Digital Commons at Penn State

Over the past few months we have been looking for an inexpensive easy to use video recorder that offers us up the best image quality and works within the digital commons software environment. During the course of that time I have had the chance to use three new video recorders that all price within the same range of $180 – $250. All of these camera’s shoot to a solid-state memory medium and can be transferred directly into the computer faster than real time. The following are my impressions of those three cameras as well as what I would grade them in the following categories, image quality, features, & ease of use. My grades for these categories are based off of what I would expect to find on a camera at this price range.

Samsung SC-MX20 Camcorder
Price: $224.00
Image Quality: 2 out of 5
Features: 4 out of 5
Ease of use: 4 out of 5

Camera mapping is a technique I first learned about at the NAB Show 2008 in Las Vegas. After seeing the technique demonstrated I immediately recognized the power of knowing such a technique and decided to commit myself to learning the skills necessary to achieve it. If you haven't heard about Camera Mapping or Camera Projection I will illustrate what it is and how it works.

Camera mapping is a process where we can use a simple photograph and turn it 3d, this allows us to setup camera movements and fly around this life like 3d image without the expense of all the rigging that would be necessary to create such shots in the real world. Camera Mapping is used extensively in Television and Feature Film production as a cost effective way to create background mattes, and establishing shots among other things. The process requires extensive use of Adobe Photoshop and some basic 3D, in my case I used Cinema 4D as the 3D application.

It is true that when O’Brother Where Art Thou was filmed that all of the grass and foliage was green and had to be changed digitally for the movie. The best part about this question is that everything that one would need to perform this effect is available in the Digital Commons and I’m going to show you how it works.