One last report from London’s Broadcast Video Expo 2010.

As I was leaving the Object Matrix booth, I met Paul Phillips, the U.K. Managing Director for Active Storage.

When Apple decided to get out of the RAID business a few years ago, Active Storage hired many of the engineers from Apple’s team to create a new RAID system designed specifically for the Mac.

In this interview, I talk with Paul about what Active Storage has done and how they’ve optimized it for the Mac.

Click here to listen to the interview. (TRT: 5:46 — 2.4 MB — QuickTime)

Larry

Often, the best new gear is hidden in the corners and back areas of a trade show.

As I was walking the aisles of the Broadcast Video Expo in London last week, I discovered a company called Hocus Products. They make a wireless lens focus puller for smaller cameras – everything from a Canon 5D to a Sony EX3.

In this audio interview, I talk with Pete Hoare, the developer of the product, to learn more.

Click here to listen to the interview: (TRT: 3:43 — 1.5 MB — QuickTime)

Larry

This is a continuation of my series of Film Notes – promoting interesting films or productions. If you want to tell the world about your film – let me know and I’ll share the news.

Larry

LIVE BROADCAST TO SMART PHONES

As a sign of our changing times, Julia Ruttner sent me a note that Dolce&Gabbana are doing a first-ever live broadcast for the iPhone and Android mobile devices on Feb. 25. As we move to larger and larger TV screens in the home and smaller and smaller mobile devices in our hand, the production challenges of making a program look good on both screen sizes boggles the mind. None-the-less, it should be an interesting show.

WHO: Dolce&Gabbana and D&G F/W 2010 Women’s Fashion Show from Milan Fashion Week

WHAT: Broadcast live for the first time on iPhones and Android Mobile Devices

WHERE: live.dolcegabbana.mobi

WHEN: D&G – Thursday, February 25th at 10am EST
Dolce&Gabbana – Sunday, February 28th at 8am EST

Several times a week, I get a note from a Filmmaker asking for help promoting their work. After struggling for a long while to find the best place to do this, I finally decided to post these here – under the title “Film Note.”

If you are an independent filmmaker and want to share what you are doing with the world, let me know and I’ll help.

Larry

NEW ZEALAND FILM MAKER

My name is Dale Stewart, I am 24 years old and I am living in Auckland, New Zealand. I am a young, up-and-coming film maker within the country. I started my career with two short films and both have done very well.

I am currently in post-production for my first feature film which is fully funded by myself. It is a horror film called [ COMPOUND ] and began shooting in Feb 09.
Here is the first, full, trailer.

I recently completed an interview with Fangoria Magazine. Here is the interview.

Being from New Zealand I have had a lot of support from the New Zealand media and people within the film industry. Ive been recommended by a friend of mine to contact your website to how I can get some more buzz out for my film which is nearly complete.

Dale Stewart

I mentioned Tools on Air in an earlier blog post, but now I have an audio interview to go with it.

Tools on Air describes itself as “A TV Station on a Mac.” Currently, they are only distributed by NMR in the UK and have only been shown at the Broadcast Video Expo in London in February. However, they will be attending NAB 2010 in Las Vegas in April, so those of us attending that show will have an opportunity to see them.

This product has the potential to completely alter the options for live video production on the Mac. Prior to this product, QuickTime limited the number of live video streams it could record to one. Tools on Air has found a way to increase that to sixteen HD cameras or video feeds, plus the ability to switch between video feeds live, add graphics, and create multiclips for Final Cut Pro.

Listen to this interview with Neil Anderson, Business Manager for NMR, about what Tools on Air can do and decide for yourself.

Click here to listen to the interview (TRT: 6:20 — 3.0 MB — QuickTime movie).

Larry

I’ve been invited by Dublin City University and Institute of Technology – Tallaght to present two days of seminars in Dublin this weekend.

* The session on Saturday is designed for students and new users.

* Sunday is for more experienced Final Cut Pro folks.

Click here for a full list of what I’m talking about, along with instructions on how to register. (Thanks to Adrian Brett for making this weekend possible!)

If you are anywhere nearby, I’d love to see you.

Larry

Tucked in a small corner at the Broadcast Video Expo 2010 in London was a brand-new product designed for independent producers to help them shoot in 3D — BinoRig.

They were displaying a prototype of a camera mount that allows two cameras to be mounted on a single-tripod to shoot 3D. Nick Rose is the inventor, and managing director of TeleTest. In this audio interview, I spoke with him on the show floor to learn more about his new gear.

There are several points to listen for during our conversation:

• Shooting 3D is more than putting two cameras side-by-side
• Adjusting the distance between the cameras (intra-ocular) distance is needed to create a 3D effect.
• Toeing is used to enhance the 3D effect.
• Aligning both cameras needs to be done to make sure the shots match.
• Existing gear is really expensive and requires a large crew to setup – BinoRig is an alternative to this approach.

I found all his comments very informative and wanted to share them with you.

Click here to listen to the interview. (TRT: 7:37 – 3.6 MB – QuickTime)

I discovered several other small, but fascinating, companies at BVE, which I’ll share with you over the next couple of days.

Larry

I’m spending the week at Broadcast Video Expo 2010 in London (well, Kensington Square, if you want to be specific.)

This is the UK’s largest show focused on video production gear. If you listen to the Digital Production Buzz tonight (www.digitalproductionbuzz.com) you’ll hear reports from Scotland and the BVE show.

However, after I finished recording this week’s show, I discovered two interesting products at the show that I want to share with you.

First, is Gridiron Flow. This software tracks what files are used in your projects, the amount of time you spend working on a project, and helps you backup and archive the elements in your projects — all, essentially, automatically. While I can see how it can be a tremendous timesaver for Photoshop and digital still artists, I’m still pondering its usefulness in a Final Cut workflow. However, Apple is talking about it recently, so this is definitely worth checking out.

Second, is: Tools on Air. Basically, this is a TV Station/broadcast facility on a Mac. This is brand new, from an Austrian company. NMR is their sole distributor and they are looking for US distribution. This puts the power of multi-camera ingest, switching, recording, and playout in a Mac. A single MacPro can handle up to eight cameras and two MacPros connected together can handle up to 16 cameras.

If you were looking at the Newtek Tricaster, this was announced two days ago and is worth a look. Pricing and distribution are still fluid – this is brand new and likely to get US distribution quickly. (Thanks to Jonathan Tyrrell for pointing me to both these companies.)

More soon, I’m off to explore. (I also have some new audio interviews with new products for 3D and RED that I will post as soon as I get them edited.)

Larry

I’m getting ready to head to Scotland, England, and Ireland for a two-week series of Final Cut Studio seminars. (You can read about where I’m going and what I’m discussing here.)

When I’m in London, in addition to speaking at the Broadcast Video Expo, I’m conducting a full-day class on plug-ins that work with Final Cut Pro for Academy Class. I’ve never done an entire day on plug-ins, so I’ve been doing my research on what to present and what to say.

One plug-in that I like a lot is PluralEyes from Singular Software. This plug-in allows us to easily create synced multicam clips in Final Cu Pro. Bruce Sharpe wrote it, along with another staple in the podcast universe called “Levelator.”

Anyway, Bruce is a cool combination of computer scientist and audio guy, based in Vancouver, Canada.

The reason behind my writing all this is that I’ve been getting a lot of mail recently regarding shooting and editing DSLR video in Final Cut Pro. While the workflow continues to improve, there are still some kinks that need to be worked out.

One of these is that DSLR cameras often do a very poor job recording audio. A great solution to this to record audio on a different piece of gear than you record the video – a process called “double-system recording.”

Hollywood has been doing this for years and it works great. However, if you aren’t used to it, it can be very confusing. This process becomes more complex because DSLR cameras don’t shoot at the traditional NTSC frame rate of 29.97 frames per second, instead they shoot at the much more logical 30 frames per second. Which can cause audio problems.

That’s where Bruce comes in. He’s written a very helpful blog that discusses this whole issue, along with easy solutions on how to resolve this in Final Cut Pro.

If DLSR work is in your future, take a few minuets and read Bruce’s posting:

brucesharpe.blogspot.com/2009/06/dslr-dual-system-audio-999-solution.html

Thanks,

Larry