What happens in Vegas doesn't stay there

Stuck at home? Me too...

Here's how to keep tabs on NAB. I'll keep on updating the links as we go...




Basically, if you want the latest as it happens, get a Twitter.com account and follow the people below!

• Mike Seymour of fxphd.com is twittering and posting images
• ...as are his colleagues John Montgomery and Jeff Heuser (blog + tweets)
• fxguide.com's redcentre podcast #3 discusses RED's NAB announcements
• fxguidetv and fxpodcast has episodes from every NAB day
  


• FresHDV's NAB videos (please de-interlace, dude!)
• DigitalContentProducer is hosting a BlogLive and a Virtual Press Conference
  
• Digital Production Buzz had videos and podcasts from NAB last year, not sure what they will have now...
• Mike Curtis' HD for Indies is blogging from the floor
• StudioDaily (I guess their News section might be a better place to look, we'll see...)
• Stu Maschwitz is tweeting on Twitter.com
  
• ...as is Alex Lindsey from the PixelCorps
  
• ...and Ron Brinkmann
  
• ...and Carey Dissmore
• ...and Mel Matsuoka
• ...and DorkmanScott
• List of all the parties at NAB as well as a Twitter feed.
• The IMUG mailing list has a NAB08 Twitter feed
• Carolina FCP Users Group is twittering
  
• LostRemote seems to be blogging, twittering, shooting video and images
  
• Digital Media Net
  
• Broadcast NewsRoom's NAB page
• VideoMaker.com had an NAB blog last year
• Flickr images tagged with NAB
• NAB's own blog (right now showing three RED videos)
• DV.com's home page has up-to-date news items
  

If you are actually at NAB, the nice people at fxguide.com has written an fxguided Tour: Getting the Most Out of NAB

Oh, if someone could please record this key-note, I'd be a happy camper.

What sites did I miss? Write a comment and I'll add them...

- Jonas (also on Twitter since today)

Image by Clinton Steeds

If You Built a TV Studio Today, What Would You Build?

I've spent the last few years around TV studios that have slowly been upgraded to handle new additions like 16:9, overlapping projectors, animated LED lighting. In the good-old tradition of public service, everything installed has been proprietary and expensive broadcast equipment.

This slow update-cycle means that older equipment is moved to shows deemed less important. I'm currently re-rendering a title sequence I did four months ago for a show that was shot in 4:3 since their old cameras didn't have a widescreen option. This season they are changing to 16:9...

That's why it's so interesting to see a behind-the-scenes look at how Revision3 is building a studio using cheaper equipment, based on the production principles of today, rather than yesterday. So much has happened in post-production that seemed impossible just a few years ago, and it's inspiring to not have to fight old broadcast engineers that want to spend great wads of cash on dinosaur stuff.
I love how the studio engineer gets all worked up over all the equipment.
"I love patch-bays!"



PS. There's a HD QuickTime available if you want to get motion-sickness from the really bad camera handling.
"It aint't rebel if it ain't shaky..."

- Jonas

3D Lens for Refocusing Still Photos

Here's an interesting demo of the possibilities of specialized lenses combined with software, which in the future might allow you to not only refocus shots, but also to adjust the camera position somewhat.

While this light field lens probably won't show up on your pocket camera, this technology combined with high-resolution high-end cameras such as those from RED might allow for some amazing post-processes.

How this works is best explained by Stanford researchers in a short WMV movie (see also their site and paper) or via Popular Science's article.

- Jonas

Best VFX, Graphics and Animation Training Starts New Term

So you think you already know everything you need to do your work? Think again...

fxphd.com has been a big success and when it now enters the fifth term of training, there's even more cutting-edge courses for anyone in the video / animation / graphics / broadcasting / film business. I've been a member from the start, and believe me; you won't get as much value for your money anywhere else!

As an example: last term we got an hours worth of vfx breakdown of the Pirates of the Caribbean by the legendary John Knoll himself. Priceless...

You can join anytime during the term (it starts on October 8th) and this time around you can get both advanced courses by After Effects gurus such as Mark Christiansen (blog / book) and Stu Maschwitz (blog / book) as well as exclusive training in the RED production and workflow.
Here's a complete list of available courses.

If you want to know more about fxphd, take a look at the fxphd Tour Movie

UPDATE: Here's a torrent link to the brand new Orientation Week movie that covers all the upcoming classes.

Oh, if you enter humlan in the Referring Member field on the signup page, I'll get an extra class, which would be really nice. Thanks in advance!

One last tip: don't miss the HD versions of the excellent fxguidetv from the same guys that bring you fxphd!

- Jonas

P2/MXF Supported in New Premiere Pro CS3 Patch

The next patch to Premiere Pro CS3 (3.1) will import and output P2 media and MXF files natively without transcoding, rewrapping or conforming.

Update Oct 18: The 3.1 patch is now available via Adobe Updater (choose Update from the Help menu inside any Adobe CS3 application.)

Also, Dave Helmly from Adobe has put together a video demo of Premiere Pro 3.1.

Update Oct 24: There's more info on P2 workflow in the LiveDocs:
Import assets in Panasonic P2 format
About spanned clips from Panasonic P2 media
Export to Panasonic P2 format

- Jonas

Shallow Depth of Field, Here I Come

Just a quick picture of this monster. I haven't calibrated it yet, but with a Sony HC3 (HDV 1080i), a RedRock Micro M2 adapter, a Canon EF-lens mount plus the Canon 70-200mm 1:4 L lens, and a DeckLink Intensity card for 4:2:2 HDMI capture to Premiere Pro, this setup will be able to provide a pretty decent picture.

The camera is on loan, I'm thinking of getting the yet unreleased Canon HV20 which is a 1080p25 camera, if it supports 4:2:2 HDMI capture.

I'm not sure what I'll shoot yet, but any ideas are welcome...

- Jonas

"It's Not HD" - First Moving Sample From the Red Camera

I've got a notoriously cranky collegue that always finds something to complain about when it comes to HD. I've been trying to discuss the HVX200 and other cameras that we have, but last time he claimed that:

None of today's cameras are HD!

When I asked what he meant, since many of the professional and even some of the prosumer cameras are now have a true HD capture sensor, but the reason was apparently that he thought they all used too much compression. I bit my tongue considering he was recently instrumental in buying over 30 DVCPRO25 and DVCPRO50 cameras (that according to his own reasoning couldn't even be SD since apparently it's all about the compression and not the resolution...)

I won't even mention what the same collegue said about the Red Camera but so far his statement applies to their first test footage that has just been posted as a torrent. It's a 15 second clip at 106 MB, 8-bit 24p QuickTime with 1024 by 512 resolution compressed with the Motion JPEG A codec. Go get the torrent and keep it seeding until we get higher resolutions to marvel at!

- Jonas

DVCPro HD Decoder for Windows

The DVCProHD Decoder is good news for all HVX-200 users that have had to transcode the MXF files into some other codec before using it.

Via Digital Production Buzz

- Jonas

Must...Get...One... The RED ONE Camera Shows Off 4K at IBC

I might be more of a Dope than a DoP, but I can spot an industry-disruptor, and the RED ONE camera has just showed some test footage at IBC.


As usual, HD for Indies has a good couple of posts on the 4K projections (make sure you check out the comments on each post, they contain a lot more info!), and the RED site has been updated with more info (but no downloadable footage yet.) Also, check out the ultimate irony, a handheld video posted on YouTube showing the 4K projections and the following Q&A.

They're also working on a codec that turns the raw capture of 323 MB/s (that's bytes, not bits) into 27.5 MB/s for 24p shooting.

- Jonas

HDMI Camera Capture and Online JPEG Codec for HD Resolution

IBC will bring a lot of goodies, but here's a couple from one of my favorite companies: BlackMagic Design.

Intensity and DeckLink HD Studio: HD Capture, editing and playback cards for HDMI. Conveniently, Sony just announced two cameras with HDMI output, the HDR-FX7 and the HVR-V1E.
Like FreshDV speculates, this would make it possible to ingest uncompressed HD from a really cheap HD camera into a really cheap card. However, there's no mention of the bit-depth or the color sampling rate either, so this might not be the HD-SDI-killer, but it sure is cheap.

On-Air 2.0: Live Event HD Mixer for OS X.

The new Online JPEG codec is designed for HDTV production. The press release mentions both "4:2:2 color sampling" and "full color sampling" so I guess the jury is still out on what the codec can actually deliver.

- Jonas

Showreel.org Finally Updated

Just as I had put my credit card back into my wallet, I realized that all the great online articles at showreel.org were a bit old, and that the next issue was supposed to have been published back in February.

After printing out every article for a analog weekend trip, I still felt it was worth every penny of the 20 dollars I paid for access.

Now I'm even happier since they weren't bust, only a bit slow. You can still find parts of the site that says that it will be a bi-monthly publication beginning in 2006, which seems to be a bit of an over-statement considering the first issue of 2006 was just published.

Check it out, some of the articles are for paying subscribers only, but there's a lot of interesting stuff on the new generation of cameras, such as the two part series HDV on the set of 24 [Part 1] and [Part 2]

HDTV: Behind the Scenes of the World Cup Broadcasts

I just saw the beautiful HD feed (720p/50) of the Soccer World Cup on a 60-inchish Pioneer plasma display. As we Swedes like to see the score and the time during the whole game, the Swedish broadcaster SVT has adds these on-air graphics via a viz|RT HD-system that started supporting 720p/50 just days before the broadcast.

Here's a sample of links to more info about the host broadcaster's and their 2.000 staff running minimum of 20 HD cameras per stadium:

Behind the Scenes Article

On-air graphics samples

Production presentations with camera positions, etcetera

New media production presentation

Read more at [dailywireless.org] and [Engadget]

At last, here's a document about SVT's High Definition Multi Format Test Set

Interval timer for Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT

There's a thread on the AE-list on the Digital Rebel XT / EOS 350D digital camera. As I'm working on a project of building my own interval timer I thought I'd post a picture of it on a breadboard.

Primed and Ready: Learn the Basics of Digital Video

It never ceases to surprise me how many artists find that issues of resolutions, framerates and compression are complete mysteries. I spent five hours early this morning (on my day off) fixing renders that someone had managed to mess up, so in the interest of not having to do that again, here are three short primers from Adobe on stuff that we'll have a quiz on next week! :-)

Compression Primer sums up the basics of audio and video compression.

SD digital video primer: An introduction to DV production, post-production, and delivery sums up the basics of a standard definition workflow.

HD digital video primer: Understanding and using high-definition video sums up the basics of a high definition workflow.

Read-up on the HVX200

Panasonic has released a guidebook on the lovely AG-HVX200 HD-camcorder. It's a great way to read more about the camera before you get your hands on one. There's also other related material, as well as an NTSC version of the guide, on the main site.

HVX200 Guidebook, PAL (direct link to PDF)

The Basics of Digital Video

I constantly try to explain the fundamentals of video to anyone who doesn't cover their ears, and I think I've found a soulmate. :-)

videogrunt is the video podcast that illustrates the basic terms and technologies of digital video

I haven't had time to watch any of the three episodes yet, but it sure looks promising.
mainpage

Record HD video on SD cards

It will take a long time until Panasionic's P2 memory cards will be affordable, so Panasonic is reportedly working on a consumer solution involving HD footage recording onto SD memory cards.

Panasonic technology records HD images on SD cards

Steadicam with wireless interviewer

The Inquisitor