Over the weekend, I had the joy of seeing video from both ends of the scale. A friend of mine has an elderly father who enjoys watching old war documentaries that he has on VHS and she had asked me to transfer a half dozen of them to DVD.

There are many solutions to this, but my option was to transfer to miniDV in my old but efficient Sony TRV 10E and then capturing those via Firewire into Sony Vegas. A bit of chop chop and all well and good. A render to DVD was around 2 hours per 1 hour of footage.

Next was taking some of my old footage of my European travels a few years back (shot on tape on my Canon XHA1) and transferring this to Blu-ray disc.

Finally was watching a Blu-ray video of “Paul” from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It’s a great and funny homage to lots of science fiction and other fillums (“My name is Agent Zoyle, but you can call me Lorenzo. Lorenzo Zoyle!”)

Without question, on a big screen TV (a Sony Bravia 52”) being driven by a Sony Blu-ray player, the image and audio is fantastic.

I now consider that Blu-ray is indeed the future, as much as there is one in this nutty industry. The big question is why on earth Microsoft won’t join it? That would make Windows Media Center the complete package and obliterate any opposition.

Can anyone at Microsoft get back to us?

I find one of the most rewarding types of photography or video making is that of shooting sport. When you get the money shot, there is a feeling of great elation knowing you have “nailed it”.

This can takes hours, days or even weeks at times, and whilst in very rare cases, the financial rewards can be great, the satisfaction awards are even greater, especially if your peers miss the same shot!

Just as in anything, there is an element of luck involved, primarily being at the right place at the right time; but of equal importance is knowing a) your equipment intimately b) knowing the sport and c) observation.

With a), there is nothing worse than getting the shot but finding that your gear was set wrong so the subject is out of focus, badly lit or worse, you thought you had the shot but something misfired (flat battery, full memory card etc).

The second, b), is all about being aware of what happens in the particular sport you are shooting. There are always signs that ‘something’ is about to happen such as a tyre squeal, a penalty given, a large fish hooks up and so on.

Observation is simply that. Keep your eyes and ears open. It takes practice, but with time you can be looking through the viewfinder with one eye and scanning the scene with the other believe it or not.

In the end, it is all about setting the conditions to maximise the chances of getting The Shot. And just as a fisherman checks his gear before he goes fishing so that equipment failure doesn’t cause the one that got away, so should a camera or video buff check theirs.

POSTSCRIPT:

Yesterday (Sunday 23rd October 2011) in the Malaysian MotoGP, Marco Simoncelli was sadly killed in a horrific accident. I haven’t seen any stills, but the video which has been shown on TV a few times is sickening. I personally don’t count this sort of imagery as a ‘money shot’. The same applies to the still last week of Dan Wheldon dying at the IndyCar race in Las Vegas.

No criticism of journos that cover these things, I just wanted to make my personal view known.

Today I was made aware of a particular video clip that purports to show the video capability differences between the Canon 5D MK II and the new iPhone S. (email me if you want to see it - the provider is blackisted by our host I just found out!)

To be fair to the author, he (or it may be a she) doesn’t really attempt to make comment either which way, citing it as just an interesting demonstration, with the two devices shooting exactly the same scenes side-by-side using a specialist rig.

Now I may be more writer/director than specialist cameraman, but even I can see the differences between the two; itself not a fair test as the quality of video on the ‘net has got to be dodgy anyway!

What IS interesting though is the numerous ooh and ahh comments from responders to the story with some actually saying they prefer the quality of the iPhone footage! Never ask these people to shoot your wedding I say; if they cannot tell the difference between a full size image sensor shot through top of the shelf glass and footage from a sensor the size of a pin head in comparison and a tiny lens using a rolling shutter, then I’d be calling on the nearest optometrist.

However, sadly I think it is more, again, a case of defending a Fruity product without reservation.

Yes, I know dSLR’s are not as good as good as a dedicated camcorder and yes, an iPhone (although I reckon Nokia phones have far superior cameras) is handy to have in an emergency and is always close by. But better than a $3300 dedicated dSLR (plus lens)?

Come on now ….

I swore that when Steve Jobs passed away, I would not leap on the Apple band wagon and write some fawning, overblown piece and remind the world what a fantastic businessman he was, a brilliant inventor, hero to the people and all that rot.

So here it is. Sort of.

Apple has long been treated as the leader in the graphical world; magazine production, video editing, illustration, drawing and of course image manipulation. Indeed the term ‘Photoshopping’ is now in the popular lexicon.

I entered the graphical world partly due to the first Apple Mac; not because I craved one, but as a mainly DOS/UNIX based 4GL developer, I wanted to show my business partner at the time (a certifiable Mac nut, and I do mean certifiable in that psych “loony tune” sense), that a PC could adequately perform any task he could on his toy. Sometimes better as I had hard disks at my disposal. Imagine producing a 12 page magazine on floppies alone. He did.

The catalyst for this was the original Windows 2.03 and Pagemaker. The story goes off at many tangents from there, but eventually lead me to being a major Australian distributor of Windows and Mac products and later back to Perth (I was on the Gold Coast) and the world of video and TV production and hence to Auscam magazine.

When Apple released Final Cut Pro, the only real competitor was Adobe Premiere. AVID was (and still is) alive and well, but the cost comparison was no contest. The Mac alternative was therefore picked up quickly, the companion products of Photoshop and After Effects along with Illustrator meshed together very nicely and of course, using a Mac in this area was almost a badge of honour.

However, of late I am of the opinion that in video, the Mac and Apple has lost their edge. For some reason, the latest FCP was dumbed right down to almost iMovie proportions, and Apple just doesn’t seem to have the interest in video they once did. Maybe it’s because Adobe brought Premiere back to the Mac after dropping it for a few years, maybe it’s because PC hardware is now seen as comparable and cheaper and other applications such as Sony Vegas, Grass Valley Edius and other offerings from Corel, Avid, Roxio and so on are seen as good as or better tools these days?

Or is it because Apple is more interested in music and “apps” with tablets and phones these days?

Let’s face it, these days whether you use Photoshop on a Mac or on a PC doesn’t really matter. It’s the same as washing dishes in an Electrolux or F&P. The dishes get washed; the results are the same. The only thing different is the cardboard the product is wrapped in – a Windows box or a OSX one.

Have you changed from a Mac to a PC or vice versa of late? If so, why? Comments are open!

When you buy a new camcorder, the editing software that comes with it (if any) is usually pretty shabby. That’s why it’s free. In other cases it may be a cut down version of a “larger” package that get any decent functionality out of you have to upgrade. At your cost.

If you get serious about your video, and many do, to get access to the tools available for some of the more in-depth work editing can require means spending some serious money to get something along the lines of Sony Vegas Pro 10, Adobe Premiere, Grass Valley Edius and so on. Thankfully, in the last few years has seen a slew of mid level programs – many are ‘lite versions’ of their siblings eg: Sony Vegas Movie Studio, Premiere Elements, Avid Studio come to mind.

In the background has always been Ulead/Corel who have never been seen to be really be serious about really attacking this market. Sure they have always been there, but there applications in the past smacked more of trying to look too cute rather than have heavyweight functionality. You know, the “make a Hollywood style movie in 3 mouse clicks” type of thing.

The latest from Corel, grandiosely called VideoStudio Pro X4 might just crack the barriers, especially the so-called Ultimate’ version which retails for $149 and can be upgraded to from only $89.

Most of the higher end bells and whistles are there and offered in a reasonably designed user interface, though still with the cutesy black ebony style interface sadly. The inclusion of Smartsound technology and plug ins from Boris and proDad take it out of the kiddie application toy bucket however, as do such things as multi-trim, colour correction and stop motion/time lapse.

Input and output options are extensive too, making VideoStudio Pro X4 Ultimate (whew!) worth a look.