DV for Teachers

Qmaster Clusters for FCP’s Compressor 3.x

Apple's Qmaster
Digital Media Net’s Heath McKnight explains how and why to set up a Qmaster Cluster for use with Compressor. I assumed it only worked on networked computers, but you’ll need it if you have a multi-processor Mac—which is most Macs today. This is a good catch. Glad I found it.

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June 15, 2009 at 2:08 pm Comments (0)

QuickTime X has Screen Capture in Snow Leopard

QuickTime X

This is nice:

Catch the action taking place on your screen with screen recording. Start recording and QuickTime Player captures the activity on your screen and creates a movie file. It’s perfect for creating instructional media or when you need more than a simple screen shot.

Via Daring Fireball.

June 8, 2009 at 7:25 pm Comments (0)

Ken Stone: iMovie 09 In-Depth

iMovie 09 does so much more than I thought, hoo boy

Well, I am re-evaluting my opinion of the not-so-new “new” iMovie. I was so used to the older version, iMovie HD, which had been expanded but not fundamentally changed, since it was introduced in 1999 (Ten years? Yow).

Ken Stone, a source for so much great Final Cut information, posted the most complete one-page overview of iMovie I’ve ever seen. He loves it:

So why am I writing about iMovie 09 if I work in FCP? The answer is simple. At the demonstration I saw a number of features in iMovie 09, that I wished were in FCP and I wondered if there was a way to use iMovie 09 in conjunction with FCP, utilizing some of its features to supplement the FCP workflow, most importantly in the rough cut phase of editing, as ‘09’ has an amazing skimming/edit tool. iMovie also sports a new and modern tool for exact clip trimming, the Precision Editor, and it’s stunning. And, iMovie provides full Real Time playback, no rendering required, ever.
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iMovie is very intuitive and easy to use, despite the fact that it has some very advanced features, features that it would be nice to see incorporated into Apple’s other editing application, Final Cut Pro. iMovie is a very modern editing application and it works in a much more visual way than editing applications that were first created over a decade ago. This graphical aspect of iMovie is more persuasive and powerful than one might first suspect. And don’t let the fact that iMovie ships in the iLife package and comes free on new Macs fool you, this is an amazingly modern and capable editing application.

The article has 25 sections in a single page, all linked for easy navigations, and it’s full of screenshots to illustrate just what Ken likes and why. Ken even provides instructions for downloading and saving the page for offline use—printed it would go to more than 120 pages!

This is not only a detailed examination of iMovie but a great and generous example of technical writing

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June 3, 2009 at 4:34 pm Comments (0)