Post Focus will enable users to select an “in-focus” area after shooting with a simple interface. This function has been developed as a further evolution of 4K Photo technology to prevent out-of-focus errors and offer additional creative freedom.

By combining high-speed, high-precision DFD (Depth From Defocus) auto focus technology and the 4K Photo burst images in 4K resolution are shot at 30 fps while shifting the lens to set focus on approx. 50 areas (*TBC).

With the Post Focus function, the best image can be selected from the 4K burst images shot with different focus areas. Once the composition is fixed, you are free from the job of serious focusing. In addition, this function can be used for creative photography such as landscapes or portraits. Users can pull different impressions out of one picture by changing the subject to enhance it with focus. The operation of the Post Focus function is quite easy – just touch the point where you want to set focus while playing back the image, no matter where the original focus area is, and the image with different in-focus area will be produced as a separate photo.

Panasonic will introduce this Post Focus function via a firmware update for LUMIX GX8, LUMIX FZ300 and some other models in late 2015 and 2016 will study to integrate it into upcoming LUMIX digital cameras as well.

Well, it is same feature that is available on smartphones for long. Nothing new and it is limited in use.

This is made for mobile users, made with High Quality Standards, Privacy, and for All.

The online platform for video sharing and video messagging is now just alive

Full Press Release here: http://www.cinemartin.com/webmail/201507_videus.htm

Tony

SAN MATEO, CA (June 6, 2014) – GoPro, maker of the Emmy® Award-winning HERO® camera and enabler of some of today’s most engaging professional video content, announced today that the core technology behind the GoPro CineForm Codec has been standardized by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers® (SMPTE®) as the SMPTE ST 2073 VC-5 video compression standard – the new open codec standard for video acquisition and post production.

The GoPro CineForm Codec is a high-performance video codec widely valued in video post-production as the industry’s highest quality compression format. It is well established in the professional filmmaking marketplace and has been extensively used in Hollywood feature films, including Slumdog Millionaire and Need for Speed.

SMPTE standardization of the GoPro CineForm codec as the VC-5 standard now means the professional production and post production community can access SMPTE-standardized codec technology for presenting high resolution imagery with a high speed, low-compute intensive workflow. The new VC-5 standard will provide a more efficient, cost effective and higher-performance workflow, delivering an 8x performance boost over the current JPEG 2000 format with higher resolution.

That's huge - I was hoping for this since quite a while. Looking forward to finally get rid of ProRes. Cineform is so much better.

https://www.smpte.org/news-events/news-releases/gopro®-cineform-codec-standardized-smpte®-vc-5-standard

I would really like to use one of these for my scenery videos.

Video talking about it.

Video directly from the rig:

Thunderbolt3 is the fastest, most versatile connection to any dock, display, or peripheral device – including billions of USB devices. “Thunderbolt™ 3 is computer port nirvana – delivering two 4K displays, fast data, and quick notebook charging”, said Navin Shenoy, vice president in Client Computing Group and general manager of Mobility Client Platforms at Intel Corporation. “It fulfills the promise of USB-C for single-cable docking and so much more. OEMs and device developers are going to love it.”

Users have long wanted desktop-level performance from a mobile computer. Thunderbolt was developed to simultaneously support the fastest data and most video bandwidth available on a single cable, while also supplying power. Then recently the USB group introduced the USB-C connector, which is small, reversible, fast, supplies power, and allows other I/O in addition to USB to run on it, maximizing its potential. So in the biggest advancement since its inception, Thunderbolt 3 brings Thunderbolt to USB-C at 40Gbps, fulfilling its promise, creating one compact port that does it all.

A Thunderbolt 3 cable will look like the current USB-C cables and will support the same power and data transfers, but it will also be capable of much higher throughput (40Gbps) in Thunderbolt mode.

https://thunderbolttechnology.net/blog/thunderbolt-3-usb-c-does-it-all

Result is "8K" provided by Sharp X8-Master Engine PRO upscaling SoC.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925432/sharps-latest-4k-tv-adds-yellow-subpixel-for-8k-resolution.html

Apple® today updated the 15-inch MacBook Pro® with Retina® display with the new Force Touch trackpad, faster flash storage, longer battery life and faster discrete graphics, delivering even more performance and capabilities to the MacBook Pro line. Apple also today introduced a new $1,999 configuration of the 27-inch iMac® with Retina 5K display featuring a breathtaking 14.7 million pixel display, quad-core processors and AMD graphics, and lowered the price of the top-end iMac with Retina 5K display to $2,299.

http://store.apple.com/us/buy-mac/imac-retina

http://www.nabshow.com

Invitations

Free invitations (aka Guess pass Codes) from:

• Aputure - LV5295
• Skier - LV3989
• Some more codes: LV6726 , LV3457, LV9993, LV5787

http://nabshow.com/register code

Expected interesting things:

Canon

• Canon EOS C300 MK II, with 4K
• Canon EOS One ( thing like Sony AX100 with DSLR form factor).
• Some lenses

Panasonic

• Panasonic AF1000 (AF100 replacement)
• Some large cameras

Sony

• Can be some large cameras
• Nothing significant in low end

Companies location

• Schneider Optics - C6037
• Lanparte - C11735
• Skier - C12732
• MotionNine - C10345
• Redrockmicro - C9539
• Lishuai/Fotodiox - C9939
• Ruige - C9911

Leave a message if you plan to be at NAB.

• YouTube Creator Studio: Did you know that after Rebecca Black uploaded “Friday,” she went on a school trip, not knowing for several days the video was going viral? To help you manage your videos on the go, the new YouTube Creator Studio app lets you see analytics, manage your videos and more. The app is available now on Android and launching on iOS in coming weeks and you’ll see some redesign of the Creator Studio on desktop too.
• Audio Library, now with sound effects: You’ve used the hundreds of free songs in the Audio Library on millions of your videos. But until now, you’ve had to go through extreme lengths to make your own zombie screams and fighter plane sounds. To make your lives easier and videos better, from today you now have thousands of royalty-free sound effects at your disposal. We’ve also added more tracks to the Audio Library.
• 60 (yeah, six-zero) frames per second: Your video game footage with crazy high frame rates will soon look as awesome on YouTube as it does when you’re playing, when we launch support for 48 and even 60 frames per second in the coming months. Take a look at some preview videos on the YT Creator Channel. Make sure you’re watching in HD!
• Fan Funding: Your fans aren’t just watching your videos, they’re also helping support your channel through services like KickStarter, IndieGogo, Patreon and more. We’ll be adding another option for you, where fans will be able to contribute money to support your channel at any time, for any reason. A handful of creators are testing this feature soon on desktop and Android, including Dulce Delight, Fitness Blender, The Healthcare Triage, The King of Random, Soul Pancake, Steve Spangler Science, The Young Turks, and Thug Notes. If you’re interested in trying it on your channel, sign up here.
• Creator Credits: Collaboration is a key to great videos on YouTube. You’re already giving your collaborators shout outs in your video descriptions. But what if those text-based shout outs were tags that let viewers click through to their channels, or let you search for a collaborator based on their work and location? That’s our vision for Creator Credits, stay tuned for more.
• Subtitles contributed from fans: More than a billion people watch YouTube each month, but not all of them speak the same language and some are deaf or hard of hearing. Automatic speech recognition and automatic translation on YouTube can help, but your fans can do an even better job. In the coming months, your fans will be able to submit translations in any language based on the subtitles or captions you’ve created, helping you reach even more viewers. You can try this out now on Barely Political, Fine Art-Tips, Got Talent Global and Unicoos.
• Info Cards: Annotations are useful, but not as ridiculously good looking as say, Blue Steel. In the near future, you’ll see our new interactive information cards with a clean look, which you’ll beable to program once to work across desktop, phones and tablets.
• More ways to playlist: Along with playlists analytics we recently added to analytics, expect to see more ways to create playlists, so that all the time you spend building them translates into easier discovery for viewers and better results for you.

BPG (Better Portable Graphics) is a new image format. Its purpose is to replace the JPEG image format when quality or file size is an issue. Its main advantages are:

• High compression ratio. Files are much smaller than JPEG for similar quality.
• Supported by most Web browsers with a small Javascript decoder (gzipped size: 56 KB).
• Based on a subset of the HEVC open video compression standard.
• Supports the same chroma formats as JPEG (grayscale, YCbCr 4:2:0, 4:2:2, 4:4:4) to reduce the losses during the conversion. An alpha channel is supported. The RGB, YCgCo and CMYK color spaces are also supported.
• Native support of 8 to 14 bits per channel for a higher dynamic range.
• Lossless compression is supported.
• Various metadata (such as EXIF, ICC profile, XMP) can be included.
• Animation support.

Find the description, details and links at bellard.org.

For an online comparison of BPG with other still image codecs have a look at this demo.

BTW: Meanwhile, the Daala development team is still struggling to achieve intra-frame encoding on par with HEVC without using patent-encumbered technology.

Apple has acquired LinX, an Israeli camera tech company whose most recent offerings include multi-aperture camera models which can enable effects like background focus blur, parallax images and 3D picture capture.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/14/apple-buys-linx-a-camera-module-maker-promising-dslr-like-mobile-performance/#.5xk91r:sAx5

Only thing that Apple want is obtaining algorithms for images matching and morphing. They do not want any of the modules or any hardware.
It is also clear that smartphone cameras improvements came to the dead end (only RGBW lies ahead, but produce significant issues).
Camera modules are very high margins products with very low actual cost, so for large manufacturers it is possible to put 4 or even 16 of them without too much sacrifices.

LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 300 million members worldwide, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire lynda.com, a leading online learning company teaching business, technology and creative skills to help people achieve their professional goals. Based in Carpinteria, CA, lynda.com was co-founded in 1995 by Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin.

The transaction is valued at approximately $1.5 billion, subject to adjustment, in a combination of approximately 52 percent cash and approximately 48 percent stock. Subject to the completion of customary conditions, the acquisition is expected to close during the second quarter of 2015.

Through a subscription to lynda.com’s service, individual members and organizations have access to a comprehensive collection of top quality courses taught by industry experts, offered in English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. In addition to individual subscribers, lynda.com serves corporate, government and educational organizations through its lyndaEnterprise, lyndaPro, lyndaCampus, lyndaLibrary and lyndaKiosk products. lynda.com stands out as a leader of owned and operated premium skills content, offering a massive library of high-quality courses.

“The mission of LinkedIn and the mission of lynda.com are highly aligned. Both companies seek to help professionals be better at what they do,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “lynda.com’s extensive library of premium video content helps empower people to develop the skills needed to accelerate their careers. When integrated with the hundreds of millions of members and millions of jobs on LinkedIn, lynda.com can change the way in which people connect to opportunity.”

"This is such an exciting moment in the 20-year history of lynda.com, and I couldn't imagine a better pairing than lynda.com and LinkedIn," said Lynda Weinman, co-founder and executive chair of the board of lynda.com.

"In LinkedIn, we have found an incredible partner who shares our vision and passion for empowering people around the world to make real change in their lives through access to information, learning and professional development," said Eric Robison, CEO of lynda.com.

Following closing, most members of the lynda.com team are expected to join LinkedIn.

Ryan Roslansky, head of global content products at LinkedIn, blogged in more detail about the acquisition here. Weiner wrote a post about the acquisition here, and Weinman posted about it here.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., - April 8, 2015 – HDMI Forum, Inc., a non-profit, mutual benefit corporation, today announced the completion and release of Version 2.0a of the HDMI® Specification. It is available to current HDMI 2.0 Adopters via the HDMI Adopter Extranet.

The specification has been updated to enable transmission of HDR formats, which provide enhanced picture quality by simultaneously enabling greater detail for both the dark and bright parts of an image. The HDR-related updates include references to CEA-861.3, CEA’s recently published update of HDR Static Metadata Extensions.

“We recognized that HDR would be a critical feature as the industry evolves. Our support for HDR enables our 800+ HDMI 2.0 Adopters to develop market-leading products that include HDR and will maintain interoperability across the entire HDMI ecosystem,” said Robert Blanchard, President of the HDMI Forum, Inc. “Along with the publication of the CEA extensions, the HDMI Forum continues to update the HDMI Specification and remain closely aligned with leading CE standards organizations.”

“By adding HDR, the HDMI Specification continues its history of supporting the latest formats and technologies planned for Hollywood content,” said Arnold Brown, Chairman of the HDMI Forum, Inc. Board of Directors

http://www.hdmiforum.org/press_release.aspx?prid=135

It is good tradition to make winter video contests on PV.

Terms

1. You can submit TWO videos made by you personally using any camera. Just post it in this topic.
2. Video must have really good story you want to tell to viewers. Music videos, horrors and pretty moving slideshows are not accepted as entries.
3. Clip must reside on vimeo or youtube video hostings and must have "personal-view contest" text and link to contest page (for contest time).
4. Video must be between 3 and 10 minutes in length (for longer length entries you must PM me).
5. Only videos made in November 2014 or later are accepted. Do not submit your one year old video.
6. New videos made specially for contest will have priority if all else equal.
7. Videos featuring pets or animals like cat, dog, hamster, etc will have small bonus added in evaluation.
8. Video about real life economics (manufacturing, etc) will have small bonus added in evaluation.

Winner, 2rd and 3nd places will be selected by me personally (VK) after viewing all entries no later than one week after deadline,
I will consult some influential members also for their opinion.

Prizes

For Winner

Full Fotga camera rig (mattebox, follow focus, camera base, rods and offset shoulder pad).

2nd place

Fotga M4 matte box, includes rods and C bracket

3rd place

Forga DP500 2 follow focus with QR

http://www.tipa.com/english/XXV_tipa_awards_2015.html

http://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-suhd-4k-tv-prices-leaked-super-expensive/

5.5-inch HD and Full HD LTPS units saw some of the biggest price declines in the market during February due to makers competing over orders as demand in the market for the size grew. 5.5-inch HD/IPS modules were around US$11-15, down US$0.50 on month while 5.5-inch units with Full HD/IPS specifications were about US$20.50.

The firm said 5.5-inch displays with Full HD/IPS are expected to drop to around US$16 in May and June.

Intel Corp. is in talks to acquire Altera Corp., people with knowledge of the matter said, as the world’s largest chipmaker searches for growth beyond a moribund personal-computer market.

Altera makes a broad range of low-power programmable semiconductors, which are used in small embedded devices and computer servers for big data centers.

In buying Altera, Intel could expand into markets for automotive, industrial and communication applications, while cementing its lead in data centers.

Fun thing that here we see Intel saving Altera, as FPGA companies always want latest and best manufacturing process available. Merger could allow to reduce expenses and make excuse for very low prices that will be offered for such manufacturing (amid exponentially rising development and manufacturing costs).

http://www.cnet.com/news/patent-group-raises-new-fees-uncertainty-for-4k-video/

Money talks, as usual...

Amazon today announced unlimited cloud storage with Amazon Cloud Drive—two new storage plans for customers to securely store their existing content collections and automatically upload endless amounts of new content, including photos, videos, movies, music, and files. With the unlimited plans, customers no longer need to worry about how much storage is needed to keep their content safe and secure—they can choose either the Unlimited Photos Plan or Unlimited Everything Plan and only pay one flat fee per year. A free 3-month trial is available for customers to try either plan:

• Unlimited Photos Plan (free 3-month trial, then $11.99 per year—equivalent of less than $1 per month): Store an infinite number of photos in Cloud Drive without worrying about taking up space on phones, cameras, or other devices. Customers can upload existing collections and store all future photos taken. This plan also includes 5 GB of additional storage for videos or other documents and files.
• Unlimited Everything Plan (free 3-month trial, then $59.99 per year—equivalent of less than $5 per month): Store an infinite number of new and existing photos, videos, files, documents, movies, and music in Cloud Drive.

“Most people have a lifetime of birthdays, vacations, holidays, and everyday moments stored across numerous devices. And, they don’t know how many gigabytes of storage they need to back all of them up,” said Josh Petersen, Director of Amazon Cloud Drive. “With the two new plans we are introducing today, customers don’t need to worry about storage space—they now have an affordable, secure solution to store unlimited amounts of photos, videos, movies, music, and files in one convenient place.”

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2028891

Following the split out of its TV business last year, Sony is targeting October 1, 2015 to commence the next stage of this reorganization process by splitting out the Video & Sound business unit and launching it as a self-sustained, wholly owned subsidiary. Sony also intends to move forward with preparations for splitting out other business units thereafter. For those business units that are already operating as subsidiaries, Sony will move to further increase their levels of autonomy based on the strategy outlined above.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201502/15-017E/index.html

Workers at Lytro got a mixed bag of news on Wednesday, with the photography startup telling employees both that it has raised a further $50 million, but also that it intends to cut a significant chunk of its workforce.

Lytro plans to use the new funding to make a strategic shift, taking its signature light-field technology into new areas, including video and virtual reality.

The company is expected to cut somewhere between 25 and 50 people from its 130 person workforce.

http://recode.net/2015/02/25/lytro-cuts-jobs-raises-50-million-in-shift-toward-virtual-reality-and-video-exclusive/

Numbered 15.36.14.4080, this update add to Haswell and Broadwell processors hardware acceleration support for two next-gen video formats: HEVC, also known as H.265, and Google's VP9.

• Improved video playback through partial hardware acceleration support for the VP9 video format.
• GPU accelerated decode of HEVC video file format including both 8-bit and 10-bit support. This will provide improved video playback capabilities on the platforms.

Supported processors include the Core M family; 4th-gen Core CPUs with HD, Iris, or Iris Pro graphics; and "Select Pentium®/ Celeron® Processors."

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=24596&lang=eng

The Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) will open its annual Camera & Imaging Show on Thursday 12 February at the Pacifico Yokohama just outside Tokyo.

http://www.cpplus.jp/en/

Some of upcoming cameras:

• Canon 5Ds and 5Ds R 50Mp cameras
• Canon M3
• Canon Powershot G3 X
• Pentax K-S2
• Samsung NX500
• Samsung NX3300
• Panasonic GF7 (announced prior)
• Olympus E-M5 II
• Canon Rebel T6i/EOS 760D
• Fujifilm X-A2 (announced prior)

Some rumored lenses:

• Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO lens
• Olympus 8mm f/1.8 fisheye
• Olympus 14-150mm f/4.0-5.6 II
• FUJINON LENS XC16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OIS II (announced prior)
• FUJINON LENS XC50-230mm F4.5-6.7 OIS II (announced prior)
• Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L
• Sony Zeiss 35mm f/1.4
• Sony 28mm f/2.0 G
• Sony 90mm f/2.8 G OSS macro
• Sony 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS
• Pentax 18-55 new collapsible kit lens

Dates:

• February 12: 13:00–13:45 Shigeru Kato (OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.): “Development of M.ZUIKO PRO LENS”
• February 13: 15:00–15:45 Tomoaki Tsutsumi (Panasonic Corporation): “Creating a New Photo Culture by the expansion of “4K Photo”“

Will have resolution of 1,400x1,050 (and RGB dots for each pixel) and will work at 120fps.

http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20150205_687018.html

Looks like that DJI was tired to see Sony and Olympus launch their "lens cameras" as smartphone gimmics instead of exploring the great potential of them as drone cams, and decided to take the task themselves.