November 2006 Archives

If there is one piece of advice I can give when capturing your media is that you need to label your tapes and name them the exact name of that particular tape. If you have several tapes that might correlate with the same name just simply number them in order. The main reason for this comes into play with batch capture. If you delete your media to save hard drive space or more than likely it is lost when you least expect it, then no problem if you did your job. Avid uses the time code from your video cassette to navigate to the various frames. Every tape has the same time code so if you put in the wrong tape then your Avid system will go out a search those time codes on the tape in the deck, right or wrong and batch capture that media. So if you name your tapes correctly and insert the tape Avid asks for then there will be no worries of capturing the wrong media.

Just remember do not forget to name your tapes in your Avid the same name that your write on your tapes!

Giving your text that extra look is a very important part of taking your work to the professional level. I frequently use some form of glowing title. You can add a glow very easily in the new Avid Marquee Title Tool which is now bundled with Express Pro HD. To simulate a glow follow these few steps.

1. Highlight the object you want to glow and choose windows then properties and shadow.

2. Adjust your shadow properties to match these.

-Show shadow need to be selected
-Type: Drop
-X offset: 0
-Y offset: 0
-Opacity: 50 or higher
-Softness: 50 or higher
-Shadow color: glow color

You can adjust your opacity and softness to your application. The opacity is really depending on the color you choose and the background color in which the graphic will live. Try this the next time you want to spice up your text and discover the power and ease of Avid Marquee.

24 audio items can be attached to a single video item in the timeline in Final Cut Pro or exist in a merged clip. With this being true, there are also some very complex sync relationships that can occur if you slip multiple audio items in relation to a given clip.

Three Ways To Get A Clip Back Into Sync:

- Move the clip back into sync by changing its location within the sequence.

- Slip the item back into sync (the location stays the same, but the portion of the item that is used is changed by slide-trimming.

- Mark the entire clip (even all out of sync items) as being in sync, therefore redefining the clips sync relationship.

It is not by accident that we have talked about audio on several occasions. The next time you go to a film festival take note on how many features have sound issues. Of the myriad of things that need to come together when you embark on such an adventure, quality sound can truly be a beast!

The outside elements always seem to get in the way of your productions. I am always fighting the wind. The first and foremost thing you should make sure you have good windsocks on all of your mics. Even the lavalieres need to be socked up! But no matter how hard you try you will always have some sort of wind issues. Avid has some great tools to help fix tow of the most common audio issues! If you're shooting on a windy day, you can resolve the rumble on the mic by using the Audio Suite 7Band EQ. Just take the high-pass filter and move the frequency to 100hz. With the Db slider, move the slider to the far left until the wind rumble disappears. Move the frequency around until you get the desired results. If you shot your video near electric cables or a light, you may hear a buzz on your tape. You can remove this with your 7Band EQ. Just take a notch filter and move the frequency to 60hz. If it still buzzes, widen the Q setting. Then, take that dB slider and remove the frequency until the buzz disappears.

These tips should help you get rid of unwanted background noises!

If you are looking to really add life to your action movie shots then you can’t miss out on these great effects from Video Copilot! These are amazing elements that you would have to go out and break the law to make them look any more realistic! Action Movie Essentials is a generous collection of pre-made special effects elements that can be incorporated into any video program and used much like clip art. These elements include: Muzzle flashes, explosions, blood bursts, bullet holes, ricochets, fog banks and much more. This collection gives you the ability to incorporate dangerous live action effects from the comfort of your workstation. Add these elements to one of our up and coming After Effects classes and your on your way to some great looking Hollywood productions!

HP computers and Avid go hand in hand. Avid spends a lot of time with the HP products so they work seamlessly with all Avid products. If you are using the HP XW8200 with SATA boot hard drives and have noticed slow playback then you may have a bios issue. To fix this you need to enter into the bios menu. First you need to restart your computer and wait for the blue and white HP screen during the boot process hit the F10 key. You will see the word Setup in white appear in the lower right hand corner of your monitor if done properly. If you miss it just hit Ctrl+Alt+Del during the boot process to restart the computer.

Once inside the BIOS select English then go to:

Storage (menu) -> Device Configuration (hit enter) -> SATA 0 (hit enter) -> Arrow down to Transfer Mode

If it set to something other than Ultra DMA 0, change it to Ultra DMA 0. Hit F10, then F10 again, then F10 again to save changes and exit.

This should if your sluggish issues.

You have painstakingly created your short film and have authored a masterful DVD on which to present it, so you think! Now its time to make sure the functionality of the DVD works the way you have envisioned in order to achieve the desired response from your target audience, WOW!

After you have built your project and have created a VIDEO_TS folder, you can test your project on Apples DVD Player which will allow you to preview your project using the actual compiled files.

Emulating Your Project:

1 Open DVD Player

2 Chose File > Open VIDEO_TS Folder, find the VIDEO_TS folder, then click Choose.

3 Select the play option on the Controller and your project will start playing. If your project contains subtitles, you must click the Subtitle button on the Controller to see them.

The Participatory Culture Foundation had released Democracy Player 0.9.2. The latest version has some big improvements in speed and memory use. You’ll notice the improvements immediately:

On Windows, the application uses 50-75% less RAM than previous versions. Also it's now much faster when switching between channels. There are lots of bug fixes in this version too.

For those that might have had problems with the Democracy Player in the past they should check out this version.

Download Democracy Player 0.9.2

Other Links:

Listen to the GeniusDV: Streaming Media Podcast

Purchase Video Compression and Streaming Tools in the GeniusDV E-store

If you are tackling a huge project and authoring several DVDs to form a set, you can save yourself a little time by using item descriptions across several projects to create similar menus. Item descriptions are text files that list all of the properties of an element and can be read by using Text Edit.

How To Save An Item Description

1 Designate the item that you wish to save a description of.

2 Select File > Export > Item Description.

3 Name the file, then select the location where you wish to save the description. The file is then saved in that location.

Loading a Description

1 Select File > Import > Item Description.

2 Find the file, then choose import.

Remember, all of the assets associated with this description must also be present when loading this file into a project. If the assets are not present, you will receive an error message.

Post your questions about Avid and Final Cut Studio right here!

The Consolidate feature allows you to create and save copies of the sequence's media files to a selected drive. This makes it relatively simple to move source files with you when you work on a different system. Using the Consolidate feature has the advantage of copying only the amount of media necessary; you save only the sequences and clips used in the project. For example, it does not copy an entire 1-hour audio file to consolidate a single 10-second clip.
Sequences: When you consolidate a sequence, the system copies only the portions of media files edited into the sequence, and creates new master clips for each clip in the sequence. The file name extension .new is attached to the master clips, along with incremental numbering beginning with .01. The sequence is not renamed but is automatically relinked to the new media files.
Subclips: When you consolidate a subclip or group of subclips, the system copies only the portion of the media files represented in the subclip, and creates a new master clip that is the duration of the subclip and a new subclip. The file name extension .new is attached, along with incremental numbering beginning with .01.
Master clips: When you consolidate a master clip, the system creates exact copies of the media files. If you link the original master clip to the new files, the system creates a master clip with the file name extension .old that remains linked to the old files. If you maintain the link between the original master clip and the old media files, the system creates a new master clip with the file name extension .new that is linked to the new files. The new clips are also numbered incrementally beginning with .01. Consolidating master clips does not save storage space because the system copies the same amount of media for each clip.

If you are encoding from muxed MPEG-2 videos on the Mac. You might run into some problems with using a muxed MPEG-2 file when using Sorenson Squeeze or other compression applications. The problem is the video and audio are married together instead of having their own audio and video tracks. The result that user might get is a Flash .SWF or .FLV with video only and no audio. Here's how to fix the problem so your Flash videos will have audio after encoding.

Using MPEG Streamclip export a QuickTime movie using the Apple DV/DVCPro- NTSC codec. Make sure you adjust your Quality to 100% to get good quality.

Once your file is exported you will have a QuickTime file with separate audio and video tracks. Take your QuickTime file into Squeeze 4.3 or higher and encode. Your Flash .SWF or .FLV should now have audio.

Note: The MPEG-2 Component for QuickTime was installed on the computer I was using to perform this fix

Other Links:

Listen to the GeniusDV: Streaming Media Podcast

Purchase Video Compression and Streaming Tools in the GeniusDV E-store

Advancements in Prosumer camera technology have provided the producer with choices that just a short while ago were not available to the general public. Choose your poison: 4:3, 16:9, 24p, 24pa, the list goes on. If you are going to utilize subtitles in your next project there are special considerations when you add them to a track with its display set to one of the 16:9 options!

Normal Text Subtitles and 16:9:

The subtitles that you create in DVD Studio Pro on a 16:9 track will appear stretched horizontally on a monitor that displays 16:9. Choose a narrow font to offset this distortion. If you play back a 16:9 track on a 4:3 monitor using letterbox or pan-scan method, the text will appear natural.

Normal Overlay Graphic Subtitles and 16:9

Overlay graphics on a 16:9 tracks must be anamorphic (horizontally compressed) to appear natural on a 16:9 monitor. This graphic will appear horizontally squeezed on a 4:3 monitor.

Located within the timeline pane, the keyframe editor allows you to see the values, placement and changes you make to keyframes, therefore creating an ideal environment for modification.

Displaying Curves For Animated Parameters:

1 Select the animated layer or object.

2 Within the Keyframe Editor, choose Show pop-up menu, then choose Animated.

Modifying A Keyframe:

1 Choose the keyframe on the curve you wish to modify.

2 Drag either up or down along the Y axis to change the value of the keyframe or drag left to right along the X axis to change its position in time.

Check out this unique training opportunity for Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro and Motion!

Recently I ran across a problem of a corrupt user setting. I had never experienced this before and it took me a few days and banging my head on the desk to figure it out. I had upgraded to the latest Avid Software and had many playback issues, my keyboard settings would not stay the same and so on! My first thought was the new version of software was the culprit but as it turns out it was my user settings. The first and quickest way to solve this problem is to make a new setting. If you are the only user on your machine with one user setting this will be much easier. All you need to do is delete the old setting and create a new one. First make sure your Avid application is closed and then you can delete the old setting in Windows Explorer and go to C drive> Avid> Avid Users. This will take you to all of the users and you will be able to delete the old setting from here.

Now re-launch Avid and create a new user setting and you are ready to go.

Nativ, a video consulting, technology and outsourcing company, and Telestream, an industry leader in video transcoding and workflow automation solutions, today announced a partnership whereby the companies offer proven, repeatable turnkey video integration solutions tailored to customer needs. Today's digital television and streaming media technologies offer new opportunities for content owners and distributors to increase revenues and brand awareness by repurposing content for new and emerging video platforms. Nativ and Telestream provide the digital video expertise and systems integration needed to quickly translate these opportunities into practical solutions at competitive prices.

"The emergence of versatile video transcoding and automation technologies, such as those offered by Telestream, offer new business possibilities, including distribution across multiple platforms such as wireless and broadband, enhanced or new product offerings, and delivery to more distribution channels in more formats," said Jon Folland, managing director at Nativ Ltd. "We are delighted to have an agreement in place with Telestream that enables us to work with customers to cost-effectively implement these solutions."

In director Tony Scott's highly anticipated film Deja vu Denzel Washington plays a federal agent who travels back in time to save a woman from being murdered and falls in love with her in the process. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, this visually complex and dynamic film delivers all the action that fans have grown to expect from a Hollywood blockbuster. Viewers are kept on the edge of their seats as realities and timeframes cross over and merge and the main character catapults through the mind-bending plot.

Bond, who had been a beta tester for Media Composer software, says that Avid's newest software-only solution provides the entire toolset found in prior Media Composer systems as well as some new enhancements at a fraction of the cost.

Because Media Composer software was so affordable, we could expand our implementation and bring in more systems for greater efficiencies.
- J.C. Bond, Associate Editor, Deja vu

Read the full story at Avid customer site!

Whenever you select an object or an effect within your Motion project, the dashboard for that object or effect will appear by default to let you manipulate that element. The dashboard is like a floating dialog box that provides you a convenient way to modify layers as well as objects and effects. Different controls will appear depending on the element that you have chosen (Opacity, Blend Mode, Zoom, etc.).

While the dashboard contains the most commonly used controls for elements, the inspector window contains every parameter that can effect an object or layer. The inspector window can transform, change color, adjust footage properties and filters, and create keyframes as well.

The Dashboard and the Inspector window will allow you to put the finishing touch on some very impressive graphics and animations.

The Real-Time Effects (RT) option in the RT pop-up menu of the timeline allows you to adjust the playback quality of real-time effects in Final Cut Pro.

These options allow you to determine which is more important to you, wether it be visual playback quality or the abundance of effects that can be played back in real time.

If you should choose Unrestricted real-time playback, you will maximize the number of effects that you can play back in real time but you also increase the likelihood that your sequence will drop frames during playback. If it is more important to you to view your sequence back at the highest quality, with no drop frames, then you should deselect the Unlimited RT option and select the High playback option.

Author: Derrick Freeman
Video Streaming and Compression Specialist for GeniusDV

I had a chance to interview Randon Morford, Product Manager for Sorenson Media last week. He spoke from the floor of the DV Expo in Los Angeles, California. At the show Sorenson Media announced Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 for Flash and Compression Suite and the team was showcasing the product at the 2006 DV Expo. This latest version of Squeeze is packed with features. In our discussion,

Randon mentioned some of the new features of Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 which include:

If you have used the After Effects text presets then you know how much time they save and creativity they add to your productions. When you import text from Adobe Photoshop the text imports as a rasterized, non-editable image. I have recently discovered that you can quickly convert it in After Effects by using the Convert to Editable Text command. Once you have imported your Photoshop file you can now convert it to an unrasterized, editable text layer. Remember text layers are denoted with a T in the project window. When you convert a rasterized layer to a text layer, After Effects uses fonts instead of the raster image, producing a smoother image. Select the layer you scaled, and then choose Layer > Convert to Editable Text. You’ll now notice the converted layer displays the T in the Timeline window, and the text in the Composition window appears without the pixelization. Once the layers are converted to editable text, you can animate and edit the text as you would a text layer created in After Effects. You can also use the Create Outlines command (Layer > Create Outlines) to convert the text to outlines for use with path-based effects and as masks.

The dreaded R word just won't go away! Rendering is the liver and onion sandwich that we all have to take a bite of, so in that case, lets make sure that we all understand the color coded render status bars in Final Cut Pro and what they signify.

First of all, if you're new to the editing game, rendering is the process of joining video and audio files with effects. Those effects could be transitions or filters which in turn create new files named render cache files, allowing you to play back those effects in the timeline. In contrast, if you had a timeline filled with sequences that use straight cuts, theoretically, you could view them without rendering.

Above the ruler in the timeline, there are two render status bars. The top one is for video and the bottom, you guessed it, is dedicated to the audio track.

Color Codes For What Does Or Does Not Require Rendering In The Timeline

Dark Gray: No rendering is needed.

Steel Gray: This has already been rendered.

Bright Green: This is a real-time effect, but will need to be rendered when you plan on outputting back to tape.

Dark Green: This is a real-time effect that can be played back and kicked out to video at full quality without rendering

Yellow: This effect will play in real-time, but without certain parameters. An example would be a wipe that has a soft edge. You would see the wipe, but the edge would not be soft until it is rendered.

Dark Yellow: The rendered effect's quality and frame rate have been reduced from the settings located in the Render Control Tab.

Orange: The effect has exceeded your systems ability for realtime playback, but are still enabled due to the selection of unlimited RT. The Unlimited RT option increases the chance of drop frames ocurring during sequence playback.

Blue: Signifies areas of playback where drop frames may result due to the presence of unsupported real-time enabler files.

Red: Realtime capablities have been exceeded and you must render before playback or export to tape.

Sorenson Media, worldwide leader of video encoding and compression applications for digital video professionals and enthusiasts announced the immediate availability of Sorenson Squeeze 4.5. This Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 software is up to 3x faster and offers more formatting choices, DVD burning and enhanced Adobe Flash capabilities. There's a lot of excitement in the media community as a result of this announcement.

With Sorenson Squeeze applications, users can easily compress and share videos on CDs, DVDs or over the Web by importing digitized video files, reference movies, or digital camera output and publishing it in any of the leading video production application formats or digital distribution options.

Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 Compression Suite, Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 Compression Suite PowerPack and Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 for Adobe Flash, available for both Macintosh and Windows operating systems, contain new features that boost compression and preprocessing speeds, integrate Apple's H.264 for output to MP4 or QuickTime, contain new 3GPP and PSP presets for cell phones and Sony's PSP (Playstation Portable), and new presets for Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Along with providing compression rates two to three times faster than previous versions, scaling up or down between SD and HD is now twice as fast in Sorenson Squeeze 4.5. For Macintosh, Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 now works natively on both PowerPC and Intel-for-Mac using Mac Universal Binary code.

Other enhancements include the ability to burn DVDs and to include a menu within the finished DVD, if desired. Chapters for the DVD menu are created by Sorenson Squeeze. Another new feature allows Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 to read and write metadata input for QuickTime, Windows Media, Flash, Real, MP3 and MP4.

"Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 is fast," said Hoss Gifford, a Flash developer and beta user. "I encoded a batch of movies with Sorenson Squeeze 4.3 on my top-spec Windows box and they were taking about 45 minute each. But using Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 on a mid-level Windows box, they only took about 7 minutes each. It was so fast that I thought something may have gone wrong in the encoding, but the .flvs turned out great."

"We are delighted to present Squeeze 4.5. We believe users will find this new version speeds up encoding, gives them more choices and allows them more flexibility," said Matt Cupal, president and COO of Sorenson Media. "With Sorenson Squeeze 4.5, both professionals and enthusiasts can quickly encode the highest quality video in a wide variety of formats with an ease of use that is unmatched in its class."

Read article: Sorenson Squeeze 4.5 Compression Suite, Packed with Features

TYPE OF INPUT SUPPORTED

Before capturing media into Final Cut Pro, you need to assemble all of your source videotapes. Videotapes can consist of a variety of formats.

To avoid any confusion, Final Cut Pro makes it easy to configure the settings for your video format. Navigate to the Final Cut Pro Menu - Easy Setup.

You will see common settings for DV, HDV and HD formats. *If you don't see your format listed, click on the 'Show All' button. This will list all the supported formats that you can bring into Final Cut Pro.

This tutorial assumes you will be capturing into Final Cut Pro via a firewire cable. All of the steps are exactly the same, regardless of what format of videotape you have. However, you need to be aware that if you are capturing material that is not of DV format, an additional capture card will be needed in your computer.

This tutorial also assumes that you will be controlling your camera (in terms of shuttling through tape) through a firewire cable connection. Many consumer and professional decks do not include firewire as a controllable option. Final Cut Pro does support RS 422 controllable tape machines. To use this option, you will need to purchase a USB to serial adapter, and also a serial to RS 422 cable.

For a list of common capture cards, visit Apple's web site at www.FinalCutPro.com.

Storyboard editing is a real effective way to quickly add clips in order to your timeline. I found this to be very useful in the last show I put together.

I had never tried this form of editing before and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works under the right circumstances. If you have all the clips you need and they follow some form of order than storyboard editing might be for you. Here is a quick rundown on how to Storyboard edit. First enter the Frame View in your bin (not storyboard view). Now mark in and outs for the each clip in the bin, by loading them into the source monitor. Once you have all the clips marked then arrange them from left to right in the order you would like them to be in your timeline. Avid will read your order as left to right and top to bottom. Drag a lasso around all of your clips to highlight them all. Now drag one of the clips into your timeline and “presto� you now have a sequence that is ready to edit.

Translating you Avid or Final Cut Pro sequences to other programs has never been easier. A company called Automatic Duck has the solutions you are looking for. They have a program that is simple to translate Avid sequences to FCP or just the reverse or with Pro Import AE for Adobe After Effects, your digital desktop has never been more powerful or compete. Translating a sequence from an Avid or Final Cut Pro editing system, or a project from Apple's Motion 1.0 takes just seconds, importing all your media and clips in one step. Effects are translated and recreated for you and your timeline becomes a composition in After Effects, ready for you to take your vision to the next level. I use Automatic Duck at least 3 to 4 times a week and it saves me hours of valuable time. Try it you will love it!

Reducing a composition’s memory requirements is a great way to speed up the editing process. Here are a few great tips to help speed up your After Effects performance.

Once you identify the layers that use memory-intensive features, you can employ several strategies to reduce the memory load:

1. Collapse transformations of nested compositions where possible. Collapsing transformations calculates the transform property changes once for all nested compositions instead of calculating at every level in the composition hierarchy. This saves memory and improves performance. This technique cannot be used if the nested composition uses a mask or effect.

2. Render compositions in draft mode. Although draft quality is not sufficient for final output, it produces a movie that is good enough for previewing your project.

3. Reduce the number of changes you can undo with the Undo command by choosing Edit > Preferences > General (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > General (Mac OS) and typing a lower number for Levels of Undo.

4. Free up RAM currently used to cache images by choosing Edit > Purge > Image Caches. You can also free up RAM currently used to store undo changes by choosing Edit > Purge > Undo.

If these tips do not help then maybe more RAM is in your future?

The Avid dupe detection is a great tool to use to see if you have used the same media twice in your sequence. This can either be a huge mistake that you will want to correct before final output or you may have done it on purpose. Avid has a great tool to help you avoid such kind of mistake, Dupe Detection. Dupe detection will keep track of the frames in your timeline and locate every instance that a frame is duplicated on any of the video tracks. You can also use dupe detection to make sure you have certain duplicated elements in your timeline that you want to have repeat. All you have to do is turn dupe detection on in your timeline. Navigate to your fast menu in the bottom left corner of your timeline and when the fly out menu opens select Dupe Detection. Now you can rest assured you won’t have to worry about this mistake or make sure that your duplications are in the right place.

Before you begin editing, you should be aware of certain audio and video settings that may affect your Final Cut Pro editing system.

Within Final Cut Pro, navigate to the Final Cut Pro | Audio / Video Settings menu.

This will bring up the audio / video settings dialogue box.

SUMMARY TAB

The summary tab in Final Cut Pro will display a basic breakdown of all your audio / video settings.

The default settings are shown below. The summary tab displays a general overview of the current configuration.

CHANGING THE DEFAULT PRESET

There are four default presets that are locked. You cannot edit a locked preset. Final Cut Pro will automatically create a duplicate preset if you attempt to edit a preset that is locked.

An alpha matte defines areas of the screen to be dropped out from the visible picture. In fact, when you design a any title within Final Cut Pro it is treated as an alpha matte. The title is automatically keyed over a video image below it.

This characteristic of titles that allow you to automatically see a video image underneath them is referred to an image having an alpha channel.

The alpha channel represents the transparent area of the image. The matte represents the solid part of the image.

A great feature of Final Cut Pro is the ability to change what is placed into the matte. This is done by creating a new video track and placing a clip directly above a title. By changing the composite mode of the new clip, you can fill your text with a video image.

When you are finished with this exercise you should have something that looks similar to this.

The 'Jamaica' title is filled with the water from the pool. The track layout in the timeline window is shown below.

You need to become very familiar with the Fade Effect button in you Avid editing application. I use this several times on each program that I edit and it not only makes for uniform edits but saves you a lot of time.

I use it so much that I mapped the fade FX button to my keyboard, Shift+F. Once you make your title or clip you can apply this to any line that you want to fade in, out or both, just position the indicator in the title segment and select the track your title is on. Now either click the fade FX button or press the keys that you have mapped it to. In the dialog box, enter the number of frames for the fade up and fade down that you desire. The real cool thing is that you can apply this to multiple titles or clips at once. All you need to do is enter the segment editing mode and Shift click the desired segments and follow the procedure above. This has been on of the biggest timesavers I have found yet in my editing workflow and I think once you start using it you will agree!

GeniusDV's Video Streaming and Compression Forum is available for the those video editors and other media professionals that might have questions about streaming video and compression. Many people have questions such as :

How do I make good YouTube video?
What is Downloadable streaming vs. Real-time Streaming?
What is MPEG-4 vs. H.264?
Can MPEG-4 be interactive?
MPEG-4 Licensing?
What is Podcasting?

and many other questions. Visit the Video Streaming and Compression Forum to ask your questions.

If you spend much time shooting the field and on the go you know the importance of a stable shot. Carrying around a big tripod all day can be very taxing and not the easiest to set up quickly. Manfrotto has a great solution. Designed for compact Mini DV and HDV cameras, Manfrotto introduces the World’s First Monopod with fluid cartridges.This unique monopod incorporates a fluid cartridge in the base to produce very smooth pans. A set of retractable feet attached to a pivot ensures the base of the monopod always touches the ground for maximum performance, even on un-level terrain. To top off the 530B is a quick-release tilt-top head to give you maximum flexiblity in positioning the camera.

Features include:
-Fluid movement.
-Fold-up feet for compact transport.
-Locking knob to secure angle setting.
-Fluid cartridge at base for smooth panning.
-Pivot at base and knobbed feet for uneven ground.
-Stainless steel legs.

Check out the this great pod and the other professional products!

You can learn about Streaming Hosting and Multicast vs. Unicast in our latest GeniusDV: Streaming Media Podcast.

In this Podcast I talk with Jeff Korn, Managing Director of vChange, a Los Angeles based company providing digital video services to entertainment, corporate and consumer clients. He talks about Streaming Hosting Companies, Large Scale Webcasting, and LAN streaming. He also describes Multicast vs. Unicast streaming. In addition Jeff talks about VFinity's digital media asset management system.

Even though our Podcast focuses on those interested in streaming media every Final Cut Pro editor needs to check out what the VFinity digital media asset management system can do. There's a URL link to a VFinity demo using Final Cut Pro along with the Podcast. The VFinity system can help out educational institutions and news stations that need to add meta data to video and have that video available to other editors and faculty members and students.

Other Links:

Listen to the GeniusDV: Streaming Media Podcast

Purchase Video Compression and Streaming Tools in the GeniusDV E-store

If you are new to using the Avid Xpress software, you will certainly encounter a job where you will need to create a DVD.

One of the most overlooked features of Avid Xpress or Media Composer is the media tool. The media tool makes it extremely easy to view media across all of the hard drives connected to the system.

Here is an unbiased comparison of Final Cut Pro HD versus Avid Xpress Pro HD. If any part of this comparison is inaccurate, please email us with suggested corrections. As you know, these software products are becoming increasingly complex and no one can claim to know everything about the software.

Please keep in mind, that Final Cut Pro no longer ships as a single product. You must purchase the entire Final Cut Studio bundle. Avid Technology has something similar called Avid Xpress Studio. To be fair, I will only be comparing Final Cut Pro vs. Avid Xpress Pro, without mentioning the features of any of the asscociated studio programs. With plugins, and other associated software, just about anything is possible and it would make this comparison a moot point.

Also keep in mind, that I learned Avid first, so there is always a tendency to adopt the software you are most familiar with. I obviously haven't listed every single feature in the chart. I have concentrated on items that are relatively unique when Avid Xpress Pro and Final Cut Pro are compared against each other.

Have you become acquainted with this alert message while in Soundtrack Pro:

Disk Limit: Soundtrack Pro is dropping audio because you computer's hard disk cannot deliver all of the audio in time. Try removing long files or quitting applications.

This error message occurs when you have exceeded your system disk's ability to deliver in real time on account of the amount of data to be streamed from your drive. Keep these suggestions in mind if you encounter such an alert.

1 Remember, if you have multiple programs running simultaneously you are taking away from the pool of bandwith that can be available to Soundtrack Pro, so you may want to shut down other programs.

2 Six programs at 10 minutes each is easier on your hard drive than one large 60 minute clip, so remember to break it up if possible.

3 If you are using a laptop, it could help to have a faster external drive as opposed to using the internal drive.

Real time performance is not crucial to the act of exporting, so if you are receiving this message you can still kick out mixes, but audio will still be dropped. Choose Soundtrack Pro > Preferences > and choose the General Tab to access the Show Alerts menu and uncheck the overload message alert. Remember, if you're cranking past your disk's capabilities, turning off this alert does not change the fact that you will have dropped audio.

Learn to use the power of Apple's Final Cut Studio through this Unique Training Experience!

Which product is for you?

First, you must remember that Apple does not Ship Final Cut Pro as a stand alone software product. It comes bundled with Final Cut Studio. So when comparing the features, you really need to look at all the items that ship with each package.

GeniusDV introduces a One Day Final Cut Pro training course. Although this course may cover some advanced features, this is an accelerated course for beginners.

We felt there was a need to cater to those individuals who do not have the time to take our 5 or 10 day Final Cut Pro training courses. Hence we have created an affordable hands-on 1 day workshop to get those up to speed quickly.

Topics Covered Include:

Dynamic Editing (Jump right into Final Cut and edit an entire show within the first couple of hours of class)

Sound Design (Add music and special sound effects using SoundTrack Pro)

Final Cut Pro effects (learn some incredible Final Cut Pro effects that you can use as templates to build even better composites)

Media Management (Learn how to safely manage your projects media)

Utilizing LiveType (Build dynamic motion graphics using pre built templates)

Author a DVD (Learn how to customize iDVD templates to fit your look and feel)

Class size is limited to 5 students, and will frequenty sell out.

Benefits Include:
- Hands-on Instruction
- Each student learns on their own Final Cut Studio system
- Luxurious Training Location (near Universal Studios)
- Framed certificate of completion
- Apple Certified Courseware
- Final Cut Pro Training DVD
- Ongoing Support (a $600 yearly value!)

One of the best ways to experience on-line video content these days is by viewing a Video Podcast in the iTunes media player. Some very popular minstries, media companies and other organizations have already started delivering their media content in Video Podcasts form and I hope more take steps to join them.

Video Podcasting is proving to be a growing trend. With Video Podcasts you can watch your content via iTunes right at your desktop or you can take your Podcast on the go with you by moving your Video Podcasts onto a Video iPod. There are also other media players besides the iTunes media player in which individuals can watch view Video Podcasts.

What's also nice about delivering content as a Video Podcast is users don't have to look for the content because once they subscribe to the Video Podcast the content just shows up at their front door in iTunes or their preferred media player. Delivering video content by way of Video Podcasts also avoids any need for authoring in web browser which benefits many end users because they can avoid many technical problems and issues with viewing streaming content.

Managing Media in Final Cut Pro can be a tricky process. When managing media it comes down to two primary issues. The first issue is the amount of storage required for digital video, and the second issue revolves around the physical number of files. It can be much easier to deal with one large file, than thousands of small files.

Here is a list of some of our archived tutorials. You might want to print these out while they last.

You need to take a minute and become familiar with Joesph Kahn. Joseph started is own production company in 1999 called Supermega. He currently works out of his Hollywood home, where he has his own Avid editing suite. With two Avid Xpress Pro systems and Avid Mojo hardware, Kahn and his assistant Chris Abel rely on the system's creative toolset and portability to work at home or on location, under the banner of their production company Supermega. Kahn is a hands-on creative professional who handles everything from conception to shooting, directing, and editing. In fact, he has been single-handedly credited with helping to launch the careers of artists that he has worked with, and his lineup includes: U2, The Chemical Brothers, Blink 182, Eminem, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Moby, Black Eyed Peas, and Muse. He has garnered multiple awards for his music videos, including several MTV Music Video Production Awards and a Grammy award for Eminem's Without Me video. His roster of commercial spots is equally impressive. Corporate clients include Acura, Ford, Budweiser, Miller, Sony, and, most recently, British Telecom, for whom Kahn launched one of the most expensive and aggressive advertising campaigns ever produced in the U.K. His Fox/NASCAR campaign won a 2004 Clio award for visual effects. And in 2003, he found time to make his feature film directorial debut with Torque, a tongue-in-cheek motorcycle action movie, starring Martin Henderson and Ice Cube.
Kahn is one of the most creative filmakers you will come across and to know he does all of the work himslef makes it more impressive. So if you are wanting to be successful in the filmaking business then look to Joseph Kahn for a great rolemodel.

If you are new to the arena of video editing, eventually the question will arise. Which software is better, Final Cut Pro or Avid? The question can be a complex one. Each application has an army of loyal enthusiasts. Although, I won't take sides on this issue, here are some items to consider.

vCHANGE has signed an agreement with VFINITY to resell its V-Business 2.1 multi-media asset management solution. V-Business 2.1 is a "web-native" multimedia asset management system that supports all digital media types using a flexible and highly customizable metadata schema that is multilingual. The system enables real time collaboration throughout the full media life cycle.

vCHANGE is excited to be working with VFINITY, one of the leaders in multimedia asset management solutions." "The flexibility and simplicity of the VFINITY solution allows us to provide a customizable solution to our client base. VFintiy's web-based multimedia asset management system, which can be implemented in a data center environment, also affords a high level of scalability to our clients" as stated by Jeff Korn, Managing Director of vCHANGE. Many of vCHANGE's clients have vast amounts of content that has value, but unfortunately they are unable to access the content in a timely manner. vCHANGE believes that V-Business will provide them with the tools to locate, modify (if needed) and distribute their content in the proper format. In some cases this will create a new revenue stream for them. Also, in the university environment it will provide the scholar or student with easier access to vast amounts of important multimedia information...

"We are delighted to be partnered with VCHANGE," said Shen Tong, President and Founder of VFINITY. "They are highly respected for their leadership and expertise," he said, "and working together we can provide Web 2.0 asset management and workflow integration solutions for companies to fully monetize and leverage their digital assets."

This is a continuation for Avid Express/Composer definitions. I have compiled what I feel are some misunderstood terms to help you communicate with your peers. I hope that these terms and the entry before this will be of help to you. I will continue to add more definitions so stay tuned for more!

Kerning: The space between text characters in print or media.

Luminance: The measure of the intensity of the combined color (white) portion of the video.

Nonlinear editing: A type of editing where you do not have to edit from start to end. This includes all the types of computer editing and there is no physical order in which the shots must be assembled. This is the modern way of editing and can be used for traditional film cutting once captured digitally.

Postroll: A preset period of time during a preview when a clip will continue to play past the out point before stopping.

Preroll: The process of rewinding tapes to a predetermined cue point so the tape stabilizes before it reached the desired edit (in) point.

Progressive media: Media composed of single frames; each is scanned as one pass.

Replace edit: An edit in which a segment in the sequence is overwritten or replaced with source material of the same duration.

Hopefully this will give you a little more vocabulary knowledge to either impress your peers or at least understand what they are talking about. Stay tuned!

Creating the 'Pleasantville Effect' in Final Cut Pro
If you are new to Final Cut Pro, and were wondering how in the world to create the 'Pleasantville Effect', here is a quick tutorial on how it is done.

If you are designing a graphic within Photoshop to be keyed over video with the Avid software, make sure you build your graphic on a transparent background.

These days, understanding Adobe Photoshop is almost a necessity when it comes to editing on a non-linear editing system. Even with all the new title tools available, there are still many practical effects that may require Photoshop. One practical and very easy effect to create is a glass bug. You see them all the time in the lower right corner of the screen. It's a great way to add your companies signature or logo but without interfering with the visual piece since it is transparent. Here are the steps.

Converting Sample Rates with Avid Xpress or Media Composer

If you are receiving any of the following error messages it is probably because you are using mismatched sample rates within you Avid Xpress project.

AdmAdm Overrun error
AMDConsumer error
Audio Underrun
Video Underrun

I know when I first started editing and got into this great business, there were a lot of terms being thrown around that I did not understand. Having an understanding of some key words in the video and film world will help you communicate much better with your peers and co-workers. I will spend the next few entries defining a few key terms you may not hear enough to understand but when they do come up you will want to know what they mean.

Anti-aliasing: A computerized process of digitally smoothing out jagged lines around a graphic or title. This is especially important with large text and high contrast graphics.

Codec: This is simply either a compressing or decompressing of data to fit into package of either software or hardware. Some examples of codec are QuickTime, OMFI, MXF and so on.

Field: This is concerning interlaced video. A field is half the scan lines of each frame of interlaced video. Standard NTSC video contains 60 fields in the 30 frame per second. So their exists two fields per frame of video. You will mostly find that most systems use the odd numbered lines to make up one field and the even numbered lines for the other.

Video Gain: This refers to the amount of white in a video picture.

Gamma: This is the measurement of the midpoint in the luminance range of an image. Used in color adjustment to control proportions of brighter and darker areas in an image.

IRE: This is a very important unit of measurement if your productions go to broadcast. IRE is used to measure the video waveform for your video levels. You do not want to exceed 235 IRE in your broadcast productions.

Hopefully this will give you a little more vocabulary knowledge to either impress your peers or at least understand what they are talking about. Stay tuned for more!

Here is a simple tutorial on how to create a gleam of light that travels through a title.
The first step is to navigate to the clip menu, and select new title. The title tool window will appear.

For those of you who compress video using Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite you can actually export your compression settings for a specific compression setting.

Here's how to do it.

Open the compression setting that you desire to export the settings for. At the bottom of the compression setting click the Export button.

This tutorial is not for the light hearted. I have included as many screenshots of the Avid Xpress software as possible. If you are having a difficult time mastering this effect, I reccomend that you take a certified Avid Training course. In particular, take a look at the Photoshop for Video graphics course, Avid Xpress 210.

I will also mention, that this tutorial is only going to work with certain effects. For this particular example, I will use the 'swirl' effect that is located in the illusion plug-ins folder.

Many seasoned Avid editors are used to holding down the (alt, or option) key to auto-nest effects on top of exisiting effects. The problem with this method, is that it will not work with titles, or keyable graphics. The end result will look like this:

If you are experiencing a sync problem with Final Cut Pro, 90 percent of the time it is because you are mixing audio sample rates, and Final Cut Pro is having a difficult time in resolving them to match.

First, verify that every clip within your browser window is exactly 48Khz.

If you see any sample rates that are not 48Khz, and your sequence is a DV-NTSC 48Khz sequence, then your sequence will may drift out of sync as Final Cut Pro tries to resolve different sample rates.

A real warning sign, is if you see a sample rate that is very close to 48,000 like 47.998, or 48.086. Since these are not standard DV sample rates, Final Cut Pro encountered a problem while recording the audio. You will need to re-record and re-edit this clips to your sequence.

If you are using Final Cut Pro 3.0, you will deffinately want to convert all of your audio CD's or MP3's to 48Khz. DO NOT leave them as 44.1Khz files. You can use iTunes of QuickTime Pro to convert your audio files to 48Khz before using them in Final Cut Pro.

The worse culprit is mp3 files that have really strange sample rates like 256,000 or 128,000. These will deffinately cause problems, especially if you are using Final Cut Pro 3.0

One of the new features in Final Cut Pro 4.0 is the support of Audio Units, but I still continue to convert all of my audio files to 48Khz. Using Audio units supposedly eliminates the need to convert sample rates, but I am still suspicous of mixing them.

One other common problem I have discovered, is that on some older G4 models. 1Ghz machines and below had two different firewire ports that talk to the same controller. This means if you have your camera or deck hooked up to one port, and your firewire drive hooked up to the other port, there can be a conflict. To fix this, loop all of your firewire devices so you are only using one firewire port.

Apparantly, this was fixed in the G4 1.25 and later models.

Finally, I have recently come across users that have upgraded to Panther 10.3.1 using Final Cut Pro 4.1.1 reporting that their sequences are drifting out of sync. This may be a temporary incompatibility issue, or just a fluke. For the time being I reccomend using Final Cut Pro 4.1.1 with OS X 10.2.8

There are many different ways to export a movie file from Avid Xpress. Fortunately, it isn't that difficult. I reccomended keeping the original source media as clean as possible. Avid's build in 'Create DVD' function that was present in Avid Xpress DV 3.5 has dissapeared. It wasn't as reliable as everyone hoped, so here are some suggestions on how to create a DVD on your own.

Navigate to the project window, and double click on the export settings. This will bring up an export dialouge box.

Our latest episode of the GeniusDV: Streaming Media Podcast features Network Foundation Technologies. During the Podcast I talk with Marcus Morton, the President and Co-Founder. He discusses NFT's Streaming Technology and how it reduces bandwidth cost as well as how their organization is revolutionizing the length-time of streaming on the web. Marcus also shares ways our listeners can watch streaming events that use their technology.

Listen to the GeniusDV: Streaming Media Podcast featuring Marcus Morton,
President & Co-Founder of Network Foundation Technologies

Immediately after Final Cut Pro is launched a splash screen will appear showing the licensing information, and the current version of software that you are running.

The very first time Final Cut Pro is launched, a 'choose setup' dialogue box will appear. This box will only appear once for each individual MAC OS X user. However, the setup parameters in Final Cut Pro can always be changed afterwards.

For users in North America, the most common setup is DV-NTSC. For European users, change the setup to DV-PAL.

The primary scratch disk will be set to the MAC HD, which you can change later. The user mode should be set to standard. This means all of the features in Final Cut Pro will be available to you.

Each time Final Cut Pro is launched it will search to find a firewire compatible device. If no connection is found, a dialogue box will appear.

If you do not plan on capturing immediately, you can click the continue button.