Larry Jordan's Newsletter

May 8, 2023

One of the devices I purchased last week was a new BenQ monitor; my review of it will appear next week. However, as I was playing with it, I remembered that Final Cut has multiple ways to display the timeline full-screen to a video monitor. So, that's my lead story.

Link: How to Display High-Quality Full-screen Video in Final Cut Pro

In the news:

Blackmagic Design introduced DaVinci Resolve 18.5, with dozens of new AI tools and over 100 feature upgrades, including speech to text transcription, improvements to Fairlight audio and relighting a scene using virtual lighting tools.

Link: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/whatsnew

Webinars return this week with a three-part series. Part 1 is this Wednesday: "Audio Techniques in Apple Final Cut Pro." This session covers optimizing preferences, editing and trimming, audio repair, Auditions, double-system, multi-channel, effects, Roles and much more. As always, registration is free.

Link: FREE Weekly Webinar Registration

Next week, I'll do the same for Adobe Premiere. Then, in two weeks, I'll show how to mix audio to picture using Adobe Audition. So, lots more audio to come!

In my purchase spree last week, I bought a book scanner. Why? Because I have more than 100 very old bound journals and Civil War ledgers that, if put onto a flat-bed scanner, would disintegrate. With faded ink, tenuous bindings and spidery handwriting, I needed a scanner that would treat old books gently. These need to be protected yet scanned at high resolution so we can refer to them in the future. I purchased a CZUR ET24 Pro scanner - which is optimized for books and 3D objects. While it isn't perfect, parts of it are pretty amazing. Here's my review.

Link: Review: CZUR ET24 Pro Book Scanner

Last week, I wrote about how to optimize media files for different distribution formats. After I wrote it, I realized that how we format thumb drives changed with a recent OS upgrade. So, this week, I have a quick tutorial on how to re-format USB drives using ExFAT - which is the preferred format that supports both Mac and Windows computers. (Mac-only should use APFS.)

Link: How to Format an ExFAT USB Drive

Jeffrey emailed a question about how to create animated GIFs using Apple Motion. While Compressor easily creates animated GIFs, what I didn't realize until I researched this is that there is a "secret" way for Motion to create these directly. Here's how.

Link: Create an Animated GIF in Apple Motion

NAB is over, WWDC and CineGear are coming up early next month. Our industry is quietly working in the background until we see how Apple redefines computing next month. Quiet is good - it allows us some time to assimilate all this rapid change. Thinking of change, Blackmagic is doing amazing things with Resolve. I hope Apple and Adobe are taking notes.

Until next Monday, stay healthy, stay safe and edit well.