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Editorial has been completed on the new business television pilot developed by Biscardi Creative Media, ideaWercs and Arriving with BB Webb. BCM Principal Walter Biscardi, Jr. served as Director, Editor and Post Production Supervisor on this project.

Additional credits include Brian Mead for logo design, Aaron R. Stewart for graphics design and Brian Little for opening title design. The episode was produced in 720p HD. More details will be provided as the series moves towards full production of Season One.

Biscardi Creative Media recently delivered an introductory project for an upcoming feature-length documentary about River Blindness disease. Produced by Gary Strieker and Cielo Productions, the project was a 10 minute overview of what the disease is and a brief look into some of the preventative measures being implemented by The Carter Center.

The presentation, "The Crab and the Fly" was shot in 720p HD in multiple locations in Africa and Latin America over a two year period. Editorial was performed by Aaron R. Stewart and the final presentation was delivered on 1080i BluRay disc using BCM in-house BluRay authoring & publishing tools.

The feature length documentary is scheduled for completion by mid to late 2009. 

Biscardi Creative Media principal, Walter Biscardi, Jr., will be Directing the Pilot episode of a new business television series. Being developed jointly by BCM, ideaWercs and Arriving with BB Webb, the series will feature success stories and inspiration from women in the business world.

"I'm honored to be launching this new series as the Director and have always believed that editors make great directors," notes Biscardi. "As an editor you know what you want to see and what you wish you had when cutting the show together. Knowing what will make the show better in Post helps me in making sure we get everything we need, and then some, in the studio and on location."

Production is scheduled for late October, 2008 with all editorial scheduled to be completed by early December, 2008. The series is tentatively scheduled to go into production by the 2nd quarter of 2009.

Biscardi Creative Media is creating an original lifestyle television series. Developed by BCM principal, Walter Biscardi, Jr. the series will be presented to major U.S. networks by a production partner.

The series re-unites Biscardi with actress Cynthia Evans who played the lead role in BCM's "The Rough Cut" short film, and Producer Sharon Collins who worked with Walter in the Environment Unit at CNN. The Pilot is scheduled for production in mid October 2008 with editorial slated for completion by late November 2008.

BCM has completed all BluRay disc production for Season One of "Assignment Earth," airing nationally on PBS stations.

Assignment Earth covers environmental and wildlife stories from the front lines around the world. Lead by Producer Gary Strieker, the series has traveled to Mexico, Thailand, China and Africa in just the first season bringing back stunning 720p and 1080i High Definition footage. Artists Walter Biscardi, Jr. and Aaron Stewart teamed up to create the first 5 episodes on BluRay disc, bringing the full quality of the original shows to the home viewer.

The entire series is being self-published at BCM's facility.

Tools used: Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, DoStudio, Panasonic BluRay replicator, FlexWriter IV Printer.

BCM has completed all color grading for the feature film, "Keepsake" from Stormcatcher Films.

Shot on location in Virginia, the film was Directed by Paul Moore and shot over a 24 day period. D.P. Todd Gilpin did an incredible job with setting up the look of the film. He created a very rich canvas from which Colorist Walter Biscardi, Jr. was able to create an incredible palette of color. Biscardi worked closely with Moore, Gilpin and Producer Scott Tanner to bring out the gritty details and haunting images of the fight for survival.

Keepsake is the first feature film project for Biscardi Creative Media. The film will debut in Oct. 2008 in Hollywood, California.

For more information about Stormcatcher Films visit http://stormcatcherfilms.com/site.html Tools used: Color, Final Cut Pro, AJA Kona 3.

BCM is proud to have recently completed a fund-raiser for the Preeclampsia Foundation. When we started this project, we honestly had no idea what Preeclampsia is or what it can do to pregnant women and/or their babies.

 From the Preeclampsia Foundation website: "Preeclampsia is a disorder that occurs only during pregnancy and the postpartum period and affects both the mother and the unborn baby. Affecting at least 5-8% of all pregnancies, it is a rapidly progressive condition characterized by high blood pressure and the presence of protein in the urine."

Ultimately the condition can lead to death of the mother and/or the baby in some circumstances. Editor Aaron Stewart and Artist Walter Biscardi, Jr. worked with Producers Pat Etheridge and Cindy Beckler to create the 24 minute feature presentation and an 8 minute preview. The preview version was featured at a major fundraiser in Washington, D.C. with 500 copies of the feature presentation given to the audience.

To learn more about Preeclampsia visit http://www.preeclampsia.org/index.asp

 Tools used: Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, After Effects, DVD Studio Pro.

So many of you have read of our failings with Adobe Encore trying to create BluRay discs.  Today we start a new chapter in BluRay authoring by transferring all our needs to NetBlender's "DoStudio."  

NetBlender has instituted a really neat month to month licensing option that's approx. $250 per month to use the software.  This is truly a month to month deal.  So I can activate it for September for $250 and then sign up again in December.  There's no extra fees, nothing.   They have several plans for 6 months, 12 months or you can outright purchase the software if you want.   But in my case, we plan to produce maybe 10 BluRays all of 2009.   Probably in batches of 3 or 4, so I might spend $1,000 total next year in the licensing fees, which is significantly less than $8,000 for the permanent license.  So to start out, I can just go $250 per month which is easily charged back to the client per job.

The only caveat to this software is that it requires a Window machine, and we're a full blown Mac shop here.  So I did what I swore I would never do..... purchased an HP Workstation loaded with Vista.  Of course, the sad thing for me is this is a fully loaded workstation for less than $1,700 and I know that if I created a fully loaded Mac Pro it'd be around $5,000 or more.  So that's one good thing, I guess!  

One really neat little gadget I added on is a 160GB "pocket drive" that slips into the bottom of the HP machine.  We'll use this to transfer the large MPEG-2 files and graphics files from our Macs to the HP.  Neat idea to essentially put a portable drive that slips in like a USB stick. 

So that's Step 1 - get an HP Workstation!   I went by NetBlender's recommendations and picked up the following machine:

- HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope 

I'll give you folks regular updates as we move forward with this new BluRay authoring tool! 

Well Samsung has released the supposed "iPhone killer" and I've wondered how it stacks up to the newly released iPhone 2.0.   Fortunately for all of us, MSNBC has done a really nice head to head comparison of the two.  In the end, they both work well, but the one thing I was surprised about is that the "live Sprint TV" they advertise in the ads is not entire shows, just snippets of shows.   And the comparison of the screen brightness and clarity is pretty impressive.

Anyway, really good reading for anyone thinking about one or the other.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25675823/ 

For those of you who are purchasing a new Mac Pro Octo Core and planning to upgrade your RAM after the purchase, be aware that Apple's instructions on upgrading are actually wrong.  

In my case, I purchased an Octo Core 3.2 with the minimum 2GB RAM and ordered an 8GB Upgrade Kit from Crucial.   This consists of 2 sticks of 4GB each.   According to Apple's instructions, if you have the standard 2GB RAM configuration (1GB on each Riser) you should install the next pair of RAM equally on each Riser.  

So I placed a 4GB stick on Riser A and a 4GB Stick on Riser B.  That didn't work.  The machine still showed 2GB RAM and all the other memory slots empty.   So I contacted Crucial using their handy dandy "live chat" service to speak directly with a support agent.

He told me to move the Apple installed RAM to Riser A and the Crucial RAM to Riser B.  Did that, and voila!  I have 10GB RAM now showing up in the machine.  Just a note for you folks out there and kudos to Crucial for such a handy dandy live chat service.  Got me up and running again in less than a minute.  Yay!

So a while back I wrote about our new DiscMakers Medley and how it was a so-so DVD Printer / Replicator.

http://blogs.creativecow.net/node/402

Well, I have to tell you, this thing is a piece of garbage and if you're considering one of these "all in one" DVD copier / printers, stay away from anything with the DiscMakers name.

To date, we've been able to duplicate and print about 250 DVD's. Then the printer stopped working. We've called tech support for approx. 6 straight days. Oh and tech support is not DiscMakers, it's a company called XLNTIDEA INC . They actually make the duplicators, and in fact if you look on various websites of companies that sell duplicators, you'll see the exact same machine with differnet names.

So Tech Support finally ran out of options and asked us to ship the unit back. 250 discs and it's already going back. Not that it has ever really worked well to begin with. We've probably thrown away over 100 discs due to bad printing problems. Wrong colors, low resolution, poor photo replication, etc... Our Epson Photo R200 easily out prints the Medley and it's a heckuva lot cheaper than the $2,000 I shelled out for the printer and computer.

And the worst part for me is that DiscMakers simply doesn't care. They won't return any emails. I've contacted the sales rep who was a really swell guy when he was selling me the unit telling me how much better this unit would work after my problems with the Bravo II. Now. Nothing. What do they care, if they sell 10,000 crappy units and people keep 9900 of them, that's a good margin.

You all do what you will with your money, but I can tell you from personal experience, DiscMakers has not been a company that I have enjoyed doing business with and they will certainly not get any money from me again. Fool me once, shame on me.........

We're experiencing a sudden Memory Error issue with Final Cut Pro that has led to bad renders. The issue has been happening on my Mac Pro for about three weeks now and it started happening on our PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5 yesterday. I also checked with a client in New York who is experiencing the same issue.

When working on a project and attempting a render, we sometimes get the following error.

Most often this error pops up if the system has been running a while, four hours or more, or I'm rendering out a full episode of 22 minutes or longer. Generally the error appears about 75% in to the render.

What then happens is the render actually keeps going, but the renders are all screwed up. Partial lower thirds, graphics in the middle of dissolves, graphics from somewhere else in the project.

As far as we can tell this issue started after installing QT 7.4.1 on all the systems. We have plenty of RAM on all the systems and the projects we're currently editing were all edited last year on the same systems, we're just revising them now. Checking to see if anyone else is experiencing these issues. Here are three examples.

The Lower Third should have a transpararent black bar and her name above the title. Also, it added a freeze of the person from earlier in the soundbite.

The Lower third should have her name above the locator and a transparent black bar behind it.

The words "West Virginia" appear in the middle of this transition at the end of a 27 mintue episode. West Virginia is part of a Photoshop graphic that appears approx. 2 minutes into the episode, FCP added it in the middle of the transition.

The New York Times reports that Warner Brothers has now lined up in Blu-Ray DVD corner effectively giving the Sony format about 70% of the high definition DVD market. They'll continue to release movies on both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray until May and then switch exclusively over to Blu-Ray. This leaves Universal and Paramount along with Dreamworks as the only major studios backing HD-DVD.

As a production company that had to jump into Blu-Ray production in support of one of our clients, this is welcome news for us. I have to say, if you have not seen Pixar's "Cars" and "Rattatoule" on Blu-Ray disc, you have not seen the true capabilities of Blu-Ray. Jaw dropping is the only way I can describe what these movies look like in HD. Better than what it looked like in the theater.

Full article on the New York Times website.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/technology/05disc.html?ex=1200200400&en=306157434b73e7fb&ei=5070&emc=eta1

Just a note that I'll be bypassing NAB after all this year. Our production schedule is very fluid right now and I just can't justify the cost and time away from the office right now. I was hoping to meet many of you at the Artbeats booth this year, but it'll have to be another day. I will be creating a pretty cool demo for Artbeats that'll be online in April though.

Enjoy the show everybody!

Apple released some nice speed bumps on both the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. Can't remember the last time both versions of the laptops got updates on the same day.

MacBook:

2.1Ghz, 1GB RAM, 120GB HD $1099

2.4Ghz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, SuperDrive White $1299

2.4Ghz Black, 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, SuperDrive $1499 (larger harddrive)

MacBook Pro: (all have SuperDrive with the spiffy new multi-touch pad)

2.4Ghz, 2GB RAM, 200GB HD $1999

2.5Ghz 15", 2GB RAM, 250GB HD $2499

2.5Ghz 17", 2GB RAM, 250GB HD $2799

Nice update all around, but if you have a one year old or less MacBook Pro, don't really see any reason to run out and purchase a new one. But if you're still on a PowerBook G4 or older laptop, certainly some nice new machines out there.

These updates really separate the MacBook Air from the rest of the machines even more and really seem to position that machine as a very very "niche market overpriced, underpowered machine." All 6 of the other laptops are much much better values than the Air and much better suited to any and all tasks.

MacBook Air 

1.6Ghz, 2GB RAM, 80GB HD, No CD/DVD Drive  $1799

1.8Ghz, 2GB RAM, 64GB SS HD, No CD/DVD Drive: $3098

The top of the line MacBook Air has less power, smaller hard drive, no CD/DVD drive than the bottom of the line MacBook, yet costs $2,000 more.  Only Apple fanatics could look at that math and say "yeah, I can see that, it makes sense." 

If you want a light laptop, get a MacBook. If you want more power to run something like the Final Cut Studio suite, get the MacBook Pro. Both are money much better spent than the Air.

If you really need a "super light" laptop, pick up the iPhone, now available in a 16GB flavor. I will actually be picking up the phone as I want to have a much lighter "laptop" for some extensive travel coming up. I like the idea of the iPhone much more than getting yet another 13" laptop.

Hello Apple Engineers! Word is Toshiba is dropping HD-DVD. BluRay is the winner by a knockout!

So how about including BluRay authoring support in DVD Studio Pro now? I mean hasn't Apple been on the BluRay side of things since the format was announced? Doesn't Compressor already create files for both HD-DVD and BluRay? Don't BluRay burners for the Mac already exist?

Why am I asking so many questions?

For some reason, despite Compressor supporting BluRay and HD-DVD, despite BluRay burners being available for the Mac, despite Apple supporting the BluRay format (how I'm not sure), we can't author BluRay using Apple products.

So we own Adobe Encore CS3, which of course required us to purchase Adobe Premeire in the process. We own the FastMac internal BluRay burner (excellent) and even own a Panasonic Dual Burner Blu-Ray Replicator (excellent). We've authored 4 BluRay titles to date and will probably author 8 to 20 more before the end of 2008. At some point, I would much rather prefer to work across the Apple Studio Suite rather than having to go from FCP to Compressor to Encore to Toast to the FastMac burner.

So hello Apple Engineers! BluRay Authoring! Please!

So after dropping NAB once then reappearing, Apple has decided to join Avid and skip the NAB show floor altogether. This is an incredibly disappointing decision for a company that supposedly supports over 800,000+ Final Cut Pro users and countless other pro-apps users.

NAB and IBC are the two shows each year where professionals, such as myself, can get the opportunity to see and try out the equipment and software we're all going to purchase for the coming year. People like myself spend thousands of dollars on these purchases and I have always found NAB to be particularly useful in making those purchasing decisions. No matter how much I read up on all the new releases from companies, there's nothing like actually seeing the product in action, even if it's a prototype.

Now apparently Apple feels they don't need to make the effort to present their products to the very professionals who are supposed to line up and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions, on their products over the next year. This is very disappointing and makes me wonder about Apple's commitment to the professional application market.

The consumer market is doing quite well with the iPod, iPhone and the incredible lineup of iMac and notebook computers (MacBook Air excluded). All of Apple's latest updates and efforts seem targeted more towards this market than the professional market.

Witness the recent 7.4 update to Quicktime that caused incredible havoc to many users of Final Cut Pro and Motion, two flagship pro-app products from Apple. Then Apple rushes out some sort of ProKit update yesterday but doesn't explain what it is supposed to fix, just that all users of Final Cut Pro should install this.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems more and more that software, OS and Quicktime updates are geared more towards iTunes, AppleTV and consumer apps than the Pro Apps. More often than not, these updates cause harm to the pro-apps. Considering I have my entire financial future tied to the un-failing performance of these pro-apps, this is a bit of a concern.

I'm not a consumer who can let a computer crash if an update messes up my quicktime player. I'm not a consumer who can let a computer get unstable if the latest OS update does something to my iTunes player. I'm not a consumer who cares a whit about the thinnest and most overpriced laptop on the planet.

I'm a video and film professional who requires stability and support at all times in order to earn a living. A computer crash can cost me thousands of dollars and lost clients. An unstable system can shut down my facilities for days at a time.

I fully expect companies like Avid and Apple to have a presence at the largest gathering of video and film professionals in the world. Apparently both feel it's not necessary for them any longer. Oh Avid says they will be at the show, but I guess you'll have to know the secret handshake or the code word to locate someone. I'm not sure Apple will have any presence outside of the SuperMeet.

So where does that leave us? Adobe, Autodesk, and Media 100/Boris FX are the three names that I recognize on the exhibit floor list and I am definitely going to check out all of them. They are taking the time and money to show up and I feel it's only right to see what they have to offer. I've always spent so much time at the Apple booth each year, I guess this will give me the opportunity to see what I've been missing.

Media 100 was my tool of choice until 2001 when I switched to FCP and I know they have lost a lot of market share, but it's time to re-visit them. Adobe has come back strong with Premiere on the Mac and from what I gather, it's essentially like FCP only with an incredibly tight integration between the entire Adobe pro line-up. Adobe has a long history with professional apps and support so I will definitely spend some quality time with those folks to really see Premiere again. Autodesk is one company I've never worked with, but they usually have a pretty cool booth, so it'll be fun to see what they have to offer.

As someone who was only weeks away from upgrading two of our workstations to brand new Octo Core Macs, this announcement gives me reason to pause on that decision. I want to make sure I still have solid commitment from Apple to support the Pro-Users out there as much as they want to support the consumers.

I guess NAB just isn't that important to the companies anymore. That's a shame because it's pretty important to this professional earning a living using their equipment.

I've found out that our very own Aharon Rabinowitz is now doing occassional Technology reports for NPR! How exciting is that?! He's done one report and hopefully this will lead to many more. As someone who has gained a LOT of knowledge from this guy with all his After Effects tutorials and training, I want to congratulate him on this latest achievement. Hopefully this is just the first of many reports we can expect to hear from Aharon.

Congratulations buddy!!!

For those who haven't heard his first report yet,

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18617289

Peter Wiggins has released his newest creation for Final Cut Pro called SupaWipe! Ok, we've all had to create sliding graphics in order to create custom wipes. You know, you do an edge wipe underneath a graphic that you slide over the transition to make it appear as if the graphic is actually doing the wipe.

Well, this is what SupaWipe does all as one transition! Peter supplies you with a bunch of preset graphics like an airplane and construction tape, but the really really cool thing is, you can use your own graphics. Anything you've created and it will create the transition using that graphic.

This is incredibly cool and what a timesaver! Especially when you want to tweak the transition time, no more sliding the graphic around to make sure the wipe stays underneath. Now the graphic and the wipe are married together and the transition is always timed perfectly.

Thank you Peter! If you haven't downloaded the FREE 15 day trial, what in the world are you waiting for?!

http://www.supawipe.com/

Note this ONLY works in FCP 6.0.2!! So be sure to check your version before downloading.

So you want to work more efficiently in Final Cut Pro? Well I have just the answer for you, Tabs! Yeah, those things you see in the corner of every window. They can make your life so much easier if you would only use them. Here, let me show you how in my newest tutorial!

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/biscardi_walter/tabs/video-tutorial...

For those of you who followed my blog about the issues with the Primera Bravo II DVD Replicator printer, you know that I purchased a DiscMakers Medley unit to replace it.

http://blogs.creativecow.net/node/330

Well, while DiscMakers claimed the print quality of this unit would be equal to the Bravo II, in reality it isn't. This is disappointing because they both feature the same printing unit from Lexmark. The difference appears to be in the Bravo II drivers as there are many more options available to the user to achieve incredibly sharp text and good solid colors. What was printed as a solid color on the Bravo II is a mottled mess on the Medley as it is just not capable of printing a very tight dot pattern, even at the 4800dpi print setting. And this is using the exact same 300dpi TIF image and exact same DVD stock that was originally printed on the Bravo II so we're comparing apples to apples here.

On the upside, the Medley does reproduce the correct colors on the disc from the original file with minimal tweaking. That was a major issue with the Bravo II as we would have to throw the colors and shading out of whack in order to get acceptable color results on the Bravo II.

As a straight replicator, the Medley performs as expected, absolutely no issues there. But if you are looking for a very high print quality, this definitely would not be your unit. Print quality is decent, but not something you would want to present to demanding clients. 

http://www.discmakers.com/duplicators/automated/Medley.asp 

So according to a new Reuters article, over 1/4 of the Apple iPhones sold in 2007 have "gone missing" by the end of the year.  In other words, they have been unlocked and are running on other networks.   Maybe they don't want to be snooped on by at&t (see related blog entry) or maybe they just want to be able to choose which phone they want to use on which network.  Gee, that's an original concept!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22887583/

Maybe there should be an iPhone hackers convention like the internet hackers convention.  Which, of course, doesn't really exist, at least officially. 

Interesting news from the MSNBC website that at&t now plans to monitor all internet use by users of their networks. Which of course will include all 4 milion+ iPhone users.

at&t claims they will be looking to stop illegal copyright sharing and such, but they will have full, carte blanche access to review all your emails, all your internet surfing and instant chat messages. Now of course all ISP's have the ability to review anything you do, but at&t has come out said they are absolutely going to keep an eye on everything you do.

Kind of creepy and quite honestly, I don't really see any ethical reason to go in and review everyone's use their network without some sort of a legal issue. If someone has been reported sharing illegal materials, then you go in and review their account. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22829568/

I have just noticed that exporting a still image from a DVCPro HD 720/60 timeline in FCP 6.0.2 yield a choppy, pixelated mess. Definitely wasn't the case with FCP 6.0 and I don't think it was a problem in 6.0.1 either.

I also noticed that the images are not being exported in the true DVCPro HD aspect ratio either. Generally when you export an image, it will show up in another application at the same 960x720 frame size as the original, but upon opening the image in Photoshop or Preview, the image is now 1280x720. I would expect this if I was using ProRes, but I'm not, we're just using DVCPro HD as the codec all around.

Just an FYI for folks. I've sent off a feedback form to Apple

1/19/2008 SUGAR HILL, GEORGIA

Biscardi Creative Media provided primary post production for the feature story, "Green Evangelicals" airing on The Weather Channel's "Forecast Earth" tonight. Artist Walter Biscardi, Jr. worked closely with Producer Bruce Burkhardt and The Weather Channel production team to bring the story together.

Using Final Cut Pro 6 with the AJA Kona 3 capture card, Biscardi integrated BetaSP, DVCAM and DVD material into an uncompressed, widescreen standard definition timeline. He also created original graphics and motion graphics in Photoshop & After Effects.  The Weather Channel added all final lower thirds to the show.

"This was our first project with The Weather Channel," notes Biscardi, "and it was a great experience with a good workflow between our shop and the network. Since we're all on Final Cut Pro, I was able to deliver the story on a very small hard drive that would fit in your pocket."

This was also a reunion of sorts for Burkhardt and Biscardi having formerly teamed up at the CNN Enviroment Unit on the program "Network Earth."

For more about Forecast Earth: http://climate.weather.com/ontv/thisWeek.html

For more about Biscardi Creative Media: http://www.biscardicreative.com

For those of you, like me, frustrated with Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 turning on Snapping when you try to Option+Click a clip, Apple has a workaround. Actually, the FCP team steered me to it. Read this closely:

Ensure Snapping is turned OFF in your timeline.

Hold the Option key as you select and begin to drag either Audio or Video of the clip

As soon as you are dragging the edit point RELEASE the Option key.

Did you read that last part closely? I didn't the first time and it didn't work. So Option Click your clip like normal, start to drag and RELEASE the Option Key. This does work, I just tried it.

So thanks to the Apple team for steering me to that and yes, it is public information, I just never looked.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1150

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something here, but overall, the announcements are a bit ho-hum for me.

Super thin laptop, ok, but I would have preferred a mini laptop, something smaller like the size of a portable DVD player.

Movie downloads, ok Netflix was already doing that.

Time Capsule, ok the Mac Mini re-branded as something else

Am I missing something here. Haven't seen the entire keynote yet, but nothing really jumps out and says "Dang! I have to have that!"

Walter Biscardi, Jr. www.biscardicreative.com

While spec'ing a new Mac Pro (8 core) system today, I found that RAM is now available at 3rd party sites. At www.crucial.com it's almost 50% less than Apple's pricing.

4GB RAM at Crucial - $269

4GB RAM through Apple Store with Mac Pro - $500

www.edgetechcorp.com has the same RAM for $229, though they only list the 3.0ghz as the top of the line machine, not the 3.2Ghz so I would check with them before purchase.

Other World Computing (www.macsales.com) has their own RAM for $249.99

Nice to see the 3rd party sites have caught up with the new Mac Pro's as Apple has always charged a premium for their RAM. Personally I purchase all our RAM from Crucial as it was recommended to me about 4 years ago and we've never had an issue with their products.

The big buzz leading into tomorrow's keynote speech from Steve Jobs at MacWorld is the potential announcement of a mini-laptop, possibly along the size of a portable DVD player or smaller.

Just a reminder that we have discussed this very scenario back in March of 2007 right here on this blog!  http://blogs.creativecow.net/node/59

Back then it was just a "what if" question. Now it's possibly a reality in less than one year from that entry. I'm really curious to see if our discussion turns out to be a winner tomorrow!

So first we hear of Avid's pulling off the NAB 2008 Show Floor. During a lively debate in the Business and Marketing Forum, one Cow user noted that Apple had suddenly disappeared from the Show Floor Exhibit Map. I was looking over the Exhibitor List and Apple is not listed there either.

So by all outward appearances, Apple has pulled out of NAB 2008 as well. At least off the main Show Floor. Now Avid has been known to have had cash flow issues over the past few years as Apple's Final Cut Pro has made huge inroads in the Post Production community. So I attributed Avid's decision to leave the Show Floor as purely a financial move meant to better use what resources they have.

Now if Apple is truly pulling off the show floor, this is definitely different. Apple is certainly not hurting for money these days with the success of the iPod, iPhone and the resurgence of the Apple Computer products. Apple is one of the hottest nameplates in computers and electronics right now.

So does this tell us that NAB's significance for the Post Production market is slipping? Avid obviously feels it does not get a sufficient return on investment to be on the NAB show floor. Now it appears Apple is saying the same thing. As someone who has worked on the show floor in various vendor booths, I can assure you that putting a booth on the NAB Show Floor is not for the weak in the wallet. It's a very expensive proposition, not to mention hotel and travel fees for the support staff to run that booth. So if Apple truly does skip the show floor, we have to assume that Apple feels they get a much better return on investment by simply selling online and through their Mac centric trade shows like MacWorld and WWDC. And of course there is the large Reseller market and forums such as our own Creative COW Forum.

Of course, what does all of this mean for all the other exhibitors who put a lot of effort and time into this show. Apple and Avid drive a lot of traffic to the show floor and by doing so, they drive the traffic to all those other products we use in our day to day working lives and more we discover for the first time walking by their booth. If there's no Avid or Apple on the show floor, how many people will simply stay away from NAB, thus hurting all of these third party exhibitors. I know for me, it's not as desirable to go visit the show if I can can't get the latest information about Final Cut Studio and test out some of the new features.

On the flip side, if they are not there, that opens up Adobe, Autodesk, Media 100 and others to a lot more visitors they might not normally get. If you can't look at Final Cut Studio or Avid systems, why not look to see what everyone else has to offer? You might be pleasantly surprised by what else is out there.

So if Avid and Apple both say "No" to NAB 2008, who's next? I'm sure the rest of the industry will be watching the "A Team" closely as we approach the show.

In response to a query in the Final Cut Pro Basics forum, here's an example of why we would use more than one video track in FCP. This is an older project from 2003 hence all the video is offline, but it shows 17 track of video in use. Why? Because there is a lot of compositing and overlays going on to create an urban / gritty look requested by the Producer. When I get a chance, I'll pull a screen grab of this scene, but for the moment, as best as I can remember, here's what is going on in the area highlighted in yellow.

Track 17 is a Film Leader type of element overlayed on the video

Track 16 through 5 are all graphical elements created in Photoshop

Track 4 is a still image overlayed on top of the logo and hands element below

Track 3 is a film flash

Track 2 is a logo element provided by the Producer

Track 1 is a video element shot by the Producer slowed to 50%

The reason for all the photoshop elements is we like to very often have the main graphic full opacity so you can read it, but also subtly mixed in around the rest of the video frame.

Now if you look at the very head of that timeline you can see how Video Tracks 5 - 2 are Nested items "Donner B-Roll with Frame and Way Donner SOT with frame" Each of those nests are actually 6 video tracks so if I didn't nest them, I would have used 24 tracks of video to create that effect. Nesting allows me to easily place those video frames around the screen without having to drag 6 tracks at a time.

As soon as I have time, I'll pull a screen grab so you can visually see what's going on.

Well of course Apple would never say anything in advance, but thanks to the CEO of at&t, we know for certain an iPhone that can run on the 3G high speed internet networks will be out in 2008. No word on the exact date of availability or the cost, but at least it's something. This is what I've been waiting for personally, although I hope the new phone will also have at least 16GB of storage as well.

Full Story:

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2007/11/29/ATT_iPhone_1130.html

So there's been a lot of talk on the forums lately about Magic Bullet Looks now being available for use in editing systems and I'm even going to try it out shortly myself. But for those of you with Final Cut Studio 2, keep in mind you have probably the most powerful color grading software available for desktop computers in Color just sitting there. Yeah it's not perfect, there are some issues to work around, but I have to admit, even with the issues, the end results are nothing short of stunning.

I thought I would share some before / after shots of a recent project I did that featured all archive (read Old) material. BetaSP, BetaSX, DigiBeta, DV, DVCAM, HDV were all used in this project that was ultimately delivered on DVD for a special event and also the Web. As a piece focusing on the natural beauty of the American West, I felt it was extremely important to bring this project into Color to take advantage of all the color controls I would have. Especially the ability to essentially 'clean up' the image and 'wipe away' the dirt.

Sure I can show you what Color does with our HD projects, but those look pretty darn good before we even get to color grading. Making a bunch of archive material in multiple formats look good, well that takes some work. The project run approx. 6 minutes and was able to grade the entire show in about 3 hours. It would have been faster but I really spent a lot of time tweaking the skies and greens.

If you want to see the whole piece, just go to http://www.biscardicreative.com/sampleworks.htm

and then click on "Apple Color Comparison" under Corporate.

And of course, if you want to learn how to use Color, just pick up my DVD! Fresh from the Creative Cow Master Series - Stop Staring and Start Grading with Color!

http://store.creativecow.net/p/66/stop_staring_and_start_grading_with_apple_color

Enjoy!

Hi all,

At long last, my traning DVD for Apple's Color is now taking orders!  If you've been staring at this incredible color grading software for a while, it's time to start using it!  "Stop Staring, Start Grading with Apple Color" is what you need to get going.

Here's the sales page with all the details and an incredibly cool trailer.   It's my absolute pleasure to bring this title to you guys!

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/biscardi_walter/stopstaring.php 

Enjoy! 

See, I'm so glad I didn't rush out for the iPhone. Now I can keep my little Razr phone that I like and get the iPod for everything else. Very cool!

http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/

If you purchased an 8GB version of the iPhone right off the bat, Apple is offering you a $100 credit since they've already cut the price of the phone by $200.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/06/technology/iphone_price/index.htm?cnn=yes

So MSNBC.com has a story about Comcast pulling the accounts of internet users who "hog too much bandwith." Wait a minute. How many of you have seen those ads on TV or in your magazines / newspapers?

Cable offers you Unlimited Access. High Speed. Downloads 50% faster than dial-up. And so on.

But now if you actually try to use too much of these services, you might get cut off. Comcast says they're trying to make sure everyone can access the internet properly. Well, then either improve your bandwith capabilities or make it VERY CLEAR what you are and are not allowed to do each month on the internet.

"Unlimited Access" apparently doesn't truly mean "unlimited." If there are going to be restrictions on internet access, then they need to be very clear about this. Don't advertise that you have the 'fastest connection available for unlimited downloads' and such if you're not going to support that.

What's going to happen when folks really start downloading feature films for products such as Apple TV? Two movies and your account is suspended? Maybe community-wide Wi-Fi is going to be a better answer to the Cable companies? Would be interesting to see how that develops.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20633771/ 

Almost lost in the new iPod rollout was the price slash by $200 on the 8GB iPhone and the discontinuation of the 4GB model.  I'm quite surprised Apple dropped the price so quickly, but according to Steve Jobs, they want the phone to be in a lot of stockings this christmas.

Still don't agree with their decision to lock the phone to AT&T (the hack workaround not for the faint of heart) as they would most likely sold double or triple the devices if it was an open phone for all networks.

But glad to see the phone already tumbling in price, might be cheap enough for me to purchase before next year's NAB!

When I was 17 and it was summer, that generally meant lazy days out by the pool with friends. For George Holz, it was 500 hours to unlock an iPhone so it can run on any carrier, not just AT&T. The times they are a changin!

Along with a secretive group of online collaborators, the 17-year-old broke the restrictions that make Apple Inc.'s iPhone, arguably the hottest gadget of the year, work only on AT&T Inc.'s cellular network.

The feat took him 500 hours, or about 8 hours a day since the iPhone's June 29 launch. The equipment used included a soldering iron and a large supply of Red Bull energy drinks.

Now here's a guy with a serious love of All Things Apple!

Over 100 Apple computers from the classics to today in his basement!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/08/08/mac-collector.ap/index.html

So I just have to pass along this wonderful experience we've had and it really underscores the tremendous community we have here at Creative COW. For about a year I've been contemplating an upgrade to our facility to make it more efficient. When I started in 2001 I had one edit suite and hoped to add a 2nd one at a later date. In 2003 we expanded to that 2nd suite and I was eventually able to get a full sized rack unit to hold all my tape decks, my computer and some storage.

It worked pretty well though a bit combersome because there were no patch panels so to run anything to anywhere meant crawling behind the racks, pulling cables, figuring what went where, etc.. Then at the end of 2006 we suddenly needed a third suite which we quickly threw together. Now suddenly we were pulling decks out of the rack, walking them to the third suite, walking drives around, etc... It was starting to get really messy.

So I contacted a few local companies about assisting me in re-engineering the shop to be much more efficient. I can figure out what I need, but really wanted an engineer to come up with the best way to make everything here more efficient both in layout and operation. Didn't really find what I was looking for in terms of personnel and price. Enter Creative COW and fellow COW Leader, Bob Zelin.

It started with a simple email to Bob. Through reading his posts it was obvious that facility design and installation was one of his specialities. I simply asked if he would be interested in assisting me at all. To my surprise he said yes and immediately asked for a full equipment list and a general layout of our facility. What I loved about this process was I kept downplaying what we needed here and he kept insisting on some additional cables and connections that would make our lives easier.

Within about two weeks we had the first drawings and plans from Bob. Again, I was questioning some of his ideas because I thought it was overkill. Three video patch panels? Three audio patch panels? We're a simple, small shop, aren't we going too far here? I'm thinking one patch panel for each should do fine. But Bob, in his own gentle fashion, reminded me that it's easier to run cables once, than to install something and then come back in a few months and say " you know we should add some more cables runs here, there and the other room." It started to make sense, especially after the full drawings for the patch panels showed up and I could visually see what he was talking about.

Two months after we started discussions, we finalized the plans which included: two new full sized rack units; three video patch panels; three audio patch panels; new reference DA; a Gefen DVI/USB extender to allow one computer to move 55 feet from the suite to the rack unit; and I'm guessing about 1,500 feet of new audio / video / control cables. At the same time we decided to upgrade our storage with two new MaxxDigitial SAS/SATA 8TB arrays for the two main suites adding 16TB of new storage. I have to say, Bob's insight and advice during this entire process was invaluable and he really made the plan much better than anything I could have created on my own. In addition, he probably saved me a lot of money from the inevitable mistakes I would have made designing all of this on my own.

Almost immediately our new racks and shelves showed up in about 6 huge boxes. We replaced the small box that was to the left of the original rack with one of the new ones and already the place started looking better.

A few weeks later, the storage and patch panels showed up so we pulled out the original rack and set up the 2nd new rack into it's final position.

Now it's really starting to look good and I get a real surprise from Bob. He's going to personally come to Atlanta to do the patch panel installation. The original plan was for Bob to make up all the cables and ship them to us with instructions. But due to an opening in his schedule, he was able to make the trip himself. I've never met him personally so I'm thrilled, can't wait to see if he's as angry in person as he is on the forums!

He went ahead and shipped up the long run cables to run through the walls which my assistant, Aaron, and I ran prior to his arrival. A messy job to be sure, but I had designed drop wire chases into the walls when we moved into the office thinking they would come in handy one day.

I killed the power before allowing Aaron to play with live stuff. Never let kids play with wire cutters!!!

So today Bob Zelin in the flesh shows up and to my surprise, he's a heckuva nice guy! Well, it wasn't really a surprise, I had spoken to him several times on the phone and he's actually quite funny. A straight shooter to be sure, but a very funny guy. He's not here 5 minutes and he jumps right into work.

After watching Bob for about an hour I was really happy he had the time in his schedule to come up here because while I could have done the cableing myself, it would have probably taken me three days to do what he did in less than 8 hours. As with any installation, there were some last minute issues and questions that needed to be addressed. Moving some audio patch points, re-routing some cables, adding some new cables, etc... were all last minute issues we took care of as the day progressed. It really boggled my mind to see how much cable three edit suites and about 5 VTR's would require to make this shop more efficient.

Before we knew it, lunch time was upon us. It was time to initiate Bob Zelin to the wonders of the Nintendo Wii. It took a few frames, but before we knew it, Bob was throwing Strikes and Spares with the best of them. Check out the professional form on this throw!

It's looking good Ted.... staying away from the gutters.... a little spin to the left..... and it's a Strike!

About the only real tough discussion was when Bob tried to convince Aaron and I to abandon all component and SDI cabling to run everything via Composite video. After all the VHS look is in these days so why spend all this extra money to run these extra cables. Ok, no he really didn't do that, he accidentally forgot to make up the final component / SDI cables for our Kona boxes, but of course, being prepared for everything, he had plenty of video cables and connectors to make up these last few runs on the spot.

Less than 8 hours after Bob started, we had a fully re-engineered facility. Every audio and video output from every device in the shop, from the Konas to the VTRs, passes through the patch panels. We can route any signal, anywhere. All the RS-422 controls pass through their own patch panel allowing all three suites to take control of any VTR in the racks. We have almost 20TB of fast storage for all projects. It's absolutely awesome and something both Aaron and I are not used to. You just get so used to the "moving cable ballet" behind the rack that to have something so efficient is weird.

Look what I made!

I cannot believe what we started in a single room in 2001 has grown to something the really feels like professional Post House. The growth of my business and the work with Bob Zelin can all be traced back to the Creative Cow. Folks we have a tremendous resource at our disposal with thousands of incredible working professionals in all aspects of the creative production field. You know you get answers when you post questions on the forums. Just remember that those same people who answer your questions are also some great people to call upon and hire when you need high quality services. Just look at our transformation in just three months from a decent working facility to a real professional facility.

So Thank You Bob Zelin for all your help in re-designing our shop and Thank You to Ron and Kathlyn for starting such an awesome creative resource.

Another Satisfied Zelin Customer!

Hi all. We're entering the wonderful world of Blu-Ray authoring and with it, we've discovered that not all Blu-Ray DVD Players are created equal. To author our discs, we have to use BD-R media, as in Blu Ray Disc Recordable. We're using Sony Discs and to my surprise, my $999 Sony Blu Ray player does NOT support BD-R.

Worst part about it is we purchased this machine two months ago, it's been used a total of one hour, and Best Buy will not let me exchange it for a machine that does support BD-R. I even said I don't care about the 15% restocking fee, I just wanted to purchase the correct machine.

So now we have to go out and purchase a new Blu Ray machine while also trying to sell off this machine. So if you plan to start doing any Blu Ray authoring anytime soon, be sure to verify that the machine supports BD-R so you'll be able to play back whatever it is you burn in-house.

Funny I haven't been able to find a Sony model yet that does, but Samsung has one for only $599. Heading down to Fry's tonight to pick it up.

A technology company I regularly talk to told me about this cool little tool that can really help keep your Mac Pro cooler by increasing the Fan RPM's inside the box. What's really nice is that the change in RPM is completely silent.

It's freeware called SMS FanControl and it's up to version 2.1.2. After installation you simply set the RPM you want for the various regions of the machine. In the case of the Mac Pro there are four regions and the default for these regions are 500 - 600 RPM. The folks suggested I set everything to 1100 RPM and within 5 minutes, my Mac Pro dropped from 95 degrees internal temp to 76 degrees internal temp. I know this because the tool also displays the current temperature at all times in the Mac toolbar along with actual RPM of the fans. As the day goes on my machine seems to hover between 76 and 82 degrees.

As we all know, heat is a killer of computers and I wonder if excessive heat is causing some of the unexplained crashes and problems some folks seem to experience with the Mac Pro. According to the website this also works on MacBook Pro's but I'm only running it on the desktop machine. Very neat little tool and wanted to pass it along.

http://homepage.mac.com/holtmann/eidac/software/smcfancontrol2/index.html

According to a newspaper article in today's Atlanta Journal Constitution, a security group claims the iPhone can be easily hacked to retrieve personal information. According to the article:

A team of computer security consultants say they have found a flaw in Apple's popular new iPhone that allows them to take control of the device.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/stories/2007/07/23/iphone0723.html

Went to my local Best Buy last night just before closing and found signs for the "Apple Shop - Now Open!." Lo and behold, the store has what looks like a mini Apple Store in the computer section with a full lineup of MacBook, MacBook Pro and iMac product line. There were also a few accessories but I did not notice how much software they had as it was just before closing.

Best Buy has been selling Apple computers on line for some time now so it's great to see them move the products into the stores. Not sure if this is a test store or not, but hopefully this is an indication of the products moving into the stores chain-wide. Any added retailer for Apple is a welcome sight!

I was really looking forward to seeing the new Harry Potter film in IMAX next week and even the fact that they had digitally enhanced it into 3D wasn't all that disappointing. Until I read an article about how once again, as they did in Superman Returns, only approx. 20 minutes of the film is actually in 3D. The finale.

So I'm going to skip the IMAX presentation because quite honestly, putting on 3D glasses at the end of a film (on cue) will simply break the experience for me. Either make a film in 3D or don't. I'm not going to justify a $12 - 15 IMAX 3D ticket when only 10% of the film is actually IN 3D.

Very disappointing for me when IMAX pulls a stunt like this. We've seen about 8 films in IMAX now with Batman Returns, Harry Potter and several Disney films just being flat out amazing on that screen with the sound system. The films are just so amazing in regular IMAX presentation they really don't need to junk up the show with a gimmick.