Panasonic BT-LH910 Review

CreativeCOW recently posted my review of Panasonic's new 9" monitor, the BT-LH910. I love this monitor. I had been using a 7.9" BT-LH80 for the last couple of years, but when I did side-by-side comparisons, the 910 blew the 80 out of the water. Watching footage on a 9" screen feels luxurious, and 910's image is very sharp at 1280x768. PLus, it's only a half pound heavier than my LH-80, so I can still mount it on top of a Varicam, or hand it to a producer. It's got two 3G HD-SDI input/outputs, a headphones jack, audio meters, waveform and vectorscope, 3D calibration tools, a built-in screen protector (not velro'd on), and an HDMI input for DSLRs, etc. It also comes with a viewing stand if you want to place it on a desk or table. 

Shortly after getting the 910 for review, I decided to put my LH-80 up for sale on eBay, and bought the 910. It's not cheap ($3500 list, but $3000 on the street), but it felt like a monitor that could suit me for a good 5 years. 

Here's the CreativeCOW review. 

P.S. The screen shots below show the 910 with the older BT-LH80.

Long-time Final Cut editor tries out Premiere Pro

I've used Final Cut Pro for more than 10 years, and have written four books about it. But after years of slow neglect on Apple's part, and then the shockingly under-powered Final Cut Pro X, I've started looking around for a new editing/post production suite. 

I decided to use Premiere to cut a real-world documentary video I was working on, and then wrote up my impressions on CreativeCOW. If you're frustrated with the direction that Final Cut is going, then you might find my first impressions with Premiere helpful....

See the story here. 

The Toughest Portable Hard Drive — On the Planet

If you want maximum security and peace-of-mind for your footage on the road, then there's only one drive to use: ioSafe's Rugged Portable Hard Drive. 

Physically, the thing takes unbelievable abuse. I had a test unit to work with, and dropped it from 9 feet multiple times, submerged it in water for hours, and parked a Toyota SUV on top of it. Despite all that, the drive continued to work perfectly. 

PLUS, the drive comes with an unbelievable 1-year data recovery service, for free. 

Check out my CreativeCOW review right here. 

Panasonic's new BT-LH910 monitor in the house

I recently got ahold of Panasonic's newest field monitor, the 9", 720p-resolution BT-LH910. I'll be reviewing it shortly, but can say I was very impressed with its size/weight/picture quality. It's about as big as you can get while staying in the "field monitor" category, and is very sharp. And it's big enough, in my opinion, to work as a studio monitor. 

You can read its specs here on Panasonic's site. 

It's pictured next to my trusty BT-LH80 (7.9" monitor), using some test footage I shot last fall of a Civil War re-enactment in California (a rare thing in these parts, unfortunately!). 

AJA Ki Pro Mini Review

Here, too, is my Cow review of AJA's new, light-weight ProRes field recorder. A very straight-forward piece of gear that you can set up and use without looking at a manual. It records in the high-end ProRes codec, which is especially nice if you use Final Cut Pro (no transcoding necessary, Final Cut takes ProRes natively). It's heavier than a nanoFlash, and uses a fair amount more battery power, but costs several hundred dollars less. 

Here's the review on Creative Cow. 

Panasonic AG-AF100 Review

Well, time does fly. I meant to post a few things over the last several weeks, but a busy work schedule and a 6 month old baby at home conspired to delay me. Sorry about that.

I'll be posting with more regularity very soon, but wanted to start off by catching up with some older material, like my Creative Cow review of Panasonic's AF100 camera. It's an interesting camera -- a very large sensor, interchangeable lenses, a small body, true audio support, filter wheels and lack of aliasing issues found on DSLRs. On the other hand, its sensor still isn't as big as a DSLR, it records at a max bit rate of only 24mbps, didn't handle highlights as smoothly as expected in my tests, the image quality looked a little "video-like" (even with tweaked settings) and, to my eye, suffered from micro-jitters when used hand-held. Plus, the $5000 price tag is twice that of a Canon 5DII, and around three times as much as a 7D. 

I liked the camera, but didn't love it. In the end, the image just didn't feel like a big leap forward, as the DVX100 and HVX200 did. But not every camera can make such leaps. 

For my full review, click here.