AJ-PCS060G Panasonic Portable P2 Storage product

Battery-powered, ruggedized, and super simple, the Panasonic AJ-PCSO60G is the way to house the content filmed on your new P2 format camera. It mounts as a normal drive on Window and Apple computers via a USB 2.0 port. This unit is able to withstand a greater degree of shock and vibration that it's tape counterparts. Unfortunately the copy time is about 4 minutes for a 4GB disk(without data verification). This is data transfer is occuring in near real time, and doesn't seem like it would allow live hot-swapping of P2 cards for recording shots > 8 minutes at a time(and that's with an 8 GB card!) I don't know exactly what Panasonic is expecting the average news gatherer to do to plan around these extremely brief windows for getting a shot. They need a product that can quickly dump the data from these cards so that you can shoot a live event without having to stop shooting to wait for your one of your cards to be copied.

MPEG-4 HDDVDs

It looks like Universal is going to be taking a change and releasing a MPEG-4 HD-DVD of The Interpreter. I'm not so sure why a company would want to stray from the VC-1 codec that they've been utilizing for all their other releases. The contend that they have not plans on making a complete switch, but it still leads us to believe that the VC-1 hasn't clenched its position as the dominant HD-DVD format.

Format Wars: HD-DVD & BLU-RAY Media PC!

Vidabox is first-to-market with their 2 new HD-DVD & Blu-Ray Media PCs, Named the MAX and LUX.
The MAX model comes complete with a 7" touchscreen for navigating video content.
The MAX is also prices at around $4400, and is a fairly hefty price-tag for those early-adopters who jump on the bandwagon.
The menus look pretty spiffy, and I'm curious to find out if there is any difference in the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray interface.
Nice to see that someone has put one of these dual-format players out there.
When Warner comes to market with their dual-format discs, this player will become obsolete, but I don't see that happening any time soon...

AVCHD - HD on a DVD?

Ahh. Yet another pro-sumer codec for digital video. This one promises to fit HD content onto standard DVD disks(in the future it will be Blu-Ray mini-discs). AVCHD looks to be some derivative of .h264. Sony is going to be first to market with 2 AVCHD camcorders, the HDR-UX1 and HDR-SR1. The HDR-UX1 records AVCHD to DVD media, and the HDR-SR1 records to a HDD. They share the same low-power consumption 1/3" ClearVid CMOS sensors.
As no mainstream video-editing suites support this format at this time, what are we expected to do with footage at this point? Anyone have a quick work around for converting from AVCHD to something that FCP or Sorenson Squeeze can handle?

Format Wars: Apple Positions itself to Support BOTH Formats!

Thinksecret is reporting that Apple is planning on Supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats. I think that this is the right way to go for them. Apple has been so successful in the video production environment, that choice of one proprietary format would be damaging to their ability to be viable as an editing solution. I'm just waiting for them to make some arrangements with NEC and Ricoh to bring a dual-format player to market. Apple is a very forward-looking company and I'm glad that they've chosen to universally support these new High-definition storage formats.

HP Dives into HD

HP is releasing a slew of HD-related products(press release .pdf)
They are offering a pretty sweet 17" HD-DVD Laptop(dv9000t) computer with a Core2Duo processor. It even offers an HDMI output so that you can use the HD-DVD player as part of a home theater.
The Media Vault(mv2010), home media storage product is a great solution for backing up and sharing the multimedia content of your home network. With sizes ranging from 300GB - 1.2 TB, and a price point starting under $400, it should be a good value and a simple setup for sharing media content.
They have a new HP Pavillion Desktop PC too, that utilizes the Intel P965 chipset, and has one of those nifty HD-DVD drive that we are all a-twitter about.

HD-DVD - The Look and Sound of Perfect

Check out this marketing push by HD-DVD.
It's a good place to point people for their PR rhetoric of why to make the switch to HD formats. I think most of the selling points that HD-DVD mentions would also apply for Blu-Ray Technology as well.
I was surprised to read:
"HD DVD players also recognize both MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1 based on Microsofts Windows Media" How did they get every HD-DVD player/manufacturer to buy licensing of VC-1 when so few releases are going to be based on that codec? What about better(Not-to-mention cheaper) compression technology like .h264? Sounds like it could be some backdoor shenanigans by Microsoft. They seem to be calling the shots as to how much VC-1 costs, and has somehow got it to be a mandatory part of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray!
Check it out:
http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/

...Or a reasonable facsimile - The E3 Media Festival

ArsTechnica has a good article here about the upcoming E3 Media Festival.
No longer, will it be the overblown productions (and budgets) of yester-year.
They have made plans on majorly scaling down the event.
This event has become overblown, with people spending Millions on flashy booths that yield very little in the way of new sales generation.
E3 wants to limit the cost expenditures, and also create an environment where industry can mingle, and actually discuss business. Some of the events will be invite-only, and many will be conducted in conference suites.
I think it's a step in the right direction, and will ultimately lead to a better conference to all who attend(except for the legions of 14-year old attendees looking for marketing detritus to take home as proof of their 1337-ness).
It will no longer be held at the Convention Center, but has been relegated to some hotel conference rooms in the Santa Monica area...
If you are looking for an E3-style fluff convention, look now further than here.

AG-HVX200 P2 Solid-State Camera from Panasonic

This Handheld camera from Panasonic boasts some really great features into a tiny package.
It's solid-state recording mechanism utilizes P2 memory storage. It records HD quality video onto Flash memory RAID card.
This camera is much like its vari-cam predecessors, but without the setbacks of using tape!
P2 cards are hot-swappable with your laptop's PCMCIA port, allowing you to offload your video for quick access for editing! This is ideal for ING and ENG real-world applications.
PCMCIA is an acceptable 133MB/sec transfer rate for most applications, and should be enough to handle 100 MBits/sec HD 4:2:2 coming from the camera.
Compatibility with editing shouldn't be a problem, as it is with other HD formats. Final Cut Pro 5 supports this video codec, even though it doesn't support HDV at this point!
If you are in the SF Bay Area you can come down and get hands-on with a unit.
Just give Rental Express Video a call at 415-255-9883 to set up an appointment.
CNET has a great review of the item here.

Sony VPL-VW50 SXRD 1080p Front Projector

Sony's new projector boasts some truly great specs:
15000:1 Contrast ratio, True HD 1080p(1920x1080), HDMI, UHP Lamps(Vs. very expensive Xenon lamps), Ultra-Quiet 22db operation, and a price tag of $3799.99!
Pretty spiffy for such a cheap unit.
Up to 300" of HD-goodness for your home-theatre!
Click here to watch a video with Nathalie Muijtjens, Senior Product Marketing Manager Europe speaking about the benefits of the SXRD chipset.
Click here for an image of the inputs!

HD Insight Begins!

So begins the launch of HD Insight!
This will be a place to go for news about interesting trends and innovations in High-Definition Video.
Please feel free to comment and let me know about how you think HD Production will be impacted by these new technologies!