Category Archives: Business

Business, Cameras, Technical, Techniques

“Peter Jacksons Hobbit Wont Save 3D Movies”

Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

I think this writer is off his rocker: Peter Jacksons Hobbit Wont Save 3D Movies and Thats a Good Thing – Forbes.

He argues 2D movies are better and will be better still when shot and projected at 48 fps instead of 24 fps. Okay. He then says that 3D adds nothing to the viewing experience. Hmmm.

Except that real life is, you know, in 3D.  And the author’s argument seems to be that life would be better if it were only in 2D.

Actually, his long winded argument boils down to ticket prices for bad 3D movies are too high so 3D will just be a short lived fad. Like talking pictures were once said to be a short lived fad, and then color movies were a short lived fad. Or not. Each time people said the new technology did not add much to the movie experience.

What I think he means to say is that most 3D movies so far – with some exceptions – have been made to exploit 3D as a gimmick and then charge way too much to see them.  The added costs for 3D are apparently about +10%, but they have charged far, far more than that to watch them.

A great tale, with great acting, and a great director, shot in 3D, will be more interesting than a 2D version of the same movie. But it comes down to how much they charge to see it.  The movie distributors and theaters have not yet figured out that the price to value ratio needs to be appropriate – and they are not there yet.

I think The Hobbit will be another amazing film from Peter Jackson and will inspire more interest in high quality 3D.

Heck, I plan to start building my two camera 3D rig this weekend (really).

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Business, Cameras

Video shooting is popular – but video camera market slowly dying

This comes from a survey of Photobucket users:

According to the survey, consumers are using traditional video cameras with much less frequency, but they are using mobile devices to capture video much more often. In fact, of those surveyed:

  • 45 percent use a mobile device for capturing video at least once a week
  • 17 percent use a mobile device for capturing video at least once a day
  • 9 percent use a mobile device for capturing video multiple times per day

This trend is further validated by company data, which shows a significant upward trend of video uploads:

  • Total video uploads web and mobile are 3.5x higher year-over-year July 2010 to July 2011
  • Total video uploads from mobile devices are 14x higher than in December 2010

via Photobucket: Mobile video uploads on the rise |.

Business, Editing

Apple’s Final Cut Pro X PR disaster

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Facing Widescale User Revolt, Apple Starts Issuing Final Cut Pro X Refunds | Cult of Mac.

Apple completely re-wrote its popular Final Cut Pro video editing software. And a lot of people say Apple turned it into iMovie Pro and they are not happy.

I use Final Cut Pro 7 for video editing. I do not plan to update to X.

Apple product upgrades often turn into a cascade of necessary but unexpected upgrades. I found that out last year with a $30 OS upgrade ended up requiring a $300 upgrade from FCP6 to 7. I was not impressed.

In 2008, my Macbook was stolen the same week Apple announced they were dropping Firewire from Macbooks. Apple’s attitude was that AVCHD was the future, so get over it and replace your camera. Right. My $1,200 notebook was stolen so I should replace that plus my 2 year old $4,000 worth of Firewire dependent cameras. I bought a used Macbook instead. Not all of us have Steve Job’s income and can upgrade everything annually.

With Final Cut Pro X, the fanboys say – don’t worry – within a year, Apple will have fixed everything. Uh huh.