HD For Indies

Some tidbits of interest from CES, and more good stuff about the EX1 from Matthew Jeppsen of FreshDV, Netflix's set top box, and more.

Canon Debuts First High Definition Solid State Camcorders: HF10 and HF100 - Canon

Sony Offers a Single HDV Model for 2008 - HDR-HC9 - Sony: "Sony has announced that they will release only one model in HDV category, the HDR-HC9, at least for early 2008. This decision only confirms the generally recognized fact that the tape-based HDV format has fallen out of favor compared to DVD, hard disk drive (HDD), and flash memory media using the newer AVCHD recording format." Retails for $1099. Even though this is a consumer camera, they are recognizing that HDV is/was a transitional technology.

Move Over HV20, Here Comes the Canon HV30 - Canon: "oday at CES, Canon announced the Vixia HV30 ($999 MSRP), the replacement for the popular HV20. The new HDV camcorder features an all-black design, a multi-angle Vivid LCD screen, and the ability to capture in 30P mode. Canon now offers a total of five camcorders in their newly christened “Vixia” high definition line-up.
“With the exception of those features, the product is the same as the HV20. Is it a revolutionary product? No."

XDCAM EX1 Hands-On - Gamma and Color Matrix Presets at FreshDV More downloadable samples. Matthew & gang are really going deep on all this - all for our benefit. Much thanks!

XDCAM EX1 Hands-On - Picture Profiles and Image Settings at FreshDV Video walkthrough of the menus. Good stuff if you want to see the nitty gritty.

MORE ADDED HERE: XDCAM EX1 Hands-On - Night Footage Compression Examples at FreshDV: "One of the areas that the new Sony XDCAM PMW-EX1 really excels is in native light sensitivity. Night shooting with the EX is relatively simple, as the camera seems to find illumination and color saturation in even the darkest of scenes. Here are a few examples of night footage shot with the EX1, including a 60p overcranked shot."

Wired News - AP News - netflix is going to offer a set-top box that'll download movies. thousands of titles available, vs. nearly 100,000 titles available on DVD. Devil in the details....will indie content be made available via this system?

2007 Best & Worst: Online movie gimmicks - latimes.com

As I Hear It - Choosing the Right Microphone: "An Overview of Popular Short Shotgun, Supercardioid, Hypercardiod and Cardioid Microphones

By Dan Brockett"

Long, GOOD. Good sound makes people think your picture look better. Good mikes are key. READ.

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The rumor sites are buzzing that new Macs are due at MacWorld - Penryn processors and Blu-ray for desktops, and an ultraslim/small laptop. I won't deign to let the rumormongers get traffic from here based on those rumors - it is their JOB to promote rumors, most often inaccurate, that simply drive traffic...and revenue. Here's what I think is likely:
-Penryn processors: they came out in November, so why NOT finally now? Newly optimized compilers could help get best results.
-high def optical discs in towers: Apple has been on the Blu-ray board since what, 2005? When Jobs got up on stage and announced, with then honcho of Sony, that Apple would support Blu-ray. Well, 3 years later, they...MIGHT. Blu-ray SEEMS to be stepping into the lead - Blu-ray disc sales surpass HD DVD substantially, even though the players cost more. BUT...Apple would have some homework to do. One of the rumor sites reported that Apple would have to rename DVD Studio Pro to Disc Studio Pro. Hardly. Currently, you can author an HD DVD formatted volume and burn it to a traditional DVD+/-R, either single or dual layer. Blu-ray is not presently supported - we'd need an updated DVD Studio Pro to support Blu-ray. SOOOOO.....if Apple has been supporting HD DVD (albeit in a limited capacity) - why would they completely shift gears? This bodes for the possiblity that they may offer a combo (does both) or two separate optical drives - get one or both HD formats. Remember, the Mac Pros have two optical bays - why else offer them if you aren't going to have two optical drives?
-Apple typically updates DVD Studio Pro with the rest of Final Cut Studio at NAB - in April. And HD optical support is really a pro video feature at this point in time...not a consumer feature, which MWSF is all about (consumer stuff, that is). So maybe optical drive updates will wait for NAB, unless Apple drops a surprise DVD Studio udpate on us. Doubt it. I'm thinking Penryn based boxes announced at MWSF, but perhaps a wait until NAB for HD optical drives and the software to take advantage of them. Unless we get a Blu-ray burner and can just use it for data backups in the meantime...or HD DVD and we can make HD DVDs now.

Much to think about.

As to rumors of an AppleTV 2.0....be nice, but dunno. A TV tuner, better HD support, and bigger hard drives would make it a more viable choice. As well as an optical drive to make it be a less limiting device...but that wouldn't be Apple's way. They did away with floppies and went all-USB early on - they tend to not look back.

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David Lynch on movie watching on iPhone (HARSH language included):


....spoken like a traditionalist. If you believe "watching a movie" is best in a theater, next best on a good home theater system, and doesn't count on a mobile device, then sure, he's right.

But I watch Lost episodes on iPhone and don't feel shortchanged - I got what I wanted out of it.

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BTW - if Apple has to PAY damn near retail for movies for downloads, can they at least release them in HD as well at that price????

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Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III Review of badass digital camera (still, not motion).

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Making Movies in the XXIst Century - quickie overview, is the HD4NDs ethos (mostly) in a few paragraphs.

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Australian Centre for Visual Technologies
| VideoTrace: Rapid interactive scene modelling from video: "VideoTrace is a system for interactively generating realistic 3D models of objects from video—models that might be inserted into a video game, a simulation environment, or another video sequence."

Pretty groovy.

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OK, enough for now....

Labels: blogwad, EX1