November 10, 2010

Learn to switch from Final Cut to Premiere Pro

Hey, remember which company makes multiple* 64-bit, GPU-accelerated video tools for the Mac?  (Hint: it’s not Apple.)

If you’re a Final Cut Pro user, check out live sessions next week in which veteran FCP users talk about how and why they’ve moved to Premiere Pro–and how you can, too.

* “Any” would also work

Microsoft enables Illustrator->HTML5 Canvas

How cool: Microsoft’s Mike Swanson has enabled Illustrator (CS3-CS5, Mac & Win) to export vector graphics as HTML5 Canvas elements. As former Illustrator PM Mordy Golding puts it,

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could generate great-looking and useful HTML5 content (with interactivity, motion, interaction, etc) DIRECTLY from Illustrator? Now you can — with a new FREE plugin for Illustrator.

Here’s a great 90-second demo (no embedding option I can discover, unfortunately). Now Illustrator can create SVG, CSS, and Canvas content, thanks to this plug-in plus the recently released Illustrator CS5 HTML5 pack. Way to go, Mike & Microsoft.

[Semi-pointless historical footnote: the plug-in brings back memories of Macromedia's ancient Flash Writer plug-in for Illustrator (the system requirements for which still list Windows NT!). Here, I'll make that same part of your brain twinge again: "DeBabelizer!"]