from an iDive press release

MONTPELLIER, FRANCE: 21 February 2006: Aquafadas announces the release of iDive 1.6 , an update of its award-winning digital video catalog for Mac OSX. This release improves the Timecode management when capturing videos, and offers Universal Binary support for Intel-based Macs.

About iDive

iDive offers amateur and semi-professional users a robust on-screen digital video shoebox to store clips and still images. The application includes truly innovative tools that make navigation both easy and fast, regardless of the number of clips being stored. Power previewing, customizable views, "drag & drop" attribute tagging and a timeline display turn any assortment of disorganised tapes into an instantly accessible catalog of digital video that can be enjoyed at any time.
iDive l.5 will ship today with "Mosaic," a powerful new award-winning feature that allows users to create and share motion graphics from digital video footage in a matter of minutes.

Designed to sit alongside DV editing applications, iDive promises to eliminate the frustration and time-wasting in locating and viewing clips hidden amongst hours of footage, by simplifying visualisation, tagging, storage, organisation and retrieval of digital video clips and photos.

iDive is a winner of the O’Reilly Mac Innovation Award 2004, International Category and the MacGeneration Trophy for the best integration of Apple Technologies 05.

Pricing and Availability

The iDive 1.6 release is available immediately for download from the Aquafadas web site, http://www.aquafadas.com, or by following the link : http://www.idivepro.com/software/iDive.dmg.

The upgrade to 1.6 is free for 1.5 customers.
Buying 1.6 will grant a free upgrade for iDive 1.7 and 2.0.
A single user license key sells for US$69.95, with academic prices being offered at US$49.95. Volume discounts are also available.

We simply couldn’t hold out any longer. Over the last couple of years, we’ve received more and more requests to provide formal documentary production training. Several of us here at Videomaker have a passion for this art form and we are pleased to have crafted a very solid four-part lecture series that will be rolled out in April at our Berkeley, California conference. Plus, just yesterday, we were able to secure eminent documentary producer, Ernie Rose, as one of the guest lectors. Look for more details in the events section of our website.

from an Alienware press release

MIAMI - February 16, 2006 - Alienware — the leading manufacturer of high-performance desktop, notebook, media center, server and professional systems — is now offering the new high-speed WD Raptor 150GB hard drive on ALX desktops systems and MJ-12 desktop workstations. The new WD Raptor’s 10,000 RPM spin speed makes it the fastest 150GB hard drive available today.

The WD Raptor 150GB hard drive is backed by a next-generation SATA interface and 16MB cache to ensure high-speed storage transfers, and also boasts advanced vibration tolerance for maximum reliability. With an extremely fast 4.6 ms average seek time, the WD Raptor 150GB hard drive allows Alienware users to retrieve files quickly and have fast access to their data while still being able to take advantage of a large storage capacity.

"Alienware strives to put the most powerful technology in customer’s hands to dramatically improve how they work and play", said Frank Azor, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Alienware’s Worldwide Product Group. "Alienware systems equipped with WD Raptor 150GB hard drives are ideal for gamers, creative professionals, and other power users wanting both blazing-fast response times and an expansive amount of storage."

"WD is pleased to be the hard drive manufacturer of choice for Alienware’s ALX and MJ-12 systems," said Hubbert Smith, WD’s director of enterprise marketing. "When configured into a powerful Alienware system, the WD Raptor 150GB drive is the ultimate hard drive solution for demanding applications such as digital video production, computer aided design and high performance gaming."

We shot episode 3 of Videomaker Presents today, and episode 2 will be showing up on podcast/vidcast aggregators everywhere later today.

Let us know what you think about Videomaker Presents–whether there is something you like, or you have some constructive criticism.

Go get it here!

Reprinted from an Adobe press release

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Feb. 14, 2006 — Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced an update to the public beta of Adobe Lightroom, an all-new digital imaging solution for professional photographers. Just one month after its introduction at the Macworld Show in San Francisco, Lightroom Public Beta 2.0 is now available as a Universal Binary for compatibility with PowerPC and Intel based Apple hardware and includes new features to streamline digital photography workflows. A Windows version is expected to follow the final Macintosh release in late 2006.

Lightroom Beta 2.0 includes new Crop and Straighten tools in the Develop module, ability to add music to slideshows and create hierarchical keyword lists to give photographers the ability to group and manage image keywords more efficiently. Improved Edit functionality provides photographers with more options for choosing how an image is delivered to Adobe Photoshop CS2 based on its native file format. Lightroom also is able to read many IPTC fields, as well as import and export XMP metadata.

"We’ve been thrilled with the activity in our online Lightroom beta forums and the positive response we’ve received from the photography community," said Dave Story, vice president of product development for Digital Imaging at Adobe. "We’re also excited about Apple’s move to the Intel platform and with Lightroom Beta, Adobe is one of the first companies to deliver software for the new Intel based Macs, just weeks after Apple’s announcement."

With its modular, task-based and streamlined environment, Lightroom’s goal is to deliver a complete photography workflow. Leveraging industry-leading Adobe Camera Raw technology, Lightroom supports over 100 cameras and incorporates raw conversion into a single workflow experience. Upon import, files can also be converted to Digital Negative format (DNG) or renamed and segmented by folder or date. Images can be showcased via slideshows, now with the ability to add music, as well as drop shadows, borders, Identity Plates and different colored backgrounds. The size and position of the images can be manipulated and delivered in Macromedia Flash, Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) or HTML formats.

As Adobe continues to collect more feedback from photographers, modules and feature sets will likely change, as customers decide on their popularity and priority within digital photography workflows. Currently available as a beta for Macintosh, Lightroom will later support both the Windows and Macintosh platforms.