In this brief video, Adobe's Worldwide Video/Audio Evangelist Jason Levine will show you the incredible power and ease of NATIVELY editing DSLR footage in Premiere Pro CS5.
That's right. Straight from the camera to the timeline. No transcoding; no proxies. Import your videos through Adobe Bridge/Photo Downloader, or pull content directly off your CF/XD/SD/Express/PCMCIA card from a card reader. Full frame-size, mixed frame rates, all living together, harmoniously, in the Premiere Pro CS5 timeline. And what makes it all possible? The incredible new 64-bit Mercury Playback Engine. Oh, and Premiere Pro CS5 is a native 64-bit app as well now.
Last week I shared with you TiVo's announcement of their NEW 802.11n based WiFi adapter for their Dual Tuner DVRs including the TiVo HD and New TiVo Premiere. I said then I that I thought this adapter was over priced, but I still wanted to test it to see how much of an improvement it was over the 802.11g based one. I was totally surprised by what I saw when I opened the package.
It's nothing like the old adapter
Don't let the design and pictures fool you. The reason that I thought that the new adapter was over priced was that it looked just like the old one and therefore I figured it connected to the USB port like the old one. It doesn't! This NEW Adapter is a completely new design and instead of connecting via USB it connects to your TiVo's Ethernet port. You also have to plug it into the AC to get power to it. Actually there is nothing TiVo specific about this new adapter. It's just like any other Ethernet based 802.11n Wireless Bridge. Unlike the old adapter you can't even configure it from the TiVo HD. You either have to use your computer or you have to have a wireless router that has a WPS button. Although my New TRENDnet router does have the WPS button, I opted to just configure it directly by plugging into my MacBook Pro via Ethernet. Configuring it was pretty straight forward and once I was done I plugged it into my TiVo HD and it worked perfectly!
.
Is it faster?
Yes, it is definitely faster than my older adapter. I can see an immediate difference in speed when transferring shows from one DVR to another. However, transferring recordings to my computer shows no difference in speed. This is likely due to the transcoding it does during transfer.
The Bottom Line – Is it worth the price?
First off, if you can run ethernet from your router to your TiVo, then run ethernet! It's cheaper by a mile. However, if you have your TiVo in a room/location where it wouldn't be practical to run ethernet then you will need a wireless option. Although I came down on TiVo for the price of this adapter initially, They priced it pretty much in line with other 802.11n Wireless Bridges. For example, here's a Linksys that's about the same price but it's bigger and bulkier than the TiVo model. So you're not paying much if any over what you would pay for other name brand solutions. With that said, since this has no direct TiVo integration, you could use ANY 802.11n wireless bridge and get the same results. Also since this is not TiVo specific it could be used with other devices such as your Blu-ray player. Once you set it up you could use it with any device that has an ethernet port and you want to make it wireless.
Compared to other wireless bridges the TiVo adapter is smaller and more attractive. Style does matter to me so if all things are equal price wise, then I would go with the TiVo adapter.
I've been using YouTube for a long time now as a way to provide video content on this blog. I remember the early days of YouTube being primarily for teenagers and vehicle for people to show off their babies and pets. The quality, well, um, kinda sucked! I just didn't really find it remotely good enough to host the kind of content I wanted to share. Well all that has changed now. YouTube is GREAT for sharing videos in 720p HD quality, up to 10 minutes in length. It's easy to use and to embed the clips right on my site. Now don't get me wrong, I know that there are other GREAT video sharing sites out there too like Smugmug (which does all the way up to 1080p with a paid account), Vimeo, BlipTV, etc. However, I find that YouTube seems to be the most universal and has the largest audience. After all, if I go through the trouble to produce a video and make it available for free I wan to have the largest possible viewing audience I can get. Also since YouTube is BUILT-IN to the iPhone and now the iPad, I can reach millions more people with this one service than I can with any of the others. Another nice surprise was that Apple gave the iPad's Safari the ability to view embedded YouTube clips right in the page without having to launch the App or go to another browser window. Sold!
A funny thing happened on the way to this post
Like I said, I've been posting videos up on YouTube for a while now. When I started my original intent was to simply have an easy FREE video hosting service. However, what ended up happening was something I never considered at the time. I started building a following on YouTube! What? Huh? NO! Don't look over there, look at my blog Every day I was getting emails from YouTube about how a new person or two or three or twenty had subscribed to my "YouTube Channel." Then of course people started commenting on my videos and in many cases asking questions about the video. The last thing I wanted or needed was yet another place to have to respond to comments. So I started making sure in my latest recordings that I stated clearly "for more information, head over to my blog…" That helped, but the subscriber numbers continued to grow. So I decided that 2010 is the year to "Be Everywhere!" Social Media is HUGE and showing no signs of decline. Although I'd like it if I only had to post things in one place, the reality is that not everyone sees things in the one spot you expect them to see them in. Case in point, I recently posted some pictures on Facebook when I returned from a trip. A few weeks had gone by and I decided that I wanted a couple of those shots to be in my Facebook portfolios. So I reposted a couple to those galleries and I got more comments the second time than I did the first time. I felt like saying, "hey! These aren't new pictures", but the reality is not every one sees everything you do when you do it the first time. Not everyone reads my blog, not everyone follows me on Twitter, not everyone is a fan on Facebook, Not everyone watches my Creative Suite Podcast. Not everyone watches my clips on YouTube. Not everyone knows about my Best App Site. As a matter of fact I didn't even realize how many places out there my content exists in until my colleague Richard Jenkins put together this profile on me for his blog.
So in order to reach the widest possible audience, you have to be EVERYWHERE! So rather than FIGHT this, I'm going to embrace it. My YouTube channel will continue to serve as the host for my video reviews, but that doesn't mean that I won't now post some Creative Suite tutorials there too. The Creative Suite Podcast site will continue to be the primary destination to download my Creative Suite tutorials, but that doesn't mean I won't post some on Facebook too.
It takes a LOT of my time to constantly provide content. So if I'm going to take the time to produce this content, I going to put it EVERYWHERE!
If you've followed my blog then you know that I'm a BIG FAN of TiVo HD! I just LOVE the TiVo interface and I have a few of them in my home (ok more than a few). However, I got an email from a few buddies asking if I was going to upgrade to the NEW TiVo Premiere unit. Quite frankly I said "no". I had heard about the New TiVo Premiere and I had read some of the info, but there wasn't anything that jumped out at me as a must have. Now don't get me wrong. If I was in need of another unit for another room or if one suddenly died I'd be getting a Premiere in a heart beat. However, I didn't see anything that would justify the hassle of selling my old one, figuring out a way to transfer/keep the lifetime service and dealing with Comcast to come out and install the new one.
TiVo posted a $10.2 million quarterly loss
Although TiVo has THE BEST product in the DVR category, they are still not winning. They just posted a $10.2 million quarterly loss. The way I see it is that TiVo suffers from two problems and neither of them has anything to do with the product. The first problem and probably the biggest one is that TiVo competes with the Cable Company's "good enough" DVR. Think about it. If you get Cable TV, your cable provider will happily bring a DVR to your home, install it for you and even spend a few moments showing you how it works. The DVR itself is functional and for most people that have never experienced a TiVo they will think the experience is fine. On the other hand If you go with a TiVo, you have to buy it (cash upfront), then have your cable company come out and install a CableCARD in it (a hit or miss process with most Cable installers ie. contractors), and then you still have to sign up for TiVo service and pay either a monthly, annual or one-time lifetime fee and you still won't have access to the cable company's pay-per-view content. The average consumer that doesn't know what TiVo is and they're going to take the easy route of going with the "free" or cheap (inferior) cable company DVR.
The second problem is that TiVo doesn't market well. Here's why I say this. Every time I bring up TiVo to a friend, the first thing they ask me is what does TiVo offer that the Cable Company DVR doesn't. Once I rattle off:
I can set it to record over the internet
I can transfer shows from it to my computer to watch on the road
I can transfer shows from it to burn to a DVD or put on my iPod/iPhone
I can transfer shows from one TiVo in my house to another one via my Network
I can easily put it on WiFi in rooms that don't have internet
I can access Amazon on Demand content
I can access Netflix Streaming Content
The interface is a million times better
They usually say OH! The problem is it's not my job to tell the world why TiVo is better, it's their marketing departments job and I have yet to see much of any of these benefits advertised.
The Bottom Line
As much as I LOVE TiVo DVRs, if they don't fix these two problems they will go the way of the Apple Newton.
Hey TiVo: Just a thought, but you have this really cool comparison info on your site if people go to find it. How about turning this into an Ad campaign, TV commercials, etc.? Just a thought….
A few days ago I wrote a post called "Are camera phones the new point and shoot cameras" and I guess the same thing could be applied to video cameras as well. I have a big older 3CCD Sony VX2000 Mini-DV camera as well as a newer Canon VIXIA HF10 HD camera that I LOVE! However, unless I'm specifically doing an event recording I'll probably just capture something quick on my iPhone 3GS and share it. The Canon is small but it's not pocket small. So this time I really do have a need for something in between. While the Canon is great, I don't always have it with me. While I do always have my iPhone with me the video is not the best. First off it's only VGA (640×480) and not widescreen. Everything I do nowadays is widescreen or HD unless it's something personal and fun just to share with friends/family.
I was leaning towards the Flip camera until I ran it by my buddy Dave Helmly (guru of all things video) and he has both cameras and said hands down the Kodak was better. Since they're the same price, I didn't look any further and I bought the Kodak Zi8. I gotta say, I'm blown away by what this little thing does. First off it supports video at full 1080p HD! My HF10 only does 1080i. It has a built-in SDHC slot so I just stuck in one of my Transcend 16GB Class 6 SDHC cards and started shooting. My use for this camera will be mostly for video podcasting/blogging and a few interviews here and there. Speaking of interviews it has a stereo mic input. Another huge plus as I can plug in any mic I want. I'm starting with this one. The Zi8 is about the same footprint as my iPhone 3GS and maybe 1.5 times as thick.
I recorded my first video in 720p mode with it here. This is using the built-in Mic. (Don't forget to switch the YouTube playback to 720p to see the maximum quality):
The experience was great. I used a Gorillapod to hold and angle the Zi8 and once I was done recording, I plugged in the Zi8 to my Mac Pro via the built-in USB pop out cable and stared editing in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 right off the camera. Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 natively supports these tapeless formats and my buddy Dave did this video on editing from these USB cameras.
A couple of gotchas
Although the camera mounts right on the desktop via the USB plug, I will most likely just use a card reader going forward. Why? because once I was done editing and then started exporting the video using the Adobe Media encoder the Zi8 went to sleep and unmounted itself from the desktop. It appears that once it's fully charged and thinks it's "not in use" it shuts off. So from here on out I'll either edit off the card just like I do with the Canon or copy the video from the Zi8 via the cable. Another small thing is that you have to remember that there is NO ZOOM (optical or otherwise). CORRECTION: There is a 4x Digital Zoom. There is however a Macro mode switch right on the top of the unit. So while this camera is great for up close and personal stuff (what I plan on using it for) it would be very challenging to do event recording.
Sample Files
Here's a 5MP still shot I shot from the Kodak Zi8 right off the camera.
Here's a few seconds of 1080p HD footage I shot with the Zi8 in the native .MOV format right off the camera so you can see the quality and test compatibility with your editor.
The Bottom Line
The Zi8 is a GREAT buy at this price of $199 (on sale here at $179) yes I got the black one in case you were wondering ). It also features a 5MP still camera and can do full HD if needed. The mic input is a huge plus and it even has HDMI out for connecting directly to an HDTV to watch the footage. My primary use will be HD on the web/youtube and that's mostly 720p which this camera does great at. So I'm happy. If I ever need 1080p it does that too.
Also since I'll always have it with me it means that I can do more video reviews on the road.
The quality, well, um, kinda sucked! I just didn't really find it remotely good enough to host the kind of content I wanted to share. Well all that has changed now. YouTube is GREAT for sharing videos in 720p HD quality, up to 10 minutes in length. It's easy to use and to embed the clips right on my site. Now don't get me wrong, I know that there are other GREAT video sharing sites out there too like Smugmug (which does all the way up to 1080p with a paid account), Vimeo, BlipTV, etc. However, I find that YouTube seems to be the most universal and has the largest audience. After all, if I go through the trouble to produce a video and make it available for free I wan to have the largest possible viewing audience I can get. Also since YouTube is BUILT-IN to the iPhone and now the iPad, I can reach millions more people with this one service than I can with any of the others. Another nice surprise was that Apple gave the iPad's Safari the ability to view embedded YouTube clips right in the page without having to launch the App or go to another browser window. Sold!
