Interesting product: the VidVox GridPro, a NLE/VJ software package looks like it’s packed with tons of realtime effects and features.

The FootageFirm has announced free 100MB FTP accounts to the first 100 respondents.

We know how often people in the video industry need to send large multimedia files back and forth to clients and associates, but most hosting companies charge a fortune based on high bandwidth usage.
So we decided that since we have a lot of extra storage space on our servers, and plenty of bandwidth to boot, we would give out free 100MB FTP accounts to the first 100 people that request them.

In addition to an extensive library of reasonably priced stock footage, the FootageFirm has a free stock library that they just added more clips to recently.

Issue #19 of Larry Jordan’s most-excellent FCP Newsletter is in the wild. As always, it’s packed with tips and techniques, a lot of great content. The newsletter is free, but requires you sign up for it. Well worth it.

A few highlights that caught my eye:
*New book is out.
*Prepping stills for import into FCP5 (recommended resolution).
*FCP Render Manager.
*Differences between HDV & DV (and issues/workarounds).
*Compressor Droplets (more on that below).
*And of course, tons of reader mail and comments.

I’ve personally been a big fan of Compressor Droplets since Ripple Training explained how to create them in a Compressor DVD tutorial excerpt. The one droplet that gets the most use from me is a “Convert to AIFF” droplet I configured after watching the tutorial. It’s fast, and painless and well worth the few minutes it takes to set it up.

[Larry Jordan Newsletter #19]
[“Final Cut Pro 5″ by Larry Jordan]
[Ripple Training]
[Ripple Training Droplet tutorial (MOV)]

UPDATE: I posted this back in July, and it has consistently received a considerable amount of views each month. I’m reposting an update back at the top to give those that may have missed it a second chance to see this. Note that the original link went down, I’ve found an alternate copy and it’s fixed now.

If you haven’t seen this artist’s work, you owe it to yourself to take a peek. And if you can lend any more information or insight on the artist Yuval Yairi, please feel free to leave a comment or two at the original post.

Israeli news site Haaretz.com is running a story on graphic artist Yuval Yairi, who uses a PD-150 in still-shot mode to create incredible photo collages.

Digital Digest has updated the Hi-Def DVD FAQ. It’s a good reference for all things HD DVD and BluRay. Start reading…

Total Training, producers of training and instructional media for video producers and editors, has announced that they will be releasing three new DVD-ROM series for mastering Macromedia Dreamweaver 8, Apple Final Cut Pro 5, and Macromedia Flash 8 Professional. All three titles will be produced at HD resolutions.

Viewers will benefit from a 165% larger screen size for viewing on a computer monitor, crystal-clear image capture to easily read text and fine details, and higher frame rate support for smoother playback when viewing the DVD-ROM Tutorials.

[EMediaLive announcement]
[Total Training]

Handly little OSX tip from TUAW; quickly scroll through your files, folders, and applications from a single popup icon on the Dock.

Drag a folder (or your hard drive icon) to the dock, place it on the right side of the vertical line (near the trash). Now when you click and hold, or CTRL+click that icon, you get a popup menu much like Windows start menu. This allows you to quickly navigate your filesystem. An old tip perhaps, but a good one.

A variation on this and other tips available here.

Richard Baguley reports.

Ulead has announced free HDV and MPEG-4 upgrades for users of VideoStudio 9. The plugins

The HDV Plug-in provides Sony HDR-HC1 users with a cost-effective solution to capture, edit, and output high-resolution HDV 1080i video - enabling users to incorporate HDV fully in their video projects, from capture through output.

The Ulead MPEG-4 Plug-in for VideoStudio 9 allows users to easily create video for high-quality playback, streaming over the net or display on mobile phones, PDAs or the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP).

zeroes and ones has dug up an intriguing link to a site called EditXchange. eBay for editors and producers, if you will.

MacNN is reporting that Toon Boom Studio has released Toon Boom Solo, “a new stand-alone animation software solution designed to meet the needs of small size studios and independent animation filmmakers.”

There is a demo version of Solo available, and they are also running a promotion until Oct. 31, purchasers of Toon Boom Solo will receive a free Mac Mini. Toon Boom Solo sells for $3000.

We posted previously on Mac OSX interface keyboard shortcuts. Here is a more extensive list of shortcuts, along with a handy-dandy PDF for reference.

EDIT: Graeme Nattress has been kind enough to leave a comment with an explanation of the issue.

It’s a High Def World (which just changed names to “Little Frog in HiDef”) mentioned in recent film look plugin tests that their footage treated with Nattress plugins exhibited some artifacting in shadows, moreso than Magic Bullet’s plugin.

Graeme Nattress has weighed in on the issue, and he says the problem stems from artifacting in the source DVCPRO HD footage, tucked away “in the luma, just below the threshold of visibility.” Interesting stuff.

Why does the artifacting show more on the Nattress-treated footage? I looked at the tests, and it appeared that the default Nattress Bleach Bypass effect preset lightened the footage significantly more than the Magic Bullet preset. I imagine that the same artifacts would appear if the Magic Bullet preset was tweaked to match.

Mike/HDFI has posted a most excellent report with details and some answers on the abilities of the Canon XL H1 AND the Panny HVX200.

Read carefully, the info is kinda intermingled, and I’ve confused specs on the two cams already.

FCP just crashed on me.
I had just selected a clip and hit Enter to load it into the Viewer window so I could modify Motion properties. Suddenly I see the Desktop come into view, and my first thought is, “hmm, must have hit my Exposé Hotcorner”. Then I got the “Final Cut Pro has quit, would you like to reopen it” message.
No big deal, I’ve got Autosave configured to make a copy every 5min, and I have an instinctive habit of hitting COMMAND+S after completing an edit, or at any juncture in my project. So after firing up FCP again and reopening the project, I found that no work was lost.

Why am I posting this?
Because it just dawned on me that it has been over 6 months since FCP last quit unexpectedly on me.
That’s nothing to sneeze at.
Now, the vast majority of my projects are 100% DV, so you could argue that I’m not really stressing FCP or OSX. However, I am editing or working on a project in some way nearly every day of the week, for hours on end. When I leave the Mac, I never shut it down, I simply Sleep the OS (with FCP and my current project still running), and Wake the computer to pick up where I left off. The computer and software is certainly getting a lot of use.

In short, I have found the combination of OSX Tiger and FCP 5 Suite to be incredibly stable and conducive to productivity. I love it.

What kind of uptime are you seeing on your editing boxen?
What production situations or conditions do you find are causing OSX or FCP to stumble?
Are my experiences the exception to the rule?
I’m also curious about who leaves computers on, who shuts them off, and who simply Sleeps the computer when not in use (and why). Leave a comment or two.