Time for Another : Colin's Blog on SimplyDV

Change of Direction?

2008-10-24T15:33:00.004+01:00

It's been a couple of weeks since the last entry to this online diary thing, and I now realise that the whole point of a blog is to communicate to your readers what it is that you're up to. Well, the second half of any month is always consumed with my having to shut myself away in my padded cell that is my office and compose reviews of various digital video products - whether that's camcorders or stuff like editing software, etc - for the various magazines I regularly contribute to and whose publishers help to keep the wolves from the door.

During a month that seems to have wizzed by just a little too quickly, I've put together reviews of three fabulous new camcorders (the Canon HG20, the Sony HDR-CX11 and the Panasonic HDC-HS100) and some stuff on video editing software as well.

Every month, I write a 12-frame storyboard style tutorial for Mac User magazine, and the editor gives me pretty much carte blanche to do anything I choose to do providing that it's digital video related.

This month (or, at least, the Volume 24 Issue 24 that will be on the stands late November 08, I assume) I've been having fun with Apple's really superb Motion 3 software that helps to make up the Final Cut Studio 2 set.

Motion really is an excellent program and I've done a little Masterclass (yeah, yeah) on how to create a jittery text title using the keyframe recording feature. It's something that would be quite difficult to do in Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro, but in Motion it's dead easy - so much so that it actually leaves room for experimentation in real time. Brilliant!

Another thing I've been working on is a set of video tutorials on how to get started with Adobe Premiere Elements 7.0 (Windows XP/Vista). I've been an admirer of this application since its introduction a few years back and the latest version is the best yet.

The video modules are coming along and I hope to publish a couple of sample files soon. However, I'll say it right now that the set isn't going to be free. No sir. In a slight change of direction, I'm launching a new partner website to SimplyDV in which I'll be selling this and other stuff - all of which will be aimed at the complete newbie or, at the very least, the user who has basic skills but who wants to break out into something a little bit more demanding and creative. PREL7 really is a great application and I can't wait to get the how-to stuff done!

And on that subject, I'd better get back to it. Adios.

The SimplyDV HD Video Channel on Vimeo

2008-10-14T10:32:00.004+01:00

In an effort to get back into video production (which is where I started, all those years ago) and make the most of the exciting new ways of distributing video projects to the world, I offered to make a campaign video for the Milton Keynes (UK) based pressure group called Urban Eden. The result is "Our Urban Eden", a 6 minutes 20 seconds video which sets out what the organisation represents and highlights where issues of urban planning in Milton Keynes is going wrong.

I've always liked the use of video to promote a cause - I was involved in the first wave of "community video" in the 1970s when the technology was in its infancy - and the availability of free, online media sharing portals like Vimeo YouTube and so on makes it so much easier to get the message across.

As a means of kicking off the newly-created SimplyDV HD Video Channel on Vimeo, I've uploaded the above video in HD (1280x720p Quicktime MOV) where you can see it and - if you're signed-up to Vimeo - download it in high quality.

I'm already working on a couple of video-based camcorder reviews in addition to some basic demos of new video editing software so, as they always seem to say in these situations, watch this space!

See the new channel here: http://simplydv.co.uk/blog/blog-index.php?id=5446569122893218790

Tell me what you think, either as comment on the channel itself or in our free and friendly forums!

Like London buses, they all come at once

2008-09-17T13:43:00.005+01:00

For most people, the summer break is an opportunity to take some time off work in order to relax with family and friends and generally take it easy, but for the major digital video hardware and software companies it's one of two times of the year when the activity verges on being frenetic.

New for Autumn 2008: the Canon Vixia HF11 and Panasonic HDC-SD100

What am I talking about? Product announcements, that's what. Whilst the rest of you are taking a more laid-back stance as the summer sun shines (or, in the case of the UK, as the sun hides), the press officers and product managers are inundating people like me with all manner of information about their up-coming product releases.

This summer, we've had several new camcorder product reveals at various press launches at home and abroad - most notably with Canon and Panasonic - not to mention lots of fascinating new software to mull over as well.

In fact, I'm more interested in the software these days. Just as well, because all the main video editing software brands have come up with major updates to their wares. Pinnacle, Corel (formerly Ulead), Adobe and Cyberlink have all come up with significant updates to their established packages, and there's no doubt that the biggest story of the last few weeks has been Adobe's unveiling of Premiere Elements 7. The product is unique not only because there's been a mysterious leap from version 4 to the current 7 (designed merely to synchronise its nomenclature with its sister product, Photoshop Elements) but also because it at last provides support for AVCHD high definition camcorder clips.

Lack of AVCHD support has been a turn-off for potential buyers up until now, and Adobe's update comes a long way behind that of all its principal competitors. However, I've been testing a beta version of the software on a new Windows PC designed for the job of editing full resolution high def and I can report that it works very well (even though there are one or two bugs in the Press Beta copy that I've been provided with).

What all this means is that I have my work cut out to make sense of all this stuff in order to write up reviews for the website in due course. I've already published my thoughts on the Panasonic HDC-SD100 and Canon HF11 AVCHD camcorders, and my aim is to put together not only a few text-based reviews but also Flash video reviews designed to give you a glimpse of the workings of the major video editing software packages available to you very soon. I just need more hours in the day, that's all!

Oh........ and in a few days I'll be able to tell you about another major piece of video editing software news, too. Watch this space.

Image of Canon and Panasonic camcorders courtesy Nigel Cooper at www.dvuser.co.uk Used by permission.

Dedicated follower of fashion? Not quite.

2008-09-15T19:20:00.004+01:00

Would I be right in calling this a blog - or is the term so unfashionable as to be avoided?

As those close to me will tell you, I've always shunned that which can be described as fashionable. When, for instance, I was much younger (I won't say when but Gary Glitter and David Bowie were touring the colleges and an unknown band called Genesis was third on the bill at my college's rag ball) I had a penchant for wearing straight-legged jeans whilst most of my young contemporaries were wearing bell-bottoms. Then, when the fashion for straights was adopted by the same young people in the early 80s, I did the opposite. I'm a rebel, you see.

And so it is with this thing called blogging. The blog - or, to be more accurate - the web log, has become one of the most widely-used web publishing tools in the last 4 or 5 years to the point where the word itself is now an everyday term and the vast majority of people will know what it relates to. Well, maybe I should adjust that to read vast majority of web users, really, but you get my drift I'm sure.

Anyway, I digress. The point is that I decided not to bother with a blog as soon as it became obvious that everyone was doing it. It debased the value of the extraordinary medium, in my view. And that was the way things stayed. Another reason I eschewed this fabulous new form of publishing was that I couldn't really be bothered, to be honest, but we'll skip that bit.

So, I was tinkering around in the excellent application that is used to construct this website (RapidWeaver 4 from a small British developer called Real Mac Software) and, realising that setting up and managing blogs within the application is dead easy, I thought "Why don't I just set up my own little corner of the web?", so I did. And here it is.

Of course, there are some people who think that a blog is little more than a means for persons with not much to say to engage in what can be best described as vanity publishing. Thanks to the big web names like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and co, all of whom now make it extremely easy for complete newbies to set up a blog and publish it within minutes, there must be thousands - if not millions - of examples to prove that theory perfectly well. However, if you do have some information and ideas to impart to a readership that's interested in what one has to say, it has to be worthwhile. So that gets me off the hook and justifies the many hours I will now put in to updating this blog. Or is it a diary?

Whatever it is and whatever my motive, it's here. Let's hope you find it of use. All I have to do now is to come up with scintillating and captivating stuff to write. Ah... now I see why I've never bothered to Blog in the past!