Cynematik on IndieWIRE

It's late Sunday afternoon. I've diligently blogged three panels on documentary filmmaking and I'm ready for some FUN! I'm beat from typing for the last six hours. So, I'm hanging out at LATITUDE 30 waiting for the APPLE and PANASONIC and OMEGA BROADCAST Party to begin. I'm watching the fellows put this shindig together. They've got some pretty amazing Panasonic flat panels set up. It's taken about five minutes to put them together. The hardest part was carrying them through the door. The monitors slipped right onto the stands. They're remarkably light, stable and well-balanced.

Now, they're working on the Panasonic camera and APPLE G5 tower setup. I'm guessing that there is some sort of digital program that's been prepared for display on the Panasonic. The event starts in less than half an hour. No one is upset or panicked. Clearly, they assume everything will come together with ease. Why am I spending time writing about this? Because I watch all of my PC counterparts when they're trying to get things set up for a big show. If it's on their home turf and someone has had A LOT of time to troubleshoot the issues, the program will probably run smoothly. I find that my Mac will travel easily and set up in a snap.

It's the iPodification of technology. It should be maximally portable and work, with ease, no matter where you go. Bob Lewis, the Apple Education Rep for our area (and a fine Adjunct Faculty member in the Media Arts area at Mesa Community College), is always talking about how the iPod is making PC users look at the Apple brand differently. They think, heck, this works so well, maybe the computer will be easy, too.

Now, PANASONIC, that's another story. I'd love to shoot a dramatic narrative with a new Panasonic. I've just never had the budget for it. They're great tools and I'm envious of anyone who has them. The reports on their newest high definition digital cameras are amazing. While I certainly love my Sonys for school, I'd sure love to have the budget for the big boy toys.

The only thing I don't know too much about is the OMEGA BROADCAST group. I'll have to wait for the party to kick in to know who they are and what they're all about. I don't know if it's a local Austin business or something more national in nature. I think it was the Omega Rep who allowed me to sit in here and blog instead of sweating it out on the street.

EEEEEK. They just turned on that dang Panasonic camera and I'm on the gorgeous flat panel in all my hunched over glory. I'm sitting here pecking away on this little laptop for the viewing pleasure of anyone in the joint. Clearly, I did not pick a very good spot to blog in anonymity. I'm going to have to pack it up and move to a different spot.

Later ... Well, I just got the chance to talk to the Omega folks. I found out a whole bunch about who they are and what they're up to. As it turns out, they're one of the leading distributors of Panasonic HVX200 high-definition cameras in the United States (or as nearly as I can understand over the din of the music and the crowd). They tell me that they're a local Panasonic dealership but national reseller of used equipment as well. Rental business is strong, too.

So, I asked the folks to explain why I'd rather have the Panasonic over the Sony HVRZ1U. First, they tell me, that Sony's compression format is seven times as compressed as the format of the Panasonic. The Sony captures 25MB of data and uses MPEG2 and iFrames so it's quite compromised in terms of quality. The Panasonic, by comparison, is using the HDPro codec which is 100MB and does not use tape. You can edit on standard internal drives on your editing system. So you can use Avid or Final Cut to edit. And, they tell me, most applications are supporting the P2 format (the proprietary Panasonic format). It's capturing on four of the FLASH cards that you would find in your digital still camera that are in RAID Zero configuration. The P2 cards are reusable holding 4 or 8 GB of data. I'm looking forward to talking with Mike at HD for Indies to clear up all the questions this conversation raised for me. All in all, I got very excited about the new camera. My nephew recently purchased this exact camera to shoot his documentary and he's rabidly excited about it so now I've got to get more info.