Larry Jordan's Newsletter - April 24, 2023

April 24, 2023

NAB news keeps rolling in; including a significant acquisition. More shortly

My lead story is a troubleshooting guide for Final Cut Pro editors. These ten tips can get your system up and running in short order. Feel free to add your own tips in the comments. Bookmark this page.

Link: Ten Final Cut Pro Trouble-shooting Techniques

I haven't forgotten Premiere editors. You'll find a series of Premiere articles in the Tutorials & Reviews section below.

In the news:

BorisFX acquired Crumblepop, maker of AI-assisted audio repair tools. These plugins work for both Final Cut and Premiere. Boris Yamnitsky told me about this before it was announced and I forgot to mention it last week. Next week, I'll have a review of the latest Crumblepop tools.

Link: https://blog.borisfx.com/say-hello-to-crumplepop

Avid made a series of announcements at NAB. The biggest, for me, was that they are now offering higher education institutions that offer undergraduate and graduate degree programs the opportunity to provide free Media Composer software to any student who wants it. This courting of student editors is long overdue and I'm pleased Avid took this step.

Link: https://www.avid.com/media-composer/for-students

Avid announced Avid | Stream IO, a new flexible cloud and IP workflow platform for production ingest and playout delivered through the convenience of subscription. It will be available later this year.

Avid also announced Avid | Edit On Demand, a turnkey editorial-in-the-cloud SaaS solution running on Microsoft Azure, for remote workflows with tightly integrated capabilities including file- and stream-based ingest, data replication in the cloud, support for third-party creative tools, and remote content review, among others.

Link: https://www.avid.com/products/avid-edit-on-demand

Audio Design Desk won "NAB Product of the Year" for audio production for the second year in a row. This was for version 2, which they demoed at the show.

Link: https://add.app/reviews-audio-design-desk-2-0/

PostPerspective ran an interesting NAB perspective from Mike McCarthy, with his take on highlights: IP Video, Adobe and the rest of the usual suspects. It is worth the time to read.

Link: PostPerspective Looks Back at NAB Highlights

Zero Density won "NAB Product of the Year" for its camera tracking technology: Traxis Camera Tracker. This allows blending real and virtual elements more easily than ever. IT also supports virtual studios.

Link: Zero Density Camera Tracking Software

If PostPerspective thought NAB was about IP workflow, The Hollywood Reporter thinks it was about AI, Virtual Production and the future of broadcasting. They also thought the show was "evolutionary, not revolutionary."

Link: The Hollywood Reporter NAB Highlights

Maxon, too, won "NAB Product of the Year" for Cinema 4D 2023, for graphics, editing, VFX and Switchers. With its powerful features and an easily accessible intuitive user interface that makes creating complex 3D projects effortless, it is considered one of the most popular tools used by professionals in the film, animation, game and visual effects industries.

Link: Maxon Wins Best of NAB Show Award

Last week's webinar on "Creating Clip Speed Changes in Adobe Premiere Pro" was fun to present; though there was an audio glitch in the 9 AM session caused by a bug in GoTo Webinar, for which I apologize. The webinar is now available in my store and Video Training Library. This webinar also included a detailed demo of Topaz Video AI on how to enhance video clips, as well as create extreme slow-motion.

Webinar 349: Create Clip Speed Changes in Adobe Premiere Pro

NAB highlighted a media industry caught in dramatic change. However, while production and post are challenged, distribution is discovering how to use the new digital tools available to it. In this guest post, Jigar Agrawal looks at how current digital trends are evolving media distribution.

Link: How Will Digital Transformation Evolve the Media Sector in 2023?

For me, one of the highlights of last week's Premiere webinar was looking at the image quality differences between different ways of creating slow motion. No one setting is "best" - and they all have strengths and weaknesses. In this short video, I showcase five different ways to create slow motion, along with the benefits and weaknesses of each.

Link: Compare the Visual Differences Between Slow Motion Effects in Premiere Pro

As I was researching Premiere for last week's webinar, I rediscovered the Rate Stretch tool. This changes the duration of a clip without changing content. Here are two tutorials - one video and one written.

Tutorial link: The Hidden Rate Stretch Tool in Adobe Premier Pro

Video link: Create Video Speed Changes Using the Rate Stretch Tool in Premiere

Another way to change the speed of a clip is to create a hold frame. This freezes the action at the playhead, then seamlessly picks it back up again when the hold frame is complete. These are easy to create and provide two significant options on how this still image is integrated into the timeline.

Link: Create Hold Frames to Pause, Then Restart, Action in Adobe Premiere Pro

Now that NAB is over and we absorb the latest news and prognostications for our industry, it's time to turn our attention to the upcoming World-wide Developers Conference (WWDC) from Apple. The keynote on June 5th promises to be especially interesting. Announcements form NAB to WWDC in the second quarter set the tone for the rest of the year. And, from all indications, there's no sign things are slowing down.

Until next week, stay safe, stay hopeful and edit well.