Mac Coalition

Steve Wozniak and Others to Present at NAB Show Post|Production World Keynote

Future Media Concepts (FMC) and NAB today announced they will co-host this year’s NAB Show keynote presentation, a panel discussion featuring Fusion-io chief scientist and Apple® co-founder Steve Wozniak, and visual effects supervisor Rob Legato, who just won his second Oscar® for his work on the 2011 film “Hugo.” Joining them in the discussion will be Fusion-io visual computing industry manager Vincent Brisebois and Adobe® product manager Steve Forde. The speakers will discuss “How Creativity and Technology Merge to Influence Storytelling and Film.”

ARRI’s DNxHD Alexa update, Sorenson Squeeze Pro and OP this, OP that

ARRI has begun to ship its DNxHD update for their Alexa camera. This announcement that the Alexa would get DNxHD as an onboard recording option (besides ProRes) was welcome news to post-production people like myself who use Avid Media Composer. While ProRes is supported in Avid both by AMA linking and direct MXF creation (in the Media Composer version 6 on Mac that is) DNxHD is Avid’s own in-house codec and is a perfect option for compressed hi-def media. But ARRI’s onboard DNxHD recording uses an MXF format that’s a bit different than Avid’s. Read on for a discussion of why that is (and lots of OP).

(via ProVideo Coalition)

PsF’s missing workflow, Part 10:  FCP X

In parts 1-3 of the PsF’s missing workflow series, we introduced the terms benign PsF & malignant PsF, and revealed the PsF status of several AVCHD cameras from 3 manufacturers. In #4, we did the same with several HD recorders. In #5, we revealed how one recorder manufacturer is offering its own software to counteract the hostile HDMI output found on many cameras. In #6, I published an open letter to all pro AVCHD manufacturers. In #7, I covered how to deal with PsF with Premiere Pro CS5.5. In #8, I showed how ClipWrap is an excellent solution for many Mac editors. In #9, I discussed PsF with the sub US$100 Adobe Premiere Elements 10. Now in part 10, I’ll cover how to deal with 25PsF and 29.97PsF with Final Cut Pro X.

(via ProVideo Coalition)

Why an iPad is like a 4x5 view camera, and why you’ll need a black “focusing cloth”

In case you hadn’t heard yet: Apple has just established the iPad (2012) as a viable HD video camera (among many other things). Back in the days when still photography was done with 4x5 view cameras, photographers used something called a “focusing cloth”… defined by Merriam-Webster as: “an opaque dark cloth used to cover the rear of the camera and the head and shoulders of the photographer in order to exclude most of the light except that coming through the lens”. In the case of still photography with a 4x5 view camera, it was primarily to help the photographer focus. In the case of the ultra-glossy iPad screen when used outdoors to shoot HD video, you’ll need it even to see the screen properly, in order to compose and assign the subject for autofocus and exposure… and even to start and stop the recording. In this article, I’ll cover what an iPad has in common with a 4x5 view camera, show a iPad tripod mount, a “focusing cloth”… and make a request to FiLMIC…

Apple Launches New iPad

Apple® has introduced the new iPad®, the third generation of its category defining mobile device, featuring a stunning new Retina™ display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics and a 5 megapixel iSight® camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video.

Tip Tuesday: Disable a clip in the Avid Media Composer timeline

In honor of TipTuesday over on Twitter I thought I’d share this simple Avid Media Composer tip that I use to counter the lack of a clip enable / disable feature in Media Composer. It’s all about saving an effect and getting easy access to that saved effect. There’s actually several tips in here that can be used for most all effects in Media Composer.

(via ProVideo Coalition)

Testing the 7toX Final Cut Pro 7 to Final Cut Pro X conversion

When Apple released the latest Final Cut Pro X update there was a very important 3rd party utility released right alongside the 10.0.3 update that finally allowed the importing of legacy FCP7 projects into FCPX. It wasn’t entirely surprising that it was Intelligent Assistance releasing 7toX for Final Cut Pro. I say that because they had already created Xto7 (to move projects from FCPX to FCP7) and are arguably the best company for creating high-quality XML workflow tools for the FCP universe. There’s been tons of blog posts about 7toX for Final Cut Pro since its introduction but most of them are nothing more than a here it is here’s the link kind of thing, including one of my own. Many have taken a simple sequence to try this conversion but my thought was to throw everything at 7toX for Final Cut Pro…

(via ProVideo Coalition) (via ProVideo Coalition)

Q and A with Bunim/Murray’s Mark Raudonis about their recent Avid switch

Back in January news broke that reality television producers Bunim/Murray were switching their post-production facilities from Final Cut Pro to Avid Media Composer. This probably didn’t come as a great shock to anyone who follows post-production as the release of Final Cut Pro X had left many people (especially those in the broadcast world) a bit stunned at its lack of broadcast features. There was a lot written about this subject but I had a few more questions so I spoke with Bunim/Murray’s senior vice president of Post Production Mark Raudonis as he has been the public face of this switch. Our Q and A follows.

(via ProVideo Coalition) (via ProVideo Coalition)

Kicking the tires on the Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3 Multicam update

As we all know by now Apple released their promised update to Final Cut Pro X that added multicam. It’s only been a week and there’s already a lot of articles and tutorials about how this new feature works. I sat down with it some over the weekend to kick the tires and see how it performed. What follows are some thoughts, notes and observations as I was working with it. I was especially curious as to how it might work for music videos.

(via ProVideo Coalition) (via ProVideo Coalition)

Avid now lets you edit video on your iPad for US$4.99. Should you?

I was privileged to find out a few hours in advance of the public announcement of Avid Studio for iPad, since Avid contracted me to translate and localize the press release, as fortunately they often do. There was something about this press release that really intrigued me. It wasn’t so much the specific advantages that Avid Studio for iPad has over other editing apps for iPad, like offering both Storyboard and Timeline views in a single iPad app, or being able to import source material from anywhere inside or outside of the iPad. It was more the fact that the announcement was coming from Avid, and the spirit of the two quotes that appear at the end of the press release. In this article, I’ll give a first look at the app, define what it is (and what it isn’t), and extrapolate about what this can mean for video editing in the short, mid, and long term. Of course, I’ll include those two quotes that intrigued me so much.

(via ProVideo Coalition)

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