JVC is the latest company to offer pocket camcorders. They’re calling theirs “Picsio”. The GC-FM1 is the first model, offered in Black Ice, Blue Steel and Purple Passion.

The camcorders utilize CMOS image sensors. They record in 1440×1080, progressive, and take 8-megapixel stills. Electronic image stabilization is provided, and the camcorder includes a 4x digital zoom. The video is stored on SD/SDHC cards, encoded as H.264 and saved with a QuickTime wrapper. There’s an HDMI output, and a USB port for transferring video and charging the camcorder.

So, are pocket camcorders the netbooks of the camcorder world? Just something that’ll get the job done but will be a passing fad for the current economy? Or are they here to stay? And if so, what’s their role? First camcorder to give a kiddo? The camcorders they’ll eventually be passing out to students on the first day of school? Gateway drug of choice for someone who thinks they want a camcorder? You be the judge, our lines are open.

How many times have you heard or uttered the phrase “The Show Must Go On!” in your video-producing world? It gets our blood pumping to know we can make the impossible possible.

This weekend we hosted one of our Basic Production workshops, and launched our newest class as well: our 3-day intensive Lighting Workshop. Everything was going well until about 11:15 in the morning when everything… raced… to… a… complete… halt.
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The FTC, (Federal Trade Commission), announced this week that it is beefing up the rules regarding paid endorsements by bloggers and Tweeters saying they love/use a product but in reality are shills for the company. This new regulation by the FTC is the first real change they’ve had in the rules since the early 1980s. From celebrities endorsing products on shows like “Oprah” to unknown so-called “users” who rave about the products on their blog, Twitter or Facebook pages, the Truth in Advertising guidelines didn’t touch social media until now. Read the rest of this entry »

A group of Canadian amateur radio enthusiasts experimenting with using a balloon as a radio repeater (think very low-earth orbit satellite without active transponders) has posted YouTube video taken onboard the balloon.

The video of the BEAR-4 mission, taken in HD, is visually compelling and suggests a new way to get aerial photographs. The only drawback? At 107,145′, the conditions around the balloon basically constituted a vacuum, at least as long as electronics go. This means that the air pressure was so low that all the camcorder’s buttons were pressed at once. But considering the fact that most camcorders are only rated to operated in elevations up to 25,000′, this is not bad at all.

And, as a tribute to the remarkable capabilities of flash memory-based camcorders, the camcorder recorded almost the entire voyage:

“The balloon and camera were launched at 7:44 AM, the balloon burst at 10:51 AM at 107,145 ft. and the camera landed via parachute at 11:40 AM, 89 miles from the launch site after a 3 hr. & 56 min. flight. The camera recorded a total of 4 hrs. & 22 min. of Hi-Def Video before it stopped recording 53 secs after landing, when its 32GB of memory was full. The only thing better would have been if the camera had recorded for several minutes more to captured the sound of us approaching and video of us opening its container.”

Where are all the shooting gigs? How do you find them? Craigslist? Your local newspaper want ads? Some other vague work-for-hire site?

I just got back last night from shooting a 3-day gig with my brother down in central California. His specialty has been architectural, environmental, lighting and product images, my specialty has been all about people: interviews and sound recording. Together we made a pretty good team and wondered how we’d shop ourselves around better.

Serendipity made a visit to my email this morning, with the announcement of the WorldofShooters.com site. It’s very easy to zero in on your expertise and gear type, and easy for others looking to hire you to zone in on their needs, too.

With more and more companies downsizing, the freelance producers that can grab their gear and go are going to get the gigs when companies send out their plea for work. World of Shooters has you register by the type of still camera or video camera that you use, so everyone can easily sift through the first question: What do you shoot with?

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Here come the next-gen iPods. These little candy-colored players are available at a steal of a price compared to previous generations ($179 for 16GB nano is a great deal, particularly for a genuine iPod). Not only does the 16GB nano also include an FM tuner (about time, if you ask me) but they also include a video camera. It’s a simple camera, to be sure; recording only SD video in H.264 with AAC audio; but for a lot of people, that’s all they’ll ever really need. We’d expect it to operate a lot like a cell phone camera, but just easier to find your footage after it’s been shot (once you sync your iPod, at least).

We’re curious to see if the iPod nano starts eroding the marketshare of the latest pocket camcorders. (At least the SD versions… seeing Apple offer HD versions a little bit later down the road wouldn’t surprise us a bit.)

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