Sorry that the StickyPod review didn’t make it up today. It was delayed due to the unexpected, but much appreciated, arrival of a loaner Canon XL-H1. (Thanks Pat!)
I’ll have more thoughts on the StickyPod up tomorrow, and I’ll have some XL-H1 thoughts up on Thursday. I love the XL-H1!
I’m putting together a full review of our StickyPod car mount with some sample footage we shot this weekend. I just wanted to throw a post out to say that the StickyPod is very cool. Stay Tuned!
Everyone should check out the 4 HDV camera shootout results at DV.com. I’ll post my thoughts on Monday, but if nothing else, I hope the tests get the “HDV isn’t really HD” folks to quiet down a bit.
According to camcorderinfo.com, Sony is working on a new budget HDV camera, the HC3. Since the HC1 is retailing for around $1500 right now, while the HC3 doesn’t seem to be much lower in spec than the HC1, if it came in at $1299 it might be, psychologically at least, a more reasonable camera for home movies. Of course the big news will be when one of these pushes below $1000. Then we can start throwing them off cliffs without worry …
I was recently shown a program called Celtx, a free (but not OSS) script development tool. It’s based on some of the backend stuff from Firefox and gives the commercial scriptwriting tools a pretty serious challenge. I highly encourage folks who are interested in script development to take a look – not only will it help you collect your ideas and write the actual script, but it will also help with scheduling, budgeting and a number of other tasks related to your production. It runs on OSX, Windows and Linux and seems relatively production-ready. Anybody have other preferences in script development tools?
It’s starting to get really hard to get a CRT video monitor. This makes me sad. I’ve always been a big fan of the Sony PVM series, but they are not long for this world (limited stock is still available). The replacement is Sony’s LUMA LCD line. Now, go and read the Luma FAQ, especially the question “Is the quality of the LUMA line as good as the PVM?” – their answer? “No.”
So why discontinue the PVMs? Arg.
Apparently they’re still making the 16:9 BVM series monitors, though even that is rather ambiguous. I’ve heard from at least one person that Sony is dropping those as well. This confusion led me to call Sony. Big mistake. Read on to learn how my head exploded.
I somehow missed this in all the hubbub surrounding Macworld SF. Focus is going to be offering an upgrade to the Firestore FS-4pro in April (so… June) that will allow it to record HDV footage in a format that Final Cut Pro can deal with natively.
This is very excellent news!
Part of the inspiration for starting this site was the utter lack of decent review sites for video gear. At best you’ll find reviews of cameras, and even then they tend to be “dude in his bedroom shooting out his window” type of stuff.
Case in point, I’m trying to find a decently priced HMI kit. B&H has plenty to chose from. Why isn’t there a site I can go to to read reviews? Hear about quality? At best I’m left searching forums looking for answers. Someone should get some proper VC together and start an all-encompasing production gear review site. Anyone want to volunteer?
Adobe has announced updates to much of their production software. New versions of After Effects, Premiere, Encore and Audition were announced, as part of something called the Production Studio. My thoughts after the jump.