Creative COW is the odd acronym for “Creative Communities of the World,” an online community where established pros in filma and video come to learn, teach, and share information about the ever-changing world of moving image production, post-production, and exhibition. The author of the article linked below, for example, created the trailers for James Cameron’s Avatar. At the proper forum on the same site, you can find basic help regarding iMovie or Windows Movie Maker.

The particular article I’m linking here, called Relax, and Quit Bluffing: Aspect Ratios and Workflows, offers a history of the different frame sizes for feature film production and exhibition from the invention of film through the contemporary use of digital SLR still cameras for capturing high-definition video. You don’t have to be deeply into the history of technology to appreciate this; knowing how current standards evolved will only help you better grasp where they may be going.

MakeMKV Rips DVDs and Blu-Rays With Just Two Clicks – dvd ripping – Lifehacker.

I haven’t tested this, but it is worth pointing to.

This is hugely exciting—video professionals using digital SLR cameras to shoot very high quality hi-def video on a surprisingly affordable budget. Not cheap, but still startling quality for the price. Please read this article and consider the possibilities. Make sure to watch the first linked video, and remember that was recorded with available light. Very very impressive.

HDSLRs for Video: Beyond the Hype – Creative COW.

Macworld’s Chris Breen offers valuable info in Converting AVCHD files for iMovie. The lack of direct support for AVCHD in out-of-the-box iMovie stinks though. Camcorder manufacturers often include Windows-only conversion utilities, and one commenter suggests installing them using VirtualBox, a free Windows operating system virtual machine. That’s a lot of hassle for an increasingly common video format that will rapidly become ubiquitous.

I’m cheating twice here; bear with me. First cheat, I didn’t link to Part 1. It, and the point of this post, Part 2, have been floating in open tabs in my browser for too many weeks. It’s embarrassing, really. I should have posted these things a long time ago, but “I’ll do it later” is a constant refrain in my head and my life. (Ask my wife, or several of the people I work with.)

!

(On second thought, please don’t!)

The point, again, of this post: a series on Peachpit about Equipment for Video Podcasting, which covers an extensive amount of information, with pics and links, provides a very good one-stop reference about video podcasting (well, two, really, unless you think of the series as a single thing with separate parts).

And my second cheat? Those links point to the print-ready versions of the articles, because the originals are split into seven or eight shorter chunks requiring reloading the pages and that’s kind of cheating. At least I think it isn’t, so I’m counter-cheating.

Enjoy the articles.

There are so many types of HD compression it can be confusing, so thanks to Ken Stone for this listing of Sony’s formats wit links to drivers.

Ahh, formats. There are so many: still using DV tape? Or have you switched to a DVD-based MPEG-2 format? Maybe you use a hard-drive or flash-memory kind of camcorder? Whichever you use, do you know the ins and outs of what it takes to edit that format properly? You need to make sure your system is up to the task, but what about that codec, and I need to output to DVD and the web, but yikes everyone looks blue in that shot, and….

We don’t have all the solutions here, but Andrew Balis, a long-time contributor to Ken Stone’s site and major FCP maven, provides one piece of the puzzle as he explains Color Workflows With Different Types of Sources:

One of the most confusing issues that comes up frequently with new users of Color is how to get in and out of Color with different types of video formats. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to clear up the confusion by presenting the four main workflows Color can utilize, as well as how each format can be handled by Color. This article relates to users of Color version 1.0.2 or later. Well look at how to handle video formats captured via capture card, as well as how to work with “native” formats captured via FireWire such as DV, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD and HDV.

Even if your footage is color correct from the word “Action!”, if you need some help understanding aspects of the different types of video, this article is worth reading and bookmarking.

Jefferson Graham covers four editing applications that work with hard-drive based AVCHD video in Video editing choices blossom into nicely workable options

If you have one of those new high-definition camcorders that records directly to a hard drive, you’ve surely been frustrated.

Editing high-def clips into your own personal mini-masterpiece has been nearly impossible. The video footage has not been compatible with popular consumer video-editing programs, nor could it be used on most Apple (AAPL) computers.

That’s now changed. Apple just rejiggered its popular iMovie program to accept video from these camcorders. And longtime Windows (MSFT) software favorites Pinnacle, Sony Vegas (SNE) and Ulead VideoStudio (CREL) have been upgraded as well.

Be sure to check his pros and cons list for each of the editors. Among the limitations: Sony’s app Vegas only works with Sony’s HD cameras; Corel’s Ulead Video Studio only works with video from the camera, so older already-captured clips won’t work; Pinnacle’s (and likely all the others) need a powerful machine to process the large and complex HiDef files; and the new iMovie is a very different animal from any previous version.

HD for the rest of us is here, but it seems it still has a ways to go before “it just works.”