Red Digital Cinema has posted a new camera delivery schedule.

“Serial numbers 1-25 will be delivered August 31st (next Friday).
Serial numbers 26-50 will be delivered Sept, 7th (following Friday).
There will be a slight delay due to IBC for the next batch of deliveries.

We’ll keep you posted.
Jim”

Apple Certified Trainer Richard Taylor has posted a very useful and informative tutorial on Ken Stone’s site showing how to optimally setup Final Cut Pro so you can use cheap DVD-R media for media and project backups. He walks you through how to configure FCP’s Capture Settings to limit the size of captured media to under 4.36 GB so they can easily fit onto standard DVD recordable media. A side advantage of this method is that your long media reels will be simpler to scrub through and find specific scenes quickly. Great tutorial!

From the Do It Yourself Design Community comes these instructions on how to build your own rain maker for filmmaking. The design uses a lightweight wooden frame to support a loose spiral of garden hose that has been pierced every few inches. The parts list is simple, and it looks like you could build the rig for well under $30-$40, depending on what you may have on hand. The author notes that more natural-looking results were obtained by inverting the rig to spray water upwards above the scene.

“This rig provided at least 50 square feet of quality rain. Roughly a 5′ by 5′ space to shoot in. This is perfect for dramatic scenes between 2 or 3 characters. You could always built a few and create a bigger rain area.”

Spotted at CCI, via Film Flap.

LFIHD noted today that the Motu V3HD has been released. We first mentioned it not too long ago. It has a staggering number of features and capabilities, and looks like a very useful tool for Audio and Video ingest and monitoring (and much more). If you’ve been eyeballing this one, you’ll be happy to hear that Bimi & Herschel has the V3HD in-stock and listed for just under $3000. And if you aren’t familiar with the new magic box from Motu, read on…
Continue reading ‘Motu V3HD Magic Box Now Shipping’

UPDATE: Eagle-eyed commenter Roger has spotted this camera in stock at B&H. It is priced at $1600.

Sony has announced a new HDV CMOS camcorder, the HD1000U. This particular model is a shoulder configuration, but unfortunately detailed specs are somewhat lean at this time. At first glance, it appears to to be the guts of a HC7 or FX7 stuffed into a “pro” case design. No word at this time if it also includes XLR jacks (I’m guessing not). (This larger image shows the shotgun mic plugged into what looks like a 1/8″ mini jack.) But at a entry price under $1900, what do you seriously expect? This new offering seems to be aimed at the Education and (low end) Wedding/Event market , and I think it will soon be joined by a big brother with a better, more “pro” featureset. “Pro” features or not, what will kill it for the Event market is the fact that the imager is a tiny sub-1/3″ chip that will most likely perform very poorly in low light conditions (thanks for the correction Adam). Of course, Sony could forgo the big brother concept on this model and just push the XDCAM EX instead. Which, according to Sony at NAB ‘07, should arrive in September. We shall see. Read on for the specs culled from Sony’s press release… Continue reading ‘New Sony HVR-HD1000U Camcorder - A Shoulder-mount FX7?’

Call Box has released a new educational DVD on Apple’s Color application. Entitled “Digital Color Correction - The Final Cut Studio Workflow with Apple’s Color”, the 1.5 hour training title aims to demystify the post-production and color correction workflow for both new and experienced Color users.

“Topics detailed in the video include Workflow with Final Cut Pro, Equipment Shopping Lists, Primary and Secondary Correction, High Definition Formats, Geometry and User Shapes, Still Store Secrets, Render Management, History of Color Correction, Motion Tracking and more.”

You can order the DVD title online at Call Box, cost is $75.

The latest version of Adobe’s Flash 9 player will support H.264 quicktime streams, as well as a number of other useful video formats. This is significant…not only does the flash player have nearly ubiquitous market penetration in browsers, they are now leveraging that to even further extend the capabilities of the standard. With the addition of 3GP codec support, imagine how soon will we see Youtube-like sites that can instantly stream uploaded video from cellphones, no transcoding required! Impressive stuff. You can read a lot more technical details and specifics here. In summary, the latest Beta Flash Player will include:

*An file format parser implementing parts of ISO 14496-12. In terms you might understand this means a very limited sub set of MPEG-4, 3GP and QuickTime movie support.
*Support for the 3GPP timed text specification 3GPP TS 26.245. Essentially this is a standardized subtitle format within 3GP files.
*Partial parsing support for the ‘ilst’ atom which is the ID3 equivalent iTunes uses to store meta data. This really more a de-facto standard which came through the ubiquity of iTunes, there is no official documentation on the format. Look here for an incomplete list of supported tags iTunes does use.
*A software based H.264 codec with the ability to decode Base, Mainline and High profiles. This is also an ISO standard with the identifier being ISO 14496-10.
*An AAC decoder supporting AAC Main, AAC LC and SBR (also known as HE-AAC). The corresponding ISO specification is ISO 14496-3.

Bravo, Adobe. Bravo.

More bad news for consumers, it appears that the high definition disc war is only just beginning. Despite their initial commitment to the Blu-ray format, Dreamworks Animation and Paramount Pictures have decided drop Blu-ray entirely and release future movies on HD-DVD instead. This news comes at a time when it appeared that Blu-ray adoption was on the upswing. Throughout this year, HD DVD has been selling 34% of HD discs, with Blu-ray capturing 66% of the market. That is a 2:1 disparity. Furthermore, Blockbuster recently announced that they would be going exclusively with Blu-ray for rentals, and Target also announced they would not be carrying HD-DVD players. Blu-ray is also regarded as carrying the technological advantage, having more storage space available for content and data. But now we have two major players in the game defecting.

What changed? The rumor is that Microsoft, a founding member of the HD-DVD alliance, paid off Paramount and Dreamworks with $50 million and $100 million, respectively. As a content creator and producer who is anxiously awaiting a clear resolution in this stupid format war, this is not Good News. Another content creator has an issue with this as well…Michael Bay is frustrated that Paramount won’t support both formats, and is threatening to throw in the towel on Transformers 2. Says Bay on his site forum, “I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me!” Say it ain’t so, Michael! And finally, Scott Kirsner has pulled together some choice quotes on this whole debacle over at Cinematech, calling the buyout a last-ditch effort to save the HD DVD format. Here’s hoping it ditches, and quickly. At this point I personally don’t care who wins…I just want a winner.

(Via Slashdot)

UPDATE: Michael Bay has backed down from his previous angry statement, saying “…I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!”

In a recent Reduser.net thread, I noted that Red has shared a new trailer cut of Peter Jackson’s “Crossing The Line” short film shot on the Red Digital Cinema prototype cameras. The entire film was first shown at NAB Expo 2007 at the mobbed Red booth, and a short segment subsequently released online. You can download it from a number of site mirrors buried in the Reduser thread. It is a 1K resolution QT Motion Jpeg file, weighing in at 293MB.
Continue reading ‘New “Crossing The Line” 1K Trailer Released (Red Footage)’

Here’s a quick Creative Cow Tutorial for After Effects users, how to use the dynamic Motion Sketch feature.

 SyncVue Pro 2.0 Tutorial [12:27m]: Download

SyncVue announced at NAB that they would be offering a new version of their remote collaboration software for editors and producers. We cover a lot of the new announcements and features here in our NAB podcast. Well the long awaited update is finally here and all existing SyncVue users will definitely want to grab it. I downloaded it myself and was very happy. The functionality is improved and the new features are killer. So I decided to do a quick little tutorial on setting up and using the new version of the software, I’ll be doing a second part to this podcast to go more in depth later. This first one walks you through the newest features and how to basically get around, but there will definitely be more later. View the video podcast via our FreshDV iTunes Podcast Feed or the Download links above.

There are a few things I wish SyncVue would address, namely its reliance on Skype. While I have found ways to make it easier for my clients, it is still a pain to have to download Skype, SyncVue (and the latest version of Quicktime for Windows users) and install those three pieces of software on their system. If SyncVue could incorporate a QT installer and find a way to streamline the Skype situation where there was only the installation of one software package to get all the needed components, it would be much easier to implement this system for clients who are less technically minded.

Continue reading ‘SyncVue Pro 2.0 New Feature Tutorial Pt. 1′

Here at FreshDV we love to stay connected with our readers, and site traffic patterns and statistics are oftentimes very revealing. By watching how visitors arrive at the site and what they tend to read, you quickly figure out what the hot topics are, and what the general audience appreciates most. The tools that gather and analyze traffic metrics are very helpful. They also have inherent flaws, and are sometimes just plain misleading. As a result, we’ve come to rely on a number of disparate tools and software to get a better overall “weighted” perspective of our site traffic. It’s somewhat nebulous to work in that fashion, but I believe that one simply cannot rely on a single metric or tool to get an honest snapshot of your site traffic. And it appears that one of those tools, Alexa, is slowly going the way of the buffalo. Techcrunch points out that they have seriously flawed data on Google vs Youtube traffic patterns, and that major oversight is an indication of just how irrelevant Alexa is in today’s online world.
Continue reading ‘OT: Traffic Metrics - Alexa Has Jumped The Shark’

Simon Wyndham has written an excellent hands on review of the Panasonic HPX-500 well worth the read if you’re interested in learning more about this camera, go ahead and take a look.

SIMON SAYS:
With Blu-Ray discs managing to break into the top selling echelons of Amazon.coms’ charts, high definition has entered a new phase of mass adoption. This has meant that the demand for camera operators with their own high definition cameras has increased drastically even in the space of the last year or so. To enable owner/operators a way into professional high definition shooting Panasonic initially released the HDX900.

The 900 offered a good route for those who already owned or used the standard definition SDX900 and who were established in a DVCpro workflow. While the HDX900 offered a smooth upgrade path it was still a tape based camera, and as anyone who hasn’t been living underground for the last 5 years or so knows tapeless is the way the industry is going.

Thus we arrive at the new HPX500 camcorder. The HPX500 has been designed once again to allow a smooth upgrade path for those wishing to get into low cost HD production. One set of customers Panasonic appear to be targeting with the 500 are existing operators of HVX200’s who may be looking to move to a more professional style of camera.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

Leakin’ Lizards, Batman! Here are several leaked photos from the set of Christopher Nolan’s highly-anticipated “Batman Begins” sequel. I’ve been eagerly looking forward to this one. Again, these were clearly taken on-set and not frame-grabbed from the film. It’ll be interesting to study how these scenes are actually composed and color graded in the final film. I suppose that some of these pictures might be considered spoilers, so you have been forewarned.
Continue reading ‘“The Dark Knight” Images Leaked’

Destined to be a viral hit, here’s a funny commercial for Creative Cow’s “Internet Killed the Video Star: A Guide to Creating Video for the Web” training DVD. Very well done. Tip of the hat to Shane Ross.