The new Canon Cinema EOS By Jeremiah Hall After the presentation, I tried it. I lifted it. Held it. Put it on my shoulder, thanks to a Zacuto support system, and did a few pans. And some tilts. It felt right. This is a light camera. It is a comfortable camera. It has possibilities. ...Read More »

MAKING THE SWITCH - From Apple to Adobe via a Windows 7 PC By Jeremiah Hall I don't upgrade at the drop of a hat. I only do it when I need to. So as I was saving my pennies to purchase a new Mac Pro (the G5 getting long in the tooth), Apple dropped a bomb - Final Cut X. I was excited... until it came out. I discovered that two of the things that I do with with Final Cut Studio, namely importing Photoshop layers and the wonder that was DVD Studio Pro, were no more. ...Read More »

Final Cut Pro for PC? By Charlie White In the past, your humble narrator was accused of having an anti-Mac bias. Now, some are saying just the opposite -- that perhaps a pro-Mac bias is afoot. There are good reasons why the tide seems to have turned here at the Midwest Test Facility, but we actually have no bias here for or against any operating system or content creation platform. The only bias here is toward getting the job done at a reasonable price. Let's take a look at the tide table of TV tools, and extrapolate what this could mean for the digital video editing world. ...Read More »

Motion And the Big Picture By Kevin Schmitt Like many of you, I spent the better part of this last week constantly refreshing my various browser window in the hopes of catching the absolute latest news coming out of Vegas, where NAB just closed up shop until this time next year. Of course, I don't have to remind anyone who was grabbing the (very) early headlines; Apple was quite busy providing whiz-bang fireworks on what is usually a traditional day of rest. ...Read More »

Apple Brings Out the Big Guns at NAB By Dave Nagel Macintosh creative professionals have clearly been anxious about Apple's presence at the 2003 convention of the National Association of Broadcasters, hoping for at least some inkling of movement in Apple's professional lineup. With announcements of full-version updates and significant enhancements to the company's full range of professional-level offerings--Shake, Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro, not to mention the previous weeks' announcements of updates to Logic Audio--the company did not disappoint. ...Read More »

NLE for Free? Almost. By Charlie White You know the year's off to a great start when you hear that Avid and Apple are giving away nonlinear editing software. Well, almost. The other day Apple introduced a reduced-cost ($299) DV-only version of Final Cut Pro, called Final Cut Express. Not to be outdone, Avid announced that by the middle of this year, they'll be handing out free copies of software that sports a simplified version of the fabled Avid interface, in a training-wheels app called Free DV. Not that I'm complaining, but hey, what's going on here? ...Read More »

The Final Cut Pro Bonus By Paulo de Andrade When you purchase a professional video editing system, you expect it to perform flawlessly. But no matter how stable a specific piece of software is, there are too many things that can go wrong in a computer-based system. Problems with drivers, extensions and hardware issues can happen completely out of the blue, turning a typical working day into a real nightmare. ...Read More »

Avid Users Lured by Black Lace Teddy By Charlie White Avid is running scared from Final Cut Pro. The long-term marriage between Avid and its huge corps of customers is getting stale, and those users are getting roving eyes. Final Cut Pro is like that floozy who lures bored men from secure marriages with the seductive temptation of a black lace teddy straining against its fleshy cargo. Alas, she's just the transition babe. There are many fish in the sea, and they're spawning all around Avid. And they all cost a fraction of what Avid is asking its loyal army of users to pay. ...Read More »

Avid Xpress DV 3 Goes Final Cut Pro-Hunting By Charlie White So did you think digi-vid powerhouse Avid was going to just sit there and watch Apple take all the glory with its shiny new ultra-hip 'n' trendy Final Cut Pro 3? You know, the Jobs-blessed "real time" editing software that many think is on its way to world domination? Well, I took a day trip this week to Avid's Mother Ship in Tewksbury, Massachusetts and I'm here to tell you the makers of Apple's Final Cut Pro might want to take a trip back to the old drawing board when they see what Avid has been cooking up in its back-room labs. ...Read More »

Feedback: Letters To and From the Editor -- By Charlie White So you're looking into Premiere and Final Cut Pro? My take is that I like both of them a lot. I've been a Premiere user since its earliest Mac-only days, when the Windows version was only at 1.0 and was so crappy it was a joke. Not any more. ...Read More »