Online Video data rate calculator.

Digital Heaven have released their Mac OS X video space widget as an online application. It allows you to work out how much space a given amount of video will take up on your hard disc.

It's aimed at Final Cut Pro users so the codecs are mainly ones found in a Final Cut installation (though the Apple Intermediate Codec is missing, possibly as it's a variable bit rate codec which makes final figures unreliable.) However some of the codecs, such as DVCpro, HDV, uncompressed in various sizes are cross platform.

Find the online app at www.videospaceonline.com.

File under "useful and free": Jay Rose and Sonic Birth

DV audio legend Jay Rose has started 'blogging over at Provideo Coalition (for those that don't know him, he wrote two almost essential books on Audio for low budge/independent/self reliant filmmakers: Producing Great audio for Film and Video (formally Producing Great Sound for Digital Video) and Audio Post Production for DV (UK editions from Amazon can be found here, though the third edition of Producing Great Sound... doesn't seem to be available in the UK yet.)

Anyway, you'll find very useful/interesting stuff over at the 'blog, including this great piece of software SonicBirth (Mac OSX only currently). It allows you to design your own VST an AudioUnit sound processing plug-ins. It's rather technical in its approach, but is based around a graphical interface rather that command line programming. If you have the time it could very useful. VST plug-ins can be used with free audio editors Audacity and Ardour, and AudioUnits can be used with GarageBand, Final Cut Pro.

Other blogs of note on provideo coalition are DV guru Adam Curtis, HD cinematographer Art Adams, =colourist and post expert Stephen Hullfish. HD for indies Legend Mike Curtis is also over there, though it has to be said the quality AND quantity of his PVC posts don't come anywhere near his old HD for Indies blog.

Celtx reaches "1.0"

Celtx Software is a widely used freeware screenplay formatting/pre-production suite of programs that independent filmmakers might like to have a look at.

It's been around a while but has finally made it to release 1.0 status. I've used it on and off since it was first making a name for itself. It's useful but annoyingly (at least until recent versions) shies away from following industry formats in favour of its own "Our web-aware ways are better" (e.g. for breakdown sheets) approaches which makes it difficult to use if you've been brought up with other systems. It's also built around models that work well on computer screens and not so well when printed out on aper (and even low budget productions get through enough paper to account for entire acres of your average forest).

To this end, they've introduced tighter iPod integration (gee, thanks, just what I was waiting for). I'd have to see if the screenplay formatting and script import/export is as buggy as it used to be. I seem to remember a lot of fighting to get slug lines and dialogue to format properly that I wouldn't have with, say, MS word and a bunch of macros. However it is a very useful tool if you're prepared to abandon some of your Ralph S. Singleton ordained habits. If I have time I'll play around with it and and try a review.

If you have Microsoft Excel, I can also recommend you have a look at the (not free but cheap) filmmaker software package for budgeting and scheduling (areas that Celtx has been weaker on in the past)

Free Music from Moby

Moby has released some of his music for free (as in free beer) on his website, or on a special site www. mobygratis.com.  Here's the man imself explaining it...

He actually first did this months ago (here he is promoting it in an older, slightly rougher, self made Youtube clip) but is still promoting it. The sign up is a little fiddly and he has a few stipulations (one one on "no violence" is a little weirds from the man who remixed the James Bond theme and gave music to Heat and the Bourne Trilogy) but I guess he means real acts of violence rather than fictional fight scenes.

No charge as long as the film is non-commercial/independent/not-for-profit, and you'll ave to buy the rights should your film ever actually make any money. These generally seem to be odd pieces of musical noodling (no he's not giving away "Natural Blues") and unfinished bits of tracks. I guess this s an atonement of sorts for letting the entire Play album be licensed to advertisers. But still, it's good of him and part of a growing trend for musicians to allow fans access to their music (see also Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails giving away re-mixable versions of their music).

Open TV Network and KlickTab

For independent producers looking to distribute their films via Apple's iTunes, there has always been a barrier. Apple's attitude has been something along the lines of "We'll sell the products of the major distributors but independent producers will have to give their's away free."

However it is possible to get podcasts into iTunes, and this company Open TV Network has developed a technology called Klick Tab which allows you to sell video through the iTunes interface. You're NOT selling video through the the iTunes store, so customers need to sign up with Open TV network first, and hand credit card info over to them. Open TV Network then takes a 15% commission from all sales.

Basically it's a way of monetising RSS podcast subscriptions.

Stage6 to shut down.

I found this story via the excellent cinematech.blogspot.com. DivX Inc. the company being the DivX codec is to shut down its video sharing site Stage6. DivX Inc. have made their own announcement on the Stage6 blog but there is a great deal of difficulty getting the link to work right now (possibly the server is overwhelmed with irate Stage6 users) but the link is http://www.stage6.com/blog/108/

Stage6's problem was that it allowed users to set their own parameters (that and needing to install it's own dedicated plug in). That meant uploaders could push the quality settings off the scale in order to preserve as much quality of the original as possible. However viewers would spend most of their time watching a "buffering" logo.

Say what you like about Youtube (or Vimeo, BlipTV or Veoh, etc), the compromises they impose are designed to give the viewers a hassle free experience - "Give me convenience or give me death" as the Dead Kennedy's said...

Stage6 had the potential to be a great service, and I get the feeling that as company in general, DivX are on the side of the angels (well, at least on the side of content creators) but I'm not surprised it's being switched off...

Format war, round 2!

...Against downloads and standard DVDs.

This New York Times article (registration required) points out that movie rental downloads are a LONG way from challenging physical discs (at least in terms of movie sales), due to a number of factors, mainly access to fast enough internet connections, the lack of bonus features, and the limited range of films available and annoying restrictions, such as forcing you to finish watching the movie within 24 hours.

This article (also from the NYT) points out that while Blu Ray may have beaten its young rival, it still haS to see off the big daddy, the end-of-level-boss that is The Standard Definition DVD. Remember VHS took 30 years to kill and saw off three rival formats (Betamax, Laser Disc and VideoCD in case you're wondering).

DVD's dominance may yet be sustained by the new generation of up-ressing DVD players that allegedly do a great job of improving the look of SD material on an HD screen. The article quotes Mike Abt, the president of a US electronics retailer, “We have a lot of people who bought HD DVD players. [We tell them] you have an upconverting DVD player, enjoy it. You paid $150 for it, so you didn’t lose too much.” So, if you're in the market for a (newish) DVD player, you could do worse than hit Ebay and pick up a second hand HD-DVD player for a pittance. (they're already going for under £100, soon it'll be a LOT less.)