HD For Indies

Another week, another round of Blogwad!

CAMERAS -

Mini35 Converter Gives HDV Camcorders A Better View | Studio Daily - P+S Technik's New Converter Puts 35mm Lenses on HDV Camcorders

VideoMaker Learning Section - Assortment of relevant resources.

POST -

DMN @ SIGGRAPH 07 – Realviz introduces Moviemento - Realviz, one of the leaders in “mocap” software displayed one of its new products at this year’s SIGGRAPH.

A Look at xRez Studio's Gigapixel Panoramic Photography - Visual effects based on gigapixel panoramic photography.

Creating color vignettes using Apple's Color - You can produce some excellent looking work with Apple's newest addition to Final Cut Studio.

Apple's Color - Color blows Final Cut Pro’s 3-Way Color Corrector out of the water!

DMN @ SIGGRAPH – eyeon’s Steve Roberts on Fusion - Fusion 5.2 was announced with a host of new features.

Editing 101: Compositing video with a still image - Premiere Pro CS3 expert Jeff Schell makes the White House fountain move in this tutorial.


OTHER -

Flash Player supports H.264 video | The Universal Desktop | ZDNet.com - H.264 and AAC audio support to be added to Flash player. What limitations you may or may not have beyond that not known, but that is definite progress. More stuff to be hardware accelerated full screen playback=good.

Adobe - Adobe Press Room: For immediate release - HDTV Quality Web Video Reaches the Masses with Industry Standard Video Codec in Flash Player.

Flash Player 9 gets beefed up with H.264 support - The beefed-up Flash Player will also include hardware-accelerated, multi-core fullscreen video playback—a "must" for anyone who loves watching more than 5 minutes of video on their computer screens.

AppleInsider | Intel leaks details of Mac Pro-bound Xeon chips - "Intel Corp. plans to launch its Penryn-based quad-core Xeon family of microprocessors on November 11, which may provide Apple with an opportunity to boost the specs of its high-end workstations ahead of the holiday shopping season."

PC World - Paramount's CTO on Why His Studio Is Dumping Blu-ray - Alan Bell discusses why HD DVD is his studio's exclusive high-definition format.

kaourantin.net: What just happened to video on the web? - Detailed rundown of H.264 support in Flash Player 9.

iMac Aluminum versus Others - 3D GAME SHOOTOUT!

iMac Aluminum versus Others - Cinebench 10 and Motion 3 - 'PRO' BENCHMARKS!

iMac Aluminum versus Others -After Effects and Photoshop - ADOBE PRO BENCHMARKS!

Real World Speed Tests for Performance Minded Mac Users - Recent Speed Tests.

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Mike's running commentary

If I had time I could probably write an entire article on the supposition that perhaps the inclusion of H.264 in Adobe's Flash player is a quid pro quo for Apple to add Flash support into the iPhone. Maybe.

Aluminum iMacs - not a bad machine. I'd love to run my FCP test suite on it to see how it holds up. As an offline edit box that lacks true video out - not bad. With 1TB FW800 drives available....

Color - does lots.Workflow still tricky in places, not as easy or perfect. But improving.

HD DVD switch - maybe it isn't just the money as rumored - he puts out a not bad line of reasoning. But he ducks with the whole 'we don't talk money' line of thought as to whether they were paid to dump blu-ray. Even with all his reasoning, are you seriously telling me they'll make money by supporting fewer formats? There's pros and cons to both formats - Blu-ray may scratch easier, HD DVD holds less but costs less. Blu-ray interactivity does lots but hard to program, HD DVD interactivity simpler but easier to program. HD DVD has stabler spec with required connectivity, Blu-ray...doesn't and doesn't and is still a moving target.

I really don't care as much which one wins now (since I have both players, and Final Cut Studio 2 supports HD DVD and Adobe Creative Suite 3 supports Blu-ray on Intel Macs), I just want a clear winner sooner rather than later. And this move delays a clear winner, as Blu-ray seemed to be gaining the lead with 2:1 sales advantage of late on media (content not blanks) sales.

-mike, and thanks again to Andy Nelson who has been helping me all summer and is returning to school starting next week. And to my other intern Geoffrey Frost who wrapped up last week and will be renting out his HVX200 and Brevis 35mm adaptor in Austin soon.

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