Two new mass-storage options on the market. The Mercury Elite triple interface 2TB array is a $1100 solution in brushed aluminum with a Mac-inspired cheesegrater front grille. And Buffalo ups the ante with their 3TB TeraStation at a cool $2,499. Read on for all the juicy details.

On May 20th, Art Lebedev Studio will begin accepting limited pre-orders on the highly-anticipated Optimus Maximus OLED Keyboard. “OLED” refers to the individual Organic LED displays on each key of the keyboard that can display any image or character that you choose. This makes the Maximus extremely versatile and configurable. Consider the possibilities of a keyboard that displays your NLE shortcuts when you are working in that software, but then switches on the fly to accomodate other programs, say Photoshop. Very useful.

Like all things in life, you get what you pay for…the estimated retail price of the Maximus is $1500. They have posted a price comparison of theirs vs a bundle of other high-dollar non-standard keyboards (some really cool models there that I’ve not seen before). Lebedev anticipates that the first 200 models will be completed by the end of November ‘07 and shipping before the new year.

You may remember a in-depth Build Your Own HD Workstation feature article in DV Magazine recently by Mike Curtis. In it he dissected HD editing systems, and listed recommended system configurations. Great article, tons of insight. No sense in re-inventing the wheel, right? Well, he’s taken it a step further now and partnered with Silverado Systems to make those systems directly available to end users. So you can save the time you would take to “build your own.” There are Uncompressed HD editing options at nearly every price point, from just under $9K to all the way up to $23K.

Another service HD4NDS just launched is Mike’s Amazon Affiliate Store. He’s done a really good job of listing a wide variety of categories. Something for everyone. If you are shopping Amazon anyway, it’s a win-win for everyone involved. HD For Indies has been a wonderful resource for me personally, I’ll be making all my Amazon purchases through Mike’s store. Thanks Mike!

Disclaimer: We also list Amazon Affiliate items in our AStore and various articles here at FreshDV from time to time, and have found it a great way for readers to support their favorite sites without really having to pay anything extra. We are also a Videoguys and B&H affiliate. Any purchases made through those two last links directly benefit FreshDV, and ultimately you the reader.

Apple Insider reports that Apple is moving to certify LED-backlighting for 13″ Macbook laptops. It has been reported previously that the 15″ Macbook Pro will most likely get the upgrade first, speculation is that we’ll see the new displays shipping Q2 or Q3 of this year.

Blackmagic Design has dropped an update to the popular Intensity HDMI capture card. With the new Intensity Pro, you get analog component inputs as well as HDMI. So you can shoot straight-up uncompressed with a wider variety of commodity camcorders, or just use the card (as many do) to ingest frame-accurate long-GOP HDV into a more easily editable format like DVCPRO HD, or perhaps Apple’s exciting new ProRes 422 codec. You can do realtime colorspace and down-conversion to a variety of HD and SD formats on the fly during capture. And the cards are cross-platform with drivers for both Mac and PC. The new Intensity Pro card retails for just $349, and you can still get the HDMI-only version for $249. A great update to an already fantastic product.

Videoguys has the HDMI Intensity card series listed at $245 and $345, respectively. B&H has them for $249 and $331.

The Rosco Litepad is a innovative little lighting system that looks like it could be a really handy addition to your kit or on set. Low heat, relatively low power draw, tiny form factor.

Here’s an interesting cross-platform solution from Griffin Tech for a multi-jog or editing jog dial. It’s called the PowerMate USB Multimedia Controller, and is reminiscent of a volume knob (actually one of it’s intended functions).

There are drivers for both Mac and PC that allow you to assign custom functions to the hardware, and it’s under $45 from Amazon. And it has a trendy blue lighting accent, so you KNOW you really want one now. G’wan, it’ll impress your clients…

Swap your Powerbook, Macbook or Macbook Pro optical drive for a MCE OptiBay add-on kit, and you can install an additional hard disk for more storage or even RAID use.

(Via Engadget)

Here’s another Canon HV 20 review, compliments of CNET. Despite being dinged a bit for low-light performance, the new camcorder still scored at 7.7 out of 10. If you have been living under a rock, the HV20 is one of the more highly-anticipated “bang-for-buck” camcorders this season, and just so happens to shoot 24p video. It also plays back 24f and 30f recording modes, so it can be used in concert with the Canon pro-level HDV cameras.

The HV20 is available for just under $1100 from B&H and Amazon.com

(Via Digital Camcorder News)

Brian Valente of Redrock Micro has posted an audio podcast on the topic of choosing glass for your Redrock M2 35mm Cinema Lens Adapter. While they obviously are making recommendations for the M2 adapter, the advice transfers well to other 35mm adapters. Good stuff.

We recently broke the news that the new Foveas Wireless Remote Follow-Focus unit is for sale. Now I have it on good authority that Foveas and FSPRO are teaming up to deliver a “Indie Motion Bundle” that includes the Remote Follow Focus (with wireless monitor) and the FS PRO SM1 Stabilizer. The package deal will sell for around 3000 euro, which is discounted about 10% off what you would pay for each product seperately.

I’ve never used the FSPRO personally, but have been told that it is well-suited to slightly heavier camcorder rigs, particularly those with the added weight of a 35mm adapter and lens (that a Glidecam 4000 simply can’t handle). The FSPRO is designed to handle loads between 6 and 20 pounds. Lighter loads can be flown with the use of counter weights.

So if those two products were on your radar already, you might want to stay tuned for the announcement from Foveas and FSPRO.

Panasonic has lowered pricing on 8GB P2 cards by nearly $500. It’s not clear if this is a sale or a permanent price drop. They are now listed for $700 at Panasonic. B&H still has them listed at $1100 though. UPDATE: B&H has updated the price now to 679.95. That’s more like it…

This looks like a cheap and potentially very handy little adapter from Sonnet…it’s an IEEE-1394 FW400 > FW800 port adapter that converts a 6-pin connection to a 9-pin. Just under $15.

(Via Scott Simmons Editblog)

Saw this new product offering mentioned over at the new Studio Daily Blog. Purplelink is an integrated uncompressed capture and media storage solution, all built into a hardened case for simple on-set capture and playback.

After making a quiet debut at last year’s Cinec tradeshow in Munich, Germany, Pentamagik is bringing its completely tapeless digital video field solution for uncompressed HD, Purplelink, stateside in time for NAB. Purpleink acts as both media storage (five 400GB hard drives), with two HD-SDI inputs and four audio inputs, and editing suite all housed in a hard case and includes metadata fields for comments and a suite of color correction tools. And as a Windows-base you can load your software on it to check the plates against composites and CG work.

More specs and details at www.purplelink.info

Kevin McAuliffe has an article up at Digital Producer on how to best build and configure a Mac FCP HDV-editing workstation, the target being a very high-performance system for under $50,000. All told, the final estimated investment ends up right around $31,000, so I guess the article is a smashing success…right?

He starts with a Mac Pro tower equipped with twin dual-core Xeon processors, and begins adding a laundry list of components, including nearly $15K worth of Fibre Channel storage. I’ll defer to more informed opinions on whether or not better/lower-cost options exist for some of these components.

Mike Curtis of HD For Indies wrote a similar article for DV Magazine that goes a bit further in-depth with options and various price points. His allows for three different budget/feature levels, and breaks out other additional options with estimated pricing for each. Definately a must-read.

(Via Digital Camcorder News)