Sony HVR-M15U Mini-Review

Posted on by
Reply

We just reviewed a Sony HVR-M15U HDV deck. I’ve only used it for a short while, but it looks to be just about what I expected – a DSR-11 that happens to play HDV tapes. If you’ve used a DSR-11 in the past, you’ll immediately be familiar with the form factor and the control layout.

You get full playback for both small and regular sized tapes, HDV/DV/DVCam support and that’s about it. Standard analog outputs are all you get, as it’s quite clear that Sony is incredibly paranoid about stealing sales from higher end Studio decks in the XDCam/HDCam line. Which is stupid.

The M15U will play 1080i60 and 1080i50 – sorry Canon and JVC shooters, no 24 frame or 720 support is available.

As I said, it’s a DSR-11 that happens to play HDV tapes. If that’s all you ask of it, it does a fine job. Just don’t ask too much and everyone will be happy.

187863

Semi-Shootout Results coming Monday

Posted on by
Reply

Went out shooting with Gary, Adam and Mark today, with the idea of doing a little camera comparo.

We shot with a Canon XL-H1, a Panasonic HVX-200, and a Sony PDW-F350 (XDCam). Thanks very much to Steve at Z-Systems for the XDCam, and thanks to Adam for the Panasonic. We also shot some 16mm (color reversal), just so that we could say we did.

I’ll get more substantial information up Monday, but I wanted to post a quick note. Results so far are:

1) One of our Canon XL-H1s is broken. The viewfinder is jittery and jumping all over. Ugh.

2) Nobody in the Twin Cities has P2 cards for rent on short notice.

3) Final Cut Pro only supports XDCam footage at 25mbps.

4) The Sony XDCam system is really, really nice.

I finally get XDCam. I finally understand why we need to drop about $100,000 on XDCam hardware. I’m ready to shill for Sony. I take back everything bad I’ve ever said about them. Well, no, not that last one.

More next week!

Synergizer Update

Posted on by
Reply

I just updated our Synergy 2MD to the version 5 software. One of the major upgrades from version 5 is that you can add images to the still store via WebDAV, and you no longer need to deal with XML files and database updates. Just throw the file on the frame and it works.

Because of this, I wanted to post an update to Synergizer which supports the new revision. I still find this tool useful, as I don’t like having to manually convert my images to the proper TGA format before uploading them. With Synergizer, it’s just drag and drop. If you’re running the older software revision, visit this post for a version that will work. As always, let me know if there are features you’d like.

SynergizerMac-1.zip Synergizer for the Mac

SynergizerWin-1.zip Synergizer for Windows

MacPros and Xserves and Leopard oh my!

Posted on by
Reply

Today was Christmas for members of the Cult of Mac. WWDC kicked off with a keynote by Steve Jobs, including the announcement of the MacPro and XServe intel machines. They look to be absolutely killer.

Interesting little note on the “Performance” page of the MacPro site. They talk about rendering with Final Cut Pro 5.2.1. That version doesn’t exist, at least not in the wild. Does that hint that we may have a somewhat substantial update coming? Could be!

Hu? Canon HV10 pocketable HDV cam

Posted on by
Reply

Canon’s going all crazy now – They’ve announced the HV10, a handycam-sized HDV camera with many of the features of its big bothers. They’re targeting it at $1299, which puts it right in the range of the Sony HC3. While the camera doesn’t record 24F, it does play that format back. While that makes it a usable deck for tapes shot in the XL-H1, it seems that with 4 HDV cameras on the market now, Canon would be smart to throw together a dedicated deck. Sell it for $2k, make a bundle, make everyone happy!

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the HV10 is that it uses a true 1920×1080 pixel CMOS chip for recording, instead of 1440×1080 like all the previous cameras. Of course, it’s a single chip with a Bayer filter, so the quality isn’t likely to rival the X* cameras. Nevertheless, it’s exciting to have more cameras pushing the prices down in this market segment.

20060802 Lores Hv10 Threequarter

Telestream buys Popwire

Posted on by
Reply

Telestream today announced that they’ve acquired Popwire. I think this is actually a good thing for the industry. Telestream has shown increasing support for the Mac platform, with products like Flip4Mac. Buying Popwire shows that they are indeed very committed to video processing on the Mac. That’s good for everyone.