Josh Oakhurst has posted detailed analysis from a recent consulting gig, entitled “How to make $10,000 work for an HD production and post production package?” There are a few camera test clips at the end of the article.

He examines the choices made my two indie filmmakers on a limited budget, one having chosen the Andromeda’ized DVX100, and one the HVX200. In both situations, the filmmakers could have extended the capabilities of their budget with a little better planning and forethought. Read on for the good stuff.

Mike Curtis has also commented on the article, and there are a lot of insightful comments attached to Josh’s article. I’d say he found a nerve (again). :-)

Barry Braverman offers up an interesting article on shooting native HD 24p for SD DVD delivery with the Panasonic HVX.

Mac users should be happy to find that there is a new P2 Log and Viewer app on the market. From the press release:

Now you can play, annotate, change clip names, and delete Clips from any HVX200 P2 volume using your Macintosh. Works with any P2 compatible storage device too (e.g. P2 Store, Fire Store, P2 readers, P2 cards, P2 disk mounted volumes, etc).

This simple yet powerful application is specifically designed for working with MXF Clips — every Mac based HVX200 owner should have one for fast review and selection of P2 clips. A perfect field viewer to complement your HD Log media manager back in the office.

Exports to Final Cut Pro HD XML with automatic QuickTime conversions of just the selected or marked clips.

And P2 Log works with *any* HVX200 format including PAL 720P 25/50! Imagine’s free pass-through codec plays the 25/50 formats and helps you create FCP compatible QuickTime files.

Add text notes in the metadata, change the User Clip Names, use Find/Sort within the Volume to locate clips, indicates camera Marks too. Delete clips from the P2 Volume and save changes back to the source file. Also programs P2 SD Cards to preload metadata (project, reel, etc.).

Ken Stone recently posted two new product reviews: A MetaSAN review by Graeme Nattress, and a Sonicfire Pro 4 review by Steve Douglas.

Graeme seems to like MetaSAN, a cross platform Storage Area Network solution from Tiger-Technology that offers support for OS X, Linux and Windows.
“MetaSAN is a fully-featured SAN solution that is not only powerful, cross-platform and affordable, but easy to set up, use and administer. I recommend MetaSAN to anyone investigating a shared storage solution, especially to any Final Cut Pro based production house wanting to maximize their multi-station editing workflow.”

Steve Douglas heaps praise on the latest version of Sonicfire Pro.
“Sonicfire Pro 4 is one of the more user friendly applications I have ever had the pleasure to use. Learning it is a snap.”