Recently John Galt, Head of Advanced Digital Imaging at Panavision, and Larry Thorpe, National Marketing Manager at Canon Broadcast & Communications Division, opened a discussion on common misunderstandings in Digital Camera Specifications. Panavision has kindly granted FreshDV permission to present the seven-part in-depth video series here.

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 7: Single Sensor Cameras Continued
Spectral response, Camera color balance: Daylight v. Tungsten, Digital Intermediate MTF comparison between Genesis and 5218, Bayer vs. RGB striped sensors.

Continue watching FreshDV’s presentation of this informative series here or at FreshTV. You can also download H.264 720p and 1080p versions of this Part 7 presentation from Panavision.

Recently John Galt, Head of Advanced Digital Imaging at Panavision, and Larry Thorpe, National Marketing Manager at Canon Broadcast & Communications Division, opened a discussion on common misunderstandings in Digital Camera Specifications. Panavision has kindly granted FreshDV permission to present the seven-part in-depth video series here.

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 6: Single Sensor Cameras (Bayer)
The resolution metric for a Bayer pattern sensor, Diagonal sampling Bayer pattern sensors, Optical lowpass filter options for single Bayer pattern sensors.

Continue watching FreshDV’s presentation of this informative series here or at FreshTV. You can also download H.264 720p and 1080p versions of this Part 6 presentation from Panavision.

VRMag has a very detailed article on Speed Racer’s visual effects and postproduction. Tons of image and model examples are shown.

Barry Sonnenfeld’s keynote at NAB was an interesting one (his public appearances always tend to be that way), and Studio Daily has the entire two sessions on video.

“… Sonnenfeld discusses how television has fast become a more creative outlet than film, the effects of the opposing distribution forces of high-def and video over the Internet, how 3D may be able to save film & television and how the Internet will lead to a totalitarian state where citizens will happily submit to the government via Facebook.

In this second video Sonnenfeld discusses how television has changed, how technology helps him produce Pushing Daisies, finding his visual style along with the Coen brothers on Blood Simple and how the Internet is throwing a monkey wrench in the whole industry that no one yet knows what the ramifications will be.”

Watch them both here.

Recently John Galt, Head of Advanced Digital Imaging at Panavision, and Larry Thorpe, National Marketing Manager at Canon Broadcast & Communications Division, opened a discussion on common misunderstandings in Digital Camera Specifications. Panavision has kindly granted FreshDV permission to present the seven-part in-depth video series here.

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 5: Three Chip Digital Cameras
Line pairs per Millimeter, Differences between HDTV and SDTV lens standards, a demonstration of the MTF-Aliasing dilemma using three chip cameras, Loading the imager MTF into the digital container.

Continue watching FreshDV’s presentation of this informative series here or at FreshTV. You can also download H.264 720p and 1080p versions of this Part 5 presentation from Panavision.

DCP has an article that discusses the decision to use Red Digital Cinema cameras for a new Switchfoot music video, and the post-production workflow they used to accomplish the shoot in a very short amount of time. Good summary of what new Red shooters should know.

At NAB this year Redrock was showing off their new full-featured microMatteBox and a shoulder mount support system called the microShoulderMount. FreshDV has been tracking the development progress of both products since Redrock announced them, and we were impressed with the build quality and mature featureset of the mattebox when we saw it in person at NAB. You can see our video coverage of the microMatteBox here. We also had the opportunity to shoot extensively with the very affordable microShoulderMount support system…this rig should be a welcome addition to any handheld shooters kit. Watch the microShoulderMount video podcast here.

And as of today, both Redrock products have been officially released. Orders are being taken at www.redrockmicro.com or your local Redrock reseller. The microMatteBox pricing starts at $595 and microShoulderMount pricing starts at $275. A special microMatteBox Red Camera bundle includes 19mm rod integration and starts at $795. And if you’d like to see the new offerings in person, Redrock will be exhibiting at Cine Gear Expo in mid-June.

The Foundry has announced a new set of plugins for Nuke 5, these tools are built to ease the pain of post-production on 3D stereo films. The Foundry R&D team says that Ocula plugins use new disparity-mapping algorithms to warp, stretch, and squeeze just those areas of an image that require tweaking for optimal stereo viewing. This is a much higher level of control than just warping or shifting an entire image plane on X, Y or Z.

Ocula plug-ins allow artists to apply a multitude of adjustments to stereo image pairs. All corrections can be made to the left and right eye channels either together or separately, and the results of these corrections ultimately help to minimise or eliminate discomfort from the 3D viewing experience.

Users can correct horizontal alignment issues with Ocula’s Interocular Distance Shifter. Using disparity map data, a new ‘virtual’ view is created between the original left and right eye positions, with the result being that objects of different fore, mid and background depths are resolved more accurately for the viewer. This is different to an X-axis shift where only the image plane is moved.

Ocula’s Vertical Aligner will automatically attempt to vertically align corresponding image features in each view, to minimize or eliminate the effect known as ‘key-stoning’. This is not a single Y-shift for the whole image – with disparity mapping the correction varies across the entire image.

Ocula plugins should be available for the Nuke version 5.1 release in June of this year. More info at www.thefoundry.co.uk

Recently John Galt, Head of Advanced Digital Imaging at Panavision, and Larry Thorpe, National Marketing Manager at Canon Broadcast & Communications Division, opened a discussion on common misunderstandings in Digital Camera Specifications. Panavision has kindly granted FreshDV permission to present the seven-part in-depth video series here.

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 4: Diving Deeper into MTF
Pixels are not resolution, Practical measurements of MTF, Introduction to sinusoidal MTF charts, The Panavision sinusoidal MTF Chart, MTF benches for measuring lenses, Cascaded MTF of a DI, Sensor MTF response, Depth of Field, MTF measurements of real world lenses.

Continue watching FreshDV’s presentation of this informative series here or at FreshTV. You can also download H.264 720p and 1080p versions of this Part 4 presentation from Panavision.

Recently John Galt, Head of Advanced Digital Imaging at Panavision, and Larry Thorpe, National Marketing Manager at Canon Broadcast & Communications Division, opened a discussion on common misunderstandings in Digital Camera Specifications. Panavision has kindly granted FreshDV permission to present the seven-part in-depth video series here.

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 3: Introducing MTF
Introduction to MTF, Introduction to an individual element’s contribution to final MTF, Transferring contrast, Cascading MTFs, Introduction to Otto Schade, Perceived picture sharpness and MTF, Edge Sharpness, image textures, and resolving power.

Continue watching FreshDV’s presentation of this informative series here or at FreshTV. You can also download H.264 720p and 1080p versions of this Part 3 presentation from Panavision.

Buzz Out Loud, CNet’s tech Podcast of Indeterminate Length recently mentioned the new lease on life that HD-DVD and it’s players have earned in broadcast and production markets. It seems that due in part to convenience and affordability, HD-DVD is being used to show off high definition content to prospective customers.

In related news, ThinkGeek is now offering the ultimate in deprecated geekery…the Betamax to HD-DVD Converter! No word on if it will also copy SACD or Laserdiscs.

Recently John Galt, Head of Advanced Digital Imaging at Panavision, and Larry Thorpe, National Marketing Manager at Canon Broadcast & Communications Division, opened a discussion on common misunderstandings in Digital Camera Specifications. Panavision has kindly granted FreshDV permission to present the seven-part in-depth video series here.

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 1: What’s in a Pixel?

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 2: Keeping Harry Happy

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 3: Introducing MTF

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 4: Diving Deeper into MTF

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 5: Three Chip Digital Cameras

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 6: Single Sensor Cameras (Bayer)

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 7: Single Sensor Cameras Continued

Recently John Galt, Head of Advanced Digital Imaging at Panavision, and Larry Thorpe, National Marketing Manager at Canon Broadcast & Communications Division, opened a discussion on common misunderstandings in Digital Camera Specifications. Panavision has kindly granted FreshDV permission to present the seven-part in-depth video series here.

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 2: Keeping Harry Happy
The Nyquist Theorem, linking optical and digital sampling, The implications of Fill factor and optical low pass filtering, The Nyquist boundaries of of motion pictures, and Limiting resolution.

Continue watching FreshDV’s presentation of this informative series here or at FreshTV. You can also download H.264 720p and 1080p versions of this Part 2 presentation from Panavision.

Recently John Galt, Head of Advanced Digital Imaging at Panavision, and Larry Thorpe, National Marketing Manager at Canon Broadcast & Communications Division, opened a discussion on common misunderstandings in Digital Camera Specifications. Panavision has kindly granted FreshDV permission to present the seven-part in-depth video series here.

Demystifying Digital Camera Specifications Part 1: What’s in a Pixel?
A short history of CCD/CMOS development, Sub-sampling and Super-sampling, HD lens and camera design strategies, Photosites - the tradeoff between resolution, dynamic range, and noise, Digital output signals from cameras, UHDTV, 2K and 4K cameras, and DCI Standards for 2K and 4K.

Continue watching FreshDV’s presentation of this informative series here or at FreshTV. You can also download H.264 720p and 1080p versions of this Part 1 presentation from Panavision.

Early last week Avid announced their new VideoRAID ST and SR solutions that enable editors to continue working full speed ahead even while a RAID drive is being rebuilt.

“…Avid VideoRAID solutions help customers keep up with the fast pace of digital content creation by maintaining full performance and data protection, while rebuilding the drives in the background. Customers will also be able to take advantage of real-time playback of up to two streams of uncompressed HD on as few as eight Avid VideoRAID drives. Additionally, Avid is offering all new VideoRAID ST and SR customers a three-year warranty on drive mechanisms and enclosures and will provide advanced exchange of replacement parts to customers at no additional cost.”

The VideoRAID ST includes a 5-drive tower while VideoRAID SR is a 16-drive rack mount configuration. Capacities are 2.5TB to 16TB per system. Here’s a quick glance at the featureset:

* Real-time parity RAID
* Full performance during drive rebuild (albeit without “full content protection”)
* 2.5TB to 16TB capacity
* SR model includes load-sharing, redundant power supplies
* Field-replaceable controllers, drives, and power supplies

MSRP starts at $4795 USD for 2.5 TB. Expect these new VideoRAID offerings to begin shipping in Q2 2008. More info at www.avid.com/videoraidST