Adolf Hitler was a film buff. He once said of cameras “Every German family must have one. Every aspect of the nation’s growth would be captured.” And in 1936 be bought his companion Eva Von Braun a silent 8mm camera for her birthday.

When Hitler’s secret Berghof mountain retreat was inspected by the US Office of Strategic Services, they discovered reels upon reels of film in the cellar. Most had been shot by Braun, and the footage offered a silent and chilling look into the seemingly mundane day-to-day happenings at the retreat. Engaged in casual conversation on the terrace are high ranking staff such as Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Karl Wolff, Albert Speer, Joachim Von Ribbentrop, and Reinhard Heidrich. But because the films were silent, they were largely regarded as useless for information purposes, and have languished in storage for years.

In the documentary Hitler’s Private World: Revealed, you can see some of this footage. And now thanks to a technology called ALR, you can hear it too. It is a very unsettling experience to hear Adolf Hitler “speaking” in “normal” conversation. To hear him cracking jokes, talking about films he enjoyed (such as Mickey Mouse, who knew!), and even casually flirting with his mistress Eva Braun.

ALR stands for Automated Lip Reading, and was developed by speech recognition expert Frank Hubner. In the simplest of terms, an ALR system uses a computer to motion track digitized footage, recogonize the shapes made by the lips of onscreen characters, and reconstruct the appropriate sounds to match the lip movements. It is uncannily accurate, even at extreme angles of view.

You can watch Hitler’s Private World: Revealed on Google Video. I highly recommend it.

We noted a few months ago that Blackmagic would be bringing an HDMI capture card to market. The $250 card is now shipping.

A good friend of mine picked one up the other day, and is doing some testing on a Mac system. After creating a striped RAID array for the captures (don’t think for a second that a single drive can keep up), he’s now wrangling with the card and drivers. It works part of the time, but there are some issues with it randomly not being recognized by his system. More details to come. Have any other readers had success with the card?

Jim Jannard and Co. have released photos of the Red Digital Cinema “Spike” prototype camera body. This is fresh off the mill, and is not a production version. The announcement was made at the new RedUser.net forum.

In related news, Mike Curtis has some recent updates on the Red Digital Cinema camera:

Some Red news - 320GB Red Drive, new images, lattitude tests - all happened last week, just reported today (been busy!)

My unofficial GUESSTIMATES on what frame sizes & rates will give what data rates and recording time on Red Drive and Red Flash. Includes a screen grab of Excel sheet with 24/25/30/50/60/120 fps for all recordable compressed frame sizes.

Tore Nordahl has crowned XDCAM HD the 2006 HD Camcorder of the Year. Though XDCAM HD is a format, not a camcorder…but I digress.

Apart from the obvious of making great HD video, three primary reasons made me choose Sony’s XDCAM HD as the professional HD camcorder of the year for 2006: (a) internal recording to the removable non-linear PD optical cartridge, (b) the high performance 1/2-inch 3xCCD imager with native 1440×1080 pixel matrix, and (c) a competitive US list price of $16,800 (without lens).

The guidelines for the selection process were:
- First delivered to North American customers in 2006
- Main stream professional HD use, with significant field usage
- Selling price range from $5,000 to $40,000 including basic lens
- Recording to internal “built-in” removable non-linear storage

DVGuru reports that Camcorderinfo’s review of the Sony HDR-FX7 has been posted. And it’s not a very glowing recommendation for the FX7. Here’s a few snippets to ponder:

“Sony has categorized the HDR-FX7 as a consumer camcorder, despite the very un-consumer MSRP of $3500…and Canon’s XH A1 makes a very persuasive contender at a mere $500 more…The FX7’s ClearVID CMOS sensors make a great impression in bright light, but under low light conditions the performance falls to pieces…The XH A1 has a ton of great audio features and the Sony FX7 doesn’t…We like the HDR-FX7 in itself…But in a comparative, competitive market, it simply can’t hold a candle to its main challenger.”

Read on for all the gory details.

Ars Technica reports that ownership of the DVD player has FINALLY surpassed ownership of VCR players for the first time.

During the third quarter of 2006, 81.2 percent of all US households reported owning at least one DVD player compared to 79.2 percent for VCRs. That figure marks a 6 percent increase in DVD player ownership from the same period in 2005, while VCRs ownership fell. It’s a far cry from 1999, when Nielsen first began tracking DVD ownership. At the end of the 90s, only 6.7 percent of households owned a DVD player, compared with 88.6 percent owning VCRs.

Now, a little history…the DVD version 1 standard was ratified in 1996. It took until 2003 for DVD rentals to surpass VHS rentals. And now 10 years after the DVD was first created, it’s players have finally gained a slight margin of ownership over the VCR. 10 years!

Now consider this…the format transition from VHS to DVD is uncannily similar to the format transition from SD DVD to High Definition DVD. Both represent a major format change, requiring new equipment. Both are regarded as a marginal perceived quality improvement over the “old” technology. Both are costly for early adopters, and require the re-purchase of movie libraries.

The major difference this time around? There are not one, but TWO competing HD disc formats that consumers are forced to choose from. So how long will this format shift take? Are we looking at another 10 years? Longer? Or maybe never? Because another 10 years is plenty of time for even the archaic studios to get the kinks worked out of digital downloads. Good luck, HD-DVD and BluRay. You’re going to need it.

I swear, this is the last time. I auctioned off a Sony VX-2100 just before Christmas, unfortunately the buyer is a complete deadbeat non-payer. Gotta love Ebay, it’s like the Wild West only a little more dangerous…

If anyone is interested, I’ve got the camcorder relisted as a one-day auction with a low Buy It Now. Thanks, and now we return you to your regularly scheduled post-holiday madness.

Video Trainers GeniusDV offer a handy free tip on marker durations for FCP editors. Did you know that you can extend a marker’s duration on the timeline? It’s pretty simple…create a marker, move the playhead down the timeline, and use Mark > Markers > Extend to stretch the marker to the playhead position. Presto.

Walter Graff dispels a commonly held misconception about depth of field in this short essay.

“I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the phrase, if you are shooting an interview and you back up your camera and zoom in your lens putting the person back into frame, you will decrease the depth of field making the background softer. I have heard this from first time movie makers all the way up to very experienced 25 year directors of photography. And there you have one of the greatest myths involving depth of field. It is such a myth that many textbooks print it to this day.”

Graff goes on to explain that what is really happening is a shift in perspective which lends to the illusion of a shallower depth of field. The reality is that the background retains the same amount of out-of-focus blur, but since a longer lens focal length compresses the angle of view, the blurry background objects are larger in the frame, and therefore appear more blurred. Don’t believe me? Go check out the article, there are a few example images that illustrate the point perfectly.

Wolfgang’s HDV Blog has an in-depth comparison of the new Sony FX7 up against the slightly older Sony FX1. The blog is completely written in German, you can view a Google Translated version here.

Wolfgang has posted a ton of HDV still frame grabs comparing the two camcorders. A large variety in the shots, so you can see how they relate in a wide variety of situations and settings. His is the first comparison I’ve seen that also contrasts the two camera’s focal lengths, one of his image sets clearly shows the extra length the FX7’s 20x zoom offers. For the other tests, he’s taken pains with the FX7 to approximate the FX1’s 12x focal length.

There is also a set of 9 HDV MPEG streams you can download and peruse, one from each camcorder. All shots and settings are matched and noted. German-speaking or not, this review is a must-read for anyone considering the new Sony HDR FX7 camera.

Both Kendal Miller and myself have been pretty busy lately what with projects and the holidays fast approaching, so a thousand apologies for the dearth of updated posts and content. Mea culpa. All better now, eh?

I will make time for a little shameless self-promotion though…I’ve got a good used VX-2100 camcorder for sale. It has been well cared for, and I’m frankly sorry to be losing it. But I’ve already got too many cameras, and it just doesn’t match my needs at this time. You can check it out here if you are interested, and there is also a matching Canon WD58 wide angle lens here. The auction includes a generic NP-F950 battery, but I’ll also throw in a used genuine Sony 950 batt for any FresHDV reader that should win the auction. (Just note “FresHDV battery” in the additional comments when you checkout.)

To commemorate the passing of one of my most fondly regarded cameras (they really are workhorses), I’ve taken a whole 30 seconds to whip up a honorary Haiku. Try to keep your excitement under control. :-)

An Ode To One Lux (in Haiku)
Sun gun, what is that?
Alas, we once knew you well
Traded for pixels

We’ll miss you, One Lux. Feel free to add your own Festive Video Haiku in the comments…

Sony has announced a free software update for Sony V1U camcorder users.

“New functionality includes support for the progressive scan modes (24A and 30 modes on the V1U/V1J/V1N camcorders, and 25 mode on the V1E/V1P/V1C camcorders) on the Sony HVR-V1 series HDV camcorders, and a built-in import module for the HVR-DR60 Hard Disk Recording Unit. With the 7.0c update, Vegas will properly handle the V1 series progressive scan modes automatically, without manual intervention. Users can also manually remove pulldown from native or downconverted 24p DV files.”

And in somewhat related news, Steve Mullen has posted Part 2 of his HDV@Work article series on Smart GOP Splicing for HDV.

This is just a quick reminder that the entry window for MotionZoneHD’s Nov-Dec “Move It” contest will close at the end of this month. There is still time for entries, so if you have been putting it off like I was, send ‘em on in!

As we previously mentioned, the 1st Place winner will receive a Kessler KC-8 Crane and the 2nd Place entry gets Barry Green’s HVX-200 book.

So I recently found one of the best gadgets to add to my lighting kit. While some lights like my JTL have built in dimmers most PRO light kits do not and require the use of ND gels, diffusion cloth, a focusable fresnel, or physically moving the light to control the light output. The other option is an external dimmer pack which typically runs about$90-$150/ each. Standard household dimmers are ineffective for pro applications in that they were never designed to handle 500-1000Watt lights. They way the cycle the current also can create interference with mics and audio gear. Enter the Harbor Freight Router Speed control.
A small compact switch with 15Amp fuse protection and variable speed control. These things work like a charm and are capable of handling up to about a 1500W light, the switch will let you select full on, off, or variable where you dial in the amount of light you want specifically. Recently I was on a shoot where a practical light had been on in the background and at the right levels in my wider shots but I found when I moved in closer it was over-exposed, however because of continuity reasons I couldn’t just eliminate it. With my dimmer I could have just ran the practical lamp through the dimmer and brought it down to the correct levels. Anyone who routinely uses lighting should have a couple of these in there kit. The total cost of this handy unit is $12.49, and while there may be applications and uses for the more expensive dimmer packs, for most light kits this should work fine. I immediately bought 4 and will probably pick up a few more to keep in my kit.

GET THEM HERE

Over at kenstone.net, Dan Brockett has shared a extremely informative article on shooting a network television pilot using the Panasonic HVX 200 camcorder. The white paper is LONG and DETAILED, chock-full of real-world this-is-how-you-do-it type knowledge. The sort of information that Mike Curtis would to classify as “look at this here scar”. The Good Stuff, from people that know. Well worth the read.