As I wrote, this got longer and longer. So I’ve split it up into a series of posts:

• Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camcorder Review
• Azden SMX-10 Stereo Shotgun and Generic OLM-10 Lavalier Microphone Review
• Zoom H1 “Handy Recorder”: Hands-On Review
• Sony NEX-5 Camera Review

Recent Examples

Here are some example videos made with the equipment described above.

Symantec Donating to Teacher Exchange

A bit yellow (there’s no white balance on the Zi8) but this was a very dim and noisy location with a hastily-recruited camera-woman (thanks, Gina!). If I hadn’t had a good mic the recording would have been ruined by the environment, but everything worked out fine in the end.

Drobo S Unboxing

This was shot with the Zi8 on a tripod and the lav mic clipped to my shirt. It was a quiet environment, and the long lav wire allowed me to move around freely.

Introducing Ciphertex at Interop

Another show-floor video where I used the Zi8 and Azden mic handheld. It was a bright but very noisy location with a moving subject – a real challenge for a handheld mic!

Meeting Thomas Jones at EMC World

Another recruited cameraman for a hand-held shot with the Zi8 and Azden mic. Thomas asked about the mic, prompting me to write all of this!

Stephen’s Stance

Good equipment can make the difference between an amateurish embarrassment and professional production when it comes to video recording. The combination of the Zi8 and my pair of microphones collect good enough source material to keep me in the latter category. Combined with the capabilities of Apple’s iMovie software, I can produce respectable videos anywhere I happen to find myself.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | My “On the Road” Video Recording Kit
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This post is part of my series focused on switching from PC to Mac.

• How To Buy Discount Apple Computers
• Got Some AppleCare For Cheap
• Switch! or How the Mac (Finally) Won Me Over
• Switch Day 1: This Mac is Hot!
• Switch Day 58: Ten Pros and Cons of the MacBook Pro

• The MacBook Pro is much sturdier than the average PC notebook, and even somewhat better than the high-end machines I’ve used (like my replacement Dell XPS M1330)
• The machine is hot on the bottom when using it a lot, and even pretty hot on the top!
• The fan is really loud – much louder than I was expecting
• The MagSafe power cord is cute but very delicate – I’m not surprised at all that they break and burn right and left!
• The screen is gorgeous – I got the matte model rather than the glossy since I hate the bright reflections I always fight with on my other machines
• I wish the 15″ model I got had more than two USB ports – I just know I’m going to be swapping a lot more than I used to.  But the new Dell has only two ports, too – my old XPS M1210 had four!
• Since I got the older model, it included the Apple remote, which is cute
• Everything about this machine is classier and more elegant than any PC I’ve ever used, from the packaging to the case to the documentation to the power cord
• I hate the auto-dimming screen – it reacts WAY too fast, constantly dimming and brightening as my shadow falls over the left-side speaker grille. This was the first Mac feature to be disabled!

One really odd thing about this machine is that even though it’s a “Late 2007″ model, it was manufactured in April 2008!  Why on earth did Apple continue making the old model two months after it was replaced in February with the “early 2008″ version?

As for OS X Leopard, I’ve just begun exploring…

• Anyone who complains about UAC on Windows should try OS X – it interrupts just about as much but forces you to type in your password, too!
• I love the packaging system – everything is self-contained so you can just drag and drop or delete
• It took me the longest time to figure out how to be able to shut the lid and use the computer with an external monitor – turns out it always sleeps when you shut the lid but then wakes up again when you click the mouse or type on the keyboard
• The included applications look much more useful than the ones that ship with Vista, which themselves are far better than anything Microsoft bundled in the past – I can’t wait to use iMovie and Garage Band, and iPhoto seems just as good as Google’s Picasa
• I’m loving the included UNIX utilities – ssh and scp should be part of every operating system out of the box!
• It’s ridiculously hard to change the hostname – apparently you have to edit /etc/hostconfig by hand!  Do they expect that no regular people want to name their computer?!?
• Network setup beats Vista hands-down!  It correctly suggested that my wireless router was filtering based on MAC address, while Vista just said “can’t connect”
• I already installed Boot Camp and VMware Fusion with a Windows Vista partition – talk about easing the transition!

I’ll keep updating the blog with my experiences over the next few months.  As a reminder, I offer separate feeds for Enterprise Storage for those not interested in this topic, which will be posted in my Terabyte Home feed.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Switch Day 1: This Mac is Hot!
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.