So, currently Final Cut Pro is at version 5.1.1. At IBC, Apple is showing off Final Cut Pro 5.1.2. One wouldn’t think this would be big news, but this is hopefully the release version of what they were showing off in their booth back at NAB in April. They say it’ll ship within 30 days. I’m a bit perplexed as to why a 0.0.1 release has taken 6 months to get out the door. Dig the description though.
Finally, Canon 24F support, 18/35 XDCam support and additional P2 support. Finally!
This is an interesting little product that showed up at IBC: the Blackmagic Intensity.
It’s an HDMI ingest board. They’re targeting at folks with newer HDV cameras with HDMI outs – the HDR-HC3 for example. The theory is that you get uncompressed video out the HDMI port, which is somehow higher quality.
This is… interesting.
I can only imagine this making a visual difference if you’re recording directly into the computer, not recording to tape and then ingesting later. So, I suppose if you want to haul your MacPro around with you, chained to your handycam, you’ll potentially get higher image quality. Assuming that the HDMI outs on these cameras come before all the subsampling and whatnot.
Otherwise, all this gives you is a way to get very high bandwidth data out of a very low bandwidth source. This would be the same as capturing the video in HDV and then doing a file->export to Uncompressed. Again, it’s nice that this saves the step, but it can’t magically improve the quality of the image that was compressed to tape. Just like capturing uncompressed 4:2:2 SDI off a DVCam tape. You may want to work in the larger color space for your post work, but the capture process itself won’t improve your image quality.
Furthermore (yes, I know this is turning into a rant), I must take issue with the Intensity Quality page. It’s primarily completely bogus. For example, they claim how much better it is to get the native 1920×1080 image instead of the 1440×1080 of HDV, and they assert that the reason HDV uses that resolution is because of the size of the tape and the speed of firewire. Hu? HDCam is 1440×1080 as well, and I’m pretty sure they’re not limited by their cassette size. Furthermore, I highly doubt that the CMOS sensor on the HC3 is natively 1920×1080 like they claim. I can’t find definitive CMOS specs one way or another, but seeing as nobody else is using native 1920 sensors, I doubt they are as well.
Their 4:2:2 versus 4:1:1 gradients are also a bit laughable. Somehow sampling the colors less often makes them look dull? The banding I might agree to, but come on.
Ok, enough ranting. I really like Blackmagic in general. I think they have great products. Which is why this is especially annoying. Sell it as a board to monitor your timeline on an HDMI monitor. It’s cheap ($249) so for that reason along I think it’d be worth it to most people. But don’t trump it up as if you’re going to make that $1200 HDV camcorder look like a CineAlta.
Sony today announced the HDR-FX7, a followup (or supplement?) to the FX1 consumer HDV camera. Think of it as the VX2000 to the Z1U’s PD-150. Make sense?
Nothing terribly exciting in the announcement itself, but we can hope that this hints at a Z7U to come.
Well, things are definitely back in swing here at the University of Minnesota. Students are back on campus, wandering around with doe-eyed faces, while the rest of us complain about how much easier it was to park last week.
In the rest of the world as well, things are heating up. August is traditionally a very slow news month in this industry, and this August was no exception. Hence the lack of posts here. There was literally nothing to talk about.
August is gone now, and September is here. And with it comes news!
First off, Apple released new iMacs and Mac Minis today. The iMac gets the upgraded Merom processor, with 64bit support. They’ve also added a monster 24″ iMac to the line, which even includes Firewire 800. The Mac Mini gets an all-dual lineup, at the same price points.
While this by itself would be good news, even better is what it foretells for next week’s Special Event. Obviously there’s something Hollywoodish going on with the “It’s Showtime” invitation. The fact that they released the new macs today instead of using them as filler for next Tuesday is a good sign that Apple is pretty excited about whatever they have to show off.
Even more interesting is a trademark filing Apple recently made about their iMovie trademark. They’ve added a few new classes to the trademark, indicating that they’re likely going to move the iMovie trademark into some new markets. The new classes deal with online transactions, electronic sales and other items. While this may be purely coincidental, it sure seems that the name iMovie is going to end up being associated with their new movie distribution push.
Exciting Times!
Furthermore, IBC starts this weekend. Anyone want to fly me to Amsterdam? We can expect more announcements from across the industry.
And it’s crap.
I may still capture some. One reel was totally useless – seems like the film wasn’t being pulled through the gate properly.
The second reel is better, but has a shadow across every frame, due to a hair stuff between the lens and the prism.
At least we know the camera works.
Sniff.
Yesterday Focus announced an update for the DR-HD100 (the JVC HD-100 only version of the Firestore) which allows it to record 720p30. The update for the FS-4pro is only “a few weeks away” … just like it was in April! Hoorah!
Ok. I really don’t care about the Today show. I swear. But, folks might be interested in this article about the Today show being converted to HD.
If a huge national production can have HDC-1500s, why can’t I?
IBC is in a few weeks, and it seems like everyone is in silent mode leading up to that. There really hasn’t been anything worth discussing in the last few days. Shrug…
I’ve got some video together from our little camera test on Friday. The “shoot-out” element of the test is more or less lost unfortunately. I can only get the first 30 seconds of any given XDCamHD clip (trial limitation of Flip4mac MXF), which means most of the footage is of me focusing the shot. The footage off the XL-H1 is largely over or underexposed, as the viewfinder was, as previously mentioned, “gone wonky.”
In any case, I’ve pulled some of the better footage, and have my thoughts, after the jump.
I’m still gathering up the footage – I may have found a way to get some of my variable bitrate XDCamHD stuff into a format I can use, but it’ll take another day to sort that out. Similarly, it’ll be about a week until the 16mm is back from the lab. In the meantime, here’s some photos and some thoughts.
Overall, each HD camera showed strengths and weaknesses. I think that the Sony F350 (XDCamHD) really does belong in this group, because it’s essentially a bulked up HDV camera. You get larger chips and better processing, but it’s still 4:2:0 at 25mbps. Frankly, if someone is willing to consider the F350 a “professional” camera, they should consider the Canon XL-H1 just as professional.
We were using the Fujinon 17x lens, and I found it to be remarkably terrible. I’m not sure if we just had a bad example, but the chromatic aberration was even worse than the XL-H1. I need to investigate this further, if I’m going to give any consideration to purchasing one of these cameras. Because they use 1/2″ CCDs, there is a much smaller group of native lenses available. You can get an adapter to go to 2/3″, but I’m not sure what drawbacks that might have.
I’ll post more thoughts and video tomorrow.