HD For Indies

Can't say where, when, who or how, but my sources indicate that the Radeon X1900 PCIe card (see specs here) is coming to Macs, both for the current G5 based towers AND the everybody-expects-them-at-WWDC Mac Pro towers.

Specs include (this from the above link on ATI's site):

64-bit floating point HDR rendering supported throughout the pipeline

Includes support for blending and multi-sample anti-aliasing
32-bit integer HDR (10:10:10:2) format supported throughout the pipeline
Includes support for blending and multi-sample anti-aliasing 2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing modes
Multi-sample algorithm with gamma correction, programmable sparse sample patterns, and centroid sampling
New Adaptive Anti-Aliasing feature with Performance and Quality modes
Temporal Anti-Aliasing mode
Lossless Color Compression (up to 6:1) at all resolutions, including widescreen HDTV resolutions


So what does all this jargon mean? For editors, it means some major computing horsepower to do things like realtime scaling, reposition, rotating, and especially high precision color correction in realtime.

At present, the core code of FCP is all about one codec, one frame size, and one frame rate at a time - this is getting very long in the tooth, as many other competing NLEs can mix and match SD and HD on the same timeline. With CoreVideo (an OS X 10.4, akaTiger feature), realtime graphics manipulation using the GPU is possible and much easier.

So if my sources are right (and I'm 90+% sure they are) that this high end card is Mac bound, then when Apple finally shows a version of FCP capable of seriously hooking into CoreVideo (let's call it FCP 6, and pretend NAB 2007 is announce date), this'd be an awfully nice asset to have. For years, the graphics card really didn't make much of a difference for editors - maybe the screen redrew a little faster with the better card - but in the last couple of years, especially with apps like Motion and After Effects (AE much less so than Motion) able to hook into the GPU for major performance boosts, the GPU suddenly became relevant to what would and would not work in realtime on the editor's workstation.

Also, if Apple were able to FINALLY rewrite that core code to handle multiple frame sizes, frame rates, and especially codecs on the same timeline, that would enable tricks like putting 720p24 footage and standard def 60i footage both on a 1080i60 timeline with 1080i60 footage and just editing, and not worrying about waiting for renders for normal operations (like cuts, live playback, cross dissolves, etc.).

-mike

Note - there's nothing film related in this, it is lazy, bad, self indulgent personal blogging - apologies Charlie

....so after cursing LA traffic all week (drove off a tank of gas in 3 1/2 days) - now it's Sunday, and it's all good.

After staying with Frank Reynolds for a few days, I'm staying with my friend Ruth (that I worked with at frogdesign (we started on the same day about 10 years (!) ago), and she lives in Santa Monica about a mile from the beach. So after DGA day yesterday (which was great, and I hung out and picked up some consulting clients at the after party), I got home and talked with Ruth and her friend Brian until about 1:30am (they'd gone to see Miami Vice).

Sunday I slept in, Ruth made some killer scones from scratch (anybody want the recipe? Ask in comments), then we all went down to the beach. Ruth and Brian (her boyfriend's brother) road bikes, but I walked a mile to the beach, jogged 2.89 miles (according to my Nike+iPod doohickey I got before I left, pace wittheld to protect the guilty), then walked and jogged on back, enjoying the people watching on Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach.

After getting back I cleaned up and Frank, Ruth, Frank and I went to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, and Mama Ella took gooooooooood care of us. Oh my GAWD, that was good stuff.

Now I'm sitting in the cool Santa Monica evening, about to figure out what move to go see. So my LA experience is definitley improving.

-mike

If you'd like to be informed when the DVDs are available, send an email to mike AT hdforindies DOT com with "Shootout DVD" in the subject.

At the DGA's Digital Day today I mentioned the DVDs I'm working on - for those who are just now tuning in, here's the deal:

Earlier this year, we (Mike Curtis (me), Chris Hurd of DVInfo.net, and Adam Wilt of DV.com, and others) gathered six cameras:

Sony HVR-Z1U (HDV 1080i format)
JVC GY-HD100U (HDV 720p format)
Panasonic HVX200 (DVCPROHD format on P2 cards)
Canon XL H1 (HDV 1080i format)

as well as:
Sony F350 (new XDCAM HD format)
Panasonic Varicam/H (DVCPRO HD format)
(we'd planned a Sony F900, but that fell through)

We shot a wide range of test material - indoors, outdoors, static, panning, fast motion, 24p, 60i (some 50i too), charts, actresses, greenscreen, outdoors by a lake, etc.

All cameras were recorded to their native media, and when in studio, also uncompressed to disc (via HD-SDI or component analog to HD-SDI via converters) to RAIDs with AJA and BlackMagic HD-SDI capture cards.

There are something like 60 shots captured on all cameras - for charts and critical static tests, we rotated the cameras off the same set of sticks to match shooting positions, but for a lot of the action footage we lined them all up as closely as possible to get simultaneous footage (slated for sync).

I've spent a large amount of time capturing all the footage, converting/removing pulldown, uprezzing, etc. so all footage will be 10 bit uncompressed 1920x1080 @ 23.976 fps or 59.94 interlaced fields/sec (even if it started at another size or framerate).

The goal is to have comparisons, commentary, etc. for all of these available as both standard and high definition DVDs (high def DVDs will be for Mac playback only most likely, as I tend to focus more on Final Cut Pro than Avid).

It's 1am, more details to follow, but for those who attended DGA Digital Day, I wanted to let you know what's up.


-mike

Final Cut Pro: Minimum Allowable Free Space setting fails with HDV

If you're working with HDV, it's important to note that this setting is not respected with HDV captures. If you wish to reserve a certain amount of free space on your scratch disk when capturing HDV, you'll need to monitor disk usage yourself.


...which 5.1.2 will hopefully fix. The article also includes some good advice about leaving room for render files, etc.

-mike, still in LA

Hey all -

it's been a very busy few days:

-got in Tuesday and hung out with my editor friend Frank Reynolds, who's cutting a 35mm feature here in LA (he usually lives in NYC)

-Wednesday hung out with my new friend Nate Weaver (we met at the Texas HD Shootout a few months ago). Nate's cutting footage from a 7 camera XDCAM HD concert shoot he ran - footage looked really impressive, and a good example of why you spend $25K not $5K for some things. He's got a nice little FCP setup similar to what I have - a dual G5, BMD card, JVC HD CRT monitor, etc. More on all that later. Wednesday night I went to the LA Final Cut Pro User Group meeting (posted my notes here) and had fun hanging out with those guys then going out to eat afterwards with Michael and Philip and others.

-Thursday I got my car towed between 1 and 7am (Whee! Welcome to LA, that'll be $129), but at least LA is fast and efficient and nice about car retrieval (Austin, take note....ahem). Then I had a great meeting with Panavision discussing their Genesis camera (I'll need time to write up those notes, so stay tuned) and saw some PHENOMENAL test footage, then went to a BBQ at the the DR Group and talked shop with Nathan Adams over there (I'll have a writeup on them and commentary on their approach as well, again stay tuned), then while there did a phone in interview for The Digital Buzz Podcast. That was enough for one night, I just GPS'd my way back to Frank's (crashing at his place) after that. By the way - the Digital Buzz link is for this week's show, the permanent link to the podcast is here. I haven't heard it yet, just my portion, but I'm going to listen in a minute, the other speakers sound really interesting.

-Friday (today) I had my schedule moved around, and went to a very nice high end facility (name wittheld until I get clearance, let us just say they have BUDGET in that shop) and had a great talk with Ramona Howard of SpectSoft, makers of RaveHD. Lots to say about that, but again, a later writeup. I did learn another valuable lesson - just because the post facility says "name" LA, doesn't mean it is in LA - there's two of that street, one in East LA (I REALLY didn't expect to find a high end post facility there) and one in Santa Monica. Guess which one I showed up to first. Classic example of over-reliance on technology. Bad, BAD GPS! (Right - my fault anyway). From there I went to Plaster City Digital Post and had a great time touring and talking with those guys. Again, another lengthy writeup to follow, but I'm beat and gotta get up for the DGA Digital Day tomorrow, which unfortunately I won't be able to cover as press, but should be fascinating nonetheless.

Saturday (tomorrow) - DGA Digital Day, should be very informative

I'm figuring out pretty quick that LA is a BUSY place - schedules are fast and fluid, with lots of rescheduling, even if you flew in 1700 miles to see them. Paying clients come first, even if its a biz dev meeting you're there for. Also doing a lot of thinking about what would be involved to work here, esp. since I live in, have family and friends, am from, and own a house in Austin, Texas. An awful lot to think about between what I've learned and what I'm figuring out on this trip.

-mike

Macworld: News: Flip4Mac 2.1 adds Intel Mac support

Now you can watch WMV media on your Intel Mac (such as my MacBook, which may or may not be fixed yet...)

Free download from here

BTW - I'm seeing lots of cool stuff I'll post about later, to busy doing to write about it.

-mike

AJ-HDX900 2/3" DVCPRO HD Camcorder Announced - DV Guru
Missed this one on Wednesday, the SDX900 I keep hear of as being referred to as the best po' man's Digibeta. This successor's specs are HD and:

4:2:2 color sampling
intra-frame recording at 100Mbps in 11 high definition formats
1080i/720p recording
DVCPRO HD format
2/3' 3-CDD
1394 jack

$26,500 list price - i think I blogged on this at NAB when a proto...

Went to the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group meeting tonight, was on the panel for Stump The Gurus, then played civillian for the rest of the show. Here's my notes:

LA Final Cut Pro User Group Meeting Notes from 7-26-06
=========================================

Stephanie from Smartsound Sonicfire Pro 4

a standalone but also some plugins

-for making music to fit to your sized project

-have a Maestro (assistant) - pick your music style, then GIVE it a length - it auto configures music to fit - tell it you need 16 seconds or whatever and it fits that length, no cross fades, it is "composed to fit" as it were
-lets you customize stuff since it is all dynamic
-you can drag the length longer/shorter without adjusting tempo, it just makes more music to fit that length
-10 minutes or 10 seconds
-variations - has variations in style - just changes in style
-it is rights free
-can modify it further with Mood Mapping - if you need a background mix you can do that, a dialog mix, leads, string feature, orchestral, dark, open, etc. - it modifies a mix of up to 7 layers, can manually modify them to audio rubber band to set keyframes, can delete specifc parts of it if you want (logical units)
-you can do the easy "big handle" mode to make gross scale adjustments, or you can get in under the hood to make specific changes
-can bring in reference music
-if you bring in reference video, you drag and drop and it'll auto fit to the length of the piece
-or you can make markers to do music by chunk
-can add markers
-the Maestro is a search engine
-can search by style, intensity, library, instrument or keyword in the Maestro
-in the search, you can search "all" that hits the Internet and pulls samples from their site, or pull a given song for $20 or a library for $99, can download on the fly by entering a CC # right in the program
-$200 purchase price for the software
-her demo is winnowed by source (local, all, owned, etc.), by styhle, then by keyword (or other searching parameters)
-you can click "Add Mood" which defaults to a 2 second transition to the new mood (can customize the transition length) to alter as needed
-it is real music, not MIDI, so it is all sample based from live performance
-each song is in logical chunks, which you can manually assemble, and they codify them to indicate stuff like "this is a good beginning piece" or ending piece or "for what you've just used, these would be good next pieces" - all this indicated
-because it is using sound blocks, if you ask for 15 seconds it might be 14.5 secs - because it is arranging and rearranging blocks to fit the length you need, the blocks are created intentionally in varying lengths so it can build something to the correct length
-original source is 48k
-mood mapping is new as of April, so only since April stuff has mood mapping - 12 or 13 of the libraries, all new libraries will have the mood mapping capability

Standard $200 is software and two library
Filmmaker $399
Full Studio $5000
Telesion Edition $450
Mega Bundle - $800



CAN YOU IMPORT FCP MARKERS?
-over 115 libraries
-at least one new per month, sometimes 10


=====================

Jungle Software's FrameForge3D for storyboards

in terms of planning ahead to do things like not break the 180 degree rule, or have impossible shots boarded, etc.

-this is previz software

-gives an optically correct shot

-relatively inexpensive and easy to use

-3D set to put teogether an environment to grab pieces from their virtual dollhouse
-tell it what cameras you're going to use
-will end up with
-the software creates a report for the crew - gives an overhead shot and a "through the lens" shot with cam height, focal length, angle of view, etc.
-lets everybody know where the camera goes, where the lights can't go, etc.
-better communication
-to make a project, tell the software what you're shooting with, for 35mm TV safe for example, it sets the aspect ratio and optical qualities etc. - all that stuff is in there, have 1/4 to 1 inch CCDs, 16:9 and 4:3,
-can give set parameters such as maximum camera height to limit your compositions to that as max
-lenses - on prosumer gear, can crank in the mm ratings so that you can't be too tight or too wide; all the prime lenses are in there too so you can only pick from the appropriate options available - typical sets are already in there or can customize lists as well
-customize set size, can dimensionalize the set to know what you've got
-they have panoramas to wrap around the set
-they have object and camera controls
-can have as many virtual cameras as desired
-characters in FrameForge default to 20 years old, can age them with a slider
-can dress (or undress) them all you want
-has a library of poses and stuff
-can make clothes different colors, etc., change hair color, skin color, etc.
-can alter faces to make'em gaunter, eyes further apart, etc.
-doing a shot/reverse shot setup
-it's easy to do things like open the door, add a tree and some bushes, etc.
-cam controls are all about roll, pan/tilt, zoom, dolly, crane, etc.
-"match eyelines" is one click
-tons of poses were programmed for these things
-relationships - touch a bike he rides it, in cars, etc.
-NOTE TO GUYS - CAMERA MOVING CONTROLS, A LA ELECTRIC IMAGE, in camera view
-can make the actors correct heights based on reality
-when you've got it the way you want it, you store the shot - it saves the presets, renders a still, makes a report of the lenses used and heights, is pretty much like saving a shot because all the set stuff is done to match
-certain cars are in there, but not a huge variety
-Q: can you export to a 3D app? A: you can export a text file with all the camera info
-Q: can you export to motion control or 3D software? A: not really
-slideshows are made as Flash and export it
-can add arrows to imply stuff moving
-so this is all about stills - no QT movies with the actually timed stuff
-can import a script from a standard formatted script to have the dialog underneath it
-three fucntions: exploratory to figure it out, demonstrational to show or print out, communicational to show crew what you want
-Q: is there an auto reverse shot setup? A: no, but you can use the first shot's info to create the other side and use the distance function to get set up on the other
-PRICE IS $399 FOR PRO VERSION, $199 FOR THE STUDENT VERSION (can't make'em naked in student version)
-Q: dialog on slide show? A: No, but can export JPEGs to use it in iMovie, iPhoto slideshow with music
-upgrades are available from earlier versions

=====================================

syncVUE

Michael Buday - offline/online editor

been trying to do more editing remotely since the commute blows
-a year ago he set up an FCP suite at home
-wanted to get his clients to go to him (too far away)
-next thought was to get'em to work remotely with him
-he's going to demo using a Nintendo project being done in Houston and Austin
-syncVUE takes a media file (QT file), get it to somebody else, it'll play it in sync with the folks on the other side - FTP, podcast, mail a disc, whatever
-a streaming version peer to peer live up to 5 users by end of year
-runs on the Skype network
-Skype is a free IP based voice over IP solution, good voice quality, Macs and PCs, has an open API, they use Skype as their highway (without having to open up their own ports) and has built in voice communication
-working with Steve Cohen an editor in Venice Beach
-way it works:

-incoming request from the user
-shows how many folks involved in session
-the solid icon indicates he is in control
-if a file isn't present, it shows on your screen, and you can tell if others don't have the file (of the 5 simultaneous users)
-in this mode, the other guy steers
-can configure so ANYBODY can grab control and scrub the file
-ANYBODY can add markers (locators), created markers are shown by who made it
-anything QuickTime can load syncVUE can load
-can crosslock files of different resolutions - somebody can have H.264 and somebody else has uncompressed to lock'em together
-has standard JKL controls just like FCP
-hit caps lock and can draw on top of it, and everybody gets their own color to draw on top of the frame
-the drawing persists across the full movie for now
-at SIGGRAPH can export storyboard mode with notes etc.
-the project being worked on an Inferno in Austin, TX
-can work offline - somebody else can mark it up, when you connect later it'll sync up - all yours and his notes go to all users, or can export it straight to FCP as XML, then pull in the XML from sync VUE
-the markers set in syncVUE come through
-creator and notes come in on notes - DAMN HANDY FOR COMMENTING!
-Windows version at SIGGRAPH next week
-Mac version available now
-built in licensing scheme - clients can use it for a limited period of time
-shows all the licenses that he's purchased - put in their skype login, plug in the month/date/year that it'll turn off
-THIS SOLVES THE "I DON'T WANT TO BUY IT FOR ONE TIME FOR A CLIENT!" problem
-price per seat is $189 per user, more users cost per user goes down
-the really nice thing is the sync management
-other bonus - since it is Skype, the call and the connection is FREE!
-for those who say why not use iChat to do live stuff, but if you need to see the high quality stuff, syncVUE is the only way to get that done
-live link is a different issue
-if locators exist on the same frame, whoever started the call has dibs
-they are also working on a session recorder
-play the movie and record all interactions with movie, and send that file (a tiny audio file with control commands) to play that whole session for them
-THAT IS COOL!
-virtual laser pointer is persistent across the whole thing, a vector based drawing tool that lets you set mark in/mark out
-Q: what about distributing the media? A: FTP is the easy way, in November syncVUE Share will move files in the background for you using P2P based technology - trusted sources and targets to keep it running and distribute it all, trusted targets will get the pieces so that connections for file movement will go to trusted sources
-P2P is better than FTP
-the notes can be exported as text - comma delimited or Excel files
-can show embedded timecode, running timecode from start, or a frame counter

=============================================

Marco Torres - San Fernando Education Technology Center

iCan film festival, 7th year

after August 5th can see the movies to be shown at the festival

-LA recently banned Macs from schools, so they had to fight back

-let the school board know why PC only is a BAD IDEA

-Aug 5th in San Fernando is the screenings

=======================================

DVD thing going on at Dolby tomorrow night

====================================

Final Cut Studio Multicam tips and tricks with Steve Martin

-multicam feature

-some advanced multicam workflow

-for this demo, we have a 3 camera t-ball game footage

-what if there's a scenario where you're shooting all day at varying times over multiple days with hours of footage - how to deal with and manage it all?

-find a sync point (such as where bat connects with the T), set In Points, then create Multiclip

-that's great if three cameras and single tapes

-but 3 cameras over multiple days

-could take you all day to sync'em up

-there's another way to do it

-how to take all the cameras with time of day timecode and group them together

-in order to use this workflow, HAVE TO USE cameras that support 24 hour timecode

-either have record run timecode (normal), it picks up from where it start/stopped

-another method have free run timecode, aka Time Of Day timecode

-trigger them all simultaneously with the remote, can start/stop camera, change tapes, change batteries, etc., the timecode keeps rolling

-timecode gets broken and capture is a problem at start/stop, so CHANGE TAPES when you start/stop per camera

-select FOLDERS of stuff and make Multiclip Sequence - when you do it, they get grouped weird - the group based on timecodes as long as the timecode values match, but they won't, it'll make them all in separate tracks lined up, but they're all on their own tracks since the timecode starts aren't exact matches....so the default blows and doesn't quite work


-SO...select folders of footage, Make Multiclip Sequence, the divider lines indicate groupings of multiclips, you can put in a delta value - which is how much can they vary - they vary a range within a minute (or whatever) SO USING MULTICLIP SEQUENCE is all about getting the correct delta to group'em right - it'll make multiclips based on common timecode overlaps, and he gets the right multiclip (and the way to get the screen to update based on your changed value is to hit the Tab key and then press update)

-another method of grouping is to use overlapping timecode - you pick miminum overlap

-so the overlapping timecode works well, just drag it to the left to get'em to group up

-rippletraining.com is his site, the demo of this is on his site

=========================================

Eric Huffman - talking about Musicbed DV, Synk Audio, Muscbed DV and Season One, synkaudiostudios.com

(what is Mouseposé? It lets you highlight where the cursor is - I should use this!)

MusicBed DV is OS X app for customizing stock music

-looking at at trailer for "Isolated" - a movie from a Las Vegas company

-music created from stock music but with some custom composed attributes

-Season One is a library of cinematically themed music, comes from 11GB of data, 2500 individual tracks, broken up into music packages, each from a GB of data

-each package has a large # of musical elements that can be combined in different ways

-video displayed in a page

-can browse by various musical characteristics (orgamic vs synthetic, background vs prominent, melodic vs percussive, sparse vs. dense, soft vs intense, dry vs spacious, smooth vs punchy, then pitch & tempo controls)

-all those parameters are independent - can have sparse AND dense

-by clicking on the items above (picking on of the X vs Y stuff), it limits the list on the right of pieces available - it winnows the list, and changes the feel of the music playing live

-can import markers from FCP, use'em for scoring markers

-once the clip is in the timeline, you can edit it in more detail

-can set keyframs for dense or sparse - again it is manipulating submix portions of the music to make it do certain stuff

-it SEEMS to my incredibly expert eye, that this gives more control over the feel of the music - the controls in the other app were more about lowering the volume of a given instrument pack, but this SEEMS to my inexpert audio knowledge that this manipulates more of the FEEL - the math on how it is building this stuff seems more rich and complex, to build the feel, not just by instrument packs but by mood and tone - to say "make more dense from here to here" rather than "bring the strings down in this part"

-you can export a stereo mix or stems (individual tracks per instrument) to take into Logic or whatever, can also export a surround 5.1 track - ambients are stored separate from the instrument tracks - can create appropriate surround mixes

-they have different surround mixes - moderate vs immersive mixes
-can export tempo as MIDI - can sketch out a music bed by style, then kick out a MIDI file and then populate it in another app

-they are working on Season Two library is much more commercial
-$199 price point INCLUDES Season One

==============================================

Show & Tells

-Ryan Garry has something he brought - did a series of webisodes for Factiva, their paid Down Jones & Reuters search engine for fact checking, etc.

-the search is vetted by human beings, but humans go through it and weed out the junk (porn and incorrect info)

-it isn't cheap but they needed a campaign to make it more fun so universities would sign on

-made stuff like "The Office" - little webisodes

-factivafindstime.com

-after the summer it goes to broadcast

-wheee...whatever.

...and that's it - then the raffle, which is going on now, but I sauntered in as a speaker but I have no tickets, so I can't win nuthin'

-

What's Hot!

Headline says it all. I am somewhat insane, sitting in LA and blogging, must get going for the day, but can't resist my blogging addiction.

-mike

Compressor 1 and Compressor 2.0 not compatible with Qmaster 2.1 (included with Shake 4.1)

Here's a nasty gotcha if you buy Shake (now $500) and don't have the latest Final Cut Studio installed:

If you have installed any version of Compressor other than 2.1 (part of Final Cut Studio 5.1), it is important to note that the Compressor software relies on the Qmaster software.

Shake 4.1 includes Qmaster 2.1 (installed via the Node Installer), a later version of the Qmaster distributed processing technology, and does not work with Compressor 1.x or 2.0.x.

In order to maintain compatibility with earlier versions of Compressor, Qmaster 2.1 should not be installed on the same startup volume with a Compressor 1.x or 2.0.x installation.

Canon XH Series Watchdog

My buddy Chris Hurd is ever vigilant while I'm out of town - Canon has announced two new 1080i HDV camcorders (with 24F & 30F modes also). Think of them as the very similar little brothers of the XL H1. Key differences:

-two new models, the XH A1 and XH G1
-those two are the same, except the G1 has timecode and HD-SDI outs
-$4000 and $7000 for the two (HD-SDI model, the XH G1, costs more)
-otherwise the two new cameras are the same
-FIXED lenses not interchangeable like the XL H1
-new feature - Instant AF, very fast auto-focus using infrared
-the HD-SDI on the G1 embeds audio and timecode, the XL H1 does not
-some control range differences between these and the XL H1
-no four channel audio recording
-uses same 1/3" chip and optical block as the XL H1 for both of these
-XH A1 $4000, due late October, XH G1, due mid November, $7000

See Chris' page on the skinny on the XH cameras and the FAQ he put together (from which all of this article is drawn).

I'd read this as there will be an XL H1s coming out at some point with these improved features (Instant AF, embedded audio and timecode). As for image quality, they will be similar to the XL H1, but I'd imagine the lenses won't be as nice (look at the price difference!).

Yesterday was just getting into LA, getting the rental car, hooking up with my friend Frank Reynolds and hanging out for the night - walked over to the Grove in Culver City and ate at what may be the original Johnny Rockets before it chained out, then hung out and talked movie geekery (movies we liked, what's up with DI's, future of HD, what to make of Disney scaling back productin, etc.).

Today I'm catching up on mail then hooking up with some more friends and then I don't know what.

-mike

I'm prepping for LA, and I'm right on my usual track - it is 2:45am and I just finished packing.

I am not a light traveller - cell phone, laptop, GPS, digital camera, voice recorder, iPod, etc. etc., and all the accoutrements of chargers, cables, and docking stations - oh my! On top of, you know, clothes and stuff.

The neighbors are feeding the dogs and keeping an eye out, the alarms are set, and I haven't made half the appointments I need to for once I'm there.

But it'll all get straightened out.

Blogging will probably be sparse to nonexistent for the rest of the day - I'm in transit.

If you want to book some consulting time, I still have some available slots - I'm in LA until August 4th.

-mike

Amazon to go to the movies - MarketWatch
An Amazon.com video store is expected to be open for business in about four weeks. Advertising Age says consumers will be able to order VHS and DVDs of movies, and also download ad-free digital versions of full-length films and TV shows from the online retailer. Amazon 'DV' is expected to offer subscription and a la carte options. Pay by the month and you'll get a package of movies online, or you can buy exactly what you want.


This has been rumored for quite some time - that you could order the DVD from Amazon, and then immediately download a copy of it to watch on your computer in a few hours after it is done downloading. If Amazon is first to market before Apple, ouch for Apple. Amazon also has the advantage of they can (if they can swing the Hollywood hookup) do this for minimal charge to the consumer - it is an add-on to the DVD sales, which is where Amazon makes their money (sort of like how Apple music & videos are a barely profitable division, all the real profit is from the hardware iPod sales). Apple, on the other hand, doesn't have a product to tie in per movie sale - just a possible video iPod sale, or maybe a computer sale (much less likely). So Amazon definitely poses a threat to any Apple online video store.

-mike

235 Studios has a nice PDF based tutorial on how to remove the 3:2 pulldown from HVX200 footage that wasn't pulled down for you, as it should have been, when you clicked the little box.

Read the PDF, good workflow tips.

-mike

Studios Shift to Digital Movies, but Not Without Resistance - New York Times

My buddy Scott Kirsner wrote this NYTimes article is spot-on for the stuff I'm interested in - shooting movies with digital technology. If you're an HD4NDs reader, this article is a must read.

Projects mentioned that were shot digitally:
-Superman Returns, Click, Miami Vice, Star Wars Episode II, Apocalypto, Flyboys

Product companies mentioned in article:
-Plus8 (rental house), ARRI, Red (several times), Panavision, Thomson Grass Valley

Mike's Comments: I started to go through and pull out some good quotes, but there are too many - just go read the full article.

But some salient details:
-big budget movie folks are risk averse-with a full crew and high dollar talent on set, it is no place to be experimenting or having holdups
-DoPs spent lifetimes learning how to squeeze every last drop of nuance out of film - digital is a different technology, and film has until very very recently been considered universally better than anything digital. Factor in that the tech is moving so fast it is outstripping perception in the marketplace and opinions are slow to shift
-there also has been, for lack of a better phrase, a bit of a snob factor involved - think about how it is perceived among peers - "I'm shooting on 35mm" vs "I'm shooting on videotape" - which project would you rather work on? I think this perception gap and anti-digital bias is getting better fast, esp. compared to a couple of years ago. I hesitated to include this, until I remembered some of the conversations I've had on the Cinematographer's Mailing List I've mentioned here a few times. OH YEAH - it's still out there.
-Panavision estimates that even at $3000/day, Genesis saves about $600K in film stock and developing costs etc. on a big budget movie - and that doesn't get into the further cost savings of no scans for effects and DI, which are de riguer on big movies these days
-the digi-cinema cameras are being chosen for reasons other than cost - Flyboys chose it for long takes, Miami Vice chose it for LONG depth of field (most digital cameras are criticized for that), as well as good low light performance as compared to film (not mentioned in article, but that was a reason for Collateral as well); as well as the usual no film stock/developing/FX scanning reasons.
-the digital companies are careful to not say they are better than film, multiple vendors say they are just offering alternatives - I read that as being sensitive to how touchy DoPs are about "the glory of film"
-Red gets multiple mentions and quotes (I told Scott, the writer, about RED at MWSF this January), glad to see that, mildy surprised Silicon Imaging wasn't mentioned in this article
-...and REALLY surprised that Robert Rodriguez isn't mentioned - but he's not Hollywood (he's based here in Austin) and this article is more gear centric than people centric

So, just as a refresher, here's the list of cameras to consider for big projects - the full on, no excuses models:

-bottom rung: Sony F900 - 1920x1080, 4:2:2, records onboard to HDCAM up to 30 fps progressive, or 60i interlaced (with pretty heavy compression) - preferable to run out to D-5, HDCAM SR, S.two or other uncompressed/low compression outboard recording device
-more reasonable - the Panavised F900s, and presumably Panavised F950s, both up to 30 fps progressive, or 60i interlaced
-squeeze the Sony F950 in there somewhere too, but nobody's been chosing that lately that I've been hearing about. They are 1920x1080 RGB 4:4:4 up to 30 fps progressive, or 60i interlaced. Oh, and the F950 is a camera not camcorder - no onboard recorder.
-the usual suspects: Thomson Grass Valley Viper or Panavision Genesis - both shoot 1920x1080 RGB 4:4:4 log with a 4:2:2 linear option on Viper
-ARRI D-20 is out there, but I don't recall large projects shooting with it yet, it has an oversampling sensor that delivers 1920x1080 RGB 4:4:4 log or lin.
-the above 3 cameras - Viper, Genesis and D-20 - are all cameras that you can bolt a Viper Venom Flashpak onto (that's the manufacturer's name, but the others put different names on it) - a big box of RAM that'll record about 8-10 minutes (about a film load) of uncompressed HD material onto (but it's a $55K-ish box by itself). It connects via single or dual link HD-SDI connectors. Otherwise, folks are using HDCAM SR tape decks (which can record 4:2:2 at up to 60 progressive fps, or 4:4:4 at up to 30fps at 440 or 880 megabits/sec) or S.two uncompressed disk recorders (which can record maximum fps output of these cameras in 4:2:2 or 4:4:4).
-Dalsa Origin is out there, but still considered young/experimental even though they have a rental facility in LA (that I'm going to visit on my trip) - but they can shoot 4K log RGB 4:4:4 (lin too presumably, but who's going to bother at this level). They record to a whoppin' big minifridge of hard drives last I saw, I'll get an update when I'm out there.
-in the future, Silicon Imaging will be coming to market presumably in the next few months, and RED will be coming to market sometime next year (hopefullly early in the year if they stay on stated track).
-other than Sony's HDCAM SR format (the defacto high end tape standard) there are also a ton of uncompressed DDRs (digital disk recorders) out there as well, such as from RaveHD, Codex, doremi and other companies, varying in price from reasonable to ludicrous.

-mike

Microsoft Confirms Plans for IPod Rival: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Gartenberg said Microsoft confirmed to him that it would release a wireless device that would play both music and video this year. The device will have an accompanying content service, Gartenberg said.It's not clear how the service will fit into Microsoft's existing plans. The company recently partnered with MTV Networks Inc. to launch a music download service to compete with Apple's iTunes. That's in addition to Microsoft's own service, MSN Music, which was launched amid much fanfare nearly two years ago but hasn't garnered much attention since.

...so not HD news, but certainly affects the whole indie content distribution world. Interesting to note that after a lot of intial buzz, I haven't been hearing much about content on Sony PSP lately - although the UMD (right name? or whatever) format has entirely fizzled, and studios are pulling support for it - who wants to buy a movie that only plays on the PSP? Better to rip your DVDs (illegal but shouldn't be) to watch on a memory stick in the player.

As everyone is learning, consumers want flexibility in their media.

I'd also say this:

Until/unless there is a viable, cost effective home theater PC standard, and affordable, reliable, easy to use HTPCs, any movie download service had better allow DVD burning if it is to be successful.

...and I'd put support for Mandatory Managed Copy from HD DVD and Blu-ray into that list of must-haves as well.

-mike

Using Fibre Channel switches and hubs with Apple Fibre products

Deep geekery on fibre channel, Xsan, Macs, and hub settings. For the propeller beanie crowd, but useful.

Another update Tuesday - check out the comments, some interesting conversation going on about whether AMD would stop supplying Apple and others. I have a lengthy rebuttal to the "They'd never give up the money they get from Apple sales" argument.

UPDATE - OOPS - IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN - see bottom for more details in update

AMD seen nearing $5.5 billion deal - source - Jul. 21, 2006
Advanced Micro Devices, the No. 2 supplier of computer processors, is close to a deal to buy graphics chip maker ATI for $5.5 billion, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.Any such deal would shake up the processor industry, which is witnessing a battle over market share between AMD and larger rival Intel.

ATI is one of two major graphics chips makers, along with rival Nvidia (Charts), and is a big supplier of chipsets - the cluster of secondary chips and interfaces that surround a computer's processor - to both AMD and Intel.


This would certainly have a bearing on Apple I would think - if the purchase happens, and AMD decides they want ATI to only play ball with them (and that's a big maybe - ATI sells LOTS of stuff for Intel based systems), that could potentially shut Apple out of a major vendor. That is a maybe built on a speculation, so I don't know. But I'm sure Steve & crew are running the what-ifs if they have to solely rely in nVidia. I'm sure they are making contingency plans for an nVidia only world. But again, that is just speculation about a possible risk if a rumored acquisition goes through. Apple has bounced back and forth between the two vendors, but ATI has been seeming to have the edge lately for inclusion in Apple products.

Anybody got any better thoughts on all this? I'm not a follower of the whole PC subcomponent industry, anybody else feel free to comment away with the link below.

-mike

UPDATE 11:30AM CST

Oops, now it is confirmed:

AppleInsider | AMD to acquire graphics chip giant ATI
By 2008, AMD said it plans to move beyond current technological configurations to transform processing technologies, with silicon-specific platforms that integrate microprocessors and graphics processors to address the growing need for general-purpose, media-centric, data-centric and graphic-centric performance.


...so that would imply AMD wants to fold ATI into their stuff...the question would be whether ATI would continue to make chips and boards for non-AMD platform stuff, which depends on how aggressively AMD wants to use ATI's value as a leveraging differentiator and deny others access to the tech, or keep making money selling ATI chips/boards to others, thus reducing the "only from us" advantage. Depends on a lot of variables, and would probably be a multi-year transition if they were to taper off development of non-AMD integrated chipset stuff.

This brings up anti-trust issues as well - ATI and nVidia are pretty much the two industry giants - would it be legal for ATI chips/boards to be taken off the market, or would AMD get hit with anti-trust suits?

Interesting times, indeed. I'm sure Apple, if not already aware of it, was people freaking out about this today.

-mike

AppleInsider | Intel actively shipping both Merom and Conroe
Apple Computer, which recently switched its Mac line to Intel chips, is likely to adopt Conroe and Merom Core 2 Duo processors in future revisions of its desktop and notebook computers.

Apple's MacBook Pro notebooks currently employ Intel's Yonah Core Duo processors. Since Merom was designed to be backwards compatible with Yonah platforms, Apple's first move could come in the form of an abrupt boost to its professional laptop line.

...so Apple could drop faster chips into the laptops for a quickie speed boost. I think they'll do that with the MacBook Pros, in order to differentiate them from the regular MacBooks, and in so doing reinstate the usual performance difference between consumer and pro models.

I don't think they'll do this, however, until AFTER the new tower Macs, which everyone is expecting at WWDC in August. Why? Because having a laptop that potentially outperforms your high end desktops would be embarassing and would represent an imbalanced product offering. In much the same way that car vendors never allow the smaller sports car to be faster than the big one.

So I think this Intel move potentially alters Apple's schedule on laptop upgrades, but won't affect new product development - Apple still has to get the rest of the computers based on these new chips designed and manufacturing ramped up - if the chips are available earlier or in greater bulk great, but that doesn't affect release date. As my friend (and onetime biz partner) Ian Steyaert used to say to clients about scheduling projects:

Nine women, cannot, under any circumstances, make one baby in one month.

: )

-mike

OK, so now that I'm prepping to go to LA in two days, I FINALLY plunked down for something I've been meaning to get for over 6 months - a GPS navigation doohickey, in this case, a TomTom Go 910, which is just joyous, ludicrous, massive overkill for what one really needs. But as the Barry McGovern said in Joe Versus the Volcano,

"If I had the need and the wherewithal, Mr. Banks, this would be my trunk of choice. I could face the world with a trunk like this by my side."

...that trunk is this GPS.

It slices, it dices, it does, in point of fact, julienne, sirrah.

Things it does:

-plan a route from A to B, even if A is 4000 miles away. It is interesting watching it calculate and display "27M roads to process" (M as in millions).
-it has a 3D perspective map, updated several times a second, showing exactly where you are
-it speaks out loud to tell you when the next turn is coming up
-it includes maps of all of North America, and Central and Western Europe, default from the factory (the pocket sized Garmin that was the same price could get Euro maps....for $350 extra)
-if you miss a turn, it recalculates and tells you the new route
-you can plan trips on your computer and download into it (Windows only, so Boot Camp or Parallels now has another reason to live on my computer)

Lots of GPS units will do that, so some extras:
-it will play MP3s and audio books, including playlists
-it will display photos you put on there
-how does it store all this? On a 20GB internal hard drive
-it'll run for hours on internal batteries
-it can communicate with tomtom home base through via GPRS via your cellphone via Bluetooth
-it can do LIVE traffic, weather, and system updates
-it comes with Mac OS X support (LOVE that, even if their software doesn't work right yet - no 910 option in their HOME application)
-it works right out of the box, don't even need to charge up the batteries
-it can control your iPod
-it can Bluetooth communicate with your phone to enable hands free cell phne coverage
-it even comes with a remote so you can control it remotely if you don't want to reach all the way over to it
-it comes with ton of goodies - a car charger, a USB cradle/charger, a microphone for hands free usage, a remote with mount, a microphone for hands free Bluetooth cell phone integration, an audio cable so it can speak through your stereo....on and on and on.
-..and can probably place a charges reversed call to The Supreme Being and teleport you to Her Supreme Coordinates, if I can figure out how to config the durn thing. Which shouldn't be too hard, since the UI is NICE, which is another reason I picked this one over the Garmin Nuvi 350, which is so tiny it is legitimately pocket sized. This one is cargo pants possible but still bulky - but I am SO looking forward to having it in Amsterdam - I already checked, the maps are in there...with all 8 bazillion POIs already in (Points Of Interest).

I will hug it, I will squeeze it, I will in fact call it George. I will in fact cry like an infant if it gets stolen in LA.

OK, today's (further) proof that I am a geek - the images you see here:

-the top one was screen grabbed from a website that I surfed wirelessly in a trendy Wifi'd lunch place, then Photoshopped and posted remotely to server via WiFi.

-the lower shot is the prize, though - taken with my cameraphone, sent as email attachment to my laptop (9 inches away that I was too lazy to send via Bluetooth), retrieved via Wifi in said trendy digs. Oh, and it shows my present location - N 30.24407 deg, W 97.74624 deg.

Final Cut Pro: Timecode Error when capturing from Canon XL H1

The fix:

Confirm the following settings before capturing:

Choose Final Cut Pro > Easy Setup.
From the pop-up menu choose HDV - 1080i60 FireWire Basic.
Click Setup.
(Using the "Basic" variant of the HDV FireWire device control protocol with the Canon XL H1 helps to ensure greater interoperability).


.....or may have something to do with stuff shot on one camera and captured to computer on another, read article for details.

CinemaTech: Director M. Night Shyamalan on New Technologies, Filmmaking, and the Theatrical Window

Scott Kirsner got to sit down and interview Night about digital vs. film acquisition and post, about theatrical windows, etc. - the whole interview is posted here.

I'm coming to LA for a variety of things - the DGA's Digital Day, visit some facilities, visit some vendors, but I still have some holes in my schedule -

I'll be in LA from July 25th through August 4th, if you'd like to book me for some face to face or in facility consulting, please contact me at mike AT hdforindies DOT com.

(I am, as always, available for over the phone or via email consulting as well.)

I've planned the trip pretty wide and loose so I have some holes to fill with consulting work between facilities and vendor visits and generally checking out the film scene in LA.

I'll also be going to Amsterdam for IBC in September and staying after the show for several days, so if any of my European readers want to book some face time, that is available as well.

-mike

CineForm Unplugged: Silicon Imaging in 48 hours a Success.

OK, this is the kind of blog entry I love to link to - new toys, and the hands on nitty gritty of using it in the field, and for a 48 hour film contest, no less!

Read on for how it went, what they used, problems encountered and overcome, etc. etc. etc.

They won best cinematography out of 44 entrants, and there are even HD downloads of the final short available as well.

Glad to see SI is pushing forward with their camera in field tests as it draws closer to commercial release.

-mike

If you've been following my MacBook difficulties (posts here and here), here's the latest:

-after hearing nothing for a week, I got paranoid that maybe it was missing, lost in shipment, stolen off my porch, etc.
-tried to check case status without the Case # by using my Apple ID, it showed no repairs (that fueled the "It's gone!" paranoia)
-called Apple Support, the automated system insists on tracking by Case ID or Repair ID, neither of which I had
-so treated it as a fresh repair until I reached a human being and he could check status
-they have it, it is on hold, awaiting a new logic board (so clearly a full mobo replacement is under way)
-but new mobos not expected until tomorrow, then a day or two to fix, then 3 or 4 days to get it back to me
-so not likely to arrive until I'm in LA (more on that shortly) - drat!
-that will have been about 2 weeks from the day I shipped it off - make of that what you will, but 2 weeks is a long time to go without - I'm fortunate I still have my 12" PowerBook and that I haven't sold it off (yet)
-checking the website now that I had the Case ID #, I can see that they received it the next day (reported problem on 12th, received shipping materials on 13th, they got it back on the 14th, excellent on their part), but that it has been sitting there waiting for the part (logic board) since the 14th.....boooooooo! Phone tech support said part should come in tomorrow, but don't know whether to trust that as real or as a default "get the customer off the phone" move.

Aside - (It often seems that tech support feels that their job is to get you off the phone, esp. when troubleshooting - where the mission seems to be find a reason it is the user's fault, tell them to reinstall something that takes a long time, then they can hang up while the user does that - "Call back (hopefully getting someone else) if that doesn't fix it, OK?").

So what's to be learned from this? Going without a computer, even for a fairly speedy repair, can be BAD, especially on deadline. Having a punt plan (secondary hardware available or rentable), having good data backups (as well as OS backups so you can get your OS, applications, codecs and drivers "just so"), and being prepared to wait a dead minimum of 10 days (1 day to get repair shipping materials, 2 days to ship it back, 2 days for repairs, 2 days to ship back again, plus a weekend in there to slow things down) for repairs if you're one lucky punk. But 2-3 weeks is entirely likely as well, or longer in case of part shortages. Apple (or any other sane vendor) would MUCH rather sell new models rather than fix old ones with the limited number of parts they have - so repair parts are constrained if the products are in high demand...and with this being back to school academic bulk purchase buying season...drat! That is probably related to why it has been sitting there cooling its heels for nearly a week.

In this case, it is costing me having the BlackBook in LA. Bummer. I just BETTER have it when I go to IBC in September.

-mike

FresHDV found it first, so props to Matthew - The Smoking Gun got a copy of the detailed script breakdown from M. Night Shyamalan's (or "Shyammalammadingdong" as I mentallly refer to him) The Village.

OK, who cares? You do - because buried in there for the unitiated is all kinds of "what does it cost?" information that is otherwise hard to come by. Keep in mind, this was a $70M budget for a major feature film, so they're hiring better than you would, and it was 3 years ago (dated 2003), but if you're curious what rates are for different parts of the equation, there's about 70 or 80 pages to dig through and find it. Unfortunately, it is all scanned pages rather than searchable text, but I was curious to go flippng through the budget sections for areas I don't usually work on, or to see what studios get charged for processing, or how many feet of film they expected to shoot (322,000 feet of 5248 and 5279), or what the ratios were for film shot to film developed to dailies printed, etc. (page 32). Page 75 has some film finishing costs detailed, and the last few pages of the document are an index to tell you where to find particular costs by page.

So good stuff to find in there, but the chaff to wheat ratio is a bit much...and that's not even getting into the gossipy bits about the perks the stars get....keep clicking the image for the next page...

-mike

NBC to offer DVDs before premiers on TV - Yahoo! News

AS much as six weeks before broadcast premieres. This is an interesting ploy - NBC was dead last in the ratings last year, so they'll do whatever they can to catch up - and this includes taking risks, so I think that's a good idea. They're going to release them via Netflix - also a very good idea. I'd love it if more shows started doing things like this. I'm STILL waiting for the rest of Battlestar Galactica Season 2 to come up on Netflix. I wish TV shows would trickle them out to us a bit more aggressively - start releasing individual DVDs maybe a few weeks after airtime, only on Netflix etc., then sell the sets a month after season end? I hate all this waiting around crap...

American Cinematographer reviews the Andromeda now that it is out. The Andromeda is a $2500 modification to a DVX100A that taps into the CCD and extracts the RGB data before any processing is done to it. The good thing about this is 4:4:4 color sampling at 10 bits, but the downside is that it has to be captured to a tethered notebook, and frames have to be processed with a LUT before they are usable (Mac Mini did about 80 frames per minute to process).

I give these guys high marks for trying to do something cool - the modification nets about 1 stop of shadow detail and 2 1/2 stops of highlight detail according to the manufacturer's tests - but I question whether it is worth the additonal hassles of workflow - could that money be better spent in another way? I don't know, but I would like to find out more.

The ASC's summation matches my own (except that I haven't seen it yet):

For low-budget filmmakers, especially those who already have a DVX100, the Andromeda offers a relatively economical way to work at higher resolution and a much better color depth. Andromeda isn’t for all filmmakers or all projects, but it offers a lot of interesting possibilities and is well worth exploring.


Not HD but still indie moviemaker interesting, further down that page here is a review of the new ARRI 416, a Super16mm format film camera with "variable speed from 1-75 fps, a mirror shutter adjustable from 45°-180°, a completely new lightweight ergonomic design, integrated electronic accessories, and compatibility with the same accessories and PL-mount lenses used by its 35mm siblings."

It sounds EXTREMELY clever and VERY well thought out, down to things like one handed battery removal, integrated battery charge reader that tells you how many more mags you can shoot on remaining charge, etc. etc. etc. Just reading the review, the thing reeks of well thought out design after years and years of user feedback.

-mike

Flat-panel TVs get less pricey faster - Yahoo! News

OK, maybe not - I just wrote the other day that the rate of price drops for HDTVs was expected to slow, but now Yahoo news is saying (and I saw it on CNN earlier today too) that manufacturers overestimated demand and are cutting prices to spur sales. A sales perk was expected for World Cup Soccer - didn't happen.

The rate of HDTV adoption is of critical concern if you're planning on shooting your stuff in HD for home distribution - is it worth all that extra effort if nobody is going to watch it in HD?

The example they site is that a 37" flat panel HDTV was about $4000 a year ago, but can now be had for as little as $1100 (not that I'd buy the cheapest). That's certainly progress! Based purely on my gut, I think under $1000, and then under $500, will be the price points to get SERIOUS adoption of big flat panel HDTVs. I've been waiting for the technology to get right (can I get a flat, bright, good black levels, 1080i/1080p set with full 1920x1080 resolution and accurate colorimetry and plenty of proper input jacks?) at an acceptable price point (I'm waiting for $2000, but I'm not sure what size I'm going for).

-mike

Cinema Minima: Personal Digital Cinema. News for movie makers � Final Draft vs. Movie Magic Screenwriter

Cyndi thinks Movie Magic Screenwriter is mo' bettah.

I don't usually cover this kind of stuff, but Cyndi's a friend and this is something indies should pay attention to. Final Draft is good for writing, not so good for exporting. Time is money, peeps.

-mike

Macworld: News: Sony unveils its first after-market Blu-ray Disc burner
-called BWU-100A
-$750
-burns BD-R or BD-RE (rewriteable)
-burner will do single or dual layer BD-R/BD-RE (dual layer 50 not 25GB capacity)
-ships with CyberLink BD burning software - PC only
-2X burn speed, 25GB takes 50 minutes to burn, presumably 50 GB takes 100 minutes to burn
-can also burn single layer 4.7GB DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW, and DVD+R dual layer (8.5 GB) discs
-ATAPI interface
-standard optical drive size

Mike's Comments: this or a Pioneer is a likely option for the forthcoming Intel based Mac Pros, which are rumored to be announced at WWDC in early August. Prices will fall slowly in the first 3+ months but in 6-12 months prices will fall quickly if history is any indicator.

-mike

Macworld: News: Sony aims high with new camcorders

Users will derive maximum recording time from the HDR-UX1 by using a dual-layer DVD R disc. In the camera's highest resolution recording mode, about 27 minutes of video can be stored on one disc. In long-play mode this increases to 60 minutes. Using an 8cm DVD-R, recording time is between 15 minutes and 32 minutes. The HDR-SR1 can store up to four hours of video in its highest quality mode, and up to 11 hours in the lowest quality mode on its 30GB drive.

Also:
-mid September availability
-playback on computers only at first
-some DVD players will support AVCHD in the future (I wouldn't count on wide adoption)
-Sony's PS3 WILL play these discs - THAT expands the market for these!
-10x optical zoom for these cameras, 3.5" LCD, 1080i, HDMI output, about 650 gram weight for either model (disk or DVD)
-30GB hard drive in the model with a hard drive
-can use Bluetooth microphones (that'd be handy for the bluetooth headset crowd - is that what they mean?)

UPDATE - Scott Kirsner's excellent CinemaTech blog has more links, coverage, and analysis on this.

CinemaNow unveils download-to-burn DVD service - Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Online movie seller CinemaNow late
on Tuesday unveiled a new service that allows customers to
download a movie from the Internet and copy it onto a DVD that
can be played on any standard DVD player.
The new, legal download-to-burn service marks a major step
for Hollywood as its movie and television studios seek to offer
movies and TV shows to consumers via the Web for playback on
TVs and portable DVD players.


Has limits though:
-only 100 older movies (Charlie's Angels, Scent of a Woman)
-this is a long tail play, not a newest releases play
-therefore probably just a test
-can only burn one copy
-but is a regular DVD-R
-takes hours to download with broadband

...but is a start. Interesting only 100 movies...I'd like to see more. There's usually a tradeoff between security and fault tolerance...hopefully the service can gracefully handle it if the download gets interrrupted, or your IP address changes if download interrupted, or if the burn fails you should be able to burn another, etc.

-mike

BitTorrent inks licensing deal with studios | CNET News.com: "BitTorrent is lining up entertainment companies as it prepares to sell downloads of feature films, TV shows and other video entertainment."

Pigs are clearly flying. BitTorrent makes sense to move a lot of content, and the security/piracy thing can potentially be addressed.

Read on for full details, I can't summarize (gotta go eat!).

-mike

Amazon stepping into digital download fray

Long interesting story about Amazon (and others) getting into the download fray. Most revolting concept - the studios feel that digital and DVD movie prices should be the same. So you can get a crappier quality, no extras, no physical media, limiting DRM after waiting hours for it to download and it only plays on your ONE computer....or get actually get up off yer butt and go to a store (or wait for Amazon or Netflix) to send you a physical DVD that plays on a variety of devices and can be format shifted (even if illegally, but simply).

Also an egregious error - they say technology is not a limiting factor, that movies can be downloaded in 10 minutes. This is abundantly, painfully not true, and a shameful hose-up on the writer's part.

Short matter can be downloaded at high quality in that time frame, but not high quality, long form content. Not even on broadband, and not even using a progressive download approach. Just, um, NO.

(found via CinemaTech)

HDR-UX1 and HDR-SR1 - Sony Unveils AVCHD Camcorders - News, Guides and Tips - Consumer Camcorders - Camcorderinfo.com

Camcorderinfo is the first source I've found with details on the first AVCHD camcorders:
-HDR-UX1 and HDR-SR1 are the first two models (see linked article above for pic of the UX1)
-records to 8cm rewriteable DVD
-HDR-UX1 due September, $1400 MSRP
-records to dual layer discs, 1 hour recording time - 1.4 GB is normal 8cm DVD capacity, so if 2.8 GB capacity for dual layer, then 1 hour is recording at 6.3 megabits (815 kilobytes/sec or so)
-HDR-SR1 is hard drive based, $1500 MSRP, September as well
-in "long play" up to 10 hours recording time (implies lower bitrate) - but what's the drive capacity? Built in drive? Replaceable?
-CMOS sensor based
-HDR-UX1 and HDR-SR1 AVCHD Camcorders - The Digital Video Information Network is a thread on the new cameras, and includes a link to a folder of images of the cameras, which are clearly straight consumer cameras.

-Panasonic will have an AVCHD camcorder later this year

Mike's Analysis: My ultimate takeaway - at this point in time, this is a CONSUMER format. While the specs include 24p and higher bitrate support, none of that is happening at this point in time. The other big issue - hello, how/where are you going to edit this format? Much like the other DVD recording cameras that record MPEG-2 to 8cm DVDs, there's no clear and easy path to edit this stuff. At this time, Adobe is the only of the Big Three NLEs to take interest in the format publicly/formally - Avid and Apple haven't officially signed up yet.

So I say it'll take several things before I'd consider using this format for anything even remotely serious:

1.) Much better quality cameras than what has been announced to date - better chips, glass, controls, etc.
2.) Higher bitrates, almost certainly recording to hard drives or solid state memory, for better quality video
3.) Native NLE support - there's ZERO native NLE support at this time as far as I can tell (anyone feel free to correct me)

...and even when native NLE comes, H.264 is a very efficient but very processor intensive format - you'll need a FAST, RECENT, POWERFUL computer to have enough huevos to edit this stuff in real time.

So interesting, but not for a while yet.

Also, I've seen no mention of 24p support for these cameras (although the format allows it) - so indie moviemakers, stay away from these cameras!

-mike

Studio Daily | JVC Announces New HD110U HDV Camcorder: "Updated Design Includes More Focus-Assist Settings and New LCD Display and Viewfinder Modes"

If you were about to buy a GY-HD100U, don't - get the new 110U. New features include:

Black and white viewfinder display mode
Simultaneous use of both eyepiece viewfinder and tri-mode LCD display when powered by Anton Bauer or IDX battery system
Selectable mirror mode on vertically flipped LCD display
Adjustable setting of FOCUS ASSIST function
Choice of three image formats on composite out (letterbox, squeeze, side cut)
User selectable DNR ON/OFF menu setting
13 segment audio level indicator
Manual audio control within FAS (Full Auto Shooting) mode
Audio limiter available in manual mode
Parallel power off management of DR-HD100 hard disk recorder

The Matrox MXO is now shipping, and I can now say that I already have a review unit on the way for testing ASAP. This was one of the most interesting new indie viable product announcements at NAB.

In theory it sounds great - adding composite, s-video, component, SDI & HD-SDI (single link only) to your secondary DVI output. For $1000, you could also be buying an HD-SDI input/output card that would do all MXO does and more, BUT those can only be installed in machines with PCI-X or PCIe slots. Connecting to the DVI, this enables an entirely new range of hardware to have high quality previews and outputs - so suddenly laptops have an HD-SDI out, which is a great new option. Plus, it is an outboard piece of hardware - presumably you could just pop it off and hand it to your studio mate if you needed to share it - relocating an PCI-X/PCIe card to another box is no trivial exercise.

I'm interested in finding out how the output compares to traditional HD-SDI output from an AJA or BMD card from the same source footage, and will be testing it as such.

Unlike a hardware only scan rate converter, the explanation I got about it is that it comes with some QuickTime components and does some trickery to the signal going out the DVI so that it isn't just a scan rate converter, but properly formatted video. Again, we'll have to wait and see what we get, and find out if things like 24p, downconversion, cross conversion etc. are supported or even possible.

So keep reading over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting about it as soon as it comes in.

Press release follows:

Montreal, Canada, July 18, 2006 - Matrox Video Products Group today announced that Matrox MXO is now shipping. An easy-to-use DVI-to-audio/video output adapter for the Mac, Matrox MXO, takes the DVI output from a Mac computer or laptop and converts it to broadcast-quality video. Users can preview Apple Final Cut Pro projects or the output of other QuickTime-based applications such as Apple Soundtrack Pro and Motion, as well as Adobe After Effects as they will actually appear on TV and record them frame accurately to tape. Matrox MXO can also be used to provide a flicker-free video output of the computer desktop with any application, allowing the user to record and display Keynote and PowerPoint presentations, web browser sessions, and software application training.

"Matrox MXO incorporates patent-pending technology that provides important workflow enhancements for video production professionals on the Mac platform," said Alberto Cieri, Matrox sales and marketing director. "It's a cost-effective external box that's easy-to-use and portable. Final Cut Pro users will wonder how they ever worked without it."

Key features of Matrox MXO
- DVI to broadcast-quality video conversion in HD and SD
- Portable, hot-swappable external box
- Genlockable HD/SD SDI, HD/SD analog component, Y/C, and composite outputs
- Up to 8 channels SDI embedded audio output with stereo audio monitoring
- Workflow enhancements for Final Cut Pro and other QuickTime-based applications
- Conversion of DVI preview output to frame accurate video for insert editing and print-to-tape with guaranteed audio/video sync
- Interlacing artifact elimination and gamma correction when previewing video on a secondary DVI display
- Hardware accelerated output of DVCPRO HD, HDV, and Final Cut Pro Dynamic RT segments
- Realtime downscaling of an HD project to SD resolution with proper color space conversions
- Flicker-free, broadcast-quality video output of the computer desktop with any application

Price and availability
Priced at $995 US in North America (£619, EUR899), Matrox MXO is now available through a worldwide network of authorized dealers.

Studio Monthly | Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

I continue to be more and more impressed with Studio Monthly as I come across more articles from them. This one talks about the detailed steps involved in offline and online editing and mastering of a half hour show shot on HD and HDV. They skip over a couple of steps I'd like more granular detail on (timecode issues when downconverting HDV to DV, timecode matchback issues when recapturing HD?), and run into some problems that are (supposedly) fixed now (Media Manager 1 frame retimed shots for instance). But this is a nice overview of how to tackle these kinds of projects.

I'm growing increasingly curious as to whether, with a robust machine like a Quad G5, it is acceptably speedy to offline in HD. Some of my recent research has been to quantify what is and isn't realtime on various machines and various formats.

-mike

UPDATE Analyst says "it's unlikely that Apple will use its upcoming World Wide Developers Conference to introduce new music-related products.": "keep in mind WWDC is a Mac event and has not been used in the past for major iPod announcements." - which fits with my own thoughts on this - WWDC is a geek-a-thon, not a major product launch platform event.

And finally, somebody took the time to pick apart how often TS gets it wrong. I'm sure there's many more examples and it would be fun to chart their chicken little vs got it right ratio, but I don't have time for that.

----

Think Secret - WWDC surprise: Apple to announce iTunes movie rentals

Claims Apple will have time lmited downloads (or limited # of times you can view it) to debut at WWDC. Hmm. I'll wait and see. In a similar article, they claim 3.5" LCD screen iPods have been delayed until early 2007.

That doesn't seem to quite make sense - I'd think these two things would be closely related.

Also, how good will the movies look? At what resolution and bitrate? If H.264 (most likely candidate), you're talking about BIG downloads here (esp. if the resolution is anywhere close to DVD's 720x480).

Again, this is from rumor monger extraordinaire Think Secret - they tend to say "The sky is falling/Apple product X is about to ship!" repeatedly until it does then claim prescience.

That annoys me.

If the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, or some other Hollywood press reports INDEPENDENTLY (not just saying Think Secret is reporting it) that this is true, that will go a long way towards lending credibility.

But if true, I find downloadable rentals....distasteful. If that's all Jobs can pull off in his dealmaking efforts...that's kinda lame. Other services are selling downloadable movies (I need to take a closer look now to clarify which is doing rentals vs. purchase). It's good fiscal policy for Apple and Hollywood, not so great for consumers.

...so if the studios are pushing for low res, slow downloading, no extras (cut scenes, behind the scenes, etc.) that only play on computers or current video iPods...that's not a very compelling usage scenario. Considering you can get Handbrake to make iPod versions of DVDs for FREE....the Rent/Rip/Return motif will probably be more popular than the downloadbles for all but impulse rentals. I find that even with 3 at a time Netflix, I still end up renting movies I want "now" often. (I have 5 rented movies in the house at the moment between Netflix and local indie movie rental place, Blockbuster wasn't trused to have Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control in stock).

-mike

LINK PULLED

I'm guilty of speed blogging this one - I saw topic headers that looked generally right and skimmed some content, but didn't read in depth. Graeme Nattress (rightfully) called me on the carpet on this one, so I just pulled the plug on it. Never mind, you do NOT want to see it.

-mike

Movielink licenses DVD-burning tools - Yahoo! News

Movielink LLC has licensed technology that allows the online movie service's customers to transfer downloaded films to DVDs for playback on standard DVD players.

The deal announced Monday with Sonic Solutions clears a technological hurdle for Santa Monica-based Movielink, but the company still lacks permission from Hollywood studios to offer their movies for DVD burning.


A good step - let's see if Hollywood bites at this revenue stream, or remains concerned about piracy and blocks the move.

-mike

Matrox MXO was one of the products I was most intrigued by at NAB - it is a small hardware/software combo that connects to your DVI output and has analog and SDI/HD-SDI outputs. NOT just a scan rate converter, they are intending it to be a serious output tool. For notebook computer owners where HD-SDI output is an impossibility, this is a big big deal.

So tune in tomorrow, kids, news on the way...

...so I've been busy and not blogging as much, letting the news stack up. Call it blogstipation. So here's the Monday, um....the large quantity of Monday news. (No, I'm not Going There. You feel free.)

Large, unwieldy and inconvenient? Yes! But otherwise, none of this would get blogged - too much going on! I'm going to be in LA for about a week at the end of this month and I have to plan for it. If you want to book me for some face to face consulting while I'm out there, drop me an email at the link at the top of this page (or to meet 'n greet).

HD STUFF:

Ricoh tries to bridge dueling HD formats - Yahoo! News

Ricoh has a new head assembly that will READ both HD-DVD and Blu-ray devices - this could be a good basis for a combo reader, solving the "which to buy?" conundrum. Note this is for READING only, NOT burning - that's a separate issue.

Also a separate issue - to the best of my understanding, Sony requires that Blu-ray licensees do not produce HD-DVD players - how will that contractual obligation be solved? Just because the tech exists doesn't mean it can and will be implemented.

But I'd also see a combo player costing $1000 any time soon - still awfully damned pricey for a home entertainment component. Other than the HDTV, what other home entertainment thing routinely costs over $1000? Umm...can't think of it. (And yes yes yes you CAN spend thousands on stuff, but considering the fact that home theater kits with receiver/amp, speakers, & DVD player are $300 at Fry's, they don't HAVE to cost that for consumers, sucky as that package is).

---

HDBlog.net � Blog Archive � HDTV Not Getting Cheaper as Fast

...in the fourth quarter of 2004, the average 42-inch high-definition plasma TV cost $4,446, according to another research outlet, DisplaySearch. By fourth quarter 2005, that average price had dropped to $2,611, a 41.3 percent decline.
From the end of 2005 to the end of 2006, the average price of a 42-inch HD plasma display is expected to dip 22.9 percent, to $2,014. In dollar terms, a plasma TV shopper at the end of 2004 would have saved $1,835 by waiting one more year.

---

Movie Marketing Blog - Movie Marketing Update: HD DVD Group Announces $150 Million Marketing Push

---

High Def Won't Take Off in 2006, Say Retailers | High-Def DVD Digest - 2007 will be the first year with any even vaguely significant adoption of high def DVD players, and HDTV prices aren't falling as fast as hoped - so the point of inflection on major HDTV adoption is still at some point in the future.

---

Video Business Online - 7/11/2006 - Punching up next-gen promos - CA6351635
Warner will release some of its premiere titles on HD DVD in the current third quarter, including Batman Begins and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, senior VP of marketing management Steve Nickerson told VB. Batman Begins had initially been expected earlier this spring.


...but will they release those on Blu-ray as well at some point in the future? Seems to remarkably dumb to limit to one format. Since they use the EXACT SAME codecs, and initial discs will probably be feature for feature matches for standard DVDs, an extra day or two of authoring plus manufacturing doesn't seem like it should be a good reason to limit availability of your product. Only Sony has that excuse - since they make both movies and are the major force behind Blu-ray.

---

TUESDAY UPDATE Disney announced their Blu-ray lineup:

HDBlog.net � Blog Archive � Disney Announces Blu-ray Lineup

Disney announced their Blu-ray lineup, and quite frankly, it blows chunks. Of the nine movies announced, I don't even have the urge to rent ANY of them, let alone own'em. OK, maybe Dinosaur would be kind of interesting to watch in HD (the meteor impact scene alone would be cool). But as for the rest...six of them I haven't even bothered to see. And I'm a movie geek. Not a strong lead, heading further into LaserDisc 2.0 territory...

---

TECH:

CalDigit RAIDs - They are doing native SATA RAIDs with port multiplication, which they are calling SuperLane, but it is port multiplication. The products sound interesting and valid, including a 10 drive RAID 10 config (finally!), but their specs are misleading - they advertise the maximum possible drive speeds, which are most definitely NOT the minimum guaranteed performance ratings. If 230 MB/sec is the max, minimum is likely to be 150 to 180 or so MB/sec - completely insufficient for 10 bit work. But if they can get their marketing claims straight, still is worth checking out.

---

Analysts: Blu-ray looms in Apple's future - Yahoo! News

As with any future product, Apple is keeping its plans for Blu-ray under wraps. But industry analysts don%u2019t think we'll have long to wait before Apple puts a Blu-ray drive in an Intel-based Mac.

The most likely candidate? The as-yet unreleased machine that will replace the Power Mac as Apple%u2019s professional desktop offering.


File this under "Duh." Steve Jobs stood on stage at MWSF 2005 (January of LAST year) with the then-head of Sony and talked about burning Blu-ray discs. While DVD Studio Pro presently only supports the HD DVD spec for high def projects, that is because HD DVD specs were finished in time. But in terms of burners, I'd expect Apple to go with Blu-ray. For one, longtime partner Pioneer is down to make Blu-Ray burners, and also because Blu-ray holds more data. Plus, I see Steve as a "go for the best regardless of cost" kind of a guy. I'd be REALLY surprised to see Apple to with HD-DVD at this point, but it is certainly possible. And these drives will be first in Mac Pros, the Intel based replacements for G5s. Rumor sites are saying there will be room for a second optical drive in the new Macs - I read this as meaning that either the initial Blu-ray burners will lack CD or DVD burning capabilities and you'll need a dual optical drive system (as was the case with early DVD drives), or that they won't be ready in time for the first units out the door, so Apple wants to leave room for adding them later (a less likely scenario). Apple has been either the first of one of the first to adopt new optical drive formats (remember how revolutionary SuperDrives were?), so I'd HOPE Pro Macs debut with the option of a high def burner. And if they don't, I'd damn well expect them to be rolled out at MWSF in January at the latest. An intermediate solution that is also likely: Apple announces the Pro Macs with a high def burner option "due next month" and it just so happens to take 2-3 months to reach Mere Mortals in the marketplace.

---

P2 Genie - The P2 offload software is now shipping their Windows version. It is a nice little app to offload your P2 cards and back'em up on a hard drive. From their site:

What is P2 Genie?

P2 Genie is a small utility designed to make your P2 workflow easier. Insert your P2 Card, P2 Store or connect your Panasonic HVX-200 camera to your computer and P2 Genie will offload all your media to either an internal or external harddrive (or both) - all with the click of a single button (or none if you set it to "automatic"). Easy as that!

Flexibility

P2 Genie comes with two modes - manual or automatic. In the "automatic" mode P2 Genie will start offloading your P2 Card(s) as soon as they're inserted - and empty them afterwards, if you enable this option. This feature is a real time-saver and could save you a lot of money because of the need for fewer P2 Cards.

P2 Genie works with two distinct naming schemes - reelnumber and name&date naming allowing you to completely costumize the way you name and log your footage.

P2 Genie's unique "single folder" feature will ease your workflow by allowing you to import all your media into NLEs like Final Cut Pro by copying all media files into a single folder.


(this and others found on FresHDV.com - pardon my leech, Matthew!)

---

DOFC - Depth of Field Calculator - Dashboard - Calculate & Convert What it says - a depth of field calculating Widget for OS X 10.4

---

Underwater Housing for miniDV DIY underwater housing for a camcorder. Pretty slick for total cheapie (no control access). I wouldn't do any serious shooting with it, but great for doodling with - set up to record, seal it and go (no short duration P2 cards please!)

---

Self-Reliant Filmmaking � Blog Archive � What To Do When Your Hard Drive Goes Soft.

Basics of what to do if a hard drive fails to mount. Insert pun here.

---

Creative Workflow Hacks � Blog Archive � Using HDCAM SR as an acquisition format is a nice piece on the advantages of HDCAM SR vs HDCAM, discussing distribution vs. acquisition formats. Plus, he links to me. Always with the linkluv, my friend...

---

Creative Workflow Hacks � Blog Archive � Using Batch Export in Final Cut Pro is a nice little demo of how to use Batch Export in Final Cut Pro. BUT....there are some quality issues involved. It's great for quickie exports, making offline versions, etc., but I wouldn't always use it for high quality exports, esp. if converting formats.

---

Squared 5 - MPEG Streamclip for Mac OS X A highly recommended little conversion application for format conversion, more about it (and where I found out about it) at Creative Workflow Hacks

--

NEW CAMERA FORMAT: AVCHD

Sony to Unveil AVCHD Camcorder Next Week - CIO Tech Informer - Blog - CIO
Sony plans to take the wraps off its first high-definition camcorder compatible with the new AVCHD format next Wednesday.
AVCHD has been developed by Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic) as a way to allow high-definition video to be stored on 8-centimeter DVDs.


Consumers (according to article) prefer simplicity (and low cost) of DVDs. Canon, Pioneer, Samsung, and Sharp have expressed interest in licensing the format, and Sony and Panasonic were the developers of it.

Somebody sent me something about them upping the max bandwidth of the format, makes me think they might take it out of the consumer only space into prosumer and lower end pro gear.

---

Sony Global - Press Release - Panasonic and Sony Expand HD Digital Video Camera Recorder Format %u201CAVCHD%u201D

AVCHD format expanded - instead of just recording to DVDs, solid state memory and hard drives have been added to the list.

AVCHD INFORMATION WEB SITE

Offcial page on AVCHD, including list of supporters, which includes Adobe but not Avid or Apple.

---

NIKE +IPOD:

Nike iPod: About the sensor battery - LAME. When the battery in the sensor runs out, you have to replace the ENTIRE KIT. After about 1000 hours of actual usage. So not only is the battery non-replaceable, but you have to replace the sensor AND the receiver. And you thought the irreplaceable battery in your iPod shuffle was lame...

MOVIES & TECH

---

Entertainment Weekly's EW.com | Feature: ''Pirates'': Why Davy Jones looks so amazing

Gushing praise for ILM's use of mocap on set, and Bill Nighy's excellent performance of Davy Jones. But frankly, it was pretty damned amazing. Even I, after working with CGI for years, kept staring at it and thinking it was a guy in an outfit with some CGI extensions because it just looked so damn real (can you say subsurface scattering? ILM damn sure can!). Stunningly detailed and realistic, and the funny thing is that, even as a mocap, CG rendered entity, something about the actor's voice and mannerisms kept popping out at me - I knew I recognized the guy (not as octopus and crab claw, but What Lies Beneath), and then I read the article where they talked about Bill Nighy on set.

---

Cameron comes back with CG extravaganza (Avatar, aka Project 880): "'Believe it or not, the shooting is a very small part of it,' Cameron says. 'It's a very, very big project where the shooting is like a month and a half -- not really very much. There's just so much CG, and the visual effects are a huge component. A lot of it is performance capture. We use different techniques (from, for example, Sony Pictures' upcoming 'Monster House'), but it's the same general idea.'"

---

When the 'Yes' Becomes a 'No' - Los Angeles Times

Film projects, some with major talent attached, are now getting their plugs pulled by budget-skittish studios.THE real magic of Hollywood is not the knee-buckling resonance of a perfect screen kiss or the ability to conjure an army of Orcs from the plains of New Zealand. The real magic of Hollywood, as any agent, screenwriter, director, actor, producer or studio executive will tell you, is that movies get made at all. Especially now.


OK, this is especially scary in light of the Disney pullback (see below) - the studios are freaking out and deciding to make fewer movies that they can control better. This is not good news for indies, as it makes it ever tougher to get produced by a big studio. In this day and age of decreasing costs for some aspects of production and post production, that feels a bit crazy. But read the article to make sense of it all. Can you say scope creep? I knew you could.

---


Film & Video | Finishing the 4K Commercial - a Lexus commercial for IMAX screens, shot 35 and 4K post. Worth a quick read if interested in 4K workflows (and you have buckets of money in your budget).

---

Major Cuts at Disney Are Expected - Los Angeles Times
Despite last weekend's record debut of its 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,' Walt Disney Co. is moving ahead with plans to slash hundreds of studio jobs and curtail the number of films it makes in an effort to squeeze costs.Across-the-board layoffs are expected to hit every major domestic and international sector of the movie studio, people familiar with the plans said, including production, postproduction, legal and business affairs, marketing, distribution and home video. The Burbank studio's animation operation, its Miramax Film unit and its music group are expected to be spared.


Wow, ouch. Fewer movies, fewer chances for outsiders to get their projects into production.

---

So what are the indie options? How about this one:


--------

DOWNLOADABLE VIDEO/MOVIE NEWS:

SiliconBeat: CinemaNow lands $20 million, to keep up with everyone else
CinemaNow, which lets you (legally) download movies to your PC, has raised another $20 million from venture investors.

Investors already include Cisco and Lions Gate Films; content is coming from Fox, ABC, Disney, HDNet, Lions Gate, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, Sony, Sundance and Warner Bros.

---
or just do this to drum up business for a slow moving product:

Movie Marketing Blog - Movie Marketing Update: Warner Independent Releases First 24 Minutes of 'A Scanner Darkly' on IGN

While the studios have been releasing clips under ten minutes on a fairly regular basis, this is without a doubt the longest preview released by a studio or specialty division to date. This shrewd marketing move is undoubtedly meant to drum up interest preceding the film's expansion onto 190 screens this weekend, up from 17 during the opening weekend.


---


MercuryNews.com | 07/12/2006 | How will YouTube make money?
The cost of running a site that streams millions of videos a day is adding up -- the monthly bandwidth bill alone is at least $300,000 to $400,000, industry insiders say.


Ouch. To me the crucial metric is something like this: How much can they charge per page for ads on pages with video, which has a substantial per-page broadband cost associated with it? The more ads they put on the page, the less likely any one ad will be clicked on. How to run their yield management for maximum revenue per page I'm sure makes these guys sweat at night. Or put ads on the video content itself, which reduces the likelihood that the fickle Internet market will put up with it, and just close the page before ever getting to the content.

We are now well past the "R&D costs amortize to zero as you scale" days of the early internet delirium. The biz model has to work. And with an advertisingless viral model like YouTube, it pretty much needs to work on a per-page basis - if it costs .03 cents (or whatever) to receive, post, and host that content each time, you'd damn well better be making .035 cents per page, or it is time to hang it up and go home. Or keep shilling for your investors promising future returns from Bright 'N Shiny New Technology until the whole thing implodes on itself.

I think online video may be like the greeting card sites of a few years ago. Except selling sites for eyeball counts doesn't garner what it once did.

In the end, online video may be tremendously successful....but may not be profitable.

Had a long talk with my friend Charlie Wood last night about video services, he pointed out that Google Video requires you to upload your content and then wait 2 days or more for it to get posted while they recompress it in their proprietary format. Oops - I think that alone killed their viability for the instant-response crowd. Two days to wait for the soccer headbutt seen 'round the world? No way. Of all places and markets, Google should have realized that timeliness to market counts. A LOT.

We talked about using the Internet as a source for HD content, everything from frivolous YouTube style videos to feature films. I think that day might come, but we need to see some models for downloadable video that work from a business perspective at ANY resolution first.

HD has a possible window as an Internet play - more choice than Pay Per View, higher definition than you can get from DVD. But broadband and/or compression needs to improve before that will be fully viable. Or Apple needs to get their butt in gear and go straight to HD content, offering a valid option to $1000 Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players that do nothing but play proprietary discs.


More on YouTube here:
MercuryNews.com | 07/11/2006 | Cassidy: YouTube hits the big time in a short time

---

Use of Internet Video Is Growing at a Faster Clip - Los Angeles Times

....but at least this is good news for indies - will the indie play be direct DVD sales (or downloads), with promotion done via viral trailers at free sites like YouTube etc.?

---

I've pulled a bunch of these links from Scott Kirsner's CinemaTech blog, which is truly excellent for covering the biz side of, well, cinema technology. It's a daily must read for me and I HIGHLY recommend it for indies trying to keep on eye on distro options.

---

Use of Internet Video Is Growing at a Faster Clip - Los Angeles Times

Well, duh. So indies, check it out - if you don't have copies for sale of your movie online (as either a DVD, high def DVD, or direct download) you can certainly put your promo materials online (for FREE, if not very high quality).

----

WHEW! OK, that ought to hold you. So if I don't blog tomorrow, don't get peeved. Sorry it isn't formatted all nicely, but hey, ya do what ya gotta do.

-mike

Dalsa/Codex Workflow is a nice little article talking about how Curtis Clark (ASC) shot a spec spot and messed around with the 4K Dalsa camera and the Codex disk recorder, both running at 4K resolution.

Some highlights:
-first Dalsa motion control shoot
-first Dalsa at 36 fps shoot
-could do shot reviews right away, playing back
-could output AVI files to networked laptop for After Effects test comps
-can access frames as DPX files via virtual file system
-similar workflow to the Fincher's use of Viper to S.Two D.Mags
-he talks about how oversampled 4K for HD 4:4:4 is very nice....but hey...

Mike's Comments: wouldn't 2K work about as well? There are definite limits to how well oversampling works, and it gets into the scaling math used. Scaling down can actually soften an image's edges - not always desirable. I did a bunch of tests myself a few years ago - scaling more than 50% down in Photoshop would result in noticeably softer images. I ended up using Debabelizer, as it use a sine scale funtion rather than a bicubic scale function. Point being, massive oversampling of source to sample down in post doesn't always generate the sharpest image.

Clark talks about how this would be useful for getting great imagery, but then does mention that not everybody can handle 4K post...well YEAH! 4K is a tremendous amount of data and requires the very best technology out there in terms of finishing tools, quickly running towards 7 figure costs at minimum.

A neat test, very interesting, but prohibitively expensive at this time.

I'm going to be very curious to see what becomes of 4K in the future - even in a theatrical setting (the only place to view it at this time), only the first X rows can even tell - the majority of the theater's viewers couldn't even discern the difference side by side. Now, in acquisition, more is certainly better - for pushing in, repositioning, stabilizing, VFX work, etc. But is it overkill?

Would 3K be plenty enough oversampling for post considerations? In the real world, not just bragging rights?

-mike

So while I'm writing up some painfully deep geek but technically AMAZING stuff (of course, since, like, I wrote it), here's a little fun for you to help you through your day.

All Hail Robot Chicken.

YouTube - Robot Chicken - Star Wars Parody

...I love you too.

-mike

Note: this is all "draft grade" writing, so particular numbers may, quite frankly, be wrong. But the gist of this is definitely true, of that I am sure. So if you see something that you know for a fact is wrong, show how smart you are and bust me by posting it in the Comments (feel free to cite your references and include links), using the link at the end of the article.

So I'm doing testing with a potentially faulty disk array, 5 drives in a port multiplied enclosure (that means all data sent down a single eSATA cable).

It is a known limitation that port multiplication caps out around 230 or so MB/sec - that is as fast as you can practically push data down an eSATA cable at this time.

For those who don't know, hard drives are fastest when they are writing to the outer tracks (these are the first tracks written to on an empty disk), and slowest when writing to the inner tracks (the last tracks written to when the disk is full). Think of a record player, and how much linear record track flows under the needle at the outer vs. inner edges of the disk - the linear speed is highest at the edge and slowest close to the spindle. So it is normal for hard drive disk speed to drop off significantly from outer to inner tracks - something like 60 vs 30 MB/sec.

(Also, in my general experience, drives in a RAID are about 10% slower per drive than they would be individually - so instead of 5 times transfer rate, it's more like 5 times 90% of transfer rate.)

So when chosing drives for a 5 disk port multiplied array for uncompressed HD, the TOP speed (the number usually cited in terms of disk maximum sustained transfer rates) is less significant than the BOTTOM speed (the MINIMUM maximum sustained transfer rate, which is much harder info to find).

So if you have two drives, and for fun let's make some up:

Drive A has outer track speeds of 64 MB/sec, inner track speeds of 32 MB/sec, and

Drive B has outer track transfer rate of 60 MB/sec, but inner track rates of 38 MB/sec.

Drive A looks faster, right? But in a 5 drive port multiplied system, that top speed will be capped - the eSATA cable can't go that fast - so anything over 230ish (roughly) MB/sec is wasted and will be clipped off. 5 times 64 would be 320 MB/sec (less 10% "RAID penalty," it'd be 288 MB/sec more likely). But the single eSATA bus clips it to 230ish. So in terms of TOP speed, Drive A and drive B would be the same - both pegging the needle, as it were, on the speedometer of the array.

BUT...as data starts being written towards the inner tracks, the transfer rate starts to fall off. Since the transfer rate was clipped by the single eSATA bus, the transfer rate stays pegged at 230 until the five individual drives' transfer rate falls below 1/5 of that 230 MB/sec (less 10%).

230/5=46 MB/sec per drive.

The falloff in transfer rates for a single drive tends to be a gentle one with a sudden dip at the end (see example below:)


(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

But for a port multiplied array, outer track performance is clipped, because the 5 drives when empty can shovel data faster than the single eSATA bus can handle. So performance is pegged at eSATA limits until the drive performance falls below that level. So the performance is flat until it suddenly starts to fall off:


(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab. This array is very nearly full of data, so not typical of an empty array)

....this actually works out pretty well in terms of maintaining a pretty good transfer rate for a pretty long time.

But for editing purposes, it is a critical threshold kind of a problem. If we presume we're trying to cut 10 bit 1080i60 4:2:2 footage (the "heaviest" footage most are likely to deal with), that's 160 MB/sec. You typically need about 25% headroom, so that requires a 200 MB/sec datarate capable device (that's a pretty industry standard # for QuickTime, BTW).

Since we're not talking about enough throughput for dual stream purposes (not for 1080i 10 bit anyway), what we really want is to be sure it can play that single stream from ANY LOCATION ON THE ARRAY. So that means we want at LEAST 200 MB/sec from any part of the array. Once the array slows below that mission critical crucial threshold, it can't reliably play real time footage anymore, and suddenly becomes useless to us - we spent all that money on the array, with a greater likelihood of mechanical failure than a single drive (5x drives, 5x risk of loss), but it doesn't do what we need.

So the trick is to know IF it will ever fall below that threshold. If you look at the above sample graph, you'll see that this particular RAID DOES fall below that threshold. There's two ways you can look at this:

1.) Oh, dammit, I'm doomed - this array is worthless for 1080i 10 bit HD work, since once I fill it beyond a certain point, it'll start to unpredictably drop frames on playback, or not even be able to capture footage correctly in the first place.

2.) Well, I've got some data here about when it does and doesn't work as well as I need it to, so how can I just work with the "good" part?

Option 1 says bag it and get a different array.

Option 2 implies figure out how to only use the good part....and that is where partitioning comes in.

So let's look at that chart above again (open in a new window and look at it while reading along. Yes, you can do this).

On this chart, the lower white solid horizontal line is at 160 MB/sec - the ostensible data rate of the target footage, 10 bit 1080i60 4:2:2. But about 25% overhead is needed - so we want 200 MB/sec. (This particular array has a ton of data on it, so just pretend all these test result numbers are perfectly accurate, but I don't know if that's truly accurate or not)

You also have to account for both reads (playback) and writes (capture) in terms of "Is it fast enough?"

The reads are looking pretty good - average read speeds are above 200 all the way out to the 1304.1 GB line. So if I wanted to be sure I could always play back footage, I'd set up my hard drive with SoftRAID and partition it at or before 1300GB.

Writes, on the other hand, are sucking wind - right from the get-go, we can see that minimum read performance is below the 200 MB/sec line (the upper white horizontal line). The red with white dots bars are the minimum read performance, and that is what you would normally pay attention to when trying to determine where the wise place to partition is - you want to be SURE it'll work, and the red with white dots is the worst performer over 6 tries (20 or 30 passes would be a more accurate representation of Worst Performance Ever, but I didn't want to take that much time here). That MINIMUM performance is what you're concerned with - what will it reliably do EVERY time, so that it is reliable. Yeah I'm hammering on that, but it is important. For the sake of this demo, let's pretend the top of the green is the minimum performance, just so we have some numbers to play with (switch to magical graph misinterpretation ON, boys and girls).

OK - pretending the top of the green w/white dots is where the top of the red w/white dots WOULD be, that means that we could safely capture to....let's call it the bar beyond the read limit - the roughly 1350 GB mark. (Write speeds are often higher than read speeds when testing individual drives, so remember, YMMV). So if we want to partition at a point where we can depend on both capturing and playing back footage at a target data rate, in this case, with our pretend write numbers, we'd partition at the 1300GB point.

What to do with the remaining 500 GB? Use that for files that DON'T have to perform as at high a level - maybe 720p24 footage, or renders that don't have to play back in real time, DV proxies, whatever. Just don't expect 10b 1080i60 footage to play back reliably in real time from there.

So, you'll note that the size of the partition we can make that is fast enough is dependent on the LOWEST sustainable transfer rate the drive will do, NOT NOT NOT the highest. So when someone talks about the "fastest" drive for editing, you suddenly may find yourself more concerned with the minimum sustained transfer rate, not the maximum.

Going back to our Drive A (64/32 read & write) vs our Drive B (60/38 read & write), you (hopefully) now get that Drive B would create more USABLE space in a 5 disk array - since you could make a partition that is "fast enough" that was bigger, since the drive's performance at the inner tracks didn't drop as low as the other choice's did.

So the HIGHER the inner track performance is, the bigger the usable portion of the array. And since the fastest part of the disk DOES NOT MATTER because a.) peak performance is clipped by the single eSATA bus in a port multiplying enclosure, and b.) if we're only trying to do single stream, the only relevant factor is how much of the capacity of the array (or individual disks) is faster than our mission critical threshold - which depends on the inner track (tail end) performance, not the outer track (head/empty end) performance.

So a more sophisticated analysis is required - not just "How fast is the maximum sustained transfer rate on that drive?" but "what is the tail end performance of that drive, and how much of the drive's capacity is above throughput X", X being, in this case, 200 MB/sec, divided by 5 drives, plus 10% RAID performance penalty, is how fast each drive should be. So brass tacks, the more of the disk's capacity over about 44 MB/sec read & write, the better - you get a bigger "usable" array for 1080i60 10 bit 4:2:2.

But what about other formats?

1080p24 10 bit 4:4:4 is about 190 MB/sec, so add RAID penalty of 10%, then safety margin of 25%, means a drive capable of about 52 MB/sec on its own. A 5 drive eSATA probably can't do it (single eSATA bus limitations).

720p24 10 bit is more math that....I'll let you figure out.

SO WHAT ABOUT MULTIPLE STREAMS OF VIDEO?

Last weekend Zane Rutledge was kind enough to come over and help me do some testing. We had 3 laptops:
-12" Powerbook with 7200 rpm 100GB drive
-MacBook with 5400rpm 120 GB drive
-Zane's 17" MacBook Pro with 7200rpm 100GB drive

and three G5s:
-a dual 2.0 GHZ G5 with a 4 disk RAID
-a dual 2.5 GHz G5 with an 8 disk RAID
-a Quad G5 with a port multiplied 5 disk RAID

We were testing how many streams of video they could play simultaneously. And even on the faster RAID systems, one would think that if there were enough computing horsepower to decode and composite the multiple streams, it should just be a matter of throughput, right?

Well...not quite.

Throughput helps, but as I learned on a consulting gig for a client the other year, a FAST drive helps (high sustained transfer rate), but what REALLY matters, in the end, is low seek times. I'd recommended the 75 GB Western Digital Raptor 10K drives - because seek time matters.

Think of it this way - when you're trying to play, say, 6 tracks off of a single drive, it is akin to asking a record player to play one note of each of six songs on the record - that needle's going to be flying around busy. The faster you spin the record, however, the quicker it can read each note (shut up, we'll ignore pitch shift for now). So that's how a faster spinning drive helps. BUT...then the needle has to lift up, move to the next song, find the right spot to get just the note it needs of another song, position itself, make contact, play the note, and move on to the next....that is roughly analagous to what happens when you try to play multiple tracks of video. The time it takes to find the next song is seek time, and that ends up being costly in terms of time.

If you're trying to play 6 tracks of video at, say, 30 fps, that means you have 0.033 seconds, or 33 milliseconds to load a frame from each of six movies, which are of course in six different locations on the drive. So that's 5.55 milliseconds per track. Ouch. The AVERAGE seek times quoted for drives is in the 8-12 millisecond range these days. But those Raptor 10Ks were much lower, I think under 6 ms (and yes I'm too lazy to go look, somebody feel free to find it and post in comments). Now in reality, there's all kinds of other crazy voodoo going on, like caching in the drive, Final Cut caches and reads ahead, but the gist of it is this - if you want to get more simultaneous tracks played, low seek times help tons. RAID actually only helps in certain situations - if you have LARGE frames to read. But seek times actually go UP in a RAID, since all the spindles have to each do their own seek, and you're kind of waiting until all the ducks are in a row is my simplistic understanding of how it works. Unless the hit of slower seek times is overcome by dramatically faster reads & writes due to reading a goodly amount of data per frame, it isn't as helpful as you would think. For instance, the client was trying to do highly compressed SD Windows Media 9 files - low file size per frame. But for HD, LOTS of data per frame.

So this led me to think of this - if you absolutely HAD to have a lot of simultaneous streams, why not try one of the new 150 GB Western Digital Raptor drives? Either singly or in a RAID configuration. I'd love it if somebody would do some carefully controlled benchmarks and find out if that actually allowed for more simultaneous streams, and under what circumstances (as in, using what video formats, where file size per frame, decoding effort, and whatever other factors come into play).

Those Raptor drives are pricey - costing far more than other drives of the same size, but they do things other drives don't. The are also hot and power hungry - but they are 10,000 rpm drives, so that is to be expected.

OK, end of brain dump for today.

Somebody go have a beer.

Oh, that should be me.

-mike

UDPATE - while getting cranky at my vendor for selling me the not fastest drives that he said "were about as fast as what's out there" (wroooooooooooooong), I found this new article on the new generation of 500 GB drives - and they're mighty fast! Guaranteed sustained transfers of 43 MB/sec on the Maxtor Maxline Pro - that should mean about 98% usable capacity for 1080i 10b422.

I bought this RAID (the one giving me trouble) so I could double up and make a 10 drive RAID with the matching one I already have - it'll be plenty fast enough for anything I want to do. But if I were buying a freestanding one, I'd be getting a 500 GB drive based one - they are FAST!

Turns out I'm not the only one with the lines problem, nor with the spontaneous loss of power problem:

Apple - Support - Discussions - vertical, coloured lines ...

MacBook dying [with pic!] :( - Topic Powered by eve community

MacFixIt - Mac OS X 10.4.7 Special Report: MacBook (13"): Vertical multi-colored lines at startup after Mac OS X 10.4.7 update

Screen has vertical lines when starting up MacBook - MacNN Forums

The lines issue seems to be specific to OS X 10.4.7, so therefore if you have a MacBook I don't recommend upgrading to 10.4.7 AT ALL until this problem gets resolved, which may mean waiting for 10.4.8 or some software patch, which I hope emerges in the next couple of weeks.

My original post on the subject can be viewed here from a few days ago.

Final Cut Pro 5: Unexpectedly quits after importing XDCAM Clips

Boils down to this: if you're using the free Sony software (and why wouldn't you), if the number of clips you bring in AT ONE TIME exceeds the number of undo steps you've set in your FCP preferences, FCP will crash. Excuse me, unexpectedly quit.

And that's bad. So what to do:

-crank up your undos to 99 (the max, and why wouldn't you have it set this way anyway?)
-don't import more than 99 clips at a time

Read the whole article for all the details.

-mike

TitleExchange 1.7.1 %u2013 Mac OS X %u2013 VersionTracker

From the description:

TitleExchange Lite is a basic tool for easy and fast transfer of subtitles from FCP to DVD Studio Pro.

Simply export your FCP timeline with the subtitles as XML and open this XML with TitleExchange. TitleExchange Lite will convert the XML to a DVD Studio Pro compatible STL format. TitleExchange Pro allows to convert text formats like STL, tab text delimited files and QTtext into a FCP XML. TitleExchange Pro does allow to convert XMLs into QTtext as well.

Film & Video | How Panavision's Genesis Made Life Interesting For the VFX Crews on Superman Returns

Of note were two issues:

1.) The Panalog color space - it's a custom log (logarithmic) color space, but it is 4:4:4 unlike traditional HD. Some tweaking to deal with the custom log curve, but apparently not a huge deal.

2.) The Genesis footage was so much SHARPER than traditional film it had ramifications for the VFX crews - instead of softening and adding grain, they actually had to turn up their anti-aliasing settings to be artifact free and match the look of the live plates. Keys were more challenging since they were sharper and more detailed - you couldn't just blur the edges and wing it.

An interesting read for those interested in working with high end HD cameras.

Also of note is the fact that they chose to use this camera on a nearly quarter billion dollar production - so clearly film costs were not a consideration here - the look was the primary reason (sharp images), and the workflow conveniences (already digital info) was the ancillary benefit.

There's also another entire article about VFX in Superman Returns here.

-mike

UPDATED THURSDAY: See bottom

Ah, a rainbow of flavors...a colorful cascade that would have been an oh-so-trendy shirt a few years ago....instead, that is what I see on my MacBook's screen on bootup now.

My MacBook's performance hit a new low today - it spontaneously lost power (with a fully charged battery AND AC power connected) a couple of times, and I decided that was it and called Apple's tech support. After a five minute wait (not bad) I got connected to a woman who was helpful and proficient and didn't make me go through anything stupid like reinstalling the OS or anything. She had me deep zap PRAM (opt-cmd-p-r on boot 3 times in a row), and then I tried to run the hardware diagnostics (hold down D while booting with Disc 1 that came with the MacBook). Then I got something new -


(click for larger view, command - click to open in new tab)

....so that's not good. This was an accelerating failure - starting with last week when it would come into the studio in the morning and it was off, to the point where it would spontaneously power down every few hours or less. So the Apple rep put me on hold while she went off to get the return/repair process started, and the best irony of the week - the hold music cut immediately to the line of "You've lost that loving feeling and it's gone...gone...gone...wooOooOooo woah..." (Yeah - the Top Gun song - and maybe that's not a good choice for the hold music when people call in for support?) : )

In 20+ years of using Macs, I haven't seen a failure like this. I've seen snow crashes where the video card throws up garbage, but the eerily organic way these stripes fade up - (oh wait, you don't know that part, so watch the video.

Since I got one from Apple Retail on the SECOND DAY they were available, it is safe to say it is one of the early ones off the assembly line, and this is the price I pay for a 1.0 product, esp. a 1.0 product bought in the first few days - the odds of failure or problems are much higher. Only because I wanted to put out Teh Pfreshest Nooz did I go ahead and get one at that time. Or at least that's what I tell myself - truthfully, I was in the Must Have New Toy binge.

So I'm writing this on my old 12" PowerBook which I fortunately haven't sold yet. I'll keep ya'all posted on the saga...but blogging slows while I deal with all this...

-mike

UPDATE Thursday: Apple's shipping box arrived, a clever deal where I just pop out a couple of inserts to my size laptop fits in there. So within 24 hours Apple had picked up the laptop and it is on its way back to them. Well done Apple! I just hope it gets back before I go to LA in a couple of weeks (more on that soon).

Review - Resizer 2.0 by Digital Anarchy

Review of a tool to scale SD video to fill frame for HD timelines. High quality, but sloooooowwwwwwww........

OK, my MacBook bliss is ending - the (*)(*)(&(&*&^ thing has started to spontaneously shut itself down at random intervals. After using it most of the day every day since I got it, as of last week it has taken to suddenly powering down without warning, two or three times while I'm sitting there working on it - and I'm not talking about "Application has Unexpected Quit," I'm talking about typing in a text doc and suddenly looking at a dark screen. My usual habit is to open a bazillion web pages via my RSS browser and sift through them to find the bloggables, and 3 or 4 times now I've lost all my open windows when the machine suddenly powers down. Oh - and this is WHILE IT IS PLUGGED INTO AC POWER with a fully charged battery, too.

So I need to call AppleCare and get this taken care of, pronto. In the meantime, I haven't been blogging because I keep losing all my windows of stuff to blog about, and I've been spending a lot of time and actual hands on R&D on other machines.

So that's why blogging has slowed so much. I read on MacInTouch.com that others are having similar problems, some think it is third party RAM, others suspect faulty motherboards.

-mike

RED spec sheet - HD 4.4.4 - The Digital Video Information Network

Somebody asked an innocent question about support for 1080p HD RGB 4:4:4 on the Red camera, Graeme Nattress and Stuart English offered concise, helpful, simple answers...and then I wrote a 1500 word rebuttal/rant about why I think offering 2048x1152 cropped instead of straight 1920x1080 is a bad idea. And wrote every little reason about it.

The topic is specific to shooting modes on the Red camera, but expand it to post workflows in general - folks can say "Oh, you just fix that in post" and it is simple in theory, but can be quite complex in practice - increased file sizes, tracking two sets of different files to maintain clean source, maintaining metadata through prodution, the chance of introducing errors or losing metadata, etc.

I ended up writing a huge long thing that took the time I woulda been blogging, so consider me guest blogging over on the above linked page. I'm the fourth post down, the ridiculously long one.

UPDATE 11:35PM: ....and the beat rolls on - the thread is growing, I wrote a loooooooong reply to Graeme that got eaten by the Cursed Dogs of Bad WiFi Connections, so I'll need to rewrite it when the tears clear.

But if you like to read HD For Indies for the nitty gritty, dirty to the elbows, in the trenches workflow stuff, this is a really, Really, REALLY good one to read, as it gets into all kinds of high end workflow Pfhunque.

-mike

The Clicker: Boom goes the Rocket - Engadget

Not sure where this one fits in, but it certainly is interesting - Amanda Congdon of RocketBoom takes a hike after not getting what she wanted when dealing with the majority owner of RocketBoom. Comment from the article:

Unlike traditional 'talent' vs. 'management' debates where the talent is held in check by a certain amount of infrastructure, video blogs have very little to keep a well-liked host / writer tied to a brand. Furthermore, the audience for these shows is often bloggers and similarly tied-in viewers. This could spell disaster for a company like Rocketboom, but it could also have an adverse effect on companies looking for funding in the field. As one ex-VC put it, 'I think that you'll see a lot of companies re-examining their non-compete clauses when it comes to on-air talent. You just can't afford to let your brand walk out the door.'"


This is outside of my usual milieu of HD for Indies, but certainly falls under the rubric of interesting news in the digital media realm.

-mike

Creative Workflow Hacks

OK, found this one on Stu's ProLost blog, but it looks really good for the Deep Geeks that log on here - in depth workflow trickery for production. Not for the average filmmaker, but good for the compositors etc. to know.

Such as this one on using Batch Export in FCP, which I'd kind of given up on as useful until I discovered the back half of it - the documentation does NOT give you sufficient (nay, perhaps might I say incorrect?) info on it, pity...

-mike

Apple - Pro - Techniques is a page of interesting stuff/useful techniques.

Article on Chromatic aberrations. For those trying to learn more (like me), this is good background.

UPDATE Friday night - MacNN has this article which includes this:

allowing any QuickTime-enabled application, such as Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, iMovie, Adobe AfterEffects, QuickTime Player and others to read and write digital film files. The Cineon and DPX digital film file formats are feature film industry standards for visual effects production. DPX files are also used extensively for High Definition production, in the broadcast television industry. The Cineon DPX QuickTime Components features the ability to perform built-in LOG/LIN conversion for the end user. Parameters include the ability to set the White and Black points, Display Gamma, and Conversion Gamma values.


So it DOES appear to be closer to an FCP solution. I'll mess with it...sometime soon. Lots going on in the meantime.

UPDATE: Read the comments on this one, esp. the first two using the Comments link below. This doesn't do what I thought it would, and it doesn't matter as much even if it did, since FCP's pipeline is limited to 8 bits in RGB anyway. Durr. I wasn't thinking when I was blogging earlier. But it's a step in the right direction....now if we had a real DPX as QT file aggregator and a 10 bit log FCP pipeline, we'd be in business.

Glue Tools - 16-Bit and 8-Bit Cineon and DPX QuickTime Components

At last, there is a QuickTime component to read and write Cineon or DPX digital film images. Features include:

Control over white and black points as well as gamma.
Separate controls for import and export settings.
View Cineon image sequences with QuickTime player.
Convert Cineon/DPX images into any of QuickTime's supported image or movie formats.
Works with any QuickTime enabled application. You can import or export Cineon or DPX images directly with Apple's Final Cut Pro HD, for instance.


Well, this certainly sounds interesting as a workflow option for 10 bit RGB film scans. The next two questions:

1.) Can it play back in real time (assuming you have a fast enough disk array, and that's REALLY fast)

2.) Can you get any realtime effects to work on it (almost certainly not would be my guess).

(found via FinalCutProNews.com)

UPDATE - see UPDATE at the bottom, I actually imported some files into my MacBook and got'em working.

OK, so I've already installed the Sony XDCAM HD software - it requires a reboot, but is pretty quick and painless.

For starters, there are some interesting notes in the installer script:

Notes
1. Maximum length of exported sequences. The XDCAM Professional Disc has a maximum guaranteed duration for recording clips. Clips which exceed this length may not be successfully written to the disc. With this in mind, you should ensure that any sequences exported from Final Cut Pro to XDCAM are within this limit.

...but they don't say what that guaranteed duration is. Does it vary by disc length? Is there more than one size of XDCAM disc? I wouldn't think so but I don't know. Anybody know? Click on comments link at end of article and clue me in.

2. Delay when importing sub-clips. This note applies to sub-clips imported directly from XDCAM discs containing MPEG HD material. If the sub-clip is selected from an original clip with a duration of 10 minutes or more, it will take between 1 and 8 minutes for the video and audio transfer to begin. This issue does not affect import of entire clips and does not affect import of sub-clips from long DV or IMX clips.
3. Cancellation of PC REMOTE mode. Some desktop Mac models do not successfully cancel PC REMOTE mode on the connected XDCAM device, even after sleep or shutdown. If this happens, the simple solution is to turn your XDCAM device off then on again.

OK. And which Macs would those be? Presumably older ones, but again, a "warning! May not work if something isn't right." OK, WHAT something?

4. Filenames used in the XDCAM General folder. You may store files associated with your XDCAM media in the General folder of the XDCAM disc (for example, text documents, spreadsheets and so on). We recommend that you do not use filenames which include special characters that may not be allowed on other operating systems, such as ? [ ] / \ = + < > ; : “ , | *.
5. Overwriting large files in the XDCAM General folder. Sometimes you may experience problems when trying to overwrite a large file stored in the XDCAM General folder directly from an application. We recommend that you save the file to your local hard disk drive first and then copy it to the General folder from the Finder.

So, once installed and rebooted, I discovered it installs a new File: Import item into your Final Cut Pro menus:

(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

Upon selecting that, the first time the XDCAM Transfer app runs you're faced with a preferences dialog:


(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

You can set your import preferences in this one. I changed mine so that it would capture to my default capture scratch disk and you probably want to do the same, since it defaults to a location on your boot drive, which isn't long term smart for heavy usage, but they get points for throwing this dialog in your face right off the bat so you'll change it. I changed mine to this:


(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

I figured the previews were OK to live on the boot disc, no major harm done - how big can they get?

You then see the main interface:


(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

...but since I don't have an XDCAM camera or deck to hook up, it's empty and not very exciting. Here's a shot I took at NAB showing it in action:



(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

See my comments from the Dallas XDCAM HD demo or from NAB to read more about how it works.

There's also some preferences you can set:


(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

It defaults to NOT importing into FCP, I'd suggest clicking it to import clips directly into FCP.


(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

....so I changed it. Note you can also change which, if any, audio channels are imported, and how big (if any) handles should be used when importing subclips. Touché to Sony for adding all these nice touches on a v1.0 product.


(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

This lets you set the size (as a percentage of the disk's TOTAL capacity) to be used for cache and previews. This is a nice control to have, and there's no magic number. For speed, you might want a huge cache to save everything, or for space you might want to keep it smaller. Up to you.


(click for larger view, command click to open in a new tab)

This one let's you set the Import location (and would you want to always have it go to the same place, or change it on a project by project basis? Again, depends on your workflow personal preferences). You can also choose to overwrite existing files with the same name (good idea or bad? Not sure, again It Depends), use the disc name for clips folder, use clip title in filename, use UMID in filename (which I think is some kind of universally unique scheme that means no name replication but crazy names), or use in/out timecodes in file names. Again, all very nice, powerful, subtle choices to have - I wish the P2 import gave as many options.

This addresses some of the issues that become significant in file based rather than tape based workflows - what file naming convention should I use? Do I put metadata in the filename or not? Choice is good, because there is no one solution for everybody. Big facilities might want the universally unique file naming convention (IF I'm understanding that feature correctly, but the PDF manual makes no mention of UMID). Smaller shops and/or projects might want a more "human readable" file naming convention. Again, different strokes for different folks.

On that note, the PD on the disc image looks to be at least reasonably good, with lots of screen grabs and descriptions. Read that for further details, for me to sample out of it would be superfluous. One note, though - page 31 lists all the keyboard shortcuts. Kudos again to the developers for using lots of keyboard shortcuts, and using Final Cut Pro style keyboard shortcuts, so it all works the same way we're used to. I'm a bit bummed that this is a separate application rather than a plugin to FCP, but for the differing workflow (non-tape based), it's a perfectly reasonable and useful thing.

OK, that should be enough to keep you folks busy for a while....

UPDATE FRIDAY 5PM - ahhhhhhh, the joys of laptops: my friend Nate Weaver sent me a link to some sample MXF clips from an F350 XDCAM HD that were of interesting specifications: 24p, 25mbit CBR (24p for indie moviemaking, 25mbit for FCP compatibility). I put them in a folder, use Disk Utiility to make a Disc Image of that folder, mounted it, and got the XDCAM HD transfer software to see it. Plain MXF files didn't generate previews, but imported JUST FINE and show up in FCP as 1080p24 HDV files (same exact codec, different audio settings because you can do up to 4 tracks of audio with this format). And it plays back JUST FINE full screen on my MacBook, with Safe RT and both Playback Quality and Frame Rate set to High and Full. So field editing XDCAM on a sub-$3000 package (MacBook, additional RAM, Final Cut Studio) is an ENTIRELY feasible deal. Along those lines, a quickie performance test: With Safe RT, Full and High set, render bar for a simple cross dissolve. Dropping to Unlimited RT, orange bar, it plays fine, including the 3:16 cross dissolve. Impressive for a laptop! NO reported dropped frames (had report dropped frames turned on). Checking it again with the Activity Monitor processor load indicator on and running layered on top of full screen Digital Cinema Desktop mode, it STILL played fine, and single stream playback looked to take about half of availble processing power, the cross dissolve took about 80% processing power - so still had some headroom left - VERY impressive! And note all this was running off the battery, too, while I'm sitting at Freddie's place, enjoying a tuna steak and a beer and the sunshine and the rhodesian ridgeback panting at the table next to me (dogs allowed here). Life is gooooooooooooooooood.

: )

UPDATE 5:30PM Apple sent me an email (since I'd been at the Dallas event) pointing out the XDCAM Transfer App was available, but also pointing out the location of the white paper on the workflow:

To download the Apple whitepaper on Sony XDCAM HD support in Final Cut Pro 5, please visit http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/resources and click on "Final Cut Pro and XDCAM HD" under 'White Papers' listed on the right hand side of the webpage.


I'm going to download and read that tonight while setting up test files for the FCP testing I mentioned a while back.

-mike

Video clips from CineGear2006 in Los Angeles - The Digital Video Information Network

Chris Hurd took some short videos using movie mode on his still camera, my favorite is the AccuScene Viewfinder one (the first one) - shows how they use a false color LUT to indicate over/underexposure...clever idea.

Other videos: Chapman Crane, Mini Radio Control Camera Car, Perfect Horizon Tilt Table, Roundy Round Car Mount Camera, Arri Gear Head Playtime, Shotoku Rapid Pan/Tilt Head

Studios catching viral bug to promo new DVDs online - Yahoo! News

Online video sites like YouTube are Hollywood's hottest new marketing tool. And in a way similar to what their theatrical counterparts are doing with new movies, studio DVD marketers are scrambling to harness the power of viral marketing by posting trailers of upcoming DVD releases to these nascent sites and hoping they get passed along -- again, and again, and again.


Mike's Comments: Yo indie moviemakers - catch the hint here? Promote your movie any way you can, and use the new online resources available to you...

Red Digital Cinema - Red One is a page on the Red site with impressive looking new renders of the camera, including more details on ports and controls. Still in progress, not final, and Jim (company founder) said the other week he had some good ideas that may change it more, but here's where it stands as is.

I am soooooooooooo looking forward to this camera, and seeing test footage if it is ready at IBC.

-mike

There have been several SATA products released in the last few months that I have specifically chosen NOT to cover, due to some or all of these factors:

-questionable vendors
-low performance
-non-preferred type of product (mounting additional internal SATA drives in G5s, for instance)
-and most importantly, not a preferable choice as compared to what I've already reviewed and/or discussed

Just thought I'd let you know - SATA stuff doesn't slip through the cracks here at HD4NDs...

Omega Broadcast Group is offering two multiday day training sessions - one for the HVX200, taught by Michael Caporale (writer/director/DP/DIT/etc.) with Jan Crittendon, who is Ms. HVX200 herself from Panasonic. The two day HVX200 training camp will be Monday, July 31st and Tuesday, August 1st, covering just about everything you could want to know as a starter owner or prospective buyer of an HVX200.

There will also be a three day Varicam training session, taught by Michael Caproale again but also with Robert Goodman, Mr. Goodman's Guide himself.

These are nationally known folks involved with these cameras (Jan with the HVX and Robert with the Varicam), so both are an excellent opportunity to get nitty gritty involved with the cameras and learn about them.

The deluxe kit would be to take both and learn when and where an HVX200 may or may not be a suitable second camera for a primarily Varicam shoot, or to evaluate whether the HVX200 is suitable for your own production needs rather than the Varicam (could be done more easily, but you'd certainly know all about'em by the end of it).

Read about it here

Omega, for those who don't recall, were the facility that was kind enough to open their doors and let us use their space, camera, lights, gear, etc. for the Texas HD Shootout the other month.

-mike

That software I saw at the Dallas XDCAM HD demo? It's OUT. Here's the page with the link, which is so subtle it is hard to find, (right over the XDCAM HD logo in the center towards the bottom of the page), or here's the direct link to download the software.

I'm installing it now, and making plans to capture some footage I've had sitting around.

This doesn't bode well for Flip4Mac - they have a similar XDCAM HD product priced at $500 product that doesn't seem to do quite as much (no 24p stated at this time, but should be an easy update since Apple has the codecs) at first glance...

-mike

Somebody emailed me, or posted on dvxuser.com, or dvinfo.net, or commented on here (hdforindies) about a PDF they did for workflow with 24pA footage from HVX200 that they wrote and had on their own website. Now I can't find it. Will whoever sent me that please email me directly or comment on this article so I can find it again? I rebooted and lost it.

Thanks,

-mike

press release follows for my friend's film festival in Austin:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday 16 June 2006

FANTASTIC FEST ANNOUNCES FIRST BATCH OF PROGRAMMING
Passes on sale now for Austin's international sci-fi/fantasy/horror/animation film festival

Austin's premiere genre festival FANTASTIC FEST returns for its second year September 21-28, featuring the best in cutting-edge horror, sci-fi, fantasy and animation! Extended to eight days, the festival promises to triple last year's offerings with more films to terrify, thrill, inspire and amaze you, as well as mind-blowing panels, exhibits, parties, and special guests.

Programming is ongoing, but confirmed as of June 15th, 2006 are THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES, the latest exquisite live-action feature from eccentric stop-motion animators The Brothers Quay; the claustrophobic masterpiece HAZE, from TETSUO director Shinya Tsukamoto; the U.S. Premiere of the bizarre Estonian animated super-spy series FRANK AND WENDY; Irish bio-horror ISOLATION starring John Lynch (CAL) and Sean Harris (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE); the regional premiere of INSIDE, Jeff Mahler's disturbing portrait of an obsessed stalker; and the U.S. Premiere of \ veteran Canadian indie director Larry Kent's (HIGH) dysfunctional family drama HAMSTER CAGE.

Gruesome co-winners of Scotland's esteemed Dead By Dawn Festival BLOOD TRAILS and BROKEN make their US debuts at Fantastic Fest, as does Simon Rumley's THE LIVING AND THE DEAD and Sean Hogan's atmospheric ghost story LIE STILL. Winner of the Fantasporto Best Feature FROSTBITE, a teen vampire horror comedy set amid the constant night of Europe's northern climes, makes a regional premiere at Fantastic Fest.

The US Premiere of Robbie Fraser's GAMERZ - a Scottish teen comedy about Dungeons & Dragons nerds - and the regional premiere of Sturla Gunnarson's ambitious period epic BEOWULF & GRENDEL (starring Stellan Skarsgaard and Sarah Polley), join Ten Shimoyama's feudal Japanese martial arts film SHINOBI: HEART UNDER BLADE in the festival's fantasy section.

Stuart Samuels' acclaimed documentary MIDNIGHT MOVIES examines the phenomenon that began with EL TOPO, ERASERHEAD, PINK FLAMINGOS and more, featuring interviews with all involved, from the filmmakers to the theatre owners who took a chance on their unorthodox films.

CHARLES BAND brings his interactive FULL MOON TRAVELLING ROADSHOW back to Austin - a two-hour interactive show featuring clips of Full Moon movies both old and new, with anecdotes by Charlie Band, auctions of original Full Moon props and puppets, a live beheading by guillotine, and even surprise special guests in tow!

Internationally acclaimed film archivist and author Jack Stevenson (Land of a Thousand Balconies) joins us for three unique presentations: MOVIES WITH ROOTS IN HELL about the influence of drugs on cinema; TOTALLY UNCENSORED! A SCANDINAVIAN SINEMA RETROSPECTIVE; and an enlightening examination of Benjamin Christensen's obsessive early mondo film, HAXAN: WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES.

KNB founder and effects guru Greg Nicotero will be live in person presiding over the video presentation GREG NICOTERO'S GREATEST HITS, wherein he will introduce and divulge the secrets to his top 50 Special effects masterpieces.

And that's only the beginning! Check back monthly with us as we make additional programming announcements. Expect some HUGE surprise features and celebrity guests closer to festival time, and, like last year, we will treat early purchasers of Fantastic Fest badges to an assortment of warm-up fantastic screenings throughout the summer.

Currently Fantastic Fest badge holders are the only ones eligible to attend the free Rolling Roadshow screening of THE DESCENT, the claustrophobic spelunking horror favorite from Ain't It Cool News' 2005 Butt-Numb-A-Thon. To make it even scarier, we'll be screening it at the bottom of Longhorn Caverns and following up the film with a wild cave tour!

FANTASTIC FEST
Sept. 21-28, 2006
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema South Lamar
Austin, TX
info and tickets at www.fantasticfest.com

Questions? Contact: Kier-La Janisse
kier-la@originalalamo.com

FANTASTIC FEST was conceived by co-chairs Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and Tim McCanlies (The Iron Giant, Secondhand Lions), and is presented by the Alamo Drafthouse South under the direction of Tim League ("#1 Theater Doing It Right" - Entertainment Weekly). They comprise a programming team that also includes Harry Knowles (Ain't It Cool News), Matt Dentler (SXSW Film Festival) and Kier-La Janisse (CineMuerte Film Festival).

CinemaTech - Scott Kirsner writes about market share amongst web video services (who'd a thunk that youTube and MySpace would account for about 70% of web video traffic?), and links to a News.com article on eefoof, which, ahem, I covered on Monday.

: )

There are over 150 companies trying to monetize homemade video hosting. Use this, abuse this, dear indie filmmakers, the money and the Big Pfhat Pipes won't last long is my predicition. Remember adcritic.com? They were free once....

-mike

(This is a work in progresss, live-blogging sort of a thing, so expect updates throughout the day to this article)

So today I got my new hard drive in for my laptop (thanks Torrey of Silverado Systems).

Why a new drive? Because Apple charges a fortune for their upgrades, and I wanted to have an extra 80 GB mini-drive anyway.

The basic install that came on my MacBook (the 80GB retail config), by the time I put about 20GB of my music and pictures on it from the old laptop, left me with about 8 GB free before I installed the Adobe or Final Cut Suites on it.

The shocker - Final Cut Studio 5.x (any 5.x version) is about a 35GB install - yowza! so a bigger hard drive is a necessity if you're going to put all your tools and a reasonable amount of data on your machine...not to mention if you have any intention of installing Boot Camp and Windows XP. I had originally ordered a 160GB drive, but my vendor's source couldn't get them. After doing some reading up on them, I learned that they were not only slower but physically taller as well, raising the concern that it might not fit in my BlackBook. So I changed back to the 120 GB and I'm getting ready to install that.

So - how do you swap out drives?

For starters, I have a loaded drive with OS - how do I swap out for this unformatted drive?

There are a variety of ways, but I favor using Disk Images.

I used to use Carbon Copy Cloner, but I fired it up and it showed no available destination to copy the contents of MikesBlackBook (the boot drive on MacBook), and it hasn't been updated in 3 years, so I decided to bag that, and switched over to SuperDuper, which I've heard of but not used, but was updated last a few weeks ago.

SuperDuper has a very nice UI, and gives plenty of feedback as to what is going on (see screenshot below, click for full size view):


The process is SLOW, since there are nearly 600,000 individual files on my drive (Unix has an unbelievably large number of files involved in an OS). But it's chugging away as I write this.

In the past, I've used a small external hard drive enclosure to do a direct clone from the source to the new drive, then I'd just swap them out. However, with an old unreliable drive in the enclosure (from a previous laptop drive failure), I connected the drive and it immediately hard powered down my BlackBook (which wasn't connected to external power at the time). That sure didn't seem right, so I decided to make an intermediate disc image on another Mac I have sitting around (my dual 2.0 G5's boot drive). How to do that? I shut down the BlackBook, powered it on and immediately held down the "t" key to start it up in FireWire Disc Mode. This treats the whole laptop as just an external FireWire drive. Then I could attach that to the G5, run SuperDuper from the G5 and make the disc image.

When this finishes, I'll shut down the laptop, swap out the old for new bigger drive, power up in FireWire disc mode again, and I should be able to intialize it from the G5 and restore the disc image to the new drive in the laptop, unmount the laptop (treat it like a FireWire drive), then just power up and have my new drive working OK. I'll update this as the day goes to see how well that went. (I just realized I could be doing a low level format on that drive right now if I were to trust that external case...hmm....)

OH, and an additional step I like to take - I do a low level format on the boot drive, which will take forever, but it allows me to map out bad sectors in advance - maximum drive safety. It takes hours, esp. for big drives, but if it is a mission critical drive and you can let it run overnight on first setup to do this, I highly recommend it. You do this in Disk Utility, under the Erase tab, and the screen shot shows the Security Options pane that you use. In the act of writing zeroes to all sectors, it maps out bad sectors (or at least that is how it's been explained to me). Here's a screen grab (click for full size view, cmd-click to open in a tab if you're using Safari configured that way):


Other good news - as compared to previous Apple laptops, this hard drive is cake to uninstall/install. If you didn't see this article on how to install RAM in a MacBook, take a look at it. To the left of where the RAM is installed, the hard drive is installed with a bit of tape on it that you can just pull out. I'll be (hopefully) reattaching the tape to the new drive to it'll be easy to remove should I need to in the future (for that 300GB laptop drive - let's get perpendicular! (sung to "Let's Get Physical" by Olivia Newton John)

WARNING!!! But be VERY VERY careful when using Disk Utility and SuperDuper - one misclick and you're wiping out a perfectly good hard drive! In SuperDuper, make SURE that your target is what you want, that you won't be overwriting any data accidentally, and with Disk Utility if you're initializing a disk quadruple check yourself to make sure you're doing it to the right one.

UPDATE 1: Well, no, I couldn't have used the external case anyway, because it is an ATA case, and this new drive is SATA, so the pins aren't compatible anyway. So I have to intialize it in the drive, which means this will definitely be an all day thing, which means I'm off email for the day until I get this all up and going again (and I don't want to check email in the middle of the process and get the disk image out of sync with the hard drive and possibly lose some mail).

UPDATE 2: Once it gets past the system files, libraries, and apps, the transfer speeds pick up nicely (I'm guessing it copies directories alphabetically, and Users is towards the end) - I'm running Activity Monitor and am watching the Disk Activity pane, transfers have picked up to about 10-12 MB/sec reads at this time, so I'm guessing it'll be done in another hour or less. (started the xfer at about 1pm CST), it's 2:25 now)

UPDATE 3: SuperDuper finished around 2:30, after taking XXX time. I quit SuperDuper and tried to unmount MikesBlackBook (the laptop mounted as FireWire drive), but it wouldn't so I just shut down the G5 it was mounted on.

Then I powered down the laptop by holding down it's power key. So at this moment, I have an exact duplicate of my laptop drive without having to touch or interfere with the laptop drive - all emails, files, etc. are in whatever state they were when I shut it down before making the disk image. It took me less than 2 minutes to get into where the hard drive was (remove battery, three tiny screws, pull on tape) and to discover that the drive was mounted on a tiny sled....with tiny little star or allen style screws...that my set of allen keys (two sets in different colors in same kit, presumptively one English one metric) did not fit (none would fit in and turn/get a grip). So I'm off to the local Radio Shack with drive and allen keys to try to find the right tool.

UPDATE 4, Friday: Turns out it was a star not allen key, went to Radio Shack and got a full set, one of which worked. One oddity to note during install - the drive sits in a little tray (not just bare sliding in there), and the metal side goes UP not down when reinserting the hard drive - so the "top" of the hard drive (the side that is covered, no circuit board visible) actually goes face down on reinsertion. If you put it in upside down, I learned, the L piece of metal won't go back in all the way - a good indicator You're Doing It Wrong.

After that, fired up the BlackBook and all has been well.

I did a custom install of Final Cut Studio, skipping a bunch of stuff (DVD Studio Pro 3 templates, Soundtrack Pro Loops, etc.) and I still have 35GB free on the drive - plenty of room to install the Adobe stuff, WinXP, Adobe video suite for XP, QuickBooks Pro, etc.

-mike

AppleInsider | Apple introduces $899 education iMac

The 17-inch 1.83 GHz iMac, for a suggested education price of $899 (US), includes:
17-inch widescreen LCD display;
1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor;
512MB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 2GB;
24x Combo drive;
Intel GMA 950 graphics;
built-in iSight video camera;
built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking;
80GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately);
built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and
Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.


So for indies: yeah it's cheap, cheaper than the regular 17" iMac which includes:

17-inch widescreen LCD with 1440x900 resolution
1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 2MB shared L2 cache
512MB (single SO-DIMM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load 8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB GDDR3 memory
Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0

So how do they differ? Here's the breakdown - Educational iMac specs listed, with "retail" differences in bold to side:

17-inch widescreen LCD display; (SAME)
1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo processor; (no indication if cache differences, presumably not)
512MB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 2GB; EDU model is 2x256 not 1x512, so you have no expandability - this is dumb/crippling - have to toss RAM to upgrade)
24x Combo drive; SuperDrive in Retail model
Intel GMA 950 graphics; ATI Radeon X1600 in retail model
built-in iSight video camera; (same)
built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking; (same, but no Bluetooth on EDU model
80GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 7200 rpm; (160GB standard in retail)
mini-DVI out (adapters for DVI, VGA and Composite/S-Video sold separately); (same)
built-in stereo speakers and microphone; and (same)
Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard. (same)

So for indies, in short, it ain't worth it - it won't be officially supported for Final Cut Pro due to no "real" graphics card, no SuperDrive to burn DVDs, tiny hard drive (I'm having to upgrade the 80GB in my laptop since it isn't big enough to hold Final Cut Studio's full 35GB install), etc.

So while it looks like it might be a good deal on the surface, I strongly recommend against the education-only model of the 17" iMac for ANY video editing of ANY degree of seriousness.

(and yes, apparently today is Cranky Day)

I started this article as just a note on why high def DVDs were in trouble: Best Buy: HDTV DVD Format War Could Be 'Disaster' which stated:

At a recent conference held by the Consumer Electronics Association, Anderson said the industry desperately needs a successful high-def DVD format. But he said the competition between Sony and Toshiba is making it difficult for retailers like Best Buy to promote the new technology."It makes it impossible to get behind one format and introduces so many problems,'"

...like I've said - between two competing formats, high player prices, poor title selection at this time, new computers required (HDCP on DVI or HDMI) to handle the copy protection, newest HDTVs required for guaranteed full res playback (960x540 or less if analog component connectors), this is not something people are going to want to do and will lead to the failure of these formats unless something drastic happens.

Then I thought some more about the copy protection - it isn't going to stop the pirates, and it IS going to impede, annoy, and frustrate legitimate users trying to do legitimate things - like watch HD discs on their analog or non-HDCP monitors (be they computer LCDs or living room HDTVs). Or use the footage in a variety of ostensibly legal ways - translate formats (time/media shifting), or any variety of Fair Use reasons to copy the content, such as satire, commentary, research, etc.

In any case, even if the resolution IS dropped to 960x540, that is PLENTY good enough to enjoy as a ripped digital download or watch as (unfortunately) pirated copies. This will probably be possible to do:

-run the signal through a timebase corrector to strip off Macrovision if they have that on the analog (long a solution for SD DVD signals)
-then digitize with a KonaLHe or BlackMagic DeckLink HD Extreme or Multibridge Extreme over the analog HD inputs
-capture as DVCPRO HD or PhotoJPEG
-then compress to whatever deliverable

Will this be casually done? Obviously no - requires a bunch of hardware and some professional video knowledge. But all it takes is one person or company out there to do that once, then either dump on the P2P networks or start pressing bootleg discs....and for the bootleg community, if it is a softer/fuzzier version, who cares since it is street bootlegs most likely anyway?

I've heard two things - that analog component resolution will be dropped to 1/2 of 1080i, therefore 960x540, or that it'll be dropped to SD (720x480). OK, Hollywood, congratulations - that is still completely bootleggable by the pros, who WILL put copies out on the market (the only thing HDCP protects is perfect digital copies being sold as genuine - but how big of a problem is that for the bootleggers? They just want to sell the movie at all, regardless of quality), but completely annoys, impedes, and hassles the legitimate users from using their existing computers(upgraded with a drive of course) and monitors (be it computer LCD or HDTV for living room viewing). So while the formats may very vigorously defend against digital copying, and reduce the quality of analog output, it would be entirely possible for a professional bootlegger to capture and encode an HD signal that just looks a bit soft for what?

-Dual 2.0 GHz G5: $2000
-more RAM: $150
-any old computer CRT monitor: $200
-DeckLinkHDExtreme: $1000 (includes software to capture video)
-HD analog TBC (maybe $2K based on some quickie online research?)
-encoding software: maybe $100 if not freeware?

So that's about $5500 - certainly out of range of the casual user (who may well have legitimate uses), but certainly within range of any skeevy bootlegger out there. Will this work? I think it quite likely it would, but I haven't tested and don't particularly care to. There's plenty of legitimate uses that are curtailed even with current DVDs. The pros can work around'em, but average folks are denied Fair (and legitimate) use.

And here's the kicker, the reason why I don't think copy protection is ever going to work the way Hollywood wants it to - it only takes one cracked copy to feed the bootleg market. Just One. If somebody rips a movie and feeds it into the P2P market, it quickly gets recopied and reposted everywhere. The problem is that keeping content protected is like keeping a secret - and once a secret is out, it spreads, and there's not way to put that genie back in the bottle (or my favored analogy: or fit the mushroom cloud back into the shiny metal case).

So by creating all these hassles for the users - two competing formats, new monitors or HDTVs required to watch fully protected content (and I know they're talking about pushing back the deadline for implementation of this feature, that helps the adoption rate, but also helps the bootleggers don't forget)...I still say it's all gonna add up to LaserDisc 2.0 (and you'll note I wrote that nearly a year ago).

Two things - yes, I'm in a cranky cynical mood right now, and hmm...I may have just broken the Digital Millenium Copyright Act by even discussing these amazingly simple steps that any competent video professional could do - isn't that a dumb law that we can't even discuss these things in public? Even if the above were simply for folks to use under Fair Rights, such as research, education, commentary, or satire?

Plus, there's the whole other argument to be made about repurposing your own media - what if I want to load content onto my home theater PC or laptop but don't have the right hardware? Ripping my own movies to a new codec should be legal for personal use - but it's technically not legal - just ask Mark Cuban.

So anyway, I predict HD DVD and Blu-ray will not sell very well this year. And if they DO come up with a new format next year that is a compromise, One Format To Rule Them All solution, what are the odds the existing high def DVDs will play in those players? Low. The odds that there will be a reasonably priced trade-in policy for HD DVDs or Blu-ray to trade in for new compromised single standard? WAY low. The odds that HD-DVD or Blu-ray players will be able to play these new discs? NOT AT ALL - since the two standards are so physically different, no way.

I don't see either of these two competing formats backing down, and until/unless all movies you care about are released on both formats, or one fails and fades into the distance (and that'd take YEARS with the $$$ invested by each side), it's going to be a stagnant market.

-mike

Hope you're having a good one (if you're not in America, disregard, but have a good day anyway).

We've got a full-on Texas thunderstorm going right now, and the fireworks were supposed to go off in 20 minutes, so it ain't been much of a 4th for me.

Grumble.

Some new relevant Apple Info Docs

QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component: Playback of 4:2:2 profile MPEG-2 files is not supported for 4:2:2 MPEG-2, etc.

Soundtrack Pro running in Mac OS X 10.4.6 quits unexpectedly while fixing pops and clicks: "In Soundtrack Pro, if you analyze an audio file in the Waveform Editor by selecting Clicks and Pops, then try to fix the file, Soundtrack Pro may unexpectedly quit if you are running Mac OS X 10.4.6 on a PowerPC-based computer.
Update to Mac OS X 10.4.7 or later to address this issue."

Compressor 1 not compatible with Qmaster 2 (included with Shake 4.1): "If you have installed Final Cut Pro 4.0 or Final Cut Pro HD 4.5, it is important to note that the included version of Compressor relies on Qmaster version 1 software, which is installed along with the main Final Cut Pro installation.

Shake 4.1 includes Qmaster 2.1 (installed via the Node Installer), a later version of the Qmaster distributed processing technology, and does not work with Compressor 1.x.

In order to maintain compatibility with Compressor 1, Qmaster 2.1 should not be installed on the same startup volume with a Final Cut Pro 4.x installation."

Final Cut Pro 5.1.1: Updating older projects to address duplicated frames in P2 media: "inal Cut Pro 5.1.1 resolves an issue in using the Import Panasonic P2 feature with 720p/24PN footage that can result in duplicate frames in rendered sequences. The issue does not occur with P2 media that is imported into Final Cut Pro 5.1.1. But the issue can still occur in Final Cut Pro 5.1.1 if the project contains 720p/24pn P2 media that was imported using an earlier version of Final Cut Pro 5."

Final Cut Pro: Abort Capture behaves differently when capturing to Xsan: "But if you're capturing media to an Xsan volume, the 'Abort capture on dropped frames' setting behaves differently: The clip media up to the point of the dropped frame is not preserved."

iDVD and QuickTime 7.1: iDVD stops responding when previewing project: "If you have updated to QuickTime 7.1, iDVD may stop responding when you preview your project. This can occur when you use constant bit rate MP3 audio in your project.
Products affected

iDVD
QuickTime 7.1 and 7.1.1

Solution

Update to QuickTime 7.1.2 or later."

Google Offers Free Access to Online Videos - Yahoo! News
Google has launched a beta version of its new 'sponsored video' service, which makes available a variety of videos that are paid for by companies like HP. The free content ranges from music videos to cartoon shows, interviews, and movies.

In order to offer the content for free, Google has gone with advertisements of the non-invasive variety. Instead of pop-up ads, the sponsors post links to their Web sites as well as to commercials they've uploaded onto the Google Video service.


So why am I linking to stuff like this? Indie moviemaking has PLENTY of challenges. I mostly focused on the post production end of things when I started covering these issues, and then I started covering cameras, and then I started realizing that making a movie is relatively easy compared to getting distribution or making any money off of all that effort.

So services like Google Video, Yahoo Video, StupidVideos.com, and even the new eefoof.com (that shares ad revenue with content creators) are all potential possible ways that movies or content might be distributed in a meaningful fashion in the future. It is possible to distribute via these sites today, but the income potential is very small, not at all enough to defray any even vaguely serious production or post production costs.

As for eefoof.com, it is a new twist to online video access. Google Video allows content creators to charge for their content that Google hosts, but people, at this point, still expect web video to be mostly free. So how to make money? Just like TV, advertising revenue is the most likely source of income. Eefoof is a twist on the usual "upload and we get ad revenue" model - they share ad revenue. The catch is that you get a percentage of the ad revenue after expenses - and as a startup, I could see their expenses being high, plus I'd like to see some accounting reliability to trust that I'd be getting a fair share. It's one thing that I get a few squeezin's of money from the Google AdSense ads I run (see that list on the right side of the site, underneath the Archives? I'm not supposed to encourage anyone to click on them, but there are ads over there, some of which are relevant to indie filmmakers). But at least Google is a big enough company that I'm somewhat hopeful that they aren't hosing me above and beyond the revenue split that's already set up. Eefoof? Small, new, never heard of'em, so I hope they're on the level with their content clients. (Note: I have no particular reason to distrust them, I'm just noting that they are small and new, and bandwidth bills are LARGE for these kinds of ventures).

The big problem with eefoof.com, however, is for the viewing public: WHO CARES if eefoof shares revenue with the content providers? The viewing public just wants good content. The gamble eefoof is taking is that content providers will come to them rather than the bigger, well known competitors, since the content providers will get money from posting at eefoof. Eefoof hopes that will draw more better content. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem, and with income potential pretty small for the content providers (in their own example, eefoof suggests $5/month, with PayPal checks sent out when income exceeds $25), I don't know if they're going to make it without some serious marketing budget.

The only good thing in their defense is that if it works, it'll spread virally in popularity - but a good marketing budget would certainly prime the pump.

-mike

SOMEBODY at Hitachi has a sense of humor, and a good one - they produced this Flash animation to explain the how's and why's of perpendicular recording, using a style inspired by the 1970s Schoolhouse Rock series of education short films.

Get perpendicular baby, yeah!

-mike

(and if you're not into it for the geeky explanation, it's still really fun to watch. Kudos to Hitachi on this one!)

First HDMI graphics card coming soon - Webact!ve

The first graphics card to offer the new HDMI port to users will be available next week, according to manufacturer Sapphire.
The Radeon X1600 Pro HDMI uses an ATI Radeon X1600 graphics processor, and includes an HDMI port as well as the standard VGA socket for connecting a computer monitor.


Windows only of course at this point, but one step forward. HDMI matters because that is the connector that allows HDCP (High Datarate Digital Copy Protection) to work, which is what Blu-ray and HD-DVD will require for copy protected discs to work.

Which is totally dumb and lame and going to cripple the adoption rate, but hey, that's what the industry has decided to go with.

-mike

Chris Hurd has just posted a ton of photos from CineGear 2006, broken down by topic:
AccuScene Plus, County Fair, Cars & Cranes, Panavision, Lighting, Red One, Codex, Dalsa Origin (man that sucker is BIG, and that's Nate Weaver hoisting it), Arriflex, More Cool Stuff, and Westwood.

Check it all out, I will too.

-mike

Silicon Imaging SI-1920HDVR is a gallery of uncorrected shots from the "Spoon" movie being shot with it. Wow - if this is uncolor corrected, this looks pretty good!

They are compressed WMV files, so don't go picking on artifacting etc.

I just posted two things on Red and realized I was feeling a little guilty for not keeping up on the latest, so I went to go check Silicon Imaging's site and found this link. Check it out, looks good! The first shot I looked at was Shot #4, which has some challenging shadow detail in it. There's also this blog that tracks their progress, and from Friday it has this article with some behind the scenes footage of using the camera on set - I'm going to check it out now, will post more as deemed appropriate....

-mike

Again... new design. - The Digital Video Information Network

Chris Hurd pointed me to this thread over on his DVInfo.net site about Red, including this juicy nugget:

I had an idea at Cinegear that has lead to another re-design of the body. It is a bit more dramatic departure than one might expect.


He also said they're going to ride this new design closer to IBC (I'm guessing before he shares it publicly?).

Read the thread for all the details.

-mike

Mysterium sensor... - DVXuser.com -- The online community for filmmaking

Jim Jannard posted over on the dvxuser forums:

We stated before that we had images from a 'test slice' that proved the design of our sensor. Now we have images from a full size sensor.

Definitely an important step along the way. Also announced that they'll be putting the "breadbox" prototypes in the hands of professionals to let them shoot some test footage to show, presumably at IBC if all goes well.

Read the linked thread for full details.

-mike