I did not see this coming. Rather, I didn’t see this coming so quickly. OmniVision has announced a 16-Megapixel sensors that they claim are capable of capturing 4608 x 3456 at 30 fps or 4K2K (3840 x 2160) at 60 fps (!) for use in still and video cameras as well as high end mobile phones. So far, we haven’t heard any news of the chip being incorporated into any specific device, but the fact that it’s possible is staggering. This means that in the very near future, the average person can shoot video from their phone that will have enough resolution to be projected onto the big screen without up-scaling! Read the rest of this entry »

CTIA Wireless 2012 – by Beata Dumaplin

Videographers have been using wireless technology with wireless mics and recording devices for years, and in our society today, almost everything is wireless. Wireless phones, Internet, printers, keyboards and mice; access to anything, virtually everywhere. Even our children’s toys have wireless capabilities, with downloadable apps and games. Wireless devices have taken our world by storm and if you’re ready to jump on the invisible bandwagon, you should join us as we set our sights on CTIA, the International Wireless Expo.

CTIA is like a giant meeting of the wirelessly minded. A variety of companies will be there, from computer based companies like Sony Electronics, Dell and Electronic Arts, to cell phone carriers like AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile and even application corporations such as Pandora and Firefox are all scheduled to attend. Beside these well-known names, over 1,000 exhibitors will be there, showcasing their newest contributions to the wireless world.

Meeting from May 8-10 this year in New Orleans, Louisiana, CTIA will be hosting a variety of keynote speakers from all different fields of wireless technology. CEO’s and chairpeople from Pandora, the Federal Communications Commission, Visa,  MasterCard and so much more. In the afternoon on the 8th of May, they will be hosting their first “Carrier Roundtable” where the major cell phone carrier representatives will be talking about their latest innovations in wireless. Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to speak on Thursday the 10th.

Although video doesn’t seem like a main focus in this conference, we are hoping to see more innovated steps toward wireless in our field as well. We are sure that advancements in smartphone technology will be sure to assist the cellphone camera’s use. We have already seen upgrades in lenses that apply to your smartphone camera and major players are starting to find ways to use video from smartphones in full fledged movies. We hope to see more interesting advances in that field.

Though wireless has not yet made a giant impact on the video creating world, we already have some abilities to edit footage on tablets and smartphones  and it would be nice to see wireless streaming technology from our video cameras to our computers, or a more advanced editing software for the smart phone. Whatever the future holds for wireless technology, it will be at CTIA.  So stay tuned, we’ll be there to check out all of the latest advancements and we’ll be sure to tell you all about it.

Beata Dumaplin is a freelance writer and independent photographer.

Last week, we looked at what fair use ISN’T.  So now let’s look at what it is.

Basically, fair use depends on a few factors, most importantly (1) the amount of material you copy from the original work,  (2) your purpose in using that material, (3) the nature of the work that you’re copying, and (4) the effect that your copying has on the original art.

(1) The amount of material you copy from the original work –For the first factor, you are generally allowed to use snippets of a work as long as you don’t appropriate the “heart and soul” of the work…what, exactly, that means is open to some debate. As an example, if you grab a few seconds from another film, you’re probably in the clear. However, you would probably not get away with including the entirety of that film in your own project. How much is too much? That’s different in every case, so just try to exercise some common sense.

(2) Your purpose in using that material — Fair Use allows you to make use of a pre-existing artistic work for purposes of education, training, news reporting, scientific research, critique or commentary, or parody. Think of the last time you watched critic review a movie on television. It probably included a short clip from the movie being reviewed, right? Likewise, you might have been in a classroom lecture where the teacher will show video clips to illustrate some point or other. These are other examples of situations that are more likely to be deemed Fair Use.

(3) The nature of the work that you’re copying — Certain sorts of material are more likely to fall under the fair use exception – for example, clips from non-fiction works. We generally agree that it’s a good thing for the public to be well-informed on history, so would it be in the public interest for a historical video – like, say, the Zapruder film of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination – to be blocked from public view because someone claimed copyright ownership? (In fact, Time magazine did make such a claim after a history book used stills from the film as illustrations. They didn’t prevail.)

(4) The effect that copying has on the original art — Finally, let’s look at the effect on the original work. Remember that copyright law exists in theory so that an artist can profit from his own hard work without someone else undermining him. Thus your work can’t be so similar that people would start buying yours instead of the original. One sticking point for many is that fair use depends a lot on intentions and motivations. For example, let’s pretend that I wrote a parody song making fun of Lady Gaga’s latest song by changing the lyrics to be about cheeseburgers. It’s fine if people listen to my song and think, “Hey! This song makes a good point. Its sharp and biting satirical message has made me realize that Lady Gaga is a hack and I will henceforth refuse to purchase her music!” If Lady Gaga’s sales start to drop as a result, she can’t sue me because my ridicule was too effective. HOWEVER, I could get in trouble if people listen to my parody and think, “Hey! This song is pretty good! It’s pretty much like Lady Gaga, so instead of buying the original song from her, I’ll just buy this parody instead.” A parody work that hurts the original artist by becoming a substitute for their work will most likely not qualify for a fair use exception.

Again, acknowledging that you don’t own the original artistic work, giving credit to the original artist or using a work without any intention to profit will often encourage an original artist to let you use his work, but it does not necessarily mean that your work will fall under fair use.

If you really want to be sure you’re in the clear when it comes to copyright with your video project, you owe it to yourself to check out Videomaker’s Archival Storytelling book.  It breaks down all the elements of copyright, so that you’ll know exactly what you can get away with when you need to use footage from another person’s work.

Videomaker workshops offer a great ways to get good video info fast.  While Videomaker has lots of ways to learn about video — webinars, training DVDs, a monthly magazine, or can getting tips sent daily to your email — nothing quite compares to getting some face-time with a real live person. Luckily, there’s an easy way to get the personal attention that you crave – Videomaker‘s in-house workshops are the perfect opportunity to get all your toughest video and videography questions answered by a live Videomaker expert. Our experts love to help you make better video, so these popular and informative workshops thrive on student questions. Bring your biggest questions and trickiest problems and get some answers.

The Basics of Video Production is a great way to get a hands-on introduction to making videos. Various lectures by video experts will cover the fundamental techniques of shooting, miking, editing and lighting. Our best video experts are always on hand during these educational sessions. Each workshop contains lectures, demonstrations and Q&A sessions with experts. But by far the most popular section of the day is when attendees get to take their cameras out into the field to put all the new techniques they’ve just learned into practice. Previous workshop groups have used their skills to craft professional-looking video movies in just three days. End your weekend with a complete video project to how the class. It’s no wonder that previous attendees rave about Videomaker workshops; 100% of attendees rated this workshop as good or excellent and that’s a record we’re proud of.

Sign up for The Basics of Video Production today and you’re sure to agree.

Intensive Editing is a three-day, hands on course is for students who understand the basics of video editing and want to advance their skills. Each student will work on a supplied HP laptop, using Adobe professional editing software that will take you from the basic skills to some advanced techniques including time remapping, advanced trimming features, multi-camera editing and more. Seating is limited so register for Intensive Editing today!

Sign up for our Intensive Editing Workshop and get ready to learn.

Courtesy: philotfarnsworth.com

Eighty-four years ago, the first known video transmission was made from an idea conceived by a child who was only 14 years old. August marks the birth of the man known as the Father of Television – Philo T. Farnsworth – and it seems fitting to tell a bit of his tale.

Was he a child prodigy? Or just a visionary with the drive to make something of his vision? Growing up in a home without electricity, one can imagine he might have had ‘power sources’ on his mind a lot.

Born 105 years ago in 1906, it’s an interesting fact that as popular and worldwide his invention has become, he’s not very well-known at all, and in fact lived his life in obscurity and died nearly penniless.

Farnsworth came up with the idea of picture transmission when he was 14 years old* and showed his chemistry teacher sketches for a vacuum tube that would electronically copy images on a screen, one line at a time. His first transmission was a 60-horizontal line image of a dollar bill and he subsequently applied for and earned the patent for an all-electronic TV in 1927. Electronics engineers at the time were testing other methods of transmitting images using spinning discs.

In the 1930s,engineers at RCA (Radio Corporation of America) were in the process of inventing a different type of television using a cathode tube and he became embroiled in a decade-long legal war that ended with RCA paying Farnsworth a million dollars for royalties for patent licenses for several of his inventions including TV scanning, syncing, and contrast control.

Many of Farnsworth’s 165 patents for electronic inventions include amplifiers, a system for air traffic control, night vision devices, radar and cathode-ray and vacuum tubes.

As remarkable as it sounds, television is still a ‘young’ invention – and is already disappearing form many households today. Farnsworth passed away in 1971, just when his invention was really starting to get a firm foothold in American households. Farnsworth didn’t gain wealth from his invention, and, in fact, spent his lifetime fighting to hold claim to the patent, and his wife continued to fight the battle until her death.

Want to see the man talk about his work? Here’s a YouTube clip of him on the TV classic “I’ve Got a Secret” from the 1950s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKM4MNrB25o After everyone is amazed that the inventor of TV was such an unknown man, notice what he says about TV at 6:15 on this clip. He talks about the ”future” of TV, including better utilization of the bandwidth, hoping to expand it to 2000 lines rather than 525 lines, visual memory, and flat screens – this is Hi Def, folks! It took four decades longer to get this. What a visionary.

I love history, and the history of television in particular, and although TV might be approaching the end of it’s life as we know it, as video producers we all owe a bit of gratitude to Philo T. Farnsworth for his vision and amazing mind.

If you want to read more history of TV or video, check out LabGuy’s site: http://www.labguysworld.com/ Among other things he has his very own museum of “Extinct Devices” including his collection of old video tape recorders and old video cameras. Hum… I wonder if he’d be interested in that old Panasonic VHS cam sitting on our “museum shelf”.

* Some reports say Farnsworth was 15 or 16, but he says he was 14 on the “I’ve Got a Secret” show mentioned in this report.

PHOTO CREDIT: Farnsworth Archives, philotfarnsworth.com

Videomaker has been publishing video production tips and techniques for 25 years and on June 2, Matt York and Videomaker celebrated our Silver Anniversary with a party for family and friends. During the event, Matt sent a live-streaming message to our readers, contributors and a host of others who helped make Videomaker the success it is today. The following is the text from Matt’s live streaming speech.

Welcome to our humble abode and thank you for coming.
As you look around you will find the people most responsible for Videomaker’s success. I want to extend my warmest appreciation to each and every one of them. Starting with my son, daughter and wife (all of whom currently work here), thanks for putting up with me and my devotion to this company that, at times, may have overlapped into our family a bit too much. Thanks especially to my wife Patrice for being the keeper of the purse strings. She and I are a perfect balance, as I tend to be the visionary risk-taker and she’s the pragmatic voice who keeps us grounded in reality. As Vice President she has been and remains “the other half of the sky” involved in every important decision ever rendered here.

Outside of my family, I want to recognize the people who I approached 26 years ago when I first had the idea for this magazine. One of our local business leaders, Howard Isom, and I spoke last week about the day we first met. Howard said I was just a hippie living in the woods with a crazy idea and that no one had ever published an international magazine in this town before.

Some of the people who I pitched actually invested in Videomaker (Howard wasn’t one of them), but Garey Weibel (the then Publisher of our local newspaper, the Chico Enterprise Record) did. Some would say that Garey and I couldn’t have been more different, but we developed a keen relationship based on mutual respect. Garey’s advice over the first few years was indispensable and more than once helped save this fledgling company from disaster. In one harrowing incident in our earliest days, Garey literally rescued the company from the brink of disaster, contributing venture capital when it looked like this start-up was going to run out of cash.

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