HD For Indies

ProVideo Coalition.com: Camera Log by Adam Wilt | Founder | Pro Cameras, HDV Camera, HD Camera, Sony, Panasonic, JVC, RED, Video Camera Reviews

Adam does his usual thorough rundown on the NEW AND REVISED version of the Panasonic 17" LCD display. Many improved features, but still 1280x768 - so no pixel for pixel full size 1080p view. There is a pixel for pixel unscaled viewing mode, which is interesting though.

Model # is BT-LH1760

Labels: hardware, Production

So I'm off email for a bit whilst backing up my laptop drive - I am writing a bunch of stuff about storage for another publication (more on that soon), and I knew was short on drive space, but didn't realize HOW short - I went and looked, and had about ONE gigabyte free.

When you have more RAM than free disc space, it is time to free up some disc space. I did the usual digging to find Pfhat Media loitering about - did I have any full DVD rips sitting around, or collosal uncompressed video, or video projects sitting on the drive?

Nope.

Then I went looking to see if I'd done a Full Install with Final Cut Studio 2 (if you install All In, it is 55 (!) GB).

Nope - I'd already cleaned house there.

Then I went into my Projects folder (I always have a folder at the root level of the data drive (which has to be boot drive on laptop) to see if I had any fat folders I could trash or archive of a client project that was gone. Nope - Projects was all of 1.83GB - just a lot of little bitty stuff.

Then I went looking in my User folder, and found the culprits - Pictures (which encompasses years of tradeshow pictures and videos) was 35GB, Music (which of course includes my cutdown/favorite/most recently purchased iTunes Library) was 16GB. So that's over 50GB of personal files right there. When you factor in the size of the OS and Applications and Libraries folders...that makes for a very full 120GB drive (formats to about 112GB).

So I'm now installing my 3rd (or is it fourth?) hard drive in the same laptop - I started with an 80, I can't recall whether it died and was replaced with same or I immediately upgraded to this 120GB, and now I'm bumping up to a 200GB. THAT should hold me for a bit.

And yeah, I AM getting one of those Time Capsule doohickeys, it was time to upgrade my router anyway.

I was also on the cusp of getting a LARGE capacity tape backup system, I need to take a hard look at all that uncompressed HD footage and decide whether it really needs to be kept or not at this point.

This is all to say...we keep accumulating more and more stuff. In the big philosophical sense, our memories are increasingly digital these days, and a hard drive failure can be catastrophic in terms of vacation photos, organized/ripped music (legal and otherwise), etc. Back Up Your Stuff!

With big tape backup systems getting small studio price feasible, and Time Machine/Time Capsule out there, there's no excuse not to have one of these systems.

On a more micro scale, keep in mind that your digital memories are ever growing, and managing them can become more complex. I have 2 G4s, 3 G5s, an Octo Mac (1st gen, not the newbies), and a MacBook in the house...and they all have, or have had, an iPhoto Library on them. Figuring out how to get all that in one place, with all the metadata intact, is something I haven't figured out quite yet. How to get the original and modified pictures, with ratings, notes, keywords, etc., all in one place, from 6 or 7 different Macs, seems pretty non-trivial and I haven't found good tools to do so yet. Burning to a DVD and importing seems to lose a lot of stuff I want - anybody got any good experiences to share on that front? Since they called it iLife '08 when it came out last summer, I'll take that as a pretty good indication we're not seeing a new iLife until MWSF next year - so no joy/help/clue forthcoming from Apple as far as I can tell.

They've done a good job at helping folks organize data up to this point. Maybe Back To My Mac can be of some help, once I finally move my laptop to Leopard (the full drive one reason I hadn't made the switch yet).

OK, enough rambling for now...there's a broader thing to be discussed about long term digital archives, bit rot, graceful organic vs non-graceful binary failure, etc...but you just hink on that and I'll come back to it later.

I gotsta go get on a plane....

Labels: hardware, Mac, NLE

You can pre-order a Time Capsule (either 500GB or 1TB) from the HD for Indies Amazon Store:
Apple Time Capsule, 500GB version - $299.99
Apple Time Capsule, 1TB version - $499.99

HD for Indies gets a small commission on the standard Amazon price to help keep HD4NDs on the interweb tubes.

You can also order one of the sexy new MacBook Air models:

MacBook Air - 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard drive - $1794
MacBook Air - 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard drive - $2094
Macbook Air - 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 64GB solid state drive - $3093

You can also order an AppleTV as well:

AppleTV - 40GB model - $229
AppleTV - 160GB model - $399 as of 10am Wednesday, should drop to $329 shortly.

You can also get reasonably priced HDMI, toslink, and component cables ($2-$10) on the online store as well.

Labels: Apple, hardware, MacBook Air

For a few years I've been writing about using SATA based RAIDs for uncompressed HD projects. Slooooooowly but surely, some RAID 5 (fault tolerant, don't lose all your data if a drive craters) solutions have been coming to market.

At first, they were PCI only (during the PCI-X G5 years). So they were too slow for uncompressed HD (this was before DVCPRO HD native editing was popularized).

Then there were PCI-X cards, but they were still too slow - 80-110 MB/sec write speed for RAID 5 - far too slow for the serious work I wanted to do (10 bit 1080i60 is about 160 MB/sec, need about 200 MB/sec throughput for reliable performance with overhead).

Then I got a Highpoint card, which was a bit slow - one of the 1800 series something or other cards (I'm writing this in Newark airport on way to Spain, can't exactly look on the Shelf Of Old Tech to check).

Slowly but surely, more choices. I recently visited a client's shop that had been running one of the newer Highpoint cards (the 2314 was it?) in RAID 5 mode with PLENTY of throughput for uncompressed HD.

I just read this review on CalDigit's HDPro, the writer runs it through its paces with an 8 bit 1080i60 onlining project.

Then I got an 8 drive, 4TB review unit from Dulce that I am overdue to finish my write up and return the unit, but it has been performing splendidly as well.

I think we're there in terms of affordable, fault tolerant storage. They don't have the maintenance features we'd like, you should probably still wipe the RAIDs between projects (still utterly unrealistic in most working situations with overlapping jobs), but the price is getting closer to doable for a broad swath of budget constrained indies.

Give it another year or so for fault tolerance to be a "yeah, of course, throw that in" option on storage.

I'll have more to say when I publish my full Dulce unit review when I get back from Sitges (Spain).

-mike

UPDATE Shane Ross wrote in to ask how I missed his review, in 4 places no less, of the same CalDigit review.

It is MUCH more thorough, go read that one for a better explanation and better testing, including throughput testing on both a mac Pro (over 300 MB/sec!) and a laptop (over 150 MB/sec. Laptop!).

Here's his:

LITTLE FROG IN HIGH DEF: REVIEW-CALDIGIT HD PRO

Labels: hardware, storage

FreshDV Reviews Five Follow Focus Systems at FreshDV

Headline says it all. Well, almost - 5 reviews in video format. Flash and QT formats both available.

Topics included:

Introduction and Chrosziel DV Follow Focus Review [8:57m]:
Cinetech Titanium SL Follow Focus Review [5:32m]:
Redrock Micro Follow Focus Review [5:33m]:
Petroff Mini Follow Focus Review [7:27m]:
Indifocus Follow Focus Review [9:51m]:
Follow Focus Accessories [2:16m]:

I'll not hot link out of respect for his site - go to his page and you can click on the links there.

-mike

Labels: cameras, hardware

Reader Robert Ashe sent this in:



- The AJA IO HD is NOT an accelerator of any kind nor will they ever claim to be (cough cough Avid)
- Can be used as a converter as long as it is hooked up to a computer (a future version will allow it to be flashed into a setting, and then disconnected, keeping the setting intact)
- You cannot (as it stands now) have both a AJA IO HD and a kona card running simultaneously on the same system. They suggest doing a dual boot partition (Leopard may change this)
- If you add Virtual VTR to the mix you "probably" could use your system as a slave (they haven't tested it)
- It is designed for pro res PERIOD.
- If your machine is fast enough however it will support play out of anything from dvcpro hd to uncompressed
- There is a solid one frame video delay for digitizing (not surprising)
- Just like the adrenaline the IO HD dominates the firewire box, you MUST install a pci-e or pci-x firewire card for other devices.
- AC Power supply (this is nice, in case you lose the supply)
- Supports video output in the usual applications, however in color, it CURRENTLY only supports SD...for now.
- No Look up table support. Kona 3 will remain the "film" card
- Purely designed for broadcast television
- Has same chip set for the FS-1 as far as up-conversions and cross conversions which look really great.
- Does NOT convert frame rates, it works in hertz so that will be very tricky for 720p 60 (wasn't clear about this part) Seems like it may have the same problems with 59.94 and 60p shows that the adrenaline has
- Will not overheat, they've done all the testing, the thing is gold
- Does have LTC input but some changes will have to be made in quicktime to accommodate
- Ready to ship, just waiting for green light from apple
- 1/2 Rack size, same size as HVR-1500. They WILL sell a rack for it later, other wise the sony rack for half rack decks "should" work
- Any speculation with redcode compatibility is currently only speculation

So I pretty much think that this one is almost completely on par with the adrenaline (only missing a 35mbit pro res) and it's about 1/6.5 the price. Pretty much a no brainer for any small shop or film.



Thanks Robert!

Mike's Comments: For field usage and broadcast work, this is a very useful and capable box, FOR CERTAIN APPLICATIONS. For those looking to have a portable converter, a field capture device, a field ingest device to work with a laptop, etc, this thing is GOLDEN.

For those looking to work with Color as well as possible, or get maximum performance, or do LUTs, or 4:4:4 work, or uncompressed HD, this is not the ideal tool.

But it is a GREAT tool to have in the arsenal from what I've heard so far.

As Robert alluded, Apple (with the ProRes codec) and AJA (with the IO HD) have taken solid aim at Avid's DNxHD codec and Adrenaline hardware - and come up with a winner in terms of bang for the buck.

Avid still has some well liked options in terms of software features, but in terms of high quality ingest and export and realtime mixing of formats and codecs, the price performance winner is looking strongly like Apple on this one.

Further emails - Rob suggested that Apple needs an equivalent to DNxHD 36 - a low bandwidth, full raster codec for offline HD editing. I agree! But that's a relatively easy addition that can be done at pretty much anytime they want. They COULD include it in a .0x update, or wait for marketing reasons to roll it into next NAB's version, whatever that may be.

On my wishlist: GPU acceleration for format mixing, better frame rate conversion done in GPU (3:2 pulldown not repeating 4th frame please!), cleaner Compressor functionality, bug fixes, better EDL/XML interaction & integration with Color, DVD SP Blu-ray support (and the drives to go with it!), etc. Personally, I don't care as much whether they support HD DVD or Blu-ray or both, as long as it is soon. Well yeah, I do care - Blu-ray seems to be taking the lead, although slowed by the recent Paramount buy-out/buy-off. Hate to see Apple back the wrong horse exclusively. Although they seem well set to handle both. The hat trick would be to offer a combo burner - burns CD/DVD/HD DVD/Blu-ray. Pricey, but would RAWK.

-mike

Labels: AJA, FCP, Final Cut, hardware, Mac, NLE, software

AKA it is time for me to eBay off a bunch of stuff I still have sitting around that I'm not using. I put a bunch of it up on eBay and didn't get around to pimping it here, and watched disconsolately as SATA cards went for $6 that I paid $90 for a couple of years ago. Sigh. So, I'm pimping it here. This is all gear that I bought to use or test or build gadgets or studio gear with, that either was never used or got replaced. It all still works fine, I just don't have a place for it to go.

Here are the eBay listings:

Wacom Electrostatic Graphics Tablet SD-421E - I made my living with this thing for years - it is a pressure sensitive tablet/pen combo, and better yet, it has a feature the new ones don't - an electrostatic gripper! You place a piece of paper on it, flip the switch, and the paper WON'T MOVE. Perfect for tracing over stuff. I just don't do this kind of work anymore. But this sucker is GREAT. Got any hand skills to draw? You want one of these if you're a digital DNA type.

Apple Video to VGA Adapters bundle of 8 - Got a video card with the old style Apple video out? These'll help it sync res to whatever you want to plug it into, be it a monitor with either a VGA or Mac video port.

AITech VGA to S-video/Composite pocket scan converter - great for connecting your video out to a TV or projector - a great Poor Man's solution for video monitoring (with the usual caveats).

ATI Radeon 32MB MAC Edition Graphics Card - need a second video card for your older Mac? Here you go.

ATI Radeon 32MB MAC Version Graphics Card - and another one....

HAwking 10Base-T 4-Port Ethernet Hub - simple little 4 port ethernet hub for small workgroups, or a handy one to make one port 4 on the road for hotels and the like.

Apple Pro Training Series by Diana Weynand (2004) - book on Final Cut HD, includes a DVD

"Newer Technology" USB 7-port powered hub - powered USB hub - not all hubs are powered, this'll deliver juice to all the gadgets plugged into it. USB 1.0.

Samsung 128 MB DDR PC2100 CL 2.5 RAM from an older Mac.

512 MB DDR 400MHz CL3 PC3200U - the stock 512MB module from a G4 iMac

Serial ATA (SATA) Mobile Tray and Rack - Icy Dock MB122 - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. I was going to use this in a RAID but never got around to it. New in box.

Serial ATA (SATA) Mobile Tray and Rack - Icy Dock MB122 - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. I was going to use this in a RAID but never got around to it. New in box.

Serial ATA (SATA) Hot Swap Rack and Tray - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. Never used, new in box.

Serial ATA (SATA) Mobile Tray - Icy Dock MB 123 - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. I was going to use this in a RAID but never got around to it. New in box.

Serial ATA (SATA) Mobile Tray - Icy Dock MB123 - want a hot swap internal SATA drive setup? Here you go. I was going to use this in a RAID but never got around to it. New in box.

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler - I have a bunch of these, NEW IN BOX, never used - heat is the leading cause of death for drives that are otherwise well taken care of. Got a MacGurus or similar enclosure with 5 1/4" bays? Mount the drives in one of these - they have a heat sink and multiple fans to cool up to 40% more than just the bare drive sitting there. Is your data valuable? Then these are worth having. I just have extras.

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler

Ikea Signum - clamp to hold computer off floor

Ikea Signum - clamp to hold computer off floor

BlueICE After Effects accelerator with ICE fx and Boris

Ethernet A/B Switch

I-Point Remote Control

Video-Audio Selector - AV-521 Y/C

Microsoft Wireless Natural MultiMedia Keyboard

Super Match ADB Color Calibrator

12" PowerBook G4 Keyboard

Labels: hardware

Apple CEO Jabs HD Camera Makers || The Mac Observer

Steve Jobs picks on consumer HD camcorder makers for not making true, full, high definition images. A fair complaint, but considering there are cameras costing many tens of thousands of dollars that don't resolve full 1920x1080, it isn't exactly picking on a kid your own size.

Or is this also justification for the half res mode in the new iMovie? Were they finding consumer pushback due to long render times at full res, and with 1/4 as many pixels to push around at 960x540, most folks couldn't tell the difference?

Conveniently/interestingly, AppleTV does 960x540 as well - but that is the maximum resolution supported for a 30p or 60i image. It will do 1280x720, but only up to 24p.

So would it not be fair to complain AppleTV can only make less than full res video from 1920x1080 sources?

-mike

Labels: Apple, AppleTV, cameras, hardware

from Apple online store description:

The Mac Pro RAID card offers improved performance and data protection to your Mac Pro system — up to 304MB/s of sequential read performance in RAID 0. Ideal for video and creative professionals with demanding storage needs as well as for tower server applications, this hardware RAID option supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 0+1, and Enhanced JBOD. It has 256MB of cache and an integrated 72-hour battery for protecting the RAID cache. The card occupies the top PCI Express slot (slot 4) and connects to the four internal drive bays.

To enable your Mac Pro for hardware RAID, select the Mac Pro RAID card option and two or more hard drives in bays 1 through 4. Each RAID level has minimum requirements for the number of hard drives:

RAID Level Drive Requirements Benefit
Enhanced JBOD One to four drives A non-RAID configuration with the ability to migrate to a RAID set at any time
RAID 0 (striping) Two to four hard drives Maximum performance and capacity for the most demanding I/O requirements
RAID 1 (mirroring) Two hard drives Maximum protection for critical data
RAID 5 Three or four hard drives Data protection, up to 199MB/s of sequential read performance, and efficient capacity utilization
RAID 0+1 Four hard drives A mirror of striped drive pairs providing performance and data protection
The Mac Pro RAID card supports the creation of multiple RAID sets in a system and multiple volumes per RAID set. For optimal disk utilization in a RAID set, all hard drives should be the same size. Your Mac Pro system ships with each hard drive individually configured in the Enhanced JBOD level with Mac OS X installed on the drive in bay 1. Using Apple's RAID Utility software, you can migrate the drives into a RAID set without reinstalling Mac OS X or reformatting the drives, or you can customize your RAID volumes to meet your exact requirements.

Please note: The Mac Pro RAID card occupies one of the available PCI Express expansion slots.


Key thing of note - 199 MB/sec read speeds under RAID 5. Magic number for uncompressed 1080i60 10 bit 4:2:2 video: 200 MB/sec is the usual recommended number. For 1080p24 10b444 RGB: about 230-240 MB/sec. Whither write speed, Apple? Write speed is almost always slower in RAID 5 than read speed, so if read is about 200, and that's the minimum for uncompressed HD, where's the write speed? It is probably lower, and that's a bummer.

Also, that 199 MB/sec - will it hold that through the capacity of the array, or slow down as the drives get full...like most other storage? Remains to be seen.

More later, I'm testing an Octo Mac with a Highpoint 2322 RAID 5 right now, and it works pretty darn well....

There's new versions of iWork, now with a spreadsheet, and iLife, now organizing stuff by Events and yielding TONS more storage space for .Mac accounts (with my 2GB bumped to 20GB, and those who paid for 4GB bumped to 30GB). That's now enough space to back up all my photos...I THINK (double check).

iPhone output is mentioned in iMovie, and you can now FINALLY store all our video in one place in iMovie, organized by Events. Gotta read more, but I'll pick it up at a store ASAP to doodle with. I hope it has improved multi-machine sync capabilities as well...but I doubt it.

-mike

Labels: Apple, hardware, Mac Pro, storage, workflow

One Terabyte Hitachi SATA drive compared to others

Bare Feats takes a good look at some of the new modern hard drives, which I haven't done in a while, and DAMN, they are fast!

For instance, the Western Digital 750GB SATA drive can read/write up in the mid-90 MB/sec - a year or so ago, the faster drives were good for maybe 65 MB/sec - this represents a roughly 50% increase. You'll still have fall-off in performance as they fill up (and data is written closer to the slower data transfering hub as opposed to the faster edge of the platters), but that certainly made me perk up.

In some recent testing of a Mac Pro, for instance, which had a 3x5000GB drive RAID 0, I was playing back uncompressed HD from a 3 drive RAID...without dropped frames! Very impressive. Of course, this was on a nearly empty array, so all data was at the fastest part of the array, and I didn't get a chance to do a zone test (test performance fall-off across the capacity of the array), so I don't know how sustainable that would have been, but newer, modern drives are definitely worth checking out for the speed improvements they yield.

Go read this article to see how the Hitachi 1TB, the Western Digital 750 GB, Seagate 750, and Maxtor 500 all stack up.

By the way - Seagate has been the most often cited as most reliable brand to me in terms of not failing as often as other brands. If building a RAID 0, that is worth noticing. In this lineup, however, that'll cost you over 20 MB/sec per drive.

-mike

Labels: hardware, storage

Writeup from Creative Cow on SAS RAID from Dulce Systems:

Does 250ish MB/sec writes, 360ish MB/sec reads in fault protected 8 drive array setup - nice!

The Before Scenario:

"As so many of my clients use SATA drives on their editing systems (both AVID and FCP), I started to test out some of the Raid protected SAS solutions. I was initially disappointed. On one hand, they were inexpensive, and they were fast. On the other, they were difficult to set up, they never warned you that a drive had failed, they had too many rules for what you could do and not do, and when it came time to rebuild your broken RAID, it was a manual process. For those of you familiar with older working RAID solutions from Apple, Medea, StorCase and HUGE Systems, this was just unacceptable."

The After Scenario:

You click on "Quick Function/Quick Create" and select "RAID Level 3."Another menu that says "64 bit LBA", and a menu that says "Volume Initialization Mode/NO Init", click on SUBMIT, and in FIVE SECONDS, the RAID 3 drive array is there. I then deleted the RAID by clicking on "RAID Set Function/Delete RAID Set", and created a RAID 5, using the same few keystrokes.

IN FIVE SECONDS!!

I couldn't believe it. Well, I really DIDN'T believe it, so I loaded up some media, and yanked out one of the drives. The drive array started to beep, indicating a failure. I opened up the Dulce RAID Console, which indicated that there was a failure. I popped the drive back into the Dulce (with power on - no powering down) - and IT STARTED TO REBUILD all by itself.

This sounds VERY promising, and could be a good solution for a lot of folks. Unfortunately, they do NOT sell bare systems - you have to buy the fully configured card & enclosure with drives.

Mike's Analysis: A 2TB system (8x250GB presumably) starts at $4400, an 8TB is $8000.

Formatted as RAID 3 or 5, this should allow for a usable, formatted capacity of 1624GB for the 2TB model yielding $2.71/GB, up to 6475GB for the 8TB model, yielding $1.23/GB.

Compare this to Apple's fibre channel equivalent cost of a 7TB model for $12,400, pus $500 for the card for a total of about $12,900 for a RAID 50 capacity of 5550GB at a cost of $2.32/GB. The 10.5TB model formats to 8325GB at a cost of 14,300 for a price/GB of $1.71.

There are other differences between the models, but this is a place to start analyzing from for single station utilization.

Sounds very promising, I want to get a review unit.

-mike

Labels: hardware, RAID, storage

UPDATED TUESDAY - see bottom

OK, I don't want to be too alarmist, and I DO NOT have a definitive reason why this is going on, but here's the deal:

1.) I ran Software Update on my MacBook (original Core Duo 2.0 GHz model w/2GB RAM and upgraded hard drive)

2.) Shortly thereafter, it locked up - clicked on an email, and the machine beachballed...then the clock stopped updating (I always have it display the seconds so I can ALWAYS tell if something is stalling the processor - if the seconds aren't advancing).

3.) hard reboot - I got a bizarre, Windows looking black screen with big fat white letters and a few random red squares saying press ctrl-alt-delete...EEK, not good!

4.) rebooted, held down option - made sure was set to OS X not Windows via Boot Camp (I have a Windows partition on the box)

5.) rebooted again, saw for the first time ever the grey Apple screen with a darker grey circle and slash - egads, I don't know exactly what that means but it CAN'T be good.

6.) rebooted holding down shift key for Safe Boot Mode - it got to grey screen, showed circle/slash, then grey Apple logo as expected....then cycled back and forth between those interminably. This was on hard line power.

7.) Shut down, prepping to to do FireWire Target Disc Mode to do a remote Disk Utility run at it.

So I have ZERO proof that Software Update has anything to do with this, and I don't know whether it was or wasn't on 10.4.10, but the new QT, iTunes, and Security Update were just installed (at least, shoulda been, assuming it worked).

It could just be something went ker-flooey with the unit by chance today after having done Software Update and has nothing to do with it.

But JUST IN CASE, maybe holding off for a day or two and see if there are any other similar reports. As of this moment, my primary machine, my MacBook, is out of operation (and gee, I'm down to 4 Macs! Oh, the horror....but I'll struggle through...but all my email and access to it is on that box...grrr...)

I'll update as I learn more, just thought it'd be good to put a cautious warning out there.

-mike

3PM update - crap, when _I_ have to call somebody for Mac help, it is BAD - I've been everybody's Go To guy for decades on Mac stuff. So I call who I think might know more - Torrey Loomis of Silverado Systems, whom I buy all my own Mac stuff from now. I describe symptoms, he says it is rare, he's seen it once in connection with a Windows/Boot Camp partition setup. He says it is probably hard disk related. "Logical or physical problem?" I ask, he says not sure, recommends Disk Warrior.

Buy Disk Warrior 4 (required for Intel Macs) online, takes maybe 7 minutes from Google search to installing - NICE. Can buy online and download and they'll mail a disk, and they IMMEDIATELY (none of this multi-hour wait crap) email a serial # - VERY good for oh-god-I-need-it-now scenarios. Kudos.

Unfortunately, it isn't helping at the moment - even after booting laptop in FireWire Target Disk Mode, THEN connecting FW cable, THEN booting host Mac, and writing all this while I wait for it to boot and maybe mount....doesn't mount, and DiskWarrior can't see it so can't do beans.

Reset the PMU at this point on this list of "things to try just in case they help" - I don't even know if these Macs have PRAM to reset with the Vulcan Nerve Pinch key command (option-command-P-R - takes a large handspan....)

After that I try a normal boot and get something new - a grey blinking folder with a "?" in the middle - guessing it can't find a bootable drive. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek.

Held down VNP as described above, after a minute or so it rebooted, so I'll interpret that as Parameter RAM (PRAM) was reset...but after that, couldn't even get it to Target Disk Mode...

Drat and damnation - next step - I'll pull the drive and use my SATA to USB 2.0 converter cable kit to see if that helps it be visible...

Did that - pulled the drive out, connected my USB 2.0 to SATA adaptor, and...it didn't show up, and DiskWarrior didn't see it. Touching it, can feel it spinning up, then spinning down after a brief run. Not good.

Next step - recovery services. Anybody have a data recovery service for Mac laptop drives that has a better success/price ratio than DriveSavers? Egads, this is, I believe, the 3rd laptop drive I've had go bad over the last 3-4 years. Sigh. Long hard day, many other unpleasantnesses going on also.

Just talked to DriveSavers, with my vendor's discount, I'd still be paying $1350 to $2160 if they get all the data I want off (which should be doable, it was all working until it went totally kerflooey). OUCH that is not cheap. Last backup? I've found my pre-NAB disc image, I'm looking for a newer one...

So going back to the original topic - I don't have a reason to believe Software Update had anything to do with this. Appears to be a drive gone bad.

-mike

TUESDAY UPDATE - ...so I ordered a new drive and it arrived over the weekend. I had planned to try a board swap to see if that helped. I'd noticed my older laptop drive hadn't mounted when I plugged it into my little USB 2.0 to SATA adaptor, so I tried again just to make sure I hadn't missed an opportunity to fix the apparently bad newer drive. Turns out for a laptop drive to show up, you need to cold boot or reboot. So I got the old drive to show up fine. So then I repeated procedure for the failed drive. During that process, I heard it make a little noise (I had most of the machines in the room off, not common). So I replugged it and leaned in close - uh oh, whirrrrr-click, whirrrrr-click, whirrrrr-click...sounds like Click Of Death to me. It made that sound several times and then spun down. Didn't show up on reboot in any utility as there being any drive there at all.

So I don't think a board swap is going to help.

So I hooked up the just-purchased drive and did a low level format (mapping out bad blocks by using the Zero Write option in Disk Utility, which DOES take hours) and headed out for the evening. When I got back, I mounted my most recent disk image backup (not nearly as recent as I'd like) and used SuperDuper to copy it to the just purchased laptop drive. That worked overnight.

Now I'm debating whether to even try the board swap, Just To Be Sure, or whether to just put the working drive into the laptop, having it download all the mail it can to try to get sync'd back up, updating all the software, etc. Right now, my most recent and correct address book, contacts, and email or on my iPhone - I hope when I reconnect it won't lose or do anything funny to those.

In any case, the next step will be to analyze what I've lost, what I have backups or pseudo-backups of (for instance, my NAB pics are all online at lower res), and decide what if anything I REALLY need and find a cost effective data restoration facility in that case. Thanks VERY much to everyone that has sent in suggestions, I'm going through those today as well online (not checking Comments mail on the iPhone, too much!).

Thanks to all for their helpful suggestions, I'm getting ready to start sifting for recovery service options. I swapped out the logic board between old/busted drive and new drive of same model, no joy. Durn.

Now I'm going to rebuild my laptop with the new drive that has the older backup/restored image on it. But it isn't as new as I'd like.

-mike

Labels: case study, hardware, iTunes

Hey all - two articles I wrote for DV are now online:

Upgrade Your Images with Audio

I'd written a bit on audio acquisition in this article, where I stated that I basically don't know beans about audio field acquisition, just enough to know that it is important and you should get somebody good to do it.

However, I learned quite a bit researching for the DV article about the plugs, formats, budget considerations and whatnot for audio monitoring in stereo, and now with Final Cut Pro 6, surround (5.1 channel) audio monitoring. This article is really a follow up to my previous DV article a few months ago on building an uncompressed HD workstation. Read all about the various audio outputs that you have or can get, the same 3 tiers of Starving Indie, Moderately Equipped Individual, and Well Equipped Invididual/Small Facility Room. For each, I discuss stereo and surround monitoring options, what the interfaces and options and prices are, etc. I'm really proud of this one.

Similarly, for Windows specific info, I wrote a second article (exclusively available online, won't be in the print edition) here:

Upgrade Your Images with Audio: PC Edition

I discuss the more popular options on the Windows side (see? I DO try to cover The Other Side! :D ) - Avid, Adobe, and Sony's Vegas. I talk about the audio I/O hardware/software options available/appropriate to each, and run down some the Windows specific issues that weren't mentioned in the other article.

One mistake that was made in my own editorial process in that Windows specific article - in Group 3, I didn't come back and mention/recommend Avid Media Composer with Adrenaline, which is an entirely valid and appropriate choice for high end editorial individual/small facility setups as discussed in the article. Tomorrow I'll look into getting that fixed (it is well after midnight after an especially taxing few days).

Another area I don't know as much as I'd like to about is proper room setup for serious audio work - I was pleased to see as a companion piece to the articles I wrote there is a nice long article by Dan Daley (or the MUCH more experienced Dan could very fairly call my articles companions to his!) on how to set up a serious, "for real" audio monitoring environment to get accurate, unbiased sound reproduction. He discusses room dimensions, proper speaker setup, proper acoustic treatment of the room, etc. In my brief skim (I'll read the whole thing just haven't yet) I saw a lot of promising stuff, and already learned some good info on minimal room size to get good, accurate acoustic reproduction, etc.

The Sound of Science: Acoustical considerations for the DIY HD studio"

These three articles should give you plenty to work from to set up your own studio. Good luck, and as always, Comments welcome using the link below.

UPDATE/NOTE: One thing I glossed over and was eventually edited out along the way - YES, an SDI or HD-SDI CAN carry enough discrete audio channels to do stereo or surround - so when mastering, the audio flows with video for multi-channel work (want a multi-channel mix on HDCAM? Dolby E is your answer, but you more than likely can't prep that inhouse and will have to send out to have it done, but it "fits" on two channels of uncompressed audio while mastering). Anyway, point being, while audio DOES flow over SDI or HD-SDI, it isn't likely/viable that you have an SDI or HD-SDI deck, sitting around, all the time, such that you can do your audio monitoring through it/on it. If you've got an HDCAM SR deck permanently attached in the same room, GREAT, the HD-SDI can flow through that and (I believe but would need to verify) has enough audio monitor passthroughs that you could do it that way. While it is technically possible to de-embed the audio from an SDI or HD-SDI stream to discrete analog outputs, other than the Blackmagic HDLink Pro (mentioned in the article), I couldn't find a viably affordable means of doing that. So I skipped it.

OH! And big, BIG Special Thanks and Luv to Craig Negoescu, Stu Maschwitz, and SEVERAL folks EACH from Blackmagic, AJA, Avid, and Apple. I wasn't able to contact anybody specific at Adobe but would have loved to talk to somebody over there, simply because I don't have a good direct connection with them (yet).

If you are, or know somebody who should be my connection at Adobe's video group, I'd love to be in direct contact with someone at Adobe's video group to ping for feedback/answers/etc. to make sure I can get accurate, timely, detailed info out into the wild. And with CS3 purportedly coming out within a couple of weeks....

And OK, I am guiltly of headline pimping on this one, and there is no way to learn "everything you need to know" from three articles, but boy, (I maybe-not-so-humbly think) there is a LOT of useful info in there!

-mike

Labels: audio, FCP, Final Cut, Final Cut Studio 2, hardware, NLE, studio

Macworld: News: HDMI 'extreme' extender uses cat 5 cables

"Gefen's new HDMI CAT-5 MS Extreme enables users to put up to 300 feet between a high definition video source and its display, using industry-standard category 5 network cabling. It costs $549 and is now available for pre-order."


Run HDMI over Cat 5 for long distances? Sweet.

Labels: hardware, post, post equipment

AppleInsider | Apple may extend multi-touch to computer mice

"Apple Inc. has filed for a patent describing a computer mouse having a touch-sensative shell capable of accepting multi-touch finger gestures, similar to the surface of the company's iPhone handset."


Ooooooooooooooh. Nice - after messing with my iPhone all weekend, I started downloading pix from it into iPhoto, and I wanted to zoom in and started to reach for some kind of multi-touch controller - but it wasn't there. I stared at the little scale slider and had one thought: "Lame."

Don't you hate it when you suddenly feel all your cool gear is instantly obsolete, out of date?

Multi-touch will be BIG. When I can get a laptop that has normal and multi-touch modes (frogdesign designed a laptop that had a double hinge design that would tablet or normal mode). Have a "real" keyboard and touch tablet (which itself could multi-touch), and then touchable screen - THAT would be killer. I'd buy one, and pay what - a $500 premium?

EDIT - ah - here's that Vadem frog designed back in 2000 (thanks to Mark for digging this out of the archives). So imagine a Macbook variant with a screen that flips like this:


More iPhone notes:

Design on Wall Street / frog in the News / frog design My former boss and fellow iPhone line waiter Mark Rolston (he was in a lawn chair at 1pm right after this interview on Bloomberg News Channel waiting for his own, about 30 people in front of my group) talks about the iPhone before release, and the expected flaws, and how it'll be received by the industry - and whether/how fast RIM will react. Way to go Mark! Also, way to go on dressing up for national news - I see you wore a t-shirt without visible logo, touche. :D

Mark told me some years ago that a lot of cell phone UI and OS are pretty much written ground up each time - so UI and functionality changes are a big, hairy, obnoxious deal - think how rarely you hear about cell phones getting updates available. Unlike with iPhone, where it is just a cut down OS X, with an API and *nix underneath, allowing for easier updates, with a built-in distribution methodology (updates via iTunes just like an iPod).

Other notes on iPhone - there is no way to Bluetooth beam or even email your contact info to someone. Feh.

You can't Bluetooth to use the iPhone as a modem for your computer. Double feh.

On the Go playlists either forget themselves entirely or I'm doing it wrong - twice I've spent time putting together playlists, and it is gone later.

BTW - I've continued to add, on a daily basis, to the end of my egregiously titled iPhone post from Friday.

-mike

Labels: Apple, hardware

Reader and long time emailer/contributor Bruce Allen went to the LA based Cinegear Expo this weekend, and submitted this detailed report. he also sent in a big bunch of photos as well. As someone who knows how much time it takes to do this kind of documentation, BIG THANKS to Bruce for taking the time. If anyone else went and has something good to add, please let me know.

You might also be interested in reading Mark Allen's report from the Red presentation at Cinegear as well.

UPDATE - John Ott also posted his own thoughts on CineGear at Making the Movie: CineGear Expo 2007

Below is Bruce's report:

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Codex digital recorder - pictures included. Light, small, nice, takes standard Anton Bauer battery power. The "mag" seems to be 2.5" notebook hard drives - they confirmed it was running RAID-3. Cost is supposedly competitive with a HDCAM SR deck. It has optical in and will be able to take RAW data from the Red, do very light JPEG2000 compression (lighter than REDCODE) and store it. It has tons of cool options - ethernet output, H264 proxies, etc. But you get the idea. Cool high-end recorder. They also had huge big uncompressed boxes, fancy workflow solutions, etc. But as far as indies go, I can see us renting a Codex for a day, offloading via Ethernet to our PC at night (their software can output all usual formats - dpx, Quicktime, etc), then returning it the next day. Pricing not set yet - I heard $60,000? Don't quote me.

Mike note - Matthew Jeppsen over at FreshDV has some more on this new device as well, and I regretfully only folded my own coverage into the Friday Blogwad.

Wafian - I saw the HR1 and HR2 boxen. Big fellas, but nicely packaged - fine for a studio or greenscreen shoot. They are renting them - they quoted me something like $500 (per 3-day week?) for the HR1 or $800 for the HR2 (not sure, need to confirm that). They also had a prototype smaller box (picture included). It will run off DC power (yaay). The final one will have a larger screen, be more compact, etc. August. Basically, they are the indie equivalent of the Codex. And friendly too.

Phantom HD camera - I played with the Phantom HD camera (you know, the 1000fps 2k one) at Photo-Sonics (just one of the places that had it). Very very nice, very compact, etc. Records to built-in RAM - can store 4.5 seconds worth of 1000fps 2k x 1k frames. RAM upgrade coming soon. You can review the footage on camera, scrolling through it with a little scroll wheel, etc. It shows you how far you are through it, how much space is used, etc. Connect it via ethernet to dump frames to computer. Rental quote from someone was $2500 per day including lens (a nice 20:1 Cooke, I think) and laptop, I think. Claimed ASA is approx 600 - they were shooting footage live at the show (mix of sunlight & shade) at 1000fps and were at around a 5.6 and 2/3.

Dalsa - remember there are 2 branches - the 4k cine camera, plus the rental department. First off, the cine camera - they had footage playing. It looked incredible. Latitude, etc was nice, shots were very clean, no fixed pattern noise, etc. They had one shot that was available light at night. Wow. Some noise of course but just looked like a slightly high speed film stock. Advantages of this camera over Red are claimed higher latitude, plus definite lack of CMOS motion warping and better sensor alignment for 2:35 (theirs sensor is 2:1 aspect ratio I think?). Next, the rental dept - for a start, yes they are renting Reds.

MIKE UPDATE Tuesday afternoon - Dalsa contacted me to say this is not the case. "We have no plans to rent Red cameras at our facility in LA." according to their spokesman. Apologies for any inaccuracies....or are they? See other update end of article. End update, resuming Bruce's coverage...

I asked them whether you could do something mostly on Red and then switch to their 4k camera for a few days. They obviously felt that their camera's image quality was higher but said yes, as long as you were not cutting directly from one to the other, it'd probably work. Finally, lenses - they had their slightly-anamorphic lenses on display - I played with a 50mm 1.4 one attached to their camera. It was very nice and had that nice oval bokeh that we love out of anamorphics. On a side note - ah man - love that optical viewfinder. Anyway... they are aiming at a set of 6, all under T2.0. Yes, they are PL mount, yes they are for rent. Yes, you could use them on a Red - if you were shooting a 2.35 feature that might be a very good idea because it gets you more usable pixels. They also had a beautiful set of non-anamorphic PL mount primes - mostly Leica glass, plus Canons for the extreme zooms. They feel that the Leica glass is superior to Zeiss and Cooke for 4k acquisition. Again, no reason you can't rent those for your Red.

What else? Lots of Vipers running around - they are small and cute. Wish I'd had time to play with them. The amazing TechnoDolly thing was there again (like a motion controlled Technocrane). Lots of people with Modula HD mini-cameras. Didn't see Silicon Imaging. Red Rock was there with a prototype matte-box ($500, will have swing-away now and 3 rotating filter stages, designed to work with the Red). They also had a HV20 rig similar to what I am building. Many cool follow focus devices running from the Preston to the Bartech, but I didn't see the Red Rock one there (no time!).

I Saw a 18K HMI - it was successfully illuminating the underside of a tree 20 feet away in broad daylight. I played with the always-impressive weatherproof and dual-voltage Kobold HMIs and the O'Connor 1030HD. Looked around at the other LCD monitors - still nothing that competes with mine, yaay. I stopped by Schneider and talked to them about their DigiCon - you know, the latitude improving filter. The thing seems cheap for what you get. I'm going to have to rent some different grades and test.

Also checked out a crazy rotating iris gizmo that gives a supposedly "3D" effect (www.inv3.com) - believe it or not, it actually worked, although it was weird as shit. Basically, the rotating iris thing gives a still shot a tiny bit of parallax motion by, uh, going round and round. It's kinda like the stupidest thing you've ever seen and the cleverest thing you've ever seen at the same time. I'm not sure if I'll be using it on my next shoot, but it did get me thinking a lot about how humans perceive depth - those little movements of the head that we do are important - and also why the gradual dolly shoot has the psychological effect of sucking you into the picture. The human visual system is a fascinating thing...

Otherwise, played with the Petroff follow focus and matte box, the Vocas matte box (very nice, very light and very pro), Innovision's little "bird's eye" camera support tower (not much to rent - was something like $250 per day?), lots of LED lighting systems, the usual impressive Steadicam rigs. P+S technik were doing a demonstration of their Skater-Dolly hooked up to a simple motion control system - it seemed cheap but effective. But I didn't notice their 35mm adapters being talked about much. Abelcine did have the competing Movietube ST. But my tests with the SGpro have really satisfied me - I really don't think you can get much higher quality without going up to a Red or something like that. Otherwise, I saw and photographed a S.two but didn't have time to check it out properly. I had bought a whole bunch of Zacuto stuff on their 25%-off show special for my HV20 rig (yep, I'm going with that whole shoulder-mounted 35mm adapter thing) and was weighed down at that point...

ADDENDUM: he sent this in later:

Finally, the Wafian people were demonstrating the Cineform beta codec on a Mac laptop. So they are trying to get it working with the Mac world. I don't think it was playing full framerate at full res yet (something to do with the codec not being multi-core aware yet).

=========

Mike's Comments - first off, BIG UPS to longtime reader/contributor Bruce Allen for taking the time to write all this up and submit annotated pictures - I welcome and invite well credentialled/qualified/informed submissions from readers.

Dalsa's new smaller form factor camera (as further detailed in the for-pay NAB Premium report) improves their package size and shootability, and if you can team that up with the new much smaller Codex recorder that can do 4K, that's a substantially new package.

The Wafian stuff looks very interesting for an HD-SDI based, Windows keyed green screen shoot (and other usages). I still have a bunch of Phantom HD footage to process sitting around on a hard drive somewhere, it is a very attractive prospect for high speed, high resolution digital cinematography (not to pimp it too much, but the NAB 2007 Premium report includes further info and a long interview with Mitch Gross about the camera's improvements).

Viper with a Wafian (for tethered) or Codex recorder is a very interesting new option as well.

This is definitely an exciting time to watch the progress in digital cameras and recording options. Of course, how reliable and cost effective all this new gear is in the field is a whole other level of analysis to be done.

: )

-mike

UPDATE WEDNESDAY - Then there is this quote on Reduser.net from someone else visiting Dalsa's NAB booth:

I asked the Dalsa rep if they purchased any Reds for the rental department, and he says 'No. We're waiting until they produce a final camera so we can do a comprehensive evaluation. But we're not at any rental disadvantage, because we've already got several reservation holders who've agreed to 'consign' their cameras for rentals as soon it ships.'

So it sounds like they've been keeping their options open (or were at NAB), and have been (or were) considering renting Reds definitely, but may not have publicly committed to doing so. Bruce left CineGear with the impression from the booth reps that they were definitely going to rent them. So MAYBE the rental reps and the PR folks aren't on the same page.

-mike

Labels: acquisition, cameras, Cineform, hardware, Production

Santa Rosa-based MacBook Pro review roundup - Engadget

Ars Technica is my favorite/most trusted of these sources.

-mike

Labels: Apple, hardware, Macbook Pro

Barefeats points out new option: TransIntl.com - 4GB FB-DIMMs x 8 = 32GB

They point out how Compressor 3 and After Effects CS3 can use that much memory when they spawn off processes to render or compress more/faster.

Pricey at nearly $650 apiece, though.

-mike

Labels: Apple, hardware, Mac Pro

I'm bringing back the concept of the Blogwad - everything that I either didn't have time to properly address during the week, or that didn't merit it's own post, or that came in on Friday and therefore gets lumped in with the rest of the blogwad.

I've at least broken it down into categories - post software, post hardware, acquisition, cameras, general...and iPhone, since there's so much going on with that.

POST SOFTWARE

IRIDAS Extends DualStream Stereoscopic Technology across Product Line | Studio Daily - very niche, but good to know

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Click-thru Tutorial: Magic Bullet Looks | Studio Daily

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Click-thru Tutorial: GenArts Sapphire | Studio Daily

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Interview with Automatic Duck's Wes Plate

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Getting Intimate with CineForm Intermediate Part 2 (I trust you can follow the links to part 1)

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Creating Node Trees in Color and the special case of interlaced video (Final Cut Studio 2) -good Ken Stone tutorial, thanks to a sharp eyed reader for sending this in.



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POST HARDWARE

MacNN | MacBook Pro 17" Hi-res: Best LCD yet

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MacNN | Overnight 200GB, 250GB laptop drive upgrades - if you don't want to do it yourself...but what about data backup and data integrity and security?

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Matrox MXO 2.0 review

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ACQUISITION

Codex Digital Announces Portable Field Recorder | Studio Daily

9 pounds, carbon fiber, rubber weather seals, HD to 4K, size of a lunch box, powered by standard batteries, can do dual link 4:4:4, has Infiniband, Ethernet data connections, can do 10 gigabit optical I/O, 8 channels of audio, wireless MP4 video output, Red One RAW output (!!!), this sounds incredibly cool, useful, and improved - I should write more on this later...

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short version - 4K capable S.two to be shown at CineGear

Press release:


S.two Corporation’s DFR4K™ Digital Field Recorder announced at NAB 2007 will premier at Cine Gear Expo 2007.

New 4K capable portable recorder will feature in movie making workflow demonstration with the Dalsa Origin 4K camera.

Reno, NV—June 22nd 2007— S.two announces it will demonstrate for the first time its new 4K recording solution at this week’s Cine Gear Expo. The new DFR4K™ features full integration with Dalsa Origin 4K cameras using InfiniBand Fibre connections. The coupled systems will be shown on the S.two stand #T4 at the Wadsworth Theatre and Grounds June 22-23, 2007.

The DFR4K plays Dalsa 4K images in real time up to the maximum supported frame rate of the Dalsa camera. This closely coupled integration with Dalsa Origin cameras adds all the capabilities of the camera plus all the on set convenience, productivity, efficiency and robustness that S.two has shown on many completed feature films, the most noted of late being David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac’.

An Industry “first”, the 24V DC powered DFR4K™ production units allow the camera to be free of location logistics so that true ‘run and gun’ style movie making can be done in 4K resolution.

This debut showing of the DFR4K™ prototype heralds a complete set of DFR4K™ products for all extended resolution cameras and projects allowing a full choice of palettes for the discerning filmmaker. S.two extended definition workflow will be fully adapted for 4K movie making including offline, archiving and post integration. The DFR4K™ extended definition workflow is added to S.two’s HD, HD RGB, 2K and 3K products supporting other leading cameras.

“As the leading uncompressed digital film recording company, S.two is pleased to be able to provide our field portable, field proven, compact DC powered recording solutions to higher resolution users, bringing our un-rivaled on set experience and reliability to an emerging 4K market” states Steve Roach, Vice President, S.two. “The DFR4K™ provides 4K users a proven end to end workflow with the same benefits S.two has supplied on multiple movie projects around the world.”


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CAMERAS

Ikegami and Toshiba Provide Details of Advanced New Tapeless ENG Camera, Editing and Production System | Studio Daily

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Press release:

DALSA and the Digital Cinema Society (http://www.digitalcinemasociety.com/) are co-hosting a 4K presentation at the Cine Gear Expo, the industry's premiere film, video and digital media expo. The event which takes place on Saturday, June 23rd will explore 4K for production, post, and projection. Various samples acquired in 4K RAW with the DALSA Origin camera, edited in HD with Apple's Final Cut Pro, then conformed using EDL into the final project for color correction and creation of the DCP will be projected in 4K via the Sony SXRD Projector.

Following the screening, James Mathers, President and Co-founder of the Digital Cinema Society, will moderate a panel made up of Cinematographer David Stump, ASC; DALSA's Rob Hummel; Sony's Andrew Stucker; Denis Leconte of Pacific Title, as well as Directors Anurag Mehta and Joe DiGennaro.  The presentation is a great opportunity to find out the benefits and challenges of Digital Filmmaking at 4K resolution.

The time slot is 10-10:45 AM on Saturday, the 23rd at the Wadsworth Theatre at Cinegear.  Note:  You must be registered for the Cine Gear Expo - Free of Charge Until June 15: For more information on Cinegear, visit http://www.cinegearexpo.com



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Zacuto to offer turnkey HD camera packages with Redrock M2 adaptors

Press Release:

Zacuto and Redrock Micro today announced Zacuto will begin offering turnkey digital camera solutions equipped with the Redrock M2 adapter.

"We've had great success providing camera packages setup for the Redrock M2 and have gotten to know it very well," said Steve Weiss, Marketing Director at Zacuto. "Offering our customers complete packages including Redrock's M2 made perfect sense to us. We are thrilled to be teaming up with another US manufacturer."

"Zacuto is putting together fantastic camera packages for digital cinematographers," added James Hurd, Chief Revolutionary for Redrock. "We're delighted to be working with a company that maintains a strong reputation for quality, expertise, and customer service."

Zacuto targets their cinema bundles to customers requiring a complete camera package and have a budget ranging from $20,000-$30,000. The Zacuto cinema solution bundles will include a Zacuto-branded Redrock adapter kit, Panasonic HVX-200 camera, Zeiss Nikon-mount lenses, tripod, Zacuto support system, fitted Zacuto case, and other needed accessories.

Redrock's M2 35mm lens adapter is always available directly from Redrock's website, available with other Redrock accessories including the award-winning microFollowFocus, microMattebox, and microRemote. Redrock pricing starts at $995 for complete SD solutions, and $1,295 for HD solutions.

Redrock and Zacuto will both be at Cinegear Expo 2007 in Los Angeles June 22nd and 23rd. Redrock will be in Booth 30 (located near Panasonic and JVC booths). Zacuto will be located at Booth 77.


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GENERAL INFO

Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

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Cinematical Seven: Tips for the Indie Filmmaker - Cinematical

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Shooting Animation Verit-Style for Surf's Up | Studio Daily

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HD DVD Production - white paper details on HD DVD structure/setup

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Apple`s Safari for Windows offers simple interface, good performance but not essential

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MacNN | Apple patent: power adapters for security

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Mac OS X 10.4.10 Released

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YouTube to Test Software To Ease Licensing Fights - WSJ.com

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CinemaTech: Could new RealPlayer spark legal action?

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SoftRAID 3.6 doesn't work under 10.4.10 - so don't upgrade yet!:

"SoftRaid 3.6 does not recognize 10.4.10, and will not allow access to preferences for changes or statistics. The only option is to close the software. To paraphrase the error message, it says that I don't have the proper OS installed and that I should install 10.4.X.

I sent an inquiry to SoftRaid, LLC about this and I received an answer back in under 5 minutes as follows:
'Either go back to 10.4.9, wait until 3.6.2 is out, or ask to be on the beta list for 3.6.2. This is caused by Apples hack to make a 10.4.10 possible, which violates their naming standards.'"


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IPHONE

iPhone data plans to surface before launch day - Engadget
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AppleInsider | New iMac, iPhone hints turn up in Apple software update

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AppleInsider | AT&T exec: iPhone data plans to be announced June 29th [Updated]

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AppleInsider | Apple retail stores to close, re-open ahead of iPhone

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AppleInsider | AT&T recommending "Crowd Control Devices" for iPhone launch

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AppleInsider | Apple gets new EU extension; iPhone dock; 7.6 percent Mac share

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Apple - iPhone - A Guided Tour - new on Apple's site.

EDIT 9:45PM - I'm watching this right now on my HDTV via my AppleTV (the file is Apple TV compatible, natch). My garage got burgled today - my trusty mountain bike (Bridgestone MB-1, heavily modified over last 16 years) got stolen, and my car pilfered. Drat it - so much for my comfy neighborhood vibe - alarm to be used EVERY time I leave the house from now on. But anyway, feel better sitting home tonight and locking all the windows, etc. Back on topic - the iPhone has more little features I hadn't noticed before, so that's good. A silent ringer dedicated button. Speaker and microphone both on bottom (odd!). Another speaker up by your ear. Sleep/wake button is nice - can still receive calls and listen to music, but the big screen is off to save battery. The speaker on the bottom is for speakerphone mode - nice! Conference calling is nice and easy - I could never figure it out on any other phone system before without going to the manual. Lots of subtle quality UI touches. The cost is starting to not matter as much seeing all this - this is how it ought to work. If they released a phone with no video, no audio, and just the UI in a smaller form factor..it'd sell just fine. can surf multiple simultaneous pages - keep'em open. Email on iPhone can read/view JPEG, PDF, Word, Excel, RTF, HTML, etc. The keyboard is "smart" they say as it catches typos, etc. They suggest starting with your index finger and then advancing to thumbing - "in about a week you'll be typing faster on the iPhone than on any other phone" - so get ready for a learning curve. Still only being demo'd in vertical keyboard only mode - I've always been wondering when they'd get a wide mode keyboard mode - I have fat thumbs (and all that...oh never mind). Stock widget is exactly like the OS X widget. Google Maps - it doesn't seem to be self-aware of where you are as some has hoped - you have to tell it where you are. Traffic updates can be live - nice! YouTube - yeah, gotta be on WiFi from what they seem to be saying. Has an airplane mode - no WiFi, Bluetooth, or cell signals come out of it in this mode (well thought out!). Set your ringtone - they don't mention loading your own, but part of me wants to use this one (NSFW).

Whew!

That'll hold us for a bit...

-mike

Labels: Apple, blogwad, cameras, Cineform, codec, Color, disk based recording, Final Cut Studio 2, hardware, high end, iPhone, Kirsner, Mac, NLE, plugin, post, post equipment, tutorial, workflow

EETimes.com - Tech advances zoom in on camera sensitivity, size

Kodak's color filter patterns address another problem that has long dogged the digital imaging industry: trade-offs between resolution and sensitivity.

Kodak claims its color filter patterns are designed to more than double the light sensitivity of the CMOS or charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors used in camera phones or digital still cameras.

The color filter patterns build on Kodak's widely used Bayer pattern--an arrangement of red, green and blue pixels--by adding a fourth pixel to the current RGB arrangement on the sensor. The fourth pixel "has no pigment on top," said Michael DeLuca, the market segment manager responsible for image sensor solutions at Kodak. Such "transparent" pixels, which are sensitive to all visible wavelengths, are designed to absorb light.

DeLuca called the invention "the next milestone" in digital photography. He likened its significance to ISO 400 color films, introduced in the mid-1980s, which have enabled consumers to take pictures under low-light conditions.

Under the new approach, the fourth pixel, called a panchromatic pixel, allows a black-and-white image "to be detected with high sensitivity," according to Kodak. The RGB pixels present on the sensor are then used to collect color information, which is combined with the information from the panchromatic pixel to generate the final image.


Observers described the panchromatic-pixel concept as both simple and elegant. "The technique is admirably simple--open the window to let in more light. It's almost inconceivable that nobody else thought of or acted on this idea until now," said Tony Henning, editor of The Mobile Imaging Report for Future Image Inc.


There's also a nice image of the new pattern in the article.

Since this is a CMOS modified Bayer pattern, could it not be incorporated into video cameras? The arrangement does seem to dilute the color resolution - sacrificing color resolution for better monochrome sensitivity. But since the human eye is more sensitive to luminance than chrominance, why not do it this way?

-mike

Labels: cameras, CMOS, hardware, sensor

Media Distributors to Demo Holographic Storage Solutions June 21 | Studio Daily

"Media Distributors, America's preeminent distributor of professional products and services for entertainment and enterprise, will present a First Ever Technology Showcase of Holographic Storage at the company's Studio City headquarters starting at 4 PM on June 21st. The announcement was made today by Richard Myerson, President, and Tom Evans, Senior VP, Marketing, Media Distributors.


-partners are In-Phase, DSM Terastore & PoINT Software
-live working demo
-only North American demo
-shipments start next month

Read above link for full details.

Labels: hardware, storage

MacBook Pro "Santa Rosa" - CPU crunching

updated Tuesday, see bottom

Barefeats continues to offer some excellent benchmarking results on new machines. They compare a 4 core Mac Pro, one of the new MacBook Pro models, an older MacBook Pro, and a newer MacBook. Photoshop CS3 was nearly twice as fast on a Mac Pro as compared to a MacBook, the difference in After Effects CS3 was about 3x, Compressor 3 about 3x, Motion nearly 4x. This page alone is a good example of the general performance you'll get for your money in media manipulation apps. The new MacBook Pros are generally about half the speed of a 4 core Mac Pro.

MacBook Pro "Santa Rosa" - 3D Gaming

The other day I was talking to a client about the just announced new MacBook Pro models with improved graphics performance. I said I knew they had a new graphics chipset, but I had no idea how fast it was. Well, now I do - Barefeats is on the job, and they ran Doom 3, Halo, Quake 4, etc. on 4 core Mac Pros, iMac Core 2 Duo, the new MacBook Pros, older laptops, etc.

The results: when running GPU intensive games, the new MacBook Pro is surprisingly robust - coming in FASTER than a 4 core Mac Pro with a base 7300) graphics card on most tests! The X1900 in a Mac Pro still blows everything else out of the water (confirming my "it's worth the $300" supposition), and the built in graphics in my MacBook are just anemic - the Mac Pro with X1900 card gets 120 fps on Doom 3, and the MacBook gets....5. Yes, five. For GPU heavy applications like Motion, Color, etc., the new MacBook Pro is significantly faster than its predecessor - 10-50% faster in these tests (except for Halo where it was slower, go figure)

Tuesday update:

A few more tidbits:

MacBook Pro "Santa Rosa" - 128M vs 256M VRAM: "The MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo (256MB GDDR3 video SDRAM) was at most 9% faster than the 2.2GHz MacBook Pro (128MB GDDR3 video SDRAM). If we average all the results, it was 5% faster." Looks like the extra video RAM isn't worth the money for increased GAME performance. Whether that makes a difference for Motion, Color, etc. remains to be seen.

MacBook Pro "Santa Rosa" - 3D Gaming: "The new MacBook Pro with the GeForce 8600M runs 3D accelerated games significantly faster than the previous 2.33GHz model with the Mobility Radeon X1600."

Labels: Apple, hardware

A little birdy told me that Blackmagic was going to discontinue their very useful (I bought one for myself with my own money) Multibridge Extreme product, and that they'd be unavailable well before the launch of the new Multibridge Eclipse (which is due in July & I'll be posting more info on soon).

This seems to be borne out by the fact that I was going to link to Multibridge Extreme's page on BMD's site....but there isn't one.

The reason I heard was a parts availability issue.

So if you were thinking about getting one, and needed it before the superior but more pricey Multibridge Eclipse ships, get on it with your resellers that might still have them in stock.

It is a very nice product, I've been very happy with mine both as an attached device (acting like a normal HD-SDI card) and as a standalone converter.

I've pinged BMD about it, I'll update as I hear back.

-mike

Labels: Blackmagic Design, hardware, post equipment, rumor

UPDATED Friday afternoon - I'm breaking out the IO HD vs V3HD to its own post here.

AJA & Blackmagic, make room, as there's a new HD gunslinger in town, and his name is MOTU.

I'm working on some client stuff today, so I had Andy the intern dig through the specs on this VERY interesting new device from MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn), a well known & respected name in the audio world, this is AFAIK their first video based product, and WOW, the specs on this are pretty killer.

Short version: It is called the V3HD, and it will ingest SD or HD (including 23.98), do up/down conversion, has simultaneous SD & HD digital and analog outputs, convert analog or digital HD to DVCPRO HD, all KINDS of good stuff.

Think of it as very, very similar to the recently announced AJA IO HD, but with Windows support as well, and DVCPRO HD as the codec of choice instead of ProRes.

Works with Final Cut and Premiere Pro, so presumably Mac Premiere Pro later this year as well.

Here's what Andy had to say about it:

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Almost all the inputs and outputs you'll need in one box. That's what MOTU claims with the V3HD. This SD/HD production hub plugs in via a single FireWire cable to either a Mac or PC with support for Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro, respectively.

Check out all the ins and outs here.

You can use it on the go with a laptop, or even as a stand-alone converter for SD to HD, HD to SD, or pull down insertion/removal. On the high end, the V3HD supports uncompressed 10-bit SD formats and can handle DVCProHD. There's an HMDI out (with optional DVI support) for monitoring or any of the other HD-SDI, SD-SDI, Component, Composite, and yes...S-Video options for monitoring. Speaking of monitoring, the V3HD features a big, bright LED timecode display with support for TC sync and device control.

Video I/O specs from MOTU:

• 1 x HD-SDI in and out (4:2:2 10-bit) on independent BNC connectors
• 1 x SD-SDI in and out (4:2:2 10-bit) on independent BNC connectors
• 1 x extra HD-SDI output connector
• 1 x extra SD-SDI output connector
• 1 x HDMI output (4:2:2 10-bit, YCbCr or RGB)
• Support for DVI output with HDMI-to-DVI adapter (sold separately)
• 1 x HD component in and out (10-bit, YPbPr or RGB) on independent BNCs
• 1 x SD component in and out (10-bit, YPbPr or RGB) on independent BNCs
• 1 x composite in and out (10-bit)
• 1 x S-video in and out (10-bit)
• 1 x 400 Mbit (1394) FireWire A
• 2 x 800 Mbit (1394b) FireWire B

Video isn't the only thing the V3HD has going for it; with 32 channels of simultaneous audio at 192kHz and support for digital AES/EDU or SDI/HDMI embedded audio, the V3HD could stand as an audio-only interface if need be.

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end Andy notes