We have high hopes for the Adobe Flash Player 10.1, now available in beta form for Windows, Mac and Linux. The new version is shaping up to be a winner in early testing; it appears to be vastly better about memory consumption and not putting my XP-based workstation’s CPU into a race condition (aka, “becoming a runaway process”). I’ll see how well it works on a 64-bit Win7 setup in a couple of hours.

AMD and NVIDIA have also both put out press releases indicating that a number of their graphics processors will play nice with Flash 10.1, which exploits both Stream and CUDA technology (respectively), and can also eke out a bit more video performance from Intel and Broadcom’s integrated chipsets as well.

Why care? Well, you have to use Flash for pretty much any web site you go to anymore, regardless of the scope of the web site. And Flash is the most popular way to show video online these days, and it’s not too hard to see why–it makes things simple. There’s no mucking through video codecs, because all of the necessary codecs for living in Flash-land are included in the Flash installer. And the codecs in question (Sorenson Spark, On2 VP6 and VP7) are all pretty good performers. And the paranoid (but nice) copyright cartel loves it because it’s relatively easy and pretty much seamless to the end-user to apply DRM to Flash video. (You didn’t really want to download that video, did you? You did? Oopsy.)

If you want to take the 10.1 plunge, Adobe’s release notes warn you to remove your existing Flash players before installing the Flash 10.1 beta. Let us know how your experience goes.

Next: waiting patiently for the 64-bit version of Flash to hit Windows…

GenArts Inc., the premier provider of specialized visual effects software for the film, television and video industries, announced today a definitive agreement to acquire particleIllusion™ and all related products and technologies from wondertouch LLC. The acquisition includes particleIllusion SE, all Emitters and Pro Emitters, particleIllusion for AE, and all additional intellectual property from wondertouch LLC. As part of the acquisition, Alan Lorence, the former CEO of wondertouch and creator of particleIllusion, will join GenArts as a full-time developer. Read the rest of this entry »

After spending the last few days, on and off, installing Windows 7 on a couple of laptops, and after seeing some press releases over the last couple of days for Win7-ready versions of several utilities, I thought I would compile a quick list of utilities that I have found helpful for either optimizing systems or just saving my bacon… Read the rest of this entry »

Part of my duty as Technical Editor here is wrangling the annual Best Products of the Year. Basically, any product that has passed through our doors is fair game, but the products must do what they do very well. It can get sticky from year to year and from category to category, but we always make it happen.

Nine of our 16-or-so categories have been chosen (no, I’m not telling you which ones.) In a break from years past, we are running the Best Products of the Year in the January issue this year. So think of it as a second holiday gift guide, if you will–we start with the camcorder buyer’s guide in December, and the Best Products story in January, combined with our first-ever pocket camcorder buyer’s guide (you know, those little cams that look like cell phones? Yeah, those. Generally speaking, the ones with fixed focus and no optical zoom that otherwise wouldn’t qualify to run in the full buyer’s guide.)

Anyway–back to writing copy. But we hope you enjoyed that little preview of what’s coming up. Stick with us in ‘10… we think you’ll like what you see. (And if you need to renew, give our friendly customer service reps a buzz at 1-800-284-3226!)

Reprinted from an Avid press release:

Avid® today announced a trio of new Pro Tools® Essential bundles, hardware/software solutions that enable enthusiasts to easily create music with the same tools used by today’s most popular musicians. The three affordable bundles, Pro Tools Vocal Studio, Pro Tools Recording Studio and Pro Tools KeyStudio™, aim at creative hobbyists with an interest in musical composition, editing, and production as well as consumers who are looking to create and share music, podcasts, narrations and other forms of audio with their peers. Read the rest of this entry »