Camcorders

Whenever you’re making a video of a live event there are a thousand things that can happen to disrupt your video. The DV Show has an excellent article up on Recording Live Events that gives you an overview of what to expect when recording a live event, and some tips on how to shoot the best video possible. Check out the article here.

While it may seem easy to some, a lot of people are having difficulty getting their built-in iSight camera to work alongside Ustream.tv. Web Video Doctor has instructions up on how to make the process as painless as possible. The key is to go into the sites advanced settings:

“To change to your iSight, go to My Shows. Create a new broadcast. Click Go Live and your broadcast window will pop up. Then, Click “Advanced Settings” in the broadcast window and pick USB Video Class Video from the drop down box that says Video Settings. You can also adjust it through Flash. On the local stream monitor box hold down CTRL and click. Select Settings and click the webcam icon. Under the Camera section select USB Video Class Video. Click Close. You should now see your stream on the local server monitor. “

[via WebVideoDoctor]

Videomaker Magazine has posted their Best Products of 2007. The list covers everything from camcorders to editing programs, lights, and tripods. You can check out the full list here, and check out our list of the best camcorders of 2007 here.

Microfilmmaker has a review up of the 720P Aiptek GO-HD. The high definition camcorder records video onto a SD card and can be purchased for a little over $200. In the review reviewer Tom Stern said “I soon came to understand why the GO-HD camera is $300 and not $3000.” If you’re thinking of picking one of these up for the holidays, or just your videomaking on the go you should check out his review of the camcorder here.

[via FreshDV]

Bad audio is one of those things that can completely ruin your video. While audiences may be forgiving of a less than stellar camera shot, less than stellar audio is one of those things that can be a deal breaker for a lot of viewers. Creativity to Spare has a podcast up entitled “Avoiding Bad Audio” to help you avoid bad audio in your productions. You can check out some of the tips and the podcast here, or in the embedded YouTube video after the jump.

The BBC has a course up on their site entitled “Good Shooting Guide: the basic principles.” The course is designed for aspiring film makers, as well as amateurs or pros who want to learn some of the basic principles that go into creating the perfect video. If you’ve started shooting a lot of video (or have just started shooting video in general) then this can be a great thing to watch and get some tips on how to do it better. The BBC lists some of the aims of the course as: “Getting the picture you want” and “Preparing to edit” which can be great things to know about no matter what project you’re working on. Check out the full course here.

Most consumer camcorders today have a built-in image stabilizer. Sometimes what’s built-in won’t cut it and you need to use a camcorder stabilizer. Most commercial stabilizers run $200+, which can put them out of the price range of many video makers. John Beale has posted a pretty good how-to on creating you’re own camcorder stabilizer for around $30. You can check it out here.

Politics are coming to the web this week on popular sites YouTube and UStream.

Tonight  at 8PM EST YouTube will host the CNN-YouTube Republican Debatemoderated by Anderson Cooper. In the debate Republican presidential hopefuls will answer questions submitted to the candidates by YouTube users.

USteam will also host several presidential hopefuls live this week starting today with Barrack Obama’s all-day New Hampshire event. Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is also expected to make an appearance on the site today as part of his regular USteam broadcasts.

[via Mashable]

The tiny movie maker generated buzz for its integration between recording device and online video sharing.  Users can find the camcorder in color options of red, orange, and green.

 In addition to directly purchasing the Flip Ultra from Pure Digital Technologies, customers can go to select brick-and-mortar stores.  The Flip Ultra is currently backordered at Best Buy ($149.99 for the 2 GB version that usually sells for $179.99 full retail), so shoppers are encouraged to look elsewhere. 

Consumers who want to beat the holiday rush can buy the Flip Ultra from Amazon.com with the camcorder products currently in stock.  The 1 GB editions (that store up to 30 minutes of video) sells for a discounted price of $119.99, down from the original $149.99, available in black and white.  For the colored flavors, Amazon offers the 2 GB versions (for up to 60 minutes of video) for $149.99.

Other retailers that sell the Flip Ultra include Buy.com, CompUSA, newegg, OfficeMax, redENVELOPE, Staples, and ToysRUs.  

Do you need a camcorder that is super durable? Think Geek has a Micro Stainless Steel Digital camcorder available on their site for $199.99. The camcorder records MPEG4 video at 720 x 480 and has 64MB of built-in storage as well as the ability to take 4GB flash cards. It’s not exactly what you want to be shooting your next blockbuster on, or frankly you next family vacation…it could be a decent choice for a camcorder to keep in a purse or pocket for those YouTube moments. Anyone have one of these?

RED has announced a hold on the production of RED camera. Camera’s 1-100 are going to be retrofitted “with a new sensor daughter board designed to increase dynamic range and reduce noise on framerates at and below 25fps. There is also a new stainless PL mount that does not require the use of adjustment shims. The retrofit will be done at the expense of Red Digital Cinema, and forthcoming cameras will ship with the improvements.”

This puts about a month long delay on RED’s shipment dates with cameras 101-200 expected to ship November 30^th.

[via FreshDV]

Always wondered what the Smooth Slow Record function looks like on those Sony HDV camcorders? Now you can check it out for yourself thanks to the folks over at Create Digital Motion. They gave the camcorders slow record function a test drive and have some video clips up on their site of what they found. You can check them out here.

Digital Trends has a review up of the JVC GZ-HD3. Overall they were pretty impressed with the 60GB 3CCD camcorder giving it a score of 7.5 out of 10. They liked how the camcorder felt, that it had a reasonable large hard drive, and thought the video was good in brightly lit situations. The camcorder didn’t perform very well however in low-light situations and the camcorders lack of optical image stabilization was pretty evident.

When you’re shopping for a camcorder it can often be pretty difficult to find the perfect camcorder model for you. Most of us end up making some sort of compromise along the way as far as camcorder specs go to get a model that really good, but not exactly what we were looking for. One person took matters into their own hands and built their own camcorder using an SLR lens and the optics from a surveillance device. Their video quality wasn’t exactly spectacular, but they also didn’t spend tons of cash building the device (around $700). With a little more cash you could probably create something pretty spectacular. Check it out here.

In order to be a great filmmaker one basic idea you need to understand in depth of field. Depth of Field is often misunderstood and makes filmmaker not have as much control over their image as they might if they had a good grasp of all the factors that going into determining their depth of field and they camera shot.

Justin Snodgrass at snodart.com has created a great video tutorial to teach you any and everything you need to know about depth of field. The tutorial talks about aperture size, focal length, hyperfocal distance, camera-to-subject distance, circle of confusion, and infinity focus. You can check out the video here.

[via FreshDV]

CNET has a review up of the Samsung SC-D372 MiniDV camcorder. They gave the camcorder a 5.4 out of 10, an extremely low rating for a CNET review and only enough to give the camcorder an “Average” rating. CNET thought the camcorder was very simple to shoot with but thought the camcorder has poor video quality and small buttons that made navigating the menus very difficult. CNET even went as far as to call the D372 a “definite pass.”

When you’re making films a camcorder is one of those things that you absolutely have to have to make the magic happen…or do you?  Camera Stilo has a post up entitled “Filmmaking without a camera.” The post was written after the film maker was faced with life without their camcorder. While you’re not going to make the next Hollywood blockbuster camera-less he cam e up with some decent idea for things to do while you’re waiting for the replacement to show up.