Vimeo user Marko Visuals details how to build a Portable Digital Acquisition Center for handling all that data you capture on set.
Hi! My name is Oren Shalmy.
This blog is a collection of articles discussing various technologies used in video and film post production. Some posts are original, most are not.
From open source tools and rebel techniques to high-end DI, digital distribution, animation and VFX.
Friday, July 29, 2011
DIY Portable Digital Acquisition Center
Vimeo user Marko Visuals details how to build a Portable Digital Acquisition Center for handling all that data you capture on set.
WHAT CAMERA SHOULD YOU BUY NEXT? STICK OR TWIST?
If you’re anything like me, you’ll have been keeping nicely up to speed with all the various developments in new large sensor cameras trying to gauge which one to plump for next. After all, DSLRs are a long way from perfect and it’d be nice to have a proper video camera after all. Or would it? Sadly the whole damn situation is desperately complicated and it’s actually not at all obvious which of the new cameras would make the most sensible upgrade. I only started looking into this because my beloved 5Dmk2 was stolen at NAB and I’m now going to be shooting somewhere in the region of 65 videos over the next 12 months, all over the world. I have to buy a camera now to replace the one that was stolen but which one? Clearly, whichever one you buy should be an improvement on the old one. Duh. The only thing is, that doesn’t seem to be possible. You sacrifice form for functionality for cost, and there’s very little room to manoeuvre. I have a stack of Canon lenses, a bunch of support gear, and everything else I need. I just need the box with the sensor…
- Ikonoscop ACam D3
LightSpace CMS Matches Colour for Film Deliverables
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Thursday, July 28, 2011
Do Camera Tests Influence Buying Decisions: The Great Camera ShootOut 2011: Part 2
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
NUKE & NUKEX 6.3 NOW SHIPPING
NUKE & NUKEX 6.3 is The Foundry’s BIGGEST EVER release of NUKE, bringing improvements and additions which expand the parameters of traditional compositing. NUKE and NUKEX are designed to enable artists to stay within the software for longer, saving round trips with other departments and arming them to tackle compositing challenges in new and efficient ways. The new tools include 3D Particles (X), Planar Tracker (X), ?Denoise (X), NEW Spline and Grid Warping, performance improvements, Audio Scratch Track, User Presets, Displacement Shader, 3D Projection, Customisation enhancements and Deep Compositing.
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AJA FS2 Dual Channel Universal Frame Synchronizer/Format Converter is Now Available
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Image Systems Unveils 2011.0 software for Nucoda and Phoenix Products
Walking the Dog Studio Manages Animation Assets with HP
Monday, July 25, 2011
DaVinci Resolve 8.0.1 public beta
Blackmagic Design announces the release of a public beta of DaVinci Resolve 8.0.1 with support for Mac OS X Lion and with a new 3 way color corrector.
Beyond Focus (Part 1)
A lot of buzz lately on Lytro, the company who’s building a new camera based on lightfield (aka plenoptic) technology. In a nutshell, they’re building a camera that will allow you to refocus your photos after you’ve taken them. (Go poke around here if you want to see some examples of what is being discussed.)
FS100 Scene Files from AbelCine
A few weeks ago I put together some scene files for the Sony PMW-F3, and many people have been asking for scene files for the new NEX-FS100 as well. I put the two cameras together and made matching scene files that incorporate some of the settings I described in my FS100 dynamic range blog. Unfortunately, there’s no way to load scene files into the FS100 with a memory card, so you’ll have to dial in my settings manually to try them out. Below you’ll find my settings and images from the camera. Try them out and let us know what you think. To learn more about creating your own picture profiles, you can also check out our FS100 class in NYC and Los Angeles.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
MOV to MP4 TIP…
Well, I find that I haven’t much to blog about lately. I use this to share with people my experiences in editing…challenges I face and tips I might have. And since FCP X came out, I have made the decision to move back to the Avid platform. The only thing is, I am employed by a company that still uses FCP 7. And all my side work continues to be with FCP 7. So I have no breaking news on how I am transitioning back to Avid.
Yet.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Sony Brings On F65 CineAlta and OLED Monitors
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ASSIMILATE ships SCRATCH Six DI Suite on Mac and Windows
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The Relationship between Lenses, Sensor Sizes and Crop Factors
[Visit FilmmakerIQ.com for the Full Article.]
Meet Your Next MDC
By: ogminlo
Apple released Thunderbolt Mac mini Servers today, with Lion Server preinstalled (which now includes Xsan). Standard kit is a quad core 2.0 GHz Core i7 CPU with dual 7,200 RPM 500 GB HDDs and 4 GB of RAM. BTO options include dual 256 GB SSDs with TRIM support, and up to 8 GB RAM.
Unsurprisingly, the Gigabit Ethernet on board no longer claims jumbo frame support (no Core iX Mac thus far as supported jumbo frames on its built-in Gig-E NIC).
85 Watts. That's it. Near silent operation, trivial heat output. Now we just need Promise to ship SANlink.
Bone stock list price is $999, fully loaded hardware (8 GB RAM and dual SSD options added) lists for $2,199.
Novacut: An Open-Source Video Editor
I don’t want to make a habit of throwing a bunch of Kickstarter projects on the blog (unless they are cool) but Novacut is just too interesting, from a video editor’s perspective, to ignore. If all goes well the Novacut team is planning to release an open-source nonlinear editor. A few bullet points from the Novacut Kickstarter campaign say this:
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The State Of Play
“The state of play”
We are currently in the biggest state of flux camera wise that I have easily seen in the 4+ years I have been freelancing and of course much longer than that.
I would say one of the first cameras to come along and change the industry, for better or worse, was the PD150. It gave broadcasters the ability to give cameras with pretty good quality to producers and go out and shoot stuff. It was the beginning of the age of the the shooting/ producer/ director. The DVX100 to a lesser degree affected the market, mainly because it was the first affordable camera to give us 24p, the indie film-making crowd were ecstatic. That was back in 2002. 9 years ago…and you know what? That camera is still bloody good today!
More...Xsan 2.3 Knowledge Base Articles for Lion
By: aaron
Xsan 2.3 was released this morning -- as a component of Lion. To commemorate this event, Apple published several KB articles. Check them out below:
- Xsan volume may not mount, fsmpm may not run after migrating from Mac OS X v10.6 to OS X Lion
- Xsan: Manually configuring Xsan after promoting OS X Lion to Lion Server
- Xsan, Lion Server: Use case sensitive volumes for StorNext and pre-Lion clients
- Xsan 2.3: Deactivating a storage pool
As always, we encourage patience and research before upgrading your Xsan!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
The Foundry’s NUKE 6.3 Is Live
Back in February, after I attended a NUKE Master Class in Brooklyn, I posted an article about the new planar tracker and other features coming in NUKE 6.3. Today, The Foundry started shipping the new version of its compositing software, which is quickly becoming an industry standard in visual effects studios here in the U.S. and abroad.
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Secret Final Cut Pro X: XML & multi-user editing
Inside FCP X there hints of features that have yet to be fully implemented, or have been dropped and never to be made available. There’s no way of knowing which is which, but it’s interesting to get inside and have a look around.
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Sunday, July 17, 2011
Open Broadcast Encoder
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Pixologic introduces Sculptris
Pixologic Inc., maker of ZBrush software, has released its Sculptris 3D modeling solution for Windows and Mac operating systems.
The development and latest release of Sculptris is consistent with the Pixologic ethos and spirit to help artists both shine at and enjoy creating art — intuitively, without having to worry about technical barriers, says a company representative.
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FCPX: OMF The Hard Way : Apple FCPX Techniques Tutorial
If you love to export an OMF and your audio mixing in Logic, and wonder how to get your audio out of FCPX, join David Battistella as he walks through this workaround. Use this tutorial to take advantage of the four track output from doing a QT movie export, get a split track version of your cut into Logic or ProTools, and sweeten your audio as you wish.
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Toggle Range Check and Canvas Gamma and Brightness
DVD Authoring Buyer’s Guide
I had a simple goal: authoring a DVD. It’s something I’ve done hundreds of times over the past eight years; not a big deal. Typically there are at least three programs capable of making a DVD on my system at any given time. The trouble is none of them were capable of making the DVD exactly the way it needed to be done. Each of them was missing some functionality that prohibited continuing. It seemed like I was stuck.
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Meduza: The First Ever Professional Stereoscopic Beyond 4K 3D Camera
The Meduza, the first single beyond-4K digital stereoscopic 3D (S3D) camera, has been invited by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to shoot the final Space Shuttle Launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in mid-July.
MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Video Codecs Comparison
Coming to Avid Media Composer: 64-bit, 4K and higher projects, a new interface
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Thursday, July 14, 2011
Avid is Self-Aware – Fast Import
A little known feature within Avid is the concept of a Fast Import. This complicated term does exactly what is says – it imports media into your Avid faster than a traditional import. However, lately I’ve been frequently asked, “well, why not use AMA? No importing is needed!” Let’s address this before we jump into Fast Importing.
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Play Avid MXF for Free
In the spirit of the season, I have a holiday geek treat for you: The ability to freely play Avid MXF Media.
Free Webcast Tuesday: Stereo 3D in After Effects
A large portion of the focus for stereoscopic 3D production has been on major motion pictures, where a person usually pays extra to see a special version of the film, and expect to be wowed by the action literally flying off the screen.
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Understanding DSLR Crop Factors, Lens Types and Depth of Field
Vimeo user Darren Levine explains the relationship between sensor size, lens types and depth of field.
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AJA Ki Pro Mini Handles Apple ProRes 422 at the Chimney Pot
Managing Your FCP X Events & Projects using Disk Images
In my ongoing effort to offset some of the misinformation that's floating out there on the web regarding FCP X workflows, I've come across (and tested) an insanely cool workflow that will teach you how to seamlessly work on multiple Macs and even open Projects and Event media on an XSan.
In this article, I will focus on these 3 typical scenarios:
Hiding, Moving and Sharing Your Projects Event Media
Using Disk Images on an XSan
Using Disk Images to archive your work
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ProVideo Coalition.com: the EDITBLOG on PVC by Scott Simmons
Filmlight releases Baselight 4.2.4750
Baselight version 4.2.4750 includes new features as well as bug fixes. There is also performance increase on multi-node systems and improved handling and capabilities when working with compressed and movie format files.
More...Streaming Video Technologies Panorama, part 1 : Hardware-accelerated Encoding - Video & Dev Breakthroughs
The technologies that enable hardware-accelerated encoding are of three types. All of them allow to execute code in an optimized way on the dedicated processor, thus allowing the CPU to take in charge all operations that cannot be accelerated, like encapsulation, muxing, audio encoding, DRMisation and so on.
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Taking ALEXA RAW 1 BEYOND to IRIDAS ON-SET
Taking ALEXA 1 BEYOND to IRIDAS
I’m sure by now everyone knows about the ARRI ALEXA. A very good camera that broke the codec barrier by providing the client with a very useful .MOV file on a SxS memory card from a big fat imager AND a promise to give you the new ALEXA RAW footage at a later date, and maybe a little respect in the morning…
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Saturday, July 9, 2011
Editor under construction: XDCAM EX Workflows [AVID & FCP]
ClipBrowser, Avid AMA and FCP7
via ArtOfGuillotine
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Friday, July 8, 2011
3D CineCast: Delivering a Tapeless Model
When it comes to delivering programmes for playout, the broadcast industry has hit the rewind button on recent technical advances, with most programmes delivered on HD Cam SR tape - even though an increasing number of shows are shot with a tapeless camera and edited in a file-based workflow.
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Monitoring MPEG in an IP network
The cost and ease-of-use advantages of moving video using IP have been welcomed in cable, IPTV and satellite applications around the world. For the most part, IP remains a rarity in most of today's television studios. However, these same benefits will eventually make the approach more prevalent in the broadcast market. Signal monitoring throughout the video delivery chain is essential to ensuring the viewer's quality of experience (QoE), and for this reason, broadcasters will benefit from having a thorough understanding of what is required to effectively deploy IP and accurately monitor IP content.
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A Final Cutter Tries Out Premiere Pro : Apple FCPX - Final Cut Pro X
Article Focus:
If you're a Final Cut editor contemplating making a change in the wake of Apple's FCPX roll-out, you're not alone. Here's one long-time Final Cut user who tried out Adobe Premiere CS5.5 on a paying gig. He found a lot to like, and not much to miss.
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H.264 is still winning the codec war — Online Video News
H.264 remains the dominant force in online video, as the video codec now accounts for more than two-thirds of online video, according to a blog post by MeFeedia Thursday. Meanwhile, Google’s WebM format has yet to gain any significant traction after being released a year ago.
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AJA hears our calls
Wow, looks like we’re on a roll! First, Avid publicly responded to our request for AJA Kona integration with Media Composer (the first we saw them do). And now, AJA responds to our begs and pleads over at Creative Cow; another public response first.
I like the direction Avid and AJA are going. At this point, it’s difficult to even open and use FCP7 anymore, now that I’ve transitioned over to Media Composer. The functionality and customization it employs just reaches out to me. The sooner we can get Kona hardware input and output (the latter being the key element as of now) in Media Composer, the happier I will be.
Thank you Avid, and thank you AJA for speaking out. Ex-FCP users across the board are cheering with joy!
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Loading & Copying Scene Files
Changes Coming to Final Cut Pro x
Long-time newsletter reader and Final Cut Pro developer Alex Gollner (Alex4D) posted a blog late yesterday about a secret meeting between Apple and some of its enterprise customers in London.
You can read the entire blog here.
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Infographic: Where Stereo 3D Is Seen Worldwide
Where in the world are stereo 3D films screened the most? And what’s the next big market for those films?
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Preference Manager 3.0 released - support for Avid, Premiere, FCPX and more
Earlier this week we released a brand-new 64-bit rewrite of Preference Manager, an essential tool for managing the user settings of your editing application. (We also released a new version of FCS Remover that supports Final Cut Pro X.)
The Best 3D Conference
Do you think you know something about stereoscopic 3D? Test yourself with the six basic journalistic questions: who, what, when, where, how, and why.
Who wrote the first article on live holographic television to appear in the SMPTE Journal? What is cyclovergence? When is a seven-second stereo delay appropriate? Where can lens centering be corrected instantly in any stereoscopic camera rig without digital processing? How does viewing distance affect scene depth? And why doesn’t pseudostereo destroy depth perception?
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ARRI Releases New ALEXA Firmware v4.0
ARRI has released the latest Software Update Packet (SUP), v4.0, for the ALEXA and the new ALEXA Plus cameras. All new cameras will ship with SUP v4.0 installed, and it is available as a free download from the ARRI website for all current ALEXA owners. SUP v4.0 is a substantial upgrade for the ALEXA, with several major new features and a host of useful improvements.
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Investigative Colorist: Why is the PremierePro to Resolve 8 Roundtrip Broken?
For the past few days I’ve been hunting down problems when attempting to do a roundtrip between Premiere Pro 5 & 5.5 and Resolve 8.
On the surface, it looks completely do-able.
Premiere has an “Export to FCP XML” command. Resolve 8 is specifically designed for a FCP to Resolve roundtrip. You’d think it works, right?
Think again.
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Thursday, July 7, 2011
Final Cut Pro X - sort-of news from Apple
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
GH2 hacked!
As many of you know the GH1 is a nice camera that was handicapped by a number of key things, lack of native 24p/25p recording and terrible low bit rate. The hacker formally known as Tester 13, Vitaliy_Kiselev took the GH1 firmware and turned it into a formidable beast, giving us longer record times, higher bit rates and native recording. Those cameras are often referred to as GH13.
What's the difference between 59.94fps and 60fps?
The Transition to Digital e-mail bag recently included a message from a reader asking if there is a difference between 59.94 and 60 fields or frames per second. The reader has five HD cameras, all from a single major manufacturer, three of one model and two of another. One model specified a video output frequency of 59.94fps, while the other was specified at 60fps. The manufacturer told the reader that 59.94 and 60 are the same. Research and a number of interesting conversations with industry experts revealed information you may find surprising.
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AMP HDR Video Production System
AMP is a new camera technology by Contrast Optical that captures three simultaneous images and produces real-time HDR video. It is currently scheduled for end of summer 2011. However, the AMP Gen II cameras will not be available to the public, due to the limited production run.
DaVinci Resolve 8.0 - Review - part 1
I have been trying some of the new features found in the newly released Black Magic Design DaVinci Resolve 8.0. In part 1 I will be focusing on some new workflow functions.
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Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Unboxing: The GoPro LCD BacPac
I just recieved the GoPro Hero LCD BacPac. This nifty little device completes the GoPro System by allowing you to see exactly what your shooting. No more guessing and hoping you got the shot, now you can know for sure. Here’s some more info about the BacPac:
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A Final Cutter Tries Out Premiere Pro : Apple FCPX - Final Cut Pro X
I've been a Final Cut user since 2000. I've written three Final Cut Pro for Dummies books (plus one about Final Cut Express). I've written fairly glowing reviews of multiple versions of Final Cut for multiple Mac magazines. But since 2010, I've been contemplating my escape from Planet Final Cut....
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ASSIMILATE ships new SCRATCH Six and SCRATCH Lab
ASSIMILATE announces the release of SCRATCH Six. Released simultaneously on Mac OS® X and Windows 7, SCRATCH Six is ASSIMILATE’s flagship data-centric DI system for the playback, conform, editing, color grading, compositing and finishing of RED camera and high-end digital workflows. Its new price tag of $17,995 USD reflects today’s market demand for maximum price-performance amongst independent and documentary filmmakers, episodic broadcast facilities, and boutique post-production houses.
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Saturday, July 2, 2011
Webinar: RED’s EPIC HDRx Workflow in SCRATCH
Leandro Marini, founder and DI Producer at Local Hero Post and Blair Paulsen, founder of 4-K Ninjas, demonstrate the best practices for photography and post-production workflows of RED EPIC RAW and EPIC HDRx files with ASSIMILATE SCRATCH.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Color Decision List - using EDL and CCC files
For this Tutorial I will be using Colorista Free from Red Giant Software together with Apple Final Cut Pro to create the CDL values and DaVinci Resolve from Black Magic Design to use as the final grade system.
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ProRes Plays Back Brighter in Viewer and Darker When Paused
Adobe offers a 50% discount for Final Cut Pro users who switch to Premiere Pro!
עדכון: גם סוני מציעים מחיר מיוחד למשדרגים לווגס. 299 דולר מול הצגה של רשוין של אביד, פרמייר או פיינל קאט.
What’s in a sound?
Sound editors routinely punch up frightening screams in movies by placing animal growls on tracks underneath and tweaking them. This video demonstrates how you can manipulate natural sounds to produce something entirely different, in this case, ethereal music.
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