Nikon is about to ship the D90, a 12MP DSLR that shoots HD movies. Wait a minute, doesn’t that sound a lot like Red’s Scarlet? If you aren’t familiar with the D90, check out my post on the neat little camera. And more importantly, what will this trend mean for the industry at large? Read on to see how the about-to-be-released Nikon D90 stacks up against the current specs for next year’s Red Scarlet.

Nikon is about to ship their new DX format DSLR, the D90. So why should you care? Because it also shoots 720p movies. Yep, that’s right - 1280x720, progressive frame, nice depth of field (roughly equivalent to Super35mm/Red One), 24 frame per second movies. With sound. How much? $1000 for the body, $1300 with an 18-105mm lens. Read on for the deets.

I’m going into a RED shoot this weekend and I’ve realized my hard drives are full. Now what?

One of our favorite motion graphics design jobs is creating the opening title sequence for movies and television shows (a few of the projects we’ve worked on can be seen here). Title design is a place where typography and animation meet to both convey a story and set a mood. I’ve recently stumbled across a lovely web site called Art of the Title. Every week, the writers dissect an opening title sequence with still frames and a large (typically 800x336) QuickTime movie of the title, plus the ability for visitors to leave comments and carry on the discussion. It does not contain just recent titles; they will often reach back a few years or even decades to show off a design that particularly resonated with them in either a good or bad way. There is also a well-organized index down the left side of the dozens of titles they reviewed in the past. By the way, in the next couple of weeks we’ll be adding an article to our CMG Keyframes blog on type resources (including links to numerous type foundries), plus writing an article for Artbeats.com with common typesetting tips and errors - so stay tuned! 

September 3, 2008—Markham, Ontario: Digital Rapids—a leading developer of solutions for bringing television, video and movie content to the latest generation of viewing devices—has released a powerful new version of the Digital Rapids Broadcast Manager enterprise-class live encoder management software.

Cambridge, MA. September 3, 2008—GenArts, Inc., a leading provider of visual effects plug-ins for the film, broadcast and video industries, today announced the immediate availability of Sapphire Plug-ins for OFX products. A collaborative effort by visual effects developers, OFX is an open standard for plug-ins, enabling developers to support a broad range of platforms with a common interface. Sapphire Plug-ins for OFX makes its full range of features and functionality, including more than 200 Sapphire effects, available to users of a growing list of popular post-production platforms from industry leaders including Autodesk, The Foundry, Eyeon, FilmLight, Digital Vision and Assimilate. Demonstrations of the new release will be given at IBC 2008 on GenArts stand 7.K41.

Video Gogh turns your videos into moving paintings, using RE:Vision Effects optical flow technology to move brush strokes without stuttering artifacts. Video Gogh 3 opens up other possibilities in motion graphic design by introducing the option for users to define their own brushes, which may be animated. Version 3 adds a substantial amount of new visual effects opportunities that many have requested over the years.

Vinten Radamec announces now TV has chosen Vinten Radamec’s latest robotics technology for its sports studio as part of the company’s ongoing technology enhancement strategy. As the world’s largest and most successful commercial deployment of IPTV technology, now TV, faced the need to deliver high-quality studio productions while holding the line on the expense of manning individual cameras in their studio.

Most websites use affiliate programs to generate revenue.  While we’re certainly not against a few greenbacks, we thought we’d say thank you to those who have simply registered for ProVideo Coalition.  By registering, you’ll receive a coupon code good for 5% off your purchase at VideoGuys.com.  All we ask is that you help spread the word.  Register for ProVideo Coalition, catch up on the latest news, reviews and tutorials, and save 5%. Cheers and thanks from the PVC staff.

One of the most useful things I ever did as I began to master the Avid user interface was – I know this will be hard to believe – read the manual. Actually I read EVERY word of EVERY manual. The folks at the Avid Technical Publications department can confirm this, because I sent them many pages of corrections for which they sent me an actual one-of-a-kind “Deputy Tech Pubs” badge. Geeky? Yes. Should YOU actually read the manuals? Of course not! That’s what this series is intended to prevent!