If you’ve been licking your chops for one of those editing suites with long lists of included programs, but you just need video and photo, make sure the Video & Photo Creative Collection from CyberLink Corp. is considered. The combination of video and photo editing software is the staple of many video producers, and both put professional level work at your fingertips. The process after production and through distribution is covered with the Creative Collection.

Fast video editing is the emphasis of PowerDirector 10 which utilizes TrueVelocity 2, a rendering engine designed to speed up editing. There are separate modes for editing including 3D, hundreds of features, professional plug-ins, free-hand paint tools, keyframing and TrueTheater enhancements.  Automatic functions and disc burning add to the host of features in PowerDirector 10. Notable additions from PowerDirector 9 are one-click audio normalizing, smart rendering technology, time-lapse and uploading to Vimeo and Dailymotion.

As for PhotoDirector 2011, those still images used in your Ken Burns effect will be well touched with features focused on manipulating camera functions. Your photos can stay as pristine as possible with native rendering of RAW files. Among the controls included are sharpness, noise, white balance and targeted regional adjustments. Both halves of the collection share well with social networking sites and connect you to upwards of 225,000 effects through DirectorZone. The supported file formats include the most popular ones such as AVCHD, FLV, MOV, MPEG, and WMV for video and for photos, MPO, JPS, RAW, GIF, BMP, JPG, TIF, and PNG.

Video & Photo Creative Collection is a complete package that is about the same cost as an upgrade for other software programs, but its features quickly add up to make it a very comparable option for consumers. Expect to get a lot done with this collection and outfit your productions to look their best with versatile and award winning software.

The Video & Photo Creative Collection is listed at $150.

Telestream®, the leading provider of digital media tools and workflow solutions, today announced key partner integrations and new features for its Wirecast® live webcasting software. Wirecast and Wirecast Pro provide live switching, production and streaming capabilities that allow anyone to easily create real-time or on-demand video broadcasts for the web. Wirecast 4.1 enables users to broadcast live interviews with remote speakers and guests with Wirecast Desktop Presenter, which now adds audio to existing video support. Partner integrations – with LiveU for its video-over-cellular transmission backpack; Teradek Cube™ to stream HD video over WiFi; Matrox Multi-Ingest to enable four simultaneous HD-SDI inputs; and Viewcast Osprey capture cards – provide greater flexibility in professional, live broadcast environments.

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As we trek around the NAB show in Las Vegas, we have found that Autodesk, Inc. is now shipping two new products – Autodesk Smoke 2012 for Mac OS X software, an all-in-one editorial finishing tool with a robust, integrated 3D visual effects toolset. And the Autodesk Flame Premium 2012.

Smoke 2012 for Mac OS X

Smoke provides an all-in-one editorial workflow by combining powerful finishing tools with the familiar workflow of a nonlinear editor (NLE) to reduce complexity and streamline finishing of high-quality content.

“Smoke has Action [the 3D compositing environment of Smoke], and I use it for every project,” said Rob Lederman, senior compositor/editor at North Avenue Post in the United States “I get the majority of my keying, lighting and compositing done there, and the ability to control shadows, add light rays and lens flares, and all the Flame FX tools basically eliminate the need for third-party sparks/plug-ins.”

Key Features:

• Autodesk Smoke 2012 enhancements — a redesigned 3D lighting system in Action that produces cast shadows and realistic 3D lighting artifacts, support for geometry cache animation import from Autodesk animation software via Autodesk FBX software, and Flame FX creative and technical tools for common finishing tasks

• A comprehensive stereo 3D (S3D) toolset for editing, monitoring, compositing and delivering S3D projects

• Integrated tools for color correction, keying and advanced 3D compositing

• Conform and finishing workflow with Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer via AAF and XML import

• Support for native media from H.264 from DSLRs to full-resolution R3D media For feature information and videos, visit the Autodesk Smoke for Mac site, and for video tutorials, visit AREA, the Autodesk digital entertainment and visualization community. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever heard the saying “slow and steady wins the race?” While it’s great advice for those who are running marathons, it is just the opposite of the ideal experience for a motion graphic designer. When an artist is in that long sought creative “zone” of graphic design having to wait 5 or more seconds for an image to refresh can make the magic wear off in a hurry. I mean, would Picasso be a happy customer if every paint stroke took 5 seconds to show up on his canvas? I doubt it. For this very reason, it can be of utmost importance to know some tips on how to keep your program running smoothly during the entirety of your production.

After spending several years working with Adobe After Effects, I feel pretty confident in saying that the basic reasons for why the program can sometimes slow to a crawl will inevitably fall into one of three categories: hardware, software, and work flow. That being said, the best way to speed up After Effects is of course, a hardware upgrade. However, hardware upgrades can be incredibly expensive – not to mention time consuming. Instead, it can be a good idea to just upgrade the most important parts of your computer that give After Effects its speed. Let me be clear: a faster processor is always going to give you the biggest bump in speed but there are other pieces of hardware that can do a lot for your computer as well. Also, it is always best to have the newest version of Adobe’s software as each new update tends to give faster render times due to increased support of GPUs and more efficient coding. That being said, if you want longer previews in After Effects, you will want to buy more RAM. After Effects versions from CS4 and below can only recognize 4 gigabytes of RAM unless multiple copies of After Effects’ renderer are open using multiprocessing, so try and get at least 6 to 8 gigabytes of RAM in order to max out your RAM in After Effects and have a little left over for other applications that need to be open. Thankfully RAM prices are as good as they’ve ever been making it possible to buy 8 gigabytes of DDR3 1600 megahertz RAM package for only $175.00. Another piece of hardware that can really help you speed up After Effects is a couple of fast hard drives. By putting your footage to one fast HDD that your computer can read from while writing rendered files to another fast hard drive you will notice a faster playback and render time. If you have some money to burn, your best option will be to buy two solid state drives that attach to your computer’s PCI-e slots giving you potential read times of 80-260 megabytes per second and write times of 60-160 megabytes per second. If you don’t have cash like that to burn, them some high end 7,200 RPM hard disk drives should still speed up your After Effects compositing. With the introduction of After Effects CS5 and its Mercury Playback engine,  it’s now possible to get significantly faster render times by upgrading the GPU of your computer. It accelerates rendering, encoding, and opening of large projects. One of the best graphics cards you can get at this time is the NVIDIA Quadro 6000 or an ATI Sapphire Radeon HD 5970.

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Could it be that Steve Jobs just ‘broke up’ with Mac for iOS 4? Steve Lyons of Newsweek seems to think so. As much fun as watching the ‘I’m a Mac’ Fanboys tear their shirts while running through the streets screaming “Why?”, I take a more sobering look at the possibility of Apple allowing their long premiere line of products to ‘wither on the vine’ in favor of their new mobile tech. According to the article ‘Steve’ (as Mac fans like to call him) said the following at the World Wide Developers Conference;

“We are focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on iPhone OS this year. Maybe next year we will focus primarily on the Mac. Just the normal cycle of things. No hidden meaning here.”

Despite what any Fanboy or recent market growth report will tell you, Apple has taken one long and irritating butt-whuppin’ against it’s rival Microsoft. Even with their popular (and equally annoying) ‘I’m a Mac’ ads bringing in converts from the PC community, MS significantly dominates the Personal Computer Market. However, Apple now sees themselves making advances into the Mobile Device Market with the huge successes of their iPods, iPhones and now iPads the probability of Apple focusing exclusively in that arena shouldn’t be taken lightly. With Apple already having not made any significant improvements in their Pro Hardware / Software products though there be naysayers, just like with any ‘break-up’ it’s the little things that lead towards ‘lowering the boom’.

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H. Wolfgang Porter is a former US Naval Combat Cameraman who now produces independent films, published works and teaches video/photographic production.

Sony Creative Software announced Vegas Pro 9.0d, the most recent update to it’s nonlinear HD video and audio editing application. The updated Vegas Pro 9.0d software now features closed captioning support for broadcast editors, in addition to multi-layer PSD file support and timeline burning to DVD for enhanced editing flexibility and efficiency for creative professionals. This is a free update for current Vegas Pro 9 software users, some of the feature of highlights of this update include:

• Closed Captioning Support: new closed captioning support in Vegas Pro 9.0d provides broadcast editors with a workflow that enables the importing, editing, and exporting of CEA-608 captioned data in high definition Sony XDCAM MXF material.
• Multi-layer Adobe Photoshop Document (PSD) Support: Multi-layer PSD support in Vegas 9.0d provides a highly flexible model for professionals to quickly create complex animation and professional results from a single PSD image. This new feature enables more creative compositing when working with PSD files by providing individual control over the separate file layers.
• Enhanced Device Explorer Support: Improvements to the device explorer in Vegas Pro 9.0d significantly increase support for additional cameras and devices, including hard disk and memory recording devices. The extra support provides customers with a more powerful and adaptable system for unparalleled video editing.
• Burn Timeline to DVD: Timeline burning to DVD, like the current Vegas Pro “Burn to Blu-ray” process, allows editors a more seamless final output method for their video editing projects.
• PreSonus FaderPort Control Surface Driver Support: The PreSonus FaderPort control surface offers additional flexibility for controlling and automating Vegas Pro 9.0d via hardware other than mouse and keyboard. The touch-sensitive device is perfect for controlling volume and pan parameters, as well as play, stop, start transport functionality and managing markers for fast and easy audio and video editing.

Price and Availability

The Vegas Pro 9.0d software update is available now for download online at www.sonycreativesoftware.com and is free for existing registered Vegas Pro 9 users, or $234.95 for owners of Vegas Pro 8 or prior. Vegas Pro 9 software is available in English, German, Spanish, Japanese, and French. Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for Vegas Pro 9 is U.S. $699.95.