Mac MediaCast 006 REPOST

This is a repost - there seems to have been some issues with the first post. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Welcome to the Mac MediaCast episode 6.
Direct Download (QuickTime MP4 for Apple TV - 160 MB)
Open in Flash pop-up player: Click Here.
This episode: iPhone Hangover. Screencast episode - edited in HD and ready for your […]

Macworld Magazine Presents FirmTek “Best Storage Product of the Year”

(London, England-July 12, 2007) FirmTek, LLC, a pioneer and leader in Serial ATA (SATA) storage solutions for Windows and Macintosh platforms, today announced that Macworld Magazine’s United Kingdom edition selected the SeriTek/2eEN4 as the best storage solution among all evaluated during the year 2006.
Macworld Magazine’s awards have become the primary recognition event in the Macintosh […]

New Product for Video Camcorders Reduces Hand-held Movement

Baughan Productions is proud to announce its simple video stabilizer, “Levelcam”. Designed and manufactured in the USA, “Levelcam” is a valuable asset for amateur and professional videographers who use palm-sized camcorders.Small camcorders are perfect for grabbing quick shots, but they’re hard to keep steady. Abrupt movements like jerks, shakes and twitches spoil otherwise great video. […]

The Auto Save Vault in Final Cut Pro: How To Restore and 4 Lifesaving Tips

From GeniusDV:

Restoring an Autosaved Project in Final Cut Pro
When you begin work on a Final Cut Pro Project, the first thing you should do is give your project a name and save it so that the autosave function can work. Autosave will not work until you have named and saved your project first. If your […]

Quicktime Pro, Components, and the iPhone

Quicktime Pro, Components, and the iPhone … at Podcast Academy
Paul Figgiani has written a great article at the Podcast Academy blog about some of the technical details regarding QuickTime video on the iPhone. As always from Paul, it is thorough, informative, and well-written.
Read More
Tags: iphone, quicktime, video, apple, mac, macintoch

Panasonic HVX-200 in-field Advice

HD For Indies has an article on in-field advice on using the Panasonic HVX-200 HD camera. This is the camera we use at the Mac Mediacast and recommend most to people asking about a great prosumer digital video camera. A great read!

SimpleMovieX, the light-weight Video Editor

Aero Quartet has released version 3.1.1 of SimpleMovieX, the Mac OS X
movie editor. With a feature set roughly similar to QuickTime Pro,
SimpleMovieX extends editing capabilities to other popular video
formats AVI, Google Video, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. The main
advantage of native editing is speed and quality, since no re-encoding
is required to save edited movies.
This new version […]

Understanding Digital Video Architecture

Understanding Digital Video Architecture from Videomaker Magazine
MPEG-2, DivX, AVCHD: These are just a few of the confusing acronyms of digital video. Let’s clear the air a bit
To understand Digital Video Architecture, you need to start at the beginning. The beginning in this case is known as Video Compression. That is the start of this article; […]

Boris Continuum Complete 5.0 for FxPlug Now Shipping

Boris FX, the leading developer of integrated effects technology for video and film, announced that Boris Continuum Complete 5.0 for FxPlug (BCC 5.0 for FxPlug) is now shipping.
Developed specifically for Apple’s new FxPlug plug-in architecture, BCC 5.0 for FxPlug is a brand new member of the Boris Continuum Complete product family. BCC 5.0 for FxPlug […]

Nice Collection of After Effects Tutorials

Here at the Mac MediaCast we spend a lot of time talking about Final Cut Pro and Apple’s ProApps, but we’ve got to occasionally give some love to the industry-standard motion graphics powerhouse After Effects. I’ve compiled a couple of tutorials I’ve found lately into this post. For more great After Effects information and tutorials, […]

Final Cut Pro Trouble shoot basics | IndiesHD

Final Cut Pro Trouble shoot basics | IndiesHD

If Final Cut Pro isn’t starting up properly or performing normally, try these basic troubleshooting steps to remedy the situation. Please note that these steps aren’t exhaustive, and are not intended to cover any specific issue. They are fundamental, basic steps that are most effective in getting […]

Apple Kernel Panics, Random Crashes - How I Diagnosed My Problem

So I’ve been harboring a dirty secret for a very long time - I’ve been plagued with kernel panics and crashes for a very long time on my PowerMac Quad Core G5. They’ve been going on for a very long time. Sometimes I’d have up to five a day. I’ve always just chalked them up […]

Soundsnap.com: Find and Share Free Sound Effects and Loops

Soundsnap is a new online platform for finding and sharing free samples, sound effects and music loops.
Designed as a resource and community for musicians, sound designers, producers, film makers and web/video game developers, Soundsnap provides user driven content for use in virtually any kind of media production. Users can freely download and upload content to […]

Apple Color: Auto Balance Feature

Apple Color: Auto Balance Feature
Walter Biscardi from Creative Cow gives us another basic-level tutorial on the Auto Balance feature in Apple’s Color. (don’t worry, I’m not going to accidentally podcast the video this time). A must see if you’re a Final Cut Studio user curious about the new powerful color-correcting application.

Chess, Chat and Cheap Gas: The IPhone’s Best Web Apps Reviewed

from Wired:

The Apple iPhone was only released into the wild a little over a week ago, and some killer apps have already surfaced.While the handheld device lacks support for native applications — the kind users can download and install — developers have been busy building programs for the iPhone’s version of […]

Secure Gmail Notifier Using Hidden Preference Setting

from macosxhints.com
I recently found this tidbit at Mac OSX Hintsthat I wasn’t aware of and wanted to share it with everyone:
I was shocked to discover that the Gmail Notifier, as distributed by Google, defaults to sending your Gmail password over the network in clear text every time it checks your inbox for new mail. This […]

Telekinesis - iPhone Remote. Cool New iPhone Application

telekinesis - Google Code
A friend recently sent me a link to this program, which I immediately installed. It seems very cool and promising so far. Definitely (in my opinion) one of the best iPhone applications I’ve seen yet.
Here are its features:
• Stream music and videos from your computer
• Screen capture with mouse click and basic […]

No Mac MediaCast this Week: + upcoming Reviews and Stories

Greetings, all. I just wanted to make a quick announcement that there will be no Mac MediaCast this week. Life and business is getting in the way for all crew members. We’ll be back as soon as we can!
I just wanted to give you some teasers of some upcoming stories, reviews, and tutorials I’m working […]

The iPhone: 2nd Impressions or How the iPhone Has Replaced My PowerBook

The iPhone hype train and subsequent hangover is beginning to fade. I thought I’d post my “2nd Impressions” now that I’ve had plenty of time to tinker with my little marvel. And yes, I am posting this from my iPhone.
My wife’s ancient Windows laptop has finally died, so I’ve turned over to her my slightly-less-ancient […]

Color Correction Techniques for Greenscreen Compositing

Tutorial From Creative Cow
When it comes to greenscreen compositing, most people know that a clean and natural-looking matte is crucial to getting good results. Hours are spent tweaking the various controls, and many cups of coffee are drained trying to get that “perfect” key. The truth is that our elusive “perfect composite” is rarely […]

A Case Against Color

from Studio Daily Blog » A Case Against Color

There have been quite a few articles around the web on some of the bugs/issues/user experiences with Color. I have sat through several sessions on a Final Touch system and knew what to expect upon booting up Color for the first time. It looked pretty much […]

Top 6 Ways to Increase Your Podcast Subscribers

I have a lot of podcasters as subscribers to the Mac MediaCast. One common question I get from them is “How do I get more people to subscribe to my podcast?”
I’ve had the privilege over my years (!) podcasting to have had a lot of subscribers, get featured in iTunes on many occasions, and, most […]

Creating a Curved Path for Text in LiveType 2

From GeniusDV
When you first open LiveType, you will see within the Canvas Window a blue line representing an empty track. Type something into the Text Entry box located to the upper right of the Canavas In the Inspector Window.

Making a Curved Track
1 While pressing the control key or right clicking if you have a two […]

How to use Motion 2 Templates in Final Cut Pro

From GeniusDV:

One of the new features in the Final Cut Studio 2.0 suite of programs is the ability to integrate motion templates directly within a Final Cut Pro sequence.
This new feature really enhances the integration between Apple Motion 2.0 and Final Cut Pro 6.0.
Learn More
I found this nice tutorial over at GeniusDV. This is […]

Tips on Getting a Good “Ken Burns Effect”

I recently came across this article, and it got me thinking about the Ken Burns effect, a.k.a. animating still photos for video:
From Poynter Online - Meaning in Motion: Ken Burns and His ‘Effect’

Few of us will ever develop a technique distinctive enough to have it named after us, but most people serious about visual storytelling […]

Building the Perfect HDV Key

Building the Perfect HDV Key at Creative Cow
I found this great article / tutorial on the finer points of getting the best green screen key with your HDV footage.
Green Screening / Keying is quite an art in itself - I’m learning more and more every time we shoot an episode of the Mac MediaCast in […]

Using VisualHub To Make Better-Looking YouTube Videos

YouTube is hot these days, and even hotter now that it is viewable on everyone’s iPhones. But how do you encode better video for YouTube?
As we’ve talked about on the podcast and on this blog, the big problem with YouTube videos is that you have to encode a lower-res version of your video to meet […]

Rumor: massive software updates for iPhone soon

From Ars Technica:

Despite an apparent trend in positive reports about the iPhone, both from published reviews and firsthand accounts, there has been plenty of constructive criticism. Setting aside complaints related to hardware or the network (such as AT&T’s EDGE network), there have also been points made about software. John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote […]

FCP, Avid, After Effects– Format Sizes and Megapixels

From GeniusDV:
FCP, Avid, After Effects and Format Sizes and Megapixels
Once again a few people have asked me about format and pixels sizes of HD and what they mean. So I thought a good review might help. Some of our current project we have needed some still pictures for print that would accompany the DVD […]

Mac Audio Programs (Part 2): The Big Three: Logic, ProTools, Digital Performer

This is a continuation of a series of quick reviews and overviews of some of the audio applications available for Macs.

You’ll remember from my previous article on the subject, some of the great features of Logic Pro 7– Apple’s pro-level audio and music production program.
It includes the features pros expect, and more, including– Surround […]