Blog Archives

If persistence counts for anything, Michael Cinquin should get an award. By day, Michael is a free-lance editor and colorist. However, by night, he likes writing Final Cut utilities. Over the last couple of months he’s written me several times …

Scott Simmons just wrote about this on the Studio Daily blog, but this could be a great service and I wanted to let you know about it. It’s called Movie Repair. Scott writes: It looks to operate like this: if …

Michael Rubin sent me the following: I don’t know if you know me – i’ve written frequently about editing over the decades… anyway, I recently posted a link to my book DROIDMAKER, (which chronicles, among other things, the birth of …

I released my July Final Cut Studio newsletter this morning. You should get a notice in your email in a few hours. (Click here to subscribe — its FREE.) However, as this blog reaches a different audience, I wanted to …

Petrol, maker of all kinds of gear cover and carrying cases, sent me the following photograph of Richard Campbell shooting on location. Holy Smokes! To Petrol, this was an ad for their camera rain cover. To me, it was a …

Sigh… Some people spend their holidays actually taking time off. I spend it reading up on all the stuff piling up around here. Probably nothing causes more confusion in editing than trying to integrate computer images and video images. I’ve …

I love mysteries. And in the case of metadata – that is, the information about your clips, like the stuff displayed in Final Cut Pro’s Browser – it seems we have a true conundrum. Adobe, with the release of CS4, …

Ron Diamond, with EditGroove Software, sent me an email this afternoon. In addition to providing some free raffle prizes for my upcoming seminars, he is also offering a discount on it – more on that in a minute. If you …

My recent thoughts about the relationship between Snow Leopard and the next version of Final Cut Studio generated a lot of comments — especially on other forums. For instance, here’s an example from KenStone.net: http://www.kenstone.net/discussions/read.php?3,13183,13183#msg-13183 Thanks for all your comments …

Having read about my concerns with the latest MacBook Pro versions, Steve sent me a link that we can all use to send feedback to Apple. Feel free to share your thoughts and concerns – more importantly, share this link …

Apple this week announced revisions to their 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pro laptop line. Most of the time, when these sorts of things get announced, I just nod my head, acknowledge the new release and move on. I’m not buying …

Tomorrow, June 12, marks the end of analog television broadcasting in the US. Tomorrow, all over-the-air transmission becomes digital. I’m all in favor of technology and change, but I wanted to say good-bye to an era. I got my start …

In all my classes, I spend a lot of time talking about the importance of audio and ways that, as video editors, we can improve the quality of our sound. This morning, I read a blog posting that speaks to …

As we all know, Snow Leopard was formally announced and demoed at the WWDC conference yesterday. So, today, Andreas Schmidt sent me this question: Yesterday Apple announced Snow Leopard and Quicktime X. Do you know or have an idea if …

One of the most frequent requests I get is for me to present a Final Cut seminar that covers material not presented as part of the traditional Apple training classes. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought recently, because …

After months of conversations, petitions, and negotiations, the International Digital Media Alliance (IDMA) has announced on their website that licensing costs for Blu-ray Discs are significantly decreasing. This means it is now much more affordable for independent producers to author …

I don’t need to tell you that times are difficult right now. Which means that finding, closing, and keeping clients is a key priority. The problem is that, for many of us, the business side of the business is much …

I just upgraded one of my Final Cut Studio editing systems from 10.5.6 to 10.5.7 using the download from Apple’s website. Since then, I’ve discovered some problems with LiveType. I’m still looking for a work-around, but none of the usual …

One of the highlights of my job is traveling around the world, meeting with editors, and helping them learn how to become better at their craft. Thanks to the hard work of Ben Balser, founder of the South Louisiana Final …

During the Digital Production BuZZ coverage of the 2009 NAB Show, we conducted more than 200 interviews and created 37 NAB News Briefs. Here is a list of companies and guests, and the News Brief they appeared in. (Due to …

Just in case you were interested, and because I find this stuff fascinating, I thought I’d share a few numbers with you from our recent work with the Digital Production BuZZ at the 2009 NAB Show. Our NAB News Brief …

As the Official Podcast of the 2009 NAB Show, the Digital Production BuZZ produced 37 live news casts, and 12 hours of live programming and interviews. These were syndicated to more than 25 websites and reached tens of thousands of …

At 9:00 AM this morning, the 2009 NAB Show opened the doors to its trade show, the crowds rushed in, and the Digital Production BuZZ went to work. After two days tuning our systems, we were in full operation today …

Today we discovered just how big a show the 2009 NAB Show really is… Yup – it’s huge. We had reporters covering as much as we could and we still felt that we could have used another 40-50 people. Still, …

Well, even though it looked like I was a few cables short of a complete production studio yesterday, I managed to get everything connected. And the booth looks great — even though the rest of the show floor is covered …

The 2009 NAB Show asked the Digital Production BuZZ to be the Official Podcast of the 2009 NAB Show.  And, after a LONG night of driving, we arrived! Led by producer Cirina Catania, we’ve brought a staff of 15 to …

Gabe, over at CrumplePop sent me the following note today: We’re launching a product today that might be interesting to the Final Cut Pro audience. The product is called CrumplePop, and it’s a suite of FCP Master Templates that make …

I posted this a couple of days ago to the Latest News section of the Digital Production BuZZ, but this is a big enough deal that I wanted to mention it here. When Data Robotics first announced Drobo, it was …

My friend, Nate Adams over at Media Distributors tipped to me a new asset management system being introduced by Media Distributors at NAB. Now, I know that the concept of a database for tracking assets can cause many people’s eyes …

Shur Harewood sent me a reminder this morning that April, 2009, is the tenth anniversary of the release of Final Cut Pro. In a 2002 press release Apple wrote: Since its introduction in April 1999, Final Cut Pro has become …

Vendors are finally starting to take the archiving needs of small media professionals seriously. Tom Tomchak has been long-time reader of my newsletters and recently did a review of some new technology that will be premiered at NAB in a …

Brian Gary has written an interesting review of the CalDigit VR RAID. More important than that, he’s also started to take a closer look at the whole process of archiving media – something I’ve been writing about for a while. …

Mike Horton asked me to remind you to attend the Final Cut Pro User Group SuperMeet if you are attending the 2009 NAB Show in Las Vegas. Personally, I’m looking forward to showing the world-premiere of a brand-new musical plug-in …

Eric Harnden, of Quintessential Studios, sent me the following: I know you’ve covered disk-based archiving vs. tape-based archiving before but I ran across this white-paper that I think is very interesting. http://edge.networkworld.com/whitepapers/nww/pdf/tape_and_disk_square_off.pdf This is a 12-page PDF document, published in …

I’ve had the pleasure, over the last few months, of working with Smartsound to develop a new plug-in for Final Cut Pro that greatly simplifies the process of adding music to your Final Cut projects. But they wouldn’t let me …

I’ve been a fan of Tom Meegan’s work for a long time — especially when he wrote about it for Edit Well. He principally works at the high-end of broadcast television. Anyway, after my review of Telestream’s Pipeline in the …

Brad Hagen sent me the following announcement: This Wednesday, MCAI presents four experts to address the critical needs of high-end HD Production: Do you really need a DITech? How important is on-set color correction? What are the hidden issues of …

Earlier today, I was reading some rumor sites speculating that Apple may be releasing a new version of Final Cut Studio at a media event on March 24. I don’t think these rumors are true and wanted to share my …

The road to a product review is rarely smooth, but a review that I’m currently working on was especially rocky – mostly due to me – but the back-story is interesting, so I thought I’d share it with you here. …

I had an interesting “learning” experience this week that I wanted to share with you. At the end of each of my seminars, and most of my classes for that matter, I hand out a survey to everyone attending. This …

I’ve gone on record saying that in most cases, shooting 24 fps video material is not appropriate for most situations. I’ve read that the only reason shooting film at 24 fps was selected by film producers in the 1920’s was …

One of the hot topics in my seminars and email is the question of how producers can make money on their projects. Clearly, if they are commissioned by a client, your money comes from the fee you charge. But what …

As I was setting up for my Dundee, Scotland, seminar, a photographer and reporter for The Scotsman showed up to cover the event. This is the article that appeared on Feb. 12, 2009. In spite of 4-inches of snow, our …

It snowed four inches today in Dundee, Scotland, at the start of my first UK seminar. Still, we had close to 100 people brave the weather to turn our for our seminar. In spite of the weather, we still came …

First, I’ve discovered it is colder in Scotland than it is in LA. Wow! However, it is a beautiful day in central Glasgow and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow at Dundee College. NOTE: If you have the time, …

Would you like to attend FITC – Amsterdam from Feb 22 – 24, 2009 but can’t get in because some of the events are sold out? As their website says: There is no other event quite like it. The combination …

Monday morning, I head overseas to present Final Cut Studio training in three countries in two weeks. Plus, I’ll also be speaking – a lot – at the Broadcast / Video Forum 2009 trade show. If you are anywhere close, …

This last weekend, I had the opportunity to speak at a training conference in Orlando, Florida, hosted by the Association of Video Professionals. This is the second time I’ve spoken there, and I’m really impressed with the group. Not all …

Our sister website – the Digital Production BuZZ – is undergoing a redesign. After listening to a lot of viewer comments, we wanted to make it easier to see what’s on our next show and check out the latest news, …

Philip Hodgetts has created an amazing utility (I saw it demoed recently at the LA Final Cut Pro User Group) that speeds the entire process of sync’ing double-system sound. It’s called Sync-N-Link, and Philip describes it this way: Sync-N-Link for …