The Genesis Project

With Visual Communicator 3, you use the integrated teleprompter to help design your message and story.  The applications for this tool are distance learning, news, internal communications, education and much more.  Take a look at the product page and play the video by Karl Miller that shows how easy Visual Communicator 3 really is.

Visual Communicator 3 product page

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A quick hit here for you.  If you've been considering Production Premium CS3, we've sweetened the pot for a limited time, by working together with Artbeats to include some of their top royalty free video stock footage.  Check out the Adobe.com store and of course the Artbeats website.

USA Store at Adobe.com

Adobe/Artbeats offer

Artbeats

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dean, perhaps more than any other designer out there, is the guy I wish I was - talent oozes out of his pores. I look at his latest work and understand how he does it (after all, he taught me some of his tricks when I was learning After Effects), but I just don't have his creative skills. 

BUT, I can learn some of this realworld creative design by going through his free tutorials.  If you like what you see and you've got the time, $199 for all of his CDs is money well spent in my opinion.  So, in my semi-regular tip of the hat, check out Dean's stuff at his website:

www.TheAnvel.com

And under the topic of 'as the Apple turns,' here's a link on the iPhone from the NY times on Steve Jobs, blocking hackers and the like. The most salient line for me in the story is writer's comment about the lack of Flash (and Java) as programmable environments in the iPhone. Apple likely has to fight the hackers long enough for his AT&T contract to expire and then he'll trumpet the 'open iPhone'. You heard it here first....or maybe not. ;-)

NY Times on Apple iPhone

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As an Adobe guy who runs around the country with laptops, drives, etc. and needs to be prepared to demo Mac or PC at a moment's notice, having access to hard drives regardless of their format or OS preference is paramount.

So, with the idea of passing on some of what I encounter and use, I'd like to mention that I use Media Four's MacDrive 7 nearly every day.  It allows me to access my Mac volumes when I'm running in PC mode.  Specifcally, I use it when I've used Apple's bootcamp to turn my Mac into a PC. 

It works just as it's supposed to which is why I like it so much.  It just works...obvious but important nonetheless.  Now if only we could get Apple to have OS X recognize NTFS drives and I would be all set...sigh...

MacDrive by Mediafour

While we're on the subject of bootcamp, I tip my hat to fellow Adobe person Colin Smith for pointing out that ATI has published Mac drivers for bootcamp users.  Finally, I can control my screen settings and a projector at the same time!!!!

ATI Catalyst Drivers

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

The man, the myth, the legend, the man whose name is easier to mispell than my own!  Yes, that's right Brian Maffitt will be at the next After Effects New York meeting.  Brian use to run a NY area group many years ago before Total Training took over the bulk of his time. 

Regardless of your experience with After Effects, you'll want to see Brian present - he's a whiz and I've never seen him and not be excited about some tip or trick that I've picked up from him.  AENY meetings happen at Pratt Institute on 14th street.

AENY Meetings page

BTW - looking at the list of prizes to give away....lots of 'em...

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This has been done a thousand times and probably better than I have done.  Nevertheless, I've included a PDF for you to download in order to get some of the basics for making good portrait pictures great by using a couple of simple techniques.  When you've gone through this, do a search for 'photo touchup tutorials' and see what you get.

Using these basic 101-style techniques you can be the talk of your family with your photographic skills (I know because I'm that family member).  A simple understanding of Layer Masks will open up new doors of creative touch up.  Enjoy.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you're involved with Flash design or programming..or Adobe Media Player..or Adobe integrated Runtime (AIR)..or...you get the idea...you'll want to be there.  So take the time to look at the events, seminars, parties, etc that will be happening at MAX this year.

Adobe MAX

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of weeks ago, NBC and Apple chose to part ways on delivering NBC content over iTunes. My blog post on it, NBC-The first of many sparked a few lively comments and the story continued to develop as the week went on...

Yesterday, NBC announced free TV shows downloads in a service called NBC Direct.  The downloads have commercials (of course) and you can view them for only a week after the show has been aired on TV.

All in all, I really like this approach and think it provides customers with another option depending on what they want to deal with: cash or commercials.  It puts forth the adage, "Content is King" in a new way for the customer.

The story link below from the NY Times brings up the Apple and NBC "feud" but at this point, I think it's overblown and they're trying to make it more than it is.  Kind of reminds me of how some people make more out of Adobe vs. Apple on creative software (video suites) as well.

NY Times article on NBC

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 06:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Get 'em while they're hot!"  Sign up is a straightforward process and hope to see you at several of them.  Of course, we will record them and post them online for future on demand access.

Fall Video E-Seminars - Sign up here

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This example tries to utilize some of the new features of After Effects CS3 in order to help teach.  The accompanying PDF tutorial is more general, but should give you all you need to reproduce it. Of course, I've included the After Effects project file as well.  Hope you enjoy it and feel free to comment.

Lower Third tutorial

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 07:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The product is entirely Flash driven and the technology and approach is similar to our Premiere Elements product.  The product internally is called Premiere Express and there are other companies such as Facebook and MTV that are also using it.

YouTube Remixer (by Adobe)

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you have Production Premium CS3, there's a new Encore update that has been posted yesterday.  This will make Encore 3.0.1 which includes a bunch of fixes.  Run the updater or check this out

Encore Update page (Mac)

Encore Update page (Windows)

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DMN has posted a tutorial on using Photoshop's lighting feature on video.  The end result was surprising to me and so I am passing it on to you.

DMN Photoshop tutorial

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 09:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bridge Home gives you an online resource on learning more about Adobe products - it's like a free training center and it's updated all of the time.  Click on the product you want to learn about and it will point you to a culled selection of resources - very cool. 

Now, if you'd like to get an Adobe screensaver and after all, who wouldn't(!), you can download one for Mac or PC.  It's kind of hypnotic and that's half of the fun with screensavers.  Hope you enjoy it.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

onOne software makes some nifty plugins for Photoshop for the casual user to the pro. Without running down the whole product line, let me say that they have a terrific scaler to make low-res images acceptable for print, a novel approach to creating a great cutout without sacrificing detail and a collection of great looking frames that get integrated within Photoshop.

All or nearly all of these programs have trial versions and they integrate nicely with Photoshop by having an onOne menu item.

onOne software

Below is a sample photo from iStockPhoto.com with a Photoframe applied to it.  I also used Genuine Fractals to scale up the original image so I could get the look I wanted.  Good stuff.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We knew we needed to get an MXF story going and as I've said before, sometimes adding the feature later than your competition gives you the best solution because you've heard from the customers about what they want.  Such is the case with our P2 and MXF support.

Premiere Pro and P2/MXF click on the Native P2 support link

I'm looking forward to playing around with this fully, but so far the response from testers has been tremendous.  There's no transcoding or rewrapping.  More details will be coming, but this is great news for all DVCProHD customers.

Audition 3.0 takes all of the innovations from Soundbooth and wraps them up as well as expands upon traditional strengths of Audition such as the Spectral Editing capabilities. I haven't played with this yet, but certainly look forward to all the increased capabilities.  Having a fade editor in Audition (finally!) will be worth it for me alone.

Adobe Audition 3.0 product page

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Yup, that's right, Kodak. They've developed and demonstrated a new sensor that does a number of things but most dramatically it increases the picture quality and allows users to capture more information in low light.

Here's the link: Kodak Press release

You really should read the press release for yourself, but my poor man's understanding is that the new sensor has a new pixel on top of the RGB layer that collects all wavelengths of light providing a better image in low light and less blur for subjects in motion.  It almost sounds like a luminance pixel, but that's probably wrong.

Imagine HDV cameras with a sensor like this.  If anything has stopped HDV as a replacement for DV, it has been its inability to capture a good image in low light.  If the Kodak sensor is that good and can be incorporated into a Sony CMOS sensor, it might turn the format around.  Now, with AVCHD coming on, I wonder if it might be too late for HDV.

Kodak will ship this new sensor in 2008 and it seems to indicate that it could license the technology to other companies.  Anything that gives us more resolution, better light conditions, sharper image and hopefully lower cost is a good thing in my book.  Bravo Kodak.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 06:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

NBC's motive for doing this is Apple's control of the iTunes environment and consequently pricing.  I know some people think most things including TV should be free, but a company's got make money to put those programs on air! There are lots of other issue to consider as well such as DRM (those for and against) and screen size - the iPod being somewhat small for me.

Don't get me wrong, I like and use iTunes a lot and thoroughly enjoy my iPod, but consumers and media companies alike are looking for something a bit different.  Adobe has come up with a solution known as the Adobe Media Player, but it remains to be seen whether it will be as well adopted as iTunes.  AMP addresses a lot of the issues that media companies face and puts them in control of what kind of media they deliver and how much (if anything) this media costs.

Coming back to NBC, they are Apple's largest provider of content and the story below details that many other contracts from the likes of ABC, CBS, Fox, etc. are coming up for renewal over the next year. 

So, here's a bit of Friday news for you to digest and ponder as we head into the holiday weekend.  Cheers!

originally posted 8/31, updated 9/2

Adobe Media Player

NBC / Apple article from SF Chronicle

Apple Press release

A video and link that's likely to get pulled!

Update - 9/4

Well, I did receive three terrific, passionate responses that for the most part condemned NBC for the odacity to ask for $5.00 per episode. As I mentioned in my responses, it is Apple who floated that number, not NBC. Today, NBC and Amazon announce a new deal to distribute NBC content at $1.99 per episode.  Here's one of a myriad stories on this latest development

NBC and Amazon announcement from thestreet.com

Update 9/10 Okay, okay, I'm like beating this dead horse now, but the story keeps going on, though not with the same force as a week ago.  NY Times article is quite interesting and deserving of your time...

NY Times article

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)