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)

Shane Ross has reviewed the Matrox MXO system, and has posted his findings in two parts. Part 1 and Part 2. In the 2nd section, Shane arrives at the conclusion that the MXO is more than capable of accurate broadcast color correction monitoring via a quality LCD panel.
Continue reading ‘Matrox MXO Review from an Editor’

Remote Control of a lens follow focus system has historically been a very costly solution, without many low-budget options to choose from. Redrock Micro is currently engineering a solution, and I’ve heard rumblings that Cinevate is considering such an offering. But neither are available for purchase at this time.

Now there is a new face on the block that is aiming squarely at the Indie market with a reasonably-priced wireless focus-pulling system. We’ve been watching Foveas for a few months now, and were pleased to hear that their recently announced wireless remote follow focus system is complete and orders will be shipping within 5-8 weeks.
Continue reading ‘Foveas Wireless Remote Follow Focus Unveiled’

The crew over at Camcorderinfo have released a review of the Sony HC7, and it isn’t all hugs and kisses. Any review that opens with the statement of the product in question; “was to be one of the best (of 2007)…But it didn’t work out that way”, well you know at that point it’s not going to be pretty. Here are a few telling comments culled from the multi-page review:

“At best, the Sony HDR-HC7 showed approximately 650 lines of vertical resolution and 580 lines of horizontal resolution. This represents a small improvement over last year’s HDR-HC3, but falls a bit short of the Canon HV10.”

“Sony camcorders with the 1/3â€? ClearVID CMOS typically performed very well in low light. Imagine our disappointment, albeit unsurprised disappointment, that HDR-HC7 performed so much worse than last year’s HDR-HC3.
Continue reading ‘Sony HDR-HC7 Camcorder Review’

Other World Computing announced 3GB RAM expansion packs for Intel MacBook Pro, MacBook, and iMac computers. Apple’s memory upgrades cap at 2GB, so this is very nice news to hear.

Graeme Nattress has released the latest plugin package for FCP users, this one called the “Big Box of Tricks“. The title says it all. Steve Douglas has a rundown of what plugins and features the Big Box of Tricks package will net you for a paltry $100. And owners of the discontinued Nattress Set 1 and Set 2 are eligible for a special upgrade rate. Rejoice! Why? Because Nattress plugins rock the casbah.

Just-announced Sandisk 8GB SD Card = $190.00
Panasonic 8GB P2 card = $1,200.00

If you hadn’t heard, P2 storage uses SD cards internally. Now I don’t EVER expect P2 technology to be equal to consumer storage prices, obviously Panasonic is using the cream of the SD card crop in manufacturing it’s cards (or they should be). After all, who wants their solid-state storage crapping out in the middle of a critical take? Professionals are willing to pay a premium for quality and reliability. How much of a premium is the question I ask. It does seem odd that P2 pricing hasn’t shown much of a downward trend, even as major advances in both capacity and pricing have been made in the consumer arena. I wonder if we will we ever see generic-brand P2 options?

(Via Camcorderinfo Blog)

The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a supposed screenshot from the UK Apple Store that shows both four and eight core options for Mac Pros. The “error” was soon corrected. Whether the information was “accidentally” released or not, it’s just another indicator that Apple will be releasing octo-Macs in the near future. The Intel quad-core processors have been out for a while now, so it’s only a matter of time. As Camcorderinfo speculates, maybe before NAB?

In the market for a mattebox for your shooting rig? Well which size do you want…4×4, or maybe 4×5.65? Perhaps the mack-daddy 6.6×6.6? Or one that accepts circular filters instead…

As you can see, there are a number of sizes and styles available from a variety of manufacturers. If you aren’t sure, here’s a great resource that will explain why you might need a certain size matte-box for your application over another. And many thanks to the always-informative Bruce Allen for the link!

Just noticed that B&H is now accepting pre-orders on the highly-anticipated new Canon HV20 24P HDV camcorder.

“…We are accepting orders and it will be shipped when in stock. Orders will be filled in the order they are received. Your card will be charged upon placing the order.”

Does anyone know if they limit the number of pre-orders for new models?

If you’ve been under a rock for the past week or so, you might have missed the HV20 announcement. It looks like a nice little package, and since it supports 24F & 30F I’ve got a feeling that a lot of Canon shooters are going to buy one simply for use as a cheap VTR.