Kollaborate
Pro Maintenance Tools
Pro Media Tools
CinePlay
Post Haste
Preference Manager
FCS Remover|
Maintain, optimize and troubleshoot your NLE
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Professional cloud workflow platform
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Simplified media management
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Some of you may have experienced the beachball of death when FCPX tries to load a project and eventually resorted to force-quitting the app.
In most cases, the app hasn't hung at all but is just taking a really long time to open the project. If you leave it long enough (8-12 hours) it should eventually open. We recommend running our Project Repair tool to optimize the project file before doing this, as the optimization process lowers the file size and can shave off some loading time.
The reason it is taking so long is that the project has become too complex. A common cause of this is over-use of compound clips, especially compound clips inside multiclips. I have seen this lead to multi-gigabyte project files, even though the timeline was only a few minutes long.
Once the project opens successfully, begin the process of removing the compound clips. FCPX will hang for a short while whenever you try to do anything, but as you reduce the number of compound clips it will become more and more responsive.
This is the most detailed analysis I've read on why high frame rate (HFR) doesn't work for The Hobbit.
Why do we blink more than we need to?
Scientific evidence for Walter Murch's theory about using blinking to mentally separate thoughts.
Great trick to make high-speed audio understandable in Premiere Pro.
When to Scale to Frame Size in Premiere Pro CS6
Interesting comparison of Scale to Frame Size in FCP7 and Premiere Pro CS6 and when using it can sometimes degrade the image.
Tip: Multichannel Audio Sequences
Tip for taking the tedium out of mapping audio channels to tracks in FCP 7.
Proposal for better display and organization of fonts in Adobe applications.
Looking ahead to 2013 in post production
Amusing and slightly cynical take on some of the trends in post production.
After a little hiatus, Bugs of the Week is back with more serious, interesting or unusual bugs for your NLE.
Premiere has a 99 track limit which limits the number of possible layers in a PSD file
You cannot move a clip by typing in numbers if your keyboard doesn't have a numpad
Dip to White start value is ignored with CUDA acceleration enabled
Speech recognition modifies the script
If Premiere crashes and won't relaunch, check that the process is no still running (Windows)
Trick for match-framing to a sequence in a nest
Summary of some of the changes in Media Composer 6.5.2 (improved trimming performance is huge if true)
Surround channels can be incorrectly assigned when imported from Pro Tools
Thunderbolt devices can be disrupted by mobile phone signals (apparently this can also affect FireWire)
We've just released the second beta of Preference Manager for Windows. This is a Windows port of our popular tool for managing preferences and settings for your editing system.
We've listened to your feedback and this version contains fixes for several issues including improved Windows 8 compatibility.
Preference Manager for Windows is compatible with Windows 7 and 8. This is a pre-release version and we recommend caution when using it in a production environment. You can download the latest beta here.
Please use the built-in links within the app to give us feedback or contact us here.
We just released Editmote 2.0.1, a minor update to our iOS app for remotely controlling your NLE. Existing users will need to update to the 2.0.1 versions of both the app and preference pane to obtain the new features.
We've added a Zoom Timeline to Fit button and Connect and Append buttons for Final Cut Pro X users. These buttons are not in the default layout but can be accessed in the button layout editor. These commands can also have gestures assigned to them.
You can now assign a command to be executed when shaking your device in the gesture interface. By default this is set to Undo, but you can assign it to anything you like.
We've also fixed several bugs and you can find the full changelog here.
Editmote is a useful app to have in your toolkit for client screenings. It is available on the App Store and requires the Editmote Preference Pane available here.
2013 is now upon us so here's a look back at the past twelve months.
It was a big year for us with our customer base expanding by 50% and us welcoming many new corporate clients and broadcasters.
We launched six new products: Pro Versioner, Post Haste for Windows, Video Space Calculator for iOS, Video Space Calculator for Mac, Film Terms for iOS, Film Terms for Mac.
In addition, we released major updates for Editmote, Cut Notes and several other products. In total we released 7 major updates and 53 minor ones in 2012.
Our most popular free app was FCS Remover and our most popular paid app was Pro Maintenance Tools. Our most popular iOS app was Video Space Calculator.
Our site traffic was up significantly with over a million more pages viewed and over 6 million more hits compared to 2011.
The most popular blog posts of 2012 were:
Making Lion and Mountain Lion more like Snow Leopard
How to export chapter markers from FCPX
Avid AMA best practices
Adobe dynamic link troubleshooting
Things you may have missed:
Looking forward, we predict 2013 will be our biggest year ever. We have several big releases planned and we'll be exhibiting at NAB in April for the first time. I can't say more than that but definitely watch this space.
Earlier this week we released Post Haste 2.1.4 for Mac and PC.
The biggest new feature in this version is support for importing and exporting parameters, which has been much-requested by our users.
The parameters are exported to a .phparam file which is compatible with both the Mac and Windows versions of Post Haste.
We've also fixed several bugs and the full changelog is available here.
Post Haste is a free tool for organizing your creative projects. To find out more, see the comprehensive user manual or download the app free of charge.
Today we released Editmote 2.0, a major new update to our NLE remote control for iOS devices.
We've listened to your feedback and have added the following major new features.
You can now switch between buttons and a gesture pad for performing tasks without having to look down. I didn't realize how much looking down affected my workflow until I tried gestures for the first time.
The default gestures include:
Single tap - Play / Pause
Swipe Up (1 finger) - Fast Forward
Swipe Down (1 finger) - Rewind
Swipe Left (1 finger) - Step Left 1 Frame
Swipe Right (1 finger) - Step Right 1 Frame
These are the basics; tap the Actions button then tap Edit Gestures to see the full list of default gestures.
One of Editmote's best aspects is that it's highly customizable. Tap Actions then Edit Gestures to modify them. You can choose from a list of over 60 actions to perform (or set your own custom ones) and assign tasks to tapping, swiping, zooming and rotating. You can set different tasks depending on the number of fingers held down.
Editmote now functions in portrait and landscape orientations for both iPad and iPhone. Each orientation uses a different layout, allowing you to create different button layouts for different purposes, such as a portrait layout for marking and a landscape layout for trimming.
Additional buttons have been added for insert / overwrite editing, undo, zoom in / out, Â play in to out, play around, and many more.
We've also added additional user-defined buttons, making a total of 20.
This has been a highly requested feature. When creating a custom button you can now give it a name instead of the default User1, User2 etc.
To change the names on your existing button layouts, tap a user button while in edit mode and then select the user button again from the list. You will then be prompted to enter a new name.
We recommend keeping button names short. Long button names will be truncated.
Button layouts are now synced to iCloud. This allows you to easily configure multiple devices with the same layout. There are separate layouts for iPad and iPhone so you cannot sync iPad to iPhone, only between devices of the same type.
You've always been able to add new applications but we've now added built-in presets for Avid Symphony, Adobe Audition, Encore, Prelude, SpeedGrade, Blackmagic Media Express, Motion, REDCINE-X and Davinci Resolve / Lite.
We've also updated the existing presets to add support for new functions, so if you modified your presets you may need to reset them by hitting the remove button.
We support a wide range of applications but any not on the list are really easy to add manually. See the user manual for more details on this.
We've made a lot of improvements to the connection view in particular. Manual IP addresses are now added by tapping the + button and can be saved as presets to prevent you having to re-enter information each time.
This is just an overview of the changes - there are many more tweaks, bug fixes and improvements in both the app and preference pane.
Editmote is a great addition to an editor's toolkit. I've found it really useful during client screenings, especially with our new gesture support. Our customers have found inventive uses for it too, ranging from giving the client control during a screening to marking clips and performing basic edits from a distance.
Editmote, along with several of our other tools, was also recently featured in Hand Held Hollywood's Filmmaking with the iPad & iPhone book by Taz Goldstein, so check it out on page 337. If you don't have the book yet I recommend it, and you can get a 35% discount by using the coupon code HHH.
Editmote is available for iPad and iPhone on the App Store. You'll also need to download and install the free Editmote Preference Pane to get it working. Existing users will need to update the preference pane to 2.0 to take advantage of the new features.
We're keen to know what people think of the new version so use the feedback link in the app to tell us.
Comparison of ProRes files exported from different applications.
TitleExchange Formats (PDF)
Useful list of various title and caption formats.
Mac vs. PC - The Dilemma of a Small, One-Man-Band Production House
FCP 7's demise was a rude awakening for a lot of us not to bet everything on a single company.
MediaStorm Guide to Enhancing Adobe Premiere Pro’s Auto-save Functionality
These are good tips and Pro Versioner is a great compliment on top of that.
PostDontStopDay (Desktop-Backgrounds and whatnot)
Very nice desktop backgrounds for editors.
'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey': How Is 48 Frames Per Second?
Not exactly a great review of 48 fps in The Hobbit. I'm still going to watch it in 48 fps though, just to see what it's like.
Final Cut Pro X: Use Compressor presets as Share Destinations
How to copy Compressor 3.5 presets to 4.0.
Great tips on how to use reverb creatively.
Top Feature Requests for After Effects in 2012
Lots of great requests here. I never use the Raytracer because it disables so many other features, so improving this would be good too.
OT: wondering about longterm archiving
Great discussion about archival formats.
Here are some more critical, useful and bizarre bugs that you should know about.
Canon C300 spanned clips can be merged in the wrong order
Premiere processes all audio clips in a sequence, even when only exporting a small section
Clip markers disappear after reconnecting media
Several reports of render files disappearing
Premiere may not load after updating QuickTime to 7.7.3 (Win 7)
Incorrect in and out points in subclips when importing FCP XML
Premiere hangs when opening a project on a computer with fewer monitors than the one it was saved on
Unable to name a captured clip if capture is stopped
Switching to "H.264 for Blu-ray" preset causes bitrate option to disappear
Audio out of sync when exported as AAC
FCPX 10.0.7 released with several major bug fixes
Upside-down frames from plugins not fixed in 10.0.7
Cannot eject external drives while FCPX is running
Several reports of frames not being shown in the timeline
How to Fix Red Exclamation Mark Error in FCP7 Log & Transfer
Cut Notes
CinePlay
Aspect Ratio Matte Generator
Video Space Calculator