A new camera from Sony

It seems that Sony drops a new camera every time I turn around these days. This one has a couple of interesting features that make stand out a bit. For one thing, it's a shoulder mount cam, and the second puzzler is that it's projected to sell for about $1900. It's probably safe to say that this camera won't feel as robust as some of the good old DSR series units. I don't see how they could pull that off for in price range. Some will no doubt remember the dubious shoulder mount Panasonic cams
that sold for about as much.

It sports a 6.1 megapixel 1/2 inch CMOS sensor. Actually, Sony calls it a "1/2.9 inch sensor", which I've never quite figured out what the deal with that is. We saw this on the little PDX-10, which had a "1/4.9 inch CCD sensor". What a great little camera that was.

Sony claims that this is targeted at event videographers, and educational institutions. Perhaps this isn't an an issue for the latter, but I've been quite disappointed with the low light performance of several popular HDV camcorders. In fact, my old PD-150 blows most of them away on this. Sure it's only SD, but if the color is almost gone, and the grain is looking like 40 grit sandpaper, which would you rather watch? I'd love to see some footage from this cam in the same conditions that some of you are probably all too familiar with.

Via Engadget

User generated video: Money from the memes?

In a sea of user generated online video, where some are cute, and so many are just awful, once in a while you get a surprise. So much of what's found on YouTube, and many other online video sites these days is the work of amateurs. Some of these videos might only have meaning to friends and family. A clip of the baby's first steps for example. There's certainly nothing at all wrong with this, as it might be the only way Grandma and Grandpa can share the moment.

Then there are the inexplicable Internet "memes" such as the "Dramatic Chipmunk". If you've not yet seen the latest such craze, it's name is "Chocolate Rain". There's something about the latter that will stick with you like gum on a shoe. You have been warned.

Now and then, you find an example that stands out, and this "Flagpole Sitta" music video is definitely one of them. There's no shortage of alternate music videos for just about any song you can possibly think of. Unlike so many out there, this one is quite well done.

Is there any money in all of this? Well, perhaps, but if you need to pay the bills, you might want to start elsewhere. However, do you have your own Wikipedia entry? Hmmmmmm? Tay Zonday does! And the Eepy Bird folks actually made some real money from the wonderful "Diet Coke & Mentos" video. if you've not seen that one, you need to stop reading this and go click the previous link.

Better audio makes for better video

I was recently talking with a videographer friend. A great shooter with years of experience. Discussing a problem with low audio levels in editing, I asked if the audio was normalized and was compression used? The answer was no to both, and it turns out that this person was not really familiar with compressions, and how to use it.

In my experience, they're not alone. Good audio is crucial to video production. If the volume jumps dramatically between scenes, or some scenes are inaudible, the perception of your work is affected, and not in a good way either. Audio is so important that great sound can even improve the perceived quality of mediocre video.

First of all, normalize your video. This will justify the sound level so that the loudest peak is around 100%. Typically, right clicking on the audio event and selecting "normalize" will do the trick. Different editing apps vary on this, and may be adjustable. Secondly, set your track level so that the loudest portion doesn't exceed 0 db. In my example, I'm using Sony Vegas, but these steps are similar in most video and audio apps out there.

Apply a compressor plugin to the audio track, or as a non-realtime process to the audio event. In Vegas a compressor is already applied to the audio track, but it's set to a zero ratio (or amount) by default. Increase the amount (ratio) to around 3.5 to 4. Lower the threshold while playing the audio until the reduction indicator just begins to read about 2 or 3 db. The overall volume will usually decrease, unless you have auto gain compensate enabled. This is to be expected.

What's happening here is that when the audio level exceeds the threshold, it's reduced in volume by 4 times, or whatever the ratio is set to. This allows you to smooth out the very loud portions of the audio, and increase the quieter portions. And most importantly without exceeding zero db. This is to be avoided at all costs!

Experiment with threshold and ratio, and listen to the results. Don't get too carried away, or you'll have a dead one volume sounds as does virtually all pop music. I use third party compressors in most cases. Waves is one such provider of audio plugins. There are also some freebies out there, both in DirectX and VST versions.

UFO camping lights and the mic light

I ran across this thread on DVinfo.net recently about the "Mic Light" and the very similar "UFO Camping Light". It was implied in an earlier posting that the Flolight folks were simply reselling the same camp light for a good bit more money. Turns out they were refitting the units with LEDs of a more useable color temperature, and a higher quality. Having had experience with circuit board level work in the past, it seems pretty reasonable to me.

I have to admit that it's also tempting to get one of the cheapies just to play with. Although they are apparently too blue for indoor use, it would be nice to have a backup for when my batteries for the halogen light have bit the dust. Seems to me that with any LED based light, you would need a diffuser, or some other sort of softening control. Try looking into your LED flashlight for example. Even the single LED on my keychain light is blinding.

Did the MPAA pirate a film?

This film was released a year or so ago, and the filmmaker appeared at last years SXSW. Damn sorry I missed the appearance at the downtown Alamo. perhaps you don't know these last two sentences mean? If you lived in Austin as I do, you would. In short, it's a festival of music, film, art, tech, and more. Anyways, I think Kirby Dick is a new hero in my book. OK, so I've not seen this film until this very evening. Perhaps most of you have out there? If you haven't, you should. Even if your not an aspiring filmmaker, but especially if you are.

This is a tale of the MPAA, and their efforts to shape the works of so many artists over some 40 years. Did you ever wonder why sex scenes seem limited, but violence not so much? You should check this one out. I watched this via Netflix, and it turns out they are a supporter. They do have a screen cred after all.

Don't do as the MPAA did and (allegedly??) steal a copy, go out and by the damn disc! Support the work of the artists. Don't act as the overlords who would have us do as they say, and not as they do. Wait... what??

Link

Apple to support both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD?

According to an article on Think Secret, Apple is considering supporting both not only Blu-Ray (it's been a member of the consortium for some time) but HD-DVD as well. As a PC user myself, I was ignorant of the fact that Apple did not yet have have support for either high definition disc format. As a chosen media platform by many, the demand is definitely out there.

The recent announcements apparently made no mention of this. Instead they focused primarily on the new iMacs. After spending some time with a friend's large screen iMac, I have to admit that these things are a wonder of modern industrial design. Functional and beautiful. I'll admit I'd love to have one. One wonders why so many off-the-shelf PCs are so damn ugly. Don't these folks ever look over the Cupertino fence?

Toshiba HD-A2

Well I've gone and done it now. A new Toshiba HD-A2 is now part of the ol' audio video system. The prices on these players has been dropping rapidly over these past months, and this particular player was had as a refurb for $200.

The original HD-A1 suffered from slow startup among a few other niggles. The A2 improves greatly on this by cutting starup time down to around 30 seconds. HD-DVD discs play in about ten seconds or so.

Image quality for standard DVDs is very nice, as the player does quite a good job of upscaling. HD-DVDs look spectacular. We viewed "Mission Impossible III" with amazing detail and color saturation. "The Big Lebowski" was also a very nice transfer, and made this great film even more enjoyable to watch. "Rattle and Hum" sounded great, but didn't seem to gain quite so much from the HD presentation. The original film is quite grainy. I suspect it was shot on 16mm film.

It seems HD-DVD has enjoyed a sales boost from these lower priced players. At less than half of what a Blu-Ray unit costs, it's easy to see why. Seems the war isn't over just yet. I would have never paid $600 for a player myself, Playstation or not. I believe this is the case with most others out there too.