Video News

reprinted from a Focus Enhancements press release:

Focus Enhancements Releases New Line of High Definition FS-4 Portable DTE Recorders Featuring Extended Recording and HD Support as Standard

FS-4 Line Features New Design, HD Capability, and Extended Recording With up to 7.5 Hours of DV/HDV Record Time

CAMPBELL, CA — (MARKETWIRE) — 10/30/2006 — Focus Enhancements, Inc. (NASDAQ: FCSE), a worldwide leader in video production and conversion technology, today announced its new line-up of award winning FS-4 Portable Direct To Edit® (DTE) Recorders.The new FS-4Pro HD models feature higher capacities, with 60GB, 80GB, and 100GB versions providing between 4.5 and 7.5 hours of DV/HDV recording. The FS-4HD ships with a 40GB disk drive allowing 3 hours of DV/HDV recording. In addition, all FS-4 models include HD recording capabilities and have a sleek, all-black enclosure.

“We are seeing much higher demand for HD record capabilities from our customers as well as a requirement for longer record times,” said Matt McEwen, senior product manager for Focus Enhancements. “Our new FS-4 line-up allows videographers to record in either DV or HDV, as well as provides more options in terms of record capacity. Focus Enhancements delivers the most comprehensive solution for recording SD or HD formats for Direct To Edit connectivity, which streamlines workflow, increases productivity, and saves production time and money.”

In HD mode, the FS-4Pro HD models are capable of recording in either the M2T file format as well as the unique QuickTime HDV format for Direct To Edit use with Apple Final Cut Pro. In addition to eight available DV25 DTE file formats including AVI Type 2, QuickTime, Matrox AVI and Canopus AVI, the FS-4 HD and FS-4Pro HD are also capable of recording in the HDV M2T file format. Additional DV25 file formats are also available on the Pro models including Avid OMF, MXF and Pinnacle AVI.

Featuring a comprehensive backlit display, easy-to-use menu system, hard drive, and removable, rechargeable battery, the Focus FS-4 HD line is the perfect DTE companion for any DV or HDV handheld shoots. The new FS-4 HD and FS-4Pro HD Portable DTE Recorders weigh in at only one pound with a profile of 1.5 inches thin and add the company’s industry-standard DTE functionality to DV and HDV handheld camcorders. Whether mounted directly to the camcorder or clipped to a belt, the new FS-4 is designed to excel in the field.

The all-new FS-4 model line-up is available now through Focus Enhancements’ worldwide dealer and distributor network. The FS-4 HD 40GB model is available for a US MSRP of $799, while the FS-4Pro HD 60GB, 80GB and 100GB are available for MSRPs of $1,295, $1,595 and $1,895, respectively. The FS-4Pro HD 80GB and 100GB versions also include the 3 hour, high capacity battery as standard.

Gateway’s new FX530 series of PC’s focus on delivering high end graphics power and storage, two things that video content creators are always in need of.

Equipped with Intel Core 2 Duo or Intel Core 2 Extreme processors, and high end ATI graphics cards, they’re worth a look if you’re shopping for a new workstation.

Our associate editor Charlie Fulton was surprisingly impressed with the latest Gateway to come through our doors (upcoming in our FEB 2007 issue). We’ll try to get these new ones on the test bench ASAP.

Shipping Nov 2nd.

Historically short films and videos have always been the ugly step-child to feature length works. Usually only seen at film festivals and made as demo pieces, the thought of actually turning a profit on a short was laughable.

Cut to the present day, when short video clips are now delivered by the millions around the world, and are literally only a click away.

Audiences are becoming increasingly comfortable with the concept of looking for entertainment online, and advertisers are following. Video distribution sites like Revver.com are cutting the content creators in on a share of the ad revenue in order to attract the top talent.

For technical and attention span reasons, The short format is a perfect fit for internet distribution, and I’m looking forward to a resurgence of the genre.

reprinted from an Adobe press release

Adobe Soundbooth Released As Public Beta For Intel-Based Macintosh and Windows Platforms

New Audio Solution For Creative Professionals Provides Powerful Capabilities To Transform Audio For Web And Video Workflows

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Oct. 26, 2006 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced the public beta of Adobe Soundbooth software, a new innovative and intuitive audio software product for creating and editing audio and fixing common audio flaws using visually-oriented tools. Unveiled to customers for the first time yesterday at the MAX 2006 Adobe user conference in Las Vegas, creative professionals now have the opportunity to test this new beta download and submit feedback to the Adobe Labs at http://labs.adobe.com/soundbooth. Adobe Soundbooth is available for both Intel-based Macintosh and Windows systems.
Designed from the ground up to deliver high-quality sound to web and video workflows, Adobe Soundbooth enables creative professionals to quickly record, edit and create pristine audio without requiring training in sound production. Tight integration with Macromedia Flash from Adobe and Adobe Premiere Pro enables Soundbooth users to easily remove noise from recordings, polish voiceovers, and customize music to fit a production.
“Adobe Soundbooth is a completely new, highly intuitive audio creation and editing toolset designed to accelerate the integration of sound into video and Flash workflows,” said Jim Guerard, vice president and general manager, Dynamic Media at Adobe. “Our customers asked us to make Soundbooth cross-platform because so many creative shops rely on both Macs and Windows based PCs. We look forward to the feedback from the creative community as we refine the product over the coming months.”
Moving forward, Adobe plans to continue to develop Adobe Audition as a standalone product for audio professionals working in markets such as broadcast radio. Adobe plans to offer Soundbooth in place of Adobe Audition as the audio component in its integrated video solution, Adobe Production Studio.
Easy to use tools for Flash and Video workflows
Adobe Soundbooth includes the tools creative professionals need to handle customary audio production tasks with ease and efficiency. Video and interactive Web designers can record new dialog tracks, sound effects or other audio assets or transform existing audio files with sample-accurate tools that cut, copy, paste, fade, stretch, and add effects. Soundbooth also provides creative professionals with tools that fix common flaws in audio recordings and streamlined mastering tools to clarify vocals and polish files after editing. Users can also speed the process of creating customized music to accompany their projects with the AutoComposer feature.
“Soundbooth is the perfect audio tool for our designers,” said Matt Rodriguez, president/executive director at Plexipixel. “Its features are focused on the tasks and problems we face regularly. The cue integration with Flash and FLV is huge and having designers that can do their own audio work will save us time everyday.”
Creative professionals can use Soundbooth to easily import audio assets from Adobe Premiere Pro for precision editing and to add music. Creating animation cues for use in Flash is also fast and efficient with the ability to lay down markers that can be exported as XML and then used with Actionscript in Flash.

Pricing and Availability
The public beta of Adobe Soundbooth for Intel-based Macintosh and Windows is now available as a free download at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/soundbooth/.

Adobe announces a new audio software tool for video and multimedia creators called Soundbooth. With the increase of video enthusiasts (especially in the online and podcast arena) and the demand for simple yet powerful audio editing tools, Adobe has reorganized it’s audio software offerings and brought Soundbooth to life.Adobe is soliciting feedback from the public beta version of Soundbooth before it commits to an official release. Eventually, Adobe plans to migrate the new software to the Video Production Studio creative suite. This, of course, will mean that Adobe Audition will be removed from the bundle, where its future will be focused as an audio product for audio professionals. There’s no news as to when this transition will happen.

Several days ago, Adobe took us through a demo of Soundbooth that left us impressed with its brand new interface and ease of use. One of the main visions for this product was to create an interface that helps visual artists take control of audio properties and has a “discoverable flexibility,” which allows beginning users to approach the program more easily. This is possible with Soundbooth’s task oriented user interface, rather than a tool oriented interfaced, as in Adobe Audition. Soundbooth also has a loop-based music creation feature, complete with key-framing moods, tempos, intensities, etc. Its interface, like most of the software applications in the Video Production Studio suite, is ideal for moving between your video editing timeline and the audio editing features.

Adobe is hoping Soundbooth will become a common tool for creative visual artists on both platforms, Mac and PC. Soundbooth also includes greater interactivity with Flash, allowing users to create and export cues to work with Actionscript. Pricing and availability will follow after the public beta testing is complete. Look for more Soundbooth news and announcement in the future.

What do eerie music, rattling chains and catwoman have in common?

“Videomaker Presents“!

We just posted our current vidcast, “Videomaker Presents” episode 36 and it has a bag full of Halloween Tricks. We told you how to shoot and edit for the green screen in our October issue of Videomaker Magazine in our “Timeline” column, and Episode 36 shows you how the finished video looks.

Continuing our festive theme, we chose an entry from last year’s “Videomaker Short Video Contest” for this episode’s “Take 20”, titled “R.I.P.T.V.”, which is based on a ghoulish subject: Death, by producer Richard Falzone of Springfield Illinois. Episode 36 also looks at another scary subject: on-line purchasing and offers you “Buyer Beware” tips to surf with.  This episode also has more news on Adobe’s purchase of Serious Magic… but, hey! Don’t sit there reading this, download our “Halloween Special” now and see Brian with his Thinking Cap on, Mark looking at bit “Patton-ish”, and Derek looking… well… like an oddball on Safari.

reprinted from an Apple press release

Apple MacBook Pro Notebooks Now with Intel Core 2 Duo Processors Up to 39 Percent FasterCUPERTINO, California—October 24, 2006—Apple® today announced that its entire MacBook™ Pro line of notebooks now includes the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor and delivers performance that is up to 39 percent faster than the previous generation. All MacBook Pro models now offer double the memory and greater storage capacity than the previous generation, as well as a FireWire® 800 port for connecting to high-speed peripherals. The new MacBook Pro’s stunning, lightweight, aluminum enclosure is just one-inch thin, available in 15- and 17-inch models, and features a built-in iSight® video camera for video conferencing on-the-go.

“With an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, greater storage capacity and FireWire 800 connectivity, the new MacBook Pro delivers unprecedented performance and mobility in an incredibly thin and light design,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “We are thrilled that our notebook sales are growing twice as fast as the overall notebook market, and we hope these new MacBook Pro models continue that success.”

Every MacBook Pro features the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB of shared L2 cache, which is up to 39 percent faster than the previous 2.16 GHz MacBook Pro and more than seven times faster than the 1.67 GHz PowerBook G4 running industry standard benchmarks.* Apple has enhanced Mac OS® X to take advantage of the technology advances from Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors, resulting in increased performance in professional applications like Aperture™ 1.5, Final Cut Pro® 5 and Logic Pro 7.

Ideal for business and creative professionals, MacBook Pro delivers advanced performance including 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory expandable up to 3GB, ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics with up to 256MB of dedicated GDDR3 graphics memory, and a double-layer SuperDrive™ for burning professional-quality DVDs. With the latest high-performance connectivity options, every new MacBook Pro includes built-in 10/100/1000 BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet for high-speed networking, built-in AirPort Extreme® and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), a FireWire 800 and a FireWire 400 port, combination analog and optical digital audio input and output ports, an ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot, and a DVI video output to connect up to a 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display.

MacBook Pro comes with Apple’s MagSafe™ Power Adapter that magnetically couples the power cord to the MacBook Pro and safely disconnects when there is strain on the power cord, preventing the notebook from falling off its work surface. Apple now offers a new MagSafe Airline Adapter that makes using the MacBook Pro on an airplane even more convenient by connecting to in-seat power ports for continued productivity throughout the duration of a flight. MacBook Pro also includes an illuminated keyboard, Apple’s Sudden Motion Sensor that is designed to protect the hard drive in case of a fall, and a Scrolling TrackPad to easily scroll through long web pages or pan across large photographs.

MacBook Pro comes with iLife® ‘06, the next generation of Apple’s award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications featuring iPhoto®, iMovie® HD, iDVD®, GarageBand™ and iWeb™, the latest iLife application that makes it super-easy to create amazing websites with photos, blogs and podcasts and publish them on .Mac for viewing by anyone on the Internet with just a single click.** Every MacBook Pro also comes with the latest release of the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS X version 10.4.8 Tiger including Safari™, Mail, iCal®, iChat AV, Front Row and Photo Booth, running natively on the Intel-based notebook.

Pricing & Availability
The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is shipping today, the new 17-inch MacBook Pro will ship next week, and every model will be available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The Apple MagSafe Airline Adaptor is shipping today for a suggested retail price of $59 (US).

The 2.16 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:

• 15.4-inch widescreen 1440 x 900 LCD display with 300 cd/m2 brightness;
• 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
• 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 3GB;
• 120GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 6x SuperDriveâ„¢ with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• PCI Express-based ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128MB GDDR3 memory;
• DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
• built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• Gigabit Ethernet port;
• built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
• ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
• two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
• one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;
• Scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard;
• the infrared Apple Remote; and
• 85 Watt Apple MagSafe Power Adapter.

The 2.33 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,499 (US), includes:

• 15.4-inch widescreen 1440 x 900 LCD display with 300 cd/m2 brightness;
• 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2Duo processor;
• 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 3GB;
• 120GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 6x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• PCI Express-based ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
• DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
• built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• Gigabit Ethernet port;
• built-in Airport Extreme wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
• ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
• two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
• one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;
• Scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard;
• the infrared Apple Remote; and
• 85 Watt Apple MagSafe Power Adapter.

The 2.33 GHz, 17-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), includes:

• 17-inch widescreen 1680 x 1050 LCD display with 300 cd/m2 brightness;
• 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor;
• 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 3GB;
• 160GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
• a slot-load 8x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
• PCI Express-based ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
• DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
• built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
• built-in iSight video camera;
• Gigabit Ethernet port;
• built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
• ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
• three USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
• one audio line in and one headphone out port, each supporting optical digital audio;
• Scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard with ambient light sensor;
• the infrared Apple Remote; and
• 85 Watt Apple MagSafe Power Adapter.

Additional build-to-order options for the MacBook Pro include the ability to upgrade to a 200GB (4200 rpm) or a 160GB (5400 rpm) hard drive, up to 3GB DDR2 SDRAM, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter, Apple USB Modem, glossy widescreen display, and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

*Based on estimated results of industry-standard SPECint and SPECfp rate tests. SPEC is a registered trademark of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC); see www.apple.com/macbookpro for more information.

**Internet access required, fees may apply.

Not sure how the original announcement passed us by, but we just noticed that Plextor will be shipping their new PX-B900A Blu-ray burner sometime this month. The drive burns at 2X on both single- and dual-layer BD-R and BD-RE discs, and up to 8X on single-layer DVDs, 4X on dual-layer DVDs, 5X on DVD-RAM, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-RW, 24X CD-R and 16X CD-RW. And it reads all of these formats, too.

Also in the box: a full compliment of InterVideo software including WinDVD BD (the first Blu-ray video player app we’re aware of), WinDVD, Ulead VideoStudio 10, DVD MovieFactory 5, Burn.Now 1.5, BD DiscRecorder, and Data-Add 2.0.
Like the similar drives from Pioneer and Sony, it can be yours for a cool grand.

Microtek is announcing preliminary details of the new ArtixScan M1 flatbed scanner with Emulsion Direct Imaging Technology (EDIT). The scanner offers 4800-dpi optical resolution, 16-bit digital output per channel, new auto focus technology and new film holders with tension technology. The M1 should be available in February 2007 for MSRP of $699.

So what does a flatbed scanner have to do with video production? Well, if you’re like me, you probably have the majority of your family history in 35mm slides and a few medium format negatives from weddings and other special events. I recently ran across some dilemmas finding the best way to scan these images in an effort to produce a 5-minute video slideshow for Grandma’s 80th birthday. Well, I found a workaround that allowed me to get the slideshow complete, but being the perfectionist that I am (or that I learned to be, thanks Grandma), I was excited to learn about Microtek’s EDIT flatbed scanners. These scanners have two beds: an upper bed, for scanning documents and prints; and a lower bed, that bypasses the glass plate allowing the CCD to directly capture the image from slides and negatives. The advantage of bypassing the glass plate is that you eliminate possible distortion from the glass, yielding clearer, more precise scans of your negatives and slides. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? If you want to learn more about Microtek EDIT, check it out on their website.

JVC and Vmix.com are co-sponsoring an exciting video contest. Create a fun, fresh 30 or 60-second spot using the supplied JVC Everio logos and images and upload it to vmix.com. The grand prize winner will bring home $2,500 and have his/her spot aired on Spike TV. Second prize will receive an Everio camcorder, although, it’s unspecified as to which model. So, what are you waiting for? Go get creative.