HD For Indies

First up, see pictures from the last couple of days here, I'll post some more tomorrow as well.

My talk Friday went well - it was a small enough group I tailored it for the folks there, so we ended up talking about their particular interests and needs. A couple of folks there have been testing the SI-2K recording head, so I want to follow up with them.

Utah has some funky rules about bars - you have to be a "member" to come into a bar, which basically means a cover charge to enter. On top of that, shots are state regulated, and TINY, so you still pay $7 but get a small amount of alcohol. Harrumph.

My friends at OffHollywood Digital (a post facility & production company) and Red (edit - and Tekserve too) had a party on Friday night, and it was great - good turnout, good folks, lots of industry to the invite only shindig. Mark Pederson, one of the partners in Off Hollywood, did an outstanding job of public announcing, we All Hail. Susan Buice of Four Eyed Monsters fame showed up, she and her partner in crime Arin Crumley are shooting daily video blogs for Sundance. I chatted with her about Red, and she got so jazzed about it she tracked down Arin (who was napping on a stranger's couch) to come over and see. Arin came over and we did a long interview about Red, and he definitely Got The Fever. See his entry on the day, it's 2 1/2 minutes and a minute of it is on Red, he's into it - see more about it here, including a great quote about how just the idea of Red inspires him to make a new feature.

Update - ran into Susan Buice at the Fujinon party tonight, she said there were some problems with the audio file format or compression or something, Arin was working on it, so it is coming, just not done yet.

I continued to network and schmooze and hopefully picked up some new potential clients, so Mission Accomplished. I then proceeded, without noticing, to get unmercifully plowed. Oopsie.

Thus polluted, I managed to navigate all the way back across the road to my place and crashed out hard.

I woke up this morning and had to change my ambitions for the day - instead of speaking for a second time at HD House, I downsized my goals for the day - now I was just trying to keep down toast. My apologies to anyone who showed up looking for me, I understand Gary Adcock jumped in at the last minute - thanks man! He knows his HD shiznit inside and out - I ask him for answers to stuff I don't know.

A few hours of recovery and a LOT of "Urban Detox" later, I went to go see Ted Schilowitz of Red talk about the Red One to see if there was anything new to report. Not really, nothing I haven't reported here on before. At one point he was talking about changes, and progress on the camera, and NAB, and said something about "we'll keep you posted on progress over the next few months" or something very much like that. Does that mean they won't be done for a few months? They've been saying "engineering goals" and "no promises" and "all specs subject to change" all along - just curious when the cameras will be done. I've been idly hoping to get mine this summer sometime. If it takes until August, I won't be surprised. If it took until December, I'd be cranky about it.

Also in the same presentation, Jeff Cree of Band Pro talked about Sony's upcoming F23 camera

Here's what I can remember at 3:30am the next day about it:
-F23 names comes from F from 24 frame capable (?) and 23 from 2/3 inch sensor - simply as that. No HPC or anything in front of it, just "F23" is the full name
-it is NOT NOT NOT a baby Genesis! It is not a commercialized version of the Genesis (Sony designed the electronic guts and imaging system of the camera, Panavision did the casing/packaging/form factor stuff)
-it has a different imager and different tech - it is a 2/3" 3 CCD setup, B4 lens mount - so totally different from the 35mm sized sensor and Panavision lens mount in Genesis
-shoots 10 bit, 14 bit image processing
-1-30 fps in 10 bit 4:4:4
-1-60 fps in 10 bit 4:2:2
-CAN ramp shots, and can control ramping and offrate IN THE CAMERA
-records to a dockable SRW-1 HDCAM SR deck - that is the big deal about this camera
-is newer than the F950, shares some things with the HDC-1500
-SRW-1 can mount on top (compact) or back (better center of gravity to shoot with), or can be remoted for a two part tethered solution
-can go 100 meters with single or dual link HD-SDI
-a fiber optic option will be available in the future, can go 1600 meters
-better lattitude by 1 1/2 stops if I recall correctly than the F950 (this may be wrong recollection on my part)

Also talked to JVC guy about the new GY-HD200U and GY-HD250U cameras that shoot 60fps progressive to 19mbit HDV. Some notes:
-24p mode in those and the 110 are all 19 megabit for 24p - no frame repeating or cadence, so each frame at 24p at 19mbit means more data, less compression, cleaner image than 30p mode
-60fps is achieved by using a GOP of 12 instead of 6
-claims it looks good, since less motion frame to frame, 60fps encodes more efficiently per frame than 30p does - so doesn't require twice the data rate
-but obviously, each frame from 60p can't look as good as each from from 24 or 30p

I wandered around a bit and came back to see Crispin Glover talk about his new film. After a tiresome, wandering intro, he showed three teasers for the film - I left - it looked painful to watch, so I didn't want to hear any more about it. Color me gone.

Celebrity Watch:
-Ian Ziering was apparently at the Red/Off Hollywood party, but I missed him. He started trying to schmooze up a cute woman, but was irked when he realized she was married to the six foot seven tall guy - Jarred Land of dvxuser and reduser.
-Saw Kevin Bacon on a balcony. He looks harshed on - time to serious net that lens.
-Saw P. Diddy (or is it just "Diddy" now? I don't track that crap) - when he crossed the street, it was like this Reality Distortion Field of excitement that travels before him like a bow wave, leaving a wake of those 20something girls shrieking along behind him, trying to get their camera phones out in time
-saw (I think) Sasha Baron Cohen out and about at night tonight - he was wearing a hat pulled down low, collar turned up, and huge, dark sunglasses after midnight, and every time he walked by somebody, he held up his hand to shield his face. Seems like he's not enjoying being famous and not liking the attention here. Not a fun way to go around. Hey Sasha - come to SXSW, nobody will care...
-saw Crispin Glover speak, and he still dresses funny. Funny odd, definitely not funny ha ha.

I then came back to get ready for the Reduser.net party, but I'll save that for another entry - it is 3:45am, gotsta get to bed. This is pretty much what I'd written before, just not as witty and charming (riiiiiiiight). More name dropping, pictures, and adventures to follow in our next exciting episode...

-mike

Labels: Sundance