Little Frog in HiDef has posted a few quick tips for FCP editors. Spindownfix is a utility that turns off the powersaving sleep mode for internal hard drives, and FCP Rescue is an invaluable tool for backing up and restoring preference settings. If you haven’t already looked into these utilities, you ought to now.

Dvinfo has a short, informal review and comments on the HVX200 from a Japan-based user. The review centers on handling and operational concerns, and this user seems to be pleased with the camera. He has a few interesting comments about using an iPod to pull footage from the P2 storage:

“After filling up the P2 cards, you can easily download the data to iPod or something similar, then erace the clips on P2 card and start shooting again. When you have 2 4GB P2 cards then it would take about 12 minutes to do the back up to iPod. I’m okay with this now because I would be doing more planed, purpose oriented shooting, but folks with documentary oriented shooting, that could be a problem. But you can probably follow around the cast with DV and use P2 card recordings for more expression oriented shooting, you can expand your expressions a big deal.
Each time you do a back up on iPod or similar, HVX200 make an image of P2 card, so when you connect your iPod to your Mac, it would appear as each volume images on the desktop or show up in the P2 import window of FCP5 as volumes.”

He also praises the P2 review and playback mode, and mentions that the Manfrotto 507 head seems to balance out nicely with the HVX. Good stuff, read the whole review for the rest of it.

(Via DVGuru)

FresHDV mentioned the Depth of Field Calculator widget for OS X previously. The widget has recently been updated to version 1.5 and at the request of onsuper8.org they have added specific settings for 8mm film users. Thanks for the tip, Giles!

In related news, onsuper8 also has a recently-blessed-by-Apple News widget, if you are so inclined. And for those that aren’t widget-heads, there’s still a good old fashioned RSS feed.

The CreativeCow team has announced that they will debut a new quarterly publication aimed at digital media professionals, timed to coincide with NAB 2006. The first issue will feature a review by Gary Adcock on the Panny AG-HVX200 P2 camera.
Subscriptions are free to qualified USA-based professionals, international subs are $25. You can sign up now.

(Via Zeros and Ones)

Engadget says that the Dell 3007WFP LCD will be available January 5th. These Dell widescreen LCD’s have historically been excellent for editing. I’ve got a 20″ model (2005FPW) myself, pics here.

I’ve been getting the following error on occasion when rendering my Final Cut Pro timeline(s): “File Error: The specified file is open and in use by this or another application.”
I figured out quickly that you can just hit OK, and your render will continue normally…but it’s still irritating.

Well, a good friend of mine sent me a link to the fix (and I don’t know why I didn’t search for it earlier). It seems that the problem occurs when Spotlight tries to index your render files at the same time that FCP attempts to access them.

To prevent this from happening, you can tell Spotlight not to index the Render Files folder in your Scratch Disk:
1. From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
2. From the View menu, choose Spotlight.
3. Click the Privacy tab to reveal the areas that Spotlight will not index.
4. In the Finder, open your “Final Cut Pro Documents” folder.
5. Drag the Render Files folder into Spotlight’s list

HD For Indies has an exclusive scoop that should calm some of the speculation about the ethereal “Red camera”. We mentioned the camera recently, and it sounds amazing.

From Mike’s interview, it certainly seems that this camera is going to be For Real^TM, and is reportedly backed by people with the resources and deep pockets it will take to bring this a killer cam to market.
This is exciting stuff folks, and could take the camera market by storm…nothing but good news for you and I, the consumer. Sony, Canon, JVC, Panny, and all the big dogs are potentially going to have to deal with a threat that delivers all that and a bag of chips…this could really drive mfr’s to add more pro level features and tools, just to compete with Red Digital Cinema. Awesome, awesome, awesome. BRING IT ON, RED!

I swear I don’t work for Videosystems. In this article, Steve Mullen covers what editing options you have if you are shooting 24 fps HDV with the JVC GY-HD100. Here’s quick synopsis of your available options:

CineForm AspectHD for Premiere Pro.
24p capture to CFHD intermediate with timecode fully integrated into Premiere’s capture function.

Final Cut Pro.
Capture with HDVxDV.
Convert to 24p AIC or DVCPRO HD 720p60.

Final Cut Pro.
Convert 720p60 analog component output from HD100 to HD-SDI using a Kona or Blackmagic HD board.
Edit the 720p60 video 720p59.94fps Sequence or within a 720p23.98 Sequence.

Final Cut Pro.
Capture MP2 audio seperately to an AIFF file via HD100U analog connection.
Capture HDV footage using FCP’s AIC Scene Detect (which will drop MPEG repeat flags, but wrongly store footage as 59.94).
Use Cinema Tools to Batch Conform source files to 23.98fps video.
Reconnect project references to re-conformed 23.98 media.

Checkout the full article for all the details.

Videosystems has a short and sweet article that touches on calibrating your camcorder’s LCD monitor with SMPTE color bars for proper exposure in the field.

George Clooney recently helmed “Good Night, And Good Luck”, a biopic feature that was shot printed entirely on black and white film. Millimeter has an article that discusses some of the issues involved in that decision, and provides a tiny glimpse into the production of the feature.

“We shot tons of tests in black and white. Our problem was black-and-white footage is so much more about lighting. The lighting package alone is literally double — not just the cost, but [the time]. We really wanted to pre-light as much as we could so that we could just run into a room and shoot, and you can do that on color stock. You couldn’t do that on black and white; you really needed to light the hell out of it.â€?

Clooney shot everything on long lenses with two cameras rolling at the same time. “The secret for us was that we wanted to be able to always overlap the dialogue. I don’t have a single looped line in the film, and it was important to us because I hate loops. I think they look like shit.â€? The film was then printed on black-and-white stock, which was more expensive, but as Clooney says, “It gives it a hell of a look.â€?

On color correction:
Clooney notes, “Since color wasn’t an issue, the only thing we had to do was sometimes use it to lighten one corner of an area and darken another. We did the color correction (if that’s the word you want to use) in about a day and a half.â€?

The film has earned critical acclaim, as evidenced by the 94% FRESH rating at rottentomatoes.com.

(Via DVGuru)

Here’s a project for the Do It Yourself UberFilmGeek…build your own Super8 film telecine machine. The project is pretty detailed, and not really for the weak of heart. Yes, there is actual work involved. *Sigh*. You will have to do some tweaking.

For those that aren’t sure what it is, Wikipedia defines telecine as “…the process of transferring motion picture film to a video format, such as television, or a machine used to complete this process.”

The DIY article recommends the use of a circa-1970′s Eumig 610D or 6001D 8mm/Super8 projector for the build. Images are captured with a standard DV camera via firewire using frame capture software. There is nothing to prevent you from using a HD-resolution camera for the capture, however. What you will end up with (if you use a standard SD DV camera) is a frame-for-frame replica of your film in a 720×480 DV stream (either AVI or MOV, depending on your platform).

Now at this point where do you go from here? Generally Super8 will be shot at 18fps, but 12 and 24fps isn’t that uncommon, and there are cameras out there that allow further frame rate choices as well. But for the sake of brevity, let’s assume that you have 18fps sources.
Since you captured each frame of your 18fps source individually, on a 29.97fps timeline your telecine footage will now play back much faster. Simply slow down the footage to 60% speed on your NLE timeline, and you should now be at the NTSC equivalent of 18fps (and if you have 24fps film source, slow it down to 80% speed in your NLE to arrive at the NTSC equivalent).
Note that using the Frame-Blending option in your slow motion dialog reportedly introduces interlace artifacts in the footage. It is recommended that you turn off FB when slowing down 30fps telecine to match the original frame-rate. So instead of trying to fake the in-between frames with Frame-Blending, your NLE will instead simply dupe those frames in a (slightly uneven) cadence. Frames A-B-C become A-A-B-C-C, etc. The funky cadence is not supposed to be that noticable, and for this use I’m sure it’s Good Enough. After all, this is a DIY project…and Super8 film is generally used to add a slightly different aesthetic, the “rawness” and flaws are it’s beauty.

For those that want to take it further as far as conversions go, I’ve been told that Sony Vegas does a bang-up job at framerate coversions, so perhaps that would be a good choice for this task. And we’ve all heard of the vaunted Optical Flow enhancements in Apple’s Compressor 2 (borrowed from their pro Shake app). Methinks that Compressor 2 would be well suited to tweening in-between frames, much better than you could hope for with Frame-Blending, and if you didn’t want a stuttery “off” cadence.

Above all, don’t expect to achieve professional level results with a telecine process like this. Pro telecine shops have the experience and tools to deliver top-notch results. And they give you options like the ability to scan your source in 10-bit, which would be quite a quality step up from a DV frame capture. Additionally, there are products like the WorkPrinter that are a turn-key telecine solution, and the cost is really not unreasonable. But for the DIY tinkerer, this would be a very interesting project, and you will learn a lot in the process.

Thanks to Rusty Bryce of Varikor Productions for providing technical advice on this post. Varikor offers professional telecine transfer services, for those that demand the highest quality and choose not to DIY. It’s good to have options…

(Via Camcorderinfo Blog)

HDBeat has an intriguing post that discusses a new feature available on the XBox360. Project Gotham Racing 3 gamers that subscribe to XBoxLive can tune into a Project Gotham channel that allows them to watch the highest ranked players online going head to head.

“Ask yourself, if someone walked up to you right now and told you the best street racer in the world was racing his Ferarri F50 through NYC streets and taking on all comers, would you watch? Read on my friend.

…I can pick my own soundtrack from my Windows XP machine and at any hour of the day I have 3-8 races to choose from that I can watch live or tape-delayed from the beginning. I can follow any car and use any camera angle including the amazingly realistic in-car view.

…I can get all the excitement of your average F1 race any time I want, and better yet, challenge the winner afterwards. Overall, a much more compelling experience than other sporting event broadcast in high definition, even if it is just a game.”

VideoGuys has an interview with Tim Wilson, senior product marketing manager at Avid.

Mark Nelson had a chance to work with the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 digital audio recorder in the field for a few days, and he’s written up a nice detailed review of his experiences.
For those that might not know, the MicroTrack is a $500 compact-flash based digital audio recorder that packs a veritable plethora of features into a diminutive form-factor. Mark seems to like it, despite a few small complaints. All in all it sounds like a bargain at that price point.
Detailed device specs are available on page4 of the review.

Another interesting CF-based recorder that we have written about is the Tascam HD-P2. The Fostex FR2 is a similiar device that also supports PCMCIA storage media.

(Via Gizmodo)