Studio Monthly articles from December 2005

Studio Monthly archives from December 2005

Upstarts and old pros.(editor's note)
December 1, 2005... So here we are in December, and you know what that means... time to instinctively wrench our heads around and look back on the business year that's been. How are you doing? Are your clients happy? Is your staff happy? Are your revenues where...

Fury on film ... and video: Hurricane Katrina footage now available from StormStock.(quick cuts)
December 1, 2005... While most were taking cover from one of the worst storms in U.S. history, veteran storm videographer Martin Lisius faced it head on. He was out capturing dramatic footage of Hurricane Katrina as it ripped across the Gulf Coast. ...

What I'm using now: Grass Valley Viper.(quick cuts)
December 1, 2005... ADRIAN HILTON Professor (BSc, DPhil, CEng, MIEE), University of Surrey, England Favorite gear: Thomson Grass Valley Viper FilmStream Camera List: $110,000 (including break-out box) Why I love it: When we evaluated the Viper...

The best field gear at AES: top picks from Gotham Sound's Peter Schneider.(quick cuts)
December 1, 2005... Peter Schneider, co-owner of the Manhattan-based sound rental house/reseller Gotham Sound, cruised the aisles of AES in New York looking for hot, new location audio products that could make his clients' jobs easier. While the products at...

Leitch now part of Harris family.(quick cuts)
December 1, 2005... In what some are still calling an unlikely match, Harris Corporation has completed its acquisition of Leitch Technology. According to Howard Lance, chairman, president and CEO of Harris, Leitch's workforce, product portfolio and customer base...

Blackmagic Design DeckLink[TM].
December 1, 2005... Introducing DeckLink HD Pro The world's highest quality HDTV Dual Link 4:4:4 and NTSC/PAL video card for only $1,495! Blackmagic Design's industry leading range of 10/12 bit Dual Link 4:4:4 products for HD and SD [ILLUSTRATION...

HD DVD and Blu-ray get advanced and interactive.(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2005... In early September, Sonic Solutions released the first set of authoring tools that support the HD DVD 1.0 format. New titles built with these tools can include such features as movie-synchronized bonus features, pop-up interactive menus (even...

Antifreeze for your desktop.(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2005... There's a cool new technology coming out of Alienware, a manufacturer of high-performance desktop, notebook, media center and professional systems: Alienware Liquid Cooling technology, launched across the company's complete line of desktop...

Sparkplugs for your edits.(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2005... Digital Voodoo is now shipping the SDISpark video card for Apple Final Cut Pro 5. Compatible with Panther OSX, FCP HD and the G5, this SD SDI/Analog QuickTime card is aimed at the boutique facility that wants to work with uncompressed video but...

Holiday razzle dazzle.(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2005... DAZ Productions Inc., a Utah-based developer of 3D software and models that also sells Bryce 5 (purchased from Corel last year), recently completed a 3D-illustrated children's picture book and companion CD to showcase the depth and range of its...

A slicker, smarter whiteboard.(DETAILING YOUR STUDIO)
December 1, 2005... SMART Technologies has just launched its new SMART Board 600 series of interactive whiteboards. Similar to the popular 500 series that is used across the world in classrooms, boardrooms and collaborative design centers--and most recently, on...

Tokyo to go.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
December 1, 2005... If you can't go on location in Tokyo, then bring the next best thing to your clients with new royalty-free establishment footage from Artbeats. The collection includes footage of skyscrapers, traffic shots, bustling city streets, waterways and...

Holiday stock in your holiday stocking.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
December 1, 2005... Motionstream, a developer of stock footage tools, has just released Holiday-Maker HD Powertools, Volume 1, a royalty-free animation library of holiday icons and themes from Christmas to Easter. Three DVD-ROMs contain over 250 HD animation and...

Theiss storm's for you.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
December 1, 2005... National Geographic Digital Media has acquired the global rights to intrepid storm chaser Mike Theiss' powerful footage of Hurricane Katrina's wrath. Theiss, who has repeatedly risked his life to capture nature's raw power, shot much of the...

HBO scores Emmy Awards, but stock users are real winners.(SPOTLIGHT ON STOCK FOOTAGE)
December 1, 2005... HBO Sports already has six Sports Emmy Awards under its belt, which is good news for stock footage seekers as the winning productions, including Inside the NFL, RealSports with Byrant Gumbel and Nine Innings From Ground Zero, a one-hour...

NewTek TriCaster: honey, they shrunk the video truck.(ROI reviews)
December 1, 2005... Consider the marvels of miniaturization. We're used to hearing about complex electronic circuits being shrunk smaller than the head of a pin, or millions of transistors reduced to an area tinier than a postage stamp. So what do we make of...

M.Klemme Technology K-Tek 102: a winning graphite boom.(ROI reviews)
December 1, 2005... The K-Tek brand from M.Klemme Technology has long stood for superb quality at prices that any video pro or soundperson can afford. The K-Tek 102 Boom is no exception: anyone who needs a boom can now get their hands on quality without having to...

Medea VideoRaid FCR2X 10/2000: a lightning-fast fibre channel array.(ROI reviews)
December 1, 2005... It's a fact: high-resolution video requires a lot of space and very fast hard drive systems. Yet the fastest transfer speeds require fibre channel arrays, which initially were astronomically expensive. Medea, however, offers a solution to this...

Achieve a stop-motion look with SoftimageIXSI or other CGI packages.(how)
December 1, 2005... STEP 1 Use exaggerated proportion to make it look handmade A key to tricking the eye into believing we're looking at something handmade is in the relationships of proportion. Although a real puppet builder might aim for realism, there...

Make quick client review DVDs of Apple FCP HD edits in DVD Studio Pro.(how)
December 1, 2005... STEP 1 Add markers in FCP HD Strike the "M" key twice to add a marker to the timeline in FCP HD and open the "Edit Marker" dialog box. Click the Chapter and/or Compression buttons to define the Marker's function. Chapter markers let...

Create a light rays effect using Boris Continuum Complete in Apple Final Cut Pro.(PRODUCT MANAGER TUTORIAL)
December 1, 2005... STEP 1 Apply the BCC Rays_Puffy filter Launch Apple Final Cut Pro, create a new sequence and edit a clip into the sequence. You can use any media you like. This tutorial features an underwater scene that was provided courtesy of ArtBeats....

Bargain tool bonanza! Not every problem requires a four-to-six-figure solution.(issues)
December 1, 2005... We spend a lot of money on our tools. For example, I just bought a new Windows XP machine with 24-inch and 19-inch monitors. It's spacious, speedy and expensive. I'm also eyeing the new HD camcorders and, well, you get the idea. So my bank...

Giant steps: navigating the lessons of their separate wins--and losses--in the DVD authoring market, Giant Interactive's David Anthony and Jeff Stabeneau now developing for the Sony PlayStation Portable, head straight back to the top.(@WORK: GIANT INTERACTIVE)(Cover Story)
December 1, 2005... Let's face it: For one reason or another, most production studios eventually go south, and more than most fizzle after years of successful projects and happy clients--which doesn't make it any easier to accept or to recover from. But digital...

Support group; Help is on the way, weary handheld shooters: these rigs and dolly alternatives can save your shot--and your back.(TECHNOLOGY: CAMERA SUPPORT SYSTEMS)
December 1, 2005... If you shoot--especially for documentary production--you know just how unnatural it is to support your video camera for hours on end. During a recent documentary shoot, I also worked as the handheld "B" camera operator to get an extra angle...

Storage at the center: nontraditional thinking and necessity yield a smarter--and cheeper--post process.(the biz)
December 1, 2005... Traditionally, post-production facilities bring projects online only for short periods because of the amount of space that uncompressed media occupies on a disk. Each additional step in the post process then requires a layback. For instance,...

Dealing with holiday deadlines.(WEIRD BUT TRUE TALES FROM THE STUDIO)(Cartoon)
December 1, 2005... Tom Beland is a cartoonist based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is also the creator of the Eisner Comic Industry Award-nominated series, True Story: Swear to God, published by AiT/Planet Lar, www.ait-planetlar.com. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...