REVIEW: ioSafe SoloPRO Fireproof External Drive

Today, external hard disk drives are a “dime a dozen” so to speak. They all use drives from a handful of companies, wrap them in a plastic or metal enclosure with USB, eSATA or some other interfaces, add a cheap external power supply, and box it up for sale. What all these drives lack, however, is security for your data. Sure, you can use a RAID, but if catastrophe hits- a fire, flood, tornado, etc, your data is gone. This is where ioSafe stakes their claim.

Mastering the Dallas Screenwriter’s Association – 2011 Short Film Showcase

What does it take to master 11 DVD’s, 4 WMVs, and 3 .mov’s onto one disc? Not a lot. But it does take a thorough of understanding what goes into mastering a DVD and what the shortest distance is between Source and Delivery.

The Dallas Screenwriters Association had gathered more than 12 movies for it’s 2011 Showcase. Add to this some PSA’s and some new media created specifically for this program, and you have the makings for a special challenge. But there’s a way around this potentially tricky multiformat maze that enabled the finished DVD to be delivered in just a couple days- and that includes delays for work on other projects, and the need to create a few new media bits.

What does it take to compute?

As tablets begin to overtake desktop and laptop computers as the “go to” piece of hardware for getting a job done, the need for a big OS and big apps falls into question. Case in point, you can shoot HD, edit and upload to your favorite web repository from an iPod Touch, Android phone, Windows Phone, etc. Apple’s latest OS- Lion, pulls liberally from the iOS devices, and Windows 8 is rumored to be a lot like their Windows Phone OS. It is with this background that I checked out how big the apps were in my Mac OS Applications folder, and I was pretty surprised by the results.

Apple’s new iMovie Pro. (aka Final Cut Pro X)

Say goodbye to the Pro Apps as you know them. The writing has been on the wall for several years, yet many Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Studio users continue to cling to the hope that Apple will make a major leap with Final Cut Pro and bring it into 64-bit computing, and finally address the numerous issues that have been on wish lists, sometimes for an entire decade.

Well, Apple demoed iMovie Pro at the FCP SuperMeet this past Tuesday April 12th and made absolutely no qualms about visually signifying the end of the Pro apps as we know them. There was no talk of Color. Soundtrack, Motion, Compressor, DVD Studio Pro, Blu-ray authoring, 3D authoring, feature film features, etc. No the focus was solely on Apple iMovie Pro.

How did we get to this sorry state? Well, I think there was a conversation in January that sort of went like this:

IEBA Review: Datavideo DN-60 Solid State CF Card Recorder

When it comes to camcorders, most everything is moving to flash media.

There are, however, an incredible amount of HDV and other tape-based HD camcorders out there, still working hard and producing great images. How do you get these camcorders up to speed with the new flash-media workflow? With an external recorder.

Thus far, the need for external devices to record HD footage has primarily been served by Focus Enhancements’ FireStore line. However, there has been growth in the segment recently and Datavideo has entered the fray with a unique design and price point under $500. Does the Datavideo DN-60 Solid State CF Card Recorder give the more expensive recorders a run for their money? Let’s find out.

You Tube Rents Videos – Mine Included!

YouTube recently added rentals to their streaming portfolio, and with a catalogue of outdoor adventure videos that were basically sitting dormant here, I decided to bring the entire video series into the new Millennium- including direct sales on Amazon, streaming on Amazon Unbox, rentals on YouTube and availability on Netflix’ portfolio.

I’m in the finishing the Amazon process with my first video there, and was just notified that two of my videos were approved for rental on YouTube.

What do you store your hard drives in? Here’s some great 3.5-Inch SATA/ IDE Hard Drive Protection

Looking for a way to protect your backup drives (especially if you use a drop-in dock like I do) then consider these handy little cases, which protect the drive from static, dust, spiders, etc.

I personally like to get a 1 TB drive per client/project and then, when that project is done, or awaiting approval, I pull it out of the dock and put it on the shelf to work on other projects.  The advantage of putting the drive in a case, aside from the protection, is that I  can put some very big labels with lots of notes about what’s on the drive, which is usually a lot of stuff.

Dell UltraSharp U3011 a 30-inch IPS monitor for critical color grading.

There’s a great article on the Pro Video Coalition about doing critical color grading using the latest generation of “in plane switching” IPS LCD monitors which offer the widest gamut of color and accuracy yet achieved on LCD monitors.

I bring this up because Dell has just announced a 30″ IPS monitor that may well be the de-facto choice for color grading do to its sheer size (as far as computer monitors go) and high resolution for a great price.

You see, whereas “broadcast” monitors cost a hefty premium, say $3000 and up for critical color work, these “consumer” monitors brandish price tags around $1000 and can be calibrated to work for critical color post.

Wanted: Home Theatre PC Made Simple.

I have been thinking about replacing my aged TiVo box (SD) with an HD version, especially to record HD content off cable and to get Netflix streaming. I was wondering why not a Home Theatre PC (HTPC) and came across this Engadget article that compared TiVo’s latest product: “Premiere” to a properly kitted Windows Media Center HTPC. In the end, each has strengths, and weaknesses. I personally would like a solution that has a built-in audio amplifier so I don’t need yet ANOTHER remote to control THAT.  So, for the sake of Simplicity, and the hodge-podge that is the Premiere interface, I may just go with an older TiVo HD. Wait, do they do Netflix? Hmmm, more research is needed.

OWC eSATA Upgrade Program for Apple iMac 27″ 2010 Models

Well, it’s finally happened. And the expert gurus at Other World Computing are the ones that made it happen, again. Giving Mac users the capabilities and features that our PC brethren have been enjoying for years now- eSATA ports.

Apple’s latest computers have Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. Decent graphics power, and beautiful IPS displays, but seriously lack for fast external disk I/O.

Apple has standardized on the obsoleted FireWire 800, but  the rest of the industry has already forgotten about FireWire. They have moved on to eSATA for speeds in the hundreds of MB per second as opposed to FW800′s mere 60 MBps or so. So a Mac user who wanted to use eSATA drives had to have a computer they to which they could add an eSATA card (Mac Pro or 17″ MacBook Pro). But OWC changes that game today.