Cell Phone Video: Threat to Real Camcorders/Cameras?

[Chris Harding]

Hey Dave

It wasn't that long ago that videos were shot on video cameras, proper video cameras that sat on your shoulder and made you look like the dude from the local TV station. Still photos were taken on DSLR cameras with a nice bunch of lenses and you would never, ever consider shooting video on a still camera ..shucks even my old Nikon D90's were able to shoot basic video when I first got them BUT I never did so.

It was a matter of a few short years when shoulder mount cameras virtually vanished from the market (my last were my Sony EA-50's and they were already called hybrids) DSLR's virtually took over for video shoots even though you were limited to 12 minute clips.

Seriously there has to be a new phase happening fairly soon! I have no idea whether it will be "pro cell phones" or GoPro will introduce a palm size 8K camera that wipes Nikon, Canon and Panny out of the market but I think we will need to be looking a niche markets as the consumer starts to have the gear to shoot a whole lot of stuff that pros used to shoot!!

Interesting times???

[Andrew Smith]

Looks like there is a product for this at NAB. We're all doomed, doomed I say!

(click image to embiggen)

More info on the product is here: http://cinamaker.net/

Andrew

[Chris Harding]

What is really sad Andrew is that most people will not watch it on a 60" 4K big screen TV either ...they will watch it on their phones so the image will look as good as any pro camera. Yikes, two phones and a tablet and you have a TV studio setup .. what is the world coming to?

Then again I can see a huge advantage in using this system when it comes to carrying giant cameras around to events ...that system could easily fit into just one carry bag so it's easy to go to venues without making 4 trips from the car.

I was wondering about audio on a system like this but looking at my previous statement about "they will watch it on their phones" I guess you don't need to produce audio that sounds good through a home theatre system.

So what do we do now? Stay behind and look for specialised niche markets that can only be done with traditional video cameras or do we call Jack Walsh to pick up our old gear and go the new tech route? I might as well put my desktop computers on the pile too and do everything on a phone!

[Simon Denny]

Here's my prediction in the next xxxx many years. Phones or something like a small handheld device will dominate the video industry, resolution will be stupid like 20k and more, you focus on near then focus on far and then choose what you want in focus when in the edit or in your phone. The screen it's self will be a lens. I'll be dead before this happens however this is the future I reckon, Imagine just rocking up with one unit/device set it wide, have a beer come back, put it back in ya pocket, edit away... perfect. Now Image for live broadcast, setup heaps of units, one operator in a room somewhere with tracking device on the ball/player the list is endless. I just want to add for live sport, replays, an operator finds the action required to replay just by zooming in on the ball/player never missing one frame of the action.

[Chris Harding]

You might be surprised Simon !

The way things are going we both could be able to shoot events directly from our aged care walkers and do a damn good job of it. The way technology is heading age won't be a set back either ...we just grab a few phones hop onto our hover boards and be able to do aerial shots as well ...drones will still be around but just to serve drinks at the venue to guests!

[Simon Denny]

Make that an Asahi beer please DRONE ..... ha

[Josh Bass]

The Lytro/Lightfield cameras already take care of the "exactly what do you want in focus" thing, or soon will.


As for the rest. . .rest easy gents, at least we know that if no one wants to hire a pro videographer with gear to shoot their project, they still have to edit all that footage down to a nice tight package, and once they realize what a pain that is there'll be a huge market for editors!

Oh wait, I hate editing. Damn. . .

[Chris Harding]

Hi Josh

I hate editing too which is why we live stream our events now so we can edit on the fly etc etc.

Did you not see the 2 x phone and 1 x tablet system that Andrew posted from cinamaker? You don't have to stream your footage with that set up ..you can simply record it and STILL edit live from the tablet ...Voila ..no editing !

I must admit it's really great to go out nowdays and shoot a wedding and when I come home I'm finished the entire job (OK except for sending the bride a USB backup on the Monday) BIT no editing!!!

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Andrew Smith

...More info on the product is here: Cinamaker...

!!!REVENGE OF THE SOUNDIES!!!

You camera ops with your gadgets that you have to buy new every year or two... your comeuppance has arrived!

If you review the "we-have-a-solution-now-what's-the-problem?" video at the cinamaker site, you'll see a pretty pedestrian multicam demo... with bad indirect sound!

Apparently we'll all need to be location sound mixers in the future.

We might have the Lytro technology to designate focus point in post, but there still is no cure for indirect and off-mic sound. Other than a lav of course...

[Chris Harding]

Well said Seth

That's a very significant point since although cameras have been jumping ahead in leaps and bounds, their audio has actually been getting progressively worse.in comparison! Audio systems haven't really changed that much yet video producers seem to mess it up anyway. We really do need some drastic advances in the audio field now ... Add some lav mics, transmitters. receivers, shotguns and booms plus a decent mixer and that simple setup becomes quite complex. A decent audio setup can make a huge difference to any video footage and at this stage, as fancy as they are, cell phones don't have the technology to provide it yet!

[Josh Bass]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Hi Josh

I hate editing too which is why we live stream our events now so we can edit on the fly etc etc.

Did you not see the 2 x phone and 1 x tablet system that Andrew posted from cinamaker? You don't have to stream your footage with that set up ..you can simply record it and STILL edit live from the tablet ...Voila ..no editing !

I must admit it's really great to go out nowdays and shoot a wedding and when I come home I'm finished the entire job (OK except for sending the bride a USB backup on the Monday) BIT no editing!!!

I was thinking more of all the other types of projects out there. . .corporate video, commercials, etc. etc. Things where you couldn't really edit on the fly, but have to go out, shoot footage, edit into a final product.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Josh

Unless it's an event, be it a wedding or a corporate presentation, I think corporate promos still entail heaps of raw footage and heaps of editing to convert an hours raw footage into a powerful client message lasting no more than 60 seconds ... Advertising or even getting a message to new prospective markets is totally non structured and requires creative thinking and tweaking whilst a scheduled event runs (hopefully) to a timeline and is pretty easy to live edit.

So let's say this sort of live edit is pretty much restricted to carefully prepared events ...I don't mind editing promos at all it brings out the creative juices and I can easily handle short form video ...I just don't like trying to edit a full blown wedding,recital or concert manually where live edits would make the job so much easier!!

[Josh Bass]

right...

the point/joke that i was making was even if smartphones and amateur videographers replace us all, someone still has to edit all this garbage footage into a watchable final product. Unless it's just a highlight video (that an algorithm could pontentially handle)you still need a talented human to do that. That's where we become relevant again.

[Noa Put]

A good example of the threat cell phone can be to camcorders, I was asked to shoot a musical with kids, while I was filming a woman on the left side of me in the back row of the theater was standing up the entire show shooting video with her smartphone, guess who is not buying a dvd copy? I also saw a lot of lights from smartphones light up in the room. Now I didn't care as I had a fixed price for the shoot but this is a example where the parents are ok with the image quality of their cell phone which probably will look good if there is good light on stage and even if the soundrecording will suck, they just want a memory from their child and might prefer to have it on their phone which eventually will upload it to "the cloud" for safekeeping and/or sharing.

[Andrew Smith]

Well, you see, this is where the water squirter (otherwise used for naughty cats) comes in to play. :-)

Andrew