Entries from Manifest Tech Blog tagged with 'Articles'
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 Update for AVC-Intra
Adobe has announced a new free update to its Adobe Creative Suite 4 suite, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 version 4.2. The previous update to Premiere Pro in June enhanced support for the RED camera, popular video hardware, 64-bit systems,...
Adobe Announces Premiere Elements 8
Adobe has announced its annual update to its consumer digital media editing software -- Premiere Elements 8 for video (Wiindows only) and Photoshop Elements 8 for photos (Win & Mac) -- see respective press releases. The pricing is unchanged:...
RealDVD - The Product and the Case
In September 2008, RealNetworks released RealDVD, a $30 software product that allowed consumers to "save, organize and watch DVDs on their PC and on the go" by copying DVD discs to your PC's hard drive (see my RealDVD product...
Roxio Creator 2010 Available
Roxio Creator 2010 shipped today (press release). This is Roxio’s flagship suite of digital media applications -- Roxio describes it as the top selling multimedia software suite, with over 350 million copies shipped worldwide. It's a deep collection, with...
RealPlayer SP: Play and Download Web Video
(with Tim Geoghan) Media player software continues to expand its scope -- from playback of local files to streaming media and CD and DVD, to acquisition with audio CD ripping, to sharing with CD burning. And now RealNetworks has taken...
PC Health Insurance: iolo System Mechanic 9
Health insurance matters for your PC too. And it's not just about emergencies -- it's actually the preventative care and regular healthy practices that can avoid panic calls to the computer doctor. I'm often uninstalling and reinstalling new applications, so...
Eye-Fi Adds Ad Hoc Networking, Uploads of RAW Photos
Someday we will be able to get rid of our collections of data cables and card readers -- when all our devices are wireless. But until then, the Eye-Fi SD cards are a step in that direction by adding Wi-Fi...
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 Update for Flexible Workflow
These days, digital media professionals need to do it all -- production and delivery, video and Web and print -- and work in all media -- video production, and audio, motion effects, Web and DVD. Similarly, no one tool...
Sharing Photos on Portable Devices
Got pics in your pocket? You don't need to carry snapshots in your wallet anymore, much less a photo album in your bag -- That's so last decade! Today's portable electronic devices can make great photo viewers, some with...
Eye-Fi Takes Photo Sharing to Video Sharing
The good news with digital cameras is that it's so easy to shoot lots of photos. The hard part is then accessing and sharing them -- hooking up the equipment and software to transfer your images to a computer, and...
Storage in the Cloud
The second theme from recent business announcements that suggest future directions for personal storage (see previous post) extends consumer storage from local disks to the network cloud. Both of the netbooks that I looked at for my recent presentation on...
Upgrade to a Solid-State Drive
As I was preparing my recent presentation on The Flash Storage Revolution (see previous post), there were a couple interesting business announcements that point the way to developing trends in personal storage -- from the very tangible and always-there flash...
Content Protection Technologies -- and Glossary
This digital age is understandably frightening to content owners, with our uninhibited enthusiasm for sharing our passions for music and videos, and the ease of uncontrolled sharing of exact digital copies around the globe. As a result, the content industry...
Creative Vado HD Pocket Video Cam
The Pure Digital Flip has helped to popularize the idea of pocket camcorders -- small and light, easy to carry and simple to use -- and now even for shooting high-def video (see previous posts on the Flip, Kodak Zi6,...
Eye-Fi SD Card Uploads Videos from Digital Cameras
As promised at CES (see previous post), the Eye-Fi Wi-Fi SD Memory card now can upload video clips as well as photos wirelessly from your digital camera to to your computer, or to a photo sharing site like Fickr...
Instant Photography: Polaroid Pogo and Dell Wasabi Printers
Instant photography is back! The magic of the old Polaroid instant cameras was the satisfaction of having that physical, tangible photo to show around and save. Showing your digital photos on the screen of your mobile phone is just not...
New Media at Princeton University
My latest article for the U.S.1 Newspaper in Princeton highlights the expansion of "new media" and digital media at Princeton University. The new Frank Gehry-designed Lewis Library building on the Princeton campus includes expanded facilities for a New Media Lab...
Sony DSC-G3 Wi-Fi Digital Camera
Someday all our devices will be linked wirelessly, so our growing collections of data and media can be automatically synced with whatever device we happen to be using. Until then, we're stuck with manually cabling devices together and then selecting...
Eye-Fi To Upload Videos from Digital Cameras
The Eye-Fi Wi-Fi SD Memory card is a standard SD memory card, with some extra magic: built-in Wi-Fi networking ($129, see previous post). Insert the Wi-Fi card in a digital camera, and when you take pictures at home it...
Archiving to CD and DVD: Verbatim UltraLife Gold Archival Grade Media
We can all empathize with David Pogue's frustration in a recent blog post, after he discovered that some DVDs that he had burned less than four years ago were no longer readable, at least on some of his systems. And...
Eye-Fi Wi-Fi SD Card: Not Just for Digital Cameras
I had fun trying out the Eye-Fi Explore Wi-Fi SD Memory card the past week ($129, see previous post). While the Eye-Fi card is currently designed to be used with digital cameras to upload photo files (i.e., JPGs), it's...
Holiday Gadgets and Trends
The radio stations were playing Christmas music even before Thanksgiving, but it's going to take more than a perky soundtrack to shake the blues from the current economic turmoil. In October, the Consumer Electronics Association estimated that spending for CE...
Nextar Christmas Ornament Digital Photo Frame
Digital photo frames were a big hit for last year's holiday season. For this season, the Consumer Electronics Association again lists them in the top 10 CE accessories that consumers expect to purchase as gifts. You can get big photo...
Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card - Now 4 GB
Someday all our devices will be wireless, and our files and media will just be there whenever we want them. Even today we can see the beginnings of connectivity for sharing photos, with camera phones that automatically upload photos to...
Trial Versions Available for Adobe Creative Suite 4
Adobe has just released trial versions of the applications in the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product family (see previous post), which are available online for download. Or you can order a trial DVD of the complete Creative Suite 4...
Adobe Creative Suite 4 Now Available
Adobe has done it again -- Adobe Creative Suite 4 shipped on October 15, 2008 for Windows and Macintosh, with a major update to its to its collection of design and development tools, spanning the creative workflow across print,...
Satellite Phones for Remote Regions
Mobile phones are a modern miracle, as we have grown accustomed to connecting to a cell tower anywhere around the globe. But there still are remote regions where travelers need to rely on satellite phones to keep in touch....
Satellite Rescue Beacons: Call for Help
While you can use a satellite phone (see previous post) to keep in touch when travelling in remote areas, calling to chat does defeat the whole idea of getting away. Especially for shorter less rugged trips, the SPOT Satellite...
Delivering Video with Sorenson Squeeze 5
So you've shot and edited your video. Now what? There are just so may different ways that you'll want to deliver video these days -- over the Web, burned to disc, played toyour PC -- from high-res on a widescreen...
CyberLink Steps Up PowerDirector 7
CyberLink, best known for its PowerDVD player software, has really stepped up the latest version of its consumer video editing application -- CyberLink PowerDirector 7 is a convenient and powerful tool that combines a friendly and straightforward interface, "Magic"...
Pinnacle Studio 12: HD Video Editing
Pinnacle Studio 12 was released in June 2008, providing simplified video editing and DVD creation for entry-level users, with versions for editing high-definition video and bundled with additional pro-style tools and a green-screen backdrop for chroma key overlays. The...
WINLAB and the Future of Wireless
I've seen big computer rooms, and grids of mesh computers, but I'd never seen 400 computers hanging from the ceiling until I visited the WINLAB facility in North Brunswick, New Jersey. WINLAB, the Wireless Information Network Laboratory, is an...
Digital Copy: Movie "Downloads" from Blu-ray Disc
With the victory of the Blu-ray Disc format for high-def movies, the great hope of the movie studios and consumer electronics industry is that that consumers will rush out to buy HD movies on disc for viewing on their home...
Creating Music and Editing Audio
Even non-musicians and beginning enthusiasts can collect, organize, mix and mash up, and create new music using today's inexpensive and accessible software tools, such as the Sony Creative Software tools -- ACID Music Studio for music creation and mixing, and...
NAB 2008 - Trends and Links
The NAB 2008 Conference (National Association of Broadcasters) wrapped up last week in Las Vegas. The NAB show spans acquisition, production, distribution, and delivery. Its historical core is high-end professional broadcast equipment, from high-end HD cameras to remote trucks with...
SIRIUS Backseat TV: Technology to Product
"Are we there yet?" -- The perennial cry from the back seat that strikes fear into parents on long road trips. I remember a long ride home from Cape Cod with our toddler daughter crying the entire time, except for...
New Roxio Media Products for Discs, DVD, and Music
After releasing Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 in September 2007, Roxio now has shipped three subsets of the full EMC suite for specific applications: Disc copying (Easy DVD Copy), DVD authoring (MyDVD), and music creation (RecordNow Music Lab). Released in...
Media Suites: Nero 8 and Roxio EMC 10
More and more consumers are facing growing collections of media stuff -- music and photos and video -- and facing the desire to get organized, be creative, and share their digital content. But there are some many media formats, stored...
PC Video Trends: Camcorder Formats and Editing Software
Video has never been more accessible for consumers -- and more confusing. It's even easier to use -- and harder to understand and master. It's all about "one-click" simplicity -- and an overwhelming profusion of options. If you're ready to...
HD on the Desktop: HDV and AVCHD
High-definition video has arrived -- in under-$1000 consumer camcorders, and supported by sub-$100 consumer video software that can run on your desktop. Camcorders are moving from tape to disc to memory cards, like the Panasonic HDC-DX1 DVD camcorder (back)...
Sharing Videos on YouTube
Are you sharing your videos online? Each day, on YouTube alone, visitors view hundreds of millions of videos and upload hundreds of thousands of videos. See my article -- Sharing Videos on YouTube -- for details on how to...
Tech Trends from CES 2008
Too much, too fast! This year's annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas saw some 20,000 new products introduced from the more then 2,700 exhibiting companies. It's a wonderful, but confusing, world at the electronics store -- for consumers...
Sony Music Studio 7 / Audio Studio 9
Whether you already are working with music and audio, or are interested in getting creative and learning more, the Sony Music Studio and Sony Audio Studio software products from Sony Creative Software are a great way to get started. These...
CES 2008 Wrap-Ups
The party's over -- CES 2008 is over. I've updated my CES 2008 Summary article with links to a variety of wrap-up articles and posts, including top 10 lists, best-of awards, and more video essays and photo updates from...
CES 2008 Summary
I'm here in Las Vegas for CES 2008 -- the annual Consumer Electronics Show. CES is just huge -- it opened this week with some 140,000 people checking out 2,900 exhibitors, 200 conference sessions, and a profusion of associated...
Adobe Audition 3
Adobe has released the new version of Adobe Audition 3, its flagship stand-alone tool for professional audio production -- recording, mixing, editing, and mastering. Adobe replaced Audition in the Adobe Creative Suite 3 collection last year with the new...
Eye-Fi - Wi-Fi SD Card for Digital Cameras
Tired of all that manual messing around whenever you want to get photos from your digital camera -- Bring the camera back to the computer, dig out the necessary cables and docking connectors, fire up the photo software to upload...
High-Performance Systems for High-Def Editing
Only a few years ago, we were struggling with configuring desktop systems to support editing DV video, with its then-huge demands for real-time video capture, streaming to hard disk, and video-rate decompression and processing. Today, even mainstream consumer systems don't...
Adobe CS3 -- Soundbooth and Audition
The new Adobe Creative Suite 3, now available on Windows and Macintosh, includes the CS3 Production Premium suite of video tools -- with After Effects, Premiere Pro, Encore for DVD, plus the new Soundbooth for audio (replacing Audition in...
RCA Small Wonder EZ-201 Digital Video Camcorder
Here's the perfect wedding present of consumer electronics fun -- the new RCA Small Wonder model EZ-201 digital video camcorder. It's small and fun and easy and inexpensive -- and white! What more could you ask for as the...
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T100 Digital Camera
After seeing the latest generation of digital cameras with cool features like image stabilization and face detection, I finally pulled the trigger and bought myself a new camera, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T100, generally available under $399. You may have other...
Creating Blu-ray Discs: Roxio DVDit Pro HD
The first software for Blu-ray authoring, including CyberLink, InterVideo/Ulead, and Roxio MyDVD, used the basic BDAV (audio/video) format that was designed for recording video clips to disc, but without menus or fancy DVD interfaces. Roxio DVDit Pro HD is the...
Canon XH A1 / HDV Pro Camcorders
The HDV format (MPEG-2 HD video on DV tapes) has brought HD video to a much broader market -- with HDV camcorders for consumers down to around $1000. And for high-end video enthusiasts and event videographers who want a more...
NAB / Deliver Everywhere: Adobe's Creative Suite 3
One of the themes of this year's NAB conference last week in Las Vegas was the continued proliferation of formats, channels, and devices that content developers need to support for delivering media. This broad range of needs for even today's...
Archos Portable Media Players
Archos has introduced a new latest Generation 4 line of hard disk-based media players focused on a larger-screen experience, video capture, and wireless connectivity. The Archos 404 has a 3.5 in. screen and 30 GB for $299 with a stereo...
RCA Small Wonder Camcorders
There's a major trend to the high-definition home, with wide-screen HDTV home theatre and even consumer high-def HDV camcorders. But in this era of YouTube and Flash video with short-form, low-res clips, there's also a place for easier and faster...
Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Plus
Pinnacle has refocused as a consumer brand after Avid acquired Pinnacle in early 2005 and then integrated Pinnacle's professional broadcast products with Avid's product line (Liquid Edition is now Avid Liquid). There's the flagship Pinnacle Studio home video editing software,...
Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick
For TV on your PC, the Pinnacle PCTV line has been updated to now support HDTV. Yes, you can watch over-the-air HDTV on your computer with the new Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick. This is not a PCI board or...
Fulcrum Gallery: Google Ads
How does an online art gallery and store like FulcrumGallery.com market their products? In this Internet age, most prospective customers look for art prints through searches on Google. As a result, the company is building its own custom search marketing...
Adobe Creative Suite 3
Adobe's Creative Suite 3 was just announced today -- March 27, 2007-- at the formal launch event in New York City. This is a huge upgrade of the Adobe Creative product line, with design and development tools spanning the creative...
Intelligent Video Surveillance with SightLogix
You would think that computer-based video surveillance would be a no-brainer -- just point the camera outside and have the computer alert you when it detects anything interesting. But it turns out that "understanding" activity in outdoor scenes is horrendously...
Basic Video Editing and DVD Authoring with Ulead VideoStudio 10
It's easier than ever to create good-looking productions using consumer video editing software, turning your video into a nice movie production, complete with transitions between scenes, background music, title text, and fun video effects. And you can share movies as...
Digital Media Trends: Roxio Easy Media Creator 9
In 2007, trends that began developing last year are coming to fruition. Sites like YouTube and Google Video have exploded interest in informal short-form video, and low-res video thrives on portable devices from pocket MP3 players to cell phones. At...
Video and DVD Formats: InterVideo DVD Copy 5 Platinum
So many video formats -- discs and files, video and audio, set-top and PC and portable, high-res HDV to TV-quality MPEG to tiny portable screens. How can you make sense of them all, figure out the right format for a...
Summary: Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 is targeted to serious hobbyists, people who are beyond beginners and are proud of their photos. The new versions of Adobe's Photoshop Elements 5.0 and Premiere Elements 3.0 became available in October 2006 for US...
Easier Editing: Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0
More power! But also easier to use. More formats and more devices! And yet drag-and-drop simplicity. It's a tough challenge for the developers of consumer-oriented video editing software. We want to import from any camcorder, edit with ease and sophistication,...
CES 2007 Summary
Summary of stats on the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show, held January 8-11 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Some 140K attendees -- 2,700 exhibitors -- 1.8 million square feet of exhibit space. See CES 2007 Summary...
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