• Michael Kammes Dot Com

    New Macs are out. Not qualified for most major apps - don't buy one yet! Best Practice: wait until the system - including video card - are qualified before investing.

    Updates will be light - taking a much needed vacation back to Chicago before a September full of events in Southern California AND San Francisco. However, I did drop some knowledge on the Editor's Guild.

Get your FCP Project and Media into Avid without any transcoding via Automatic Duck and Avid AMA

Gonna mix it up a bit with this post, and go video on ya. This is trick is from a recent Key Code Media event where I discussed Media Creation & Sharing with Final Cut Studio and Avid Media Composer 5.0. (see: Avid AMA, Telestream’s Pipeline, AJA’s KiPro) In this demonstration, we use a Pro Res timeline in Final Cut Pro, send it to Avid without creating any new media, and have the... [Read more of this post]

3D Creation is (not quite) Consumer

This more of a tech note than dissertation. JVC, Hyundai, Sony, Panasonic, and the like – are all coming out with 3D monitors.  And they’re all flat.  And they’re all shiny and sleek.  Other subjective features aside, many of the ones you’ve been eyeballing don’t quite cut the mustard when used in the edit bay.  Here’s why: Frame Rate. Sure, if you’re in the 29.97 / 59.94 world,... [Read more of this post]

Final Cut Pro 8: A Wish List

On the heels of the recent uncharacteristically Apple statement about the future of Final Cut Pro, and then a fantastic post by a fellow Hollywood Tech Neighbor Philip Hodgetts, speculation has one again fanned the flames of excitement within the collective Final Cut Pro Kool-Aid drinkers.  Thus, I thought I would examine the current gaps I see in the product.  A wish list, as it were. ... [Read more of this post]

Avid 5.0, ProRes, and You

I’ve been getting massive web traffic and emails from people looking to use ProRes within Avid, as well as outputting ProRes from Avid.  With Avid Media Composer 5.0 due to be released next month, the two playing nice with one another will be paramount.  I drew up this short Q&A for fellow coworkers at Key Code Media, and I thought I’d share it here. Can Avid 5.0 on Mac or PC play... [Read more of this post]

Conceptual: Eliminating Bleeping of Words During Broadcast

Problem: My viewing experience is tainted by the “cleansing” of perceived foul language and/or content by network and cable censors. Issues to consider: No station is going to simulcast 2 streams of video and/or audio just for language. This will eat up satellite bandwidth and cost millions. You don’t fuck with the FCC. Thus, we are left to find a way to selectively filter out... [Read more of this post]

  • MKDC Tech Tip

    Tech Tip: Dual Boot

    Most intensive NLE applications are closely tied to the versions of various software installed on the machine. Typically this is at the OS level, but also can encompass such third party applications as Quicktime. This bottleneck can be remedied by creating a dual boot system – something developers have been doing for years.

    This is especially useful under Mac OS X. Since the OS is not serialized – that is, you can install it as many times as you want on the same machine, thus creating multiple boot partitions – without violating licensing agreements. The Mac OS installer, when launched, has the Disk Utility application, which allows a user to partition one hard drive into multiple virtual drives – partitions. Slicing up 1 hard drive (or simply installing OS X on multiple physical drives) allows for each instance of the OS to have updates applied without conflicting with the other. This means those updates you need to apply for Adobe CS4 won’t break, for example, your older version of Avid. You can even create a “test” partition – a space just to experiment with software and updates. As an example, my MacBook Pro has 3 partitions: 1 with Final Cut Pro, 1 with Avid, and 1 with Pro Tools.

    Of course, read the fine print with your software to verify multiple installs on the same CPU are allowed under their license agreement.