November 2007 Archives

I have just now discovered all of the great new features in Adobe Bridge and I wanted to share them with you.

Improved performance Bridge CS3 starts more quickly and displays thumbnails more quickly than Bridge CS2.

Filter panel Control which files appear in the Content panel by choosing criteria in the Filter panel. You can filter by rating, label, file type, keywords, date created, or date modified, among other criteria (criteria are dynamically generated depending on the file types that appear in the Content panel).

Import photos Import photos from a digital camera card. Once Bridge has imported the photos, you can rotate, resize, or rename them; convert the photos to DNG; and apply metadata.

File stacking Create stacks to group related files and reduce clutter in the Content panel. For example, create a stack to visually group a set of similar photos.

Compare and preview images Compare multiple images in the Preview panel and use the Loupe tool to zoom in on image previews.

Version Cue Inspector and Version Cue buttons Use the Inspector panel in Bridge to display and act on context-sensitive information about Version Cue Servers, projects, and Version Cue-managed assets. Version Cue buttons in the Content panel offer easy access to Version Cue commands.

Quick/high-quality thumbnails Specify whether Bridge displays the low-resolution thumbnails embedded in the source file or thumbnails generated from the source file.

Start a meeting Start a real‑time web conference to share your desktop and review documents.

Workspace flexibility Configure the three-column Bridge workspace by moving and resizing panels, and then save the configuration as a new workspace for later reuse. New preferences let you brighten or darken the Bridge background and specify accent colors.

I first has a chance to witness first-hand the GoStream at NAB 2006. This product is truly amazing!

The Niagara GoStream and GoStream Plus are portable streaming encoding units, designed for the most novice of users to make capturing and streaming video uncomplicated. GoStream and GoStream Plus feature three EZStream buttons, which allow users to select from pre-defined encoding profiles. With a portable, streamlined chassis design, intuitive front panel, and EASE control menus, streaming set-up is quick and easy. Pre-defined encoding profiles allow streaming to begin simply with the push of a button.

Nero, leaders in digital media technology, and TiVo Inc., the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), announced that they have entered into an agreement to further enable the connected digital home by integrating TiVo's television user experience with Nero's next generation of PC software.

"The partnership with TiVo extends the TV experience for the connected digital home, enabling easy access anytime, anywhere to the most extensive TV content," said Richard Lesser, CEO, Nero AG. "Our core technology enables the creation of new categories in consumer electronics, changing the way that users interact with both hardware and software. Our proven technology adds media functionality to the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computing and software products."

Video communicators can now require registration before showing a webcast, identify specific viewers, track the duration of each webcast viewing, and generate traffic reports for live or recorded webcasts with Proclaim, the rich-media video messaging tool from Netbriefings.

Netbriefings specializes in video communication for business. The Proclaim tool for quick and easy webcasting makes online video a meaningful part of day-to-day business communications. Proclaim users quickly create rich-media presentations, streamed to a live audience or recorded for on-demand access. Capture and send audio or video from the desktop while simultaneously rolling in additional video clips, audio bites, PowerPoint slides and images.

You can make your audio more dynamic in Final Cut Pro by panning sound effects from the left speaker to the right from within the Viewer Window. A sound effect, such as a passing car panning from the left speaker to the right, can add another dimension to your project and lessen the flatness of canned sound effects.

Before you try this, keep in mind that you only need a mono clip to perform this effect, so if you have a stereo pair, unlink the two and delete one of the tracks.

1 Double click on the audio clip to load it into the viwer.

2 Click on the channel tab in the Viewer Window.

3 Option click on the purple audio spread overlay in order to get the pen tool to create keyframes and drag the points of the line so that it looks like the diagram below. When you begin to move the purple overly you will see a pink line underneath it. It helps if you think of it in this way: think of anything above the pink line as being the right channel and anything below as being the left channel.

Now the audio in this clip will pass from the left speak through the right when played.

If you have ever had the chance to do some editing on another editor's workstation, you will have noticed how different editors have created their own personal interface set up specific to their own particular ease of use. If you look at the Final Cut Pro interface, you will notice that there are button wells located over all the work area windows, allowing you to place shortcut functions in each of them. This ability will aid you in customizing your own personal workspace.

This eables you to be able to place the Import Files Button in the button well over the Browser or add the Add Audio Transition Button to the Timeline Button Bar.

Creating a Shortcut Button in a Button Bar

1 Go to tools > Button List

2 Drag an icon for the function that you desire from the list to the button well and release the mouse button.

RipCode, Inc. announced that it has raised an additional $2 million in series B financing, bringing the total round to $12.5 million. The additional funding was provided by RipCode's original investors: Hunt Ventures, Vesbridge Partners, El Dorado Ventures and ATA Ventures. Since the company's official launch, RipCode has received tremendous interest in its appliance-based video transcoding technology, announcing MySpaceTV as its first trial customer and partnership agreements with Adobe and On2 Technologies. The additional $2 million investment will be used to accelerate development efforts for specific customer opportunities.

muvee, the pioneer and leader in instant home movies, is pleased to announce that it has licensed MainConcept's H.264 encoder technology for its muvee autoProducer and muveeNow consumer software products, to enable output support for high-definition H.264 content in AVCHD, HD DVD & Blu-ray Disc formats. MainConcept AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of DivX, Inc., is one of the world's leading providers of audio and video codecs for software developers.

Flix Engine 3GPP from On2 Provides Encoding to Mobile Devices. Flix Engine 3GPP extends the popular Flix Engine to support 3GPP output to repurpose video for mobile devices using 3GPP formats. Flix Engine 3GPP is a powerful SDK used for encoding FLV and 3GPP files on Windows or Linux servers. Flix Engine 3GPP supports On2 VP6 and Sorenson Spark encoding for FLV, and has all the rich features available for On2 VP6 encoding such as two pass encoding,batch encoding, alpha channel preservation, cue points, and more, and supports a large number of input formats. Flix Engine 3GPP can be used individually or to build large encoding infrastructures using industry standard scripting languages including ASP, PHP, Python, Perl and others.

If you have used After Effects for any amount of time I am sure you have noticed there is no way to make true 3-D text. The only way to achieve this has been through a third-party plug-in such as Zaxs Werks. I always like to try and use what is already in After Effects without spending money on a plug-in, if I can make it work. Well our friend at maltaannon.com has come up with a great preset for making 3-D text without a plug-in. This is amazing and you need to check this out! This allows you to extrude any vector based layer to give it a real 3D look inside After Effects. No more duplicating layers, no more expensive 3D software.

If you are looking for some amazing 3D software with an intelligent drawing and animation system, take a look at Google's 'SketchUp' software.  It get's better.  SketchUp is 100% free and is fully functional.

Google also supplies a 3D Warehouse with hundreds of pre-built models that you can download or share with others.

This software is fantastic for Avid and Final Cut Pro users who want to be able to incorporate 3D animation into their video projects.  Better yet, the software is extremely easy to use.

The software even allows you to upload your own models to Google earch.

Of course, Google does have an upgraded version called SketchUp Pro for those who are serious about 3D design.

 

 

 

By setting a noise print in Sountrack Pro, you can pin point a particular noise in your scene for removal. Let's say that after filming a scene, you discover in post that the drone of road construction is competing with your onscreen personalities dialog. Let's face it, you can't always control what's happening in the background of a scene that's being shot guerrilla style. Soundtrack Pro will let you select the problem area, create a noise print, then go back and pin point that noise for reduction in your scene. This technique will take some practice due to the fact that it is possible to reduce the overall sound quality of the scene by performing a noise reduction.

Setting a Noise Print and Reducing Noise

1 Drag a selection in the waveform display that contains only the noise that you want to remove. Whether it be a pause between sentences or before the dialog begins, capture the ambience you are pin pointing for removal.

2 Go to Process > Set Noise Print.

3 Go back to the waveform display and select the entire effected area including dialog.

4 Choose Process > Reduce Noice and the Reduce Noise Dialog Box will appear.

5 This is the part that will take practice. Move the Noise Threshold control to the left to lower the threshold and remove low signals or slide it to the right to raise the threshold and reduce high signals.

The goal here is to remove the unwanted noise without degrading the overall sound quality of the scene. This may call for you to add some bass back into the actors voices after you have made your adjustments. Play around with this functon to get the feel of removing problem noises from a scene.

You can also use SoundTrack Pro's Spectrum Analyzer to further reduce noise frequencies.

Digital Fountain, Inc., a leading provider of advanced standardized solutions for digital media delivery, announced it has selected Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) from Amazon Web Services as the infrastructure for its new TV-Quality CDN solution, which was previewed at DEMOfall 07 in San Diego. The company also unveiled the name of its new CDN offering - Digital Fountain DF Splash - which will launch early next year.

"By combining our proven, patented and standardized delivery technologies with Amazon EC2 we are able to offer an instant-on TV-quality user experience without the requirement of a costly edge infrastructure," said Charlie Oppenheimer, CEO of Digital Fountain. "In effect, our technology enables us to uniquely apply supply chain management strategies to achieve competitive advantage in the content delivery business."

Telestream, the leading provider of transcoding workflow automation solutions, announced that its FlipFactory and Launch products were selected by Azteca America to provide fast, efficient delivery of news content between the network's California-based operations center and affiliate stations in the United States. Azteca America is the fastest growing Hispanic network in the United States, providing programming to 60 affiliates in major Hispanic markets across the country.

"We chose Telestream because of their experience in Internet media delivery and their flexibility to cost-effectively meet our exact workflow needs," said Marco Rivera, CTO and Jakob Nielsen, Engineering Manager at Azteca America. "Important selection criteria included the ability to automatically integrate with our news systems, provide important SMPTE VC-1 and MPEG-2 format support and meet our tight delivery deadlines."

I was recently trying to import an image into Avid and I found that it was making a clip that contained 6 images. The worst thing was that the clip was only 6 frames long and contained all 6 images. So, when you played the clip through, you watched six images pass the screen so fast you could not see any images but the last one. I tried different ways of importing the file but still ended up with the same results. I then remembered an import setting called Auto-Detect Sequential Files. What this does is selects sequential files and presents it in an automatic sequence. This can tend to be a problem instead of a help, so I recommend turning this option off. When this option is deselected, the system does not automatically import a whole sequence of files that have sequential extensions. You can then select any single file for import.

For all of you non linear editors out there, you'll deffinately want to take a look at the new Photoshop CS 3 application from Adobe.

The extended version of Photoshop CS 3 offers advanced compositing, 3D editing, and 'movie paint'. You can now open up movie files directly into Photoshop and apply filters directly to full motion video clips.

 

 

 

 

With previous versions of Photoshop, it was a somewhat difficult task to process video clips within Photoshop.  It involved using droplets and actions to import an image sequence into Photoshop. Now, with CS 3 extended, things couldn't be an easier.  Simply open your movie file directly into Photoshop and apply the filter(s) that you want.  Then render out the final movie.

Since there are so many unique effects and filters within Photoshop, this really opens the door for some advanced compositing techniques that may not be readily available within your favorite non linear editing system.

GeniusDV now incorporates Photoshop for Video training into the Avid Xpress and Final Cut Pro training courses. 

You have built an awesome 30 second spot within Final Cut Pro that is a definite eye-catcher and will stop anyone in their tracks! The client is overwhelmingly pleased, but requests one more thing of you. They need you to make a more compact version of that same spot that is 15 seconds long. Well, anyone who has been a commercial producer for any length of time can tell you that if at all possible, you don't need to re-invent the wheel. You will be borrowing the proper pre-edited clips from your original 30 second spot to provide the one two punch your client is looking for.

Sharing Clips Between Sequences by Copying and Pasting

1 Open the original project that you want to copy material from and select the clips you wish to copy from the timeline.

2 Press Command C to copy the clips(s).

3 Open the new sequence and drag it by its tab to a new location so that you are able to view it and the original sequence simultaneously.

4 Ensure that the Auto Select controls are active for the tracks in the new sequence you will be copying to.

5 Move the playhead to the area that you wish to copy the clip(s) to within the new sequence.

6 Press Command V and you will have shared clips between sequences.

MainConcept AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of DivX, Inc. and a world leading provider of audio/ video codecs and software development kits to the broadcast, film, and consumer markets, announced that Professional Systems AV B.U. of Panasonic AVC Networks company (Panasonic) will distribute a pair of custom-developed transcoding solutions for IT-based production systems supporting the latest HD codecs for the popular P2HD broadcast and video production platform AVC-Intra and for newly developed professional and consumer video production platform AVCHD.

The two transcoding applications offer convenient transcoding of the AVC-Intra and AVCHD formats into the ever-popular DVCPRO format and are the result of close technical collaboration between Panasonic and MainConcept. The new applications give Panasonic Broadcast's customers a ready-made, cost effective transcoding solution with time-to-market advantages of not having to develop the applications in-house.

The Baltimore Ravens enhances their media encoding workflow with Anystream. The Ravens have deployed Anystream's media automation platform to create video content for exclusive interviews, weekly television shows, games, press conferences, player features and other specials for their official team website, BaltimoreRavens.com.

"Our interest in Anystream was driven by a need to improve our encoding workflow and bring Flash and VOD production in-house," said Lauryn Lukin, Baltimore Ravens' manager of broadcasting. "Before Anystream, our system would be tied up for hours as we encoded Flash files on individual computers. Other NFL teams recommended we look into Anystream's Agility and after hearing how easily it integrated with our current Avid technology, we made the decision to adopt it."

MMS and RTSP support is needed on iPhone I, like many others, believe Apple creates some of the most amazing products but was surprised to find out that Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) and support for the (Real Time Streaming Protocol) RTSP Protocol was not a feature of the iPhone. I'm anxiously awaiting such features since it would be great to be able to send images, video, sound and animated messages to others and receive them from others as well. What I'm most excited about is the potential to stream video using the RTSP Protocol using the QuickTime Streaming Server.

For those that might not be aware of it:

Knowing how to set up Encore to interpret your assets is very important. Most digital still cameras and graphic applications use square pixels. You should set the pixel aspect ratio of still-image assets to square to ensure that they display correctly. An exception to this rule are files created in Adobe Photoshop CS and Adobe Photoshop CS2. Photoshop lets you work in nonsquare pixels when creating images for DVDs and video. Use the Photoshop preset that matches your project. You can mix assets with different pixel aspect ratios in the same project. Encore interprets each asset's pixel aspect ratio on import. Occasionally, an asset may contain incorrect information which, in turn, prevents Encore from identifying it correctly. If you need to change an asset's pixel aspect ratio, you can use the Interpret Footage command to specify it.

You may find it convenient in the process of planning the workflow for your film to create a new sequence in FCP for each scene and later edit them together in a finished master sequence. This particular workflow could really help you in the render department by allowing you the fexibility of being able to render all of your effects intensive scenes in separate sequences.

1 Drag the icon for your current sequence from the Browser into the Viwer Window.

2 Go to File > New > Sequence.

3 Double-click on the new sequence icon that appears in the Browser to open up the new Timeline Window.

4 You can now set in and out points in your sequence that was previously loaded into the Viewer.

5 Edit the source sequence into the master sequence just as you would a clip with an overwrite or insert edit.

Keep in mind that you could have also drug the sequence icon from the Browser into the timeline or have drug the video from the source sequence, located in the Viewer, into the Timeline.

DivX, Inc. announced that DivX video technology will be integrated into PLAYSTATION3 from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE). The popular computer entertainment system will be added to the ecosystem of devices that currently support DivX video playback. To date, over 100 million DivX Certified products have been shipped into the market, and it is anticipated PS3 will significantly expand that number.

"We are excited to work with Sony Computer Entertainment to bring DivX to PS3," said Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX, Inc. "Our technology will expand the multimedia functionality of PS3 by enabling users to enjoy access to the broad library of content in the DivX digital media format."

Following the recent acquisition of Hantro, On2 Technologies, Inc. has made an immediate impact in the mobile device market by providing a quantum leap in performance of their market leading codecs running on the ARM architecture. With Hantro leading the development of standards-based mobile video solutions and On2's proprietary VP6 and VP7 codecs penetrating 98% of internet-enabled PCs, the companies' combined portfolio of hardware and software IP and expertise now provides the ARM Connected Community with optimal codec solutions for all types of video application.

Optimized for the latest generation of deployed ARM architecture, the On2-Hantro codecs enable rich multimedia and internet experiences on mobile devices. The codecs drive all genres of mobile video applications from camcorder through to enabling the enjoyment of web-based UGC sites such as YouTube, whilst on the go.

MainConcept, the world's leading provider of audio and video codecs and software development kits to the broadcast, film, and consumer markets provided a technology demonstration of its new SDK supporting the upcoming Audio Video coding Standard (AVS) during IBC 2007 in Amsterdam.

AVS is a non-proprietary open standard for delivering broadcast content up to HD resolution, and broadband video networking in the mainland China market. The AVS standard is highly optimized for the Chinese market, offering a good balance between video/audio qualities and encoding/decoding efficiency. The reduced complexity of AVS ultimately leads to low cost video/audio encoding/decoding products and solutions. MainConcept is among the first commercial companies to support this important technology for the Chinese market and will follow up with an AVS mobile solution in the near future.

On2 Technologies, a leader in video compression solutions, announced that a new version of its TrueMotion VP7 video compression is used in Skype 3.6 for Windows to help deliver High Quality Video calling to Skype users.

Skype 3.6 for Windows can be downloaded from www.skype.com. The VP7 update helps Skype users experience sharper and smoother video calls in a bigger call window. The updated video technology needs significantly lower bandwidth and processing power than is normally required for comparable video quality.

DivX, Inc., announced it has acquired MainConcept AG, a leading provider of H.264 and other high-quality video technologies for the broadcast, film, consumer electronics and computer software markets. The acquisition is a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately $22 million with additional payments of up to approximately $6 million upon the achievement by MainConcept of certain product development goals and certain financial milestones during 2008.

RipCode announced that MySpaceTV has completed a successful trial of the RipCode V4 video transcoding solution. This trial sets MySpaceTV apart as the largest video internet site to address the growing volume of video transcodes using an appliance-based solution.

RipCode, which recently announced general availability of its V4 video transcoding appliance, designed its solution to process the highest volume of Internet-based video formats available in a single rack-unit chassis. Designed using ultra-fast DSPs (digital signal processors), this high concurrency processing appliance significantly accelerates the re-purposing of video files and enables internet video sites such as MySpaceTV to reduce the amount of hardware, storage and power currently required to keep up with the exploding growth in transcoding online video content.

At IBC 2007 it was announced that Anystream has joined Red Bee Media's Digital Hive as the media automation platform tapped to support the highly acclaimed iPlayer project for the BBC. iPlayer is an on-demand Web TV service currently available to UK license fee payers via YouTube and bbc.co.uk; the project is expected to add several additional outlets throughout the year.

Red Bee selected Anystream because of its ability to hit the ambitious goal of repurposing broadcast media for Web viewing a mere ten minutes after it airs. To meet the requirements of the iPlayer service, Anystream teamed up with Microsoft to implement the latest VC-1 quality improvements for Windows Media using the new Microsoft VC-1 SDK.

Digital Rapids, a leading developer of scalable solutions for content ingest, encoding, transcoding, protection, streaming and delivery announced that Media Prima Berhad, the leading media group in Malaysia, is using a complete range of Digital Rapids systems to power Catch-Up TV, their new online TV-on-demand service.

Catch-Up TV enables Web users to view previously-broadcast programs from Media Prima's four television networks - TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9 - online, enabling viewers to watch current and classic programming on demand at high quality.

Among the first to develop products based on the Microsoft VC-1 Encoder SDK are world-class solution providers Anystream, Envivio Inc., Harmonic Inc., Inlet Technologies, Memory-Tech Corp., Tarari Inc. and ViewCast Corp.

Anystream Agility - Anystream Agility is a solution for on-demand media production and publishing. Since its launch, Agility has been embraced by the world's leading media companies by helping them supply the burgeoning demand for video in a wide variety of formats. Anystream Agility automates and streamlines the time-consuming, specialized production workflows required to deliver video content to the exploding number of outlets and devices around the world. By optimizing multiplatform content production, Agility enables content owners to profitably exploit and scale new media business models.

The new Panasonic P2 format is setting the world on fire for quality and ease of editing. The P2 format is a true HD format and you will not have to worry about tape ingesting because you are recording directly to flash media. One of the most popular emerging workflows in today's post-production world is the Offline-Online workflow with the Panasonic P2 camera. Watch this video to learn exactly how to take your HD media from the P2 card, edit at a SD resolution, and then relink back to its HD flavor. Avid has a great video to introduce you to the world of P2 with Avid Media Composer. This video tutorial is quick and worth watching. Make sure you come back and sign up for the latest Avid Media Composer Class and get ready for the future of media!

Here's another opportunity for all of you Final Cut Pro Artists out there to expand your filter library. Joe's Filters offers a set of 43 FCP plugins designed to enhance your video footage and to make the process of creating effects in Final Cut Pro faster and more efficient.

Here's a list of some of the plug-ins:

- Bevel and Emboss

- Drop Shadow

- Channel Blur

- Motion Blur

- Diffuser

- Noise Levels

- De-Interlacer

- Field Fixer

- Field Blender

- Time Bender

Try out the fully-functional demo version to see if these plug-ins would be a good addition to your collection.

Whether you're an Avid Xpress Pro or Final Cut Pro editor, time can either be your best friend or your worst enemy and unfortuneately, it is usually the latter of the two. With this being said, there are some things you can do within FCP that can make your effort spent more productive. For instance, how about during the capture process, you ingest the entire tape instead of reviewing it first then logging.

Ok, I know that you are probably saying that ingesting all of that footage takes a ton of space and that's true but, l if you were working with a limited number of tapes it could save you a lot of time. When you figure that one gig of space can hold five minutes of video, the price of storage is quickly becoming more economical than the purchase of tapes.

The next question you probably have is, after you have captured such a large file, how do you break it up into usable segments that you want?

Tip
Note: This method would only work if you have recorded your footage on a DV camera and pressed the record stop and start button in-between takes.

- After you have captured the entire tape, select that one large file in the browser window > choose mark from the main menu > select DV Start/Stop Detect. Your captured file would then be broken up into segments that signify the record stops and starts between takes. If you shoot with this methodology in mind, it can save you a lot of time.

- If your media was captured with something other than a DV camera, as you are reviewing the footage of the large file in the viewer, press M to place markers at the points you think you may want to use.

- Click on the arrow icon next to the large file in the browser window and your marked clips will show.

- Select all of those marked clips and drag them to the Name tab in the Browser.

- Give your individual marked clips descriptive names.

Ask questions and share Final Cut Pro tips with others right here.

Yet again, another great story has popped up using Avid software and showcasing Avids ability to manage media and play all format types. When snowboard enthusiast Anthony Cupaiuolo first launched First Tracks Productions in 2001, it was purely an experiment to see if he could turn his high-flying hobby into a well-grounded business venture. The experiment worked. Since it first burst out of the gate, First Tracks Productions has hit its mark in the world of snowboarding and action-sports videos - despite its limited resources and small staff of fellow snowboarders-turned-entrepreneurs. First Tracks Productions shoots much of the footage for its snowboard videos with its Panasonic HVX200 cameras at 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD quality in 720p/24PN mode.

Read the full story and sign up for one of our next up and coming Avid classes and get started on your dream!

It is very important that you keep your Adobe products up to date so that not only will you have the latest functions you can relieve yourself of bugs. In all of the latest releases of the Adobe products it is very easy to make sure that you stay up to date. All you need to do is open one of your Adobe applications and navigate to the help button on the top task bar. Now click updates and you will automatically navigate to the Adobe update window and it will check your computer for all updates. It will check for every program you have on your computer and allow you to pick the updates you want to install. Finally one quick and easy way to update your Adobe programs!

You can easily manipulate a clip's motion path in the Viewer Window to achieve some impressive animated effects such as the Animated Filmstrip. This tutorial will only focus on creating a motion path for a single clip, but aftewards, if you feel comfortable with this is lesson, you should really try creating an Animated Film Strip.

1 Open up the clip that you wish to use in the Viewer Window by double clicking it in the Timeline.

2 Go to the View menu in the Canvas Window and choose Image and Wireframe.

3 You will be able to see the effect more clearly if you deacrease the scale of the clip, so go to the Motion tab in the Viewer Window and set the scale to 50.

4 Place the playhead in the Timeline at the first frame of the clip that you are animating, so that you can see it in the Canvas Window. Make sure Snapping is turned on in the Timeline

5 Make sure your selection arrow tool is active by clicking on it in the tool palette or by pressing A on your keyboard.

6 While holding down the shift key, click and drag the clip from its center towards the left side of the Canvas Window so that it is halfway off screen. Holding down the shift key constrains the movement of the clip, keeping it in a straight line as you drag.

7 While in the Motion tab, you will need to expand the window pane by dragging its bottom right corner to the right. Position the Window so that it is not covering up the Canvas Window.

8 The timeline idicator within the Motion Window will be parked over the first frame of the clip that is in the Timeline area. You should see a slightly highlighted range in the keyframe area representing the clip on which you are performing the animation.

9 Locate the center parameter within the Motion tab and click on the Keyframe Button to insert a keyframe for your current clip position. You will see that two keyframes are placed at the location of indicator bar in the Motion tab.

10 This step is a little confusing and I will explain why in just a moment. Move the timline indicator in the Motion tab and snap it to the end of the highlighted range representing the clip and press the back arrow key on your keyboard once to move the indicator backward one frame.

The white barrier in the keyframe area representing the end of the clip that we are working on is actually the first frame of the proceeding clip, this is why we had to move the indicator back one frame.

11 Go to the Canvas Window and Shift-drag the clip to the right of the screen. You will then see a motion path, representing the path that the clip will move along.

12 Play the clip from the beginning in either the timeline or the Canvas to review the effect.

Panasonic has just announced the extended warranty plan for a few select professional camcorders and recorder/player. They are offering a four extended warranty on top of the already long one year warranty. You need to make sure you send in your registration within 30 days of your purchase or you will lose out on a great offer. There are only specific models that apply so make sure you check the list:

Current Applicable Models:

AG-HPX500 full-size P2 HD Camcorder
AJ-HPM100 P2 Mobile Recorder/Player
AJ-HPX2000 full-size P2 HD Camcorder
AJ-HPX3000 full-size P2 HD Camcorder
AJ-HPG10 P2 Gear Player/Viewer/Recorder

Additional models may be added as they are introduced.

Check out full details and download your warranty form.

When you are in the Color Corrction toolset within Avid Xpress Pro and have finished making adjustments to a clip, you can save the color correction parameter to use later on a similar clip.

1 After you have finished color correcting the clip, control click for Mac or Option click for PC the C1 bucket to save the adjustment parameters.

Keep in mind that when you end your Avid Session these saved parameters will not be retained. Create a color correction bin and drag the icon from the C1 bucket to the bin to save it.

Take a look at this segment editing technique in Avid Xpress Pro!

Music fans around the world watched live on the Web as Avril Lavigne accepted top honors at the 14th annual MTV Europe Music Awards (EMA), streamed online with the Niagara Pro from ViewCast Corporation. Designed for high-quality, high-resolution video capture and streaming, the Niagara Pro enabled MTV Europe to offer exclusive Web broadcasts featuring award presentations and dazzling performances from A-list stars including Lavigne, the Foo Fighters, Babyshambles (fronted by Pete Doherty), Mika, Nicole Scherzinger, will.i.am, and My Chemical Romance.

"The MTV Europe Music Awards is known for being a sensational event, and the live element contributes to the electric atmosphere and appeal of the show," said Alec Hendry, director of Digital Media Operations and Development at MTV Networks Europe. "The Niagara Pro proved to be a reliable, easy-to-use tool for us in bringing that excitement to a broader platform and a greater number of viewers. We were very pleased with its performance in enabling live streaming to MTV's worldwide Web presence."

Kulabyte, a leading provider of advanced audio and video processing technologies, announced that it will be launching a revolutionary real time series of broadcast appliances, Express GreenStream the industry's first VP6 and H.264 live video encoding appliance for full SD and soon, HD resolutions. This new solution uses Kulabyte's patent-pending TimeSlice video encoding technology to deliver 2 pass VBR qualities in live encoding and streaming environments in a lightweight, 1/2 half- width, 1RU box with solid state storage and low power multi-core CPU's. Express GreenStream uses only 50 watts of power at peak load. The company made the announcement at the Streaming Media West 2007 Conference in San Jose, California. Kulabyte showed the Express GreenStream prototype and demonstrated its live streaming and transcoding solutions at the SMW exhibition.

Adobe video and audio applications provide a consistent, customizable workspace. Although each application has its own set of panels (such as Tools, Properties, Timeline, and so on), you move and group panels in the same way across products.

The main window of a program is the application window. Panels are organized in this window in an arrangement called a workspace. The default workspace contains groups of panels as well as panels that stand alone.

You customize a workspace by arranging panels in the layout that best suits your working style. You can create and save several custom workspaces for different tasks--for example, one for editing and one for previewing.

You can drag panels to new locations, move panels into or out of a group, place panels alongside each other, and undock a panel so that it floats in a new window above the application window. As you rearrange panels, the other panels resize automatically to fit the window.

Avid Technology announced yesterday that it will not have an exhibition booth at the upcoming NAB (National Association of Brodcasters) show
The company plans a major shift in terms of how it deals with customers. A series of new innovative products will be announced starting in Februrary. Avid Technology does plan on attending NAB to meet with customers, It is unclear where customers will be able to meet with company representatives during the exihibition..

http://www.avid.com/company/releases/2007/071113_customer_avid.html

For a limited time Students of GeniusDV's 2-Day Video Streaming and Compression Training classes for Mac and 1-Day Episode Pro training classes can now receive a 20% discount on Flip4Mac WMV Components for QuickTime, Episode and Episode Pro applications.

Telestream's Flip4Mac WMV Studio Pro HD and Episode Pro 4.4 with Flash are featured in the 2-Day (Mac) Video Streaming training class. Episode Pro 4.4 with Flash is featured in the 1-Day Episode Pro training class.

The DV Show "Streaming Media" series podcast for November 12, 2007 features several compression companies. Derrick Freeman, Video Streaming and Compression Specialist for GeniusDV and video production veteran Brian Alves hosted the DV Show "Streaming Media" series podcast. They interviewed Barb DeHart, Vice-President of Flip4Mac Products at Telestream, Mike Savello, Vice-President of On2 Technologies and Gary Anderson President and CEO of Net Briefings. The interviews provided in-depth detail about Telestream and Flip4Mac products as well as the latest announcement and news surrounding On2 Technologies, the key force for Flash Video today. Net Briefings also discussed their Enterprise Webcasting Tool as well as Proclaim which provides simple Webcasting capabilties with videos, PowerPoint and Web cams. The program also provided post Streaming Media West 2007 thoughts from On2 Technologies and Net Briefings.

Let's say that you have created the popular white flash effect for your Avid project via the Fade to Color Effect located in the Effects Pallete. For consistency, you may want to save the effect that you have already created for repeated use throughout the program. That way you wouldn't have to keep recreating the effect everytime you wanted to use it, you could just tweak the one you have already made or use it as is.

Storing an Effect

1 After you have tweaked the Fade to Color Effect in the Effect Editor and applied it to an edit point in your sequence, Notice the icon representing that effect at the top of the Effect Editor Pallete.

2 Activate the Bin window by clicking in it and Press Control N for a PC or Command N for a Mac to create a new bin and name it Effects.

3 Simply drag the effect icon from the top of the Effect Editor into the new bin. Now at any point in your sequence when you need this pre-tweaked effect, all you have to do is drag this icon from the Effects bin you have made and place it into your sequence.

As there are with many functions in Final Cut Pro, there is more than one way to delete items in the timeline, such as the individual selection of items or in groups, and even selecting a range with in and out points in the canvas or timeline. Knowing the right method to execute for your given situation can save you a lot of heart-ache as well as a lot of time.

Perhaps you are editing a thirty second commercial spot for television and after you have built the timeline discover that a four second clip located in the center has become irrelevant. In this case you might find that a lift delete may work better than a ripple delete. It's all personal preference and the the keyword is preference. Don't let your options in a project be dictated by what you DO NOT KNOW.

Performing A LIft Edit (deleting one or more items leaving a space in your sequence):

1 Perform one of these options:

- Select an item or items by clicking them.
- Set in and out points in either the timeline or the canvas

2 Perform one of these options:

- Choose Sequence > Lift.
- Press Delete.
- Choose Edit > Cut (or press Command-X)

Performing A Ripple Delete (collapsing the space in your sequence):

1 Select item or range to delete, then perform one of these options:

- Choose Sequence > Ripple Delete.
- Press Shift Delete.
- Control-click the item or range you want to delete, then choose Ripple Delete from the Shortcut menu. You must manually select items in order to use this method.

To create a PIP effect in Avid Xpress Pro, you must first have two video tracks with the desired footage placed over top of one another. You could perform the PIP effect with just one video track if you desired, but remember that the video in the track would then be placed on a black background. For this example, make sure you place the footage that you want to appear in the PIP effect on top of the footage that you wish to serve as the backdrop.

1 Open the Effects bin and under the Blend options select Picture-in-Picture.

2 Drag the PIP icon over the video clip in track 2. You will then see the effect in the Composer Window.

3 Click the Effects Mode icon and you will see a bounding box surround your PIP effect. Click in the middle of the bounding box to move it and use the handles to change its size. In the Effect Editor Palette you will be able to further manipulate the PIP effect.

Being able to manipulate edit points so that you can tweak your finished project in Final Cut Pro is a must know and having multiple ways to do so is a plus! Perhaps you want to change the content of the clip without changing its duration or the duration of the entire sequence, then you want to perform a Slip Edit. Maybe you want to lengthen or shorten the in and out point of two adjacent clips, then you would want to use the roll tool. Today, we will discuss how to create a ripple edit.

Perhaps you are already familiar with the ripple delete, deleting a clip in the timeline resulting in the sequence collapsing to close the gap left by the deleted clip. Well, these two functions are very simililar in the way that they both effect the entire sequence duration by rippling their effect through to the out point. In this case, we will not be deleting anything, but simply adjusting the in and out points of a clip.

Ripple Editing In The Timeline:

1 The keyboard shortcut to activate the ripple tool is pressing the r key twice or you can activate it by going to the tool palette and selecting the Ripple tool.

2 With the Ripple tool selected, click near the edit point of the desired clip you wish to perform the ripple edit on. If you watch the ripple tool closely as you move near the edit point, the tooll will point in the direction of the clip boundary you are about to manipulate.

3 You can drag the edit point in either direction, making it longer or shorter, or simply start typing the number of frames you wish to move the point, preceeded by either a + (to add to the edit) or - (to subtract from the edit), then press the return key. This second option might seem confusing at first, because you are simply selecting the boundry you wish to manipulate then you blindly start typing a value into thin air. Don't worry, as soon as you start to type, with the boundary selected, a small box will appear so that you can see the value you are entering.

Your ripple edit has now been completed.

Telescope, the leader in participation media services and Akamai Technologies, Inc. the leading service provider for accelerating content and applications online, today announced that the companies have provided the first multichannel voting platform for participation media events, part of a growing industry that has become more significant to broadcasters. The two companies have successfully delivered the application, which enables audience members of popular participation TV shows to send votes and interact via the Web, through their mobile devices, and using landline voice calls.

FOX is among the first broadcasters to use the new Telescope-Akamai platform, which will be offered to a wide range of TV clients that demand real-time audience interaction through a robust multichannel environment.

You may find that in the midst of a Final Cut Pro project, you may need to export a still image for promotional purposes or just to email to someone for approval.

Exporting A Still Frame From Your Project:

1 Within the canvas or viewer windows, place the playhead overtop of the frame of video that you wish to export as a still.

2 Go to File > Export> Using Quicktime Coversion

3 After selecting the location where you wish to save the still, select the Still Image option from the Format pop-up menu.

4 Select a file format for your still. You can select the Option button for further export control of the image.

5 Click Save when you are ready to export.

You can apply a mirror image effect to clips in Final Cut Pro simply by going to the Effects tab in the Browser Window > Going to the Perspective Folder and choosing the Mirror option. Double click on the clip in the sequence that you want to add the effect to in order to load it into the Viewer Window. Drag the Mirror Filter to the image in the Viewer Window and you will immediately see the effect applied to your clip. To manipulate the Mirror Filter, click on the Filter Tab in the Viewer Window and you will be able to see the changes you make to the image inside of the Canvas Window as long as the position indicator is parked over the clip in the timeline.

On2 Technologies, Inc., a leader in video compression solutions, announced that it has completed its business combination with Finland-based Hantro Products Oy, a leader in multimedia for mobile devices. The transaction, which was accomplished by an exchange of shares, was finalized on November 1, 2007. Hantro has now become a wholly-owned subsidiary of On2.

With the addition of Hantro, On2 consolidates its position as a leading international provider of video compression solutions for all major IP delivery platforms and devices. The acquisition expands On2's TrueMotion product and technology portfolio across all market segments important for advanced video compression. As a result, On2 now has the capability to address the broad needs of customers who comprise the leading businesses in web technologies, VoIP, mobile devices and semiconductor.

Streambox, Inc. today announced that the Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility (CSSF) is using the Streambox ACT-L3T Portable Video Transport system to stream real-time video and audio from its ROPOS (Remotely Operated Platform for Ocean Sciences) underwater research vehicle to an on-shore lab and control room over a VSAT satellite system. High-quality subsea images streamed via the Streambox system can also be delivered in real-time to museums, oceanographic institutions, and other venues as part of outreach and cooperation programs.

"The Streambox solution closely monitors and adapts to network conditions which is very useful for video and audio transmission over a satellite link," said Keith Tamburri, assistant manager at the CSSF. "Our clients value the control panel presets and the overall user-friendliness of the system. The system operates 24/7 and it is extremely reliable. It has proved very effective in delivering the best quality video possible over the low-bandwidth connection we have available."

Digital Rapids has worked closely with a premier U.S. telecommunications provider, along with leading content providers and post production facilities, to bring to market an advanced H.264 encoding platform meeting the provider's demanding requirements for Video on Demand (VOD) content for its flagship IPTV video service.

Studios and facilities including Ascent Media Group, Global Digital Media Xchange, Starz Entertainment, TVN Entertainment and more are using Digital Rapids' StreamZ encoding solutions with the new Digital Rapids Studio AVC Encoder module to encode VOD assets for the service, the first entirely Internet Protocol (IP)-based video service offered by a national U.S. provider.

We have talked before about how trimming is the essence of editing and how having a firm handle on the various trimming techniques in Final Cut Pro can broaden your creative horizons, well here is another technique that you can add to your arsenal.

Slipping Multiple Clips Simultaneously

A slip edit only effects the in and out points of one clip, but in this example, we have multiple selections and will be changing the in and out points of multiple clips. Think of it as reframing the action that occurs in each clip, while maintaining their individual durations.

1 Press A on the keyboard to ensure that the selection tool is active.

2 Select more than one clip in the timeline on which to perform the slip edit. Keep in mind that these clips do not have to be adjacent to one another. You can hold the Command key and select any clips you like.

3 Press S to activate the Slip tool.

4 Type in a positive or negative time code number then press enter. It may feel weird to start typing in thin air, but just enter a value and the clips will be slipped by that amount. If for some reason one clip in your selection can not be slipped, none of them will be slipped. In this example, I have slipped the selected clips 5 frames forward.

You can create some great DVD's with some very intricate navigation with a single timeline in Adobe Encore. The way to do this is to create chapter playlists. If you are building an instructional DVD and you have a specific segment you want your viewer to watch and then return back to the menu you can do this with chapter playlists. You have the ability to play your chapters in an order you wish through the chapter playlist. This is one of many great features in Adobe Encore and if you want to learn how to create chapter playlists and create great DVD's then sign up for one of our up and coming Adobe Encore classes!

You can use Apple Compressor to export a variety of video formats using various codecs. Unfortunately, some of the formats such as .avi's mp3's or wmv's may not have a pre-built preset. This means, you'll need to create your own customized setting within Compressor to access them.

To do this, navigate to the settings window within Apple Compressor and click on the settings tab.  Then click on the 'create new setting' icon which looks like a '+' icon.  The .avi, and .wmv codecs are located within the 'QuickTime Export Components' menu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While using the JKL keys to preview edits that you have made, you can selectively choose which audio tracks you wish to preview while playing back your edit.

1 Go to Final Cut Pro > User Preferences > Click on the Editing Tab

2 Make sure that the "Trim with Sequence Audio" selection is checked, then check the option for "Trim with Edit Selection Audio (Mute Others)."

3 Double click on an edit point in the Timeline to activate the Trim Edit Window.

4 Place the cursor point over the side of the Trim Edit Window where you want to preview the audio, either the incoming or outgoing clip, then use the JKL keys to play it back.

In step 3 you could have also selected multiple edit points by Command Clicking more than one. In this case, to play back a specific track, all you needed to do was go to the Track Pop Up Menu and select the track you wanted to hear while using the JKL keys.