In LA

Since I don’t live in Europe, I often miss out on the better music that hits the charts over there. I’m not saying they listen to better crap than USians in general because that generalization doesn’t¹ ring true (case in point: Crazy Frog didn’t go nuclear over here, thank god).

But every once in a while I hear something awesome from across the pond, and am surprised it got a massive amount of airtime elsewhere and is completely unknown here. The songs of Soko, a French singer/actress, fall into that category. Here’s her demented folk-rock hit “I’ll Kill Her”:

I ran into the song because it was the inspiration and soundtrack of this great motion graphics piece:

http://motionographer.com/2009/07/08/joerg-barton-ill-kill-her/

Worth a listen and a look IMO. Broaden your horizons, listen to songs about murderous impulses from across the pond².

1. I nearly wrote “…that generalization doesn’t always ring true…”, meaning to imply that sometimes the generalization is true. But since a generalization that is sometimes true is by definition not a generalization at all, I left the original statement unqualified. To be clear, I think there’s plenty of great music all over the world, and plenty of crap. [↩]
2. After all my larger-world talk and attempts at drawing sweeping conclusions, I should point out that Soko has apparently moved to Los Angeles. So I guess that makes her yet another singer who lives in the US but is for now only well known and popular as a recording artist and performer in Europe, like David Hasselhoff or Steven Seagall. [↩]

Posted via web from Zachary’s posterous

A funky vertical panorama shot and stitched from 3 photographs on my iPhone with the AutoStitch app. The monitor at bottom is my DIY Cintiq, which has yet to be encased and prettified.It’s fed VGA (!)¹ from a USB-DVI adapter.

This non-hardware-accelerated display works fine as extra space for displaying bins.

1. the monitor was an ancient model that a friend was throwing out [↩]

Whereas, I like zombies; and

Whereas, I like short films¹; and

Whereas, I like film festivals.

Now, therefore, I do hereby proclaim that I am duty bound to also like the just-announced “Zombie Short Film Festival” and I do hereby urge all filmmakers to take due note of its existence.

1. Well, I like short films that happen to be awesome. Such are unfortunately in the minority. [↩]

Sorry to seem to be pushing this camera so frequently, but enough people have asked me to keep them apprised of deals on it that it’s easier for me to just mention it here than contact each interested party individually. This post is for them, or you as well if you’re looking for a solid-state camcorder.

At the moment, Amazon’s page for the Creative Labs Vado HD 720p Pocket Video Camcorder doesn’t list a price, and you have to place it in your cart to find out that it’s $129.99 with free shipping. I expect this price will last Amazon’s sold out again and then subsequently their page will list the higher price of the item from one of the other vendors who sell the camera on Amazon.

I posted my impressions of the camera the last time it was on sale at this price. You can also read more about the deal on this camera at the Fatwallet Hot Deals forum, and that forum thread includes comparisons of the camera’s image quality to other solid-state camcorders as well as links to reviews.

Several people who have seen me grab the occasional bit of video footage using this tiny and relatively cheap solid-state video camera asked me to let them know the next time a good deal popped up. It seems that every couple of months Amazon sells the “Creative Labs Vado HD 720p Pocket Video Camcorder discounted to $129.99 (down from $229.99)¹. Now is one of those times.

The camera captures 2 hours of video to its 8Gb of internal storage as 1280×720 AVI files. Image quality is surprisingly good for the price, and this model distinguishes itself from similar cameras with its wide-angle lens² (and its price when on sale).

It’s small, fits in a pocket³, and doesn’t draw a lot of attention to itself when in use⁴.

The camera shows up as a drive when its built-in USB connector is connected to a computer and files can be easily copied off of the camera. It also charges its internal battery over USB. I’ve also used my Vado HD as a USB flash drive to ferry large non-video files between computers. It’s a very convenient device, and at $129.99 is about $40 more than Amazon charges for the older, 2Gb, standard-definition (640×484) version of the device.

I’ve uploaded a non-spectacular but representative sample clip to vimeo. You can watch it below as an embedded flash clip, or you can download the original full-resolution clip directly from vimeo⁵. if you’d like to examine it more closely. There are a number of other clips shot with the Vado HD also available for perusal on Vimeo.

If you’re looking for such a thing, you know who you are. Here’s another link to the product.

post-finish cool-down from ZachFine on Vimeo.

Runners stagger around in mylar blankets after finishing the 2009 San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon.

1. Perhaps the periodic discounts occur when Creative Labs needs to improve their quarterly sales figures? [↩]
2. Its wide-angle lens makes it easier to fit friends into a shot when in a small room, or to hold the camera at arm’s length to shoot myself. As an aside, I’d recommend against bothering to “zoom”. This and other cameras in the category have fixed lenses and do a useless “digital zoom” which just blows the captured pixels up larger. [↩]
3. Well, it fits in my pocket. It’s small enough that I can carry it through an entire marathon without complaint. [↩]
4. The Vado HD looks a lot like a cell phone. [↩]
5. look for the “Download AVI Version” at the lower-right corner of the Vimeo page. [↩]

Here’s the shocking, photographic evidence, which proves what so many have wanted to know for so long: It is possible –nay, simple, to upgrade the firmware of the Creative Vado HD on a mac, using the Windows-only Vado firmware updating application¹, running inside an instance of Windows XP in VMWare Fusion. How exciting!

If this upgrade makes it so that my Vado HD stops freezing every-other time I connect it to my computer, that would be fantastic. The reboot process for the Vado involves opening it up and removing the battery². This is a very annoying process, especially after I’ve spent the effort to slip the thing inside its protective silicon case³, at which point the battery door is inaccessible. I’d bet that’s something they fixed in the first firmware update, or else this thing would have accumulated a greater number of negative reviews by now.

Technorati Tags: Creative Vado HD, filmmaking, Garbanzo Beans, Hack, hot deal, Macintosh, OS X, Vado HD, software, unix, video, virtualization, vmware fusion, Windows XP

1. v1220 [↩]
2. It’d be nice if, as on the iPhone, one could reboot the Vado HD by holding down an unholy combination of buttons for a few seconds. Requiring users to open up the device and manually power-cycle it is bad design and/or optimism regarding the device’s stability to the point of naïvete. [↩]
3. That silicon case is tight during the installation and removal process, I’m worried about tearing it just for a reboot [↩]

Good people of Canon, please note: 1080p20 is NOT an HD video standard. Please strike all mention of “Full HD” that refer to your new camera’s 1080p recording capability from the press release for the Canon Digital Rebel T1i. Thanks.

Now for those of you who don’t work at Canon, the following is a bit of explanation for the above statement.

Canon has just announced the latest addition to Canon’s lower-cost “Rebel” line of Digital SLRs, and like the professional model they released late last year¹, it features the ability to shoot high definition video at both 1920×1080 (1080p) and 1280×720 (720p) HD resolutions. Once word spreads of this affordable ($899 MSRP with kit lens) camera that shoots 1080p with SLR lenses, I expect there will be a wave of initial excitement amongst filmmakers. We’d all love to shoot 1080p HD video with great SLR glass, and achieve sharp images with shallow depth of field.

But this camera has a couple of serious drawbacks for filmmaking that are glossed over in the marketing copy, supreme among them the fact that the camera can only shoot its fantastic 1080p video at a paltry 20 frames per second. I’d excuse this as a simple hardware limitation and be happy they included video recording at all, but the fact that the camera’s press release touts the T1i’s 1080p recording capability while dissing on DSLRs that only record 720p video (cough, Nikon D90, cough), well, that’s just evil marketing.

Except for use as some weird stuttery effect, 1080×1920 footage at 20fps will be utterly useless², unusable, stupid, and the feature is not worthy of inclusion in what otherwise looks to be a fine product. To shoot usable video at that resolution, the Canon EOS Rebel T1i would need to shoot 1080p at least at 24 or 30fps, like it’s pricier cousin³.

The cynic in me wonders if 20fps really pushing the limits of the T1i camera’s sensor and the Digic IV processor, or whether a marketing decision hamstrung the camera’s 1080p recording mode so as to not cannibalize sales of its full-framed 1080p30-capable cousin? Perhaps this issue can be fixed before launch, or after launch with a firmware update? If not, then Canon should cease bragging about how the camera’s useless “Full HD exceeds the quality found in HD ready (720) resolution devices“. If the only resolution the camera can record at 24p or above is 720p, then it doesn’t get to claim automatic superiority to cameras that only record 720p.

Addendum: Stu Maschwitz posted about his disappointment with the camera on his ProLost blog at about the time I began writing this post. If only I’d been following him on twitter I could’ve saved myself some typing and simply posted a link to his more succinct and entertaining post.⁴

Technorati Tags: Canon, Canon Digital Rebel T1i, Canon T1i, Digital Rebel, filmmaking, video

1. EOS 5D Mark II [↩]
2. Useless for filmmaking purposes. It’ll still absolutely cremate the image quality of its 20fps competition –namely cell phone cameras and webcams. [↩]
3. again, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II [↩]
4. Though I am happy I wrote this screed if only for its second footnote. [↩]

A SmoothCam Test – AJ testing an idea on the piano from ZachFine on Vimeo. Available in larger size for playback and/or download here.

This is a test of Final Cut Pro’s “SmoothCam” motion stabilization filter. I’ve set two videos side-by-side. On the left, the original clip. On the right, the SmoothCam version with the following settings:

Auto Scale: 1
Actual Scale: 138%
Translation Smooth: 1.5
Rotation Smooth: 2
Scale Smooth: 0
Mix: 100

The original clip was shot with a Canon HV20 mounted on a Steadicam Merlin, so it was fairly smooth to begin with. I was pleased with how well the SmoothCam filter ironed out the rotational skewing of the camera without being noticeable about it. I do wish the filter didn’t autoscale the entire clip to match the worst of the movement, and instead the adjusted clip could start with the wide and then smoothly scale in to cover the adjustments, then smoothly scale out for segments that were more stable. Had I shot with a higher shutter speed, the motion blur on the subject wouldn’t be as bad.

I’m sure I’ll end up using this SmoothCam filter on some footage one of these days. It’s a nice effect. I’ve already had FCP batch analyze all my footage from the SXSW festival. The fact that the filter works very quickly on clips whose motion has already been batch analyzed is a deal-maker.

Technorati Tags: Apple, awesomeness, Batch Processing, FCP Tips & Tricks, filmmaking, Final Cut Pro, Image Stabilization, live music, rock, Saint Motel, SmoothCam, video

My cousin AJ edited together a live performance of the Saint Motel song Stories from their 2/15/2009 Spaceland “Zombie Prom” performance, using my previously posted footage along with footage from other video cameras that shot the same show. It’s paired with a non-burnt audio track that’s a huge improvement from the audio I captured.

“Stories” – Live @ Spaceland (Zombie Prom 2.15.09) from SAINT MOTEL on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: awesomeness, entertainment, live music, music, Saint Motel, rock, sound pollution, Spaceland, video

A screenshot of the Final Cut Pro Browser and Background Processes windows showing the SmoothCam Analysis in progress. Click the image to see it at a legibly large size.

I ran around the South by Southwest festival last week shooting behind-the-scenes video of my cousin AJ and his band on my Canon HV20, stabilized with a Steadicam Merlin. I’m still learning to use the Merlin –it is a fantastically engineered piece of kit, but it takes a light touch to float it about, and it’s much easier to use for choreographed moves than for impromptu run-and-gun documentary-style shooting.

Final Cut Pro and Motion both inherited a feature from Shake called “SmoothCam”, which is a motion stabilization filter. SmoothCam analyzes movement within a clip and moves the frame around to compensate for high-frequency movement while preserving the lower-frequency moves –i.e. it tries to remove bumps and vibrations while preserving smooth, intentional camera movements. I ran a few tests on some of my relatively smooth clips, and SmoothCam seemed very good at doing exactly that.

When the SmoothCam filter is applied to a clip, that clip is put into a queue and Final Cut Pro begins to analyze the motion in the clip. Once FCP’s analysis concludes¹ , the SmoothCam filter will have data to use for its calculations and its effect will finally become visible. One can then adjust the SmoothCam settings and see the results instantaneously (with a computer of sufficient power).

I’m happy to note that it is possible to have Final Cut Pro analyze the motion of a batch of clips, and then later if the SmoothCam filter is applied to any of these clips its results can be seen without delay. The motion analysis data for each clip is written to disk alongside the clips themselves.

Since I may or may not want to use the SmoothCam filter on many of my clips, and I don’t plan to do any more editing on my computer tonight, I’ve set FCP to batch analyze the motion in all of my footage from the last week. To do so, I enabled the “SmoothCam” column in FCP’s Browser, selected all the clips I wanted analyzed, right-clicked in the column and chose “Run Analysis” from the clip’s contextual pop-up menu. Now the analysis is puttering away, and tomorrow I can play.

The things one can learn by glancing at the manual!

Technorati Tags: Apple, Batch Processing, FCP Tips & Tricks, filmmaking, Final Cut Pro, Garbanzo Beans, Image Stabilization, Macintosh, OS X, SmoothCam, software, vfx

1. The entire clip is analyzed, regardless whether only a portion of it is in use in a timeline. A clip’s In and Out points are ignored. The analysis can take a while, and I would strongly recommend converting any clips in a long-gop format such as HDV to Prores beforehand for markedly faster analysis. [↩]