HD For Indies

BlogWad Jan 7, 2006
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....so I've been out of town over the weekend, enjoying a thoroughly analog experience - no cell phone, no Internet, no blogging, outdoors, hiking, etc. Aaahhhh.....

So here's all the stuff that I coulda written more about but didn't:

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AppleInsider | Macworld: Avid to launch Intel Mac open beta program: "'We expect to release a new Avid Open Beta program on Monday January 8, 2006 as our way of giving our Macintosh customers a first look at the exciting new software in development before it is released,' Avid reportedly told a select group of customers an an e-mail communication this week."

The company added that the beta program "is specifically for use on Apple?s new Intel-based Mac systems."


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A tool that can do more than just add timecode - DV Guru: "FrameCalculator from Pomfort software does way more than the title implies. Besides being able to add and subtract time code, you can also use it to multiply and divide as well. You can choose from a variety of drop and non drop frame rates, calculate the total number of frames in a sequence, calculate the estimated disk space and capture time, as well as calculate the number of feet or meters of film."

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Shooting With HDV: "Expert, Well-Tested Tips For Getting The Most Out Of Your HDV Camera" - or so they claim - just power skimmed this one myself

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Griptionary - OK, this looks damn handy for all those playing catchup on the lingo thrown around a set - a dictionary of film set terms (found via DVguru.com, long may the rock)

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The ARRI Companion to Digital Intermediate - long and detailed and LOTS of good info - if you need a primer, here it is

Quantel - DI Guide Edition 2 - and read this one too! Keep in mind this is from a DI vendor so they will obviously steer you towards their solutions, but good overall info, just filter accordingly.

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MOVIE STUDIOS OK BURN TO DVD PLAN:

Slashdot | Movie Studios OK Download-to-Burn DVDs: "The Associated Press is reporting that today movie studios have approved Sonic Solutions' technology Qflix, which allows people to download movies and burn them to DVDs that include CSS, the method of encryption that protects all pre-recorded DVDs sold today. According to a press release issued by Sonic Solutions, they will be demoing the technology by appointment at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 8th. " - this should be interesting to see how they pull this off, because one of the things DVD burners are coded not to do is burn CSS encoded data AFAIK. How is that getting circumvented? And the Slashdot article mentions limits on the number of times a movie can be played back - how the hell is that going to be done with read only media? Variables from the disc? That'd only limit # of plays on a given player, maybe at best AFAIK...

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more on same:

New tech adds copy protection to burned movies - DV Guru: "In a move the studios are apparently really excited about, the Associated Press is reporting the MPAA has signed off on a technology from Sonic Solutions that allows legally downloaded movies to be burned to DVD. These average, everyday burned DVDs allow consumers to play them in their average, everyday players."

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WARNER'S TOTAL HD - BLU-RAY AND HD-DVD ON SAME DISC

Warner Bros. DVD Will Play Rival Formats - New York Times - how will this work? Different sides of the disc have different formats? Different depths and semi-transparent layers? The two formats are massively incompatible with each other due to differing focal depths (0.1 vs 0.6mm if I recall correctly) and different laser spot sizes as well.

More clues/confusion:

"Warner Bros. has also patented a disc that can contain three versions of a film -- one in each of the rival high-def formats and a third that can be viewed on standard definition players."

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New Disc May Sway DVD Wars - New York Times - longer article on same

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New disc may sway DVD wars | CNET News.com - another article on same thing

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Not all is skittles and beer for existing players though - Sony encounters new Blu-Ray glitches - DV Guru: "It looks like more problems for Blu-Ray, and Sony this week, as several people are complaining about horror film 'The Descent' not working in their machines."

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Cineon DPX Pro QuickTime Component 2.0.6a %u2013 Mac OS X %u2013 VersionTracker - I've mentioned this tool before, it converts DPX to/from QT files. New in this version: "Very minor changes. Included PPC fix -- Universal Binaries weren't working.More Bugfixes delivered.Licensing issues resolved.The first filename of a DPX sequence can now be used in FCP's Reel Name.SMPTE Userbits can also be used as FCP's reel name."

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LaCie - 6 new products announced - of interest to us:

LaCie - d2 Blu-ray Drive - USB 2.0 & FireWire - Mac/Win, Roxio software comes with, but we're still lacking authoring tools for Blu-ray AFAIK - DVD SP does HD-DVD format, not Blu-ray yet, $1150, shipping "late January"

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LaCie - d2 Quadra Hard Drive - eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 & USB 2.0

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LaCie - Ethernet Big Disk - simple network storage, good for backups, too slow for working with video directly AFAIK, 1TB $500, shipping in February

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LaCie - Ethernet Disk RAID - Gigabit Ethernet: "The Ethernet Disk RAID comes with Gigabit Ethernet interface plus robust data protection, four hot-swappable drives, and RAID 0, 1, 5, 5 spare, and 10 support." - $1000 for 1TB model, RAID 5 would give 750 GB capacity

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Thoughts on managing video - DV Guru: "With so many different media formats, it is no wonder management all of your assets can easily spin out of control. The Fidocam Blog offers some key points when putting together a management plan."

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Wired interviews David Lynch - DV Guru: "'In one word, film is heavy. It's gone, just gone.'Wired has posted a big honking six page transcript from a recent interview with David Lynch, in which he discusses all things filmmaking, including his move to DV, and lots of other random stuff, in typical Lynchian fashion. "

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Flip4Mac Drive-in: "Drive-in is an innovative application that allows you to store your personal DVD movie library on your Mac. It is now available as a public beta.
Using Drive-in you can create an image of a DVD disc on your laptop or home entertainment system. The image preserves the quality, navigation and special features of the original DVD and can be played using Apple%u2019s DVD Player or Front Row."

Thanks to Mark of OffHollywood for pointing me in this direction.

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MacBreak episode: Conversations with Other Women - DV Guru: "MacBreak has a great episode, number 36, that you should check out. The guest is Kwesi Collisson, producer of Conversations with other Women. The movie was shot using the Sony CineAlta F900 and ediited with Final Cut Pro."

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Freeware preset tuner for Canon XHA1 and XHG1 - DV Guru: "Tweaking the factory presets for a better image can be a pain in camera. Luckily for the owners of the XHA1 and XHG1, Canon had the foresight to include a way to edit the settings on your computer with all of the adjustments in front of you. Unfortunately, the software costs an extra $600" - but there is a freeware alternative, follow the link for more on it.

-mike

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Confessions of a Teenage Fanboy: Ten things I wish I had known before I switched to OS X. - I'm such an ingrained Mac Geek, I don't know notice some of this stuff. Recent or considering switcher? Some things to note.

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What exactly does BackupHDDVD do? Oh, and version 1.0 is released. - Engadget - it backs up HD DVDs purportedly. Can't find confirmation that somebody else has successfully used it yet.

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Product News: The Big View%u2014TV Trends in 2007 - Electronic House Info and Answers

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Accelerate Your Macintosh! News Page - 1/4/07: "Sonnet E4P SATA Card Driver for Mac Pro - This may be old news to some but a reader with a Mac Pro (3GHz model) wrote he had a problem with a Sonnet E4P (PCI express, 4 external port) card being recognized in his Mac Pro and that a driver update solved it."

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Why you should defrag - DV Guru - video stuttering during editing and you think it shouldn't be? Read this.

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Bella Pro series 3.0 keyboard reviewed - DV Guru: "Bella recently released the new Bella Professional series 3.0 keyboard designed for video editors."

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FresHDV | Fresh news & views for videographers, editors, filmmakers, directors, producers & creatives. : "Hitachi is the first to market with a Terabyte hard disk drive, the Deskstar 7K1000. The drive will be shown at the 2007 CES in Las Vegas."

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General Specialist - Tips, Tricks and Tinkerings: Absolute Curves in After Effects: Beta-test This Cool Plugin

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............aaaaaaaaaaaand that's all folks, that should help you procrasatinate on a Monday morning...