October 2006 Archives

Finding out what systems the "Big Boys" use and how they use them has always fascinated me. The show Punk'd on MTV is no exception. To meet the show's ever-increasing demands for more sophisticated content, the post team upgraded its editing setup this season to include three Media Composer Adrenaline systems with speedy, 10-bit, real-time video processing, running on Macintosh G5 systems. The systems are all linked through an Avid Unity Media Network shared-media solution with 3 TB of storage, providing the entire editing team with simultaneous access to any footage that they need. Prior to the new Media Composer Adrenaline system setup, Punk'd editors Miles Barken, Ramin Mortazavi, and Grant Houser and assistant editor Sam Eskandari used Avid Meridien hardware-based systems. The changeover was easy, which is what Barken appreciates most about working with Avid systems.

"When it comes to an industrial job and doing the heavy lifting, Avid is an industrial tool. It has the horsepower, the strength, and the stability to get the job done."
- Miles Barken, Editor, Punk'd

For more check out Avid's customer profile!

Mac users of MPEG Streamclip can pre-process multiple files prior to encoding with their compression application (As of this writing the PC version of MPEG Streamclip doesn't provide this feature). To process multiple files go to the List pull-down menu and choose Batch List. When the Batch Window opens select the Add Files button.

Select the files that you would like to include in your Batch.

Click the Open button once your video files are selected.

Next Choose Export to QuickTime or Export to DV from the dialog window.

If you are getting ready to update to the latest Avid application and you are obtaining your updates through the web then Avid has some great recommendations to make your life easier. I am so glad to see this document, I have spent hours trying to fix or adjust my downloads, especially when it comes to the dongle updater. This document covers everything from proper download procedures; unzipping files, upgrade tips to purchasing upgrades. Please do not miss this article on updating your Avid software, it will save you time and headaches!

It wasn't until I took a Final Cut Pro class, that I was shown a trick on how to add multiple dissolves all at the same time using Final Cut Pro. I'll admit, I didn't think it was possible. Here are the steps.

Will the new 24 inch iMac run Avid Media Composer?

In a previous article, I attempted to load Avid Xpress onto a 20 inch iMac with limited success. The 20 inch model uses an ATI X1600 graphics card, and although I got it to work, the performance wasn't that great.

The new 24 inch iMac's come preconfigured with either than Nvidia 7300GT, or the 7600GT. I opted for the upgrade to the 7600GT. The Avid software seems to be much more user friendly with the Nvidia graphics chipset.

If you haven't seen the new 24 inch iMac, you are missing a thing of beauty. For just over $2000, you get a 24 inch Hi Def screen with a streamlined computer built right into the monitor. This makes the computer system extremely portable.

For Avid Xpress and Media Composer enthusiasts, you must wait for a universal version of the software to run correctly on the new intel based iMac's while running OS X. Unfortunately, the software will not run on an OS X machine using the new Intel chipset.

Since the new iMacs use an Intel based chipset, you can download a beta version of Apple's Bootcamp software and install a full copy of Windows XP on the machine. As a test, I wondered if Avid's latest version of Media Composer software would run correctly if I installed Windows XP Professional using Apple's bootcamp software.

I am happy to report, that this configuration seems to work. Better yet, it will even run the Avid Studio Toolkit applications without any errors. Yes, this even includes Pro Tools! All of the Open GL effect's ran flawlessly. I did some hard core rendering tests, and the rendering seemed to be quite speedy.

Keep in mind this is currently an unsupported configuration. However, if you are lucky enough to own one of these new 24 inch iMacs, you might consider loading the Avid Media Composer software onto it.

I am a huge Digital Juice fan. I use their products everyday in my productions and if you don't use them by now you need to check them out. A great offer from digital juice ends on OCT 31st and you will not want to miss out on it. I made sure I took advantage of this don't miss opportunity and you should too. If you are not familiar with StackTraxx music library then you need to get very familiar with it! StackTraxx is the cutting edge of royalty-free music libraries. Taking production music a step further, StackTraxx allows you to turn layers on or off creating original mixes or isolating individual tracks. These volumes are normally $249 ea but you can now get 10 for $249 or just mix and match and make the bundle! A Mix & Match Bundle consists of any 10 Jump Backs, Jump Backs HD, StackTraxx, Motion Design Elements or Juice Drops Volumes. Hurry offer ends Oct 31st!

A great motion effect that often goes forgotten is the Avid motion strobe effect. This is a great effect to use for high action shots or for shots that go with fast music. It is used a lot in music video production but I have started to use it more often in my own productions. It may seem like such a simple effect but when used properly it can a great interest in an otherwise boring shot. The great thing is you can apply the strobe motion to with a variable speed effect for a much more dramatic look. You've seen it, slow motion and strobes, they look great together. To apply this effect:

1. If you want to use only part of the source clip for the effect, mark IN and OUT points in the Source monitor.

2.In the Source monitor, click the Motion Effect button.

3.Select the Strobe Motion option.

4.Specify the update rate in frames for the Strobe Motion effect. For example, a rate of 5 causes every fifth frame to be held for five frames before updating in the Strobe Motion effect.

5. Complete the effect by doing one of the following:
Click Create to create the new clip and close the dialog box. Another dialog box asks you to select the bin for the effect.
Click Create and Render to render the clip - creating new media files and close the dialog box.

This Avid Effect will add much more excitment to your productions!

When using Final Cut Pro, I cannot stress enough to check the version of your operating system. As of this publication, Tiger 10.4 is supported to run Final Cut Pro 5.1. Do not haphazardly update your operating system every time a new update is released.
Visit www.finalcutpro.com and verify that the new OS X version is compatible with Final Cut Pro. I also recommend waiting a couple of weeks to make sure there are no problems with any new updates. It is not possible for the software engineers to test every feature within Final Cut Pro for every OS X update.

Configure the mouse

One of the first things you will want to do is configure the Mighty Mouse so it works with left and right clicking. Final Cut Pro contains many contextual menu elements that are available by (right) clicking the mouse. If you have the Apple Mighty Mouse, you may not realize there are actually four buttons that can be configured.

If you are new to editing or even a seasoned veteran being able to move through your footage and make your edits fast and efficiently is a very important part of your editing process. Using the JKL keys to move through your footage is a great way to view your shots. The great thing about JKL is those keys are right below I and O. So all you have to do is press I for you in and O for your out. A lot of editors use this technique for editing on a daily basis. Using this method you only use a small portion of the keyboard and save time over most other methods of editing. This may seem simple to most editors but if you are use to not using the keyboard this is a great place to start.

If you have used After Effects very extensively then I am sure you have put the various blending modes to good use. The one thing that has always been a real pain is trying to test out the different modes and see how each one has an effect. You can quickly cycle through all the blending modes for a selected layer, making it easy to experiment with the results that each mode has on the layer.

To cycle through a layer's blending modes:

1.Select a layer in the Timeline window.
2.Do one of the following:
-Hold down Shift and press the plus key (+) to cycle forward through each blending mode.
-Hold down Shift and press the underscore key (_) to cycle backward through each blending mode.

This is so much easier than having to click through and manually cycle each mode and it also will save you a lot of time trying to decide which mode will work best.

With the introduction of those new fancy cameras that shoot true 16x9, I am often confronted with the challenge of explaining how to format the video properly for Avid Xpress or Media Composer.

Here is what an example of a true 16x9 video source clip will look like on a 4:3 screen. Notice it is stretched.

How to play a clip backwards or in reverse using Final Cut Pro.

Final Cut Pro allows you to change the speed of a clip directly from the timeline. You can use the speed change function to reverse a clip, by clicking on the (reverse) checkbox.

The process is simple. Control click on the clip segment within the Final Cut Pro sequence and select (speed) for the contextual menu. If you have a two button mouse, you can right click on the clip segment instead of holding down the control key. Using a two button mouse is a good idea, particularly if you are editing on a laptop.

If you wish to play a clip backwards at more than or less than full speed, there are a couple of tricks to make this happen, especially if you already have existing clips in the Final Cut Pro timeline.

First, lock all of your tracks, except for the track that contains the clip you want to slow down. This an important step, because Final Cut Pro will attempt to keep everything in sync and may give you an error 'Unable to complete command. A conflict occurred during a trim operation.'

Second, if you are going to slow a clip down, make sure there are no other clips to the immediate right. It is best to place your clip at the end of the timeline so there is room for it to expand outward. Then you can measure how much room you need for the clips original placement.

I moderate a Final Cut Pro training forum, and the question was posed... 'Can I create a Quicktime movie that is 320 x 480?' This would result in a QuickTime file that plays within a window that is tall and narrow.

At first... you would think this is not a problem. However... once I figured out what this person was trying to do, it didn't seem possible. At 320 x 480, this would create a QuickTime movie that is tall and skinny, which is very different than the standard multimedia size of 320 x 240.

There are many issues that you may run across when working with Final Cut Pro. Here are some reccomended fixes for:

Drop Frames
Corrupted Preferences
Corrupted Media
'Unexpectedly Quit Errors'
Installation Errors

With HD upon us, I have had a few discussions on format sizes and megapixels with a few clients lately and I thought it was time to create a quick chart. I have one client that wants to use some of the HD frames for print in his manuals that accompany the DVD. So to clarify the size differences I made a quick chart of some of the new HD formats and camera sizes:

Conversions are approximate:

1280X720=720 HD 1MP
1920X1080=1080 HD 2.1 MP
2544X1696= 4.3 MP DSLR
2880X2048= D16 Video 5.9 MP
3656X2664=Cineon/DPX 9.7MP
4368X2912= 12.7 MP DSLR
4096X3112= 4K Cinema 12.7 MP

So, as you can see the new HD cameras, 1080i and 720P, are only good for making very small prints. So if you plan on needing stills from these sources make sure they will be relatively small or make sure you have still photography snapping shots while you are shooting.

I just wanted to take a minute a share a great book that I stumbled across last week and I feel anyone interested in the film making would enjoy. It's called DroidMaker. This is the inside story of George Lucas, his intensely private company, and their work to revolutionize filmmaking. In the process, they made computer history. Discover the birth of Pixar, digital video editing, videogame avatars, THX sound, and a host of other icons of the media age. Lucas played a central role in the universe of entertainment technologies we see everyday.
This book ventures in territory never explored, as Rubin-a former member of the Lucasfilm Computer Division-reconstructs the events in Hollywood, in Silicon Valley, and at Lucas' private realm in Marin County, California, to track the genesis of modern media. With unprecedented access to images and key participants from Lucasfilm, Pixar and Zoetrope-from George Lucas and the executives who ran his company, to the small team of scientists who made the technological leaps. This is a compelling story that takes the reader into an era of technological innovation almost completely unknown. Make sure you get a copy of this great book today!

In the Movie Settings dialog under Sound click the Settings button.

Then select None for the audio codec because you don't want any audio compression to take place at this time. Select an audio sample rate of 44 kHz 16 bit and Stereo. Click OK.

Here are the settings you need to use to export your QuickTime Movie for compression for Web. Under the Video Section go into the Settings section. Now to clarify this tutorial the goal of this exercise is not to make a video that you will be able to take and place instantly on the web. The goal is to export a QuickTime video file from your non-linear editor that you can then take into your video compression application. You'll get much better results that way. One added benefit of this process is if you need to you can encode you videos again in the future using the better codecs.

Now go into the Video section and choose the Settings button and choose DV-NSTC, DV/DVCPro-NTSC, MJPEGA, MJPEGB or PhotoJPEG from the Pop-up menu at the top. Choose Best for the Quality setting. Under the Motion section make sure Key frame every, Limit data rate and Frames have nothing selected. After you make your selections click OK.

(Note: Some of the steps listed may be different based on your non-linear editor. The ultimate purpose of this tutorial is for those that a encoding videos for streaming in a video compression application.)

In your non-linear editor choose an in point and and out point for your video.

Then go to the File pull down menu and choose File then Export and Select QuickTime or Using QuickTime Conversion

Let's face it, Photoshop is an absolute necessity when it comes to working with your favorite non linear editing system. If you are not familiar with Photoshop in terms of how it works with video applications, the task can be daunting.

Costumers these days expect the seemingly impossible with digital photos, scanned images, and web content. They want all these elements to fit within their video production.

What are your options? Well, you can take a Photoshop for Video class. However, chances are the class will be a print class, which won't teach you the critical things about using Photoshop for video applications. In the video world, we are more concerned with aspect ratios, alpha channels, and the limitations of DV video (720 x 480). We don't care about CMYK color spaces, and we don't care about DPI. The only thing that really matters is how the final product looks on a standard television screen.

We want images that can be used as a glass bug. We want graphics that we can cut out and key over an image. We want the ability to add visual effects to our text objects. We want to take the logo from a clients stained business card and make it stand out within a video project. Finally, we want do this all of this very quickly. Sounds daunting, doesn't it?

Here are some key concepts of how to use Photoshop for Video. For this article, we will refer to two popular non linear editing programs, Avid Xpress, and Final Cut Pro. However, I am certain that these techniques will work with other editing programs as well. We will start by building a simple title and adding some layered effects to it.

Let's that you have already finished this week's show for a weekly outdoor sports program featuring a hunt during gun season and just as you are about to print to tape, you realize that in one of your many shots a hunter does not have on his required orange hat. Perhaps he took it off to scratch his head, but you don't want to project a negative image of your show in regard to hunting safety, so you decide to replace the shot.

After you have cut out that clip within Final Cut Pro, a quick way to figure out the exact duraton of the gap in the show is to:

1 Option click the Auto Select Control for the track that contains the gap.

2 Place the position indicator in the gap and press x to mark the space (clip).

3 The duration of the gap can be found in the Timecode Duration field in the Canvas Window. This would be the left field.

If you want to make sure there are no gaps within your sequence, you can use the keyboard shortcut (Shift + G) to advance forward to the next gap, or (Option + G) to move backwards to a gap.

See how to utiize three-point editing to close a gap in your FCP timeline!

Users can now purchase video compression products from the GeniusDV E-store. You can find products such as Sorenson Squeeze 4.3 Compression Suite, Sorenson Squeeze 4.3 for Flash, Flip4Mac WMV Studio Pro and Flip4Mac WMV Studio Pro HD as an electronic license. To find out more about these compression products do a search on the GeniusDV website for Sorenson Squeeze or Flip4Mac.

There is also a 25-page PDF e-guide that can be purchased that will help those that are authoring Windows Media Streaming Content. The guide complete with pre-made templates and screenshots, takes the guest work out of authoring Windows Media content.

Find out how to create links for playback of Windows Media content in media player or for playback using .ASX files. The guide walks users through the process of embedding WMV and WMA files in a web page. Also learn about OBJECT and EMBED tags for Windows Media.

Some of the topics covered in the E-guide are:

The mystery is solved when shooting in 16:9 and working in Final Cut Pro. In the old days, video production was simple. There was just one television format, and no-one had to worry about designing their production for a widescreen. Now, with the introduction to the 16x9 format, it can become confusing, especially when trying to mix the standard 4x3 format with 16x9 images.

Nothing is worse than walking into your local technology store and seeing a beautiful wide screen television with an image that is distorted. It defeats the entire purpose of purchasing a wide screen television. Worse yet, what if you want to shoot a project in true 16:9 but you want it to look correct on a standard television screen? Try explaining to someone that actual difference between a 16:9 image and a 4:3 image, and why it is distorted. That requires a lot of math, and often confuses people.

With Apple's Final Cut Pro, things have never been easier! The trick, is to shoot with a DV camera that has a firewire port. DV cameras record something extra along with the compressed video. The record time-stamp information and some additional meta-data that is embedded with the video. Final Cut Pro understands this information when you record directly from the DV port on a camera or tape machine. By shooting in a true 16x9 mode, if you were to play back your tape on a standard 4:3 television set, your image would look stretched.

Take a look at this example: You can clearly see that it looks slightly stretched out. This is how the clip would look if you recorded from a non-dv source, where Final Cut Pro is unable to interpret the meta-data.

If you right click (control click) on a clip and select 'item properties > format', A dialogue box will appear.

You will notice the anamorphic category setting is checked indicating a 16:9 video format. If you uncheck this selection, your video clip will become distorted as shown above.

They most common problems related to audio problems with Final Cut Pro is mismatched audio sample rates.

I highly recommend that you make sure all of your audio files within Final Cut Pro are set to the same sample rate. Mismatched sample rates and audio codecs within Final Cut Pro can cause a variety of problems. These problems include:

Timelines that drift out of sync
Audio pops
Audio Distortion
Sluggish Playback
Audio Level Problems

The most common culprits are audio CD files or mp3 files. If you are using mixed sample rates, the problem is almost crippling for Final Cut Pro 3.0 users. Final Cut Pro 4.5HD offers improved performance in dealing with mixed sample rates, but it is deffinately worth your time and effort to make sure all your imported audio files are the same sample rate.

The DV specification supports 32K, 44.1K, and 48K sample rates. Most professionals religiously shoot their footage using the 48K sample rate or (16 bit). Be careful! Many consumer video cameras have a default audio setting of 12 bit (32k audio). If you forget to change this, your best bet is to make a new dub of your DV tape and re-sample the audio at 48K.

If you have having audio or sync problems within Final Cut Pro, take a quick look in the Browser Window, and verify that every clip has a sample rate of exactly 48k. If not, this could be why you are having problems.

Since the most commonly used sample rate for DV is 48K, I recommend converting ALL of your audio files to 48K before using them within Final Cut Pro.

An easy way to convert audio CD's, or mp3 files to 48K .aiff files is to use iTunes.

Inserting an audio CD into the Macintosh should automatically launch iTunes. Next, go to the iTunes menu and select 'preferences'.

The next step is to configure iTunes to automatically convert any audio files within it’s library to 48k, using the aiff encoder. To change the default settings, click on the custom setting pull down menu. The good news is, once you have changed these settings, you will not need to change them again, unless you re-install or update iTunes.

Next, you need to specify where you want the new (converted) audio files to be stored. Click on the advanced button and change the location of the music folder to a new location. I prefer saving my converted audio files straight to the Apple desktop.

Then, all you need to do, is highlight the individual tracks that you want to convert and navigate to the Advanced menu, and select 'Convert Selection to AIFF' Then import the new converted files into Final Cut Pro.

In our latest GeniusDV: Streaming Media Podcast I talk to Dr. Robert Arn, Chief Technology Officer for ITIVA. During the podcast he discusses ITIVA's streaming technology, which is different from traditional streaming. ITIVA's patented Quantum Transport technology makes this possible. Dr. Arn talks about ITIVA's services such as QStream, QLoad, QLive and QCast-ST and how end users and companies can benefit from their technology. Visit the webpage below to subscribe to the Podcast.

Listen to the GeniusDV: Streaming Media Podcast featuring Dr. Robert Arn, CTO for ITIVA

Creating the 'Plesantville' effect in Avid Xpress or Media Composer is a fairly simple task. In fact, a similar technique can be used in almost any other non-linear editing system.

For learning purposes, find a short clip that has a dominate object that contains mostly one shade of color. In this example, the orange flower.

Start by editing the same exact clip to V1 and V2 on the timeline as shown below. Make sure the starting and ending points and each clip match up exactly.

The next step is to navigate to the Avid Xpress DV – Pro effects palette and place a color effect onto V1.

After you apply the color effect to V1, click on the effects editor button. The effect editor button is located in the upper left corner of the timeline window. It looks like a pair of seatbelts. *Make sure that the purple monitoring icon is placed on V1, so you can see that changes that you make to V1 while in the effect editor window.

Now, once you are in the effects editor mode. Drag the (sat) slider to -100. This should make the clip that is on V1 turn to black and white.

The composer window should now display the clip as a black and white video image.

Go back to the effects tab within the project window and apply the croma key effect to V2.

Enter into effects mode on V2. *Make sure the purple monitoring icon is placed on V2 so you can see the changes that you make in the effects editor window. Before moving forward, your timeline should like like the example below.

Now, here is the tricky part. Within the effects editor, you need to specify the color that you want to key out. In this case, the orange color. You can click in the key color box and drag your cursor to the composer window to pick the color you want by using the eyedropper. This will give you a good start to matching the color.

Make sure you click on (invert key) to see the black and white image underneath V2.

*The controls are extremely finicky. It will take some experimenting to find the correct value. Normally, it is a fine mix between the Hue, Gain and Softness controls. Once you get the correct mix, the effect can be spectacular.

We have talked at length about adding that extra touch to your DVDs by adding some family pictures to the mix via slideshow in DVD Studio Pro, but what good is a slideshow without the appropriate music behnind it?

Depending on the type of slide show you are creating, you can add single or multiple pieces of music to your slideshow or assign a specific piece of audio to a single slide. This is striclty a creative decision. If you are using a series of stills along with an audio file, it would be easier to just designate multiple or just one audio file to play for the entire length of the slideshow. If creativley, your slideshow calls for each slide to have its own audio, such as voiceover, having a single audio file for each slide will be key in syncing them up correctly, but If you have already layed down an overall music file for the entire slideshow, like Chariots of Fire for instance, you will not be able to perform this function.

Adding Audio With The Slideshow Editor:

1 Within the Assets Tab, choose the audio file you wish to use.

2 Drag the audio file over to the Slideshow Editor and assign it to a slide by releasing the mouse button while over top of it.

You can also use the Slide Inspector to Specify Audio for your slideshow.

- Make active the slide that you want to add audio to, then in the Audio File Pop Up Menu, within the Slide Inpector, designate the audio for that slide.

The Microsoft Windows XP operating system limits every program to 2 gigabytes
(GB) of address space. It reserves the remaining 2 gigabytes of address space for its
own use. Avid provides a utility for setting the boot-time mechanism to extend the process
address space. Setting your Avid editing system to access a larger virtual address space might
improve working with HD projects without running out of memory.
Use the following procedure to extend your usable address space.

1. Double-click Program Files\Avid\Utilities\3GB\Install3G.bat.
The following window opens.

2. Choose one of the following:
If you want to always use the extended memory every time you boot
the system, type D.
If you want the option to choose between the extended memory and the
original default setting whenever you reboot, type M.

3. Restart your system.

This should help with memory allocation and keep you from recieving the memory errors.

Having the ability to create a slideshow of all those beuatiful pictures that you took at the last family outing just may be what adds that extra something to that Vacation DVD you're starting to peice together. Within DVD Studio Pro, you can treat still images just as you would video, that means you can drag pictures to the assets tab and to the Slideshow Editor. To save time, you can also select a group of pictures and drag them directly to the Menu Editor.

Creating A Slideshow In Your Project

As you get to know DVD Studio Pro, just as all of the other software that is included in the Final Cut Studio Package, there are many ways to accomplish a single goal. Choose one of these methods.

1 Select Project > Add to Project > Slideshow or
- Press Command K.
- Or, select the tab labeled slideshow and drag your stills to the Slideshow Editor.

2 A slideshow element will show in the Outline and Graphical tabs. Open the slideshow by double clicking it in the Slideshow editor.

3 Give your slideshow a name in the Slideshow Inspector.

4 Select your group of stills in the assets tab, then drag the files to the Slideshow Editor. The group of pics you have just placed will be aligned in alphabetical order, but can be easily rearranged.

Save time and of course money by using and applying the animation presets found in After Effects. It may get a little confusing on how to apply some of these effects so here is a breakdown of the proper procedure:

Select one or more layers.
Do one of the following:
1.Select the animation preset in the Effects & Presets panel, and then drag the preset to the selected layer in the Timeline, Composition, or Effect Controls panel.

2.To apply a recently used or saved animation preset, choose Animation > Recent Animation Presets, and then choose the animation preset from the list.

3.To apply selected effects from within an animation preset, press Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS), select the effects in Effects & Presets, and then drag them to the Timeline, Composition, or Effect Controls panel. If the individual effects and properties within an animation preset do not appear, choose Show Preset Contents from the Effects & Presets panel menu.

4.Choose Animation > Browse Presets, navigate to the animation preset you want, and then double-click the animation preset to apply it to the selected layer.

The Matrox MXO is a must have device for those who are working with HDV within Final Cut Pro. HDV is a compressed form of HD and is highly compressed using a mpg compression scheme. Since HDV compresses video uses mpg, it requires additional processing to output the media from Final Cut Pro.

One of the frustrating things Final Cut Pro users eventually figure out, is there isn't a way to immediately output your finished sequence back to tape. You must perform a 'print to video' function and wait for Final Cut Pro to conform your HDV video. If you decide to make changes to your sequence, you must repeat the entire process over again. Depending on your computer's processing speed, this can be a timely process.

This is where the Matrox MXO comes to the rescue. It eliminates the lengthy conforming process. It's as simple as configuring your audio-video settings within Final Cut Pro and selecting one of the special Matrox MXO presets to match your sequence settings.

The Matrox MXO is a small external device that connects to a second video port on your graphics card. The engineers at Matrox have figured out a way to convert the DVI signal from the second port on the graphics card to a true genlocked video signal. This means you can output HDV in real-time to a wide variety of HD or Analog formats.

On the back of the Matrox MXO are outputs for Composite, Component, and SDI outputs. S-Video output is also supported through an adapter cable that ships with the retail box. Therefore, you'll need to make sure your tape machine supports one of these inputs. Keep in mind there is no firewire output directly from the Matrox MXO box.

Another great feature is the SDI output supports up to 8 channel of embedded audio.

Furthermore the Matrox MXO provides three choices for the aspect ratio that you are sending to your tape machine. These are:

Letterbox - for correct letterbox display on a standard 4:3 screen
Anamorphic - for widescreen television sets at true 16:9
Center Cut - for standard 4:3 screens without a letterbox

The real beauty of this box, is the ability to output your Final Cut Pro sequence to SD or HD on the fly without having to transcode your video. If you are working with HDV the box is performing a down-res or up-res of your HDV footage. Full HD uses a picture size of 1920 x 1080 with a color sampling of 4:2:2. HDV records at 1280x720 or 1440x1080 using a color sampling of 4:1:1.

The Matrox MXO will either up-res HDV, DVCPRO HD or Dynamic RT segments to full output resolution or down-res your HD sequence to SD

Final Cut Pro users can now edit their entire show in HDV, and then output to the format of their choice. This way, you can immediately output a standard def version of your sequence for today's audience. Then if your client requests an HD copy, simply play back your sequence to HD.

*It is important to note, that the Matrox MXO will provide a full HD or SD output of your HDV sequence. It does not directly output HDV.

The Matrox MXO also operates in a presentation mode, which encodes the output of your desktop so a broadcast quality output. Presentation mode can be used with applications such as Keynote, Powerpoint, or even a web browser. It will allow you to record the presentation using the video outputs on the back of the Matrox MXO. The computer's audio is also routed to all the MXO audio outputs.

Other interesting features of the Matrox MXO are:

System Requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4.7 or later
One available USB 2.0 port
Display card with DVI-I connector. Must be able to display 1920x1200 @ 60 Hz.
512 MB of RAM

To configure and install the Matrox MXO takes less than 5 minutes. The product is very straight forward in terms of its operational features.

The Matrox MXO is a great value and a must have for anyone using the HDV format. It is also a great solution for anyone who needs to output real-time video directly from the Final Cut Pro without having to use firewire output. For iMac or Mac Book Pro users, because of the lack of pci expansion slots, this is a must have device.

The retail price is $995.00. This is an excellent price to performance ratio, considering all the time you will save from being able to instantly output your HDV sequences.

Although Motion comes with an array of particle system presets such as rain, smoke, clouds, etc; it's an absolute must to know how to create something that is completely original to add that personal touch to a project!

The creation of a particles system begins with designing your own particles that you wish to emit. You can use any image, shape, text, or movie that is supported by Motion as a source for a cell. With that in mind, still images are the easiest to create and make the fastest emitters. After you have created your own personal design elements, select an object as your source for a new particle emitter and use the dashboard to manipulate Birth Rate, Life, and the scale of the emission.

In the After Effects Timeline panel, RAM Preview plays either the span of time you specify as the work area or from the beginning of the Timeline. In the Layer and Footage panels, RAM Preview plays only untrimmed footage. Now that I am starting to work with HDV footage and starting to make much more complex compositions, I have notice that the RAM previews take forever. The best way to see if you are working in the right direction without the excruciating wait times is to turn down the preview quality. Going from full resolution to half or third really helps speed up your preview times/ They might not look the best but this will give you a good idea if your composition is coming together they way you are intending. Also another great tip is to turn off the audio during your previews. You may not be able to do this if you are trying to edit to the sound but if you can temporary do without it you can drastically speed up you preview times in After Effects.

The Participatory Culture Foundation has a major update to Democracy Player which is version 0.9.1. It's really fun to use and is a big step forward on features and a simple interface.

This Democracy Player 0.9.1 has lots and lots of new features.

1. The interface is faster and more responsive.

2. You can make 'Search Channels' that automatically search a channel (rss feed) or a website like YouTube and download videos that match the search.

3. The Mac and Windows versions can now both search, save, and play flash video (such as YouTube or Google Video).

4. Import videos on startup on Mac and Windows (new to Windows).

5. A simpler, better channel view.

Download Democracy Player 0.9.1 or get additional information about the newest player

Telestream, the provider of award-winning Flip4Mac digital media tools for the Mac, today announced immediate availability of its Flip4Mac Import and Export Components for Grass Valley Profile and K2 media servers. These components provide file compatibility and enable fast, efficient file transfer between Apple Final Cut Pro editing systems and Grass Valley servers.

"Telestream has been a key contributor to file-based media workflows, providing the critical link that enables seamless media exchange between systems," said Barbara DeHart, vice president of Telestream Flip4Mac products. "We are pleased to expand Flip4Mac support for these industry-leading server products from Grass Valley."

The Flip4Mac Profile|K2 Components Now Available from Telestream|K2 components provide file-based import and export of IMX D-10 and DV25/50 standard definition video and uncompressed audio between Grass Valley K2, Profile, Turbo and M-Series media servers and Final Cut Pro applications for Mac OS X users. With the new Flip4Mac components, editors can browse, import, edit and export content to and from devices not natively supported by Final Cut Pro. Transfers can occur faster than real time. They also provide additional functionality, like the ability to view keyframes and metadata support, enabling a faster, more efficient, all-digital workflow. These components eliminate the need to return to baseband video in order to move media files between systems.

GeniusDV writes new and valuable content 365 days a year. Our current archive includes over 1000 entires of valuable tutorials, tips and tricks. This includes an entire .html version of Final Cut Pro courseware, and other step by step tutorials for Avid Xpress and Final Cut Pro. All these tutorials are free!

For a copy of some of our more popular tutorials, sign up for our mailing list and we will email you instructions on how to subscribe to our feed. In addition will be sending out a monthly newsletter with printed copies of our more popular content.

To get you started here are two very popular 'time tested' tutorials for both Avid and Final Cut Pro.

Pleasantville Effect for Final Cut Pro
Plesantville Effect for Avid

Moving Filmstrip for Final Cut Pro
Moving Filmstrip for Avid

In case your wondering, RSS is an excellent way to receive our content without having to visit our website.

RSS feeds represent the next generation of receiving web content. You can receive your favorite news items or tutorials straight to your desktop without having to visit your favorite web sites. Better yet, the latest version of Apple Safari supports the ability to read RSS news feeds. Also, Inernet explorer 7.0 now supports an integrated RSS reader.

If you are unfamiliar with RSS feed technology, you here is a good link to information on how RSS feeds work.

If you do not have the latest version of Apple Safari, or Internet explorer 7.0, you can download free RSS readers.

Here are the feeds:
http://www.geniusdv.com/index.xml (our entire site)
http://www.geniusdv.com/weblog/archives/final_cut_pro.xml (Final Cut Pro)
http://www.geniusdv.com/weblog/archives/avid_xpress_media_composer.xml (Avid - Media Composer)
http://www.geniusdv.com/weblog/archives/video_streaming.xml (Video Streaming)

Just paste this feed into any RSS news-reader and your ready to go!

If you have latest version of Apple Safari (included in OS 10.4.X then you already have integrated RSS reading technology built into the browser. You can even set up your screen saver to update itself based on latest content.

You can also download the latest version of Internet Explorer 7.0 to read syndiated news feeds.

In both applications, you will find the news-reading functionality located in the upper right corner of the screen. As long as your favorite site incorporates RSS news-feeds you can use them.
You can even configure your browser to update the content automatically without ever having to visit the actual site!

If you don't want to use the built in functionality of I.E. 7.0 or Safari with OS X 10.4.X. Here are two third party suggested news-readers you can try out:

PC: http://www.download.com/RSS-Tools/3150-9227-0.html

MAC: http://www.newsfirerss.com/

If you have footage that has been shot on a blue screen, a green backdrop, or a low angle shot where the subjects backdrop is the sky, you can use filters within Motion to key out the blue or green color. This allow you to do some pretty impressive effects.

Just recently, for an outdoor sports show, I took some footage that I had shot of an Osprey flying against a blue sky and cut a sequence within Final Cut Pro. Within this sequence, I made the first couple of seconds a still frame of the bird that eventually progressed into the Osprey flying. I later brought that footage into Motion, where I keyed out the blue sky, added a pencil art filter over the top of it, tweaked the color of the ink, composited it over some animated footage of a book with its pages open and made the bird fly off of one of the pages.

Keying a blue screen Image:

1 Import the image that has been shot against a blue backdrop.

2 Within the layers tab, place your blue screen image over your desired backdrop.

3 Select Filters > Keying from within the Library.

4 Drag the Primatte RT keying filter to the blue screen image in the Layers tab or Canvas. Your blue backdrop has now been removed.

If you are editing 720p material and are looking for a new deck to input and output your HDV material look no further than the JVC BR-HD50U. I just recently purchased this deck and I am very satisfied. It has a built in output/cross-converter, enables output not only of 720p signals, but also 1080i, 480/576p and 480/576i signals. Plus, thanks to switchable HDV and DV recording mode functionality along with DVCAM playback, you'll have no problems adding this recorder/player to your existing editing system. The BR-HD50U can record HDV format 720/30p/25p/24p, 480/60p or 576/50p video and DV format 480/60i and 480/24p video. A big 8-digit LED display on the front panel displays time code, user bits and VTR status. The built-in time code generator provides preset, rec run and regen time codes. The DV 20x search function (100x max. in the FF or REW mode) and the HD 8.5x forward search function (6.5x in reverse), provides super-fast access to any desired point on the tape. On-screen menus, Systematic, easy-to-understand menu screens simplify setting and operation procedures. Menu setting can be done using either the buttons on the front panel.

I highly recommend this deck and I am fully satisfied with it's functions. If you need to understand the full HDV workflow then checkout this article.

If you have started to work with HD material and you need to export your work to another application (After Effects, Encore, etc.) then here a few guidelines for exporting your work via Quick Time.

First and foremost your HD projects cannot be exported as a Quick Time reference. You can only export as a straight Quick Time movie. Inside your Quick Time settings you need to choose Custom. Click on Format Options and make sure your settings are set to:

Compression: Animation
Depth: Millions of Colors or Millions of Colors+ (+ is if you require an alpha channel)
Quality: Best
Frame Rate: Match the frame rate of your project

These settings will give you the highest quality, uncompressed results.

So you have gotten the hang of Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro and Motion and are ready to take advantage of the integration that these tools provide. Now you want to jazz up your DVD by supplementing some Motion Assets to your creation. Here's a bit of information you may find helpful.

I would recommend that you always use Compressor to convert your files to the MPEG 2 format before you import them as assets into DVD Studio Pro, but you can configure DVD Studio Pro to perform the conversion for you at the appropriate time.

When you import an asset from Motion (in a supported format) that is not DVD-compliant into DVD Studio Pro, the embedded Quicktime MPEG Encoder converts them to be DVD compliant. Within the encoding pane under DVD Studio Pro preferences, there are controls that determine whether the encoding for such files begin immediately in the background, or waits until you build the final project.

Setting Encoding Preferences:

1 Choose preferences in DVD Studio Pro.

2 Choose the encoding icon.

3 Choose encoding mode: Background Encoding lets encoding begin as soon as you import the asset allowing you to CONTINUE WORKING. Encode On Build will not start until you complete the project and build the Video_TS files.

4 Click apply.

Although DVD Studio Pro comes equipped with some pretty impressive templates to choose from, you can jazz-up and personalize your project by using multiple layered Photoshop files as backgrounds and overlays.

Choosing A Menu Background From a Layered Photoshop File:

1 Select an existing menu or create a new one.

2 Within the menu inspector, select the general tab.

3 You can assign the PSD as the background by selecting it from the background asset pop-up menu within the inspector or by dragging it into the menu editor and selecting set background in the Drop Palette. The PSD file's layer names will appear in the background area of the general tab.

4 Select the checkboxes that are located next tot he layers that make up the background.

Having a firm grasp of Photoshop is beneficial for any video editor, especially if you work in an environment where you don't have the benefit of a graphics department. Check out this two day Photoshop For Video Class!

The newest version of Wirecast provides great promise for those delivering Live Webcasts. Wirecast 3 is now available and allows some key features which I think will be interesting to many.

Wirecast works with HDV

Wirecast now works seamlessly with HDV cameras. "If you sport a new widescreen HDV camera and want to webcast with it, Wirecast is the only solution available to you on any platform," says Simon Clarke, President of Technology at Vara. "The quality an HDV camera delivers to Wirecast at 720p or 1080i is simply amazing. Wirecast passes that high definition quality directly to your chosen encoding format, resulting in crisper, cleaner webcasts."

Broadcast a Mac or PC Desktop with Desktop Presenter

A major new feature of Wirecast is Desktop Presenter - a small application for either Mac or Windows that you can put on any locally networked PC. Desktop Presenter streams the computer's desktop to Wirecast. Wirecast incorporates that desktop into the final broadcast.

This opens the door for broadcasting PowerPoint and Keynote Presentations, a feature that is dear to the heart of many interested in webcasting. To be able to easily integrate slides using Keynote within a webcast sounds very exciting for those using QuickTime. Currently most of the high end webcasts use Windows Media and Real Media and this opens up an exciting door for those who are streaming QuickTime content.

"Although you can broadcast anything from your desktop, Desktop Presenter was conceived to be used with Keynote or PowerPoint," says Paul Carnine, President of Products at Vara Software. "A speaker shows up, installs this small utility, and Wirecast can then broadcast their presentation integrated with a video of them delivering it. Perfect for a Lecture Hall or Boardroom."

For individuals that want to fix the Click to Run Active X in this Web page issue here's what you'll need to do if you are authoring QuickTime content. The above dialog is seen if you are using Object tags and your web page doesn't already have the JavaScript fix which makes sure that your viewers will not be prompted to click on a dialog window or tooltip which displays the Click to Run Active X in this Web Page.

Here's how the fix works. If you are using the latest version of Dreamweaver which is 8.0.2. Open your web page and you will see a dialog box like the one above. Click Yes to fix your web page. Clicking Yes installs JavaScript code into your web page. There is then a folder inserted inside your site root folder for your web site.

However, this fix mentioned above will not fix web pages authored with QuickTime content. You have to do a little more work.

Navigate to the Scripts folder inside your site root folder for your web site.

You can add two types of markers in Soundtrack Pro, Beat Markers, which are purple in color and green Time Markers. There are also Final Cut Pro scoring markers that will appear as orange and a red end of score marker. These markers can illustrate where a certain sound begins and ends so it can be matched to a particular piece of video, signify an area that still needs work, or mark important sections of your score.

Inserting A Marker

- To insert a Beat Marker, just place the playhead at the point in the timeline where the marker will appear and select Project > Insert Beat Marker or you can simply press the B key.

- To insert a Time Marker, place the playhead where you want it to appear, then choose project > insert Time Marker or simply press the M key.

If you are looking for the ultimate in editing, 3-D, and effects integration, then look no further. Avid Studio Toolkit has it all! With Avid Studio Toolkit, independent editors, producers, and filmmakers can add professional effects and titles, create 3D animations, and author standard-definition DVDs or high-definition Blu-ray Discs right from their Avid editing system. No other suite combines this level of features, integration, and ease-of-use. And no other solution makes an end-to-end HD workflow this affordable.
This is the most comprehensive suite you can buy and with the ability to output to Blu-Ray Disc you will be ready for the future!

Multi cam editing in the latest Avid Products has a few changes you should be aware of. In version x.6 of Avid editors mixing a non-grouped and grouped clip in the timeline exits quad split view in the source monitor regaurdless of being in Multicam Mode.

To re-enter quad split view, make sure that Multicam Mode is checked in the Speical menu. Next, open the Command Palette (Ctrl + 3 PC Cmd + 3 MAC) and navigate over to the MCam tab. Make sure the '"Button to Button" Reassignment radio button is selected in the lower left of the Command Palette and drag and drop the Quad Split button to an open area underneath the Record/Composer window. Once the Quad Split button is mapped click on it. You will now have re-entered Quad Split view and can continue with your multicam edit.

If you do not have any free button space underneath your Record/Composer window, you can launch the Command Palette and choose Active Palette instead of "Button to Button" Reassignment. From there you can re-enter Quad Split by clicking on the Quad Split button.

Many web developers and individuals that author streaming content are having to deal with fixing an issue with Objects Tags. Authorers have historically needed to add OBJECT tags to the web page codec to ensure proper viewing of content in web browsers. However, the latest update for Internet Explorer 6 has broken the OBJECT tags fix and displays a dialog windows which says "Click to Run Active X on this Webpage" or some users will see a tooltip displayed. With Microsoft's latest update for Internet Explorer, users will need to add some Javascript code to fix their web pages.

GeniusDV's had a chance to interview Ron Northtrip of Ronald Northtrip Software on the GeniusDV: Streaming Media Podcast to talk more about this issue and how to fix your web pages if you are having problems:

Items discussed in the Podcast are:

Within DVD Studio Pro and pretty much all of the Apple Final Cut Studio software, it is very important not to move or rename an asset after you have imported it into a project. If you should happen to do so, the next time that you open your project, a missing files window will appear.

Locating Missing Assets In DVD Studio Pro

1 Select the asset that is declared missing in the Missing Files Windows.

2 Choose Locate and use the file location dialog to find the missing asset.

If you open a project without locating your missing assets first or if the assets become missing while your project is open, the missing assets will appear in red and the elements in which the assets are used will be disabled.

Reconnecting An Asset To A Project:

- Click File > Asset > Re-Link

- Within the assets tab, Control-click the name of the asset, then choose Relink in the shortcut menu.

For individuals who want to get Top Quality Compression using ProCoder there is probably no better resource available than Ben Waggoner's 3 DVD Set. Ben has been one of the key players in the streaming and compression industry for years and his insight on compression technology and techniques is amazing. He actually created many of the compression profiles found in many compression software applications including Rhozet's Carbon Coder, a high-end encoding tool similar to ProCoder.

Here are some of the items you'll learn about from the ProCoder Training series:

I am always interested in how the major production company produce the primetime television shows and major films. As an online editor at the Los Angeles-based post facility FotoKem Film & Video, Bill Admans has worked on several of the primetime shows in the Law & Order franchise including the veteran Criminal Intent, starting its fifth season this September, and Conviction, which concluded its first season this year.

Conviction is one of the first primetime shows to be shot in HD with the new Panavision Genesis digital film camera. The camera is designed not only to acquire the full bandwidth of HD-RGB data, but also to more closely match the color qualities and subtleties of traditional 35mm film. The Genesis camera uses HDCam SR RGB 4:4:4 tape.
A typical hour-long dramatic episode for primetime network TV costs approximately $1 million to produce. Since the network license fee covers only about $600,000, the studio needs to make up a shortfall of approximately $400,000 per show. The studios typically do this by selling the series into syndication, to off-network sales, to basic cable, to international sales, and so on.

"We're in the business of creating an asset that will have value on the shelf for the studio for the next 20, 30, 40 years."
- Bill Admans, Director of Creative Editorial, FotoKem

Check all the details about the new Law and Order Conviction.

The Media Manager allows you to create a copy of your project without media, therefore reducing the transfer time dramatically. With that being said, your fellow remote collaborators also need the same media files on their systems in order to access the projects you send. By using either the copy or recompress options within the Media Manager to make copies of the media files that are needed by your fellow collaborators, you are not actually creating any new media.

Creating an Offline Sequence Within a New Project File:

1 Select a sequence within the Browser.

2 Within the Media Manager select Make Offline.

3 Choose the sequence preset that matches the media on the destination workstation you are sending to.

4 Click OK in the Medial Manager.

5 Choose a name for the new project file, then select OK

6. Within your email, attach the project, or upload via FTP or web server.

If you have spent much time editing audio to match your edits you know how hard it can be to match the mood and tempo of you cuts. SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 4 is the first-ever music solution with Mood Mapping for dynamically matching the mix and feel of music to the changing moods of any production. Built with SmartSound's patented technology, Sonicfire Pro gives you unprecedented control and flexibility over your music scores resulting in unlimited creative options right from your video editing workstation. The great thing about Sonicfire is that it is now integrated with Avid Express Pro in the same way Marquee is. So check out Sonicfire Pro 4 and speed up and perfect your music editing!

For anyone that doesn't already know it Flip4Mac is a great tool for easily encoding Windows Media content in Quicktime based applications. One of the keys to getting good quality with Flip4Mac is understanding the field dominance of your source. This is referred to with many tools as Lower Field First, Upper Field First and Progressive. Mac users that have Compressor can easily find out the Field Dominance of their source. Anyone who has the full version of Final Cut Pro actually should have Compressor because it comes with the Final Cut Pro application.

To determine your field dominance (sometimes called field order). Open Compressor and drag a video clip to the batch.

Click once on your source file and the Inspector Window will show information about the video file. Notice how Birds.avi is selected above.

Look in Compressor inside the Inspector window where Native Field Dominance is displayed to determine you field dominance. It will say Progressive, Lower or Upper. This is your field dominance.

Occasionally, you will have to manually change the Alpha-Channel of a clip due to a misintepretation of an Alpha-Channel by FCP upon import of a file. For example, what should be transparent in a clip may be translated as black.

Changing an Imported Clip's Alpha-Channel

1 Within the Browser Window, select a clip then go to Edit > Item Properties >Format.

2 Either control click, if you have a one button mouse, or right click, with a two button mouse, the Alpha row in the menu. Don't click on the word Alpha, but somewhere along further in the row.

3 Choose an Alpha-Channel type from the menu. You can also control click or right click the Reverse Alpha row to reverse the alpha channel. You may have to try one or two settings before you find the right one, but that's part of editing.....Problem Solving!

In DVD Studio Pro it is possible to create duplicate elements from within the Outline and Graphical tabs. As an example, if you had already built a chapter index menu and wanted to create duplicates of it, you could do so rather quickly and would only have to change the connections of the duplicates in order to make them functional.

Duplicating Elements:

1 Select the item or items you wish to duplicate.

2 Perform one of these tasks:
- Select Edit > duplicate.
- Control-click the element, then choose the duplicate option from the shortcut menu.
- If you have selected multiple elements, control-click in an area of the tab that is empty, then choose duplicate from the shortcut menu.
- Press Command-D.

The new element will appear last in the section.

Author - Derrick Freeman, Video Streaming Specialist

Tutorials included:

If you are receiving a clip collision message in Final Cut, you are probably attempting to move a clip into a space that is currently occupied by another clip, therefore you would be colliding with an adjacent clip.

The fix is to temporarily lock all the tracks below the area you want to trim.

Check out this tutorial demontrating the basics of Timeline Editing.

Motion truly has some impressive elements that you can manipulate into complex DVD menus within DVD Studio Pro or just to give that extra edge to a pre-made template. If you are placing markers in a Motion 1 or 2 project, then importing it into DVD Studio Pro, you may be surprised to find that your markers have been moved within DVD SP!

Make sure that when you are setting markers within your Motion project that you set them at least a half second apart or DVD Studio Pro will shift them for you during import. It's a DVD thing!

I have been pulling my hair out for the past week trying to figure out how to play my 720p HD Avid timeline back into my JVC BR-HD50 deck. Everything I have read, everyone I have talked to says the only way to get your HD project back out on to tape is to run through an Avid Adrenaline. Well, knowing whenever there is a will there is always a way, I stumbled across something in the clip menu! It is called Export to HDV device. This is an amazing feature that I wish was highly publicized. All you do is edit your program into your timeline, make sure your deck or camera is hooked up and ready to go, enable all of your tracks, mark an in and out and go to Clip>Export to HDV Device. The Export to HDV Device dialog box lets you create a transport stream file. You cannot use the standard Digital Cut tool to output HDV. You must use a separate IEEE 1394 card to output the transport stream file back to the HDV device. You can export an entire sequence or the marked section between IN and OUT points. Follow these directions and watch the magic begin!
To export the HDV material to an HDV device:

1.Select the sequence or marked section.

2.Select Clip > Export to HDV Device
The Export to HDV Device dialog box opens.

Select options as described in Export to HDV Device Settings, and click OK.
The transport stream file is created or saved, if you used an existing transport stream.

I have also included a basic workflow for an HDV project:

1.Select one of the following Avid project types depending on the format in which your HDV camera records:
1080i/59.94 HDV
1080i/50 HDV
720p/29.97 HDV
2.Do one of the following:
Capture HDV material.
Import an HDV file.
The media is brought in as one video track and two 48-kHz audio tracks.

3.Edit the material.

4.Select the sequence.

5.Output the sequence back to the HDV device using the Export to HDV Device dialog box.

You can also export the file in other formats or use Windows Media 9 for export to a third-party HD-DVD authoring system

After Effects is the industry standard for motion graphics and visual effects artists. With After Effects 7.0 you can export video in all leading formats, including the ability to export FLV files from After Effects and Adobe. Flash developers accustomed to writing Action Scripts will be right at home with Expressions in After Effects. Both utilize JavaScript-based languages, and provide an infinite range of options for producing programmatic animations. Expressions in After Effects make it possible to link the behavior of any property in a composition to that of virtually any other property, so it's easy to simulate realistic physical behavior and programmatically define complex interactions between elements in an animation. Just having the ability to save your work, as an FLV or SWF is a huge timesaver. So if you haven’t upgraded to After Effects 7.0 then do so now and get ready to take your productions to the next level and speed up your exports from production to the web.

There are two new Mac-based compression tools on the block in the form of Episode and Episode Pro. These two products come courtesy of Telestream, who as part of a recent acquisition of Popwire, has changed the name of Compression Master to Episode and also created an advanced compression application called Episode Pro.

As part of the Telestream family of products Episode has quickly seen improvements in speed performing lightning fast encoding. Episode and Episode Pro both offer the Flash 8 codec option as an add-on to the compression software. Lastly, the quality of presets for iPod video right out of the box make for easy adjustment of compression settings to get high quality videos for the Video iPod.

In addition Episode includes MPEG-1/-2/-4, WM9, DV, 3GPP/2, M4A, MOV, and other QuickTime codecs.

Episode also sports an easy to use interface which will make encoding easier for novices. The application is universal and optimized for Mac OS X Intel and PowerPC Macs. Features include multi-pass encoding for H.264, WMV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and H.263. Auto-batch encoding is enabled by simply dragging and dropping one or more media files to the Batch Job window.

Episode Pro includes all the features and functionality of Episode plus advanced professional formats such as: MXF, GXF, H.264 High Profile, DVCPRO HD, and MPEG-2/-4 Transport Streams. Episode Pro also includes unlimited batch processing and scalability to Telestream's Episode Workgroup, a server-based solution that enables faster, high-volume job processing.

Look for Episode and Episode Pro to be a powerful players in the growing media encoding market.

Get more information about Episode and Episode Pro from Telestream's www.flip4mac.com

Rather than searching frame by frame using playback controls or the J, K, L keys in Final Cut Pro, use timecode to move to a specific frame while in the viewer. You would then select which edit tool you wish to use and click the In and Out button to make the change.

Using Timecode To Reset In and Out Points:

1 Choose a clip then proceed to open it in the Viewer.

2 Enter the timecode value were the new in and out points will be in the timecode field just above the timeline area, then press return. OR, you can press Shift-I or Shift-O to move the playhead to the in and out points, then enter the timecode value to move the In or Out point.

3 Choose an edit tool in the tool palette.

4 Press I or O and the canvas and timeline will show the changes.

Many of the quirks that tend to accumulate after prolonged use of Final Cut Pro can be eliminate by deleting the User Preferences. Check your scratch disk settings after you perform this.

Deleting The User Preferences

1 Launch the Finder Utility and navigate to /Library/Preferences.

2 Delete "com.apple.finalcutpro.plist" from the Preferences folder.

3 Delete the "Final Cut Pro User Data" folder from the preferences folder.

Have you ever wanted to animate a signature or the words of someone writing a letter? After Effects is the perfect solution to this creative idea and the crew at Creative Cow has done it again with a great tutorial on how to animate a signature using After Effects. I have done this in the past but Aharon Rabinowitz of Creative Cow puts some great final touches on this project. This can add great flare to your production and has many other uses. I have used it to animate graphs and charts as well. So check it out and while you're at it sign up for one of our up and coming After Effects classes!

You will find that your best work in Motion will be inspired by your own unique ability to throw things off kilter a bit by adding your own special flavor. Meaning, learning to combine and tweak unique behavior settings along with keyframe animation to achieve an effect that the programmers would have never thought to add as a template. Templates are great and we all use them but, nothing can beat your own style and creativity and that's what sells your skills to others.

Keframing is a alot more powerful than just having something fly in from one side of the screen and exit from the other. Keyframing filters can give your project the depth and texture that says 'My Style.' Expand your keframing prowess!

Recording Keyframes

1 Make sure the Record button is on.

2 Click the Play button in transport controls.

3 Move the object around the canvas area as desired.

You will see a path of keyframes have been generated, simulating the path of your movement of the object.

If you have tried to playback you avid timeline on an external monitor you may have noticed your audio and video do not sync up together. The Avid application uses a combination of hardware to provide for full audio and video playback capabilities that could present playback sync issues. With a camera or transcoder connected to your system and a sequence playing in the Timeline, the Composer (desktop) monitor plays back video and audio ahead of the DV device. You can compensate for this by delaying the playback on the Composer monitor by adjusting the number of frames as an offset so that the video and audio play simultaneously to the camera or transcoder and the Composer monitor.

To adjust the offset:

1.In the Project window, click the Settings tab.

2.Double-click Video Display.

The Video Display Settings dialog box opens.
3.Click the Desktop Play Delay slider and drag it to increase or decrease the amount of frame offset.
You might need to readjust the frames a few times to find the correct offset.

4.Click OK.

It is safe to say that nearly all digital video and audio output cards, including firewire, present inherent processing delays to signals outputting from the computer, an effect known as Latency. If you are just getting into the video editing world, then you should be acquainted with this term. Latency is when external video and audio coming from the built-in FireWire port or some third party interface appears to be several frames behind the video you are watching on your computer screen.

Changing the Frame Offset can help compensate for this delay, but keep in mind that the frame offset is active only when sequence real-time effects are handled by Final Cut Pro.

Setting The Frame Offset Between The Workstation Display And External A/V:

1 Select Final Cut Pro > System Settings.

2 Select Playback Control tab.

3 Enter an amount in whole frames between 0-30 in the Frame Offset number field. The default is 4. Set This value according to how many frames your External A/V is off from your workstation display.

4 Choose Ok.

5 Compare the offset between your computer display and your external monitor.

Take advantage of these Free Avid and Final Cut Pro Tutorials!