

This is how you park your bike in Holland.

oh yeah! and here's the movie that me and Clay Liford were at the BUT showing. WUSS! We need to make another movie stat so we can go back next year.

NAB 2011 top 8 and what to see at the Texas Production Roundup!

2011-05-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

top 8 NAB good stuffs:
no disqualifications for gear that was just future talk, cause just about everything shown on the floor was future gear. so here goes:

8. JVC baby 3D camera: the GY-HMZ1 its smaller than the HM100 and its in stereo for under $3K. will it be the camera that brings 3D production to the masses?

7. Matrox MXO2 Thunderbolt adapters: turn any MXO2 into a thunderbolt box for $299. (no thunderbolt loop though) backwards compatibility is your friend.

6. AJA "Phaser" - basically an IO Express with thunderbolt I/O and up/down/cross built-in. It could easily be the defacto post box I/O when it ships later this year (?)

5. Sonnet FusionEcho Express PCIE Thunderbolt box. add a full PCIE slot to any Macbook Pro or iMac with thunderbolt! KONA3G or Atto Fiber in your laptop you say? well ok!

4. FCPX for $299, Avid Media Composer for $995! of course, FCPX for $299 doesnt include all the other suite apps (announcements pending?), and Avid's price is temporary and dependent on if you own FCP, both are pretty significant.

3. Blackmagic "Atem" product line. Blackmagic bought Echolab last year and brought it back out this year w/ less zero's in the pricing. get a full daddy HD broadcast hardware based switcher for $6-$10K

2. Aaton quietly showed the only hybrid 4K/film camera on the show floor. its a 2 or 3 perf 35mm Penelope camera that can be changed from film to 4k in 30 min. It also can record offline to Avid DnxHD. The online codec is a 800MB/s 4K DPX. The digital mag has a built in Dalsa CCD sensor! crazy.

1. KinoFlo practical light bulbs! how come it took them so long to make something like this! around $20 a light.

come see some of this stuff this thursday at the Texas Production Roundup in Grapevine! the yearly post-NAB show goes from 9am-5pm this year and will also include some nifty seminars on media archiving, AJA on-set and post work flows, thunderbolt overload and future FCPX talk!

too many shows, oh and NAB is next week

2011-04-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

its a bit easier to send updates from Twitter and Facebook these days than write up a whole big 'ol blog post, so I'll just do a quick recap:

March - SXSW - the trade show was bigger this year than it usually is - still plenty of web 2.0 booths, but there was some video/film gear to be seen as well.
check out
http://www.facebook.com/Videotex for some musings including a preview of the new Bogen 509HD head w/ a lite up indicator to tell you when your camera is balanced!

Late March - the Cinemacon in Vegas. this is the gear show for movie theaters that has replaced Show West. The most interesting thing on the floor there was that both Doremi and Qube cinema were showing ways to export DCP's directly from Final Cut Studio/Compressor. This is basically the workflow equivalent of it being 1995 and if were Avid were to say could export to a 35mm film print from their time line. The future of independent digital cinema has just become a lot more accessible.

NAB is next week! Expect new toys and software from Blackmagic, AJA, Adobe, and maybe Apple? Find me on the floor or follow me at @barak_epstein and @videotex

EARTHLING going on tour this spring!

2011-01-27T08:11:00.000-08:00

the Feature film EARTHLING is prepping for a theatrical tour this spring 2011. Fan us up on Facebook and request a screening in your town using the DemandIt link on this page!

Texas Theatre incorporates DIY Digital and analog cinema!

2010-12-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

its been a while since anything was posted here, but I keep getting notes from folks that come across this site and want to see stuff here, so Im back. I've been busy reviving the historic Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff. (south of Downtown Dallas).
Weve installed a digital cinema server configured by Emerging Pictures and built by DigitALL. Its an excellent way for indie cinemas to avoid the high cost of DCP compatibility & delivery.

And on the complete 180 from that, we've also installed dual Elmo 16mm projectors and are doing a fair amount of 16mm screenings with a super old-skool manual changeover process. A recent print of Throne of Blood rivaled any 35mm or DCP that you could see, plus it was just plain cool!

Future plans for the theatre do include installing new 35mm rigs, and maybe well do DCP in the future as well. we'll see!

but, I usually post things about production gear here: so I will just say that weve got a demo of the new Panasonic AF100 coming in a couple of weeks and I'll be back here with more insights and possible configs for the cam.

Trip to the Netherlands II

2010-09-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

here's the report from my 2nd annual trip to the BUT Film Festival in Breda, and to IBC in Amsterdam.

the film I produced that's been making the festival rounds: EARTHLING, took home the best feature jury prize!

Its a 2-hr multi-stop train between Amsterdam and Breda, so I had to made a quick day trip to and from there to get back for the festival awards show. Luckily, the IBC floors are pretty tightly squeezed next to each other allowing one to cover lots of space quickly. Unluckily, however, is that the show floors didn't seem to have air conditioning!

highlights:

Zeiss LWZ.2 Lightweight Compact Zoom lens w/ Canon EF mount on a 5D!

The ARRI Booth had plenty of Alexa's set up, allowing anyone to get in some good gun time. The camera seems ridiculously easy to use. The electronic viewfinder literally looks as good if not better than an optical finder. The embedded ProRes4444 workflow and (future) higher res workflow will be the things that push this cam into the mainstream rental pool for higher end work.

The newly announced Canon XF100/105 was on display in the heavily touted Stereo mode. The cams have built-in adjustments for creating 3D stereo images. The rig here is beta unit by RedRock Micro.

Canon also showed a low budget way to display 3D w/ 2 low cost projectors

Panasonic showed their new 152 inch(!) 4K Plasma. w/ four HD-SDI inputs. You couldn't help but stare at this thing for awhile.

Panasonic also debuted their long awaited DSLR-sized sensor AF100 cam! Its shown here with a Zeiss CP.2 prime. The camera will ship in december (w/o lens) for under $6K. It's got just about everything 5D/7D shooters want combined with the traditional cam features one would expect from a pro panasonic cam (TC, HD-SDI, XLR audio..etc.) the only thing missing is the SDHC capture codec (its AVCHD), but ----

that's where the new AJA Ki-Pro Mini will come in to save the day. The Mini has HD-SDI in (and HDMI) and will work great as a 10-bit 4:2:2 recorder for the AF100. Its shown here along with the original studio style Ki-Pro.

and here's something you dont get to see at NAB:

And we now have a final answer to the Avid vs FCP debate: The Steenbeck! Steenbeck was back in full force in the post-production hall showing a new(?) Super8mm rig, the ST822!

Media Management & archiving on the set of "Wuss"

2010-08-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

We deployed a multiple on-set archive and work-media workflow on the set of Wuss. It was decided early on that we would use the Cache-A Prime-Cache LTO archive appliance to create 30-year-shelf-life archives of the camera raw files right on set. 800GB LTO4 tapes are super economical, running about $40 for 800GB right now. (1.6TB LTO5 tapes are a little over $100 right now, for ref- so cost per GB lies with LTO4 for the moment)

During the first few days of the shoot, the workflow was to move the camera raw files to the Cache-A first, then open FCP log & transfer and create ProRes422 Quicktimes which were encoded to a Lacie 4BIG Enterprise running in RAID5 for redundancy.
The Cache-A connects direct to the Macbook Pro via gigabit ethernet, the Lacie connects over eSata, a Lexar Compact flash reader connects over Firewire800 and a SDHC card reader (for sync audio files) connects over USB2.

At the end of each day, the Media manager would take the LTO out of the Cache-A and hand it to the director to take home. This way even though we have LTO archives and RAID5 media storage, the files can be in two separate places for extra piece of mind. (I forgot to mention that the raw files also live on a drive within the Cache-A itself that serves as a staging drive before it goes to tape and another level of redundancy)

This workflow is solid, but its a little slow if you want your media manager to be syncing audio and doing rough assemblies on-set as we did. Canon's EOS plug-in for FCP seems to still be a little wonky when used to transfer long clips. We frequently encountered issues where L&T would cut off half of the clip, thus necessitating the media manager to have to go back and re-log clips from the raw files. (The issue was replicated on three different MBP's all with different specs of RAM, FCP and OS). The (sorta) solution to this is to not multi-task at all when you are using L&T, just let it cook.

So, about half-way into the shoot we added a second MBP and external G-RAID drive to move QT's to so we could work concurrently.

Here's what the media manager station looked like at the end of the shoot once we added a 3rd MBP (!) for additional editorial and behind the scenes cutting.

One last thing to mention: make sure you bring your own dedicated battery backup UPS system with you to each location. You never know what the power is gonna look like if youre moving around alot and you dont want to get in trouble if someone plugs in a 2K near your station and blows a circuit! Something like this APC 750VA should do the trick.

WUSS, feature film, shooting with Zeiss CP.2 primes!

2010-07-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

I'm Line Producing Clay Liford's new movie WUSS here in Dallas and we are one of the first films to be using the new Zeiss CP.2 prime lenses with Canon EF mounts in conjunction with the Canon 5D MII.

The new Zeiss CP.2's are garnering alot of buzz because they are full follow focus geared cine lenses with interchangeable mounts. You can get the lenses in Canon EF for 5D and 7D filmmaking, PL for RED and film cameras or F for Nikon mount cameras or DOF rigs. You can get additional mounts and change them at your shop if you have a RED job one week and a HDSLR job the next.

Weve got the full range of the Zeiss kit on WUSS, the 18mm, 21mm, 25mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm. The kit is fast, sharp and clean. Our only complaint so far is the 18mm which is a slow-ish 3.6 T-stop and vignettes on the 5D due to the lens housing itself. The 35m, 50mm and 85mm are a fast 2.1 and are getting the most use so far.

Here's some pics of our rig in action:

Canon 5D w/ 50mm Zeiss CP.2, Marshall 7" HDMI/HD-Component LCD, Zacuto Z-Focus, & Genus Matte Box.

Here's the monitoring set-up with the HDfury converting HDMI to HD-Component which is fed into the Marshall and then looped to a Panasonic BT-LH1760 for video village setups.

Here's the other side of the rig showing the pre-built and mounted Zacuto handheld pieces. (a modified "Fast Draw kit") A simple tripod quick release gets the DP into handheld mode quickly with out much reconfiguration.

One thing you've got to keep in mind with a rig like this is the amount of battery charging required. In this pic weve got Canon camera batteries, Panasonic HVX camera batteries for the Marshall and little off-the-shelf USB batteries for the HD Fury. Make sure youve got plenty on stand by!

post NAB round-up 2010

2010-04-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

NAB was a much bigger show this year than last, but still not as busy as 2007/2008. Here are my picks of what I see shaking up the production world this coming year:

1. Avid is back in the game: Avid Media Composer 5 is a huge upgrade for Avid - native QT import via AMA - that includes all Pro Res flavors, Canon5D/7D footage and AVCHD (about time!). Also native RED R3D import and auto 4K to 1080P timeline scaling. They also added FCP-style drag-n-drop timeline editing.

More huge news for MC5 is official third party compatibility with the $449 Matrox MXO2 Mini for HD video output(!) Indie Avid users have been asking for something like this for years. The MXO2 Mini may become the new offline standard for laptop monitoring now that it supports both FCP and Avid (on the mac) and also accelerated H264 encoding if you get the Max version. HD-SDI import and playback/layoff via Avid still requires the Mojo DX which is rumored to get an official price drop.

2. DSLR rigs: now that the Canon 5D supports 24P and manual audio the HDSLR scene will become even more commonplace than it has been the past few months. Unfortunately, the camera is not quite video ready right out of the box. The central hall at NAB was full of vendors showing off workflow enhancements and rigs.

Here's the quick roundup:
- Zacuto - new Zfinders and other hand-held rigs. Im a big fan of the simple, yet effective "Target Shooter"

- Tascam: good quality double system recorders - the DR100, DR680 and the monster HS-P82. The folks at Tascam also recommended a cool FCP plug-in called Plural Eyes that auto syncs multi-cam and double system audio in the timeline!

- Red Rock Micro - wireless follow focus via iphone. pretty, pretty cool.

- LCDVF - low cost HDSLR Viewfinder that doesn't suck.

- Marshall - a 5" HDMI monitor w/ focus and exposure tools for $599.

- Lite Panels - hybrid video light/ still camera flash!

- Zeiss - the biggie which was announced a couple of months ago but finally shown - Cine-geared lenses with interchangeable mounts. PL, Canon and Nikon. Officially on everyone's wish list starting now.

3. Post Fun for everyone - Adobe CS5- how many times can you say Mercury Engine in a row? Ask a guy with an Adobe shirt on and youll find out!
The Question is now how much horsepower will you need on your machine to make M.E fly? 12-Core w/ a Quadro 4800 or 4-Core with a base model Quadro and Matrox Max accelerator? We'll have to see how it all plays out.

Blackmagic Design - announced a whole slew of I/O products revolving around USB3, but their biggest announcement was that DaVinci Resolve was now going to be offered software only on the mac for $995 (!) - talk about the high end being available to the masses. You'll be able to add the fancy Davinci panels for a $30K bundle or simply get a $1500 Tangent Wave

AJA - The Ki-Pro now supports Avid! or rather the other way around, but still - the Ki Pro will find its way on to even more sets now as it becomes cross platform. AJA also announced RS422 Control and gang recording multiple units via an upcoming software update. Also, the KONA3 becomes the KONA 3D with a plug-in from Cineform.

4. Workflow/Media Management/ archiving - was and will continue be a hot button as less and less acquisition begins with tape. Lots of manufacturers touted the ease of use and functionality of the Media asset system CatDV, including Facilis, who showed a complete workflow for File level (AKA multi-write) access across fiber and ethernet for both Mac & PC NLE clients, and Cache-A who lowered the cost of entry on ethernet based LTO4 and intro-ed LTO5 solutions for media archiving. Other software tools for archiving automation were hyped from Archiware Presstore and Atempo. Transcoding and online deliverable workflow solutions from Telestream and Rhozet were talked about all over this year at the show. Rhozet ain't cheap, but the companies who use it swear by it.

5. Stereo? - I say "?" cause yes everyone was showing it, and I mean just about everyone, but do we need it yet? Panasonic sure hopes so.

The "dont forget about the other me" award - goes to Canon for showing a new video camera! Yes, in all the HDSLR hype out emerged two new HD cameras from Canon with pretty decent specs - 50Mpbs, 4:2:2 recorded to off the shelf CF cards.

Future Award - goes to Panasonic for showing a balsa wood version of the AG-AF100, which will be a large sensor (4/3"inch) HD Video camera w/ DSLR-style DOF and interchangeable 35mm lens capability. This is the camera many people thought Canon would announce. The pre-specs look good (AVCHD, XLR audio input, HD-SDI out) but I can't help but wonder why this camera isnt using the AVC-Ultra P2 spec which would enable 4:4:4, 1080 60P and 2K.

NAB 2010 Preview!

2010-04-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

Were hitting the show Sunday bright and early. Announcements from AJA, Newtek, Blackmagic and Matrox will be the first to leak before Monday AM probably. Here are my predictions and notes; and on whats already been announced:

AJA - A new "Ki-Something" product to compliment the KI-Pro Recorder. Im predicting a "Ki-Mini" or "Ki-Cam", which will be a smaller unit more suitable to camera mounting, maybe with HDMI and HD-SDI only. Sorta like the Convergent Design Nano-Flash.
- Also I think a KONA 4 is in order. 3Gbps support, HDMI 1.3A, maybe 4K playback? Some sort of Stereoscopic workflow?

BLACKMAGIC - I'm sure they'll have something in the card/converter line but what those things might be I'm not sure. Im holding my breath for a DaVinci announcement. a $10-$15K software/hardware I/O bundle maybe?

NEWTEK - Another HD Tricaster, maybe 6 inputs? Maybe also a mini version?

MATROX - big news will be the new 4CH capture/playback cards for Mac w/ an open SDK. You'll be able to capture four HD-SDI signals at once!! This will be great for recording multiple live ISO's and/or multiple signal server-style playback. Software guys like Softron are already planning apps for this card.

JVC, Canon, and Panasonic have already played some of their cards by soft announcing some new cameras:
Panasonic HPX370 - Upgraded/ more expensive version of the HPX300 w/ improved CMOS sensor. Expect to also get a good hands on look at the 3D-A1

JVC - announced a new tapeless studio camera- the GY-HM790
Also, take a look at JVC's new production 3D monitors and encoders.

Canon - finally announced tapeless pro video cameras (the XF300/305). No, its not a 5D MII sensor, but it does record 4:2:2 50mbps onto non-proprietary CF cards.

Other stuff to check out: Arri Alexa Camera - native on-board 3.5K RAW or 1080P ProRes4444, whoa.
Lite Panels: a new hybrid Micro Lite for HDSLR's that switches from a video light to a still flash!
Adobe: CS5 - will be in full effect at the show.
Apple - any hinting on FCP 7.5? FCP 8? There's no Apple press release scheduled, so odds are low.

I'll be back after the show with a roundup!

SXSW 2010 roundup

2010-03-20T19:09:00.001-07:00

just got back from SXSW in Austin where the film I produced, EARTHLING, premiered. Read a good write up on IO9!

SXSW is a combination film festival, music conference, web 2.0 tech summit, video game demo floor and all around media production hub. Its a place where you can see a concert by Motorhead, watch an Ivan Reitman B-movie classic called "Cannibal Girls", check out a panel on DIY 3D Stereoscopic production, participate in a Kodak Super 16mm workshop and go to a FCPUG Supermeet featuring DSLR guru Phillip Bloom. All-in-all-the-place-to-be.

You couldnt walk three feet down the hall w/o seeing a suped up 5D or 7D shoulder rig. Canon was also a sponsor of the Supermeet, with the hype of the 24P/5D update permeating the room. Even the movie that won the Narrative Competition was shot on the 7D. ( a feature called Tiny Furniture).

Other cool films screened included the Brian Poyser film "Lovers of Hate", and the Frank Ross movie "Audrey The Trainwreck"; both of which were HVX'ed by David Lowery.

Special mention goes to the no-budget "found footage" parody feature "Jimmy Tupper vs The Goatman of Bowie". The movie starts off with less than zero web-cam style production which changes to full score and HVX cam in a pretty cool Blair Witch-meets-Wendigo-meets-Evil Dead kinda way. Also be on the look-out for "Annie Goes Boating" a short shot in stereo 3D with two RED cams. The filmmaker lugged around a large Christie HD5K Projector and a custom stereo server to all his screenings. Check out some behind the scenes photos and workflow info here

new Zeiss SLR/Cine hybrid lenses!

2010-02-23T16:45:00.000-08:00

This is a pic of a prototype Zeiss SLR/Cine lens. The lenses will come with Canon EF mounts, but the lens mount itself can be swapped out for a PL mount for use on RED cams and film cams!
This is huge news for the current crop of 5D/7D filmmakers who are also using or renting RED cameras. This is also great news for filmmakers using 35mm DOF rigs like Letus and PS Technik, hooray for easier follow focus!

here are the pre-release specs:
ZEISS Compact Prime II

* covers a full frame, 24x36 sensor
* lenses will be available in both EF and PL mount versions
* interchangeable mount system allows for easy upgrade
* cine style ergonomics
* manual focus with well damped resistance
* barrel dimensions are identical and lenses feature internal focusing
* each lens weighs between 2.0 - 2.2 pounds
* support bracket is included for additional lens stability
* 300 degree focus rotation
* 14-blade aperture
* geared for standard follow-focus
* calibrated focus scales
* 8 focal lengths available from 18mm - 85mm
* estimated list price for a set of 6 lenses is under $20K. Lenses will also be sold in a Custom 3 Lens Set or individually.
* shipping May 2010

these should be on the floor at NAB.

Avid programmers have too much fun....

2010-02-10T20:58:00.000-08:00

of all the crazy Avid error messages you could get like - DIO runtime, dragon, fatal exception, bad magic, no chunk, mobman_batch, etc. "Detected Upstream pipe stall" has to be the best!

kudos to Jeff Ayala for finding this gem!

EARTHLING to premiere at SXSW 2010

2010-02-08T20:23:00.000-08:00

non gear related posting here: reporting that the movie that I was a producer on last year - EARTHLING has been accepted into the SXSW Film Festival this March. This is the world premiere for the lo-fi-sci film movie that features Rebecca Spence, Peter Greene, William Katt, Jennifer Sipes, and Harry Goaz. The movie was writted and directed by Clay Liford.
Aside from Producing, I also was the UPM during the shoot and I've been the Post supervisor as we wrangle the great work being done by Element X Creative, Obotray & Pure Evil Music.

Stay tuned to SXSW.com for screening info!

2009's Most Usefull Gear

2010-01-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

Here's my list of the gear I used or saw used the most and to best effect in 2009. This is not a list of NAB future-ware, but a list of innovative gear people are actually using to make films and video's. To qualify, the equipment did not have to be released in 2009, but was implemented and able to purchased at accessible pricing.

1. AJA Ki Pro: It didnt ship until late in the year, but people immediately grabbed units and used them for deck replacement in live productions, on-set Pro Res capture, and general swiss-army-knife style hardware SD/HD conversions.

2. Panasonic HPX-170: this camera came out in late 2008, but really hit its stride in 2009 as cam-ops and filmmakers needed a 4:2:2, I-Frame, CCD'based HD camera under $5K.

3. Blackmagic Intensity Pro: I think this card has been out since 2007, but since its only $199 now - you cant really argue with a cross platform, open-SDK, capture and output card that fits in plenty of workflows.

4. Letus Extreme/ Elite: Letus seems to have take the market on the low cost 35mm adapter. The pricing and availability of options for different cameras make these as popular as they are. Since Letus has added their relay lens adapters they can now play in the same space as the PS Technik

7. Canon 5D MII, Canon 7D: The popularity of these cams this year has given birth to a whole sub-industry of widgets and accessories designed for rigging video use; its also given a re-birth to the concept of double-system sound since on-board audio recording on the Canon's isnt quite up to snuff. The DSLR-evolution isnt for every type of production, but if you can find a need for low-light and shallow depth of field shots for only a few grand it might be worth all the production/post hassle.

5. Matrox Compress HD: this H264 accelerator is available via standalone PCIE card or as part of one of the MXO2 boxes. Either way, its easy to implement encoding acceleration for Blu-ray, Flash, Ipod and any other web codec that can utilize H264.

6. CamBLOCK Motion Control: This low-cost, super-portable motion control system has been in development for years and used by its inventor for several high profile projects. The CamBLOCK system finally became available to mo-co and timelapse operators in 2009. DP's all over the world have been picking them up for use with timelapse control of Canon and Nikon SLR's as well as the RED. Other shooters are using them with Panasonic P2 cameras that have their own timelapse funtionality.

8. Zeiss SLR Lenses: the ZF manual iris Nikon lenses are the perfect fit for 35mm adapter rigs like the Letus and full frame video DSLR's like the Canon 5D MII. Watch out for the crazy fast 50mm and 85mm (both F1.4, giving you excellent DOF and low light performance). Zeiss is currently in the process of tweaking this line-up for the slighty more expensive ZF.2 lenses which add some auto-electronics for Nikon cameras. Get the well priced ZF's while you can.

9. ProRes 4444: included as part of the Final Cut Studio upgrade released last summer, Pro Res 4444 (pronounced by Apple as ProRes "Four-by-four") is now part of most RED/FCP workflows as well as FCP/After Effects workflows in lieu of the old Animation codec.

Panasonic promotes Videotex gear integrations!

2009-12-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

Panasonic has promoted some gear integrations that I was part of this past fall. Here are the press releases!

KD Studio: Dennis Bishop and his crew got 27 suped-up Mac Book Pro's and a several Panasonic HMC-40's for KD Studio's new film production program!
Read about it on Creative Cow!

Charles Aldridge, leader of the revolution at Texas High School in Texarcana, got a bunch of cool stuff like Panasonic HPX300's, the Panasonic HS400A multiformat Switcher, PT-DW10000U 1080P Projectors, and a AJA Ki Pro for their new performance theater space!
Read about it on the Cow!

in other news: Clay Liford's "MMSW" is playing in the shorts program at Sundance 2010!

DCI Compliance or "I-Cinema" compliance ?

2009-10-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

I just came across this article written last winter that talks about the options for digital cinema exhibition for independent and micro cinemas. Ira Deutchman's new distro/exhibition company Emerging Pictures is trying to start a new digital cinema standard called the "I-Cinema Standard". The I-Cinema standard is an attempt to create a exhibition compliance which assures some level of quality without having to spend the money on DCI Compliant equipment.
Where DCI Compliance specs require atleast a 2K Presentation w/ JPEG2000 compressed footage, I-Cinema requires atleast a 720P presentation w/ VC1 or AVC/H264 compressed footage. Its a good concept that could raise the bar for small film festivals and micro cinema venues looking to offer their viewers and filmmakers an experience far superior to DVD-player-and-conference-room-projector type presentations.

Here's the list of theaters currently in Emerging Picture's digital "Network".

Guts and Glory 16mm & Super 8mm Film Race

2009-09-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

Calling all Micro Cinema Filmmakers: The Dallas Video Fest again supports small format film making with the 2009 Guts and Glory Film Race where teams shoot either a Super 8mm or 16mm Film in-camera/in-sequence and then must do the audio live during the screening a week later. (while they're seeing their movies for the first time!)

Some filmmakers do live music performances to their films, some do Voice Over and some do stand-up comedy style narration. It's all in good low-fi-fun!

The newly formed small format company - Texas MicroCine - is supporting the event with cameras for teams and Super 8mm projectors at the screening.

sign up HERE!

Trip to the Netherlands

2009-09-16T21:26:00.001-07:00

I just got back from an impromptu trip to the Netherlands. Blood on The Highway was invited to screen at the BUT Film Festival in Breda. This festival happened to coincide with the opening of IBC in Amsterdam, so I hit the trade show floor for a few hours before taking the train down to Breda.

The big industry news hovering around the show was the announcement that Blackmagic Design had purchased DaVinci (!). Blackmagic's trademark dark orange colors and booth design had already taken over Davinci's booth and the demo artists were all wearing Blackmagic shirts. The question on everyone's tongue was "when can I buy a DaVinci system for $1000?" Blackmagic CEO Grant Petty says systems will probably still top out at around $500K (as apposed to $850K). Read more about Grant's plans here.

Other buzz around the show was at Arri; who were hyping three new 3.5K Digital cameras. Users will now have the option to get an electronic viewfinder from Arri, (thus bringing the cost down on the base model to around $70K).

Other cool stuff I saw was Zeiss promoting the use of their SLR lenses on the Canon 5D MII.

Also, this new start-up company who were showing a 3D Stereoscopic "point-n-shoot" camera for around $40K. (wish it was more like $10-15K though)

From there it was onto the BUT Film Fest, where 35mm projection reels were prepared for all to see:

and fancy Dutch Breakfasts are served inside the theater for morning film screenings!

Steadicam Flyer Workshop in Dallas Oct 8th - 9th

2009-08-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

There will be a 2-day Steadicam Workshop at Videotex Systems on Oct 8th & 9th. The primary units used for training will be the Steadicam Flyer.

Peter Abraham will be teaching the class (subject to change). Tuition is $ 500.00 pre-paid to secure a spot. To enroll, click here .

Start time is 8:15am each day. On Day 1 wrap is at 5:00 p.m. On Day 2, wrap by 6:00 p.m. The workshop class is limited to 9 students. The Tiffen Company provides all Steadicam systems and materials.

Breakfast and lunch are provided. Attendees receive a Certificate of Completion and Steadicam t-shirt.

More info on the workshops can be found here

Rosco Lite Pads are cool!

2009-06-29T17:16:00.000-07:00

The new Rosco HO Lite Pads are pretty nifty. They're cool to the touch and super lightweight. They come in sizes varying from 2'x2' to 3" circular. You can power them via AA Battery, D-Tap, 4-Pin XLR, car power or AC. They are so thin you can just grip clamp them to things or gaff tape them to wherever you need them. For under $2K you can get a kit that comes with 6 Lite Pads in varying sizes with some mounting & power accessories. (the only thing its missing is some camera mount accessories)

check out more specs and info here

camBLOCK Motion Control System

2009-05-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

Videotex Systems is now the exclusive worldwide reseller for my friend Stewart Mayer's camBLOCK invention.

The system is designed to give time lapse, motion control, and animation cinematographers a new budget friendly way to work. The rig is backpack friendly and controlled using a HP Ipaq 210 Pocket PC pre-loaded w/ Stew's custom CamBLOCK Software.

The unit works with any camera under 25lbs. There's also a camera trigger and Syncronized Timelapse box you can get that works with Nikon & Canon DSLR's and the RED camera.

check out some stuff shot with the camBLOCK here

or just go to the home page!

Texas Production Roundup Show on May 12th

2009-05-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

The big regional Post-NAB show will be held at the Studios Of Las Colinas on Tuesday May 12th!

Come check out the new scoop on gear from:
AJA, Apple, Blackmagic, Matrox, Lacie, Dulce, Newtek, Rode, Sennheiser, Grass Valley, Telescript, JVC, Panasonic, Sony, Avid, Canon, Cartoni, Zacuto, PAG, Tiffen, Lowel, Broadcast Pix, Sonnet Tech, Camblock & probably more!

Also check out these seminars:

9:30AM - Grass Valley Desktop
Grass Valley will be showing the new Edius 5.1 NLE systems for broadcast and post which now includes timeline-to-blu-ray export. Also, check out their HD Storm and HD Thunder I/O Boards!

11:00AM - Matrox
Come see the MXO2, MXO2 Mini and the Compress HD H.264 accelerator card. See a demo of the Faster-than-Realtime CompressHD H.264 encoding on the Mac!

1:00PM - AJA
It’s the state of Final Cut Pro featuring AJA. Come check out the new Ki Pro on-camera Pro-Res capture device which will allow any camera to utilize a 10-bit 4:2:2 workflow in the field or studio!

3:00PM - JVC
JVC shows off the new GY-HD700 & GY-HD100 35Mb/s cameras with native FCP workflow!

4:30PM - Panasonic
See how AVCCAM enhances reliability & efficiency with off-the-shelf SDHC cards. Learn about the new HMC40 camera and HMR10 field recorder

The show is sponsored by Videotex Systems and the DPA & MCA-I.

go here to register. Its Free!

Panasonic 3D P2 Camera!

2009-05-02T17:51:00.001-07:00

Somehow I missed this on the floor at NAB. Supposedly this camera was being shown in concept mode at the Panasonic booth.

As you can see, its basically a HPX170 with a 3D lens. The lens looks very similar to the Canon XL1 3D lens that was shown at NAB 2001 but I dont think it was ever released (?)

The other big future news here is that Panasonic has announced the development of the next AVC codec to be dubbed AVC-Ultra. Aside from being able to record Stereo 3D footage, it can record up to 200Mb/s to P2 cards and can work in 1080/60P with 4:2:2/10bit and 2K/24p with 4:4:4/12bit (!)

read the press release here

and watch this European Panasonic Video announcing AVC-Ultra

NAB 2009 Wrap Up!

2009-04-23T21:50:00.000-07:00

even though attendance at the big show was down this year there was still plenty to get excited about:

Here's my top 10:

1. AJA Ki Pro:

- record 10-bit, 4:2:2, full raster, intra-frame data in the field no matter what camera youre shooting with. It can work with cameras with HD-SDI and cross/upconvert cameras with HDMI or analog outputs. Now you dont have to drag your IOHD and workstation into the field with you to avoid in-camera compression. 'Lens to Post' is the new AJA workflow.
Oh, and did I mention you can control the GUI with your Iphone? (!)

2. Panasonic HPX300:

- technically this camera was announced and started to ship right before NAB, but most people hadnt really seen it till NAB. Going along the way of full raster 10-bit aquisition, its the first AVC-Intra native camera thats in the sub $10K price range. (look for it to come in around $8500 w/ 17X Fuji lens). The HPX300 is killer in low-light, and also adds in some features normally found in higher end cameras like slot-in audio receiver capability and Proxy-recording to SD card (an awesome dailies option)

3. JVC HM700

- this was another announcement right before the show, but it didnt start shipping until April. JVC finally embraces an on-board tapeless format with the 700. Users have the option of shooting pre-wrapped 35Mb/s QT's to SDHC cards for FCP workflows. Or, they can get the optional SxS recorder which allows XDCAM EX recordings to SxS or SDHC (better for Avid workflows). This cam would be a prime candidate for use with the Ki-Pro as users can record 4:2:0 backups direct to SDHC at the same time as they shoot Intra-frame 4:2:2 to the Ki Pro.

4. Matrox MAX Technology

- Matrox intro'd a whole new H264 encoding acceleration technology with MAX. In its base form, its a PCIE card that sits in your mac or PC and exponentially increases your encoding of Blu-ray, Ipod/Itunes, and Flash encoding:

- the hardware encoder is also available via the Matrox MXO2, MXO2 Rack or the newly introduced MXO Mini

5. Newtek Tricaster XD300

- aka the Tricaster HD, which is the long-awaited HD box from the mega-popular all-in-one production switcher. The gui has been updated and there a bunch of enhancements to the virtual sets. Look for the unit to ship later this year for under $15K.

6. Facilis 4.0 w/ File level locking:
- theres not really a good pic to display a upgrade to a file system. But this upgrade is really something to look at. Until now, if you wanted a true file level SAN, you had to fork over the mega bucks for Avid Unity or the mega bucks and mega IT infrastructure of XSAN. Now you can have Read and Write access to any shared volume on any workstation without having to deal with the permissions issues of a volume level system. The file level upgrade will be shipping very soon for the PC and later this summer for the Mac.
http://www.facilis2.com/

7. Sonnet QIO:

- I wish I had a better pic for this guy. Its a simple box, that connects via express 34 to your laptop and gives you 2 P2 Slots, 2 SxS slots and 2 Compact Flash slots. It also has a built in eSata hub w/ port multipliers so you can connect external eSata storage like Sonnets nifty little F2. Ever since the duel adapters started having issues with OSX, P2 users have been looking for a new inexpensive P2 offloading-in-the-field solution. Look for it to come in under $1K.

8. Blackmagic UltraScope

- Blackmagic released a ton of new products at the show, but I think the Ultrascope is the coolest. Post facilities are always looking for inexpensive ways to bring hardware based scopes into their facilities, now for $695 you can get a card w/ software that can live in a basic off-the-shelf PC. Just connect a regular DVI monitor for the interface and now you have a hardware scope that can live in the edit suite or in the control room.

9. Cache-A LTO4 Prime Cache

A start-up company called Cache-A licensed the LTO3A technology from Quantum and have released updated appliances which use 800GB LTO4 tapes. These units can operate via FTP like the older Quantums, but they can also talk to storage directly from USB or express34. The box "caches" all directories to a local hard drive before dumping to LTO, thus preserving the info for future organization and searching. Definitely cool stuff for facilities shooting alot of tapeless media and looking for reliable long term archiving.

10. Arri Locaster LED Light:
Arri released several LED lights to compete with the Lite Panels Mini-plus. I cant seem to find a good pic of one at the moment, but the unit felt rock solid and is fully dimmable. Color temps have hard switches and can be adjusted incrementaly from 2800 to 6500. The bundled kit should list for around $1800

Honorable Mention:
- Panasonic releases E-Series P2 Cards! The new P2 cards come in at under $1K for a 64GB card and $450 for a 16GB card. They are less expensive cause they're life is limited to approx 5 years. (The specs say one run per day for 5 years, so I suppose thats 1825 uses.) when you get down to approx 200 uses the camera will give you a on-screen warning. You'll also be able to track the lifespan of your cards via the new P2 Formatter software provided by Panasonic.

Future award goes to JVC who showed a prototype 4K camera that fed to a live 4K display! The camera had no on board controls and a Nikon mount. Control was sent using an attached CCU. Word from someone at JVC is that this camera is going to be developed for live IMAG and 4K presentation instead of cinema applications.

EARTHLING - new film going into production

2009-03-05T19:29:00.000-08:00

I'm a producer and UPM on Clay Liford's new lo-fi-sci-fi movie EARTHLING.

Were shooting this April in and around DFW. The movie will utilize a Panasonic 1080P P2 workflow and will be cut in FCP by Clay. (now if FCP would just support native MXF like everyone else we'd be set!)

keep tabs on the movie at
www.everythingcomesfromthewater.com
and via Facebook

Meteor Theater Film-makers workshop

2009-02-13T08:52:00.000-08:00

I'm running the second part of the UT-Dallas Film Workshop tomorrow at the Meteor Theater on the UT Dallas Campus.

Topics will be some hands-on camera, audio & lighting techniques. Plus we'll go over post production workflows that are do-able on a no-budget!

Some freebie resources for students or anyone! :
www.celtx.com - Screenwriting, scheduling, pre-production
www.vimeo.com - the best place to post your work and see others
www.gimp.org - sorta like Photoshop, but open source!
Avid Free DV (yes you can still get this!)

Man trades in RED for Aaton A-Minima!

2009-02-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

egads! Yes, budget conscious people still shoot film and use it in current HD workflows and it looks great. Most labs will now transfer your footage to the HD file of your choice (like 10-bit ProRes 422 or DNXHD 220), which eliminates the costly deck rentals.

see the stuff shot by the guy who sold his RED and got a Super 16mm A-Minima (they're around the same price fully equipped). It was transferred by a boutique lab in LA called Cinelicious.

Also, check out this nifty music video/commercial for Sweet Leaf Iced Tea shot on Super 8mm and transferred and finished in HD

The curious case of creating an old movie look with digitally shot films

2009-01-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

Now this is my complete opinion here but I thought the "old movie" style scenes in the beginning of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button were completely awful. I'm talking about those scenes with Elias Koteas and the clock. The fake film scratches, shakes and light surges seemed to be on a constant 5 second loop. They whole bit is sloppy and fakey. I know the movie was mostly shot on Viper, (with some un-named pieces shot on the Sony F23 and other shots on 35mm). Whether they shot those scenes on Viper or 35mm, the FX took me out of it. (although the make up and FX on the Pitt and Blanchet were top notch).

On the other hand, the 4.5 hour CHE, has been publicized by the indie-filmmaking scene for being shot all RED. However, the printed 'playbill' you get if you go see the long version clearly credits AATON as the supplier of 16mm cameras right under RED's logo and credit. The B&W scenes in 'Part 1' at the UN, were most likely shot 16mm. The grain is legit and noticeable and there may be even some slight old-film style effects and heavy contrast added in post, but it looks completely real, like it was ENG footage from the 60's.

Milk is another recent movie that does a good job at mixing actual 16mm stock footage with shot 16mm and 35mm using subtle visual transitions between the formats.

Of Course, you could argue against the C.C.O.B.B look by bringing up Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror , which was shot with a Panavision Genensis and then effected up the wazoo in post with scratches, burns, fades, tears and anything else they could think of. Somehow, they completely pulled this off and although you probably wont ever see a movie that really is damaged that bad, it looks completely legit, like it could have happened to that print.

I guess my point in all of this is that both film and digital footage can be used to create an old film or damaged film look. Sometimes it'll just look great if you shoot it nativly on film (Che, Milk), sometimes it'll work if you shoot digital and effect it later (Planet Terror), and sometimes it will look like ass if you shoot digital and let your intern with Windows Movie Maker do your old movie effects (Benjamin Button).

Adobe CS4 Roadshow at the Studio Movie Grill in Dallas - Jan 20th!

2009-01-11T08:03:00.000-08:00

Adobe is putting on their big CS4 dog and pony show here in Dallas on Tuesday, January 20th. They'll be showing compatibility with all the new camera codecs out there (AVCHD, RED, etc) as well as showing how they support FCP workflows now more than ever.

The show is gonna be at the Studio Movie Grill off 75 & Royal From 1-5PM. There will also be a mini-trade show in the lobby, aka "Partner Solutions Pavilion" that will feature AJA, Blackmagic, Matrox, Panasonic, Nvidia, Rimage & HP.

The Adobe presentation will be given by Adobe Rep Dave Helmly, read up on the RED import plug-in and the Nvidia CX accelerator card on his blog

Register for the event HERE

Panasonic Makes Scene Files available for Everyone!

2008-11-29T16:19:00.000-08:00

Up on the Panasonic Broadcast page you can now download custom scene files for free for each of the HD P2 cams, from the HVX200/A, HPX170 to the HPX500, and all the way up to the HPX2000 & 3000.

There's stuff on there like Film Looks, Music video looks, Dream Sequence, Day for night, even one called "Woody Allen" (!) for the HPX2000. Be sure to check out the Shutter FX for the HVX200/A....

the Sony S270 - the return of HDV?

2008-11-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

Plenty has been done in the past year by both Panasonic and the consumer video-camcorder industry to play down HDV. Although Sony is still a big player in the HDV scene, they have been pushing XDCAM and especially XDCAM EX in their marketing. A lot of people seem look beyond the fact that both XDCAM and HDV use the same 4:2:0 color space and Long-GOP MPEG2 recording. (HDV maxes out at 25Mb/s and XDCAM EX maxes at 35Mb/s). The main technical advantage XDCAM EX really had over HDV was tapeless recording....

However, back around February/March Sony quietly released the Sony Z7U and the S270, which are HDV cameras that have on-board Compact Flash Recorders. The immediate advantage to this is the ability to create an archive while you are shooting your tapeless footage. After your shoot, put the (small or large size) HDV tape on your shelf, hook up your non-proprietary Compact Flash card reader up your NLE and go to work. All the advantages of Tape acquisition as well as the conveniences of tapeless. This cam could also satisfy the tapeless shooter who has a client who requires a hard copy tape of the footage.

Other notable features on the 270 are: - 4 Discreet Audio Channels with 4 XLR inputs, HD/SD-SDI output, interchangeable 1/3' lenses, non-proprietary, inexpensive recoding media (a 16GB Compact Flash card is going for about $35 vs $850 for an 16GB SxS Card), also industry standard shoulder mount design with V-mount battery mount with D-Tap power for accessories.

As for NLE Compatibility, besides 1080i 60/30 shooting modes, the Camera has two ways to record 24P. It can do the 1080i/24P (which is the way the Sony V1U operates), and it can also record a true progressive 1080/24P recording. Over Compact Flash File Transfer the footage from both 24P modes is instantly viewable within Avid Media Composer 3.x, Premiere Pro CS4 and it works with FCP Log & Transfer via a transcode to Pro Res. If you're a FCP user, then you'll need to download this Sony provided plug-in first.

Alternatively, if you dont want to transcode to Pro Res, (presumably to save a bit of time), you could "wrap" the M2T Files into QT files with ClipWrap

So if you're out there hunting for a new Sony camera, before jumping on the EX bandwagon, you might want to check out the S270.

Autodesk to buy Softimage

2008-10-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

in some surprising, out of the blue news today: Autodesk announced that they are buying another one of their main 3D Animation competitors, Softimage. Softimage had been previously owned by Avid for the past 10 Years.

This buy out will probably cause a bit of worry with dedicated XSI users who enjoyed being able to deal with Softimage cause they were a smaller company. On the other hand, game and FX driven companies that have to own lots of different kinds of software for different applications and different users will now be able to get all of their main apps from the same source.

Autodesk has been on a buying spree the past few years, with recent entries into the game middleware market (Kynapse), the 3D sculpting market (Mudbox), and of course, the buyout of Alias (Maya).

So with 3DS Max, Maya and XSI on the menu, they'll have a near monopoly on the Animation market. The only other companies left in the game are Side Effects (Houdini), and then lower cost options like Luxology Modo, Newtek Lightwave and Maxon Cinema 4D. Will Autodesk try to buy those guys too?

Read Autodesk's press release here

getting dailies (daily) using high end P2 Cams

2008-10-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

Panasonic just put this out this excellent white paper on how Proxy recording works using the HPX2000: (it will also work with the HPX3000 and the P2 Varicams)

ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasonic/Drivers/PBTS/papers/Proxy_Video_Final.pdf

if you add the proxy encoder, you can shoot email-able footage direct to off-the-shelf SD cards at the same time you're shooting to P2. This creates simultaneous dailies for field producers or clients. The Proxy files can also be played from QT and easily loaded up into a Itunes folder for syncing with Ipods/Iphones (!)

Here's one workflow idea: at the end of the day's shoot (or during the day) the On-set P2 Media Manager would pull out the SD card from the cam and quickly load it up onto his laptop and create a Itunes playlist. He can then sync this up to the Producer's Ipod (preferably Ipod Touch or Iphone for the 3.5' screen). He just repeats the drag and drop per department head that would need to review dailies. At the highest bit rate (1500kbps), you should be able to fit 5 hours of footage onto 4GB.

The Proxy's can also be emailed out by Smart Phones with SD card compatibility.

You can also do insta-TC Window burns in the proxies if you want to use them for off-line editorial!

Panasonic HMC150 first thoughts

2008-10-06T11:59:00.000-07:00

Panasonic's AG-HMC150 just started shipping. You might be looking at this camera and wondering what Panasonic's plan is here. One might say well, if youre gonna pay $3500 for a 4:2:0, AVCHD camera, why not pay $5200 and get 4:2:2 DVCPROHD HVX200A or a HPX170. You might say I'm not counting the P2 card cost and its associates. A 32GB SDHC Card will cost under $200 and a 32GB P2 Card will be under $1600. You're getting 180 Minutes of 24 Mbps full raster 1080 on a 32GB SDHC card, while you're gonna get 80 min of 720 24PN DVCPRO HD or 32 min of 1080 on a 32GB P2 Card.

Now, with out getting too deep into why you might one over the other, well just stop for now at the 2 main advantages of DVCPRO HD: Intra-Frame vs Long-GOP and 4:2:2 vs 4:2:0. Barry Green wrote an excellent article on the color space ratios that today's cameras use. Read it here.

So, in reality, the HMC150 competes directly with the HDV and XDCAM cameras out there that also have 4:2:0 and Long-GOP recording. The body-style and control of the camera most closely resembles the DVX100 series. But DVX owners will have to buy new batteries as the 150 uses the "VW-VBG" series batteries.

This is really the first professional AVCHD camera. The cameras to come before this have been mostly consumer stuff from Canon and Panasonic. So its the first time most pros have considered AVCHD. As far as NLE Support- FCP has been supporting the format for awhile, however you must use an Intel-Mac. (you'll get an error if you try to use it with Log & Transfer on a G5). FCP gives you the option of transcoding to the Apple Intermidiate Codec (AIC) or Pro Res 422.
There is a software utilily avaialble for G5 users that will encode AVCHD called Voltaic. But as you might guess, its painfully slow on a G5.

Adobe has put AVCHD support into CS4 but Avid still has not announced any support for Media Composer. (theyve got it in Liquid, but... y'know.. who uses Liquid?!) Avid users on a PC can use Panasonic AVCHD to DVCPRO HD encoder which is a free download here.

Other cool bonus's with AVCHD are insta-QT previews from Mac OS desktop; also AVCHD is instantly playable via an SD card on PS3's and most other Blu-Ray Players. The camera has a 3 year warranty which is the best warranty your gonna get for a camera in this price range.

Conference at the Thin Line Film Festival

2008-09-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

The Thin Line Film Festival has asked me to do a Workshop on "HD Video Workflow" at their fest this year. It will be on Friday, Sept 26th at 2PM at the RTVF Dept of UNT. Which is where I went to film school.

I think I'll be talking about the current slate of affordable HD cameras, with a concentration and hands on demo's on the Panasonic P2 side of things (HVX200A and HPX500 and maybe a HPX170 if it gets here). Well go through camera operations/workflows and how they relate to post workflows with Avid, FCP & Adobe.

here's the full schedule

more Siggraph aftermath...

2008-08-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

Siggraph is weird hodge podge of a show.. its a industry trade show, a animation film festival, art gallery, a science fair complete with scribbled-on-poster-board data and graphs, a trade school recruitment fair, a job fair and a viking themed 24HR-Video-Race style animation contest.

The official coolest thing I saw was this not-quite-officially-announced Sony BVM 3.8K LCD Monitor (!)

thats right, it has 3840x2160 native resolution. Its not quite a 4K display and Sony is being very careful in the pre-marketing for it. It will supposedly display a 4K image by scaling it appropriately. Or you can use the included 1:1 mapping function. 2K will be fed using dual-link HD-SDI, and 4K (er, 3.8K), will be fed using quad-link HD-SDI. No shipping date announced yet, but the "target" price is $60K + $5-10K for option boards.

Other insanity I saw was this robot that had pretty scary face movements:

also, there's plenty of crazy art sculptures like this:

And last but not least, the winner of the best swag was Newtek who promoted the release of Lightwave 9.5 by giving away these IronMan bobble heads!

'Stereo'-graph

2008-08-18T22:04:00.000-07:00

or thats what they should have called it this year. Virtually every major company was showing something in 3D!
The biggest was Autodesk who showed new versions of Maya, Motion Builder, Toxik and Lustre all with the ability to view Stereoscopic images from within their interfaces!
Autodesk highlighted all of this with a 3D workflow viewing event at the historic Shrine Theater for their big User Group party.

Other companies showing stereo Workflows included Eyeon with Fusion 6; and Iridas which showed Stereo playback in Speedgrade DI using PNY graphics cards

various 3D LCD Display companies at the show included IZ3D, Alioscopy, (even know doesn't require glasses at all, I dont quite think its ready for primetime). Also in many booths was True3Di ,

in other Animation software updates, Avid's Softimage showed off XSI 7 which features a new technical architecture called ICE which is a way for TD's to easily create FX and workflows without writing code from scratch. Softimage heavily promoted ICE and even had Vanilla Ice show up at their party and do Ice Ice Baby (!)

Adobe to support RED R3D files.

2008-08-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

thats the word on the street from both RED (see RED User announcement here) and from insiders at Adobe.

This appears to be a plug-in importer developed by RED and not an Adobe Premiere update. (sorta like the FCP Log & Transfer RED plug-in)

This is big news in the RED/NLE scene... as up until now, only FCP has had support for RED footage, albeit via the QT proxies and still no COLOR support. (not counting, of course, Assimilate Scratch, which offers a native finishing solution for R3D files)

with this importer, the Adobe/XENA 2K/KONA 3 workflow will be an excellent option for RED post production. Word is that the importer will be Mac & PC ready when it becomes available.

What to see at Siggraph!

2008-08-05T16:16:00.001-07:00

This thing:

its a 40" 3D display produced by a new-ish company called ALIOSCOPY. The coolest thing about the screen is that is does not require any 3D Glasses to see 3D Images. This works using Autostereoscopy technology.

Alioscopy will be present at a several Autodesk and Softimage events at Siggraph. They will be touting the ability to view rendered out images from Max, Maya, XSI, Lightwave, and Cinema 4D. What would be really cool, would be if they figured out how to tap into the frame buffers of any of those packages (combined with hardware output cards) to get real time 3D output while working!

P2/DVCPRO/AVC-Intra NLE Current Compatibility

2008-07-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

Panasonic sent out this list today. It gives a nice reminder/ state of the NLE scene on who is natively supporting P2, DVCPRO HD and AVC-Intra

++ Apple ++
FCP 6.0.4

1. P2 file import / Decode
: DVCPRO HD
: AVC-Intra (*)
(*) It is necessary to install the AVC-Intra decoder from Panasonic.

2. Edited file export / Encode - for Native MXF Editing
: DVCPRO HD (*)
(*) It is necessary to install the Raylight for Mac 2.08 from DVFilm

=> AVC-Intra decoder for Mac from Panasonic

=> Raylight for Mac 2.08 from DVFilm

++ Avid ++
Symphony Nitris 3.0
Media Composer 3.0
News Cutter 7.0

1. P2 file import / Decode
: DVCPRO HD
: AVC-Intra

2. Edited file export / Encode
: DVCPRO HD

- Note AVC-Intra is encoded into DNXHD

++ Adobe ++
PremierePro CS 3.2

1. P2 file import / Decode
: DVCPRO HD

2. Edited file export / Encode
: DVCPRO HD

++ Grass Valley ++
EDIUS Broadcast 4.61

1. P2 file import / Decode
: DVCPRO HD
: AVC-Intra

2. Edeted file export / Encode
: DVCPRO HD

note: the AVC-Intra plug-in is an additional cost.

Blood On The Highway at the Lakewood Theater on July 11th!

2008-07-03T21:08:00.000-07:00

here's the agenda:
- a screening of local filmmaker Clay Liford's new short: MY MOM SMOKES WEED
- a screening of the grindhouse competition favorite: HOLY HELL
- a screening of the festival hit: BLOOD ON THE HIGHWAY

then two bands featured on the B.O.T.H. Soundtrack are gonna play.

- TOBER OMI (post punk)
- 100 DAMNED GUNS (old school honky tonk country)

only $5!
and theres a bar!
Get There at 8PM.

The LAKEWOOD THEATER in old east Dallas!

read here for the Observer's take on this thing:

Avid Media Composer 3 and Friends to ship!

2008-06-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

Starting this week Avid begins shipping Media Composer 3.0 and the new hardware IO and storage devices that were announced at NAB. Here's the recap and things of note to Avid users and potential Avid users:

- There is an upgrade path for virtually every Avid customer right now. Everyone from Xpress DV to Liquid, to Composer Meridian will have discounts when upgrading to the new stuff. The most common upgrade might be Avid Xpress Pro to Composer w/ Mojo DX which will be going for under $8K

- For HD monitoring, and I/O the two main choices will be MOJO DX and Composer Nitris DX. There is a $5K price difference between the two. They both have HD-SDI I/O and HDMI monitoring. The Nitris will add additional analog hookups and a DNXHD processing board. This board will offload the encoding and decoding of DNXHD from the CPU to the Avid board (similiar to how the AJA IOHD works with ProRes422). Avid is saying that the you can do all of the encoding/decoding of DNXHD just fine with the MOJO DX, as long as you have an 8-Core workstation.

- Vista 64-bit is officially supported and working as of day 1. However, Avid is saying that there isnt that much of a difference from working in XP 32-bit. And if you are using certain effects like Spectramatte, you will actually have better performanc with XP 32.

- no more additional charges for the Avid Studio Toolkit. All bundles now include full versions of Avid FX, Boris Continuum, Avid DVD, Sorenson Squeeze and Smartfire Pro. Avid 3D has been discontinued.

- The analog MOJO has been discontinued. But the new software will continue to support it and Avid will continue to support the hardware for the next few years. The SD only, MOJO SDI will continue as a current product.

- Cross and downconversion is supported in the new MOJO DX and Nitris DX hardware! There are a few limitations regarding 23.98 sequences. (Customers will need Symphony Nitris DX to handle certain 23.98 workflows)

- Closed Captioning is not supported with the new hardware. No word on when (or if) they will add it back in.

- JVC customers can finally rejoice! JVC HDV 24P is now supported! However, still no support for HDV 60P, and there was something kinda cyptic in the tech notes saying that the 24P only works with the HD250 (not the HD100,HD110 and HD200). So JVC HD camera customers might still want to be a bit cautious.

- on the plus side of camera support; Panasonic AVC-intra is now fully supported for injest.

- 5.1 Audio out from the HDMI on the Mojo DX and MC Nitris DX is supported!

- New Avid local storage VideoRAID ST and SR are 5-bay and 16-bay DAS products that use an Atto SAS card for host connection. (similar to the Sonnet Fusion products). Both are supported for uncompressed HD workflows. (although you might be pushing it on the 5-bay box running RAID5)

Industry Giants Event Today and Tomorow!

2008-06-06T06:36:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit late on posting this, but Videotex Systems is co-sponsoring this event which is taking place today and tomorow at:
Collin College, 2800 E. Spring Creek Pkwy., Plano, TX

They've got some great speakers this year, including:
-Mike Anderson - A director on the Simpsons
-Johnny Gibson - FX Supervisor at Digital Domain
-Farhez Rayani - a Tech director at Rhythm and Hues

Complete schedule is Here
industrygiants.org

How to get HD output from the IO HD in COLOR

2008-05-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

Silicon Color probably never figured someone would want to work on seven layers of Color correction secondaries with a laptop, so they didnt work in support for Firewire connected devices with their original software. Since Apple purchased and re branded the software 'Color' they have since figure out a way to get SD devices to output. So, for now, the versatile AJA IO HD is only active in 525 10-bit as an option for output in Color.

Until now!

Sorta.

Here's the workaround:

1) Set the video output to be 525i29.97 10-bit in the Color
preferences.

2) From the AJA Control Panel>Format tab, you select the Primary as 525i
29.97, then the secondary as either 720p 59.94 or as 1080i 29.97. Also
within the Format tab, set the Upconversion to "Zoom Letterbox"

If you use this method you will get playback of the HD
material on an HD monitor. The output is scaled by Color for SD, then
re-scaled to the correct size - full HD resolution - by the IoHD.

This workflow was concocted by the tech support dudes at AJA. It definitely works as shown so now theres no reason not to master your film from your laptop!

Texas Production Roundup 2008!

2008-05-06T14:09:00.000-07:00

This Post NAB Tradeshow will be on:

Tuesday, May 13
8:00 AM - 6:00 PM at the
Richardson Civic Center
411 W.Arapaho Rd. Richardson Texas 75080

Pre-Register HERE

PRODUCTS REPRESENTED THIS YEAR
Adobe
AJA
Apple
Avid
Bogen
Broadcast Pix
Canon
Cartoni
Dulce Systems
Data Video
Facilis Terrablock
Grass Valley/ Canopus
JVC
Lacie
Matrox
Newtek
Petroff Matte boxes
PAG
Panasonic
Quantum
Rimage
Sennheiser
Sonnet Tech
Sony
Telescript

Admission is free!

AJA IO HD in action on set with the RED ONE

2008-04-29T19:51:00.000-07:00

This was on the set of David Maddox's webisode pilot, REEL DUDES (this scene shot at the luxurious offices of Videotex Systems). David's newly acquired RED had a problem with its HD-SDI output that was feeding his Panasonic BTLH1700. So in a pinch, his trusty IO HD was taken out of video village and strapped to the jib. The IO HD was set to input passthrough mode and fed HDMI straight through HD-SDI to the monitor. If you try this at home make sure you make a user setting that can be called up quickly and try not to power down the IOHD, cause if you do you must hook your Macbook Pro back up to it to reset your settings.

Here's where the second IO HD was put into commission, back over in the offload station where compact flash cards containing RED Code and QT proxies were offloaded onto two separate GRAID's. The 1K proxies were imported into FCP to test for QC. The IOHD was able to feed the timeline back out to the JVC 24" HD-SDI monitor in real time with the correct image ratio. (make sure you set your timeline for "unlimited"). According to AJA, the current drivers are not 100% ready for this proxy playback, but nonetheless it seemed to work. AJA does have some new drivers coming out soon that will officially have support for RED files for 2K and 1080 playback.

Randomness at NAB

2008-04-26T20:14:00.001-07:00

I found myself drooling over this new made-for-the-RED zoom lens from legendary glass crafters Angenieux:

it ships in September for under $20K

The award for Best Swag has to go the Quantum for balsa wood airplanes, complete with wind-up propellers!

Quantum's Pro Video 'A' series drives have justifiably met a common workflow need for facilities who have transitioned to tapeless acquisition. The LTO-3A sits on your network, is accessed like an FTP site and can R/W to inexpensive 400GB tapes at about 65MB/s. Its definitely the next step up in archiving once you get sick of buying off-the-shelf-Firewire-drives.

and last but not least: If you must stay at a cheap hotel in Vegas, you might as well stay at the Imperial Palace (or as the insiders call it: the "IP")
They have some pretty strict rules concerning what you can and can't do on their balconies:

NAB Wrap up!

2008-04-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

so heres my Post NAB wrap up:

APPLE: They werent technically on the floor but they had a huge presence in virtually everyones booth. Just about every company showing cameras, tapeless workflows, storage, data management, I/O hardware, FX plugs and encoding were showing Final Cut and sometimes Final Cut Server as well. Apple also conducted several behind scenes seminars and meetings on XSAN 2.0, the Promise VRAID's and Final Cut Server. Final Cut is unquestionably the NLE in command of the greater market.

AVID: Avid also somehow managed to turn around their negative buzz by announcing all new hardware I/O solutions on the first day of the show. The MOJO DX, The Composer Nitris DX and the Symphony Nitris DX (all bundled with Software for $10K, 15K, and $36K respectively, the Symphony Nitrix DX includes the 8-core Workstation)
I think the MOJO DX is in the right price camp for alot of Avid users... yes, its still more expensive than buying a FCP/KONA LHE... but so was the Avid Xpress Pro/MOJO bundle which had RCA connections and only output SD (!). Avid users are willing to pay a bit of a premium, but not too much. SD/HDI and HDMI are all good things, plus Avid annnounced support for 64-bit Vista in June. The new Avid boxes were present in Panasonic's booth as well as a few other hardware booths... There was some good floor buzz going with people asking where they could see the new Avid stuff.

ADOBE: No realy new product announcements, but they did show Premiere Pro 3.2 with native XDCAM workflow (no transcoding). Also, they were the only major NLE platform with an actual booth on the floor. Adobe also got a bump from AJA as they announced drivers that will work with KONA cards on the Mac. (in addition to the XENA cards for PC)

PANASONIC: Showed new 2/3" P2 Varicams; one in the old 1280 pixel count and a new one with 1920 native res. Neither have been officially priced or are ready to ship. The other fairly big announcement is the HVX170, which has the same lens as the HVX200A, but in a slightly smaller form factor, also HD-SDI out, the 5-year P2 Warranty and no DV tape mechanism. Word on the street is that it will be out in September.

JVC: Showed new HD-SDI switchers (apparantly there wasnt already enough to choose from), and a new attachable back for the HD200 cameras that will allow HDV recording to generic SD cards! Also, no flimsy firewire connection.

SONY: Had alot of traffic around the new EX3 camera, which is like the EX1 but with interchangeable lenses and studio connections like Genlock, TC and a control protocol. They may be trying to enter JVC's HD250 market on low cost HD studios.

The general trends at the show were data management and workflow enhancements; meta-data cataloging, full tapeless workflows and archiving. Only Sony was promoting Tape decks at all. (Im not sure if I saw a DVCPRO HD deck anywhere) Several companies besides Apple showed workflow automation programs like Final Cut Server; some of which include: CatDV; SNS PostMap; and both Editshare and Gridiron have new products called FLOW.

Another thing I wanted to quickly mention was the Matrox MXO2, which offers a full slew of In and out connections for FCP. It will come with a express card adapter and a PCIE workstation card for dual use. Plus it has a 4-pin XLR connection for easy connection to field power like Anton Bauer or IDX. This is something that IOHD users have been requesting for awhile. The MXO2 (which looks mysteriously like the MOJO DX.... hmmm) is gonna come in an attractive $1595. This could be the product that brings Matrox back into the mainstream.

NAB 2008 Preview!

2008-04-10T21:47:00.000-07:00

NAB starts On Monday and here is who is in charge of the buzz:

1. Apple & Avid - wait, what? huh? somehow even though nether of these companies will actually have a regular booth, both will have huge presence all over the south hall. Apple will be showing XSAN 2, the Promise VRAID and the (finally shipping) Final Cut Server. Avid has PROMISED a major product announcement for Monday morning. What will it be? new hardware? new software? my vote is inexpensive I/O for Media Composer. (or maybe just HD output)
Final Cut will be present in plenty of booths... the big hot button this year is media management, archiving and workflow.

2. Matrox: theyre promising a product announcement at the show. My guess is AXIO compatibility with Premiere on the Mac.

3. AJA: they've got the I/O for the industry down pat with FCP, Premiere and Autodesk in their camp. Whose left but Avid? Also, look for new mini-Converters and functionality with the FS1.

4.Blackmagic: im sure there will be something.. just not sure what yet.

5. Grass Valley/ Canopus: a new converter that takes in HDMI and converts it to HDV for injest. Good alternative for people looking at the Intensity, but needing a portable solution.

6. Panasonic: look at the DVX100B replacement, the AG-HMC150 which will record AVCHD. Also take a look see at the new BTLH 17" monitor with 120 hz, waveform and vectorscope!

7. JVC: The HD200 camera now has the ability to output both 720P and 1080i from the FW port. Also look for more integration with Firestores. As a side note: Focus Enhancements will have a refresh on their Firestore line as well as new products for Media Management and archiving for Final Cut Pro workflows.

8. Canon: new versions of the XL H1 and the XH A1.. the big one I see is embedded audio over HD-SDI on the XL H1 (Finally)

9. Autodesk: new features and announcements for Toxik. Maybe third party hardware integration?

10. 8GB Fiber Channel: just when you decided that dual 4GB fiber wasn't quite fast enough. Check out ATTO, Ciprico, G-Tech and Facilis's booth for implementations.

11. Sachtler: wait, how did they make it onto this list? the SOOM multi-purpose tripod has the most buzz ever seen by a tripod.

this is far from a complete list... more coming soon!

Betamax to HD-DVD Converter

2008-04-09T14:36:00.001-07:00

buy one here!

Awesome! I think everyone needs one of these. Plus its Bi-directional! Convert your HD-DVD's to betamax for long term storage!
Plus it uses electricity, and comes with a freakin sweet remote.

Where to get Free Tickets for AFI Dallas screenings!

2008-03-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

get them at any Central Market and most Blockbuster Video's in town.
I believe theyre good for any film, provided its not already sold out.

complete list is here

Blood On The Highway World Premiere at AFI Dallas!

2008-03-08T21:42:00.000-08:00

The Official world premiere will be on Friday March 28 at 11:59PM at the Angelika.

The second fest screening will be on Wednesday, April 2nd at 10:15 at the Magnolia.

get your tickets through AFI Dallas

In case you were wondering, the screening format will be 1080 23.98 HDCAM.

Why you should use P2 instead of a Firestore

2008-03-07T09:15:00.000-08:00

I've long been an advocater of using P2 cards in P2 cameras instead of the Firestore. Yes, you can get longer recording times using a Firestore but you start introducing all sorts of other potential issues. Now, I preface this by saying that the Firestore IS a good option for certain styles of production. If you are doing super-long form videos like events, interviews, corporate speakers and other apps where the camera is sitting on a tripod for several hours, then it is the way to go. But if you're doing film style or run-and-gun production stick with P2!

Here is an account from local filmmaker Dan Millican who recently used the Firestore on his film:

"We just wrapped on "The
Imposter" and we shot two HVX200's with Red Rocks and primes, recording to
the Firestores on both A camera and B camera. I didn't use P2 because I
liked the idea of not having to swap anything during the day (except for one
day where I did EPK's, I never had to download during the shoot day).

There have been horror stories we've heard about the Firestores. But my DP,
had shot a feature with the Firestore and had never had one
problem. But we did have some issues on this shoot-he had shot with a JVC
that has a 6 pin firewire (more stable than the HVX200's 4 pin). The upside
was recording all day without swapping P2 cards. Here were the problems:

* 4 pin connector to camera was a bit unstable-caused the 1394
connection error to happen (which meant the take was busted).
* There were several scenes that we shot that simply disappeared. We
"checked the gate" after each setup to make sure and every now and then,
even though we all witnessed the Firestore numbers moving and being in
record mode, the files just simply did not exist.
* We originally set up for recording QT file types (since that's where
it all goes anyway). However, the Firestore kept breaking up the takes into
two or three files. Since we recorded sound separate, this caused some more
work for the file mgmt guys to sync sound. So when we figured this out, we
switched to P2 type file recording and it worked fine.
* Every blue moon, the shot would drop a few frames. I could see it
when I recorded. Not sure if this was the camera or the Firestore.
Resulted in a jumpcut.
* Need lots of batteries for this rig. Red Rock, monitor, Firestore,
Camera-they're all drinking juice. Two camera units and batteries became an
issue.
* COMMUNICATION. Because of the lack thereof, File Mgmt guy didn't
tell DP that he didn't finish downloading all files from one Firestore. We
lost 8 setups that had to be re-shot. Can't tell you how much that sucked.
* We recorded at 720p but at 60fps. which in the HVX200 means it just
duplicates frames from a 29.97. so we ended up recording approx 2.5 times
the amount we needed. My movie takes up 2.5TB. Would have been 1TB. Russ
Pond and I are looking into ways through FCP to media manage and loses the
duplicate frames.
* Having trouble with the "overcranked" files. FCP isn't converting
them correctly."

They apparantly also had issues with the Firestore glitching out when the camera was on a metal-track dolly. (thats a weird one!)

Avid/Canon Workflow on THE SIGNAL

2008-02-25T22:52:00.000-08:00

The SIGNAL is an indie horror film that played Sundance last year and is out in theaters now. The movie was made by three separate directors who also wrote and edited their own segments of the movie. This arguably makes the movie a bit disjointed, but at the same time makes it visually and technically interesting.

The movie was shot on the Canon XL H1 HDV camera using a Mini35 adapter w/ film lenses. Then film makers posted the film at an Avid post house that had a mix of Xpress, Composer and Symphony Nitris all running on Unity. Since Avid didnt (and still doesnt) have support for the 24F from the Canon's, the fillmakers used a Convergent Design HDV to HD-SDI converter to take the signal into the Avid at DNX145 res.

Another interesting point to the story is that the film makers were all native FCP users, so they had to learn Avid quickly. This may be a big reason why Avid is promoting the user story. Its sorta like those TXU Energy Commercials that say "Come back to us"

Heres the Avid Story

also, there's tons of info from a crew member on this DV info thread.

The Signal workflow bears a bunch of similarities to what were doing on Blood On the Highway. We're working in Avid (combination of Composer, Symphony and DS), All color correction is being done on the Symphony Nitris. The only workflow difference involves our 1080 HDCAM SR master which we'll get to by testing the Raylight MXFX to do an MXF cross convert from 720 24P to 1080 24P.

Format your P2 Cards on the mac!

2008-02-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

woo! hoo! now you don't need to format your P2 cards with the Camera or a P2 Gear/Store. You can use a Duel Adapter with OS 10.5 and format your P2 card right after you dump your footage (to multiple secure places).

get the software for free here

NAB 2008

2008-02-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

so by now everyone and their dog knows that Apple has officially pulled out of having a huge booth & press release at NAB. This came approx 2 months after Avid officially pulled out and about 2 months before the actual show. Hopefully, the NAB organizers can fill those spaces (!)

The question is now, will Adobe follow suit and pull out? No one is expecting anything crazy new from Adobe this year so this could be an easy way for them to save some $. On the other hand if Adobe steps it up with a big show and maybe a product announcement, they could really steal some thunder.

Another question is what will all the 3rd party vendors do? The guys whose product are reliant on Apple and Avid like AJA, Blackmagic, Sorenson, Caldigit, Ciprico, Sonnet Tech...etc. Well assumingly Apple and Avid will support those vendors with gear and maybe even sales personnel.

In the past several years the big floor at NAB has always been the Post Production hall; people gather to watch Avid and Apple duke it out. The old school hardware halls always just have a meandering mix of people. I mean Matthews Grip gear is cool and all, but how excited are you gonna get about a new light stand?

Now the old big dogs like Sony, Panasonic, Harris and Thomson are gonna have to get people excited... either that or people will simply not show up. Even though an editor might already be on one side of the Avid/Apple fence and know everything about the product, they still want to come out to the show for the training sessions, the new third party products, the ra-ra sessions. If anything its about consumer confidence. The companies need to make their end users confident that they're strong, and with the events of recent history they've gone in the opposite direction.

Sonnet portable storage solution for Mac Book Pro users!

2008-02-05T12:29:00.000-08:00

Sonnet Tech's new CD-Jewel-case-sized-bus-powered-RAID is a perfect solution for Mac Book Pro/ IO HD Editing stations. The drive is connected via eSata using a Sonnet express card/eSata adapter, and the unit is powered via a 6-pin FW connection. Then you just hook up the IO HD via FW800 and youre good to go. Now all we need a way to field power the IO HD(!)

This 640GB unit will compete with the G-Tech GRAID Mini which is also bus powered via FW, but it uses a FW Data connection as well.

Avid on its last legs?

2008-02-01T12:03:00.001-08:00

Avid shares have plummeted 20% today after they released their 2007 #'s yesterday.

Avid is predicting themselves that they will have 30-40% less revenue in 2008 than 2007. This will be due to "planned investments in the business."

Avid stock has lost almost half of its value in the past 12 months. Most stock analysts do not have optimistic outlooks for the company right now.

If that potential buy-out is coming, it better come quick while theres still something left to buy!

new budget freindly Matte Boxes!

2008-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

in my continuing report on European gear thats now available in the US, here comes the GENUS Matte Box!

these 2-stage 4X4 matteboxes start at around $600 for a clamp on version and are under $1000 for the kit thats includes the support base/Rods & French Flag.

www.genustech.tv

Sennheiser has cool new Studio Monitors

2008-01-30T21:05:00.000-08:00

Sennheiser now distributes a line of fancy studio monitors made by Klein + Hummel that should compete in accuracy to Genelec's.

The 3" or 5.5" Monitors can be configured with XLR and BNC connections which can be fed either Analog, AES or SPDIF signals. The 3" monitors have a nifty volume control built into them so they would be a great fit for monitoring from a FCP/KONA system or an Avid MOJO SDI System. You can also get them with Analog XLR only for a bit less $.

HVX200 used on CLOVERFIELD

2008-01-20T20:25:00.000-08:00

Continuing my report in big budget films using indie-film gear; The Panasonic HVX200 was used extensively for most of the hand held crazy POV shots in the $30 mil film, "Cloverfield". Previous intel had reported that much of the film was shot with the Sony F23 Cine Alta and the Grass Valley Viper Cam, but further reports have disclosed that those bigger rigs were only used for wide city vistas and other wider shots that served as plates for multiple layers of effects.

There's a good piece in Videography that talks about the camera formats and why certain ones were chosen for different reasons. I'd like to see a more in depth disection on technical aspects of the production. Was the HVX in 720 24PN? 1080 24PA? any custom scene files or external lens attachements?
I'm guessing in the DI that everything was mastered in 1080 4:4:4 before the 35mm film out. I'd like to see how the FX workflow was planned out, how much on-set green screen...etc.

Robert Elswit used Lowel Rifa lights on THERE WILL BE BLOOD

2008-01-20T20:05:00.000-08:00

American Cinematographer interviewed DP Robert Elswit about the production of the $25 mil budgeted mega-epic "There Will Be Blood" for their Jan issue. In the article Elswit talks about how they shot slow film stocks (50D and 200T) in order to get the least amount of grain. He talks about shots where big gun 18K Fresnels and 6K Pars were used, but suprisingly he also used alot of Lowel Rifa lights for interior scenes.
The Rifa is a popular light in the low/no budget film scene cause of its easy of use, versatily and low cost of ownership. (they start at around $400, including lamp)
So, moral of the story is that sometimes inexpensive gear isnt always "cheap" gear. If its good enough for Oscar Nominated Cinematographers it might be good enough for you too!

Replacing a Macbook Pro Hard Drive with a 320GB boot drive!

2008-01-13T20:51:00.000-08:00

The 120GB system drive on my Mac Book Pro was getting pretty filled up. I was getting to the point where I couldnt load new software or add new music. So I decided to upgrade to Western Digital's recently released Scorpio 320GB 2.5" laptop drive.

Jacking into a Mac Book Pro isnt the easiest thing in the world. It requires removing about 30 tiny screws and some T6 Torx screws(!) After you open it, you've got to carefully jimmy around a bunch of glue and tape to get to the hard drive. Ifixit.com posts a pretty good visual guide to doing this.

After successful surgery, the new drive mounted up with about 298GB available before OS formatting. I then loaded up 10.5 clean on the new drive.

I connected my old drive with a WiebeTech USB Drive Dock and then used Migration Assistant to re-import all my old data. Worked like a champ!

After that I ran some system updates and then did a good old fashioned Disk Warrior rebuild for good measure.

Why I'm using Amazon's MP3 Store instead of Itunes

2008-01-10T13:17:00.000-08:00

Its pretty easy to browse the Itunes store interface when looking for temp music for films and videos. Its even easier to "one-click" and download a song or album for immidiate use in Itunes or on your Ipod. But thats where the easy part ends. Oh you want to put that song in a Final Cut Timeline? Ok, just export it as a WAVE and then... oh wait, theres a big DRM LOCK on each file! So now you've got to burn the song to a CD and then re-import to un-lock it. If you've burned an entire album in the order that it was originally presented then you may possibly be able to query the Gracenote database to get the Meta-data back. But often times this is unreliable and you'll need to create your own metadata (ie, song title, year, artist..etc)

I tested the Amazon download service and was pleasantly surprised to find it almost as easy to use as Itunes. Amazon requires that you run an applet that does the downloading for you. It then automatically puts the songs in a folder near your Itunes Songs in your User folder. Itunes should pick these up next time you run it and the songs can be loaded up in all of your Ipods and phones and such. Ofcourse, the biggest benefit here is that the MP3's can be converted to WAVE or AIFF right from QT Pro w/o any hassels!

So, until Apple works out their whole DRM issues with the Music industry I recommend Amazon as your temp music/reference music library for post production uses.

P2 Workflow Workshop in Dallas, Jan 7-8

2007-12-31T07:31:00.000-08:00

HD Expo is hosting a 2-day workshop for all things P2 related at MPS Studios in Dallas on Jan 7th and 8th.

they're gonna go over:
-The P2 media format
-Compression formats
-All about AVC-Intra
-The P2 file tree
-Ins and outs of all cameras, decks and support devices
-P2 Support Utilities
-Production workflow on productions with small to large budgets
-Working with P2 in short to long format productions
-In-depth editing overview
-Complete workflow demonstration from acquisition to edit
-Hands on the latest P2 cameras
-Different options for different shooting scenarios
-Posting with P2

should be lots of good info for people new to P2 and also people who use P2 and may be looking at getting into AVC-Intra.

Register Here

Film Calculator Widget for Mac users

2007-12-27T16:22:00.000-08:00

Film Source LA is a new Raw Stock Company established to take over the short end business from Dr. Rawstock, which became a video VAR called The Dr. Group. I've ordered short ends from Dr. Rawstock in the past and their quality and service were always top notch, so I hope that Film Source lives up to their goals and continues to offer this service. As many know, short ends for 16mm and 35mm film enable super low budget films to be able to shoot on film in cases where they'd otherwise be looking at DV or HDV. For example, you can get a new 400ft can of 35mm Kodak 500T for about $230. 400ft of short ends will cost around $60. Its not quite as dramatic for 16mm, but its still cheap enough to make film shooting possible for filmmakers who normally assume that its way out of their price range.

In order to help with budgeting and shooting ratios, Film Source recently put a Film Calculator widget up for download on their site. You can calculate run times from single 8mm all the way up to IMAX.

download it here

Combustion 2008 released a few weeks ago

2007-12-22T17:38:00.000-08:00

You might have missed this one, but Autodesk quietly released a long awaited update to Combustion in early December. Continuing with their John Madden video game style naming conventions, they've dubbed it 'Combustion 2008'.

Many folks in the compositing field had deemed Combustion to be a dead product. Autodesk was barely releasing bug fixes on Combustion 4, and getting anyone at HQ to help set up upgrades or support contracts was almost impossible. Assumptions were that Combustion would be EOL'ed and that the more powerful (and profitable) TOXIK would take its place.

So, it was a small suprise that an update did occur, but Combustion users wont really see much of an upgrade. The biggest enhancement is the inclusion of the high end Color Warper operator, which is a feature that users of Flame & Inferno have been used to. The app is still 32-bit based for XP, and certified for 10.4 on Mac. No word on 10.5 updates yet. Toxik, on the other hand, can run on 64-bit XP and also Linux OS's. There has been no announcement for Toxik on Mac as of yet.

more info on Combustion 2008 here

more info on Toxik 2008 here

LACIE Rugged Drive survives Fire

2007-12-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

not sure if this is a publicity stunt or not, but this pic shows a Lacie Rugged Bus powered drive surviving a car fire. The driver reported that the drive spun up with no problems and he was able to recover his data.

These little Rugged's have been popular in the P2 world for field dumping MXF files. They have USB, FW400 and FW800 and can be powered via bus power. (perfect companion for the P2 Gear, which requires a USB Bus powered drive if you want to operate completly off of battery power)

Avid finally hires a CEO!

2007-12-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

About 6 months after the "retirement" of former CEO David Krall, Avid has hired a new CEO. Gary Greenfield is new to the TV/Film industry having spent recent time as owner of Francisco Partners, a technology-focused private equity firm. Greenfield will apparently get a $900K a year salary, plus a $600,000 signing bonus. (Isn't public company information fun!)

a little further research into Francisco Partners indicates that they are
"the world's largest technology-focused buyout fund". So, the question is: has Greenfield been hired to orchestrate a sale to another company? Harris seems be a likely candidate as they have been buying companies left and right recently, plus they have virtually no current presence in the NLE market.

new Sony EX Cams have vignetting problems

2007-12-10T07:55:00.000-08:00

75-80% of initial users are reporting various degrees of a vignette on the top corners of their image. This may be an issue of Sony shipping faulty products while trying too hard to meet a ship date.

see this thread up on DV INFO

also, keep in mind that initial NLE compatibility with this camera is still rough (Avid? Premiere?)

Users looking for a ready-to-roll, full quality 4:2:2 camera with established industry compatibility might wanna stick with P2 for awhile.

DULCE DQ RAID is smokin fast!

2007-12-06T07:24:00.000-08:00

I'm setting up a FCP/Adobe/Mac Pro system for a client and he's getting the new DULCE DQ 8-bay PCIE RAID which is advertised to run at about 570MB/s in RAID 5. Well, upon setup and Blackmagic bench test, the unit does indeed run that fast.

The second test we did was to capture about 100GB of uncompressed 10-bit 1080 at 60i. FCP with the Dulce can play back 3 simultaneous streams of this codec w/o a choke!

The new Blackmagic 6.2.2 drivers are built for FCP 6 and Premiere Pro 3.1 and there are now project presets for Blackmagic within Premiere. The drivers work flawlessly on FCP, but I think Blackmagic still has some work to do on the Premiere Drivers. They seem a bit buggy at this point.

FCP 6.02 adds new features, breaks other features!

2007-11-26T10:17:00.000-08:00

So, while many people are singing the praise of the fixed render problems with FCP 6, Panasonic P2 users arent as happy.

Many users are reporting inability to import any sort of P2 with FCP 6.02 and 10.4.11. Users beware, some people are saying it has something to do with plug-ins on your system. See thread here

Apple engineers have acknoleged the issue and are saying "It is being looked at with the highest possible priority."

On the other side of the camera spectrum: FCP 6.02 now completely supports all flavors of JVC PRO HD. This includes 60P and 50P.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium Opening Credits

2007-11-21T12:03:00.000-08:00

Deva George, who stars in BLOOD ON THE HIGHWAY and is also working on the visual FX for the movie, recently worked on the opening credits for the new Dustin Hoffman movie, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

see the credits in their entirety here

Deva was part of the team at REEL FX who put this together. The animation and compositing were done in After Effects, incorporating some elements built in Maya.

Today! FCP Updates and Avid (non) updates

2007-11-15T12:32:00.000-08:00

FCP released 6.02 today which added a few new features and fixed some bugs. The biggies of note are AVC-Intra Support, and also enhanced AVCHD support.

Also, a huge bug in FCP 6 was losing render files when you duplicate or nest sequences, heres the Tech note:
"Lost Render Files for Duplicated Sequences Issue Resolved
In previous versions of Final Cut Pro, rendered items of a duplicated sequence could become unrendered after you reopened a project. In these cases, the render bar indicated that the items were rendered, but the items appeared unrendered during playback in the Canvas. This issue has been resolved in Final Cut Pro 6.0.2."

This proved to be a major issue for a local film I've been consulting on. Hopefully things will go a lot smoother for them now.

see additional notes here

in semi-unrelated news: Avid held a webcast for resellers today to let everyone know that the company was not in financial trouble and that the no NAB thing is not an indication of financial trouble, just a new strategic direction. No real product announcements/ improvements were discussed or hinted at.

Avid Announces Major Shift in 2008 Strategy

2007-11-13T11:15:00.000-08:00

Avid released an odd public press release today announcing Major plans for reworking things for 2008. Avid still does not have a current CEO(I'm pretty sure), they seem to be getting rid of personnel via max exodus, and their public stock has been nosediving of late.

However, this press release seems to signal that they are planning to reorganize and provide some new offerings for next year. One of the things hinted at is more third party integration, which would put some truth to the long running rumour that Media Composer would start to be compatible with AJA and/or Blackmagic hardware.

The other big announcement made today is that Avid will not be exhibiting at NAB 2008. This would make it the first time Avid has not had a booth in 18 years. I guess they wont have the new stuff ready to show by April, and the don't want to just show the old stuff.

Get ready for additional public announcements sometime in February.

Adobe adds Native P2 Support to Premiere

2007-10-19T14:39:00.000-07:00

Adobe today released Premiere Pro 3.1, which finally adds native P2 ingest for Mac and PC editors. It handles MXF's natively, w/o the QT Wrapping that FCP must ahere to. Pretty nifty for a .1 release. They also plan to release an update for After Effects which will enable native MXF's as well. (which should be big news for Avid/After Effects workflows)

Adobe Rep Dave Helmly posts some good tutorials on his site:

see Dave Helmly's Blog

CMOS vs CCD. get ready for your brain to hurt!

2007-09-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

Barry Green writes a thorough Pro and Con with visual examples of CCD camera technology vs CMOS technology. See what problems and/or advantages a Rolling Shutter(CMOS) has vs a Global Shutter (CCD).

http://dvxuser.com/jason/CMOS-CCD/

See the links to various examples of footage shot with CMOS sensors that produced some unfreindly results.

First Screen Grab!

2007-09-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

un-color corrected screen grab of Nicholas Brendon as "Chase Sinclair." 2 more days of principal shooting left!

(As a side note, were not using the P2 Gear on this shoot cause it didnt get here in time, maybe we can field test it on the pick up shots later this month.)

some pics from BLOOD ON THE HIGHWAY

2007-09-08T15:52:00.000-07:00

the shoot is more than halfway done! In above pics: DP Clay Liford with the suped up HPX500 with Canon HD Cine Lens and Chrosziel Matte box and Deva George as "Bone". Also, Nicholas Brendon as "Chase Sinclair"

CANON HD Cine Lenses

2007-08-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

well be doing extensive testing with the Canon 21x7.5 2/3" HD Cine Lens on BLOOD ON THE HIGHWAY thanks to Canon Broadcast.

Canon offers a whole slew of HD Cine Zooms and HD Cine Primes which are great for HD Cinematography with budget 2/3" HD cameras like the Panasonic HPX500. More info, reports and screen grabs coming soon.

http://www.canon.com/bctv/products/index_ec.html

BLOOD ON THE HIGHWAY to utilize P2 Workflow

2007-08-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

Im producing this movie which will be in production Aug 31 - September 12. Its a Comedy-horror film featuring Nicholas Brendon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and Tom Towles (Devils' Rejects, Miami Vice). Were shooting P2 DVCPRO HD on the 2/3" Panasonic HPX500 camera. On-set data dumps will go to a RAID Protected Caldigit FWDrive via a P2 Gear and/or the Duel Adapter. On-set monitoring will be checked on a Panasonic BT-LH1700 monitor which can operate via AC or DC power.

Images from the COLOR Training Class

2007-08-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

a room full of people spent two days going over the major aspects of COLOR. They were exposed to real world scenarios as well as color correction theory provided by Omar.
The hardware config on Omar's training workstation was a Quad-Core Mac Pro with an ATI X1900 Graphics card and a KONA LHE Card. His output was fed to a Sony PVM-20L5 via HD-component, other outputs from the KONA went to a Tektronix Waveform/Vectorscope and also an HD-SDI shootout between the JVC DT-V24L1U and the Panasonic BT-LH2600. Both of these $4K monitors are becoming the weapons of choice for boutique post-production facilities around town.
The Tangent CP-200BK Control Panel connects to the workstation via a RJ45 connection.

COLOR TRAINING CLASS On Aug 9th & 10th

2007-08-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

If you've upgraded to FCS2 and youve been wanting to actually learn how to use the new app, COLOR, you should come to the Training Class Videotex is sponsoring along with Omar Godinez from Color Cafe'. Alot of people dont realize that COLOR was less than a year ago known as Final Touch 2K and had a list price of $24,995 for software only (!)

Omar is a seasoned colorist who really knows his stuff. We'll also have on display/demo one of Tangents hardware Color Control panels!
more info:
http://videotexsystems.com/ColorTraining.aspx

Tangent Panels are cool!
http://www.tangentdevices.co.uk/

On-set ProRes Workflows for Film Production

2007-07-15T11:40:00.001-07:00

I recently set-up 2 FCP/AJA workstations for a feature film being shot in Dallas. They are shooting with the Sony F900R as an A-Cam and also using an Canon XL H1 as a B-Cam. Since a lot of the film is being shot studio style, they decided to capture all signals live into ProRes 422 in FCP6. This way they can bypass 3:1:1 HDcam Processing and 4:2:0 HDV processing by sending an HD-SDI signal into a KONA card and capuring 24P 10-bit 4:2:2 at approx 220mb/s.

Here is the gear/workflow:
- Quad Mac Pro with KONA LHE and Internal Video Stripe used for Live Capture. Live Capture and playback being performed by the AJA VTR Xchange Application because it captures embedded TC over HD-SDI. (Final Cut still cant do this)
capture and playback are outputed to a Sony PVM CRT and also a Samsung 27" LCD w/ 1920x1080 native resolution. A AJA HDP makes the HD-SDI to DVI conversion. Real Time Time Code Burn-ins are available with playback via the KONA Control Panel.

- a Second Quad Mac Pro with KONA 3 and Internal Video Stripe. This Computer is connected to the Capture station via a Gigabit network and will pull the captured clips from one computer to another and then the editor can begin to cut together scenes in FCP while they are being shot. Since a lot of this film is being done greenscreen, the editor can also do quick Chroma Keys in FCP and play them back to his Samsung 27" LCD for Director and Effects Supervisor approval. (this HD-SDI to DVI conversion is being done with the Blackmagic HDLink)
The second Quad Mac Pro can also be used as a capture station if they choose to operate the B-CAM (the Canon XL H1). The canon will be set to 1080 24F, but the output HD-SDI stream is actualy running at 29.97 and it doesnt embed Audio or TC. These Files will have to be analyzed for 24 Frames later via After Effects.

More notes on this production coming soon....

Upgrade your HVX to work with 16GB P2 Cards!

2007-06-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

if youve had your HVX200 for any length of time and youre looking at getting some 16GB P2 cards, you're probably gonna need to upgrade the firmware on the camera..

see here for notes and instructions, you'll need an off-shelf-SD card to get going:
http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/support/software_16gbp2.asp

ProRes 422 Tech Note for G5/KONA users

2007-06-08T15:05:00.000-07:00

see this Apple Tech Note:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305582

This is big… meaning G5 users may not be able to capture live to ProRes using Blackmagic or KONA cards. For shared storage facilities, a newer Mac Pro with a KONA card could be used for capture, then the footage will be available for playback on G5 workstations.

None of is is an issue if you get the new AJA IO HD, which has a built in ProRes encoder board.
http://www.aja.com/html/products_Io_IoHD.html

Panasonic HPX500 w/ Angenieux Cine Lens Packages!

2007-05-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

I've put together a package for the new Panasonic HPX-500 w/ the Angenieux 11.5x5.3 2/3" HD Cine Lens combined with a Chrosziel matte-box-rails-hand-held-follow-focus rig.

Package Includes:
Panasonic HPX500 Camera
Angenieux 11.5x5.3 2/3” HD Cine Lens
Four 16GB P2 Cards
Tripod Plate
Chrosziel 4x5.65 Matte Box w/ Rails
Chrosziel Dual Grip Hand-held Rig
Single Sided Follow Focus w/ Angenieux focus Drive

The Package runs at $42,995.

This is about half of what youd pay for a similiar package with a Varicam!

I can also add location monitors, Battery Power systems, Tripods, location audio & Lighting to round out a complete kit.

If you're unfamiliar with Angenieux: they've been around since 1935. They were one of the first lens companies to pioneer Zoom lenses in film and TV in the 1950's. Their lenses continue to be used for 35mm Feature Films & theyve been awarded 2 Oscars and an Emmy for their optical abilities.

Facilis Terrablock Enables high speed shared storage

2007-05-09T20:22:00.001-07:00

The above image shows the simplicity of the Terrablock direct connect shared storage. This solution has been really popular at post houses and boutique shops cause of its speed, ease of use & low cost. Its also alot easier to set up and maintain than Avid Unity or XSAN. Its also completly platform independent, Avid, FCP, Matrox, Adobe, Pro Tools, & Graphics stations with a mixed PC/Mac environment can all live together on a Terrablock.

Check into their site www.facilis.com for more advanced configs... you can even chain multiple Terrablock's together for online 2K Feature Film workflows!

TEXAS PRODUCTION ROUND-UP Show on May 8th!

2007-04-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

Videotex Systems is sponsoring the 3rd Annual Texas Production Round-Up for the 2nd year in a row.

Come out and see all the new gear announced at NAB, talk to company reps and tech gurus, & bask in the glory that is Richardson, Texas!

heres the details:

Tuesday, May 8th 2007

8AM-6PM

Richardson Civic Center
411 W. Arapaho
Richardson Texas 75080

Companies that will be represented include: Apple, AJA, Adobe, JVC, Canon, Panasonic, Sony, Facilis, Broadcast Pix, Cartoni, Petrof Matte boxes, Compix, Matrox, Grass Valley, Convergent Design, & Lowel.

to pre-register and see the list of Production seminars go to this site:
http://www.mca-i.org/en/cev/?152

Avid at NAB

2007-04-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

Avid's Booth at the show was very crowded ... considering.

Anyways, the new haps are:

- Avid UNITY 5.0 - a new version of Avid's popular shared storage thats now available as Media Engine for mixed fiber and ethernet and Media Engine FC, which is 4-gigabit fiber only. The new systems will start at $25K, which is what Lanshare was starting at before the show.
Avid also announced an open initiative to make Unity freindly with other NLE Systems. They even had a FCP workstation set up on Unity to demonstate this.
see this chart for systems verified for Avid Shared Storage:
http://www.avid.com/products/unityFamily/osi_matrix1.gif

The new price point, 4GB Fiber, and open-initiative are all comebacks for Avid since losing significant market share to companies like FACILIS, whose TERRABLOCK system, can come in at a low price and offer 4 gigabit shareed storage.

on the NLE side, Avid showed their .7 Releases for both Xpress Pro and Media Composer. This included many Mac Pro boxes running Media Composer Software. Interesting to note that there was virtually no Avid hardware on display on the show floor. I didnt see one MOJO or ADRENALINE box.

on a semi-related note. Avid announced a new version of Liquid which can use the AJA XENA LH card instead of the old Chrome B.O.B.

This is a quiet.. but very big step.

Will Avid do away w/ their I/O boxes and go to AJA the way the rest of the Industry seem to be doing? (FCP, Premiere,higher-end Autodesk suiets, Media 100, & Vegas, Cineform all can run on AJA hardware. Not to mention various companies that use AJA OEM for encoding..etc)

Panasonic, Apple thoughts and other new Gear at NAB

2007-04-18T19:14:00.000-07:00

although Apple wowed everyone with Final Cut 6 and freinds, and then double whammied with the new asset management app, Final Cut Server, there were a few big ommisions that Apple didnt address:

1. no Blu-Ray support in Compressor or DVD Studio Pro. Even though Apple announced that they would be supporting Blu-ray, we still have no encoding or burning support natively with Apple Products. You can do it with Sorenson Squeeze or Toast and an external burner from Lacie. This is a big ommission considering both Avid and Adobe now have Blu-Ray support.

2. no new Xserve RAID. This is a big suprise considering that Apple quietly released their 4Gigabit fiber card a few months ago. It seemed logical that their would be a 4GB box w/ SATA or SAS drives.... the Xserve RAID is painfully slow compared with the competition in today's full-size-video-RAID market.

3. no new camera support: still no support for JVC HDV 720 60, also no support for AVCHD-Intra or AVCHD Long-GOP. Only Grass Valley Edius has native support for both of these. Final Cut could add these w/ quick dot revisions....

Panasonic had the biggest buzz of the major camera manufactures at the show. The HPX-500 looks to be a big winner for the mid-range camera market. Cam ops whove been waiting for a real full size 2/3" HD Camera at a affordable price range finally have an option.

Also Panasonic put out a new HT-LH80 7.9" field monitor that adds a color- Focus assist function (similiar to that of the JVC Pro HD cameras) that none of their other monitors have. Also coming out this summer is the P2 GEAR, a step up from the P2 STORE, that adds an extra P2 card slot, a LCD monitor and bigger hard drive.

on the high end, Panasonic announced an external 2K Processor for their HD3700 D5 Deck which allows 2048x1080 24P 4:4:4 signals to be recorded to D5 tape.

I believe this is the only way to get 2K to tape for uses as a master, archives and play-out. Big news for Digital Cinema.

Speaking of 2K, other than the marketing juggernaut that is the RED camera, another company actually has a shipping camera. Silicon Imaging released the SI-2K, which records to 2K 24P to the Cineform RAW codec. This codec is available as the Prospect 2K from Cineform which works with Premiere Pro and soon to work with FCP.
The camera itself can record to off the shelf laptop drives or double-speed thumb drives(!).. you can also tether it to a laptop for ingest in a studio config.
Also, Cineform's new NEO software now works with select Blackmagic Cards.

Speaking of Blackmagic, they announced 3 new products at the show.
1. Multibridge Eclipse - it does just about everything that the AJA IO HD does, has the same price of $3495 and even has the same flashy lights on the front of it. hmmm..... very interesting. It connects the same way as the Multibridge Extreme, a PCIE host card... not firewire 800.
2. an HD LINK PRO - adds 5.1 surround support and 3GB/s SDI for 2K and 4:4:4 apps
3. Intensity Pro - adds analog RCA connections (component, composite, RCA audio) in addition to HDMI. Should fit a good market at $349

new Sony Stuff at NAB

2007-04-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

Sony showed 2 new cameras at NAB... both were behind glass... neither had hard ship dates..

one was a HVX200 knock off... the XDCAM EX... which is a handheld 1/2" fixed lens camcorder which uses P2-esque express card slots, but still shoots to the XDCAM 4:2:0 Long GOP MPEG codec...much like HDV... not near as workflow/render/encode freindly as DVCPRO HD.
the camera will also have an HD-SDI output..... its supposed to ship in October for around $8K... not sure about card pricing.

the other camera, didnt even have a name. Its basically a DSR250 with the word HDV written on it. No word on whether itll be 1/3" (like the 250) or 1/2" (like the XDCAM EX).... it will have a HD-SDI output and can record to full size HDV tape stock. A sony rep said it was atleast a year away.... but, will the market care about tape aquisition at all a year from now?
no word on price on this.... im guessing around $10K.

Sony also showed new LUMA monitors. (LMD 2450 and LMD2050) theyve done away with the 2-piece design...(just about no one wanted those) and have added in a waveform and split screen mode like the popular Panasonic monitors.

there's a 20" & a 24", both come with DVI-D and component ins... HD-SDI is still an expensive option ... a sony guy said something about being able to view 2 HD sources live via the split screen... (which the panasonics dont do)... but i dont see this feature listed in the spec sheets anywhere.... will have to test when we get one in...

all in all it was a game of ketchup for Sony to try and match Panasonic's recent success w/ cameras and monitors...

NAB Picks of the Show

2007-04-18T14:30:00.000-07:00

Just back from NAB Today... here are my picks of the show

1. Final Cut Studio 2 - a major update to every piece of software except for DVD Studio Pro.
the biggies are mixed res timelines (about time), ProRes 422 - a 10-bit 25MB/s HD Codec, and the bundle now includes FINAL TOUCH 2K...er, COLOR, which only 8 months ago cost $25,000

2. AJA IO HD - a cross bewteen the IO and the KONA 2, does every single capture res except Uncompressed HD, but it has a hardware encoder for the ProRes 422, which really makes Uncompressed HD impractical. Also does all conversions, up, down and Cross. Connect to a Mac Pro or Mac Book Pro via Firewire 800.

3. Panasonic HPX-500 - a 2/3" 3-CCD 16:9 P2 HD Camcorder with CineGammaTM Software and IEEE 1394 Interface. Camera starts at $14K, packages start at $27K. (XDCAM who?) 16GB P2 cards for $900 shipping next month and 32GB P2 cards for $1200 by December. You literally had to push people outa the way to play with this camera on the show floor.

more notes on Apple's releases and other gear later.....

New HVX and DVX Promos!

2007-04-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

The HVX200 Mail-in Rebate is now an Anton Bauer Elipz Battery System, Red Giant Colorista Color Correction Plug-in for several NLE's , Instant HD Software from Red Giant. (for 720P to 1080P Cross Conversion). And also the HVX Book by Barry Green.

http://www.antonbauer.com/elipz.htm
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/coloristafeatures.html#system
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/instanthd.html

also, the DVX100B now has a new list price of $2999 (!), which is a $1000 price reduction. You also still get the DVX Book and the Magic Bullet Plug-ins via Rebate/

Videotex at NAB

2007-04-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

I'll be at NAB this year, representing Videotex, along with Bob Gillman, the CEO and Jake Tolbert, one of the other NLE/Workflow specialists at Videotex.

Sunday at 11AM is the big Apple Press Event. Expect new product announcements including a new FCP Studio and maybe a new Xserve RAID.

We'll be attending dealer meetings and meeting w/ clients the next couple of days. I'll be working at the AJA booth on Monday from 4:30-6PM

other places to look this year:
- Panasonic - the New HPX-500 P2 camera, new production monitor and new P2 on-set accessories
- Sony - new LUMA monitors, upgraded Anycast Switcher
- JVC - no word on new products. Expect promotion of the HD200/250 cameras
- Canon - no new DV/HDV products. NAB is traditionally a time for canon to show their broadcast lenses.
- Adobe - showing off CS3 Everything!
- Avid - Avid Composer/Xpress on Mac-Intel
- AJA/Blackmagic - no pre announements. Im guessing no new hardware other than converters. Maybe new drivers & funtionality
- Matrox - no pre announements. Will be showing new functionality/drivers for AXIO and MXO
- Cineform - Mac Drivers for their codec

Call me at 214-529-3725 if you want to meet up at the show.

ATTO to show new SATA HBA at NAB

2007-04-12T20:00:00.000-07:00

Atto has several new products being shown at NAB this year.

One of the biggies is this SAS/Sata Card which is the first to have multiple RAID options including the Video workflow freindly, RAID 5.
http://attotech.com/expressSASr348.html

its gonna be PC or Mac Compatible... internal or external ports...not sure about port multiplying. The list price is $1095

Sonnet Tech is also rumored to be announcing a RAID 5 eSata HBA at NAB, maybe at a lower price?

watch the Trailer for HOLY HELL!

2007-04-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is a trailer made by me and a team of local filmmakers for the SXSW GrindHouse Trailer contest back in February:

www.wipstudios.com/holyhell

you can also see/rate it on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZTj-PKrhho

It was shot on the HVX200 in 720 24PN. Edited in FCP. Effects w/ Sapphire Plugs and AE

Compositing Effects were done by local AE Guru, Deva George
www.obotray.com

Steadi-Cam by Open Window Productions (www.openwindowproductions.com)

Panasonic HPX500 Camera Package Pricing Announced!

2007-04-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

The Camera body & VF is $14K list.

The Packages will be priced from $27k-$32K depending on lens configuration.
All packages come with a tripod plate and 4 16GB P2 Cards.

This camera combines all the good stuff from the HVX200 like Native 720P recording, Overcrank, undercrank, P2 workflow with pro features from the HDX900 like 720 & 1080 recording, HD-SDI, Genlock, TC, Firewire connections and the all-important Cine-Gamma mode.

Contact me about getting on the Pre-Order List

8 CORE Mac Pro's Released!

2007-04-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

Apple has released the long-anticipated 8-core Mac Pro. The update keeps current configurations but adds a top of the line 8-core 3 GHz model for $1498 additional beyond the base 2.66 Quad-core model.

What happened to the Blu-Ray Burner that was supposed to be a new option? It doesnt look like theyll need to change the chassis to include a Blu-Ray option, so you may see that as a CTO when DVD Studio Pro/Compressor starts supporting Blu-Ray burning.

Note: you can currently encode and burn to Blu-Ray on a mac using Sorenson Squeeze and a external burner from LACIE.