Monday, April 24, 2006

RED



Well, the Red One HD camera's specs, format options, and pricing have been released and I can already hear Mike Curtis furiously typing and hyperventilating. I have to say, this thing is pretty damn impressive.
2540p (!) resolution, variable frame rate (60fps max), shooting RAW. $17,500 (sans lens). The price is what kind of kicks the wind out of me.. for those of you not used to pro HD pricing, that is absurdly cheap. Like consumer-end cheap. Like, we are going to have to watch a bunch of bad star-wars fan films in astoundingly crisp 35mm-like HD pretty soon cheap.
Link

Sunday, April 23, 2006

CDMotion Preview: Midi control for VJs

Create Digital Music reviews midi controllers for VJ's. I was surprised not to see any of the Livid controllers on here, but maybe they are too specialized or pricey for this list.
Link

Thursday, April 20, 2006

HD DVD Decks available in the states

The first HD DVD Decks hit US stores to little fanfare. Only a handful of mostly lame discs are available and the verdict so far is that the devices are fairly clunky.

Here's Mikes notes on a Toshiba deck passed on from an early reviewer:

-it's slow - 35 seconds to boot until logo, over a minute until a disk in it at power up shows the first menu
-nearly 40 secs from disk insert to start playing - a lot of consumers might think it's broken
-you can bring up a navigation menu (such as for chapters) WHILE IN THE MIDDLE OF PLAYING and it is a graphic overlay - that is, in the vernacular, "totally schweet."
-It'll be about $800 in the US
-reviewer was dissapointed


OOoohh boy, Phantom of the Opera in HD.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Freedom to Tinker HDMI and Output Control

Ed Felten of the Freedom to Tinker blog has begun a series of posts about HDMI, starting with output control, the first big thorn in the twinkie. I'm one of the unlucky ones with an HDTV without an HDMI input, and since I don't watch television, just movies, I may never get to actually see any high def on my set (unless I build my own media center computer with component outputs and a bunch of media that I'll have to "steal" instead of buy).
Found Via BoingBoing

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Modern Mechanix - Augmented Reality

Modern Mechanix is a great source for ancient, heavy, probably lukemia-causing video things, like the Electrocular!


YOU can look two ways at once with this 30-oz. electro-optical viewing device. The Electrocular uses a miniature cathode ray tube 7 in. long, a deflecting mirror, a focusing lens, and a dichroic filter viewing eyepiece to present a TV-type image without distracting from the work in front of you.

Link