Millimeter June 2009
By Michael Goldman
Contrary to reports, Hollywood remains a busy place in this economic downturn—just a different kind of busy. Instead of deep production work, many companies are spending time jockeying for position in response to the recession and smaller waves of difficulty that are unique to the entertainment business...
By Ellen Wolff
When Land of the Lost was a '70s TV series, the creatures were guys in rubber suits. For Universal Pictures' update starring comedian Will Ferrell, computer creature animation plays a major role...
By Cynthia Wisehart
In a bull market, people consider rights and royalties management a luxury. But in a bear market, people become aware of every penny of uncollected revenue...
By D. W. Leitner
Cameras, lenses, and flash recording on the cheap....
By George Petersen
Few audio pros are familiar with the name Harry Olson (1901-1982), but he left an indelible mark on the science of audio. A lifelong researcher at RCA, his many accomplishments include codeveloping RCA’s ribbon microphones (such as the famed 44 and 77 models)...
By Jan Ozer
Apple was the first out of the gate with an Intel Nehalem-based workstation, in the form of the Mac Pro announced in early 2009...
By Dan Ochiva
It's not much of a surprise that LEDs are coming into greater prominence for production...
By Dan Ochiva
LEDs saw their first production use as on-camera light fixtures, with their low heat, low power draw, and light weight as obvious advantages...
By Dan Ochiva
While Sachtler earned its name in news and documentary production, over the past few years, the German company has been moving to establish a position with users of smaller camcorders...
By Dan Ochiva
Doing chroma key setups on location can be a hassle, but a number of companies have been working to make the task easier, with LEDs turning up here too...
By Dan Ochiva
Things move quickly in the Internet age. It was almost a decade ago that Telestream introduced FlipFactory, which went on to help define a new product category: automated media transcoding...
By Dan Ochiva
With more tapeless camera and camcorder systems going on location, figuring out an all-in-one method to back up the profusion of solid-state formats is becoming critical...
By Dan Ochiva
While the Red Digital Cinema Red One camera continues to garner kudos for its unique modular design, certain choices—such as the use of some nonstandard I/O connectors—have given makers of add-on gear a chance to show their own innovative chops...
By Dan Ochiva
It was probably the only new tape-based camcorder introduced at NAB Show 2009, but Sony's SRW-9000 HDCAM SR camcorder still has a place in the company's future...
By Dan Ochiva
At NAB Show 2009, you had to see it coming. Avid, now back on the show floor after a year's absence, acknowledged production realities by announcing its enterprise Unity MediaNetwork and Isis storage systems will now play well with arch rival Apple's Final Cut Pro (FCP) editing system...
By Dan Ochiva
While it's easy to overlook a standalone audio recorder for anything beyond blogging, indie producers know that capturing wild audio tracks on location can come in handy during post...
By Dan Ochiva
While the HD video abilities of the latest digital SLRs still have some rough edges (adequate focusing and better white-balance control among them), expect to see more producers relying on cameras from Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, and others to capture both stills and video...
By Dan Ochiva
Does it make sense to work at 4K resolutions? Heck, even attempting to view 4K is tough since little except Sony's high-end SXRD can claim to play back such resolutions, something monitors still can't do...
By Dan Ochiva
As usual, Autodesk announced next year's upgraded product line—that's 2010—at this year's NAB Show. All of the announced products are now available, and who's to argue that the company isn't aggressive in turning out new products and worthwhile updates...
By Dan Ochiva
Ever since its first software product in 2003 supporting HDV editing, CineForm has enjoyed portraying itself as a small company that can deliver specialized compression code...
By Dan Ochiva
Capabilities common in consumer camcorders are now moving into the pro end of the market. And why not, if it’s simple enough to implement and actually something you find useful...
By Dan Ochiva
Facilities with lots of workstations face a quandary: They may want to keep their installed SDI cabling while upgrading to optical fiber, but the cost of separate SDI-to-optical-fiber conversion cards for each workstation makes it a prohibitive investment...
By Dan Ochiva
Solid-state, flash RAM-based systems are catching on for location recording. But until recently, the products have been pricey...
By Dan Ochiva
Whether you work for someone else or run your own business, you don’t need to be reminded how difficult things are. What’s more useful is discovering new ways to save money or to grow your business...
By Michael Goldman
Katheryn Bigelow’s new film is a gritty Iraq war drama called The Hurt Locker...
|
Your Move
Step by Step: Land of the Lost
NAB 2009 Journal
Shotgun Microphones 
Review: Apple Mac Pro
Arri LED-based Lighting Products
Litepanels MicroPro
Sachtler DV 10 SB
Reflecmedia Deskshoot Lite
Telestream FlipFactory 7
1 Beyond Wrangler
Air Sea Land Remote Interface Panel
Sony SRW-9000
Avid Unity, Isis updates
Marantz PMD661
Redrock Micro DSLR 2.0
Globalstor Data ExtremeStor-DI REDe
Autodesk Flare
CineForm Neo3D
Panasonic AG-HMC40
Blackmagic Design DeckLink Optical Fiber
AJA Video Systems Ki Pro
Working Smarter
Fade to Black: Katheryn Bigelow