Within the past month, both HD DVD and Blu-Ray's AACS protection scheme has been bypassed, and now news has broken of a researcher cracking Vista's DRM scheme. Mind you, Vista hit shelves all but one week ago. Boing Boing sums it up very nicely:
"As with previous multi-year DRM development efforts, this one disintegrated like wet kleenex on contact with the general public. Now that Vista, HDCP, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are all broken, it seems like the millions of dollars and thousands of work-hours sunk into these systems was mis-spent. The only benefit that these anti-copying systems confer to the companies that developed them is the right to sue competitors -- and that benefit could have been had by shellacking a one-atom-thick layer of token DRM onto their systems, just enough to be able to invoke the DMCA. Everything else was just gold-plating, wasted money."
So the trend continues. Anything meant to be protected will always be cracked. Researcher Alex Ionesco's hack bypasses Vista's anti-copying technology and allows for full-res, unencrypted high-def video streams. Due to legal concerns, he has not yet released his code. Check out Boing Boing's summary for the full scoop.
Knowing your keyboard shortcuts will take you to the next level in your mastery of Final Cut Pro. For some help with memorization, try printing out this shortcut document and keep it on your desk while you edit. Thankfully, it's nicely organized so you can learn a block of shortcuts at a time. Thanks to Flippant for the tip.
You may be like me and are constantly on the lookout for graphics to add to your production library. Besides being expensive, you usually get-what-you-get with no easy option to make changes. Well GFX Pack is offering video graphics packages that also contain the After Effects project file so you can make changes yourself. Now that is sweet. There may be others out there that provide project files, but this is the first one I have come across. GFX Pack currently has 5 packages available for $99 each, or you can purchase them all for $399.
The 6 city launch party took place in November without a product, but NewTek has finally announced that SpeedEDIT is now shipping. Boasting a tagline of The Worlds Fastest Video Editor, SpeedEDIT breaks away from traditional NLE workflows that are based around the film mentality and focuses on a resolution independent digital workflow. I couldn't find a trial version on their website, but I hear one will be offered. If your curious (like me), you can download the user guide and get a better understanding of how the app works. SpeedEDIT costs $495 but if you are a Lightwave owner you can get it at a special price of $295.
ffmpegX is an extremely robust open source video and audio encoding application for Mac OS X that supports a great number of formats, with Flash Video being the newest addition to the program's encoding capabilities. The number of options and settings within ffmpegX can be a bit daunting at first, but Jake Ludington has a sweet and simple little tutorial for how to successfully convert videos to Flash format while still maintaining acceptable quality. Worth knowing. And if you are not familiar with ffmpegX, be sure to check it out and experiment a bit.
Creating a timelapse movie can be daunting especially when you will be committing lots of time to your subject. A distracting side-effect that distorts the time-lapse illusion is flicker, such as parts of the scene that are lighter or darker in each frame. Granite Bay software has an informative guide on what causes flicker in time-lapse as well as cures to fix it. They even have a free Deflicker plugin for Adobe After Effects or Premiere because sometimes you can do everything right and still wind up with flickering footage.
Videomaker has whipped up a "best of 2006" list for consumer and low budget video creators, including a bunch of notable cameras, software, and other gear that stand out from the rest of the crowd. Camcorders receiving attention include the Canon Elura 100 (best consumer camcorder), Canon HV10 (best high-def consumer camcorder), JVC Everio GZ-MG505 (best hard drive camcorder), Sony HDR-FX7 (best prosumer camcorder), and the Panasonic AG-HVX200 (breakthrough camcorder of the year). Check out the full story for some other useful recommendations. 2006 has been another big year for upping the quality in affordable video production equipment.
I've long maintained that no one I know actually uses Media 100 anymore, but lots of them "used to." I've even called out the application's faithful here on this very blog, but to no avail. I was about to give up on the software, when I read this.
Nick Griffin over at Creative Cow is another person who used to use the software, but after a rather nasty separation, he seems inclined to give the old gal a second chance. (Griffin actually compares Media 100 to an old girlfriend.) He says everything old is new, with support for 99 video tracks, and 24 audio tracks. Yet, the software felt familiar on Griffin's hands, and imported projects from past Media 100 versions flawlessly.
The software also boasts full Quicktime support, and therefore will edit footage captured by Apple's Final Cut Pro natively. Other Media 100 features include Panasonic P2 support, and the ability to edit multiple formats on the same timeline. Click READ below for a link to the full review.
Wanna get into video editing, but can't afford the latest studio bundle? Never fear, Ubuntu will have you logging, trimming, and printing in no time!
The popular Linux flavor is planning an April release for a new distribution aimed at video production enthusiasts and professionals. The software package features Cinelerra as an editor, Jahshaka for compositing, and audio suite, Wired. The Ubuntu Studio wiki also states the building of an "alt" DVD authoring program as one of the team's goals.
I find this information cool, but I must confess, I've never tried any of the apps included here. I have always intended to try one or the other, mostly for comparison to the expensive software I regularly use, but the thought of having to install another OS just to get a crack at them seemed daunting. However, with everything bundled into a nice tight "distro" April can't come fast enough.
Scott Simmons over at the editblog unearthed a pretty spiffy aspect ratio dashboard widget for OS X, appropriately named Aspect. This little bit of software takes 'popular ratios used in video and film and calculates any size you need based on the height or width and pixel aspect.' Simple, quick, and effective. Grab the 209Kb download here.
Digital Heaven just released a neat little app that might help Final Cut Pro users manage project workflows. Final Print reads an XML file exported by FCP and displays a list of clip and sequence markers with name, comments, timecode and thumbnail image. You can check out an example here (PDF alert). Price is $99 and you can download a demo to give it a whirl.
Forget YouTube, start your own video sharing site. Sorenson Media has announced Sorenson Squish that will allow you to publish and share user-generated video. Squish is a Java based web app that encodes files within the browser using the Squeeze Compression Suite technology. Just drag and drop a file on the app or stream it from a camera and the video is compressed and sent off to the hosting server. Here are a few of the features:
Client-side compression technology runs in a browser
PC and Mac support
IE & Firefox (PC) and Safari & Firefox (Mac) supported
Supports capture of video streams from attached DV camcorders or Web cams
Sorenson is also offering SquishNet as a place to host your videos. It provides an embedded Flash video player plus allows page customization so you can make the look your own, like matching your existing website. You can check out an online demo of SquishNet here. Pricing for Squish starts at $1 per user annually with an annual minimum of $5,000. Pricing for SquishNet, which includes Squish, starts at $1.50 per user annually with an annual minimum of $7,500. Both products will be available in February.
Avid users might want to check out this compilation of the Best Tips and Tricks of 2006 from Avid's InFocus newsletter. You can view all the tips and tricks from Avid and the community, plus loads of other info for Avid products from the community website. You never know when you might find a time-saving gem or two.
The folks at Boris FX are on a Universal Binary mission. They must love their Mac users because they are cranking out support for Intel Macs plus maintaining compatibility with PowerPC systems. The latest products to get in on the Universal Binary action are Graffiti and FX. Boris Graffiti 5.1 and Boris FX 9.1 are now available as free updates for 5.0 and 9.0 users.
After the little encoding limit issue reared its head a few months ago in Sorenson Media Compression Suite, Sorenson now offers a solution for folks that need to process a higher volume of video files. A new licensing model is available for Sorenson Squeeze for Flash and Sorenson Squeeze Compression suite that will allow unlimited encoding for enterprise users. The Flash license is available for $1,238 per system per year and the Compression Suite license is available for $2,500 per system per year. If you have multiple systems running the software, discounts are available for higher quantities. There is no change to the pricing of the normal desktop version which has a limit of 1,500 encoded files per month.
Within the past month, both HD DVD and Blu-Ray's AACS protection scheme has been bypassed, and now news has broken of a researcher cracking Vista's DRM scheme. Mind you, Vista hit shelves all but one week ago. Boing Boing sums it up very nicely:
Knowing your keyboard shortcuts will take you to the next level in your mastery of Final Cut Pro. For some help with memorization, try printing out this shortcut 
You may be like me and are constantly on the lookout for graphics to add to your production library. Besides being expensive, you usually get-what-you-get with no easy option to make changes. Well 
The 6 city launch party took place in 
Creating a timelapse movie can be daunting especially when you will be committing lots of time to your subject. A distracting side-effect that distorts the time-lapse illusion is flicker, such as parts of the scene that are lighter or darker in each frame. Granite Bay software has an 
Videomaker has whipped up a "
Wanna get into video editing, but can't afford the latest studio bundle? Never fear, Ubuntu will have you logging, trimming, and printing in no time! 
Scott Simmons over at the 
Sorenson is also offering 
Avid users might want to check out this compilation of the 
The folks at Boris FX are on a Universal Binary mission. They must love their Mac users because they are cranking out support for Intel Macs plus maintaining compatibility with PowerPC systems. The 
After the little 
