Top Ten Worst 911 Calls For 2013

It's that time of year when everyone reflects back on the past 12 months and makes their Top Ten Lists.

CBC News has a list of the Top Ten Worst 911 Calls For 2013 with a request to rent a fire truck among the absurd entries.

You can read it here.

New BMCC 4K Footage

Blackmagic is starting to rev up the PR engines for the highly-anticipated, highly-backordered 4K Production Camera. Here is some footage for you to drool over.

Shot by New Zealand cameraman Captain Hook.

Blackmagic Production Camera 4K - Beta Footage from A Couple Of Night Owls on Vimeo.

Adios Panasonic Plasma

Very sad news has come out of Panasonic - they are exiting the plasma business. DV Dude has been a long believer in the superiority of plasmas over LCDs, and has owned Panasonic plasmas since 2005. They just can't make a go of it, and are shutting down the plasma factories.

Panasonic is in the midst of an incredible soul-searching journey right now, due to massive losses over the last few years. Nothing is sacred. Don't expect this to be the last big exit announcement from them.

So, if you were thinking of getting a Panasonic plasma, you better run to your nearest TV dealer. They are making no more of them, and plan to be completely out of the plasma game by March. So what is left in stock is all there is.

SteadyTracker versus Monopod

Vimeo user Ron Hunter did a nice side-by-side comparison of the SteadyTracker stabilizer versus a plain Monopod. More info on the Steady Tracker here.

Attack Of The Killer Amazon Drones!

It's now official - Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has lost his mind. First, he buys The Washington Post. Now this.

Reports are flying about that Amazon, the world's biggest and least profitable retailer, is investigating using UNMANNED DRONES to deliver packages.

Yes, small, uncontrollable helicopters with sharp blades whizzing about the city dropping off packages to your front door.

What could possibly go wrong?

Besides hydro wires, small pets, children, skeet shooters, wind, incompetence, lawsuits, general terror and a billion other things.

I really thought this was an April's Fool Joke...

Lego Photography Mash-Up

Two of DV Dude's favourite things - Lego and photography, have been merged in a new photo gallery on DP Review. The photographer is Mike Stimpson.

Enjoy!

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/11/10/classic-photographs-recreated-in-lego/10

Best Car Ad Ever...

Old Spock versus New Spock in an Audi car ad...

End of an Era...

Today was a solemn day at the DV Shop. A tear came to DVDude's eye as I stood at attention saluting the last Mac Pro, real Mac Pro, that we will ever sell. Apple has replaced this power house work horse that editors, colourists, DITs, DMTs and power users have come to love.

We thought it it would only be fair to give the real Mac Pro a nice send off service as we go into the the new age of cylindrical computing. The ability to beef up your tower with extra hard drives, capture cards, RAID controllers and additional optical drives ended today.

This signals the end of an Era from Apple. Since at least 1991, Apple has had a tower form factor computer system, expandable and upgradable. The Apple tower is gone. No longer can we add a PCIe card or swap out a hard drive or burn a disc. All these tasks will require some form of external device attached to the computer. The Mac Pro has become a hub, desks will be cluttered with peripherals and the clean sleek look will vanish as function will trump form.

It would be funny if someone ended up making a Thunderbolt expansion chassis that could hold the new Mac Pro, 4 Hard drives and 3 PCIe cards. It would be even funnier if it looked the the old Mac Pro, in fact I will be so bold as to predict that something like this will appear. It may come as a rack mount chassis or just a desktop box, but I think this will solve a lot of problems that people will have with the new Mac Pro. Make it so that you just need to replace the Mac Pro "core" when a newer faster unit comes out and upgrading won't be as taxing. Desks will remain clean and the threat of a feet tangling wire jungle will no longer haunt our nightmares.

But in the mean time, we salute the iconic "real" Mac Pro. 
 

4K For Everyone!

I've been meaning to write a blog post about the new Sony 4K video camera, the FDR-AX1, which will be coming into our store in November. But Michael Reichmann has done such an excellent preview article on The Luminous Landscape, just read it instead.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/camcorders/sony_ax1_4k_camcorder.shtml

Great Gatsby Visual Effects!

While your Dudeness of DV wasn't blown away with "The Great Gatsby," this demo reel showing how some of the visual effects were done is fascinating.

Enjoy.

Funny Or Die Breaking Bad Videos

Dean Norris Spoils Breaking Bad from Dean Norris

In honour of Breaking Bad's series finale on Sunday night, here are some very good Funny Or Die videos. In the one above, actor Dean Norris (who plays Hank) writes the final episode.



This is Jimmy Fallon's take on Breaking Bad. A little long, and a lot of in-jokes, but worth the 12 minutes, especially for the ending.

Quirky Girl with Aaron Paul & Teresa Palmer from Teresa Palmer

And while this has nothing to do directly with Breaking Bad, it does feature Aaron Paul, and it is funny.

So farewell Breaking Bad, it's been a terrific 5 years.

Trip Down Vacuum Cleaner Memory Lane

Was in Danny's Vacuum on St. Clair earlier this week, when I spotted this blast from my childhood past - an old Filter Queen canister vacuum.

My mom had one of these, and I remember her telling me that it cost a lot, but it was worth every penny. The people who worked in the vacuum place agreed - it was a great vacuum cleaner.

Cobble Beach Concours 2013

DV Dude took a rare Saturday off, and ventured north to Owen Sound for the first ever Cobble Beach Concours d'Elegance car show. Modeled after the world-famous Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, the Cobble Beach show was held on the Cobble Beach golf course, north of Owen Sound. The weather was absolutely perfect, as DV Dude and about 3500 other people got to gawk at over a hundred classic cars, from the early 1900s to present day.

There were so many beautiful cars, and DV Dude took so many pictures, it is grossly unfair to pick just one car to feature. But if he had to, and if he could only pick one car to "accidently" borrow, it would be this gorgeous 1935 Auburn 851 Phaeton.

For those who love classic cars, DV Dude highly recommends the Cobble Beach Concours, and next year's date will be September 14, 2014.

Things You Don't Expect To See, Part VXII

Seen in our parking lot this morning, this very cool Lotus.

We believe this to be a Lotus Europa S2 from 1968, featuring a 80 hp 1565cc 4 cylinder engine. There were only about 200 of these made for import into North America.

What really caught our attention was how short this car is, and conveniently it was parked next to a Lincoln Navigator for reference. The roof of the Lotus comes up to Sean's waist.

Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera - They Do Exist

Just to quickly report, we have received our first BMPC. It has already gone out to the first person on our pre-order list. They are finally starting to trickle in. Hopefully we will see more soon!

Things You Don't Expect To See In Life, Part XVI

Your Dudeness was in the burger joint The Works yesterday for the first time, and while scanning the menu, came across this burger - Sexy Sarah Polley Burger ... named after Canadian actress and director Sarah Polley.

Not something you'd expect to see on a burger menu. Does she know about this?

There was also the Neil Young burger. DV Dude had neither - just the boring, but tasty, Smokey Mountain burger.

DV Dude gives his thumbs up to The Works, but his favourite burger joint still remains Magoo's, at Royal York and Dundas.

User Test: BMCC VS Blackmagic Pocket Camera

BMCC VS Blackmagic Pocket Camera from A Couple Of Night Owls on Vimeo.

Forget Studio 54, Here Comes CBGB...

Cool iPhone App, Part I - Stuck On Earth

Since DV Dude is about to impart on his annual summer vacation, here's one final blog entry that is fitting for a summer day.

There are a ton of cool apps out there for your iPad, iPhone or Android phone, and this is one of them. Essentially Stuck On Earth is a map of the world, and as you zoom into a specific place, say the Scarborough Bluffs or Yosemite National Park, it shows you pictures of that exact place that other photographers have already taken and uploaded to Flickr or other sites (with the GeoTag info).

What this does is let you pre-scout places to go photograph by seeing what other photographers have already done. DV Dude used this app before going to Mono Lake, California in April, and is was really helpful on figuring out the best places to go. It is sort of like Google Street View for photographers.

The promise of the internet and sharing crowdsourcing information hasn't quite really been harnessed that well, but this app shows what a little ingenuity can do.

Check it out on their web site - www.stuckonearthapp.com, or in the App Store or Google Play store. Highly recommended.

Sean's Latest Blackmagic Production 4K and Pocket Camera Update

The latest buzz on the net is coming from the Blackmagic Forum where it has been stated that the new cameras will not be shipping by the end of July.

 In an update that was sent to a user of the Forum from Blackmagic's UK office:

Official statement from Blackmagic on new camera shipping: Simon Westland of Blackmagic Design EMEA "Blackmagic Design is making significant progress in production of the new Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and Blackmagic Production Camera 4K. Full production manufacturing is underway on the Pocket Cinema Camera with first production units in final testing. This is inline with our initial expectations of the end of July and means the camera will start to ship in quantity during August. There are several weeks of work to do on Production Camera 4K before this will enter full production manufacturing, however we expect to ship the first quantities of this model before the end of August."

Source: http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10395#p65002

 While it seems that most users are slightly relieved to hear something, some are up in arms due to the fact that the camera won't be in their hands by July 31st.

 It is never a good idea promise a hard date. As we saw last year with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, Murphy's Law can and will come into play.

As for now, be patient and don't plan on shooting any paid gigs with a camera that isn't physically in your possession. Make sure to join our waiting list if you are interested in getting this camera.

Signs of the Apocalypse, Toronto Flood Edition

Toronto has survived The Great Flood of 2013, and the images of the sudden flash floods are surreal. One expects flooding on the Don Valley Parkway, but DV Dude never imagined he would see flooding like this on the 427.

Picture taken by Elamin Abdelmahmoud, and courtesy of the CBC's web site.

The Mother of All Computer Demos, 1968 Edition

News came out yesterday that Douglas Engelbart had died at the age of 88. Engelbart was best known for developing the computer mouse, but these videos show he, and his team of engineers, were responsible for so much more - basically the entire concept of modern personal computers. These videos are from the legendary public demo Engelbart did on December 9, 1968 at the Stanford Research Institute. It has been called "The Mother of All Demos," and after watching them, I can see why. With one exception (the concept of windows, which Xerox did at PARC, and Apple commercially implemented later), the entire basis of modern computing is in this demo, in 1968.



Here's the mouse.



We take this for granted now, but in 1968 it would have been very trippy!



Collaboration, and at the end of this clip, video conferencing.

You have to remember that in 1968, computers were very crude. You interfaced with them using punch cards or other inconceivable media. So to show you typing in real time, re-arranging words, copying paragraphs, using a mouse, video conferencing, two users collaborating on the same screen, etc. etc. was light years ahead of what would be possible even 30 years later.

Wow.

Jobs

Orphan Black: The Best New Canadian Made Television Show You Probably Haven't Seen Yet

If you haven't been watching Space lately you may not have seen a new Canadian made TV series called Orphan Black. One of the most impressive aspects of the show is Regina actress Tatiana Maslany who plays multiple characters on the show. Maslany recently won a Critics' Choice TV Award, generating speculation that she could receive an Emmy nomination. The show has generated a lot of buzz and if you like thriller-style sci-fi with some amazing performances by Canadian actors, you should check it out.

Now You Can Shoot Great Photos And Eat A Whopper At The Same Time

Yes, they really went there...

The DV Shop Is 12 Years Old Today!!

The DV Shop first opened it's doors on May 7, 2001 and it's been a wild ride ever since.

 For a quick trip down memory lane, visit our DV Shop Question's Hall of Fame here.

Check out our 12th Anniversary Sale here.

World's Smallest Stop Motion Movie

Those crazy researchers at IBM have made a stop-motion animated movie with ... atoms! Yes, atoms.

The Guinness Book of World Records has certified this short as the World's Smallest Stop Motion Film.

Is There Anything They Can't Turn Into A Pizza?

For years people have been making their own dessert pizzas with Nutella sandwich spread and now a chain restaurant is offering a version in their stores which you can enjoy with or without the Gluten-Free Crust. The flier we got in our mail this week looks a lot less appetizing than this home-made version. Basically the advertised version looked like a lot of gooey chocolate pudding slathered on a pizza crust.

Needless to say DV Dude is not impressed. He was the first person in the world to declare chocolate a health food but this rendition is too much even for him.

Sights Seen On The Road Back To Toronto

The trip to Mono Lake has come to an end, and the here are some sights I saw on the 8 hour drive back to Vegas, before catching the red eye to Toronto. Yes, the hardship of looking at this scenery was most brutal.

I feel much safer now. 

This is where I was Sunday morning. Where where you?  

 Cool that all these people put bumper stickers on this guardrail. But who carries bumper stickers with them?

This grave marks the burying place of a 5 year old boy, who died in 1905. It is beside a low-traffic highway in Nevada. What is weird is people are to this day throwing toys inside the grave. Again, this begs the question - who carries toys with them to throw into roadside graves?

This is the famous Scotty's Castle in Death Valley. Somehow, I have managed to not have been here before on my numerous ventures into Death Valley. It is really cool.

This certainly catches one's attention as you drive along Highway 95 in Nevada. What I didn't get a picture of, was on the other side is the Area 51 Alien Brothel! 

 

 

DV Dude's Homage To Freeman Patterson

When your Dudeness of DV was a young, budding photographer in high school, I came upon a book written by Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson entitled "Photography And The Art of Seeing." It completely changed my outlook on photography, and how to "see." Even though our photo styles are completely different, the lessons I learned way back in Grade 12 still follow me on every photo trip I do.

So this photo is for you Freeman - this is certainly more your style, and certainly not as good as what you could do.

Bizarrely, his web site does not include a photo gallery of his work... But for more info on Freeman, visit his web site at www.freemanpatterson.com

 

Best. Ghost Town. Ever.

Just north of Mono Lake in California, lies the ghost town of Brodie. Once the home to 10,000 people in the late 1800s, Brodie went into decline in the early 1900s as the mines dried up, and by World War II it was deserted. The State of California decided to preserve what was left of the decaying town and make it a state park. This was a brilliant decision, as ghost towns have a tendency to fall apart and disappear over time. Of all the ghost towns DV Dude has been through, Brodie is by far the best. Here is a small selection of the photos taken.

What is interesting about Brodie is that some interiors have been left intact, and you can peak into windows and see what is there. This is one interior - there are many others, including a school, tavern, general store and church.

So now DV Dude's quest to photograph a ghost town, after many attempts, has been satisfied. Scratch that one off the Photography Bucket List. 

Tufa! Tufa! Tufa!

Mono Lake, just outside of Yosemite National Park, is famous for their tufas, and its easy to see why. These formations are caused by excess salination in the water. Mono Lake is one of the oldest lakes in North America, and is saltier than the Pacifiic Ocean. So these formations have been forming for thousands of years. They became "above water" when the lake levels dropped significantly, due to mountain stream water, the source for Mono Lake, being diverted to Los Angeles. 

But the Mono Lake area is famous not only for these tufas, but also the Brodie Ghost Town. That's the next blog entry. Ghost towns and tufas - DV Dude is in heaven! 

 

The Road To Mono Lake Runs Through Death Valley

With NAB over, DV Dude is taking a quick R&R Photography Trip to Mono Lake, California. The 8 hour drive from Vegas runs through Death Valley.

High noon at the famous Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America, almost 300 feet below sea-level.

 

And Death Valley lived up to its reputation as a hot hot place. At noon on Thursday April 11th, the temperature was 93 F. That's 33 C. In April! I believe it was snowing in Toronto that day...

This is DV Dude's third foray into Death Valley. For photos from the the previous visit, view them here and here.

Onwards to Mono Lake, and their famous Tufas.

NAB 2013: Final Thoughts

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."

The end of another NAB, and perhaps the annual trade show isn't quite the Statue of Liberty of video production, but sometimes it is like a beacon that attracts people from around the world in search of enlightenment. So now that everyone is on a plane back home, and the booths are being torn down, some final thoughts on this year's show. The exhibit space was 900,000 square feet this year, up from last year, and while the crowds seemed smaller to me this year, according to attendance figures, it was a hair above last year.

4K, 4K, 4K

That was the over-whelming theme of this year's show. And unlike 3D, it is being accepted and embraced. My prediction is this will follow the same pattern as HD did - the bigger players with bigger budgets will move quite quickly on acquisition being 4K for future-proofing purposes, getting ready for the eventual migration to 4K. Everyone else will watch closely, knowing they will have to switch at some point. And just like HD, seeing 4K images makes you a believer. At both CES and NAB, the 4K images were breathtaking. Its not quite as dramatic as comparing SD to HD, but you can see the difference. This is why I think its going to take off with the decision makers - because they want this in their home. Also, there are practical reasons to shoot in 4K and deliver HD - the ability to zoom and crop and hold the detail. Canon had demos running in their booth showing a baseball game shot in 4K, and then cropping in for an instant replay. The crop in was quite significant, but there was no apparent loss in quality. So for sports, or even for dramas, the ability to re-frame a shot after the fact, and not suffer like in days past, is a compelling reason to move to 4K.

There are only two factors that might slow 4K down. One is the pipeline into your house - cable and satellite are nowhere near ready to pump 4K into your house. I believe this will be solved in the next 2 or 3 years - compression technology is amazing and will continue to get even more amazing. The second is more muddled - the internet. The web does not need 4K video. With more and more content being delivered over the web, the need for higher resolution becomes less compelling. So I'm not sure how in the end this is all going to play out. I do believe for certain that production is going to go to 4K in a big way. Delivery? That future is still cloudy.

3D? What's 3D?

No one was talking about 3D. Thankfully. To blow my own horn, I have been predicting 3D was going to die a painful, miserable death. It is.

Apple? No Longer A Player

3 years ago, Apple was the dominant force. Final Cut was killing Avid, Adobe, Microsoft, and anyone else. They seemed unstoppable. And then they threw it all away. No one is talking about Final Cut anymore, and hope for a new Mac Pro tower is fading fast. People have moved on. Sure, most people own an iPhone, an iPad, and a MacBook, but Apple no longer has mindshare. So people use their various Apple devices to read about, take pictures of, or text about some really cool product they saw at NAB, but none of those products are from Apple.


Premiere Is Gaining, Avid Is Losing

Long regarded as the loser in the edit wars, Premiere is gaining steam. They keep getting the program better with each version, and as FCP Orphans look for a new home, they are going to Premiere. Sure, CS7 finally adds things that FCP 1 had (really Adobe, it took you this long to add simple things?), but at least they added them.

On the other hand, Avid is starting to feel like your father's editing program. The new hip, young editors aren't editing on Avid, they are on Premiere. This should worry Avid. Avid doesn't seem to be in the same century sometimes. The program is solid, but is it as in tune with this YouTube/Facebook world we live in today? I will say that FCX is growing, and the users are almost embarrassed to admit it, since it's not cool to like FCX. It reminds me of the people who like Sony Vegas - a small, but very loyal group.

Panasonic? Are you awake?

This is the second NAB where Panasonic has had no significant announcements. In that same amount of time, Blackmagic has launched 3 cameras. If I were the chairman of Panasonic, I'd fire whoever is running the broadcast division. An Austrialian company with no previous experience in video cameras is being more innovative than long-time video camera maker. What's more disturbing is Panasonic isn't reacting. In the same time Blackmagic has launched 3 innovate, game-changing cameras, Panasonic added 60P to the AF100. Panasonic is fighting last year's war, not trying to win the next one. Contrast this to Canon, who had nowhere near the market share that Panasonic had, who has transformed their video division into a market leader. Shades of Fuji-Kodak.

Blackmagic is the new Apple

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry this week, Blackmagic is the King of the Hill. They've become the new Apple.


DSLR Gadget OverKill

Remember the days when there were only a few rig companies? Well, now there are 58,000,000,000 companies doing DSLR rigs. Even Bowen, who make freaking strobe lights, has DSLR shoulder rigs. Stop the insanity!

Thunderbolt Is Still Coming

Thunderbolt products have been shipping for a while now, but the one area they have been lagging is big, fat RAIDs. That will change this summer. A number of vendors are ready with 8 bay enclosures, waiting for Intel certification.

This ends DV Dude's coverage of NAB 2013.

NAB 2013: Bits and Pieces, Part II

Just another example of how iPhones and iPads have changed things and worked themselves into mainstream production. Here is a custom rig for an iPad to do podcasting/livestreaming called The Padcaster, where their motto is "Turn your iPad into a moblile production studio." Shipping now, and costs about $150. Does not included the lens seen here, just a lens mount adapter so you screw in lenses if you so wish.

Pretty cool. 

A new product from the people at IndiSystem - the Vortex. Think of it as a love child between a slider and a jib, except you don't go up and down. The photo doesn't quite demonstrate what it can do, and until I played with it I wasn't sure about it. But once you start twirling that sucker around, you become sold on it. There are different sizes, and pricing range from $399 to $999. Made in Iowa.

By complete accident, the first thing I saw at NAB, so it will be the last thing I blog about. This unit gives you a 360 degree view, utilizing 6 lenses, shooting at 15 fps. Image quality is web quality, it is aimed to produce 360 degree video for web sites. The example they had running in the booth was of a race car. So they planted the camera inside this race car, and you can use the mouse to go all around while the car is driving. Or, if you're on an iPad, instead of using your finger, you literally turn around in a circle and its like you were there turning around. Really cool actually.

The camera attaches to this little yellow box, which does the stitching of the various cameras to create one file. The Surround Video solution will set you back a measly 35,000 euros, and then a monthly fee to host the images, so it's not for the faint of heart. But for certain people, I can see this being useful.

WTF??!!??

NAB 2013: Bits and Pieces, Part I

The big theme this year was 4K, 4K, 4K. Everyone had products to shoot, edit and deliver 4K. And those 4K Production Monitors from Panasonic, Sony, TV Logic and others were sweeeeeeet. 

Best cart I saw this year. This is a real man's cart, not a pretty boy's cart!

The inside of one of those remote TV trucks. And you thought the iDrive system on a BMW was complicated.

It took a few years, but Hoodman finally figured out how to compete with Zacuto on the DSLR loupe. Improved optics on the finder, and a nice mounting system (made by Custom Brackets) and a good price point makes this a compelling alternative to the Zacuto Z-Finder. Shipping very soon. 

Rode is going to have some competition this summer on its VideoMic, as they are set to launch two DSLR mics. One is a straight shotgun, the other is a shotgun with a recorder built in. No pricing or firm ship date yet, just "summer."