2022 was a busy year on ProVideo Coalition. We published hundreds of pieces of content that covered the range of production, cameras, post-production and supporting gear. This includes news, reviews, podcasts, tricks, tips and opinion pieces.

Please enjoy the year that was on ProVideo Coalition with a list of some of the content from the past year broken down by category. These select pieces are listed from oldest to newest per category. Starting with what is consistently one of our most popular categories:

Reviews

Nowhere on the internet will you find a more comprehensive and depth set of reviews around gear and services in the media creation space. See all of our reviews here.

The New SIGMA 18-50mm F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary Review

Small, lightweight, and swapped focus and zoom ring placement did not keep me from thoroughly enjoying the new Sigma 18-50 F2.8 DC DN | Contemporary zoom lens. The Sigma 18-50mm has a lot going for it. Budget-minded Mirrorless APS-C format shooters might find an all-around lens gem with the $549 Sigma 18-50mm. NOW, this is where I start showing example photos and footage, but for my life, I cannot find the photos I took with the Sigma 18-50mm anywhere in my catalog. For this, I am sorry. Am I the only one whose brain has turned to mush during this…read more

 

What is a “Cinema Camera”? A Canon C70 Review and Discussion

I’m not going to lie to you: I’ve been sitting on this review pretty much all year. If I had to distill the “why” down to a simple answer, it’s that the C70 is great. It’s just a great camera. You want one? Get one. It’s worth the money, and you won’t be disappointed. Even in 5 years I don’t see this being a camera left by the way-side. I certainly want one, even as a C500mkII owner. I also know plenty of people who traded their Komodos in for a C70, if that means anything, plus the C70 is actually available *cough* and currently holds LensRentals.com’s top most rented new camera and apparently wins by a mile. Chris Ray and I were chatting about it at the recent Filmtools Cineshred event, and he was saying it’s become his workhorse. He talked about it recently with Filmtools in regards to shooting his new documentary. In any case, we both agree that the C70 is a top-tier camera worthy of any filmmakers…read more

 

A five-word review of the DJI Mini 3 Pro

Part review, part tip-sheet, this five-word review (Tiny, Image, Reliable, Extras, Price) is going to take you through the best drone shots that you need to capture in a live shoot — but it’s also a review of the DJI Mini 3 Pro, which came out just a few months ago. Is it good enough for professional needs? And aren’t there more than five types of drone shots you can capture? All will be…read more

 

Review: HP DreamColor 4K Z27xs G3 “junior” monitor for video grading & editing

Here is my review of the DreamColor Z27xs G3 “junior”(affordable) (MSRP US$674) based upon the review unit I received from HP. The term G3 means it’s the third generation of the affordable series. HP calls it: “a 4K color calibrated display ideal for photo and video work”. I clarify that this model is 4K UHD, the television version of 4K, with a 16:9 aspect ratio. In a nutshell, it’s much better than the Z24 G2 I reviewed in 2017, despite the removal of one particular feature which I appreciated (details later). Ahead I will tell you all the great things that I discovered, together with the single gotcha that is still the norm at this price point, from any manufacturer. I also clarify its proper integration for proper framerate/cadence and audio/video lip sync when monitoring, especially considering the removed…read more

 

Review: Mac Studio and the M1 Ultra for video editors – part 1

For diehard Mac users, the Mac Studio might be the ultimate machine for a lot of what we do in editing and post-production. It’s small, stylish, quiet, loaded with connectivity and very powerful. You can pull the Mac Studio out of the over-engineered box, plug it in, plug things into it and then go to work crunching through post-production tasks like never before. That is, of course, if your software properly supports the M1 Max or new M1 Ultra chips inside the Mac Studio. That’s when you’ll be crunching through tasks like never…read more

 

Initial Review: Camo Pro, the software CCU for your phone camera

If you have been involved in the engineering end of traditional TV studios and trucks, you already know what a CCU is. In case you haven’t, a CCU is a Camera Control Unit. Whether it’s connected to a camera via a multicore cable, triax or USB, a CCU provides instant remote control of various camera parameters much more conveniently than on the camera head itself. These parameters often include aperture (iris), master black level, master gain level (ISO), gain trim for RGB (red, green, blue), gain trim for RGB black level, shutter speed and more. Most CCUs are physical devices. Instead, Camo Pro is a powerful CCU app for Android and iOS with a matching Camo Studio software for macOS and Windows. Although Camo’s creator hasn’t yet called it a CCU, after using CCUs myself in TV studios since the 1980s, I can tell you: Camo Pro is indeed a CCU, albeit a unique one. Here is my…read more

 

Reviewing The New Canon XF605: A 4K Single-Lens Camcorder

Aimed at solo shooters and reality documentary-style shooting situations, the Canon XF605 is a feature-rich camera ready to be on the go with any production armed with a passport to far-flung sets. The Canon XF605 fits right in between Canon’s XF405 and XF705. Highlighted features found in the Canon XF605 included a built-in 15x optically-stabilized zoom, a 1-inch sensor with Canon’s wonderful Dual Pixel CMOS AF, and unlimited 4K video recording up to 60p. Add in a semi-truck load amount of in/out connectivity, and you have a very flexible 4K camera…read more

 

Tips and Tricks and Education

Tips and tricks are always a popular subject than range from the quick and easy to much more comprehensive.

Using NDI Tools with Premiere Pro for Zoom review meetings

It has been estimated that virtual production and remote post production has advanced 5-10 years more than expected due to the pandemic. Many of us around the world continue to work remotely and for some it has become a new way of life. Some people have left the major editing cities like LA or NY or London for a quieter life and taken their clients with them. So there’s been a lot of discussion online about presenting your edits to…read more

 

Let’s Edit with Media Composer – Lesson 13 – Bin View Modes

Bins, as we know, are the centerpiece of your workflow(s).  They are what will make for a smooth edit, or a potential rocky one as well.  In this Let’s Edit lesson, we’re talking Bin View Modes.  Now, you might be thinking “I have no idea what that even means!”.  Well, Bin View Modes are simply Text, Frame and Script views, that we have been using since the inception of Media Composer.  However, there are been some updates to them that you might not know about, and they will definitely help keep you organized, no matter which one is your…read more

 

How to measure audio latency? 

In many workflow and review articles, I have discussed the benefits of “latency-free” monitoring when it comes to audio latency, so that the human operator/host can perceive no noticeable delay when monitoring her/himself for QC (quality control) and/or to hear other participants too. Most of the audio interfaces and some of the USB mics I have reviewed have a headphone jack for monitoring. Often these are called “latency-free monitoring” or “direct monitoring” by the manufacturer. This is possible thanks to a local circuit in the device which typically provides the signal without having to depend on software based monitoring on the host computer or device, which usually has annoying latency (delay). Some of the early USB mics I reviewed had no headphone output at all. Later, there was one which had an output but it was not direct and only offered what came from the host computer or device. Recently, I had a situation where an output called “direct” but had too much latency for comfort—and there was no host computer: It was in standalone mode. For the first time, I felt the need to measure and document how much latency there was in milliseconds. Ahead I’ll share my methodology to test and measure the delay, as well as the results of other researcher’s test about how much latency is tolerable by humans…read more

 

Practical AI: Spleeter – Music decomposition aka Unbaking a cake

This article about Spleeter is the first in a series here at PVC that’s going to focus on Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning tools. There won’t be that high-level discussion of how AI works (or doesn’t). No discussion of corpus training. No mentions of Tensorflow or ML on a chip…read more

 

Creating futuristic UIs, HUDs, and languages for Netflix’s “The Mitchells vs. The Machines” with Adobe Creative Cloud

From Iron Man’s futuristic HUD to holographic maps in a galaxy far, far away, Jayse Hansen is the designer behind some of the most recognizable displays and interfaces in films today. Created with Adobe Creative Cloud apps, his iconic interfaces combine realism with futuristic flare. Hansen is best known for his work on live-action blockbusters, but in recent years, has also started to find a niche in animated…read more

 

Opinion

Opinion pieces can generate a lot of discussion, especially when the word hate is in the title.

How to answer when someone asks you to move a project from Avid to Premiere Pro (or vice versa)

One question that I saw pop up on a lot of Internet forums and Facebook groups last year (and some already this year) had to do with moving “projects” from one non-linear editing system to another. Usually it was some version of moving Adobe Premiere Pro to Avid Media Composer or vice versa but sometimes Final Cut Pro was involved in the conversation. To a lesser extent Davinci Resolve. And believe it or not, once I saw VEGAS Pro in the conversation…read more

 

Why ProRes?

I remember seeing QuickTime 1.0 when I was a teenage nerd with a new Mac LC. That first version was simple enough — tiny postage-stamp videos of the birth of a child and the launch of an Apollo rocket could be copied and pasted to create something new. In the era of VHS-to-VHS dubs, this was revelatory. Fast forward a few years to DV, the iMac DV, then HDV, and the last twenty or so years have seen an explosion of codecs, cameras, formats and ever-increasing resolutions. So where does ProRes fit into the story, and what’s its place in today’s video world? With the help of Steve Bayes, Product Manager of ProRes at its launch and for a decade afterwards, let’s…read more

 

Low-resolution sensors are best!

Let’s talk about some fundamentals, because, well, sometimes people don’t so much grab the wrong end of the stick as superglue the stick to their hands and march around proudly displaying it as if they’re being followed by a military band.

The idea that higher-resolution sensors have poorer noise, sensitivity and dynamic range performance is embedded in the brains of film and TV camera specialists like a carelessly-thrown tomahawk. Like all good logic bombs, it’s true in part, but there’s a deeper story about how real cameras actually work, and how much information about the scene we can wring out of the photons we…read more

 

Is the Apple Mac Studio really a PC killer?

If you watched the Apple launch event for the Mac Studio or saw some of the presentation slides, you’d certainly be forgiven for thinking that yes, the tiny little silver box is a PC killer, and quieter, smaller and more energy efficient to boot. I thought I’d take a bit of time to look into this claim, focusing mainly on Adobe Premiere Pro as that is what I use most in the day to day…read more

 

VideoPress vs Vimeo Pro/Vimeo Plus: a practical comparison for embedded video

Many video producers I know use either Vimeo Pro or Vimeo Plus as the source for the videos they embed on their own websites or on their clients’ websites. So far, nobody I know uses VideoPress —other than myself, for my own testing for this review, which is lower in price and offers similar —but not identical— features. Unlike YouTube, fortunately VideoPress, Vimeo Pro and Vimeo Plus offer an advertising-free place to upload videos and later embed them into your websites (or your clients’ websites). For those unfamiliar with VideoPress, it is a paid service from Automattic (with an intentional double t) which is also the creator and owner of both WordPress.com and WordPress.org. The latter is the source of the core open-source code for many self-hosted WordPress websites, which include ProVideoCoalition.com (where you’re reading this article) and most of the sites hosted at TecnoTur.us and CombinedHosting.com (which are my services). This review article compares many aspects of the two services: VideoPress versus VimeoPro/Vimeo Plus…read more

 

Common Mistakes in Online Video

While I’m not yet old, today I am grumpy, and YouTube’s starting to annoy me: there are so many common mistakes in online video. Facebook’s algorithm pushes me a stream of unwanted garbage after every video I actually choose to see; TikTok is a colossal waste of everyone’s time, and even Meta knows that Instagram is bad for your mental health. While YouTube has its dark pits and poisoned rabbit holes, it’s large enough to offer thousands of solid videos worth your time, and even pay creators for…read more

 

Filmmakers don’t want film, they want what people think film is

If you put the film the other way around, there’s even less grain!So we’re twenty years in to the digital acquistion revolution, and somehow, despite being expensive, noisy, unstable, flickery, dim and covered in black dots representing the projectionist’s recently-shed dandruff, film is still the holy grail. That probably explains the gold-plated existence of things like VideoVillage’s FilmBox, a piece of film emulation software in which the company has enough confidence to charge up to $5,000 for a licence aimed at high-end users. Published images look very good, with faithful simulation of blooming, variable grain density with respect to image luminance, gate weave, and scanned particles of…read more

 

An open letter to Tim Cook about Final Cut Pro, signed by editors and post-production pros around the world

There is no doubt that Final Cut Pro has come a long way since it’s introduction many years ago. We’ve seen an architecture change with Libraries, multicam added, a new XML format, an interface redesign, machine learning features, in-app tracking, workflow extensions and even dropping the “X” for the name. Just looking over the release notes shows a long list of features, updates and bug fixes that goes back years. But the flip side of this is the argument that the Apple team working on Final Cut Pro is moving too slowly and not keeping up with competitors. It took over a decade to get the very basic feature of dupe detection. Rumor has it there is a Roles-based audio mixer somewhere in the FCP code but it hasn’t been turned on yet (who knows if that is even true or if it will be…read more

 

Podcasts

The PVC podcast networks continues to expand and our most popular series can be found on Anchor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or in your favorite podcasting app.

Ron Dawson wrapped up his Crossing the 180 series ⬇️

Crossing the 180 Season Finale: Solving Gender Disparity in Hollywood

In the season finale of “Crossing the 180,” Ron brings out of “mothballs,” clips for his previous critically acclaimed podcast, “Radio Film School.” In these clips, Ron speaks with seasoned film and Television producer Yolanda T. Cochran as well as “The Other 50%: Herstory” podcast host and Hollywood veteran, Julie Harris Walker. You’ll also hear soundbites from other luminaries in the worlds of Hollywood and tech. Altogether, this is a funny, provocative, and inspiring look at addressing the issue of gender disparity in…read more

 

Editors on Editing w/“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” Editor Bob Ducsay

On this week’s episode of Editors on Editing, Glenn talks with Bob Ducsay about editing the highly anticipated film, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Bob has edited such spectacles as the Mummy, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Knives Out for which he was nominated for the…read more

 

Eric Koretz, DP of “Ozark” // Frame & Reference

Welcome back to the Frame & Reference podcast, this week Kenny talks with cinematographer Eric Koretz about shooting 4 episodes of the last season of “Ozark.” Eric is a graduate of AFI and in this episode goes into some of the nitty gritty of lighting on “Ozark” and…read more

A brand new roundtable podcast was launched ⬇️

The Alan Smithee Round Table Podcast

Welcome to episode one of our monthly round table podcast where hosts Scott Simmons, Katie Hinsen & Michael Kammes talk about the latest news in production, post production, entertainment tech and beyond. In our inaugural episode the gang talks about the Blue Collar Post Collective rate survey, updates to the Metaverse and how it will effect the world of production, AI technology and a fun segment called One Cool Thing where each host talks about one cool thing they learned or found over the…read more

 

News

There was too much news in 2022 to summarize it here but here are a few news stories worth mentioning.

An update on Kyno and what might be in store for the future of this fantastic piece of post-production software

For years now I have professed my love for Kyno as an integral part of a post-production workflow. It doesn’t matter which NLE you use, Kyno can make the whole post-production process easier as it’s a workflow tool that can do too many things to list here. I first used (and covered Kyno) back in a 2016 Useful Tools for Editors and liked it so much I prompted PVC to do a Q and A with the developers. An update in 2019 put Kyno into another Useful Tools for Editors article and made me type this…read more

 

Lightworks 2022: there’s a Lightworks for everyone!

Lightworks 2022 is announced as the Lightworks for all content creators, the biggest release ever of the classic NLE, with new editing tools and features. In case you missed it, check the new version! With the first official introduction last November, Lightworks 2022 is now available in three flavors: Free, Creator and Pro. The pandemic and the end of the year may have contributed for many of those wanting to check the software not doing so, but you still have time. Packed with new features, the Lightworks 2022 reflects the drastic changes we’ve seen in content production in recent years and months..read more

 

LUMIX GH6: the tech behind the new Panasonic camera

Panasonic has developed a new 25.2-megapixel Live MOS Sensor without LPF (Low-pass Filter) that boasts high resolution, high-speed signal readout that reduces rolling shutter problem and achieves wide dynamic range. The new Venus Engine delivers approximately twice the processing power (in comparison with DC-S1H), enabling high-speed processing of the new sensor’s higher pixel counts, higher-resolution and higher-bit-rate video. It has evolved with three key technologies: New Intelligent Detail Processing, New 2D Noise Reduction and High Precision 3D Noise Reduction for video…read more

 

Galaxy S22 Ultra: the most powerful cameras in a smartphone

The new Samsung Galaxy S22 family includes the Galaxy S22 and S22+, but if you’re serious about photography and video, nothing beats the Galaxy S22 Ultra, a new standard for mobile imaging. Confirming the rumors from recent weeks, the new Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra merges the best Galaxy features of the Note and S series. The device now has the unrivaled power of the Note series and the pro-grade camera and performance of the S series – to set a new standard for premium smartphones. Featuring a built-in S Pen, Advanced Nightography and video capabilities, and battery life that lasts over a day, Galaxy S22 Ultra is the most powerful Ultra device Samsung has ever…read more

 

Sony IMX989, a 1-inch type image camera sensor for smartphones

Xiaomi’s new 12S Ultra smartphone, which the company will reveal on July 4, features a Sony IMX989, a 1-inch type image camera sensor that may well change the future of smartphone imaging. We’ve seen imaging companies, in recent months, promise that the future of photography is just round the corner. Xiaomi and Leica Camera announced, last May, that a new era of mobile imaging is coming, because of their cooperation, of which we may see some results in the upcoming Xiaomi smartphones. In June, Leica and Panasonic announced a partnership that will bring a new imaging world… probably to conventional cameras. This week Samsung confirmed its second 200MP camera sensor for smartphones, named ISOCELL HP3, stating that it offers ““Epic Resolution Beyond…read more

 

Other interesting stuff worth noting

There’s a lot more content that didn’t fall under the categories above so please enjoy and share.

EditMentor and Editing Entrepreneurship

Editing Entrepreneurship may not be something we often think about but the launch of EditMentor got me thinking a lot about it. Online video editor training is a dime-a-dozen these days. Everybody and their mom seem to be offering a course and there are a thousand YouTube videos that threaten to teach you to be a professional editor in 15 minutes. So many of them are focused on the software being used because that’s often the easy thing to do. And it’s the thing that seems to attract potential students. I’m as guilty as the next as I’ve been part of a lot of these training courses as well…read more

 

Is the graphics card shortage finally over?

Until recent years, the Windows crowd have had many years of bragging rights over Apple users – namely that you had to pay 2-3 times the amount to get the equivalent performance out of a Mac compared to a PC, whether off the shelf or custom built. Two things put an end to that – the release of Apple’s impressive M1 chip in November 2020 (with the M1 Ultra now coming to the desktop Mac Studio) and the GPU shortage that started in the same year, which pushed prices up for PCs and sometimes meant you couldn’t get your hands on your preferred graphics card at…read more

 

Apple Motion — every editor’s secret weapon

In the Final Cut Pro ecosystem, Motion is the app that lets you create custom titles, effects, generators and transitions, and then use them live on your timeline in FCP. On the Adobe side of things, MOGRTs have only copied this feature in the last couple of years, and that’s truly surprising, given how much all the NLEs borrow features from one another. While the uses of Motion are more obvious to Final Cut Pro editors, if you cut with a different NLE, there are still many reasons why you might want to keep this app in your back…read more

 

The Magic of Motion

Even if you don’t need to create motion graphics like animated title sequences and transitions, and even if you have no time to learn a new application, in a matter of minutes you can use Motion to create useful tools for Final Cut Pro. Like an adjustment layer for adding color corrections or transformations to multiple clips at once. Or a trackable object remover for cloning out unwanted content in a video clip. Need to get 3D objects into Final Cut Pro? Motion is…read more

 

CommandPost adds support for the DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor

This will be welcome news to some, the venerable post-production tool CommandPost has added support for the DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor hardware console. This is a big deal as many didn’t think this was possible. The Speed Editor had seemed pretty locked down, at least as far as software interface goes, and accessible only when running the Resolve software. But leave it to smart engineers like the father of CommandPost Chris Hocking to get it…read more

 

Old lens bad

Being an optical designer has been a thankless task for the last few years. You get to spend half a decade bent over a five-figure piece of optical design software, carefully compromising all the ways in which lenses fail in order to crank out a set of focal lengths that’s consistent and beautiful and works in the sort of light where it’s possible to count the photons as they wander…read more

 

Series

There are a number of series running on ProVideo Coalition. Some in 2022, others for many years.

This series from Chris Zwar is deep and ongoing. ⬇️

Color Management Part 1: The Honeymoon is over

Welcome to the first part of my new series on color management.  Although it’s exciting to launch a new series, there’s not that much to get excited by when it comes to color management.  It’s a topic that I feel I need to cover, rather than something I want to cover.  Honestly, color management is a royal pain in the rear.  But at the same time, we’re at a point where color management can’t be ignored completely.  Hence the title of the introduction: The honeymoon is…read more

 

Color Management Part 14: Combining OCIO and After Effects

OpenColorIO is the industry standard color management tool for animation and visual FX.  After Effects also has its own, different color management system based on ICC profiles.  Generally, these are often thought to be mutually exclusive – you either use OpenColorIO or After Effects. We’ve spent the last few videos going over this – in Part 10 we looked at the native color management system that’s built into After Effects.  In Parts 11, 12 & 13 we looked at why OpenColorIO and ACES were developed, and how to use then in…read more

 

Rich Young’s famous After Effects Roundups land monthly. ⬇️

After Effects Roundup January 2022

We’re in between releases for After Effects, although NAB 2022 is only a few months away. The year begins with a small sample of what’s happening: some troubleshooting, Photoshop chops, maps in After Effects, keyboard shortcuts, various plug-in demoes and tips, and more. The After Effects User Guide is now our main reference and contains links to New features, Keyboard shortcuts, and various FAQs, including How to fix common After Effects…read more

 

After Effects Roundup of November 2022

Appearing this week, not November, were somewhat meager Adobe Video updates: 23.1 and Frame.io RED Camera to Cloud. [After Effects 23.1 released a few days later]. Piling on more on the October MAX 2022 release, below is a November Adobe Meet Up video with some of the After Effects team and others. Mentioned in that video (though the MAX2022 store is closed) you could get the official AE and PR pillows at the main Adobe Store. They’re paired, and not cheap when shipping cost is added. If inventory runs out, there are similar offerings elsewhere. Maybe a sticker is…read more

The Useful Tools for Editors, from Scott Simmons, only had one edition in 2022 but the series has run for over a decade on multiple websites.

Useful Tools for Editors: NAB Happened This Year Edition

NAB happened this year. There were many different things to see. I wrote a bit about it in addition to PVC’s video coverage. Since there were many useful tools on the NAB show floor it seems appropriate for a fresh Useful Tools for Editors as I’ve got some things I’ve had bookmarked for…read more