News From Here & There

BG Renderer for Adobe After Effects
Stu Maschwitz of the prolost blog says that if you use After Effects "you need [BG Renderer, it's the] best Jackson you'll spend on something you can't drink."

BG Renderer is a script that allows you to render your Render Queue items in the background while you can continue working in After Effects. It runs as a dockable panel that is saved as part of your workspace.

There are two versions:

• With the basic version you can just render your queue in the background. Simple and easy and works every time.
• If you need options, then the Pro version is what you want. Besides being able to set prefs for the render, the pro version offer the very powerful post render actions which allow you to get growl notifications, send email (with log), send sms and even iPhone push notifications when your renders are done or you have an error.

They are introducing the new version with an introductory price of $4.99 for the basic version and $19.99 for the pro version. These prices will go up to $9.99 for the basic version and $29.99 for the pro version in a couple of months.
AEScripts: BG Renderer



More on the Sony HDR-TD10 3D Handycam
Crave takes a brief look at the camera:

We got a hands-on with the camera, and the 3D image it produces looked impressive on a Sony active 3D TV, at least in the tightly locked-down Sony booth at CES. The same can't be said about the built-in, glasses-free fold-out display, which sent us cross-eyed in no time at all.

 Crave: Sony Handycam HDR-TD10E is first full HD, 3D camcorder



JVC GS-TD1
Meanwhile, there's a short video singing the praises of JVC's competing camera:
YouTube: JVC at CES 2011 -- Full HD 3D Camcorder



Sony Alpha Monitor
At CES Sony also showed a 5-inch monitor for their Alpha (A33, A55, A560, A580) cameras. It can be attached to the camera via the hotshoe, and then connected to the HDMI port of the camera. Powered by an Sony M-series battery, it comes with a shielded hood and has a 3.5mm mic jack for monitoring. Settings include: color temperature, Peaking (highlight clipping, magnification, audio volume, screen brightness and contrast. U.S. List price is $399.

Note that Sony is also going to release a firmware update for their cameras to allow for full streaming from the HDMI port (useful even if you don't buy this monitor.)

Also, it might make an attractive option for use with other cameras; if it will work with them. I wonder how will it compare to the Marshall 5-inch display, the V-LCD50-HDMI?
Pocket-lint: Sony Alpha CLM-V55 movie monitor hands on



[Parts of] BBC to standardize on Final Cut Pro?
Back in September the BBC announced it had adopted Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 "to support its Creative Desktop Initiative, through which the corporation is improving workflow efficiency, creating a tapeless environment and reducing costs."

Turns out that in November they also announced in a memo that they had "chosen Sony XDCAM models PMW-350 and Sony PMW-500 for its next generation of electronic news gathering shoulder cameras," and, noting that it makes sense to standardize the editing application being used, added: "The aim will be to move to FCP 7 over the next year."

Puzzled? Well the memo also said:

The reality is that the BBC is far too complicated for a single approach to work.

TVBEurope: BBC chooses XDCAM for ENG
NotesOnVideo: News From Here & There