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We all want the latest and greatest equipment, and I know we all dream of owning really expensive equipment–we’d all love a Red One Camera, the latest version of Cinema 4D or the latest iMac or Mac Pro–but with prices going up in general, budgets being squeezed or if your just starting out in the industry and haven’t got a lot of money to spend, why not consider buying second hand or refurbished items. I know we all get excited when Adobe or Apple announce their next product or some great new feature but do you need that feature? Will it speed up your workflow? Will the benefits outweigh the cost?

At the end of the day, the items we use are just tools to help us to create; older equipment still works well the majority of the time, but sometimes it just takes a little longer to do things. Also, just because you have the most expensive equipment or the latest software doesn’t mean that it’s automatically going to make you great. Our industry is as much about craft and skill as it is about having the newest or best equipment.

Let’s take a look at some of the options we have for getting or buying used or refurbished equipment.

Software

When it comes to software, I think we all get excited when we hear new features announced in the latest upgrade, but, as we’ve discussed previously, we don’t always need that latest feature. If we’re on a budget why not consider buying a previous version of the software and saving yourself a few bucks. You can usually pick up the previous version of the software at a significant reduction of the latest version, and, for the most part, this previous version will do the majority of what the newer version does. You just need to ask yourself if you need that latest feature. Good places to find software bargains include:

• eBay
• Amazon
• Toolfarm (This quite often has deals on on various software)

Hardware

The same goes with hardware. Do you really need that brand new Mac that Apple announced last week? Most computers bought in the past few years will be capable of running either the latest software or, at least, a version not too far away from it. As long as you factor in the slower rendering time on these machines you’ll be fine.

Sometimes larger companies (who can afford to upgrade the equipment more often) will sell their older equipment which isn’t even that old–sometimes only a couple of years old–which means you can grab a bargain if you find a place doing that.

Some hardware manufacturers also have refurbished departments or sections on their online store where you can buy refurbished computers or peripherals at a reduction from the new price, and the equipment is pretty much as new. So, next time your going to purchase a new piece of hardware, have a look to see if the manufacturer has a refurbished store.

Some places to look for used or refurbished hardware include:

• eBay
• Craigslist
• Apple Refurbished Store
• DELL Outlet

Equipment

Some of the things we discussed for hardware are very much true for normal equipment too such as cameras, lighting and so on. Instead of buying brand new, try and pick up equipment second hand. As long as it’s been kept in good condition by the previous owner you’ll get a number of years out of your equipment. You can probably get twice as much kit for your money if you buy most of your kit second hand. Even if you buy slightly more inexpensive equipment brand new, this can still give you very professional results. Again, as with hardware, try and look for film or media companies upgrading their equipment, you might be able to get some pretty decent equipment for a small amount.

Good places to find second hand equipment can be:

• Amazon
• eBay
• Craiglist
• Gumtree
• B & H Photo Used Page

Even if you aren’t buying used or refurbished, make sure you check out price comparison sites like Price Grabber and New Egg to make sure you’re getting the best deals, and shop around to make sure you get the best price.

Where do you get your equipment bargains from ? (That is if you want to reveal your trade secrets!)

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In my job, I’ve been supplied a lot of footage of varying quality. Certainly, when I was at university, there were mistakes that we all made when getting to use the camera for the first time. Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about how to get the quality of your shots higher when you first get chance to play with a semi-pro or pro level camera such as a HDSLR or even something like a Sony Z1. I’m going to talk about things such as white balance, focusing and audio levels but using them in manual mode rather than leaving them on automatic.

White Balance

One mistake that I made and I have seen on some lower quality footage is leaving the white balance on automatic rather than setting a manual white balance. What happens, sometimes, is you’re doing a pan and the colour of the white changes from a blue-ish white to a orange-ish white. By leaving it on automatic, what happens is half way through the shot you get a massive colour shift resulting in a very amateur looking shot. Leaving it on automatic may also spoil the white balance on a static shot by choosing the wrong white because of different temperature of white.

What you should do is set your camera to manual white balance. What options you get will depend on the make and model of your camera, but you will either be able to choose from a preset range of colour temperatures for white, or some may have a button you can push to assess the white in the shot and try to match it.  Ideally, you should use a white or grey card for this, but at a push you can actually get by using a sheet of white paper.

So, remember next time, check your white balance before you shoot.

Focusing

Focusing is another thing like white balance that can spoil your shot or make your shot look amateurish. Ideally, you should put your camera into manual focus mode, zoom all the way in or even use the focus assist button to focus on whatever is the main thing in your shot, then leave it in manual focus mode. That way, you can be sure that if something moves or changes in the shot, the camera doesn’t try and be too clever and focus on something in your scene that you don’t want it to, therefore spoiling your shot.  Putting your camera in manual focus mode is applicable to most type of shots, whether they’re static or a tracking shot. The only exception to this rule can be if you are doing hand held documentary or reality type filming where it is impractical having to manual focus all the time.

So, remember next time you shoot, before you hit record, have you checked your focus?

Audio

Another amateur mistake is getting bad audio. If you use the inbuilt mic in your camera, you’re probably going to get pretty bad audio. Not only are these mics usually fairly poor quality, the pattern is usually very omni-directional which means it’s captures alot of background noises.  If you can, you should get something like a lapel mic or a shotgun mic which are more directional and will get clearer audio than the in built mic.  As well as using a directional mic, if your camera allows, you should also switch your camera audio input monitoring to manual, that way you can get to levels with out them being too quiet or too loud. Using the automatic level on your input can sometimes result in the audio level varying wildly or lots of hiss and background noise as the automatic gain tries to compensate for the low audio level.

A lot of HDSLR’s lack either manual controls altogether or are very fiddly to control. One way around this is to use a standalone audio recorder to record the audio and then sync them up in the edit.

So, remember, as with white balance and focusing, you should remember to check your audio levels.

Hopefully these are some good tips if you’re picking up a camera for the first time or you are in education and trying these things out for the first time. There’s a lot more to learn about these three things and more, but these should at least help you on your way.

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Following on from Timmy Allen’s recent article discussing camera tracking, I thought I would, in my article, discuss some of the options you have for purchasing a camera to create the footage to track. Whilst cameras and DSLRs aren’t necessarily motion graphics, there is certainly a crossover in people who do motion graphics and people who purchase or use these cameras.

If you would like to create your own footage to track graphics to, there are options for most budgets. Whether you have a few hundred to spend or thousands to blow, there’ll be something to cater for your budget.

DSLRs

DSLRs have been a booming business for camera companies such as Canon and Nikon recently, with camera’s such as Canon’s 550D/T2i or 7D, and these camera’s certainly have their appeal. Not only can these Cameras shoot high quality stills, they can also shoot high quality Full HD footage with a shallow depth of field.

Canon 550d/T2i

In terms of budget, you have at the lower end the Canon 550d/T2i. This is a good lower end camera, but it comes with a crop sensor (as opposed to full frame like the canon 5d mk2), however it shoots full HD (1080p) footage at 24, 25 and 30 frames a second as well as shooting 60 and 50 frames.

Nikon D7000

This is another lower end DSLR in terms of budget but again still shoots at Full HD and as with most DSLRs, the image quality is good.

Canon 5d Mk2

This is currently considered by most people the best DSLR for video, as it contains a full frame sensor (which in simple terms means that it will capture a wider view), it also contains some better ergonomic features and a higher quality and more rugged body. This does come at a cost as though as this usually retails at approximately 2-3 times the cost of it’s brother the Canon 550d/T2i.

Professional Camcorders

If you have a bigger budget and are planning on shooting more than just some footage to track to you may even consider investing in one of the professional range of camcorders by Sony or Panasonic. These usually have features more suited to recording things like interviews, for example being able to control audio levels easier.  These usually do come at a more significant cost than a DSLR.  There have been two cameras announced recently be both Sony and Panasonic which also offer the shallow depth of field look or the ability to change lenses, Sony’s model is the PMW F3 and Panasonic’s is AF100.  There are other various models available by both these companies plus others to suit different needs and price ranges.

So which camera should i get?

This all depends on your budget and whether your planning on shooting  just footage or wanting to record sound as well. I have purposefully left out specific prices for these as there is such variation I’m not saying that you should definitely purchase one of the cameras in the article but hopefully it  has gave you an idea that there are options available in the world of DSLR’s and Camcorders, so you can create footage to motion track.

Take this article as a starter, look at the reviews of each camera, look at the pros and cons and follow people like Phillip Bloom who has a lot of experience in using these cameras.  But overall, however you create your footage. HAPPY TRACKING!

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In the first act of my review of the HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation I gave an overview of the monsterous machine from an outside perspective. In the second act, I dove deeper into the hardware and software running this beast, plus I looked into some of the downfalls of owning a machine with this much power. In my third and final act, I’m going to give you the results of a few renders I did in After Effects, Cinema 4D and Premiere, and some final thoughts on the workstation. With that, let’s get to the exciting conclusion of my review.

RENDERING

Going into this, I knew this laptop would knock the socks off my current desktop computer. I run a 2.8Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 4GB of ram (DDR2) and an ATI Radeon HD2600 graphics card. Dated, yes, especially when Adobe CS5 hit the shelves, but, by optimizing my projects and by setting up renders over night, It does its job perfectly well.

As I’ve said, just from the specs on this workstation, I knew it was going to trounce my current computer, but by how much? Would I still be setting up projects for over night rendering or would I be able to pull them off before bedtime? I decided to do some render tests to compare the two.

After Effects

In After Effects, I had an old project with the usual solids, C4D movie files and a short list of effects that I felt would be a good starting point for a quick render test. On my old computer, the render took 5 minutes 31 seconds. On the HP 8740w, it took 13 seconds. Wow. I knew my old computer was slow, but I didn’t think it was that slow. Right away, I knew this was going to be an eye opening review. I proceded to move on to test number two.

Premiere

Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 is touted because of the Mercury Playback Engine–software so powerful, it needs special hardware to power it. Luckily, NVIDIA’s Quadro 5000m graphics card is one of those pieces of hardware, and the EliteBook 8740w is, as far as I know, the only workstation that has it.

What does the Mercury Playback Engine add to the table? Well, I captured a bunch of short 1080p HD clips I shot on my camcorder and layered them on top of each other in the timeline to see how smooth the preview was. It was like butter. There was a hiccup here and there at times, but I could actually preview my timeline without any load time. You can view a video, shot by Adobe, explaining the MPE below.

However, the real question in Premiere is how long would it take to render out a clip, effects and all. The answer to that is amazingly quick. For the short clip I had queued up, the HP 8740w rendered out the clip in around three quarters less time as my old computer.

Cinema 4D

For my last test, I decided to hit it hard. I returned to the first project and decided to see how the Cinema 4D render would be handled by the computer with a few variations. I added a bunch of different effects such as transparency, reflections in both the spheres and the Apple, fog, global illumination, and more. On my old computer, it took a little under twelve hours to render. I transferred the same project over to the 8740w, fired it up and 48 minutes 32 seconds later, I was looking at a complete render.

Final Conclusion

In short, this beast did trounce my computer hands down, and it did so with flying colors. There are a few shortcomings in battery life, heat, a few design issues, lack of HDMI and a physical hard drive (no solid state), but they are balanced out with a plethora of other connectivity options, an absolutely gorgeous DreamColor display, and a wealth of power under the hood in the form of ram, an Intel Core i7 processor and the NVIDIA 5000m graphics card.

With a price tag of around $5,000, is the HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation worth it? If you are a serious artist (mograph, vfx, animator, editor, designer, etc.), you have a budget that allows for the price and you want a little mobility, it’s worth it to get the power this workstation gives out. The added speed of being able to use the Mercury Playback Engine in Premiere or just quick renders in general using any software mean this workstation will pay for itself in the end. It is truly made with the artist in mind, with it’s beautiful DreamColor display and the brushed metal aircraft inspired housing. Finally, all the ports on this bad boy mean you won’t be searching for an input in the near future.

If it’s not in your price range, there are plenty of different computers that will do just fine under some optimization of projects and overnight rendering. There are also some lesser models of the EliteBook that may fit your needs just fine, but if you truly want one of the most powerful, lightweight and beautiful workstations on the market today, the HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation is for you.

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In the first part of my review of the HP Elitebook 8740w, I gave a short overview of what the Mobile Workstation is capable of. In part two, I’m going further into detail on the hardware and software that helps run this beast, as well as the downfalls of having a laptop this powerful. With that, let’s jump into it.

Further Down the Rabbit Hole

As we know from reading the specs–or my previous review–of the 8740w, this machine is truly built to power some serious software. But what exactly is the software and hardware underneath the hood? Let’s take a closer look.

Hardware

One of the biggest pieces of hardware in the engine of this hot rod is the NVIDIA Quadro 5000m. This is one of the most powerful graphics cards you will find in a Mobile Workstation yet. In fact, you’ll only find them in Workstations because of the amount of power this bad boy requires–100 watts. However, does this mean it can perform? I’d say yes. This beast is decked out.

At this point, I could show you a bunch of benchmark tests, but the good people down at NotebookCheck.com have already done that. See their ratings for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Then come back for my third article focusing on render times.

The Intel Core i7 processor is the new kid on the block that has been garnering a lot of attention because of its power and speed, and everybody has been rushing to get a new laptop out with one of these chips in it. HP has done it with the 8740w. A Quad Core. What more do you need? I suppose you could ask for a faster i7 processor (this workstation comes with a 1.73Ghz), but I think if this workstation got any more powerful it might implode.

Ram has long been described as the short term memory of the computer. If that’s the case, the 8740w won’t be forgetting much any time soon. With 8GB of 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM that can be upgraded to 16GB, this machine has some serious short term memory. That means some seriously long previews in programs such as After Effects, and, of course, this is another factor in getting your renders out quickly.

The HP DreamColor display is color, period. I wish I could show you a photo that would properly portray how accurate, vivid and crisp these colors are, but you really only can see them first hand to truly appreciate them. That’s really all I can say.

Software

In the past, Windows based computers have had their share of “crapware” loaded on them, and it still goes on today, though it has improved a bit from yesteryear. Sadly, HP is notorious for loading their computers full of their own dedicated software, and this workstation is no exception. Luckily, the software on the 8740w is actually useful. Really useful.

Anyone familiar with calibrating their monitor on a Mac will know what this is. The Display Assistant allows you to set the color space for your monitor to your work habits whether that includes print or video work. The options are Full/Native (HP’s preferred settings), AdobeRGB, sRGB, Rec.601(SMTPE), Rec.709, DCI-P3 Emulation, or you can just set and save your own customization.

Anyone who has run a Windows machine in the past knows that it can be somewhat frustrating trying to find driver and firmware updates, maintaining your computer, and troubleshooting any issues that may arise. HP has tried to solve all these issues with the Support Assistant. Windows gives you the tools to do this, but it can be hit or miss sometimes.This handy HP tool will search the internet at a specified time and find any of these updates that need to be downloaded to your system and also tune-up your computer, which is basically the same thing as Disk Cleanup and System Restore. The coolest thing about this tool is the ability to get help from HP for any issues you may be having with the computer. A couple clicks of your mouse can get you to the forums and other online resources so you can preform self-help, or you can contact HP by phone, transferring data to a support technician or by a simple chat.

Now would also be a good time to tell you that all EliteBook Mobile Workstations come with a three year in house warranty. That means if anything is going wrong with your workstation, they will send a rep over to your place to fix your computer when it’s most convenient for you. This may not be something everybody would want to use, but it’s definitely a very nice touch and shows that HP backs their products and wants their customers to get the most out of their computing experience.

Are business cards dead? Sorry, that was a different article. Seriously though, on paper, the HP Business Card Reader must have read like an amazing idea. In reality, it’s a trip down frustration alley. And you’re getting beaten and mugged the entire way.

The business card reader is really just a small slit on the front of the 8740w just above the latch button you use to open the computer. Once you place a card in this slot, you then move the screen down very slowly until you hear a bing. You then stop, the webcam takes a picture of the card, and all the information from the card is stored on your computer including names, websites, phone numbers, etc. Well, as I’ve said, it works better on paper than in real life.

I inserted my old business card (black text on a white background–can’t get much more basic than that) into the slot and slowly moved the top of the laptop down to try to take a picture. It didn’t work. I slowly moved up, then back down, etc. Only once did it “bing”, but because of the pressure I had to put on the top to move it, when I let go the top sprung back slightly putting the camera out of alignment with the card. Thus, no picture. I tried a couple more times, but never got it to work with my card. I moved on to a few other business cards but either couldn’t get them to fit or it wouldn’t read them. It only accepts the standard 3.5 x 2 business cards, but even at that, I had a lot of difficulty getting them to even fit in the slot.

No thank you. Moving on.

NVIDIA is getting in on the action with the NVIDIA Control Panel to optimize settings for their Quadro 5000m. In here you are able to adjust 3D settings, video color and image settings, adjust and tweek your monitor(s) settings and much more. I haven’t delved too deep into this program yet, but it’s good to know it’s here if, and when, I need it.

Downfalls

For all the strengths of the EliteBook 8740w, there are a few weaknesses as well. One of the most glaring issues is the battery life. It is dismal. When I first got the laptop, I let it charge completely up and then I unplugged it to see what the battery drain was like. In that test, and every consecutive test afterward, this EliteBook only lasted around an hour and a half running minimal applications such as email and the web. When running more power consuming activities, this drops down a lot. That limits the mobility part of this laptop to anywhere within range of an outlet. I understand, with all the power under the hood of this workstation, it will be drawing a lot of power, but with computers such as the MacBook Pro touting 8-9 hours of battery life (on the higher end versions), why wouldn’t you give your computer a little more balance?

Another downside related to the power of this computer is the amount of heat this computer can pump out. Normal operating temperatures run anywhere from 41 to a whopping 95 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t have to tell you, that’s hot. Especially if you have this workstation resting on your lap for an extended period of time or in a small room. It can heat things up fairly quickly, and it doesn’t help that they positioned the exhaust fan on the left side of the workstation so, if you have it resting on your lap, your left leg will always get extremely hot and uncomfortable. When rendering out video clips or animations, the heat can hit the breaking point fairly quickly.

I’ve praised the addition of a numpad in my previous article, but that comes with a small price. The mouse is centered on the main keyboard, not the entire keyboard with numpad. What does that matter? Well, when you have the laptop fully centered on your body, the mouse is positioned to the left of the computer. I’m right handed, which means I have to reach over further to put my hands on the mouse than I’m used to. This may not seem like a big deal, but I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve hit the middle mouse button thinking I was on the left (which closes tabs in Firefox, for example). It’s just not a well thought out design when every other laptop has their mouse perfectly centered, and I have a feeling will throw more than a few people off.

Perhaps, I’m too caught up with Apple products, but I love the idea of Apple’s MagSafe power adapter. It’s discrete, disconnects if you happen to trip on the wire and nothing is actually inserted into the computer so there won’t be any internal damage if it is pulled out at an odd angle. The 8740w power adapter is the exact opposite of all of this. You insert a half inch plug into the laptop and it sticks out an additional inch and a half from the side of the laptop. This may seem like a minuscule issue, but on a computer where the power plug almost always needs to be plugged in, you’re bound to get it caught on something and only bad things can happen from that point on. I’ve already heard some small cracking noises coming from the plug port when I got the cord caught on my chair. It doesn’t unplug and I’m afraid I have damaged something or will in the future.

Conclusion (So Far)

The 8740w is a powerhouse. Even with the downfalls mentioned above, it stands head and shoulders above many of the competitors. In comparison to a MacBook Pro, it gives more power while sacrificing battery life. If you need the power, and who doesn’t these days, along with mobility, this is definitely a workstation you should own. However, I’m still not satisfied in my review. I want to test it in a few renders and see how this big dog does under pressure. Stay tuned for the third, and final, review of the HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation where I put it to the test rendering out some effects heavy 1080p video and some 3D scenes with all the fixings.

Go to Part 3 of the review.

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Fuel Brand Network recently had the opportunity to review the new HP Elitebook 8740w Mobile Workstation, courtesy of the wonderful folks over at Hewlett-Packard, and they jumped at the chance to get this bad boy in their hands. Of course, they felt it would be best tested by us here at Fuel Your Motionography because of the work we do, the long render times we run into and the powerful programs we use. I stepped up to the challenge of running this workstation through the paces, and I’m here to give you the results. Oh, did I mention there will be a giveaway, as well? Yes, one of our excellent readers will have the chance to win one EliteBook 8740w. You can thank me later.

At this point, I’m legally obligated to tell you that HP is giving me my laptop as material compensation for completing my review. I can assure you, this won’t affect my review in the slightest. In fact–a little disclaimer of my own–I love Apple products. I have a dual monitor iMac sitting on my desk, an iPad in my living room and an iPhone in my pocket. I feel they have better designed products and, although I’m not going to focus on it in this review, a better operating system. That said, I took on the responsibility to review this product as fair an unbiased as possible, and that’s what I’m going to do. Although I may have to bring up some comparisons during the review, I’m not going to let past biases sway my judgment. So, with that said, here we go.

Unboxing

If you didn’t happen to see my posts on the Fuel Your Motionography Twitter account (@fuelyourmotion), then let me recap it here, briefly.

The laptop was dropped off at my place a little over a week ago, and I immediately opened it and began taking pictures. I have to say, HP has clearly stepped up their game since the days when I knew what a PC looked and felt like. The packaging alone I can only describe as something reminiscent of an Apple product. A simple pitch black box with the HP logo on one side and a message in multiple languages on the other telling its new owner, “The computer is personal again.” A nice sentiment.

As soon as the box was open, HP was pulling me into their world. The 8740w is constructed of a beautiful anodized aluminum case with a smooth brushed metal surface that covers the entire laptop. On the back of the monitor, a simple raised HP emblem made of a smooth silver metal with “EliteBook” boldly printed underneath greets any onlooker and tells them what you are using. Of course, in this case, the beauty isn’t only skin deep. Underneath the surface is a magnesium alloy chassis being held together by metal alloy hinges and four-point lockdown display latches, and that’s more than pretty titles and technical talk. Inspired by aircraft construction, HP assembled their flagship workstation to be strong on the inside and out. “How strong,” you ask? All of this allows the 8740w to withstand 1,800 square pounds of force. It’s that strong.

The Specs

The strength doesn’t end there, however. The guts of this beast are where the real power sits waiting for you to command. Let’s take a look inside my version of the laptop (and the one in the giveaway).

• Intel Core i7 processor (Q 740 @ 1.73Ghz, 6 MB L3 cache)
• 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
• 17″ LED-backlit WXGA anti-glare HP DreamColor display (1920 x 1200)
• NVIDIA Quadro 5000m (2 GB dedicated GDDR5 video memory)
• 500GB Hard drive (SATA II @ 7200 rpm)
• Spill-resistant full-size backlit numeric keyboard
• Dual point three button trackpad + Pointstick three button mouse
• 2 MP built in webcam
• 4 USB ports (2 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0), 1 eSATA port, 1 external VGA monitor, 1 1394a (FireWire), 1 Express Card/54, 1 Smart Card Reader, 1 Secure Digital, 1 RJ-11 (dial-up), 1 RJ-45 (ethernet), 1 mic, 1 headphone

There is, of course, much more. To put it lightly, this computer is decked out; clearly worthy of the “EliteBook Mobile Workstation” branding. Read more about the specifications here.

Just looking at the specs, you can clearly tell HP is aiming at selling this bad boy to the creative professional crowd–a spot almost exclusively owned by Apple’s Macbook Pro–and with a price tag of $2,000 to around $5,000, I had to do my homework to find out if it is worth it. Of course, in this situation, I thought it would only be right to compare it to the “current reigning champ”.

The Comparison

On Apple’s website, I took the only 17″ MacBook Pro and upped the specs to get it as close to the EliteBook 8740w (the version I received) as possible. The only place the Macbook Pro excelled was in the processor speed (Intel Core i7 @ 2.66 Ghz on the MacBook Pro). It clocked in at just under $3,000. That’s a difference of around $2,000. Where was all this extra money going for the HP laptop? I had to find out.

Part of this extra cost I saw right when I first got the computer. Compared to the MacBook Pro, the EliteBook has two more USB ports (and they are 3.0, at that), 1 eSATA port, 1 Express Card/54 slot and 1 Smart Card Reader and a docking station port on the bottom. It has two three button mice (for what that’s worth), and a full keyboard with a num pad. Oh, did I mention it has finger scan security? Yes, you can scan all your fingerprints and use them to sign into your computer, Windows, even specific webpages and documents which I am using constantly at this point because of the ease use. I actually find it annoying to type in passwords when I know I could just swipe my finger.

A larger chunk of the cost was staring me right in the face. The DreamColor display costs around $600 alone, but it’s money very well spent. I have, honestly, never seen a monitor with such vivid and crisp colors. The moment you first lay your eyes on it, you won’t be able to look away. I look at my iMac and the additional Samsung monitor sitting next to it and I think they’re “just okay” in comparison. This thing truly is a marvel to behold.

Yet another fraction of the cost goes to the NVIDIA Quadro 5000m graphics card with 2 GB dedicated GDDR5 video memory. The MacBook Pro comes to you with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with 512 MB. This jump in processing power (only available for workstation computers) gives HP the hand up in power and speed. Add in the case construction, and you have yourself a $5,000 dollar Mobile Workstation.

The HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation comes in with a hefty price tag, but for serious creative professionals, it comes with the territory. If you want the best, you have to lay down the cash for it. But I’m not making any final decisions yet. I have a long way to go before I give my final review. Come back for the second part of my review where I dive even further into the hardware and software in the 8740w and show you it’s not all rainbows and unicorns in happy town. No, there are some donwnfalls, and maybe even some pitfalls, in this workstation. For the third part of the review, I will dive into the meat and potatoes of any motionographers life–render times. Oh, and we’ll give away one of these beasts to a lucky reader!

Go to Part 2 of the review.

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HITCHCOCK

I met Jonathan Houser, founder of Cinemek, when I was in Seattle for a meeting of the Northwest Audiovisualists (NWAV). He showed me the G35, an aftermarket 35mm lens adaptor for Digital Video cameras. Little did I know he would soon be releasing Hitchcock, the first Storyboarding app for the iPhone.

Hitchcock is an amazing application – you can take photos on-location, add stand-in actors, camera directions like zoom, pan and dolly, record notes or temp voice, write in descriptions, and more. Once done, you can view the result, with a timer running at the bottom – change shot timing, view again, swap shots, and then export as a PDF (video export is coming in an update).

I bought and installed the app and had some fun shooting locations around my house and putting together short animatics. This exploration got me wondering about how it could be useful from an animator’s perspective. Hitchcock’s focus is on Filmmakers – what would a similar application built for animators look like? I set off to discover what animation tools existed on the iPhone.

DIGGING INTO iPHONE ANIMATION UTILITIES

I found that there are mainly two types of Animation apps currently available for the iPhone – Character Animation apps, which tended to be very specific and limited in their scope, and Flipbook apps, which are mostly the same, with a few features setting similar apps apart.

Character Animation Apps

Puppet Animation allows you to add deformers to pictures and move, swing, scale and bounce distinct areas in realtime, or set loops. It’s something like a simplified version of the Puppet tool in After Effects. You can export an animated GIF when you’re all done, as seen above.

Stick It Action is all about making stick figures fight. It’s another interesting example of what could be done with skeleton rigs and purpose-driven animation – there’s an assortment of guns to fire, and tools set up to aim them, start and stop firing, etc.

Tappy Typing puts you in control of an interactive character. It’s not a utility, per se, but a set of animations for a character. It’s an example of an engine that could be a great tool in a larger program, with the addition of some skinning and keyframing abilities.

FlipBook Apps

By far, this was the most populated category of animation apps that I found in the App Store. Most of the applications look very similar, with only small feature differences. One particular application stood out from the pack in terms of its feature set:

Flickmation – I almost wrote it off due to a clunky-looking interface and lack of video examples on the website, but its feature set was intriguing. Besides painting and drawing, Flickmation offers fill tools, layers, onion skinning, stamps (reusable objects), copy/paste and a Java app to transfer files to and from the application. You can create PNG files on your computer, including an 8-bit alpha channel, and load them into Flickmation for animating. You can also export video to your local machine via the included Java application, as an AVI video or a PNG sequence.

After playing with it for an hour, it shows real promise as a start. The interface could benefit from a full facelift – it makes sense but it’s all over the place, visually, especially compared with the refined graphics of Hitchcock. I also found a pretty bad bug that repeatedly caused crashing when turning on onion skin options.

More flipbook apps for further investigation:

• Kineo
• Flip It
• FlipBook
• Animation Creator
• Cartoon Creator
• LED Animator
• Anime Maker
• RanRan Draw

CONCLUSION

It turns out that there’s really nothing like Hitchcock aimed more squarely at animators. Reading the Cinemek forums, I found that there are two animator-friendly features that will be included soon – additional angles for actor stand-ins, and importing external images. They may well add enough features to allow for real animation and editing, only time will tell.

Investigating all of these applications has at least given me a better idea of what would be useful for me in a Mobile Animation application:

• Reuseable Items – like Library items in Flash
• Keyframes – the ability to set start and stop points for the above items
• Onion Skinning – great for frame-by-frame animation
• Lip Sync – a couple of apps I saw had some interesting solutions for faking mouth movements based on audio
• Puppet Deformation/Animation – the ability to bring life to characters and sketches

If I’ve missed something that you would love to see in a mobile animation app, tell me about it in the comments.

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From SD to HD

Canon GL1 on the left; Canon VIXIA HF100 on the right.

About a year ago, I finally sold the GL-1 I’d bought in film school and purchased my first-ever High-Definition Camera, the Canon HF100. “Finally”, I thought, “No more worrying about tapes or real-time digitizing – just a few 16GB Memory Cards and I’ll be golden.” Well, I was right about real-time digitizing being a thing of the past. It turns out that the flavor of AVCHD the HF100 uses is pretty useless in its native format. To be able to edit with the .MTS files it creates (or even view them decently), you need to transcode – which takes much longer than realtime, and gave me humongous files that ate up my external 500GB drive in no time. Additionally, you can’t shoot in SD – your only option is to shoot lower-bitrate HD files. Honestly, I mostly wound up playing the videos directly off the camera, through an A/D converter box, bringing it in as classic (downscaled) DV Video so I could work with it.

Additionally, working with the HF100 was a huge step back from my days with the GL-1. It was smaller and lighter, for sure – the HF100 easily slips into a cargo pocket for on-the-go and stealth shooting – but focusing with a four-way rocker switch just doesn’t cut it.

The DSLR Video Revolution

Reverie - Vincent Laforet

Like many, I was floored by Reverie – Vincent Laforet’s visually stunning short showing off the Canon 5D MKii. After a quick price check on the 5D MKii, I concluded that while the tech was amazing, I just couldn’t justify it as a Motion Graphics artist. I’d often run across beautiful videos shot with the 5D MKii, and simply sigh.

Finally, It’s Affordable

Canon T1i

Enter the Canon T1i. At $800 for Body + Kit Lens, it’s Canon’s first foray into offering DSLR Video at the consumer-level, and there’s a lot they got right. You can record in 720p or 480p (technically, you can do 1080p as well, but only at 20FPS, so I’m not counting it). You get manual focus and zoom rings, since they’re built into the lens, not the camera. On that note, you can use any Canon EF-mount lens, so once you outgrow the 18-55 kit lens, you can invest in a new lens and gain another level of shooting ability with the camera, without having to buy a new body (which is the norm in consumer-level video cameras).

After dealing with the HF100’s .MTS files, the movies that come off the SD Cards in the Canon T1i are a blessing. They are H.264-compressed .MOV files. On my MacBook Pro, that means I can preview and play them directly from the card, or from my drive after a quick drag-and-drop. No longer is it necessary to transcode for hours just to preview the clips on my machine and make my picks. The files load right into After Effects or Motion for quick sketching of ideas. When I edit narrative videos, I do transcode – but it makes such a difference to have the ability for instant playback and manipulation when that’s all I need.

These are stills pulled directly from the original movie file. The image on the left was shot with the kit lens, the one on the right was shot with the Canon 50mm f1.4, about a minute later.

The picture quality is also, I feel, quite a leap beyond the HF100 or your standard consumer camcorder. You’ve got real Depth of Field, and with the right lens you can get an amazing exposure range – shooting footage for my friend’s wedding in a shady grove in the evening was delightful with the help of a 50mm f1.4 lens.

For the full specs, check out DPReview’s in-depth testing of the camera.

The Downsides

The camera is by no means perfect. Some of the areas that could use improvement:

• There is no way to plug in an external Mic, so you’ll need a separate sound recorder if you want decent location sound.
• Autofocus is slow in video mode.
• Low-light prime lenses don’t have built-in Image Stabilization. It’s bad enough that you’ll want to stick to a tripod.
• Exposure controls are automatic in Movie mode. This was fixed on the 5D Mkii with a firmware update, but there’s no word of a similar update to the T1i, probably to keep this as more of a consumer model.
• Shooting time – the camera leaves the shutter open during movie recording, and the manual (and the camera) warns that leaving the camera in this state for too long could cause image degradation.

Conclusion

We’ve come a long, long way with consumer-level video. The T1i offers amazing video quality and latitude for its price. I don’t feel I could recommend it to indie filmmakers – they’d be better off renting a 5D Mkii (or RED or some other beautiful high-end camera), but for Motionographers who want to capture textures, close-ups, portraits and other short visuals, it’s an amazing tool to have in your arsenal.