Sunday, February 24, 2008

Sticky: Traveling with batteries, Pro Apps Updaters, etc.

Stuff to watch out for; tips ‘n’ tricks

• FAA rules on lithium battery transport
• Apple Pro Apps - save those updaters!
• PMW-EX1: XDCAM Transfer 2.5.1 for Mac Released; fixes CLOCK-mode timecode import bug.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Green/Magenta?

Testing RED ONE for green/magenta sensitivity, and what we found.

Art Adams and I have observed here on PVC that the RED ONE seems unusually sensitive to green and magenta colors. The topic keeps coming up on the cinematographer’s mailing list, too, and on reduser.net. I decided to compare the R1 to several other cameras under a variety of lighting conditions. I got more than I bargained for.

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

RED ONE: Obsolete Already?

Where does the current RED hubbub leave the RED ONE?

With last Thursday’s epic announcement (pun intended) from RED, the other shoe has fallen.

Four years ago at DV Expo 2004, a couple of folks working on what was then simply called the “Oakley Special Project” took me aside to discuss a top-secret operation, launched in a remote mountain stronghold in southern California. Eccentric millionaire playboy Jim Jannard (it seems like most modern superheroes have that as a lifestyle description), a camera fancier with something like 1,500 cameras in his personal collection, had decided to build the One Camera to Rule Them All… only it wasn’t one camera.

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Monday, November 10, 2008

Review: Hood-Pro Sock-loupe

$80 turns your PMW-EX1’s LCD into a big, beautiful viewfinder.

Lots of people have said, “if only there were a viewfinder lens I could mount on the PMW-EX1‘s LCD, I’d be happy.” Palm Desert shooter Mike Stevens not only said it, he did it: his Hood-Pro hood is a strap-on LCD hood, and the Sock-loupe is, well, a sock with a +7 diopter loupe sewn into the toe. Pull the sock over the hood, and hey presto! You’ve turned the LCD into an eye-level EVF, arguably better than the one on the EX3. The floppy sock squishes up against your face, whether or not you wear glasses, providing a good seal against extraneous light, while the two-element lens provides a close-up, detailed view of the LCD.

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Monday, November 03, 2008

Making “One Man, One Vote”

Production and post for a seven-minute short.

Ten years ago a fellow named Marshall Spight posted a challenge on DV-L called “Throwing Down the DV Gauntlet”, in which he said, “everyone talks about shooting serious dramatic films with DV, but does anyone actually do it?” I responded, and we wound up making a 20-minute short called “The Beautiful Thing” using Sony DCR-VX1000s, the first 1/3” 3-CCD DV camcorders. It came out so well (it was for a time the top-rated dramatic film on iFilm.com, an early and long-defunct predecessor to YouTube) that we set about making a short political drama/comedy (?), “One Man, One Vote”. This one gave us a few more challenges.

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Saturday, October 25, 2008

moby gratis- film music

Free moby music for non-profit/noncommercial films and videos.

LA-based FCP & Avid editor and bungee jumper Shane Ross posted this tidbit on his Little Frog in High Def blog: moby has released nearly 80 tracks for free use in non-profit / noncommercial films and videos, and he’ll license them for use in for-profit works, too.

If you’re a moby fan (as I am), it’s worth signing up just to listen. The clips average about two minutes running time, and range from quiet and contemplative piano pieces to lounge to spaghetti-western themes with a mobyesque twist to driving electronica (and probably more; I’ve been sitting here the last fifteen minutes listening, and I’ve only auditioned ten tracks or so). Some tracks have variants, like differing length cuts, or versions without drums. It’s all genuine moby; and if moby’s good enough for the likes of Miami Vice, Memento, Minority Report, three of the Bourne films (so far), Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and The Sopranoes, he’s good enough for you (but then, I may be biased, grin)!

Thanks for the music, moby! Thanks for the heads-up, Shane!

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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

PMW-EX1 Firmware 1.11

Sony’s 1.11 firmware updates older EX1s with bug fixes, new features.

I’ve upgraded our PMW-EX1 from firmware version 1.03 to firmware version 1.11 and I can happily verify the following improvements…

*VIDEO* •
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Hardware • (2) Comments • Most recent comments by: Adam Wilt, DanConklin, • Permalink

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Sony notes, 7 Oct 2008

Tidbits from the VMI show

There were a couple of unexpected surprises at VMI’s mini-Sony show today in Sunnyvale, CA. While the HVR-S270 and PMW-EX3 camcorders, the PMW-EX30 SxS recorder/player, wireless mics, and LCD displays were the main attractions, Sony also fetched along one of three prototype HVR-Z5 camcorders currently in the USA, as well as a fiber-connected studio setup for the EX3. I also saw the B4-mount lens adapter for the EX3.

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Hardware • (1) Comments • Most recent comments by: jimhurwitz, • Permalink

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