Tablet for work... yay or nay? Ipad?

I

ICD Films

Well-known member
What I want:

* calenderas, sound alarms (as in reminders), notes etc highly intuitive (doh.. i assume this is where Ipad shines, hmm?)

* decent drawing functions... with a PEN, not fingers... does this work? Is there "photoshop lite" or anything like that? For making storyboards etc... of course the more powerful software the better.

* Should I look into the new pads with Nvidia Tegra and stuff? If so, what models? Not following the tech but I kind of assume we're not at the point yet where I can drag & drop AVCHD files straght from camera over USB & use the tablet for dailies... .....

* Battery time. Is ipad still king here?
 
Martin Oller said:
* Should I look into the new pads with Nvidia Tegra and stuff? If so, what models? Not following the tech but I kind of assume we're not at the point yet where I can drag & drop AVCHD files straght from camera over USB & use the tablet for dailies... (?)
Click to expand...

This would only be possible with Tegra, as previous Android tablets would only work for 720p video. I'm not saying it absolutely will, but a new NVIDIA Tegra table with an SD card reader might be worth looking at for this feature (research and then take an SD card filled with the footage to your local electronics retailer and see if it works).
 
I know the iPad is all the rage, but I bought an ASUS Transformer Android tablet over the Holidays.

I like it. Got it b/c the docking station is nice... gives a keyboard and mouse pad, 2 usb ports, and an SDHC card reader. And, ups the battery life from around 7-8 hours to like 15 hrs. Tablet itself, has Micro SD slot, 32gig built in memory, and HDMI port.

Anyway... You can get little stylus pens, but I can't speak to their usefulness as I haven't used one, and don't know what it would be like for drawing. Adobe has quite a few apps for Android (and I would imagine the iPad as well). They have a Photoshop Express (free), and a Photoshop Touch (9.99). I've not tried them yet, so I can't help you there.
Here is the stuff by Adobe for Android (and, again... is probably available for iPad as well)
https://market.android.com/developer?pub=Adobe+Systems#?t=W251bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLDEsImFpci5jb20uYWRvYmUucHN0b3VjaCJd

For drawing, there are also a few versions of Autodesk Sketchbook... and I imagine other stuff as well, but that is one that I've come across (tried the free version a little when i first got the tablet).

I seem to remember reading that Nvidia had a new 4 core processor recently (3/1 kind of setup, with one core being for better power management or something)... From my view of it, I would expect the tablet market to have quite a few options, and some next gen hardware inside by the end of this year... Seems like the tablet market will be largely replacing the netbook market over the next year or two (just speculation from a newbie tablet user).

Just use mine mostly for email and web browsing right now, so I cant' offer you much help or suggestions... Other than to say, that there are apps out there for photoshop, drawing, etc. pretty sure iPad has a lot more apps than android at this point.

I'm most interested to see apps coming out developed with tablets in mind, b/c much of the stuff in the app market tends to be more focused towards cell phones.
 
i use the ipad in daily life and production. It can be a excellent slate , i mostly use it for writing scripts, reading them, including on the set and now drawing storyboards. It does work with a Pen and you can even do animation on it. There is a website that lists a lot of production apps for Ipad.

(http://filmmakeriq.com/2010/07/22-filmmaking-apps-for-the-ipad-iphone/
http://www.coolhunting.com/tech/apps-on-set.php
)

I even use yelp on it for the PA to take everyones lunch and dinner orders!

The only downside is dailies - the way ipad/itunes handles video makes it kind of a pain in the buttocks to really quickly bring video for viewing on the ipad2. Most video has to be converted and syncing the video is a pain, or you need the adapter handy to slide in a card, which also has to have video that the Ipad2 will deal with. I think someone on this site detailed a way to watch wirelessly on the Ipad.

I have even hooked mine up to a projector via a HDMI cable to project video, and even storyboards. If i was still doing those kinds of projects that needed a teleprompter, probably could do that too.]

oh yeah! work smarter! not harder!
 
Not sure. Perhaps not now, but that wouldn't rule out future possibilities. A lot of technology is being developed around it - witness this.
 
Be interesting to see just how far into the production the iPad can extend. It's slowly creeping into more and more roles from my experience.
 
I can't speak for an iPad for your production needs, but I can for drawing.
I'm used to Wacom tablets, so I really hated the fat ended Targus spongy styluses - which seems to be all the rage in the stylus world. It feels wildly inaccurate.
I've since got a Jot Pro and I like it much better.
 
Prolly going for an Acer ICONIA

Stutters on high profile h264 but that my comp does too so... A100 model is cheap & apparently plays back video better than the bigger version.
 
Take a look at the Samsung Series 7 Tablet, it is a win8 tablet with a Wacom active digitizer. If you don't want windows, then I would go with the Asus Transformer Prime TM700 series.
 
atarijedi said:
Take a look at the Samsung Series 7 Tablet, it is a win8 tablet with a Wacom active digitizer. If you don't want windows, then I would go with the Asus Transformer Prime TM700 series.
Click to expand...

Damn! Those specs are pretty much laptop... and at a cost ;p
 
Gary Huff said:
Is there even any way to begin to try to Genlock with the iPad?
Click to expand...

I theory, yes. Does it work? Not very well. It takes a special cable a mini plug to BNC, with an in line resistor. I have found the drift to be more than acceptable for professional applications unless you are willing to re-sync every couple of hours.
 
Reviving an oldish thread.. but I wanted to say that if you want to play AVCHD, you'll want to go with a Tegra 3 tablet. I just got the Toshiba Excite 10 (NOT the LE version, just "Excite 10") and I can just pop my SD card right in it and review my footage from my GH2. It also has a dedicated HDMI port, which could come in handy and it's about as thin as an iPad.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top