Over at Ken Stone’s tutorial site, digital guru Bruce Nazarian has posted an extensive article on authoring Blu-ray video discs on the Mac platform. He also offers advice on which players to buy, and why.

Last month at the IBC show in Amsterdam, a small Swedish company named Ikonoskop launched an exciting new digital cinema camera called the A-Cam dII. The dII offers nearly 2K resolution from a 16mm-sized CCD imager, records uncompressed DNG sequences to high-speed solid-state media, and can be overcranked up to 60fps. With a number of lens mount options that include PL, C-mount, and still image lenses (via the IMS mount), the dII has a lot to offer to those with an existing lens investment. Perhaps one of the greatest attractions of the dII is it’s compact, integrated design that thoughtfully includes a viewfinder tucked into the side of the body.

I wrote 1200 words on this new camera shortly after it was announced, comparing it to the Red One and Red Scarlet. You can read that article over at ProVideoCoalition. It’s an intriguing offering from both a price and performance standpoint, and since the announcement I’ve heard more speculation and questions about the dII than answers. So we got in touch with the Ikonoskop crew to try to get some of these burning questions answered.

The following 30-minute podcast is a frank and open discussion about the dII that should clear the air about what it does, and doesn’t offer. If you’ve got questions about this new camera, we hope this interview will answer them. Listen to the podcast by subscribing to our podcast feed.

 Ikonoskop A-cam dII Interview [30:21m]: Download

After reading last week’s Real World Video Compression article that compared four Mac compression tools, I suggested a more comparative test that took time to standardize encoding settings to level the playing field. In the initial shootout, default templates and encoding settings were used for the most part. That’s not to say that the initial test isn’t useful information…in fact, it may be more useful to the majority of users that just want a “set it and forget it” approach to encoding (apologies to Ron Popeil for borrowing his catchphrase). But for more advanced users who will immediately begin pushing knobs and digging into the encoding templates, a comparative test is invaluable for determining what kind of quality and encode times you can expect from each solution. And reviewer Andy Beach has done just that with his latest update to the article.

“As we look at the results, here were the things that stood out for me - all the times were closer to one another than the last test. True, Compressor still took the longest, but it definitely closed the gap. Both it and Episodes times fell and were more consistent this go around (notice neither had an extremely long run as they did before). Visual Hub’s time did increase, which I expect, though not very much.”

“In an overall quality comparison, I also thought Episode came out looking best, followed by Visual Hub and Compressor. There is a sharpness to the image (both video and gfx) in the Episode Pro encode that the other two don’t have (again, check out the full screen to really see the difference).”

I recommend that you read the full Mac Encoder Shootout Redux article here. Thanks to Andy for listening and revisiting this test!

 Film Master Red Workflow Interview [16:39m]: Download

Digital Vision recently announced they would be adding native support for Redcode RAW footage in their grading/finishing app Film Master. The following is an audio podcast discussion with Simon Cuff, President of Digital Vision. Simon takes time to answer FreshDV’s questions about the specifics of their .R3D support and talks about how Film Master and Data Conform can be used both in the ingest and final finishing process.

To listen, subscribe to the FreshDV podcast feed.

Red One behind the scenes photo by Stu Maschwitz of Prolost. Used with permission.

Real World Video Compression has posted a Encoder Shootout between three common Mac software compression options, and one hardware assisted solution. The disparity in price between the tools tested is enormous…with VisualHub at under $25, and Episode Pro nearly $1000. Much like the pricing, the speed and quality of the results were varied.

“…on the Macbook Pro, the Turbo264 was the clear winner, coming in at realtime for the encode for both versions. Surprisingly however, Visual Hub came in second at fairly close to real time. Both Episode and Compressor did about the same coming in at 2 to 4x depending on the encoder and setting. Interestingly enough, each took a great deal longer on one encode, but not the same one (compressor struggled with the iPhone clip, while Episode choked on the Apple TV one). Arguably, I can guess that both Episode & Compressor are doing multi-pass encodes by default, while Visual Hub is doing a single pass. I’m not sure about Turbo as its offloading the encode process to the external DSP, but i’ll throw a guess that it’s single pass until i learn otherwise.”

It is very important to note that this test relied only on default templates for each tool. The author made no attempt to establish a baseline set of encoding options and settings, so the results shouldn’t be read as a definitive answer for which tool is the best performer overall. To the authors credit, he makes this clear…it is a shootout of “quick and dirty” default settings only. While it’s an informative test in that regard, I wish he had also performed a comparative test with identical settings for each tool. Perhaps it will be revisited in a future article…

UPDATE: Andy has expanded on his encoder research by performing a more comparative test and taking time to optimize each software solution. You can read about his findings here.

 AJA IoHD Production Set Case Study [4:02m]: Download

Earlier this year, FreshDV conducted a week of intensive HD camera reviews. We comparatively tested the Panasonic Varicam, HPX-3000, HVX-200, Sony F900, XDCAM PDW-350, and XDCAM PMW-EX1 in a real-world production set environment. Additionally, we shot these cameras next to a RED One camera, with a 35mm Arri for baseline film stock comparison. It was a grueling production schedule to complete all our tests in the short allotment of time we had, and to further complicate matters we wanted to capture each HD camera in a high-quality master codec as well as it’s native media/format. This would allow us later to compare the two and rule out differences in codec/compression artifacts vs. sensor/processing noise. For that task, we opted for Apple’s ProRes 422 HQ codec, which was close enough to lossless for our needs. AJA was kind enough to provide an IoHD unit to handle ingest and ProRes capture, and it greatly simplified our workflow. In addition to ably handling all the ingest duties, the IoHD was very useful for monitoring on our Panasonic BT-LH2600W HD broadcast monitor. You can read a case study article over at B&H that outlines our workflow on set, and we shot some behind the scenes footage from the set as I worked with the IoHD.

View the video embedded below, or high-res at FreshTV. You can also download an iPod/iPhone compatible version via the attached link, or simply subscribe to our Audio/Video podcast feed.

Thanks for the following companies for their support in making this test possible: Resolution Digital Studios, Zacuto, Schumacher Camera, Fletcher Chicago, Abel Cine NY, Lakeview Productions, and Midtown Video. Stay tuned at FreshDV for our test results.

Users of the Canon XH-A1 may be excited to learn that the filmmakers making Crank 2: High Voltage are leaning heavily on the $3300 XHA1 and another affordable Canon offering, the sub-$1000 HF10. They chose these two camcorders for their image quality, compactness, and affordability. The first Crank film was shot on Sony’s HDCAM SR format using three Sony F-950 HD cameras.

“Mark: I won’t have back problems because, you know, they’re very light. And they’re really inexpensive so it doesn’t hurt my pocketbook, but no really, we can put these cameras in places that people haven’t and we can put 10 of them in places where people haven’t. And one of the things it allows us to do is…we’re doing this moving bullet time camera rig where we take 8 HF-10’s and we put it on a light weight piece of speed rail and I can roller blade and skate around Jason Statham as he’s blasting down the street with a weapon and capture just rad images.

Brian: I mean, this is an ADD movie so we should have ADD cameras, so you know the idea of like moving the camera in outrageous ways and being able to destroy cameras without blinking an eye is more important to us than, you know, sort of having this filmic image.”

I can find no references to capturing footage tethered (nor does the A1 have HD-SDI out, that is only available on the XH-G1), so it seems at least possible that they are recording HDV to tape. See the above image of the XHA1 on a handheld Fig Rig, it appears to have no tether. However they do mention the ability to shoot “full HD” 1920 x 1080, which neither Canon camera can do (HDV is 1440×1080, not full raster). Has anyone spotted other images or references of a capture device in use?

They also said that they are shooting with an aggressive in-camera look, and doing very little in post…which is an interesting approach. The Crank team showed a lot of excitement in the past about the Red camera, shot “Game” with it already, and they mention that in this article as well.

“Mark: We just want to move faster. We’re using these little cameras because, you know, red is a beautiful image. We love red cameras, we’re going to shoot with them again, but it’s like shooting a 35mm film and you need a ton of AC’s and it takes a lot of time for set up. With the cameras we’re using we literally can point and shoot and we have the same image quality that we had on “Crank 1”. You know full HD, 1920 x 1080 res—it’s great.”

It will be interesting to see how this film turns out, both in the way the camera is used cinematically, and the final image quality. Here’s hoping it turns out rad.

You can purchase the Canon XH-A1 and Canon HF-10 at B&H for $3299 and $819, respectively. Purchases made via those links help support FreshDV at no additional cost to you.

The new Focus Enhancements FS5 video recorder is now available. This latest version to the Focus line of hard-drive recorders adds better support for metadata and can be wirelessly accessed on-set for better logging on the fly. The FS-5 also includes MXF support that allows HDV media to be edited natively in Avid. B&H has it in stock for $2,195.

Ever wonder what formats and encoding options the “big boys” use for their streaming video content? Jan Ozer has written a detailed 2-part article on the subject. In it, he talks about how he examined video content from ABC, Accuweather, ESPN, CNET, Cisco, Microsoft, and many others. He breaks down into tables the current trends as well as what formats and datarates are in use. So if you are re-evaluating your codec options, perhaps this info will be helpful. Read Part1 and Part2.

Studio Daily has posted a video that talks about best practices and workflows for getting Red footage from REDCine into your NLE of choice. Watch it here.

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.