amateur a/v - where technology meets art (magazine)

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AMATEUR A/V where technology meets art

ISSUE 1

OCTOBER 2011

Rs. 120

OCTOBER

2011

SON

V

p

10

S

I S

SUE

1

Visit us at:

www.amateurav.com



C ON T E N T S

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10

Amateur A/V News

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT

13 VEGAS PRO 10

What’s New?17



A mateur A/VN EWS

5

N ews Desk Lets get moving. This is the rst issue of AMA-

TEUR A/V, where technology meets art. Our

team has been working at this project for

months and we present to you our rst issue.

What happens in Vegas? Before you guys t hink

it’s about the Hollywood movie please stop

right there. Vegas refers to the much awaited

reviews of the Sony Vegas PRO 10 which was

released in India about last week. Our team putthe soware through various trials to bring you the review and we were quite

impressed.

In this issue we bring to you what’s new this week in the market, such as the

new audio systems brought to you by Waterfall Audio and Soundfreaq, plus

some really cool gadgets by Dispro and HTC. Take a look at what they bring to

you and we hope that you like it.

Not to forget our readers who would really want to know what’s new in the

market, in the upcoming issue we will present you selected products of some

really awesome gadgets. At the same me, we will bring you “Movie Reviews”

and “Music Reviews” along with some really high quality and eecve sound

systems and surround sound systems that will be reccomended as you enjoy

watching and listening to movies and music.

In this issue’s “Industry Spotlight,” we have Roxy Jerry, who graduated with the

rst batch of students studying lmmaking from SAE Instute, Dubai. He gives

us an insight into the industry.

Also take a look in “What’s New?” and see what new gadget has been launched.

I am sure that it will impact those who are profound about music.

Now for the techies, Af Ibrahim answers your queries in “Ask the Expert.”

In the next issue we will take a comprehensive look into the new prosumer 3D

camcorders to hit the market.

Arash Karl Dumasia

Editor

Let’s Get This Started!

Contact Information:

Mumbai Media City

Bldg 35 Suite 14

Phone: +919620916079

Fax: +919717007378

E-mail: [email protected]



Amateur A/V N EWSGadgetitis / Waterfall audio

THE GLASS LOUDSPEAKER EX-

PERTS TELL US

Waterfall Audio has launched a

groundbreaking new hi- loud-

speaker concept that promises

to oer the ulmate in discrete,

compact audio. Called Serio, the

diminuve 2.1 satellite speaker

features Waterfall’s striking glass

design experse, while at the

same me oers a high perfor-

mance sound.

Serio has been carefully craed

for both hi- and AV applicaons

and comes with three mount-

ing opons--on-wall, ceiling, and

tabletop stand-mount. It is avail-

able in three colours--black, whiteand silver--with matching grilles.

Besides being aesthecally pleas-

ing, Waterfall has incorporated

its patented Heatstream technol-

ogy into the design, which oers

beer power handling from a

compact speaker unit. By cleverly

coupling the speaker’s voice coil

to the unit’s aluminium body,

the speaker’s Atohm driver can

eciently dissipate enough heat

for the higher-power demands of

high-quality audio and intensive

home-cinema soundtracks.

All Serio models are based around

a 3 inch Atohm transducer;

housed in a die-cast aluminium

chassis with a safety-glass sur-

round. The overall cabinet depth

of the Serio satellite is just 8.5cms

and each package comes with an

accessory pack, including devices

for desk/shelf posioning. The

package is supplied with Water-

fall’s HFM (High Force) subwoofer.

Compact, bass reex and acve,

it boasts of 3 class D ampliers-

-1x120W amplier for the sub-

woofer and 2x60W amplier for

the satellites, while a full bodied

and dynamic bass is delivered

through a 7 inch bass driver withconnecvity through a 3.5mm

jack for all standard mulmedia

sources or a cinch cable for L&R

stereo.

General sound sengs and sub-

woofer sengs are independent

of each other. There is a phase

and frequency adjustment for

the subwoofer secon and dual

voltage oered between 110/220

V. The package is ideally suited for

use with home audio/desktop PC/

MAC/NotePad/direct iPod use or

for use with Sonos-style systems.

WATERFALL AUDIO - Launches HFM 2.1 Serio

GADGETITISSAVING UP FOR IT ?

DISPRO 3D GLASSES

WHAT?With 3D products picking up

slowly but steadily it’s very impor-

tant that you have the right gear

to enjoy the 3D experience to its

fullest. The problem is its pricing.

But now you have a soluon in

the form of the Acve shuer 3D

glasses from Dispro 3D.

WHEN?

Distributed by Dispro Visual Tech-

nologies, Hydrabad, it’s available

at select retail outlets all across

India.

How?The stylish high-tech 3D glasses

allow you to enjoy vivid and real-

isc stereoscopic 3D images even

while working with any acve

shuer 3D unit. It uses an IR emit-

ter and a sync splier that ena-

bles you to watch 3D movies and

play 3D games. With the ghost

depressing circuitry onboard, the

glasses also claim to eliminate theghosng issue seen in most 3D

glasses.

WHY?

The Stylish acve 3D shuer

glasses with built-in-electronics

are compable with the lat-

est 120Hz/200Hz/240Hz, LCD’s

and 3D ready DLP HDTV’s, and

ulise the brightest and fastest

LCD lenses to bring you clear and

bright images. Dispro promises a

hassle-free user experience.PRICES VALID FROM 20-23 OCTOBER 2011



SOUNDFREAQ HAS LAUNCHED

Sound Step and Sound Step

Recharge, the company’s rst

compact, wireless speakers. The

new releases allow users to dock,

charge and stream music wire-

lessly from mulple devices,

including the iPad, iPhone, iPod

touch, Android and Blackberry.

Sound Step Recharge also oers

a built-in rechargeable baery.

Sound Step and Sound Step Re-

charge will be available online at

Amazon.com

The Sound Step speakers give

users the ability to mul-task, surf

the internet, check emails and

text message, while streaming

audio directly to the dock. The

SOUNDFREAQ LAUNCHES NEW PORTABLE Wireless Speakers

Sound Step speakers feature a

dock for Apple iPhone and iPod.

Sound Plaorm also oers theability to dock and charge an iPad,

even if it’s in a case. Al so new in

both Sound Step speakers is a

USB charging port, allowing any

USB-chargeable gadget such as

a Blackberry, Android or a Blue-

tooth headset to be kept fully

powered or any second Apple

product to charge.

A built-in rechargeable baery

in the Sound Step Recharge of -

fers six hours of AC-free playback

me. iPad users can stream music

wirelessly and can also dock

and charge their iPad, with or

without the case. The USB charg-

ing port allows users to charge

any USB-chargeable gadget, be

it a Blackberry, Android or Apple

phone or Bluetooth headset.

Featuring a 2.1 speaker congu-

raon with a dedicated subwoof -

er and Soundfreaq’s proprietary

UQ3 spaal sound enhancement,

the speakers deliver natural bass

and stereo seperaon.

The Sound Step speakers can

be used for movies, TV shows,videos, games, internet radio and

apps like Pandora, YouTube, Net-

ix and HBO GO. In addion to

Bluetooth wireless and dock,

line-in jack inputs from any device

that has a standard headphone

jack and an internal FM tunerallows users to listen to radio

through the app interface.

Users can download the free

Soundfreaq app to turn their

iPad, iPhone or iPod touch into

the ulmate remote control. Us-

ers control what is playing from

the speakers via the device while

keeping their device in hand.

The MSRP for Sound Step is

$139 (approx. Rs. 6,143) and for

Sound Step Recharge is $159 (ap-

prox. Rs. 7027).

GADGETITISSAVING UP FOR IT ?

HTC FLYER

WHAT?

HTC marks its entry in the tablet

space with the very impressive

HTC Flyer.

WHEN?

Launched in June 2011 all over

India, the Android-powered

tablet is available at a price of Rs.

39,890.

How?The HTC Flyer runs on Android 2.4

and is powered by the Qualcomm

Snapdragon 1.5 GHz processor;

this is one beast of a tablet. It

sports a 7” display, 1GB RAM, in-

built memory of 16GB and 5MP

camera. The Flyer will also mark

the debut of the HTC Watch, a

new connected video service for

movie downloads and will also

integrate OnLive’s cloud-based

gaming service, which lets people

play games on TVs and comput-

ers.

WHY?HTC knows it has to enter with

a bang in a segment which is

dominated by heavyweights like

Apple and Samsung. The Flyer hasamazing specs, is more powerful

than the iPad and has got some

great apps. One new technology

is the HTC Scribe that combines

features of natural touch and

pen interacons. Another feature

called Timemark enables you to

capture the audio of a meeng in

line with your wrien notes. You

can jot notes and save them on

the audio meline where they oc-

cur in the actual meeng!



Sing across the table in the

food court at Ibn Bauta is Roxy

Jerry. How can I dene Roxy? It

wouldn’t be fair to dene him in

one sentence. Roxy and I met at

an internaonal student’s con-

ference where Roxy and I were

in the same small group. At that

me Roxy was a student at SAE

Dubai which was a brand new

instute for media educaon at

the Knowledge Village.

A couple of days later Roxy called

me

to his oce to see a project hewas working on. Roxy works at

Katarak Ibda which is a produc-

on house that pro- vides op-

portunies for Arab students to

intern with them. This helps the

students understand the dier-

ent aspects of producon and

praccal implicaons of the same.

A conversaon with him gives us

more of an insight into his eld of

experse.

What is your job descripon?

I work as both Director and Editor.

How would you dene Katarat?

Katarat is a lm or TV producon

company which mainly focusing

on helping young local Emira

students to produce their lms,

we do also work with corpo-

rates, documentaries etc.

I understand that you are a lm

making graduate from SAE Dubai.How has the training imparted

there beneted you in your work

place?

Well, SAE was purely a me of ex-

peri- ment for me, I was connu-

ously involved in researching how

I could recreate certain framing,

color grading, and much more

that I see on the big screen.

I believe that helped me to throw

in some of my conclusions that I

came up with to add in to the

avour of what Katarat was do-

ing. And I should say that it’s a

privilege to work with a mulna-

onal team who has the same

focus.

How would you dene the video

producon market in Dubai?

It’s kind of hard to say about the

market , Dubai is absolutely

unpredictable

in all the areas of the market,

but that doesn’t mean that itwill not grow in the media pro-

ducon area, I think we need to

look at specically which area

of video producons, so if I say

about Dubai or U.A.E. becoming

the next hub for Hollywood style

movies, it is possible but the

local students have to be trained

well and they should have the

opportunity like MEFF, GFF &

DIFF to showcase their skills and

the Government should start

a funding system for these stu-

dents to make their lms.

INDUSTRYSP OTLIGHT

10

INDUSTRY SP OTLIGHT

Above: Roxy Jerry Courtesy: Roxy Jerry



The UAE has been geng its

share of lms being shot in andaround the country, do you think

the current capacity of produc-

on houses are geared to provide

support to these producons?

Well, I think producon houses

are equipped with prey good

equipment. Although I would sll

hope to see Dubai building a new

producon hub where all levels of

producons are made possible.

What eding plaorm are you

most ac- customed to?

I like to work with Final C ut pro.

I do like Avid but the supporng

hardware is quite expensive.

What would be one feature or

features that you would like to

see incorporated in the workow

(eding plaorm) that you use?

One of the main areas I think nal

cut has is the special eects area,

I know they have moons sepa-

rately dedicated for small graphics

but something more faster and

easier to bridge the gap without

jumping out from nal cut while

I’m on it.

Quite a few Video producon

houses are moving toward incor-porang HDSLR’s into their work-

ows. What is your take on this?

HDSLR has a secret which you

will only nd out when you start

to work with it. Film is lm and I

don’t think anything will overtake

it, but in the case of low budget

lms, lmmakers could easily

get the same look if they shoot it

well.

What are some of the things to

pay at- tenon to while working?

Inially at SAE, I used to forget

at most mes to set the white

balance and some- mes when

framing I used to leave a lot of

headroom. When you start work-

ing, you learn from your mistakes.

And be-

fore I forget

you have to

make sure

you get

your shots

right in

terms of fo-

cus, white

balance,

framing

etc. What

you can do

in post is

very limited to correct your

mistakes and at the end of the

day what you shoot is what you

shoot.

How did you end up as an editor?

Well, in this industry there are a

plethora of sub elds you couldpursue. I would encourage you

guys to research on your areas of

interest and keep asking yourself

this queson” where do I see my-

self in ten years?” For me eding

was my passion, and that’s what I

started doing in the industry aer

a few months of working as an

intern.

Roxy, what advice would you im-

part to our readers?

Go back and read up on what is

being taught in the classroom

and read a lile extra as well.

Constantly analyse yourself, your

projects, and whatever else you

do. Always be “up to date” and

always keep researching on latestprac- ces in the industry.

V EGAS PRO 10

13

Courtesy: Roxy JerryAbove: Roxy Jerry working on Vegas Pro 10



Le : The GUI of Vegas

Review: Sony Vegas Pro 10A couple of years ago, working

on a school Project I had come

across the Sony Vegas PRO plat-

form, at that me the version

available was the 7.0. At that

point I was using the soware for

its mul track audio capabilies,

and I was quite impressed with

the results. Come February 2011,

Sony Professional came out with

version 10.0 which comes packed

with new features and geared to

handle the needs of producon

formats such as REDONE, XDCAM,

AVCHD and also the latest HDSLR

formats which are taking the

world by storm. The program sup-

ports SD, HD, 2K and 4K work-

ows easily.

Sony Vegas also doubles up as

a brilliant alternave for audio

eding, thanks to its excellent set

of audio tools that allows users

to mix audio on a mulple num-

ber of tracks. Some of the noted

features are on-the-y punch in

recording, record meters, as-

signable eects, Master and Aux

inputs, input busses. Vegas PRO

sup- ports VST eects from third

party vendors. I decided to put

the Vegas PRO plaorm to test.

I took some footage of my Sony

HDCAM which shoots it in the Mpeg 2 format .m2t or commonly

known as AVCHD. When I had

purchased this camera in 2005, Ihad diculty in eding the foot-

age in its nave format, I had to

oen resort to using a Blackmagic

device to capture the footage.

Vegas PRO allows me to edit the

format navely. My enre rush

was about thirteen minutes. Aer

dragging and dropping the clips to

the meline, I spent about twenty

minutes reviewing the footage,

selecng the required the clips, I

began to working on the audio.

To tweak the Audio, I exported

the audio clips to Sony Sound

Forge, where I did some minor

cleaning up on the audio. I then

exported the clip back to theVegas PRO meline. I used the

built in Media Generator for the

tling, which was fairly simple to

use. Then I used the very simple

to use colour correcon tools

which was very easy to work with.

The rendering takes place in real

me and the enre video was

rendered in less than four min-

utes. The whole process took me

just over an hour. The only thing

I would have an issue with is t he

whole look of the soware; it

needs a major overhaul in the GUI

department.

Overall Vegas PRO is soware

that is light on the system and at

the same me power packed withfeatures that will sasfy the most

demanding of editors. I’ve run Ve-

gas PRO on two dierent systems,

one with a Intel Core i7 proces-

sor and one a humble Core2Duo

Laptop with a 3 GB of Ram. The

system runs very smoothly on the

i7 and on the Core2Duo, it man-

aged to funcon without much

dicules albeit a bit slow.

Vegas PRO 10 is ideal for begin-

ners. Sony Vegas PRO is not a

cross-plaorm soware as it is for

the Windows operang system

only.

For those editors who are used

the Vegas Plaorm, version 10.0

is nothing new, but SONY has

added new eects , closed cap-

oning support and o course

stereoscopic 3D eding.

Sony Vegas PRO is ideal for those

videographers who are just en-

tering the market and ideal for

producing a quick promoonal

presentaon as photo zooms and

graphics take less me to render.It works well with a variety of

formats and is able handle most

formats thrown into the meline.

Even tech support will just set

you back by a meagre Rs. 4000 or

more, for a year. And if that’s too

much there is always the email

support opon which is quite

helpful. Sony Vegas PRO running

on a Core i7 processor a RAM

of 4GB, 2 GB graphics will equip

you for the most demanding of

producons.

V egas Pro 10

Review by Arash Dumasia



17

W hat’s New ?

Ask The E x pert

I was thinking of assembling my own Video eding workstaon. What should be the

factors to consider?

Some of the important factors to consider for opmum performance are:

VIDEO CARD

You need a performance graphics card in order to capture the video from your cam -

era and to display on the monitor. And NVIDIA or ATI should do the job. 512 MB ofRAM should suce, if you are using two monitors.

PROCESSOR

A dual core 2.5 GHz processor would be able to handle whatever that is thrown in its

way. But at the end of the day, faster processor means beer performance and not

to menon smooth rendering.

RAM

Don’t think you can hide behind a slow processor. It will come to haunt you me to

me. Invest in a good RAM to enhance the speed of the machine. 2GB of RAM can

do the job smoothly.

HARD DRIVE

This is one thing that you should not run out of. You need to keep in mind your origi-

nal les, your output, a udio and video eects. It is suggested that you keep your les

on an external drive and not the one that has your OS installed. Also invest is a RAID

which is creates a redundant system.

MONITOR

A good monitor is essenal to give you opmum results as you have more on screen

space at your disposal. Using two monitors allows you to opmize your work ow as

you have a well laid out screen. This results in ecient eding as you are able to pay

aenon to detail.

Keep this factors while building your system , will allow you take things head on

when it comes to eding.Af Ibrahim is our resident graphics

designer, who work with a computer

assembling rm.



W hat’s New ? HTC SENSATION XE

FASTER, JUICIER AND NOW BEATS-IER... THE BEST MUSIC PHONE?

The HTC Sensaon XE was

only announced yesterday

morning, but we’ve already

managed to nab some hands

on me with the rst phone

bearing the Beats logo.

Essenally it’s just the popu-

lar HTC Sensaon with the

addion of Beats audio pro-

cessing, but it’s been given

another couple of decent

upgrades too.

The big one in our eyes is the

baery - we’re now being

oered a 1730mAh power

pack which should help o -

set the over the top power

consumpon that plagued

the original Sensaon. But

then again, the improved

processor, which now comes

in at a whopping 1.5GHz dual

core avor, could swallow upthe extra power. When you

consider only a couple of

years ago we were gasping at

1GHz phones, it’s a big leap

forward.

The HTC Sensaon XE does

also completely outdo the

original in the design stakes

too; while it has the same

shape and ‘striped alu-

minum’ design on the

back, it’s now been given

some red accents and a

darker chassis to make it

look that much edgier.

We’re looking forward to

holding it up when walk-

ing past gangs of youths to

get the necessary respect.

Beyond the updated specs

and the addion of red ac-

cents, there’s not a lot ofdierence between this and

the HTC Sensaon. We had

heard word the HTC Sensa-

on XE was going to give us

a taste of HTC Sense 3.5. The

HTC Sensaon XE features a

dedicated Beats Audio pro-

le; complete with the audio

manipulaon technology

HTC bought the company for.

You’ll have to have a pair of

Beats headphones to make

it work, but thankfully a pair

of ear buds is included in

the box. Switching between

the Beats Audio mode and

the normal HTC sound en-

hancer is easy, as the phonewill automacally re up the

Beats prole when the head-

phones are connected, with

a lile icon appearing in the

nocaons bar at the top of

the screen. From here it’s an

easy step to disable or ena-

ble the sound enhancement,

although there’s sll no op-

on to skip tracks from the

nocaons bar, just pause

the tracks and hop into

the main music player. The

quality of the Beats Audio

enhancement depends on

your taste in music. There’s

no doubng that sounds are

crisper, but the level of bass

is much, much higher than

many people will have expe-

rienced with normal head-

phones.

The HTC Sensaon XE in In-

dia is at a price of Rs. 36,145.

If you’re in the mood for an

HTC Android phone and are

trying to decide between the

HTC Sensaon and the Sen-

saon XE, it should be a no

brainer. The XE looks nicer,

sounds beer and (hopeful-

ly) lasts longer, so we suggest

you keep it in mind if you’re

due an upgrade.

Key Features

Weight and Dimensions:

The phone weighs 151 g. The dimensions of the

phone are 126.1 x 65.4 x 11.3 mm.

Display:

The phone has a 4.3 inch qHD touchscreen (540

x 960) with 16 M colors. To handle touchscreen

eaily, certain features like Proximity Sensor for

auto turn off, Multi Touch input method, Acceler-

ometer sensor for UI auto rotate, Gyro Sensor,

HTC Sense UI and Touch Sensitive Controls are

also added.

Camera:

The phone captures crystal clear pictures (3264 x

2448 pixels) with the 8 MP autofocus camera and

dual LED Flash. It can record HD videos (1080p,

30fps). There is a front focus VGA camera present

for video calls.

Audio:

The phone features a Beat Audio prole with audio

manipulation technology. You need to have Beats

Headphones to actually feel it and a pair of ear-

buds is already included in the box. It is easy to

switch between Beats Audio and normal HTC Sound

as the phone pops up the Beat Prole when the

Beats earphones are connected. The sound in Beats

Audio mode is crisp but has high bass level. It is

also present in videos too which is quite impressive.

Processor:

The phone is powered by a 1.5GHz dual core pro-

cessor, Adreno 220 GPU, Qualcomm MSM 8260

Snapdragon with 768 MB RAM.

Connectivity:

The phone features GPRS, EDGE, Bluetooth 3.0

with A2DP, GPS and micro USB 2.0, with speed up

to 14.4 Mbps in HSDPA band and up to 5.76 Mbps

in HSUPA band.

Memory Status:

There’s a 4GB internal memory, only 1GB is avail-

able for users. Can be increased up to 32GB using

micro SD card.

Price: Rs. 36,145

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