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Stephen Nathans-Kelly is editor of EMedia.
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Articles By Stephen Nathans-Kelly
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If you like the way LightScribe labeling looks and have the patience to wait for it, you'll love the way it performs in an automated system: reliable, predictable, performance with no consumables costs
The world's first Qflix drive bundle--hardware by PLDS, software by Sonic, media by Ritek, movie site by CinemaNow, sales by Dell--does everything it should do, from simple-and-seamless download-to-burn of movies from the Qflix catalog to general-purpose DVD and CD burning. The selection of burn-ready CinemaNow movies is still quite limited, and the jury remains out on whether consumers will buy into Qflix's drive- and disc-specific restrictions, but there's no question the PLDS drive and Roxio Venue application are effectively holding up their end of the bargain.
Stephen Nathans-Kelly | Today Dell Computer announced the first Qflix recordable drives, and Sonic Solutions' bid to take burn-to-DVD downloads to the Hollywood mainstream gets its official market launch
Stephen Nathans-Kelly | With its auspicious blue glow, the Bravo XR Disc Publisher ($3,295) is everything you'd expect from a stackable, rackmountable counterpart to Primera's popular Bravo II: it's a fast, efficient, rock-solid automated DVD/CD publishing system that delivers great print quality and a refreshing runs-right-out-of-the-box experience. But the real joy in testing this unit came in discovering the wonders of WaterShield water-resistant inkjet media, which add a glossy and eminently professional sheen to photo-quality inkjet-printed discs.
Stephen Nathans-Kelly | With waterproof WaterShield and AquaGuard media supplied by Primera (along with a rock-solid Bravo XR Disc Publisher) for testing, we explored the relative merits of the two leading brands of waterproof inkjet media compared to each other and top-quality non-waterproof inkjet discs.
Stephen F. Nathans | When will desktop HD disc production become a viable business strategy for small-studio video producers with HDTV-ready clientele?
Stephen F. Nathans | So far the new year has brought two major announcements, one I've been hoping to see for a long time--Adobe Production Studio for Mac--and another I've been hoping would never happen: the dreaded two-headed HD DVD/Blu-ray Combo player
In a recent interview with EMedialive, Joe Rice, senior technical director at MX Entertainment, describes how one high-end post house worked closely with Sonic Solutions and the High-Definition Authoring Alliance (HDAA) to become a fully functional BD and HD DVD authoring facility.
Stephen F. Nathans | Condre's Piranha is an automated CD/DVD destruction system that renders disc data unrecoverable by grinding dimples into discs rather than breaking or shredding them. It's a useful device for companies and agencies that need systematic disc destruction for sensitive datasets with a solution that meets federal regulations for proper data removal.
Stephen F. Nathans | Even as DVD cedes most of its press attention to the perceived format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD, DVD technology remains very much in its heyday at all levels of the market.
Stephen F. Nathans | At $699 for a 25-disc automated duplicator, the Disc Makers Pico is price-competitive, but much higher capacity than the standalone duplicators in today's market. It doesn't offer the robustness of industrial-strength Rimage systems or the versatility of professional disc publishing solutions from Primera, but its eye-popping price for a robotic system makes it well worth a look for entry-level disc production.
Stephen F. Nathans | With its 8GB capacity and the ability, through its Ceedo launchpad, to install and run applications directly from the drive, Verbatim's latest USB HD Drive redefines portable storage and takes the lead in the USB Flash Drive space.
Stephen F. Nathans | If you’re a Casablanca user and you do any kind of photo montage work, or are planning on adding photo montages or memorial videos to your services, Photo-Studio 2 is exactly what you need.
Premiere 2.0, After Effects 7.0, Dynamic Link, Clip Notes highlight new Adobe suite
TEAC's P11 is a low-cost ($135 street price), compact, desktop thermal CD/DVD printer that delivers excellent single-color printing quickly and efficiently. There's nothing resembling "photo-quality" printing here, as you might get from a full-color inkjet unit under optimum circumstances, but for clear, concise, and simply attractive disc labeling--especially appealing for archive purposes--the TEAC is an excellent choice.
The TEAC HD2U80 is an excellent portable storage accessory that delivers solid capacity for an external hard disk drive at a $269 price tag that's higher than some other external drives with greater capacity, but more than justified by the drive's performance and compact construction.
Besides price and reputation, what distinguishes professional software NLEs from pretenders? Tackling the sophisticated tasks that make ambitious productions successful. Here we identify six such tasks and describe how they're accomplished in five leading NLEs, plugging in relevant plug-ins and suitemates when the job demands it.
Long before Alienware shipped out what may be the ultimate gamer-targetted system, the Star Wars line they introduced this spring, the company figured out that the same sort of turbocharging components they were using to attract the gaming market were essential equipment for video producers as well, at least those who were looking to equip their editing bays with all-purpose Windows PCs that matched their needs more expertly than the usual run of assembly-line systems from the mass-market PC integration set.
Alienware seems poised to take the plunge into Dual Core alongside mass-market rival Dell.
Most of the exciting news at NAB concerns products and technologies that won’t be generally available for quite some time.
With some technologies, protracted delays can turn out to be good news. Case in point: Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
Disc Makers ReflexMax7 ($1,490) improves on its Reader’s Choice Award-winning predecessor, the ReflexPro, by adding 16X DVD recording, 4X DVD+R DL, and 48X CD-R to the seven-disc tower duplicator. CD-R burning was mostly consistent in testing and DVD recording was nearly flawless; while not setting any speed records in the emergent 16X set, the tower performed admirably, making excellent use of its seven Editor’s Choice-winning Plextor PX-716A drives and its sizeable 120GB hard disk, which neatly arranges multiple imported disc images for faster burning and full access to the seven target recorders.
Full-step Vegas upgrade includes native HDV support, nested projects; DVD Architect 3 also available with DVD+R DL support and Smart Rendering
New HD world yields Final Cut Studio, Xpress Studio HD, new Panasonic camcorder with eye-popping price
New 3-chip model with 4-channel audio and "true" 24p
Stephen Nathans|ADS' Red Rover with Audition bundle combines Adobe’s powerful audio editor with ADS’ handy Red Rover remote controller.
Sound Forge Audio Studio is a lot like Sound Forge in the way Vegas Movie Studio is a lot like Vegas. It's fairly intuitive and quite easy to operate if you have some familiarity with other Sony Pictures tools. Of course, if you’re a Vegas editor working with Vegas 5, you’ve already got an NLE so jam-packed with audio features you may be able to get by quite well without an audio-specific editing application.
For many users, ACID is the go-to application for creating loops and mixing audio, and it’s a great tool for videographers who need to enhance their videos with snatches of royalty-free audio and looping clips. ACID Music Studio is the newest addition to the family, and it’s also part of another family—Sony’s new Studio group of products.
Stephen F. Nathans|Sony’s DVDirect knocked my socks off like no product I’ve seen in years. Billed as a product that combines the capabilities of standalone and desktop DVD recorders, DVDirect’s best feature is its ability to record live video to DVD as you shoot it. It boasts excellent image quality and limited but functional DVD menu creation. It’s also a rock-solid desktop burner, promising and delivering state-of-the-art high-speed DVD±R/RW and 4X double-layer DVD+R DL.
Stephen F. Nathans|Macrosystem’s AVIO DV-DVD PRO turnkey video editing system targets corporate and event videographers with a capable, stylish NLE that benefits mightily from its video-dedicated OS in its fleet, smooth, and stable performance. Its well-crafted editing environment makes it easy to move between windows and operations, from the main storyboard to effects configuration, audio mixing and envelope controls, and titling. DVD-Arabesk 2 is a functional DVD authoring environment that makes up for its rigidity with fine video output.
...in case you missed it.
In December 2004, Sony announced the first HDV camcorder both positioned as a pro product and fully equipped with the capabilities pro shooters expect.
A new CD/DVD publishing system designed to automate the production of up to 100 CDs or DVDs per job, the BravoPro may represent the best of all possible worlds for videographers with discs to produce.
Stephen F. Nathans|Transitioning from a decade of EMedia to the arrival of EventDV
The new drive features of desktop and set-top burners in a single unit
Specialized tools help make standardized editing software funtional for three-camera editing
Stephen F. Nathans|You’re new to event video, but you know you have a knack for it. You want to hit the ground running—even if it’s only a half-dozen events per year—but you need to watch your pennies as you go. You can’t commit $600+ to any one tool, but you’re too ambitious and too quick a learner to start with a consumer tool that’s functionally a dead end. You need software that’s built for a pro, but sold at consumer-level pricing, with select feature reductions accounting for the difference. Enter the Pre-Pro NLE.
One of the great things about HDV is that it brings hi-def video to videographers who thought they’d be trapped in the world of standard-def video for years to come.
Adobe's Photoshop Elements goes up against Ulead's PhotoImpact 10
HD-DVD and Blu-ray will both carry several video codecs (MPEG-2, AVC/H.264, WMV) as official parts of the spec, and as of late September, both camps have locked in Dolby Digital and dts as well
Releases their first DVD+R DL-Capable burner on the mature DL market
Sony's DVDirect is a groundbreaking product that—if it performs as advertised—sets a startling new standard for versatility in a DVD burner.
In this month’s EMedia Industry News, we debut a new monthly item on the latest, greatest, or at least the most interesting announcements that come our way in the digital studio domain. Here we’ll note curiosities alongside catalysts, milestones alongside mysteries, breakthroughs alongside…well, you get the picture.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s no easier way to make an attractive, easily navigated DVD than using MyDVD, and that’s as much the case in version 6 as in version 5. Which is saying something, since the competition got better in the meantime.
Stephen F. Nathans | We've come a long way from the days when the knock on videographers was that they were too intrusive, if the popularity of videos where the videographer is encouraged to impose is any indication. And I still wonder how and when you cross that line from invisibility to presence, and actually impose your will on an event.
Adobe's Premiere Elements offers an alternative point of entry for video editors. But why meet the monster—even at a reduced price—if you aren't ready for the roar?
EDITOR'S CHOICE|Serious Magic’s DV Rack not only brings the laptop into play on a shoot, but enables that laptop to replace a whole booth full of monitors and spectral analysis tools. It’s a remarkable product, and it’s hard to imagine a field shoot capable of accommodating a laptop that couldn’t benefit from DV Rack’s use.
Nero Digital, by contrast, is making a bee line for the living room, and as-yet-unreleased CE devices will sport the Nero Digital logo and embed the Nero MPEG-4 decoder
Stephen F. Nathans|After skipping a couple of generations, DVDit! returns well-equipped for videographers looking to jump into pro DVD authoring and MyDVD users ready to move up. It’s also well-positioned to compete head-on with other prosumer contenders, thanks to powerful and accessible navigation customization features that deliver many of the functional hallmarks of professional DVDs.
discreet has announced 3ds max 7, a full-step upgrade to the company’s popular 3D modeling and animation tool. Foremost among the new features is the integration of the character motion toolset character studio into the core feature set of 3ds max.
MiniDV brought digital video recording to the masses, but dropouts, head clogs, and the post-production lag of real-time capture make it a less-than-perfect medium for pros. More and more videographers are turning to hard disk digital video recorders to back up or even replace tape. Here’s a look at the latest in tapeless DV storage.
Event video has come a long way since the 1980s, when the videographer couldn’t buy respect—he was “the fat, sweaty guy in the tux," as American Videographers Association founder David Robin says. Today, the form is established, the profession esteemed, and the equipment affordable. The field is growing by leaps and bounds, with opportunities for profitable and pioneering work emerging all the time.
In the first upgrade since 2002, Sonic delivers advanced control over DVD playback and appearance, customizable menu creation, and both play-first and end-action control.
Stephen F. Nathans | Ulead VideoStudio 8 is a new version of a popular video tool that hasn't forgotten its roots. Even though it expands a lot in one firection--toward ultra-consumer automatic editing--and a little bit in the prosumer direction with new filters and basic picture-in-picture, most of its enhancements target the entry-level editing space that VideoStudio has helped define.
The hype surrounding the two proposed high-density specs, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, won't impede the adoption of dual-layer DVD±R. But if the response to Jan Ozer's column, "MPEG-4 is Dead," is any indication, the world of Web video delivery is much more dangerously driven to distraction.
Sony’s DRU-700A ($199), the first shipping dual layer-capable DVD recorder, performs mostly as advertised. It easily accomplished 7GB+ DVD-Video burns with the bundled Nero software on several Verbatim DVD+R DL discs provided for testing. Playback compatibility was mixed, however, with a 47% success rate on roughly 70 set-top players, portables, ROM drives, and burners.
With DVD MovieFactory 3 Disc Creator ($99), the first version of Ulead’s popular consumer tool to add CD burning, Ulead takes the lead in pared-down but purposeful editing capability with its multitrim feature. It also adds a solid CD burning tool in Burn.Now, continues its strong tradition of pleasing DVD and slideshow authoring, and makes sure all the parts hang together with impressive ease.
2004 was the year of HD at NAB, even though the conference arguably straddles four worlds—broadcast, filmmaking, streaming, and commercial videography—of which the first two are just approaching an HD era and the latter two aren’t even close.
The first Vegas announcement of NAB 2004 came out of Madison, Wisconsin, as Sony Pictures debuted a full-step upgrade to its popular pro software NLE, Vegas 5. The company also offered up a new version of Vegas’ accompanying DVD authoring tool, DVD Architect 2.
Stephen F. Nathans | Attendees of NAB 2004 in Las Vegas will find media manufacturers like Verbatim and drive makers like Sony doubling down and gambling that professional DVD authors and, soon, their consumer counterparts will pay a modest premium to (nearly) double the capacity of their recording media.
Never has a consumer product in the digital media space packed so much power and versatility and made it so easy to get to. For application triage, Creator 7 has no peer. With the exception of the (still) disappointingly limited DVD Builder, they are all fine tools, and there are logical (and usually multiple) ways to navigate between them. What’s more, it’s got a mind-boggling price: it’s hard to argue with a suite jam-packed with top-notch apps for $99.
Plextor's ConvertX is much more than a simple A/D converter, and it's a little more than an analog-to-DVD device, too. It produces DivX and MPEG-4 files that rival their MPEG-2 counterparts in video quality and beat them handily in filesize. It's also bundled with Intervideo's solid entry-level DVD authoring tool, which makes it easy to move from capture to author to burn.
Stephen F. Nathans | The movie industry's assault on 321 Studios is outrageous entertainment-biz dirty pool, and I applaud 321 for fighting back. I only wish I would have applauded them louder and sooner.
Announcements about 8X media are everywhere. Too bad the discs are still so hard to find.
Studio 9 offers astute extensions of Studio 8’s strengths and adds features for prosumers and consumers alike, from an enriched effects palette to spatial sound fading and mixing to an opened architecture for third-party plug-ins and a cool automatic music-video generator called SmartMovie.
by Stephen F. Nathans
TDK distinguishes the 8X-capable IndiDVD with a well-thought out, generous software bundle.
Sony's DRU-530A records a DVD+R in under 9 minutes.
What’s the Next Big Thing? You'll find the answer at CES. Which gives us the answer to another question: Who’s driving this bus?
MovingPicture, a $199 prosumer-level tool for panning, scaling, and frame-shifting still photographs, provides a powerful complement to popular NLEs
Dual-layer recordables to ship in spring
LSI, YesVideo partner on home recorder-based custom DVD creation
Plextor's new internal DVD±R/RW, the PX-708A accomplishes the "future is now" feat of 8X DVD+R on 4X media. Until 8X DVD media ships in quantity, it's a welcome innovation for those who like to write on the wild side.
Consumer encoding breakout box based on ADS' OHCI-compliant Pyro FireWire technology
As 8X recorders and media hit the market, Philips demonstrates its next-generation technology.
Disc Makers has launched CD Self Service, a new Web-based service that enables users to place CD duplication orders online.
For new entrants into the NLE market, a relatively unknown vendor is just as likely to get their business as a market mainstay, which means a product like Magix’ Movie Edit Pro 2004 can sink or swim on its own merits—which, incidentally, are legion.
Synopsis: MyDVD 5 Studio Deluxe is the finest all-purpose CD/DVD creation software I’ve seen, offering as near to the best of DVD authoring and CD creation as you’ll find anywhere these days. And with its video editing features, MyDVD 5 essays competence in areas that others don’t even attempt.
Toshiba is working to establish themselves in the DVD recording space, and the 4X SD-R5112--aggressively priced at $189--should put them on their way.
The professional videography scene got a major shot in the arm in early October when Sony announced its new 3-CCD camcorder, the DCR-VX2100 MiniDV HandyCam.
More than any other tool, ingénue DVD authors are using Sonic MyDVD, thanks to its ubiquity in writable DVD bundles. Sonic also offers MyDVD 4 Video Suite, a fuller-featured version with video editing capability and more. The Video Suite sets the pace for entry-level DVD creation, combining ArcSoft’s ShowBiz digital video editing tool with a number of new and nearly new features keyed to the consumer DVD creation scene: a pleasant palette of menu backgrounds and styles, straight-from-disc editing, and new slideshow tools guaranteed to subsume yet another piece of personal nostalgic indulgence into the DVD world—or, as Sonic puts it, "Your Life On DVD."
Pinnacle Systems’ Studio 8 features the extraordinary accessibility, versatility, and powerful functionality to avail even the most mossbacked non-initiate of the wonders of DV editing and DVD authoring. What’s more, it does so in a way that no other “consumer” tool—in terms of ease-of-use, channel, and price ($99)—on the market today does, by integrating DVD authoring directly into the Video Timeline. It’s also sophisticated enough to serve corporate projects, and much of its palette of preset templates are clearly designed to play in the corporate space.
EDITOR'S CHOICE
QPS Que! USB 2.0 DVD Burner
Synopsis: QPS’s new Que! DVD-Recorder is the first drive based on Pioneer’s Editor’s Choice-winning A03 to use a USB 2.0 interface, and the drive and the interface prove mightily up to the challenge at hand. It writes DVD-R at 2X and CD-R/RW at 8X, like all A03 derivatives; it burns seams-bursting DVD-5s in under 29 minutes. The Que! drive also comes with a nifty software bundle, including PowerDVD for DVD playback, Easy CD Creator 5 (standard edition) for CD recording, and medioStream’s wonderful neoDVD for entry-level DVD authoring and recording. Some bundles also include for promotional purposes an unidentified 2-port USB 2.0 PCI host adapter.
More than any other tool, ingénue DVD authors are using Sonic MyDVD, thanks to its ubiquity in writable DVD bundles. Sonic also offers MyDVD 4 Video Suite, a fuller-featured version with video editing capability and more. The Video Suite sets the pace for entry-level DVD creation, combining ArcSoft’s ShowBiz digital video editing tool with a number of new and nearly new features keyed to the consumer DVD creation scene: a pleasant palette of menu backgrounds and styles, straight-from-disc editing, and new slideshow tools guaranteed to subsume yet another piece of personal nostalgic indulgence into the DVD world—or, as Sonic puts it, "Your Life On DVD."
CyClone CDRevo $209
TEAC 40X12X48X CD-W540E $179.99
BenQ 24X32X32X MiniRW $185
Synopsis: USB Instant DVD is a featherweight plastic box with lots of I/O and, from the looks of things, not much else—besides nifty interior chipware that keeps MPEG encoding out of sight and out of mind. Designed to be a sort of digital-studio-in-a-box, Instant certainly doesn't make your PC into the same sort of video production powerhouse as, say, Final Cut Pro or Premiere, much less higher-priced MPEG encoding hardware. But it captures and encodes full-frame MPEG-2 and delivers it to your hard drive via USB in malleable shape, and comes with software to edit and prepare it for VCD or DVD output. If sadly misnamed "quick and dirty" capture-to-chapter DVD creation is what you have in mind, Instant DVD definitely gets a dirty job done.
At $1149 for four 4X DVD recorders and remarkably straightforward multidisc duplication software, the Simple Copy 4 is hard to beat as a simple, speedy, low-cost disc-to-disc copier. Installation is quick and easy, and operation is a piece of cake. In testing, burns from hard drive-based disc images proved somewhat chancy, but disc-to-disc dupes worked every time.
Synopsis: The Reflection CD-5121 accedes to a right honorable spot amidst the pantheon of crowd-pleasing one-to-one duplicators with that special audio-oriented edge. It’s a rip-roaring 16X duper in its own right—a hitherto-unseen achievement at this writing—with awfully handy four-button navigation to get you mode-to-mode with estimable speed and ease. Its extensive diagnostic, disc-counting capability, and PC connectivity give it versatility not always found in the single-disc set. It also makes a nice complement to MediaFORM’s ever more diverse line of CD duplication and production systems.
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