Old news from here on back! Stroll down memory lane….
Way back in 2008 I started a community site on Ning and abandoned my Blogger site, http://newspaper-video.blogspot.com, which dated back even farther. Now Ning is cutting off the free sites so I have created yet another site: NewspaperVideo.com. Just to have some content, I have imported my old Blogspot entries here and am importing posts from NewspaperVideo.ning.com as well. Everything past here is old news! Really old!
Report from NAB, the world’s largest trade show for video, broadcast, and TV
NAB is the world’s biggest conference for TV, film and video producers, with miles of halls filled with equipment on display.
This year it’s all about 3D and DSLR cameras. It seems like every booth has either dslr rigs or 3D lenses and equipment – or both. Biggest news of the show: B&H isn’t giving a show discount this year.
Most of the new stuff seems to be 3D related, but there are a couple of interesting cameras here.
The new Canon XF300 handycam is a tapeless big brother to the XHA1 but has full 1920×1080 chips that have amazing resolution. Even though it is a 1/3″ chip camera, you’d never believe it from the resolution charts I saw. This is serious competition to the big chip broadcast cameras, and has 4:2:2 color and a high data rate. Around six or seven grand price, depending on the model.
Panasonic and Sony both talked about budget cinema large-chip cameras but neither have anything you can handle.
The serious people are spending serious money on DSLR rigs with setups built around 1Dmk4 or 5D bodies with Cooke, Zeiss or Leica lenses that eclipse the price of the body by several orders of magnitude. There’s a lot of buzz about the last episode of House being shot entirely on 5D mk2’s – it airs May 17.
LED lights are everywhere you turn and prices are coming down.
I’ve spent the last two days buried in the world of broadband, iptv, and mobile video at NAB, so don’t have much new camera porn for you all. As I sit here amongst the slot machines at my airport gate, here’s a ‘stuff’ update.
The acronym for today is OTT – which stands for ‘over the top’ delivery of iptv to settop boxes. A new ‘freedom’ chip is coming on the market which will give settop tv boxes the power of computers and will enable tv, vod, and web access via the internet. – bypassing the cable company. This seems like a pretty big deal to me, but it was well-hidden at this broadcast event.
There were a bunch of cool things for ipads and iphones. VeriCorder has a non-linear video editor for the iPhone which is fairly amazing. They’re also going to market xlr adapters for the iPhone as well as plug-in mics. The pro NLE is $300 per year, but they have a consumer app for $10 that does some editing.
On the content delivery front, a new company to join the likes of Brightcove, VMix, etc is a Virginia company called Voped. They have a pretty good administrative interface, decent metrics and seemed like bright, capable and nice people. They automatically transcode for different formats, including mobile. Bandwidth costs about $1k per terabyte per month.
There were an overwhelming number of rigs for dslrs and the Zeiss folks were beating people back from their booth – all of whom had their checkbooks out for a $24,000 set of compact prime lenses. The uptake of dslrs is amazing. Canon had a huge presence at the show, with almost continuous presentations of shows by the likes of Vincent Laforet. The crowds were huge in front of that part of the Canon booth while the broadcast folks were standing around their beautiful expensive tv lenses with no one to talk to. Zeiss, Leica, and Cooke all had lenses for the Canons in their booths. Nikon was not visible at all at the show.
(Sorry, but I don’t know much about the new big-chip cameras announced by Panasonic and Sony. Panasonic will have a micro-four/thirds video camera at the end of 2010. Sony said they’re working on a big-chip camera but didn’t have mockups yet.)
Also overwhelming was the number of new LED based lighting systems. They’re starting to get the color temperature under control on the less-expensive units and a lot of them now have a switch to change from daylight to tungsten without having to use filters. Chinese LED lights were in every other booth and most looked the same but Filmgear, repped by Birns and Sawyer, looked to be quality stuff.
I went to the FCPUG Supermeet last night and saw presentations on Adobe CS5, Avid, and DaViinci color correction, along with 3D production (which is not at all simple.) Apple’s product manager for Final Cut Pro spoke at the event and highlighted many third-party developments. He did not say a single word about Apple’s plans for Final Cut.
NAB is the biggest trade show I’ve ever been to and I’m used to some big ones back home. It has three huge halls full of video and TV stuff. Never having been before, I don’t have much to compare it to, but I left with the impression that the whole TV industry has it’s head in the sand. Marketing for the show highlighted convergence and broadband, but the number of vendors and presentations on broadband and iptv was really pretty small. 3D seemed to be where people thought there was money to be made.
A shout-out to the list folks who got together at NAB – it was great and gratifying to meet you folks!
The shovels haven’t filled the grave
Photojournalists are doing the most exciting work I’ve seen in the past 30 years – but no longer are they doing it for newspapers.
I spent the past week staying up ’til early in the morning judging several multimedia contests and scholarships. The work being done out there is terrific. Online, the most amazing stories fill my feed on a daily basis.
Photojournalism is better than it’s ever been – but the delivery has changed completely.
We’re at the transition stage of the industry – the content is being created, but the money hasn’t followed yet. We’ll get there eventually (please, please, please) but for now we’re doing what it takes to put bread on the table. I’d still rather work at a newspaper than drive a cab – but for now, the emotional commitment to the job is about the same.
Journalism will come out of the ashes of mainstream media like a phoenix. Yes, we’re all dressed in black for the funeral at the moment. The shovels haven’t filled the grave yet. But soon, we’ll have a wake, lift a toast to newspapers, remember the good times, and then join the village raising the next generation.
(This was a response I posted on the NewspaperVideo yahoo email list in a lively discussion of the ethics of journalism and the pending demise thereof. To join the email list, visit the NewspaperVideo list http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/NewspaperVideo/ )
New ways of telling stories in video
I’m really bored with the traditional news story structure. What if we did things differently?
Man In Van from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.
emergency brake from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.
PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death and God from Frank Warren on Vimeo.
How to report the news
Brilliant summary of TV news by Charlie Brooker.
Interesting new Canon Vixia HFS 21 camera
Canon announced a bunch of new cameras at CES. One that caught my attention was the new HFS 21 AVCHD camera.
It has dual SD card slots, downconverts to Mpeg4, and works with EyeFi cards. This theoretically means you could post video directly from the camera. And they put a viewfinder and a LanC jack on it. Woohoo!
Here’s Canon’s press announcement:
“VIXIA HF S-series:
The Canon VIXIA HF S21, VIXIA HF S20 and VIXIA HF S200 Flash Memory camcorders are Canon’s premiere camcorders with professional and easy-to-use features to allow anyone to capture outstanding HD video quality. The VIXIA HF S-series comes equipped with varying levels of internal flash memory and all feature two SD card slots for maximum storage capacity and easy video transfer. The VIXIA HF S21 and VIXIA HF S20 camcorders incorporate 64GB and 32GB of internal flash memory, respectively, and the VIXIA HF S200 records video directly to removable SD memory cards. Recording Full 1920 x 1080 HD video, these camcorders feature a Genuine Canon 10x HD Video Lens and a Canon 1/2.6-inch, 8.59-megapixel Full HD CMOS Image Sensor for stunning video and outstanding photos up to 8.0 megapixels. All three models in the VIXIA HF S-series include Canon’s new 3.5-inch High Resolution (922,000-dot) Touch Panel LCD screen for a large, bright display and easy menu navigation, including Touch & Track technology. All of the models in this series also feature Canon’s Smart Auto, Relay Recording, Powered IS, HD-to-SD Downconversion, and Advanced Video Snapshot.
In addition, the VIXIA HF S-Series includes a host of professional features such as a built-in LANC terminal, and Native 24p (AVCHD) recording. For shooting outside on a sunny day, the VIXIA HF S21 includes a viewfinder which offers a reliable viewing environment when shooting in bright outdoor conditions. The VIXIA HF S21, VIXIA HF S20 and VIXIA HF S200 Flash Memory camcorders are scheduled to be available in April, and will have an estimated retail price of $1399.99, $1099.99 and $999.99 respectively.”
Prague in winter; video from a Canon 1D MkIV
Prague: Canon 1DMKIV from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.
Philip Bloom tries out the new Canon 1D MkIV on a snowy winter’s night in Prague. Happy Holidays, everyone!
And for your voyeuristic pleasure, here’s a behind-the-scenes video showing the gear and techniques that Vincent Laforet used with his first efforts with a 1D mkIV during the production of “Nocturne”, from Joseph Linaschke:
New version of Sony PMW EX1: the EX1R
Sony will replace the PMW EX1 with the EX1R, which fixes everything wrong with the EX1 – Same wonderful HD image, but new viewfinder, new handgrip, new switches, new tripod socket, even a new DVCAM standard def mode that shoots in AVI files. This camera will rule the VJ world!
They’re also introducing the PMW350, which is a shoulder-mount 2/3″ XDCAM EX camera with a standard B4 lens mount, but which is available as a kit with an EX3-style autofocus lens. It’s supposed to be “affordable” by 2/3″ standards, with a working setup in the $20k range. It’s getting confusing with all the 350 models in Sony’s lineup.
New Sony Z5U camera announced
UPDATE: The U.S. model is the HVR-Z5U and can be found here.
Sony has announced the HVR-Z5J in Japan. I’m sure the U.S. version will be announced soon.
It seems to be the replacement for the Z1, especially since they also announced an FX-1000. It is both HDV (tape) and compact flash with a dedicated add-on card unit. Has xlr audio and a fixed 20x lens with zoom, focus, and iris, just like the Canon XHA1. Coming in December. FX1000 lacks the xlrs.
Be careful out there
From the arrest of ABC producer Asa Eslocker to this video of activists and police clashing at the DNC, it appears that the “Miami model” of police reaction to protests is in force. I expect the activity at the RNC will be even wilder.
In 2003, Miami hosted the FTAA free-trade conference, which drew thousands of protestors ranging from fringe anarchists to mainstream middle-America union groups. At a time when globalization protests across the world had gotten out of hand, the Miami police chief decided to get tough, and the police response to all protests was to surround from all sides, use overwhelming force, and arrest everyone within a cordon, whether they were part of the protest or not. Despite successful ACLU lawsuits and widespread criticism of police violence, the police tactics used in Miami have become standard response.
Many of our credentialed photographers at the Miami protests were gassed and hit with pepper shot. A number of legitimate media crews were injured by police “non-lethal” weapons in the chaos. Carl Kesser, an Emmy-winning filmmaker, was shot and severely injured when a police beanbag hit him beside his right eye.
This week at the DNC, It appears the Denver police removed credentialled press from within the cordon — but If you get trapped inside a cordon with protestors, things can go bad. Be careful.
