Adrian's Journal

Panasonic Pro AG-HMC150 3CCD AVCHD Camcorder I just read the reviews (almost 100% positive) on the Panasonic Pro AG-HMC150 3CCD AVCHD 24fps Camcorder . This affordable mean machine is definitely on the top of my shopping list. It has everyting a creative videographer like me wants. Things like the built-in wide lens, professional audio input, High Definition, memory card recording and 12 hours of recording on a 32G card. I just hope the Panasonic batteries have the stamina like that of Sony and indicates its power by minutes. I declare I will be abandoning my all-time-favorite Sony camcorders for now till they come up with a better CMOS technolgy that works in low light. Read more...

Who wants to buy my Sony HDR-SR8? Coz I am getting the NEW Sony HDR-SR11 ! Top 3 reasons why I want the Sony HDR-SR11 : Read more here... I Want The Sony HDR-SR11 10MP 60GB High Definition Hard Drive Handycam Camcorder

Corel has announced Ulead VideoStudio 11.5 Plus that offers a complete, user-friendly solution for standard- and high-definition editing and authoring. Some valuable new features for the videographer are: [ read more ]

The battle is finally over. No need to decide whether to produce Blu-ray or HD DVD Discs. The winner is Blu-ray ! "Sony and its Blu-ray buddies are going to make like VHS and party like it's 1989." Here are the news. Read all about it... HD-DVD Death Made Official - Wired Toshiba Quits HD Format War Blu ray The Winner - Smart House News Toshiba to Give Up on HD DVD - TheStreet.com R.I.P. HD DVD: Toshiba reportedly ends the war - CNET Toshiba to exit HD DVD, end format war - Reuters Toshiba finishing format war, pulling plug on HD-DVD - XboxNowOnline Game Over For HD DVD; Toshiba To Cease Production of HD DVD - Gaming Bits Blu-ray wins HD DVD format wars as Toshiba exits market! - VideoGamesBlogger Toshiba pulling HD DVD support, Blu-ray has won the war - Gadgetell Toshiba to Withdraw HD DVD Format -Techtree Microsoft Planning Blu-ray For Xbox 360, Following Fall of HD DVD - dBTechno Toshiba To Halt HD-DVD Production - Slashdot Has Blu-ray won? HD-DV...

Am I the first videographer to board the Singapore Flyer even before its opening? I was just staring at the Singapore Flyer last week from the 46th storey of One Raffles Place, wondering how best to film the the whole observation wheel if they were to have fireworks there. Strangely, the next moment, I was invited to board the giant ferris wheel for a videography assignment. The first thing that came in to my mind was to shoot in high definition, Full HD in HDV, using my Sony HDR-FX7 High Definition Camcorder. To ensure I get the best shots during the 20-minute ride, I planned the shots way in advance. Studied the best London Eye commercial videos on the web. All I needed was my camcorder, wide angle lens, tripod and my must-shoot checklist. ND filter set to 2 . No sound required. 21 January 2008, 10am: A bright sunny morning with passing clouds over Singapore Marina Bay. The capsule climbed to the tip of the wheel and paused there for about 5 minutes for the photographers to snap ...

With another flick of the same power button in the same direction as turning it on, the Sony HDR-SR8 100Gb Handycam Camcorder becomes a still camera at 6 megapixels. Here's my quick review of its still photography function when taking pictures at night. In this video, you see a montage of christmas lights photos I have taken at night, http://www.lulu.tv/?p=19801 . Here are some night photography tips I discovered with the camcorder. When taking pictures of lights, turn off the flash function. The lights will appear brighter. When shooting outdoors at night, there must be plenty of light on your subject. CMOS cameras do not respond to low light very well. Turn on the flash when the subject is within 5 metres from the camcorder. I am not a master of photography, but my Sony HDR-SR8 high definition camcorder come in handy when I need to take photos. The photos are saved in the same hard disk drive as the videos, though you can change the settings to save the photos in the SD card. On...

I just completed and uploaded my latest video assignment. Please watch it here... http://www.videolane.com/?Videos:Asian_First_Films_2007 It is a star-studded Awards Ceremony for the Asian Festival of First Films organized by Teamwork Productions in Singapore on 4 December 2007 at Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel. Here is what I have to do as a videographer working alone. THE EARLY BIRD I like to arrive 2 hours before the event starts. This gives me ample time to survey the place, watch the last minute rehearsals and find out the exact flow of the event. For recording stage shows, I will also need some time to plant my tripod on the best spot and hook up the sound feed to my camcorder. EAT THE SOUND Getting the sound feed means hooking up my camcorder audio input to the hall audio system's output. That is, instead of recording ambient surrounding noise, I have crisp clear sound recording from every microphone setup on stage. Got to do this early because I know lots of press media people...

SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH VIDEO I GOT MYSELF SONY VEGAS PRO 8 TODAY I went to the Sony Vegas Pro 8 showcase event this afternoon intending to buy the US$300 upgrade version of new Sony Vegas. Instead I left happily with a US$500 full version of the Sony Vegas Pro 8. It's the lucky draw first prize and I WON it. :D VIDEOGRAPHY GURU SPOTTED EAGLE Adding to the experience, the prize was presented to me by none other than Douglas Spotted Eagle himself, whom specially flew in to Singapore for the showcase event. Thanks to Derek of TreasureProductions.com for taking this photo and thanks to aone.sg for organizing the event. So, why did I want to get the new version in the first place? MULTICAMERA WORKFLOW You can place like 3 or more video tracks on the screen and choose the shots to be edited just by watching in real time. It makes editing so quick and easy for seminar videos and concert videos. PROTYPE TITLER The text generator is now more exciting. No need to use another software to crea...

Give Me a Break Being a Videographer by profession, a vacation to me means no holding on to a camera. But hey, my two lovely daughters are coming along with me to Paris. How can a father think of not taking videos and photos of their children enjoying a holiday! So to compromise, I thought of a way to bring a camcorder fully fitted as one unit, without having to carry accessories and spares. Hence, November 2007, two days of vacation videography and photography in Paris, made possible with the Sony HDR-SR8 100Gb Handycam Camcorder. No Video Tapes 100 GB of hard disk capacity built into the camcorder. That's 32 hours of recording in High Definition. I needed less than 4 hours. So much space left. No worries of running out of space. No need to run around with spare video tapes in the pocket. Video tapes are dead! Long Battery Life The Sony Handycam HDR-SR8 came with a battery that lasts only 1 hour and a half. So I bought the biggest one that could last over 400 minutes, that's...

UK is now 7 degrees... I'm all ready to freeze... Will my Sony HDR-SR8 survive... Let's find out when I arrive. - Adrian Lee is preparing his High Definition hard disk camcorder for the UK trip, http://videolane.com/ Related Topic: Sony HDR-SR8 Review - Light on Eiffel Tower...

People tell me this cheap software is... well CHEAP. But hey! I made a lot of money with it. Using it to convert and make DVDs. My clients love the quality without question. The software I am talking about is Ulead DVD MovieFactory . This month, Corel announces the new HD Power Pack for Ulead DVD MovieFactory 6 Plus . This makes Ulead DVD MovieFactory even more powerful. I can now transfer my HD videos from my Sony SR8 and FX7. ==> Download MovieFactory here... http://www.videolane.com/?Digital_Video_Tips:Recommends:Ulead_MovieFactory "With Support for AVCHD, BDMV and HD DVD Advanced Content disc formats, the new HD Power Pack provides consumers with the world’s only all-in-one HD authoring solution to create professional-looking HD results." Some new features found in the HD Power Pack include: AVCHD Authoring HD content from virtually any HD source including HDV and AVCHD camcorders as well as recorded HDTV programs can now be authored and burned to a standard DVD usi...

One night in China... no, no... first night in Shanghai. Slept well. Woke up early. Anticipating an exciting day ahead. Breakfast at Yi Cafe, the hotel's 2nd floor restaurant. Met an American-Korean girl alone next to my table. We chatted. She said she has traveled to many places and this was one of the finest restaurant she has ever experienced. Indeed it was a fine breakfast. The display of the food is an art by itself. Talking about 5-star, the power plug at the Pudong Shangri-la hotel room was international standard. Didn't have to use my universal travel power adapter to charge the camcorder's batteries last night. Still have time after breakfast before the first official video shooting assignment. Went back to the riverbank of Huangpu River. This time catpuring the day version of the same place recorded last night, the Bund and the Futuristic City. Walked to the Pearl Tower and around it. Captured it from every good angle. Many local photographers were stationed aroun...

10am: The kids kissed me goodbye . Mixed feelings ran through my mind. I have never separated from my family for more than 2 days. Today, I leave for China for a 4-day business trip. Four days of intense videography schedule. 1130am: The plane took off from Singapore Changi International Airport. The weather was perfect. The service was great. It has been more than 10 years since I flew on Singapore Airlines, Asia’s leading airline. The gadget under my nose kept me occupied for most of the 5-hour flight. It was a movie player. a nintendo, a telephone and an information kiosk. I have been to Shanghai before, but this electronic device told me more about Shanghai than I knew (or never bothered to ask for the tour guide's translation 2 years ago). 5pm: Arrival at Shanghai (上海) Pudong International Airport. We were greeted by local representatives. With me were the organisers, the media people and my assistant. We were whisked away in a little van to the hotel. What's the icon...

Surfing here in the Cycle & Carriage customer lounge so cozy, My car's getting serviced while I blog about my week so busy. Woke at 2pm to catch up with 2 nights on stimulants. 2 sleepless nights editing a video of an 8-day conference. The event again took place at sunny Sentosa. Breath-taking scenery and buffet worth 5-star. Companied the participants to every excursion. Till the end of dinner and even every recreation. Lugging my Sony FX7 HD Camcorder, Every memorable moment I capture, From lectures to sight-seeing and networking, Make a souvenir for the foreigners to bring. Tiring it may seem, nothing is more rewarding Than the audience cheering and appreciating. Shot in 8 days with two nights of intensive editing. 70 DVDs distributed to each person before leaving.

"AVCHD stands for Advanced Video Codec High Definition, and it’s based upon the AVC codec, a joint standard of the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) and ISO (International Standardization Organization) groups. It's also called H.264. AVC/H.264 is an advanced subset of MPEG-4 compression (MPEG-4 Part 10 to be specific), so sometimes the terms are used interchangeably—although in most instances, references to MPEG-4 are to the older codec, not AVC. ..." http://digitalcontentproducer.com/hdhdv/depth/avchd_compression_070907/

Transferring and editing an 8-hour seminar video is too time-consuming... Bringing a laptop to the seminar for recording is too cumbersome... Getting an external Video Hard Disk Recorder is too costly... The answer... Sony HDR -SR1 AVCHD 4MP 30GB High-Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder The 5 must-have features I look for in the HD HDD camcorder are: Digital audio/video inputs: Yes (via USB ) Headphone jack: Yes (stereo mini) Microphone input: Yes (stereo mini) Photo Resolution: 4- megapixel ; 2304 x 1728 (4:3) Video recording system: AVCHD ( HD ) and MPEG 2-PS (SD) The 3 reason I want the Sony HDR -SR1 are: Hard Disk Drive Recording for long-hours seminars. Personal video recording in MPEG 2 (DVD) format. Photo Shooting at 4- megapixel quality. Here are the rest of the technical specification... Sony HDR -SR1 AVCHD 4MP 30GB High-Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder Product Features Record high-definition video on a HDD with AVCHD technology ClearVid CMOS sensor for high-...

Windows Media Video High Definition (WMV HD) is the marketing name for high definition videos encoded using Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 codecs. These low-complexity codecs make it possible to watch high definition movies in 1280x720 (720p) or 1920x1080 (1080p) resolutions on many modern personal computers running Microsoft Windows. WMV HD movie titles have been made commercially available on DVD-ROM discs , either as standalone discs or supplements to the regular DVD-Video titles. The technology was considered a stepping stone to true high definition optical disc formats (HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc) and Microsoft never intended the discs to be played on anything but personal computers. Often featuring 5.1 or 7.1 multichannel sound , the soundtracks are commonly encoded using the Windows Media Audio Professional codec. The future of the WMV HD DVD-ROM format is unclear as HD DVD and Blu-ray technology becomes available. WMV encoded high-definition movie trailers are available for fre...