Production and post-production issues, tips and tricks, how’s and why’s
CalDigit comes out with yet another dock, but this time it’s a fairly unique proposition as it’s both a USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 dock in one, supporting dual 4K connectivity, depending on what you connect it with to your computer or — another first — tablet.… Read More A hybrid dock for tablets to desktop computers, CalDigit’s USB-C Pro Dock oozes quality
Serif, the developers of Affinity Photo and Designer, last week released their much-anticipated publishing app, Affinity Publisher. The new layout design app comes with a good deal of unique and very clever features, including “StudioLink”, an integration system – that re-defines the adjective “seamless” – between Publisher and their Designer and Photo apps.… Read More Affinity Publisher is an InDesign killer
Often apps that perform many different tasks ultimately perform none brilliantly. Once in a while, though, there comes along a developer who has a vision, creates and sells an app, listens to its users and succeeds in making that app a powerhouse without losing focus.… Read More Q: Is Agenda a journal, a calendar, a task manager? A: It’s all of that.
microSD Express offers the PCI Express and NVMe interfaces alongside the legacy microSD interface for backwards compatibility. Like SD Express, microSD Express delivers a maximum data transfer rate of 985MB/s.… Read More MicroSD Express promises to be the fastest memory card ever, but…
IK Multimedia makes and sells robust smartphone and tablet stands. Their newest product range is the iKlip 3 range, of which I tried the iKlip 3 Deluxe.… Read More With the iKlip 3 Deluxe you can mount your tablet securely a tripod
Apple fills up their iMacs with far too little memory to be useful, so the first thing you want to do when you buy a new machine is think about installing additional memory. Apple’s memory isn’t cheap and iMacs – apart from the iMac Pro – can easily be upgraded after having purchased one with the standard 8GB installed. The question is how much you need to buy, given that even third-party RAM like that of Crucial isn’t for free. It all depends on what you plan out to do with your new iMac.… Read More How much memory do you need in a 5K Retina iMac for anything from writing to video production?
Micron Technology, Lexar’s parent company, announced that it is discontinuing its Lexar retail removable media storage business. The Lexar portfolio includes memory cards, USB flash drives, readers, and storage drives for retail and OEM customers. Micron is exploring opportunities to sell all or part of the Lexar business. The company said it will continue to… Read More Lexar media discontinued: what’s with your guarantee?
What good is a video camera slider if it can’t provide rock-solid motion, with no vibrations? And if it does, what can you do about it? By accident I found out there are circumstances the Rhino slider EVO Carbon with its Motion motor creates footage that makes your zoomed-in subject look like a Parkinson patient. This… Read More How good is your video camera slider at steady slow speeds? One simple way to find out
Shooting in ProRes or DNxHD has several benefits if you’re working with Final Cut Pro X or Avid Media Composer. Of course you can always encode or transcode from a different codec to either of these in post-production, but that costs time — which may be valuable. There may be other reasons why you don’t want to wait until post, as I found out. I spent three days experimenting with a GoPro HERO4, four encoding apps for the Mac, the Final Cut Pro X timeline and an Atomos Ninja Assassin. Thanks to the newest version of Telestream’s Switch QC app, I came across some strange results that I didn’t know about before, and which changed my views on post-production video encoding versus shooting straight to ProRes with a Ninja monitor/recorder.… Read More Why ProRes video encoding in post is inferior to ProRes recording
It turns out the latest version of Dutch developed Hedge for Mac is the fastest video offload application on the market. The company ran some benchmarks and found their new Premium engine — which is not in the free version of the app — is as fast or almost as fast as the Finder. “We ran these benchmarks for our own internal use. We ran them as objective and unbiased as we possibly could,” said Paul Matthijs Lombert, CEO at The Sync Factory, the company behind Hedge for Mac. “We certainly added nothing to our tests that would put Hedge for Mac in any sort of a favourable position — far from it,” he added.… Read More Benchmark test confirms fastest offload app is Hedge Premium
