Vision Unlimited/LA News

A lot of water has passed through the bayou behind my house since i last posted here. My life changed and i was given a second chance by some proficient practitioners of the art of heart surgery. I am now in better shape than i have been for years, after driving myself down with an addiction to work. I am not totally rehabilated but i have learned to pace myself a little, hence the break in posting to this site.

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One question that periodically comes up recently surfaced on the “prosumer” group of the Cinematographers Mailing List (CML). That is “What is the best format to use for green-screen with a Panasonic HVX200 camera?” This is a different question from the general, “Which format is better?” question, because of the nature of this particular camera. (continue reading…)

I ran into some HD presentation issues at Jackson Hole and that prompted me to buy an AJA Io HD box for delivery of live HD playback from a MacBook Pro that travels with it. It is well suited for playing back show elements from a Final Cut Pro timeline. We did just that for Jackson Hole this year, running a two hour awards program from a similar package. (continue reading…)

People often ask me what they need to know to shoot “digital” and what is different about shooting electronically from shooting with film. Here are a few thoughts.

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If you are a Mac junkie, like i am, you might have noticed that Apple is once again, playing games with us. When the MacBook series came out a few years ago, the CardBus slots that we had gotten used to on the PowerBooks were gone, replaced by the newer ExpressCard slots. So we started collecting adapters like eSATA, Firewire and USB2 adapters for independent disk interfaces.

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Sorry that i have been out of pocket for a couple of months. Things have been crazy here.

Recently, someone asked me what size P2 cards that he should get for his P2 camera. With the new, cheaper, larger cards coming out, the answer is not necessarily the same as it was in the past. Most people would have said, “As big as you can afford.” The answer may be more complicated now. (No, these days, answers seldom get simpler.) He also asked what type of devices were best for transferring P2 cards in the field.

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This has been a crazy month. I was on my way to Alaska for the Iditarod when i found out some bad news from home and had to squeeze a week of camera setup into about 10 hours. Then i turned around and headed back. Luckily, another consultant went up the next day to work on the editing systems, so he got the added load of setting up metadata files and checking camera setups. The rest of the month has been spent trying to get back in step.

NAB is coming up and i will not be there for the first time in several years. I will miss seeing everyone but it will be nice to be home for spring without a big trip to Vegas in the middle.

This month’s HD Video Pro Mis-information column is about processor speed. The next one will be about color difference signals.