Panasonic solid-state shooters have had a fantastic tool called P2 Genie for quite some time now. The software simplifies and automates the process of dumping P2 cards to disk so they can be re-used in a shoot. I’ve used it, and it works beautifully. So I was delighted today to see a similar application for Sony SxS shooters, ShotPut EXpress. It’s cross-platform for PC and Intel-Mac users, and at just $49 it looks like a worthy investment. Here’s the scoop:

ShotPut EXpress features Single card (manual) and Multiple card (auto) modes. Simply insert the SxS card into a PowerBook or Notebook’s ExpressCard slot and ShotPut EXpress makes secure, verified copies of the SxS card’s video contents (the BPAV folder) in up to three (3) locations. ShotPut EXpress makes a printable activities report log of all the file transfer activities. This text file shows all the details including names of cards and files, the copy destination names, file sizes, duration of each transfer and aggregate transfer time, date, etc. A great way to document and organize your project and billable time.

Fast Copying: Perform copies at top speed without the overhead of Finder or Explorer.
Automatic or Manual Copies: Manually select one or more drives to copy. Or use the auto offload mode to sequentially copy SxS cards upon insertion.
Easy Folder Naming: Save time and improve consistency and organization by auto-naming the copy folders.
Improve Workflow: Make up to 3 simultaneous SxS card copies at the same time.
Reformat Cards: After offloading is finished, automatically Erase the BPAV folder contents and Rename the card so it’s ready to return to the camera.
Security: Verify byte-to-byte comparisons of your media copies to ensure integrity of the files.
Verification Report: Create a record of file transfer activity, how the copies were named, time, date, etc. Save complete details for project organization and billable time.
Print Offload Log: Offload results are presented in a text file, printable with the click of a button.
Session Error Checking: Prevents overwriting of existing folders and duplicate offloading of the same card.
Progress Bar: Displays overall percent completion and file-by-file progress during the copy process.
Copy Cards or Disks: The BPAV contents of any mountable volume (drive) can be copied.

You can purchase ShotPut EXpress for Mac or Windows via Imagine Products.

Assimilate has announced a new product aimed directly at users of the Red Digital Cinema camera. Scratch Cine is a tool that handles .r3d files and is designed to handles dailies and ingest tasks like one-light grading, tape and file exports, and metadata handling. No pricing details have been announced, we’ll try to get some details at NAB.

(Via Studio Daily)

If you are one of the ones who took the leap of faith and updated to Quicktime version 7.4.1, you may have noticed that certain codec export choices have simply vanished. Gone! Oh noes! Where is my Sorensen and Motion JPEG option? Fear not, they are still there. Like a cancer aids it’s host, Apple was just helping you out by gently pushing you in the direction of newer, more improved codecs (*cough*H.264*cough*). In 7.4.1 they added a new QT Preferences checkbox and left it unticked by default. You can restore your precious export options by going to System Preferences > Quicktime > Advanced and ticking the “Show legacy encoders” checkbox. The codecs that Apple didn’t invite to the QT 7.4.1 weekend kegger are:

BMP
Cinepak
Component Video
Graphics
H.261
H.263
Motion JPEG A
Motion JPEG B
Planar RGB
Sorenson Video
Sorenson Video3
TGA
TIFF
Video

There is a specific support doc on this issue here. And if the 7.4.1 update is causing you problems, you can always revert using these instructions.

Media 100 has announced their video codecs are available now for download at their support website.

With these free codecs, editors and graphics professionals can playback and render modern and legacy Media 100 media files in any QuickTime-based application. The codecs include Universal Binary versions of the Media 100 i and Media 100 HD codecs as well as the PowerPC Instant Media 844/X codec.

You can also get the codecs free as part of the Media 100 Producer time-limited Trial Version. Now if they would only announce a few reasons to actually use Media 100…

Via Digital Basin comes this link to a handy utility called HFSExplorer that allows PC users to access HFS+ formatted hard disks and external drives. When Fat32 doesn’t give you enough space to transfer large files (2GB limitation), you can use the tool to copy from the Mac disk to NTFS. Likewise, NTFS drives can be read (and written) on Mac systems with MacFuse.

Ars Technica has a short article up about a possible patent dispute related to blue LED technology that could hamper manufacturers of products that use it…including Blu-ray disc players. Ars mentions specifically that this doesn’t just look like your average patent troll…there may be merit to the claims.

Given the scope of the claim, the number of companies named in the complaint is unsurprisingly high. Highlights from the list include Hitachi, LG, Lite-On, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Pioneer, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. Normally, a list of patent-infringing companies that includes world+dog is a good sign that a troll is at work, but the woman behind this particular lawsuit, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, appears to be more than your average bridge-dweller. In fact, she’s an expert in LEDs and has been for longer than many of us have been alive.

The above named companies clearly have far too much invested in this technology to let a patent dispute stop anything…if judges determine that Rothschild’s claims are valid, there will surely have to be a hefty settlement out of court.

Looks like some enterprising folks over at OnSuper8 are hacking together a Workprinter XP and Red Digital Cinema Camera to use for Super8 film telecine. Nice…

Canon’s new HV30, the update to the revered HV20, is the only camera in this price range to offer three major framerate modes: 60i, 30P, and 24P. Canon has suggested that the 30P mode is ideal for online video creators, since most online video is cut to 15 frames per second and that allows the encoder to simply remove every other frame, resulting in better quality video. Or so goes the theory. Camcorderinfo recently tested this assumption with Youtube, and has provided side-by-side examples of their test footage so you can compare it in realtime. Check it out.

The HV30 is available at B&H, currently at $899 with the $100 instant rebate. Purchases made via that link help support FreshDV at no additional cost to you.

TechThoughts and shooter Marshall Levy have teamed up to test a variety of different CF media cards for reliability and speed with the new Sony Z7U HDV camcorder with the CF card recorder option. What they discovered is that there is definitely a difference in media quality between brands and cards. In testing, about half the cards showed sync issues with the tape recordings (starting up to 3.5 seconds later), and some showed dropout artifacts. This is very interesting data.

Snapper is a unique application for Mac users that allows you to do a number of useful things with audio files on the fly. By simply selecting audio files in Finder, you can quickly pull out snippets of audio, export files to various formats, split stereo channels, drop a selection into Pro Tools, and much more. It’ll convert files on the fly to AIFF, WAV, BWF, mp3, or m4a (hello, Wedding and Event iRiver users!). The best way to understand is to watch Snapper in action, check out the 100-second demonstration video.

(Via MultimediaShooter)

Stu Maschwitz has a in-depth post up where he talks about the latitude of current Digital Cinema cameras, and how the Rec709 colorspace (i.e. video) handles highlights vs film’s highlight handling. Where it gets sticky is how a clipped highlight in video maps to the highlights on film. If you are shooting with the Red One or another such camera and wish to output to film at some point, this is a must-read. Short on time? Read the compact summary. Here’s an excerpt:

“Shooting with RED One and monitoring Rec709, if you put 18% gray at 45% IRE, you’ll capture 2 stops over 18% gray, plus some headroom.
Want to match Panalog? Underexpose by 3 stops for 5 stops over 18% gray, plus headroom.”

For more experiences with the Red One from the field, read this Studio Daily article on the production of 3 Days Gone. Two interesting notes…they used a P2 recorder on set to capture and review dailies, and ProRes proxies of the 4K footage for editing.

As with any new technology, there is a learning curve and some pain for early adopters. One of the issues with the CompactFlash media workflow introduced with the new Sony HVR-Z7U and HVR-S270U camcorders is the fact that CF cards are formatted in FAT32, therefore they have a 4GB filesize limitation (that’s about 20 minutes of video). Much like Panasonic’s method of spanning P2 cards, these new HDV camcorders simply split the recorded M2T clips at 4GB for rejoining later. Sony has released a software utility for PC users that can address this rejoining process, as well as provide renaming assistance if you’ve managed to record clips on different cards with the same filename. My understanding is that it’s basically a standalone import utility that will automatically re-join split clips as it pulls them off the cards. You can download it here.

There is also a new Final Cut Pro plugin from Sony that enables access to the CF media from FCP’s Log and Transfer function. Again, this is a very P2-like workflow. One minor difference is that the Log and Transfer Preview is inactive. Once files are selected, the software wraps the M2T streams into Quicktime and automatically joins 4GB-spanned segments as it transfers the clips. I have to say that I am quite impressed that Sony has delivered this particular plugin so soon. It looks like a simple and trouble-free workflow for Mac editors. You can download both versions and instructions here. We have continuing coverage of these two camcorders here.

Via Scott Simmons comes a link to one finishing company’s comparison test of Apple ProRes SD codec vs Uncompressed. This comparison was done on Standard Definition footage.

“When playing at speed, 1st Generation 10bit is indistinguishable from 3rd Generation ProResSD. I can’t see the edit…When paused on identical frames and quickly toggling between 1st generation Uncompressed and the 3rd generation ProResSD - levels and chroma are rock solid steady, but there is a oh-so-slight softening of the image. It’s slight enough that most my clients won’t be able to see it. Heck, I barely see it.

ProsRes SD is an impressive codec. While only doubling the storage space of DV it gives 98% of the quality of Uncompressed. Good enough for finishing purposes? Yes. I would not use it for heavy compositing where every drop of detail is essential. Unlike the HD variant, which I’ve heard is rock-solid through (at least) 10 generations, the SD variant’s ‘lossy-ness’ does exist after 3 generations.”

Over at kenstone.net there is a FCP tutorial on how to get best results when outputting Standard Definition DVDs from PMW-EX1 sourced HD footage.

Following the news of Blockbuster, Best Buy, Netflix and Warner Brothers backing Blu-Ray, it appears that the blue-laser has won the HD disc format war. According to multiple sources, Toshiba is pulling the plug on HD-DVD manufacturing and marketing. All that’s left is an official announcement from the consortium of HD-DVD backers. While this development is bad for early adopters who chose HD-DVD, it is a Good Thing for the industry and consumers in general. Regardless of the differing features they offered, having two formats to choose from has stalled adoption of the high-definition discs. I personally know a number of production companies that have been waiting for a clear winner before going ahead with plans to deliver HD content to clients. I, for one, welcome our new Blu disc overlords.