News posts from 2003 Q4
 

If I understand correctly, this festival is open to all...you don't necessarily have to shoot with a JVC camera:

RESFEST Digital Film Festival
 

RESFEST 2003
The seventh annual RESFEST kicks-off on Thursday Sept. 18th in San Francisco before embarking on a world tour that includes stops in LA, New York, London, Cape Town, Tokyo, Seoul and Melbourne. Come enjoy an event jam-packed with over 100 of the year's most inventive and inspiring short films, music videos and animation.

This year's lineup is the biggest yet with five thematic shorts programs, two music video programs, a program of rare and unseen work from SPIKE JONZE, the U.S. Premiere of Daft Punk's anime musical INTERSTELLA 5555, Studios Tours of leading design and film production companies, free DV filmmaking classes from APPLE, CANON and DISCREET; a retrospective of the work of visionary filmmaker MICHEL GONDRY renowned for his work with Bjork and live music events featuring Amon Tobin, RJD2, LCD Soundsystem and TINOCORP.

RESFEST 2003 TOUR DATES
San Francisco - September 18-21 - Palace of Fine Arts
Los Angeles - September 24-28 - Egyptian Theater
Washington D.C. - October 3-5 - Grosvenor Auditorium at National Geographic
New York City - October 9-12 - Bowery Ballroom/Tribeca Performing Arts Ctr.
Chicago - November 7-9 - Museum of Contemporary Art

International dates include Toronto, Barcelona, Bristol, Cape Town, Seoul, London, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Melbourne and more.

http://www.resfest.com

Thanks for that note, Jonathan. I think many of our members will be able to take advantage of one of these local events (including me!).

say i wanted to submit some of my work for the festival how would i do that???

I think the earliest you can submit stuff will be May of 2004. This year the submission period was may/june. There isn't a submit link on the website www.resfest.com so keep checking the website to see when they start taking applications.

I've been going to Resfest for the last two years, looking forward to this year's program.

Can anyone just submit there short film? Does anyone know how much it costs?

Anyone can submit a film, it costs $20 per submission if you submit by the early deadline, $25 if you submit during the late period. Checks, money orders or PAY PAL are accepted.

You can submit your application electronically, you'll be given an ID number and you put that number on your tape and send the tape in. The will notify people who got into the festival by August.

At least that's how they did it this year. A friend and I made a short film and submitted it but it didn't get in. I also made an erotic short but it didn't get in either, last year they had an erotic shorts category but this year they didn't have the In the Bedroom section. Gonna submit again next year. Good luck with your submission.

BTW, RESFEST will in Osaka December 5,6, & 7 at Namba Hatch.

Panasonic Digital Filmmakers Grants
 

Panasonic has announced an interesting grant program that will allow winning contestants to use a AG-SDX900, Final Cut Pro 4 (on G5), et.al. to shoot a feature or documentary.

I could not yet find details on the Panasonic site, but here is the news item on MacCentral.

Note that the application deadline for the first grant is listed as December 31, 2003.

Cool!

It sez on the Pana site that Abel CineTech is handling the grant. If you go to their home page, it gives more info.

http://www.abelcine.com/

Canon GL2 fire-sale here in Canada - something new coming?
 

Hi folks. The GL2 has just had a 30% price reduction across the board here among various top dealers in Canada - anything like this happening down south? could a new 3-chip be avail. soon?

The USA had a $250 rebate for the longest time. Canon seems to drop prices big time when they have someting new in the works, unlike Sony. 30% is a whopper, though. :)

One significant factor for the price drop is the increased value of the Canadian dollar relative to the US dollar. One year ago around this time, $100 Cdn dollars were worth $63 US dollars. Today $100 Cdn dollars would get you $74 US dollars, which is an increase of 17 percent. So the savings for Canadian shoppers on a US $2500 camera work out to $575 Cdn ($425 US), based on today's exchange rate.

XL1-s used selling for 2000k
 

All summer the used XL1 market held in the 2500 and Xl1-s around 3000k.
suddenly around October 1st private sales of the XL!-s where bringing in only 2000k. Canon dealers dropped to 2995.00 new in box in some cases or rolled in a bunch of accesories for 3995.00 they did not seam to make sales however. Something is up,
probably Mortgage, the property tax bill hit this month and people had to pay alot for their heating oil. It's that time of year. I do not know and canon says they do not know of any changes to either model or major new technology
I am in tech sales and have asked around. The Mac G5 is out but not expected in a powerbook for several years as it is to big and runs to hot
However new powerbooks released with g4's.

I had a devil of a time finding the details at Panasonic's site (what's up with that?), but it's there. Try this link:

ftp://ftp.panasonic.com/pub/Panasoni...akersGrant.pdf

hdv news
 

Hi

http://www.hdv-info.org/

this is the new official hdv site.

Ciao

Francesco

There not visiting The Netherlands (as usual).... Too bad.

Indeed it is... Sony owns that domain name... too bad hdv-info.com and .net weren't available.

;-)

Jejejej
 

Yes. But at least I got hdv.cl :-)

RocketClips Press Release: New Video Collections
 

Thought I'd share a press release that was forwarded to me:

ROCKETCLIPS RELEASES FOUR NEW VIDEO COLLECTIONS

Stock Footage Supplier Captures Adventure Sports Up Close and Personal

Long Beach, California (October 7, 2003) -- Rocketclips, a leading
web-based, royalty-free stock footage supplier, expands its outdoor category to include adventure sports titles. The newly released 20-video clip collections are "Adventure Kayaking", "Adventure Climbing", "Adventure Biking", and "Adventure Sports." This introduction brings Rocketclips' library of people and lifestyle clips to nearly 3,000.

Producing some of the best quality imagery in the stock footage industry today, Rocketclips is leading a trend by utilizing released talent and shooting digital video with film-like production values. Created with broadcast usage in mind, the Adventure Sports Collections are suitable for many purposes -- from television commercials to web-based advertising.

"By shooting our own footage, we create each scene and scenario with our customers in mind," explains Rocketclips founder, Mark Adams. "Our adventure titles capture the adrenalin of the moment which a savvy editor can easily translate into a compelling commercial."

Every clip in the Rocketclips library can be viewed, purchased, and
downloaded online, anytime day or night. Reflecting its commitment to providing inexpensive options for web-based usage, multimedia clips are only $25.00. For usages where the highest quality is required, full resolution DV NTSC clips are $150.00. All CD-ROM collections with 18-20 clips are full resolution DV NTSC and priced at $500.00 each.

Based in Long Beach, California, Rocketclips is a leader in the emerging royalty-free stock footage marketplace, providing a "new school" approach to viewing and purchasing video clips on the web. Footage is available 24 hours a day as downloadable clips, or overnight on CD-ROM, Mini DV or BETA tape.

For more information on Rocketclips or its products, media professionals can log onto www.rocketclips.com.

So these cams arne't coming out for a long time are they?

Sometime next year, I'll bet. Should be an exciting NAB.

XDCAM anyone?
 

Sonys new XDCAM records both IMX and DVCAM to DVD using blue laser. It's completely non linear with loads of cool metadata possibilities.

Does anyone know anything of price ranges on these babys?

http://pro.sony.com.hk/pr20030826h.html

Must be sooner than next NAB I think
 

Do you really think they will let JVC lead the crowd for so long? I don't think that is a good idea for Sony, Canon... it just would not make sense... If they are not carefull JVC will do it again with a 3CCD HDV and that would be a tough blow to beat.

I'll bet both Sony and Canon are running HDV encoding cams right now in the labs.

Canon could really blow everybody away if they make an HDV cam with a 35mm-like CCD and interchangeable lenses... imagine being able to use EOS wide angles for digital stills, DV and HDV... that would be everybody's next cam.

Sony can't do such a thing because they would kill their broadcast line too fast. Canon has no such problem.

PDW510- Optical Disc Camcorder with DVCAM Recording
$19,900.00

PDW530- Optical Disc Camcorder with MPEG IMX/DVCAM Recording
$34,000.00

http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Professiona...&sm=0&s=&cpos=

The discs themselves are going to cost between €25-30 per disc.

Here is the link to the XDCAM format homepage with some interesting info:
http://www.sonybiz.net/xdcam


Not exactly cheap. The Panasonic AJ-SDX900 with the new FireWire connectivity and native editing DVCPRO-50 seems more appealing...

Color Finesse 1.1 available for Mac AND Windows
 

Synthetic Aperture has jsut released the new version of it's excellent Color Finesse plugin.

This new version is now available for Windows 2000 and XP, and works with After Effects, Premiere Pro and Combustion (and FCP on MacOS).

There is a demo download if you like to check it out. It is considered by many to be one of the best tools available for color correcting and creating that "special look" (see the examples on the website).

Full version costs $595.

www.synthetic-ap.com

You say native editing dvcpro-50, what can natively edit that?

I use vegas video, can i just capture and edit dvcpro-50 without addition hardware or codecs?

Zac

Actually though, Canon supplies the leading market share of broadcast video lenses (including high-def) to that high-end arena, so yes they do have that problem. They could hurt their own sales much the same as Sony.

I believe currently only FCP 4 can capture and print to tape DVCPRO-50 thru FireWire.

You can however use the Matrox (free) DVCRO-50 codecs to read/write DVCPRO-50 files in Vegas.


http://www.matrox.com/video/support/...codec/home.cfm

Oh but I understand 25 Mbps MPEG2 is no match for HDCAM, DVCPROHD, D-9HD and even less for HD-D5 and CineAlta, so there would continue to be a market for high end lenses, cameras and media... similar to the way there is market today for Digital Betacam, D1, DVCPRO50, despite DV. However much we get to like HDV, it will allways be poor man's HD in the light of other formats with higher bandwidth, resolution, frame rate and better color sampling.

I just feel that Canon might have less to lose with (no high end ENG cams) and more on which to build (XL1) a pro HDV product with interchangeable lenses. Especially if they go for a non-Sony CCD.

Actually the more I think about it, the more sense it makes even for Sony and JVC to go HDV. HDV is crippled, it has a very high compression ratio, it does not have full HD resolution, the MPEG2 that comes out of the JVC HD10 doesn't even have time code, so it is no match for real pro HD. Much less so than DV compared to analog pro formats that were (and in some places still are) commonplace like Betacam SP. So in the 'worst' case scenario (from manufacterers point of view), an interchangeable lens HDV cam with a 35mm CCD might totally cannibalize SD aquisition, but not HD.

Sony VX-2100 is here.
 

I didn't know if you guys knew this or not, but the Sony VX-2100 is here. It reaplaces the 2000.

Here is some more info...

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...t-10_07_03.htm

I haven't seen it displayed in any cam shops yet. It's not out yet, as far as I know. Christmas maybe?

Yeah, it's supposed to be out in December.

Yes, we have several threads on it already; I posted about it back on the day it was announced (see this thread). We'll have pro user reviews online here at DV Info Net as they become available,

>>Yeah, it's supposed to be out in December.<<

NAB would only be 3 months away from this date, Sony had better hope that no one comes out with a better camera by then (even though I think this cam is inferior to the DVX 100 as it is.)

Thanks for the info! :)

>Not exactly cheap. The Panasonic AJ-SDX900 with the new FireWire connectivity and native editing DVCPRO-50 seems more appealing...

yes, but Sony uses very high-level camera part on these camcorders. At IBC they sayd that cheaper models are in work, as also HD version of XDCAM.

Margus

Perfect timing! TokyoVideoFestival
 

Thanks for the "heads-up". Originally a 40 min. program from 2001, I cut it to 18 minutes and just made the entry deadline.

It was filmed over several months chronicling the Miyazaki Jc's efforts to plan and execute a Beach festival and stimulate the economy of local beach community. Human interest, in Japanese. There is no online version but if it gets accepted then please take a look. Did you enter any programs?

Thanks, Vic

Damn! I missed the deadline.

This festival had my name all over it, too!

Can we get a special festival/contest section going?

The ultimate screen saver
 

If you're in New York, check out the SonicVision exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.

It's basically a super high-tech version of the screen savers that pulse to music on your PC - except they're projecting the whole thing onto a planetarium dome at 180 degrees - with professional production video and sound quality.

Matrox Introduces Quad Display Video Card
 

Interesting stuff. I'm afraid to find out the cost.

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/qid/home.cfm