The Genesis Project

Cinema DNG is becoming big news as Adobe continues to develop and publish updates about it. If you're not in the know about it, it's no big deal yet.  DNG is an open standard created and overseen by Adobe.  It stands for Digital Negative and is a great way for photographers to keep their raw data and work with a variety of software products.  DNG also happens to provide lossless compression so as cameras get bigger and you need to move your 10,000 photos - DNG might be a good way to go.

Cinema DNG takes the same basic idea and applies it across time.  Cinema DNG is continuing to evolve and we're happy to see a color grading manufacturer stand up and integrate their products with a Cinema DNG workflow.  Click the link below to get an overview of IRIDAS products.  The final third of the interview covers IRIDAS and Cinema DNG.

IRIDAS interview

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every year or so, I imagine countless thousands have discovered the Adobe blogs and have recently gotten into creative fields using some number of Adobe tools.  However, in this day and age, there is so much information from so many resources on so many different topics that one gets SO overwhelmed! 

To that end, I like to point out a few of my favorite resources once in a while.  The one that I'm mentioning today is National Association of Photoshop Professionals.  They are the publishers of Photoshop User magazine as well as Layers.

These guys are just INSANE about Photoshop and it's related products and quite honestly, they taught me a LOT about Photoshop when I just joined Adobe.  Now that I've been with Adobe for over four years, I still learn a LOT about Photoshop from them.  They're that good.

What I like most about it, is that it is not JUST the magazine.  In fact, the subscription fee is more about the web site and the services you get there than anything else.  The magazine just becomes a bonus.  They're is tech support, user forums and a lot of tutorial videos.  Is it worth the $100 or so?  Well, I wouldn't be mentioning it if it wasn't... ;-)  Check out the link below to get started.

Photoshop User (NAPP)

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Basically, we are offering a special "version skipper" kind of upgrade.  If you have something equivalent to CS2, then you can upgrade to CS4 at no penalty.  This offer ends on April 30th, so I wanted to make sure people were aware.

Here's the link: Adobe Systems offer

If you're not sure whether this applies to you, click on the link and you'll see all of the details and whether you qualify.

As a related note, NAB was exhausting and very rewarding.  Thanks to all who stopped by.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Adobe side we announced Premiere Pro 4.1 (current is 4.0.1). Most importantly, this new version adds some further development into our RED support.  The Media Browser panel now understands .R3D file structures, so instead of seeing a whole bunch of folders, you can just see your clips, load them into the source view and start editing.  In addition, we also added resolution setting, so depending on the performance of your Mac or PC, you can raise or lower the playback quality to ensure real-time playback.  For example, on a laptop you would likely take 2K images down to 1/8 resolution for editing and then when you're done render out the finished products at full res.

The other two things that the 4.1 release really provides is better support for our hardware partners like AJA, BMD and Matrox as well as new interoperability with Avid.  More details will be coming soon and the release is coming soon.  You'll definitely want to pull this one down when it's available.

NVIDIA announced a new Quadro FX 4800 card for Mac users.  This is great news for Mac users as it brings the Quadro CX engine on the PC over to Mac and will hopefully give Macs the same kind of GPU performance that PC users have had.  Bravo to NVIDIA for not waiting for the official Mac blessing to get this done.

Matrox announced the CompressHD for Mac and PC users.  It provides a new H.264 encoding engine that is supposed to be quite fast.  It also sounds like the price is going to be very affordable at less than $500. If you've got blu-ray encoding wait times that are killing you, then this is worth a serious look.

Matrox is also busy with the new MXO Mini available for both Mac and PC.  It provides I/O with both analog and HDMI connections.  It looks to be very promising and will support not only Premiere Pro but Photoshop and presumably After Effects.  I think it's coming out for the PC first and then Mac, but either way, it looks quite interesting.

Blackmagic Design is always busy with new products this time of year and 2009 is no exception.  IN fact, you're just better off hitting their web site and going thru all of the new products yourself!  In a nutshell, they've got new converters with fiber optics, new routers, an SDK and several other things.

Last but certainly not least is AJA. They also have a lot of new products nearly every year, but the big one for Adobe users is the new Kona and Xena cards.  They're now called LHi and now add HDMI, 10bit Up, down and cross convert along with 3G SDI.  Oh, and they're less expensive than the last version too... ;-)  These guys make a quality product and they're in use throughout the broadcast industry.  I love 'em.

Of course, there is a TON more and if time permits this week, I'll certainly try to give you some more info.

Lastly, if you're at the show, today's my day on booth duty, so please stop by this morning to say hello.  I already met Eric from 100 Acre films and several others, where are you?

PS - I don't think I was benefiting from waking up at 4:30AM this morning, do you? ;-)

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The good folks at Toolfarm.com sent me a copy of a new product of theirs and I have to say it's terrific. It is a tutorial on the inner workings of Keylight, which is included with After Effects. I don't often have the opportunity to do REAL production work and when I have, it's never been with green screen stuff. So, I'm somewhat of a novice when it comes to pulling a great key.  Angie Mistretta does a nice job of outlining a METHOD to use Keylight as opposed to how to use the software.  It was clear and easy to understand and not too long - just right.

Get a look and find out whether the price ($39.00) is right for you after you watch part of it.

Toolfarm Keylight Tutorial

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can barely keep up with the Adobe TV team - they're throwing the content out there as quickly as I can make it! ;-)

Read more to view the tutorial here or visit Adobe TV and click on Video Professional to see this episode.

As always, I'll recommend the Adobe Media Player as the best overall experience - it allows you to save the content locally to your hard drive so you can view it at your leisure and refer back to it anytime! Get the Adobe Media Player

During this episode I use a Illustrator and After Effects in a very simple way to create the idea of lights moving around. If you've ever wanted to create your own light show - this may be your big chance!  As always, once you've viewed it, give me your comments - good or bad.  I'm also always open to suggestions!

Enjoy, Dennis

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've got another part of this extravaganza coming up on Adobe TV and I'll post about it when it goes live.  Today, I was giving a new plugin a try when I thought about something with 3D text: what if I applied a Puppet Tool to the basic text layer?

The result is below for you to view.  I didn't polish it up or even finish the thought - it's just an experiment to see how it would look.  If you want to grab this simple project to dissect, here it is

In closing, let me say that acknowledging that you have a problem is the first step to curing it.  Repeat after me, "Hi, my name is Dennis and I'm a 3D addict."

"Hi Dennis." ;-)

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This has been mentioned on a couple of other blogs already, but it's worth pointing out again.

Dan Ebberts is one of AE's great scripters and expression writers.  He's also a terrific friend of Adobe. He recently did a very nice, clear tutorial on XMP Metadata and how to use it with Flash.  In the tutorial, he also touches on Premiere, OnLocation and After Effects.

XMP metadata tutorial  and while you're there, be sure to visit Dan's site as well: Motionscript.com

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As one of my co-workers is want to say, "I've seen the future of video and it's searchable."

One of the most intriguing features of Adobe's CS4 Production Premium release has been the idea of speech-to-text: the idea of converting spoken word in an audio or video file into text. It's one of the things that many of our broadcast clients are interested in - making their online video searchable and connecting interested viewers with their video clips. 

For example, I'm a baseball fan - show me a web site full of baseball video clips and I'm likely to spend a bunch of time on your web site.  Now, allow me to make the videos searchable so I can look up my favorite players and I'm even more likely to spend time at your site.  Spending time at the web site means revenue - and we're all very aware of that in today's economy.

If you're new to speech-to-text, you can get the basics here - Adobe Speech-to-text

Coming back to video online, you already know that the vast majority of video in the world (~80%) is streamed via Flash.  With things like YouTube and Hulu, it's not a huge surprise.  Plus, by adding H.264 to Flash 9 and above, it's made a compelling format even better.  Despite these facts, one thing has hampered some companies from leveraging Flash video: Searchability...  Google, Yahoo and other search engines couldn't index the video and harvest the content inside the video. Flash video was not searchable.  Web designers had to manually associate keywords with a video in the web page to connect users who want to see the content.  If you've uploaded a video to YouTube, you've probably entered some key words.  On average, there are only about 2 key words entered per video.  What if we entered this blog entry into the YouTube fields instead?  Would it improve the results of viewers?  I think the answer is an undisputed YES!

(Am I long winded at times or what?) SOOO.....

There's been an update on the Production Premium web page which gives an example of searchable video. I'm particularly fond of the Olson brothers video which details their experience with Adobe products and the RED camera.  You can type in a word and see where there are instances of that word.  Click the second link here to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

Adobe CS4 Production Premium page

Olson Brothers searchable video

I think there's still a lot of work to be done - particularly around how to make this process easier.  However, the fact that it can be done now is a big step forward and we'll certainly look to see this technology develop further.  The tools are already creating the content: Premiere Pro and Soundbooth create the metadata that contains the spoken words. Now, we just need to make it easier for users to create this data. 

Creating a video that can be found by people who want to see it means more money for big companies and small alike.  Do you agree - post a comment and tell me what you think.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

NAB is busy, hectic and exciting even in a down economy.  There may be less people attending, but those that are there will be real decision makers. 

As for me, I'm mostly tied up in meetings but I'll be filling in here and there at the booth.  If you have any interest in visiting me, I would love for you to stop by and introduce yourself.  I have the privilege of meeting a lot of people during the year, but it's always fun to meet new faces.  So, if you're a reader of this blog and are going to Vegas this year, I hope that you'll try to stop by the Adobe booth on Tuesday morning between 9AM and 1:30PM - that's when I'll be on one of the Adobe pods.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's the video for your viewing pleasure...  Always love the comments - good or bad.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm a little late to mention this, but being late might serve as a fresh reminder to many here...

The Adobe forums have gotten a refresh and there's some new information that you can check out.  The basic link is here: Adobe Forums

Some of the ones that video people might find interesting are below

Premiere Pro

After Effects

Encore

Soundbooth

and of course... Photoshop

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this month's Videomaker magazine, author Brian Peterson breaks down how you can use a particle system to create a flock of birds flying through a scene.  This is a good example of some of different things you can do with After Effects.  As I often say with After Effects, "If you can think it, you can do it!"  That mantra has held true for the most part with my own explorations of After Effects. 

You can check out the Videomaker tutorial here.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)