My brand of videography involves taking videos and producing DVDs. Now as high def has become the norm, DVDs which are not high-def will soon go out of favor and people will demand Blu-ray Disks (BDs) instead of DVDs. High def videos have from 2.7 to about 6 time the resolution of standard resolution videos, and a standard BD can contain over 5 times the information of what's on a standard DVD. High def videos on BD will soon become the norm. Some might argue it's already the norm. We started offering BD to some of our customers last year. The other trend is 3D viewing. That's already happening in the movie theaters, and as the prices for 3D TVs etc. continue to come down, 3D BDs will eventually replace 2D ones. Yes, 3D TVs have taken longer to take hold than many had predicted, but it should be expected given the economic situation and the fact that we are still transitioning from DVD to Blu-ray. Well, some even declared that the transition had failed. Really? We human are used to viewing the world with both eyes, and yet 2D viewing is the equivalent of viewing everything with only one eye open. So, believe me, it's our human nature to love 3D viewing and the day of 3D viewing overtaking 2D viewing will come, for sure. It takes a while to record the video and turn it into a DVD, or BD, and that may not be acceptable to some people or some circumstances, and that's when live streaming comes handy. With a laptop's built-in webcam, and an Internet connection, people get that capability instantly. But what about using a professional video camera to do the capturing? How to hook them up? At the request of one of our customers, we did a proof of concept of live streaming pay-per-view using one of our professional camcorders. It worked, and in terms of connection between the laptop and the camcorder, Firewire seems the way to go. I know Apple's latest and fastest I/O port is Thunderbolt, but very few camcorders have that. Theoretically USB 2/3 should also work with some video cameras, but did not in my case. Even though many computers have HDMI output, but very few have HDMI input. So for the moment, we will stick with Firewire. With 3 trained videographers, all with strong technical backgrounds, I believe Arion Pro Photo is well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that come with the changing trends in videography. |