As CES rolls around, JVC is out of the gates early by introducing new consumer cams. The GR-D7xx series features a small, compact design featuring a 2.7 inch wide LCD screen, color viewfinder, 34x optical zoom, and "Auto Illumi" for low light shooting. The differences between each model are as follows:
GR-D750: (Approximate Retail Price: $249.95)
34x optical zoom, 800x digital zoom
1/6-inch 680,000 pixel CCD
16:9 Widescreen Clear LCD Display
Color Viewfinder
Auto Illumi Light
Power-Linked Operation
Auto button
135-minute Data Battery
GR-D770 Adds: (Approximate Retail Price: $279.95)
SD/MMC Card Slot
7 Language Settings
640x480 DSC Capabilities
Dual Recording Capability
USB Compatibility
Photo Navigation Software
GR-D796 Adds: (Approximate Retail Price: $349.95)
Upgraded 2x BN-VF808 (135-minute) Data Battery
No official word on when they will be available but previous rumors about this camera stipulate a mid January launch for Japan.
FrameCalculator from Pomfort software does way more than the title implies. Besides being able to add and subtract time code, you can also use it to multiply and divide as well. You can choose from a variety of drop and non drop frame rates, calculate the total number of frames in a sequence, calculate the estimated disk space and capture time, as well as calculate the number of feet or meters of film. Phew! What a bargain for only 19 euros (US$25). The trial version is available from their site which will let you calculate time code to your heart's content but the other features will cost you. Looks like this one is only available for you Mac folks and it sure beats trying to do this stuff in your head.
With so many different media formats, it is no wonder management all of your assets can easily spin out of control. The Fideocam Blog offers some key points when putting together a management plan. First, keep as much meta-data tied to the clip as possible. This is obvious for the same reasons "tagging" has exploded all over the Internet. Second, content management is lacking in the current crop of NLE. Fideocam suggests improved interfaces to bring the NLE up to speed with broadcast management tools, which require a higher attention to detail. Third, when preparing a strategy make sure you choose open import/export protocols. There is nothing worse than realizing what you thought would work ends up blowing up in your face and there is no way to get your media back out of the system.
The more people involved the greater the complexity of the project. Keeping things organized is a key part of production, an important aspect that can save you lots of time and ultimately lots of money. For more insights give this entry a read over.
Tweaking the factory presets for a better image can be a pain in camera. Luckily for the owners of the XHA1 and XHG1, Canon had the foresight to include a way to edit the settings on your computer with all of the adjustments in front of you. Unfortunately, the software costs an extra $600 (Studio Daily review). This might be a bargain if you own a supported camera and plan to tweak the image controls to your heart's content, but what if you are just renting or borrowing the camera for the weekend? Sure there is a trial, but it is limited. Lucky for you there is XH Tuner provided by slashCAM for free. Sure it's not as glitzy and glammy but if you wanna tweak, tweak, tweak away you will have to try this out. XH Tuner requires Windows, the .NET 2.0 framework (download here), and an SD card reader to read/write the settings to. Great work slashCAM!
The more information a filmmaker has at his or her disposal, the better decisions the filmmaker can make. Video scopes give you an objective stream of information about the picture coming out of your camera. ScopeBox aims to go beyond Serious Magic's DV Rack, and it does by leaps and bounds according to Frank Jonen from his hands on review with the product. Some things that set this software package apart from the rest include:
Full screen, undistracted view
Full color scopes
Customizable layouts
Clean interface
No real-life looking knobs that are hard to use
To get a more in depth look at ScopeBox with lots of screen shots then give Mr. Jonen's six page review a read through.
Now that we are in 2007, we can really look back at 2006 from a safe distance. iFilm.com has a listing of the Worst Movie Trailers of 2006 determined by... well I don't know how they determined this list. In any case, if you want to see how not to make a movie trailer, and most likely how not to make a whole movie, then check out this list. In contrast, the Best Trailers of 2006 are also available.
Guy Cochran from DVcreators.net shows around a Mac Pro tower. Everything is laid out in a clean and organized fashion which makes it easy to add more power to your machine in a snap. See how to add a new hard drive, add some RAM, and swap out a PCI card; all of which any novice computer user should be comfortable with. Crack open that case and have a look around. Don't worry, your Mac won't byte.
Ok, it is Friday and it is time to have a little fun. StationaryMovies.com has a 20 question quiz where you have to identify famous scenes from big movies that have been re-constructed from office supplies. The guys that put this together are very creative in utilizing their resources. You might want to have IMDB close by for movie title spellings. Have fun and post your scores in the comments below.
Shane Ross, over at Little Frog in High Def, writes about his experience keying DVC Pro HD green screen footage for a project of his. After comparing various solutions including Final Cut Pro's own chroma keyer, Adobe After Effects, Keylight for After Effects, and DV Matte Pro, Shane finally ended up going with Shake. His reasoning, "if it is good enough for King Kong and Lord of the Rings and Star Wars...it should work for me."
The post has lots of large images to better illustrate his decision making process. As we all know there are a lot of things that can go wrong with a green screen composite, so it is best to choose the right tool for the job. And after reading this post, you will understand why Shake came out on top.
Adobe has made available a 2nd public beta for Soundbooth, free to anyone willing to give it a download. Some of the highlights include:
The Lasso tool in the Visual Healing task is active
Many new effects added (including EQ, Reverb, Compressor, & Dynamics)
Copy and Paste between audio files
Mix paste audio into and between audio files
High-quality time and pitch shifting
Normalize button now "Louder" button--multiple clicks apply hard limiting
Click and drag the CTI to scrub
Auto-heal cut/paste boundaries to eliminate clicks on edits
AutoComposer saw many improvements
Familiar Adobe tools panel
Many performance and usability tweaks throughout
Of course one thing they didn't fix is the support for PowerPC Macs. But I guess you kind of expected that one, right? More details about the changes in beta 2 can be found at CreateDigitalMusic.com
It is also worth mentioning Adobe unveiled their new application icons, that perodic table looking Sb you see up there. See the rest of them at John Nack's blog.
In a report released by Nielson Media Research, more households now own more DVD players than VCRs. DVD ownership rose 6.1% from a year ago translating to 81.2% of American households that own at least one DVD player. Consequently, VCR ownership dropped 4.5% since last year to 79.2%. It's official, you can now stop dubbing VHS tapes to give to people.
DVD ownership has been tracked since 1999 when only 6.7% of households owned a DVD player. That means it should be 2013 before we have a clear HD optical format winner and by then it won't even matter.
Eek! Christmas is almost here. Do you have all of your shopping done? Good, then check out our latest podcast as Randall and I talk about Photoshop CS3, archival media, HDV, DIY tools, and a camera off in space. Stream it straight from this page with our player below (just press play) or download the mp3 (right-click-> Save As). And be sure to subscribe to our podcast via this feed.
Remember all of this talk about big media companies making their own YouTube? Well word got out today from Broadcasting&Cable that Viacom, owners of MTV, Nickelodeon and other big channels has backed out of the talks with NBC Universal, News Corp. and CBS. It looks like the big guys simply can't agree on anything for their own good. Until Tuesday afternoon, Viacom was a big part of the talks. Why they backed out is unknown at this point, although it could be due to the fact Viacom's MTV Networks Online and News Corp.'s MySpace are direct rivals to each other.
Have you ever lost/broken a camera? Well perk up because things could have certainly been worst. Like this camera used by an astronaut that is now floating in the nether regions of space.. See everyone makes mistakes. Have a good Monday.
While everyone wishes they were Jacques Cousteau you can get one step closer by faking an underwater scene. In this video tutorial you will see what it takes to make a believable underwater scene from scratch using Photoshop. There is no narration and the tutorial is sped up but I think you will be able to get the gist of things. A great exercise you can try out with the new Photoshop CS3 beta.
With so many different media formats, it is no wonder management all of your assets can easily spin out of control. 
Now that we are in 2007, we can really look back at 2006 from a safe distance. iFilm.com has a listing of the 
Adobe has made available a 2nd public beta for 
In a report released by Nielson Media Research, more households now own more DVD players than VCRs. DVD ownership rose 6.1% from a year ago translating to 81.2% of American households that own at least one DVD player. Consequently, VCR ownership dropped 4.5% since last year to 79.2%. It's official, you can now stop dubbing VHS tapes to give to people.
Eek! Christmas is almost here. Do you have all of your shopping done? Good, then check out our latest podcast as Randall and I talk about Photoshop CS3, archival media, HDV, DIY tools, and a camera off in space. Stream it straight from this page with our player below (just press play) or download 
Remember all of this talk about big media companies 
While everyone wishes they were 
