We got the third video diary for Peter Jackson’s return to Middle-earth back in July, and now he’s given us the fourth instalment through his Facebook page, because he’s pretty awesome like that.

In case you’ve missed them, you can catch up on all the earlier video diaries from The Hobbit and everything else surrounding the project right here.

This latest production video predominantly looks at the 3D filming aspect of the project, and it’s really interesting, with Jackson and the filming crew giving us a very insightful view of how they’re making this film.

According to the video, they’ve got 48 Red Epic cameras, each with its own individual name, which is pretty ridiculously awesome. Each of those cameras has a price tag of no less than $10,000, so if they were all retail price (naturally, they’re not going to be), that’s half a million dollars just on those cameras right there! And they visually show us how much their cameras just utterly out-do our 1080 TV screens and monitors, just to make us feel good about ourselves.

Ain’t It Cool News have also been visiting the set of the film, and have got some great photos of Bilbo and Jackson in Bag End, and if you want to read their report of the set visit, then you can go ahead and click over here.

As I’m sure you’re already aware, the two-parter has a pretty fantastic cast, including Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, Stephen Fry, Hugo Weaving, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, and Christopher Lee.

At the end of the video, Jackson tells us that they’re about to move on to shooting on location, and that the next video he brings us will be from wherever they’re shooting in a few months’ time – so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for that, because it will undoubtedly be filled with amazing landscapes.

The Hobbit will be coming to us in two parts. The first, An Unexpected Journey, will be hitting cinemas at the end of next year on 14th December; and the second, There And Back Again, will be back a year later on 13th December, 2013. As you can imagine, it’s going to be awesome. Without further ado, here’s the brilliant new production video diary, followed by a few photos from the set, which you can click to enlarge. And if you want to see the video in glorious HD, then you can head over to Jackson’s Facebook page here.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBizlQqirwg’]