Burbank, CA, September 27, 2011 – Bella Corporation announced the launch of its new shortcuts software, “KillerKeys” today. For the first time, consumers and professionals will be able to have all of the shortcuts for all of their applications in one place. KillerKeys is like a GPS for your computer applications, directing users to thousands of shortcuts for dozens of applications, allowing them to navigate through a complex world of applications with the click of a button.

Sisvel Technology has announced a technical partnership with Antik Technology for the development of hardware supporting Sisvel Technology’s 3D Tile Format. The first of Antik’s 3D Tile Format-enabled devices — the Juice 3D Extreme HD 3DTV IP/DVB set-top box — will be shown at Electronic Asia on the Sisvel Technology booth (5F-F02).

The day I stop learning about lighting will be the day my EKG goes flatline. There’s an extraordinary amount to learn and absorb, and I doubt I’ll ever learn all of it. That’s okay, because it means I’ll never run out of new things to learn. My most recent fixation is on the one light many think about the least: the fill light.

(Burbank, CA)  Createasphere - a global community builder for the entertainment technology industry - has wrapped four days of conferences, expositions, education and awards focused directly on the needs of a broad array of professional content creators and content stewards.  Thought leaders in creation, post production and digital asset management gathered last week to share the latest developments and news with industry luminaries.  The week wrapped with a gala - the Second Annual DAMMY Award luncheon - which premiered in New York last year.  All of the events took place at the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan.

Shotgun Software announced today that Academy Award®-winning animation company Blue Sky Studios has chosen the Shotgun web-based production management system. The studio is integrating Shotgun into its pipeline as the central platform for studio-wide collaboration among all of its 400 employees, as well as directors and producers working on productions at Blue Sky.

BURBANK, CA (September 23, 2011)    Createasphere’s Digital Asset Management Conference bestowed their DAMMY Awards this afternoon to a sold-out ballroom.  The DAMMY Awards are the first honors specifically conceived to recognize excellence in innovative digital asset management technology.  The DAMMY’s returned to New York and the New Yorker Hotel for the second DAMMY Awards gala luncheon. 

TV One is pleased to announces a permanent price reduction on the C2-2375A Universal 3G-SDI Converter. The C2-2375A, which was launched in March of 2010, will receive a new price of $4,900 USD, effective immediately. This is a 29% price decrease from the old price of $6,900 USD. The C2-2375A provides bi-directional up/down/cross conversion between a variety of analog and digital video formats, as well as advanced features such as seamless switching, picture-in-picture windowing, chroma/luma keying, integral audio switching and SD/HD compatible Genlock. The standard C2-2375A’s inputs and outputs are SD/HD/3G-SDI, DVI, Composite Video, S-Video, YUV, YPbPr or RGB.  Additional options include a 3G/HD/SD input and output card, an audio interface module with various optional breakout units that allow 8 audio channels In and Out, with the simplicity of adding the cards into the back available module slots. Once power is turned the optional cards are automatically recognized by the firmware and immediately available for use. A redundant power supply is also an option with or without an additional AC inlet.

We’re going through our book Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects 5th Edition (CMG5) and pulling out a few “hidden gems” from each chapter. These will include essential advice for new users, plus timesaving tips that experienced users may not be aware of.

Real 3D programs have several advantages over After Effects: For example, their objects have real depth, and the texturing and lighting options are far more advanced. However, After Effects is the better tool in which to refine the final look of your 3D renders, as well as composite other elements on top of them. Offloading portions of the work from your 3D program to After Effects will save time while giving you more power and flexibility - but it requires some planning to set up.

In this chapter in CMG, we give advice on how to successfully integrate your 3D program with After Effects. Unfortunately, there is no one universal file format to bring information from a 3D application into After Effects, so in the book we focus on using Maxon Cinema 4D as it currently has the tightest integration with After Effects, plus is the 3D program we personally use. However, many of the concepts we cover are universal and can be applied to other programs as well. A few of the more universal tips from that chapter are included here.

And when something fundamental like the phrasing, typeface, color or size changes, editing each instance can be a serious pain. Not only does this present a large volume of changes that demand that you attend to them one-by-one, but even selecting the text to replace what’s in the field can be challenging if, for example, it is arrayed and rotated in 3D space. That piece of text might not even be displayed except at a particular time.

pt TextEdit provides several features that you might expect to find in After Effects itself. It can search on a text string to locate all instances of a given word, phrase, or set of letters, limiting the search only to the current comp or any or all comps within a project. It can look for all text layers that use a particular font, for those pesky (and perennial) cases where the client hasn’t supplied the correct font.

BURBANK, CA - Createasphere - a global community builder for the entertainment technology industry - is presenting its Second Post Production Master Class this Thursday, September 22 and Friday, 23 at the New Yorker Hotel in New York City.  The Post Production Master Class follows an entire week of connection, exhibition, and conferences for entertainment technology, digital asset management that features support from NAB SHOW, American Society of Cinematographers, Post New York Alliance, NYPA, and American Cinema Editors.

You can tell a camera has struck a chord when its users start turning out aftermarket accessories that are themselves objects of desire.

Today LaCie announced the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series is now available for purchase. It is the first portable solution to feature the shocking 10Gb/s speeds of Thunderbolt technology. This next-generation Little Big Disk is the first product in LaCie’s series of high-end Thunderbolt solutions. Designed for the most demanding applications, the LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series will bring a new level of performance to creative workflows and professional storage users. It offers ultra-fast data transfers, complete system backup in minutes, and faster content editing than ever before.

FOR-A Corporation of America, a leading manufacturer of video and audio systems for the broadcast and professional video industries, will showcase its LTR-100HS Video Archive Recorder at Createsphere’s Digital Asset Management Conference, being held from September 22nd to 23rd at The New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan (Booth #206). The recorder supports LTO-5 technology, the latest standard in long-term, high-capacity tape storage, to provide an effective archive solution. The LTR-100HS utilizes FOR-A’s media asset management platform called Media Concierge, creating a combination of LTO tape technology and FOR-A’s baseband and MXF file technologies. This enables an easy transition for video content into a file-based storage system architecture.

Today was the day that many of us who’ve been following the Final Cut Pro X saga have been waiting for. An update hit the Mac App Store this morning that took FCPX to version 10.0.1. That update is small in number (more on that in a bit) but rather big in features as there’s quite a lot that Apple has stuck into this first update to FCPX. Chief among those things is XML support that introduces a new FCPX specific flavor of XML. Second would be Roles, a new way to tag and label clips that looks to be one of those FCPX think different ideas that has real potential. And even more.

Apple on Tuesday issued a major update for its recently refreshed Final Cut Pro X video editing software, adding features like Xsan and Rich XML support after users expressed dissatisfaction with the newly rebuilt software. The free update to version 10.0.1 was revealed by Apple in a special page devoted to it its official website. The page highlights new features in the latest version of Final Cut Pro X, including media stems export, Rich XML support, and projects and events on Xsan.

CREATEASPHERE 2011 – New York, NY – September 20, 2010 – The 3D design, entertainment and film communities strive to improve productivity, protect budgets and maintain the bottom line. RevUp Render, an innovator of cloud computing technology for improved productivity in the design and entertainment industries, announced today RevUp COSMOS, a powerful platform-as-a-service (PaaS) cloud computing system that delivers on-demand supercomputing power without a significant financial investment.

According to the invitation originally circulated by Engadget.com, Canon will be making “An Historic Global Announcement” November 3rd in Hollywood.  The event is rumored to be held at Paramount Studios, but this is unconfirmed. Speculations from the world of HDSLR seem to vary.  Here are some quotes from the who’s who of the HDSLR filmmaking world.

One of the best things about this business is that greatness lurks around every corner. If you are resourceful and creative you’ll find it well enough.

Blackmagic Design today announced a new lower price on 8 of its popular Mini Converters. From today, Mini Converter SDI to HDMI, Mini Converter HDMI to SDI, Mini Converter SDI to Analog and Mini Converter Analog to SDI models will be reduced to US$295. The Heavy Duty models of these 4 Mini Converters, featuring ultra tough machined aluminum design, will be lowered to US$395. These models are all shipping now.

We’re going through our book Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects 5th Edition (CMG5) and pulling out a few “hidden gems” from each chapter. These will include essential advice for new users, plus timesaving tips that experienced users may not be aware of.

For many motion graphics artists, After Effects serves as their hub where they bring in content from multiple sources (such as 3D applications), enhance it, and then send it out to multiple destinations (such as web pages or editing systems). Therefore, it has to handle a multitude of file and application formats. The previous chapter focused on file-level issues; this chapter primarily discusses higher-level issues of dealing with different programs - although exchange file formats inevitably creep into the mix as well. Here’s a few tips and hidden gems from that chapter.

Litepanels, a Vitec Group brand, announces the Sola 4™: the smallest DMX controllable LED Fresnel fixture on the market. The new focusable Sola 4 features a 10cm (4 inch) Fresnel lens and uses a small fraction of the power consumed by conventional fixtures. It employs Litepanels’ proprietary LEDs to produce the company’s hallmark soft light quality in 5600°K daylight color balance.

Litepanels®, A Vitec Group brand and pioneering developer of LED lighting announces the new Hilio High Output LED light. The new fixture answers the need for an LED soft light capable of throwing illumination over a 20 to 25 foot (6 to 7.5 meter) distance. Hilio provides 5600°K color balance, utilizing an array of 72 daylight LEDs that are focused to a 15° angle.

Litepanels®, A Vitec Group brand, announces the premier of the Croma™ LED light at September’s IBC equipment exhibition in Amsterdam. Ideal for use on-camera or off, the new sleekly designed fixture provides Litepanels’ hallmark HD-friendly soft light with variable color temperature output from daylight (5600°K) to tungsten (3200°K).

(Burbank, CA) Createasphere - bringing together the best of the creative, production and technology communities in dynamic experiences - is demystifying 3D stereoscopic capture, post and delivery by bringing educational presentations, exhibits and hands-on demonstrations to five major cities with robust filmmaking communities. These one-day workshops offer attendees the chance to talk one on one with experts from such companies as AJA, Assimilate, Manfrotto and Panasonic.

Richard will demonstrate basic editing techniques, such as insert, overwrite, ripple, and roll edits. He’ll then move on to demonstrate the more advanced and powerful features in the Adobe Premiere Pro Timeline panel, including using a replace edit, creating custom transitions, and using Adobe Dynamic Link to exchange files with Adobe After Effects and Audition.

Join us Friday, 30 September, at 12 noon Pacific Time in our Connect Room:
http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/askcspro

(session start time for other time zones)

The room will open 15 minutes before the session starts. At this time, please sign in as a guest to join.

About Richard Harrington:

Richard Harrington is the founder of RHED Pixel in Washington, DC (http://www.RHEDPixel.com). Richard is the co-author of the new book and DVD, An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro. He is also the host of Creative COW’s Premiere Pro video podcast. To find out more, follow Rich on Twitter @rhedpixel or visit his blog (http://www.RichardHarringtonBlog.com).

JVC Professional Products Company, a division of JVC Americas Corp., today announced the new GY-HM150 ProHD handheld camcorder. Based on the solid ergonomic design of the popular GY-HM100, which is used by thousands of photojournalists at major media outlets around the world, the GY-HM150 is built to handle demanding news and production environments. Plus, a new encoder and digital signal processor, adopted from JVC’s 700 series cameras, deliver improved HD recording and add support for standard definition (SD).

Your cat may like them.  If you have a touch of OCD you might enjoy unraveling a nice ball of wires to calm your nerves.   However, disconnect a power cable on a light or your HDMI cable during a shoot and it could cost you a shot, which could cost you a job. Especially for the HDSLR shooters, the myriad of wired accessories continues to grow, and so do the chances of you getting tied up knots. Electric tape or grip tape work, but they aren’t very dependable, and they make your cables and rig sticky. There’s the velcro ties, but they’re like socks that some how vanish without a trace. So what’s the solution? Enter Redrock Micro’s microTies.

Render Rocket LLC, an advanced cloud-based rendering services company, announced that it has added a new server rental program to its current on-demand rendering service. The new program is designed for studios that have fixed rendering budgets and greater visibility to rendering needs and that want to quickly increase rendering power at a fraction of the cost of owning or renting rendering systems. The server rental program includes two options – “Space Station” for normal rendering and “Lunar Base” for extreme rendering needs – both of which are available as of today.