HD For Indies

Film & Video | Hands-On HDV

A nice recent article with hands on advice. Nick Tucker, the first guy quoted, and I hung out during NAB this year a bit (even took pics together).

Read up for good tips on working with HDV. Good stuff here for aspiring shooters. Actually, REALLY good stuff in here, a lot of if confirming things I've said in here, but some better stuff from hands on, in the field shooting (I'm not a shooter).

There are a few things I'd disagree with in practice if not in theory - somebody recommends recording out to an HDCAM SR deck (which costs about $100K) and processing it through a Teranex (nice quality but expensive). This works, but MAN, there are less expensive solutions for the same or similar quality! Recording uncompressed to computer isn't that much harder than to a 70 pound HDCAM SR deck, etc.

-mike

CinemaTech: Barry Diller elaborates: More thoughts on user-generated content:

Scott interviews Barry Diller, media honcho.

"at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco set the blogosphere buzzing. Diller conveyed the impression that he didn%u2019t think we're on the verge of seeing a creative explosion sparked by a population of talented bloggers, musicians, and filmmakers who publish their work on the Net. (See also this OnoTech post on amateurs versus professionals.) Diller told me today that he may have been misunderstood. There will be lots of user-generated content, he believes, but most of it will be consumed by small audiences. He doesn%u2019t think there are a thousand as-yet-undiscovered J.J. Abramses or Steven Spielbergs or Madonnas, who will make TV or or movies or music that appeals to a large swath of the populace."

and also of interest,


“What it does mean is that real, professional talent – being in the professional discipline of it – is a small group always. By its very definition, it is small. Respectfully to all of us humans, there are simply not that many great poets, singers, actors, dancers. There are, thankfully, enough. But we shouldn’t delude ourselves, that suddenly vast numbers of previously undiscovered talent will emerge through this instant publishing process. I just don’t think it’s going to happen.”

“I am a total believer that talent outs. There is no talent hidden away in a garage that doesn’t eventually out. And of course because of its self-publishing nature [of the Internet], it has a chance to get there quicker.”


Read on for more interesting stuff...

Blackmagic Design: Software Downloads

From their website's description:
DeckLink 5.1.2 for Mac OS X 10.4

31 October 2005

This release version adds: HD 720p to NTSC down conversion on all DeckLink models; HD cross conversion allowing 720p mastering to 1080i broadcast decks in real time on all DeckLink HD cards; Time Code Reader and Frame Count Display in Blackmagic Deck Control; gamma corrected output from After Effects; updated Apple Uncompressed 422 codecs; compatibility with QuickTime 7.0.3. Compatible with Final Cut Pro HD v5.0.3 (not v4.5).


Mike's Comments: 720p to NTSC down conversion is a LONG desired feature, so this is great. The ability to upconvert 720p to 1080i is nice as well (will it do 720p24 to 1080i60 on the fly, or only 720p60 to 1080i60?)

So good stuff.

-mike

Apple sells 1 million videos on 20 days

Now, I don't know how many videos other services are selling, but this is encouraging. Cross this with the NYTimes article about big screens/small screens I linked to over the weekend (scroll down to find it). But selling a million videos in less than three weeks? Something tells me there is going to be a market here.

Also, just for fun, here's a link to a tool to batch convert movies to the iPod Movie format.

And here's also a tool that claims to be up to 5 times faster than Apple's tools.

-mike

The Extra-Large, Ultra-Small Medium - New York Times

Taking a look at big vs small screens, and what each is good for. More Later, but read & think. Cross this with web based clip video sites, and you start to see where media is heading.

-mike

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do - Why Pixar can't leave Disney. By Edward Jay Epstein

Wow. I hadn't realized that Disney as exclusive sequel rights to Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., and The Incredibles. And they don't have to include Pixar necessarily, either. Disney also has exclusive rights to use the characters in its theme parks.

Back in 1991, Steve Jobs cut a deal with Disney, and Disney financed the production of Toy Story. 3 years later, a blockbuster was born, and Disney's most lucrative toy licensing platform EVER was also created.

Read on for more details.

-mike

Slate Magazine

Here's a nice collection of all the very insightful pieces Edward Jay Epstein has written for Slate about Hollywood biz model stuff.

Really, really good if you want to understand the business of Hollywood.

-mike

CinemaTech: `Serenity' screening: A digital first

As usual, Scott's all over the good stuff - the first full-on digital screening using all the specs from the Digital Cinema Initiative's format. I'll skip the acronyms, if you care read the link above.

The big deal is that the spec came out just a few months ago, and now there is already hardware set up to use it, and a test screening will be done with a "for real" movie. An important first step. Closed to the public, unfortunately.

-mike

Got this in an email today from a vendor:

Driven primarily by a European directive to reduce hazardous substances, Panasonic has redesigned the DVX-100 series with its latest revision, the AG-DVX100B. While they were at the design table a host of new features were also added. The most notable improvements are:

16:9 Aspect Display Mode on EVG and LCD, making it easier and more effective for framing in Squeeze Mode or Anamorphic Display
Remote Focus and Iris Control with Varizoom and others
Single-button display character off for LCD/EVG through the audio dub/display button. Allows fro clutter-free image
Larger-capacity standard battery
Scene files transferable to another DVX100B over firewire
Jam timecode to multiple cameras over firewire
Heavier-duty tripod connection
Audio off tape or live E—E for delay free, echo free monitoring

A new Black Sapphire body and textured lens paint distinguish the unit from previous models.


Link from Panasonic's site, and also this article from DVXuser that lists improvements in fine detail. A quick quote from that one:


First, what’s not there: no 16:9 CCD chipset. No P2 card slot. Nothing radical like that; and truthfully, nobody should expect changes like that in a model revision anyway. This is a “letter” revision, not a whole revamp

Disney backs anti-piracy technology for Oscar DVDs - Yahoo! News

Disney is getting VERY serious about locking down their Oscar screener movie DVDs sent out to members of the Academy. The discs will ONLY play back on DVD players made by a division of Dolby (and yes, they are sending free DVD players to all those people, something like 12,000 of them!). The discs will ONLY play on those players, so if copies are made they won't play on generic DVDs.

After lambasting the public for years, Hollywood was chagrinned to discover that the source of a lot of their leaked copies were members of the Academy.

-mike

indieWIRE BLOGS > Matt Dentler's Blog on IndieWire.com has a picture of me and Greg Carter (Houston based filmmaker, we've panelled together multiple times in the past).

Matt runs (and runs and runs!) the SXSW Film Festival.

Scroll down a bit, Greg's the big guy in black, I'm the skinny guy in green.

TransIntl miniG Serial ATA (SATA) Enclosures

As long as we're talkin' SATA RAID, the mini-G looks EXACTLY like a G5 you left in the drier too long - a functional match to the G5.

FirmTek SeriTek/2eEN4 four drive eSATA enclosure

Nice review of a nice 4 bay hotswap SATA enclosure. I like it!

-mike

Exporting a movie from iMovie HD to iPod

Step by step on how to make a video iPod-able movie from the latest version of iMovieHD.

From Apple's site.

-mike

www.defperception.com is a new blog about working with P2 card based DVCPRO HD media. It is covering a camera I am VERY much looking forward to, and I DO recommend folks SERIOUSLY contemplate buying the stuff they are talking about here, HOWEVER....this is a PR plant by Panasonic.

What really bugs me is that the are presenting this as a blog that some guy has put together, but in reality, it is a Panasonic marketing piece.

That really bugs me that they are faking a "real" blog with this blog, that ends with:

Copyright ©2005 Panasonic Corporation of North America. All rights reserved


Not that the guy writing it isn't a nice guy.

Not that the equipment he's writing about isn't really killer and cool.

Not that what he is saying is incorrect or false in any way.

Hell, I could see, in a not too different parallel life, that I would have felt thrilled to be asked to write something like this for a vendor.

But he's presenting himself as an objective observer with the blog, down to pictures from trips he's taken, but in fact this is a sponsored PR/marketing plant from Panasonic, that he's being paid by them to do this, but presenting it in an objective, not subjective, format.

As someone who strives to present truly independent, non-biased content, that bugs me. And offends me.

A LOT.

-mike

Lynda announces new training title on FCP 5 | MacMinute News


"In Final Cut Pro 5 Essential Editing, Apple-certified, Larry Jordan teaches the essential editing techniques users need to get up and running with this complex program. In addition to introducing users to the software, Larry demonstrates the planning and organizing strategies he’s developed as a professional video editor that can greatly increase editing efficiency. Exercise files accompany the training videos."


More training materials for ya, until I can produce my own...

-mike

High Definition DVD: Who Needs It?

This guy is making a lot of points I've been talking about - most consumers, with typical viewing distances in the living room, on the size of HDTVs they can afford, can't really notice the difference between high def and standard def TVs. When watching regular DVDs on an HDTV or an a large 16:9 SDTV, they think they are already seeing high def DVDs. He makes some points about horizontal resolution greater than 1440 pixels can't be perceived, and that there are decreases in contrast beyond that level, that I can't vouch for - I don't know.

There have been some recent allegations that the guy that runs this site is on JVC's payroll and hence his motivations are suspect, but I don't have any hard data on that to confirm. So I don't know if this info is motivated by corporate interests of if what the writer is claiming is factually accurate. Dunno, just disclaimer disclaimer.

In any case, there is a strong risk that consumers will look at the high def DVD players, with their competing formats and high costs, and new TV requirements (only plays HD content on HDMI equipped TVs with HDCP, otherwise downsamples to standard def), that make may most consumers say bag it, and HD DVD and/or Blu Ray just become Laserdisc 2.0 - a rarity for the video fanatics with lots of money.

-mike

FresHDV - Cineform quality tests for Vegas & PC users : "VideoGuys has a link to Cineform HDV Intermediate Codec image quality comparisons. This comparison focuses on multi-generational quality degradation, and how well the Cineform intermediate handles that challenge. They compare raw MT2 media with sources that have been converted to the Cineform codec, and then show that media after 10 generations of processing.The differences are striking. Cineform beats native M2T editing, hands down. "

AppleInsider | Nvidia 7800 GT and Power Mac G5 Quad in final testing

I had not specifically pointed out that Apple is now offering the nVidia 7800 GT graphics card as a build to order option offered after the new PCIe G5s were announced. It looks to be about as powerful for graphics (markedly faster at some things, slightly slower at others, than the Quadro FX card. See here) for details on how the two stack up.

I've changed my order from Quadro FX to 7800 GT. I'm really buying this box specifically for Final Touch HD, so the extra $1300 wasn't especially well suited for Final Touch usage from what I can tell so far.

This looks like it will delay my order by 1-2 weeks officially, I read that as 3-4 in practice, so again I'm happy if it is in the office by Christmas (maybe I'll have my BlackMagic Design Multibridge Extreme by then too).

It appears that Apple will offer a RETAIL, as in available in Apple Retail Stores, version with this card, called the Power Mac G5 Quad Ultimate configuration for about $4000.

Holding up the 7800's release is Apple QA to keep audio noise levels in line.

The Quad G5s will be using liquid cooling, same as before.

The article includes some benchmark results, but nothing particularly revealing for our FCP (or FTHD) rendering times, which is frankly what I'm interestd in most.

They did say, in an After Effects 6.5.1 test, that the Quad G5 rendered 272% faster than a dual 1.42 GHz G4.

-mike

CinemaTech: HD Expo in LA

An interesting conference in LA. If you're local, strongly worth considering.

-mike

TidBITS: Preventing Second Drive Sleepiness

This is a mintor point, but a handy one if you have a second drive installed internally.

-mike

These guys make plugins for Final Cut Pro and After Effects to do a variety of nifty things. If you need to do paint or roto tasks, and want to do it inside FCP or AE, you should seriously check this out - the ability to do paint or roto without having to bail out to another program is a serious advantage. I was in a production meeting today talking about getting rid of some scratches on film, and telling them that I could fire up Commotion (old, dead end app that works well for these tasks) to fix it (or I suppose After Effects 6.5 could work, too).

Tidbits from an email they sent me:

- Silhouette Roto 2.1 is now available. The AE / FCP plug-in version price
has dropped from $495 to $295!
- Silhouette Paint 1.0 is now available - the first raster paint solution
for After Effects and Final Cut Pro. Silhouette Paint for AE and FCP is just $245.
- All versions (stand-alone and plug-in) are available with optional floating licenses.

Reader Mail time. Got this one from Terence:

Hi Mike,

Great site and keep up the good work.

I'm trying desperately to choose a HD suite (not HDV) between the attractive Matrox Axio HD system or the Apple Final Cut Pro road.

Up to now I've worked DV on PC but the HD will be a major step up. I see your entire site is built around the Mac but I was wondering if you had any particular thoughts about HD on PC. I'm not looking for an in-depth comparison (that would be great but...) more just some general thoughts. On PC there is also the openhd certified systems. Do you think there's no contest between both platforms?

Anyway thanks in advance

-Terence


My response (with a little extra at the end):

That's a toughie to give a definitive answer. As always, it depends on what precisely it is you intend to do with it. As the site name suggests, I'm most interested in HD for Indies, not so much for industrials or commercial applications. So far, it seems for a variety of reasons, that Mac/FCP combo offers a good set of features, ease of use, reliability, large user base to tap into, low cost, interoperability with other post tools, stability, etc., and is favored by a decent chunk of the serious editing world.

For features, for serious editors out there in the world, there's Avid, there's Final Cut Pro, then, somewhere down below that, Everyone Else.

For industrials, for FX laden projects, Premiere Pro can do a lot of stuff, and you can save a thousand or two dollars by going PC over Mac. But for feature stuff, I'm aware of only one or two indie features of any serious size that have cut on Premiere Pro.

When I was at NAB checking out Axio, the rep was saying it was about a $30K system, and while it is very powerful and does a lot of things FCP doesn't (mix & match SD/HD on same timeline, for instance), it still had some holes - it didn't support 24p at 720p resolution, for instance. A dealer killer for those looking to post their Varicam projects (at the time - I don't know if they've addressed that yet).

In years past I've heard a LOT of griping about getting everything working smoothly with Premiere Pro, issues with motherboards etc. that you don't get with Apple hardware - one model, supported. Of course, the certified systems you mention alleviate a good chunk of that concern on the PC side.

Avid runs on Mac or PC, and the newer/better/heavier versions are PC based. While it is an excellent editing tool with great media management, I feel it has a dated user interface, and it definitely gets very pricey to upgrade it enough to handle uncompressed HD.

I'm working on a longer piece inspired by the editing panel I attended over the weekend at the Austin Film Festival, that will discuss furrther the whole Avid vs FCP thing. I'll get it up as soon as I have time to finish it, I've been swamped with the site, the film festival, two new businesses, an injury, a car accident, etc.

-mike

PS-Matthew Jeppsen of FresHDV.com sent in this link to a recent review of Axio. Thanks man!

CinemaTech: Will 'Little' open big?

Referring to Chicken Little, and whether Disney can make a blockbuster animated film on it's own, or whether it needs Pixar to do it for them. One analyst said that if it does $350M or better, it'll be proof they can do it on their own, if it does $200M or $250M, Pixar will still be top dog, and Disney will be motivated to sweeten their deal to bring them back into the fold.

-mike

Well, I'd heard about the Front Row thing and not really checked it out yet (waaaaay busy with things YOU WILL BE EXCITED ABOUT once I can talk about it).

But two things happened today:

1.) A l33t haxor buddy of mine (YES that is intented to be ironic) clued me in that Front Row has promptly been hacked to run on any Mac, and you can use Salling Clicker, or a Keyspan remote (I have two from a federal court case I did litigation support for a few years back), or just your keyboard to control it.

2.) Then Martijn Schroevers, My Man In Amsterdam, forwarded this link to me of a guy who had installed it and was using Salling Clicker to control media playback of his Mac projecting through a large 16:9 projector on the wall.

Superfluous #3.) God DAMN, I want that setup on my G5 stat!

Clearly, Front Row is the uber Mac TiVo type of thing we've been waiting for as consumers. It does music, videos, plays DVDs, slices, dices, juliennes. This will be the interface for the living room Viiv based Intel Macs of next year, I PROMISE YOU. Figure on a Yonah powered Mac Mini that will play back HD content. I'm figuring they'll have 960x720 HD movies by next Christmas at the latest as a downloadable thing. If not, it will be all the studios' fault.

Do I have a copy of that software? That would probably be illegal to have a cracked copy, and a bootleg at that, so it would be ill advisable for me to say I have it, as it is supposed to be the exclusive purview of new iMac purchasers.

Co. to Launch Internet-Based HDTV Service - Yahoo! News

It is relying on fiber, which is scarce and pricey, but they are delivering 260 channels including 15 HD channels over IP (internet protocol).

Interesting test. The article mentions another test in Keller, Texas (I live in Texas and have never heard of that town), but that one is strictly VOD (Video On Demand), not regular running programming.

Interesting!

-mike

CinemaTech: `Netflix to delay launch of online download service'

Headline says it all....this is happening almost entirely because the studios aren't willing to "cough up content." Note even Jobs, who runs Pixar, couldn't even get Disney in with more than just TV shows.

-mike

CinemaTech: Videogamers: Your next job awaits

Scott had an interesting conversation with Allan Yasnyi, consultant and former TV exec.

Talked about what it takes to change an industry - gotta have folks without "legacy issues."

I couldn't agree more.

An interesting read, mentions Disney's feint at collapsing release windows, mentions 2929 and their Soderbergh simultaneous release deal.

Macworld: News: Power Mac G5 Benchmarks: Dual-core's strong showing

Most significant stats for us:

iMovie HD Render (rendering WHAT not stipulated):
Dual Core 2.0 GHz: 36 secs
Dual processor 2.3 GHz: 36 secs
Dual Core 2.3 GHz: 33 secs
Dual Processor 2.7 GHz: 25 secs

Compressor 2.0 MPEG-2 Encode:

Dual Core 2.0 GHz: 6 min 20 sec
Dual processor 2.3 GHz: 6 min 3 sec
Dual Core 2.3 GHz: 5 min 35 sec
Dual Processor 2.7 GHz: 5 min 12 sec

Also of note was the fact that Unreal Tournament 2004 was fastest on the Dual Core 2.3 GHz system, probably with the stock 6600 graphics card; hinting at the speed benefits of a PCI Express (PCIe) based graphics card over PCI-X in the 2.7 GHz G5 that it beat by a few frames per second.

-mike

About Pro Applications Update 2005-02 fixes some issues when dealing with PAL/NTSC transcoding, and HDV to DVD compression.

Also, Pro Application Support v3.1 updates...some stuff. From Software Update:

This update improves general user interface reliability for Apple's professional applications and is recommended for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Soundtrack, Logic Pro and Logic Express.

-mike

...and THEN run it again, a second time! Final Cut Pro 5.0.3 is listed in Software Update (but ONLY showing up after installing the above updates), and so is Cinema Tools 3.0.3. Neither of the text descriptions in the Software Update panel is useful ("delivers improved reliability"), and neither of the links to more info have been updated (the linked PDF files preesently only show info on the x.0.2 versions at 3:15pm CST Tuesday).

I'm GUESSING that these provide PCIe Mac support, and might even possibly improve some of the render times. We'll have to wait and see.

ALSO, I've had one reader report of trouble with the XServe RAID v1.5 update - that it killed his ability to capture video over HD-SDI AS WELL AS over FireWire. Scary. So maybe hold off on that until further clarification appears.

-mike

Real quick, more to say later - that panel on distribution had some very, very interesting details buried in there about best use of money for indies, both in terms of post production money spent and distribution/marketing money spent. So back up a few days and read it.

Overall, I was really impressed with the panels' content and structure - sometimes it is the little things that make a conference better - such as the 30 minutes between panels for everyone to mingle and chat and schmooze and ask more questions of the panelists, or the spacing of the panels that didn't overlap too much with movies, and how it just timed out and spaced out well. Also, good quality on the panelists as well, with EVERYONE very approachable and talk-to-able. Even Shane Black (-Out), Mr. Grizzled Veteran himself, chatted with me a bit and wasn't "pish off kid."

So kudos to Maya Perez and her staff for putting on yet another excellent Austin Film Festival, and I hope they'll all be back next year to do it again. Also, congrats to Maya, whom I was informed is six months pregnant (but doesn't look it at all) - bless you all, and may your baby be as happy, sweet, and lovely as his/her parents. Seriously - golden happiness all around.

Also, saw Mrs. Henderson Presents at Frank Reynolds' recommendation. I'd been ready to blow it off as a chick flick with too much stuffy Britishness, but I LOVED it - VERY witty and sharp dialog, some scathingly funny scenes where I was, quite literally, knee slapping; and multiple scenes where I teared up as well. It was so nice to see the incredibly ALIVE chemistry between Judi Dench, and that an actress in her 70s (as well as a character of the same age) could have so much charisma and hold my attention so well. Truly charming and splendid, HIGHLY recommend. Oh, and to reference my glibness from the other day, it didn't hurt that there were quality boobies involved.

-"Hi. My name is Mike, and I'm, like, 14 years old...."

Sony speeds up Mac Double and Dual Layer DVD burning | MacMinute News

the new Mac-compatible DRX-810UL/T model. The external double and dual layer DVD drive will begin shipping next month with Roxio's Toast 6 Lite for Mac compatibility. The drive supports 4X DVD-R DL, 16X DVD -R, 8X DVD RW, 6X DVD-RW, 48X CD-R and 32X CD-RW recording speeds.

-under $150

-not exactly HD, but darned handy for those of us with older Macs.

-mike

Apple - Final Cut Express - Download

Final Cut Express HD 3.0 does NOT work on PCIe Macs (the new iMacs and G5s). This version 3.01 is required.

Along those lines, I've received word from a reader that Final Cut Pro HD version 4.5 does not work on new PCIe Macs either..

Apple's recommended fix is to run Final Cut Pro 5.x. I haven't heard anything to the contrary, so I'm assuming that version 5.02 DOES indeed work with PCIe Macs, but I have no active confirmation of that supposition.

-mike

HDV@Work has two nice articles - one explaining how 24p works with the JVC GY-HD100U, the other talks about Focus Enhancements shipping their Direct To Edit portable hard disk recorder that works with the JVC camera.

It's late and I'm about to go to bed, but in short: the JVC is doing 24 on 60 as I had previously surmised, and it is using repeat flags - there are 24 "real" frames of video in the MPEG-2 stream, and 36 frames per second are just empty placeholders that occupy no real data - just a few bits to say "this is a repeat" to the decoder (called Repeat Flags - makes sense).

Also, Focus has their FS-4 HD and FS-4Pro HD Portable Direct To Edit (DTE) disk recorders available. Skip tape, record the HDV directly to a portable, battery powered hard drive. Record hours onto the thing, then plug it into your NLE to edit. More on it later, to bed.

-mike

Avid Xpress Pro Adds HDV Capability

About how HDV (FINALLY!) is natively supported in Avid Xpress Pro.

Details of ingest and workflow. Very VERY nice feature is the ability to mix HD & SD on the same timeline, no rendering, no waiting. I wish FCP could do this, but it can't.

Interesting detail:

However, if all you’re going to do is work in HDV , you can stay in 1440x1080. But when you’re editing, everything is decoded from HDV and then must be re-encoded (everybody tries to avoid using the term “rendered”) when the footage is going back to HDV . This means that the technique that Apple uses, called “gop splicing,” is not done here. That is, Apple’s Final Cut Pro technique is superior because it allows you to cut the long-gop footage. It does this by creating new I-frames wherever your cuts or effects happen, and then when it’s time to output it only needs to render those parts that were changed. That is in contrast to Avid’s technique, where once you’re done with editing, the entire segment must be rendered back to HDV , even if you’re producing a segment with just straight cuts and no effects .


But they are working on incorporating such a feature, hinting that the acquisition of Pinnacle's Liquid, which handled long GOP two years ago, should make this possible. I'm guessin they tried to get it working and couldn't and punted to get this out the door, and that's why it is late.

It dawned on me over the weekend that the TRUE ability to take full advantage of the GPU for editing purposes CANNOT happen until you get high speed in and out data capabilities with the graphics card - something PCIe kicks butt at but AGP does not. So I'm hoping FCP 6, which will hopefully come out/get introduced NAB 2006, will be able to really hook into Core Image and Core Video, and do things like 3:2 pulldown on the fly, mix 'n match SD & HD on the same timeline with no rendering, allow mixing codecs on the same timeline, and other goodies of that nature. Oh, and in order to do that, you'll HAVE to have a PCIe Mac, no way around it. And NO, you CANNOT update an older Mac to PCIe, gotta buy a new box, and NO, it is not all just a plot to sell more hardware, it is a legitimate requirement for this kind of processing and feature set.

-mike

CinemaTech: Directors and videogames

OK, meta-metacommentary here - Scott over at CinemaTech (and it looks like he'll be panelling at SXSW 2006 per my push to get him in there, hooray!) links to and talks about how film directors are starting to get more involved with game making, which now makes more money than movies (Games $10B last year, movies $9.4B). Spielberg has signed a 3 game deal for games that he might make into movies, but that just feels kind of flat - Spielberg hasn't hit one out of the park in some time, and frankly, he's just not a gaming kind of guy.

Peter Jackson, on the other hand, has been more involved in the King Kong game that is due out soon. And Jackson's a gamer - he went with Ubisoft, maker of Good vs. Evil, in lieu of EA, that did the LoTR games that Jackson wasn't entirely pleased with.

My commentary: the interesting thing here is that video games are still in their infancy. We are still learning what makes a good game, and too often what makes for a "good game" is being defined by the hardcore gamers, not the general public. Think of movies - what if movie reviewers were in charge of what movies got made? It'd kind of blow - too much period romance, much less 'splosions and boobies. I like letting the market decide (Total aside - my favorite ultimate title for a late night Skinemax title that encompasses all cliches: "Guns 'n Titties II: The Revenge").

OK, I'm just smarting off, and there goes my "G" rating for the day. To paraphrase Jessica Rabbit: "I'm not evil, I'm just rendered that way." I don't really think that way or want more movies of that nature, just that All Miramax, All The Time would grow tiresome quickly.

In any case, I think gaming is still in its relative infancy. Time will tell if we've achieved

There is talk of techies wanting the creative vision of Hollywood, and Hollywood wanting to use the tech of games. That isn't really true or fair - moviemaking is all about creating a FIXED story in a reality of their own creation, with a perfectly rail driven story that can be interpreted in different ways, but only HAPPENS in one precise way as they present the story to you. The better games, as it has developed over the last few years, is all about letting you run around in a world of their creation, but largely creating your own story within their world. Look at the GTA series - you can play their storylines, with the twists you add due to your choices and ingenuity and skill (or lack thereof), but you can also freely roam the world as you choose.

What they DO have in common is world creation. THAT is their common bond, but what they do with it is quite quite different.

Note that GTA's success comes not from the preset storylines, but from how it allows you to wander not just off of it, but blow it off entirely and roam wild (sometimes REALLY wild).

Somewhere in there, in the world creation, creation of a setting, time, place, and tone, is where the game/Hollywood thing could really pay off. But neither side has done a great job of encompassing the skills of the other. There are only a few great game making individuals, and the public does not recognize them the way they recognize Spielberg, Lucas, Wachowski or Coen brothers, etc.

OK, EOR (end of rant).

-mike

Raw notes on Future of Distribution

I'd been hoping this would encompass more of the REALLY future of distribution stuff, future stuff was certainly touched on but more time was spent on current distribution issues, for getting films made now distributed.

Turns out this was really interesting for how to get a current movie distributed, and some of the quirks involved, and the pitfalls of theatrical distribution.

So here's my raw notes from the panel:

Dallas based guy - gotta have an understanding of the distribution end and what sells

-went into theatrical distribution about 6 months ago,

John Martin - Pres/partner/CEO Alamo Drafthouse - (and somebody I used to work with at frogdesign. Great, GREAT guy, and I'll spare sharing the story involving a late night, the next day, and a piano. It's a good one, though. : D )
-started in mailroom of Orion
-worked in creative side/development
-Sony, Jersey Films
-big fan of the Alamo, so bought the chain w/a partner (Alamo Drafthouse picked as # 1 theater for doing cool new stuff in the country recently in a major magazine that I can't think of the name of at the moment)
-intent is to have a distribution run of some coolindie stuff, stuff that won't find it's niche in the AMCs & Regals of

Kelly Sanders of 2929

Truly Indie Program - programs that don't get regular distribution, will assist to get distribution, help get the film out up to 20 markets, started with 3 films: Tennis Anyone? is one film, Fall to Grace, Cavite

Michael Barlow - Paramount Classics - in a state of flux at the moment
-woked with the archives, became a reader, was a writer, producer, working with paramount classics for the last 6 years on creative & acquisition sides

DIGITAL PROJECTION

-Sho West, until there is an incentive for the smaller venues, $180K to update, nobody is going to do it until it drops, the outlet is really getting it onto smaller digital. They have 2000 lumen projectors

Landmark's (Cuban's) 1st quarter 06 - looking to go high def productions

-digital post production is becoming more standard, no longer a prohibitive cost

-shooting on digital isn't as important as digital post production

Michael Barlow - "conventional lab processing post production will not last very long, and is probably not a smart way to spend your money in independent filmmaking."

-real argument for digital projection is the cost of prints being deferred for the hard copies

-inefficient economics for the huge run of prints for the

-horrors of digital projection that doesn't happen with 35mm projection

Barlow again - "until the technology absolutely settles, it is a very dangerous thing to retrofit for $160K and then have some guy in Wisconsin come up with a better system"

$30K for filmout on a feature

-Video iPod - Barlow again - and off the Internet in general - building constituencies and audiences, but the anewr is that the actual way that somebody receives something other than the theater, there may be 15 ways to do that - how and will theatrical distribution survive"

-it is how you connect with the people that are interested in seeing what you've done

-the immediate opportunity is from the marketing standpoint - downloadable trailers has been a boon for the marketing efforts

-on shortening the release window

John Martin on Piracy and on exhibitor side - "here's a product and how long will it last out there" - trying to draw the largest group possible at all times - if it goes to DVD, that whittles down the # of people that will be open to see it. They try to have a series of events that works out to free marketing

-2929 is going to try out Bubble from Soderbergh on DVD at a premium price on same day as theatrical release

-Barlow has been thinking about this - it affects art house more than anybody else - in LA, 4 weeks ago, 2046 opened at the theater, the snotty video store had been selling for 3 weeks before, a beautiful Hong Kong Region 1 DVD of 2046. Many Asian films are available on DVD Region 1 before theatrical here. Sales for BOTH DVD and theatrical have been strong, "a fold in kind of effect" - to spend $35 on the Criterion on The Mood for Love after seeing 2046.

The downside is if you look at how arthouse theater started - "you could only see the movie on that day at that theater, otherwise you wouldn't get a chance to see it" - that created a film community by forcing them to come same time/same place. You could sustain and build on that. Build events around that. DVD revolution has completely changed that. The big challenge is to do what Alamo has done - to create events to go see it in a communal setting rather than the home theater. The challenge is to make it sustainable & ??.

Self promotion - spend marketing dollars on Amazon.com or NetFlix OR do a small, short theatrical run? If had $500K, how would you spend it? It is a narrative feature film. Barlow thinks the problem with theatrical distribution, and it's more acute every week, releasing it in other cities has very little purchase on distributors. It did great in Chicago doesn't give you much sense of 'wow I can do something with this picture.' Means relase NYC or LA. $50K to $100K goes to bad placement of ads in NYTimes and get it slammed in a review. Getting theatrical release NYC/LA is "incredibly ineffective"

Use the festival circuit - it has become a magnet for stuff. Go to festivals, try to win awards, the cumulative effect of five festivals is a LOT more effective to do a one week run in LA or NYC.

Internet becomes your strongest tool in terms of building audiences and connecting to audiences. Do anything you can to do get the email address of folks who see it to encourage their friends to see it.

"Amazon is an incredible model for all these kinds of efforts."

A lot of movies don't do posters, postcards, publicist, etc. If you're doing fetivals, do it RIGHT at a festival and have a campaign to raise awareness in the festival circuit. Get a critical review. Theatrical, DVD, or festival are the only venues to get a critical review done. Those get distributors attention to get considered for a

Top 10 markets is around $80K. If you can get distro, get it. Each company only has so much money to spend. There are some good films that go through festivals and don't get picked up, but they do get limited release to get reviews to use THAT as marketing for the DVD release.

Barlow on distributor's side of the equation: there are only so many slots. They picked up Winter Solstice and released it this year, and virtually no one saw it. The problem is that people within the business may have seen it, the problem is nice little movies, there are 9 little indies in NYC every weekend, and very little that tells an audience there's a compelling reason to see it. The pic becomes even more of a loss leader, and a harder case to get it into other cities, but makes it tougher to get stuff out there. House of Games had a horrible death in first theatrical release, and tested horribly (since people were disturbed by ending). Figures for theatrical were QUITE dissapointing. As it hit cable, HBO, VHS, and now it is perceived as a successful movie as having done well."It didn't" Money was lost on the theatrical release.

Eventually those movies get seen, somewhat, and eventually the producer would like to get PAID for those models.

W/in 2929, they don't make money theatrically, they make the money on DVD. Never seen a P&L that COUNTS on making money theatrical.

having something open in NYC to trigger a video payoff, is increasingly self defeating and impossible

Indies being able to distro on HD DVD and Blu Ray? Cost being prohibitive? Barlow - no idea - nobody gets the model right from the get go. Economic model evolves out of the marketplace. Very hard to tell how indies will work. The analogy is that there are any # of singer/songwriters and bands that were poor due to no distro, now they send out emailings, and sales, and penetration, without big 3 distro through their self marketing efforts. Big 3 distros are struggling to figure out how to get out there. EVERYTHING is on Amazon or allmusic.com. You can find any piece of music you want to find in 2 minutes.

Marketing is the biggest hurdle. If you go to a constituency, watchers will adopt you - I want to see Lucas & Coppola products in the 80s. Festivals due the same thing - "if you like this, you might like this too" - if that can be associated with a movie, that's a good thing

2929 package - get marketing assistance, get advertising at their rates, get folks at 2929 and Landmark looking at your title and get feedback about the appropriate market for different cities in terms of where your best shots. After theatrical, they may get into video/DVD division, but they are looking into it. They DO maintain the rights - the filmmaker maintains the rigths for DVD sales.

Mad Hot Ballroom - originally the focus was to make a movie about the teachers. The competition and the kids were taking over the interest - "The darth vader school in forest hills" - Sundance turned it down since they had too many dance films. SlamDance liked it and made it the opening film. Paramont Classics was restricted on what they could bid. They were allowed to bid aggressively so they got Hustle & Flow and Mad Hot once set free to bid competitively.

10 minutes of the movie was brought down over the next few months. Wanted to build as much viral interest, teaachers, dance group, etc. to build as much audience as possible. The marketing of it was a matter of marketing off the strength of the film. It was good that Spellbound that had already done well that opened up eyes to the possibilities. Indie docs can have more heat - Capturing the Friedmans changed the landscape. Everyone expected to be lectured to about something they already knew.

If you're looking for what will change the technology, look for what changes creatively - Jaws, Star Wars, Gone With the Wind, etc.

Q: Biggest obstacle to indie filmmakers - what's the biggest dilemna?
A: as an indie producer - a.) Money, b.) Cast. A distributor has to market your film. Some films will find an audience, but ultimately you're marketing the names & faces on the poster or DVD cover. Biggest challenge is to compete a marketable cast against the studios. Finding somebody known, working below usual rate, available to shoot when you have the money to make it, is tough.
A: 2929 answer - indie's die of anonymity - distros look and say how am I going to build a campaign around it? Sometimes they decide to anyway, but it is tough. With so many films made and never distributed. Barlow says cast is most pivotal issue. So many indies feature good actors that aren't good enough, or one actor that sucks and pulls down the rest of the film. De Niro & Keitel anchored the work of the NY indies from popular perception, not the Scorsese and De Palma's etc. there's a lot of promising work out there, that is good, but that isn't ENOUGH to compel folks to get out there and see a movie. Not just marketability, the actor has to deliver ENOUGH. Not having names is a handicap.

Interesting to note how much I focus on tech, and business, etc. in all this, and so much from panelists comes back to story, performance, emotionally compelling stuff.

-Woman Thou Art Loosed was a movie Barlow saw. Extraordinary performance by the lead woman, he enjoyed it and liked it, he thought the NYTimes would hate it, since he didn't know how to market it in NYC or LA. Didn't look up how much money that made. If you can find a constituent audience that likes your film, you're hugely ahead. There has to be SOMEBODY that has passion to go see your film. they should have paid attention to this- "everybody missed the boat with the Passion" - they didn't know how to associate and work church groups with Paramount, they couldn't think about how to make that work

-Q: Stars and faces - what about Napoleon Dynamite? A: "they did discover a star, maybe a weird little star" ND may be a lightning in a bottle phenomenon - it only happens once, or at least can't be reliably reproduced. That kind of performance doesn't usually happen with a lot of folks. It is a harder thing to break, and they had an fortunately good performance.

-ND - ran about 400 different screenings, lots of underground performance, had to discover the audience, and then RAN with it.

-using the internet to discover your audience is incredibly useful tool - feedback!

-there are very few websites that connect that well as ??? (unknown site)

-those who think that if you get it distro'd, you'll get paid, may be sadly mistaken.

get a distributor to PAY, whatever the terms are going in, change over time

GOSH, this all sounds like a horrible business to be in.

-exhibition has never been a business run by nice people

John Martin -if we had a guy in charge of shut down locations to try to buy those

Q: how important is a producer's rep
A: Schloss has become a major force in American film culture. Jeff Dowd is incredibly valuable as well. Most pix have gravitated towards one of the 5 or 6 people were talking about, and if it works, it is certainly worth having. Having Schloss involved is a strong backing cue - paid more attention to than non-Schloss stuff. A good film rep will create a good screening situation. If Barlow wants to see if first, and "John (Schloss) doesn't want to do that." it is the end of the conversation, even for Barlow.

-IPTV - VOD - is huge about looking at the landscape of distro of indie films. It's that interface - if it is iTunes that is the searching mechanism for music, the content as far as who owns the films, but HOW the consumer gets to the product is of interest. Major cable companies are working on better VOD.

Q: What kind of access to indies have to participate in that flow?

A:There are smaller players that are getting involved - West Park Foundries that has been licensing, have a relationship wtih set top box Akimbo - they license the film on a non-exclusive basis, and we'll pay you per download. Can access 10,000 titles - why go to a video store?

I keep stashed articles for days I plan on being busy or away. Here's one of them:

Hi Mike,

I have a question as you're putting together info on your service. If you know you're going to send a project to a colorist, what's the best way to shoot it? My cameras have cine settings--one of which seems to try to give a film like appearance out of camera, the other seems to flatten everything to preserve detail. Is it best to should just standard video, standard gamma, maybe with edge detail turned down? What about rough edit? Try to get colors close? Trust the colorist? I'm just planning on the future and I'd love to see your service and rate structure as soon as possible. I have a 30 minute program I'm thinking of sending out if I can afford it.

There are two schools of thought, as a post guy you can probably guess where I fall.

Method 1: Shoot it like you want it. Light, expose, etc. as your DP wants it to be. With a good DP, this gets you all or almost all of the way there. The catch is that if you over or underexpose, if there's no detail in the media (be if film or video), you're hosed. Typically, you're worried about overexposing video and underexposing film.

Method 2: Shoot it flat, trust the colorist. And by flat I mean catch all the detail you can in the highlights and shadows. If you want a dark, murky, shot, sure - shoot it that way. But if you want to be able to roll some detail back into it, have some shadows, but have some detail in there that can be rescued. The better the format (the less compression and noise), the better your chances at being able to push it further in post.

There are limits to this approach, obviously. For vanilla, "normal" scenes, the shoot flat and color later works great. If you're trying for a particularly harsh or stylized or extreme look, consult colorist and DP for best approach.

For instance, in film it is common to change a shirt's color. In DV, this is an almost impossible (or really really difficult) request. HDCAM SR originated material can be "bent" or "pushed" further than if you shot the same scene with HDV, for instance.

Digibeta better than DVCPRO 50 better than DV.

HDCAM SR better than D-5 better than HDCAM better than XDCAM HD (next year) better than DVCPRO HD better than HDV.

So if you KNOW you're going to have a good colorist, shoot flat and trust him. If you KNOW you're going to have a GREAT DP, trust him to get it right in the first place. As with anything, there are extremes where this rule of thumb won't work, so discuss your plans with both to hammer out a workflow. Certain looks are more easily, or rarely only, possible from one talent or the other.

More and more, the DP wants to be there during color correction and DI workflow to preserve the integrity and intent of his work.

A lot of DPs hate trusting the colorist, makes them feel like a technician. Then again, colorists doing minor tweaks to footage feel the same way. It's a matter of whose creativity, talent, tools, and vision you trust more. There's a slider between ways to approach these things, but realize that some things are only doable at one end or the other. You can't relocate light sources in post, but you can change colors of some things. Get familiar with what's possible in Photoshop without using advanced magic wand selections and you'll have a better idea of what's doable.

-mike

Hey all - midnight and tired. Rundown:

Panels - good.

BBQ party - awesome - lots of good contacts, saw Harold Ramis, Tim McCanlies, tons of others. Even got a ride to the movie from the head of the Texas Film Commission. What service!

Movies - Ice Harvest - dark, but fun, recommended. Oliver Platt and John Cusack a joy to see on screen. Billy Bob - does bad guys well. Connie Neilson - even Harold Ramis said she was channeling Veronica Lake, but she said she was thinking Jessica Rabbit (who is hot).

Saw Stomp! Shout! Scream! movie from guy who did Teen Aqua Force Hunger Team or whatever it is called. Whatever it is that makes a coherent movie a movie, this lacked. One star. Don't! Go! See!

Tired and to bed. My Shooting HD panel is tomorrow.

-mike

Hey all -

I'm attending the Austin Film Festival this weekend and next week, and will be reporting on panels and movies over he next week or so.

Along those lines, saw Shop Girl last night with Steve Martin & Claire Danes - WOW, really good, touching, smart, warm, REAL, highly recommend when it hits theaters soon. NOT creepy having those two together, tastefully done. I've heard of some complaints about 50+ Martin with 26 Danes, I didn't have a problem with it. Then again, I'm 37, just about in the middle and can relate to both.

That was last night, but two interesting things today:

1.) Talked to Christopher Cargill of Aint It Cool News and he had an interesting theory that made total sense about the iPod video and the downloadable TV shows Lost & Desperate Housewives. I had been talking about how those were just starter kits to test out the tech and get Hollywood one step closer to downloadable movies, he said it's that but even moreso - by choosing to make the TV shows that are storyline based, they're getting additional viewers. Think about it this way - Lost & Desperate Housewives are storyline based - if you miss an episode or two, you're less likely to watch the show. If you miss an episode, you are stuck either waiting for reruns or, after the season is over, watching the DVDs. They can't really release the DVDs right after the initial release, it's too complicated for various reasons. But now, the day after they run the initial episode, you can download the episode and catch up. If you've missed all of it so far, you can catch up, and watch it either on your computer, your iPod, or your TV (connected to the iPod). So if they can get people to catch up, they are more engaged, and more likely to watch week by week. The get hooked - 22 million viewers a week. So the $1.99 is CHEAP if it gets them an audience. They aren't worried about that $1.99, they are worried about their broadcast advertisers. So it gets them an audience week by week. The cop shows, which are pretty much interchangeable week over week, don't matter in this fashion - you can watch any given episode and it is freestanding. I'm out of touch with Lost, but I might be catching up now.

2.) Caught the tail end of the Film School panel. The tradeoffs - the traditional schools like USC are like mirrors of Hollywood litself - you compete for the opportunity to shoot. So you get schooled in the present tense of the film industry. What you DON'T get in that context is how to make your own indie film in the New School way. The old school gets you contacts and networking and peer review and feedback and discipline to know things like the sweet spot of a boom mike. But my indie New Stuff attitude makes me wonder if they will learn about Digital Intermediates, and the possibilities of HD, HDV, working with Final Cut and After Effects rather than Avid and some really Really Expensive Workflows. Ideally, you'd get both. I don't know of a school that does that, but if _I_ were in school, that's what I'd be looking for. Are you looking to get into the filmmaking BUSINESS? Go to USC. If you're looking to learn how to viably make your own indie with the bestest newest techniques? I don't know where, but that's what I'd want.

OK, I'm half listening to Shane Black talk about character development right now, so I'm not phrasing this as well as I could. But try to read through my mess and see what matters there.

More later.

-mike

Macworld UK - Apple updates Xserve RAID software

XServe RAID Admin has been updated to v1.5, now includes some options to disable cache flushing which could lead to frame dropping during capture.

Unless there are some problems reported, this sounds like a must have.

-mike

It just dawned on me a minute ago that the new PCIe Macs should ALL be capable of uncompressed HD work, no more of this "you have to get the RIGHT G5" nonsense. If it is PCIe, I expect it to be able to work with uncompressed HD no problem.

With the announcement of the Kona LHe, there is now an uncompressed SD/HD board that'll be a great fit for these machines. I'd expect a Kona2e or similarly named PCIe version of the Kona2 at some point in the future as well, but no announcement has been made at this time.

The big holdup is SATA cards - I've now received roundabout indirect confirmation that both Firmtek and Sonnet don't have any suprise PCIe cards to whip out today, and it would APPEAR (no proof) that neither has started development of such a card at this time, since they had about as much solid info on PCIe Macs as we do reading the rumor boards. Yikes! Apple plays it very close to the vest with new hardware developments, so bigger key vendors, like AJA, get to know development plans and get pre-release boxes to develop on (how else could they announce PCIe cards today?), but smaller vendors like Sonnet and Firmtek aren't allowed in on that kind of secret info. So now they have to convert current hardware to PCIe or make new products based on PCIe. Again, I don't know their inner workings, that is just how it seems based on the lack of announcements and my general knowledge of who does and doesn't get inner circle access with Apple.

So how long will it take to get PCIe SATA cards to market?

Answer 1: I don't know.

Answer 2: based on a seemingly knowledgeable reader email who suggested PCIe boards can use modified PCI-X drivers, the driver question may not be too hard, but getting new hardware up and rolling takes some time. Personally, with no info from the vendors, my gut guess (and it is a non-qualified, non-informed, non-fancy book learnin' GUESS) is that i'd be surprised to see shipping SATA cards before 3 or 4 months. I'd think it about on schedule to see products announced at MWSF or sooner, with actual working cards in regular consumers hands somewhere between February and April. That's right, I could see it taking that long based on time to market I've seen with other products. This does, however, open the door for any Windows PCIe SATA card manufacturer to come in and whip out some Mac drivers for their existing products. I don't know the key players on the Windows side, but I hope they see the opportunity and jump on it. In that case, maybe by MWSF in mid January 2006? Again, this is all WAG (wild-assed-guessing).

Short answer - don't expect or depend on buying a SATA card for a PCIe Mac in 2005.

Proposed idealized indie-on-a-budget hardware/software recommendation:

So for now, it looks like a $2000 Mac, maybe $400 in RAM, Final Cut Studio for $1300, a Dell 23" monitor on sale ($800), a Kona LHe for $1800, some future unannouced PCIe 8 port SATA card for $300, 8 300 GB drives for about $1600, SoftRAID for $100, a coupla 4 bay SATA enclosures (Burly Box from MacGurus or similar), and a 17" JVC broadcast HD monitor with component board ($2300), and you've got yourself an uncompressed HD editing suite (plus various cables and whatnot). Total price? About $11,000 and you can cut yourself a shortish feature if you're careful and plan right and rent decks (at additional cost) for just the times you need them. Cut it, master it, and make yourself a DVD or high def DVD master too. Nah, add another $1500 or so for more storage for breathing room to really start being viable - so about $12,500. Want backups on all that data? Add another two grand or so.

What's with this JVC HD monitor all of a sudden? We've been using the 19" JVC HD broadcast monitor (model # to be inserted later when I dig it out, but it is their top end model), and pretty much liking it. A lot. It does SD & HD, 24p, 50i, and 60i. That's right, it'll do 24p in HD, which used to be reserved for only high end monitors costing MUCH more. Our 19" was something like $2600 with the component/RGB board. After recommending HDLink and an Apple 23" for a long time (or possibly the lower cost Dell), I'm realizing this solution costs about the same or slightly more, and makes much better sense. The HDLink is great for seeing super fine details, but is difficult to calibrate (understatement, although I haven't tried with latest drivers) and if you want to KNOW what it's going to look like on a broadcast monitor, just get you one now that they are so much more affordable for 24p capable HD broadcast unit. Would I trust this to make color critical decisions? If properly calibrated, so far I'd say yes I do trust it that much - MUCH moreso than an HDLink & Apple 23.

Ideally, I'd like to have both - an HDLink/Apple 23" combo AND the 19" JVC HD monitor. I'd trust color on the JVC, but analyze fine details on the LCD panel. The 3:2 pulldown is annoying on the Apple since it is an inherently 60Hz device. The JVC appears to run at 48Hz and double buffer the 24p image. There is some definitely flicker, but motion is smoother and truer on that compared to any HDLink attached monitor for 24p.

Macworld UK - Apple iPod delivers "iPorno" revolution

Sexual content is typically one of the first to take advantage of any new distribution medium. Printing presses, videotape, DVDs, Internet, and now video on iPod.

Careful who sees that screen...

-mike

Briefly: I had a brief opportunity to capture some footage from a JVC GY-HD100U camera this week. Made an appointment for client to swing by with camera to capture some footage.

First up, he had some 720p30 footage. Plugged in FireWire, selected 720p30 from the Easy Setup, all a breeze - captured just fine, Auto Scene Detection worked great.

Then, they went outside and shot some 720p24 outdoors. I had known previously that the 24p mode was not supported, but I didn't realize exactly HOW unsupported it was. I had forgotten some stuff I'd known back at NAB about how the JVC worked with 24p - its really 24p on a 60p datastream, vaguely akin (but different) to what the Varicam does. It is NOT, however, the same, AT ALL, as the way the DVX 100A or XL2 works with Advanced Pulldown - that is encoding 24p on a 60i, not 30p, data stream. But I was thinking at the time that it was going to, that I'd see SOMETHING on screen with a pulldown pattern or something.

WRONG.

End result was this - when I tried to capture 720p24 footage from the GY-HD100U, I got NOTHING AT ALL on screen. Nada/zip/bupkis. Unfortunately, I didn't have a copy of the beta of LumiereHD to try to capture and mess with it, the client had to take their camera with them.

So be duly warned - you cannot, at all, whatsoever, in any fashion at all, capture 720p24 footage from the JVC GY-HD100U into Final Cut Pro version 5.02 AT ALL. You get nothing.

Right now, the beta of Lumiere HD is the only application I'm aware of to get footage into FCP at all, and it is not the usual capture dialog window way, either - there's some additional steps involved.

-mike

Warner Bros. Backs Blu-Ray DVD Format - Yahoo! News

They are the second house to support both formats. This is an improvement, but still not a win. What if one format fails in the market and that is the player you bought?

I'm behind on my news, there was another article recently about analysts picking Blu Ray to win.

The major issue now is the face off between Sony & Microsoft as to whether Blu Ray will support Mandatory Managed Copy, a legal way to rip Blu Ray discs to your hard drive in a protected, DRM controlled fashion so you can watch the discs on your home theater PC or computer.

Stop and think about it a minute - we copy stacks of CDs to iTunes or a media server, yet why are, or should, DVDs be any different if we are doing it legally in our own house?

More coverage on the Warners move here as well.

-mike

Graeme Nattress, maker of the Film Effects plugins for FCP, has posted a free Film Effects Demo on his site. It is fully functional, works with HDV, just puts a watermark on the video to keep us honest. The full version is only $100, not a bad deal at all.

Especially of note: it works with 1080i60 HDV to convert it to 24p. I've been planning on doing a full review, so keep watching for that, but in the meantime feel free to play with it yourself.

-mike

ps - version 2.5.1, latest. I hate it when demo versions are old/buggy

My extremely reliable sources now indicate that the rest of the SD cards from Blackmagic Design will be officially annnounced and available in a matter of days. "Imminent" was the word used.

The HD cards (the DeckLink HD line) are not too far behind, either.

Multibridge is also very close to shipping, I'm looking forward to receiving mine and posting all about it on the site.

All good news. It would appear Apple gave Blackmagic plenty of heads up notice about the PCIe Macs and they must have had some to play with to be this close to shipping product for the PCIe systems.

Watch for an official press release in the near future.

-mike

So it's been a very up and down week - this weekend, I sprained my ankle (grade 2) on mile 3 of a 10 mile race, so Wise Boy that I am, I decided to run 2 more miles and then walk 5 more miles on my foot that I'd tried to run on sideways/upside down while the rest of me was still right side up. Downhill, at race pace, at six foot four (OK almost), and 185 pounds, not the best idea on my little bird sized ankle. Except now it is definitely not so bird sized. "Of cantalopean proportions" was my thought Monday morning when I pulled back the covers to reveal a strong case of Snausage Foot. My left foot is to my right foot what an heirloom tomato is to a regular one - unexpected dark colors, weird lumps where they shouldn't be....and disturbing squooshy to the touch. Harrumph. So I went to doctor's, six week anticipated recovery, never the same ankle again. DRAT. I HATE having non-replaceable, non-LEGO parts that can't be popped out and replaced with perfectly good new ones.

Then this afternoon, when driving home, I got into a car accident. Without documenting culpability, let's just say the front of my car got too friendly with the back of someone else's. Poor young woman was all shaken up and crying and holding the back of her head, so I gimped it across the street to the fire station (this 5 blocks from my house) and got the firemen out pronto.

Turns out it looks like she's fine, just shaken up. Her bumper is scruffed up. My car's pointy nose is now not nearly so pointy, the hood doesn't line up, and the passenger door won't open without pinching metal in a very non-promising way. Or at least promising to cost $$$$ to fix. But it'll be fine, insurance will handle it.

But I'm kinda cool with all this. With both events, I just dealt with it and didn't get upset, didn't get frustrated, didn't get all bummed out about it.

Is it because of all the cool new toys that have been intro'd this week? Probably not, although they are awfully cool.

But I'm just glad that my life, crazy as it is right now, is just "going to be OK" in my head, I'm not freaking out. I like that part.

An old friend dropped by from out of town (LA), an indie doc maker and we chatted about his project, his new hobby (hang gliding), our lives and whatnot. We sat in chairs in the back yard and enjoyed the beautiful day. I'm behind on a bunch of stuff, I'm missing conference panels today, but its OK.

: )

This story has no point, just felt like writing about it.

I guess the point is that I really value having some equanimity and balance in my life, and trying to focus on what's really important - the true quality and happiness of my life, not just stuff and goals.

-mike

So in the course of working with the color correction business, we've been working with the JVC blah blah 19" high definition broadcast monitor. We popped for the component/RGB board, and we've been happy with it so far.

Cool features:

-19" broadcast monitor
-SD & HD
-16:9 and 4:3
-the biggie: native 24p support for HD
-price: roughly $2600 with component baord

That last is a major point - when I first did research into HD 24p capable monitors a couple of years ago, 24p was strictly a super high end capability. Now, with 24p HD being much more common, JVC's solution is pretty reasonable.

They also have a 17" version that is a few hundred dollars less expensive, all the better for indies.

So far we are liking this monitor. We have a noticed a couple of small issues when working with a pitch black image in a pitch black room in certain modes on the monitor, but other than that we are liking it a lot, especially for the price.

So I'm now officially changing my recommendation for indies doing their own post if they can afford this solution- rather than a $600 DeckLink HD, a $700 HDLink, and a $1300 Apple 23" Cinema Display (or a $800ish brighter Dell) for a total of $2600, I'd say get the $1000 DeckLink HD Pro Single Link and a 17 (or 19" if you can afford it) JVC with the component/RGB board for about $3300.

Your extra $700 gets you CERTAINTY that you're seeing the correct colors.

If you want to see all the detail of your HD signal, then get both - you can run both simultaneously off of a DeckLink HD Pro Single Link, and judge critical color off the HD broadcast monitor.

-mike

Macworld: News: DeckLink Extreme PCI Express works with G5s

Well, I mentioned in another article today, but it deserves it's own mention - Blackmagic Designs' DeckLink Extreme PCI Express card works with the new G5s, so if you need SDI I/O or better than FireWire based monitoring for your 24p 16:9 SD masterpiece, here's what to get with the new Macs. It can also downconvert HD content to SD as well, so could be a lower cost monitoring solution as well if you can't afford/don't have an HD monitor. Then you only have to worry about color space differences - HD uses the 709 color space, which represents a slightly different range of colors than the standard def 601 color space.

No HD PCIe card shipping from them as yet, we're still waiting on the Multibridge Extreme with PCIe "stub" (or whatever they officially call it) to ship for HD I/O with PCIe Macs.

AJA today quietly announced a new product, the Kona LHe (PDF press release), a version of the already excellent Kona LH that now adds a PCIe interface to work with the new PowerMacs released yesterday.

In short, this looks like the new Killer Card To Have for almost everyone. It does hot and cold running video of practically every imaginable flavor - SD, HD, analog, digital, compressed, uncompressed, accelerated effects for everything FCP accelerates, everything. I literally can't think of a reasonable video device or flavor that this thing can't handle. All FireWire based media, all SDI and HD-SDI based media, as well as analog media for composite, s-video and SD & HD component.

The only possible limitations I can even think of are twofold:

1.) No RGB 10 bit 4:4:4 input/output - that is reserved for the Kona2, and frankly would be a pretty rare need for 99% of editors & facilities, only if they needed to interface with a $100,000 fully loaded and upgraded HDCAM SR deck.

2.) that it only has two XLR channels, and I'd have to think pretty hard about when that would be a realistic limitation.

(update - unlike the Kona2, this unit can downconvert HD to SD but not upconvert SD to HD)

Price is $1790, so that's entirely reasonable as well.

What is it's competitor? For the moment, BlackMagic's Multibridge Extreme with PCIe interface is as close as you can get. It is an external box with a PCIe interface and should ship around the same time AJA's product does (in theory - it is months late already). It does a few more things as an external box, it has more audio I/O it would appear, and also handles 4:4:4, and also does some stuff as a standalone box with no Mac required which is pretty cool too. It costs $2500, but it pretty much IS a breakout box (all the crucial guts are in the rackmountable box, the part in the computer is strictly interface).

I would guess they will have a PCIe version of the DeckLInk HD Pro Single Link, which is presently $1495 for the PCI-X version, available as PCIe in the not too distant future, at which point that would be the closest thing to the Kona LHe. For $300 less, you don't get the analog input, just some analog output (no s-video). So no BetaSP or other analog deck can be captured from without some kind of converter being used. But no PCIe version announced at this time, so no dice.

At present, I like the Kona2's output controls more than the BlackMagic DeckLink HD Pro Dual Link's - the controls per output are more granular, you can configure more precisely. Or at least the interface makes it appear that way, that there are more choices with the AJA (my opinion based on experiences to date).

It's also worth noting, by the way, that it would appear that the whole "you have to get the right G5" thing may be a thing of the past with these PCIe machines - so far I see nothing that would keep ANY of these machines from being valid for HD uncompressed work, even the $2000 entry level PCIe G5. Excellent news! It will be very very interesting to do some hands on testing to see if there are practical differences between a 2.0 and a 2.3 in terms of realtime performance - will there be a scenario where you can get one more color correction in real time during a cross dissolve that'll run full res full speed vs the other box or not? I fully expect the quad processor box, with whatever changes come next NAB, to be able to do SIGNIFICANTLY more RT stuff than the other two. Time will tell. And I don't expect the current v5.02 of FCP to take full advantage of what the quad can offer.

Full AJA press release follows:

www.aja.com
AJA Announces KONA LHe 10-bit Uncompressed Video Capture Card for
New Power Mac G5 PCI Express Line

Grass Valley, CA (October 20, 2005)— AJA Video, a leading manufacturer of professional
video interface and conversion solutions, today announced the KONA LHe, a new PCI Express
version of the popular KONA LH. Identical in feature set to the KONA LH released one month
ago, the KONA LHe is a 10-bit uncompressed video capture card