Blog Archives

Don Smith sent me the following, which I thought you might like to see as well. – – – I just watched the demo movie from MacWorld by JVC introducing the GY-HM100U camera.. http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?model_id=MDL101845 JVC licensed the EX3 format from …

Here are some more passing thoughts on random subjects: Looking to up-res SD video to HD, while maintaining the detail? Take a look at Topaz Labs — http://www.topazlabs.com/ Looking for software that will stretch the edges of 4:3 material to …

With recent online reports about the latest release of iLife not even mentioning iDVD, Apple’s continued interest in extending its download business to include both SD and HD movies, and the lack of native support for Blu-ray Discs on the …

I get several hundred emails a day — some I keep for each month’s newsletter, while others don’t need to be kept at all. However, many fall into a gray area of being kind of interesting, but … And I’ve …

Bruce Nazarian, president of the IDMA, and I just completed a one-hour special report on the state of Blu-ray technology. We aired the show live yesterday on The BuZZ and posted it this evening. You can find it here: http://www.digitalproductionbuzz.com/Archives/ShowNotes.php?date=2009-01-21 …

This afternoon, Apple released the latest version of QuickTime — 7.6 — which includes updates for encoding quality, reliability, compatibility, and security enhancements. Media improvements include better single-pass H.264 encoding quality, better playback of Motion JPEG content, improved AAC encoding …

Last week, on the Digital Production BuZZ, we spoke with visual effects wizard Chris Zapara about how he creates his incredible effects – including winning two Emmy’s along the way. First, if you haven’t seen his work, check out these …

As you know, I hope, I host a weekly podcast called “Digital Production BuZZ” that focuses on digital video production, post-production, and distribution worldwide. The BuZZ is currently listened to by tens of thousands of people each month! Each week, …

Philip Hodgetts sent me a fascinating blog post from Justin Evans, who is both a filmmaker and camera rental house owner. In it, Justin suggests that the total number of RED cameras currently in the market exceeds the number of …

According to Variety magazine, the National Assn. of Broadcasters has teamed with the filmmaking org 48 Hour Film Project to host a movie-making competition at the upcoming NAB confab in Las Vegas. The Washington, D.C.-based 48 Hour Film Project hosts …

The Association of Video Professionals has invited me to speak at their annual conference February 5, 6, and 7 in Kissimmee, Florida. This event offers high-quality training for video professionals taught by some truly outstanding people in our industry: * …

The folks at Peake Professional Systems sent me a notice about their new utility called: Final Cut Pro Assistant. One of the challenges of working with Final Cut is keeping track of all the different files it creates. Most of …

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know when I say that earning a living will be a challenge in 2009. In times like these, folks are saying “No!” first, then thinking about your question later. So, today, while …

A very happy New Year to everyone! May 2009 be better for all of us than 2008. Larry

Here are two blogs worth reading, as you are waiting for the phones to start ringing again after the holidays. First, Norm Hollyn has an interesting discussion on the power of social networking to help all of us get and …

For those of you going to MacWorld, Mike Horton (Head Cutter of the LA Final Cut Pro User Group) just sent me the following. – – – The agenda has now been set for the 8th Annual FCPUG “SuperMeet” to …

Last night on the Digital Production BuZZ, we had a fascinating interview with James Salkind. Since this was Christmas evening, you may have been distracted and not able to listen. In which case, you missed a treat. James was the …

By now, you’ve probably read that I am not a fan of upgrading as soon as new software is released. The reasons for this can be found in the Color 1.0.3 release of a couple weeks ago, which broke Color’s …

This is in the category of “Things You Might Be Interested In.” Noise Industries, creator of FxFactory, is holding a contest. As they say: “Show off your work. Win cool prizes.” Their website says: “FxFactory Awards 2008 contest entries will …

Janet Swift, in PR over at Telestream, sent me a note this morning reminding me that last week, after two years of work, Telestream released the Windows version of Episode. Janet wrote: “Episode now supports cross-platform environments, PC and Mac. …

My third book has just been released by Peachpit Press entitled: Edit Well – Final Cut Studio Techniques from the Pros. What we did is take the best from over two years of Edit Well newsletter articles and recompile them …

One more thing from Government Video Expo, held Dec 3 – 5 in Washington, DC. Spectra Logic makes equipment for archiving servers and media. More specifically, they make LTO tape drives, which are my current favorite for backing up tapeless …

One of the benefits of attending a trade show is talking to engineers and other product specialists that are hard to meet in any other way. Recently, I took my podcast – the Digital Production BuZZ – to GV Expo …

On February 17, 2009, the FCC has mandated that all broadcasters in the US switch from analog to digital transmission. (As an aside, this does not mean they need to switch to HD, simply that their transmitters originate digital signals.) …

John Bowling, from the City of Houston, Dept. of Aviation, sent me the following. – – – Just ran into a situation that I believe others should be aware of. I use a Mac Pro for editing and wanting the …

While HD Expo is in LA, I’m heading to Washington, DC, with the Digital Production BuZZ to cover the Government Video Technology Expo. We’ll have highlights of the Expo on this week’s show, as well as additional hours of coverage …

I’ve attended, and spoken at, HDFest the last two times it visited LA. Its a great place to see what’s happening in the Indy world of HD. Marisa, the Festival Coordinator, reminds me that HDFest is returning to LA this …

I’m not telling you anything new to say times are tough. The problem is, we still need to pay the rent. Last week, on the Digital Production BuZZ, I spoke with Steve Cone, author of “Powerlines: Words that Sell Brands, …

John Putch told me about this. Ptarmigan Designs, Inc., a Japanese iPhone developer, has released a file size and codec calculator for the iPhone. Its called “Codec Calc” and is available through the AppsStore, you can learn more about it …

You may have already noticed, but YouTube is now displaying all its videos in 16×9 format. 4×3 material is now displayed as pillar-boxed, and 16×9 material which was formerly displayed as letter-boxed is now both letter-boxed and pillar-boxed. Thanks to …

One of the most popular requests during our recent PowerUP Seminar Tour was to make our seminar information available to folks that weren’t able to attend a seminar. So, we started doing just that with a series of PowerUP Tutorial …

This afternoon, Apple released updates to the following software: Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Compressor 3.0.5 Color 1.0.3 Shake 4.1.1 Here is a link to the release notes: http://www.apple.com/support/releasenotes/en/Final_Cut_Studio_2.0_rn/ My suggestion is to wait a week or two before upgrading to …

Ron Diamond wrote me about a new Final Cut Pro Preference Manager that he’s developed that I wanted to bring to your attention. Ron writes: Take control of your Final Cut Pro preferences at last! EditGroove’s UserMatic(TM) solves FCP Preferences …

One of the requests I got a lot during my recent PowerUP seminar tour was to make my seminars available to people that were unable to attend. While not everything in my seminars could be presented easily in a video, …

For the last few days, I’ve been corresponding with Andrew Findlay about his problems with Compressor 3. While I use Compressor on a daily basis with no problems, Andrew has been having problems with Compressor unexpectedly quitting at the worst …

Two difficult editing concepts for many students to learn are “slip” and “slide.” Recently, August Miller sent me two pieces of animation along with this note: At our training center, we’ve noticed that, often times, students struggle to understand the …

Philip Hodgetts sent me the following link. Just when your head is spinning with all the different HD formats, trying to wrestle quality from the chaos of production, or stewing about whether your videos look good enough on the web, …

This last week at the request of New Bay Media, my podcast – Digital Production BuZZ – traveled to DV Expo 2008 in Los Angeles to cover the event in detail. We did four hours of on-the-floor interviews with every …

Jan Crittenden-Livingston is the business line manager for Panasonic’s professional cameras. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview her at DV Expo 2008 about Panasonic’s move to tapeless media (the P2 card) and the impact that had on the company. …

Dave Walton is the assistant vice president for marketing and communications at JVC Professional Products. He is an expert in JVC’s video camera technology, as well as the overall broadcast market. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview him at …

To say that the whole Blu-ray Disc situation is a mess does not begin to describe the chaos in which the independent producer is caught. We can shoot HD. We can edit HD. We can output HD. But when it …

When Apple discontinued supporting FireWire on their low-end MacBooks recently, I was disappointed, but not surprised. Apple has been threatening to do this for a while. I just think this is enormously short-sighted. The need to connect external peripherals does …

According to a recent report in Broadcasting & Cable, ABC is converting the distribution of its network programming from an MPEG-2-based system to a more bandwidth efficient MPEG-4 advanced compression. The transition will take about three months to complete. This …

I’ve been traveling around the country for the last two months, talking about the impact of tapeless and high-definition video on video editors. Generally, I begin each session by talking about how “the world is moving to high-definition video” — …

Over on KenStone.net, Andrew Balis has written an interesting article on how Final Cut Pro handles displaying image quality. You can read it here. I’ve been getting a lot of questions recently asking why images look different in the Canvas …

Recently, I wrote about a potential problem with losing data on hard drives which are powered off and sitting on a shelf. (You can read the entire article here.) The basic problem is that when a hard disk is powered …

The Digital Production BuZZ is one of the oldest, if not THE oldest, podcasts still going. Next week, Oct. 16, we celebrate our 200th show! This is pretty darn amazing! The show started in December of 2005 as the DV …

One of the nice things about getting back in the office after being on the road for a while is catching up on all the reading I didn’t have time to do while traveling. For instance, there is a fascinating …

I like Editshare. As a company they make some intriguing products. And, for Final Cut editors looking to share media and projects, its worth a close look. However, in a recent email blast from StudioBytes, they included a quote from …

Jody Eldred sent me the following links a few days ago, with these comments: Look what a guy just shot with the Canon EOS 5D digital SLR still camera. It shoots full-res, 1920×1080 1080P/30 high definition video. 21 megapixels. 12 …