Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Media 100 Mac Intel Codecs Available

Frank Capria | 03/25- 09:46 AM

After customer complaints, Media 100 relented and and is offering its latest codecs for Intel-based Macs as a free download. With these free codecs, editors and graphics professionals can playback and render modern and legacy Media 100 media files in any QuickTime-based application. The codecs include Universal Binary versions of the Media 100 i and Media 100 HD codecs as well as the PowerPC Instant Media 844/X codec. Download here.

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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Artbeats Raises the Bar on Royalty-free Stock Footage, Unveiling Dozens of New HD Titles at NAB 2008

Scott Gentry | 03/05- 08:12 AM

Showcases Exclusive Ultra Slow Motion, City Aerials, Energy, Environmental and Executive Jet Titles

Myrtle Creek, Ore. –— March 5, 2008 –— Artbeats, the industry’s leading creative footage resource, today announced it will debut a wide range of exclusive royalty-free collections and solo clips during the 2008 National Association of Broadcasters Convention (NAB). New titles scheduled for release at NAB include: Ultra Water 2 and Ultra Nature, which feature 1000fps (frames per second) slow-motion footage shot with the Phantom HD, the first use of that camera for stock footage. Additionally, Artbeats will unveil its newest series of HD aerial titles: Miami Aerials; Atlanta Aerials; Dallas Aerials and Texas City Aerials. The company also plans to release Energy and Environmental; Energy includes aerial clips of wind, water, solar, petroleum and nuclear energy; Environmental features footage of air pollution, recycling, replanted timber and more. Other titles planned for release during NAB include Executive Jet, which offers landings and takeoffs of business jets plus exclusive air-to-air footage of a Gulfstream IV, and City Edges, which has unique and dramatic close-up shots of city skyscrapers and architecture.

Artbeats will showcase these and many other royalty-free titles on the company’s massive HD plasma display wall at NAB 2008, booth SL5413. To learn more about Artbeats’ NAB 2008 product releases, as well as special discounts and offers available exclusively for NAB attendees, please visit http://www.artbeats.com/nab2008. 

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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

dvGarage Announces Conduit Suite

Scott Gentry | 03/05- 08:00 AM

Powerful Suite for High-end, Real-time Nodal Compositing; Includes Free Three-month Membership to Pixel Corps

SAN FRANCISCO — March 5, 2008 — dvGarage, a provider of tools and training for the next generation of media artists, today announced Conduit Suite, the latest update to its line of Conduit nodal compositing tools. Introduced through Conduit Suite is Conduit Live, dvGarage’s powerful new standalone nodal capture tool that offers real-time video compositing and analysis of any form of digital footage live. Conduit Studio also offers new users the latest version of Conduit for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, along with Conduit versions for Apple Motion and Apple Final Cut Pro. In addition, the Conduit Suite includes a free three-month Pixel Corps membership (a USD $200 value), an hour of video training and a quick-start guide. Conduit Suite is available for download at http://www.dvgarage.com.

“Conduit Studio will have a tremendous impact on the overall workflow of today’s compositors, directors and artists by offering flexibility, advanced architecture and powerful tools in one solution,” says Alex Lindsay, dvGarage founder and chief architect. “Conduit also utilizes the processing speed and power of the computer’s GPU; as a result users are seeing better performance and color precision than an application can offers on its own, and rendering is done in real time.”

Developed in partnership with Lacquer’s Ben Syverson and Pauli Ojali, Conduit utilizes Apple’s FxPlug technology to combine high-end nodal compositing with high-performance Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) acceleration, providing users with a powerful variety of visual effects compositing tools that render in real time. By relying on the GPU, Conduit provides blazing fast render speeds to augment the power of an “open-ended” compositing environment. As a result, users can do complex effects, even to HD frames, without incurring much or any delay.

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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Mammoth HD - Rolls Out the RED (4K)

Scott Gentry | 03/05- 07:55 AM

Mammoth HD rolls out the RED with a new library featuring 4K, 3K and 2K originated footage

Mammoth HD’s new MHD/RED Library opens with footage shot on the RED Digital Cinema - RED ONE Digital Camera. The RED ONE captures images in 4K, 3K and 2K resolutions with frame rates from 1-75 frames per second depending on the resolution selected. This completely digital acquisition pipeline produces beautiful, clean images that can be used in every production from Feature and Indie films, advertising/commercials and marketing to HD broadcast and HD digital signage/display. The down-converted images to all the HD and SD formats are fantastic as they are over-sampled from the original files.

The ultra-large capture frame also offers the ability to scale, crop, pan/scan within the original frame for the optimal fit to anything from a film project down to a SD single online presentation. To see just some of the possibilities of the RED 4K format, check out Mammoth HD’s size comparison demo: http://www.mammothhd.com/MHD_compformat2.html
MHD’s launch of the MHD/RED Library features the work of a very talented band of early adopters of RED - Steve Gibby, Ken Corben, Steve Tammi, Jay A. Kelley, 42 Productions, Eli Jarra, Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock and Thor Wixom.

The MHD/RED Library’s initial offerings include Lifestyle, Family/Kids, Scenics, Wildlife, Nature, Underwater/Ocean Life, Locations, Recreation, Scenics, Transportation, TimeLapse, Sports and Weather. New clips are being added almost daily as we gear up with our shooters submissions. As more RED cameras are delivered over the next few months the MHD/RED talent base will be expanding with new locations, subject and styles.

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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

dvGarage Announces New Version of dvMatte Pro 3.0 Studio for Apple Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 and Motion 2

Scott Gentry | 03/05- 07:35 AM

Powerful Chromakeying Software with High-performance GPU Acceleration Removes Blue or Green Screen Background in Real Time

SAN FRANCISCO — March 5, 2008 — dvGarage, a provider of tools and training for the next generation of media artists, today announced that dvMatte Pro 3.0 Studio, the newest version of the company’s powerful chromakeying software, is now available for Apple Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 and Apple Motion 2 or higher. Utilizing Apple’s FxPlug technology to combine chromakeying with high-performance Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) acceleration, dvMatte Pro 3.0 Studio allows Apple Final Cut Pro and Motion users to remove green and blue screen backgrounds from digital video (DV), high definition video (HDV) or high definition (HD) footage in real time.

“dvMatte Pro is the fastest and easiest way to key digital footage in Final Cut Pro,” comments Alex Lindsay, founder and chief architect of dvGarage. “Unlike most other keyers, dvMatte uses both the color and luma information to create much cleaner edges. With a 3 Pass, super-fast keyer, dvMatte uses a color difference keyer, a hybrid luminance keyer, and an edge protection keyer, allowing the software to produce some of the smoothest mattes you will ever see on digital footage — all in real-time.”

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Thursday, February 21, 2008

NewTek Announces LightWave 3D v9.5

Scott Gentry | 02/21- 12:29 PM

NewTek, Inc., manufacturer of industry-leading video and 3D animation products, today announced LightWave v9.5, a major update to its award-winning 3D application, LightWave 3D. LightWave v9.5 new capabilities include a complete hair and fur solution, new lighting system and many improvements to animation, global illumination, rendering and workflow. The update will be available to registered owners of the LightWave v9 series at no charge. The LightWave v9.5 Open Beta program is scheduled to begin early March; LightWave v9 owners who wish to participate may register now by visiting: register.newtek.com/

“As promised with the LightWave v9 series we’ve added major capabilities with each of the updates we’ve delivered so far and LightWave v9.5 is certainly no exception,” said Jay Roth, president, NewTek 3D Division. “With the addition of a complete hair and fur solution, all new real-world lighting system and GI that is significantly faster with even more beautiful results, LightWave v9.5 has something to offer the 3D community regardless of the specialty - from game developers to character animation to architectural visualization.”

LightWave v9.5 Update Includes:
Character Animation Enhancements
- New Hair and Fur System
- Enhanced IK and Animation Systems
 New Collada, FBX and OBJ I/O
 New IK Calculation Options for Faster Performance
 New Bone Type - Joints
 New Objective Options for IK
 IK/FK blending
 Multi-threaded Mesh Deformation Evaluation
Modeler
 UV Unwrap/UV Relax
 Symmetry Tolerance
Node Editor Enhancements
 Interpolated Soft Rlections/Refractions
 Support for New Light API Functions
 Oren-Nayar Shading Option for Many Materials

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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Autodesk Reduces Pricing for Maya Unlimited and Announces Maya 2008 Extension 2

Scott Gentry | 02/19- 03:45 PM

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced reduced pricing for Autodesk Maya Unlimited 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software—the tool of choice for designers and artists working in film, television and games. Autodesk also announced Maya 2008 Extension 2 software, which provides enhanced creative control over polygon modeling and UV texturing, as well as significant improvements to the Maya Muscle toolset. Maya was recently inducted into the Game Developer Front Line Award Hall of Fame for its outstanding contribution to the game development industry.

“The reduced price of Autodesk Maya Unlimited makes its extensive toolset more accessible to new users and existing facilities that want to expand their Maya-based pipelines,” said Marc Petit, senior vice president, Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “More artists can now take advantage of the software’s professional tools and advanced workflows to meet demands for captivating content created on shorter deadlines and tighter budgets.”

Maya Unlimited contains everything offered in Maya Complete software, plus innovations such as Maya Fluid Effects, Maya nCloth, Maya Hair, Maya Fur, and Maya Live. Pricing for Autodesk Maya Complete remains unchanged.

The Autodesk suggested retail price of a new license of Maya Unlimited, Standalone has been reduced from US$6,995* to US$4,995*. The Autodesk suggested retail price of a new license of Maya Unlimited, Network has been reduced from US$8,345* to US$6,245*. Maya Complete 2008 customers can now cross-grade to Maya Unlimited 2008 at the reduced Autodesk suggested retail price of US $2,995*. All price changes are effective as of Feb. 18, 2008.

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Sunday, February 17, 2008

Toolfarm Sales and New Releases

Chris Meyer | 02/17- 10:00 AM

A great deal on Mocha AE, plus other new releases

ToolfarmIs a handy one-stop shop for anyone looking to buy plug-ins for After Effects, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Shake, Motion, Cinema 4D, Avid, or Autodesk products. They also sell the host applications themselves, upgrades, stock footage, and training. It is worth getting on their mailing list, as they regularly have special offers, plus inform you about product updates.

Below is an example of some of their current deals and promotions (if not visible, click on the “more” link):

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