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| A Video Systems Publication | |
| A Primedia Property | |
| July 16, 2003 | Vol 2, No 14 |
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Table of Contents An Editor's View Betwixt and Between PowerMac G5 Big News From Silicon Graphics Onyx4 UltimateVision The Windows Battle Source Window Anarchy Toolbox for After Effects Digital Film Tools Intros DIGITAL FILM LAB StageTools MovingParts Bauhaus forms Strategic Partnership with TVPaint Lightworks Boasts About Sales WinDVD Creator Platinum 2 Panasonic Packing Them In Premiere Pro and After Effects 2d3 Announces SteadyMove for Premiere Pro Matrox Supports Premiere Pro Canopus Supports Premiere Pro After Effects Training Tour Includes Version 6.0 MacWorld CreativePro Improved ShuttlePRO V.2 Loud Animation Tools Debut at MacWorld eZediaMX 3.1 Beta FireWireDirect Intros Titanium-like Portable HD Charismac SAN works with OS 9 and OS X 19" LCD for Graphic Artists Maya on the Mac Non-Destructive Professional Video Compression Shipping Io at CreativePro Expo 1st 7200RPM Mercury On-The-Go Hard Disk FireWire-based SureVAULT 800TM RAID-5 Powerfile ad MacWorld and DV Expo Apple' CreativePro Expo Announcements SIGGRAPH nucoda Will Feature data conform New IBM IntelliStation Newtek Will Preview Lightwave 3D [8] alienbrain VFX 2.0 BOXX Partners with Splutterfish Primatte Licensed by Imagineer Systems IBC Quantel Brings Entire GenerationQ Line to IBC Ultimatte 10 and AdvantEdge CELCO Film Recorders Galette Scope Installed at Studio Ghibli Woods Hole Film Festival On-site Audio Training Announced RTFM Audio Postproduction for Digital Video ADVERTISEMENT Quantel's eQ is the HD editing powerhouse that brings you all the opportunities the new world of HD and multi-format post opens up. Pristine quality, unsurpassed performance, brilliant toolset and Resolution Co-existence - eQ is the future of post. Find out more at www.quantel.com/eQ An Editor's View Betwixt and Between I am writing this column just after DV Expo and at the start of MacWorld Creative Pro Expo in New York, with SIGGRAPH soon afterwards on the West Coast. IBC in Amsterdam follows in September. One would think that there would be some interesting software applications about which to be writing. Last issue's Adobe announcements are still resonating and in the SOURCE WINDOW you will find stories of Premiere Pro partner announcements. The most interesting news from the post production perspective is not editing products but computer platforms and the ever-present new format introductions. At one point, most thought post production was clearly evolving to the "Wintel" platform (with the possible exception of the L.A. market). Announcements by competitors of Windows-based workstations bring this belief into question. Back to top Now, with the recent wwApple G5 announcement (see the G5 Issue of THE CUT), the industry -- especially those attending MacWorld Creative Pro Expo -- will be wondering how soon postproduction code will be written by their favorite NLE, animation, compositing, authoring, and/or graphics software manufacturer for the new Apple PowerMac G5 64-bit computer platform. (Note: you need the Panther OS for 64-bit applications which is not due out until the end of the year.) Back to top Meanwhile, this week Silicon Graphics made some major new announcements about platform upgrades that will make those offering IRIX applications very happy! They announced a new Desktop Visual Workstation called Tezro, with a 3X price/performance leap over the SGI Octane2. The price of this remarkable platform starts at $20,500 MSRP and appears to top out at $40,500 MSRP. The Tezro Advanced Visualization system features their wwwVPro V12 graphics solution (featuring optional Dual Channel and Dual Head options) and with the full suite of DMediaPro options, will support two streams of high-definition 10-bit 4:4:4:4 RGBA video. The technical specifications also include 32-bit RGBA (8:8:8:8) and 48-bit RGBA (12:12:12:12) video (double buffered) -- see .PDF Datasheet. The 64-bit IRIX OS, high bandwidth system also features desktop or rack-mount configurations; up to 16GB of memory; 1,2, or 4 MIPS R16000 processors with 4 MB secondary cache; PCI-X connectivity with up to seven slots; Gigabit Ethernet, and their OpenGL Vizserver. Back to top Silicon Graphics also announced the Silicon Graphics Onyx4 UltimateVision System delivering EIGHT TIMES the performance of the Onyx InfiniteReality system at ONE-FIFTH the price (starting at $45,000 MSRP)! The product scales from two to 32 graphics pipelines and 64 processors. This price makes it possible for smaller post houses to afford applications based upon this "ultimate" SGI platform and to make available the price/performance offerings that the big post houses do. Discreet flame will be showing off on a Tezro Visual Workstation at SIGGRAPH. They just announced that they plan to support the Tezro Visual Workstation with the next release of their flame, flint, smoke, and backdraft applications. They will also showcase flame and smoke on the Tezro workstation on August 21st at Cinespace in Hollywood, California. I would like to close with two interesting asides about SGI. First, Silicon Graphics has begun selling a Linux-based Altix 3000 based upon Intel's Itanium2 processors. The other is that the above Onyx4 UltimateVision platforms use ATI workstation video cards -- not the SGI-designed systems. Back to top Intel recently announced new Itanium2 and Xeon processors. HP followed up with the introduction of their new zx6000 Itanium2 workstation and other Itanium2-based platforms. HP was also boasting earlier in the month that their workstations were selected by Dreamworks to create the animated film "Sinbad". On the same day AMD announced an expansion of its family of AMD Opteron processors with the new AMD Opteron processor 100 Series for servers and workstations and the 800 Series, for 4-way and 8-way servers. This follows last month's BOXX technologies announcement that its new 3DBOXX M4 workstations, which feature dual AMD Opteron 240, 242 and 244 processors, are now shipping. BOXX Technologies has been partnering with some high-end players from Splutterfish and nucoda to Discreet and FilmLight. To conclude, just as we think the platform and OS Wars have shaken out, Apple and SGI may be rising again to a prominent place in the post scene as Intel and AMD continue to battle it out for the heart of the creative community. Competition is good. Back to top Source Window July 15th - Plug-in manufacturer Digital Anarchy announced the availability of Anarchy Toolbox for After Effects, a set of nine tools for creating a wide variety of sophisticated effects including creative blurs, beautiful glows, controlled distortions, seamlessly tiled images, warped graphics, and utilities. Back to top July 15th, Digital Film Tools just released DIGITAL FILM LAB, a unique Mac or Windows plug-in "meant to simulate a variety of film looks, popular glass camera filters, specialized lenses and optical lab processes--all in a controlled digital environment with either 8 or 16 bits per channel processing." The plug-in is available for Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects, and as an Avid AVX plug-in and will also function with Discreet combustion, eyeon Digital Fusion and Pinnacle Commotion ($245 MSRP). DFT's Marco Paolini explains, "By loading presets, parameters in the various modules are automatically set to achieve a variety of different effects. There are over 150 presets organized into black and white, blur, diffusion, enhancing, film grain, fog, gradients, looks, low contrast, temperature and tint categories. For instance, in the looks category, you can find the following film looks: Basic; Basic Black, White and Warm Diffusion; Black and White Cool, Sepia and Hicon; Bleach Bypass Normal, Warm and Cool; Color Reversal; Cool and Warm Desaturated; Infra-Red; Night Vision; Punchy; Soft White Diffusion; Warm and Cool." Back to top July 11th - At DV Expo, StageTools announced the introduction of MovingParts, a simple plug-in that will animate images and effects over video on the NLE timeline. The release states, "Designed for editors, MovingParts is fast and easy to use-- and it produces high-quality output. It's great for animating logos and other images, creating animatics, highlighting action, blurring or pixelating faces-- and doing it quickly and easily. MovingParts will move, size, and rotate up to 32 independent images, overlaid onto the motion video beneath it." "A fully functional evaluation copy can be downloaded from the website. You can also view the manual. The MovingParts Plug-In is priced at $129 on the web site store. Registered MovingPicture users can add MovingParts for only $79." Back to top July 8th - Bauhaus Software, a newly formed company established to provide products and technologies for the digital visual effects market, announced a strategic partnership with TVPaint Development for "product development, marketing and distribution of TVPaint technologies." Back to top Lightworks Touch appears to be selling well. The company just released a list of the latest sales. They also sent out the July issue of their Lightworks Newsletter and it features an interesting South African success story. Although the newsletter is heavily sales oriented, I like reading about editors discussing workflows and why they like the editor they purchased. Hopefully we can get a Lightworks suite into a Suite Peek segment in THE CUT soon. Lightworks also announced that they have appointed Mark Powell as Sales Director. Powell comes from Discreet and Softimage prior to that. Powell will be responsible for all sales channels outside of the Americas. Back to top July 9th - InterVideo announced the release of WinDVD Creator Platinum 2, an integrated software package with video editing, authoring and burning software applications, designed to reduces wait times and addresses consumer compatibility issues. Back to top Panasonic's booth at DV Expo East was packed, as was the Entertainment Technology World booth the week prior. When I spoke with Stuart English, V.P. of Marketing for Panasonic Broadcast and Professional about this, he said, "We're swamped. It appears as though every level of 24fps progressive production is on fire at the moment. The 525 line version of the AJ-SDX900 is starting to ship. But the buzz around DVX100, SDX900 and Varicam is really quite a sight to witness." "The DVCPRO HD AJ-HD1700 VTR is also going very well, both for O.B van and post production end users - in part because tape costs are equal to standard definition, and also because the VTR gives direct link between Varicam at 720p/24fps and 1080P/24fps post production edit bays. The internal upconverter and dual timecode support allows it to be a source deck in 1080p/24 edit bays - both linear or non-linear." "We are planning no announcements at SIGGRAPH, but we will be showing our Plasma and LCD monitors, DVCPRO HD and our real-time HD Graphics Processor working with our 3rd party graphics partners." Back to top Their have been several additional announcements following the Adobe Systems introduction of Premiere Pro and Version 6.0 of After Effects, as reported in the last issue of THE CUT. Below are a few of the related announcements. Back to top July 7th - 2d3, a developer of professional 3D camera-tracking solutions, announced that their new SteadyMove plug-in will be bundled with all copies of Adobe Premiere Pro. SteadyMove is an easy-to-use shot stabilization software for video professionals. It is available now for free with Adobe Premiere Pro, and an advanced version of the plug-in will be released on July 25th for $99.00. You will be able to purchase the product online. Back to top July 7th -- Matrox announced that the Matrox RT.X100 Xtreme and the RT.X10 Xtra real-time editing platforms will support the new Adobe Premiere Pro software. Customers who purchased RT.X100 Xtreme or RT.X10 Xtra bundled with Adobe Premiere 6.5, on or after June 7, 2003, will receive a free upgrade to Adobe Premiere Pro from Matrox. Matrox also announced the expansion of their "Trade-Up to Xtreme" promotion to include owners of selected Pinnacle and Canopus products. "Qualifying products include: Matrox RT2000 RT2500 and RT.X10; Pinnacle DV500, DV500 Plus, DV500 DVD, Pro-ONE, and Pro-ONE RTDV; and Canopus DVStorm, DVStorm2, DVRaptor RT, and DVRaptor RT2. Owners can trade up to the Matrox RT.X100 Xtreme professional real-time video editing and DVD authoring platform for as little as $599". Back to top July 7th - Canopus announced that its DVStorm2 and its DVRaptor RT2 advanced real-time editing solutions will both support Adobe Premiere Pro. Canopus will offer Adobe Premiere Pro as a software bundle option to DVStorm2 and DVRaptor RT2 later this summer. On July 16th, Canopus announced EDIUS 1.5, an upgrade to the company's new nonlinear editing application. New features for EDIUS include "improved bin folder structure and search capabilities for enhanced clip organization and management; real-time support of 32-bit uncompressed video with alpha channel support allowing editors to insert clips made using applications such as Cool3D directly onto the video track and play back in real-time; enhanced timeline management features, including batch delete, which lets users select multiple clips on the timeline and delete them at once; and the ability to re-link missing clips to the project for easier updating." Back to top Accelerated Learning Group has announced that they will be including Version 6.0 of After Effects in their upcoming Creative Explosion Tour. Spend the day with Trish and Chris Meyer, renowned After Effects experts, authors of the Creating Motion Graphics series and After Effects in Production and the creative force behind CyberMotion in Los Angeles. The program includes a terrific kit and there is an impressive list of additional door prizes! Register before this tour passes you by. Because the event is subsidized by sponsors, the cost is $179 for the day. Check the web site for a stop near you. Back to top MacWorld CreativePro Expo took place at the Javits Center in New York City this week. Here are a few of the announcements made at this show. Back to top July 15th - Contour Design announced that it will be launching the ShuttlePRO V.2, a "powerful enhanced version of Contour's ShuttlePRO" at the Macworld CreativePro Expo (booth number 655) at The Javits Center in New York. The product features a new alloy jog wheel, fifteen programmable buttons and a new black color ($129.95 MSRP). Supported applications include Apple Final Cut Pro, Avid Express DV, and Adobe Premiere. Back to top July 16th - Loud Inc., the Mac-based animation software manufacturer announced the release of three breakthrough animation applications, Stop-Motion Junior ($35), Loud Animation Studio ($129) and Loud Pencil Studio ($159) as well as an update to its already popular Stop-Motion Studio ($45). The release says, "These tools unleash the creative spirit in all audiences, from professionals and animation students to kids and DV-enthusiasts." Back to top eZedia announced their release of eZediaMX 3.1 Beta for both Mac and Windows systems. eZediaMX is a QuickTime video editing and multimedia authoring software which they believe "revolutionizes media integration and editing". This latest release contains improved functionality and new features. You can download this free beta at their web site. Back to top July 16th --FirewireDirect announced the introduction of their newest series of 2.5" portable hard drives, the MachIV, featuring the most current Oxford 911 FireWire chipset and a high-speed USB2 port in a sleek "Titanium-style" 1/2" thick form factor. The unit is offered with capacities from 20 to a massive 80GB of storage or as an enclosure kit. Those ordering for Mac will receive the SpeedTools Utility Suite which includes DeviceTuner, Disk Defrag, Integrity, QuickBack and QuickBench. Back to top July 16th - Charismac announced the release of a version of their reliable Storage Area Networking (SAN) software FibreShare today that works with Apple's Mac OS X. The release explain's, "The volume management software package allows multiple users to share between OS9 and OS X and have shared read and write access to Fibre Channel storage without the bottlenecks commonly associated with traditional Ethernet-based networking." Back to top July 15th - Formac announced the debut of its new Gallery 1900 OX 19 inch LCD Monitor, the latest model in the company's line of LCD displays targeted toward graphic artists. Back to top July 16th - At MacWorld Creative Pro Expo, Alias|Wavefront announced that its Maya software for the Mac OS X platform is exceeding expectations in the education marketplace with a 25 percent increase in the education sector and with more than 22,000 new seats sold. The release states, "Currently 25 percent of all commercial units of Maya are sold for the Mac OS X platform in North America and 20 percent globally, showing that Maya is now a leading 3D animation software package on the Mac platform." A New Alias The company also announced that it is celebrating its 20th anniversary and is changing its name from Alias|Wavefront to Alias. Back to top July 16th - Bitjazz announced that SheerVideo Pro, a "nondestructive" software video codec for the production and archiving of professional video and film, is now available. The SheerVideo web site explains that "SheerVideo is a revolutionary ultrafast and powerful nondestructive software video codec that saves both time and space in professional video and film production and archiving, yet always maintains absolutely perfect fidelity. With SheerVideo, there is no compromise between speed, power, and quality. SheerVideo lets you have it all." Back to top The AJA Video Systems booth at Macworold CreativePro Expo featured their now-shipping Io ($2,290 MSRP), a FireWire interface device with 10-bit Uncompressed SDI or Analog Video, 24-bit Digital/Optical/Analog Multi-Channel Audio, RS-422 Machine Control and Genlock connections. Io is specifically designed to work with Final Cut Pro 4 systems. Back to top July 10th -- Other World Computing announced the introduction of its 1st 7200RPM Mercury On-The-Go Portable 2.5-Inch Storage Solutions featuring reliable, high-performance 60GB drives which run faster, quieter and require less power than many 5400RPM solutions. The hard drives feature 8 MB of cache and are available with either a FireWire-only ($419.97 MSRP) or with combination FireWire and Universal Serial Bus ($429.99 MSRP) interfaces. Back to top July 15th - Kano Technologies has announced the introduction the FireWire 800-based, "Plug-and-Play" SureVAULT 800TM RAID-5 desktop storage systems for Mac and PC. The release says, "The fast FireWire 800 connection allows users more flexibility and throughput over traditional FireWire 400 devices." The system is "key-lock" hot-pluggable, portable, stripes data to three IDE hard disk drives simultaneously, and features FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 connections. Their storage capacities range from 360GB to 850GB (starting at $2199 MSRP). Back to top At DV Expo, Powerfile announced a one Terabyte Optical Storage device for the Mac OS X. The new MFX products are priced between $2,799 - $4,799 MSRP and the company claims that it is the only one available for OS X. At MacWorld CreativePro Expo, they announced clearance prices for their PowerFile Light Blue Read-Only C200 Libraries. Savings range from 30% to 50% off regular price. PowerFile has a goal of displacing traditional magnetic storage solutions with optical disk storage solutions. Back to top Apple announced Soundtrack, the royalty-free music production tool previously available only with Final Cut Pro 4, will be available in August as a standalone product for $299 MSRP. The release states, "Soundtrack includes more than 4,000 royalty-free, professionally-recorded audio loops and sound effects, giving creative professionals such as video editors, DVD authors and web developers a powerful and easy-to-use tool to create high-quality music scores." Apple also announced a Final Cut Express/Final Cut Pro promotion for Premiere users. Until Sept 20th, you can exchange Adobe Premiere (the Mac or Windows-based software) for a Final Cut Express software or receive a $500 rebate from the purchase of Final Cut Pro software package. An additional promotion is offered to customers who purchase any new Macintosh computer the opportunity to pick up Final Cut Express for just $99 -- a savings of $200 over the suggested retail price. On July 16th Apple announced its financial results for the fiscal 2003 third quarter which ended June 28, 2003, and they beat analyst expectations. Finally, iDVD's 3.0'1 software update is ready to download and is offering performance improvements. Back to top SIGGRAPH 2003 is in San Diego, with the conference beginning on July 27th and the Expostion on the 29th - both end on the 31st. SIGGRAPH is an acronym for Special Interest Group - Graphics. 25,000 are expected to attend this event. Back to top nucoda will be demonstrating its data conform product at SIGGRAPH in booth 2522. They may also be demonstrating their film master system. The company recently announced two major sales. The first announcement discusses The Moving Picture Company's purchased data conform 2K conform and review solution. They explain how the system achieves major improvements in workflow. The other announcement was for the delivery of a data conform to Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Back to top IBM will have a suite in the Corona Room at the Hilton, across the street from the convention center. Go see their newly announced IntelliStation and enhanced T221 Flat Panel Monitor. Look for more information in the next issue. Back to top Offers Free Texture Collection Newtek will be previewing Lightwave 3D [8] at SIGGRAPH and promises to be offering some exciting new developments. Newtek also announced the release of the 3rd Edition of their Free Texture Collection. Back to top July 16th - NXN Software announced the fall release of NXN alienbrain VFX 2.0, "the next version of its asset and production management system for the development of long-form, computer-animated feature films and visual effects. The system is designed to secure and streamline the workflow of highly complex productions, saving studios valuable time and money." For more information and pricing, stop by their booth at Siggraph (Booth 3236). Back to top July 10th - BOXX Technologies announced that it is now offering the Brazil Rendering System with its XXtreme 3DBOXX workstations and RenderBOXX render nodes. You will be able to see these products in SIGGRAPH booth 2948. Back to top July 14th - Photron, the distributors of Primatte, announced a licensing agreement with Imagineer Systems Ltd, developers and distributors of mokey. The mokey:primatte module is available for Windows, IRIX, LINUX and Mac OS X and will start shipping in September 2003. Prices will range from $400 to $800 (depending on the platform). Imagineer will be demonstrating mokey V3 on the Photron booth (3537) at SIGGRAPH where the new Grain Surgery module for mokey will be shown for the first time. Photron announced that Primatte would be appearing at the SIGGRAPH 2003 show in conjunction with several new host applications. "It is currently available as a plug-in for Imagineer System's mokey, Discreet inferno/flame/flint/fire/smoke, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Sony XPRI, Discreet combustion 3, AVID |DS, Apple Shake, Pinnacle CommotionPro, AVID Media Illusion, Interactive Effects Piranha, and the Quantel generationQ products. "This year at SIGGRAPH, Primatte can be found in several new booths. eyeon Software has added Primatte as a plug-in option to their Digital Fusion product. Red Giant Software will be showing the Primatte for After Effects product. Digital Anarchy will be showing the Primatte for Photoshop product which they plan to upgrade and re-market later this year." Back to top The theme for IBC 2003 is "The Event for Content Creation, Management and Delivery". Second only to NAB, this is a leading international event for professionals involved in the creation, management and delivery of entertainment content. The Conference begins on September 11th and ends the 15th and the Exhibition starts on the 12th and ends on the 16th. Back to top And Hosts IBC D-Cinema Event July 4th - Quantel announced that they will be demonstrating the full generationQ range for Digital Intermediate, Editing, Graphics, News/sport and broadcast production at IBC 2003. They will also host a special D-Cinema event, the Digital Intermediate Workshop on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday of IBC. The press release says that at the Digital Intermediate Workshop event, Quantel will be "demonstrating the Quantel DI workflow including interactive 2K grading. Using real-world examples from the many iQ systems doing DI work in Europe and the USA, the workshop will highlight the benefits that DI brings. The workshop will be of use to film-makers, post houses, laboratories and anyone with an interest in the new efficiencies, cost savings, workflow improvements and creative opportunities that DI delivers. Topics will include acquisition formats, scanning alternatives, print film calibrated monitoring, and final distribution mastering. Of particular interest to DoPs and Directors, the workshop will show the creative potential of DI in the field of colour enhancement. Workshop attendees will receive a free copy of the new Digital Intermediate Guide from Quantel." Quantel also announced major sales to German broadcaster ZDF, a brand new facilities house named AHC Post in SoHo London, the Australian commercial broadcaster The Seven Network, the German national broadcaster, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB), and Hamburg, Germany film and TV commercials production company Fata Morgana. Back to top Ultimatte announced that they will be demonstrating Ultimate 10, an all digital compositing system with a new Matte Logic Engine ($19,500.MSRP) at IBC (Stand 7.521). The AdvantEdge blue-screen plug-in software for Adobe, AVID, Discreet, Eyeon, Media 100, and other leading effects and NLE products will also be showcased. Back to top Jul. 11th - CELCO will introduce to IBC the newest addition to its digital film recorder line, FIRESTORM, a low cost, high-speed film. FIRESTORM will output a high-resolution frame of film in 2.5 seconds, almost 40% faster than other film recorders in this range. The company will also introduce new software updates to its FURY film recorder. Back to top July 10th - IMAGICA Corp. announced that it installed its Galette Scope digital timing and preview system at Studio Ghibli, a world-renowned Japanese animation studio of feature-length animated films. Studio Ghibli will use Galette Scope to preview illustrated clips with film look on a digital projector. The press release explains that "Galette Scope is a PC based digital timing and preview system, equipped with Galette color management technology, which enables pre-visualization of the print film color on a DLP projector. It is a subset of the Galette Station; Galette Scope includes scene by scene color correction. With Galette Scope, the completed clips are automatically color matched and converted to film look with Galette technology. " Imaginca introduced Galette Station at NAB. "Studio Ghibli will review their sequences by digitally projecting in high quality HD RGB10 bit 24P. Galette Scope will be used for checking specific clips repeatedly, and also for previewing the edited sequences as well." Back to top From July 26th to August 2nd, the 12th annual Woods Hole (MA) Film Festival will take place. The reason I include this announcement (beside being a wonderful reason to travel to Cape Cod in the summer) is because this year they are also featuring a Technology Day. Technology Day will feature the latest digital media technologies and techniques presented by companies such as Apple Computer, Boris FX, CustomFlix, Discreet, and Focus Enhancements. Back to top July 9th - The Integrated Solutions Organisation (Oxford, England) announced a new "unique service to the pro-audio industry worldwide: Custom designed on-site, operational, application, and product training packages" Back to top RTFM by Jay Rose Gilroy, CA, CMP Media LLC, 2002 (ISBN 1-57820-116-0; $44.95 MSRP) I have just read the best audio text on the practical and technical aspects of audio for digital video post production. The book is by Jay Rose and is entitled Audio Postproduction for Digital Video. This is a comprehensive and useful text for video editors who work with audio. Many experienced editors have grown up accepting certain audio "myths" and they probably do not even realize that they lack a strong enough technical understanding of audio to create the best tracks possible. Novice editors can read this book and acquire a better understanding without the myths and mistakes and have a collection of advanced audio capabilities in their bag of tricks in order to compete. Jay Rose is an excellent sound designer. I say this based upon both personal experience, and also on the closet full of Clios, Hatches, an Emmy, and over 100 other broadcasting awards! He is also the author of Producing Great Sound for Digital Video, which appears to be a companion book that I look forward to reading, and has written many articles on audio in various trade magazines and the journals of professional associations. Recently he was voted into The Cinema Audio Society - the audio equivalent of Association of Cinematic Editors (ACE). This entitles him to a CAS after his name on screen credits. Congratulations on this honor, Jay. The book has an unusual format. It begins with a chapter entitled "Help". This is basically a "Quick Help" source designed in a print version of a FAQ format. You can quickly find the answers to specific audio problems a video editor is likely to experience. The solution then directs you to supplementary information concerning the solutions offered. The book is filled with fascinating and frequently startling "Gottcha" sidebars. Rose says these "Gottcha" segments explain "audio myths, misapplied principles, and other audio mistakes". The book's layout is excellent and allows you to easily navigate to find answers to specific questions. The chapters are frequently supplemented with tracks from an audio CD (77 tracks) with examples of what is being written. While I was surprised it was not the typical CD-ROM found in similar books, it is one more example of an excellent resource. I could listen to this CD with my best audio system and more clearly hear what was being discussed. Moreover, as with many readers, a good audio system can be found where you are more likely to be comfortable reading. It is hard to read books at a computer. Chapter 2 offers the excellent, clear and easy-to-understand explanation of the science of sound. Rose says, "If you think you already know this stuff, glance through these pages anyway." Boy was he right! As to practical operational knowledge, Chapters 3 -- 5 offer guidelines, technical tips, and time- or money-savings shortcuts for building an efficient, reliable audio postproduction set-up. They cover everything from room acoustics and types of audio monitors, headphones and metering to hardware and software choices as well as wiring and routing/patching and connections of various types. The remainder of the book focuses on the practical and theoretical aspects of working with sounds on a timeline from ingest to the various delivery mechanisms. There is an excellent focus on audio editing. I most appreciated the excellent chapter on dialog editing that makes this book a must read for editors! There is a separate chapter for finding and editing music, and another for sound effects. These chapters include what Rose calls, "Cookbooks". Cookbooks are recipes or step-by-step instructions. Rose calls some of these cookbooks "works in progress" and has a web site www.dplay.com/cookbook where updates or new recipes may be found. The book tries to remain fairly agnostic as far as products, platforms, and programs, but there are a couple of times when a specific product is used as an example and seems to be endorsed a bit strongly. Chapter 8 is dedicated to V.O.s -- everything from mike placement, room set-up and directing voiceover talent, to ADR operations and equipment. Other chapters focus on subjects such as "Equalization" (Chapter 12), "Dynamics Control" (Chapter 13), "Time-Domain Effects" (Chapter 14), "Time and Pitch Manipulation" (Chapter 15), "Noise Reduction" (Chapter 16) and "The Mix" (Chapter 18). I cannot emphasize enough how worthwhile this book is! It is filled with practical tutorials and tips, as well as the scientific reasoning behind why you want to do it in a certain way. Rose writes, "When you understand the process, good sound becomes intuitive and creative, rather than something mechanical to look up in a book. What I have written can serve as guidance, inspiration, and shortcuts based on professional techniques -- things you can build on, rather than rules you blindly follow." He has succeeded. I recommend this book wholeheartedly. If you work with audio in your timeline, I cannot image that you will not become a better video editor after reading it. Back to top |
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