Speeding Premiere Pro CS4's H.264 Encoding with NVIDIA QuadroFX and Elemental Accelerator By John Virata High definition video editing and HD video encoding are two of the hardware intensive tasks that can be done with a computer. It takes a lot of power to complete these types of jobs, oftentimes rendering your computer limited in functionality while it encodes video. NVIDIA's Quadro line of graphics cards can help to speed up H.264/AVC encoding in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 with an assist from Elemental Technologies' Elemental Accelerator. ...Read More »

Sorenson Squeeze 6 By Kevin McAuliffe These days, it seems as though every company has an application for taking your edited files and processing them for the web, and many of those applications are included with the editing bundle you purchased. Adobe has Adobe's Media Encoder, Final Cut Studio has Compressor, and there are the standalone applications such as Episode, and even QuickTime can do it as well. ...Read More »

Coremelt Complete V2 By Kevin McAuliffe You can never have enough plug-ins. Trust me, as an editor/graphic designer you always have clients that want something "cool," but have really no idea what they are looking for, so you end up finding yourself going through the plug-ins on your system to try and put something together to really "wow" them, your plug-in collection needs to have three traits. ...Read More »

Third Party Plug-Ins/Apps For Final Cut Pro By Heath McKnight Time for another edition of my third party plug-ins and software apps for Final Cut Pro (FCP). This time around, I take a look at the powerful and easy-to-use (with a ton of codec options) iFunia Video Converter Pro, FxFactory 2.1 and idustrial revolution's Volumetrix 2 transitions, and FxFactory 2.1 and DVShade's EasyLooks 2.5 and LiveToon 1.0. ...Read More »

Pegasys, Inc.'s TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress with Leadtek SpursEngine Hardware accelerator By John Virata TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress is a video encoder application along the lines of Sorenson Squeeze, Apple's Compressor, and Adobe's Media Encoder. It has been around for quite a while, but doesn't seem to get the press that the other tools get, despite the output quality being very good. The application offers support for NVIDIA's CUDA technology as well as Leadtek's SpursEngine hardware accelerator. ...Read More »

Production Assistant for Sony Vegas Pro: From a Final Cut Pro User's Perspective By Heath McKnight Sony Creative Software introduced Production Assistant for Vegas Pro as a way to streamline post-production, and I have to say, it's a terrific plug-in, created along with VASST. As a Final Cut Pro editor, I take a different look at the software, and I also discuss Vegas Pro version 9. ...Read More »

Apple's Color 1.5 By Kevin McAuliffe As everyone knows, the inclusion of FinalTouch (renamed Color by Apple) into Final Cut Studio 2 was shocking. A few months before Apple announced it, I looked at purchasing FinalTouch as a separate, stand alone application for a post facility I was working for. ...Read More »

The Sony Vegas Pro Production Assistant By Jeffrey P. Fisher As editors we are always looking for ways to be more efficient so we can focus on what we do best: telling stories with sound and visuals. But let's face it, there are a lot of mundane and routine tasks when editing that swallow our time but don't call upon our collective creative inspiration. ...Read More »

Sony Vegas Pro 9 By Jeffrey P. Fisher When a software program matures into its ninth iteration, you expect big things from it. I've been on-board Sony Vegas when it was an audio-only, version one application. It's been really interesting to be a part of the software's growth. As my go-to app for many years, I was excited to give the newest version a test drive. This review looks at Sony Vegas Pro 9.0b 32-bit (VP9), the second (free!) update since its release at NAB earlier this year. ...Read More »

Apple Compressor 3.5 By Heath McKnight With the long-anticipated update to Final Cut Studio, Apple has introduced an upgrade to Compressor. Not a full new version, but still a significant update, nonetheless. However, you need to consider that while Compressor is a stand-alone application, it's now a major part of Final Cut Pro 7, and that is where its strengths lie. ...Read More »

Apple Final Cut Pro 7 By Heath McKnight A little more than two years after Final Cut Pro 6 introduced the ProRes codec, Background Processes, Smooth Cam, and many other functions, Apple debuts Final Cut Pro 7 (FCP), part of the third version of Final Cut Studio. There are more ProRes options, export settings that can be done in the background without Compressor 3.5 open, iChat Theater support (an excellent collaboration tool), and much more. FCP is 10 years old this year, and they've been listening to us, the editors! Let's just dive in and take a look at all the new stuff. ...Read More »

Red Giant Software's Instant HD By Heath McKnight I love third party plug-ins and software apps for Final Cut Pro, and for this article, I'll be taking a look at Instant HD from Red Giant Software (www.redgiantsoftware.com), makers of the terrific Magic Bullet line of plug-ins. I am only focusing on one plug-in this time because I wanted to add a little workflow in. ...Read More »

Roxio Easy VHS to DVD for Mac By John Virata When was the last time you turned on your VHS player? That long ago? Well join the club. As old VHS, 8mm, and other analog video tape join the Betamax, the question that remains is how do you archive all those tapes for future viewing? For Windows users, solutions such as Honestech's VHS to DVD 3.0 Deluxe have been around for a while. Mac users have also had some solutions, but not to the extent that Windows users have. ...Read More »

Essential Final Cut Pro: FxFactory Pro and CrumplePop By Heath McKnight For this Final Cut Pro (FCP) Plug-Ins and 3rd Party Software apps, I decided to focus only Noise Industries' FxFactory Pro (also available for Motion, Final Cut Express, and Adobe After Effects) and some of key plug-ins, including those from Noise Industries, SUGARfx, yanobox, and Boinx Software. I will also take a look at CrumplePop, which is a very cool "handwritten" text creator that helps editors create handwritten-style graphics on templates that look like paper, Post-It-style notes, masking tape, and more. ...Read More »

Elgato's Turbo.264 HD By Heath McKnight Elgato's Turbo.264 HD is a pretty cool and affordable hardware USB accelerator and software video encoder for the Mac. Easily create high-quality (and small in size) H.264/MPEG-4 movies from your existing videos, and from an AVCHD video camera. You can even use it from within Final Cut Pro 6.x and QuickTime Pro, plus iMovie for those of you working in Apple's consumer editing app! ...Read More »

Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition II 4TB external hard drive system By John Virata External hard disk drives have the advantage of storing large capacities of data in form factors small enough that you can carry them with you. With devices that capture large amounts of data, such as HD video cameras and high megapixel digital SLR cameras now the norm rather than the exception, all that data has to be stored somewhere. ...Read More »

Lenovo W700ds mobile workstation By John Virata Lenovo has long been known for innovative notebook computers harking back to the days when it (IBM) came out with the ThinkPad notebook computer. This machine served notice that it was at the top of the heap when it came to design and functionality. The current crop of ThinkPad workstations maintain that innovation as well as some features that could be called obscure, such as the one with the W700ds that I'm reviewing here. ...Read More »

Matrox MXO2 HD By Heath McKnight Matrox delivers another hardware solution for Mac video users, the portable MXO2 HD (high definition), SD (standard definition) I/O box. No need for a full I/O capture card and/or breakout box, and if you're on a laptop you can finally use an I/O solution without shelling out a few thousand dollars. ...Read More »

Essential Final Cut Pro: Plug-Ins and Apps Part 2 By Heath McKnight It's time for part 2 of my look at plug-ins and software for Final Cut Pro 6.x (FCP). Last time, I pointed out some great plug-ins and software apps that I use every day. It's time to take a look at a few more 3rd party plug-ins and software apps for the FCP. ...Read More »

Essential Final Cut Pro: Plug-Ins and Apps: Part 1 By Heath McKnight Over the last couple of months, I've been reviewing some of the most essential Final Cut Pro plug-ins and apps that I use all the time. Now I'm ready to present to you some of my favorite FCP plug-ins and apps that help steamline my workflow, add effects to my video, and even keep things running smooth. I had so many that I've decided to break this into two parts. Here's part one. ...Read More »