05/06, 2:40pm
Apps rebranded under Creative Cloud brand
Adobe is focused on its Creative Cloud service this week at its Max conference, where the company has introduced updates to its broad range of software. The new offerings include video-focused utilities Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Prelude CC, SpeedGrade CC and Adobe Story Plus, along with the audio-production app Audition CC. Many of the new apps will enable users to sync settings between computers and remotely collaborate on videos without downloading the source materials.
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12/17, 10:44pm
Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements slashed for sale
Over the weekend, Adobe revealed its second sale this holiday season for image editing software Photoshop Elements 11, movie creator Premiere Elements 11, and photo archival tool Lightroom 4. The sale runs through January 6. Lightroom 4 has been reduced to $130, from the original retail of $149. Both Photoshop Elements 11 and Premiere Elements 11 have been cut to $80, from $99. A bundle consisting of both Photoshop Elements 11 and Premiere Elements 11 is $99.
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04/20, 8:45pm
TiVo Premiere XL4 to come to Best Buy
TiVo is quietly reviving the Premiere Elite DVR as its range-topping model. Badged as the Premiere XL4, the quad-tuner box should come to Best Buy stores on April 22 for $400. The Premiere and Premiere XL are staying in place at $150 and $250 each.
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04/15, 4:55pm
Apple tells videographer FCPX 2012 plans
Pro videographer Larry Jordan published a preview on Sunday of Final Cut Pro X updates that Apple had promised him would come later in 2012. The current editing app should soon get RED camera support, letting it handle Redcode-capable 4K and 5K cameras like the Scarlet-X without transcoding first. Multichannel audio editing will be added to the pro video tool as well, although how this would work wasn't explained.
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03/23, 5:25am
TiVo Premiere DVR inline for revamp
TiVo appears to have quietly prepped a new expanded capacity version of its TiVo Premiere DVR line. Two years after its initial release, a new 500GB edition has been spotted on Amazon for pre-order. The new model carries the designation TCD746500 TiVo Premiere and is priced at $149, which is a substantial price rise over what may be the superseded 320GB model that can still be picked up for as little as $80.
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03/17, 5:10pm
TiVo CTO Barton backs away
TiVo through an SEC filing let slip that its co-founder and CTO Jim Barton was leaving. He had left Friday, although he would stay on as a consultant on legal and patent issues for $25,000 per month. No immediate replacement had been named.
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03/07, 5:25pm
Service to arrive a year after announcement
Comcast is reportedly set to launch its Xfinity On Demand service for TiVo set-top boxes, nearly a year after plans of the offering first surfaced. Although the cable provider has yet to confirm a specific launch date, unnamed sources have told Zatz Not Funny the service will arrive sometime in April.
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02/19, 4:40am
Blockbuster pulls TiVo app
Blockbuster has started informing users of its Blockbuster on Demand service for TiVo that the app will no longer be available on their Premiere DVRs. According to Blockbuster, the move is the result of the company ‘updating’ its technology platform and that it will no longer support the platform. Instead, Blockbuster has pointed users to ‘our other devices or [to] stream via PC or Mac.’
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01/20, 12:20am
Major TiVo Premiere update arrives at last
TiVo posted a much-requested update for its Premiere-series DVRs mid-week that answered a number of complaints while adding upsides of its own. The 20.2 upgrade speeds up the interface to touch on a common lag problem and brings the Grid and Live Guides into HD for the first time. Those who have more than one TiVo now have the luxury of streaming a show recorded on one TiVo to another on the same network instead of having to transfer it completely.
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11/18, 10:40am
Paint Mask, brush slider get tweaks
Tiffen has released v3.0.5 of Dfx, its effects suite for photo and video editing. The upgrade critically adds support for Avid's new 64-bit editing tools, including Media Composer 6, Symphony 6 and NewsCutter 10. Also newly supported is a host of Sony cameras. The list includes DSLRs like the A550, A580, A700, A850, and A900, but also the NEX-3, NEX-5/5N, NEX-C3, and several SLT-series cameras: the A33, A35, A55V, A65V, and A77V. Remaining cameras on the list are the XCD-SX910CR and the STV680 VGA.
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11/07, 9:30am
Stripped-back 'Editor' editions
Adobe has brought Photoshop Elements 10 and Premiere Elements 10 to the Mac App Store in the form of special "Editor" editions. At $80 each these are $20 cheaper than their regular editions, but lose things like the Elements Organizer, support for case-sensitive HFS, and in the case of Premiere Elements, any Smartsound functions. As the Editor tag implies, both programs do retain all editing options.
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10/10, 10:55am
Premiere Elite set-top box offering many firsts
TiVo is now shipping its Premiere Elite set-top box, which was officially introduced at the start of September. The premium offering has four digital tuners and a built-in 2TB hard drive. Meant for home theater enthusiasts, it's also THX-certified for picture and sound output.
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09/21, 8:50pm
YouTube deepens edit tools with 3D and more
YouTube boosted its editing tools Wednesday with more than what it had already added just last week. A beta addition lets users convert 2D videos to 3D with a single-click tool. The conversion is strictly software-based but will save the trouble for some of having to get a 3D-capable phone or tablet like the T-Mobile G-Slate.
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09/14, 5:00pm
YouTube editing allows post-shot effects
YouTube started its path to handling the full video editing pipeline with a new editing feature. Clips can be edited for basic changes, such as stabilization, brightness, contrast and saturation, but given special effects. The filters brought over from the Picnik buyout mimic those from apps like Instagram or Picplz and range from simple black and white to Lomo-like or cel-shaded effects.
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09/08, 10:55am
Claims big sales boost from Final Cut refugees
Adobe today announced upgrades to two of its behind-the-scenes Flash components, used by content publishers rather the public. The first, Flash Media Server, has been updated to v4.5, gaining adaptive bitrate streams viewable by both iOS and Flash-equipped platforms. Content protection has been integrated into the software; this includes on-demand stream packaging, meaning that preparation and protection of video can be done on the fly, for different platforms and with less storage space.
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09/07, 7:35am
TiVo Premier Elite DVR official, not yet available
TiVo has made its quad-tuning Premier Elite DVR official. The device is fitted with four tuners allowing for four channels to be recorded simultaneously on its 2TB hard drive. Users have the ability to record up to 300 hours of shows from Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, Blockbuster, Amazon and YouTube.
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08/29, 12:10pm
Blackmagic UltraStudio 3D now ready to use
Blackmagic became one of the first with shipping video-oriented Thunderbolt hardware as it released the UltraStudio 3D. The device first shown in April uses the high-speed interface to support as much as dual-stream 3D video, 2K 2D video, and 1080p, 60FPS 2D over SDI. The choice of Thunderbolt lets even an 11-inch MacBook Air potentially process video it might not otherwise.
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08/11, 12:05pm
Digital-only 4 tuner DVR to sell direct to users
Details of the upcoming TiVo Premiere Elite DVR have leaked. According to documents filed with the FCC, the Premiere Elite will have four tuners and can operate (record or view) up to four shows simultaneously. It is THX-certified and fully compatible with 1080p/1080i video. The Premiere Elite has two terabytes of recording capacity, enough to record 300 hours of HD programming. It supports networking with other TiVo boxes for content sharing and is MoCA compatible.
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07/21, 10:50am
Flash Player loses hardware acceleration
The release of OS X Lion is causing problems with a host of Adobe software, a support article shows. "Known issues" of varying degrees exist with high-profile titles such as Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Lightroom, Photoshop and Premiere Pro. The biggest problems however lie with Flash, spanning apps like Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst and most notably Flash Player.
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07/01, 9:15am
Adobe halves Premiere price for Final Cut users
Adobe leapt on Final Cut Pro X frustrations Friday with a new switcher promo. Anyone with a copy of Final Cut Pro or even Avid Media Composer can get a 50 percent discount on either Premiere Pro CS5.5 or CS5.5 Production Premium. The software house gave a knowing tweak to Apple that chastised it for dropping imports of the old version and traditional imports from tape.
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06/29, 7:30am
Apple FCPX FAQ talks big features in updates
Apple has quietly posted an FAQ for Final Cut Pro X to tackle the complaints and concerns in the wake of a controversial release. The answers more formally address questions to the media and make multiple promises of updates. Multicam editing is coming to a future Final Cut Pro update, something which Apple says it couldn't roll into a minor patch but had to come soon.
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06/26, 12:45pm
Apple's Ubillos reassures video editors after FCPX
Apple's video editing software lead Randy Ubillos quietly addressed some of the fears of professional video editors following the rocky introduction of Final Cut Pro X. Shortly before the company's more technical help, Ubillos was adamant to a CreativeCow forum member that the feature set wasn't concrete. Alluding to an upgrade pattern similar to iMovie, he saw it as a foundation for a larger platform.
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06/24, 3:05pm
TiVo Premiere Elite to give quad-tuning to all
TiVo in a recently unearthed FCC filing (below) has already shown that the Premiere Q is coming to regular users. The quad-tuner DVR is only coming to providers like RCN and Suddenlink, but a new model, the Premiere Elite, will hopefully be sold "directly to consumers" instead of pushed through cable subscriptions. It would arrive sometime later in the year.
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05/26, 7:25am
Leica intros V-LUX 30 compact with 16X zoom
Leica on Thursday morning upgraded its smallest camera line through the V-LUX 30. Its body is a more premium adaptation of the 14-megapixel Panasonic Lumix ZS10 that revolves around Leica's own 16X, 4.3-68.8mm f3.3-5.9 lens in a compact body. The V-LUX adaptation goes all black and ships with both Adobe's Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9.
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05/19, 5:35pm
Feature to arrive first for beta testers
Cable TV provider RCN has confirmed plans to allow customers to stream video between TiVo Premier set-top boxes. The company's director of video product and video operations, Jason Nealis, has informed beta testers that the multi-room streaming functionality will arrive in a software update. Other improvements include support for an iPad app, video-on-demand previews, and a revamped UI.
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04/11, 3:00am
New monthly subscription and tablet features
Adobe has announced Creative Suite 5.5, an update to its major creative applications including InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash Professional, Premiere Pro, and After Effects along with a new SDK for Photoshop CS5. The company -- which now offers new monthly subscription-based pricing options for each of the major suite bundles -- says the new version brings advances to HTML5, Flash authoring, digital publishing and video tools as well as new capabilities to help integrate tablet-oriented designs into creative workflows. Also present is a final version of Audition for the Mac; the SDK is the Photoshop Touch Software Development Kit (SDK).
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01/24, 10:30am
Chater teams with TiVo to bring its set top boxes
Cable and telecommunications provider Charter Communications and TiVo kicked off the week with an announcement that they will cooperate on bringing TiVo's interface to Charter's set-tops. The hybrid platform will bring with it IP technologies in addition to the standard cable experience, and include both TiVo's newer HD user interface and TiVo Premiere boxes. Future TiVo platforms will also be used, adding new services and third-party apps.
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11/15, 1:50pm
TiVo offers on-contract sales for its DVRs
TiVo has once again begun offering its Premiere DVR set-top for free with a two-year contract at $20 per month. A one-year contract will require a payment of $100, while those who wish to purchase the Premiere XL with its larger hard drive and premium remote can do so for $300 with a one-year contract, which was the original price for the TiVo Premiere.
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09/21, 6:25am
Photo and video editing for home
Adobe has announced the release of Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9, which are also available together as a bundle. While Mac users will be familiar with Photoshop Elements, today marks the first time that Premiere Elements has been available for the Mac platform. The software offers a portion of the full apps' features at a lower price.
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07/23, 11:45am
Plugin supports several editing suites
Red Giant has released Magic Bullet Colorista II, an updated plugin for After Effects, Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro. The software lets editors perform color correction on video using color wheels. New in the upgrade are several features, most importantly a new keyer, which can control individual colors or ranges. Some options include direct sampling, and softening, choking or inverting a matte.
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04/30, 9:45am
Places focus on 64-bit code, Flash
As promised earlier this month, Adobe has begun shipping Creative Suite 5, a major revision of the company's flagship software. Of special emphasis is the shift to 64-bit code; After Effects, Photoshop and Premiere Pro have made the transition. Also present are new versions of Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash and various supporting apps, all with major feature additions. Flash is the second highlight of the suite, gaining tools for cross-platform development.
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04/07, 10:45am
Canon XF305 and XF300 write 50Mbps to CF
Canon's turn at NAB launches was headlined today by two pro-grade camcorders. The XF300 and XF305 both use Canon's XF Codec to capture 50Mbps, 4:2:2 1080p video and store it directly on dual CompactFlash cards. The output gives it twice as much color resolution compared to regular HDV and should also be a widespread standard with Apple's Final Cut Studio, Adobe Premiere, Avid and other editing suites.
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02/25, 1:40pm
TiVo Premiere DVRs priced, dated via leak
Details of TiVo's upcoming Premiere DVRs have been leaked, ahead of their expected March 2nd launch date. Thanks to an image of Best Buy's inventory product pages, it is now known that two models will be offered, including the base Premiere HD DVR and an XL version with more capacity. The screen cap reveals the regular Premiere will have the capacity to record up to 45 hours of HD content, which likely means it will house a 320GB hard drive, while the XL can record 150 hours, likely translating to a 1TB hard drive.
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12/17, 8:25am
3D Blu-ray spec is 2D compatible, efficient
The Blu-ray Disc Association today published details of the final specification for 3D-enhanced Blu-ray video. Simply titled Blu-ray 3D, the format will send a stereoscopic 1080p image but, despite the extra data, will only use about 50 percent more data than a traditional, 2D-only image. The relatively efficient storage is helped by an efficient variant of the H.264 video code known as Multiview Video Coding (MVC) that is also backwards-compatible with 2D devices.
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11/10, 1:05pm
Some crash, Dock issues eliminated
Yesterday's Mac OS X 10.6.2 update has also solved some problems related to Photoshop, says Adobe product manager John Nack. The fixes are noted to have been tested with help from Apple, and target problems such as application crashes when opening or saving files. Similarly, crashes and program errors should no longer occur when using the Menlo font, in Premiere as well as in Photoshop.
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10/06, 6:00pm
Simulates damage, jitter
Digieffects has released Aged Film, a new video effects plug-in for post-production suites that recreates the style of damaged filmstock. Customizable effects include dust, grain, scratches, frame jitter and color. Presets cover a variety of scenarios, including 8mm film, old home videos and shaky projectors. All effects are rendered at 16bpc.
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09/21, 11:15am
Plug-in supports various editing suites
Reg Giant has released a new video effects plug-in, Magic Bullet Mojo. The software recreates the look used in many Hollywood blockbusters, warming the color temperature of skin, while simultaneously cooling it for shadows and backgrounds. A central slider adjusts both elements in unison.
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04/21, 8:45am
Adobe previews "Story"
Adobe is previewing a new scriptwriting application at NAB this week and has announced an update to Premiere Pro CS4. The new application, called Story, is being designed for collaborative scriptwriting for film and broadcast.
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03/03, 12:15pm
Adobe holds CS4 pricing
Adobe has chosen to extend initial pricing schemes for Creative Suite 4, according to an announcement. Owners of some older software packages -- including Creative Suite 1 and 2, as well as Macromedia Studio and Adobe Production Studio -- have so far been able to able to upgrade to CS4 for the same price as an upgrade from CS3. The scheme should now continue until April 30th, reducing the cost of an upgrade by as much as $200.
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03/03, 10:40am
Lightroom, Camera Raw
Following the distribution of early release candidate versions, Adobe has posted final editions of its Lightroom 2.3 and Camera Raw 5.3 updates. Both of the patches enable RAW file support for two recent DSLRs, the Olympus E-30 and the Nikon D3X. The Camera Raw update provides support within Photoshop CS4, Photoshop Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 7.
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02/05, 4:35pm
Continuum Cmplt. 6 AE
Boris FX has published Boris Continuum Complete 6 AE, an updated version of its filter collection for After Effects and Premiere Pro. The upgrade provides just under 200 extra filters for video editors, including 13 new ones, such as Extruded Text, Extruded Spline, Layer Deformer and DV Fixer. Users can now also import After Effects Mask Paths into filters, which help to control geometry.
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11/23, 4:05pm
Flip Mino HD Review
Conventional wisdom would have had Pure Digital's Flip camcorders wash out because of their limited features, but it's precisely this which has led them to seemingly overthrow the budget camcorder market. Their dead-simple controls and narrow focus have made them ideal for a generation growing up on YouTube and video blogging. The Flip Mino HD promises to do the same for high-definition video and with even simpler editing. But does it live up to this promise? We find out in our full review.
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11/20, 11:00am
Premiere Pro 4.0.1 patch
Adobe has posted a v4.0.1 update for the CS4 version of Premiere Pro, its high-end video-editing suite. The patch introduces the ability to import projects from Apple's editing suite, Final Cut Pro, without any necessary conversions or re-rendering; most effects and transitions should be preserved. Users can also import and export in the Advandced Authoring Format (AAF), and export to an OMF file.
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11/10, 12:25pm
Red Giant Warp released
Red Giant Software has released Red Giant Warp, a new sets of effects generation plug-ins for video editing suites. Contained in Warp are three different tools, beginning with Corner Pin, which takes material from outside clips and pins it with a different perspective inside a working video. The plug-in additionally sports extra offset controls and integration with Mocha for After Effects.
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09/23, 1:50pm
Adobe CS4 unveiled
Adobe is calling the latest release of its ubiquitous Creative Suite a milestone -- but users expecting a radical change will probably disagree. CS4 is less about fancy new features, and more about workflow -- that is, making the products work better together. The Suite, officially unveiled Monday night, contains hundreds of refinements designed to "bring down the walls" in the creative process, by making it easier to move content between applications and by adopting a consistent user interface across the entire suite. Adobe has also added more web-accessible content and Connect Pro meeting software for instant communication between artists and developers. There are new features as well, but the real meat in this release is the improved integration, efficiency and collaboration tools.
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08/26, 2:10am
Photoshop Premiere Element
Adobe on Tuesday unveiled Photoshop Elements 7, and Premiere Elements 7, two major version upgrades to its consumer photo and video editing applications, including Photoshop.com memberships with either app. Photoshop Elements 7 introduces several new tools and utilities, including several one-step Quick Fix tools. Quick Fix allows users to remedy common problems with sky color, or teeth whitening, while the Smart Brush can quickly improve lighting, add textures, or apply over fifty effects to a specific area.
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04/10, 12:35am
Ambric Am2045 GT for Mac
Ambric today unveiled plans to show its pre-release version of Am2045 GT on the Mac platform at this year's NAB conference. The Am2045 GT is a video reference platform that allows video professionals users to accelerate HD MPEG-2 and HD H.264 encoding for distribution on platforms such as Blu-ray, Flash, and DVD. The hardware also accelerates Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and After Effects CS3 via a plug-in.
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04/07, 11:35am
New Digieffects plug-ins
Video plug-in maker Digieffects has announced two new plug-in series, Natural Forces and Simulate. The former will launch with "Vapor," which replicates fog, haze, clouds and smoke, and "Aqua," which imitates other forms of weather as well as various water effects. The Simulate plug-ins are more direct, adding lighting in the case of "Illuma," and namesake filters in the case of "Camera."
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