Home | Extra

RSVP

The news is that following AVID’s lead, Apple too has withdrawn from exhibiting at NAB 2008. While there appears to be considerable disappointment about the move and some speculation about what the ramifications are, reports suggest that these companies simply intend to refocus their efforts to connect with their clients…

[Continue reading "RSVP"…]

Hitch

Unless you’ve been offline for the last week you’ve probably already seen Martin Scorsese’s love letter to Alfred Hitchcock, “The Key to Reserva”.…

[Continue reading "Hitch"…]

Scoop

At last week’s FCP SuperMeet Martin Baker whispered excitedly that he’d met Walter Murch earlier in the day. The purpose of that encounter is now revealed on Avid2FCP in the first part of an exclusive interview! In this instalment Walter offers some insight into his practice and the drive to…

[Continue reading "Scoop"…]

Sweet Shop

Courtesy of RED Digital CinemaThe day has finally arrived. RED Digital Cinema have announced a comprehensive list of prices for the Red One and assorted accessories. Things have shifted slightly from the initial specifications and predicted costs, but they were always clear to reserve that prerogative. Stuart English has posted…

[Continue reading "Sweet Shop"…]

2007-001

I thought the end of 2006 was busy, but 2007 has me in a whirl already! That said, I’m very late in posting this, but Apple released Security Update 2007-001 towards the end of last month. This is a very important update as it fixes a vulnerability in QuickTime that…

[Continue reading "2007-001"…]

Apple Inc.

One of the announcements (approx. 1:44:00) Steve Jobs made yesterday was that Apple Computer, Inc., is no more. From this point forward the company is to be known as Apple Inc. to reflect the shift in the company’s product line. And today if you look at Apple’s web site (and…

[Continue reading "Apple Inc."…]

Connected

Courtesy of Apple After years of speculation* the Apple iPhone has been announced! This morning Steve Jobs spent the lion’s share of his keynote address at MWSF demonstrating the many features of their latest product. Controlled with one button and a patented “multi-touch” display, the OS X** powered, iPhone integrates…

[Continue reading "Connected"…]

Comeback

In a seemingly bold move Adobe have announced that the forthcoming version of the Production Studio Bundle will support Intel-based Macs! According to the official press release, the next versions of After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator will be Universal Binaries, while Premiere Pro, Encore, and Soundbooth will be Intel-specific. I’d…

[Continue reading "Comeback"…]

Instalment

The news updates have been coming thick and fast from the Red camp. Along with the first pictures of “Spike”, a working prototype of the Red One, Jim Jannard’s team have a new online forum and have announced a new window at the end of the month for reservations. One…

[Continue reading "Instalment"…]

Stop the Press

I was only mentioning Proximity to some folks this weekend. They make interesting media asset management software and a while ago a little bird had told me to keep an eye on their activities. Well, it seems that piece of speculation had some merit to it as Proximity have announced…

[Continue reading "Stop the Press"…]

Holy

I just mentioned this over the weekend while I was stationed at the Apple booth… and here it is. Apple have bought “all Silicon Color technology and intellectual property, including FinalTouch”! Back in January I made note that Roland Wood had referred to FinalTouch HD as a “Pro App”. Interesting…

[Continue reading "Holy"…]

Skulduggery

According to posts issued across the web (DVXUser, DVinfo, Cinematography.com) by Jim Jannard today, the Red facility was burgled last night. According to the statement online, all missing items are related to the camera and they are are offering a reward of US$100K for information leading to an arrest.…

[Continue reading "Skulduggery"…]

Diplomats

Apple have a posted a new profile, “Remixing Reality” about Tronic Studio in NYC. They’ve worked on a number of high-profile spots for some well-known clients and crucially incorporate Final Cut Studio and Shake within their workflow. In addition to a brief video interview and some recent examples of their…

[Continue reading "Diplomats"…]

Two Halves

Courtesy of Fabrication Films I’ve always wanted to like Mike Figgis’ Timecode more than I do. There was something about the idea that caught my attention, but ultimately I think it’s more a curious experiment than it is a satisfying film. I hoping the same will not be true of…

[Continue reading "Two Halves"…]

Promotion

Courtesy of Peachpit Press If you haven’t already taken out a subscription to Larry Jordan’s Edit Well monthly “interactive newsletter”*, now might be a time to do it. Everyone who signs-up between now and 31 August will receive a free copy of the excellent Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch…

[Continue reading "Promotion"…]

Show and Tell

I don’t recall ever having a problem with the Apple Keynote video streams before, but I’ve struggled with the WWDC 06 address today! I couldn’t decide whether it was me or them, but even when I could convince the video to play, it stuttered and started erratically all the way…

[Continue reading "Show and Tell"…]

Alternative

As I teach in a Media Arts program at an art school, I probably see more projects that-don’t-quite-fit-in-the-mainstream than most. It’s great to see Apple celebrate work in that vein and recognise that alongside the big studio pictures, the independent dramas, and the commercial agencies, artists like Kyoto-based, Takagi Masakatsu…

[Continue reading "Alternative"…]

Clever

Vancouver-based BrightSide Technologies, makers of High Dynamic Range (HDR) displays, will be presenting their new codec, MPEG-HDR at SIGGRAPH 2006 (Booth 209). By utilising a new compression technique BrightSide say they are able to work with 1920 x 1080, 16-bit dynamic range video at data rates similar to existing MPEG…

[Continue reading "Clever"…]

Working

Apple have published an article on their Pro site about Ed Burns and how he’s using Final Cut Studio to help keep budgets low on his features. He describes a climate in which the “specialized film companies” are more and more adverse to financing the production of a movie, preferring…

[Continue reading "Working"…]

Cowboys

DV.com has published Adam Wilt’s comprehensive report (Free registration required) on the near-legendary Texas Shootout. As we’ve come to expect from Adam it’s a very detailed article, with a lot of information, statistics, and example images, which provide a thorough overview of each test subject—Panasonic AJ-HDC27H VariCam, Sony PDW-F350 XDCAM…

[Continue reading "Cowboys"…]

Toys

Josh Oakhurst has posted a provocative article about the pitfalls indie filmmakers invariably encounter when they focus too much on acquiring the latest and greatest tools. He uses two case studies to support his position, which is that the attention on every indie production should be on the quality of…

[Continue reading "Toys"…]

Stoned

Ken Stone has three new articles today, “Using Replace Edit in Final Cut”, “Video To iPod”, and a review of “DVFilm Maker”. Like Andrew Balis, I’m a fan of the Replace edit. His comprehensive tutorial on this excellent, but inconspicuous FCP feature will get novice users up and running in…

[Continue reading "Stoned"…]

Thrilled

Courtesy of Final Cut Pro User Group Network The divine folks of FCPUG Net have posted a podcast of, “An Evening with Walter Murch”, recorded at Macworld in January this year. The video is over an hour long, I couldn’t download it fast enough and have it cued in QT…

[Continue reading "Thrilled"…]

Hi Ho

The gradual redesign of the Apple web site continues with the new Mac@work section. It’s positively brimming with success stories, tips and tutorials to meet your Mac-centric scientific, entrepreneurial, creative, education, and IT needs. To give you an idea of what you can find, I spent some time today looking…

[Continue reading "Hi Ho"…]

Folk

Digital Production Buzz have posted a video podcast of the “FCPUG Supermeet” at NAB. In terms of numbers, I don’t think the Final Cut Pro User Group community has anything else that compares to this. Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond my control I was otherwise engaged, but everyone was talking…

[Continue reading "Folk"…]

Page-turner

As the HVX200 nears its six month, Panasonic appear to be attempting to inject fresh life into their marketing juggernaut. While poor Tosh has been unceremoniously retired, someone has been busy compiling a free supplemental “guidebook” about the various technologies employed by the HVX200. Frame rates, sample rates, P2, and…

[Continue reading "Page-turner"…]

New Look

Earlier today Apple unveiled the latest redesign of their Pro site. It’s still brimming with success stories and resources relating to the Pro Apps, but the look and feel have changed to match the new style that’s been filtering across other areas of the site.…

[Continue reading "New Look"…]

Big Apple

Courtesy of Apple The opening of the stunning new Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York has become a quite the event. You too can watch the crowds and the steady stream of people flowing into the store with Apple’s time lapse movie of the first twenty-four hours.…

[Continue reading "Big Apple"…]

Complete

Courtesy of Apple With the announcement today of the new 13-inch MacBook, Apple has fulfilled the promise to transition its entire notebook line to Intel. Said to be up to 5x faster than previous G4 iBook models, the MacBook is available in 3 base configurations, 1.83 GHz and 2.0 GHz…

[Continue reading "Complete"…]

Assortment

Last week Panasonic and Sony announced yet another HD format. AVCHD, is based on the MPEG-4/H.264 standard and records Dolby Digital as well as PCM audio. The initial announcement states that AVCHD supports both 1080i and 720p, and that it is recorded onto “8cm DVD media”. However in a follow-up…

[Continue reading "Assortment"…]

Commited

Courtesy of Autodesk Earlier this week Macworld UK posted an interview with Rob Hoffman from Autodesk, in which he confirmed the company’s intention to continue development of Maya for Mac OS X. Apparently 20% of Maya sales are for the Mac and Hoffman suggested that if Autodesk were to deem…

[Continue reading "Commited"…]

Small Moments

At the Emily Carr Institute Convocation ceremony yesterday, the compulsively insightful Walter Murch spoke eloquently to the graduating class about the creative process and the eternal quest of the artist. He was introduced by the school’s president, Dr. Ron Burnett, as one of few people who has defined cinema as…

[Continue reading "Small Moments"…]

The Return

I’ve known for a while, but now it’s official, Walter Murch will be returning to Vancouver next weekend to receive an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Emily Carr Institute! I’m very excited.…

[Continue reading "The Return"…]

Local Talent

Courtesy of The Embassy Visual Effects Inc. I’m assuming that you’re all familiar with Citroen’s “Alive with Technology” spot that featured the dancing car? One of the companies behind the commercial, Vancouver’s The Embassy Visual Effects, is featured in one of Apple’s new “customer success stories”. In the short video…

[Continue reading "Local Talent"…]

Round One

While Mike Evangelist continues the HD Boycott, the first HD DVDs arrived in stores yesterday.…

[Continue reading "Round One"…]

Coup

Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 5 Earlier this week DMN (Digital Media Network) proudly announced that Diana Weynand, super-trainer extraordinaire and author of APTS: Final Cut Pro 5 has joined their team as both a contributing writer and moderator of the popular DMN Final Cut Pro Forum.…

[Continue reading "Coup"…]

Heavy Lifting

Courtesy of Apple There have been a couple of interesting benchmarks floating around the last couple of weeks. On the new VFCPUG forum own John Christie pointed to a set of test results published on finalcutpro.de, which appear to show dramatic performance increases for FCP 5.1 on the Intel-based…

[Continue reading "Heavy Lifting"…]

Galore

This past weekend some folks, including Mike over at HD4NDs, along with Adam Wilt and Chris Hurd, gathered in Texas for a marathon “HD shootout”. Cameras under the spotlight include the Sony Z1U, Panasonic AG-HVX200, Canon X1 H1, Sony F350, and the Panasonic Varicam. The test itself became a feat…

[Continue reading "Galore"…]

New World

Courtesy of Apple With little fanfare Apple have released a public beta of Boot Camp. What is Boot Camp? It’s a new, tentatively named, technology that allows you to install and run Windows XP on an Intel-based Mac. You can download it today, but Apple states that it will be…

[Continue reading "New World"…]

Salute!

You wished Apple many happy returns today, didn’t you?…

[Continue reading "Salute!"…]

Dark Side

I’m late blogging this, so most of you have probably already caught up with the results of the competition to get Windows XP to boot on the new Intel Macs. A more recent instalment is the declaration by Gearlog that not only can you run XP on the Intel Mac…

[Continue reading "Dark Side"…]

Triumphant

Courtesy of Apple Those of you who attended the last VFCPUG meeting will no doubt recall Chad Meire, who was so generous with his time, and along with his twin, Joel shared with us some insights into the process of working in visual effects and animation on a big budget…

[Continue reading "Triumphant"…]

Mike Does SXSW

After a brief hiatus—in which he was dearly missed by all—Mike Curtis has returned with a flurry of posts about this year’s SXSW. You can read Mike’s ongoing commentary of the events he’s attended and the people he’s met at the essential HD4NDs web site.…

[Continue reading "Mike Does SXSW"…]

Solid

Courtesy of Panasonic Over the last couple of weeks the mysteries of Panasonic’s P2 solid-state media card technology have been a hot topic on the video-centric web. First Josh Oakhurst relayed the sorry tale of Tommy D (a DV.com forum user) who eventually abandoned P2 in the middle of production…

[Continue reading "Solid"…]

Echo

I’ve been remiss in linking to the ANNEX|PRO recap of NAMM 2006. Brian from Annex trawled the show floor for all the latest news and announcements. He then compiled everything into a comprehensive report for the enjoyment of all you musos.…

[Continue reading "Echo"…]

The Skinny

The fictional Tosh over on Panasonic’s “Def Perception” blog has posted an entry on the history of the HVX200. It covers initial design and development, the chip set, and DVCPRO HD compression. Naturally Panasonic are compelled to take a swipe at HDV and believe they have science on their side.…

[Continue reading "The Skinny"…]

Professionals

More Apple Certified Pros emerged blinking from the lab at Emily Carr this afternoon. We’re beginning to put together a schedule for the summer, including a couple of 5-day FCP 200 courses you might want to look out for if you’re interested in taking a certified course. Many congratulations to…

[Continue reading "Professionals"…]

Wild

The Mac-centric web has been buzzing with the release of a malicious application “Leap-A” or “Oompa Loompa”, which was originally posted on the MacRumors Forums. Whether it be properly identified as a trojan, virus, worm, or a hybrid combination of all three seems to be still up for debate. Most…

[Continue reading "Wild"…]

Culture

BusinessWeek have published a piece about the some of the changes wrought by Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia. The article reports that since the transaction was completed Adobe CEO, Bruce R. Chizen, has taken significant steps to bring the perceived vitality and drive of Macromedia to Adobe. The first big initiative…

[Continue reading "Culture"…]

Inside

While reading a brief article on the BBC about Intel’s plans for the future, including the Core Duo and Viiv, and I realised that I haven’t read much about the technology involved in Apple’s switch to Intel. I took a look at the technology overviews provided on the Intel web…

[Continue reading "Inside"…]

Little Red Camera

I’m still catching up after last week, so if you haven’t already seen it, Mike Curtis has posted an exclusive interview with Jim Jannard, founder of the Red Camera project. Through no fault of Mike’s there’s not a lot of details about the camera in the interview—apparently Red will have…

[Continue reading "Little Red Camera"…]

All Change

Courtesy of Lionsgate On the same day that the BC government announced the continuation of the current film tax credit until 2008, Lionsgate has announced the sale of it’s North Vancouver studio facility to Bosa Development for CDN$41.6 million. For Lionsgate the sale represents a further, “significant step in monetizing…

[Continue reading "All Change"…]

Done

Courtesy of Pixar There’s been a lot of talk in the last few days about how Disney was poised to acquire Pixar. Today the deal was announced and Pixar is Disney’s for the princely sum of US$7.4 billion—to be achieved in an “all-stock” transaction. For their part Disney are talking…

[Continue reading "Done"…]

Lisa Brenneis Interview

Final Cut Pro 5 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickPro Guide Peachpit have posted a brief interview with Lisa Brenneis, author of the extremely popular and highly regarded, Final Cut Pro 5 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickPro Guide. It’s a promotional piece that doesn’t offer a tremendous amount…

[Continue reading "Lisa Brenneis Interview"…]

Adobe OpenHD

Courtesy of Adobe Adobe have followed Production Suite package by announcing the expansion of the Adobe OpenHD Alliance. In addition to the original members, Dell, HP, Intel, and Microsoft, new partners include, AJA, AMD, Blackmagic, Bluefish, CineForm, Focusrite, Huge/Ciprico, Matrox, NVIDIA, and Rorke. The objective of the alliance is…

[Continue reading "Adobe OpenHD"…]

Place Your Bets

Will it ship today? [Update: 19:13 PST. No change in the order status. I’m told that there are no holds on the order, so they should be letting it out of the door soon.]…

[Continue reading "Place Your Bets"…]

Mazal Tov!

Courtesy of Meta Media™ Creative Technologies I like to see good things happen to good people, so I was very excited to read the announcement of Meta Media™ Creative Technologies yesterday. Meta Media is the new name of The Tech Therapist, who are one of the strongest and best informed…

[Continue reading "Mazal Tov!"…]

Certified Pros

Congratulations to the new batch of Apple Certified Pros! After a weekend of the Introduction to FCP 5 intensive there will shortly be a raft of new, local names appearing on the Apple site.…

[Continue reading "Certified Pros"…]

Tick Tock

Courtesy of Pixar Even if you’re not completely obsessed with all things Apple, Macworld San Francisco 2006 probably has not escaped your notice. The rumours have been flying for weeks now, months in some cases, still only those under strict NDA* have any concrete idea of what will be announced…

[Continue reading "Tick Tock"…]

Cooke Lenses

Courtesy of Cooke Optics Of the many announcements from CES 2006, one that caught my attention was Cooke’s announcement that they have formed a new business unit to explore opportunities for partnership with consumer camcorder manufacturers. Those of you who don’t have experience with Cooke lenses, have probably heard of…

[Continue reading "Cooke Lenses"…]

Nattress Joins Red

Congratulations to Graeme Nattress, who has officially joined the Red Digital Camera Company. Graeme has a stellar reputation and I’m sure some of you have encountered him on the floor of various trade shows, from his prolific and always erudite posts on a multitude of discussion sites, his articles, or…

[Continue reading "Nattress Joins Red"…]

Horse FCPpower

Courtesy of the dr groupThe following item slipped by me when it was first publicised last month and I just picked it up in Variety today. The DR Group have just designed and implemented a new 12 station Final Cut Pro facility for the Horse TV Media Group. They’re utilising…

[Continue reading "Horse FCPpower"…]

Geographic Failure

Courtesy of Vongo Macrumors, Cinematical, and World of Apple have all picked up on an article in today’s New York Times (subscription required after today) about a new “unlimited” online movie subscription service, Vongo. The project represents a shift in technology for Starz Entertainment Group, who are moving away…

[Continue reading "Geographic Failure"…]

New Switch Link

Before—no Switch link After—new Switch link I could be slow on the uptake, but I’m fairly certain that the Switch link in the navigation banner at Apple.com is a recent addition (?). In and of itself it may not seem to be much, after all the Switch campaign has…

[Continue reading "New Switch Link"…]

Shake and King Kong

King Kong (2005), Universal Studios Following Autodesk’s lead, Apple have also published a brief article about how their technology was employed on the recent King Kong. As with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Shake was an integral part of Weta Digital’s workflow.…

[Continue reading "Shake and King Kong"…]

AG-HVX200

Courtesy of Panasonic Panasonic have finally announced that the HVX200 will ship on 29 December, not quite in time to be a stocking filler, but I’m certain it’s welcome news to those of you who placed their pre-order at the beginning of time. (For the uninitiated, they’ve also updated their…

[Continue reading "AG-HVX200"…]

Red Mist

Mike Curtis over at the essential, HDforIndies.com, has picked up on a rather sparse new web site that’s promising to “revolutionize” digital cinema. His thoughts and the ensuing dialogue make interesting reading. The Red camera project is laying claim to being the elusive holy grail of our digital cinematic…

[Continue reading "Red Mist"…]

Long Live Adobe

There’s a lot of commentary about Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia, which was finalised today. While this probably doesn’t mean all that much for Photoshop, the future of Flash and Adobe’s video applications, may have significant impact on QuickTime and FCP.…

[Continue reading "Long Live Adobe"…]

Ripplecasts

If you haven’t already subscribed to the Ripplecast feed, you may want to point iTunes in the direction of these new, free video tutorials from the prolific folks at Ripple Training. Recent editions have included creating watermarks and encoding video for iPods. This week they’ve begun a featured series of…

[Continue reading "Ripplecasts"…]

© 2005-2008 Jonathan Eric Tyrrell, Creative Commons License.

VFCPUG Online is an independent web site and, unless explicitly stated, has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by any of the companies mentioned herein, including Apple Inc.. All company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.