A quick video shot and edited on iPhone 4 in Beverly, MA. If you have trouble with the video above, watch it on Vimeo.

I’m less impressed with the mouse’s integration with Final Cut Studio. Or maybe I just haven’t explored it enough. The frictionless scrolling in Final Cut isn’t quite precise enough to be useful for me. I expect more support is on the way, though. Especially in future versions of the Studio.

Anyway, there wasn’t enough room on Twitter to say all of that.

I tried building a track-based dolly system on my own a little over a year ago. It didn’t look nearly this good and, more importantly, only the dolly itself is currently usable. The track, not so much.

They’re asking between $500-$600 for the set and, considering my GlideCam jib cost about $500, I think it’s a bargain for something so versatile.

If I had $500 to spend on gear, I’d seriously consider giving it to these guys.

On Friday I picked up a Flip Mino HD for my upcoming trip to London. Meagan is speaking at FOWD and we thought it would be fun to have a little camera just for video.

Yesterday our friend Bill Couch pointed out that, although no official word has been given, Best Buy is currently selling a Flip Ultra HD camera. Still 720p at 30fps, but with a removable battery, longer charge life, and twice the capacity. For a full $30 less. I was pissed.

Today we went down to Best Buy for what was (surprisingly) a relatively painless swap. However, they did charge us an addition $3 to cover the rest of the 15% restocking fee. I also found it odd that there’s still no mention of the camera anywhere in the store, on their website, or on the Flip website. More than that, I found it scummy that the Flip Mino HD was marked down from $229 to $209 — especially since the newer model can do more and costs just $199.

Scummy.

A Few Notes

The screen is larger than the Mino’s and appears to be much sharper. The recording indicator light now doubles as the charge indicator and can be turned off. However, doing so also disables the light as a charge indicator. Which is lame. Unlike the Mino, you can’t plug this camera directly into a USB port on a MacBook Pro without it hanging off your desk. It’s just too thick (I’m told this isn’t an issue with the new unibody MacBook Pro) .

I think I’ll be picking up a USB extension cable since I don’t imagine it’s good for either device to be using the port for support. Otherwise, I expect this is going to be a very fun little camera to play with.

My guess is that the complete package will give you some kind of viewfinder or LCD screen, compact flash recording module, a battery, and maybe the REDhandle. The difference between this version and the brain/lens version is only $750. Prices aren’t listed for those items, but it does seem a little hard to believe that you could get all of that for less than $1,000.

Then again, we are talking about a sub-$10k camera that shoots at 3K. So I guess anything goes at this point. I can’t get over how exciting all of this is though. The two cheapest Scarlet models look like they’re going to turn a lot of heads. The price alone should make even the most die-hard Sony/Canon/Panasonic fans pause a moment while their heads explode. These things are going to be everywhere.

Also, what is this? Will I be able to drive my Scarlet? Please say yes.

I haven’t gone to sleep yet. I’m tired, kind of hungry, and I feel like I need to take a shower. But the news coming out about Scarlet (and Epic) from RED is making me giddy. I’m so excited.

I’m sure I’ll collect more information as the day goes on, but right now this is what’s got me so worked up.

• Modular design allows for infinite upgradability
• Price point (for the base) is less than $3,000
• The smallest Scarlets will do 120fps
• Interchangeable lenses for most Scarlet models
• You can make the camera be whatever you want

Besides the whole shooting in 3D thing they teased at the bottom of the brochure, what’s really got my mind in a knot is the announced 28K (!) RED Epic 617. It has a sensor that’s 186 x 56mm. For comparison, my DVX100a has three 1/3in sensors. A single sensor of this size is about the size of my hand.

Label my mind: blown.

I can’t even imagine what somebody would do with an image that large. Or where they’d store more than a few seconds of it. Yikes.

Now what I’m interested in is the lens pricing for the 2/3in mini-RED Primes. I’d also like to know if it’ll be possible to get the 2/3in Scarlet, but with a Nikon or Canon lens mount instead of the mini-RED mount.

So the 13th is the day. Mark you calendars.

I just read through Adam Wilt’s mammoth review of the HPX170. It’s definitely worth a read, if you’re into that sort of thing. Just prepare yourself to be there for a little while. Maybe make yourself a cup of tea and grab a sandwich first.

The last time I wrote about the HPX170 I mentioned a lot of the features I was excited about. Now I’m more excited.

Several design decisions — like moving the Manual/Servo zoom switch from the front to the left side — are particularly attractive. That stupid little switch (on the rare occasion that I wasn’t going full-manual) would always cause me to bump the focus when I tried to reach it. Also of note is a 1/4in mount on the handle, protected volume controls, and the now highly publicized switchable iris/focus ring.

Another handy feature is the ability to offload footage without removing the P2 cards or connecting directly to a computer. Apparently you can actually connect a USB or FireWire hard drive and the camera will create partitions on that drive to store the clips in. Pretty neat. The drive must be powered externally, however.

If you’re working with another HPX170 you’ll have the ability to store your camera settings and scene files on SD or SDHC cards to match settings across all units. That’s definitely handy, but doesn’t allow you to swap settings with other cameras — like the HVX200 or 200a. Still, I imagine if the HXP170 becomes anywhere as popular as the DVX100 (and subsequent revisions), it won’t be a challenge to find another HPX170 operator.

Unfortunately it looks like some of the coolest features only work in very specific modes. For instance, the ability to pre-record footage (that is, the camera will actually capture footage BEFORE you hit record) only works at 60i, 60p, and 30p. That’s probably not a huge deal for a lot of shooters, but it’ll give the 24p-ers (you like that? I just made that up) something to gripe about — myself included.

Other things I like

• Four (!) focus assist modes
• Variable frame rates (720p modes only)
• Waveform monitor and vectorscope built-in

The waveform monitor and vectorscope options are huge. I’m currently doing work using a green screen, and both tools are essential when you’re trying to evenly light a crude green screen setup.

Things I don’t like

• Variable frame rates only work in 720p modes
• No live data streaming (capturing live over FireWire) for 720pn modes
• Panasonic hasn’t sent me one to play with… yet (please?)

The timing of Adam’s review coincided with another major industry announcement — that of the Scarlet undergoing massive design and spec changes. There’s really not much to report on that yet. However, this new Scarlet mystery — in tandem with the HPX’s positive review — makes Panasonic’s offering that much more attractive.

Scarlet might still have the HPX170 beat on resolution when it does come out, but we all know by now that resolution is only part of the story.

About a year ago I worked for a few months teaching myself Ruby on Rails. I’m not a programmer, but I really wanted a tape logger that I could use on my iPhone, and one hadn’t been introduced yet. So I made my own.

It’s not perfect. I did the best I could with the knowledge of programming that I had at the time, and the result was a single release of a web app I called Tapes. Since it’s debut in Apple’s web app section I’ve had 5,485 people sign up as users. I have no way of checking to see if they’re actually using the application, but if even a handful of them still find it useful I’d be thrilled.

But now we have the ability to write native apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. I would love nothing more than to be able to sell Tapes (don’t worry, I’m thinking $4.99) through the iTunes store and do my part to fill the gaping void of production-oriented apps. My biggest problem in reaching this goal is that I’m STILL NOT A PROGRAMMER. I’ve been studying up on C since February, but I don’t really feel like I’ve got a firm grasp on it yet. And after that I have to learn Objective-C. And then the Cocoa-touch framework. And make sure the UI is intuitive. And then get accepted into Apple’s dev program even though I’m not really a developer. All without having a formal education in computer science.

Basically, it’s hard.

But hard isn’t bad. Just challenging. So I promise you this, Internets: If it can be done, it shall be done. I will do my best to come out with a native tape or footage logging application at some point in the future. I have no idea when, or how. But I’m going to try.

And if you know anybody that knows anything about writing Objective-C apps, please send them my way.

Because I need some help.

Around 2am, Thursday morning I put my MacBook Pro to sleep. I was going out into the living room to watch a movie with my roommates (the Mel Gibson tour-de-force, Ransom) when I figured I could use my computer to convert some video I was in the process of archiving. I went back into my room and lifted the lid. The screen didn’t turn on.

Now, I know that sometimes that happens. You just have to give it a minute before the screen kicks in and you’re right as rain. Well, I gave it half an hour and still nothing. I tried connecting my external display and nothing. I wasn’t even getting a backlight. NOTHING. At this point I went and made an appointment at the Millenia Apple store for that afternoon.

After taking a look at it, and hearing about my various restart/reset attempts, the Genius (named Jason, btw) told me that my logic board was probably fried.

Well, that sucks. He told me they’d send it out and have it back to me in about 10 days. The problem then is that I’m not going to be around in 10 days. I’ll be settling into my new home in Salem, MA at that point. So he kindly told me that they’d be happy to ship it there instead.

I went home and spent a few days trying to work exclusively from my iPhone. And as great as it is, it’s not a desktop replacement. At least not yet. So I dug out the first Mac I ever bought, a 12″ PowerBook G4. It was in need of a pretty serious cleaning as it had recently been put through the special kind of abuse only a 14 year-old can inflict.

After the cleaning, however, the trackpad wasn’t as responsive as I would have liked. I also lost the ability to use two-finger scrolling. I solved the latter by downloading iScroll2. But to fix the first issue, I’d have to do a little bit of Mac surgery. I went into the closet and pulled out a twin PowerBook G4 that only lived for about a week before being stepped on by an unapologetic professor with a weight and coordination problem.

I took stock of what parts I was going to harvest (I seemed to be missing a few screws from the working machine too) and got down to business. The process took about an hour, and in the end I had what felt like a much newer PowerBook G4 to play with. Which is what I’m writing this on now.

I look forward to getting my working MacBook Pro back in a week or so, but it’s always a humbling experience going back a few years in the Mac legacy. In fact, I’m amazed that this machine runs as well as it does. With a lone 1.33GHz PPC processor, and just 768MB of RAM, I don’t have a problem running Leopard, or doing all of the web-browsing things I’d want to do. Obviously I’m not doing any video work on this machine, but it’s fine for photos, and music, and most multi-media operations.

It’s just one more reason why I love these machines so much, and why I’m not ripping my hair out over a toasted logic board.

If you’ve already seen it, you probably know the story. The HPX-170 is one of Panasonic’s new P2 offerings, shedding it’s MiniDV baggage while checking off wish list features HVX users have been compiling.

The 170 is a solid state system. This is huge for me. I’m so sick of tape it’s not even funny. The idea of stock piling hard drives is much more appealing than hoarding boxes of tapes. It’s also much more eco-friendly, right? Embracing a completely tapeless workflow feels like the best move to make right now. It’s really exciting to see Panasonic biting the bullet with a camera aimed at DVX and HVX users.

The camera is said to feature all kinds of neat bells and whistles including an LCD flip mode for people using 35mm adapters, several persistent focus assist modes, including a waveform monitor and vector-scope. The focus ring will also be swapable with the iris dial at the flip of a switch. So many great improvements. I can’t wait.

FreshDV has a great video interview with Jan Livingston of Panasonic about the HPX-170 and the HVX-200a. The rest of their NAB 2008 coverage is fantastic as well. Definitely check it out.

Panasonic’s own coverage of NAB is surprisingly good too. Their NAB page features short videos from vendors they’ve partnered with. Companies like RedRockMicro, VariZoom, Steadicam, Avid and so many more.

There’s an ongoing discussion over at DVX user.

Here are some more pictures of the camera.

Fresh DV has even more pictures and the official press release.