Posts from — July 2008

Erik put this reel together for our studios division.  These are a few RED projects we’ve worked on since we took delivery of the cameras back in August of last year.  I think it looks great!

TB

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Good question!  And thanks to a Japanese broadcasting company, now you know!  Erik took this shot of me popping the balloon at NAB back in April.  I forgot he had it and thought it was cool so am posting it now.  Amazing how the water actually holds it shape for a split second, even after the balloon is gone.  The company is called NHK, which stands for . . . . well . . . I don’t know.  They have some crazy stuff they’ve been developing – things like 8K displays or the camera which shot this video which is actually capable of shooting 1 million frames per second!  1 million!!!!  Talk about a post nightmare!  Anyhow, I thought people would get a kick out of the video so enjoy!

TB

Today we had the opportunity to go to our Panasonic Distributor to see two Reps from Panasonic talk about their existing and upcoming Plasma Display lines.  We’ve been Panasonic dealers for some time now and couldn’t be happier with their products.  They’re by far the best line of HD panels I’ve seen yet.  We sell a lot of them for Digital Signage for banks, restaurants, churches – anyone looking to make an impact on people waiting in a lobby or taking part in a presentation.  We also sell a lot of them to Post Production houses.  They use them as a final preview of what their final product will look like when it comes over the air to your TV.  

The cool thing about the Panasonic’s Professional line is that it’s in a reference class – not a reference monitor but reproduces accurate color and look.  This differs from their Viera Plasma’s (their consumer model you can find at Best Buy, Sears, etc.) in the sense that the consumer line makes everything look the way most consumers want it to look.  Might be good for Joe consumer who just wants a bright, colorful look . . . but bad for Joe editor who needs to see what the colors actually look like.

There’s also the debate between Plasma and LCD.  As it stands right now, Plasma has LCD beat all over the place.  LCD’s are good for smaller screens (laptops, iPods, small TV’s etc.)  Anything over, I’d say, 27 – 30″ and you’re wasting your money with an LCD.  I’m not going to go over every detail of why LCD’s are inferior to Plasma’s but here are a few things to consider . . . 

Contrast Ratio:  This is the difference between your blackest black and your whitest white.  LCD’s just can’t compete with Plasma’s simply due to the way they are built.  An LCD functions by having a bright Light source behind a bunch of different shutters or filters (not the technical terms!).  To make black, the shutters or filters close but some light still escapes.  That’s why if you put an LCD next to a Plasma and both are displaying black, the LCD will look grey.  And don’t be fooled by Dynamic Contrast (DC).  This is achieved by turning the LCD backlight completely off – not practical since this will never be the case while actually watching something. . . .

Viewing Angle: Depending on where your sitting in front of an LCD, the colors will look a different shade or even a different color altogether.  Plasma’s do not suffer from this.

Burn In: This happens when you leave a static image on the screen over a long period of time resulting in a light outline or “ghost” of the image, even after it’s gone.  It has to do with small amounts of moisture collecting around the most active part of the pixels.  The Panasonic’s come with a host of tools to thwart this but after the first 300 hours of usage, it’s practically impossible to do.

Burn Out: The average life span of an LCD is rated at around 60,000 hours before it goes out and dies.  The Panasonic’s are rated at 100,000 hours before they go to half brightness.  That means you could watch TV for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 11.5 years before your plasma would become about half as bright as it was when you first bought it!

Durability: The Panasonic’s use a very durable glass screen in front of their panels whereas LCD’s use plastic.  Here’s a cool test – they had a plasma with an arm above it with a 1lb steel ball (like a large ball bearing) hanging about a foot down so it was dead center with the middle of the plasma screen.  Here’s a side shot I took from my iPhone 3G (ya, I got one . . . )  They raised the ball up as high as it would go and let it swing right into the center of a 37″ Plasma.  When it smashed into the glass you could see everyone cringe.  Did it break?  Nope.  Nothing but a loud clang!  They did it again, and again, and again.  Then they had people in the audience come up and do it.  Crazy! (and a little fun I must admit!)

Then they did it to a VIZIO LCD they went out and got before the demo from Best Buy.  Same setup, same ball, same height.  One drop and . . . .well, I think the photo below says it all:

It’s not the best picture but I think you get the idea.  It wasn’t pretty!  Anyhow, I think it’s pretty clear now as to why we love these Panasonic HD Plasma Display’s.  Also, in the next few weeks they’re going to be releasing a Full Res, 1920 x 1080 42″ Plasma which is perfect for us.  Can’t wait to get one!

TB 

So today we took delivery of some MacBook Pro’s from Apple – nothing unusual about that, we sell a lot of these things so Fedex is continually dropping them off on a regular basis.  What is unusual, however, is the giant freaking footprint in the middle of one of the boxes!  That is scary!  I would love to somehow insert a camera into one of our shipments and timelapse it’s delivery to see what actually happens to our precious gear.  I picture Doug Heffernan chucking it from across the IPS loading dock into the back of his truck (little King of Queens reference . . .)  Anyhow, we of course broke this open and tested the MacBook Pro to make sure everything was in working order.  Let’s just hope it was someone at the cardboard factory and Apple got it like that  =)

TB

Yep, you read that right – I’m just returning from a drive across the country that we did in just 54 hours . . . in the most uncomfortable Penske truck known to man!  Here’s a little background:

We had a good size job with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.  There was quite a bit of gear and due to NASA’s strict security policies, everything had to be palletized and show up at once for immediate installation.  Fedex wanted a cool $15,000.00 to do it and there was still no guarantee that they would get through the gate at NASA.  Forget that!  Our margins are slim enough without paying 15k for shipping!  So, next best thing – kidnap your brother-in-law, rent a big, uncomfortable, can’t-go-faster-than-75mph truck and hit the road!

(Click to enlarge)

We left at 11pm Thursday night and drove 1,572 miles to Omaha, Nebraska (about 28 hours in the Penske).  We were both pretty dead by then and needed to find a place to sleep for a few hours.  The truck was just to small to get any decent sleep – it was either have your knees rammed in the dash but be able to lean back a little or knees barely touching the dash but seat straight up and down.  Anyhow, we finally get to Omaha and realize we forgot that the College World Series was in full swing (pun intended).  No rooms, anywhere!  We were seriously considering the back of the ol’ Penske but finally found a room.  We slept for 6 hours then hit the road again.

On the next leg we finished it off and drove from Omaha to Greenbelt, Maryland – 1,152 miles or about 19 Penske hours.  We arrived at NASA on Sunday at around 10am.  We had to have it there by Monday at 8am – we were early, but there.  Needless to say we slept most of Sunday . . .   We got up Monday morning, dropped off the gear at NASA then hopped a plane and headed home.  Long, long trip!  Quite honestly, the plane ride home was worse than the drive!  Baltimore to Phoenix, Phoenix to Sacramento.  Turbulence, crying babies, no meals and the thrilling movie Chocolate (ya right!) made this the longest leg of the journey.

Below are some stills from our trip.  I shot them with the HVX-200 and was going to make a short but I suck as a DP and we didn’t really shoot that much. . .  Special thanks to Patrick Kennedy with NASA, all the guys at Meta Media, Tom Tom and of course, Drew Wilson my brother-in-law.  Couldn’t have done it without you buddy!

Somewhere in Utah . . . 

The Olympic Ski Jump in Park City

Somewhere in Wyoming . . .

Drew doing his Loyd Christmas impression,

“It feels like you’re running at an incredible

rate Harry!”  (Dumb and Dumber for those

of you who haven’t yet caught on . . .) 

TB