Brightness Issues with H.264 QuickTime Movies

Chris Meyer | 12/01- 10:21 PM

Solutions - good and bad - to a long-standing problem.

If you haven’t encountered this problem yet, you will: QuickTime movies re-exported from applications such has QuickTime Player Pro using the H.264 codec (a common format for web content) appear brighter than the original in some contexts - such as inside QuickTime Player on the Mac, or on a web page viewed by Safari - but not in other contexts such as QuickTime Player on Windows, or the stripped-down QT Player inside After Effects.

Many attribute this to a bug introduced by use of a hidden, optional “gamma” tag (which is different than a full-blown color profile tag) inside QuickTime movies that is supposed to aid in cross-platform compatibility. Unfortunately, this tag is not exposed for… more »

Square vs. Non-Square Pixels – Producing Video Podcasts

Richard Harrington | 11/29- 05:43 PM

Reshaping Video for the Web

Author and video podcaster Richard Harrington explains the difference between square and non-square pixels and how to make sure your web videos are properly sized.

Awesome Adobe Motion Graphics Research Project

Matt Jeppsen | 12/01- 05:45 AM

Please put this in After Effects immediately

An Adobe engineer posted a demonstration of a sweet little research project recently. It’s a simple, consumer-oriented method of accomplishing complex motion graphics tasks. Here’s hoping we’ll see it soon in their products! Video below…

Animating a Sky Part 1 - Photoshop for Video

Richard Harrington | 11/19- 09:48 PM

Combining PS and AE to make videos from photos

Instructor Richard Harrington shows you how to add an animated sky to your still photos using Photoshop and After Effects. Part 1 of 2.

Animating a Sky Part 2 - Photoshop for Video

Richard Harrington | 11/30- 06:15 AM

Creating Moving Footage with Phtoshop and After Effects

Instructor Richard Harrington shows you how to add an animated sky to your still photos using Photoshop and After Effects. Part 2 of 2.

Final Cut Help - Animating Text with Keyframes

Richard Harrington | 12/01- 05:14 PM

Learn to animate Text in Motion

Join Apple Certified Trainer Mason Dixon as he shows you how to animate text with keyframes in Motion.

How to Edit Canon 5D Footage in FCP

Matt Jeppsen | 11/28- 05:46 PM

Using freeware tools to prep Mark II HD footage for FCP

Canon’s new 5D Mark II DSLR with 1080p video mojo has been showing up in the hands of new users for the past few days, and the footage is hitting Vimeo faster than you can say “What’s a Scarlet?” One of the most pressing questions by Mac users is how to edit the compressed HD footage, which is captured as Quicktime H.264 files at 38.6 Mbits/sec. Reports suggest that FCP can edit the footage natively,… more »

CMOS sensors are tastier without Jello

Matt Jeppsen | 11/30- 01:00 AM

The Canon 5D MKII doesn’t appear to suffer from excess rolling shutter skew

We’ve already seen some excellent video footage from the new Canon 5D MarkII DSLR camera. However, I’ve not really seen the sort of test footage that reveals CMOS wobble (the jello effect) or rolling shutter skew. While this isn’t a perfect test, I was encouraged to see a lot of motion in the following video shot on the streets of Beijing. It appears, anecdotally at least, that the 5D samples from it’s sensor much faster than the ultra-wobbly Nikon D90, and the camera sure looks like it would handle most situations with aplomb. Video embedded below.

Apple Releases Pro Apps Updates

Richard Harrington | 12/01- 05:17 PM

Be sure to pick up the latest update

Apple has just released a set of Pro Applications Updates which improve reliability add add new features. The applications included in the update: Final Cut Pro 6.0.5 Compressor 3.0.5 Color 1.0.3 Shake 4.1.1. Here are some of the highlights of the updates (the full list is here).