Monthly Archives: December 2005

Spike Lee Talks to Slate

Posted on by
2

Spike LeeSpike Lee has just come out with an autobiography, That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It. That’s probably behind his desire to talk to the media, including Slate.

The interview specifically addresses Lee’s comment about the Holocaust movies getting all the awards:

Slate: …You pretty much said that any movie about the Holocaust is going to carry all the prizes.

Lee: Whoa, whoa! What I was speaking of specifically was the feature-length documentary branch of the academy. I mean, there was a time—you could do the research, I don’t have the chart in front of me—but for a period of over 10 years, almost every film that won best feature-length documentary was about the Holocaust.

You can read the Lee interview at Slate. It’s not much fun, I hope the book is better.

Panasonic HVX200 – FPS update

Posted on by
5

Panasonic HVX200 (Front): offers variable framerates at 720pRumors about the new “Varicam” from Panasonic revolve around its support for variable bitrates. In my previous HVX200 specs review, I was able to confirm that the HVX200 will support a variety of frame rates at 720p. That’s similar to what its big brother’s doing – the AJ-HDC27.

Here’s the latest spec update – directly from Panasonic:

  • 1080: 60i, 30p, 24p
  • 720: 60p, 48p, 36p, 32p, 30p, 26p, 24p, 22p, 20p, 18p, 12p
  • 480: 60i, 30p, 24p

DVCPRO-HD allows Panasonic rates of up to 100Mbps and they’re obviously taking advantage of it! 720p at 60 frames allows REAL slow motion at 2:1 ratio. Even the CineAlta can’t do this, nevermind the HDV Sony models: FX1, Z1, and HC1.

I don’t think we’ll be seeing actual footage from the upcoming Panasonic HVX200 before Christmas. So plan your next video production for February – getting a HVX200 will allow you greater creative freedom at much lower prices.

Hollywood’s Xmas vows: fewer movies

Posted on by
Reply

With DVD sales flattening, Variety re-examines the big studios. Most of the executives interviewed requested to remain anonymous, a clear sign it’s time to face some unpleasant realities.

Wedding Crashers - one of the few movies in the 30-70M range that made a profitDVD sales have been the engine for studio growth in the last 5 years but in the last 12 months the DVD market is flattening. There’s some new distribution channels on the horizon: like Sony’s Blu-Ray DVD (or Toshiba’s alternative HD-DVD) and even the new video iPod (limited to tv series or ipod torrents). These new markets are not mature enough however to compensate the overall decrease in revenues.

Although the major studios are facing different problems, the majority of studio executives agreed on several points:

  • Limit movies in the $35 million to $70 million range
  • Financial partners are no longer an option — they’re required
  • Trim marketing budgets
  • Make fewer movies

In terms of the mid-budget movies, Variety quotes a COO at a major studio:

If you look at the $40 million to $70 million budget film, they are so difficult. They rarely have top box office stars, and they’re such risky territory because you have to spend $25 million on P&A, so it’s a huge investment. It’s really hard to get that back.

It’s still debatable if this spells GOOD news for indie producers. If the market continues to contract in the next year, studios might need to find ways to market smaller and cheaper movies. They could plagiarize the NASA motto: faster, better, cheaper.

A few examples that Hollywood could take to heart: Russian-made The Return (Возвращение) was produced for under $500,000 and made over ten times that. Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation also resulted in 1:10 ratio: a budget of just $4M resulted in revenues in excess of $40M internationally. Of course, a profit of a few million can’t plug in the holes made by a disaster like Zathura…

Apple iMac G5 – edits HDV and more

Posted on by
Reply

When Apple released the new video iPod last month, it created such a buzz that no one seems to have noticed another “premiere”: the new iMac G5.

Regardless, professional reviewers did their job and gave the new iMac top ratings:

The combination of the new, improved hardware, plus Front Row, makes the iMac G5 the best consumer desktop you can buy this holiday season, period. For mainstream consumers doing typical tasks — Web surfing, email, office productivity, photos, music, home videos, etc. — it’s the finest desktop PC on the market, at any price. …the top-of-the-line model, with a 20-inch screen, is now $1,699, down $100 from its predecessor. The 17-inch model is still $1,299, despite the added features.

iPod videoThe new iMac G5 has native support for HDV editing as well as DVCPRO HD, the 100Mbps standard used in new “Varicam” – the Panasonic HVX200.

If you’re a serious editor obviously you’ll need a more professional platform but if you’re going to edit your first short, the iMac makes a lot of sense. Apple did price it competitively to other desktop systems so you should take advantage of this iMac.

Sony Blu-Ray goes with MPEG2

Posted on by
Reply

It’s all over the HD sites now. Let me quote a headline from PCPro that sums it best: “Last century codecs for next-gen Blu-ray.”

Blu-Ray DVD encoded with MPEG2That’s right, Sony’s Blu-Ray DVDs will pack 50GB of data, all encoded with MPEG2. A side note for the tech un-savvy – MPEG2 is the codec that current DVDs are using. I did a recent comparison between Sony Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I’m not sure what HD-DVD will be using but I think Sony’s making the wrong move here.


There are better codecs available. On paper, Blu-Ray supports MPEG-4 AVC (a.k.a. H.264) which allows much higher bitrates. Apple recently joined the Blu-Ray camp and has built-in support for H.264.

A snail is begging to be painted red so it fits my simile!A race between MPEG2 and MPEG4 is like racing … [writer's block]… a red snail and a Ferrari. Between the two of them, the only common thing is that they’re both red … I mean codecs. MPEG4 is able to pack A LOT more info into a file size that’s equal to an MPEG2 file.

The discussion on why Sony did it still rages on. The only grain of truth that I see is that Sony has invested a ton of dough in coding machines that only do MPEG2. Also, their technicians (for lack of a better word ) are experienced with MPEG2 settings. After all their task is to makes the movies appear their best on an HD screen. Whether the file is 30GB or 45GB is not something that they to worry too much about. At least for the moment.

I fear come Peter Jackson’s King Kong (btw, King Kong trailer is out ) they’ll start feeling the pressure. I bet Peter has extras that will put the Lord of the Rings DVDs to shame. His production diary will take half a blu-ray easy!

As far as I’m concerned, I’d like to put a system together that will make it possible to take the 100MB rate from the Panasonic HVX200 and burn it to a DVD!