When it comes to 3CCD camcorders, Sony’s practice is to offer consumer and professional versions of the same camera, starting with the highly regarded DCR-VX2000 and DSR-PD150, and continuing with the HDR-FX1 and HVR-Z1U. With both duos, though the professional model has some extra features, the cameras share all critical quality-related components, including the lens, CCDs, and most internal circuitry, …

Certainly the most memorable computer commercial of all time was Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl advertisement, with slack-jawed drones watching an Orwellian speaker on a huge screen smashed with a hammer flung by an admirably athletic young woman. The advertisement, directed by Ridley Scott of Blade Runner fame, railed against “unification of thought,” and promised that the Macintosh would prevent 1984 …

I thought up the “Ten Wow” strategy in a previous life on a sales trip to Redmond. I was president of a small software company barely clinging to life and sorely needing a big sale with a trophy client. We were the third of three companies presenting, three days each, and I felt like our presentation and product demonstration needed …

[Author’s note: This article is from 2001, and some of the original images are gone. I’ve used the thumbnails from the Extremetech article here. Sorry for the low quality. The article is of limited value now, though square pixels continues to be a concept that confuses many producers, and aspect ratio mismatches continue to appear both on TV and on …

One of the acclaimed benefits of shooting HDV for standard-definition output is the ability to shoot a wide-angle view and then pan and zoom within the video without losing quality. I tried this in a recent shoot, a performance by students in my wife

You can learn how to shoot video in one of two ways. You can apprentice under the direction of an experienced videographer who’s done it all and seen it all, and leverage the lessons he or she has learned over the years. Or, you can book the jobs, buy the gear, do your research, and shoot the shoot. Though the …

You can learn how to shoot video in one of two ways. You can apprentice under the direction of an experienced videographer who's done it all and seen it all, and leverage the lessons he or she has learned over the years.  Or, you can book the jo

This past fall I gave six 6-hour presentations over eight weekends in six different cities, taught a 2-day seminar in Las Vegas, and helped present three 3-day seminars in northern Virginia. Lots of travel, which was fun, and I enjoy presenting, but

After testing Sony’s HDR-FX1, I’m an HDV believer. It’s not the second coming of DV, but it can be extremely useful in a number of circumstances, including when you need to down-sample the results to SD formats. Conversation between Stephen Nathans, editor and myself, December 20, 2004:Nathans: So, now that you’ve spent more time testing with HDV, how do you …

Many of the questions I get from readers and see on Web forums relate to confusion about the formats and file types used in the video production process. Briefly, a format defines the file structure, or how the information is presented in the file. D