Micro Four Thirds gets more support, Sony jumps in with its E-mount

In the course of less than a week, two major lens manufacturers have announced that they've joined the Micro Four Thirds System Standard Group founded by Panasonic and Olympus. Last week, Schneider-Kreuznach announced that it has joined the group and is working on compatible lenses, and this week, Carl Zeiss announced that it has also joined the group and will release compatible Zeiss HD Video lenses.

This is big news, especially for users (current and potential) of Panasonic's GH1 and GH2 mirrorless digital cameras, and its AG-AF100/101 camcorder. There have been adapters available for some time that enable a variety of third-party lenses to be used with Micro Four Thirds cameras and camcorders, but they don't support autofocusing and rarely support aperture control. In addition, these lenses usually operate at longer focal lengths than specified on the lenses because they're built for bigger sensors than Micro Four Thirds. The forthcoming lenses from Schneider-Kreuznach and Carl Zeiss will most likely support automation and will be designed specifically for the Micro Four Thirds sensor format.

These announcements may explain why Sony announced yesterday that it's making the specifications for its E mount, used in its NEX-family digital camcorders and camcorders, available for license. Today, Carl Zeiss, Tamron, Cosina and Sigma all announced that they would support Sony's E-mount. The population of third-party lenses for the two most popular mirrorless formats is about to get a lot bigger.

And now, we get to the speculative part: What will Canon and Nikon do? Both companies are widely expected to launch their own EVIL-style digital cameras soon. Will they use one of their existing mount designs, create their own new mounts, or license the Micro Four Thirds format or Sony's E-mount? We'll know in the next few months.

Episode 2 of The Feldman File Videoblog

The second episode of The Feldman File's videoblog is ready for viewing! In this week's episode:

• Panasonic announces its new GF2 Micro Four Thirds camera with Full HD video
• A reader of EOSHD.com discovers a mode in Panasonic's new GH2 DSLR that could dramatically decrease rolling shutter effects
  
• A team at MIT, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan are working on a way to put a team of human editors into Microsoft Word
• An editor at Cooks Source Magazine is reprinting content without permission and wants to be thanked for it
• FilmOn.com, an over-the-top Internet video service, is having a hard time figuring out the difference between broadcast television stations and cable networks

Panasonic's new Micro Four Thirds Lenses

Panasonic launched three new Micro Four Thirds lenses at Photokina:

• The H-FT012, a 12.5mm/F12 3D lens. Photos taken or videos shot with DSLRs using the new lens can be viewed on Panasonic's Viera 3D HDTVs. The lens is priced at $249.95 (U.S.).
  
• Panasonic's tiny H-H014 4mm / F2.5 aspherical pancake lens, which the company claims is the world's lightest interchangeable lens, is priced at $399.95.
  
• Panasonic's new zoom lens, the 100-300mm/F4.0-5.6/MEGA O.I.S. H-FS100300, will sell for $599.95. (I was concerned that it was going to be about the same price as the new GH2 body itself, but it's actually quite a bit less expensive.)

All three lenses will ship in November.

Panasonic sets new low price point for webcasting studios

Panasonic has introduced a trio of products that represent a new low price point for automated webcasting studios:

• The AW-HE50S is a 1/3" 1080P camera with integrated pan/tilt/zoom and a HD/SD-SDI interface, at a $5,500.00 list price. (The same camera is available as the AW-HE50H for $1,000 less with a HDMI interface.)
• The AW-HS50N is a small 1080P 5-input, 3-output HD switcher with four HD/SD-SDI and one DVI-D input, and 2 HD/SD-SDI and one DVI-D outputs, an AUX bus, built-in keyer, dissolve transitions and a multiviewer, allowing all inputs and transitions to be viewed on one HDTV monitor. The list price is $4,000.
• The AW-RP50 (list price $2,200) is a remote camera controller that allows a single operator to set up all the parameters and control the movement of up to 100 HE50 and HE100 cameras. It has a network connection for the AW-HS50N, so that a single operator can simultaneously switch a show and control the cameras.

With these three products, you can create a basic, automated three-camera setup for less than $23,000, or a four-camera setup for just over $28,000. What's more, all of the components are light: The switcher and camera controller together are around nine pounds, and each camera is 3.5 pounds. Add a live encoder with an Ethernet or WiFi interface, and you're ready to stream.

NAB News: Avid buys Euphonix, Panasonic intros Micro Four Thirds Camcorder

The biggest players at NAB made their pre-conference press announcements today. The big news from Panasonic and Avid:

• Panasonic announced the AG-AF100, a digital camcorder that uses the same Micro Thirds sensor and lenses as those for digital cameras built by Panasonic and Olympus (for example, the Panasonic GH1 and GF1 and the Olympus E-P2 and E-PL2). No price was announced, but CrunchGear estimates that it'll sell for around $6,000 when it ships by the end of the year. One of the biggest issues with using DSLRs for digital cinematography is that they're designed to be used as still cameras, not camcorders, and are difficult to use for long periods of time. By putting the guts of a video-enabled DSLR into a camcorder package, Panasonic offers the benefits (big sensor, high resolution, interchangeable lenses) of DSLRs with the handling of a camcorder.

• Avid announced an agreement to purchase Euphonix, one of the top suppliers of high-end audio consoles for applications such as audio recording and film mixing. Avid is also a major vendor of audio consoles (the ICON and VENUE ranges), but the company has had trouble competing for sales of the most sophisticated systems. Euphonix gives Avid high-end reach, and adds the well-regarded line of Artist Series control surfaces for lower-cost applications. Euphonix had worked closely with Apple in the past on support of Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio with the Artist Series surfaces. That tight level of cooperation is unlikely to survive Euphonix's acquisition.

Don't telegraph your moves

There once was a company named "Play" that developed what was, for the time, a revolutionary video processing system called Trinity. It could capture and switch video like professional video switchers that cost ten times as much. For three years, Play took Trinity to the NAB Show, each time promising to ship it before the end of that year, but never managing to do so. So, year after year, Play went to NAB, always showing a few more bells and whistles, but not a shipping product. By the time Play finally completed development and shipped Trinity, most people in the television industry has stopped paying attention. Play eventually went out of business, although some of its concepts live on in products from Newtek and Adobe.

Back in 1995-96, Netscape told the world that it would make Microsoft Windows obsolete by moving applications from the operating system to the browser, which would make the applications operating system-neutral. This was tantamount to waving a red flag in front of a bull; in this case, the bull was Microsoft. We all remember what Microsoft did in response--everything possible, both legal and illegal, to crush Netscape. For all its publicity and hype, Netscape wasn't big enough to withstand Microsoft's onslaught. The company was sold to AOL at a good price considering the situation, but it's fairly clear that Netscape would have eventually failed had AOL not acquired it.

RED, the digital cinema camera company, has fallen into the same trap as Play with its Scarlet camera. In 2007, RED started talking about Scarlet, a camcorder that would provide true HD output at a cost around $3,000, which at the time was where prosumer SD camcorders were priced. Then, in early 2008, Jim Jannard, RED's founder, announced that Scarlet was going to become a video-capable DSLR. In November 2008, RED showed off non-working prototypes of Scarlet and its big brother, Epic, but they didn't ship anything.

As soon as RED started talking about making Scarlet a DSLR, companies that already made DSLRs like Canon and Nikon, as well as companies that were planning to get into the DSLR business like Panasonic, started to pay very close attention. In November 2009, RED made the rounds again, this time with yet another non-working prototype of the Scarlet, but Canon, Nikon and Panasonic all had DSLRs in the market that could do HD video, all for less than the (now increased) price of the Scarlet. This March, you'll be able to buy a Canon Rebel T2i with excellent video capabilities for $799 without lens. Sony, which had been holding back, now plans to release two DSLRs with AVCHD video by the end of the year.

By making premature announcements, RED educated its competitors. RED may have assumed that its competitors were too incompetent or too hidebound to respond, but they were wrong. At best, the Scarlet is going to end up as a niche product rather than the revolutionary change in camera design that Jim Jannard envisioned.

Now, Microsoft itself may be falling into the same trap with Windows Phone 7 Series. At the Mobile World Congress a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft previewed its new operating system for smartphones, a radical departure from previous Microsoft offerings. The problem is that smartphones that run Microsoft's new operating system won't ship until the end of 2010, thus giving Apple, Google, RIM and other competitors nine months to respond. Microsoft used to be able to get away with it--their preannouncements would cause FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in the minds of potential buyers of other products. However, that was when software development took years; now it takes months. By the end of the year, it's likely that the advancements that Microsoft demonstrated will be integrated into its competitors' platforms, and any real competitive advantage that it might have had will be lost.

The lesson? Don't telegraph your moves. Announcing products and strategies too early will only educate your competitors and frustrate customers, not create FUD.

3-D: Industry Savior or "Flavor of the Month"?

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week in Las Vegas, 3-D is everywhere. Sony, Panasonic and others showed LCD and plasma displays and Blu-Ray players that will support 3-D. Panasonic even showed a non-working prototype of a $20,000 camcorder capable of shooting 3-D content. ESPN and a consortium of Discovery, Sony and IMAX both announced plans for 3-D cable channels. The problem, however, isn't the technology (although the issue of 3-D formats needs to be resolved) but rather, how the technology is used.

If 3-D isn't shot very carefully, it usually becomes a brain-liquefying (and headache-inducing) experience. Both the right tools and the right technique are essential. If you think that it's tough for filmmakers to produce watchable 2-D movies and television shows, wait until they try to work in 3-D.

There's a very good chance that 3-D has become the consumer electronics industry's latest "flavor of the month". Blu-Ray was intended to save the industry, compensating for lost revenues from the decline in DVD player prices and encouraging consumers to pay more for Blu-Ray discs. That hasn't happened so far, thanks in large part to the recession, nor is it likely to happen in the future. However, 3-D could be the savior of Blu-Ray. It could even get people to replace earlier-generation HDTV displays with new models capable of the high refresh rates and resolution needed for 3-D. Or at least, that's what the industry hopes.

I can't help but think that 3-D is going to have the same impact as Blu-Ray has had or even less. Consumers are flocking to $1 a night Redbox DVD rentals, or they're turning to digital downloads and streaming video. 3-D technology is still about five years from being practical in everyday production, and if the industry tries to push out products too quickly, the most likely things that it's likely to stimulate sales of are headache remedies.

Get Your Products Out

The new generation of high-quality, video-enabled DSLRs is thoroughly changing both the high-end still camera and camcorder markets. It's now inconceivable for a manufacturer to release a $1,000+ DSLR without some sort of HD video capability. Even Sony, the lone holdout, is rumored to be biting the bullet on November 18 with a HD-capable DSLR that will compete with the Panasonic GH1. (Technically, the GH1 isn't a DSLR, it's a Micro Four Thirds camera without a viewfinder, but it does everything that a DSLR does.)

The ironic thing is that RED, the company that made cinematic video production much more affordable with the RED One, first identified the need for print photojournalists to be able to shoot competent video without having to carry two cameras. It rechanneled its development effort for the Scarlet, which was originally supposed to be an inexpensive, handheld 2K camcorder, into a video-capable DSLR. That was almost two years ago, and not only has RED not yet shipped the Scarlet, it hasn't even provided a definitive list of features or release date.

When the Scarlet comes to market, it will have to compete with a variety of products from virtually every major DSLR manufacturer, at price points starting around $1,000 to over $5,000, with a huge range of capabilities. While Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, etc. weren't educated about the market opportunity solely by RED, it didn't do RED any good to tell its competitors so early about what it was doing. In my opinion, the early announcement was sheer hubris: "We beat you with the RED One, and we'll beat you again with the Scarlet."

Once you make a product announcement, you have to get the product to market quickly. You cannot assume that your competitors are too slow or too dimwitted to respond. The first time around, competitors took RED for granted because they were a new company, run by someone from outside the broadcast electronics business. Lots of companies like that had announced products, perhaps even shipped a few, and then sank beneath the waves. But RED was for real, and its competitors learned to pay attention.

If you're a new entrant into a market, you usually get one free pass where your competitors underestimate or dismiss you. Once you become successful, you're on their radar, and the requirement to get to market quickly becomes paramount.