Canon Cinema EOS C300:  A Dissenting View

I know, there have been a million opinions shot over the Internet over the last three days regarding canon’s new Cinema EOS C300 camera.  About half point out it’s great feature set, and about half seem to point out every flaw it has in comparison to RED Epic.  Whatever, all that’s fine.  Me, I’m dissapointed for an entirely different reason:

Where’s the killer Canon camera for the tens - to hundreds-of-thousands of us that actually work in television? When I reviewed the Canon XF305 a year ago, I was very impressed with the package, with a few caveats - chief among them the 1/3” chipset.  If Canon can jam a 35mm CMOS into the D5 mkII, why not the same hardware in a form-factor that a real TV production crew could easily use?  And in a package that can sit on your shoulder?

When I got my invitation to the Canon press event, I was really excited.  I even planned to fly from the Midwest to LA just to see the announcement.  Luckily, I was offered some freelance work before I bought the plane ticket, but I watched for news on my smartphone in every bit of downtime.  And when the news came out…what a letdown.  The EOS C300 does nothing for me… and in fact, doesn’t seem to do much of anything for anybody until you outfit it with tens of thousands of dollars in accessories, including audio and timecode adapters, lenses, rails, grips, you name it.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but I have to figure that there are many more video pros actually making a daily living than there are folks that will ever make money off their films.  If I’m wrong, say so, but that’s the way I see it.  I’ve used - and generally loved - Canon video cameras since the XL1 came out 13 years ago.  Please, Canon, I beg you - put a 35mm chip, a good audio section, swappable lenses, the 50Mb codec, 10-bit HD-SDI out and SMPTE timecode in and out into a $10K shoulder-mount package.  You’ll have a line flowing out the door for miles. 

But in the meantime, I’m dismayed at the EOS C300.  I guess I should be old enough by now not to get my hopes up so easily.

Film Is Dead!

In this episode Philip & I cover a series of topics starting with large sensor cameras in production, the November 3 announcements from Canon Professional video, RED and Avid. Then on to the death of film, the cinema experience, and the problems of 3D.

We’ve been predicting the demise of the Mac Pro in the current form fact for some time, and during this early October recording, we discuss what has this week become rumor: the demise of the heavy iron workstation. (And the value of SSD.)

I report from the Monitor shootout day sponsored by the Hollywood Post Alliance, and HPA sponsored workflows.

We also get onto the future of Apple after the loss of Steve Jobs (just like everyone else!), leading to a discussion of who invented what?

The implications of Siri for postproduction: specialist tools vs generalists tools.

To join us just click on the player link below.

Unboxing:  FloLight MicroBeam 128

I’m currently doing some social media consulting for a great company you may have seen me cover in the past, FloLight.  To familiarize me with their products, they were good enough to send me their MicroBeam 128, camera top, LED light.  This is a great little light that is the perfect solution for HDSLR “Run & Gun” setups.

Mac Mini for pro video editing: a field report from Guatemala

Many readers of ProVideo Coalition magazine may recall my recent article Mac Mini w/Thunderbolt: preferred platform for many new editing systems. However, some of the readers had doubts, and one naysayer even dared to comment via LinkedIn: “This is hilarious garbage. No serious editor, in their right mind, would do this.” Another commenter via LinkedIn supposed that it would stand up for standard-definition video editing only, but would never work for HD 1080p editing. Fortunately, here is a detailed report from a very serious commercial production company in Guatemala, that has recently replaced two MacPro towers with Mac Mini i7 with Thunderbolt, together with a Thunderbolt RAID5 disk array, and a Thunderbolt-based professional audio/video i/o device. Here you’ll see the exact software and hardware configuration used, performance, and enthusiastic comments from the editor. On the other hand, you’ll even learn where not to use a Mac Mini.

DaVinci Resolve training at Staff/HDTV in Guatemala

I just returned from the Republic of Guatemala in Central America, where I interpreted a class for David Catt, the original product manager at DaVinci Systems. (Since then, DaVinci Systems was purchased in 2009 by Blackmagic Design). David Catt taught 7 Guatemalans how to perform grading, including color correction and more using DaVinci Resolve. The client who recently purchased the new Mac-based DaVinci Resolve system is Julio Borrayo, president of STAFF HDTV/Alta Definición, which produces high-end TV commercials in Guatemala. This article explains the details of the system they purchased (hardware + software), installation and preparation, main points covered in the class, and the students. David Catt has agreed to join us on an upcoming episode of TecnoTur to discuss grading and the differences between different DaVinci Resolve configurations.

The CRT Replacement Is Here…Finally!

With the death of CRTs, those of us who needed to critically evaluate video images in a standardized display universe were left with no adequate replacement. Most of us have been nursing along our aging CRT monitors and hoping something of equal or better quality would arrive before our trusted displays give up the ghost. Well, that product has finally arrived, and I predict that Sony is going to own the pro monitor market for delivering it.

Shane Hurlbut, ASC and Letus Announce New Line of Gear

Shane Hurlbut, ASC announced today that he, along with Letus, will be releasing a new line of HDSLR support gear they are calling the Master Cinema Series. 

Caleb Crosby’s FS100 Top Handle

You can tell a camera has struck a chord when its users start turning out aftermarket accessories that are themselves objects of desire.

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