The big B&H Photo and Video Professional Video Source Books have begun arrving. I say big as these babies are the biggest that I’ve ever seen from what is the pre-emminient supplier of all things audio and video. The current professional source book is a two volume behemoth weighing in at a whopping 7.4 pounds, 1469 pages and is delivered via USPS in a card board box. One can only imaging how much postage B&H spends on these things. I saw one left at the door step of my house yesterday and then we had 7 of them delivered to the office today! I’m sure that our local mail carrier loved that delivery. The environmental questions of sending so many of these physical books out in an age when the Internet has meant the death of a lot of printed material aside these books can actually come in very handy as a reference. They literally have pretty much any and every piece of equipment a video professional might want. Cameras and camera support, video decks and hard drives, lenses and lens adapters, studio equipment, lighting equipment, grip equipment, computer software and hardware, bags, cases, cables, furniture and it goes on and on. As much as I use the Internet for research there’s something kind of comforting about having these B&H source books on the shelf. Maybe the Internet is down and I need to answer a question, maybe I don’t want to disturb the computer during a capture when I need to look up some equipment or maybe I am just tired of looking at the computer screen … the source book is there. The funny thing is there is a $6.95 price on the books but yet they send them to pretty much everyone that’s ever been on a pro-video mailing list. So if you haven’t gotten yours beware as it might be on its way!