Breaking The First Rule Of Non-Linear Editing, Part One

When last we spoke, I had announced my intention to break The First Rule Of Editing - to actually upgrade my editor in the middle of several ongoing productions.  My reasons were threefold:

* Against all odds, I had the money;

* My 4-year-old dual-Pentium Dell XPS600, which had been rock-steady, had suddenly become pretty flaky, with USB ports disappearing and reappearing at unpredictable times - and when your keyboard, mouse and ShuttlePro are all USB devices, that can be a bad thing;

* And as a Adobe Creative Suite CS4 user, the demo of the upcoming Abobe Mercury engine in combination with new-technology CUDA video cards and a hot Windows machine is quite impressive.  Check it out.

For the last ten years, I have made something of a specialty out of taking inexpensive, low-to-midrange computers and making DV editors out of them. Back in the days of the Canopus DVRaptor, I could take the puniest machine, add RAM and a hard drive for media, and build a pretty functional editor (by the standards of the early 2000’s) for less than $700.  I built more than 50 editors like this over several years, but times have changed.  The budget this time was going to be a whole different beast.

The Editblog is a top 50 blog for Moviemakers according to MovieMaker

I was happy to see that MovieMaker magazine has named the Editblog as one of the 50 Best Blog for MovieMakers! This was exciting for me as I’ve been reading the magazine for years and think they have very good taste . To welcome any new readers that might come via MovieMaker we’re going to dig back through our nearly 5 years of articles, tutorials, tips, rants, videos, links and such and repost some long lost pieces.

UPDATE: MovieMaker now has a special 50 Best Blogs link for a one year subscription for only $6. That’s $1 per issue and a third of the regular subscription rate of $18.

Avid Media Composer 101 courseware translated/localized for Latin America/Spain

After many months of teamwork, the Avid Media Composer 101 courseware is now available in a translated and localized version for Latin America & Spain. As a result, many Avid MC101 students in those areas can now benefit from having this courseware in their own language. My friend Rubén Abruña of iLevel and I had the honor of receiving this contract from Avid in 2009. The first draft of our translation/localization was initially used in September 2009 at an Avid training event in Santiago, Chile, South America, both to teach a group of new students, as well as to generate feedback from certified Avid instructors from the region. In this article, you’ll see the behind the scenes of this project, which combined our knowledge of the techie video terms in each language, as well as that of the regionalisms and political debates that surround this type of a project.

My 2010 Wishlist for Final Cut Pro

Peter Wiggins posted a Top Ten Wish List for FCP in 2010 over on his blog recently. Then in a tweet he asked: What is yours? Years ago I posted what could have been called my FCP wish list in two Editblog posts: Bottom 10 Final Cut Pro ...tips? and Bottom 10 FCP Tips ... revisited. They read just like a Final Cut Pro wishlist. So with those in mind here’s my Wish List for Final Cut Pro in 2010. Some are revisited right from the Botton 10 FCP Tips, some echo Peter’s. Everyone who has used FCP for any length of time are bound to have their own.

Free (and heavily discounted) Footage

Previously, if you registered at the Artbeats.com web site, you would receive a monthly newsletter that included a link to download a free stock footage clip each month - not a bad deal. But today, I visited their site and was surprised to find that they’re now giving away a free clip every day! Register for their site and remind yourself to visit each day to get your clip. I don’t know about all the other clips, but today’s clip was available in your choice of HD, SD NTSC, or SD PAL. They also include on the same page daily specials to buy select HD clips for $25 each (normally $299 each).‬

In the past, I’ve lamented how stock footage has gotten more expensive through the years; I’m thrilled to see deals like this appear to help bring down the costs. (In that spirit, if you’re not already a member of iStockphoto, you can click here to get a 20% discount off 50 credits.)

Review: FCP Versioner

The guys over at Digital Rebellion have recently had a steady stream of good utilities that support Final Cut Pro and the entire Final Cut Studio. One that first comes to mind is a utility that I hope I never have to use, FCS Remover. That little app filled a need in the market for when you have to reinstall any of the FCS applications by yanking certain applications or the entire Studio install off your hard drive. They recently release FCP Versioner, a $59 “backup and versioning utility” for Final Cut Pro that takes the behind the scenes action of saving backups a step beyond FCP’s built-in autosave.

Is TAMPER the editing system of the future?

I found this video via a Twitter message from Tyler Ginter the other day (and that message came to Tyler via Jason Wingrove [It’s the many levels of a Twitter re-tweet]). It’s a demo of a very Minority Report-like computer interface that is being demonstrated for use in video post-production. 

Using Dropbox for quick and easy client screeners

Dropbox is an unbelievably handy online file syncing, file sharing and backup service that performs a lot of amazing tasks at a free or affordable price. I have been a .Mac/Mobile Me user for several years now so I hadn’t used Dropbox until recently but now that I am using it I’m very impressed by the service. Check out the Useful Service for Editors: Dropbox article I recently posted on Studio Daily for more specific information on Dropbox. This article is about how to use Dropbox to make fast and easy QuickTimes for client screeners.

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