Best Christmas Video Ever!!

Nothing quite says Joyeux Noel like Spinal Tap.

Enjoy!

And have yourself a very Merry Christmas!

The Desk of DV Dude Mark II

It's a rare site to see the Dude's desk completely empty. But on this rare occurrence (the 2nd time in 10 years) the cleansing was to facilitate the revamping of the helm.

A custom cut out keyboard tray on an articulated arm has been installed in the desk.

Check out the pictures below...

A Sad Video

Filmed with a 5D Mark II

Because We Can...

32 cores of raw editing power. 27-inch Displays, built in hardware RAID5 with 48GBs of blazing fast storage.

Coolest Time Lapse Video EVER!!

Wow.

We've put up a few time-lapse videos over the past while, but this one takes
the cake - from the International Space Station.

Shot with a Nikon D3s by-the-way.

Duck Tron

This amuses the Dude...

Announcement Overload

The video gods decided that November 3rd was going to be the day that everyone would made major announcements - Avid with Media Composer 6, Red with Scarlett, and Canon with C300.

Too many announcements! What is a poor DV Dude to do? My poor little brain can't take anymore... Make it stop! Make it stop!

Hard Drive Shortage

Over the past weeks the world has changed. The flooding in Thailand has taken it's toll on everyone. Countless people lost their lives and homes. Technology companies that have manufacturing plants located in the flooded regions are posting gloomy outlooks for being able to produce.

One of the major industries that have been impacted is the storage industry, With most manufacturers having plants in Thailand, we are now in the worst hard drive shortage since the earthquake that devastated Japan. Our hard drive shelf is nearly bare, with no clear word on when it will be restocked.

Although not even a brush stroke when compared to the bigger picture. People were killed, homes were lost and a country that the world relies heavily on is in the wake of a natural disaster.

Our thoughts go out to all of those who are suffering. It seems silly to fixate on the shortages when there are bigger issues at hand.

With analysts predicting the start of recovery as early as December, hard drives can wait, let the people recover and get their lives back on track.

The Brilliance That Is Shatner...

Has left us speechless once again...

Steve Jobs and the Digital Hub

We've been posting clips from various Steve Jobs keynotes, and here is one that had a profound effect on your humble narrator. It is from the January 2001 Macworld keynote, and it is my most memorable keynote - mainly because it solidified my decision to open The DV Shop.

In this clip, Jobs talks about his vision of the Digital Hub. It was in this keynote that Apple introduced the Titanium Powerbook, but more importantly to me, iDVD. Seeing the simplicity of iDVD, how it could let anyone make professional looking DVDs at low cost and was insanely easy to do to boot, convinced me to go ahead with the idea that had been percolating in my head for two years - a store dedicated to helping people make movies. So shortly after watching this keynote, I was convinced I was on the right track, and decided to jump off the cliff into the great unknown. We opened The DV Shop 4 months later.

New! Panasonic AC-AG160

Panasonic's Jan Crittendon gives an overview of the new Panasonic AC-AG160 AVCHD camcorder at DV Expo 2011 courtesy of HowToSellYourVideos.com

Get more info on this camera here

Nobody Rocked a Keynote Like Steve Jobs

The Insanely Great Life of Steve Jobs

There is already a ton of articles commenting on the passing of Steve Jobs and as an Apple user since 1989 and an Apple Dealer since 2001, I thought I'd add to the pile.

Few people in life achieve greatness. For the rarified few, the vast majority achieve one great thing. Steve Jobs achieved many, many great things, which puts him in a very unique class of individuals. And what makes him even more unique is he achieved three great things after his initial diagnosis of cancer - the iPod Touch, the iPhone, and the iPad. Just one of those would be an amazing accomplishment in life. This was just the final act in a too-short life of 56 years.

Some people call him this generation's Edison, but that's not quite accurate. Steve didn't really "invent" things - he had a very talented team of engineers do that for him. Yes, his name is on a number of patents, but he was more of a conceptual over-seer with a vision who pushed those poor engineers to heights they would have not accomplished on their own.

Steve Jobs' genius was user interface. When you look at the sum of his life with Apple, what made him and his products stand out was the way technology interacted with humans. He didn't invent the keyboard and mouse, he didn't invent cell phones or touchscreens, but what he did was make them easy to use, and more than that - fun.

The legacy of Jobs exists in so many non-Apple products. The Macintosh changed computers forever. The iPod Touch has revolutionized touch-screen - everything has to be touchscreen now, whether it be cell phones or video cameras.

Apple, in the end, is an user-interface company. The same way Honda is really an engine company, and Nikon is a lens company, Apple is an user-interface company, and the success of Apple is applying their genius to different products (computers, MP3 players, cell phones, tablets). And at the core of that genius was Steve Jobs.

The video at the top of this post is the commencement speech he gave at Stanford in June 2005. It is a touching, insightful and philosophical speech. It's worth the 10 minutes out of your day to watch it.

World's Smallest Camera?

This is reportedly the world's smallest digital camera, measuring 1" x 1" x 1". It has
a 2 mega-pixel sensor, and captures video too! Writes to microSD card.

Sells for a whopping $99. Lifetime warranty. This company (Hammacher
Schlemmer) also sells a high def video pen.

Sometimes Parody Works

The horror, the horror...

A Heart-Warming 9/11 Story

With all the recollections of 9/11 floating around this weekend, this is one
story I had never seen before. It is the incredible story of a boy from
Kenya who wanted to be a doctor, and who ended up in New York on September
11, 2001.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/10/remembering-911-an-unexpected-gift-to-america/

DV Dude will return to his normal cynical self shortly.

Need Speakers?

I'm sure that this has happened to many, but for some it's just a myth or urban legend. A story that they heard from a friend of a friend. But it's true, both DV Dude and myself have been approached as potential "marks" for the Speaker deal of a life time.

It will happen when you least expect it, in the parking lot of a Canadian Tire, or a Gas Station or anywhere that unsuspecting people can be approached without cause for concern.

2-3 Men in a commercial van or small box truck will pull up beside you...

"Pssst... Hey buddy, come here, I got something to tell you.... Due to a warehouse packing mix up, I've got an extra set of $XXXX value speakers, I need to get rid of them before I go back to the warehouse...."

Then the con, they will offer you the speakers for pennies on the dollar, a $2000 set for $150 bucks....


Check it out, it's even on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_speaker_scam

Greatest Hits of Steve Jobs, Part 57

Steve Jobs is legendary for his Macworld Keynote addresses, and rightly so.
This one is from January 2001, and features the introduction of the
PowerBook G4. While it seems quaint now, at the time it was a mind-blowing
announcement.

It's a trip down memory lane, and to see the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion
Field in full effect.

Best Quotes of Steve Jobs

With the not-unexpected resignation of Steve Jobs as Apple CEO this week,
the Wall Street Journal complied a terrific collection of Steve Jobs quotes.

Read them here -
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/08/24/steve-jobss-best-quotes/

It's a rather long list, but breathtaking in many of its predictions.

I've always felt that Steve Jobs was the visionary, Bill Gates the toady,
and these quotes fulfill that. Jobs could always see 3 pieces ahead on the
chess board, Gates was always 1 piece behind. For example, he was predicting
"The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home
will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We're just in the
beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most
people - as remarkable as the telephone." This was in 1985.

More blog posts on Steve Jobs coming.

Final Cut Parody of the Week

Found this very amusing article at Pro Video Coalition - What if Cupertino
ran NASA?

Enjoy.

World's smallest user manual

Using Light modifiers

The Droids We're Looking For...

Storm Troopers feeling lucky...

Cool Time-lapse for a Long Weekend, Part VII

Just in time for the long weekend, cool time-lapse from Iceland of that dreaded volcano last year. Shot on a Canon 5D.

Camcorder Shoot out!

In an effort to compare the image quality between different levels of camcorders Sean and DV Dude setup the most advanced testing rig ever (at least in DV Shop 2). Using a Panasonic Broadcast grade LCD, X-Rite Color Chart and a Spyder LensCal focus testing chart we checked to see what each camera is capable of outputting over HDMI.

Cool Time Lapse for a Friday

Just to put you in the mood for a June weekend - really cool time-lapse
footage from TSO Photography of aurora borealis in Norway. Shot on a Canon
D-SLR, FYI.

Sit back and enjoy.

Bohemian Muppetry

Doesn't take much to amuse the Dude.

Interested in the History of Toronto? There's an app for that: ZeitagTO

One of our customers has designed a really cool app called ZeitagTO you can check out here

Cool Slo-Mo Video of the Day

Was on the panel for the Toronto Final Cut Pro Users Group last night, and
saw this video on fellow-panel member Brad Fortner's most excellent blog
(http://www.bradfortner.com)

One can never get enough slo-mo footage in life.

The Long Awaited DV Shop II Before and After Pictures

You can see the rest of the pics here

Most Depressing FaceBook Press Release of the Day

A new study released by cell phone maker Ericsson found that 35%, yes
THIRTY-FIVE, of iPhone and Andriod cell phone users in the US "interacted
with such non-voice apps as Facebook on their smartphones before rising."

This means one-third of users checked their Facebook before even getting out
of bed to take their morning pee.

This is further proof that the impending apocalypse is coming!

Details on the study are here:
http://www.ericsson.com/news/110512_cloud_244188810_c

Happy 10th Anniversary To Us!

My how time flies. We opened ten years ago today. Some days, it feels like it was only yesterday. Other days, feels like 20 years ago.

When we opened, Mel Lastman was mayor of Toronto, Jean Chretien was PM, Mike Harris was Premier, and George Bush was the newly-elected President of the US. We have survived 9/11, SARS, the Great Recession, and other countless obstacles.

Back in May 2001, the fastest Mac you could buy was a single G4 733 Mhz. The biggest hard drive you could get was 75GB. The first consumer DVD burner, the Pioneer A03, would ship in June for $1499. HiDef video was more a concept than a reality, and Digital SLRs (with 2 megapixels) were just starting to enter the mainstream.

Today, the fastest Mac is a 12-core 2.93 Ghz Xeon processor. You can get a 3TB drive, which is 3000GB. A Blu-Ray burner is now $199. HiDef cameras can be bought for under $500, and film is virtually extinct as we shoot with 24mp cameras.

So where will we be in 2021? I have no idea. I think storage will continue to expand, but also shrink in size, so that those quaint things we call hard drives will be supplanted by some USB-key or card-like object that will store many many TBs of information. USB and Firewire will be gone, replaced by whatever replaces Thunderbolt. Computer processors will probably be re-invented with speeds and capabilities that will astound us. Everything will get thinner and lighter. All lighting will be some refined version of LED. Video formats - how about 8K? Or 8K 3D? Or even better - 8K 4D!

The next 10 years will shock, amaze and confuse us just like the last 10 have. My desk will still be a mess; I'll still be meaning to get to that thing I've been meaning to get to for 3 years; and I'll still be cursing whatever supplier/courier/manufacturer ticked me off that morning.

Finally, thanks to our loyal customers who've been coming to us year after year.

Surreal Video of the Day

Christopher Walken reading "Three Little Pigs."

Enjoy.

As a side note - did Christopher Walken always talk like this? Did he talk
like this in high school?

What Sean Was Testing Today...

Craziest Thing At NAB This Year

NAB always has something that just takes your breath away. This year it is
the Steadiseg, a modified Segway for Steadicam users.

Must get one of these!!

For more information, click here:
http://www.steadiseg.com/gallery/index.html

Video courtesy PVC NAB 2011: SteadiSeg from ProVideo Coalition on Vimeo.

BlackMagic-Palooza

BlackMagic Design went psycho at this year's NAB Show, announcing 13 new products. It's taken me a week to wade through all the press releases! Here is a sampling:

HyperDeck Shuttle

Who saw this coming? A portable field recorder that records to SSD drives in uncompressed 10 bit QuickTime format. HDMI and SDI inputs. For the insane price of $345. Shipping in May. A rack-mount version (Studio) adds 2 SSD slots and a tiny LCD screen, will be $999, and ships in the summer.

UltraStudio

This Thunderbolt little box will give you HD-SDI, HDMI, Component all for $999 when it ships in the summer. Connects via Thunderbolt, so can be used on Mac notebooks and future iMacs.

Production Switchers

BlackMagic is getting into the video switcher business in a big way, announcing various models that will ship this summer.

ATEM Television Studio

This may be the most interesting announcement - a multi-input HD-SDI/HDMI switcher with H264 encoder, all for $999. Uses a software control panel to control the switcher. This may be the low-cost switcher we've been waiting for.

Resolve for Everybody

BlackMagic has decided everybody should colour-correct with DaVinci Resolve, so they are making a Lite version available later this summer for ... free. Gasp, choke.

Quite an impressive show for the Aussies. Now they just have to ship them, as those who have been waiting for the H264PRO Recorder to come out can testify to.

Thunderbolt Is Coming. Look Busy.

DV Dude predicted this NAB would see many Thunderbolt announcements, and his
oracle powers proved correct. The nice thing about Thunderbolt (insert your
own sound-effect here) is it adds the capability of high-end products to any
computer with it installed. So the days of not being to add fast drive
arrays or video capture cards to iMacs and Notebooks is quickly coming to an
end. We won't see any Thunderbolt products until summer though. Here is a
selection of announcements:

BlackMagic UltraStudio 3D

Think of it as an external HD Extreme card - HD-SDI, HDMI and component in
and out in a very nice aluminum box, $995, target shipping date is July.

Matrox

Matrox announced that they would ship Thunderbolt MXO2 products in July as
well. And they will have a Thunderbolt adapter for existing MXO2 products
for $299, so if you've already invested in a Matrox MXO2 product, you can
migrate it to a Thunderbolt-equipped computer.

AJA

AJA didn't make any specific Thunderbolt announcements, just that they would
be making them in the future. They were previewing products in their booth,
but any announcements will be down the road.

Sonnet

Sonnet announced various Thunderbolt products - a 4 and 8 bay drive arrays,
Firewire-to-ThunderBolt and Ethernet-to-Thunderbolt adapters, and a very
intriguing EchoExpress, which is a PCIe card chassis, so you can add PCIe
cards to your Thunderbolt connection. Mmm.. Nothing shipping until this
summer.

Much more to come in Thunderbolt land. Stay tuned.

NAB Notes - Part One

Kessler

The traditional video camera is not dead, according to Panasonic, who launched 4 new cameras at NAB. Here's a run-down of some of the announcements:

AG-HPX250 Camcorder
First compact camcorder to ship with AVC Intra! Full-sized 1920x1080 1/3" x
3 CMOS sensors, variable frame rates, 10 bit 4:2:2, writes to P2 cards, 21X
zoom lens, Genlock input, HDSDI & HDMI out. I see this as a response to the
Canon XF305 and Sony EX1. AVCIntra has a lot of fans, so its good to finally
see that codec in a smaller camera at an affordable price point. Panasonic
claims the new sensor rivals 2/3". Shipping Fall 2011 for around $6500.

AG-AC160 & AC130 Camcorders
For those who don't need AVC Intra, these two cameras share the same front
end as the HPX250 (same sensor and lens) but record the AVCHD codec to
inexpensive SD cards. The AC160 adds variable frame rates, HD-SDI out, and
is switchable between PAL and NTSC. Both cameras are due to ship in Fall
2011, with the AC160 around $5500, and the AC130 around $4000.

BT-300 Pro Plasmas
So many people are using plasmas now in their edit suites instead of
traditional broadcast monitors, and Panasonic is coming out with a line of
plasmas with pro features. Waveform, blue-only, over and under-scanning, pro
calibration tools, and 3D-ready. Will ship in 42" or 50" sizes in October
2011. Pricing TBA.

AVC Ultra
And what would NAB be if there wasn't any new codecs announced? Panasonic
previewed the up-coming AVC Ultra, taking the acclaimed AVC Intra to a new
level. Capable of 4K 4:4:4. At lower resolutions, Panasonic claims HDCAM SR
quality at a much smaller bandwidth.

For more information, videos and photos:
http://www.panasonic.com/promos/nab/2011/

Throw Away Your 5D

Rollei has announced a 8x manual focus telephoto lens for iPhone 4.

DV Dude Grounded!

Due to a passport malfunction, DV Dude has been thwarted from attending NAB 2011. Once again the terrorists win. On a lighter note, apparently actor Zach Braff had some passport troubles this weekend as well.

Really Cool Time Lapse Footage

TimeScapes: Rapture from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

Timescapes: Rapture by Tom Lowe. Shot on Canon and Red MX cameras.

What's In For Spring? Flare Jeans Are Back!!

Ah, the return of the dreaded bell-bottoms and similarly heinous wide leg jeans. It's only a matter of time before the "Bay City Rollers" fashion trend returns. This is truly a sign of the apocalypse.

Snowpocalypse NOT!

It was supposed to be the storm of the century.

The worst storm in 40 years.

Over a foot of snow, chaos would rule the earth and we were all going to die.

Then we all woke up this morning to 5cm of snow.

Thanks 24 Hour News Media, for once again being wankers because too many media consultants are getting paid too much money to make every media outlet, including the Weather Network, act like CNN.

Not so long ago, it was never "the Apocalypse" if we got a big snow storm.

It came, we shoveled, and we got on with our lives.

This is winter. We are in Canada. We get snow storms.

Deal with it.

Grrrrr - DV Dude is cranky this morning.

Monster Chiller Horror Theatre!! Walter Murch Hates 3D!!

The endless debate about 3D continues. I had an interesting conversation yesterday with one of my sales reps about 3D and their plans for their 3D TVs this year, so by incredible coincidence, Roger Ebert's Blog had a letter from esteemed editor and sound designer Walter Murch about why he thinks 3D will fail.

When Walter speaks, it's worth listening.

Read the blog entry here -
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/01/post_4.html

Two non-related notes. First - everyone should read Roger Ebert's Blog. It is most excellent, and is the only web site in the known universe that has intelligent comments from readers.

Second - I had the most surreal Walter Murch experience a few years ago at NAB at the Final Cut SuperMeet. Walter was the guest speaker, and while I have immense respect for him as a editor/sound designer, he is a pretty boring public speaker. But, after his talk, he helped out on the Raffle. Watching Walter Murch read out raffle ticket numbers to a room full of 1000 screaming people is something I won't forget anytime soon. You had to be there.

The Tower of Power

One thing that hasn't changed in the new store... you can never have enough storage! LaCie's got new 3TB d2 Quadras and people are still clamouring for more storage.

We Finally Have A Place For The Big Comfy Couch

This super-sized sofa lived in the back room at the old location but DV Dude always envisioned a DV Shop lounge waiting area where friends and family of "DV Shoppers" could wait comfortably and now the dream is a reality.

Chuck and Buck Like Their New Home

It's our third week in the new location and everyone is settling in nicely.

If Cash is King, then this is the ultimate castle for it!

As many may remember, at DV Shop 1 we had a small manual cash register from the 60's. In keeping with the tradition we decided to have an even older and grander register for DV Shop 2!

Here it is! Originally sold to a merchant in Hamilton in 1907, this National Cash Register was put out of service until DV Dude rescued it from it's possible demise in a barn. Now over a hundred years later, this business machine is back in action.

The Vault

Before: the very unglamorous bank vault left behind by TD Bank.

After: DV Shop's new shipping department complete with bunker-style cage lights.

The new vault door is actually an amazing art installation by the very talented Steel Sculptor, Gregory Robbins.

What I'll Miss About the Junction

Your Dudeness of DV has the rare privilege of being able to walk to work (something you don't appreciate until you do it), and the only regret I have about moving the store to our new location is I'll miss the familiar walk to the old store in the Junction.

I'll miss the terrific window displays in Martin's Flowers. The over-weight cat in Snug As A Bug. The sinfully good brown-crunchy treat at Espresso Mi Vida (I can never remember the name). The best chocolates and ice cream in Toronto at Delights. And much more.

The new neighbourhood has its own un-sung treasures as well (Calendese Bakery has the best lattes around), but it's hard to beat the funkiness and sense of community you get in the Junction retail scene.

But, the new location is better. Better for customers and better for us. Now that we've been open a week, any worries have long been vanquished. The new store is terrific, and we're all very happy with it. So while Starbucks has finally discovered the Junction, we have left.

We wish all the businesses in the Junction the best of luck.

We're Back!

First shot of the new exterior!

The Agony & The Ecstasy

Welcome to our nightmare.

We're running a wee bit behind unpacking this what feels like the final shot
from Citizen Kane, so apologies for not blogging earlier.

Must get back to work so we can open Monday at 10 am.

Exodus

DV Shop 1 - empty, deserted.

Looks a lot bigger with everything out!

Took United Van Lines 8 hours to remove 10 years of accumulated "stuff."