Evaluating Production Equipment.

BY
STEVEN LUTANKI
AND
AMNEET DHILLON
• What came before? Cannon 8 CM-E1 and Sony BE-910.
• What do you use? iMovie and Panasonic NV-GS 330
• What do they use in the industry? Cannon XF305 HD and
Final cut pro.
 iMovie

iMovie  is the leading movie editing programmes at the moment on the market. This software is on the
market for the highest at $79 but this is because you have to buy I Life’11 in order to get this programme
along with I photo, garage band, I movie and I web and IDVD
Features of the I movie software is :

1. Movie trailers. This allows you to create your own movie trailers.
2. All new audio editing, this allows you to edit your movies with sound also.
3. One step effects, this allows you to speed up and slow down certain shots of your choice.
4. People finder, this makes it easier for you to find your cast without digging too deep through all your video’s.
5. Sports and news themes, turn news you find out into presentations with sleek transitions, hard hitting titles and sophisticated
graphics basically making it look professional.
6. Your world premier, allows you to publish your movies in more ways in more places.
A strength of the iMovie is the non destructive editing feature let’s you make all the changes you want to your clip, you can go
back to your original clip if you want to make different adjustments if you change your mind. You can do whatever you want to
do because iMovie never changes the original clip.
Easy voice-over capabilities with automatic ducking allows you to do voice overs over any of your clips.
The crop tool feature allows you to crop photos and HD footage where you only want to concentrate on a particular part of your
clip or image.
Easy exporting and sharing of your videos to YouTube allows you to share your clips with the world.

A limitation of the iMovie is that you get decreased video quality due to single field processing.
You get slower loading times for larger media libraries which means it will take longer to load up images and videos with larger
memory.
Simplification means that you lose themes, third party plug ins and advanced audio controls.
PANASONIC NV-GS 330
Price:
. This camera is on the market for £299.99 on eBay.
Key Features
. Optical Zoom: 10
. Diagonal Size: 6.9cm
. Widescreen Video Capture
. USB port
. Rotating display screen
Strengths
. 10x Optical Zoom, allowing you to zoom in to your subject when filming.
. Built in Mic, allows you to film without a boom Mic
. USB ports, allows you to transfer images and videos to a computer
. Playback, This allows you to see what you have filmed and what You may need to re-film.
Limitations
. Battery life only lasts for 1 hour so Limited time to film.
. Video quality is not very good So it does not allow high quality Videos.
 Canon 8 VM-E1

This cost of this camera at present is, $5.00 (

http://www.shopgoodwill.com/auctions/Canon-Canovision-8-Canon-VM-E1-Video-Camera--5799488.html)
The cost of this camera when it was first released in 1985 and costs $1,400.
key features :
. Compact high-performance 6X power zoom lens with large f/1.2 aperture.
. With its lightweight compact body and various advanced functions such as still image playback and recording /playback.
. Built in microphone.

Strengths :
. All It’s features made the cannon 8 VM-E1 one of the worlds most portable and easy to use camera’s in the 1980’s.
. It also nominated for good design award of the year in 1985.
. A lot of focus.
. Cushion for the head.

Limitations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk-LYij8dd0
. Fairly heavy camera
. Only has half hour of battery life.
 Sony BVE-910

The cost of this camera is $2,776.70 (http://www.bcs.tv/store/model_detail.cfm?id=9796)

Key Features:
. To four vrRs can be controlled in NB roll editing
. Two auxiliary sources
. Four audio channel control
. Cue tone record/playback
. 10 user programmable keys

Strengths:
. 3.5 Floppy disk drive which allows you to transfer files.
. Advanced graphic effect mode display
. Flexible vrR selection as a player or a recorder

Limitations:
. There are not enough auxiliary sources.
. Lack of flexibility when it comes to editing because it is a linear editing system.
. Not a easy hardware to get access to.
 Cannon XF305 HD
Price:
. This camera is on the market at the moment for £5289.95 reduced from £6879.95 as it’s on sale.
key features:
. MPEG-2 Full HD (4:2:2) recording
. L-series HD Video Lens
. 3CMOS sensor system
. Highly advanced DIGIC DV III processing
. Rich 4:2:2 colour sampling

Strengths:
. This provides full HD recording.
. Highly portable.
. Provides good more colour capturing for post production.
. Excellent imaging systems with a design that delivers advanced mobility and versatility
. Allows you to shoot in almost every situation and purpose due to it’s versatility, from independent filmmaking to commercial
broadcast.
. Files compatible with all major editing programmes.

Limitations:
. There is a model (XF300) which basically contains all the XF305 features and strengths and is on the market for £4,479.99
 Final Cut Pro 7
The price of the Final Cut Pro 7 is £415.00

Key Features:
. Final Cut Pro 7 now supports native editing of this format–you can import it and edit it directly in its original file format.
. Improved markers allows you to colour code your clip and sequence markers.
. New timecode window which was previously only available as a third party option allows you to display a resizable floating
window that shows the timecode.
. Alpha transitions are scene transitions which use an animated graphic element with a matte to do a wipe between two shots.

Strengths:
. Plethora of genuine productivity enhancements
. Convenient iChat Theatre
. New ProRes flavours
. Time saving and automation of Easy Export

Limitations:
. Mediocre progress after two years since previous version
. Some glitches still not fixed
. Limited Blu-ray support
. Redcode still not optimally supported