film

Fuji camera kickin' it old school at PMA

Check out this beauty from Fujifilm, a 6x7 medium format camera with a tres old school bellows collapsing lens and, wait for it, film! (6x7, by the way, refers to the size in centimeters of the negative, so a 6cm by 7cm is over four times as large as old 35mm negatives.)

I used to own a smaller version (645, or 6cm by 4.5cm) of one of their rangefinders and it was a beautiful machine (unfortunately stolen by someone who didn't realize what they had I'm quite sure). Fuji rangefinders have always been known for their second-to-none … Read more

Why did colleges stay mum on MPAA stats?

Correction: This blog initially mischaracterized the statistics that Heidemann commented on. He was referring to claims made about overall P2P use and not specifically about the MPAA's allegations.

John Heidemann was skeptical about what the movie industry was saying about campus piracy.

A researcher in the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California, Heidemann had heard the film studios' claim that college students downloading movies on campus were responsible for 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses to piracy.

That added up to about $572 million. So, working with a team of researchers last summer--the famous … Read more

Internet Movie Database to acquire indie-film service

Amazon.com is delving even deeper into the film industry, with subsidiary Internet Movie Database signing a deal to acquire Withoutabox.

Withoutabox develops online tools and operates a service to aid independent filmmakers in submitting their work to festivals worldwide and in promoting their films.

Withoutabox, based in Los Angeles, said it has worked with 150,000 filmmakers since its founding in 2000. The Internet Movie Database draws more than 50 million unique visitors each month with its searchable database of movies, TV, and entertainment programs.

The definitive agreement, announced Thursday, is designed to offer a wider selection of films … Read more

Move over Netflix, VOD services; here comes Apple

Quickly filling up Netflix's rearview mirror is a sight that no tech company wants to see: Apple.

Apple announced on Tuesday that the company has cut licensing deals with every top film studio--deals that will enable iTunes to offer first-run movies a month after they are released on DVD.

This means that Apple has won a major advantage in the Web movie-rental business. One of the biggest complaints customers have with online movie services is that none offer first-run features. The same is true with some of the video-on-demand services operated by the cable companies.

Moreover, Netflix offerings don't work … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 637: New U.S. currency: Wii

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Hasselblad deep-sixing H2 hybrid camera

Hasselblad, a manufacturer of high-end medium-format cameras, is dropping its H2 product line, a move that spotlights the company's transition from film camera roots to its digital future.

The H2 can record images on either film or a digital sensor, but there wasn't sufficient demand for the product, so the company is devoting more resources to its more popular digital-only H3D family, Hasselblad Chief Executive Christian Poulsen said in an announcement to customers Monday.

"We have made a decision to discontinue the H2 camera line," Poulsen said. "Demand simply no longer justifies the dedicated manufacturing … Read more

Movie studios to judge: TorrentSpy defies court order

To avoid having to turn over user information to the motion picture industry, the BitTorrent indexing service TorrentSpy cut off access to its site in the United States. Apparently, that wasn't enough to satisfy Hollywood.

According to documents filed with the court last week and reviewed by CNET News.com on Wednesday, the studios still want information on the site's visitors. Lawyers representing the studios--armed with a court order--say TorrentSpy has refused to hand over the data. Because of that, the movie sector wants the judge to throw the book at the company.

"(TorrentSpy) took steps to … Read more

FixMyMovie saves your woefully bad digicam films

FixMyMovie is a new service that takes your pixelated digital video clips and does its best to fix them. The technology stems from MotionDSP's processing technology, which is similar to what's used in government intelligence operations to improve those dark and grainy security films--like you see in movies.

The entire process is fairly straightforward: Just upload and tag a supported movie file, and the service will crunch it on its servers. You get a note by e-mail when it's done. Once it's finished you can preview the first 10 seconds of the enhanced version, as well as compare before and after results live, by pressing the "compare" button. What's even cooler is a stills mode that lets you compare the before and after with an easy-to-use slider that follows your mouse. Whatever's on the left of the slider is the old, with the new on the right.

To grab the improved film, there are download options for multiple formats, including iPod-formatted H.264, Adobe Flash, and Windows Media. You can also grab quick embed code to stick it in any blog, which I've done after the break.

I tried out the service on several video clips this morning and got improved results on every single one of them. The most dramatic improvement of all was with text, which managed to turn almost unreadable pixelated words into legible sentences. Just be wary, though: The service can only handle clips up to 352x288 in resolution, which means the VGA videos from your digital camera aren't going to cut it. Older cameras, on the other hand, are fine.

FixMyMovie is launching in beta at this morning's DEMOfall conference in San Diego with $25 worth of free processing for everyone while still in its beta period. Eventually, FixMyMovie plans to charge users for the option to enhance video and still images, which can also be captured manually by users within the Flash player. I can see this service being hugely popular, as everyone wants better looking video clips, and ways to improve older, lower resolution clips.

Update: It's worth noting you need the latest beta of Adobe Flash 9 to view videos on the service (which makes the neat, live before and after feature possible). You can pick it up here, or just get a feel for what it can do with the screenshot below.… Read more

TorrentSpy judge decides RAM is stored information

A federal judge issued a decision on Monday that would have required TorrentSpy, a BitTorrent search engine, to hand over information about its users had the company not ceased operating in the U.S. a day earlier.

TorrentSpy, accused of encouraging movie piracy in a lawsuit filed by the film industry last year, was ordered in June to provide the studios with user information found in the company's computer RAM. The site, which is often used by file sharers to find bootleg films, had long promised to protect the anonymity of visitors.

TorrentSpy filed an appeal and argued that … Read more