"Yo, Old Dude. We need a 'year in review' blog from you." This statement came from a 20-something person wearing a Snoopy t-shirt with a copyright date of 1972. This guy is wearing a t-shirt almost 40 years old and I get called an Old Dude?! Okay, a year end blog is probably appropriate.
After pondering my situation for a few moments, I found a fresh ribbon for the ol' Selectric II, put in a fresh piece of paper, installed the Orator 14 font ball and began putting my carefully crafted thoughts to paper.
"Yo! Old Dude! What's that noise?!" came a scream from a nearby cubicle.
"I'm writing the blog you asked for!" I replied.
"Dude, a piece of paper does not post to the web. It's all electronic, man." An extended period of expanding my vocabulary of four letter words ensued followed by putting my beloved typewriter away and going back to a computer keyboard that is pure mush compared to an IBM Selectric keyboard.
So here I am, attempting to write a 'year in review' blog for the website. The more I think about this year, the more I realize that what I really want to write about is the 'year to be' blog. Some interesting events occurred this year, but their effect is going to be felt (or not felt) in the coming year. So with that, I hear by crawl out of my cave of blissful ignorance to present what I think is going to be the top five trends for the year, 2011.
Trend 1: I'm going to get a lot of hate mail for this, but 3-D does not rock my world. As the t-shirt says: "If you can't do it right, do it in 3-D." The whole 3-D thing is a fad and thankfully, a short-lived one at that. Shooting 3-D is twice the camera and four times the headache. In my warped view of the world, 3-D is a tool and should be used only if it helps improve the story-telling process. I would like to see a movie like the "King's Speech" in 3-D just to see how the Director of Photography handles the depths and textures of shooting a drama in 3-D.
Trend 2: CMOS Imagers. They started showing up in professional products a couple of years ago and are quickly become the de-facto standard for imagers. The "rolling shutter" argument made by the proponents of CCD imagers has become a moot point, the development of the digital signal processing going on behind the CMOS imagers is really amazing and CMOS imagers are now equal to or better than CCDs for a lot less money. What's not to like about CMOS? They are the future and the future is here.
Trend 3: Canon Professional Video Products. One of the world's largest and diversified manufacturers has finally decided to pay attention to this tiny little division in the company that makes professional video products. Canon started the Large Image Sensor for video revolution when they released the EOS 5D and 7D a couple of years ago. This year, they released a 3-chip camcorder that records at 50Mb/s for under $10k. What's coming? Canon is very good about not discussing what is in the pipeline until its ready to ship, but I would bet good money that it will be innovative and top quality. If Canon is not on your list of products to look at with a serious eye, then you need to modify your list.
Trend 4: Consumer camcorders being called "professional." This trend gives me the fantods. Any camcorder that is so small that it does not have room for at least two XLR connectors and a BNC Connector does not qualify to call itself professional. Can you really make true HD with a 1/6" imager? And while we are on the subject of consumer product creep into the professional world... Note to manufacturers: If you're not proud enough to publish the actual pixel counts of your imagers on your literature, maybe you should not have used that imager. Phrases like "effective pixels" need to be removed from the lexicon. Yes, Virginia, the pixel count does matter. Using a standard definition imager to create HD means you have invented three out of every four pixels out of thin air. Something is going to look funky at some point.
Trend 5: Large Image Sensor Camcorders, or Digital Cinematography. Oh, be still my beating heart! All of us have dreamed of making our next great project with a Panavision or Arri 35mm film camera. Thanks to these large format sensors getting lifted out of Digital SLR cameras and placed into video cameras, our dreams have taken at least one step closer to reality. The affordability and performance of these new camcorders is going to change the production process for video in a good way. Scripting and great story-telling will become the dominant themes in video production with these new cameras.
Scary thought: In the Sixties, the RCA TK-42 used four 4" image tubes to make a picture. Talk about large format!
Scarier thought: You know what a TK-42 is...
So here are my forward looking trends for 2011. I shall now crawl back into my cave of ignorance so that I may blissfully avoid all this technology until next year, or such time as I decide to pontificate again...
Thanks for reading this far,
Brian
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Friday, June 19, 2009
The Digital Television Transition
"Nielsen may have vastly undercounted the number of households disenfranchised in last week’s DTV transition. A senior astronomer at the SETI Institute writes that there may be “zillions of viewers who might not have a converter box or a digital-ready TV--namely, the aliens.” Seth Shostak works for the nonprofit organization focused on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by way of radio frequency transmissions. The project uses, among other resources, one of the world’s largest supercomputers comprised of more than 5 million individually volunteered PCs, to monitor for RF activity from outerspace.Conversely, the RF emissions generated by TV and radio signals are considered a sort of collective ping directed at the far reaches of the Galaxy. The switch to digital broadcasting could leave our space neighbors watching intergalactic snow on their “wall-size plasmas,” Shostak writes at Space.com."
I am not making up this kind of stuff! However, I do have some Digital Television Transition concerns that fall a little closer to home.
First, to every television engineer out there, please return those phone calls! Every viewer who takes the time to call your station are truly in need of your expertise as a Broadcast Engineer. These are viewers who WANT to watch your station and are asking (maybe pleading!) for your help. By returning their call promptly and being friendly on the phone, you can do something that no amount of promotion, news awards or sales will ever accomplish and that is to build the good-will of a viewer which turns into a loyal viewer. Think of your own experiences when you have called a vendor or manufacturer looking for some assistance. The ones that gave you good information and good customer service probably are the ones still getting your business today. The ones that were gruff or did not call you back, are probably not seeing much of your budget getting sent their way. It's the same with your viewers. You are the vendor and what you are trying to get your viewers to do is spend more time watching your station.
Second, to all the painfully frustrated viewers trying to make the transition to digital: Don't Panic! Here are some ideas to try:
1: If you've been using some big monster antenna on your roof to get analog television, try a "Metro Gain" (about 5' long) or a "Suburban Gain (about 8' long) antenna instead. If your current antenna is more than 15 years old, replace it! After 15 years in the weather, it's corroded, probably has some busted parts and is in generally poor condition. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, it most likely has a fantastic eco-sphere of moss-like organisms growing on it.
1A: A note about antennas: Why go to a smaller antenna instead of a bigger antenna? While a bigger antenna may be more sensitive to signals it is directly pointed at, it also has what are called side-lobes. These side lobes are little points of increased gain in directions other than the front of the antenna. These side lobes can pick up a reflected version of the channel you're trying to watch and that causes multi-path. In the days of analog, we called that ghosting. Today, we call that "Digital Cliff" and it's something that you don't want to fall off of. What's happening is multi-path which is the signal of your favorite TV station getting to your antenna via more than one path. Instead of a straight line from the broadcast tower to your antenna, the signal is bouncing off the rock cliff on the mountains behind your house or off the side of your neighbor's metal building and being picked up by your antenna. With more than one version of the same signal arriving to your antenna at different times (were talking about less than 1/1000 of a second), the decoder chip in your receiver gets all kinds of confused and doesn't know what to do. All those various ones and zeros make no sense at all and so everything shuts down. With Digital Television, it's either all there or it's all gone. There is no ghosting. A smaller gain antenna like the Channel Master CM-3016 is good to 45 miles from the broadcaster's tower. Because this type of antenna has a nice, big, wide gain in almost every direction (it has less gain or a null at the back), multipath problems go way down. If you are within 45 miles of the broadcast towers and have a pretty good shot toward them, at most, all you might need to add is a 10dB amplifier to get the signal to your receiver. If your house is more than 45 miles from the towers and you have a pretty good shot, then stepping up one size to the next bigger antenna might help. With the exception of one instance where a big monster (called deep-fringe) antenna worked was on top of a ridge mounted on a 100' tower picking up a TV signal 125 air miles away, your best bet is a much lower gain antenna to reduce multi-path effects for receiving Digital Television.
2: There is a wonderful thing in Digital Television called PCIP. It gives you all the program information for the channels. It also allows the Broadcaster to identify his channel with what ever number he wants. In the analog days, he was broadcasting on Channel 3. Well, it turns out that Channel 3 is not such a good channel for digital and so now he's actually broadcasting on Channel 47. Thanks to PCIP, you tell your digital receiver that you want to watch channel 3 and it knows to actually tune into channel 47. Here's the problem, for the last 50 years that you've had an antenna on your roof, you've been watching only channels 2 through 13, which are called VHF channels. Chances are you have a VHF antenna and it's not going to work at all well when it comes to receiving UHF channels. Buy a new antenna and make sure it is a VHF/UHF combination antenna.
3. Do NOT pay extra for a HDTV antenna! What makes a HDTV antenna different from a regular TV antenna? With the exception of price, absolutely nothing! Big Hint: Even though your favorite local TV station has literally invested millions of dollars to send you a stream of ones and zeros, at the end of the day, all your antenna sees is an old fashioned analog envelope. That's right, an analog antenna receives Digital Television just as good as some whiz-bang HDTV antenna that cost three times too much for what you get.
4. If it is all too confusing, call the engineering department at one of the local TV stations. They do want to help you receive their station! If that's not working or you have some questions for me, fire off an email to brianw@provideoandtape.com I'll do my best to help out. Remember, you're just trying to scoop up some spare electrons, not provide a ground path for every RF signal on the planet!
Best of luck and good viewing!
Brian
I am not making up this kind of stuff! However, I do have some Digital Television Transition concerns that fall a little closer to home.
First, to every television engineer out there, please return those phone calls! Every viewer who takes the time to call your station are truly in need of your expertise as a Broadcast Engineer. These are viewers who WANT to watch your station and are asking (maybe pleading!) for your help. By returning their call promptly and being friendly on the phone, you can do something that no amount of promotion, news awards or sales will ever accomplish and that is to build the good-will of a viewer which turns into a loyal viewer. Think of your own experiences when you have called a vendor or manufacturer looking for some assistance. The ones that gave you good information and good customer service probably are the ones still getting your business today. The ones that were gruff or did not call you back, are probably not seeing much of your budget getting sent their way. It's the same with your viewers. You are the vendor and what you are trying to get your viewers to do is spend more time watching your station.
Second, to all the painfully frustrated viewers trying to make the transition to digital: Don't Panic! Here are some ideas to try:
1: If you've been using some big monster antenna on your roof to get analog television, try a "Metro Gain" (about 5' long) or a "Suburban Gain (about 8' long) antenna instead. If your current antenna is more than 15 years old, replace it! After 15 years in the weather, it's corroded, probably has some busted parts and is in generally poor condition. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, it most likely has a fantastic eco-sphere of moss-like organisms growing on it.
1A: A note about antennas: Why go to a smaller antenna instead of a bigger antenna? While a bigger antenna may be more sensitive to signals it is directly pointed at, it also has what are called side-lobes. These side lobes are little points of increased gain in directions other than the front of the antenna. These side lobes can pick up a reflected version of the channel you're trying to watch and that causes multi-path. In the days of analog, we called that ghosting. Today, we call that "Digital Cliff" and it's something that you don't want to fall off of. What's happening is multi-path which is the signal of your favorite TV station getting to your antenna via more than one path. Instead of a straight line from the broadcast tower to your antenna, the signal is bouncing off the rock cliff on the mountains behind your house or off the side of your neighbor's metal building and being picked up by your antenna. With more than one version of the same signal arriving to your antenna at different times (were talking about less than 1/1000 of a second), the decoder chip in your receiver gets all kinds of confused and doesn't know what to do. All those various ones and zeros make no sense at all and so everything shuts down. With Digital Television, it's either all there or it's all gone. There is no ghosting. A smaller gain antenna like the Channel Master CM-3016 is good to 45 miles from the broadcaster's tower. Because this type of antenna has a nice, big, wide gain in almost every direction (it has less gain or a null at the back), multipath problems go way down. If you are within 45 miles of the broadcast towers and have a pretty good shot toward them, at most, all you might need to add is a 10dB amplifier to get the signal to your receiver. If your house is more than 45 miles from the towers and you have a pretty good shot, then stepping up one size to the next bigger antenna might help. With the exception of one instance where a big monster (called deep-fringe) antenna worked was on top of a ridge mounted on a 100' tower picking up a TV signal 125 air miles away, your best bet is a much lower gain antenna to reduce multi-path effects for receiving Digital Television.
2: There is a wonderful thing in Digital Television called PCIP. It gives you all the program information for the channels. It also allows the Broadcaster to identify his channel with what ever number he wants. In the analog days, he was broadcasting on Channel 3. Well, it turns out that Channel 3 is not such a good channel for digital and so now he's actually broadcasting on Channel 47. Thanks to PCIP, you tell your digital receiver that you want to watch channel 3 and it knows to actually tune into channel 47. Here's the problem, for the last 50 years that you've had an antenna on your roof, you've been watching only channels 2 through 13, which are called VHF channels. Chances are you have a VHF antenna and it's not going to work at all well when it comes to receiving UHF channels. Buy a new antenna and make sure it is a VHF/UHF combination antenna.
3. Do NOT pay extra for a HDTV antenna! What makes a HDTV antenna different from a regular TV antenna? With the exception of price, absolutely nothing! Big Hint: Even though your favorite local TV station has literally invested millions of dollars to send you a stream of ones and zeros, at the end of the day, all your antenna sees is an old fashioned analog envelope. That's right, an analog antenna receives Digital Television just as good as some whiz-bang HDTV antenna that cost three times too much for what you get.
4. If it is all too confusing, call the engineering department at one of the local TV stations. They do want to help you receive their station! If that's not working or you have some questions for me, fire off an email to brianw@provideoandtape.com I'll do my best to help out. Remember, you're just trying to scoop up some spare electrons, not provide a ground path for every RF signal on the planet!
Best of luck and good viewing!
Brian
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
NAB 2009
Somewhere out there, you might not have noticed that the 2009 edition of the NAB Show is this week in Las Vegas. Attendance this year was WAY down as might be expected.
We made our dutiful rounds through the array of "Dealer Principle" meetings. Those are the gatherings where manufacturers go to great lengths to remind dealers that we need to sell more of their stuff no matter how much our customers refuse to purchase their product. If there is one constant in the universe, it is that most manufacturers have yet to figure out how to get the most out of their dealer network.
Monday morning started off in the best of spirits. Beautiful sunny morning, a quick easy ride to the convention center on the shuttle and no big lines. Our first stop was at the Canon booth. In years past, the announcement that NAB 2009 was now open was met by a huge pile of humanity blasting through the doors. This year, we were two of about six people at our door when the show opened. A liesurely stroll down the isle, a big hug from Stephanie and the show was underway! It really wasn't until about noon that the show began to have a noticeable number of people wandering around.
I'm sure that a lot of show organizers where very disappointed by the number of people who stayed home this year. I think they are seeing a glass half empty. The people who came to NAB this year came with a purpose, an intent and a plan to do business. All of our manufacturer reps we talked to all agreed that attendance was way down, but they were really happy with the quality of customers coming in their booth. I found the same to be true. I had customer meetings on Monday afternoon and that was it. In past years, customer meetings went for three days. This year, three hours. But they were a very productive three hours and worth every minute.
Having only three hours of customer meetings opened up my schedule to do something I haven't had the luxury to do for about four years and that was go look for new products and spend some serious time learning about new products. All of Tuesday was dedicated to covering South Upper, South Lower, Central and North Halls. We saw a lot of good friends who were pleased to see that PVT is alive and well and with the lower attendance this year, we had the time to actually talk about what kinds of products to focus on that our customers will need in the next year. By far and away, this has been the most productive NAB I have ever been to. This is the year that reminds all of us that we can't be fat, stupid and lazy. This is the year of disipline and strategy.
Before I sign off, what NAB rant would be complete without a list of cool things found at the show? I can't possibly bring myself to let you down (nor can I pass up the chance to keep typing!)
Cool Things at the Show:
Sony HXC100 Camera. For all of us who have been rewarded by the ultra-reliable DXC-D series of cameras over the years, Sony has finally seen fit to bring the next generation to market. High Definition, 2/3" CCDs, Digital Triax, Camera and CCU - $49,900.00 List Price.
JVC GY-HM700 Camcorder. JVC has yet another hit camcorder. While their external design isn't going to make them cool enough to become an Apple product, JVC keeps focusing on functionality and listening to what their users want in a camcorder.
Panasonic AG-HPX300. Great classic "shoulder mount" camcorder design, traditional layout, untraditional performance. This camcorder will convince you that you don't have to have 2/3" sensors to get a great picture.
Tiffen Infra-Red Filters. We all know that CCD's love UV light. Who knew that CMOS sensors love IR light? Everyone who buys any camcorder with CMOS sensors will see a marked improvement in contrast (noticably better greys) by installing an IR filter. Tiffen launches the filters this summer.
Sennheiser 2000 Series Wireless Mics. For those of us wanting a bit better performance than what the Evolution Series offers, but aren't ready for the 3k-5k price tag, Sennheiser offers the new 2k series. Designed mostly for installed application, the dual receiver includes antenna distribution and an IR port to program the transmitter! Find an open frequency, hold the transmitter up to the receiver's IR port and instantly re-tune the transmitter. Too cool.
Lectrosonics OCTOPACK. What the field audio guy has been impatiently waiting for. Drop up to four SR receivers into the frame and get up to 8 channels of audio out. The frame includes the antenna distribution, so you only have two antennas to contend with.
International Supplies Purosol Molecular Screen Cleaner. 100% natural, 100% green, 100% free of alcohol or ammonia. Using a blend of plant based enzymes, this stuff cuts right through the dirt and grime. Two formulations: Optical for lenses and Plasma for, well, Plasma and LCD monitors. The Plasma version has an extra enzyme to help repel dust after you clean the screen. I used it on my laptop screen and it is the only cleaner I have ever used that actually lifted off all the fingerprints and greasy stuff. The one ounce bottle with micro-cloth is only $12.00 and every shooter should make room in his/her camera bag for this. PVT will have this in stock by May 1st.
Blackmagic Design The Whole Damn Booth. Here's a company that really has their act together! Always expanding, always looking for a new way to get the job done. The UltraScope gives you over $20,000.00 worth of test and measurement for under $700.00. Put the card in your computer, attach a 24" screen and get six displays including 5.1 surround audio. For $700.00 you will get about 97% of all the measurements you would ever want to make on a SDI stream.
Enterprise Video Hub Router. 144x288 for $30k and it's less than 3" deep including the cooling heat sinks! Using switch fabric from telco routers (and telco companies get just as cranky as broadcasters when their routers fail), it's time to get your head out of your rack and realize that there is a better way to get source A to destination B. With all the money you save your company, they will be thrilled to let you come to NAB next year and stay in the Presidential Suite at Ceasers!
It's been a great show and I'm looking forward to NAB 2010.
Brian
We made our dutiful rounds through the array of "Dealer Principle" meetings. Those are the gatherings where manufacturers go to great lengths to remind dealers that we need to sell more of their stuff no matter how much our customers refuse to purchase their product. If there is one constant in the universe, it is that most manufacturers have yet to figure out how to get the most out of their dealer network.
Monday morning started off in the best of spirits. Beautiful sunny morning, a quick easy ride to the convention center on the shuttle and no big lines. Our first stop was at the Canon booth. In years past, the announcement that NAB 2009 was now open was met by a huge pile of humanity blasting through the doors. This year, we were two of about six people at our door when the show opened. A liesurely stroll down the isle, a big hug from Stephanie and the show was underway! It really wasn't until about noon that the show began to have a noticeable number of people wandering around.
I'm sure that a lot of show organizers where very disappointed by the number of people who stayed home this year. I think they are seeing a glass half empty. The people who came to NAB this year came with a purpose, an intent and a plan to do business. All of our manufacturer reps we talked to all agreed that attendance was way down, but they were really happy with the quality of customers coming in their booth. I found the same to be true. I had customer meetings on Monday afternoon and that was it. In past years, customer meetings went for three days. This year, three hours. But they were a very productive three hours and worth every minute.
Having only three hours of customer meetings opened up my schedule to do something I haven't had the luxury to do for about four years and that was go look for new products and spend some serious time learning about new products. All of Tuesday was dedicated to covering South Upper, South Lower, Central and North Halls. We saw a lot of good friends who were pleased to see that PVT is alive and well and with the lower attendance this year, we had the time to actually talk about what kinds of products to focus on that our customers will need in the next year. By far and away, this has been the most productive NAB I have ever been to. This is the year that reminds all of us that we can't be fat, stupid and lazy. This is the year of disipline and strategy.
Before I sign off, what NAB rant would be complete without a list of cool things found at the show? I can't possibly bring myself to let you down (nor can I pass up the chance to keep typing!)
Cool Things at the Show:
Sony HXC100 Camera. For all of us who have been rewarded by the ultra-reliable DXC-D series of cameras over the years, Sony has finally seen fit to bring the next generation to market. High Definition, 2/3" CCDs, Digital Triax, Camera and CCU - $49,900.00 List Price.
JVC GY-HM700 Camcorder. JVC has yet another hit camcorder. While their external design isn't going to make them cool enough to become an Apple product, JVC keeps focusing on functionality and listening to what their users want in a camcorder.
Panasonic AG-HPX300. Great classic "shoulder mount" camcorder design, traditional layout, untraditional performance. This camcorder will convince you that you don't have to have 2/3" sensors to get a great picture.
Tiffen Infra-Red Filters. We all know that CCD's love UV light. Who knew that CMOS sensors love IR light? Everyone who buys any camcorder with CMOS sensors will see a marked improvement in contrast (noticably better greys) by installing an IR filter. Tiffen launches the filters this summer.
Sennheiser 2000 Series Wireless Mics. For those of us wanting a bit better performance than what the Evolution Series offers, but aren't ready for the 3k-5k price tag, Sennheiser offers the new 2k series. Designed mostly for installed application, the dual receiver includes antenna distribution and an IR port to program the transmitter! Find an open frequency, hold the transmitter up to the receiver's IR port and instantly re-tune the transmitter. Too cool.
Lectrosonics OCTOPACK. What the field audio guy has been impatiently waiting for. Drop up to four SR receivers into the frame and get up to 8 channels of audio out. The frame includes the antenna distribution, so you only have two antennas to contend with.
International Supplies Purosol Molecular Screen Cleaner. 100% natural, 100% green, 100% free of alcohol or ammonia. Using a blend of plant based enzymes, this stuff cuts right through the dirt and grime. Two formulations: Optical for lenses and Plasma for, well, Plasma and LCD monitors. The Plasma version has an extra enzyme to help repel dust after you clean the screen. I used it on my laptop screen and it is the only cleaner I have ever used that actually lifted off all the fingerprints and greasy stuff. The one ounce bottle with micro-cloth is only $12.00 and every shooter should make room in his/her camera bag for this. PVT will have this in stock by May 1st.
Blackmagic Design The Whole Damn Booth. Here's a company that really has their act together! Always expanding, always looking for a new way to get the job done. The UltraScope gives you over $20,000.00 worth of test and measurement for under $700.00. Put the card in your computer, attach a 24" screen and get six displays including 5.1 surround audio. For $700.00 you will get about 97% of all the measurements you would ever want to make on a SDI stream.
Enterprise Video Hub Router. 144x288 for $30k and it's less than 3" deep including the cooling heat sinks! Using switch fabric from telco routers (and telco companies get just as cranky as broadcasters when their routers fail), it's time to get your head out of your rack and realize that there is a better way to get source A to destination B. With all the money you save your company, they will be thrilled to let you come to NAB next year and stay in the Presidential Suite at Ceasers!
It's been a great show and I'm looking forward to NAB 2010.
Brian
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
New Media for Sony EX Camcorders
One of the biggest objections we have had from customers interested in the Sony EX1 and EX3 camcorders has been the cost of media. The same resistance has been raised with Panasonic's P2 offerings.
I've been watching a couple of companies offer an adapter that allows you to plug in a Class 6 SDHC card and then insert the assembly into the camcorder. Reviews thus far have been mixed. No one has said that they don't work, but there have been a number of comments about the adapter being difficult to insert or eject from the camcorder. Some comments have noted that some adapters are very difficult to get the SDHC card out.
We looked at making our own adapter and were well on our way until Bob at Hoodman called to let me know about their new "SxS Alternative Media Adapter". I took a look at it and it has the features we were planning to incorporate into our adapter. Metal shell for rigidity, a "push-push" load for the SDHC card and tight tolerances to make the insert/eject cycle identical to a genuine SxS card from Sony or Sandisk.
So what is the down-side to the "SxS Alternative Media Adapter"? Due to the limitations of the SDHC cards themselves, they do not have the ability to drink the ones and zeros fast enough for the upper reaches of the EX1 or EX3's overcrank features. Maximum overcrank is 50 frames per second at 720p. If you're shooting above 50 fps of overcrank, you will still need to use a genuine Sony or Sandisk SxS card. If you're shooting in real-time, you will be fine.
The Hoodman products are high quality. We have packaged them into a kit which includes the adapter, a 16GB SDHC card and a SDHC to USB adapter so you can get the media into your computer should you be lacking a PC Express slot or a SDHC slot on your machine. Our tests thus far have been very positive. PVT's price for the kit is $189.00 which is a lot less than the $735.00 you would pay for a SanDisk 16GB SxS card.
As for future growth of the SDHC cards, Panasonic announced a 32GB card at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January. Delivery schedule is for Summer of '09.
BIG HINT: Tapeless media means no more putting your raw tape on the shelf and calling it "archive". One archive method that makes some sense is to use 16GB Class 4 cards as your archive media. They may accept the data from the Class 6 cards at a speed below real time, but they are also a lot cheaper!
I've been watching a couple of companies offer an adapter that allows you to plug in a Class 6 SDHC card and then insert the assembly into the camcorder. Reviews thus far have been mixed. No one has said that they don't work, but there have been a number of comments about the adapter being difficult to insert or eject from the camcorder. Some comments have noted that some adapters are very difficult to get the SDHC card out.
We looked at making our own adapter and were well on our way until Bob at Hoodman called to let me know about their new "SxS Alternative Media Adapter". I took a look at it and it has the features we were planning to incorporate into our adapter. Metal shell for rigidity, a "push-push" load for the SDHC card and tight tolerances to make the insert/eject cycle identical to a genuine SxS card from Sony or Sandisk.
So what is the down-side to the "SxS Alternative Media Adapter"? Due to the limitations of the SDHC cards themselves, they do not have the ability to drink the ones and zeros fast enough for the upper reaches of the EX1 or EX3's overcrank features. Maximum overcrank is 50 frames per second at 720p. If you're shooting above 50 fps of overcrank, you will still need to use a genuine Sony or Sandisk SxS card. If you're shooting in real-time, you will be fine.
The Hoodman products are high quality. We have packaged them into a kit which includes the adapter, a 16GB SDHC card and a SDHC to USB adapter so you can get the media into your computer should you be lacking a PC Express slot or a SDHC slot on your machine. Our tests thus far have been very positive. PVT's price for the kit is $189.00 which is a lot less than the $735.00 you would pay for a SanDisk 16GB SxS card.
As for future growth of the SDHC cards, Panasonic announced a 32GB card at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January. Delivery schedule is for Summer of '09.
BIG HINT: Tapeless media means no more putting your raw tape on the shelf and calling it "archive". One archive method that makes some sense is to use 16GB Class 4 cards as your archive media. They may accept the data from the Class 6 cards at a speed below real time, but they are also a lot cheaper!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Future of Television
As a few of us prepare to head toward the deserts of Southern Nevada for another edition of the NAB Convention; this scary little tale is set 20 minutes in the future.... starting now.
The Fifth Estate is dead. The concept of Broadcasting has died. The business model based on presenting programming on a rigid schedule and viewers adjusting their day to conform so that eye-balls can be delivered to advertisers has come to an end. The end was neither gracious or pretty.
Twenty minutes from now, reality is non-linear. The hulking chunk of metal sitting under a big tower and sucking up electricity is now rusting in a junk yard. Viewers no longer are willing to be home from work before five so they can see the news. When they get home at 7:22, they have the news that interests them streamed to their display whether it is a Blackberry, iPhone, 20" LCD display or big screen plasma. If it's not convenient to watch "60 Minutes" at 8:00 on Sunday evening, they watch at 6:47 on Monday morning. Without the need for a TiVo.
Twenty minutes from now, where is the revenue stream? Twenty minutes earlier, it was pretty easy. Run some compelling programming for about 12 minutes and then run three minutes of commercials. Repeat. It's a shotgun approach for the advertiser who pays a reasonable rate knowing that his message will hit a few customers that will respond and bounce off a bunch who could care less. It's worked this way for over 50 years. The problem for the owner of the television station is that the only people watching today are the same ones watching 50 years ago. Yesterday's 25 to 34 year old female, prime demographic is today's 55+ aging demographic that only responds to adult diaper commercials. The money meter mounted on the wall of Master Control spins a little slower each day. The television station of today is losing viewers because they are dying of old age. Today's young viewers are not tuning in. There are fewer and fewer young viewers tuning into television today.
Twenty minutes from now, the revenue stream is based on highly targeted commercials reaching highly targeted demographics. What used to be the 2500 square feet of empty space that got used about two weeks every year and known as Studio B or Studio 3 or The Black Box has now become a server farm. The transmitter on the hill where every self-respecting engineer could go hide, is gone. The $10,000.00 electric bill at the transmitter site is now spent running servers. Transmitters are now fiber optic and feed data into OC3 cables. The good news is that the FCC's Mass Media Bureau no longer exists. Part 73 is no longer relevant.
Twenty minutes from now, viewers will have the option of subscribing to what used to be called a "TV Station" and avoid all the commercials, or save a few dollars a month in trade for having to watch some commercials during the programming they want to see. Either way, twenty minutes from now, the revenue stream is built on either delivering commercials or avoiding commercials.
Twenty minutes from now, if I get home at 7:22 and want to watch some local news, I log on to my favorite "TV Station's" website and begin receiving a stream of news programming that is tailored to my preferences. If I think that I would like more than 45 seconds of sports, especially if there is a story about one of my favorite teams, I get what I want. If I want detailed weather for the coast and my nearest stations are 100 miles in-land, I get what I want. I have the option of the station charging my credit card a few dollars every month so that I get fewer (or none) commercials or I can watch for free without avoiding the commercials.
Twenty minutes from now, broadcasting is dead. Narrow-casting is alive and profitable. It's all about delivering customized product to customized viewers on demand at any time. Tuning into Oprah at 3:30 every afternoon is ancient old-school. Tuning into Oprah at 8:32 because it's now convenient is the new way.
Twenty minutes from now, what used to be called TV Stations will now be server farms providing programming on demand at any time. It may well be that the server farm isn't even on site! Local programming will be the premium that brings viewers. The standard for that programming's content will have to rise to the occasion. High quality story-telling will be more important than a 45 second package about a shooting.
Twenty minutes from now, Cable companies will no longer provide television as we know it. Cable companies will have their dreams come true and they will be data-providers. Face-less, heart-less utlities carrying ones and zeros from place A to place B. It's what the cable companies have been hoping for. The good news for "broadcasters" is that they now get to control the data stream's quality going to their viewer(s). Twenty minutes from now, a local franchise will be awarded to stream a certain network's programming to a given market. Networks will become programming providers who rely on local stations for their revenue stream. It may be that local stations simply pick up the programming they want by bidding on the syndication rights. "60 Minutes" might show up on what used to be a Fox affiliate because that station made the highest bid.
Twenty minutes from now, a lot of people are thinking that its the end of the world. I think it will become the second Golden Age of Television. Creative, compelling programming will bring viewers. The status quo will be shattered shreds. Those who understand the new reality that viewers are actually customers who have individual desires to consume a product when and where they want to, are going to succeed.
Big Hint: You can have all the moral issues you want with the "Adult Entertainment Industry", but if you're not studying how they track viewers, generate revenue streams, figure out where any given viewer is at any time and keep the dollars rolling in, you're well on your way to being an extinct dinosaur. Don't laugh, the next Chief Engineer's title will be Technology Director. He won't have a clue how to tune a transmitter or care and his apprenticeship will have been served at an Adult Entertainment Server Farm in Chatsworth.
Brian
Coming up, I'm heading down the Las Vegas on Saturday for the NAB Convention. Sunday is dealer meetings with the manufacturers and then we're at the show on Monday and Tuesday. I'll be posting blogs on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Your thoughts, arguements, accusations and thinly veiled threats are always appreciated. I'll respond!
The Fifth Estate is dead. The concept of Broadcasting has died. The business model based on presenting programming on a rigid schedule and viewers adjusting their day to conform so that eye-balls can be delivered to advertisers has come to an end. The end was neither gracious or pretty.
Twenty minutes from now, reality is non-linear. The hulking chunk of metal sitting under a big tower and sucking up electricity is now rusting in a junk yard. Viewers no longer are willing to be home from work before five so they can see the news. When they get home at 7:22, they have the news that interests them streamed to their display whether it is a Blackberry, iPhone, 20" LCD display or big screen plasma. If it's not convenient to watch "60 Minutes" at 8:00 on Sunday evening, they watch at 6:47 on Monday morning. Without the need for a TiVo.
Twenty minutes from now, where is the revenue stream? Twenty minutes earlier, it was pretty easy. Run some compelling programming for about 12 minutes and then run three minutes of commercials. Repeat. It's a shotgun approach for the advertiser who pays a reasonable rate knowing that his message will hit a few customers that will respond and bounce off a bunch who could care less. It's worked this way for over 50 years. The problem for the owner of the television station is that the only people watching today are the same ones watching 50 years ago. Yesterday's 25 to 34 year old female, prime demographic is today's 55+ aging demographic that only responds to adult diaper commercials. The money meter mounted on the wall of Master Control spins a little slower each day. The television station of today is losing viewers because they are dying of old age. Today's young viewers are not tuning in. There are fewer and fewer young viewers tuning into television today.
Twenty minutes from now, the revenue stream is based on highly targeted commercials reaching highly targeted demographics. What used to be the 2500 square feet of empty space that got used about two weeks every year and known as Studio B or Studio 3 or The Black Box has now become a server farm. The transmitter on the hill where every self-respecting engineer could go hide, is gone. The $10,000.00 electric bill at the transmitter site is now spent running servers. Transmitters are now fiber optic and feed data into OC3 cables. The good news is that the FCC's Mass Media Bureau no longer exists. Part 73 is no longer relevant.
Twenty minutes from now, viewers will have the option of subscribing to what used to be called a "TV Station" and avoid all the commercials, or save a few dollars a month in trade for having to watch some commercials during the programming they want to see. Either way, twenty minutes from now, the revenue stream is built on either delivering commercials or avoiding commercials.
Twenty minutes from now, if I get home at 7:22 and want to watch some local news, I log on to my favorite "TV Station's" website and begin receiving a stream of news programming that is tailored to my preferences. If I think that I would like more than 45 seconds of sports, especially if there is a story about one of my favorite teams, I get what I want. If I want detailed weather for the coast and my nearest stations are 100 miles in-land, I get what I want. I have the option of the station charging my credit card a few dollars every month so that I get fewer (or none) commercials or I can watch for free without avoiding the commercials.
Twenty minutes from now, broadcasting is dead. Narrow-casting is alive and profitable. It's all about delivering customized product to customized viewers on demand at any time. Tuning into Oprah at 3:30 every afternoon is ancient old-school. Tuning into Oprah at 8:32 because it's now convenient is the new way.
Twenty minutes from now, what used to be called TV Stations will now be server farms providing programming on demand at any time. It may well be that the server farm isn't even on site! Local programming will be the premium that brings viewers. The standard for that programming's content will have to rise to the occasion. High quality story-telling will be more important than a 45 second package about a shooting.
Twenty minutes from now, Cable companies will no longer provide television as we know it. Cable companies will have their dreams come true and they will be data-providers. Face-less, heart-less utlities carrying ones and zeros from place A to place B. It's what the cable companies have been hoping for. The good news for "broadcasters" is that they now get to control the data stream's quality going to their viewer(s). Twenty minutes from now, a local franchise will be awarded to stream a certain network's programming to a given market. Networks will become programming providers who rely on local stations for their revenue stream. It may be that local stations simply pick up the programming they want by bidding on the syndication rights. "60 Minutes" might show up on what used to be a Fox affiliate because that station made the highest bid.
Twenty minutes from now, a lot of people are thinking that its the end of the world. I think it will become the second Golden Age of Television. Creative, compelling programming will bring viewers. The status quo will be shattered shreds. Those who understand the new reality that viewers are actually customers who have individual desires to consume a product when and where they want to, are going to succeed.
Big Hint: You can have all the moral issues you want with the "Adult Entertainment Industry", but if you're not studying how they track viewers, generate revenue streams, figure out where any given viewer is at any time and keep the dollars rolling in, you're well on your way to being an extinct dinosaur. Don't laugh, the next Chief Engineer's title will be Technology Director. He won't have a clue how to tune a transmitter or care and his apprenticeship will have been served at an Adult Entertainment Server Farm in Chatsworth.
Brian
Coming up, I'm heading down the Las Vegas on Saturday for the NAB Convention. Sunday is dealer meetings with the manufacturers and then we're at the show on Monday and Tuesday. I'll be posting blogs on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Your thoughts, arguements, accusations and thinly veiled threats are always appreciated. I'll respond!
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