To Surprise a Voice

The art of subtitles.

A brief history of TV shows' opening credit sequences

How opening title sequences evolved over the decades.

How Sony, Microsoft, and Other Gadget Makers Violate Federal Warranty Law

You have a lot more control over devices you own than you'd think.

The Evolution of Steven Spielberg [video]

Chart Spielberg's directing evolution from Escape to Nowhere to the BFG.

Movie written by algorithm turns out to be hilarious and intense

Watch Sunspring, a short sci-fi movie written entirely by an AI.

2k is not 2048x1152

By creating frame sizes that are larger than the target but not large enough for downsampling to be effective may be degrading image quality.

Last week we released Pro Media Tools 1.4.5, a minor update to our suite of media management and workflow tools.

Import timecode from BWF files

QT Edit has a new quick task to import timecode from Broadcast Wave (BWF) audio files. You can either select a single file to import from or an entire folder. If you select the latter, it will match audio files to video files with the same name in the batch.

Conform improvements

We've improved the accuracy and reliability of conforming video files to different frame rates in QT Edit.

Other changes

• QT Edit - Fixed an issue where the Discard button does nothing when closing a batch that hasn't been submitted
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Open dialog in several apps to show at startup even if a previous file was automatically reopened
• Various other fixes and tweaks

 Pro Media Tools is an essential toolkit for media professionals. To find out more, view the feature list, read the user manual or download the free 15-day trial.

CinePlay 1.4.2 - Aug 2 2016

• Added a thumbnail preview when hovering over the timeline (local files only)
• When deleting a marker from the Markers window, the next marker along is now selected automatically
• Fixed an issue where video could not be flipped
• Fixed an issue where the app could display an Open dialog even when a movie loaded at startup
• More accurate frame stepping
• Improved timecode accuracy
• Various other fixes and tweaks

Cut Notes for iPad 2.4.4 - Jul 26 2016

• Button titles span multiple lines and dynamically resize to fit in more text
• Fixed an issue where playback buttons may not work if the cut was initially loaded in portrait orientation
• Notes now reorder correctly when editing timecode
• Prevented users from accidentally switching back to the project view by swiping in the wrong place
• Fixed an issue where large button sets could not be scrolled after switching out of notes view
• Minor Kollaborate API tweaks
• Various other tweaks and improvements

CinePlay for iOS 1.6.2 - Jul 25 2016

• New Kollaborate authentication system. It should detect your previous login automatically but if not, please reauthorize by clicking the + button in the media view. Self-hosted customers should be using Kollaborate Server 2.0 or higher. 
• Added 2:1 and 2.40:1 aspect ratio masks
• Fixed an issue where timecode may not update while scrubbing
• Fixed an issue where the UI may hang while generating thumbnails
• Various other bug fixes and tweaks

Pro Maintenance Tools 2.1.9 - Jul 19 2016

• Housekeeper - Support for trashing DaVinci Resolve render caches
• Housekeeper - Support for trashing failed Mac App Store software updates
• System Toolkit - Support for trashing CloudKit caches
• Housekeeper - Improved loading times
• CS Repair - Fixed an issue where Premiere may not automatically close
• Updated Crash Analyzer definitions
• Various other bug fixes and tweaks

Kollaborate Server 2.0.1 - Jul 14 2016

• Various fixes for project / file subscriptions
• Fixed an issue where hoverscrub thumbs may not appear
• Fixed an issue where the Files view could appear empty
• Fixed an issue where subfolders in shared folders could be inaccessible to shared links
• Comment streams now show timecoded comments
• Various UI improvements to comment streams
• Improved reliability when disabling multi-factor authentication
• Fixed an issue where file titles could appear blank in certain situations in the email digest
• Improved support for importing comments with special characters into the Adobe Premiere panel
• Fixed an issue where Synced Sessions could stall for clients
• Fixed an issue where thumbnails may not be generated for videos shorter than 1 second
• Fixed an issue where newlines may not appear in certain comments
• Security improvements
• Various other bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

Kollaborate Encoder 1.1.2 - Jul 14 2016

If getting the queue fails on the first try, it retries up to 3 times. This is useful if loading at startup before the server has an internet connection.

Kollaborate Transfer 1.4.3 - Jul 14 2016

• Images are now resized with Retina displays in mind
• Fixed an issue where folders in the root directory of a project may not appear the first time the project is loaded
• Prevented authorization errors erroneously appearing at startup
• Various other bug fixes, tweaks and improvements

Cut Notes for iPad 2.4.3 - Jul 12 2016

• New Kollaborate authentication system. It should detect your previous login automatically but if not, please reauthorize from the settings menu. Self-hosted customers should be using Kollaborate Server 2.0 or higher.
• Improved calculation of drop-frame timecode
• Improved accuracy when running in manual sync mode
• Notes are now auto-capitalized
• Kollaborate thumbnail caching
• Fixed a crash when deleting notes
• Various other bug fixes and tweaks

CinePlay for Mac was just updated to version 1.4.2.

Thumbnail hover preview

When hovering over the timeline, you now see a thumbnail preview of the video under the mouse cursor. This is a useful way of quickly scrubbing through a video or finding the exact position to skip to. If desired, this can be switched off from the Preferences window.

Note that this currently only works for video files locally stored on your hard drive. It does not yet work with Kollaborate cloud videos but this will be coming soon.

Other changes

• Added a thumbnail preview when hovering over the timeline (local files only)
• When deleting a marker from the Markers window, the next marker along is now selected automatically
• Fixed an issue where video could not be flipped
• Fixed an issue where the app could display an Open dialog even when a movie loaded at startup
• More accurate frame stepping
• Improved timecode accuracy
• Various other fixes and tweaks

CinePlay is a powerful playback and note-taking tool for video professionals. To find out more, see the feature list, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download the free 15-day trial. Kollaborate customers get cloud functionality in CinePlay free of charge.

The most recent OS X update, 10.11.6, appears to be causing instability for users of NVIDIA graphics cards and Adobe Creative Cloud.

Upon launching Premiere or After Effects, the system will kernel panic, which may either freeze the computer and show an error on the screen or automatically reboot. Kernel panics are almost always related to hardware or drivers and in this case it seems to only affect NVIDIA cards running on certain models of Mac Pro. While NVIDIA does offer Mac drivers separately, those drivers do not appear to solve the issue.

Adobe has successfully reproduced the issue and says it is due to a conflict with Apple's Metal graphics API, which Adobe apps are making use of for the first time in the 2015.3 release. They are planning to disable Metal in the next update until Apple and NVIDIA can fix the issues, but in the meantime you can either downgrade to OS X 10.11.5 if you have a backup or use Adobe Creative Cloud 2015.2 if you didn't delete it when you upgraded.

Alternatively, you can delete the Metal folder from each Adobe app bundle to disable Metal support yourself before the official update comes out. First backup each app, then right-click and choose Show Package Contents. Then navigate to Contents/PTX inside each app and delete the Metal folder in that directory.

This is a slightly dangerous way of fixing it but it appears to have worked for those who experienced the issue and may be the best way of solving it until Adobe releases the update.

CinePlay 1.6.2 for iOS and Cut Notes 2.4.4 for iPad are now out.

CinePlay 1.6.2 changes

• New Kollaborate authentication system. It should detect your previous login automatically but if not, please reauthorize by clicking the + button in the media view. Self-hosted customers should be using Kollaborate Server 2.0 or higher. 
• Added 2:1 and 2.40:1 aspect ratio masks
• Fixed an issue where timecode may not update while scrubbing
• Fixed an issue where the UI may hang while generating thumbnails
• Various other bug fixes and tweaks

Cut Notes 2.4.4 changes

• Button titles span multiple lines and dynamically resize to fit in more text
• Fixed an issue where playback buttons may not work if the cut was initially loaded in portrait orientation
• Notes now reorder correctly when editing timecode
• Prevented users from accidentally switching back to the project view by swiping in the wrong place
• Fixed an issue where large button sets could not be scrolled after switching out of notes view
• Minor Kollaborate API tweaks
• Various other tweaks and improvements

To find out more, visit the product pages for CinePlay for iOS and Cut Notes for iPad.

Pro Maintenance Tools 2.1.9 is a minor update to our suite of tools for maintaining, optimizing and troubleshooting your editing applications.

Clear DaVinci Resolve render caches

Housekeeper can now clear out DaVinci Resolve's render cache either manually or on a schedule via the Task Scheduler app. This can be useful both for troubleshooting and freeing up disk space.

Clear CloudKit cache

System Toolkit can clear out CloudKit metadata caches, which can resolve Finder performance problems in recent versions of OS X.

Other Changes

• Housekeeper - Support for trashing failed Mac App Store software updates
• Housekeeper - Improved loading times
• CS Repair - Fixed an issue where Premiere may not automatically close
• Updated Crash Analyzer definitions
• Various other bug fixes and tweaks

Pro Maintenance Tools is an invaluable toolset to help working video professionals get up and running again quickly in the event of a problem. To find out more, see the feature overview, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download the free 15-day trial.

Kollaborate Server 2.0.1 and Encoder 1.1.2 are now available for registered and trial customers of Kollaborate Server. This is intended as a bug fix release and the changes were already made available on the cloud version of the service.

Changes in Kollaborate Server 2.0.1

• Various fixes for project / file subscriptions
• Fixed an issue where hoverscrub thumbs may not appear
• Fixed an issue where the Files view could appear empty
• Fixed an issue where subfolders in shared folders could be inaccessible to shared links
• Comment streams now show timecoded comments
• Various UI improvements to comment streams
• Improved reliability when disabling multi-factor authentication
• Fixed an issue where file titles could appear blank in certain situations in the email digest
• Improved support for importing comments with special characters into the Adobe Premiere panel
• Fixed an issue where Synced Sessions could stall for clients
• Fixed an issue where thumbnails may not be generated for videos shorter than 1 second
• Fixed an issue where newlines may not appear in certain comments
• Security improvements
• Various other bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

Changes in Kollaborate Encoder 1.1.2

• If getting the queue fails on the first try, it retries up to 3 times. This is useful if loading at startup before the server has an internet connection.

Upgrade instructions

Full upgrade instructions are located in the Quick Start Guide but the basic workflow is as follows:

1. Download the new update (available after logging in).

2. Copy the contents of the Installation Files folder except the config folder to the root folder of your web server, overwriting any existing files.

3. Visit yoursite.com/upgrade in your web browser and click Upgrade.

4. Delete the "upgrade" and "install" folders from the root folder of your web server.

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).

Kollaborate Encoder 1.1.1 - Jun 30 2016

•  Fixed an issue where hoverscrub thumbnails may not be deleted after use
• Various bug fixes and reliability improvements

Kollaborate Plugin Pack 1.1.2 - Jun 27 2016

Fixed an issue that could require FCPX users to re-authorize periodically

Kollaborate Plugin Pack 1.1.1 - Jun 15 2016

Fixed an issue where in-house customers might not be able to change the server away from kollaborate.tv.

Kollaborate Folder Watcher 1.1.1 - Jun 15 2016

Fixed an issue where in-house customers might not be able to change the server away from kollaborate.tv.

Kollaborate Transfer 1.4.2 - Jun 15 2016

Fixed an issue where in-house customers might not be able to change the server away from kollaborate.tv.

Kollaborate Transfer 1.4.1 - Jun 8 2016

Improved memory usage when creating hoverscrub thumbnails

WWDC is right around the corner and Apple will most likely be unveiling a new version of OS X. Here's what we'd like to see. 

HEVC / H.265 support

H.265 (also known as HEVC), promises to halve the bitrate of its predecessor, H.264. This means that you can deliver the same video at half the bandwidth, or alternatively double the quality within the same bandwidth. This could greatly increase the popularity of 4K video on the web. 

The problem so far has been a legal one - instead of having everything tidily packaged within a single patent pool, there are two competing pools in competition with each other. 

In particular, the HEVC Advance pool initially had onerous terms that would have cost hardware and software providers considerably more money than they paid to license H.264. Most of these provisions have now been scaled back fortunately. 

Whenever a new codec comes out there is always a chicken-and-egg problem - there's no reason to make content because people can't play it and there's no reason to enable people to play it because there's no content. So now is a great time for Apple to take the plunge and kickstart the H.265 / HEVC format. 

System-wide Dark Mode

In OS X 10.11, Apple added a Dark Mode option which dims the menu bar to fit in better with dark-UI pro apps like DaVinci Resolve. 

We'd like to see this taken one step further and offer the ability to toggle the entire UI of an app light or dark. For many apps this will require no changes so it could probably be an opt-out option for developers.

Finder tags

When Apple introduced OS X 10.9 they included Finder tags which allowed you to tag a file with additional metadata.

However, this is not particularly useful because the tags appear as color dots instead of text and they are very small and overlap each other. It also means you can no longer color code the entire filename, making it easy to miss color-coded files.

So my proposal is for two types of tags: color tags and text tags. Color tags affect the background color of the file in the list and can be easily spotted when scrolling. You can only assign one color to a file.

Text tags do not affect the background color of the file, even when colored, but appear in a bubble next to the filename. So you can tag it “VFX” and “Delivery" for example and anyone can see at a glance that it is a VFX deliverable. Any tags that can’t fit in can be expanded by clicking an ellipsis icon next to the filename.

Airplay video streaming

It should be possible to stream video from a Mac video player like QuickTime or CinePlay to an Apple TV. This is something that can already be done in iOS but still hasn’t made it to the Mac.

There are some solutions to this but they are very hacky and developers would benefit from an officially-sanctioned method.

AV Foundation: Don’t treat remote files as second-class citizens

There are some very powerful tools in Apple’s AV Foundation media framework. Unfortunately many of the functions for scanning media files and extracting information are limited only to files that exist on the user’s local hard drive. This can limit the options you have for dealing with files on a remote web or FTP server.

There is no real reason for this because even though the data originates on a remote server, it still ends up in memory and/or cached to disk, depending on the situation. Because AV Foundation is built to be asynchronous, there is no reason why this data cannot be provided to an app as and when it is downloaded.

Better SVG image support

Apple needs better support for SVGs throughout the OS such as more accurate rendering in QuickLook and the ability to see thumbnails. 

We'd especially like to see an easy way to use SVGs within a user interface, which could make the aforementioned Dark Mode a little more painless to implement.

Third-party codecs in AV Foundation

Now that AV Foundation has matured and inherited many of the more advanced features of QuickTime, it's time for Apple to fix the biggest omission: third-party codecs. It would be even better if there were ways for developers to also override functionality such as streaming and caching with custom behaviors.