Sony Creative Software Inc., a leading provider of professional video and audio editing applications, today announced Vegas™ Pro 9.0c software, the latest update to its award-winning nonlinear HD video and audio editing (NLE) application. Vegas Pro 9.0c software features Sony® XDCAM® EX MP4 file rendering and the ability to Smart Render MPEG-2 video across different containers for faster, more seamless editing. New audio features, including exclusive élastique Pro timestretching and Import Stereo Audio as Dual Mono, offer provide even more professional depth to this award-winning NLE. Additional support for media filmed with the RED ONE video camera streamlines file access and efficiency for editors working with footage up to 4K resolution. Vegas Pro 9.0c software also includes additional card support for capture and output via SDI, HD-SDI and HDMI™. Read the rest of this entry »

Avid teams with ABC to give journalism students the opportunity to practice production, editing and distribution aspects of broadcast journalism in their ABC News to Campus program. Read on for more details.

Student teams from leading journalism schools across United States get hands-on experience; create and report news in real-world newsroom environment

Avid® has joined forces with ABC News to participate in ABC News On Campus - an innovative program designed to give tomorrow’s most promising news professionals an opportunity to practice real-world news gathering, production and broadcasting.  ABC News On Campus students capture, produce, edit and distribute news stories in their local area, which are often featured across ABC News programs. This year, students from six universities, including Arizona State University, Syracuse University, University of Florida, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of North Carolina (at Chapel Hill), and University of Texas (at Austin) will learn the inner workings of a newsroom, while using industry-leading solutions like Media Composer® video editing software to create news stories.  The program is in its second year.
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We just got out of our Videomaker Lounge and conference room feeling the glow of our first webinar with our partnership with YouTube. We’ve watched webinars, but have never conducted one ourselves, so this was a new learning experience for us here at Videomaker. We feel everything went well, the only hitch was not enough time for the live Q&A session at the end of our seminar. But isn’t that always the case?!? Read the rest of this entry »

How many times have you heard or uttered the phrase “The Show Must Go On!” in your video-producing world? It gets our blood pumping to know we can make the impossible possible.

This weekend we hosted one of our Basic Production workshops, and launched our newest class as well: our 3-day intensive Lighting Workshop. Everything was going well until about 11:15 in the morning when everything… raced… to… a… complete… halt.
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Adobe announces its latest additions to the Adobe Elements and Photoshop family today with it release of its consumer video editing program - Premiere Elements 8 and Photoshop 8. Adobe created Elements with the intent of reaching the consumer and hobbyist market with it’s low priced video editing software, but has moved the editing program along into a robust application that can keep pace with the big boys.

Rather than throwing in more effects you don’t need, this latest update has a lot more under the hood and has added some better tools to organize your video and photos.

What’s new? There’s an auto analyzer that you can use to tag your images for fast and easy searches. You can also sync your video and photos across several computers and the program has face recognition, helping to zone in on just the images you want from, say, “Carsen’s Birthday,” and it will learn who your subjects are and can find all images of them across the files.
Here’s some advance copy from our First Look review, to be uploaded Wednesday morning:
Premiere Elements 8 adds additional automated tools: Smart Trim removes the least interesting, lowest quality footage; SmartFix corrects shaky footage and color and lighting problems; and SmartMix balances music and sound effects without overpowering dialog or background audio. Plus, the new Motion Tracking feature finds moving subjects in your footage so that you can add graphics, text, and even video effects that automatically move with them.

Read the rest of our advance review of Adobe Elements 8.0 online here  http://www.videomaker.com/article/14751/

More From Adobe’s Press Release:
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8 software gives you power and ease of use so you can create extraordinary photos and incredible movies, easily manage and protect your photos and video clips with automatic online backup, and access them anywhere you are. And now, Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8 Plus includes everything in the award-winning software and more:
• 20GB of online storage—enough for up to 15,000 photos or four hours of DVD-quality video
• Ongoing delivery of new, easy-to-use tutorials
• Ongoing delivery of fresh seasonal artwork, inspiring templates, movie themes, video effects, and all-new Online Albums

It’s all accessible with your Adobe ID. For more details, visit www.adobe.com/go/membership_elements. Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8 Plus, $179.99 (Available on Adobe.com, U.S. only) A savings of $20 off the first year of Plus, if purchased with the software bundle.
Already have Photoshop Elements 8 & Adobe Premiere Elements 8? Upgrade to Plus via the product for $49.99 a year.

Reprinted from a SmartSound press release

NORTHRIDGE, CA–(Marketwire - August 25, 2009) - SmartSound Software, Inc., the leading innovator of creative music solutions for the video industry, announced today that its popular Sonicfire Pro 5 plug-in supports Apple Final Cut Pro 7, released last month. The groundbreaking plug-in, which was unveiled at this year’s NAB show, allows Final Cut Pro users to seamlessly add complete customized soundtracks to their Final Cut Pro projects in a few simple steps.

At this year’s Final Cut Pro Users Group (FCPUG) NAB Supermeet in Las Vegas, world-renowned Final Cut Pro expert, Larry Jordan, was greeted by an energetic crowd of over a thousand Final Cut Pro users waiting in anticipation to watch a private demonstration of SmartSound’s new plug-in. In an exclusive video of the event, only recently released to the public by MacVideo.tv, Jordan explains how Final Cut Pro users can save valuable time and resources by utilizing SmartSound’s patented software, Sonicfire Pro 5.

Using SmartSound’s Sonicfire Pro 5 plug-in, users are able to import the markers and in/out points from a Final Cut Pro video sequence. Any track and arrangement selected from the entire SmartSound music library will already be perfectly timed to fit within any markers on the sequence. In addition to fitting the track perfectly to length, users can take advantage of Sonicfire Pro 5’s many innovative features such as Timing Control and Mood Mapping, which allow users to easily adjust the timing of specific beats and control individual instrument volume levels, instantly mapped to their video. After customizing music to match their visuals, users can then simply click “Send To” and their music track will be added directly into their Final Cut project. Later, if users need to make changes to their music, they can simply choose a track on their Final Cut Pro timeline and use the “Open in Editor” command for full roundtrip editing.

SmartSound’s Sonicfire Pro 5 and Final Cut Pro plug-in can be purchased together for $249.85 at www.smartsound.com. Current Sonicfire Pro 5 users may add the plug-in for as low as $49.95. For a limited time, as an extra bonus, each plug-in purchase will include a SmartSound exclusive multi-layer music album, “A New Era” ($99.95 value) free of charge. The Final Cut Pro plug-in works with Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 or later. For more information visit: http://www.smartsound.com/finalcutpro.