Have you decided to start editing video, but don’t know where to begin? The Videomaker Basic Editing Webinar is aimed at answering your hardware and software questions, as well as providing information on how to use pacing, transitions, motivated edits, and more in order to start editing great videos. By learning the techniques and information taught in our Basic Editing Webinar, you’ll be well on your way to creating the videos you want to present.

Following the webinar, all registrants will receive a copy of a special report. In addition to valuable information and a free special report, Time Control. Our Basic Editing Webinar will also include live Q&A; our team answering your questions. Videomaker’s Basic Editing Webinar starts at 11:00 AM (PST) on Wednesday, February 22, so be sure to sign up soon!

Not interested in an introduction to editing? Videomaker’s weekly Webinar Training Series is taught by our experts and features a wide variety of video production and post production topics including Advanced Editing, Green Screen and Special Effects, Advanced Shooting, Lighting for Video, and much more.

How can you choose the best video format to make sure that people view and spread your work over the Internet? Find out with our new free guide, What’s the best video format for online distribution?

So you’ve just finished completing the world’s next blockbuster and you want to get your baby on the web fast. The most important preparation is choosing how to format it for the web. Our newest free report explains video formats for the beginning to intermediate user — what the different video formats are and which are the best video formats for web distribution.  You’ll learn the strengths and weaknesses of MOVs, AVIs, FLVs, WMVs, and MP4s, so you can make an informed choice when you decide how the online world will see your movie.

Whether it’s a question of finding the best compression for YouTube or choosing a format that allows your users to interact with the video, there is a video format out there for your exact purposes. Choosing the best video format for web distribution is absolutely vital for getting people to watch your videos on YouTube, Vimeo or other video sharing websites. We asked filmmaker/videographer Chelsey Grasso to decipher the mysteries of getting the best compression for YouTube and the web. Download this all new free report to have all the different video formats explained in plain English.  You’ll never have to worry about your format choices adversely affecting your finished productions again.

Learn:

• Sharing Your Video Masterpiece with the World
• Why Video Formats Are Important
• Getting Down to Business: The Types of Video Formats
• Common Mistakes in Choosing a Video Format
• Tips for Selecting the Best Video Format in Any Situation
• Video Formatting: Wrapping It Up
• Additional Resources

Download your free report What’s the Best Video Format for Online Distribution?

Corel, a company that has a long history in the photo editing world, has released a new RAW photo editing application called AfterShot Pro for $99. The coolest part? The program will work on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Basically, no matter what operating system you’re using, Corel’s got you covered.

This new release is in direct competition with other RAW photo editing software such as Aperture and Lightroom and seems to be based in part off a previous Linux photo editing software named Bibble. The program is basically a complete RAW workflow, a fast and flexible photo management system, and an advanced non-destructive adjustment tool all in one.

Some features of the program include selective editing, where you can apply adjustments using unique Layers and Regions similar to the way that a mask would work in Photoshop, heal and clone tools for removing dust and blemishes, and something Corel calls Perfectly Clear which automatically adjusts lighting for ever pixel in the shot without clipping any information. The software will also be using Metadata to let you search for photos by camera settings, keywords, tags, and more in a similar fashion as Adobe Bridge and LightRoom. They’ve also included something called Noise Ninja that reduces noise while supposedly preserving detail in an image. Lastly, Corel also allows for batch outputs so that you can process images while getting other, more important work done.

Aftershot Pro will cost $99 and is already available on Corel’s site for a free trial download. With support for Linux, this program could very well be the most popular RAW processing tool on that platform and at a price of only $99, it has potential on Mac and Windows as well. Only time and some experience will tell!

As the standard for smartphone cameras reaches 8MP, and is soon to go on up from there, the phenomenon of videos shot entirely on smartphones like the new iPhone 4S and the Samsung Galaxy S II is only going to expand in the coming years. The consumer and the prosumer market for full-featured camcorders and HDSLRs is certainly where serious videographers go, but it sure looks likely that smartphone video is here to stay. Likewise, gadgets and accessories meant to enhance the shooting experience and the quality of video produced with these devices is a market segment that is scrambling to keep apace.

Hardware designed to augment smartphone cameras has been around nearly as long as the phones themselves. In the March, 2010 issue of Videomaker, we reviewed the Owle Bubo, a device designed for the iPhone and meant to enhance the stability of the smartphone as a video shooting camera. And devices like the Bubo are proliferating seemingly in lockstep with every new advance in smartphone camera technology.

Among the add-on accessories available to enhance smartphone video camera The Olloclip three-in-one lens adds the versatility of fish-eye and wide angle lenses to the iPhone. Similarly, the Kogeto Dot is a “snap-on” lens that together with a free app enables shooting 360 degree panoramic video. And for more in the iPhone lens category, Photojojo offers mounts that allow you to mount Cannon EOS or Nikon SLR lenses to the phone’s camera.

Zacuto offers the Zgrip which is designed to provide some stability to the notoriously shaky video that comes from shooting with a flyweight and relatively delicate smartphone. Additionally, Gary Fong offers an iPhone tripod adapter, providing another option for bringing stability to the smartphone camera world.

These are only a few of the products designed to help turn the tiny but capable cameras in today’s smartphones into surprisingly competent video devices. For more on smartphone videography, read Jay Montana’s article here.

The question for us, as always, is: what’s next? As the cameras in these devices continue to improve will we see more videos proudly proclaiming to have been “shot entirely on a smartphone.” Or, perhaps more likely, will the smartphone, outfitted with some cool camera accessories, become a fine tool for an introduction to video before progressing to the big guns? In the end, you all will be the ones to decide.

After walking the National Association of Broadcasters showfloor for 3 days – clocking in up to 9 miles in one day – the Videomaker staff returned to VMHQ to discuss, debate and analyze the products we saw to present our first ever “Best of NAB 2011” awards.

BEST IN SHOW:  Sony NEX -FS100u – Camcorder with Interchangeable Lens
BEST CAMCORDER: Canon XF305 -  3D Firmware Upgrade
BEST COMPUTER: HP EliteBook 8760w – Laptop
BEST EDITING SOFTWARE: Apple Final Cut Pro X  (Apple has not yet posted the new product on their site since it is still getting tweaked)
BEST CAMERA SUPPORT: Redrock Micro3D Rig
BEST HARD DRIVE: LaCie Little Big Disk with Thunderbolt – Hard Drive
BEST LIGHT GEAR: Lowel Studio LED 250 and 450 – LED Lights
BEST MICROPHONE: Sennheiser MKH 8060 – Shotgun Microphone
BEST MONITOR: iKan VX7e – Field Monitor
BEST STOCK MEDIA: SmartSound SonicFire Pro Quicktracks – Cloud-based Royalty-Free Music Creation Service
BEST PLUG-IN: Boris FX Boris Red 5 – Video Editing Software
MOST INNOVATIVE:Photon Beard’s PhotonSpot Nova 270 -  Light Emitting Plasma Lamp

The criteria for our judging was simple:

• a product that was new to this show – meaning it hadn’t been announced at a previous show
• a product that was guaranteed to ship within the year – meaning no ‘vaporware’
• a product that was good for the Videomaker community – meaning it can’t be too expensive, too niche or built for a huge production facility, but not really feasible for the small crews or Lone Wolf producers that comprise many of the Videomaker readers.

This last criteria was the hardest because at a show called the National Broadcasters Association, you’re going to see a LOT of high-end products that are in use in television stations, movie studios, and big-time facilities. Also, since these are featured products from NAB, they are still most often going to be in the higher-end price range, even for our market, unlike the products we’ll see at CES – the Consumer’s Electronics Show. Read the rest of this entry »

Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced the new Adobe® Creative Suite® 5.5 product line, enabling designers and developers to target popular and emerging smartphone and tablet platforms, as the revolution in mobile communications fundamentally changes the way content is distributed and consumed. Substantive advances to HTML5, Flash authoring, digital publishing and video tools as well as new capabilities that kick-start the integration of tablets into creative workflows, anchor the new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 product family.

This launch marks a major change to Adobe’s product release strategy for Creative Suite, the industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow across print, video, mobile and online media. Adobe now plans to have milestone Creative Suite product introductions at 24-month intervals and – starting with Creative Suite 5.5 – significant mid-cycle releases designed to keep the worldwide creative community ahead of the latest advances in content authoring.