June 1, 2009
A few Final Cut Studio 3 rumors
Now that FCS3 is apparently in the hands of some outside testers, a few more bits of information are leaking out. AppleInsider has a bit of a roundup - no feature details, but at least more confirmation that an update is in the pipeline.
Posted by at 1:36 PM | Comments (0) | News
Evom - a replacement for iSquint?
Cough, is this thing still on? Sorry for the absence, the end of the semester sort of owned me.
TUAW posted a little blurb about a new app called Evom, which is a super simple video conversion app. Similar to the now-defunct iSquint, it'll take anything in, and spit out ipod-compatible video.
It's still in beta, and may not be free when it launches, but it looks pretty slick.
Posted by at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) | News
April 25, 2009
Foundry fix for rolling shutter
FreshDV has an interview with a developer from the Foundry, discussing a demo project they have to correct rolling shutter. It's worth a viewing if you're interested in the pros and cons of CMOS. I've had discussions with folks in the past about the sort of optical analysis necessary to correct rolling shutter in post, so it's pretty cool to see it being done. Also interesting is his guess that within 2-3 years, rolling shutter won't be an issue (in new cameras).
Posted by at 10:44 PM | Comments (0) | News
April 20, 2009
AJA KI Pro brings direct to disk ProRes capture to the field
The AJA KI Pro is a DDR recorder which records from HD-SDI or HDMI directly to ProRes Quicktime files on a variety of media types.
This is a pretty amazing piece of hardware, small enough to travel with. This makes a pretty awesome complement to something like an XDCam EX.
Posted by at 10:28 AM | Comments (0) | News
Matrox launched MXO2 Mini and dedicated H.264 accelerator
Apparently it was a long winter in Canada, as Matrox has just announced two relatively awesome products.
The first is the Matrox MXO2 Mini, a stripped down version of their MXO2 PCI-E/expresscard capture box. The MXO2 provides input and output for HDMI, analog component, plus svideo and composite. So, for all the folks who want to capture the 4:2:2 HDMI output for their cheap consumer cameras, this box makes that a reality for less than $500. That's a pretty amazing deal.
At the same time, Matrox has announced the CompressHD. It's a PCI-Express card which offers hardware-accelerated H.264 encoding. Unlike other solutions, it appears to directly integrate into transcoding products like Compressor, so it can plug into existing workflows.
Priced at less than $500, the CompressHD could become a no-brainer addition to many edit suites, assuming it does what it claims. Matrox just jumped a few slots on my "must visit booths" list.
Posted by at 10:22 AM | Comments (0) | News
Another Prosumer AVC-HD cam from Panasonic
Panasonic has just announced the AG-HMC40, a small form factor "AVCCAM" camcorder. You get XLR inputs, 1080p recording, and a touch interface.
Think of it as a baby brother to the HMC-150, about which I hear many good things. I'll definitely be checking it out at NAB tomorrow.
Posted by at 9:27 AM | Comments (0) | News
April 8, 2009
Sony capitulates to the collapse of capitalism
I'm a few days late in posting this, but it's exciting none-the-less. Sony, recognizing that budgets aren't likely to grow any time soon, has released a pair of low-end HD studio cameras, with one model breaking the $50,000 barrier.
The HXC-100 and HSC-300 are both triax-based "industrial" style cameras, which can accept existing large lens kits. They're switchable between SD and HD, and support both 1080i and 720p.
Basically, these are no frills HD studio cameras, which have been lacking in the Sony line. We've used the D35, D50 and D55 cameras in our studios, and have been very happy with the quality and mostly happy with the reliability.
There's very little additional information available about these cameras, but hopefully more will appear at NAB. The prices ($69k for the HSC-300, $45k for the HCX-100) are supposed for a "basic system," though it's not clear what that includes. I'm going to assume that it's camera+CCU, sans lens.
Posted by at 2:31 PM | Comments (0) | News
March 30, 2009
Install iMovie 06 on a machine with iLife 09
I just unpacked some new iMacs which ship with iLife '09. When trying to install iMovie 06 on these machines, I was prompted to install iLife 08 first. Solution?
Open a terminal and type "touch /Library/Preferences/com.apple.iLife08.plist"
Done.
Posted by at 11:53 AM | Comments (5) | News
Canon using dSLR sensors in camcorders?
Gizmodo has a rumor that Canon will be using the chips from their dSLR cameras in a future XL-H1-style camera. Certainly wouldn't be surprising, but it'll be interesting to see what form this product takes.
Posted by at 11:06 AM | Comments (1) | Misc
March 25, 2009
Scopebox 2.1
Scopebox 2.1 has just been released, bringing a wide range of changes, including better HDV and QT performance, interface tweaks and a number of usability enhancements (bugfixes). A free download for Scopebox license holders, so go grab your copy.
Posted by at 2:17 PM | Comments (0) | News