Author: Philip

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Distribution Item of Interest Monetizing

Former NBC Entertainment Chief Discovers Watching TV With Commercials Really Sucks!

Former NBC Entertainment Chief Discovers Watching TV With Commercials Really Sucks! http://t.co/UeXidppc So out of touch it’s unbelievable.

I’ve long hated commercials and want a reasonably priced alternative. By reasonably priced I mean that the price I pay is about the same as the revenue from advertising (25-65c per person per program) not the usurious prices through available outlets.

After watching earlier seasons of The Walking Dead on Netflix, iTunes and recorded on his DVR he caught up and watched an episode live and had this reaction:

“We watched that live,” he said. “It was not nearly as good. The commercials broke the tension. We had watched the other episodes with blankets over our heads. I hate to say this to the AMC executives and everybody else in the business, but I will never watch ‘Walking Dead’ live again.”

So, when you’re running the entertainment business for an ad supported broadcast network, ads are just fine! But when you’re a viewer, they’re not?

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Apple Apple Pro Apps

Some Final Cut Pro X Data Points

As expected my Monday morning on-the-record briefing with Apple’s Pro Apps team was very similar to Larry Jordan’s the day before. Larry covered the bulk of the content well on his blog post about it, so I don’t feel the need to go over the same data again.

I note Larry’s request for the retention of In and Out points, and that’s certainly desirable. I “banged the drum” (strongly) for selective copy/paste of attributes and was also told the same “the announced features aren’t the only ones we’ll release” response. FWIW, I think FCP X will use a selective copy approach, since you can already select (highlight) just one group of attributes. My interest in the Solar Odyssey project also had me putting in a pitch for sharing an Event to multiple editors working on their own Projects. All we can do is suggest priorities.

But what really stuck out were two data points mentioned in the briefing that Larry didn’t comment on.

There are now more Final Cut Pro X installs than Final Cut Pro 7 installs.

Continue reading “Some Final Cut Pro X Data Points”

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Item of Interest

NAB 2012: Where I’ll be.

If we’re in the same place at the same time, come say hello.

Continue reading “NAB 2012: Where I’ll be.”

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Copyright Item of Interest

Why Do Copyright Industry Profits Get to be the Yardstick for Civil Liberties?

Why Do Copyright Industry Profits Get To Be The Yardstick For Civil Liberties? http://t.co/dBadshbe That’s a damned good question!

Cutting to the core (after an excellent intro and postal analogy):

If the copyright industry can’t sell their products in the face of sustained civil liberties, they get to go out of business or sell something else instead. Mustard, perhaps.

Continue reading “Why Do Copyright Industry Profits Get to be the Yardstick for Civil Liberties?”

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Assisted Editing Metadata The Technology of Production

Why is temporal XMP metadata so exciting?

There are, in fact, two things that excite me greatly about Adobe’s CS6 Production Premium: temporal XML metadata, and time associated metadata (which Adobe calls “disassociated metadata”). Together they are an exciting combination that has sent my head spinning with possibilities.

Continue reading “Why is temporal XMP metadata so exciting?”

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Apple Pro Apps Assisted Editing Metadata The Technology of Production

How do you put more quality on the screen than is in the budget?

Perusing the Final Cut Pro X In Action stories I had two observations: as others have noticed no mention of Mac Pros, and that Leverage has a $1.8 million budget. Only the second has anything to do with metadata!

Continue reading “How do you put more quality on the screen than is in the budget?”

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Item of Interest

Final Cut Pro X in action

Final Cut Pro X in action. A new series of three large post houses or shows that have moved to Final Cut Pro X.

The one that I like is the story of Electric Entertainment use of Sync-N-Link X on Season 5 of Leverage! We accelerated development so that the important step of batch processing dual system dailies was available for Electric Entertainment and the Leverage Season 5 workflow.

Continue reading “Final Cut Pro X in action”

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Apple Pro Apps Assisted Editing

7toX for Final Cut Pro 1.0.5 hits the Mac App Store

7toX version 1.0.5 hit the Mac App Store last night. This version is free from the Mac App Store and is mostly tidying up loose ends as we find them.

What’s New in this Version

  • Support for XML exported from Belle Nuit Subtitler
  • Support for XML exported from Movie★Slate
  • Bug fix for XML exported from Premiere Pro
  • Bug fix for Crop
  • Bug fix for Position, Scale, Crop and Distort for square pixel video in non-square pixel timelines, and non-square pixel video in square pixel timelines
  • Bug fix for detecting Photoshop clips in a Project

Categories
Apple Pro Apps Assisted Editing Item of Interest

Final Cut Pro X 10.0.4 hits the Mac App Store

Final Cut Pro X 10.0.4 hits the app store. Now Xto7 can support flattened multicam in the current release due to the new XML capabilities in this release – specifically, the presence of multicam data in the Project XML.

The current release of Xto7 (version 1.1.7) already supports this feature when sent 10.0.4 Project XML. Unfortunately, due to the way the two apps support Multicam, Xto7 can only do a “flattened” version. We translate the active angle as an independent clip, losing the Multicam information.

The reason is that FCP X multicam is much more powerful and forgiving than FCP 7’s version so it proved impossible to have any sort of reliable translation as Multiclips back. For example: FCP X supports MP4 media in multiclips; mixed formats in multiclips; mixed frame rates in multiclips; more than one clip in a multiclip angle, etc.  Any one of those items would prevent translation to FCP 7 Multiclips.

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Assisted Editing Video Technology

Sync-N-Link X

We’re very pleased to announce Sync-N-Link X, a completely rethought version of our popular and powerful batch synchronizing application for dual system (separate audio and video) workflows.

When we considered what was needed for this workflow we realized we weren’t facing a simple rewrite, but like Final Cut Pro X itself, a complete rethink. Even better we’ve been able to make it much more affordable, reducing the price from $495 down to $199.99.  Here’s the press release:

Continue reading “Sync-N-Link X”