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Maybe he's talking about this:
http://www.dv.com/news/news_item.jhtml;jsessionid= CNVDZLXMEZJG4QSNDLOSKH0CJUNN2JVN?LookupId=/xml/fea ture/2006/capria1006

Though it's misleading to say XP blew OS X away, because the application were PowerPC native and not a universal binary:

"My rough estimation is that running Rosetta stunts performance by nearly 50 percent. It sounds like a lot, but for applications such as Microsoft Word and Adobe (Macromedia) Dreamweaver, the performance hit is barely noticeable. For CPU-intensive applications such as After Effects and Photoshop, the slowdown is quite apparent. To test my hypothesis, I loaded the Adobe Production Suite on the Windows partition. I then loaded matching copies of rendering-intensive After Effects compositions on each partition. On average, the compositions took just under two times as long to render in Mac OS X as they did in Windows XP on the same MacBook Pro."

And universal binaries are coming in the near future.

One of the problems is that camcorders are sold by tape technology & pixel count. What is missing is a frank discussion of image quality, which is often really missing from some of the lower-quality cameras.

"Real" video cameras that cost $5K and up are specially designed to capture color images well, and in some cases will make people look better than they actually are. My favorite camera is the Panasonic Supercam. Despite being S-VHS, its image looks way better than any DV camera I've ever used. This is because it has a high-quality ($1000) lens, and good digital signal processing to make the image look great.

I suggest looking at DV.Com if you are serious about image quality review.

Of course, form-factor is also important. A lot of people don't mind a horrible looking picture if they can put the camera in their pocket. That too is a valid choice.

For mics, check out some of the past audio solutions columns at DV magazine and there's a great book out by Yamaha, called the Sound Reinforcement Handbook... Don't be fooled by the title, it's one of the finest, easiest to read audio reference books, and covers just about every topic. It's been around for about 10 years in multiple editions, and I've even used it as a textbook in a college class. Soft cover, black, about an inch thick, and about the size of a 3-ring binder. I've seen it in Barnes/Noble.

-T

From DV Magazine, the Audio Solutions column from July 2002:

"Mistake #3: Assuming you can fix it in post In Hollywood, noisy dialog is often replaced in post. It's a time-consuming and expensive solution, even when they have the tools and experience to do it correctly. Don't count on this technique to save a desktop video; what you shoot is probably what you'll have to live with."

Re: point 3 - again, quite true... But, we are talking about non-Hollywood budget stuff here. I agree, Waldo, in major budget things, the audio and video will be done by separate people, and in fact the location recording, editing, ADR, foley, mixing, and post will ALL be done by different people. But in desktop video, they will be done by one person... frequently, the cameraman/director/gaffer/producer/etc.

Maybe I can stress this again - we're talking about non-Hollywood budget stuff. What Hollywood budget movie is going to use a free video editor?
So, point 4, while valid, is also thrown out - Indie films aren't going to be mixed for several different formats.

With point 5, again, you're right for big stuff, but for small stuff, you're most likely on one computer, with no HUI or 3rd party controllers, two monitors, if you're lucky, and for the scope we're talking, even with PT, no DSP... just an 001 or even an MBox, with all DSP handled through plug-ins.

Waldo, you're absolutely right on all your points, and I agree wholeheartedly.... provided we're talking about big-budget professional applications... In which case, throw out Avid and ProFools, and bring in Fire and Fairlight D.R.E.A.M... And watch your budget soar into the millions. :)

-T

Heh. Too true, too true.
But then, why are they spending $150 for speakers, rather than $5k for a matched pair of Genelec Studio Monitors (drool).

Drop me a line, Heisenbug, at my email above... I'd be happy to give you tips. Also, look at DV's site, as well as the guy who does their audio columns, Jay Rose - he has all of his past audio columns online, and they're geared specifically to video people who don't know audio but want to learn.

-T

However, I'm an audio professional, and will happily and uniformly disparage all of these 'tools' for neglecting to have any real ability to edit audio. As just about anyone in the industry will tell you, audio is the bastard stepchild of video/film, with less than a tenth of any movie's budget spent on sound... and yet all of those same people will agree that sound is just as important as visuals, if not more - consider the Blair Witch Project, with cheap, shoddy visuals, but eerie and compelling audio to create the mood... Now imagine a rock-steady camera in a high-budget film, with sound that sounds like cheap vinyl... or even AM radio... It's just not acceptable, and nothing will alienate your audience sooner.

As an example of the downplay of audio, Digital Video Magazine has an ad in the last issue offering a turnkey video editing system... Dual 1 GHz G4, Final Cut Pro2, 80 GB Firewire drive, Superdrive, Firewire Media Converter, Sony's $5000 prosumer digital camera, 23-inch Apple LCD cinema screen, Sony 19" NTSC reference monitor (>$1000!), and... Harmon Kardon SoundSticks!

$20,000 USD for this system, and you're getting a $150 pair of speakers... which, frankly, suck (I just wrote an article to be published in December about those speakers, after running them through tests of frequency response, distortion, noise level, etc., and you'd do better with a $150 pair of headphones... but they aren't as pretty).

Additionally, none of these programs have the ability to scrub audio, a MUST as any real audio editor will tell you, very few of them will let you edit on a resolution smaller than a frame (30 fps means that 1 frame = 33 ms... However, a 5 ms delay is audible as phasing, and as low as a 25 ms delay can be audible as a distinct echo), most of them have linear VU meters (rather than logarhythmic, like our hearing... consider, with 0 dB FS as the top of the scale, -3 dB FS is half the power, and on a linear meter, half the distance down... However, -3 dB is a difference in level that is really only noticed by trained ears... Additionally, the SMPTE standard for digital audio is to have normal level (0 VU) at -18 dB FS... Or almost off the scale on any program with linear meters... That's freakin' insane. As a comparison, try using Photoshop with the brightness on your monitor turned down to almost 0. You're trying to work reasonably at the threshhold of noise of the system you're working on.

Also, the EQs in most of these programs have their frequency range set linearly, too... Human hearing goes from roughly 20 Hz to 20 kHz (roughly - young women and children can frequently hear higher frequencies, usually topping out by 23-26 kHz), but our interpretation of frequency is logarythmic: the top octave goes from 10 kHz to 20 kHz (or, the top HALF of a linear scale). The next octave (or, the next lowest quarter on a linear scale) is from 5 kHz to 10 kHz...
You don't start getting into useful ranges until you're in the bottom 32nd of the scale, from 500 Hz to 1 kHz - the fundamental of the human voice goes from about 125 Hz to about 500 Hz, most of the vowels and formants are from about 500 Hz to about 1.5 kHz, and the consonants are from about 1.5 kHz up to about 4 kHz (for the sibilants). There's very little energy in the human voice above 5 kHz... So have fun setting your EQs properly when you're looking at a linear scale that emphasizes the top two octaves... ABOVE what you're dealing with.

Then again, the two major audio editing software programs on the market, ProTools and CoolEditPro also miss some of these, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. When you deal with sub-standard tools everywhere, you have to give up some expectations

By comparison, look at the Orban Audicy (used in most radio stations for production), and the Fairlight Merlin and D.R.E.A.M. Stations, used for most film/television production.

Sorry. :)

-T

We have a MacG4 with a SuperDrive in it, but now we are looking for a DVD player that will allow us to view a test disc. We use DVD-R General discs because they are cheap and allow us multiple tries without toasting a $25 disc and then find an error. We're thinking of going to DVD-RW because after a several burns, they are cheaper. We are also not opposed to going to +R or +RW if the cost/benefit is there.

In the Aug 2002 issue of DV Magazine, they review the different formats (DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW but not DVD+R). They look at compatiblity w/players, disc failure rate by disc manufacturer, and other factors. It offers a good read and lots of info if you are interested. They even list players that can accept all of the formats. It has helped us make a decision on a player (Apex makes a nice model).

ok... in 20 years there will be holographic displays in every electronics store... does that mean I shouldn't fork over the $700 for a new 18" LCD?
If you always wait for the 'next big thing' you'll never buy anything.

DVD-R(W) is great for what it does. It's the standard which is most compatible with set top dvd players, and has the cheapest media. Why anyone would want the +R(W) is beyond me.
Check out DV Magazine, they have a great comparison of the standards, but only from a video standpoint. For data I suppose the +R would be better since it records slightly faster (2.4x vs. 2x).
But, since video is my primary function, my Pioneer 104 DVD-RW suits me just fine, thank you very much.
If you're looking into massive datastorage, firewire drives are ok, but only if you can accept the risk of having to explain to your boss why the backup of his data is fried (cheap hard drives crash, it's a fact).
It's hard to determine your exact needs, but if it's data storage only, either stay with tape or get a DVD writer. Even if you go the firewire HD route, I'd still recommend having a second backup, the ]sorry, we can't do anything[ reply from DriveSavers just isn't worth it.

(yes, I suppose I should have spent a couple minutes searching on google before I posted my question).

I just found two comparisons:

Extreme Tech from June 18, 2001, compares Windows Media Video 3, 7 and 8, Real 8, MPEG-4, Sorenson MPEG-4, and QuickTime (Sorenson V3 and V2). Hard to get clear results, though it looks like they liked WMV and Real about the best.

Also, Digital Video.com (looks like it's from november) compares WMV8, Real 8, QT 5, Sorenson 3, H.263, VP3, and ZyGoVideo. Like many magazine articles, he declines to pick a "best", since it's so usage-dependant. He thought you needed to get to at least 800 kbps for VP3, didn't like ZyGo, liked Sorenson V3 better than H.263 (which he liked better than SV2), but thought WMV8 was better. Also RV8 wasn't as good, in his opinion, as WMV8.

Anyway, they might be worth a read...

I've done a lot of work in this area. Here's what I think:

Rule 1: don't use real. They have very good audio codecs, but the video stuff isn't worth it because you have to pay for everything.

If you are looking for quality, go with Windows Media. Get a Quad processor beast with an Osprey 500 and serve live MPEG 4. All the software is free if you don't count the operating systam costs.

If you want an Open Source solution use Vic with Darwin Streaming Server I think an Osprey 200 is your best bet for a capture card, but I haven't actually tried this out yet. Note that this uses the H263 codec which isn't much to talk about. If you want to use sorenson codec to stream live to quicktime, well good luck. There's something called LiveIce but it costs 6 grand and it only runs on NT, but you might want to look into that.

Here's some good links to get you going:
Choosing a Streaming Video Technology
previous slashdot article
technical primer on rt*p protocols

• Networks are moving from paying affiliates to carry programs, to having the affiliates pay them.
• Eventually, networks will avoid local broadcast affiliates completely and go direct to the consumer over cable, DSL, and satellite
• 70% of U.S. residents already get their TV from wire-based services, 10% from DBS satellites

No way they are using compression. Movie special effects are almost always done in uncompressed Cineon format.

I don't know where people like you go to see movies. I hardly ever see problems at the theater I usually go to. I keep hearing about these "dirty, scratched up" film presentations, but I never see them. I guess I'm just spoiled. If the theater you go to does such a sloppy job, why don't you complain? Or try a different theater?

The heavily compressed (gotta love those MPEG2 artifacts, they really heighten the experience!), 720x480 images on DVDs are no match for even 16mm film, let alone 35mm. Hell, 35mm has higher resolution than even HDTV. Have a look at this resolution chart for movie special effects. The effective resolution of film is about 4000x3000 for a full-frame image. You really prefer 720x480 DVDs to that?

That's not even getting into the issues of color and brightness ranges, both of which are much greater on film than on video.

I've no doubt that digital video will eventually replace film, but it's not good enough yet. Those people who go around saying it's already better have probably just never seen (or don't want to see) a really high-quality film presentation. Properly done, film still provides much greater image quality than any currently existing video system. (Not to say that video won't eventually catch up, but it's got a ways to go yet.)

You could, theoretically, build a video camera with a very large linear range and then post-process the data to simulate being captured on a logarithmic-response sensor, but so far, no one has built a device like that. It wouldn't be too hard, though. It could even be done in-camera. Have the CCD sensor output data in a 32-bit-per-color-component linear scale, and then before recording it to tape, have a DSP or other chip convert that data into a 10-bit-per-component logarithmic scale. There are even existing file formats, such as Kodak's "Cineon", that would do nicely. A system like that, if it also had comparable resolution to film, say 4000x3000 pixels (see this resolution chart for more info about film resolution) might actually serve as a replacement for film.

The thing is, nobody's even talking about those things I just mentioned! Some people are actually ready to settle for plain-old HDTV, which is nowhere near as good as film, both in terms of brightness range and resolution.

Speaking of resolution, let's talk about that for a second. As I mentioned earlier, 35mm film has scannable info on it all the way up to about 4000x3000. On the other hand HDTV, which is what Lucas is using to shoot the next Star Wars movie, is only 1920x1080. Worse yet, those Texas Instruments DLP projectors that have been put into some theaters have so far been limited to 1280x1024 resolution. That's pathetic! Imagine if they installed one of those in the Mann's Chinese theater in L.A. -- one pixel on a screen that size would be as big as my head! Yet some people are so enamored with the word "digital" that they have been running around proclaiming that digital cinema has "arrived"! Ugh.