Hasselblad have launched its H3D-31 DSLR 31-megapixel, the slightly tamer beast to its 39-megapixel cousin. The H3D 31 sports a 31-megapixel 44- x 33-millimeter sensor, micro lenses for faster ISO rating up to 800 and a faster capture rate at 1.2 seconds-per-image capture. It also features a mobile and tethered mode as well as Hasselblad's Natural Color Solution, Digital Auto Correction and Instant Approval Architecture.
This camera is of course aimed at the most serious and professional commercial photographers and deservedly so. The more amateur cameraman might want to save his $24,995 for a new car, dream holiday or deposit on a house. If anyone has one of these babies and wants to send it in to DVGuru so we can review it we'll give it back. Promise!
Engadget got wind of leaked details of the soon-to-be-released Canon HV20 HD camcorder by a brief "coming soon" appearnece on the Circuit City website (now disappeared). The 2.96 megapixel High Definition camcorder sounds remarkably similar to the HV10 featuring a 2.7-inch LCD display, CMOS sensor, 10x optical zoom, and HD recording to MiniDV tapes.
The only real difference between the HV10 and the HV20 appears to be an HDMI jack (which was really needed in the HV10). There is of course plenty of room for improving on the HR10s low performance light, difficult upright, pistol-grip body and poor audio recording. The HV20 was listed as $1100 which is actually less than Circuit Buy is listing the HR10 as at $1299, although the HR10 can now be picked up for about $900 at Amazon.
The JVC SR-DVM700 is a versatile media storage vessel for anyone who needs to offload video footage from a variety of sources and/or needs to move around a lot of media in various formats. The SR-DVM700 can offload and copy media from Mini DV tapes, DVD-R/RWs, DVD-RAM, and pretty much any other analog device. It also has its own 250GB internal hard drive for storing media. The device is expected to be hitting Japanese stores pretty soon. No word on releases in other territories.
I discovered a new internet TV show called Viral the other day which focuses on what TV shows are available on the internet and often takes a behind the scenes look at how the show is made and the video producers and actors behind it.
About 7 minutes into the first episode of Viral (see below) you get a quick lesson from Doug Bressler of the animated show DoogToons. Doug shows you how he records in voice and brings it to life in animated characters. He first records spoken audio using GarageBand on a Mac and then exports the audio as an aiff file. He then does a rough drawing of a cartoon bear and loads it up in flash to animate it taking you briefly through the tedious part of syncing up the characters mouth movements with the audio.
Here is the video, you'll need to get to about 7 minutes in to see Doug at work.
Green.tv is an environmental internet video channel. Web TV Wire recently caught up with Ade Thomas, the director of green.tv. Ade stated that green.tv was built in-house by largeblue, which is his own video and digital media company and also by a company called ESP who Green.tv knew prior to building the website. Ade Thomas has a history of working with digital video production, especially with environmental content.
Interestingly Green.tv has a completely unique video player that is able to detect the best plugin to use based on what the user has installed on their PC. It can choose from WMP, flash and Quicktime, with flash appearing to take dominance over the others.
Joe Barbera of the famous Hanna-Barbera cartoons died of natural causes on Monday at the age of 95. Hanna-Barbera cartoons were a huge influence on the cartoon industry and the Hanna-Barbera company was and still is considered to be animated superstars.
Hanna-Barbera was one of the pioneers of computer assisted animation when the company started using computer animation before Pixar or Disney. In fact, Disney rejected the idea of using computer animation from computer graphics researcher Marc Levoy back in the late 70s / early 80s. Whereas Disney rejected the idea, Hanna-Barbera embraced it. The animation technology was successful in reducing labor costs which helped save the company. The computer animation technology was used until 1996.
Tara McGovern of Buzzle.com recently published the short article; "The Low Down on Video Production" discussing the growth of video production and how it is useful outside the scope of films and TV for a variety of purposes such as training videos, safety videos, promotional videos, videos for investors, and the list goes on. The take home message that video production is a huge and growing industry and that if you consider yourself a business fundi perhaps it's time you invest in video production.
Interestingly the article stated that London was the third busiest filming production center in the world behind Los Angeles and New York with 12,600 shooting days in 2005 increasing by 18% from 2004. Without a doubt video production is one of the most fun, exciting and growing industries to be in at the moment, even with the endless hours of shooting and editing.
Podaddies is a new video advertising internet startup that, according to founder and CEO Nigel Pagel, wants to "support independents by providing targeted dynamic ads that are maximized based on a cost basis."
This sounds great for small time video producers bringing more possible ways to make money from videos that are broadcast over the internet. The company is looking for customized solutions rather than automated ones, which still leaves the video advertising industry open to an automatic contextual video advertising platform comparable to Google Adsense.
Pagel also believes that pre-roll adverts are too much of a deterrent, and I have to agree that they are too intrusive and often stop me watching a video altogether, whereas I will quite often sit through a short advert at the end of a video.
Dabble.com is a central hub that aggregates content from a variety of video sharing sites to allow sharing and organization of video. The website is currently running a competition where it will ask participants organize videos into playlists based on a daily theme announced on its blog.
The playlists will then be reviewed by the Dabble community. The competition will be run on a daily basis up until the end of the month. The overall winner of the whole month will win $500 with the runner-up taking a new video iPod.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that Philips was working on a video digital fingerprinting technology that will be used to fight online piracy. Attributor is another company doing a very similar thing although it sounds a little better.
Attributor will not just be restricted to video and will include text and images with the ability to check where the content is appearing all over the internet and alert the content owners. Not only does this sound like a great tool for video producers to stop their content appearing without permission or chase royalties, but it could work as a great tool for tracking viral distribution of content on the internet.
Google Video adverts are now making their way into user generated videos. NewTeeVee said that Andy Plesser of Beet TV has tied up one of the first arrangements with Google for sharing revenue from the video adverts. This now provides another revenue stream for video creators and video bloggers. Plesser says the adverts are bringing $15 per 1000 views which is split 50/50 with Google. I personally think this is quite a decent amount for 1000 video views compared to other options such as Metacafe which offers $5 a video. When mixed in with other advertising this is a reliable revenue source for small time video producers.
Dare Junkies is a new video sharing website with a difference. Each month it runs a competition where video creators are given dares in the form of challenges by Dare Junky users. Video creators must then go out and film the dare to take part in the competition. The top ten winners each month will split a cash prize of $5000.
Dare Junkies has only just launched in beta so is a little short of video and doesn't look like the best designed site on the net but co-creator Ben Bascol (who is a veteran of the entertainment industry) reminds everyone that "we are limited beta - a lot more features are going to be rolled out in the New Year," in an interview with NewTeeVee.
Ben Bascol goes on to say that "when users finally see really creative work posted it will only bolster their imaginations and drive to create something better and truly kick in artistic users' competitive energy."
If you are a digg.com fan you will have undoubtedly noticed that Digg has had a revamp including a new fluid design and a brand new video section. The dedicated video section allows you to view submitted videos from Google, YouTube and Metacafe in a special popup box without leaving the site.
Company Execs say the new interface should improve discovery of the most popular and top-ranked stories, company executives say. For anyone that produces any sort of video online digg.com is an excellent way to promote it and create a huge viral effect and with the new dedicated video section Digg is an even more critical marketing tool. A "front-page" promoted video on Digg usually sends video views up by at least 5000, sees the video get posted all over the internet, and can often cause a video to make it into the top videos on the site it is hosted resulting in even more traffic. This is truly viral video at work.
The Swedish broadcast statistics institute, MMS released a study that found that a quarter of Swedish Youngsters download TV shows rather than watching them on TV. This also ties in with a recent study from Australia that showed that a third of broadband users download pirated TV.
This is not good news for content owners whose piracy concerns must be on red alert by now. Such a high level of piracy is bound to have a negative effect on the industry, but at the same time the growth in piracy is a response to consumer demand which is not being recognized by the content owners. The good news is that internet piracy tends not to effect small scale video producers and in fact is often beneficial as a promotional tool to further recognition.
A few days ago I mentioned that TV and movie companies might be launching their own YouTube clone in an attempt to capture the online video market by only releasing their content on their own site. The TV and movie companies would also set out suing other sites like YouTube for copyright infringement if their content is unlawfully uploaded without permission. This would mean the media companies would be the only place to get many copyrighted videos.
According to the New York Times the media companies are close to announcing the new YouTube clone that will feature some of their best-known television programming. But as stated before the main problem is if all these media giants are able to work together.
Hasselblad have launched its H3D-31 DSLR 31-megapixel, the slightly tamer beast to its 39-megapixel cousin. The H3D 31 sports a 31-megapixel 44- x 33-millimeter sensor, micro lenses for faster ISO rating up to 800 and a faster capture rate at 1.2 seconds-per-image capture. It also features a mobile and tethered mode as well as Hasselblad's Natural Color Solution, Digital Auto Correction and Instant Approval Architecture.
The JVC SR-DVM700 is a versatile media storage vessel for anyone who needs to offload video footage from a variety of sources and/or needs to move around a lot of media in various formats. The SR-DVM700 can offload and copy media from Mini DV tapes, DVD-R/RWs, DVD-RAM, and pretty much any other analog device. It also has its own 250GB internal hard drive for storing media. The device is expected to be hitting Japanese stores pretty soon. No word on releases in other territories.
Green.tv
Joe Barbera of the famous Hanna-Barbera cartoons died of natural causes on Monday at the age of 95. Hanna-Barbera cartoons were a huge influence on the cartoon industry and the Hanna-Barbera company was and still is considered to be animated superstars.
Tara McGovern of 
Podaddies
I mentioned a couple of days ago that 
Google Video adverts are now making their way into user generated videos. 
Dare Junkies
If you are a 
A few days ago I 
