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Bugs of the Week - 10-19-12

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

Posted by Jon Chappell on Oct 19 2012 to Bugs of the Week, Video Editing, Software
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Pro Maintenance Tools 2.0.11 released - improved Premiere Pro support and more

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.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Oct 16 2012 to DR News, Front Page News, Utilities
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Weekend Reads - 10-12-12

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.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Oct 12 2012 to Weekend Reads
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Bugs of the Week - 10-12-12

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

Posted by Jon Chappell on Oct 12 2012 to Bugs of the Week, Software, Video Editing
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Weekend Reads - 10-5-12

Adobe Programs Explained

Ever wondered what each tool in Creative Suite does? Here's a great summary.

How to build a Thunderbolt Hackintosh

A guide to building a faster Mac Pro with Thunderbolt for half the price.

Smoke ConnectFX: Damage and Deform Nodes

Great overview of two useful nodes in Smoke 2013.

DNG 1.4 Specification Notes

This is an overview of changes in the new DNG specification. DNG is an open alternative to proprietary raw still image formats such as Canon CR2 and Adobe offers a free DNG converter.

Performance Enhancing Visual Effects Techniques

List of various VFX techniques to enhance an actor's performance or improve story clarity. I seem to do #7 a lot, often having to add establishing shots or remove entire characters from the movie.

What could the new Mac Pro look like?

I'm not convinced Apple will go for a modular Mac Pro design (and the jury's still out on whether the Mac Pro will ever be updated) but it's an interesting and well-designed proposal regardless.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Oct 5 2012 to Weekend Reads, Video Editing
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Bugs of the Week - 10-5-2012

We've got more important, useful and bizarre bugs this week that you should know about.

Avid


A fix for the hang when scanning media folders is coming in 6.0.3.2

Various issues with ExFAT drives

Avid FX installer does not install the Avid FX plugin by default

Issues with AMA linking 24p CanonXF files

Despite what it says on Avid's site, the Artist Color only fully supports MC 6 and higher

Premiere


New Mac NVIDIA drivers improve CUDA stability

Audio goes offline after pasting clips from another project

Application windows may appear offscreen if you disconnect a monitor (Windows but may affect Mac too)

Playback stops several frames after you pressed Space

Tip: to enable CUDA support, delete the entire cuda_supported_cards.txt file instead of editing it

QuickTime HDV file issues in Premiere Pro CS6 for Windows

FCPX


Various issues with standard definition media

Compressor


Green bar when Frame Controls are switched on

Posted by Jon Chappell on Oct 5 2012 to Bugs of the Week, Software, Video Editing
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Video Space Calculator 1.0.5 released - 3K ARRIRAW, DNxHD 80,100,444

Today we released Video Space Calculator 1.0.5 for iOS and 1.0.3 for Mac.

These updates add 3K ARRIRAW support, along with Avid DNxHD 80, 100 and 444 codecs.

Video Space Calculator can calculate the disk space taken up by over 75 codecs including ProRes, Animation, ARRIRAW, DNxHD, XDCAM and DPX.

The app is available on the iOS App Store and the Mac App Store.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Oct 4 2012 to DR News, Front Page News, Utilities
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Weekend Reads - 9-30-12

How to color correct a horror film

I love this idea: Patrick Inhofer introduces his first Grade-Along project.

CS6 Gripes / CS6.5 wish list

Well thought-out list of Premiere feature requests from an FCP switcher.

An Exciting Post About File Management

Interesting discussion about project management (be sure to read the comments). Post Haste seems to be commonly used.

Pretending to be pro: Pro Amp

Dennis Couzin analyzes the Proc Amp filter in FCP 7 against the output a real Proc Amp should produce.

Autodesk Smoke 2013 Pre-Release 4

Smoke PR4 is out with several new features, including many UI changes.

Telestream releases Flip4Mac 3.0

Improved support for OS X 10.8 and AV Foundation, and also ships with a new standalone video player.

The Return of the Save As Command

This is good but you still need to hold down the Option key to access it. It's an example of Apple's constant efforts to simplify everything actually making things more complicated.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Sep 30 2012 to Weekend Reads
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Bugs of the Week - 9-29-12

Here's more important, useful and bizarre bugs that we discovered this week.

Avid


Media Composer and Symphony 5.5.3.5 released

MC launches slowly unless network access is disabled

Effect changes in MC 5 and 6

'Online Resources' window hangs Avid

Typing too quickly in Subcap causes characters to be swapped

Workaround for unsupported foreign characters in Marquee

Bin memory drops to 0%

Canon EOS clips appear blank when Perian is installed

Workaround for "Audio has attempted to overrun its buffers" error when capturing

Premiere


Adobe has released updates for a security issue on Windows

The main problem affecting users of Adobe products is that the code signing certificate will now expire on October 4th, which could cause Windows error messages or problems with anti-virus tools. It is therefore worthwhile installing the updates before October 4th. Mac users do not need to update.

Premiere Pro 6.0.2 fixes the long-standing issue inability to render more than 2.15 GB to a network share

Problems with Adobe Application Manager on Windows showing applications not installed

Workaround for titles not appearing in exports

Retimed clips need to be nested in order to add additional effects to them

FCPX


OpenCL issues with plugins

FCPX does not support straight alpha

Blank viewer window if monitor color profile is incorrect

Posted by Jon Chappell on Sep 30 2012 to Bugs of the Week, Software, Video Editing
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How to import projects and events into Final Cut Pro X

Need to restore a backup or import a project from another system into FCPX? It's not as simple as it seems at first glance. You would think that you could just double-click the project file but that produces the following error:

Final Cut Pro X is expecting projects to be contained in a folder inside your Final Cut Projects directory (or Final Cut Events if you are importing an event). The default locations of these folders are in ~/Movies.

To successfully import these files, you must create a new directory inside your Final Cut Projects or Final Cut Events folder and then copy the project to this new directory. FCPX will determine the project name from the name of the directory but the project file does not need to have the same name.

It's also worth noting that there is a difference between double-clicking an XML file and importing it via File > Import > XML.

Double-clicking seems to import the file without modifying it, so you will get errors if a project already exists with this ID or the event is not in the exact location as specified in the XML file. However, if you import it via File > Import > XML, it is more intelligent and will assign a new ID if necessary and find the new location of the event if it has changed.

Posted by Jon Chappell on Sep 27 2012 to Apple, Final Cut Studio, Tutorials
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