I’ve had a bit more time to digest this announcement, churn it over in my head, etc. I wanted to break down just why it’s important:

1) Adobe kicks On2 to the curb. This is huge for anyone who has tried to deal with On2 in the past – either to get presales information, or to get support for a product. The attitude has always been “Hey, Adobe uses us, so you have to too, deal with it sucker.” No more!

2) Open Format. FLV was never an archive-friendly format, because it depended on a proprietary decoder. You wouldn’t encode the Zapruder film in FLV and hope to be able to look for the second gunman in 50 years, because there wouldn’t be a way to decode it. H264 is an open, published specification, (not open source mind you, but reference decoders exist) which means you can safely encode to it and expect to decode it down the line.

3) Single Format. One video file for your web embed, your podcast, your IPTV deliver and your archive. Nice.

Frankly, I think this is good for just about everyone except On2. Folks like Apple are no longer shut out of the flash video delivery world, Adobe doesn’t have to worry about codec development, and everyone benefits from the superior quality of H264.

Awesome to the max.

This is one of those insanely specific blog posts, just aimed at helping anyone else suffering the issues I’ve just dealt with.
If you have a CCU-TX50 (generally connected to a sony DXC-D55 camera), and you want to integrate it with a Telex intercom system, you’ll have some difficulty. With the old Sony CCU-TX7, there were XLR jacks on the body to support Telex/RTS. Plug and play. The new, slimmer CCU has gone to a dsub 25pin connector for intercom, tally and program audio. You’ll need to hassle your Sony service provider, (or go here to get the pin-out. Here’s where it gets interesting.
The AU board has incorrect silkscreened labels – they’re backwards from reality. So, if you want to use an RTS intercom, all of the board switches should be set to 4Wire. There is a tech bulletin on this, if you have access to the UK Sony support site.
Next, you’ll find that your RTS system has three wires, a ground and a wire for each of the two channels. The CCU has one pin for input and one pin for output (plus a ground) on each channel. The diagram implies that you can use a single pin for both, but as best as I can tell that’s incorrect. Instead, you need to short together an input and output pin. So, for the producer channel, short pins 14 and 17 (connecting either the hot or the cold from RTS to both), and put your ground on pin 16. If you don’t have any sparks, you should be good to go. Flip the switch on the front of the CCU to “prod” and see what happens. Victory is yours.

Anyone who has shopped for a field mixer knows that, more than in many other areas, cheap = crap. Azden’s new FMX-42 field mixer looks to be a pretty good mix of features and value. You get four channels in, two channels out, nice VU meters, battery or wall port and a case to carry it. I also appreciate that it has both a normal XLR output and a stereo mini output for use with lower end cameras. At $750 MSRP ($650 street), it’s a nice alternative to the venerable Shure FP33.

Central hall. Booth 11220. Be there or be slightly less informed about realtime video monitoring.

Been meaning to blog this for a few days – Apple has an article up that details the compression settings for both the Apple TV and the iPod. This is far more hardcore than most people really need, but if you like reading reference compression code, you’ll be really excited. I know I was.

Since there are folks around here who really love fighting this battle, check out the new Avid2FCP site, which focuses on editors who’ve (surprise) switched from Avid to Final Cut Pro. Hoorah. Personally, I’m of the belief that they’re both fine tools, and the folks spending time fighting for one over the other are generally the folks who don’t know how to use either…

Hey, it’s online. And it’s actually ok. Woo.

FresHDV pointed me to EFPLighting.com, a site dedicated to teaching field lighting. Some of it is a bit higher end than the things we do around the University, but that’s all the more reason to check it out. If nothing else it gives you an overview of what is possible. Dig it.

Hey All – Episode 2 of the Mike Dave and Colin show is available. This one is slightly more tolerable. By episode 50 we’ll have it down pat.

More Lines…