Category — Panasonic

The music blogs are all abuzz about the 2008 Coachella line-up. Not to sound like a complainer, since I will in fact be going no matter what, the lineup does sound kinda weak with Jack Johnson headlining on Friday. I found many people with similar responses to the line up on stereogum. Nevertheless, I am stoked about Portishead, Vampire Weekend, Kraftwerk, and much of the small print bands.

Suspiciously, single day tickets are “sold out” according to ticketmaster. I call bullshit since they were labelled sold out after only being on sale for 3-4 days! This thing isn’t until April, so what gives? But like I said, I’m going and the three day tickets are still on sale for now. I see it being very unlikely that it will sell out before April even. That’s as long as no giant musical act is added like say Radiohead, The Smiths or what not.

If I can find a good deal on the panasonic pv gs31 online, I plan to make my own Coachella video journal. Since the birth of youtube, many music fans have begun recording live concerts and sharing them on the internet. I have about 30 clips from last year’s fest that I took with my Nikon digital camera. Watching them again definitely gets me hyped up for this year’s event.

So if I manage to buy my own compact camcorder, I’m sure to get better quality clips this year. And this way I don’t waste money on the Coachella movie, which btw never has a complete documentation of all the musical acts. The 2006 version was edited together okay, but I’d rather have a more personal video memory that I filmed myself.

Just like with dvds and vhs, there are region specific cameras. In Englands they have PAL camcorders, like this panasonic nv digital camcorder.

Essentially, mini-dv footage made with a PAL camcorder is not compatible with American televisions. The camcorder must be PAL so that it can used for playback with a PAL format TV or dual-system TV. So the DVD camcorders, Mini DV PAL analog and digital camcorders can all be used on European displays. Why they haven’t made a universal system is beyond me? I’m so over it ever since I bought a regionless dvd player. I’m in heaven.

I wonder if there are region-less camcorders. I’m not sure if that is possible. But you can buy a converter for American tvs to play PAL tapes, so that might be a way around this system. Still sounds that lots of extra work. And in the long run, these restrictions make more money for Sony and the other companies.

The three day music festival, Coachella, begins tomorrow in Indio, CA. A Panasonic dvd camcorder would be great to bring to an outdoor festival like Coachella. Alas, camcorders are not allowed at this festival. I don’t believe they are allowed at many other festivals without a permit.

Nevertheless, plenty of concert-goers use digital cameras to videotape snippets of live acts. A digital camera works much like a hard drive camcorder, except it can’t film for extended periods of time. Most max out at 7-10 minutes. And they usually produce extremely shaky clips, with bad sound. The microphone apparatus isn’t made to withstand volumes from such huge sound systems.

Here’s a decent clip from Coachella ‘06 to get you in the mood.

From Camcorderinfo.com -
“The new 2006 middle model is the PV-GS300, coming to the market at $699. It replaces last year’s GS250. The GS300 is currently the lowest priced 3 CCD camcorder with optical image stabilization (OIS). Since last year, Pansonic added a 2.7 inch, 123K widescreen LCD, and the newly shrunk GS300 is sleeker and more stylish.”

It seems that Panasonic is constantly upgrading their line of palmcorders. The compact pv gs300 had a quality zoom capability, up to 700x power.

But within a year, the pv gs500 & gs300 are nowhere to be found. They’ve been improved upon once again (in a year or less). This makes me nervous to buy a Panasonic camcorder. What if I did find a good deal on one the newer gs80 or something? Maybe the next year, it would be gone, which means all my accessories might not be compatible with other models. It’s a rat race that’s for sure. You gotta know when and what to buy that’s gonna stand the test of time.

In a flash, the third Spiderman movie will hit theaters on May 4th. I’m sure you’re aware if you live in America and haven’t been in a coma.

I actually hated the second film with a passion. My friends and I walked out embittered and depressed about the state of Hollywood and this country’s taste itself! I just thought it was ridiculous and the acting by Kirsten Drunkst was sub-par. Tobey Maguire is okay in my book, but his sheepish grins and stupid whiny episodes were just too much. I attempted a second viewing at an event with a panasonic home theater projector. I still hate that f-ing movie, no matter the setting.

Thus, I am extremely on the fence about seeing the new movie. I really want to like it, but I am still hesitant. Maybe I will wait to see it at someone’s house I know from film school. He’ll be sure to have some fancy new home audio component that he’ll want to flaunt, so obviously he’ll want to showcase the new spider-man dvd or what not. There’s always stupid viewing parties like that going on with people who have nothing better to do.