Sunday, February 27, 2005

MiniDV



Digital Video (DV) is a video format launched in 1996, and, in its smaller tape form factor MiniDV, has since become the standard for consumer and semiprofessional video production. The DV specification (originally known as the Blue Book, current official name IEC 61834) defines both the codec and the tape format. Features include intraframe compression for uncomplicated editing, a standard interface for transfer to non-linear editing systems (IEEE 1394/FireWire), and good video quality, especially compared to earlier consumer analog formats such as 8mm, Hi-8 and VHS-C.
There have been some variants on the DV standard, most notably the more professional
DVCAM and DVCPRO standards by Sony and Panasonic, respectively. Also, there is a recent high-definition version called HDV, which is rather different on a technical level since it only uses the DV and MiniDV tape form factor, but MPEG-2 for compression.

This article is brought to you buy http://en.wikipedia.org

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Confused with MPEG?

The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is a small group charged with the development of video and audio encoding standards. Since its first meeting in 1988, MPEG has grown to include approximately 350 members from various industries and universities. MPEG's official designation is ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29 WG11.
MPEG has standardized the following compression formats and ancillary standards:
MPEG-1: Initial video and audio compression standard. Later used as the standard for Video CD, and includes the popular Layer 3 (MP3) audio compression format.
MPEG-2: Transport, video and audio standards for broadcast-quality television. Used for over-the-air digital television ATSC,DVB and ISDB, digital satellite TV services like DirecTV, digital cable television signals, and (with slight modifications) for DVD video discs.
MPEG-3: Originally designed for HDTV, but abandoned when it was discovered that MPEG-2 was sufficient for HDTV.
MPEG-4: Expands MPEG-1 to support video/audio "objects", 3D content, low bitrate encoding and support for Digital Rights Management. A new (newer than MPEG-2 Video) higher efficiency video codec is included (an alternative to MPEG-2 Video), see H.264.
MPEG-7: A formal system for describing multimedia content.
MPEG-21: MPEG describes this future standard as a Multimedia Framework.

This article is brought to you buy http://en.wikipedia.org

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Toronto video editing services- Hong Luck Online Commercial




Hong Luck Kung Fu Club has recently completed an online commercial produced by Azure Production, stay tuned as it will be posted online soon.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Movie Industry



Hollywood is a district of the City of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., that runs from about Vermont Avenue on the east to just beyond Laurel Canyon Boulevard above Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevards on the west; the north to south boundary east of La Brea Avenue runs from about Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills of the Santa Monica Mountains and Griffith Park to Melrose Avenue; and the north to south boundary west of La Brea runs from about Mulholland in the hills to Fountain Avenue, with Crescent Heights as the west boundary south of Sunset Boulevard. The population of the district is estimated at about 300,000 people.

Due to its fame and identity as a major center of movie studios and stars, the word "Hollywood" is often used colloquially to refer to the American motion picture industry in Southern California, a term deriving from the famous community.

This article is brought to you buy http://en.wikipedia.org

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Toronto independent films - Updated CCFilms Site



CCFilms has currently updated their site. Download the movies, and check out their crew at ccfilms.ca

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Inside ILM



Industrial Light + Magic is a motion picture special visual effects company, founded in July 1975 by George Lucas. Lucas wanted Star Wars to include visual effects that had never been seen on film before. He first approached Douglas Trumbull, famous for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He declined, but suggested his assistant John Dykstra. Dykstra brought together a small team of college students, artists and engineers who became the Special Visual Effects department on Star Wars. Alongside Dykstra other leading members of the original ILM team were Dennis Muren, Richard Edlund, Joe Johnston and Phil Tippett.
When making
The Empire Strikes Back, Lucas reformed most of the team into Industrial Light + Magic in Marin County, California. They have since gone on to produce special effects for over two hundred films, including the Indiana Jones films, the Harry Potter films, the Jurassic Park films, many of the Star Trek films, as well as less dramatic effects in films such as Schindler's List, Snow Falling on Cedars, Magnolia, and several Woody Allen films.
ILM established their use of
Computer Generated Imagery when they hired Ed Catmull from NYIT in 1979. John Lasseter worked for ILM in the early 1980s as a computer animator.
As of 2003, ILM has received 14 Best Visual Effects Oscars and 19 additional nominations. It had also received 22 technical Oscars.

This article is brought to you buy http://en.wikipedia.org

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

About Video Editing

Non-linear editing for film and television post production is a popular modern editing method. Video and sound are digitised to hard disks. After that, they can be manipulated with software such as Pinnacle Liquid, Avid, Final Cut Pro or Lightworks.
Compared to the linear method of tape to tape editing, non-linear editing offers the flexibility of
film editing with random access and easy project organisation. It is easy to make new versions nondestructively. Initially, only low resolution pictures could be digitised, as storage was limited and expensive. Broadcast quality and High defintion are now possible. The costs of the editing systems have dropped, bringing non-linear editing within reach of a domestic user with a good home computer.
The earliest non-linear film and video editors used
laserdisc storage, but were quickly superseded by editing systems that used computer disk storage and compressed video.
The elements of a computer-based non-linear editing system for video are a
computer with a video editing card or video capture card and video editing software. Digital video is imported into the computer through a firewire socket and analogue video is imported through composite sockets both of which are found on most video editing cards. Various editing tasks can then be performed on the imported video before it is saved, exported to another medium, or MPEG encoded for transfer to a DVD.

This article is brought to you buy http://en.wikipedia.org

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Online Streaming Formats

Here is a guide to the main CODECS used.
MPEG-1: Seen sometimes for Internet downloads but is more commonly used for the Video CD standard. It offers roughly the same or better video quality than VHS but not as good as DVD or SVCD.
MPEG-2: Used on DVD and in another form for SVCD. When used on a standard DVD, it offers great picture quality and supports widescreen. When used on SVCD, it is not as good but is certainly better than VCD. Unfortunetly, SVCD will only fit around 40 minutes of video on a CD, VCD will fit an hour.
WMV (Windows Media Video): Microsoft's proprietary format. It can do anything from low resolution video for dial up internet users to High Definition video to view on an HD TV. files can be burnt to CD and DVD or output to any number of devices. It is also useful for Media Centre PCs.
Real Video: Developed by Real Networks. A popular codec in the earlier days of internet when bandwidth was scarce. Now less popular because the required player adds all kinds of unnecessary extras, and monitors usage behavior.
QuickTime: Strickly speaking QuickTime is not a codec, but a file format, API set, and media player developed by Apple. It supports many popular codecs. Some of the more popular include Cinepack, Sorenson 3, and MPEG-4 Video. QuickTime also supports a plug-in architecture that allows other popular codecs such as MPEG 2 and DivX to be added by the user.
Sorenson 3: A popular codec used by Apple's QuickTime. Many of the Movie trailers found on the web use this codec.
Cinepack: A very early codec used by Apple's QuickTime.
MPEG4: The latest MPEG codec can be used for internet and on disc like WMV.
DivX & Xvid: Types of MPEG 4

This article is brought to you buy http://en.wikipedia.org

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Confused with DVD types?



DVD recorders started to become available in Japan during 1999, and in the rest of the world soon after, with a familiar battle for format dominance beginning. As with the adoptance of USB, Apple computer was one of the early adopters of the technology. DVD recorders require a special unit to write and can use 1 or 2 disc sides (the disc capacity is measured in GB/side):
DVD-R discs can record up to 4.7 GB in a similar fashion to a CD-R disc. It is supported by the DVD Forum. Once recorded and finalized it can be played by most DVD-ROM players.
DVD-RW discs can record up to 4.7 GB in a similar fashion to a CD-RW drive. Supported by the DVD Forum.
DVD-RAM (current specification is version 2.1) require a special unit to play 4.7 or 9.4GB recorded discs (DVD-RAM disc are typically housed in a cartridge). 2.6GB discs can be removed from their caddy and used in DVD-ROM drives. Top capacity is 9.4GB (4.7GB/side). Supported by the DVD Forum.
DVD+R discs can record up to 4.7 GB single-layered, single-sided DVD+R disc. This is currently up to 16x speed. Like DVD-R you can record only once. Supported by the DVD+RW Alliance.
DVD+RW discs can record up to 4.7 GB with up to 4x speed. Since it is rewritable it can be overwritten several times. It does not need special "pre-pits" or finalization to be played in a DVD-Player. Supported by the DVD+RW Alliance.
DVD+R DL is a derivate of DVD+R that uses dual layer recordable discs to store up to 8.5 GB of data. Supported by the DVD+RW Alliance.
All above formats are also available as 8 cm (3 inch) sized DVD mini discs (not
mini-DVD, which describes DVD data on a CD) with a disc capacity of 1.5 GB.

This article is brought to you buy http://en.wikipedia.org