Blog

  • Sony SxS Drivers Now Support Latest MacBook Pro

    Woo hoo! I bought a new MacBook Pro last fall in anticipation of a 5 camera XDCAM shoot at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. The EX series of XDCAM cameras are tapeless, storing their images on what is essentially an ExpressCard. All of that HD video data results in some pretty big files and that can mean long transfer times.

    Sony’s USB readers just don’t cut it compared to using the ExpressCard slot on a MacBook Pro. The problem is that Sony’s cards (they call them SxS cards) aren’t natively recognized by Mac OS X. I was crushed to find out that while the driver would install on my new MacBook Pro, it rendered the maching nearly unusable. With 5 cameras shooting for several hours, that can be a real problem. I had to suck it up and use the USB readers that we had.

    Well, now Sony has released version 1.0 of the SxS driver and I’m thrilled to report that it works perfectly with my MacBook Pro! I have had it installed for nearly a week with no issues of any kind.

    Happy ending. Happy editing.

  • Corporate Video

    Corporate videos can sometimes challenge your creativity but we did a job recently that was a lot of fun. We’re working on a video for ePharmaSolutions in the Philadelphia suburb of Conshohocken. What a nice group of people to work with! We used the Sony XDCAM EX cameras for this shoot. They make a really nice HD image and they’ve got the pro features we need.

    Clockwise from upper left… Rob Parker eyeballs the shot, producer Courtney Rau logs the good takes while Denis O’Keefe mans the prompter camera, Denis adjusts a Keno, sound recordist Frank Kubitsky syncs the slate with the EX3’s timecode.

  • HarpoopraH

    I went to Berks County today for a top secret shoot at the compound of a reasonably famous family. We set up a two-camera live satellite shot for Harpo Productions and a taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show. “O” was interviewing the parents of sextuplets who have their own “reality” show on TLC. The interview will likely air the week of March 1.

    I worked with a couple of the guys from Keystone Pictures today. Rob Marish and Jeremy Stone are fun guys and we had a blast. And the great thing about a 4am wakeup call? You’re done by early afternoon. Woo hoo!

  • Crime of the Century – Taking Pictures

    For people who make a living shooting stills and video, the pushback from law enforcement, cheap security guards and even the general public has long been an issue. The tourist has generally been left alone when it comes to snapping and taping in public places. Professionals, however, have always been harassed, intimidated and told to turn the camera off. But in this post 9/11 world things are spiraling out of control.

    Take the deliciously ironic story of Dwayne Kerzic, the man at the center of an uber-ridiculous photo-controversy. Kerzic was participating in an annual Amtrak photography contest that asks “shutterbugs” to photograph Amtrak trains and submit them for cash and notoriety. Seems harmless enough. (more…)