FreshDV spoke with Michael Kent of DSC Laboratories recently, the following short podcast contains a few interesting excerpts from our discussion. Michael talked about the importance of camera calibration and making your film and video projects more polished…or at least “not look ghetto.” He discusses why they offer a cavity black option for DSC’s popular ChromaDuMonde chart, how (and why) to use a framing chart, and the frame issues in the new film American Gangster that could have been avoided with such a chart. You can download the interview from our normal Podcast Feed, or snag the MP3 manually below.

 DSC Labs Interview Excerpts [7:04m]: Download

The guys over at Letus have had a very busy fall. First they announced the shiny new Letus Extreme, a 35mm adapter with built-in prism flip and a mere half-stop of light loss. By most reports, the Extreme has been very well-received in the video community. Not content to rest there, Letus has just announced the Letus35 Mini, a 1lb 9oz compact lens adapter designed for small cameras with a filter size under 43mm. Weighing just half of it’s big brother Extreme, the Mini should be able to be used without rods or additional support, though a custom support bracket is available. As with the Extreme, Letus states that this adapter has “absolutely no vignetting” and excellent edge to edge sharpness. Mount options include the Canon FD, Nikon AI, Canon EF (EOS), Pentax K mount, Minolta MD or the optional PL mount and OCT19 mounts. Check out this image for a side-by-side size comparison of the Mini vs. Extreme.

I’m told that a supply of adapters are currently in stock and available to ship in the next 3-5 days, the price is listed at $1,099.00. Just in time for Christmas…you can put it on your shiny new Canon HV20 camcorder. Put those two together and you’ve got a 35mm lens adapter and HD camcorder for under $1900.00. That is incredible. Independent filmmakers rejoice!

We previously mentioned the Extreme here. If you are interested in seeing some beautiful Letus Extreme footage, definitely check out what Phillip Bloom shot recently on the EX1.

Home Theater Magazine has posted results from their latest round of HD TV and display testing. This extensive comparison chart shows the results from 74 models ranging in size from 19″ to 67″. Last year they tested 61 displays at 1080i, and many of the models failed even the most basic tests. This year they are also testing 1080p capabilities, as well as how display resolution tends to drop on panning and motion scenes.

Overall, this year’s HDTVs have significantly improved deinterlacing abilities, with a 64.86-percent pass rate, up from last year’s 45.91 pass rate. The failure rate for proper 3:2 processing is still very poor at 81.09 percent.

(Via IEBA)

Tributaries has come up with a unique solution that can send a HDMI video signal over 160 feet. Their HXC5 HDMI over Cat5 system uses standard CAT5/5E/6 network cabling to transmit HDMI v1.2-and HDCP compliant 1080p images up to 50 meters “virtually loss-free.” For comparison, normal HDMI cabling tops out at around 20 meters distance. Since so many new camcorders are coming out with HDMI output, this might be a good solution for uncompressed tethered capture on set, or perhaps monitoring for your nearby video village. Unfortunately it’ll cost you around $600.

WARNING RANT:
Okay so today I was working on a PC and I don’t know what it is about PCs that for some reason makes me feel like I’m back in 1997, 1998 again, but today was one of those cases. We were just marveling on FreshDV the other day during on of our podcast at how fast and far technology has come in 10 years. Tapeless media and workflow combined with the promise of 4K acquisition make us techno nerds heady at times. We live in a day and age of blogs, the iPhone, YouTube, and social networking sites such as MySpace. Its a different world, technology is good, or so you would be lead to believe. Then suddenly something comes along and crashes you back to earth dashing all dreams of a stability and technological utopia evaporate. While working on VideoToaster system today there was some issues with stream hangaing and freezing on ingest so it was suggested by Newtek that I flash the bios. Now I’m very proud of my techno geek status and very few technological feats scare or intimidate me. I have flashed my share of bios in the day (mostly in the late 90’s early 2000s) so I figure no sweat. So I proceed to the SuperMicro site and after a short perusal through the documentation am able to ascertain with a relative degree of certainty that I have in fact downloaded the correct files. Continue reading ‘How Far We Have Not Come.’

The three big tape manufacturers in Europe have been found guilty of price-fixing on professional tape media.

The 3-way Japanese cartel controlling 85% of the professional videotape market was found guilty of artificially controlling prices on Betacam SP and Digital Betacam — the two most popular professional videotape formats in use between 1999 and 2002. According to the EU commission, they “organized three successful rounds of price increases and endeavored to stabilize prices whenever an increase was not possible.”

Sony recently announced new XDCAM models at Inter BEE 2007 in Japan. The new PDW-700 camcorder and PDW-HD1500 VTR support “MPEG-2 422P@HL codec, 50Mbps video data rate, Full HD (1920 x 1080) recording and 4:2:2 color sampling.” Nice. Look for these offerings to be available in Japan May 2008. They also mention a F23 Digital Cinema camera variation called the F35.

In a post aptly titled “Why Adobe Premiere Pro is not suited for the indie filmmaker”, Titus Films talks about one of the major issues with the popular non-linear editing software; AAF Audio Export. The complaint is that the CS3 Production Suite doesn’t really offer a pro-level solution for mixing a feature film’s audio…Audition’s multi-track mixing interface does not work well with a lot of tracks, and the application does not support non-destructive editing. And while it excels at simple audio clean up and noise-reduction work, Soundbooth is even further off course in professional features. I quote:

“The Dynamic Link features of the Adobe Creative Suite really are great. Being able to edit in Premiere, do further effects in After Effects and then bring that footage back into Premiere without re-rendering are truly beneficial. But when it comes to audio, there is no real solution except exporting as AAF. The problem here is the AAF export from Premiere simply doesn’t work as it should or not at all.“

Read on for all the gory details. Interesting perspective on something that many filmmakers might simply assume “just works” before they start their project. You’ve been warned.

Here’s an interesting short video that shows one of the issues with Image Stabilization that is not done optically.

Did the Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 update cause P2 importing via Log and Transfer to stop working? Shane Ross may have the answer for you…he narrowed down his FCP issues to a plugin package.

“… At this point I yanked out the new drive and put back the old one. I ran the FX Factory Uninstaller. And guess what? I was able to import P2 using the Log and Transfer window! If you have FX Factory, uninstall it and see what happens. If not, it might be some other FxPlug plugin.”

UPDATE: Check the comments below for a update from FX Factory.

Exclusive FreshDV interview with Daniel Gurewitch
By Matt Jeppsen, Editor FreshDV

A Senior writer for College Humor TV, Daniel Gurewitch is actively involved in the screenwriting process for the site’s popular series of original online shorts. We caught up with Daniel recently to get a snapshot of how CHTV’s creative content comes to life.

Matt Jeppsen: Daniel, why don’t you give us a quick summary of how you came into this writing position at College Humor, and what your background is.

Daniel Gurewitch: I was a TV & Film major at Syracuse University, where I focused on screenwriting. I set out from college writing TV spec scripts with the distant hope of one day being paid to write comedy. CollegeHumor hired me as a receptionist, so instead of being a good receptionist, I started writing like crazy. My articles did well, the staff took notice, and they were kind enough to bring me on as an editorial assistant right around the time that CHTV was taking off. The other staff writers are hilarious, but they didn’t have a lot of screenwriting experience at the time, so that nudged me towards scripts. Also, Sam Reich (the director of CHTV) and I have similar comedy tastes and philosophies, so we’re a good team. I guess a lot of things clicked.

MJ: So do you feel that your Film/TV major from Syracuse really prepared you for the specifics of screenwriting in this role?
Continue reading ‘FreshDV Film School: Interview With Screenwriter Daniel Gurewitch’

Join us again tonight, Tuesday 11/27/2007 for another Live FreshDV Show @ 9:30 PM Central Time.

We will have a segment with Michael Kent of DSC Labs, and will hopefully be joined by Anthony Burokas of IEBA later in the show to talk about his hands-on experience with the new Sony Z7U and S270U cameras. We’ll also have a short segment with the filmmakers behind the indie feature “Heart of Now”. This week will be a little more free as far as topics go, so we encourage you to give us a call during the show and share some news or ask a question. You can also e-mail us in advance with comments or specific questions.

If you missed last weeks show, expect an archive to be posted in the very near future in our Podcast Feed. Once again, the show starts at 9:30 PM CST (that’s 10:30 PM Eastern and 7:30 PM Pacific). We invite you to join the discussion.

In Smooth Moves News, Dave Williams of DVideography will be teaching an intensive two-day workshop in Las Vegas for Glidecam users. Dave is a professional Steadicam and Glidecam operator, and has been working with stabilizers for years. He really knows his craft. So if you’re a stabilizer user that doesn’t know your Don Juan from your Missionary, you might want to check out this workshop coming up on January 27-28, 2008.

See below for a detailed schedule breakdown with all the topics that will be covered. And here are a few pictures from one of Dave’s recent V-25 workshops.
Continue reading ‘Upcoming Glidecam Workshop in Vegas’

John Kary over at Titus Films blog has released the third segment of their six-part series on How To Pull Off Taping A Live Concert. We’ve covered the instructional series previously here and here. This section of the multi-part tutorial deals with the details and specifics of video production and live capture, including how to select cameras and where to place them.

Topics include:
*Where to place your cameras
*Best camera settings for a live concert?
*Camera recommendations
*Tripods
*Crew

Just like our previous XDCAM EX1 coverage, we’ve got continuing coverage here on the new HVR Z7U and HVR S270U HDV camcorders from Sony. Check back here for regular updates and news. Note that newer links and notes will appear at the top.

B&H has the Z7U in stock at this time, listed at $6,299.95 $5,399.95 (simply add to cart to see this lower price reflected). At this time you can also order the S270U, listed at $8,499.95 $7,950.00. All purchases made via those links help support FreshDV at no additional cost to you.

* Shawn Lam reviewed the S270U for EventDV here.

* Here’s a great video overview of the Z7U compliments of Midtown Video.

* EX1 vs Z7U vs Z1U lowlight framegrabs are up here. The EX1 has the clear edge in noise and brightness with the Z7U not far behind. That’s down in the PD170 low light levels, folks!

* Sony has released an import utility plugin for re-joining split M2T files from the CF Card Recorder. The plugin for Final Cut Pro users enables the use of the Log and Transfer import utility to acquire footage from CF Cards. Get it here. (Update: The download link now works)

* This thread at DVinfo has a few user-submitted M2T clips.

* Per DVinfo, Sony is offering a rebate for a free 8GB CompactFlash card with the purchase of a Z7U or S270U. The rebate link is not yet active, so check back soon.

* Jordan Oplinger wrote in to mention that the Sony HVR-Z7U user manual is in the wild, we have a copy mirrored here.

* Here’s a user report from Shawn Lam on his brand new HVR-Z7U. Several very interesting details.

* HVR Z7U User footage is beginning to surface. Here is one such clip at Divx Stage6. Recommend muting the music, it’s a bit overbearing. There is a mirror at Youtube. Could be my browser, but it plays back a bit jerky for me as if pulldown cadence is “off.” Thanks for JO for the tip!

* Digital Content Producer has posted a first look review of the S270 and Z7U.

* Here are a number of pictures of the prototype Z7U on display at GV Expo. You can see how the flash recorder unit hooks up, the interesting placement of a tape transport, and the free-spinning iris ring.

* Another article by IEBA about the new Z7U and S270U, this was a summary of the updates and features for EventDV Magazine.

* Anthony over at IEBA/Techthoughts has added several videos in the past few days:
- A seminar on the new models by Sony’s Juan Martinez.
- Demos of the TC/UB, Memory, In/Out, and Others menu systems.
- A demonstration of HVR S270 and HVR Z7U lens operation.

* IEBA blog has the display menus up now. (For more info on “Cam Leveling”, check out the product brochure linked below. Interesting feature.)

* Anthony Ajit passed on this link to the PDF brochure for Sony’s HVR-Z7E and HVR-S270E versions of the HDV cameras, and it offers more concrete specs and details. For instance, it becomes clear here that in addition to 1/3″ interchangeable lenses, you can also utilize standard 1/2″ and 2/3″ HD lenses using adapters. The camcorders feature standard ENG 12-pin lens connectors. Note that there is a zoom factor when adapting lenses, namely: 2x focal length for a 2/3-inch lens adapter, 1.3x with a 1/2-inch lens adapter, and 7x with a Sony Alpha DSLR still lens adapter. You should also check pg8 for some interesting features called “Camera Leveling” and “Focus Marking”…yes the camera can detect it’s horizon and display that on the LCD. Sweet. And the Skintone detail feature is now fully configurable…you can set the color manually. I should also note that the CompactFlash recorder automatically syncs with the camera when attached…it does all the recording start-stops without manual intervention. And here’s the answer to a question asked by a friend the other day…YES, you can record HDV 1080 to tape while also recording downconverted DV to card for short term SD delivery.

* Anthony Burokas has screencaps of the camera menus and audio menus (others to come).

* We previously were hoping that you could simultaneously record to tape, CF card, and firewire out to a hard disk recorder. It appears that you cannot as the Flash recorder covers up the Firewire port.

* Our initial coverage of the camcorder announcements. Features, specs and preliminary info from the press-releases.

As always, keep the links and comments coming.