kye

Yes and no. The entire purpose of the mic is to capture sounds in all directions, but to have each direction isolated so that each of the different directions can be processed differently in post. The normal use for this is to take all the noise to the front-left and put that in the front-left surround channel (etc) to make surround mix, however the other way you can use that functionality is to isolate the sound you want and remove the sounds you don't want. The Rode guy explains this in the below video at 1:42s. On a broader note, digital processing is really transforming the relationship between what we capture and what we output. In the past we tried our hardest to capture exactly what we wanted to output, were able to do basic adjustments in post, and then shipped the final product. Now we are in an intermediary stage where we still try to control what we capture, but we're able to change it quite significantly in post before we output. Examples of this are that we shoot in 4k and crop in later, we shoot with green screen and comp in 3D work later, we shoot talent and do their make-up in post, we change the colours of things on set in post, etc. The future will move to a point where we capture huge amounts of data about almost everything that is happening and then through very powerful processing we will chop out most of it to form the output, like shooting in 360 and cropping in to have an infinite number of camera angles, or like the article I linked to where they recorded a basketball game with an array of 325 microphones and then using the same technology that is used in radio telescope arrays they process the signal to isolate a single conversation between two people sitting next to the court, taking the sound-levels of the crowd, the PA, the players, etc all down to levels where the single conversation was audible. Angelview - yes, you're right. Apologies I agree, it's the post-processing that really provides the functionality. Like I said above, more and more the output is created in post by sophisticated processing of the raw inputs.

You make an excellent point about the speed of integrating these different pieces of software. Software can be structured to be easy to do these things, but it can be a lot of work and a large investment. To me this shows that Blackmagic have obviously put a huge amount of effort into a long-term strategy and there is some excellent leadership behind these changes. It also shows in things like the BMPCC 4K which on first impression looks like it's a wishlist from every indy filmmaker.

My question would be how much isolation is it able to provide? As I said a few posts ago, I want to hear what the camera is looking at, and not what can't be seen. This is a challenge in audio. 18mm is 90 degrees horizontally, 50mm is 40 degrees, and 100mm is 20 degrees. If we were to take an assumption that -10dB is the 'angle of view' of a microphone, then the Rode NT5 is 200 degrees, the VMP+ is 160 degrees and the VideoMicro is 220 degrees. In comparison to lenses they're all super wide, which is why boom mics are often used pointing vertically, as most sound sources are in a horizontal plane (except aircraft). With the right software and the right number of microphones this would be killer. https://www.wired.com/2010/10/super-microphone-picks-out-single-voice-in-a-crowded-stadium/

Just found out about the Shared Nodes feature - (13:25 in the below video). TL;DR: You can turn any node into a "shared" node and then paste it into other node graphs however you like, but any change you make to that node is applied to all the node graphs where that node appears. This is incredibly useful as it means that you can basically have an unlimited amount of groups. The most common way that I would apply it is like this.. Imagine you shoot a video with two cameras. You can have one node (or multiples) that are common across camera 1, and a different set across camera 2 that means that the cameras are now matched. Then imagine you have two scenes that you want to colour differently, in my case it might be a night scene vs a day scene, so you can create a node/nodes that are shared across scene 1 and another set shared across scene 2. This is far more flexible than the Groups functionality that was in v14, as with the groups you could either group shots by camera or by scene but not by both, so the above wasn't possible to do except for manually copying grades. Killer!

An 8k high DR 360 cam plus something like this would be fantastic!

Absolutely, something I've looked into before. The term you're looking for is "angelcam", which comes from the fact it looks like there is an invisible floating camera that follows you around. It's not the zoom that's the problem. It's that if you turn up with this then people don't think you're making home videos: That's what I thought, until I took my 700D to film the kids go-karting and then got home and realised I could see the kids in the go-karts but the only thing I could hear was the people next to me in the viewing area bitching about politics and the latest thing they saw on facebook. I ordered my first directional microphone within an hour of getting home. I am as well, and I agree 8K is mandatory. 4K RAW would probably also be sufficient, but that's not likely to happen! I would go so far as to say that when a high-bitrate 8k 360 comes out that there's a chance that it might be all I'd need. I'd likely still want one channel of directional audio facing away from me and another facing towards me, but that's easy enough to setup. Being able to capture everything and then choose framing in post would be spectacular.

Mirrorless for sure. but what kind? I see there being a few different form factors of cameras. There's the smartphone cameras. They get used naked, are practically invisible to bystanders, will have good image quality but don't zoom, and have shit (omnidirectional) sound. There's the cameras for convenience - these are the RX100s of the world. They'll get used naked, will have good image quality but mediocre sound. There's the cameras for pure image quality - these are the BMPCCs of the world. They deliver excellent results in all areas, but to do so they basically can't get used naked, and when rigged up are too big, unwieldy, and professional-looking for guerrilla film-making, the category that home videos fits into. Then there are cameras in-between - these are the mirrorless ILCs and high-end handicams. They are practical and well-rounded, and might be augmented with an on-camera mic or maybe a handle of some kind. Most people on here are interested in IQ enough to rule out the naked smartphone category, and generally also rule out the convenience category because of lack of good sound. Which leaves the cameras that require huge rigs, or the mirrorless ILCs. However, very few people here seem to be shooting guerrilla style, so the concerns of the cashed-up video-loving-parent aren't taken into consideration, because much of the filming that we do of our kids are in private property (the zoo, the fair, the museums, etc) or public property like the park or the beach where a big camera attracts too much attention. I just think it's interesting that there's a whole segment to the market that is huge, has tonnes of money, is interested in stealth / guerrilla film-making, and we basically have no visibility of what they're filming. They will be influencing how the manufacturers design, market and sell products, yet most of us don't even know they exist.

I am! I've said before that I try to capture in a relatively neutral style and then I put in the work in post, and Resolve is my all-in-one. I'm excited by Fusion, more specifically for the stabilisation and the 3D titles. I'm really hoping that I can get better stabilisation than the Classic Stabiliser in v14, as sometimes I film in difficult situations and I need more stabilisation than Resolve currently supplies. The 3D titles will be cool, but I'm more hoping that combined with the tracker I'll be able to add 3D items into the 3D space I've filmed. I watched the 20 minute video from BM about Fusion and got lost about a third of the way through. It's like Resolve is a house and each tab is a doorway through to an array of controls that each rival the space shuttle!

I agree, but I was more talking about the 10% that decided that a cheap camera wasn't enough. ie, heaps of parents bought 5DmkIIIs - now they're taking video, I wonder what it is they'll be buying.

My impression is that once you get a basic level of understanding about colour grading (I think I am around this point somewhere) then it's all about learning two things: how to create a desired look in anticipation or interpretation of what the client wants, and how to deal with problem footage. I have experienced problems with the latter and really struggled to know what I was looking at, why it looked awful, and what to do about it. If you hang on the colourist forums (eg, http://liftgammagain.com/ ) then you'll eventually run into a conversation where the pros talk about the problems of old when they had to match a bunch of out-of-date film stock, or low budget productions that saved money by shooting on the small bits of film stock that larger films would discard because they didn't want to start a take with so little film left on the roll. My understanding of things now is that if you shoot your film on one or two half-decent cameras and shoot in log and don't make large exposure or white-balance mistakes then you probably won't run into the kinds of problems that they are best at dealing with. In terms of if they like it, the general consensus was something like "it was awful and I'd never wish it on anyone but it paid the bills..."

Hang on, your maths isn't correct. When we talk about "8-bit colour" we mean that every pixel has 8-bits of Red, 8-bits of Green and 8-bits of Blue. If it truly was 8-bits per pixel then that would mean each pixel could only be one of 256 colours, and we'd be back to the early days of colour VGA, and images like the one on the right

Interesting. Could you be a bit more specific about the problem? ie, do they overcharge? or is it just difficult to tell when they're done charging? The reason I ask is that I am flying out on Saturday for a trip and was going to take that as my only charger. I've got two batteries and was going to leave them both in that charger overnight each evening to fully charge.

I agree. I do wonder if there's a hidden third niche of people who shoot home videos. The reason that I have for thinking this would exist is that as a consultant I regularly see maybe one-in-twenty office workers in a workplace that own a 5DmkIII and bought it because they're interested in taking pictures of their kids. They often buy a 'proper camera' when they first start a family. Making friends with a lot of these people via photography I also realised that most of them don't post family pictures online anywhere at all, so it would be very difficult for non-office-workers to even know these people exist. I wonder how many of them are shooting video now? We probably can't tell. Most vloggers aren't parents yet, but it seems like those that are don't show their kids online (eg. Casey Neistat) but I find it impossible to believe that a man that can edit video like him wouldn't have been making home videos as well. In terms of their buying habits I wonder if they're a different market.. I'm in this market and I do notice that my buying habits aren't quite the same as others on here who are doing film work for the consumption of others rather than themselves.

Is this what you want? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QGJ91A4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It seems that it takes the same batteries as the XC10, and I have bought and tested the above and it seems to work ok.

I disagree. Canon made many damned good cameras (once their potential is unlocked with ML) and at very reasonable prices. The BMPCC is still excellent value for money, but not because BM managed to make hardware for that price, it's because they were willing to unlock the potential of the hardware.

They won't be the only ones!!

Absolutely, and to further expand on that I think it's a sliding scale. If the 1080 is great (eg, BMPCC) then use it straight out, and if the camera/codec is rubbish then you'd need to downscale 4K to 1080 for it to be of good quality, but there are cameras in the middle where the quality is sufficient to use 3K or 2.5K and when downscaled to 1080 they are good. In these cases there is room to crop into the image a bit and still have a good 1080 delivery. Cropping isn't everyones cup of tea, but it allows refinement of composition, and also things like (light) stabilisation in post without really hurting the 1080p, so in this way it makes things a bit more usable and is relevant artistically.

My impression is that Resolve 15 will be an all-in-one that features a colour module at v15, an editor at v3, fairlight at whatever version it is but at integration v2, and Fusion at whatever version it is at but integration v1. I chose it for myself because I don't need (or even understand) most of the features that a pro editor would want or need, but would want much more sophisticated colour capabilities (I view the colour module as Adobe Lightroom for video with full tracking). If you're someone that wants or needs video editing features of a mature editing platform then I'd be careful switching to Resolve and make sure you do your research first. It's about strengths and weaknesses. Also, be really specific with researching what particular features you use - it might work great for most things but if the things you rely on are buggy or whatever then you won't have a good experience. I do believe, however, that Resolve is the future. I have heard from multiple others that Resolve is getting better many times faster than the other options, and while I've only been a user since v12.5 during that time they've added Fairlight and Fusion, so even in that short period of time they're moving incredibly quickly. I can also attest to it getting less buggy over time. I used to have Resolve v12.5 crash outright about once every 30-60 minutes of use (it saves regularly so normally it's not a big deal) and it would start acting funny and you'd need to restart it quite a bit too. V14 almost completely eliminated the crashes, but it will still go funny every now and then, with hotkeys suddenly not working, and all manner of other things just not doing what you'd expect. It's definitely a work in progress, but to give you an idea about what life in Resolve is like, when I saw Adobe release the Lumetri colour panels I immediately thought "is that all?", then I saw the reaction from YouTubers and laughed out loud. That upgrade is laughably minute. It's the right stuff for sure, and very usable, but I was using things in Resolve that Lumetri doesn't have within the first 20 minutes of having installed Resolve, and use them on most grades. It's like people getting excited over being given a hotkey for splitting clips.

It's only $300 if you're not a Resolve license holder already. If you are, then you are likely to get free upgrades for a long time (maybe forever). Resolve users who bought their license at V8 can still use them on 14. I bought mine as a v12 license, but it was second hand so who knows. In a way I don't even mind a transcode, just having it integrated would be wonderful. I'm new enough to the game that this whole idea of round-tripping seems like word processing by choosing fonts and colours and page layouts in individual applications. I am the last person who would know, but perhaps they're talking about ACES support? I'm not sure how much you know about ACES but in theory you capture footage on whatever devices and then run them through a profile to then have them in the ACES colour space, then you can grade them however you like, and then you run them through whatever output profile you like, for example Rec.709, Rec.2020, etc. Of course, you're never actually seeing what the ACES colour space looks like, because you'll be monitoring it through an output profile suitable for your monitor. IIRC they say that if you grade on a Rec.709 monitor and then output to a Rec.2020 profile then it will take the dynamic range and colour space and somehow squeeze it to fit the output space. I say squeeze because ACES is something like 26-bit internal, so everything is a squeeze from there. I think they created it to have a larger colour space and DR than the human eye so that it can keep pace with future technology advancements. I've looked into ACES a little as a way to try and match my different cameras, but most of them lack profiles yet.

This is probably the highlight of the entire show for me (and we don't even know most of what is being announced yet).. This is awesome for a number of reasons: My workflow focuses on capturing cleanly and then working hard in post to create the artistic parts, so this is an upgrade to probably the largest component of my workflow It's free It now includes Fusion, which apparently has much better trackers than Resolve, which for my stabilisation requirements (which are crazy) will be fantastic Did I mention it's free? It has all sorts of stuff I wouldn't know to ask for. Like "Multiple playheads".. ummm, what?

What's that thing where the hot-shoe mount normally goes? Is it a 1/4-20 hole? Of some kind of sensor? My impression is that it looks like quite a functional camera, and for those that run-and-gun, might be a body that doesn't need as much rig added to it, which would make it a bit more low-key which is great for not attracting attention. Something I've seen a lot on YT and with photographers is that once a camera goes above a certain size then you basically can't film in public as the 'public officials' hassle you for film permits.

When I was transitioning to Mac I had a number of different things that I wanted to link together between Apple and non-Apple providers. Every issue I had throughout my transition was an Apple/non-Apple incompatibility or clash. We are talking about things like Google calendars, invitations from Outlook/Exchange, messaging, etc. Almost any time I wanted to access a service with my Apple and non-Apple devices it was either that it wouldn't work on the Apple (but the service worked on most of the other brands, so the non-Apple supplier was compliant with standards etc), or if the issue was that the non-Apple device I owned couldn't access the Apple service then it was because Apple had locked them out. When I made the final changes to all-Apple those problems basically went away, and not only that but I got a bunch more shared functionality than I had originally been trying to achieve. With very few exceptions, when it comes to Apple-provided features my iPhone and MBP have the same functionality (messaging, making and receiving phone calls, calendars, contacts, FaceTime, mail, Safari bookmarks and history, notes, etc), but to this day I have to use a third-party app to accept meeting invitations from Outlook. Tell me how they aren't preferencing their own ecosystem above others when the ability to make and receive phone calls on a laptop (or my Apple Watch) is more important than receiving Outlook meeting invitations... It's a bit like saying that it's cynical to say that the banks are happy to take your money in error, but when you ask around the mistakes are almost always in their favour.

When I did my PC v Mac analysis the software didn't come into it - I didn't change software at all. I did a big analysis of what I wanted from a computer, including listing all software applications. It surprised me, but almost every piece of software I use is available on both platforms. The analysis didn't really involve much difference on the hardware side either (I was looking at laptops) and the decision came down to integration. Things like my entire family are on Apple Messenger and there's no client for MS, which means that communicating with them becomes more difficult. Calendar integration is one of those things that *should* work but I've had issues with in the past. Etc.. I literally decided on PC v Mac based on ecosystem alone. Linux is excellent, but I've passed the stage in my career where I want to spend time being a systems administrator as well as a user. This was one of the main things with MS. MS makes you spend time as a sysadmin because things just don't work, Linux makes you spend time as a sysadmin because there's a huge learning curve in getting used to everything. There's still a learning curve for MS and Mac but I've already climbed those and don't wish to climb another. Besides, OSX has unix at the back-end and whenever I find myself choked by Apples "our way or the highway" attitude I just pull up a terminal window and implement a work-around. Most of the benefits and none of the sysadmin-ness.

Most of the big names are doing it. The strategy when you want to get on top is to take your advantage of being smaller and with less technical 'heritage' to hold you back and invest some of your potential profits in a better value-for-money product to grow your market share. Then once you're at the top the strategy becomes to push the boundaries of the Anti-Competitive laws in order to squash the little people trying to steal your market share. Freeze them out by technology licensing, do deals with them and then refuse to pay and bankrupt them in court, or if they have patents then buy them out and shelve the tech. Lots of strategies and lots of hours spent by smart people getting paid by the big bully to keep control of the playground. To badly paraphrase Captain Jack - "There is only what a <company> can do and what a <company> can't do".

I'd suggest that people not buying one because they fumbled it is less likely than people not buying one because of other more tempting options also appearing. There's lots going on in this price-range (when you consider all the support equipment required they're up against lots of other -seemingly- more expensive setups).