Every once and a while I like to stop and give credit where credit is due. Recently manufacturers have started to finally embrace the wide angle part of the lens as a selling point, and I for one applaud them.

Unless you’re shooting wildlife or sports, a very wide lens is usually much more useful to the videographer than a long zoom. Nonetheless it seems for years manufacturers have been using the zoom length (10x, 20x, 30x) as one of the main selling points for their camcorders. I think it all stems from the uninformed consumer who having a choice of a 10x zoom or a 300x digital zoom will obviously think the 300x is better, regardless of the fact that at that extreme digital zoom, it would be hard to distinguish from the mosaic filter.

That being said two recent camcorder releases, the Panasonic HMC150, and the Sony FX-1000 (Z5-U) have equipped their cameras with pretty astoundingly wide lenses.

I’m not sure what recent technological advances have occurred to make these lenses more affordable, but I certainly appreciate it. The 13x wide lens of the Panasonic 28mm-368mm (35mm equiv) is impressive in its versatility. Not to be outdone, Sony’s new camcorders offer a 29mm lens on a 20x zoom as well.

I just thought I’d pop up to give some well deserved praise to the engineers of these new lenses.

The old adage goes ”you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” And this is true, from what we’ve seen. We’ve got a pretty diverse audience, with all kinds of skill sets between them. Some are rank amateurs with no background and others are extremely advanced users.

Around here, we try to have a little bit of something for everyone. We often have reviews of some rather high-end equipment alongside our column for the beginning beginners. But as part of trying to get our beginners up to speed, we end up running a lot of the same articles over and over again (how many times can we really write about three-point lighting?) This is one of the things we hear a lot from people who tell us they aren’t planning to renew–”it’s too repetitive”.

Issue planning is an interesting but chaotic time around here. Not only do we try to predict what’s going to be hot this year, but we try to keep balance between beginning readers and more advanced readers. And the outcome? A number of our most advanced readers “outgrow” us and don’t renew.

It’s more interesting now in that we’re one of the few video publications left on the shelf. Will we reclaim readers? Will more readers move over to the web instead? Time will tell.

Alright I know, I get it. You can post your OWN content on Youtube!  But that doesn’t mean that you should. There are always positives and negatives when it comes to any user generated content video sharing site.  Here are the positives, freedom of expression. That’s right, whether you want to tell off the girl who turned you down with a close up of your nose while your talking. Or you feel like dancing in your underpants to the theme from Jaws, you have the right to express yourself! Should you? Sure you bet!

What’s the downside? The result is usually, people who own cameras end up creating the content. Instead of people who know how to use cameras, creating the content.  This means fast shaky zooms, pans that never stop and rack focus techniques used not only as transitions, but throughout the entirety of the video as well. These are perfect examples of what not to do in video production! Watch five youtube videos and see if you notice any of the seven deadly camera sins, I did. Go try, here are some to get you started:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIAnfNvzEiY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jumu2a90Vz0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktd5Yrbtlao

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9lfCSGIJ7E&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXJ9o4eSWt0

There is no creativity, no design and no talent. More importantly, these videos lack style and format. Therefore, the art of video production doesn’t exist on youtube. Which, ironically enough is a web site geared around creating video.

Hey, is that guy wearing a TV? Believe it or not, Sony has been mastering the technology of razor thin, paper like bendable plastic that has the ability to display full-color video. Sony originally presented the 2.5-inch video screen that was only 0.01 inch thick, in 2007. The idea being to create thinner cell phones and MP3 players.

Using a small film transistor and a electroluminescent display to create the TV made for a much more flexible display. Sony went on record to say that, “it could be used to wrap around a lamppost, or a person’s wrist, or put up in someone’s house like wallpaper.” This could lead to video labels on cereal boxes, or tuna fish cans and even T-shirts with personal video displays scrolling up and down. The electroluminescent display technology is a new entry into the current playing field of TV technologies, LCD and Plasma.

Now Sony is releasing the new technology in the U.S. next year, in the form of a XEL-1 OLED TV. Which unlike a Plasma doesn’t use a backlight to illuminate the picture from behind. A OLED panel illuminates itself. Which gives the XEL-1 OLED TV the option of being much thinner. Who knows what the future will hold, but I feel like I’m ready to dress up in a suit & tie… and TV!

For more information, Sony has provided a press release

Read the rest of this entry »

A Videomaker/Canon Short Video Contest contestant from the wine country of California sent us some entries as DVCPRO HD in a QuickTime wrapper. In the minutes that followed, I puzzled over why we could get audio but not video from the clips. The DVCPRO HD part was what wasn’t supported by anything we were currently using.

A furiously quick round of Googling led us to a bunch of shots in the dark over codecs that turned out to be little more than leads. We finally found something that works great, and as advertised: Calibrated Software’s Calibrated{Q} DVCProHD Decode. If you’re going to be exchanging footage with someone with a Panasonic AG-HVX200 or other DVCPRO HD camcorder, Calibrated{Q} DVCProHD Decode is your friend. There’s no waiting, either–even with our somewhat-old P4 system that we’re using to encode all of our clips with, scrubbing on the contestant’s 720p clips was silky-smooth.

You can try out the software for free, but the software will add rectangular watermarks to make sure that if you’re going to get any serious use out of Calibrated{Q} DVCProHD Decode, you’ve paid your $70 for the license. But it’s absolutely worth it if you need access to any DVCPRO HD footage–it does what it says and it does it well.

How does $1,000,000 sound for a 30 second ad? Well if you’re a major production house, it sounds like a small budget. But a cool million for an independent video producer isn’t that shabby.

All you have to do is make a 30 second commercial for Doritos, and if it’s selected, your commercial will air during the Super Bowl, where you will be on hand to watch it. And if your ad is voted the best in the Super Bowl by USA Today, they will pay you one million dollars for your trouble. The five runners up get $25,000 each.

This is by far the largest contest award that I’ve seen for user generated video. And seriously if you’re a Videomaker reader, you’ve already got an edge on 95% of the submissions they’re going to get.

Your 30 second Ad has to be submitted by November 16th, 2008 so get cracking!

Full contest details and entry guidelines can be found on the crashthesuperbowl.com website.