As the article states:
“Optical media developer Verbatim has announced plans to support the development of both Blu-ray and High-Definition DVD (HD-DVD) recordable and rewritable media. Both formats are expected to begin shipping in early 2006, when high-definition drives and recorders are expected to be released.”

This tells me that even the “movers and shakers” of the DVD media industry can’t pick a clear winner at this time…and that’s a shame, because consumers will be the ones paying until a format is declared the champ.

Can two competing formats survive, much like DVD-R vs. DVD+R? That situation was a little different…it was a tussle between RECORDABLE formats. This format fight has much more at stake, because I find it hard to believe that consumer DVD’s and products will be released on BOTH BD and HD DVD formats.

In related news, Twentieth Century Fox has announced that it release on Blu-ray disc “new films, TV programming and other titles from Fox’s library of film and television programming when Blu-ray hardware launches in North America, Japan, and Europe.”

[Verbatim link]
[Twentieth Century Fox link]

From the article:
“The two salons, where couples receive two hours of time for their wedding, seat 100 people and 60 people, respectively. The salons are identically equipped with three Panasonic AK-HC910 1080i box-type multi-purpose cameras mounted on AW-PH300A pan/tilt units, and controlled by AW-RP305 camera controllers.

In each salon, two AK-HC910s are located in enclosures (discretely behind dark glass) in front to obtain close-ups of the ceremony, and a third AK-HC910 is mounted high in back to provide a wide view of the ceremony and its participants. The high definition video is recorded on a Panasonic AJ-HD1200A DVCPRO HD VTR and edited using Apple Final Cut Pro HD software. Titles, animations plus stock footage of the resort are added to the ceremony footage during editing.

The completed wedding video in 16:9 letterbox is burned to a MPEG SD DVD using DVD Studio Pro software. It’s available for viewing by the bride and groom the following day.”

Final Cut Pro on Mac OSX is generally a reliable combination for video editors, particularly with OSX Tiger and FCP Studio. But as with all software, Bad Things^TM do happen from time to time, and the subject of Permissions and Prefs comes up a lot when diagnosing such issues on a Mac.

The X-Lab has a great FAQ that very clearly and succinctly lays out basic maintenance procedures that can go a long way towards resolving any Mac OSX funkiness (yes, “funky” is indeed a technical term).

From the FAQ:
A variety of Mac® OS X problems can be caused by corruption in any or all of the following three areas:
* The hard drive, specifically your Mac OS X startup disk.
* Permissions on System files or folders.
* System, Application, or User-specific cache files.

Potential causes
* System or application crashes.
* Power outages.
* Bad sectors on your Mac OS X startup disk.
* Defective or failing hard drives.
* Application installers which have improperly reset System-related permissions.

The FAQ, derived from the book Troubleshooting Mac OS X, covers OSX versions 10.2 Jaquar through 10.4 Tiger.

[FAQ: Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption]

Canon announced two new camera models today…the minimalist design Optura S1 (a “stylishly hip design”), and the Optura 600, a 1/2.8-inch single-chip camera that can also snap 4.3 megapixel still images.
Camcorderinfo notes “This chip is even larger than the Canon XL2, although the XL2 has three chips, while the Optura 600 has only one. Stills can be recorded at a resolution of 2304 x 1728 pixels.”

The S1 and 600 will both be available in September for $799 and $1,099, respectively.

[camcorderinfo article]
[Canon press release]

“Between You and Me” is a short film created by Patryk Rebisz. The young indie filmmaker used a Canon EOS 20D still camera in burst mode to craft the short.

[FilmMaker Magazine article]
[More work from Patryk Rebisz]

Recently read a short review on the JVC Everio GZ-MC500, an ex$pen$ive little palm-sized 3-CCD camcorder that is also marketed as a 5MP still camera. The device is really quite interesting, offers quite a few features, and is the sort of camera that I personally would use on a day-to-day basis. I’ve handled the GZ-200 model recently, and I like the feel of it.

The device stores stills and video on a 4GB microdrive or standard CF cards.
It features a 10X optical zoom, digital image stabilization (ewww), (3) 1/4.5″ CCD’s (1.23MP effective), pop-up flash, and can record 60+ minutes of standard 720×480/60i NTSC MPEG-2 video on the included 4GB microdrive. You can transfer stills and video via USB-2 to your PC (not sure of Mac compatibility), and can also connect directly to a TV using the included AV/S-video cable.

Reviewers have noted that the still image quality is not up to par with “true” 5MP cameras (as you may have noted from the “1.23MP effective” stat, the Everio uses a pixel-shift technology to achieve that number).
As to the video, the camera offers 4 video quality modes: the “Ultra” quality mode records at a fixed data rate of 8.88 Mbps. That rate includes Dolby Digital audio (8.5 Mbps video plus 384kbps Dolby). At Ultra, you can record 60min on the 4GB card.
With lower quality settings, you can extend the recording time up to 90 and 120min, and at a reduced resolution setting you can get up to 300min of footage.

The device offers quite a few options actually, and while the Everio’s MPEG-2 format is not the best for editing, I think it would do well for home movies and general “life” use. It’s hard to justify lugging a 3-chip Sony VX or PD to a birthday party for Aunt Mildred…

The camera retails for around $1,800, but with a little shopping can be had in the $1500-range.

[JVC Everio GZ-MC500 press release]
[Ron Harris Everio GZ-MC500 review]
[camcorderinfo pictures and comments]

Dropouts & dead CCD pixels. Yucky.

Both are problems that you hopefully will never have…but I’d venture to guess that if you do experience one of these problems, you will find out in post-production…not during the shoot, when you can rectify the situation.
Dead pixels can be repaired by a camera service center, and sometimes they occur in areas of the image that “don’t really matter”. Some editors have had success with masking the pixel with nearby footage.
Dropouts can generally be prevented by not mixing tape brands/stocks, regular tape cleaning passes, etc.

But of course, you will discover your issue in post-production. Cleaning the tape path now is a little like shutting the gate after the horse has left the barn…

DH_Reincarnation is a filter for Final Cut Pro that can intelligently replace up to two dead pixels at a time.
And the DH_Dropout filter allows you to scale, move, and rotate up to two fields to aid in repairing a dropout problem.

Best of all, the filters are only $10 each.
[http://www.digital-heaven.co.uk]

James Seale, writer, director, and producer of “Throttle”, talks about his project that he shot last year. The 87-minute feature utilized the Panasonic AJ-SDX900 24p/30p/60i camera to capture scenes in a very challenging environment…a underground parking garage, primarily utilizing the garage existing lighting.

From the article:
“…the camera is very robust. I was running around shooting hand-held, in cars in high-speed chases, crashing into one another. I love the size and feel of the camera .”

“I’ve seen Throttle digitally projected several times,� Lerner said, “and everyone thinks it was shot on film. In terms of the visual experience, it absolutely feels like film. It’s amazing what the SDX900 represents in terms of the cost-efficiencies of looking theatrical.�

He added, “Without the SDX900, we would not have been able to make the film on the budget we had. We averaged around 40-50 setups per day, which would not have been possible had we used a film format. Between the low cost of tape stock and the camera ’s speed on the set, it saved us tens of thousands of dollars and allowed us to shoot a fast-paced action movie of this scope in under 20 days.â€?

The article also notes that the crew used Panasonic DVX100A’s for stunts.

[Full article text]

Move over Cinderella. Brian Herzlinger & friends dreamed up the film-fest-fav (say that five times quickly) “My Date With Drew” on a whim. They bought a consumer single-chip MiniDV camera at Circuit City…shot the doc in less than 30 days…and returned the camera to the store for a refund. Gotta love creative funding ideas.
They have secured a distribution deal, and the film will debut at some time in theaters. Even after creating the film on a shoestring, with music licensing and other costs, their final budget has ended up in the “modest six figures”. Barrymore has graciously permitted the use of her image and likeness, but will not be actively promoting the film.

The 2005 48 Hour Film Project is in full swing.

The tour will visit 30 cities all over the world. At each event, teams have 48 Hours (ya think?) to take a film from concept to completion.
Each event is judged, and the top 5 teams worldwide will compete at a national competition in January.
They 5 finalists will compete using the new Panasonic HD camera, and edit on Avid Express HD w/ Mojo. Each team of finalists keeps the Avid system, and the winner also gets the Panny HD camera.
Nice.

Has anyone competed in on of these events? I’m curious to see what the winning films look like…

UPDATE: the original link went down, I’ve found an alternate copy and it’s fixed now. This story has also been reposted at FresHDV here.

Israeli news site Haaretz.com is running a story on graphic artist Yuval Yairi, who uses a PD-150 in still-shot mode to create incredible photo collages.

With the new Lumix DMC-LX1, Panasonic has introduced the first digital still camera with a 16:9 aspect ratio CCD. It is also switchable into a 4:3 mode. The camera sports 8.4 megapixel resolution, and can record moving images at “848×480 16:9 Wide VGA”, 30fps.

I see this camera as just another of the myriad of crossover products that we will continue to see in the very near future. The line between still and moving images is beginning to blur at the consumer level.

EDIT: The camera will reportedly be priced at around $650.

The International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage met recently in Hawaii for their annual island kegger, err, annual conference.

Toshiba presented data on a prototype dual-layer HD DVD-R disc. The new DL format capacity is 30GB, and they apparently had issues adding the 2nd layer to the mix. Conventional dyes didn’t dissipate heat well enough, so they developed a new dye.

Not to be outdone, Philips showed the results of their Blu-Ray media testing. The research team has successfully test-burned on single-layer 25GB BD-R media. They have found that the quickest method of burning the 25GB disc is to spin it at 10800 rpm. At that speed, 25GB of data is burned in 14 minutes. Not bad.

I had an issue recently where I was trying to apply a 1.78 widescreen matte filter to a clip that had been rotated a few degrees. FCP’s widescreen filter will rotate with the clip, so that’s no good. One other option would be to create a slug on V2 (or a higher track), and apply a mask shape to the slug that matches the letterboxing applied to your other clips…but it is a bit of a pain to do on multiple clips. Too many steps.

So I was poking around on the Apple discussion forums and I ran across a free filter called Letterboxer.

It’s a video generator that you simply drop onto a higher track and it creates a widescreen mask automatically. And since it’s on a different track, you can play with rotation on clips below it, and the mask stays perfectly horizontal.

One caveat; I think the author wrote it for PAL format, because the matte presets don’t match my FCP widescreen presets. But there is a Custom option, you can simply type in a value. For instance, a Custom setting of 2.04 matches up to my 1.78 matte quite nicely.

The filter is compatible with FCP4+ (runs great on FCP Studio). Once you install the plugin, it just shows up as a Video Generator, under “Others”.

http://www.rienq.dds.nl/fcp/index.html

In a survey commissioned by the BluRay Disc Association (BDA), consumers have voted that they prefer Blu-ray Disc as their format of choice.
Since the peace talks between the two format organizations seem be kaput, this sort of data is telling of the eventual victor in the latest “VHS vs. Betamax” showdown…