I had installed Final Cut Express onto my iMac in order to give my son a computer to edit his blog videos. It was a pain in the ass every-time he needed a new graphic as I did them all on Motion-4 in the edit suite next door, then came the breakthrough, Motion 5, downloadable from the APP store.

I was not to sure if Motion 5 was compatible with FCP- Xpress but if you don’t try so I paid a further £29 to Apple and installed Motion 5 on the 27″ iMac, fortunately it’s one of the newer breed iMac’s with an HD graphics board as Motion 5 needs Open CL to work properly.

As you can see I used Motion 5 to tart up Scotts newest blog video about his charity football match but the one thing that had scuppered me was the ability to extend the duration of the timeline, this was easy in version 4 but some clown in Apple has decided to bury this very important feature in a menu.

First thing you do is click on the project at the very top of your layers window as shown, then click on the Property tab under the Inspector tab and you will now see the “Duration” and can make the timeline any length you want.

Once again the plonkers at Apple have taken it upon themselves to keep all the Motion windows locked after allowing us the freedom in version 4 to position the windows between two screens, if you so desire.

Quite frankly I do not see much difference between version 4 and 5 but then again I am not yet using FCP-10 which has a few effects shared with Motion 5 but the fact you can now download it for £29 and use it with FC-Xpress is worth every penny in my opinion.

Here is the video we produced for my sons football blog using the Sony NX70 at 1080 50p (Mistake), this had to be ingested into FCP-7 using my AJA box and down-converting to 720 50p.

Click on this link…  http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/buy/vegaspro?keycode=64412

Matrox Video Products Group announced Matrox Vetura Capture for Mac OS X, a stand-alone capture software application compatible with the Matrox MXO2 family of I/O devices. Matrox Vetura Capture lets users quickly and easily capture QuickTime files using popular codecs installed on their editing systems. With Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 the Matrox MPEG-2 I-frame codec and Apple Uncompressed formats are supported. With Final Cut Pro 7, ProRes, DVCPRO HD and other popular Final Cut Pro codecs are supported. With Avid Media Composer 5, the Avid DnX, DnXHD, and other popular Avid Media Composer codecs are supported.

“Matrox Vetura Capture enables new on-set workflows when used with a Matrox MXO2 device and a Mac Pro equipped with a Matrox CompressHD H.264 encoding accelerator card,” said Wayne Andrews, Matrox product manager. “While recording XDCAM EX, P2, or RED footage as usual, users can also feed the output of their camera through their Matrox MXO2 device and capture directly into H.264 .mov files using Matrox MAX technology that is built into the CompressHD card. Dailies are immediately available as low bit rate, manageable-sized files for delivery to the client.”

“We’re continuing to add value to the Matrox MXO2 product line,” said Alberto Cieri, Matrox senior director of sales and marketing. “With Matrox Vetura Capture we have started to implement our vision of expanding the capabilities of Matrox MAX technology beyond simple H.264 export acceleration.”

Matrox Vetura Capture will be demonstrated at IBC 2010 in Amsterdam, September 10-14, on the Matrox stand 7.B29.
Availability
Matrox products are available through a worldwide network of authorized dealers. The Matrox Vetura Capture application for Mac will be available in release 2.1 to registered users of Matrox MXO2 devices as a free download from the Matrox website in October 2010.

Larry Jordan “When I first got started in this editing business,” he said creaking back and forth in his rocking chair, “editing video took a minimum of two quarter-million dollar videotape recorders – plus a control room – a lot of patience and some blind luck.”

Today just blew the doors off what we used to consider “editing systems.” Let me start with an email I got this evening from Tony Liuzzi:

I have been using LogMeIn.com for at least six months. It works great. With that as background, here’s my story.

I was flying from New York to San Francisco recently, and said, “why not try using LogMeIn from an airplane at 35,000 feet and see how it behaves?” I had purchased an internet connection on my flight — the cost was discounted since I was a first-time user.

I checked my email and read that my client had a revision to be made on a current Final Cut Pro project. So, I said, what the heck? Let’s see.

I logged into my edit system and discovered I had great response/control from the flight. As good as I had when I am connected on land. I was amazed!

I made the changes to the project and exported the file. It went from Final Cut Pro to Squeeze, all controlled from my flight. Then, I opened up Transmit to send the newly compressed file to their FTP site for approval.

Now, here is where the story gets even funnier. I sent an email to the client telling her I was making the changes right now — but NOT that I was on a plane. She reviewed and approved the changes — all before I landed.

It was a VERY cool moment. And I thought you’d enjoy the story.

Larry replies: This whole idea of remote computer control totally changes what we consider an editing system. Is it the computer doing the editing or the computer CONTROLLING the computer doing the editing.

These lines got even more blurred this morning, when Steve Jobs showcased the new iPhone 4 running iMOVIE!

Sheesh!

What made this even funnier for me was that Tom Tomchak ran an April Fools Day press release talking about porting Final Cut Pro to the iPhone. At the time, it made for very funny reading. Who knew that he was actually able to see the future? He wasn’t being preposterous, he was being prescient!

The editing community is already starting to take sides on this new $4.99 software. But I think some of the discussion misses the point.

Tens of millions of people will have access to simple equipment to shoot 720p30 HD video. Using the latest version of iMovie for the iPhone, they can edit it in their phone. Then, imagine that when they connect their phone to the computer, that iMovie file transfers over in a format that’s readable by iMovie on the Mac.

At which point, it is only a mouse-click to send that edited file via XML to Final Cut Pro for final polish.

The mind reels — I was blown away when I realized a few years ago that I had more editing power in my laptop than I did in a multi-million dollar post-production suite 20 years ago.

Now, that power is migrating to cell phones!

The key for us is not to run away from this new technology, but to realize that there are about to be millions of new customers than can use our expertise and experience to make their movies look even better. At the end of the day, it isn’t the tools, but the people using the tools that make the difference.

As another email today emphasized: “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” (Actually, I’m beginning to think we aren’t even on the same planet.)

Strange times, indeed!

Larry

–>

If you have a Mac why are you waiting download a copy of iMedia today   

http://www.hdwarrior.co.uk/imedia/

Digital Production BuZZ spoke with Dave Helmly, North American DMO Technical Sales Manager at Adobe, about the new Adobe CS4 updates to After Effects 9.02, Premiere Pro 4.1, and Adobe Media Encoder 4.1.

Scheduled for release Friday morning, the new updates include:

Major speed improvements for Adobe Media Encoder

New RED R3D workflow & Raw setting panel

Avid Import & Export

Edit DVD VOB blocks directly, without having to convert first.

Improved AVCHD playback

Improved project loading

New Frame Export