Yesterday we released Pro Maintenance Tools 2.0.12, a minor update to our suite of tools for troubleshooting and repairing problems with your editing system.

Here are some of the more important changes.

Plugin installer registration

Plugin Manager's installer now supports CocoaFob, so you can force users to enter their registration information before they will be allowed to install your plugins.

This requires you to base your backend on CocoaFob too, but you get this for free if you're using FastSpring for purchases.

Motion templates for all users

FCPX Motion templates can now be installed for every user on the system and you can easily move templates between the current user and all users.

This is just a small subset of features and changes - to view the full list please see the changelog.

Pro Maintenance Tools is an essential toolkit for all video professionals. To find out more, see the feature list, watch the overview video, read the user manual or download the 15-day free trial.

Sometimes you need to swap out an audio track if there's a problem or you need to provide multiple languages or different soundtracks.

Instead of compressing the video again, QT Edit makes it really easy to do this in just a few steps.

1. Open up the movie file in QT Edit.

2. Select the existing audio track and press the - button to delete it.

3. Click the + button and select Audio. Browse for the new audio, which can be an AIFF, WAV or another movie file.

Important: QT Edit inserts the track at the current playhead position so make sure the playhead is at the beginning. If you make a mistake, manually set the start point of the new track to 00:00:00:00.

4. Double-check sync in the preview window and then hit Save.

5. You will be asked if you want to flatten the movie. This makes the movie self-contained. In most cases you will want to flatten, but if you want to create a reference movie select Don't Flatten.

QT Edit is just one of many useful utilities in the Pro Media Tools suite. To find out more, check out the feature list, watch the overview video, read the user manual or download the 15-day trial.

Earlier we released Pro Media Tools 1.1.8, a minor update to our suite of media management and problem-solving tools.

Export Edit Detector markers to an FCPX event

You can now create Final Cut Pro X events from Edit Detector. This will produce a .fcpxml file that you can import into FCPX to create a new event containing the source file with markers on every cut point.

New QT Edit Quick Task

You can now import reel information from an ARRI-originated file and add it to the Final Cut Pro X Reel field. This feature can also be performed in batch mode.

New QT Edit metdata presets

We've added lots of new metadata presets for ARRI, Final Cut Studio, QuickTime and RED. Metadata preset fields are now prefixed with their application name so that you can differentiate between ARRI and FCPX Reel fields, for example.

This update included many more changes and tweaks, which you can read in the changelog.

Pro Media Tools is an essential toolkit for editors, assistants and post production professionals. To find out more, see the feature list, watch the overview video, read the user manual or download the free 15-day trial.

Quick Avid Tip: Display your UNC File Path in the bin!

Trick for overcoming Avid's inability to display a UNC path in projects that are not 24p.

IRE and Voltage

Useful information about PAL voltage levels vs NTSC IRE.

Geometry Pane

What the different options in Compressor's Geometry pane do.

Radeon HD 7000 series support in 10.8.3 beta points to new Mac Pro

There are many speculative posts around the web on the demise or resurgence of the Mac Pro. This one falls into the resurgence category.

Black Magic Cinema Camera SSD to the Mac

First impressions of the Black Magic Cinema Camera and how to connect it to your Mac.

Adobe Premiere Pro Quick Tip – 2 Methods for Dealing with Audio

How to put stereo audio on two tracks like FCP 7 and how to fill left or right to create stereo audio from a single channel.

Exporting Multichannel Quicktimes in Premiere Pro

How to export multichannel QTs is not obvious and I got bitten the first time I needed to do it, so bookmark this for future reference.

5 Tools for Cleaning Up Audio in Adobe Audition

Great tips for cleaning up your audio.

Another installment of our weekly list of serious, useful and bizarre bugs in your NLE that you should know about.

Premiere

Potential fix for slow playback

Project Manager does not copy spanned AVCHD clips

Titler adjustment handles invisible on white backgrounds

Timeline scrolling with the scrollwheel slower in CS6

CUDA crashes on Windows 7 (includes lots of tips and a registry tweak)

Premiere crash when sending merged clips to Audition

Avid

Trick for getting Avid to ignore a drive

Bins can appear off-screen when opening a project created on a system with a larger monitor

You may need to delete the AVCHD AMA plugin before updating to a newer version

System audio can only be heard if Avid is active

Fix for "expand luminance range for computer displays" not working

FCPX

New AJA Kona drivers with support for automatic FCPX event creation

Green flashes can occur if FCPX drops frames

"Cannot save changes" error appears when using third-party plugins

Cannot switch to other clips after applying settings in the Inspector

Lots of reports of sharing problems, primarily when burning DVDs

Several reports of audio turning red in the timeline

FCP 7

With the playhead on the clip, hitting Option + Down Arrow on a clip collision causes the clip to shift one pixel down - Strypes

Matrox announce a unified driver for Avid, Adobe and Final Cut Pro X on the MXO2 series
Matrox releases a unified PC driver and announces a January release for the Mac version.

RED EPIC Monochrome vs. RED EPIC: a Jaw-Dropping Black and White Comparison
Side-by-side comparison of the detail improvements in the EPIC-M monochrome camera vs the EPIC-X.

80% Normalization
Useful tip when normalizing audio.

#AvidTips – short-cut to opening settings tab from any window
You learn something new every day - how to quickly open settings for whichever window you currently have open.

Da Vinci
Da Vinci product video from 1987.

What Does a VFX Editor Do?
Great overview of a day in the life of a VFX Editor.

FCPX: Two Cautions
Larry Jordan highlights the important differences between seemingly-similar effects in FCPX.

DSLR Audio: Do YOU know where YOUR sync is?
Cautionary tale of DSLRs recording audio 1-2 frames out of sync.

Printing Mix Stems Internally
Great tutorial for producing mix stems in Pro Tools.

Here's another installment of our weekly list of critical, useful or bizarre bugs that you should know about.

Premiere

Solution for being unable to play back on second monitor

Video freezes when a transition is used on an adjustment layer

Projects sometimes forget audio configuration

Premiere sometimes loses Dynamic-Linked renders

Avid

Problems syncing stereoscopic EDLs

Alpha channels not recognized in ProRes 4444 media with MC 6.5

Windows tool for fixing DISK_ACCESS_DENIED errors

Crash on startup if you are using a case-sensitive formatted hard drive

FCPX

Workaround for setting in and out points in the new Import window

FCPX sometimes deletes media when you try to relink it

Text may be rendered incorrectly

Another installment of our (semi-) weekly list of important, interesting or unusual bugs in popular NLEs.

Premiere

Many people reporting problems with NVIDIA driver 306.97 for the GTX285 on Windows

Corrupt JPEG headers can cause Premiere to reference the wrong file

The Encore process doesn't stop when quitting Encore on Windows

Premiere crashes when you reanalyze a clip with the Warp Stabilizer effect switched off

To export H.264 video in higher than 1080p resolutions, you must be using H.264 Level 5.0 or 5.1

Premiere crashes if dynamically-linked applications are not closed before it exits

Workflow notes from an FCP switcher, including several bugs and workarounds

Avid

Media Composer 6.0.3.2 released

Several complaints about waveform drawing times

New Blackmagic 9.6.8 driver improves Media Composer 6.0.3.2 trimming performance

Media Composer doesn't remember settings when outputting more than 8 audio channels

Symphony appears to use 12-bit data for color correction when a ProRes 4444 file is fast imported

AMA can sometimes misinterpret and clamp luma levels from some QuickTime sources

Issue with Avid only keeping a few copies of a bin in the Attic (Pro Versioner can help with this):

FCPX

10.0.6 stability discussion

Many threads about 10.0.6 users being unable to Share or it being very slow

Exported audio levels not matching audio meters

Several threads about reduced responsiveness in 10.0.6

Titles may be shortened when uploading to Vimeo if they contain an ampersand

Encore

Here's one I had myself this week - encoding an H.264 for Blu-ray and an MPEG-2 for DVD in Adobe Media Encoder from the same ProRes 4444 source resulted in them being labelled as different lengths by both QuickTime Player and Encore. However, they both had the same start point and end point, were the same frame rate and the audio matched up perfectly so it would appear to be an issue with how the duration was reported. The strange part was that it occurred even after I re-encoded the file in Compressor.

The reason this was a problem is because Encore has a great feature where you can link Blu-ray and DVD media to create both types of disc from the same project. However, this feature relies on both files being of identical length. In the end my workaround was to simply duplicate the project and create a separate copy for the DVD version.

FCP 7

Autosaves not appearing in interface after restart

Trick for quickly revealing a sequence in the browser

Cinema Tools

Cinema Tools expects certain fields to use alphanumeric characters only

Today we released Pro Versioner 2.0.6, a minor update to our project backup and versioning software for Mac.

New folder watcher presets

Better Dropbox management

You can also manually clear space on Dropbox by ctrl-clicking a project and selecting Remove All Synced Backups.

We've also fixed several bugs and other issues. The full list of changes is available here.

Pro Versioner is an essential tool for ensuring project integrity and piece of mind. To find out more, watch the overview video, read the user manual or download the free trial.

We're pleased to announce the availability of Cut Notes 1.2 for iPad. We've listened to your feedback and this version adds much-requested Adobe Premiere Pro sync support. This is achieved through a downloadable plugin for Premiere Pro CS 6.0.2 or higher for Mac.

To get it setup, follow these steps:

1. Download the Cut Notes Adobe Plugin located on the right-hand side of the page.

2. Make sure all Adobe apps are closed.

3. Run the installer to install the plugin.

4. In Finder, launch Audio MIDI Setup in the Utilities folder under Applications. Go to Window > Show MIDI Window and then double-click the icon marked Network.

5. Click the + button under My Sessions and name the new session Cut Notes. Tick the box next to it to enable it. Under "Who may connect to me" at the bottom, set it to Anyone. In the Bonjour Name field, enter the name of your computer if it is not already set.

6. Now launch Cut Notes on your iPad and tap the Sync button. The name of your iPad should appear in the Audio MIDI Setup window on your Mac in the Directory list. Select it and click Connect. It should then appear under Participants on the right-hand side. You will need to repeat this step whenever you launch Cut Notes.

7. Relaunch Premiere Pro.

8. Go to Premiere Pro > Preferences > Playback and tick the box next to Cut Notes.

9. Scrub the timeline and the timecode should appear in Cut Notes.

Note: the playback buttons in Cut Notes do not control playback in Adobe Premiere.

The plugin will also work with Adobe Encore for Mac and we are planning a Windows version in the future.

Cut Notes 1.2 also includes several crash and bug fixes. The full changelog is available here.

We're keen to hear your feedback on the new sync mode. You can use the feedback link within Cut Notes itself or file bug and feature requests through our support site.