A Cloud With Many Silver Linings

For post professionals, Adobe CC 2014 brings incremental, yet big changes

By Neil Matsumoto

For many years now, postproduction budgets have been slashed, forcing editors to wear multiple hats. If editing picture wasn’t enough, many of them (especially those cutting low-budget films) are being asked by producers to make set visits, manage metadata, perform minor sound editing and color grading, and even create motion graphics. Perhaps... Read more

Be Evil

Ted Schilowitz and The Devil & Demon Strategy look to disrupt the computer workstation industry

By Neil Matsumoto

If you’ve been to any RED Digital Cinema event in the past few years, you’ve probably seen him. With the quirky title of "Leader of the Rebellion," Ted Schilowitz put the upstart camera company, financed by Oakley founder Jim Jannard, on the map by being the virtual mouthpiece of the company. Thanks to RED and Schilowitz, 4K is... Read more

The Color Cure

Get Perfect Color From Capture To Output With SpyderHD

By Staff

SPONSORED CONTENT Filmmakers and photographers now face a dizzying array of cameras, lenses and displays, all of which come into play during the creation of a single project. This makes it difficult to keep content color coordinated from capture to post. Whether working independently or coordinating with a professional postproduction house that must... Read more

4K Post Part II

Encore’s Pankaj Bajpai discusses the 4K workflow, as well as its future and inevitable adoption

By Neil Matsumoto

In the February 2014 issue of HDVideoPro, we examined the current 4K post environment for filmmakers producing 4K content, from capture to post. We took a look at a number of categories, including cameras, computer hardware, NLEs, on-set workflow and color-grading systems. To sum up, with the exception of ARRI, 4K is the dominant capture format, but... Read more

Built For Speed

Apple’s Mac Pro handles 4K streams without a whisper

By Neil Matsumoto

In the February 2014 issue of HDVideoPro, we did a story on 4K post. The consensus was that 4K is currently accessible for shooters, but on the post side, we’re not up to speed in delivering a true 4K workflow. The main problem has been computer hardware, which couldn’t process huge 4K data streams—yet. In the past few years, postproduction... Read more

Real-Time Post

Now only $999, Media Composer 7 is one of the “Big A’s,” but can a non-Avid user easily adapt to the NLE?

By Scott Simmons

With the recent price drop of Avid Media Composer (to $999) and the recent update to version 7, if there was ever a time for independent filmmakers to give this stalwart NLE a second (or even first) look, this is it. Don’t believe what you may have heard online about MC being "old" software with an ancient interface designed decades... Read more

The Digital Imaging Technician

Six years in the making, D.I.T.s have become key components of an ever-changing set

By Valentina I. Valentini

If there has been one position on the camera crew that should get the prize for fastest-changing, it’s the digital imaging technician, also known as the D.I.T. Six years ago, the position didn’t even exist, at least not in its current state, and certainly not as a union career option under the International Cinematographers Guild banner.... Read more

Posting 4K

Although 4K is quickly becoming the norm for capture, the post world is playing catch-up

By Neil Matsumoto

How many of you remember the DALSA Origin camera? Announced in 2003 and released in 2006, the 4K digital cinema camera, which resembled a mini-refrigerator, was going to take over professional production. But because of its size and unyielding workflow due to its monster-sized 16-bit 4K RAW files, the camera wasn’t accessible to anyone, including... Read more

DSLR Post

A variety of options to import, edit, grade and export your files

By Clint Milby

In the beginning, the postproduction workflow for DSLR production was simple. Essentially, the H.264 codec (still used by most DSLR cameras today) had to be transcoded to an intermediate codec like Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHD prior to editing. Once in ProRes or DNxHD, it was easy to take those files to an NLE and begin working. Although the process worked,... Read more

Heavy Lifting

ProMAX workstations offer editors and VFX artists the power and speed to accomplish complex postproduction tasks

By Neil Matsumoto

Coined by Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, Moore’s law is an observation that, over the history of computer hardware, chip performance will double every 18 months or so. Although the claim may sound outrageous (imagine 50 years from now), it’s indeed a reality. For example, approximately 15 years ago while editing my first feature, I had to... Read more

At A Glance: Blazing Speeds

G-Technology’s G-RAID with Thunderbolt

By Dan Brockett

I’ve been editing with G-RAIDs from G-Technology for quite a few years now. They have always represented good value for the money, but the models I’ve used in the past were pretty much relegated to USB and FireWire 800 interface models. Enter Thunderbolt, the new Intel interface that Apple began adding to their laptops back in early 2011.... Read more

Members Only

Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps offer an abundance of new features, but is CC for you?

By Neil Matsumoto

For the past several years, Adobe has been firing on all cylinders. As we all know, Apple’s release of Final Cut Pro X in 2011 has struggled in the pro marketplace, as hordes of editors switched to either Adobe CS or Avid Media Composer. And last year Adobe launched Creative Cloud, which has been a major success, with more than a half-million... Read more