Barefoot Workshops: Documenting the Mississippi Delta

In February 2008 the Barefoot Workshops, run by Chandler Griffin, will hit the Mississippi Delta. This is a 2-week workshop designed for new documentary filmmakers who want to start a career in film and television documentary. Chandler Griffin runs the Barefoot Workshops, a a New York City-based not-for-profit 501(c)3, that offers short, intensive workshops around [...]

New Panasonic HD Camera in April 2008: AG-HMC70

Panasonic’s new HD camera, due for release in April of next year, will reportedly go for around $2,000. Definitely within reach of most people. From Panasonic:
PANASONIC EXPANDS PROFESSIONAL AVCHD PRODUCT LINE WITH THE NEW AG-HMC70 SHOULDER-MOUNT CAMCORDER
* Affordable, Point-and-Shoot HD Camcorder Offers Benefits of SD Card
* Solid-state Recording with Professional Audio Flexibility
Panasonic announced the [...]

Camera Can Record at up to 300 FPS Speeds

Casio says that it is developing a new digital camera with high speed performance and image capture functions. The camera will be able to take still images at 60 image per second speeds and will also take movies that capture movement so fast that it can’t be seen by the human eye. According to Casio [...]

New Sony PMW-EX1 HD Camera With Tapeless Recording

The reported cost of the Sony PMW-EX1 HD camera will be in the $8,000 range. A bit pricey for personal consumption, but remember the old days when the first digital cameras were in the $20,000 range. It wasn’t until Nikon introduced the D-1 in the $5,000 range that prices came down. Give it time and [...]

New Sony HDV Cam Has Interchangeable Lenses

Sony has a new HDV camera coming out soon that uses interchangeable lenses. Preliminary info from Sony:
1/3-inch 3ClearVid CMOS Sensor™
The new camcorder will incorporate new 1/3” 3ClearVid CMOS Sensor system for optimum picture quality. Thanks to the unique grid arrangement of the photo diode sensors, in which each is rotated by 45 degrees, sensor resolution [...]

HD for Indies Interns Needed

If you live in the Austin, Texas, area, and you are a student looking for a way to break into film, learn film, editing, etc. then contact Mike Curtis (see below):
Thursday, August 23, 2007 Fall 2007 HD for Indies Interns Needed Hey all - The summer intern program went so well, I [...]

Multimedia Tutorials: Video, Audio, Photo, & Web Design

“Five Steps To Multimedia Reporting” is a great site for multimedia training from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and the USC Annenberg School for Communication. The site is geared to reporters who need to learn how to create multimedia stories. The tutorials cover video (cameras, accessories, shooting tips, stand-ups and voice-overs, iMovie, Final [...]

Angela Grant: Crappy Video Keeps Audiences Away

Great find from Angela Grant at News Videographer concerning a recent study on consumer desires for online video. As a disclaimer on the report, Akamai, the company funding the study, has a large stake in the online community through their software and hardware divisions.
Video technological problems won’t fly
How long will a crappy video experiences fly [...]

Windows Live SkyDrive Offers 500MB

Here is an interesting development that I haven’t paid very much attention to, online storage. I’m getting ready to buy a Terabyte drive, which should last a little while for storing video, but if the need ever arose this might be a good place to go. My concern would be reliability and security. Here’s a [...]

Smartphones & Multimedia Content

In this article by Jennifer Woodard Maderazo at PBS’s Mediashift, most smartphones are classified as not very smart. One of the culprits according to her are media companies that aren’t stepping up to the plate to create content that is compatible with the over 70 million smartphones sold last year. Her hope is that the [...]

Transom: Comparing Portable Digital Recorders

From Transom.org, here is a great comparison chart for portable digital recorders compiled by Jeff Towne. Reviews are usually a dime a dozen, but it’s always good to hear from those in the business of audio production who know what they’re talking about (Transom.org is an experiment in channeling new work and voices to public [...]

Thinking About New Technology

In a recent piece by Alex Iskold on “The Physics of the iPhone” on Read/WriteWeb, which is a follow up to a recent article, Iskold says that:
“The iPhone is not only a breakthrough handheld device, it is a device that brings a mesh of digital and physical to the masses. Apple achieved it by turning [...]

High-Definition Webcams Released

Two HD-quality webcam were released by Logitech this month. Each camera has a 2MP sensor supported by a Carl Zeiss lens and a silent auto focus system. With these webcams you can produce 720p HD video format at 960×720 resolution. Both cameras are only $100 and should increase podcasting quality exponentially.