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.

Plural Eyes tweaks 1.2 update with 1.2b

A new beta version of version 1.2 of PluralEyes for Final Cut Pro is now available. This version stabilizes the new features that have been added during the beta and adds a new one: instead of having to name the sequence to be synced pluraleyes, you can now pick the desired sequence from a list.

Apple v. Adobe. – FCS v. CS5. – The choice is pretty clear.

Adobe has really been pushing the limits when it comes to what the software package can do. From CS3, which was nice, but had a few carryover PC apps from a recent purchase, to CS4 which broke new ground in terms of authoring DVD’s for Flash, video in a PDF, and more.

Now CS5 jumps a whole new direction with 64-bit ONLY computing. This cuts some old computers off, but with a decent system, you can access tons more RAM. Add to this the new Mercury Engine using GPU to handle video processing and you can handle multiple streams of heavily compressed video where one stream used to choke a computer. Specifically I mean H.264 and AVCHD, which seem to becoming defacto standards in tapeless acquisition these days.

In an article in EventDV Magazine, Jan Ozer does a pretty nice head-to head comparison and

Apple lays off 40 from FCP team, before NAB?

Apple laying off 40 people from the Final Cut Pro software team has been noted on Twitter, but not corroborated anywhere else as I can find.

But if the layoffs are actually true, it begs us to wonder what Apple’s long term dedication is to high-end computers, and professional apps— especially considering that the vast majority of profits come from: iPods, iPhones, iApps, iMacs, iBookstore, iTunes music & TV shows, laptops and soon- iPad.

Apple’s new Final Cut Studio – DVD Studio Pro gone?

One copious absence from Apple’s latest Final Cut Studio upgrade (touting over 100 new features) is any mention of DVD Studio Pro… or ANY disk authoring program at all.

SmartSound for FCP

SmartSound has released their plug-in for Final Cut Pro that allows Smartsound to see open FCP projects, including all the different sequences, and import markers from that timeline into SmartSound to make the process of adding music to your project a breeze.

The demo from Larry Jordan is up on the SmartSound web site and we’ve got it for you here as well.

Smaller, More Powerful Computers.

As computing becomes ever more powerful, and “Netbooks” offer mobile computing power on the road with low-power chips, diminutive boxes with powerhouse capabilities are not only inevitable- they’re already here. While home theatre machines may be a “hobby” to some electronics companies, others are taking it seriously and offering some horsepower under the hood…

Secret MacBook Upgrade = FW400 & nVidia!

Apple sure pissed off a lot of Macintosh users when the addressed the key limitation of their MacBook computers- namely the shared graphics processor- when Apple introduced the unibody MacBook… and completely removed the FireWire port. This made the new MacBooks completely unable to import DV or HDV footage from almost every such camcorder and deck on the market because they all do so over one interface: FireWire.

Well, perhaps Apple has actually listened to their customers this time and provided this same powerful graphics capability in their polycarbonate $999 MacBook, which still has FireWire 400.

Focus’ FS-5 looks good!

I have pointed out how outdated Focus Enhancements FireStore line of recorders had become over the years. Initially, revolutionary, they had become quite dated and wickedly expensive for the technology you received.

Now, six months after I compared the FS-4 to a glorious Archos portable video recorder, Focus Enhancements showed off their forthcoming FS-5 which addresses many of the issues I brought up.