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The Moving Picture: April Fool’s Day, 2005

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 …

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HDV and the Sony FX1

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 …

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The Moving Picture: Follow the Format

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

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The Moving Picture: MPEG-4 is Dead

I've been down on MPEG-4 for a while now, despite my respect for many of the folks associated with the standard. Given the adoption of Microsoft's Windows Media Video 9 by the DVD Forum, there's increasing reason to believe, to paraphrase an old Sout

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Will MPEG-4 Fly?

Strong market forces are pushing for a standards-based resolution to the high-profile battle of proprietary streaming technologies pitting Apple’s QuickTime, Microsoft Windows Media Technologies, and RealNetworks’ RealMedia against one another. Broadcasters are seeking a unified standard that will allow them to use a single delivery method for both traditional programming and Internet offerings. Many publishers of electronic content see users …

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