Flip4Mac, the folks who made it possible for Windows Media video to play on Macs in the QuickTime player, now offer the Episode media encoder, with a wide variety of input and output formats, with a standard version at $395 and Pro version for $895. See the website for details.
Qualified education customers can apply for a 20% academic discount.
I’ve been waiting for something like this to surface – a free tool for publishing podcasts and vodcasts. Take a look at Vodcaster.
Quick and Easy Publishing
New! You can now record videos directly into VODcaster! It will automatically encode them in iPod format (320×240) using h.264 and AAC. You can still quickly drag-and-drop audio and video files, and create podcasts and vodcasts to share.No handcoding of XML
Whether you want to put your Podcasts on your own webserver, add them to the iTunes Music Store Podcast Directory, or some other service, VODcaster allows you to enter in all the important information without having to know XML.
I’ll be talking to Mary’s Comm Pedagogy class in a few weeks, and telling them about blogs as a teaching tool will be part of it.
If you’re looking for a digital audio recorder for voice, dictation, noteptaking, or podcasting, you’ll find excellent information in this Q & A with David Battino – Your Top Voice Recorder Questions – one of O’Reilly Digital Media Bloggers.
I needed some guidance installing this for our Mac lab shortly, and this article – How You Can Plan a Remote Desktop Installation > Whats New In Version 3? – will be a good augmentation to the Apple documentation.
Most users recognize the power of Apple Remote Desktop for observing and controlling remote Macs and Mac OS X Server, but that is only a small fraction of the features and capabilities offered by this powerful tool. In this first article in a five-part series, Ryan Faas shows you how much more Remote Desktop can be used to accomplish; and how to plan, configure, and deploy Apple Remote Desktop efficiently and effectively in a Mac network.
Nels Johnson explains why and how to make your videos for the iPod:
Hello, my name is Nels. I’m a Windows Media producer and software developer. I’ve been platform-specific for two years and three months (more or less). Recently my world was challenged and altered by Flash Video. Now it’s being rocked again by Apple’s video iPod, although it only plays QuickTime movies (as of this writing).
Why the brouhaha? Because mass acceptance of the video iPod could make digital media file types (Flash, QuickTime, Real, Windows Media, and so on) irrelevant to a large portion of my customer base. As a consequence, I’m now making movies specifically for iPod hardware—as opposed to Flash, QuickTime, RealMedia, or Windows Media apps. As you’ll see in the following sections, the production process is relatively straightforward. This article is useful to any digital media producer who just wants to see the slope of the learning curve.
His argument is one you’ll see other places: the iPod isn’t just a player, it’s a platform. If your audience uses iPods to watch video, they’re more likely to see what you produce if it’s formatted for an iPod. Nels explains different tool sets that allow iPod-ready compression and distribution.
Not really, says John C. Welch, in aHas Apple Lost Its Security Shine? Welch is a Mac consultant and author. He says:
The truth is, all the malware for Mac OS X thus far has been rather lame, and not much of a danger to anyone who practices a few common-sense steps. The real threats in the Mac world are complacency and foolish behavior on the part of users. (...) While Mac OS X is quite secure out of the box, there are some easy things that you can do to keep yourself safe.
Wise and informed advice follow. Please read and learn and apply, and your Mac – and more importantly, the data you keep on it – should stay safe.
Now, about those backups you’ve been meaning to do….
Stephen Schleicher answers questions in the new feature at Digital Producer.com, called Questions Answered. The first installment explains Customizing iDVD Themes.
Free video editing software list for all platforms.
A rundown of free video editing apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux/Unix. Not complete, but had some Win apps I hadn’t seen before.
Understanding Scopes in Final Cut Pro – Note: the linked page includes a 21.6 MB video clip. Click with caution.
In this video based tutorial excerpted from Lynda.com’s Final Cut Pro 5 Essential Effects with Larry Jordan, you learn what scopes are for and how to make the best use of vecorscopes [sic] and waveform monitors during the editing process.
Another clear video clip tutorial from Larry. Note: the linked page includes a 21.6 MB video clip. Click with caution.