Reviews, tutorials and news (previously: IT Enquirer)
If you need a clock counting up or down, or you would like to add a graphic to a video that gives some sense of timing or progress, look no further than Time Pop, distributed by FxFactory. It’s a title generator with some free clocks, but when you pay you’ll get a bunch of designs that offer more possibilities and more nicely designed progress “meters”.
Europe is home to some pretty innovative developers. In Slovenia, Lumulabs is a small operation that developed the Lumu Power light meter, a Kickstarter success that started well over a year ago and which successfully ended in June with the first shipment of the finished devices. The Lumu Power light meter is a hardware sensor combined with an iOS app. It has both a fast-response silicon photo diode and true colour sensor in a package the size of a big marble.
Telestream just upgraded its Switch QC app and added a range of new features in the process. Switch Pro 4 adds support for DPP AS-11 MXF metadata, decoding and playback of Teletext captions and more.
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 …
Continue reading "Lexar media discontinued: what’s with your guarantee?"
Suites for mastering audio exist in all shapes and forms. IK Multimedia developed a mastering suite together with Gavin Lurssen, the owner of a multiple Grammy award winning mastering studio. It looks exactly like the real thing and is based on Lurssen's studio equipment. The app annexe DAW plug-in incorporates the best practices of the studio.
Atomos’ latest Ninja and Shogun monitor/recorders are pretty awesome, but if there’s one thing the company should work on it’s the way you have to remove your master caddies from the recorder. I can relate to the need for the caddy to sit really tight when recording, but they should be made in such a way that you don’t have to press so hard you risk damaging the top surface when trying to pry them from the unit.
Most users in the creative industry know they should regularly calibrate and profile their monitor for colour-critical work, but there’s more to colour accuracy than keeping your monitor in shape colour-wise. If you’re going to be printing or projecting your photos, art or videos, you’d better calibrate the output equipment as well. In fact, if you want to be absolutely certain colours will be accurately rendered from input to output, you will need to calibrate — or at least profile — cameras, scanners, monitors, printers and projectors. There’s only one affordable option that is accurate enough: the Red Dot Award winning X-Rite i1Pro 2 and I had the chance to test the Photo version.
Mac users roughly have two options if they want to use bare SATA drives: use a Wiebetech (now: CRU) Ultradock device and connect the drive through legacy interfaces or USB 3, or a Thunderbolt dock. If the latter is opted for, there’s either the RocketStor 5212 with one Gen. 1 Thunderbolt port, or the Thunderbolt 2 OWC Drive Dock. And of these two, the latter is obviously the fastest way to access those bare SATA drives.
When Magix Audio took over Sound Forge Pro Mac from Sony, the application was in need of an update at the very least. With macOS Sierra, Sound Forge Pro didn’t work all that well anymore. In addition, it became clear the app was in desperate need of some new features. Magix Audio’s first upgrade of the sound editor meets the most urgent needs and then some.
The GoPro HERO5 is a lovely action camera with its built-in electronic stabilisation, but if you think it’s going to make your footage perfectly smooth, you’re in for a disappointment. No digital stabiliser currently available can make footage look good when the operator has been subjecting the camera to shocks from walking, running or whatever. A real stabiliser is a must-have for those occasions where you can’t keep the camera still. The Karma Grip has been specially designed to stabilise the HERO5.
