Posts

I seem to be in “tweaking” mode… After changing the site from hand-coded to database driven and getting feedback from Feedback Army (highly recommended), I’m adding salt and throwing in pepper. A good comment from the Feedback Army was suggesting adding time of movie under each image. Good idea. Done. BTW - a very good reference on CSS is CSS Mastery by Andy Budd. Highly recommended. Another comment was to add a bit more on the About/Contact page. Done. ...

A extremely helpful service from Feedback Army is the ability to ask for feedback from a number of users. The cost is low, typically $1 per user and the advice from my limited sample of 1 time was well-worth the cost. I wanted to know if my wellys.org site was intuitive and easy to use. Yes, quite easy was the feedback. Was the performance acceptable? Yes, no issues. ...

FCP 7 introduces a 3 new HD codecs for production work, ProRes 4444, ProRes 422 (LT) and ProRes 422 (Proxy). With these additions, this brings to five versions of HD codecs  available for production work. I did a simple comparison of Flip H.264 transcoding to all 5 versions, knowing full well that I wasn’t starting with the best source material. The only version where I could see a difference was with ProRes 422 (Proxy). There were artifacts and a loss of detail. LT looked great, with no perceptible differences on up to 4444. Which means given the source, the best I could use is LT. That said, I did have striking differences in gamma between the new codecs looking identical to the source material and the “older” codecs, 422 and 422 (HQ) being much darker and losing details in the shadows. ...

I was thinking this, and was going to write about it but I didn’t have the depth of experience to make the point as clear as Norman does. In his blog, Hollyn-wood (Norman, that is), Norman makes the point that the price cuts and the focus on ease of use sets this upgrade to Final Cut Pro/Studio as a significant push by Apple towards the low-end side of video editing. He doesn’t mean that Apple took features away or that Final Cut Pro isn’t capable of editing high-end feature films, what Apple did do was to introduce ways of helping the not-so-good be a lot better or sometimes, good-enough. AND, they dropped the price. ...

In my continuing efforts to learn web programming, simplify things and make a better site, I changed the site (again). This time I switched from a manual, hand-coded implementation to a SQL-based version. The new version uses a database to display the movies, making adding a new movie much easier and more intuitive. And it was a lot of fun to see if I could do it! With any luck, there shouldn’t be any obvious differences with my old site. The new site allows me to create a web page for each movie explaining in greater detail all aspects. ...

I’ve been using the Flip Ultra HD for a few weeks and I really like the camera. What I don’t like or more accurately need is the FlipShare software. If you don’t have iMovie 09, FlipShare is probably worthwhile.  I do have iMovie and FlipShare is worse than superfluous, it auto-launches when I attach the camera to my Mac even though I want iMovie to import the clips. [ iMovie importing isn’t cast in-stone… I might start converting the H.264 video to ProRes format, if iMovie can easily handle it. More to come on this.] ...

So thanks to Nathan Henderson, I tried filming my drive home. I didn’t have a Gorillapod, so I used the next best thing, a glue clamp ($3.99) and a pair of rubber bands. It worked great! I attached the clamp to the rear view mirror then used rubber bands to hold the Flip to the clamp.  Then I drove home… (click on image for Going Home) I can hardly wait until we drive up Hwy 1!

There seem to be a few questions as to the compatibility of the Flip Ultra HD and iMovie 09.  The Flip Ultra HD and iMovie work great together! The latest version of iMovie 8.0.3 added the ability to optimize video. I started with 8.0.3, so I’m unsure on what I couldn’t do before .0.3 was released. A couple of quick points: The Flip Ultra HD comes bundled with FlipShare. It seems to work well enough for trimming and emailing videos but when you have iMovie at your fingertips, FlipShare is a bit lacking. FlipShare requires the 3ivx MPEG decoder. This decoder is included in the FlipShare software. If it isn’t installed, FlipShare will ask to install it. FlipShare can trim video and “create a movie” by linking videos together, adding a title and credits, and a music clip. No great shakes but its free and is easy to use AND it comes on the camera so you can use it anywhere. ...

FANTASTIC! When iMovie 08 came out there was a tremendous uproar from the fans of the prior iMovie versions. This new version was dramatically different than prior versions and frankly, wasn’t finished. In January, iMovie 09 was introduced at MacWorld and what a difference the new version is! Many of the disparagers now agree that while different, iMovie is no longer incomplete. It is just different. I’ve made films with iMovie (both types), Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro/Studio. The pre-iMovie 08 version, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro were all the same type of film-editing application. Typically referred to as  a non-linear editing tool, the concept is to roughly approximate the work flow one performs in editing movies using the older tape-based process. Much of the terms –bins and clips – used in Final Cut, are the same used for years in the film industry. ...

OK, so Apple messed this one up. In Final Cut, when a clip is missing FCS has a sufficiently sophisticated method of finding the files. iMovie? Not so much. In fact, it doesn’t even ask for help! Background: I don’t like using iPhoto Library for my video files so I moved them out of iPhoto (using Finder, not iMovie) and into a separate iMovie Events folder. iMovie found these files no problem and can even help me maintain them (moves, adds, changes). BUT, it wouldn’t scan this folder for missing clips! ...