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,...
Sony Creative Software continues to release updates for its Sony Vegas Pro 9 nonlinear HD video and audio editing software. Now that video editing tools have settled into support for the new HD formats like HDV and AVCHD, the...
There never have been so many options for shooting images, stills or in motion -- with digital cameras that shoot video, camcorders that shoot photos, and ubiquitous camera phones that shoot both. Yes, today's consumer digital cameras can capture video...
PhotoPlus Expo is back in New York for its 25th year at the Javits Convention Center, with three days of seminars and exhibits. It runs from Thursday, October 22, through Saturday, October 24. This is the biggest photography trade show...
Pure Digital has had tremendous success with its Flip Video line of pocket camcorders. It turns out there is a place in the market between camera phones and more traditional digital camcorders -- these small, truly pocket-sized devices are...
Sony Vegas Pro 9, the latest version in the Sony Creative Software line of professional video and audio editing software, was released in May 2009. The product also includes DVD Architect 5, which adds support for Blu-ray Disc authoring....
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:...
HD Expo NY came to The New Yorker Hotel in New York City last week. The show is changing its brand to Createasphere, in recognition of the broadening of production beyond just HD (... and avoiding confusion with Hospitality Design...
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...
(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...
Do you want to enhance video like on CSI, so you can read the writing on a shirt collar a block away in a camera phone video? Well not exactly, but more of this kind of technology from forensic video...
Pocket-size camcorders have become very popular -- so easy to carry and simple to use, so you can bring them along to capture spontaneous moments that wouldn't be possible with larger camcorders. You can find pocket camcorders for around $80...
Apple has announced and released an updated version of Final Cut Studio, with new versions of Final Cut Pro 7, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro 3, Color 1.5, and Compressor 3.5 (see press release). The price has dropped by $300...
It was hubris, of course, to imagine in 1983 that we could play video on a PC (see previous post). It took six more years of prototyping and engineering what we called DVI Technology (for Digital Video Interactive) --...
If you're interested in getting a webcam and using software like Logitech Vid to chat with friends and family (see previous post), then Logitech has a nice selection to choose from. The Logitech QuickCam webcam line starts at $29, with...
Logitech has an extensive line of QuickCam Webcams for notebooks and desktop use, ranging from around $29 to $129, some with built-in mics, high-quality glass lenses, autofocus, and even motorized tracking. These are compatible with video instant messaging and calling...
The Pure Digital Flip Video line of pocket camcorders (see previous Flip posts) continues to demonstrate the attraction of small and easy-to-use devices for shooting video -- Flip Video models were ranked as the top two best-selling camcorders in the...
The WebAround is a simple idea, nicely realized, to help you make better-looking, more professional webcam videos. The problem with shooting informal Web videos is that it's just not very classy to shoot clips that show the clutter of your...
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...
ACM SIGGRAPH 2009 is coming to New Orleans this summer, from August 3 to 8. This is the 36th annual International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. If you're into graphics and animation, this is the...
Presentations from Streaming Media East conference (see previous post) --sessions and workshops -- are posted at www.streamingmedia.com/east. Plus many of the videos from the conference and associated Content Delivery Summit are now available at www.streamingmedia.com/videos. Some recommended viewing: -...
Jan Ozer is a regular presenter at the Streaming Media East conference (see previous posts). This year he kicked off the week with a half-day seminar on Encoding H.264 Video for Streaming and Progressive Download, following up on his...
Dan Rayburn gave his regular update on the streaming media market at the end of a busy day at the Streaming Media East conference in New York (see previous post). Rayburn keeps his fingers on the pulse of the...
The Streaming Media East conference is back in New York this week for the 2009 edition. The event is held at the New York Hilton Hotel in the heart of the city (6th Ave. between 53rd and 54th Streets),...
Flip Video has just introduced its second generation Flip Ultra pocket camcorder, now available in both standard-definition and high-def versions. Flip has two pocket-sized camcorder models: the extra-tiny Mino (3.3 ounces, see previous posts), and the larger Ultra with...
More James Bond (see 007.com) in high-definition Blu-ray Disc (BD) format, with the release of Quantum of Solace, plus more additions to your collection of Bond classics in high-def Blu-ray (see previous post). According to Home Media Magazine, Quantum...
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...
The Pure Digital Flip line of pocket camcorders features an iPod-like approach to product design -- focus on the core essentials by stripping away nice-to-have features to drive a clean and minimal design (see previous posts). Like the iPods, the...
Apple describes its iTunes Store as the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store, with over 250 million TV episodes purchased and over 33 million movies purchased and rented. Its catalog features over 10 million songs, over...
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,...
The Kodak Zi6 HD Pocket Video Camera, is a bit chunkier than other pocket video camcorders, but it has a lot to recommend it -- including a larger 2.4" display, and the flexibility to shoot HD (1280 x 720)...
If you're into the whole digital media thing, then get to The NAB Show, the event for media, entertainment and communications professionals held annually in Las Vegas. This year it's being held April 18 - 23. While NAB is...
It's the story stupid! Creating compelling films or TV or even webisodes comes down to the story, but also how it is told -- how you use the tools of your craft to draw in your audience with a strong...
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...
Consumer video has gone YouTube. -- It's so easy and fun to shoot a short little clip on your camera phone, grabbing a brief slice of life (cool -- the cat in the toilet!), and then upload it to enjoy...
Once of the most visible trends in this season's new camcorders coming out of the CES conference is the rapid adoption of the smarts from digital photo cameras into video camcorders. The new photo cameras try to be more fail-safe...
You can battle the elements, and take pictures of them at the same time, with the newly-announced Panasonic LUMIX DMC-TS1 Digital Camera -- a rugged camera that shoots 12.1 megapixel high-res stills and 1280 x 720 high-def video. With...
Sometimes you get lucky, and are in the right place at the right time to have the chance to get involved in a great experience. This month marks the 20th anniversary of the Intel's acquisition of our DVI (Digital Video...
Usually I try to explain why a new product is interesting, and set it in the context of the market, but the heck with that -- this is just too amazing -- The new 3M MPro110 Micro Professional Projector is...
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...
I'm a big fan of the Pure Digital Flip line of portable camcorders, and particularly the minimalist Flip Mino (see previous post) -- It's small enough to carry almost anywhere, and shoots good-looking standard-definition video. Most recently I shot some...
(with Tim Geoghan) Watching Internet video on your computer is great, with amazing stuff on YouTube and network shows on Hulu.com. But sometimes there's use for old fashioned broadcast TV, especially for breaking news, live sports, and new episodes of...
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,...
I continue to be impressed with the Flip Mino pocket camcorder (see previous post) -- It's small enough to take along everywhere, and yet shoots very good video. I used it this weekend at a wedding -- capturing the first...
To celebrate the upcoming release of the 22nd James Bond mission, Quantum of Solace starring Daniel Craig, coming November 14 in the U.S. (see the aptly named 007.com) -- MGM and Fox Home Entertainment are releasing six films across...
Web video can be stupid pet stunts shot in jerky camera phone video and playing in a tiny window . Or it can be much more, using the compelling power of video to connect with viewers to tell a story...
DXG Technology develops digital still cameras and video camcorders as an OEM for other brands, and has been expanding its own brand with some interesting new products, especially highly portable High-Def pocket video cameras. The DXG-569V HD Camcorder is designed...
We love our media -- music, photos, videos -- and we've got so much of it. We've got photos and video shot on digital cameras and cell phones. We have copies of some of these copied up to our PCs...
Nero has just released the latest version of its digital media suite, Nero 9, featuring an updated StartSmart launcher that has built-in quick media playback, ripping, burning, copying, and backup. The suite still is based on Nero's long-established disc...
If you're a fan of the Roxio Creator suite of digital media tools, you have only one more day to snap up a free copy of the Blu-ray/HD plug-in for the new version. Roxio Creator goes back to Easy CD...
That big-screen TV is great for experiencing the explosions of action movies, the immersion of sweeping historical epics, and the excitement of live sports. But sometimes it's nice to just kick back and relax. Instead of turning off your display...
I'm a big fan of the emerging category of "pocket video cameras," first popularized by the RCA Small Wonder (see earlier post) and Pure Digital Flip (see earlier post). These are so easy to use -- small enough to take...
Jan Ozer certainly knows how to flog a topic to death! If you want to know about producing video for streaming, and especially understand the trade-offs in using streaming codecs, then Ozer has done an amazing amount of work to...
When I'm working in my home office at the back of the house I'm really out of touch with what's happening out front on the street. I'd like to know when a visitor has pulled up before the doorbell rings....
Adobe has announced new versions of its Elements line of consumer digital photo and video software -- Adobe Premiere Elements 7 and Photoshop Elements 7, due to be released in October. Adobe has worked diligently with each release to make...
Sony Creative Software features a well-respected line of higher-end professional video and audio tools, including Vegas Pro for video editing, Sound Forge for audio editing, and ACID for music creation, plus the newer Cinescore for professional soundtrack creation. Sony also...
NBC is piling on the online programming from the Beijing 2008 Olympics, August 8-24 -- planning to offer over 3600 hours on its NBCOlympics.com site, and free (with 30-second pre-roll commercials). NBC reports that the site had 70 million page...
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, 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"...
It's the season for graduations and weddings, and I'm ready again with the perfect gift, especially for travel -- a fun little camcorder that's so easy to carry and simple to use. Last year, the RCA Small Wonder and Pure...
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...
Pure Digital has released a new version of its Flip Video line of portable and fun camcorders -- the Flip Video Mino (see previous posts on the Flip Ultra, and the related RCA Small Wonder line). The Flip line...
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...
Adobe has really opened up its development process by releasing public prereleases of its applications -- beta versions posted as free downloads for you to try out. The Adobe Labs site provides early access to evaluate new and emerging Adobe...
My strongest take-away from the Streaming Media East 2008 show last week is that video is really taking off on the Internet. I know ... that's a "D'oh!" kind of statement -- but bear with me. Of course, it's...
Now in its eleventh year, the Streaming Media East 2008 show is being held this week again at the Hilton New York. It's a three-day event, with preconference workshops on Monday and two days of conference sessions and exhibits....
(with Josh Page) It's a wired world -- or actually getting more wire-less. We're connected at broadband speeds, theoretically able to electronically access our data from the vast cloud of the Web, but yet we still need to physically...
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...
"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...
Adobe continues to pull off a difficult trick with its Elements applications: providing an accessible interface for novice editors (at under $100) that still provides access to the underlying power and flexibility of its high-end...
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...
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)...
I've been a big fan of the RCA Small Wonder line of digital camcorders (see earlier post) -- they're simple, and fun, and compact, and dead easy to use, especially for shooting quick Web videos to upload and share. And...
Hot gift ideas this year start with portable devices in the first part of our coverage -- media players, mobile phones, and portable navigation systems. But this is also the season of high definition -- digital cameras sport multi-megapixels, flat-panel...
Adobe Premiere Elements 4 was released in September 2007, with new emphasis on a cleaner interface for quick and fun editing. It includes integration with Photoshop Elements 6, new automated Movie Themes, and an updated Sharing Center with export...
Today's multi-gigabyte USB thumb drives are a great way to move digital files between PCs -- including music and video clips. But to view those clips, you need to get back to a PC, or move up from a USB...
TV on your PC? Even better: high-definition television on your laptop! The USB 2.0 interface is actually fast enough to handle streaming HD TV on your computer display, so you can plug in a small external USB device and be...
Flash video is sweeping the Web -- and you can be using it too. If you're new to Flash, you can encode your videos to Flash video to post on the Web, and embed then in your Web pages using...
Flash animations make the Web come alive -- from fun little clips, to interactive tutorials, to full-up games, and now video as well. Yet multimedia development with Flash -- now up to Adobe Flash CS3 Professional -- can be a...
Sony Creative Software has released the latest version of its professional video, audio, and DVD creation tool, Sony Vegas Pro 8. As in previous versions, the Vegas Pro product is actually a suite of products: the Vegas Pro 8...
DVD was originally designed as a write-only delivery format, with the video and audio and menus all glommed together into obscure VIDEO_TS folders and humongous VOB files. But these days DVDs are just another video format, and many video editing...
As discussed in my previous post on working with AVCHD video, Pinnacle Studio 11 provides great support for editing high-def video. You can browse, preview, and import HD clips, mix high-def and standard-def formats edited together on the timeline...
Continuing on the AVCHD theme (see related posts) ... Memory cards are the future for camcorders. Yes, this is obvious in a theoretical way, but after finishing the summer on a vacation trip with the Panasonic HDC-SD1 AVCHD camcorder that...
The good news is that high-def video is now accessible to consumers -- with sub-$1000 camcorders, today's computer power, and now $100-range consumer video editing software. The new AVCHD consumer video format promises better compression than HDV, especially for camcorders...
To continue with our discussion of Flash video -- One of the first compression tools to address importing clips in Flash video format is TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress, which converts between most popular video formats, with assists like color correction...
To continue with our discussion of Flash video -- Sorenson Squeeze is a great encoding tool that supports encoding Flash video in both the older Spark and newewr VP6 video formats. Squeeze is now up to version 4.5.6, with...
To continue with our discussion of downloading and using Flash video on the desktop -- Adobe Flash is all about animation, interactivity, and video. But Flash is not just one thing -- it's a range of Adobe tools for...
To continue with our discussion of downloading and using Flash video on the desktop -- beyond the open source / freeware tools covered in the last installment, for more packaged solutions for recording, playing, converting, and editing Flash and...
To continue with our discussion of downloading and using Flash video on the desktop -- While this need is relatively new, the world of open source and freeware software has already responded with handy solutions. These are great for...
YouTube and other short-form Web video sites are a huge hit, partially because of the way Flash Video makes them so easy to use -- just click on the video window, and the clip just starts playing. There's no fuss...
IPTV and Internet Video is targeted to non-technical managers and executives in broadcast and multimedia companies, to provide an introduction to IPTV and Internet Video networks and applications -- terms, market, and the business of IPTV and Internet broadcast...
HDTV and the Transition to Digital Broadcasting is targeted to "non- or semi-technical managers and executives" who want an overview of the high-definition / digital TV transition and the its role in business. It's part of the NAB Executive...
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...
Ulead VideoStudio 11 was released in April 2007, still focused on easy consumer editing with more automated assists for creating quick movies and snazzy-looking movie-style opening sequences. VideoStudio is also bulked up with the latest technologies, especially for editing...
A summary of the Adobe CS3 Production Studio, with quick summaries of the included tools and technology components, highlighting the new features of each: - Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional: Motion graphics & visual effects - Adobe Premiere Pro...
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...
Want the whole Adobe CS3 Master Collection? You can get the Design or Web suite now, and then pay the difference in price to add the video production tools when they ship this summer. Adobe's recent release of Creative...
With the impending arrival of the new versions of Adobe's Production suite as part of Adobe Creative Suite 3 -- featuring Premiere Pro CS3 and After Effects CS3 Professional -- this is a good time to think about brushing up...
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 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...
If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to a feed of all future entries tagged 'Video'. [What is this?]