“Apple® today announced that Mac OS® X v10.6 Snow Leopard™ will go on sale Friday, August 28 at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, and that Apple’s online store is now accepting pre-orders. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard® users for $29. Mac OS X is renowned for
its simplicity, its reliability, and its ease of use. So when it came to designing Snow Leopard, Apple engineers had a single goal: to make a great thing even better. They searched for areas to refine, further simplify, and speed up — from little things like ejecting external drives to big things like installing the OS. In many cases, they elevated great to amazing.” Source
“Award-winning director Phil Brown has signed with Venice, CA-based Backyard. Honored at Cannes Lions, Promax and Bessie awards, Brown comes to Backyard from Tate USA. He will continue to be repped by Industry Films in Canada. Brown has gained a reputation as a visual director whose work often reflects a candid-but-stylized realism on scales both large and small. His talents are best showcased in high profile campaigns for VW, The Canadian Ministry of Energy and Pfizer. Prior to Tate USA, Brown was on the roster at Partizan.” Source
“Having already designed hundreds of custom web sites using their own unique web application platform, veteran software developers at Volta saw a unique opportunity to respond to a new demand in the entertainment marketplace. Among their production company clientele, there was an outcry for the need of an online workflow tool that simplified reel presentations, for both the user and the client. By working closely with the producers and editors, Volta developed Simian. An online showcase tool that streamlines media presentation for commercials, music videos, and web or print advertising.”
http://www.gosimian.com/product-overview
http://www.gosimian.com/about
MXF4mac by Hamburg Pro Audio in cooperation with Spherico developed a software application to enhance Panasonic P2 workflows in Mac OS X. P2 Flow is the first P2 metadata editor with direct integration to Apple’s popular editing application Final Cut Pro. Read more of this article at Creative Cow.
Panasonic’s AJ-PCD35 lets you plug in up to five P2 cards and conveniently transfer all their footage to your desktop computer. Of course, a five card P2 reader isn’t exactly a new concept. Panasonic has sold two earlier models over the years. But the PCD35 is the first to transfer data amazingly fast, offloading footage roughly five times faster than card readers of yesteryear. The PCD35 achieves its speed demon status because it attaches to your desktop computer via an included PCIe expansion card and PCIe cable, which is much faster than typical USB 2 or FireWire 800 connections. I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore when I copied a single 32GB P2 card (from Panasonic’s new Eseries) to my desktop Mac, using both the PCD35 and Panasonic’s previous-generation PCD20 reader. Using FireWire 800, the PCD20 transferred the 32G card in 19 minutes, 23 seconds, but the PCD35 copied the same card in just 4 minutes. Read more of this article at Studiodaily.
da Vinci Systems, LLC, today announced that ANDTRANSFER has deployed a Resolve® digital mastering suite for color grading and digital intermediate (DI) finishing on a variety of commercials and long-form projects, including promos of “Dexter” for Showtime Networks and CBS. In addition, ANDTRANSFER recently upgraded its Resolve with version 6.2 software, becoming the first post facility in the Southwest to offer color grading of native RED™ Raw digital motion picture files (via the Resolve R-series) — eliminating time-consuming .r3D-to-DPX file conversion. Source
Here’s a really interesting tutorial from Andrew Kramer on how to manipulate lighting within After Effects when compositing 3D effects with high definition video. You can watch the video tutorial here.
DK-Technologies will be attending this year’s IBC Convention with an exciting new addition to its award winning PT0760M HD/SD Multi-channel Video Waveform Monitor. The PT0760-R is a remote unit that allows engineers to access the facilities of the PT0760M from an entirely different location. With this unit in place, an engineer on location can see exactly the same audio and video display as the engineer in the Master Control Room. Engineers using the remote can independently access all the facilities of the PT0760M without interrupting the use at the master location. Source
Post Logic Studios, a division of Prime Focus, announced today that industry veteran Rob Hummel has joined the company as CEO. Rob replaces the position vacated by Larry Birstock who is moving into an
international role within the organization as President, Prime Focus Global Integration. Hummel joins Post Logic from DALSA Corporation where he served as the President of Digital Cinema, chartered with
introducing the company’s 4K camera to the motion picture industry. Source
Mini Converter Audio to SDI allows embedding of audio into SDI video connections. SDI loops though, and 4 channels of balanced analog audio or 8 channels of AES/EBU digital audio can be embedded. Any audio channel can be selected, and enabled or disabled. Full sample rate converters are included on each AES/EBU audio input. Both converters feature redundant SDI connections meaning that if one SDI connection is interrupted, the redundant connection activates immediately. Loop through SDI allows video daisy chaining with multiple devices for additional audio channels. Blackmagic Design’s three new Mini Converters, which were added to its Mini Converter family at NAB 2009, are now shipping from authorized Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide: Mini Converter SDI to Audio, Mini Converter Audio to SDI, and Mini Converter Optical Fiber. All Mini Converters will be at IBC on the Blackmagic Design Stand Number 7.B21. Source
