According to recent information, Apple confirms plans for another large data center - in Prineville, Oregon. Apparently the Cupertino company bought the land from Crook Country for the price of $5.6 million. Local station KTVZ, got confirmation that Apple sealed the deal and Apple’s Kristin Huguet provided even more information on the matter:

"Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet confirmed Tuesday that “we purchased the land and it’s for a data center,” but could not speak to details beyond that, other than to say it will be a “green” facility. She noted the company this week launched a new Website, www.apple.com/environment, which covers a wide variety of its “green” efforts, including LEED energy-efficiency certification for its new Maiden, North Carolina data center. Huguet noted it will have the largest solar array and largest fuel cell in the U.S."

It is worth adding, that Oregon passed a tax break for corperations which want to build data centers and this is why Facebook also opened a data center in this area.

Apple invested $1 billion in the North Carolina center so we can be pretty sure that also the new data center will represent a big boost for the local economy. Macrumors also reminds, that Apple maintains a smaller data center in Newark, California and has been building out minor additional capacity in Santa Clara, California near its corporate headquarters in Cupertino.

Source: http://www.macrumors.com | http://9to5mac.com

Below you can check out a new Canon 7D short movie, shot with a 70-200 f.40L, a 50mm 1.8, and a 10-24mm Tamron. What's quite interesting about it is that it comes in two parts - the first one was shot during the day and the second during the night, in the dark. It means that you can see what's the camera's low light performance, but on the other hand Ahmed Elhusseiny, the author of the video, provides some information (via DSLR Shooter):
 

"I love my 7D dearly but there were times when I was shooting at night that I would have sold an arm and a leg (preferably not my own) for a 5D mkII with better low-light performance. First to be sacrificed to the light sensitivity gods was the 60fps I had been shooting at. I needed every split second of shutter speed so it was down to 24fps. Next was going wide open when I could, and when I needed more than a few hairs’ width of depth of field I had to crank up the ISO all the way to 6400 on some shots. This obviously resulted in a lot of noise and a surprising amount of compression artifacting."

Ahmed had to run the night shots through Neat Video’s denoise plug-in for After Effects and he admits that he was amazed by the results.

If you want to read Ahmeds' article, make sure to follow this link.

Source: http://www.dslrnewsshooter.com

The Boston Creative Pro Users Group made a cool short movie called "Hustle", shot with the Canon EOS C300. It was a collaborative effort which started with no script, shot list or idea and then turned into a quick creative confab and a three minute short set to original music and cut to the groove of a hustle in action.
 

"Minimal lighting was used to explore the exposure capability of the Canon C300 and to retain the milieu and mood inside of Felt Boston's Billiards Hall."

All footage seen in the movie was captured using Canon C-Log Gamma mode and here's the list of lenses used while filming:

• Canon "L" Series glass: 35mm, 16-35mm, 50mm, 85mm
• Glidecam 4000HD was used for stabilizer shots.
• Kessler KC-Lite Crane was used for crane shots.
• Kessler Pocket Dolly was used for dolly shots.

The video was edited in Final Cut Pro, graded in DaVinci Resolve to test the dynamics of the Canon C300's XF codec and Smoke was used to remove an orange AC cable from three shots in the background and to show how well Canon's C300 XF codec stood up in post.

Source: http://bosfcpug.org

Richard Crook wrote on his blog a long post on the CPF-LOG Picture Profile for the Sony NEX-FS100. He has done a lot of work on what exactly each menu item in the picture profile settings do and what are the best settings to achieve the best desired looks after minimal and/or extensive color grading.

Richard reminds that the Sony NEX-FS100 uses a heavily compressed codec so that video clips are not meant to be pushed very far in the grade if you want to avoid aliasing, moiré and other unwanted effects.
 

"We found out early on that a dramatically flat picture profile is NOT the way to go. But there IS a safe medium, and we believe we found it."

According to Richard, the CPF-LOG profile was created especially to maintain highlight and shadow detail and a color gamut that grades very well whether you do alot of grading or a quick fast-color correction.

"This profile is created as a part of a workflow that is setup for color grading in post. IF YOU DO NOT INTEND ON COLOR GRADING IN POST, THIS PROFILE IS NOT FOR YOU. In the very least, it is recommended that you correct the black and white levels, pull the middle grey down to around 35-40%, and adjust saturation to taste."

A cool thing about the profile is that it includes a Look-Up-Table:

"A LUT is designed to give the camera operator or any other viewer on set the ability to see a preview image of the video with a filmlike gamma curve and color setting applied. A LUT is NOT intended for actual grading. Even if you wanted to, applying a LUT to footage as a final grade defeats the whole purpose of shooting a LOG image and color grading in the first place."

If you want to use the profile make sure you don't adjust any of the profile settings.

"It’s also a good idea to switch back and forth to the LOG profile because it will show any possible details you may have missed…but you DO NOT want to use the log profile to adjust exposures/lighting, etc. It is also recommended you set your ZEBRAS to 100% and if you see them show up on highlights, stop down/adjust ISO or shutter until they are almost about to disappear."

In order to download the PDF version of the CPF-LOG profiles click here.

Source: http://crookedpathfilms.com

As we know ARRI is one of the best producers of complete digital camera systems and the ALEXA line is well-known for its cinematic image quality. This is why you will probably love to watch the video below which shows in detail how ARRI's cinema cameras are made.
 

The material comes from Discovery / Science Channel's "How It's Made" program - the episode above talked about cine cameras.

Source: http://youtube.com

In the video below, Michael Cioni of Light Iron gives an interesting presentation to The L.A. Final Cut Pro User Group about preparing for a 4K workflow. The video features many useful tips so it is definitely worth watching.

Michael is the CEO of Light Iron and he has served as a Digital Intermediate Supervisor on over 200 feature films and provided 2D and 3D data-centric post production technical and advisory support on projects for major studios and independent films.

Source: http://www.lafcpug.org

According to Apple Insider, Microsoft is working on an important update to its SkyDrive file syncing and cloud storage service but what's quite surprising is that the company wants to release a Mac OS X client. As we know iCloud is integrated in the new version of OS X so the result of this battle is not hard to predict, but leaked screenshots posted by Brazilian a blog called Gemind show, as states Apple Insider, demo downloads for Windows or Mac apps that will allow for automatic syncing, storage and remote access to files from the cloud.

The information on pricing is also there - $10 for 20GB, $25 for 50GBor $50 for 100GB per year.

"The extra space will supplement the already copious 25GB in free storage offered by SkyDrive. In comparison, iCloud only offers 5GB of free cloud storage, however Apple's system does not count Photo Stream, iTunes' media, apps and iBooks against the limit."

The app will be similar to Dropbox so it will be possible to sync and backup files automatically. Ars Technica on the other hands reports that "SkyDrive would support file sharing through social networks like Twitter and Facebook, BitLocker recovery keys, OpenDocument files from Office Web Apps and URL shortening."

This can be an advantage of Microsoft's solution but on the other hand Apple will release OS X Mountain Lion in a few months so we can be pretty sure that iCloud will also get an update.

"The SkyDrive update is set to launch later this year with support for Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 already announced. It remains to be seen which Windows 8 SkyDrive features will be implemented in the rumored Mac client, if any, and to what extent the service will affect iCloud."

Source: http://www.appleinsider.com

We all know that GPU's are essential to modern computing and in the production of visual effects. But what holds the future of computer graphics? NVIDIA (which graphic processors are used for some time now in Macs) wants to answer this questions with its GPU Technology Conferences held in the U.S. This conference (this year it will be the third) is one of the world's fastest-growing events focused on computational science and visualization.

GTC 2012 will be held in San Jose, California, from May 14-17 and it will focus on how the GPU is transforming science. It is expected to draw the greatest minds in the scientific, engineering, research and developer communities from more than 40 countries. 

"In just a few short years, GTC has become the single most important event for scientists and researchers who use GPUs to advance their work," said Steve Scott, CTO for Tesla at NVIDIA. GTC 2012 will include keynotes, presentations, research posters, tutorials, and hundreds of instructional sessions from top experts. It will again feature the Emerging Companies Summit, where some of the world's most innovative startups showcase new technologies. It will also include networking events throughout the week, enabling experts to share information.

In addition, NVIDIA and Los Alamos National Laboratory, a leading U.S. national security research institution, will co-host at GTC 2012 the Accelerated High Performance Computing Symposium, bringing together leaders in supercomputing to share knowledge to help solve the most crucial supercomputing technology challenges.

What's also quite interesting is that co-located at GTC 2012 will be the new InPar 2012 academic conference, which provides a first-tier venue for peer-reviewed publications in the field of innovative parallel computing.

If you're interested in the latest news and information from the event, make sure to follow the official website. It features details of keynotes, technical sessions and events from regional GTC events, as well as conference scheduling tools, social media resources, and much more.

Source: http://www.gputechconf.com | http://www.nvidia.com

Which one is better? RED Scarlet X or Canon EOS C300? We will not answer this tricky question but here you have a very informative review of the Scarlet X. It was written by Timur Civan who really likes RED's new camera.

"Like is too soft a word. I adore my RED Scarlet. This comes as a surprise to me not because i was expecting a bad camera, i just wasn't expecting something that i would come to be so fond of."

In the past he was shooting on the Sony F3 with sLog which he loved. This is why he had some reservations but in the end he decided to buy the camera with the 5" LCD. He also purchased the Wooden Camera Anton Bauer back plate.

"I had originally planned on using the RED base production pack to remedy the lack of standard mounting points on the bottom. Waiting for it to arrive, I put the scarlet to good use, and started day one on a eight day shoot. The setup below, is without the base plate riser, with the camera bolted directly to a Element Technica 19mm Hybrid Plate."

However this setup presented a problem - the camera was positioned too low so the matte-box and follow focus could not fit under the lens.

"This problem had to be remedied. I cancelled my base production pack from RED and had the Easy Riser, Rubber handle, and Easy Stick over nighted from Wooden Camera. I could not be happier. Ryan at Wooden Camera has been nothing short of spectacular with regards to customer service."

During the shooting Timur observed that the RED 5" LCD does not articulate in the most convenient way so he had to use the SmallHD DP6 monitor.

Another interesting thing - according to the author, the Scarlet X (with batteries) fits without problems in a Canon DSLR bag!

He also had the opportunity to use the camera on a commercial for a national cable TV provider.

"The director wanted 4k ProRes4444 at the end of the day. We had a little glitch with the Rocket card and the current RCXpro build, and with some overtime, eventually fixed the problem and delivered the footage on time. When using Green Screen, I think its particularly important to shoot on primes. The flat illumination (no vignetting) of the iPanchros, mixed with the massive resolution and 16bit REDCODE RAW; made for some excellent plates that keyed flawlessly."

And the last thoughts:

"Ever since i got the Scarlet i have not stopped using it. Photography work, commercials, narrative films, corporate, cine-doc, you name it.... there is nothing i've come across that it hasn't been perfect for."

If you want to read Timur's thoughts on exposure and view some sample images, make sure to follow this link for the whole review!

Source: http://timurcivan.blogspot.com

The video below, shot and directed by M. David Melvin, discusses the history of the 8mm/Super 8mm film formats, how it impacted the lives of the filmmakers, and how it is still a thriving format today. It features interviews with such creators and producers as Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams. Telecine, edit, color and VFX by Cinelicious.
 

The video features interviews with:

• JJ Abrams (Writer / Director / Producer - SUPER 8)
• Steven Spielberg (Producer - SUPER 8)
• Brian Burk (Producer - SUPER 8)
• Larry Fong (DP - SUPER 8)
• Paul Korver (Principal - Cinelicious cinelicious.tv)
• Norwood Cheek (Founder - Flicker flickerla.com)
• Dennis Murren (VFX Supervisor - SUPER 8)
• Michael Giacchino (Composer - SUPER 8)
• Joel Courtney (Actor "Joe Lamb" - SUPER 8)
• Riley Griffiths (Actor "Charles Kaznyk" - SUPER 8)

Source: http://www.cinelicious.tv