News posts from 2006 Q4
 

Rallies protest against limits on digital copying

http://today.reuters.com/news/articl...c=66&type=qcna

JVC Announces Firmware Upgrade for BR-HD50U ProHD VTR
 

I don’t know if this was already posted someplace else but here it is anyway.
http://syphaonline.com/SYPHAnewsitem...061005-05.html

TDK 200GB and Mini Blu-Ray discs
 

16.5 gigs and a possible 33 gigs in Mini Blu-Ray discs to be used in future Blu-Ray camcorders.

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/...uray_discs.php

New version of Jahshaka and player
 

The open source compositing app called Jahshaka has a new stable ver 2 for download. They also have a new media player that they claim can play back 2K and 4K images/video in realtime.

From the Email they sent me....
<<
Jahplayer
--------------------------------------------
We’re also delightfully pleased to announce the arrival of Jahplayer 0.1.0. It is nothing less than a pro-quality media player capable of playing 2K and 4K files in real-time. Jahplayer sports an Open API architecture that makes it infinitely customizable, and it’s Python-based to facilitate scripting.

We expect Jahplayer to generate intense interest and, frankly, to take the industry by storm. But you can be the first to take it for a spin!
jahplayer is really a high end tool with 2k/4k playback, sequence support, opengl acceleration, overlay visualizations, ab previews, asset management, etc<<


www.jahshaka.org.

8cm Blu-ray from TDK 16GB+, and dual layer 33GB in future
 

So, that's 3 hours of 24mbs according to this article:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...-at-CEATEC.htm

It is shame they haven't also figured out that 8cm disks are so large that they can make a small camcorder seem unsightly. Heres hoping for an extra min dual layer format. I'd still prefer to do memory card then backup to a portable hard drive or Blu-ray disk.

Also, a 4cm disk would have been practical, if they had designed the new dsk standards to use a small triangular mounting hole and used the surrounding dead area for storage.

Southern Winds Film Festival
 

The Southern Winds Film Festival announces a call for entries. First deadline is December 25, 2006. The Festival will be held September 12th-16th of 2007 and will hold a special category for Native American Films. In the historic heart of downtown Shawnee, Oklahoma this will be our first year of operation. This film festival concentrates heavily on the "festival." Whether you are a filmmaker or a festival lover, you will definitely enjoy this one. Packed full of audience members from the outlying communities as well as fellow filmmakers, this is what a film gathering is all about. Filmmakers be sure to submit in time to make this amazing event. Patrons get ready for what is going to be a great time being surrounded by artists from the film and music industry.

The website:

http://www.southernwindsfilmfestival.com/

Native American
Any Length. Films that are made by Native Americans and/or about Native Americans.

Narrative Feature
Anything over 60 minutes in length.

Documentary Feature
Documentary of any genre over 60 minutes in length.

Narrative Short
Short films are under 60 minutes in length.

Documentary Short
Documentary Shorts are under 60 minutes in length.

Student Feature
Student produced features must provide documented proof of enrollment at the time of production and be longer than 45 minutes in length.

Student Short
Student produced shorts must provide documented proof of enrollment at the time of production and be no longer than 45 minutes in length.

Okie Home Grown Feature
As an Okie Home Grown Feature the project in it's entirety will have been made right here in Oklahoma. The running time is anything over 60 minutes. Documentary Features made in Oklahoma will be in this category as well.

Okie Home Grown Short
As an Okie Home Grown Short the project in it's entirety will have been made right here in Oklahoma. The running time is anything under 60 minutes. Documentary Shorts made in Oklahoma will be in this category as well.

James Bridges
Festival Director

MobiJokes.tv LAUNCHES SONY CONNECT CHANNEL
 

Date: Apr 2005
Location: Wilmington NC USA

www.MobiJokes.tv LAUNCHES SONY CONNECT CHANNEL
Hello guys, thought you would all like to hear about our new channel launch on the Sony Connect site for the new Sony PSP unit, now you can get our stupid work on your PSP to show your buddies...

psp.connect.com

We are looking for really funny well done work to fill the channel if you have some, send me an email.

Wall Street Woos Film Producers, Skirting Studios
 

From the New York Timeshttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/14/bu.../14studio.html

Samsung Firmware Upgrade for First-Gen Blu-ray Player
 

Its about time.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news...ray_Player/310

Space Station to broadcast LIVE UNCOMPRESSED HD! (for a while)
 

A specialized unit (I think it's a PC, but I'm not sure yet.) is on the International Space Station and is to broadcast LIVE UNCOMPRESSED HD from orbit using the KU band system using a "Space Video Gateway" ultra-high bandwidth transmission system. The uncompressed footage could possibly be stored on a hard drive for scheduled transmission later.

Uncompressed HD transmission in space... Who would've thought of that?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/st...ain/index.html

Unfortunatly, the system's not on the station forever, it is a temporary system.

Panasonic 100 gig Blu-Ray disc.
 

This sounds great, except one thing...
From the article: "... the company reportedly achieved durability that allows data playback after 100 years."
Ummmm, didn't everybody claim the same mojo with CDs and DVDs back in the day when they first came out?
Now we know the figures weren't accurate...oopsie...go buy more!

Those figures may have been based on perfect prototypes made in ultra-clean grade labs using highly controlled materials. It's the mass production, dirty enviroments, poorly mixed plastics, don't buy one made on monday, etc. etc. that determines the true life of an optical disk that you and I wind up with.

Pits in the plastics, trapped air, and impurities and inks that break the plastic coatings down, all exposing the metal recording surfaces to corrosion. (Yeah, rusted disks).

There is a company that claims a special archival grade gold disk with a 300 year shelf life: http://www.delkin.com/products/archivalgold/index.html

"FCP to the Web" night at lafcpug, Oct 25
 

The next meeting of the lafcpug will be Wednesday, October 25, at the Gallery Theatre in Hollywood beginning at 6:45PM. It will be “From FCP to the Web” night, where we hope to show you everything you need to know about getting your movies onto the web so that they not only look good but play good.

Booked so far are FCP and Compression Guru, Philip Hodgetts who will show us a number of “Compression Recipes.” so you don’t have to guess. Also set to appear will be Dan DiPola who will discuss what tools and techniques the "Big Boys"(such as the folks who do those movie trailers on Apple) use to produce the results they do.

Also appearing are Brian Gary, author of the upcoming book “Compressor Quick Reference Guide.” Brian will show us how to export a widescreen movie to the web without those annoying black bars.

And if that is not enough Emmy award winning editor Michael Friedman ("Amazing Race," "Laguna Beach," "The Sureal Life") will talk about the path from being on the 'outside' to moving up the food chain to a Emmy winning network show. - Including - how to get hired - do you need a reel? - getting asked back - who to call - etc.

Plus we will have another round of Stump the Gurus, Show and Tells, and of course World Famous Raffle, with this month prizes totaling over $3,000.00

This meeting is open to the public. Seating is first come, first seated

A $5.00 donation will be respectfully requested at the door.

For more details and directions to the Gallery Theatre go to the lafcpug web site.

http://www.lafcpug.org/user_schedule.html

Thanks Michael, an excellent article. For several years I've been trying to convince "the money people" that there is viability in producing films. The problem has always been that they themselves do not understand the production business. I've found that the powers that be have always seen the industry as only black and white. Hollywood has always been known to have one of the more "creative" accounting practices out there, barring the enron's of the world.

About a decade ago, a group of us working in the business had decided enough is enough, it's time to start producing our own product. Many of us had already been in the business for years, me being an AD, LM and Co-prod on many Hollywood style productions shooting north of the border. We pooled our resources and figured we had everything we needed, from prep to post to complete a project. Remember, back then it was still "film" with the digital revolution in it's infant stages. We grouped together, shot a series of 16mm and 35 mm short films, which I was going to package as our calling card of sorts. At this point, I decided we needed a base of operations, our own studio/stage as well as production space.

It was at this point that I decided to go the VC route and try to raise money to build our "dream". Our first step was to somehow secure a modest sized warehouse with offices so that we could reno it for our use and rent it out for others as well who couldn't afford "pro" space. We started small, with one building which became quite popular and morphed into our second than third property. It was at this point that I decided to become a full time producer and production provider, provided I could raise the proper capital. In '96, with three buildings converted, the 'net just starting to come into it's own and the digital/HD era just around the corner I figured it was time to go all out and try to raise a HUGE amount of cash, WALL STREET here I come. I was 26 yrs. old and I thought I was ready to do it, take the next step.

http://www.playbackmag.com/articles/...t&word=kinnear

The link above gives you an idea of where I was trying to take our business. As a creative type, I'm not so much, I found my strengths lie in putting together the team. So with a business plan in hand and a proven track record with production facilities, albeit small ones, it was time to take on the world. Ahhh, ain't ignorance bliss. My goal was to raise $50 million CDN. to build our "real" studio and produce five $4 million CDN budgeted films. The studio itself represented a tangible asset that was supposed to align the fears of those on Wall Street and Bay Street, with the ultimate goal to take the company public. Anyway, after several months of selling my soul in numerous boardrooms from Vancouver to New York, spinning stories about which "stars" I've worked with and what not and burning through all our intial cash, we went went belly up. Investors were more interested in meeting celebs and trading stories then they were about the business itself. This article demonstrates to me, that maybe those times are changing and that I should possibly take a second kick at the can. In fact I believe that in todays production industry this idea seems more relevant. the fact that one can not only control from prep to post we can now take a step further and control from "concept to release" evidenced by the forthcoming release of RED ONE among other new emerging technologies.

Ok, I'll shut-up now... humblest apologies for the long post...just started typing and voila....

open source film competition, www.straycinema.com, launches in New Zealand
 

The raw footage from a film shot in London has been made available for the public to download from the Stray Cinema website. This is to provide people all over the world with the opportunity to create their own version of the film.

To participate, people must edit a one-two minute version of the film they wish to make from the available footage. Participants are then invited to post this manipulated footage back onto the Stray Cinema website, to be judged by their online community.

The top five films will be screened alongside the original film cut, at the Stray Cinema screening in London. The screening will be held six months from the day there are 30 film submissions on the website.

"Not only are we are encouraging participants to remix one source of footage, but it is a complete journey. The process began when we released our footage online. Participants then modify the footage, submit their own version on our website, and finally the chosen five are navigated from the online digital world, into the ‘real world’ with our London screening.” – Michelle Hughes (Project Coordinator).

Pretty cool!

Hey Jipsi Kinnear,

I was living in Vancouver at the time and looking for a job in editing and/or post production. I remember walking into a warehouse a block away from the BC place stadium and talking to a Terry (first or last name, can't remember). He told me the place was going to become a studio for a TV series called terminal city and that they were interested in my work. I left a reel and never heard anything back. Long story short I wound up studying aviation and moving back to Mexico afterwards. Ever since I came back I've been working in production again, too bad I never managed to get anything there. Your post brought back a lot of memories :)

Sanyo Epson 7 inch TFT true 1080.
 

http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?&u...7_3/index.html
http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?&u...1017/sanep.htm


Thanks

Wayne.

My goals are more modest. Get a few acres of land, have a modest sound stage built on it with proper wiring, plumbing and soundproofing, networking..., then rent it out to raise money for my own productions. Someone always needs a good affordable sound stage. Not sure if that is a business model that would work, but at least the physical assets will be worth something if things don't work out. basically infrasructure that a production crew and come in and build a set to their needs.

I"ve looked into coverting old buildings and most of the time they are more trouble than they are worth.

Sharp to launch Blue Violet Laser Diode
 

http://www.hdtvuk.tv/2006/10/sharp_to_launch.html
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english...061020/122535/

Photobucket forms partnership with DivX
 

http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver...3/daily33.html
This looks like an interesting development. Divx is already a partner with Google.

Cool! Now only if they would do that with Mission Impossible 2K.

Thanks for your kind words Luis. Joe, I have some plans for smaller stages that we have drawn up, if you would like to hear more about them send me a pm.

Is there any info on this in English?

English language selection in upper right corner

http://www.sanyo-epson.com/e/newsroo...7_3/index.html

Dcube Mvision: HD Playback, No Discs
 

MV-8600HD
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-...scs-210593.php

If this thing can manage to be no more than 600 dollars then I see a lot of potential in a product like this. It should hopefully make it to the United States.

I'm going to add this to a list of things I want just incase I one day win the lottery. HVX200 + V1u + HVR-DR60 + HVR-M25U + PlayStation 3 + XBOX360 + MacBook Pro + Mac Pro + Blu-ray burner + Dcube Mvision equals a lot of green paper.

They are kind of implying you to do illegal things though, that's not a good sign.

I do like the idea of having films on someting else than discs (or harddisks).

But I don't see how this thing can beat my media center PC (which yes is small,
completely silent and does all of the above and much more).

New chip throws PC video to the TV
 

http://www.journalstar.com/articles/...a286028270.txt
I wonder how long it’s going to take to put this inside TVs.

The screen would be perfect for a portable Blu-Ray/HD-DVD player.

The P-5000 Multimedia Viewer is another cool product from Epson.
http://www.epson-europe.com/internet...0_EN.inter.jsp
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...6%2Fepson1.htm

Cheoptics360
 

look at this: http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/02/c...video-is-here/

Interesting
 

Thats pretty interesting...it doesnt look that advanced to me honestly. Although the concept of being able to look at it from any angle will make alot of people very happy when going to the movies.

Pretty Cool...

Sorry for bumping this thread up but here's the media advisory on this:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006...6176_HDTV.html

Japanese news on: JVC H264 VTR codec, Panasonic AVC-1 Sony XDCAM HD etc
 

It is hard to understand exactly what these are about, the translation is not good.

JVC H264 codec for VTR, 12-24Mb/s (sounds familiar). It looks like they have expertise in H264. I wonder if the cameras will get it (remember the 2/3rd inch 7000 camera, we haven't seen).

http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...16/victor2.jpg

The other things, including a picture of the 2/3rd inch AVC-1 camera.

http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools
.

Bigger screens, lower prices
 

http://yahoo.businessweek.com/techno...122_155295.htm

Magnolia, Samsung to Host First-Ever Blu-ray Theatrical Screening, Giveaway
 

New Even technologies PSI codec claims to substantially best h264 (and others that do
 

I have a list of relevant links here. It appears to available for just about every medium in lossy, even medical imaging at great lossless compression ratios.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36034

http://www.eventechnologiesinc.com/p..._psi_code.html
http://www.eventechnologiesinc.com/products_psi_x.html
http://www.eventechnologiesinc.com/products_psi_tv.html
http://www.eventechnologiesinc.com/technology.html
http://www.eventechnologiesinc.com/products_psi_rx.html
http://www.eventechnologiesinc.com/demos.html
http://www.eventechnologiesinc.com/p...s_psi_web.html
http://www.eventechnologiesinc.com/products_psi_cd.html

I have skimmed through it, I don't know what techniques it uses, my guess from the security photo, is that it is using shaping techniques, which I have previously been considering using.

Apple acquires Proximity Group makers of Artbox Asset Management
 

http://www.proximitygroup.com/index.php

Wow! Apple buys a product that cost 20k on the avg. This is most definitely a shot across Avid's Bow.

Roxio Releases DVDit Pro HD
 

Comprehensive Blu-ray Disc Authoring Software for Video Professionals and Enthusiasts

NOVATO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Roxio®, a division of Sonic Solutions® (NASDAQ:SNIC - News), the leader in digital media software, today released DVDit® Pro HD, the latest version of the company’s pioneering DVD authoring solution, which now makes it possible for video professionals and enthusiasts to create high-definition Blu-ray Disc (BD) movies on their PC for the first time. Based on the same technology used in the development of Hollywood titles, DVDit Pro HD enables users to produce rich Blu-ray Disc titles with stunning HD menus that truly showcase and complement the breathtaking realism of high-definition video content and burn them to Blu-ray recordable discs for playback in Blu-ray players. Roxio DVDit Pro HD is available today at www.roxio.com for $599.99.

“Videographers have been shooting HD footage with affordable HDV and DVC ProHD camcorders for well over a year and, until now, have not had a way of delivering that HD content to their customers,” said Gary Bettan, VP of marketing at Broadfield Distributing Inc. “DVDit Pro HD finally adds the missing piece of the HD delivery puzzle. A powerful, easy to use HD authoring solution for Blu-ray Disc, Sonic DVDit Pro HD represents the smoothest possible entry point to the world of high-definition.”

Roxio DVDit Pro HD offers an intuitive user interface and straightforward workflow that makes it easy for event and corporate videographers to achieve professional results with minimum effort. These users will also appreciate the application’s support for both DVD and Blu-ray Disc, giving them the flexibility to work seamlessly with both standard and high-definition content within a single application. For independent filmmakers and post-production facilities, DVDit Pro HD includes a number of features such as a 32-track subtitle editor, support for DLT and CMF and content copy protection traditionally found only in high-end authoring programs.

“With HDTV sales at record levels and shipments of Blu-ray players, including PlayStation ® 3, already over the million mark, consumers are experiencing first hand the pristine picture quality and superior audio of the Blu-ray Disc format,” said Rolf Hartley, general manager of the professional products group at Sonic Solutions. “With DVDit Pro HD, video specialists can now affordably output HD content using the Blu-ray format, delivering an exceptional end-product to their customers while simultaneously enhancing their business.”

Feature Highlights

True HD Disc Creation
With DVDit Pro HD, authors can deliver 1080p, 1080i or 720p output on writable or replicated Blu-ray Discs. DVDit Pro HD transcodes high-definition MPEG-2, AVI, QuickTime and Windows Media Video into stunning Blu-ray Disc compatible video for playback on today’s most advanced HDTVs.

HD Menu Compositor
Content producers can build 1080p, 1080i or 720p still or motion menus from scratch with the product’s built-in HD Menu Compositor. Users can also import HD menus created in Adobe Photoshop or modify the application’s pre-built, professionally designed HD menu templates.

HD Slideshows

Users can maximize the quality of their digital pictures by creating HD slideshows with up to 999 high-resolution images. With DVDit Pro HD, they can choose from 65 transitions, add an uncompressed PCM soundtrack and output slideshows at any Blu-ray Disc supported resolution or frame rate.

Multiple Audio and Subtitle Track Support
Authors can take advantage of Blu-ray Disc’s massive disc capacity and high maximum bit rate by using DVDit Pro HD’s powerful movie timeline which can include as many as eight uncompressed PCM audio tracks and 32 smooth rendered subtitle tracks per movie.

Professional Mastering
Authors can provide DVD (DLT) and Blu-ray Disc (CMF) mastering services, and add CSS and AACS content protection for replication.

Roxio DVDit Pro HD & Pioneer BDR-101 Blu-Ray Burner Bundles

Videoguys Exclusive bundle gives you everything you need to start creating your own Hi Definition Productions!

Click here for more info and to order
http://www.videoguys.com/dvditprohd.html

Gary

i think we're about to run out of forums to put up!!!! there's going to be so many HD video camcorders!!!