Just a quick post here to mention that there are two new customer stories based around video and film making.
For Unified Pictures, they employed nearly all of the Adobe tools in a variety of projects based around both Macs and PCs. Get all of the details by clicking here and getting the PDF: Unified Pictures
For ReelTV, they utilize After Effects, Soundbooth, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, etc. Get all the details by going here: ReelTV
Adjustment Layers as a term sounds very perplexing and perhaps just downright weird. It sounds like I should be talking about Chiropractors instead of After Effects. Nevertheless, adjustment layers are one of the most powerful tools for an AE artist and if you're willing to read through the attached tutorial, I give a couple of minor examples on how to harness the power of this under utilized feature.
Along the way, I will also show you a simple example on using Track Mattes - a wonderful tool displaying your video in unique shapes - in this case text. Yes, video text is within your grasp and it's easy with track mattes!
Finally, I happen to show you how to use Motion Sketch as a means to input real-time position data into layers within your composition.
So, download the project file and come along for a triple whammy tutorial!
Some big news came today from the founder of Red Camera. From Jim Jannard:
"Within a week, RED R3D files will open natively on in CS3 Premiere Pro and After Effects."
Here's the link
Let the shouting, cheering and conversation begin!
Continue reading ""Holy Hot Looks Batman, they're Magic Bullets!"" »
"New Adobe Media Player - old news already"
Sure I know that many people have already posted on the new Adobe Media Player, but hey, "better late than never!"
The truth is that many people have not already heard about the new version or have not launched their current version in the last few days. If that's you, then launch it and you'll be prompted to download the latest version which is 1.1. The new version tweeks the interface in several ways including the main layout, and lightening the interface color. The catalog of shows is growing ever larger and the new version makes them a bit easier to find. I have to say there is a TON of stuff now - enough that there is definitely something there for everyone and best of all it is FREE!!!
When it's all said and done, go to Adobe.com and get the Media Player if you haven't already. Once you've got it going, I want you to subscribe to my Adobe TV show...Yes, right away. ;-)
I was graciously invited to The Colbert Report after showing them some of the Speech-to-Text capabilities of Soundbooth CS4 which is available on Adobe Labs
This technology is opening eyes up all over broadcast as collecting information, called metadata is becoming increasingly important in both content creation and delivery. As I've mentioned before, if I have converted the dialog to text, it is now searchable, so I can find the clips I need faster. From a delivery point of view, it is easy to take that metadata and apply it as tags in a web page. Cool and cooler...
The experience of going to the studio was great and so was the show. As a guy who is most often looking at content after a show has been done, it's neat to see it happen before your eyes and believe me there is a ton of work that goes into making this happen!
What was a special treat for me was the fact that the guest was non-other than my favorite band as a kid, RUSH. This was their first televised show in over 30 years and it was neat to see them close up.
AVC HD has been a topic that has dominated a previous post where the comments are really the topic as opposed to the topic itself. This post has driven a large portion of my overall traffic, which has been humbling as I'd like to see more of it go to my tutorials and content (hint, hint, sniffle.)... Of course, I dig getting people on the site at all, so what they hey - hit me wherever! ;-)
Gosh, haven't left the first paragraph and I'm already digressing...Lets see, ah yes AVC HD.
Continue reading "Update: Premiere Pro & AVC HD revisited - a list of solutions" »
Adobe is extending an open invitation to join us and many other exciting vendors as we recap what went on at NAB. It's happening on May 29th, near B&H at the New Yorker hotel. Read on to get all of the event details and to register.
Continue reading "Adobe Live event on May 29th in New York City" »
Today, while wolfing down cold pizza for 5 minutes during work, I do what I usually do - skim a trade magazine. Today it was Event DV. It's been around for a while and honestly I like the format a lot. For the back page editorial they have a long time writer in the tech/video space and that is Jan Ozer. This month he wrote about HD acquisition and it was so relevant that I wanted to pass it on to you.
Here's the article: The Moving Picture: Ingesting HD Acquisition
Why do I like it? Well, besides rehearsing the history of acquisition starting with the VHS tape, he spends just the right amount describing what each step was and why it was good and bad. He goes through DV, HDV, Long GOP MPEG, and on through AVC HD, AVC-Intra and DVCPro HD. Secondly, I like it because he ends the article with MXF and how it will be important for people to choose the right editor to edit MXF, especially if metadata is important to them. You know where I stand on Adobe's MXF editing - I think its the best hands down and only going to get better. But, rather than me droning on about Adobe and metadata, take a look at the article and give it a read - I'm glad I did.
Happy Friday from your Adobe pal - Dennis
PS - To my AVC HD crowd - there's something in there for you too, though nothing I haven't really outlined already in my now famous post
Continue reading "ABC Episode #2 online soon and 5/29 event in NYC" »
Continue reading "NAB Day 1: Adobe Premiere now supports XDCAM EX" »
If you're an Avid user and are looking to add the Adobe tools to your toolbox, or are looking to switch, then Adobe's done it's best to make it easy for you. Visit the following link below and check out the details!
Come and get it!
Or, more to the point, are you going?
NAB will be an extravaganza again this year to be sure, despite some noticable absences. If you've never been to NAB it is the ultimate gear fest for broadcasters and media publishers. It is the Home Depot for tantalizing gear that will do 4D, real-time moves in XL, super HD rez on 40 streams simultaneously to your TV, internet and phone. It is the ultimate Best Buy boy toy store in the world. It's Christmas time for gear junkies.
Newspapers have been facing declining circulations for several years now and they've been faced with a fight for their lives as new media threatens to take all of their ad dollars away.
Fortunately, I'm seeing more and more newspapers embracing new media and delivering video content on their websites as a way to stay 'up-to-the-minute' on news and content in general.
Continue reading "eSeminar - Newspapers are interested in video!" »
Continue reading "Adobe TV = ABC = Adobe Beginner Classes!" »
Continue reading "Internet usage cap from service providers?? Scary!" »
Call me the atypical Adobe employee...While I am a techno geek and absolutely love to play with technology, I either choose or (personal finances permitting) can't get all of the lovely toys exactly when I want to.
In my case, I chose not to run out and get a Blu-ray player right away - even though Encore is still the only cross-platform affordable Blu-ray authoring tool available.
Continue reading "Independent Film, Blu-ray, Photoshop for free and other weekend ramblings" »
Continue reading "Churches are broadcasting too...plus knitting TV" »
This isn't necessarily new to anyone, but MOTU has finally released their Windows drivers for their V3HD product. The box offers a bevvy of I/O and a DVC Pro HD chip that handles all of the internal processing. Click on the picture to take you to the website.
Continue reading "a new hardware partner for HD and Premiere Pro" »
Hi all - I've been doing a ton of client meetings as well as internal Adobe meetings, so my posting has flagged a bit lately. However, I wanted to give a couple of pointers for you as you continue looking at the blogosphere and Adobe and Genesis Project blogs in particular.
I clicked on the tutorials button on the right side of the Genesis Project blog to review my humble tutorials and articles that point you to significant lessons on the web. I was somewhat surprised to count almost 50 tutorials created by me within a year. That's a simultaneous 'woo hoo' and 'are you kidding me' kind of moment. A way to go thought followed by a 'you're crazy.' So....click on Tutorials to get a feel for all of the content that is there - you might find something interesting.
I've got a few March events in New York city towards the end of March - one at Adorama and another at MPEG. Of course, we'll have the AENY meeting there as well.
The Genesis Project has received some more comments and along with that some ideas for future articles or tutorials. I will be trying to get some of these done before NAB. In the meantime, please keep the comments coming.
Gotta go!
Last night's AENY meeting set another new record. We believe we had over 200 people at one. The feedback is tremendous, if you take out the fact that everyone is so cramped! If you're a part of AENY, thanks for making our one year anniversary so kickin'! Don't let the crowding stop you from coming to the next meeting. Vist AENY to get all the details on our next meeting. While you're there, please sign up for the mailing list - we won't spam you. However, it will give us an overview of the total size of our group as it stands right now.
Also, we're still working on finding a new, larger space. If you find something or know someone, please get in touch with Aharon or Jim (group leaders)
Adobe put our AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) out there for the world this Monday. It combines HTML, PDF, and Flash in one environment. It allows a whole community of Flash developers to not only design cool web pages but now, cool applications.
On Adobe's home page, you now download the AIR runtime. Coincidently, it's next to the buttons for downloading Flash Player and the Acrobat reader. To me this is an indication of how impactful AIR could be.
If you're about to click away from this post - WAIT! Click the link below and you'll begin to understand what AIR can do for you as a consumer. My example is that I use ebay personally. To say that the ebay interface is less than perfect would be an understatement. Well, ebay created their own AIR app that you can download and oh - what a difference!
There are other apps that are in our spotlight section as well that might be worth a look depending on what you're interested in.
If you're looking for a little additional reading on the story behind AIR, check out the NY Times article published on Monday: Adobe Blurs Line Between PC and Web
I can't say that I'm a Flash programmer, but the potential of this environment makes me want to pick up a book and start learning!
Part of the reason for me to name my blog "The Genesis Project" is to emphasize the idea of beginner type tutorials and information to content creators. I firmly believe that there is an audience out there that is wanting someone to help them get the basics and then from there they move on to training and tutorials that are beyond the scope of mine.
However, another part of the name for "The Genesis Project" has to do with who I am and that leads me to the point of this entry. If you are involved in ministry, whether it is a volunteer or as an employee and are considering attending NRB: the National Religous Broadcasters show, I hope that you will stop by and say hello. Adobe will be there and in addition to having a booth, we'll have several sessions on Adobe products, designed to help people create content efficiently and with high quality.
We have some exciting sessions and you can get some of the details here
I look forward to meeting many of you there.
Continue reading "A new year and a new look for The Genesis Project!" »
Continue reading "Some thoughts on Audition from an audio guy" »
A quick hit here - Adobe has published a total of four updates for Device Central so far and if you haven't updated yet, you might check the following link which will give you access to new device libraries for the latest phones and devices.
You'll have to log on with your Adobe ID, but if you're developing content for mobile phones and need to see how it will look on multiple devices, this is a great place to start.
In case you didn't hear, Adobe has decided to discontinue the Stock Photos aspect of Bridge CS3. With iStockphoto, I'm not surprised. So if you'd like to uninstall it, you might check out the following links:
I don't think this is something you have to run out and do immediately, but if you're like me who likes to keep his computer as tidy as is reasonably possible, then you'll run it sometime when it's convenient.
A quick hit blog entry here:
That Microsoft is trying to purchase Yahoo will greatly extend their reach into hosted services and provide an expanded revenue source with ad revenue. In addition, they've made a push this year with Silverlight and their Expressions products. They're taking on Apple, Adobe, and Google all at the same time. It's fascinating stuff to be sure and hey...how many companies can pony up $44B? Here's one take on it from MSNBC
Also, Avid announced earnings today and they continue to take a beating. While they seemed to do okay for the quarter, their year ended up on a down note and so as of now, their stock is down about 30% in one day...OUCH.
Here's the Avid Press Release
As I mentioned in my last post, I often notice ads, videos, etc as I am traveling around the country and recently I noticed the new American Idol campaign with contestants superimposed on iconic buildings or bridges around the US. There's not much difficulty to doing it, but you need to know your selection tools and probably some masking.
In casting about for a proper example, I was pleasantly given a timely example when yesterday on the radio I heard that Johan Santana was coming to the Mets. One of my many flaws (really) is that I am truly addicted to baseball and when I heard that Johan was coming to the Mets, I whooped it up in my rental car. The icing on the cake was that I was doing it in Atlanta, where the division rival Braves reside.
Anyway, here's a look for you and I'll try to deconstruct it for you in a future post.
Michael Coleman, who is Product Manager for After Effects has posted some important information about the new release which includes P2/MXF support.
Also, Dave Helmly got the scoop on me and listed the other fixes in the release as well.
This important release DOES NOT coincide with the release of Quicktime 7.4. Unfortunately, this QT release has some problems with AE and rather than hold up our release any further, we went ahead. We're hopeful that the Quicktime team will address some issues found in a subsequent update, but in the meantime, I would steer clear of the latest release of QT.
We've got a great line up of speakers and technology for our January meeting. It will be one to remember and I hope that you'll join us if you're around NY on January 24th at the Pratt Institute on 14th street. You can get all of the details at the AENY website
Most of the guys are going, "Wow, cool!" The ladies on the other hand are probably going, "Ewww!" I tend to lean towards the latter, because I have to clean it up in the end.
Why am I doing this? Adobe has some great stuff coming out later this year and I've been asked to contribute. Hopefully, you'll find this stuff not only exciting but also very useful!
Gary and the gang over at Videoguys.com do a yearly review of the top 10 most influential products over the past year. I'm happy to say Production Premium CS3 took the top spot over some very worthy competitors. Check it out at Videoguys top 10 for 2007
The big news on this release is the implementation of MXF in After Effects. This is huge for people that are using P2 footage and doing some compositing. Jim from AENY has been playing with a beta and has been pretty happy with it thus far. Since I don't have a P2 camera (hint hint Panasonic! ;-), I haven't taken the time to download it. So... be patient a little longer and soon After Effects CS3 will have native support for Panasonic's P2/MXF format!
I will be joining Matrox next Thursday (1/17) for two events showing off their hardware in conjunction with Production Premium CS3. If you're on the bubble for either Adobe or Matrox products, this is a great opportunity to get in front of the manufacturers and ask us some questions as well as see what the buzz is all about!
There will also be stops in Illinois, Texas, Utah, Washington, Kansas and Ontario! You can register for one of these events here: Matrox Hardware Advantage Tour
The following Thursday (1/24) will the first meeting of AENY in 2008. After Effects New York is getting ready for a big 2008 and you can help us kick off the new year right. Its a great environment for beginners and professionals alike and we always have some fun. Check out the website to learn about when and where: AENY.org website
During the course of the year, I've posted on many different subjects and topics as well as created several 'how-to's' and I thought it would be a good time to give everyone a single link to find (or discover) some of the 'best of'' during the past year. This post will focus on the best tutorial content. If I find there is reason for doing some other topics such as 'livliest discussion', etc., I will post again under a similar heading.
So, read on to grab some of the tutorial content that got a lot of downloads and comments...
Continue reading "Year in review - Genesis Project best tutorials (Part 1)" »
Continue reading "Premiere Pro 3.1.1 is now Leopard compatible!" »
Recently, over the last couple of weeks, I have had a number of questions come at me about Production Premium's compatibility with Vista and whether users should be using it.
For the record, Production Premium CS3 is and has been Vista compatible since we shipped: Production Premium CS3 System Requirements
These questions along with work that I need to do this week led me to spend some time bringing my Vista machine up to snuff and prompted me to start making it act the way I want it to. So, I wanted to pass on a website and quick tips that I've picked up...
Continue reading "Making Vista play nice - make it bend to your will" »
Just a quick note here that Matrox is hitting various cities and showing off the latest with their RT.X2 hardware in conjunction with Adobe Production Premium. Click on the link to see if they're coming to your neck of the woods.
I'm off to Chicago today to participate in tomorrow's event.
Matrox Hardware Advantage Tour
Continue reading "Adobe's Spectral editing still wows and amazes" »
the pleasure part is really for my kids (and yours if you've got 'em). We recently put up some new pages focusing on Flash and on video and broadcast. I saw them a few days before they went live and they're really terrific. The broadcast pages really show some interesting data and if you're into trends, you'll definitely find some surprising (or not) information.
Continue reading "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" »
This news is a bit old, but in the spirit of providing it, I'll use the cliche, "Better late than never." ;-)
The latest update from Apple in conjunction with our After Effects CS3 update now gives OpenGl preview capabilities to Mac customers. PC users, you can read on as well in case you've never turned it on (because you've had it for a while), but Mac users rejoice because you've got another way to potentially speed up After Effects.
Just a quick entry here to note that Premiere Pro 3.1 is available as an update to all current users. The 3.1 update introduces Panasonic P2/MXF support in addition to some fixes.
Macintosh: Premiere Pro 3.1 update for Macintosh
Windows: Premiere Pro 3.1 update for Windows
If you're in and around the NY city area, I'll be presenting Adobe Production Premium at the following dates:
11/12 - at TekServe. They are on 23rd street and a hard core Mac place. Guess what platform I'll be demoing on? ;-) Adobe will be there with BlackMagic Design, so a great lineup for the night
11/27 - at B&H. Partnering again with BlackMagic.
12/6 - at B&H. This one will be with Matrox and their RT.X2 and Axio platforms.
All of the above will have at least two seminar times. I'll try to post back here again and give you more information.
So with the weekend after Leopard ships, it's halloween and I'm sure we'll hear the isolated scary Leopard story with some application from somebody going horribly wrong.
I don't expect it to be Adobe that has these stories...I haven't been the first, nor will I be the last to post on Apple's Leopard. And just to be clear: I haven't gotten it yet or installed it.
Adobe has posted a Leopard Compatibility link right on the home page so navigate to the Adobe site and get it. Or, if the idea of immediacy appeals to you then you can download it here.
Adobe Leopard SupportThe quick version is that Adobe has been testing Leopard for some time and feel confident about our overall compatibility with Apple's new OS. However, we have identified a few issues that we plan to patch in a release slated for December.
If you're into Photoshop (and really, who isn't?) and you want to learn more then let me mention two events (one a repeat) that focus on Photoshop and in the New York area.
Continue reading "Premiere Pro: more partners = greater flexibility and choice" »