It's not just a glimmer on the horizon anymore, the Adobe Media Player prerelease is now available on Labs. A fine way to navigate your favorite video assets and streaming channels with style in a well-done AIR application. As expected, it's hardware-accelerated and down with the H.264-izzle. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to use AMP myself and bog down a bit 'o broadband at the homestead.
Recently in Video/Film Category
Microsoft Studios' Drew Keller cuts a fantastic breakdown of his perspectives at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show this year, covering all the big news items from the show. This is a great, balanced look at the highlights from his point of view, and I found the insight into the Adobe presence, products and announcements quite refreshing (particularly as I wasn't able to attend NAB this year myself).
Check out the video at Drew's Vox weblog (Adobe highlights are in the last third of the clip, if you're specifically interested- but I strongly recommend watching the whole run as his commentary is fantastic). Great video!
Right in line with the NAB show's industry-wide press storm, Adobe Labs today features two smokin' hot new prerelease programs for video freaks- both After Effects CS3 and Premiere Pro CS3 prerelease builds are live on Labs and ready to first assault your network/download bandwidth, and then take on your spare processing cycles with aplomb. Also in today's news, the Soundbooth beta 3 build has been released on Labs. It's a audio/video storm up there today!
Although After Effects has remained a video-tweaking stalwart on both Mac and Windows platforms for it's entire lifespan, Premiere Pro dropped Macintosh support two releases ago in favor of Windows-only releases. And quite a bit happened with Premiere in that Windows-only span that Mac users missed out on entirely - the application really took on a more serious, bad-ass side that was (in my opinion) lacking in it's previous Mac/Windows incarnations. Fortunately now you Mac-bretheren can check out what the PC folk have been freaking on for all that time- as the Premiere Pro CS3 prerelease isn't just for PCs anymore, but is also Intel Mac-savvy.
A note on availability
Both prerelease programs are for the English version of the applications. I'd also check out the system requirements for Premiere Pro and After Effects to make sure your hardware is up to snuff- video is a pretty taxing media type to work with on any machine.
Also- although Premiere Pro CS3 prerelease will be available to everyone, the After Effects CS3 prerelease program is open to former After Effects and suite owners only - check out the FAQ for more details on whether you qualify.
The products aren't complete yet and not all functionality is in place, so as with all the Labs programs, make sure to send the teams your feedback and thoughts on the new bits on both the After Effects forums and the Premiere Pro forums.
So what's holding you back? Go warm up those broadband connections and get crackin'!
Well, it's been speculated for some time, but Adobe just announced it's partnership with Photobucket, to integrate Flex-based video editing capabilities into the popular photo and video hosting site. As noted in the release, this should be the first of many such partnerships over the coming months, and I'm really looking forward to digging into the Adobe RIA-powered editing experience, myself.
TechCrunch wrote up their assessment a couple weeks ago and JD has pointers to more current discussions/screenshots, but you can read the official press release as of this morning, fresh off the wires. Enjoy!
Digital Web Magazine has just published Tom Green's third installation of his 'Rise of Flash Video' series- the first two being so popular they darn near brought down the servers. Part 3 is all about tackling your first FLV project, a step-by-step primer walking through preflight considerations for your video project, encoding (a subject we both tackled in considerable depth here together), using the FLVPlayback component, and finally- publishing your SWF.
If you've still been dragging your feet on getting started with Flash Video, you may want to recap with part 1 and part 2 of Tom's series, then dive into his most recent opus to get all hands-on with the process. Video is rapidly becoming one of the most prevalent mediums to publish content on the web, don't get left behind when it's so dead-simple these days!
So are you itching to test your FLV authoring chops against the best in the business with some real-world incentives backing it up? If so, get surfing on over to the Friends of Ed website, and get started on your entry to their recently-announced FLV'ED contest.
The top dog will walk away with some great prizes- specifically a spankin' new MacBook, 3 FoE books, a copy each of TechSmith's products Camtasia and SnagIt, and gskinner.com's most excellent Flash asset management extension, gProject. Runners up get 3 Friends of Ed books, and they apparently will be offering a few 'spot prizes' for significant entries, so flex that originality muscle and wow the judges early. No telling what those prizes will entail.
The rules and guidelines seem pretty straightforward, and you've got until New Years' Eve (December 31st for the calendar-unaware) to submit your entry. What are you waiting for? Pick up that camera, fire up Flash and get crackin'. There's prizes to be won!
If your video kung-fu is slacking of late, there's a great series of digital video eSeminars coming up that you'll want to get onboard with. Did I mention they're free? Or complimentary, for the more politically-correct. Here's the lineup (I'll be presenting the 11/8 AE/Flash session, FYI):
- 10/17 (10am PST) - After Effects 101 for the Premiere Pro User
- 10/17 (12pm PST) - High Definition for Independent Filmmakers
- 11/8 (12pm PST) - After Effects for the Flash Developer (Intermediate)
- 11/15 (12pm PST) - Discover Adobe Premiere Pro's New Features (Intermediate)
You can sign up for any/all of these sessions here.
What are you waiting for?
Mash on that link and get registered, already. ;-)
Sometimes it's nice to take a step back and look at how far we've come with web-based video over recent years, and Tom Green has just posted part 1 of an excellent article titled "The Rise of Flash Video" over on Digital Web Magazine that does exactly that. Give it a read- good stuff!
If you've been stumped by the Flash 8 Video Encoder's settings, or wondered why your FLV videos stutter, jump or otherwise choke on a broadband connection, you'll want to read this article I recently co-wrote with Community MX's Tom Green - "FLV Data Rate and Bandwidth... Demystified" - which is now up on both the Adobe Design Center, and Community MX.
Both Tom and I have been speaking on Flash, After Effects and FLV fairly regularly this year, and when comparing notes at TODCon '06 in Orlando earlier this year, were astounded at some of the wild-and-crazy settings people were using to encode their FLVs, and the varying misconceptions as to what the settings actually encompassed. But more concerning was the amount of people who just got frustrated with basic Flash Video because it 'didn't just work' the way they'd expected it to. Well then- this article should answer most of the questions we've heard in our respective travels so far, and we both sincerely hope it helps clear things up and get you posting more video on a regular basis.
And of course, if you happen to catch either Tom or I at conferences/speaking gigs and have more questions, don't be shy- come on up and say hi!
Well, actually it's a more permanent reprint of a similar article that ran in the Edge newsletter recently, but you may not have seen it there - 3 quick tips for rookie video producers. Pretty straightforward stuff for video pros (color-matching multi-camera shots, removing buzz/hiss from audio, and nesting workflows in After Effects for more efficiency), but invaluable when you need to pull usable footage out of a quickly-shot reel.
I'm just noticing it's been a LONG time since I've blogged, too- apologies for the cone of silence recently. I've been working pretty hard on a 'secret project' the last month or two, and speaking regularly throughout (most recently at the Adobe Ideas conference in Tokyo, Japan last Friday). Man, time can fly when you're having fun... ;-)
