DV for Teachers

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NAB Product Watch: The new toys is a-comin’.

The battery-powered Pyro DV Drive records DV straight to its 20GB 2.5” via 1394 from any DV camera. Take it back to the edit bay and plug it in, or edit right there on a Firewire equipped laptop. From ADS Technologies. More and more companies will offer this, maybe at this year’s NAB. High capacity storage is getting physically smaller, faster, and less expensive every month. Soon camera operators will have Batman-style utility belts full of little batteries and small drives daisy-chained via Firewire. Will this eventually kill tape altogether?

Ken Stone reviews the Macworld Final Cut Pro 2 Bible. He also posts Mario Solorio’s Capture Cards and Codecs on FCP configurations for editing uncompressed video.

Ergonomics at the Cow Prevent pain and injury; good advice.——-

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DVSpot posts notices on Sony’s newly announced 3-chip DCR-TRV950 (replaces the TRV900) and the DCR-PC101, a tiny single-chip that fills my gadget-loving heart with desire. Ah well, I want a two-seater convertible, universal health care, and peace in the Middle East too.

USATODAY.com – An online course in digital video: “Welcome back to Digital Video 101. This week’s segment concludes our look at how to build the perfect system for digital video with a little class discussion and a surprise.” This is a pretty cool series of quite user-friendly articles that started in February, and the entire series is linked from this one. A good read for beginners, and has balanced comments about a number of editing applications.

Oh, man, they’re shaking the tree:
MacMinute.com: Apple accepting orders for new video software: “Apple is now taking orders for DVD Studio Pro 1.5 and Cinema Tools 1.0 for Final Cut Pro without having formally announced either software title yet. DVD Studio Pro 1.5 brings Mac OS X compatibility to the product while improving integration with Final Cut Pro and other video editing applications. Cinema Tools, a new product, enhances the functionality of Final Cut Pro 3, adding support for editing film digitally and support for the emerging 24P high-definition video standard. DVD Studio Pro 1.5 will ship in 1-2 days for US$999; it’s unclear whether the software will be provided as a free upgrade or a paid upgrade to current users. Cinema Tools is slated to ship in May, also for $999.”——-

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PC Magazine’s April 23 issue is crammed with articles on DV. They cover a eight different camcorders and a variety of PC video editing packages. If you’re looking to choose a PC-based editor it’s well worth a long look, but if you’re not already Windows XP, take their performance evaluations with a large grain of salt.

Do they mention Macs? In a brief paragraph they discuss iMovie, but after criticizing some of the PC products for their spotty support of DVD burning, they never mention iDVD. They just aren’t interested on covering Macs with any professionalism, but their other coverage seems adequate. I hope so.

The Physics of Lighting at DV.com (registration required – grrr) by the amazing Adam Wilt.——-

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Sure-Fire Tips for Encoding High-Quality, Low-Bandwidth Audio, Part 1: Dee McVicker offers advice for professional quality streaming audio, seeking the sweet spot of best sound at the lowest possible bandwidth. This isn’t aimed at on-the-cheap producers and streamers, but a valuable look at the workflow of a seasoned pro who knows the technology and the marketplace. You and your students need to know the current best practices.

Streaming Media continues to offer good reporting and solid instruction on this evolving technology. Make sure you look through their complete tutorials listing.

GeniusDV has a FAQ for various hardware configurations for Final Cut Pro, as well as a group of discussion forums on Final Cut, Adobe After Effects, and other apps.

On this streaming oriented news day: related to the CDBTPA, which has headlined DV for Teachers for days now, is the controversy over internet radio and the onerous royalty fee structure proposed by the U.S. Copyright Office’s Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) at the behest of the Recording Industry Association of America. Salon has an online exchange between the vice president of legal affairs at the RIAA and a program director of an online radio station. Again, educators, please consider how these issues will continue to shape the implications for your school and your students: markets, distribution, the
tools we work, teach, and create with, the types of jobs available and the skills needed to get, keep, and create jobs; read up on this, and then write about this, and let Congress know that this is bad policy.——-

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Here you go, Russ: “eagle”

Jim Heid reviews Final Cut Pro 3. It’s for Macworld, so it’s inclined to be favorable, but if you haven’t made the move to version 3, it’s worth the upgrade and the minimal time to master the new features. The color correction alone makes a huge difference.

A September 2001 article by Heid and Tom Wolsky (who has written a well-reviewed book on FCP – excerpt here) has useful tips.

The Earth: Above. The Sun: Below. Joe Di Gennaro gives a fascinating look at a fast-paced shoot for a digital production relying heavily on green-screen compositing. At 2-pop(annoying registration required, but at least they use cookies so you don’t have to login every flipping time you go there – DV.com should take note.——-

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As always congratulations and thanks to Dave Winer.

The ever-busy Ken Stone team has new reviews: Ken reviews StageTools LLC’s MoviePicture Plugin for pan and scan, and Jerry Jones reviews the India Pro Special Effects Titler for animated title effects.

The LAFCPUG has posted the agenda for their NAB meeting, and in addition to the nearly DV-omniscient Adam Wilt on measurement tools in FCP, Boston FCPUG’s Daniel Berube on his short “Exclusive,” and Dan Coplan on low-budget film looks, comes a capture card and codec comparison from Marco Solorio of OneRiver Media. Marco’s info looks solid, but his site is not easy on the eyes: light blue text on a dark blue background. On my usual Dell/Win98/IE5.5 browsing machine at the office, it’s darn near impossible to read. On a Mac it’s readable.

2-pop (registration required, grr) has a story about an independent producer/director who got his film distributed on DVD. It’s unconventional, of course, but it’s a reminder that diligence and enterprise can get your work distributed in unexpected ways. Keep digging, folks.

From Macintouch: Version 1.1 of Virtix Sample Effects for iMovie provides three free effects for iMovie 2: Extreme Black and White, Flame, and Letterbox. Available for iMovie 2.0.1 for Mac OS 9 and iMovie 2.1 for Mac OS X, the new version adds context sensitive help, more efficient memory usage in Mac OS 9, and better frame and field handling to eliminate flicker on television monitors.——-