Aja Ki Pro

Last Friday I was to attend and speak at a seminar on Aja, here in Mumbai. It was the start of a weekend, and traffic conditions in the Western suburbs were at an all time disarray. Some said there was a large procession of some kind. Anyway, I got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, ran out of fuel, and eventually gave up trying to reach the venue.


But I had my piece prepared, so I promised the organizers, Genesis Forte, wo represent Aja in India, that I would post it in this blog. Here it is.


Among the most innovative products that Aja makes, is the Ki Pro and it's small sibling, the Ki Pro mini. These are video (and audio) recorders which take input as component, SDI, HD-SDI, or HDMI, along with embedded or unbalanced XLR audio. And record to hard disks or SxS or CF cards. The recorded material is an Apple ProRes Quicktime movie. And you can set up Ki Pro to record as ProRes Proxy, ProRes LT, ProRes, or ProResHQ.


ProRes is described later in this piece, below.


The source for the KiPro could be almost any camcorder that has an HD-SDI, or HDMI output. So basically the Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini let's you record at a quality higher than the camera's own compressed recording does.


Two prime new candidates for using the KiPro with, are the new Sony F3 or Panasonic AF 101. The combination of Sony F3 or Panasonic AF 101, with Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini can challenge the Arri Alexa on quality and price.

But this is not what I was going to focus on. This much is well known about the Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini. I had some alternate uses in mind for these recorders.


Low res video assist recorder


Many TV Commercial makers use the video assist to do a rough cut before the film gets processed and telecined.
In place of a video assist recorder, which is usually a DVD recorder, a DV or HDV recorder, both of which are cumbersome and linear. You can use a Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini, to record the assist video as ProRes proxy. Which is good enough quality. A 250 Gb HDD in the Ki Pro records over 11 hrs. And shots are one per clip, so capture before editing is quick and easy. 


Backup recorder


If you shoot with a Alexa, it records ProRes 4444. These files are large and hard to edit on slower machines. So you can attach a KiPro which can record ProRes HQ as a backup. Or ProRes Proxy for low res editing. 


And if you are recording as Arri logC, you can take a linear video out via HD-SDI and plug that into the KiPro. So you're ready to edit with smaller files which are linear and not low contrast ones that the Alexa records.


I know I know, log files need to be colour corrected before they can be used, but try telling that to a client who's in a hurry.


The last two uses I mentioned, would need some care to ensure that time code is kept the same on the main device and the Ki Pro or Ki Pro mini.


Green screen recorder


You may have shot the rest of your film on a small EX1 or EX3 or even Canon 5D or 7D - in XDCamEx, AVCHD, DVCProHD, or HDV, But if your film has green or blue screen, (chroma key) you may run into problems with recording that on those cameras. That's more to do with the recording in these cameras, not the cameras themselves.


Chroma Key shots need clean edges for keying. Compression in those cameras makes the edge around objects hard to key. Recording as full 4:2:2 10bit on the KiPro or KiPro mini can give you cleaner keys in post. So better to shoot chroma shots as ProRes or ProResHQ in a KiPro for better keying. 
Even the keying needed for by a Colourist for secondary colour correction works better if the media is ProRes or ProResHQ.


Main recorder for HD television shows


Over the next few weeks or months at most, leading TV channels in India will transition to HD. In general, all channels will no longer require producers to submit tapes for HD programming. Some will, instead, accept finished shows and rushes as files - ProRes HQ.


So it may even be a good idea to use the Ki Pro as your main recorder even if you shoot P2, AVC-Intra, or HDCam. Editing is instantaneous, the editing machine doesn't need any capture card, and best of all, handing over of all rushes is easy.


Telecine recorder


When you need to telecine film to video in a format that's ready for delivery, like Apple ProRes that many TV channels need, the Ki Pro is a natural choice. You can even connect audio from a sound follower and embed it, so you can even get Dolby 5.1 audio along with video, all synced and ready to go.


Ki Pro


Can be carried like a recorder or portable VTR, or attached to a special exo skeleton and placed under a camera on a tripod. It has a removable 250 or 500 Gb Hard disk, or a SxS card slot to record video on.

Ki Pro Mini


Attached behind a camera like JVC, Sony, P2 etc, and records higher quality that the camera can. especially for the new Sony F3 or Panasonic AF101 that shoot XDCam and AVCHD respectively.


For those who don't yet know ProRes is a format invented by Apple for use as a high quality 10bit movie format but providing nearly uncompressed quality. Disk space and disk speed requirements are modest and feasible with ProRes. There are 5 variants yielding differing levels of quality while taking up different amounts of disk space.


ProRes is 10-bit, many other codecs are 8-bit.


Data rates for various variants of ProRes
ProRes 4444 - 330 Mbps 37.1 MB/sec at 1080p24
ProRes HQ - 220 Mbps 24.7 MB/sec at 1080p24
ProRes - 145 Mbps 16.5 MB/sec at 1080p24
ProRes LT - 110 Mbps 11.5 MB/sec at 1080p24
ProRes Proxy - 45 Mbps 5.1 MB/sec at 1080p24


Capacity of hard disks and cards.


Ki Pro records to hard disk or SxS card.


250 Gb hard disk 
- 692 mins of ProRes Proxy - 11 hrs 32 min
- 318 mins of ProRes LT - 5 hrs 18 min
- 225 mins of ProRes - 3 hrs 45 min
- 150 mins of ProRes HQ


500 Gb hard disk 
- 1384 mins of ProRes Proxy - 23 hrs
- 637 mins of ProRes LT - 10 hrs 37 mins
- 450 mins of ProRes - 7 hrs 30 mins
- 300 mins of ProRes HQ - 5 hrs


16 Gb SxS card
- 44 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 20 mins of ProRes LT
- 14 mins of ProRes 
- 9 mins of ProRes HQ


32 Gb SxS card 
- 88 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 40 mins of ProRes LT
- 28 mins of ProRes 
- 19 mins of ProRes HQ


Ki Pro mini shoots to CF card


8 Gb CF card 
- 22 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 10 mins of ProRes LT
- 7 mins of ProRes 
- 4 mins of ProRes HQ


16 Gb CF card 
- 44 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 20 mins of ProRes LT
- 14 mins of ProRes 
- 9 mins of ProRes HQ


32 Gb CF card 
- 88 mins of ProRes Proxy
- 40 mins of ProRes LT
- 28 mins of ProRes 
- 19 mins of ProRes HQ

FCP problems with illegal FCP

This is what a legal copy of Final Cut Studio 3 or FCP 7 looks like. Have one?

Of late I've been shown many instances of FCP projects that don't link back to digital files, dropped frames even with fast disks, media files present but showing as offline, and the dreaded 'General Error'. In extreme cases, projects get corrupt too. 

This seems to be happening a bit more often in recent times than previously. And, most important of all, I have not been able to duplicate or recreate these issues any any of my systems. At home, or systems I've installed by myself at friend's edit suites.

So what's going on? Is FCP 7 to blame? I think not.

One observation that I made with every reported case is that these issues happen in systems that do not have a valid FCP license. Meaning their FCP is cracked, not paid for, completely illegal. 

Some FCP users are not even aware that FCP had to be paid for. I found this out when I asked to see the box containing the original software disks. Why, even a large post house on Mumbai's upmarket Linking Road had many FCP systems without a license. Come to think of it, even TV show producers and possibly TV channels use FCP without licenses.

In another post house at Bandra I studied 5 systems and tried to recreate one particular issue with FCP 7. I could not. The systems functioned flawlessly. Users there often could not even remember the last time their systems last crashed or hung. Reason? All 5 systems had licenses which were not only valid, but registered over the 'net with Apple.

So my surmise. 

If you have paid for and purchased Final Cut Studio ver. 3. And you have registered your license on the Internet with Apple. You have nothing to fear. Your system will work without a hitch. And not exhibit any of these issues. 

If, however, you have 'borrowed' FCP, and not registered it, or have otherwise cracked it, then beware. Apart from being illegal, this is a defective method of operating FCP. And it will catch up with you somewhere, sometime.

But it still doesn't add up. So what if its 'cracked FCP', it still has to work right? 

Well, not quite. I think some person somewhere made a copy of the original FCP disks on to a hard drive. This copy, somehow got corrupted while being copied from disk to disk. And these corrupted copies are with some persons somewhere in Mumbai. And these defective FCPs are doing the rounds. Being used to install FCP over and over again.

Conclusion.

If you are an FCP system user and don't have a box with the original software and DVDs, please go out an buy one. It costs under Rs 50,000 and is worth every Rupee. Many many individual editors and small production houses in India have bought one. In fact I dare say, more people in India have actually bought FCP than have not. Be one of the good guys.

And no matter what your dealer, reseller or friends tell you, there is no FCP demo, no FCP evaluation, no 30-day trial. You pay money, you get a copy, you use it. That's how it works.

Even if the system that's being used to edit your films is borrowed, or hired, ask to see the license. And have it registered over the internet in your presence. And you will see for yourself, whatever FCP problems you had will simply go away.

Installing software without a license, is software piracy. Pirating software and pirated software are completely illegal. 

Sometimes pirated software is defective as well.

Arri Alexa Avid workflow

I keep getting asked about the workflow for editing with Arri Alexa media. Here, people mostly refer to the Apple ProRes 4444 Quicktime movies that the Alexa shoots. In India, as far as I know, we don't (yet) have an Alexa equipped with a Arri RAW recorder, hence ProRes 4444 is, for the moment, Arri Alexa media.


Most people have queries about editing Alexa media on an Avid Media Composer. Particularly Media Composer v 5 which can 'soft import' files without creating Avid MXF or OMF media, just like how FCP imports media.
Older versions compulsorily import media so that's another story.


FCP can easily edit the native files. Or you can batch convert to ProRes LT or ProRes Proxy to save space. 


So, as I began putting down points, I turned to the 'net to check if anyone had reported issues in forums. There were some issues, but these will go away with more work with Alexa and as software improves. So no point taking them up at the present.


While reading up, I came across Oliver Peters very informative blog Digitalfilms. This outlines the process in detail with pictures.


Here is the link
http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/category/arri-alexa/


You need to try out his procedure first hand on a Avid Media Composer v 5 system to understand the simplicity and elegance of its working. 


Also, if you're working on an Avid Media Composer on Windows, then maybe you need to get the Apple ProRes decoder for Windows.
http://support.apple.com/downloads/Apple_ProRes_QuickTime_Decoder_1_0_for_Windows
That's in case your QT Player on Windows can't open Alexa files. If it can, then don't bother with the plug-in.


Peters also has an explanation for working with Arri Alexa files in FCP. And a link to Nick Shaw's plug-in to make a quick and rough log to lin conversion of Arri LogC Quicktimes. This conversion is for preview purposes only. 


Unfortunately, Apple Color does not do log to lin for QT, only for DPX, else that would have been a great workflow too. 
But if you fiddle with the curves in the Primary room (of Apple Color) as well as, try auto balance you can get a neat looking linear image. You can even get carried away and believe you can grade your media yourself. In that case, get yourself a Tangent Wave or Euphonix grading panel, and a good experienced colourist, and who knows, you can do DI at home.


More on Alexa adventures as I lay my hand on some stuff to do myself.

Sony F3 test movie

A team of film-makers shot with a pre-production Sony F3 camera. And the finished video is up at Vimeo here. Post production was done at Molinare in London. 


The camera shoots 35 Mbps MPEG-2 on SxS cards. There is a provision to output video  over HD-SDI along with recording to SxS cards. To enable recording to an HDCamSR VTR or a recorder like the Aja KiPro or KiPro mini that record to hard disk or CF card as Apple ProResHQ or ProRes QT movies. 


It may be interesting to learn how they handled the post for this test story. But the visuals in the final look stunning. Check it out. 

The new Sony PMW-F3

At a location in Mumbai recently I had occasion to see the new Sony PMW-F3 camera. This camera will be released later this year. And some features will be activated only early next year. So I'll write a detailed review only when I can lay my hands on one with a cinematographer present. 

But from the point of view of a film-maker, the highlights are...

1. Small body, interchangeable lenses.
2. Mounts for Sony lenses and PL mount lenses.
3. Super35 size sensor for 'filmic' depth of field.
4. Sony Exmor sensor for truer 'filmic' colours.
5. Records to onboard SxS as XDCamEx, same format as EX1 and EX3.
6. HD-SDI outputs so you can record to a KiPro, Convergent, or HDCamSR recorder.
7. $16,000 body and $23,000 with 3 Sony PL lenses.
8. Dual link output, and S-log shooting to be added next year.

Preliminary details are up at Sony's Pro site

Stargate Studios has done a trial shoot with a detailed report with pictures.

Studio Daily has a report.

Will this camera threaten the Canon 5Ds and 7Ds? 

On price, no. On features, usability and quality, definitely.

Will it threaten Red?

Most likely yes because it has features to compare. But the Red is 4k at about the same price with a more convoluted post process.

Will it threaten Alexa?

Resolution wise it is similar to the Alexa. Quality wise, remains to be seen. Price, definitely better than Alexa.

 

 

But maybe the F3 is in a different league compared to Red and Alexa.

I think at $7000 or even less for F3 body only, with a comparable reduction in pricing of the EX1/EX3 and Sony will have a killer range that can sell some serious numbers. Else, if and when Canon improves the 5D's video issues with aliasing, and jello cam, the F3 will be threatened back.

What's the big deal about FCP?

A little birdie asked me quite recently. "Really, what is the big deal about FCP?" Especially now, with Avid growing in leaps with every new release. So I pondered...

What really is the big deal with FCP? Is there even a big deal in FCP? Sure, here is a bullet point list of the important features that make FCP score over Avid.

Some of these differences may not apply to the absolutely latest Avid ver 5.0. But for most Avid ABVB, Meridien, or even Adrenaline owners, ver 5 is a huge upgrade. So, for them, these still apply.

So,  in India, in 2010, the big deal about FCP is...

Huge format support
Apart from Beta/DigiBeta/DV, FCP can import and edit Red, Canon 5D/7D, XDCamEx, DVCProHD, JVC HDV, P2, NXCam, AVCCam, AVCHD and many more that Avids older than maybe 2009 cannot.

Smoke-Flame quality
FCP uses the same Aja Kona hardware that Smoke, Flame and even Lustre use, so the video quality of FCP is identical to Smoke, Flame and Lustre. No offline-online with FCP, both same same.

Compositing while editing
Any motion graphics kind of stuff - DVD moves, resize, skew, keyframed moves, crops, rotates etc - can be done while editing. Avid can't even rotate a frame.

Import without convert
FCP uses most file formats without creating new media. Avid needs to import everything and create new media.

Multi resolution
FCP has no project setting as such. You can happily mix HD, SD, PAL, 24, 25, NTSC, YouTube movies, MP3 files, CD audio, BWF audio, all in one project. Even place them in one timeline. Avid needs you to make a project of a fixed setting and prohibits you from importing anything of a different setting.

'24-25 thing' easy
In PAL-film land the '24-25 thing' comes back to bites you from time to time. FCP allows you to interchange from 24 to 25 in a flash - picture and sound.

HD without tax

All FCP systems after about 2004 can do HD. In fact almost all FCP capture cards can do HD from about 2006. So, FCP has HD without costly DNExcel cards, HD upgrades, MojoDX boxes that cost lakhs of Rupees for Avid owners.

Easier to use
For the novice, FCP is easier to use. And master.

Scalable over systems
FCP is the same whether on a laptop, an iMac or a desktop MacPro. All that changes is the hardware that's used for capture or monitoring. And that's optional.

XML interchange
FCP sequence information can be exported as XML which carries more info than EDLs do. Letting you carry over multi-track edits to other systems like Smoke, Quantel eQ and others. XML works great for subtitle work too.

Online review and approval with iChat
Edit and show your timeline to someone hundreds of kilometers away whilst still being able to make changes on the fly. With iChat sharing.

Easy speed change tools
Motion effects don't need to make new media. And ramps are easy drag and drop too.

Easier to keep upgraded

FCP has a software update about every year or so. And upgrades cost less that Rs 20,000 mostly. You don't need to buy costly annual maintenance plans to get upgrades. Most Macs support the next version for at least 3 years.
By that time, FCP has made you so much money you can afford a new Mac. Most likely, your cards will work with the new version.

Final Cut Studio
Final Cut Pro is only a part of a suite of products collectively called Final Cut Studio. All bundled with FCP. They are… Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color, DVD Studio Pro, Compressor, Cinema Tools.

Advanced colour correction in Color
Colour correction that could only be done in million dollar DaVinci and other systems can now be achieved in Apple Color. A good colorist and a 'grading panel' can make this into a full-fledged grading suite.
Sequences can be sent to color and returned without any EDLs. Even DPX, and 4k is possible withinFCP and Color.

Motion graphics in Motion
Easily send your sequence or some clips to Motion and do complex match moves, stabilize, tracking, chroma keying and other advanced 'online' stuff.

Complex title graphics in Motion or LiveType
Amazing title work within Motion or LiveType with older Final Cut versions.

Sound design in Soundtrack Pro
Pro Tools like sound design work is possible within Soundtrack Pro. Even easy Dolby surround work. FCP and Soundtrack automatically synchronize timelines so change the edit in FCP and the sound work changes automatically. Great clean up and noise removal tools too

Royalty free sound samples
Final Cut Studio ships with Gigabytes of free sound. If you know how, you can compose an entire background music, or even song track for a long film too.

DVD/Blu-ray making directly
Make a DVD or Blu-Ray directly within FCP.

DVD authoring in DVD Studio Pro
For advanced authored DVDs with chapters, menus and sub-menus and stuff that's sold in shops, DVD Studio Pro lets you make them. And send them off to a duplicator to make thousands or lakhs.

Media database and film workflow with Cinema Tools
All the 24-25 stuff, telecine logs, cut lists pull lists. Even managing Red and Canon files, is done within Cinema Tools. Frame accurate, perf accurate.

Encoding to various formats with Compressor
After editing one almost always needs to send out stuff to the web - YouTube, Vimeo, H.264, Windows media and many other formats created automatically and in the background.

Disclaimer…
I have only 6 years experience editing on Avid systems on a daily basis. And the rest of the 10 years following, I worked mainly on FCP.

I don't use Avid as extensively as I used to, therefore, maybe newer versions of Avid have addressed some of the inequalities above, which I may not be abreast with.

But you know what? Most Avid owners can not or do not upgrade when a new version is available. Because in Avid land, an upgrade can often mean new hardware even a new PC or Mac. Even two year old Avids used Avid hardware that costed lakhs of Rupees. Which have now been replaced with hardware that costs only tens of thousands.

Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 XML bug fixed

One of the most vexing of FCP issues in recent months has been with FCP 7.0.2. It would have affected anyone who made subtitles in FCP and exported an XML for creating an STL for DVD Studio Pro, or like me, to do XML manipulation to do global changes in subtitles. What happened was that ALL the line breaks were lost. Really frustrating leading to a workaround consisting of reinstalling a 'ghost FCP 7' and running that for making XMLs.

Apple yesterday updated Final Cut Studio in an update called  

Pro Applications Update 2010-02. 

 (Link here http://support.apple.com/kb/DL949)

This update has fixed the 'lost line breaks in XMLs' issue according to the release notes, and added some features.

This update will upgrade your FCP apps to

Final Cut Pro 7.0.3
Motion 4.0.3
Color 1.5.3
Compressor 3.5.3
Apple Qmaster 3.5.3

I haven't tested all the apps yet and will install this first on a non-production system to check if anything else has been broken. More on the updates as I get some hands on time with them.

From Apple's site, what has been fixed is...

Final Cut Pro

Real-time compatibility with Sony XDCAM HD422 720p24/p25/p30.
Log and Transfer compatibility with Sony NXCAM SD.
Control-G not closing the correct gap in the Timeline under the playhead.
Closed captioning data is now preserved when outputting to AJA Io HD with Print to Tape/Video.
Performance issue when importing AVCHD with LPCM audio.
AVCHD thumbnail images in SD are now the correct 4:3 aspect ratio.
XML export now retains the carriage return when working with text and third-party applications.
Several memory fragmentation issues have been resolved.
Localized versions of Final Cut Pro now recognize HDV devices that use the 1080i60/1080i50 FireWire Basic Easy Setups.
Log and Transfer supports ingesting more than one format recorded to the same SD card.

Motion

Corrupted display of the camera controls with certain graphics processors.

Compressor

Adds a compression setting optimized for iPad and iPhone 4.

Color

Adds compatibility with XDCAM HD422 720p24/p25/p30

IBC 2010 Day 1 - 2

I'm not at IBC this year due to some earlier commitments of the domestic kind.
But from what I've followed through newsletters and conversations with friends, here are some of the highlights so far...

Avid released a software version of DS. This will have all the features of a 'real DS' including HD, 2k, 4k, conforming and finishing. Anyone who has relied upon Avid's media management, conform, relink, decompose, consolidate, will have a respect for this software over any other. Even Smoke.

It will be available in October for US$ 10,000 which should price it lower than Smoke on Mac. And it has more features than Smoke on Mac plus close integration with all Avid products especially Media Composer and ProTools which Smoke does not do. Note that DS works on Windows and Smoke on Mac (and Linux). Maybe you might be able to run both on a Mac, with DS running under Parallels.

Speaking of Smoke, Autodesk announced 'Flame Premium' - the MS-Office for online work. This is a suite consisting of Autodesk Smoke, Flame and Lustre as one package. I have no idea on price or shipping, but this can be lethal if Autodesk markets it correctly. And if studios can get people to run all three. Let's wait and see.

Panasonic showed a 'DSLR killer' camera the AG-AF101. DSLR size sensor, compatibility with film lenses, no aliasing issues. Can run Canon and Nikon lenses with an adapter. HD-SDI output too so you can record to HDCamSR tape or KiPro if you don't like the compression they are using. Available December for Euros 5000, this might prove to be a Red killer rather than a DSLR killer.

Aja also announced a smaller Ki Pro the Ki Pro Mini. It records any HD-SDI or HDMI signal as Apple ProRes HQ, SQ, LT, or Proxy files. To CF cards. its small and can mount like Anton Bauer battery packs to the rear of most cameras. Available October for US$ 2000.

Aja also introduced an evolved Kona3, the Kona 3G that adds support for 3D over HDMI and many other I/O capabilities. This will be priced lower than the Kona 3 and available in October. US$ 2400 with the break out box.

Not to be outdone, Blackmagic came out with their evolved Blackmagic Decklink Extreme HD in the form of a Decklink Extreme 3D+. This too offers 3D easily over HDMI 1.4 on TV sets that support this standard. HDMI 1.4 allows full resolution HD 3D over one cable rather than the side-by-side that HDMI 1.3 offered that had only half HD resolution. Decklink's Extreme 3D+ will go for only US$ 1000. And its available now.

In the US, of course some snoots will continue to swear by Aja. But in years of using both, I can't see what's so special with Aja cards over Decklink and I haven't come across any scientific study that proves one is better than the other. Though Decklink have been more cost effective. And have had vastly better support in India.

Blackmagic is also shipping the Resolve on Mac... finally. US$ 1000 for a full featured DI grading software that can run on a properly equipped Mac and co exist with FCP on the same system. It will work with the Tangent Wave panel. They have a configuration guide at their site which should make it easy for anyone to set it up. And this guide will ensure that anyone and everyone sets one up. With interesting results.

The same Resolve Mac system could well have supported an Autodesk Smoke. Since both Resolve and Smoke use the Nvidia FX 4800 for their GPU work. Except that Autodesk Smoke needs a Aja Kona 3 card, while the Resolve uses a Blackmagic Decklink HD. Too bad. Maybe this will change some day.

This is the news at the end of 12 Sep. More surprises could be lurking in the shadows. or maybe even after IBC. I will be looking out.

The new iPod Touch

If you've been waiting to buy an iPhone 4 or an iPad, do head over to Apple's web site and take a look at the new iPod Touch. Announced at a special event by Steve Jobs himself.

It is everything that an iPhone 4 is, but its slimmer and doesn't make calls. Has the same processor as the iPad. Of course, a smaller screen. Record HD video and edit it on the iPT itself. Anywhere

Price is 
8 Gb $ 230 - about Rs. 15,000
16 Gb $300 - about Rs. 20,000
32 Gb $ 400 - about Rs. 26000
and available now. No unlocking no jailbreaking. Works over wifi.
It doesn't have GPS, but does an approximate map location based on wifi location. Just like on an iPad non-3G.


Great gaming platform too.


Another announcement last night was that iOS 4.1 will solve some bugs of slow performance on the old iPhone 3G. And iOS 4.2 will offer new features to iPads and multi-tasking and bring all iPhone devices to a common OS. Available in some months.


120 million iPhone devices - iPhone 2G, 3G, 3Gs, 4, iPad, iPad G, iPod Touch - sold so far.


A new AppleTV was announced too. Is just $100 but has no storage. Only streaming. With Internet speeds like we have in India, it might be challenging to watch movies online, except for YouTube. Of course if you have another Mac in the house, this is a great device to watch your movies and photos on your TV set. over wireless.

Canon 5D/7D in Mumbai with accessories

I got this post comment from Accord Equips who rent out cameras in Mumbai.
It was for a post I made in March 2010...

Available with Accord Equips, Mumbai, India - Canon 5d & 7d with all filming accessories like follow focus, matte box, view finder, shoulder mount etc with choice of Canon and Carl Zeiss filming lenses.
Visit www.accordequips.com. Call Jeki 9594070007 / Bhupen – 9594066077 / 26740066 / 64553300

The phone numbers are in Mumbai. If you are outside Mumbai you should dial the +91 prefix.