aStuff.net

Ubisoft’s third episode available: Assassin’s Creed: Lineage

aNgelo G — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:37:47 +0000

The last of the three episodes has been released for the new Assassin’s Creed: Lineage short movies. View the first one here, View the second one here

This is an introductory to the up gaming video game Assassin’s Creed II on November 17, 2009. Even if you are not an Assassin’s Creed fan, take a moment and enjoy this short movie.

Ubisoft’s second episode available: Assassin’s Creed: Lineage

aNgelo G — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:30:25 +0000

The second of the three episodes has been released for the new Assassin’s Creed: Lineage short movies. View the first one here

This is an introductory to the up gaming video game Assassin’s Creed II on November 17, 2009. Even if you are not an Assassin’s Creed fan, take a moment and enjoy this short movie.

Silent Disco

aNgelo G — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:10:54 +0000

I was just browsing today and found this interesting video about Silent Disco. This is the first time I hear about it and find the idea pretty original. Festivals across the globe have been crying out for the presence of Silent Disco ever since their first UK appearance took Glastonbury Festival 2005 by storm. The first Silent Disco appeared in 1969 in a Finnish science fiction film called Ruusujen Aika.

Enjoy!

The Intermediate and Delivery Video Formats

aNgelo G — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:15:53 +0000

When you work with video content, it is extremely important to understand the difference between Intermediate Formats (Footage that is used for editing purpose) and Delivery Formats (The final version of the video that is shared with everyone). If you don’t use the proper output/codec, you will be degrading your work and have unwanted results. Let me give you a rundown about the two different video formats.

Intermediate
This format is the one you want to work with when your montage is note completed. This is the main format that will be used when you need to switch from one application to another, without any lose of quality. It is important to understand that in order to work with proper footage material, on your timeline, you need a lossless codec. What is a lossless codec you ask? It’s the main source video material that has not been compressed, normally, a pretty huge file.

Among these codecs are: Cineform, Lagarith, Huffyuv, Intel Cinepack, Apple Intermediate Format, plain uncompressed and lots more.

Even if these codecs create huge files, it will be to your advantage, because your video will not lose quality. Let’s say for example you have some green screen footage that you have just finished editing. All the cuts are fine and now you want to export it so you can use an alternative software, like After Effects, to remove the green screen. If your edited footage is exported with a compressed codec, you will have one hell of time removing that green screen, because of the compression.

Now there is a little tricky part with HDV footage. If you import your footage with HDVSplit, you will notice that your footage has a MPEG2 (.m2t) compression. This is not a lossless codec, but a lossy codec. If you plan on using multiple video softwares to create your final video, you might want to watch out. If you export your video in MPEG2, because you go from one software to another, your video will lose quality. The trick with MPEG2 is to never export/compress it when switching softwares. As far as I know, this works with the Adobe suite. You import your .m2t file in Adobe Premiere Pro. You make all your editing in it. Once you want to add some post production, color correction and effects to your video, you import you Premiere project file in After Effects. If I am not mistaken, starting CS3, this id doable. This method eliminates the need to compress your video, before its finished.

Delivery
Once your video is done and looks as you wish, it’s time to export it so everyone can see your wonderful work. You want to be able to compress it as much as needed, this way it is easily transferable over the web (I don’t think your friend wants a 20GB video…) or on a media (CD/DVD), without too much degrading the quality.

The most common lossy codecs used: H.264, JPG Sequence, Divx/XVid, WMV, MPEG2, and FLV. Many more exist!

These formats compress very well, each with its advantages, but will never look as good as your original lossless footage. This shouldn’t be a problem, because most common user can’t see the difference and having a smaller file size, it will greatly improve playback (so even your grandma’s computer can play it).

To make it easier for everyone, here is a golden rule:
Export lossless formats as much as you need to complete your work, but only export in lossy delivery format once!

Some final words
.avi and .mov are not codec formats, but container formats. People should really start understanding this. It kills me when people say: “the avi codec isn’t good”. By just looking at the file name, it’s impossible to say what codec it holds. It’s for this reason that it is possible to have DivX or Cineforme .avi files, and for the same reason a media player can play one .avi format but not another .avi. Your player needs the proper codec to read the file. The same goes for .mov, .mp4, .mkv and other contain formats.

Finally, some older codec versions (yes things can get more complicated, because some codecs have different versions..), might only work on PCs or Macs. For maximum compatibility, use Cineform.

Some Tips & Tricks for Adobe Premiere Pro when working with HDV

aNgelo G — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:25:25 +0000

Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 is the main NLE (non-linear editing system) I use. Many others exist (Vegas, Avid, Final Cut Pro), but starting CS3, Adobe did a pretty good job with Premiere Pro. It is fully compatible on Mac and PC, it’s easy to use and the file projects can easily be imported in After Effects without any rendering. As any software, Premiere Pro isn’t perfect and it can encounter some errors.

Capturing
Capturing with Premiere can be a real pain, especially with HDV footage (like Canon’s HV series). The scene detection somewhat works, with its abort drop frame option. Also, during capturing, the preview window will not work. It will display a screen in multiple languages, telling you that the media cannot be shown. Some of these bugs have been fixed in CS4, but I still recommend using HDVSplit.

HDVSplit is free and performs way better. Read about it in this post.

Pre-processing
Once you have your footage ready and you import it in Premiere, the software will perform automatically 3 crucial tasks.

1. Indexing
2. Audio conforming
3. Generating peak file

This process can take forever and depends of the length of your footage. A progress bar is shown at the lower right corner of Premiere. You won’t be able to use or edit the footage until the process is finished. It is extremely import not to mess up this process, because you will generate errors. Don’t touch the window and don’t close Premiere. Have some patience and wait for the process to finish. If the software crashes or you couldn’t help yourself messing around with it, you still have some hope. If you realize that once you reopen Premiere is continuously loops the progress bar, it might be because an error has been generated. Close Premiere and go to the saved folder (the place you saved your Premiere project) and locate the extra files that were created. Usually these files have a .xmp extension. Delete them and restart Premiere. Load your project and don’t touch anything!

Unsynchronized Audio
This is a huge bug that occurred to me lately. I import the footage, everything looks OK, but at some point I realize that my audio is not in sync. This can get really frustrating and takes lots of time to resolve. If your HDV file has any dropouts, audio will become out of sync.

The easiest fix is to export your video’s source audio in WAV format with the software of your choice. TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress can do this (this is the software I recommended for the 24P workflow).

Other than these little issues, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 is great a software. Adobe has always created great products and with its 64bit version for CS5, performance will be increased drastically.

Anyone havening other issues with Premiere?

Bell to launch Canada’s HSPA+ Network on November 4th

aNgelo G — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:32:37 +0000

Yesterday, Bell issued a press release confirming the date of their upcoming HSPA+ GSM network on November 4th. This what they had to say:

“In two days, Canadians will be able to access the most advanced wireless
network in the world,” said Mr. Cope. “The launch of our new network – months
ahead of schedule – underlines that the Bell team continues to deliver on our
strategic imperatives to accelerate wireless in Canada and to invest in
next-generation broadband networks. We move forward every day toward
achieving our goal – for Bell to be recognized by customers as Canada’s
leading communications company.”
Bell will also offer a wide range of new HSPA smartphones and turbo
sticks from the world’s leading mobile device manufacturers on November 4.
The new network will be the fastest in Canada, with access speeds as high
as 21 Megabits per second (Mbps) and with the largest service area by far -
more than a million square kilometres – covering approximately 20,000
Canadian cities and towns and 93% of the national population. With
international roaming capability on GSM, UMTS and HSPA networks, Bell HSPA
clients will also be able to roam internationally in more than 200 countries
at launch.

No official word about the iPhone’s release date, but we are guessing it should follow pretty much the date of TELUS’ release.

Edit: Bell confirmed that iPhone 3Gs will be available November 4th.

Inspiring Videos

aNgelo G — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:01:53 +0000

If you are in need of inspiration, here are some videos to boost you up:

“Minneapolis broadcast design & animation studio motion504 recently completed the reception sponsor reel for the Minneapolis screening of the AICP Show.”

Playground Titles by Onesize

“After the excellent OFFF 2009 title, Prologue with Ilya Abulhanov sign the MTV music awards 2009 graphic video package in the same original visual style.”

“Handcrafted with love by BYU design students and faculty, for the 5th Typophile Film Festival. A visual typographic feast about the five senses, and how they contribute to and enhance our creativity. Everything in the film is real—no CG effects!”

Justice – DVNO

Justice – D.A.N.C.E.

Reel 2009 – Designer/Director Filipe Carvalho

KIAKOSHI

BBQ commercial for Lexus Hybrid Drive

Internet biggest change in its four-decade history!

aNgelo G — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:23:48 +0000

Internet was invented 40 years ago and a major update is on its way to make history. Starting mid 2010 non-Latin domain names will exist! In simple termes, words that use special characters in other languages will now be available for domains. We will soon see “é”, “ê”, “ñ” and all the Asian characters in .net, .com and all other domain endings.

I don’t believe this is a good idea, because it will cause more confusion than anything else. Imagine an ad on the radio where the host has to say “êtrePrèsDesCrêpeMontréal.ca”… oh boy is he gonna have a fun time spelling all the accents.

On the positive note, countries like China that want to have their specific local sites or people that do not understand English, can take advantage of these new domains.

Ubisoft’s first episode available: Assassin’s Creed: Lineage

aNgelo G — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:03:53 +0000

The first of the three episodes has been released for the new Assassin’s Creed: Lineage short movies. This is a perfect blend of CF and real footage co-created by Hybride Technologies, the visual effects studio behind 300 and Sin City.

This is an introductory to the up gaming video game Assassin’s Creed II on November 17, 2009. Even if you are not an Assassin’s Creed fan, take a moment and enjoy this short movie.

After Effects CS5 only 64-bit, it’s about time!

aNgelo G — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:34:07 +0000

“Out of memory errors” will soon be thing of the past. After Effects will be 64-bit, and 64-bit only!

These days, HD has become the norm and users are more more demanding for power. Currently, After Effects CS4 is 32-bit and is limited to 4GB of RAM. This can drastically slowdown your workflow. It is common to see people with over 4GB of RAM and with multi-cores CPUs. Among most professional softwares, the Adobe Suite are the few that are still 32-bit. Most, if not all 3D softwares are now 64-bit.

Why would you care if After Effects is 64-bit?

First, you get the ability to render bigger comps, high resolution ones with tons of layers. If you currently get out-of-memory and errors, this one is for you.

Second, you’ll be able to have longer ram previews, not only a few seconds on HD footage. You can’t imagine how frustrating it is to do a ram preview and only preview 10 seconds ( And I run 6GB of DD3-1600MHz…high end stuff!! ).

Third, you’ll be able to work more efficiently with floating point color (aka 32-bit color). This takes 4 times the RAM compared to 8-bit color. So working with over-range or HDR imagery will be improved.

Fourth, the green bars you see on the timeline are the visible part of Adobe’s sophisticated RAM caching technology. After Effects will be able to store more intermediate renders in its caching system.

So why only 64-bit? Adobe supported 64-bit for the last 3 version, but now will fully focus on 64-bit, so users can actually user the power of 64-bit. Virtually all of Apple’s Intel-based Mac systems support 64-bit applications, and Windows users should choose a 64-bit version of Windows to take advantage of the hardware capabilities. Plus, RAM has become so cheap that anyone can add some extra gigs to his machine.

Another good new is: Premier Pro will also be 64-bit.

I think it’s about time!

No official words on CS5 release date.