The Max Headroom TV series premiered back in 1987 and was one of the first “Cyberpunk” television shows. The story lines having to do with huge international television / broadcast networks controlling culture and politics were at least 10 or 15 years ahead of their time.
Nobody would argue that mainstream media has a vast influence on these things today!
One of the fascinating things about the fictional “Network 23”, was the idea that all of the camera operators would have continual real time feeds from their portable cameras back to the network. Directors could see the output of any camera at any time, and see their exact location on a map – all in real time.
This type of portable technology was unheard of back in the late 80s, when large satellite uplinks and microwave vans were required to get video back to the station from remote locations.
Fast-forward to 2010, and an update to Sony’s “Location Porter” system looks to be enabling exactly that kind of connectivity, now on a large-scale basis.
Broadcasters have had the capability to use small mobile transmitters and VOIP systems to deliver video for a few years now, but this system takes it up a notch with a turnkey system that enables real time video/audio streaming for up to 12 sources (cameras, remotes, etc) at the same time at the push of a button.
Because it uses high-speed mobile data networks for connectivity, it’s relatively cheap compared with conventional systems. It’s no longer a matter of shooting a story and delivering media back at a later time, but realtime capture right onto a live show, or into an editorial system.
Maybe the future of broadcast news isn’t getting a single camera to an event and trying to cover everything at one, but to get a “swarm” of networked realtime cameras that feed everything and anything back simultaneously.
Back in January 2009, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails released 450GB of HD concert footage from the “Lights in the Sky” tour for fans to edit.
After 18 months, the Nine Inch Nails fan community have created “Another Version of the Truth” – a 3 disc release bringing together numerous editors, designers, and web programmers to create a professional digital film, followed by a physical release created by fans for fans.
Now, “thisoneisonus” has released their final project from this footage – a professionally mastered, color-corrected and authored Blu-Ray, which is available free, as a bittorrent download.
If you want to practise cutting concert footage, the original source footage is also still available here. Once our new server is officially commissioned in September, I’ll load the Victoria concert footage on for anyone that wants to practise.
Another iPhone 4 HD video – this time the topic is the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb which was produced by Hoptocopter Films.
It’s a different style of production from the Apple of My Eye piece that I posted about a couple of days ago, and a very impressive project to be produced using the camera on a smartphone.
A new site, iPhone4Filming has also appeared, to discuss tips and techniques for producing high quality video with the iPhone 4.
I hope we might see a few student productions with the iPhone 4 at BCIT this year!
Hate expensive, proprietary video cables as much as we do? Want to see Monster cables crying the blues when they can no longer sell a $6 cable for $75?
An industry coalition including Sony, Samsung, and LG have proposed a new cabling standard based on existing high-bandwidth technology. And the type of cable should look pretty familiar to most people…
HDBaseT
HDBaseT uses standard CAT5E/CAT6 Ethernet cables to transmit video, audio, data, and even power to audio/visual devices. If you have a home or office pre-wired for data, you can even use your existing cables.
About time. I was sort of wondering why it didn’t happen sooner – we all know that modern audio/video devices basically all communicate by digital signalling, so it makes sense to just use standard data cables…
The iPhone 4 isn’t released in Canada yet, however USC Cinematic Arts student Michael Koerbel has produced one of the first new shorts shot entirely using the new 720P HD camera on the iPhone 4.
Post-production editing was also done on the iPhone 4 with the iMovie app – with the entire project being completed in 48 hours.
Click the link below the video to see the full HD version!
“Apple of My Eye” – an iPhone 4 film – UPDATE: Behind the scenes footage included from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.
The Television & Video Production faculty had an opportunity today to go and visit with Tim Lewis, the president of Proshow Vancouver.
Tim is a member of our broadcast advisory committee and offered us a chance to drop by and see what was new in the way of their mobile production vehicles, as well as some purpose-built equipment for doing mobile and event productions (something we’re keen to do more of!)
One of the most impressive things about seeing the Proshow operation is the attention to detail – a good model for students!
We’re going to try and get some students more involved with Proshow, and we are already working to train students in the types of skills that are required for live event production.
