Freshdv has a fantastic series of videos presented by some guys from Panavision about the really low level stuff involved in digital image reproduction. Four parts are up now, with 3 more coming.
Demystifying Digital Camera Specs
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Sony XDCam EX news
Sony has made a number of exciting announcements about the Sony XDCam EX product line in the leadup to NAB. DVUser.co.uk has the full roundup, but the big news is three new pieces of hardware.
The first is the Sony XDCam EX3, which is essentially an EX1 with the lens made interchangeable. The second is the EX30 deck, with two SxS slots and a full range of input and output options. Finally, and perhaps most exciting, is the PH-60K SxS harddrive, a self contained, battery powered harddisk which will dump SxS cards with no need for a laptop.
Cool stuff indeed.
BBC HD Delivery Specs
I found this pretty interesting – the spec sheet of do’s and don’ts for producing HD content for the BBC. They’re pretty hardcore – shoot DVCProHD or better, post in ProRes or DNxHD, deliver on HDCam SR.
Canon Announces two new cameras … apparently?
A bit chilly in hell – Final Cut Server ships
You’d be forgiven for thinking it was never coming, but Apple has announced that Final Cut Server is now shipping. Hopefully they’ve taken this time to make it … you know… work.
RedBox?
The NAB hype is in full swing. The most recent spam blast was from a company called Pixellexis, pimping a new product called RedBox. What does it do? Well, it makes your rendering faster. Via magic. Or something?
Angry Man Tilts at at Windmills
StudioDaily is hosting a rant from Scott Simmons about all those darned kids and their Final Cut Pro. He’s upset that us young punks don’t respect the old ways of doing things. While there is surely some truth in that, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.
It’s a common criticism in many technical fields – essentially, it’s gotten too easy/affordable to do something that was once a protected trade. The influx of new users brings folks of all skill levels, and with all kinds of attitudes about the way the world should work. Final Cut makes it “too easy” to be an editor, so existing editors that have had to work hard for their skills feel threatened.
It’s worth a read, if only to get a rise out of people.
EX1 versus Red versus F23
Cute!
Avid knifes Xpress Pro, drops the price on Media Composer
Avid announced today that they’re discontinuing the Xpress Pro line of editing software, and cutting the price on Media Composer to $2495 from $4995. Students can purchase it for just $295.
Very interesting news. This means the least expensive Avid editing platform is double the cost of the Final Cut Studio bundle. Presumably for most folks in the business, $1200 isn’t a huge deciding factor one way or another, but it may be a sign that Avid doesn’t see as much value in the lowest end customers as they’d hoped.
Nice video on the HDMI cable scam
The CBC did a nice little piece on the scam of high priced HDMI cables. Keep in mind they’re Canadian, so $260 for a cable is like, $5000 US.
I’ve been quite happy pushing 1080p over the $5-$10 cables I got through Amazon.