The New York Post|Production Conference will be held from November 11 - 13. I went the first two years and it was really cool. Much smaller and lower key than NAB in Las Vegas, plus focused more on what I'm interested in.

Cutting-edge technical training sessions will be presented by an elite team of manufacturer-authorized instructors, developers and power users. This event is for professionals at all levels, and is the East Coast's largest resource for the latest and most up-to-date production, post-production and content delivery education. With the recent updates to Apple Final Cut Studio 2 and Adobe Creative Suite 3, there has never been a better time to take advantage of this one stop training opportunity.

Labels: Adobe, Creative Suite, Event, Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Studio, na, NAB

Workflow Management Tool Receives Best of Show Acknowledgment

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada April 29 - GridIron Software today announced that its newest product -- GridIron Flow was awarded 'Best of Show' by Videography editors at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, which took place April 14-17. Flow is a revolutionary new approach to workflow management for creative pros that dramatically simplifies the design process for print, web, film, and video projects. Flow is currently in beta with a select group of creative pros. Registration for a free public beta planned for late spring is available on the Gridiron website at http://www.gridironsoftware.com.

"Gridiron Flow represents a tremendous step forward for industry professionals with its ability to work seamlessly in the background as it automatically tracks and displays the relationships of all files used within a project," explains Videography Contributing Editor Ned Soltz. "Even more impressive is its ability to create project packages for archival or shared purposes. And it's priced at a point where the power of Flow is accessible to large and small users alike."

The NAB Vidy Awards are given by Media's Broadcast & Video Group of products, which also includes DV magazine, DV Expo and the Creative Planet Community of web sites. A select panel of engineers, production and post professionals and editors joined the magazine staffs to judge the Best of Show awards for each publication.

"The Vidy Best of Show award is a great honor and wrapped-up an excellent week at NAB. It was very exciting to share Flow with our Nucleo Pro customers and the video and broadcast industry professionals who stopped by to see demonstrations at the show," said Steve Forde, CEO of GridIron Software. "We got a lot of great feedback from customers and look forward to working closer with the creative professional community when we launch the public beta of Flow."

Flow automatically tracks your work allowing you to instantly see the relationships between all your assets in your most complex projects -- all without changing the way you work. It uses sophisticated Real-Time Asset Tracking technology to record all Import/Export, Save/Save As, and Copy/Paste actions in a project. Flow understands all the assets used in a project regardless of application; and maintains the relationships between stills, movies, sound clips, fonts, plug-ins, and color swatches on all local, network, and removable storage devices.

This award-winning software will be available later this summer for US$349 and will support Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard, as well as Windows XP and Vista. Creative professionals interested in learning more about Flow and participating in the public beta program are encouraged to register at: http://www.gridironsoftware.com.

About GridIron Software

GridIron Software is a leading provider of workflow solutions for creative professionals. We build powerful tools that enhance the creative process by eliminating the drudgery that creative professionals associate with design, video and web workflows. For more information visit: http://www.gridironsoftware.com.
GridIron Software

Web site: http://www.gridironsoftware.com/

Labels: GridIron Flow, NAB, Press Release

One of the biggest Plugged-In podcasts ever, Show 21 NAB Special Edition! Keith Larsen and Alan Spaulding talk to dozens of guests.

From the NAB Show

Rob Birnholz, Absolute Motion Graphics
www.absolutemotiongraphics.com

Zax Dow, Zaxwerks
www.zaxwerks.com

John Dickinson, Motionworks
www.motionworks.com.au

Harry Frank, Gray Machine
www.graymachine.com

Jim Tierney, Digital Anarchy
www.digitalanarchy.com

Wes & Harry Plate, Automatic Duck
www.automaticduck.com

Dan May, BlackMagic Design
www.blackmagic-design.com

Stephanie Joyce, SmartSound
www.smartsound.com

From the FCPUG SuperMeet

Kristi Prost, Larry Jordan Associates
www.larryjordan.biz

Jay Ignaszeski, Tek Serve
www.tekserve.com

Kevin Fischer, Lite Panels
www.litepanels.com

Kevan O'Brien, Adobe
www.adobe.com

Ben Syverson, DV Garage/PixelCorps
www.dvgarage.com

Brendan Cass, Quantum
www.quantum.com

Dan Montgomery, Imagine
www.imagineproducts.com

Marco Solario, Cinesoft
www.mediabatch.com

Francisco Scartozzi, Matrox
www.matrox.com

Frank George, Roland
www.roland.com

Jeff Greenberg, Philadelphia FCPUG
www.finalcutpronews.com

Greg Clarke, Open Television Network
www.opentvnetwork.com

Damon Hampson, Peachpit Press
www.peachpit.com

Jim Davis, LaCie
www.lacie.com

Justin McCarthy, Albatat
www.albatat.com

Jon Schilling, CalDigit
www.caldigit.com

Peter Wiggins, Ricardo Silva & Nancy Schopoff, Noise Industries
www.noiseindustries.com

Norman Zeledon, GMax Storage Solutions, LLC
www.gmaxstorage.com

Sharon Cedars, Lynda.com
www.lynda.com

Roger Mabon, G-Tech
www.g-technology.com

Steve Forde, Gridiron Software
www.gridironsoftware.com

Chris Heffner, Other World Computing
www.macsales.com

Simon Hollingworth & Victoria Battison, BlackMagic Design
www.balckmagic-design.com

Bernie Mitchell, Silver Platter Productions,
www.panasonic.com

Call the podcast toll free: 877-809-8145

TRT: 135 min.

Labels: Adobe, Automatic Duck, Digital Anarchy, GridIron, NAB, Noise Industries, Podcast, Zaxwerks

CE Raum, product designer for Imagineer Systems, demos the first part of company's new VFX architecture mogul, mogul review. At NAB, CE gave me a walk through of the product also. It is really going to change the way people work. Watch the video at Studio Daily.

Labels: Imagineer mogul, NAB, Studio Daily

Here I am at Denver International waiting for my connection and there's free wifi! I thought this might be a good opportunity to tell you about my experience at NAB 2008. I have about 10 minutes until I board, and I'll have to put up the photos later. Enjoy.

Sunday, April 13 - Arriving in Las Vegas

Alicia VanHeulen (fellow Toolfarmer) and I got into Vegas around 6pm and caught a taxi in the organized chaos outside the airport. I hate cabs. Hate em. I always get a weird cab driver who wants to come to my house or has some strange hobby he wants to tell me all about. This time, we got to spend 25 minutes hearing about how to prepare Lake Superior Whitefish.

We checked in at the Sahara, which was chosen souly on the fact that you don't have to walk through a casino to get to the monorail. We had plans to go to the FMC party on Sunday evening with John Kerr from Red Giant. It was $85 to get into the rooftop party at Pure at Caesar's Palace, however, RG was a sponsor, so we told them we were guests of John Kerr and they let us in with no problem. We had to walk through about a mile of corridors and stairways to get up to the roof where they had a small buffet of carved beef, shrimp on skewers and spring rolls, which were completely gone. We did have some refreshingly tasty drinks of vodka, cranberry, sprite, and grapefruit juice. There was a woman whose body was being painted on the patio, some people carrying around gobs of hula hoops, as well a big giveaway, that we didn't enter, unfortunately. We met some really cool people from Hawaii (Hi Shanti). We did finally meet up with John Kerr, Sean Safreed and Jeremy Hill from Red Giant, as well as our good friend Seth Hancock from ICVA and his lovely wife Lisa.

After the party, we headed to Mesa, Bobby Flay's restaurant, with the Red Giant guys and had a nice dinner. By the time we left, it was 3:00am our time, so we were tired, to say the least.

Monday, April 14 - Day one of the convention

7:45am - We took the monorail to the convention center. This was our first day on the convention center floor, and Alicia's first NAB ever. I took her to the doorway and pointed her to the Digieffects booth where she was starting her day, but I couldn't get in to the show floor due to the fact that I never received my badge! I had a printout receipt that I had registered in December. It took a while at registration but somehow they lost my registration. After 45 minutes, I was badged.

I headed over to Red Giant, where I had a presentation on Magic Bullet Looks at 10am. Looks is very easy to demo and lots of fun to use, and I have to say, the presentation went pretty well. I've just learned to get through the spiel within 10 minutes because people were standing and I wasn't giving a tutorial, but an overview. The Looks Theatre sold it for a lot of people. It was really great seeing everyone at the RG booth and meeting the new RG employees. Thanks for the nuts and popcorn, Beth! Delicious.

At 1:00pm each day I demoed Boris Continuum Complete and Boris Final Effects Complete at the Boris FX booth. This booth was on the middle aisle of the show floor in a highly trafficked area. Boris FX had a theatre set up with about 25 seats. It was the Motion Key plug-in for BCC that really seemed to get a lot of attention. I'll be putting together a tutorial for Motion Key in the next few weeks, because it really is an amazingly cool plug-in. It garnered lots of ooh's and aah's as a silver car driving across a busy street scene is removed from the shot with ease. I showed off the BCC UpRez plug-in, which converts SD to HD and uses a nifty feature called Magic Sharpen. I demoed the BCC Pan & Zoom which makes the Ken Burns style effects. I showed a few other BCC plug-ins and Final Effects Complete (FEC). Did you know all FEC plug-ins contain motion trackers and a feature called Pixel Chooser, which is a built-in masking tool? If you would've known that during the presentation, you could have won a Boris hat or training Class on Demand Boris Continuum Complete Training DVD.

Digieffects and Red Giant's booths were directly behind each other in the Plug-in Pavillion, which made things very nice for us. Digieffects was demoing the new Damage, as well as the Simulate and Natural Forces plug-ins for After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Combusion and Boris Red, which will be out in 4-6 weeks. We hadn't seen the new plug-ins at all yet, so it was a big difficult to answer questions. We ended up setting up little comps with examples, but then found the best way to demo was by using the little blue button. What is this little blue button? It's the randomizer. Shin Kurokawa, the engineer at Digieffects explained that he put the button in for testing purposes so he could see the range of values for each parameter without having to change all of the sliders each time, and soon realized that it's brilliant for getting ideas and seeing what variety of looks that the plug-in can produce. Tim Kolb, David Vieria and Robert Sharp were also at the booth with us all week. Robert... smart move on the couch rental. You can't go wrong with a big comfy couch, especially after you've been on the show floor all day.

Monday night was the IMUG Media Motion Ball 2008 at the Sahara Hotel, which I've attended the last 4 years. The crowd is generally IMUG and AE-List people. Brian Maffitt of Total Training was the speaker and once again and he was hilarious! Brian is a collector of crazy movie memorabilia and marketing gimmicks from William Castle fims. The presentation was about brilliant marketing campaigns for these movies. Macabre with the tagline 'So Terrifying We Insure You For $1000 against Death By Fright! (Not valid for persons with heart or nervous conditions)'. He showed us an original Tingler (filmed in "Percepto"). The best film of all, The House on Haunted Hill, filmed in "Emergo", in which an inflatable skeleton would pop out over the scene. Well, Brian had one of these inflatable skeletons with him at the dinner! We laughed, we cried, it was better than The Tingler.

Dinner at the Media Motion Ball was delicious as always. It was antipasto, salad and several Italian dishes. The highlight was definitely the dessert. Steve Kahn had arranged a surprise for everyone and that was Bananas (and strawberries) Foster over ice cream. Fabulous. I think overall I gained 5 pounds in Las Vegas, but I probably walked it off.

Alicia and I dined with Mark Spencer, author of Apple Pro Training Series: Motion 3, which I highly recommend. Also at the table was Niclas Bahn of Noise Industries on crutches, Niclas' girlfriend, Peter Wiggins and a few others from Noise Industries. Straight across from me was the guy who looks like Andy Samberg from SNL (who incedently ended up winning a Boris Training DVD during my presentation).

It was great to see everyone again at the MMB - it's kind of like a reunion every year. I get to meet up with Keith and Alan, the Plugged-in Podcast guys, Jim Kanter, who is one of our forum experts, a lot of the plug-in developers and those wild and crazy guys from Anchorage. They had gobs of giveaways, including several donated by Toolfarm. I didn't win anything, but I got to go on stage and draw a few names. The first name I drew was Lisa Hancock, who took home Maxon Cinema 4D. Toolfarm did give away lots of prizes, including several bundles of Professional Video Templates, Harry Frank's Expressions Training and his Trapcode Form Training, and two copies of Digieffects Damage.

We cabbed over to the party with Harry Frank and left the MMB early to go to Peder Norrby's party (Peder Norrby is the man behind Trapcode). Sadly, Ko Maruyama told us that not long after we left the MMB, Harry Frank's name was drawn for the big prize of the night, but since he left, he couldn't claim it. Bummer.

Peder threw yet another swanky party! The suite was very modern and silver and on one of the top floors of the hotel. From the main room you could see in the bathroom through a window and there was even a stripper pole in the shower! Crazy stuff. I have a feeling Paris Hilton had stayed in that very room last weekend. There were lots of people from the plug-in industry in attendance and a DJ spinning some great house music. Peder has a new product coming out called Trapcode Horizon, which helps AE users work in 3D space. He presented it at the Red Giant booth, but unfortunately, I missed his presentations. He wasn't showing anything at the party, just socializing. Horizon will be out near the end of summer, so stay tuned.

Tuesday, April 15

The second day on the show floor was busier than the first. I did another presentation for both Red Giant and Boris FX and each went smoother the second time around. Alicia and I also worked at the Digieffects booth showing the new plug-ins. I caught a couple of great presentations at the Adobe Booth - one about After Effects, presented by Steve Holmes, and one about working with video in Photoshop, presented by Richard Harrington. I use these programs day in and day out and they both managed to show me new things about the software. I took notes during both presentations and both really got the wheels in my head spinning.

I walked around and got a nice demo of GridIron Flow from Jim Geduldick. The GridIron booth was freakin' huge. Andrew Kramer, Aharon Rabinowitz and Mark Coleran were also hanging around the booth, demoing the GridIron goods. They were also giving away cool GridIron yo-yo's. You know the first yo-yo's were used as weapons? I learned that one from a tv commercial.

Pete from RE:Vision Effects gave us a nice demo on DE:Noise and Shade/Shape, and we also spent a some time with Jim Tierney of Digital Anarchy, as he walked us through ToonIt and some of their other offerings.

I also sat in on an awesome presentation by Harry Frank at the Red Giant booth. He showed off some cool projects that he did using Trapcode Form and Trapcode Particular. He broke down his technique into little bit-sized pieces. It was really amazing work. Harry is just so darn talented.

Colin and Jason Sharp from Toolfarm flew in Tuesday and the Toolfarm crew went to a fabulous dinner at B&B, Mario Batali's place. I tried the most amazing octopus appetizer, and had sweet potato ravioli with sage butter, as well as squab with beet risotto. Did I mentioned I think I gained weight? :-) Afterward we met up with some friends from Boris FX/Channel Wolves and walked a bit around the Venetian.

Wednesday, April 16

Another day on the show floor and boy, are my dogs tired! More presentations for Red Giant, Digieffects and Boris FX. By this time, I'm pretty good with the presentations. Also, this is Alicia's birthday. Happy Birthday! What did Alicia do on her birthday? Presented Magic Bullet Frames at Red Giant's booth. Now how many people get to do that on their birthday!? Haha. I also met Bert Kish at the RG booth. Bert was the winner of the MyToolfarm Red Giant NAB contest. He presented his winning video and also showed what went into the project.

On Wednesday night I ended up going out with Boris and his crew. We ate at an Italian place in the Venetian. I ate some really interesting pear ravioli with a bechemel sauce and some asparagus. Yummo. I just love the guys from Boris. They are all such nice guys. The food was fantastic as well.

Thursday, April 17

It's the last day of the show, so we got up nice and early and met Kevin Bourke who handles PR for the likes of Automatic Duck and Imagineer Systems for breakfast at the EGO Cafe, right outside the convention center. He told me about Imagineer mogul so as soon as I got into the show I went in to check it out. It was a private screening room and the presentation was given by CE and Alan Jaenicke of Imagineer. I am not entirely sure what information they'd like to be shared about this product, but I can tell you it's a subscription based product that includes software and hardware and is something that is in dire need. This product is going to be massive. Huge.

I also stopped by to see the GenArts booth and talked with Anish and Laurie. Lastly, we sat in on a private demo of Nuke at The Foundry's booth. It's awesome. I want it. We did get some free training DVDs on Nuke and we can download the demo. Too bad I am not doing any work that requires such a splendid piece of software. I didn't have much time to see anything else because we had to get to the airport.

What I learned at NAB 2008

I've learned a few tricks over the past few years at NAB that I think are worth sharing.

1. Avoid cabs if at all possible, unless you're looking for Lake Superior whitefish recipes and restaurant recommendations for Beverly Hills. Trust me. So, you ask, if you're avoiding cabs, how do you get around? There is a shuttle that goes between the convention center and the aiport that is free. That will save you $25 right there.
2. There is also a monorail. We bought monorail passes before the show and had them mailed to us. It was cheaper to buy 3 single day passes than it was to buy a three day pass. Weird. Now here's a great from Alicia. If you have single day passes, they are good for 24 hours. To maximize your usage, get to the station a few minutes earlier each day. If you use your card for the first time at 8:26am on Monday, you can use it at 8:23am the next day. You can start your next single day pass on the way back.
3. When registering for your NAB pass, it doesn't hurt to register twice! NAB will hate me for saying so, but I would have saved myself 45 minutes at registration on Monday morning if I would have registered again when I didn't receive my badge by mail.
4. Wear comfortable shoes and bring bandaids. Sunglasses are also mandatory, as well as a little bottle of vitamin E to rub on chapped hands and lips. The desert is incredibly dry and flying doesn't help matters.
5. Keep a pen with you to make notes on the back of people's business cards. This will help you keep them straight when you get back.
6. Free wifi is a bit hard to come by in Las Vegas. If they can make money off of something in Vegas, they will. One place you can get free wifi, or even check your email at one of their computers, is the Sprint Center at the monorail station at the convention center. Las Vegas' McCarran Airport (and Denver Airport which we flew through) also has free wifi. I love free wifi, but I'm Dutch, so I like anything free. :-)

Time to recover. A massage sounds really good right now.

Labels: Boris, Continuum Complete, Damage, DE:Noise, DigiEffects, Imagineer mogul, Imagineer Systems, NAB, Particular, Red Giant, Total Training, Trapcode, Trapcode Form, Trapcode Horizon

During the week of NAB, save 30% on all Red Giant Software and Trapcode products, including all full versions and bundles of full versions. It doesn't include upgrades, crossgrades or academic. The sale runs from Monday, April 14 thorough Sunday, April 20 and expires at midnight PST.

Use the code NAB2008 in the checkout and save all week!

Labels: NAB, Red Giant, Sale, Trapcode

The NAB 2007 award-winner debuts full range of visual effects technology on stand SL2128H

Las Vegas NV - April 11, 2008 - Noise Industries will be showcasing the award-winning FxFactory 2.0 on stand SL2128H at the NAB 2008 exhibition held in Las Vegas NV from April 14 - 17. A 2007 NAB Viddy Award Winner, FxFactory 2.0.3 is an expansive set of visual effects tools offering over 300 plug-ins designed to compliment and extend the effects creation workflow of Apple® Final Cut Studio® and Apple Final Cut® Express.

"The energy this show generates is just phenomenal! NAB is the perfect opportunity for us to get together with our customers, partners, and colleagues... discuss the successes of today and the possibilities of the future," comments Niclas Bahn, Business Development Director. "This year we will have three of our broadcast design development partners on the stand with us showing more than 10 different Noise Industries effects packages. A tremendous growth in our product line from the previous year!

About FxFactory Pro
FxFactory Pro offers hardware acceleration combined with a high precision rendering engine for "front room" production power and results. The above industry standard performance and quality enables users to push the limits of effects creation; delivering that unique or realistic look with stunning image quality.

FxFactory filters are designed to extend the Apple professional video applications effects and compositing capabilities with more than 130 filters, generators and transitions. Extensive tools and controls enable users to produce just about any look with exact precision.

Highlights of the FxFactory Pro package FxFactory Pro offers super-fast glows, blurs, distortions, sharpens, generators, titling and stylization effects that can add value to any post production environment.

Hardware acceleration; FxFactory Pro plug-ins are accelerated using the graphics card for unbeatable previewing and rendering performance.

Integrated Help Desk; Plug-in documentation is accessible in one click, right from the parameter inspector. Hundreds of Presets; FxFactory Pro plug-ins come with presets, a time saving feature that lets you try new looks with minimal effort. Save your own parameter configurations to disc and recreate the same look later.

Apple Final Cut Studio and Final Cut Express users can test drive FxFactory and partner expansion FxPacks by downloading the 15-day trial version from: www.noiseindustries.com/fxfactory

For more information about Noise Industries at NAB 2008, please contact Niclas Bahn at njb@noiseindustries.com. To schedule a press briefing or request product reviews, please contact Ryan Wood at ryanw@zazilmediagroup.com.

About Noise Industries, LLC Established in 2004, Boston Massachusetts based Noise Industries is an innovative developer of visual effects tools for the postproduction and broadcast community. Their products are integrated with popular non-linear editing and compositing products from Apple and Avid. For more information about Noise Industries, please visit: http://cts.vresp.com/c/?ZazilMediaGroup/6974550fc9/1d796b241d/61e7f04d45.

Labels: Final Cut Pro, FxFactory, FxPlug, Motion, NAB, Noise Industries

About cineSync:

cineSync is a remote review and approval tool based on Apple QuickTime technology. By synchronizing the timeline and playback of movies, you can quickly and efficiently view your work at the same time with anyone anywhere in the world.

Build a playlist of movies, scrub to a point in a movie, playback a movie, draw on the screen with your mouse, circle and point to areas using the drawing tools – all synchronized in real time with everyone else in your review. You can also navigate through your playlist using Text Markers ('Bookmarks'), transfer your movies using a built-in FTP client, and save your drawings for future reference.

cineSync offers an unparalleled user experience, making it possible for your clients to participate in a review session without needing their own account. All they need to do is download a small self-contained package, and login using a key that is unique per-review session. Movies are never transferred through the cineSync servers, ensuring that your reviews are secure, and your media never leaves the privacy of your own file servers.

Features/What's New in the Pro Version:

• Run multiple simultaneous sessions.
• Use without an internet connection in offline mode.
• Run in Full screen (see above).
• Play stereoscopic QuickTimes (with synchronized convergence controls).
• Apply soft or hard masks in any aspect ratio.
• Perform synchronized colour adjustments.
• Apply 3D LUTs to loaded movies and still images.
• Switch between anamorphic and standard aspect ratios.
• Zoom and pan to specific areas of interest.
• Control cineSync Pro from the command line.
• Run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Suse 9.3, Ubuntu 7.10, CentOS 4.4 and Fedora Core 5).

Pricing: cineSync Pro pricing starts at USD$5,000 for a 12 month, 10 user multisession account.

Pre-order special Offer!

As a special offer, available until the full release on May 26, we are offering the opportunity to purchase cineSync Pro at the discount subscription rate of USD $4,000 for the first 12 months.

You will also receive:

• Preferred development and support.
• An account and license starting from the date of purchase and valid until May 26 2009.
• The option to buy further blocks of 10 users at the same discount rate (until May 26).
• A free upgrade of any existing cineSync account (purchased prior to March 19 2008) to cineSync Pro for the remainder of its subscription period.

You can download the current beta version of cineSync Pro here. cineSync will be demoing at NAB booth #SL9522.

Labels: cineSync, NAB, public beta

San Francisco, CA, April 10, 2008 - Red Giant Software, publisher of a line of professional desktop tools including the award-winning Magic Bullet™ technology will show five new products at the upcoming NAB Convention in Las Vegas, NV (April 14-17, 2008). Visit the Red Giant Software booth- SL2128A to see demos of Trapcode Horizon, Instant HD Pro, Radium Glow, Magic Bullet Steady, and Primatte Keyer Pro 4.

Trapcode Horizon is a plug-in designed specifically for After Effects users doing 3D work. Are you tired of figuring out how to get your camera to match your virtual background? Well, we have a simple solution for you. With the help of Trapcode Horizon, you can generate motion in 3D in a true 3D space. Now that's beautiful! Priced at $99 this product will ship in Q2 2008.

Instant HD Pro is designed to deliver the highest possible quality conversion for SD to HD. Its advanced tool set offers sharp, motion-compensated de-interlacing and de-noising; advanced pan and scan; and a super-resolution algorithm for providing actual resolution enhancement in an editing application. All these features are combined into one plug-in with an easy-to-use preset menu for choosing the right HD and 2K output formats. Priced at $399 this product will ship in Q2 2008.

Radium Glow will be a new package of plug-ins to create glowing areas in an image, based on the brightest parts of the frame. The four plug-ins are Glow EZ, a simple plug-in with limited controls, Glow with advanced controls and masking, Glow Edge for creating glows only on the edges of an image or around text, and Glow Depth which will create the Glow based on a secondary z-depth or depth buffer layer. Priced at $99 this product will ship in Q2 2008.

Magic Bullet Steady will include two new plug-ins for Final Cut Pro 6 and After Effects CS3 (Mac and Windows). The stabilizer function removes unwanted camera movement and drift with a software-based 2D translation that is near real-time. Also, included in this set is a tool to reduce visible noise and grain in DV sequences produced by digital video cameras, camcorders, TV-tuners, digitizers of film or analog video. Priced at $199 this product will ship in Summer 2008.

Primatte Keyer Pro 4 is a professional green screen tool that extracts keys from any color background quickly and easily. Version 4 brings new levels of power and speed to After Effects and Avid, and for the first time, Final Cut Pro. New features include easy-to-use Auto setup, which creates an almost-perfect key with one click. Powerful features allow Primatte Keyer Pro to overcome keying challenges such as uneven lighting, compression artifacts, subtle shadows, and edge light contamination. Best of all, Primatte Keyer Pro works right on the timeline. Available now for $499 new or $199 as an upgrade.

About Red Giant Software:
Red Giant Software LLC is a San Francisco-based company that develops professional tools for digital video production. Products are available as plug-ins for popular video editing and effects applications including After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, and Avid. All tools are based on production-proven technology developed by visual effects veterans.

Labels: After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Instant HD Pro, Magic Bullet Steady, NAB, Press Release, Primatte Keyer, Radium Glow, Red Giant, Trapcode, Trapcode Horizon

Media 100 to Debut Version 12.5 at NAB 2008 Highlights of the new release include support for HDV and Multi-Channel Audio

Marlborough, MA - April 9, 2008 - Media 100, a leading provider of advanced editing systems for the corporate, broadcast, postproduction, and new media industries, today announced that Media 100 will unveil version 12.5 at the NAB 2008 exhibition held in Las Vegas NV from April 14 to 17, 2008. The legendary Media 100 user-friendly interface allows editors to easily and quickly assemble packages with stunning picture quality making it one of the fastest editing applications in the world. The breadth and depth of Media 100's integrated 2D/3D compositing features provides an endless arsenal of professional grade effects tools for creating that unique or realistic look. The new Media 100 version 12.5 release expands on the systems workflow acquisition options and finishing capabilities with support for HDV formats and multi-channel audio input.

Attendees to the NAB 2008 exhibition can see Media 100 version 12.5 on stand SL 8720.

"This is the fifth major release for Media 100 since it was acquired by Boris FX in September 2005. Our customers are more than thrilled with the introduction of new features and fast pace of development in such a short period of time," comments David Colantuoni, Director of Product Management, Media 100. "And this is just the beginning… we have long-term plans to ensure Media 100 editors can continue put their investment at the core of emerging broadcast workflows and reap the revenue benefits."

Media 100 Version 12.5 Feature Highlights

• HDV Support; HDV capture through Apple native FireWire; expanding the acquisition and options for Media 100 editors.
• Multi-Channel Audio Input; Users can now input and edit multiple audio tracks

Media 100 Development Milestones

Media 100 version 12.5 is the fifth major feature release since the acquisition of Media 100 by Boris FX in September 2005. Development milestones for the Media 100 product:

• M100 Version 11.0 June 2006 - company ports Media 100 software to the industry standard and highly popular AJA video card; moving away from proprietary hardware
• M100 Version 11.5 September 2006 - engineering team adds support for FireWire and Panasonic P2; introduces software only version-Media 100 Producer
• M100 Version 11.6 March 2007 - ships Intel-based Mac version of the product line
• M100 Version 12.0 September 2007 - team adds support for progressive formats and deepens integration of Boris compositing and effects products.
• M100 Version 12.5 April 2008 - Media 100 introduces support for HDV, multi-channel audio

Abaltat Muse Promotion For a limited time, customers who buy Media 100 Suite or a Media 100 Platinum Software Updates agreement receive Abaltat Muse at no additional cost. Abaltat Muse ($495 USD value) enables video editors to quickly create broadcast-quality, royalty-free soundtracks that are automatically cued to the video sequence.

Pricing and Availability Media 100 12.5 will ship in Q2, 2008. Customers holding valid Media 100 Platinum Software Agreements receive version 12.5 free of charge. Media 100 HD, Media 100 HD Suite, Media 100 HDe, and Media 100 SDe customers can purchase the Media 100 Platinum Software Agreement for $895.00 USD.

Media 100 Producer and Media 100 Producer Suite customers can upgrade to version 12.5 for 295.00 USD.

For more information about Media 100 including company and product imagery, please contact Ryan Wood at ryanw@zazilmediagroup.com or visit the Media 100 web site at www.media100.com.

About Media 100 Media 100, a division of Boris FX, is a leading provider of advanced editing systems for the corporate, broadcast, post production, and new media industries. Featuring the most intuitive and easy-to-learn NLE interface, the company's product lines include Media 100 HD Suite, HDe, SDe and software only editing solutions; Media 100 Producer and Producer Suite. For more information, visit www.media100.com.

Labels: Media 100, NAB

If this is your first NAB, I'll warn you, it's HUGE! You will not be able to see everything. Impossible. The South Hall is where all the stuff I want to see is anyway.

Exhibit floor map

Adobe Booth - Booth SL3220

Last year Adobe has some major stuff to show. This year they'll be showing off the Adobe Media Player. mocha-AE from Imagineer will also be shown in Adobe's Booth.

Automatic Duck - Booth SL2128F

From their press release about Edison and Leo, Automatic Duck will also be announcing new enhancements to Pro Import FCP at NAB 2008. Wes Plate, president of Automatic Duck, will be on hand in their booth #SL2128F to meet with customers and share all new developments in Pro Import FCP, as well as new features in Pro Export FCP, Automatic Duck's export tool for Final Cut Pro users.

Boris FX - Booth SL8720

Boris Blue 2.5 and Final Effects Complete FxPlug will certainly be shown. I will be demoing at Boris FX's booth, showing Final Effect Complete. Come by and watch the presentation!

Cineform - Booth SL10609

CineForm will be showing Prospect 4K and Neo 4K, their new products. Neo 4K is compatible with virtually all Windows AVI or QuickTime applications that support image resolutions up to 4K including After Effects. Prospect 4K includes CineForm's real-time video processing engine optimized for Adobe Premiere Pro on Windows, which enables the industry's first real-time multi-stream 4K editing workflow.

Digieffects - Booth SL02128D

See two new packages from Digieffects, as well as Damage, that came out in March.

The Natural Forces series debuts with Natural Forces: Vapor and Natural Forces: Aqua, both with a retail price of $99. Natural Forces: Vapor is a collection of effects designed around the creation of clouds, fog, haze and smoke. Natural Forces: Aqua is a collection of effects focused on various forms of weather and water effects.

The first two packages in the Simulate series are Simulate: Illuma and Simulate: Camera, providing practical lighting and camera filter effects for a variety of visual applications.

Also, Alicia from Toolfarm and I will be demoing at the Digieffects booth, which is in the Plug-in Pavillion, so come on by and say hello! We'll be in the Toolfarm shirts.

Digital Anarchy - Booth SL2128C

FLUIDZ for After Effects and Premiere Pro, ToonIt! and Text Anarchy FxPlug (FCP and Motion) will be shown. FLUIDZ uses the power of 2D fluid dynamics developed by SpeedSix to produce beautiful, flowing, fluid effects and transitions. It has three plug-ins that create realistic flames, smoke, and liquid effects.

The Foundry - Booth SL8605

From their press release: Headlining the show will be Nuke 5, the first major release of its powerful desktop compositing application, the recently launched Furnace 4 plug-ins for Nuke and eyeon Software's Fusion, plus a special preview of Furnace for Apple Final Cut Pro and a technology demonstration of its stereoscopic workflow VFX tools.

Stereo 3D Technology Preview - Responding to the worldwide interest in stereoscopic 3D production, The Foundry has laid the groundwork for efficient multi-view compositing in Nuke 5 and is now concentrating R&D efforts on creating unique tools to further support 3D stereoscopic workflow, and will preview its work in this area during the show... This sounds really interesting!

GenArts - Booth SL14516

GenArts will be showing off their new FxPlug version of their popular Sapphire plug-in package. It runs in Final Cut Pro and Motion.

Gridiron Software - Booth SL6220

GridIron Flow is digital content management software for creative professionals working on graphic design, web, and video projects. Flow automatically tracks the design process from idea to end result and manages assets and applications for the most complex workflows.

Imagineer Systems - Booth SL12405

Imagineer Systems' CEO, Allan Jaenicke will be making a big announcement about a new product called mogul on April 14 at 12:30pm. mogul is an entirely new and open, collaborative VFX architecture.

From the press release: Imagineer Systems is also announcing it has teamed up with another leader in the VFX software development marketplace, The Foundry UK (www.thefoundry.co.uk), to provide visual effects artists with a streamlined, efficient solution to move planar tracking data between two of the industry's most powerful tools -- Imagineer Systems' mocha and recently-announced Nuke 5 from The Foundry. The two companies have also entered into a marketing partnership agreement, in which The Foundry will offer a specially priced bundled version of Nuke 5 with mocha. Executives from Imagineer Systems will be on hand at NAB to demonstrate the benefits of this new agreement.

Imagineer mocha-AE will be shown in the Adobe Booth.

Maxon - Booth SL6826

See the latest versions of the company's professional 3D modeling, painting, animation and rendering solutions. MAXON's flagship software solution, CINEMA 4D, one of the fastest-growing and most widely-used 3D products for digital content creation, is utilized by artists around the world to create compelling motion graphics for some of the broadcast industry's most widely recognized entities, including The Weather Channel, MTV, CMT, Comedy Central, BBC, Al Jazeera, NBC, FOX, NFL, Court TV, National Geographic Channel, Univision, and the BBC, to name just a few.

Noise Industries - Booth SL2128H

The Noise Industries team will showcase new versions of their visual effects plug-in applications for Apple Final Cut Studio/Express and Avid AVX as well as introduce new partner releases.

Red Giant Software - Booth SL2128A

Be sure to check out a demo of the Magic Bullet Suite, plus Radium Glow will be shown. This is a new package of plug-ins that creates glows. Other new products from RG are Primatte 4 and the Instant HD upgrade. Alicia from Toolfarm will be showing Magic Bullet Frames and I will be demoing Magic Bullet Looks and Colorista at the booth at NAB so be sure to stop by and say hi. In addition to Alicia and I, the winner of the MyToolfarm/Red Giant NAB contest will be presenting on Wednesday at 10am. Don't miss him!

RE:Vision Effects - Booth SL2128J

Pete and Pierre will be showing the new releases for RE:Vision Effects

SmartSound - Booth SL7712

Get a sneak peek of SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 5, which is set to be released in early summer.

Sony Creative Software - Booth SL12413

Sony will surely be showing Vegas 8.

NewBlueFX's CTO, Todor Fay, will be making daily presentations at 11 am at the Partner's stage in the Sony booth.

Sorenson Media - SL6526

They just released a major upgrade to Squeeze, so I'm sure you'll be seeing Squeeze.

Synthetic Aperture - Booth SL2128B

Synthetic Aperture announced Test Gear 2.0 for Adobe After Effects CS3 today. Also, they'll be demonstrating the 3cP/Color Finesse/ASC CDL workflow.

Telestream - Booth SL5405

Featuring the latest Flip4Mac products including WMV Components for QuickTime, MXF Professional Components for Final Cut Pro, Episode desktop media encoding applications, and Pipeline network encoder for Mac OS X.

Ultimatte - Booth SL4920

They will be showing the Ultimatte 11 and 500, the Ultimatte DV and our software AdvantEdge.

Zaxwerks - Booth SL21281

ProAnimator 4.5 came out recently. I'll bet you'll see it!

Labels: Adobe, Automatic Duck, NAB

Waveform Monitor, Vectorscope, Histograms Enhanced and Fully Integrated into the CS3 User Interface

San Juan Capistrano, CA - April 7, 2008 - Today Synthetic Aperture announced Test Gear^TM 2.0, a new version of their video and audio monitoring software specifically designed for Adobe After Effects CS3. Test Gear's full collection of waveform monitor, vector scope, and other diagnostic displays are now fully integrated into After Effects CS3's user interface. Version 2.0 also adds Universal Binary support for Intel-based Macintosh systems.

Test Gear 2.0 will be previewed at NAB (April 14-17) in Synthetic Aperture's booth SL 2128B.

New Features for Test Gear 2.0

Version 2.0 enhances all of the test instruments by adding full support for 32-bit floating-point projects. Video footage imported into After Effects properly displays values above 100 IRE and below 0 IRE on the waveform monitor, slice display, and histogram.

A new Gamut Display has been added which clearly shows the "legality" of the levels in the image, making it easy to see where colors should be adjusted or a color legalizer applied.

The Swatch Book feature has been enhanced to support 32-bit floating-point color values, and to set paint and text colors with a simple right-click contextual menu. In addition to the existing support for importing Photoshop swatch books, Test Gear 2.0 now supports importing swatch books in Adobe Exchange format.

Integration with After Effects CS3

All Test Gear test instrument windows are integrated into the After Effects CS3 user interface, allowing them to be moved, docked, or floated as desired. The test instrument windows are now fully resizeable so that they can be shaped to show the most important information. For example, the waveform monitor can be made extra tall to show more resolution when measuring an exact value; or it could be made extra wide to show more detail across each scan line.

Standard Features

Test Gear 2.0 adds the following test instruments and functions to After Effects:

• Waveform monitor (luma-only, composite, parade, RGB, YRGB, GBR, overlay; units selectable as IRE or mV; field or frame display)
• Vectorscope (75% or 100% calibration, with 1x, 2x, 5x, and 10x magnification)
• Histogram (YRGB or individual channels)
• Image Slice Tool (takes a user-defined slice through the image and shows the pixel values)
• Color Picker (RGB, HLS, HSB, grayscale, webcolor; colors can be made video-legal with a mouse click)
• Swatch Books (multiple swatch books supported; swatch collections are compatible with Photoshop)
• Audio Monitoring (waveform, phase, stereo image, and spectrum displays)
• All instruments can be set for Rec 601, 709, or SMPTE 240M coefficients

Compatibility

Test Gear 2.0 is a Universal Binary which will work on either PowerPC- or Intel-based Macintosh systems. For Windows users, Test Gear 2.0 is compatible with Windows XP and Vista 32/64.

Test Gear 2.0 requires Adobe After Effects CS3. It is not compatible with earlier versions of After Effects. For users of After Effects 6.5 and CS2, version 1.1 of Test Gear is still available for order.

Pricing and Availability

Test Gear 2.0 will be previewed at NAB (April 14-17) in Synthetic Aperture's booth SL 2128B. It will begin shipping in late April. Pricing is $125 per license ($95 if downloaded via the company's web site). Upgrades from previous versions of Test Gear are $49, available by download only. Discounted multiple-seat licenses are available; contact Synthetic Aperture directly for further information. A downloadable trial version is available on the company's web site, www.synthetic-ap.com.

About Synthetic Aperture

Founded in 1995, Synthetic Aperture is a provider of practical tools for digital video, specializing in color correction and measurement. Synthetic Aperture publishes the Color Finesse advanced color corrector as a stand-alone application and as a plug-in for Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro and Apple Final Cut Pro; Echo Fire video previewing software for Adobe After Effects and Photoshop; the Test Gear test instrument plug-in for After Effects; and the popular free utility Test Pattern Maker. More information may be found on the company's web site, www.synthetic-ap.com.

Labels: After Effects, NAB, Synthetic Aperture, Test Gear

Highly Anticipated mogul Debuts at NAB Press Conference; mocha-AE Debuts in Adobe's Booth; mocha Now Exports to Nuke 5

LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwire - April 7, 2008) - Imagineer Systems (www.imagineersystems.com), creators of next-generation VFX tools, will leverage its presence at NAB 2008 in Las Vegas (April 14 - 17, 2008) to showcase the culmination of a number of strategic initiatives aimed at the visual effects software industry, including the launch of major new collaborative VFX architecture. Imagineer Systems will also highlight a number of initiatives designed to support its customers and partners, including a strategic relationship with The Foundry, and demonstrations of mocha-AE in the Adobe booth #SL3220, signalling a new level of collaboration with the creators of Adobe After Effects.

The following summarizes Imagineer Systems' activities throughout NAB 2008:

mogul Press Conference
When: Monday, April 14 2008 at 12:30 p.m.
Where: Imagineer Systems Booth #SL12405
Who: Imagineer Systems' CEO, Allan Jaenicke
Why: The press, analyst and influencer community are invited to join Imagineer Systems as Mr. Jaenicke unveils the Company's newest initiative in the VFX industry; mogul, an entirely new and open, collaborative VFX architecture. Following a brief presentation from management, a mogul demonstration and Q&A session will follow.

Private briefings for customers and partners are also available and can be arranged in advance by visiting www.mogulvfx.com.

mocha-AE in the Adobe Booth

mocha-AE, Imagineer's powerful planar tracking tool designed for Adobe After Effects artists, will be available for demonstration in Adobe's booth #SL3220. mocha-AE is a stand alone 2D tracking tool for the After Effects community based on Imagineer Systems' unique 2.5D Planar Tracking technology.

The Foundry

Imagineer Systems is also announcing it has teamed up with another leader in the VFX software development marketplace, The Foundry UK (www.thefoundry.co.uk), to provide visual effects artists with a streamlined, efficient solution to move planar tracking data between two of the industry's most powerful tools -- Imagineer Systems' mocha and recently-announced Nuke 5 from The Foundry. The two companies have also entered into a marketing partnership agreement, in which The Foundry will offer a specially priced bundled version of Nuke 5 with mocha. Executives from Imagineer Systems will be on hand at NAB to demonstrate the benefits of this new agreement.

About Imagineer Systems

Imagineer Systems Ltd innovates and markets next-generation visual effects solutions for film, video and broadcast post production and have made their mark on such marquis Hollywood blockbuster productions as Casino Royale, Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter. Imagineer's product line consists of monet^TM -- placement station, mokey^TM -- removal station, motor^TM -- roto station, mocha^TM -- tracking station and mofex^TM -- plug-in for Shake. Imagineer Systems was founded in 2000 and its headquarters is located in Guildford, United Kingdom. For more information visit www.imagineersystems.com

Labels: Imagineer mogul, Imagineer Systems, Mocha AE, NAB, Nuke, The Foundry

New plug-in packages are affordable and revolve around specific themes

Wilmington, NC - April 7, 2008 - Digieffects^TM, a developer of popular visual effects software plugins today announced that it will introduce the Natural Forces and Simulate series of products at NAB 2008.

The Natural Forces series debuts with Natural Forces: Vapor and Natural Forces: Aqua, both with a retail price of $99. Natural Forces: Vapor is a collection of effects designed around the creation of clouds, fog, haze and smoke. Natural Forces: Aqua is a collection of effects focused on various forms of weather and water effects.

The first two packages in the Simulate series are Simulate: Illuma and Simulate: Camera, providing practical lighting and camera filter effects for a variety of visual applications.

Both the Natural Forces and Simulate series form product foundations that will continue to grow in scope and application.

"The entire Digieffects team has been working hard to launch new products," said Robert Sharp, President of Digieffects. "We've focused on what customers are asking for, and in response we're excited to offer new theme based products at affordable price points."

Natural Forces: Vapor, Natural Forces: Aqua, Simulate: Illuma and Simulate: Camera all have a retail price of $99 and will be available for purchase in April 2008.

Digieffects will be exhibiting at the NAB trade show in booth SL02128D in the Plug-in Pavilion from April 14 to April 17, 2008.

About Digieffects Digieffects is a developer of popular software plug-ins for Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro and Autodesk Combustion. The company has been in the business since the beginning of the "plug-in revolution" which dates back to 1996. Over the years, Digieffects has had great success with software products like Cinelook and Delirium and is proud to call thousands of film and video producers all around the world its customers and friends.

Labels: After Effects, DigiEffects, Digieffects Natural Forces, Digieffects Simulate, NAB

The MyToolfarm Red Giant NAB Contest finished last week. We had some terrific entries and we want to thank everyone who participated. The entries needed to use Trapcode Form or Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks in their video. Here are the winners:

Grand Prize

B The Product - Submitted by Bert Kish

First runner up

Timex tv spot - Submitted by Nervo.tv (Nando Costa)

Second Runner Up

Tori Amos Greenscreen - Submitted by Mark Jeschke

We're a little late at announcing the winners to the public, but the winners were contacted on March 29.

See all entries here.

Labels: Magic Bullet Looks, MyToolfarm, NAB, Red Giant, Trapcode Form

Guests include Robert Sharp, President of Digieffects; Michael Horton, founder of the LA FCP User Group; and Carey Dissmore & Steve Griffiths of IMUG and the Media Motion Ball 2008 in Las Vegas at NAB.

Philip Hodgetts, President, Open Television Network discusses Avid's new customer outreach strategy and what he's cooking up himself for NAB.

Michele Yamazki, VP Marketing/Web Develpment Czarina at Toolfarm.com talks about the latest Toolfarm news and other happenings.

Robert Sharp, President of Digieffects discusses his acquisiton of DigiEffects and why it's "not your father's Digieffects"

Michael Horton, Founder, Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group talks to Plugged-in. You might know him as Grady Fletcher, Lt. Daniels, or even Rick Jones, but we know him as the 'Godfather' of User Groups and Michael is here to tell us about the FCPUGNetwork NAB Supermeet 7.

Carey Dissmore & Steve Griffiths, Founders,iMug Online & Co-Chair, Media Motion Ball 2008, stop by and talk about the classiest dinner event at NAB now in its 11th year.

CALL US TOLL FREE: 877-809-8145

Listen now!

Labels: Apple, DigiEffects, Final Cut Pro, NAB, Podcast, User Group

You still have ten days to enter the MyToolfarm/Red Giant NAB Video Contest!

You can now enter two ways:

1. upload through MyToolfarm
2. use YouSendIt and send your files to john@redgiantsoftware.com. Please zip your movie file with a text file which includes your name and contact information, a description of your video and the plug-ins used.

Contest rules and information is right here. You must use either Trapcode Form or Magic Bullet Looks. The rest is up to you! All entries are due March 24. Don't miss out! You could win a trip to NAB in Las Vegas this April and show your work at the Red Giant booth on the show floor.

Labels: Contest, Magic Bullet Looks, MyToolfarm, NAB, Red Giant, Trapcode Form

Emmy award winning director/editor will steer product vision

Wilmington, NC - March 3, 2008 - Tim Kolb, an Emmy, Chicago Film Festival Hugo, and Telly Award-winning director and a 20 year veteran of video and television post production has joined Digieffects as the Chief Product Officer. In this capacity, Tim, will lead the company's product marketing and management efforts.

Tim has experience with a wide range of creative initiatives ranging from interactive projects as early as 1986 to broadcast news production and working with HD and 2K RAW acquisition/post production and compositing. He has been a tour presenter for Canopus, Adobe, CineForm, Sony, and Silicon Imaging, a forum moderator at Creative Cow and author of multiple articles on the web and for TV Technology and Post Magazine. Tim has been featured in articles in Millimeter, Video Systems, EventDV, Studio Monthly, Film and Video, and Studentfilmmaker magazines and is the author of "The Easy Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro" and more recently, the technical editor of "Hands on HDV" (Gloman/Pescatore) from Focal Press. Tim was named one of the "Top 100 Producers" of 2002 by AV Video/ Multimedia Producer Magazine.

"I've enjoyed building my career in production, and I still plan on continuing with certain projects and clients, but for a number of years I've also enjoyed working with industry manufacturers, furnishing input from the user's perspective." said Kolb. "Now I have a chance to be involved with an excellent group of people during some very exciting times at Digieffects, and instead of simply offering input, I'll be helping put it in action."

"We are thrilled and honored to have Tim join the company" said Robert Sharp, president of Digieffects. "I've known Tim for many years and have always been impressed with his strong technical and product knowledge as well as his ability to relate to the needs of users".

Digieffects will be exhibiting at the NAB Show in Las Vegas in April (Booth SL2128D in the Plugin Pavilion).

About Digieffects Digieffects is a developer of popular software plugins for film and video post-production. The company has been in the business since the beginning of the "plug-in revolution" whic