Post Production Workflows with Digital Rebellion

Clay Asbury on how he uses Digital Rebellion products to improve his workflow.

Final Cut Pro X 10.0.6 Update

Philip Hodgetts summarizes the new features in FCPX 10.0.6.

FCPX 10.0.6 - 42 new effects, transitions, generators and titles

Alex Gollner summarizes the new effects in FCPX 10.0.6.

Creative Commons Resources for Editors

Useful list of free images, video and audio clip sources for editors.

Planning and Building an NLE System

Harm Millaard discusses how to build a fast PC for Adobe Premiere use.

Quad-Core Mini vs Quad-Core Mac Pro

The Mac Mini is catching up to the Mac Pro in CPU performance but has a long way to go in GPU performance.

Why I Switched from Pro Tools to Adobe Audition

The nice thing about Audition is that it's intuitive if you've used other Adobe apps. I rarely use it but as someone who is primarily a video guy, I can easily figure out how to do something without having to pull out the user manual, unlike Pro Tools.

More on Fusion Drive: How it works, and how to roll your own

How to build your own Fusion SSD / HDD hybrid drive. It does seem to be useful for pro users, despite what some articles may say.

Video Editor ‘Lightworks’ Linux Release Limited to Select Few

The Lightworks for Linux alpha is here but is unfortunately limited to those who signed up last year.

DaVinci Resolve 9.0.3 Adds Timecode Syncing from Audio Tracks

Interesting new Resolve feature: the ability to read linear timecode from an audio channel so that cameras that do not record timecode can be used in professional productions.

Adobe CS6 Premier Pro + RED overview

Quick tutorial for working with RED footage in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Here's your second installment this week of critical, interesting or bizzare issues you should know about.

Avid

MC 6.5.0.1 released with XDCAM Edit While Capture support and several AMA improvements

New Sony AMA plugins to support the new XDCAM features of 6.5.0.1

Trick for improving Avid shared storage workflows

MC 6.5 requires less RAM for stereoscopic workflows

Subcap cuts off text

Discussion about the best Blackmagic drivers to use for Avid

Premiere

Reveal in Finder not working in OS X 10.8.2

Exporting MP4s without audio creates M4Vs that are unreadable in most apps

FCPX

Issues with third-party plugins showing upside down frames

We missed last week's post and were going to combine them with this week's, however Apple released FCPX 10.0.6 which introduced new bugs that we wanted people to be aware of.

Premiere

Issues moving clips with a pen / tablet (via Strypes)

Dynamic link failure caused by RelevantKnowledge malware (Windows)

Changing the scale causes playback corruption

Wrong interface fonts

Audio offline after sending to Prelude

FCPX

FCPX 10.0.6 released

Many third party plugins have rendering issues

The Offset option has been removed from the Letterbox effect

Memory usage has been reduced

Several reports of FCPX insisting on dual-layer DVD media unnecessarily

You cannot search in the new Import dialog

Blu-ray and Export using Compressor Setting have been moved to the Add Destination section of the Share window

Color picker stops functioning with multiple layers

You need to Break Apart Clip Items twice if you have dual mono audio

Core Image filters have been removed from Motion 5.0.5

FCPX 10.0.6 renders a lot faster

Duplicate backups can cause FCPX to be unable to save your project

Avid

ISIS client 4.2 beta with OS X 10.8 support

Title tool goes opaque the second time you launch it

New Canon AMA plugin

This past weekend I used Adobe Encore for the first time to create a Blu-ray for an important screening. I'd previously tested the workflow and everything had worked well, but this was my first time using it on a project.

I initially had some issues encoding the Premiere Pro sequence to H.264 because Adobe Media Encoder told me it would take 42 hours, and after leaving it for a few hours it seemed to be making good on that promise. I eventually narrowed the problem down to a corrupt Dynamic Link cache which I trashed with CS Repair and got the more respectable prediction of 10 hours (it was a 90 minute feature with 10-bit RGB source files).

I checked the original source files and they were fine. I checked the AC3 and it was fine. I restarted Encore and the problem was still there. I cleared the media cache from within the preferences menu; no change. I thought it might just be the preview but the problem existed on a test disc that I burned.

I eventually traced it to project corruption. There is a file in your project directory called ProjectMedia.acx. This is what the end of the file looked like:

The file should end with the closing XML tag </EncoreProject> (and there should only be one) but extra data has been added at the end. To fix this, close Encore, open up the file in TextEdit and delete everything beyond the first </EncoreProject> tag.

Then trash your media cache. For some reason the button in preferences doesn't remove everything so I'd recommend removing all files from the media cache directories at ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common or by using Housekeeper.

I relaunched Encore, everything worked properly and I was able to create the disc and breathe a sigh of relief. I would definitely recommend keeping an eye on ProjectMedia.acx though because I just checked it again and more corruption has crept in.

We're pleased to launch the first public beta of Preference Manager for Windows 7. This is a Windows port of our popular Mac tool for trashing and managing user preferences for your editing application.

The beta can trash, backup and restore preferences and other settings for Avid Media Composer, Symphony, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Backups are stored in a new file format which is different from the Mac version so Mac and Windows backups cannot yet be shared, but it's something we plan to address in future.

Please be aware that this is pre-release software so it may have bugs and issues and we do not recommend using it in a production environment yet. Please report any bugs or feature requests here.

Preference Manager for Windows is a free application that requires Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4.0.

Scarlet Deal of a Lifetime

RED is selling barely-used Scarlets at significantly reduced prices.

Get FCPX running faster by installing a PC NVIDIA Geforce GTX570 graphics card in a Mac Pro

How to benefit from the wider range of graphics cards available for the PC.

Resolve + BMCC 12-bit RAW color grading Tutorial

Detailed workflow for working with CinemaDNG footage from the Blackmagic Cinema Camera.

Adobe Upgrade Policy Changing Soon for CS4 and CS3 Customers

CS3 and 4 users can only upgrade to CS6 at a reduced price until the end of the year.

Free Aspect Ratio Overlays

A selection of mattes for various aspect ratios. I usually create my own in Photoshop so this is a useful timesaver.

Skyfall BTS

15 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage from the upcoming James Bond film.

Here's another installment of our weekly list of serious, interesting or bizarre bugs in various NLEs.

Premiere Pro

Blackmagic 9.6.6 drivers may reduce Premiere latency

Several users are reporting the inability to send clips to Audition after installing the latest Dynamic Link update

Workaround for Premiere not exporting to Media Encoder queue

Reference window will now update when RGB Color Corrector is applied to a clip

Workaround for audio clips turning red when loading a project

Audio channel limitations for various containers

Avid

OS X 10.7.5 and 10.8.2 now qualified for MC and Symphony 6.5

Media Composer 6.5 stability discussion

Last week we released Pro Maintenance Tools 2.0.11, a minor update to our suite of maintenance tools for Final Cut Studio, FCPX, Avid Media Composer / Symphony and Adobe Premiere Pro.

This version contains improved Premiere Pro support in CS Repair and Housekeeper. We've also added support for backing up Premiere audio channel layouts in Preference Manager for easy syncing between computers.

In addition to bug fixes, we've also added an option in Preference Manager to relink FCP 7 preferences to Motion 4 after trashing to prevent the error message saying it's incompatible with Motion 5.

A full list of changes is available here.

Pro Maintenance Tools is an essential toolkit for maintaining, optimizing and troubleshooting your editing system. To find out more see the feature list, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download the free trial.

Smart Rendering in Premiere Pro CS 6

Everything you wanted to know about Adobe's new FCP-style Smart Rendering feature (where it avoids recompressing the source media upon output) for certain formats in CS 6.0.1.

Mac, PC, Adobe and Resolve

Walter Biscardi on some of the problems of switching to Windows.

I am now mastering all PrP exports to OP1a AVC-I 100

On the same topic, Tom Daigon explains his reasons for choosing to master to OP1a AVC I-100 MXF.

GoPro ProTune firmware update

There's a new firmware update for GoPro HERO2 cameras offering better integration with professional workflows.

Dealing with Gamma Shifting [VIDEO]

How to use the Headroom feature in Smoke to control QuickTime color management.

FCPX magnetic timeline forum thread

Interesting discussion about FCPX's magnetic timeline and scenarios where the new paradigm isn't ideal.

How to build and use adjustment layers in FCP X

Here's a useful trick to use Photoshop / After Effects-style adjustment layers in FCPX.

Here's another pick of series, interesting or useful bugs we came across this week.

Premiere

Can't export to QuickTime H.264 or DNxHD (Windows)

Subclip descriptions set in Prelude do not show up in Premiere

Fix for Premiere Pro "Media Pending" error

Avid

Moving the playhead in QuickTime Player changes the source timecode

Fix for DISK_FILE_ALREADY_EXISTS error on Unity

Dupes are detected on effect tracks

After Effects

After Effects CS6 11.0.2 released with bug fixes and new CUDA GPU support

Compressor

Fix for Compressor 3.5 crashing at startup