BEST OF 2005: EventDV Editors' & Columnists Picks

For many of us—early adopters or not—2005 was the Year of HDV. But there was much more to 2005 than HDV. We saw scads of significant products released that had nothing to do with HDV and of course, event and corporate videographers the world over continuing to do dazzling, innovative, and effective everyday work with or without HDV. To provide readers with a highly subjective “Year in Review† report, we asked EventDV’s many esteemed and opinionated columnists and contributing editors to reflect on the new products they saw in 2005 and tell us what struck them as the most exciting, and the biggest boon to their own work. Topping the list for HD Today columnist Anthony Burokas--no surprise--were Sony's HDR-FX1 and HVR-Z1U camcorders, which brought high-definition video to the event videography mainstream in 2005 with their successful implementation of HDV technology first introduced by JVC in 2003. The Sony HDV cameras, Burokas wrote, are "the reincarnation of the VX-1000, which revolutionized videography and introduced the world to a solid performer. Sony's FX1 and Z1U are here. They are solid. They perform." EventDV editor Stephen F. Nathans acclaimed Focus Enhancements' FireStore FS-4 as the best product of 2005. "A compact, cost-effective, and time-efficient direct-to-edit, tapeless storage solution, [the FS-4] is one of the standout products of this or any year in event video production." read more...