July 4 - 2:45pm EDT   App4mac on Friday unveiled Sequence 1.0 for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, its screenshot and video capture tool designed to use multithreaded code and a 64-bit enabled compression system. Sequence allows users to capture screenshots and movies of the entire screen or segments within, and send the resulting media to either the clipboard or into a file. App4mac is selling Sequence 1.0 for $20, and is available for download from the company's website. [full story]

June 30 - 1:10pm EDT   For the past six years, a group of developers scattered across the globe has been quietly working to reinvent the way we watch movies and listen to music. The result is Boxee -- a media player based on the XBMC Open Source platform -- released in alpha form this month initially on the Mac. The developers says Boxee was born of frustration over what they saw as the somewhat clunky way computers gather and display content. Separate applications are needed to display photos or play music and movies, and content is often delivered in formats requiring proprietary media players. The ambitious end game for Boxee is to become the “one-size-fits-all” media center that works ... [full story]

April 17 - 10:50am EDT   Universal Studios, at one time backing only the discontinued HD DVD high-definition movie format, will announce on Thursday it will start releasing all of its new movies on Blu-ray starting this summer. The studio was quick to switch camps once HD DVD's demise was final, but has not released any Blu-ray titles or made any announcements until today. The first Blu-ray title from Universal will be Doomsday, which will be released sometime this summer and, like all its movies, on the same day as the standard DVD of the movie. [full story]

April 9 - 12:10am EDT   Flickr today launched a video hosting service to run alongside its image equivalent, which already boasts around 42 million monthly visitors. The move comes in response to findings that 40-percent of surveyed individuals use their digital cameras to capture short video clips, with 55-percent of those surveyed sharing movies with others directly on the camera, and an additional 20-percent who don't share them once they are captured. [full story]

April 8 - 8:15pm EDT   JoeSoft has announces the availability of Hear, a sound enhancement program for the Mac. The developer says this add-on "greatly" improves audio quality in movies and music throughout all Mac OS X applications. It offers a wide array of settings, purportedly delivering intra-app sound that is richer and clearer with regard to dialog. "Hear is a great new program that makes everything sound better on your Mac. All your music will be vastly improved, your movies will surround you with rich sound and your games will now blow you away" says Greg Brewer, CEO of Prosoft. "Once you've listened to your music or movies with Hear, you will never want to be without Hear." Hear ... [full story]

April 2 - 7:35pm EDT   ImageWell 3.5 ($20) image editor for everyday simple editing and quickly sending images, screenshots, and other files tother users over the Internet. The tool includes upload support for Flickr, SmugMug and ImageShack, and is free. This latest release is Version 3.5, Build 327 and includes a new sharpness filter, two new shapes, the ability to double-click History items and open them in a browser, and fixes for bugs associated with Leopard. This is a free update to registered users. [Download - 964KB] PostgreSQL 8.3.1 Open Source project that leverages the Open Source PostgreSQL server and works to integrate the popular database engine into the Mac platform in as native a fashion ... [full story]

March 5 - 5:40pm EST   In brief: We have posted reviews of Meander and Alien Skin Exposure 2, a MacBook Air will be given away in the "My Mac Server" contest, a new site lets you find the 99 cent movies in iTunes, and a new London travel guide for iPods and iPhones has debuted ... We have posted a review of Meander, an inexpensive program created by Peacock Media that lets you to use your computer to what you would do normally with a highlighter and a ruler; draw routes on maps and measure distances. Computer route planning has several obvious advantages. For example, you can quickly and easily test different routes to find the best one, and you can measure distances more accurately with a ... [full story]

February 29 - 7:20pm EST   Every Mac comes with the Grab program, which can capture images of the screen that are helpful for showing others how a certain program should look or what users should see after choosing specific commands. Unfortunately still images cannot always show the complete story, just as viewing a photograph is less enthralling than watching a movie. To fill the void Vara Software offers ScreenFlow, which captures screen activity and stores it as a Quicktime movie file that users can copy and distribute to others. Such Quicktime movies, called screencasts, are useful for creating video tutorials for training or teaching. [full story]

February 26 - 2:05pm EST   Two research firms -- Park Associates and Entertainment Technology Center at USC -- have released a document urging Hollywood to use Apple's own tactics of offering low-cost TV shows and feature films for mobile media devices in an effort to reap profits on their own, cutting the Cupertino-based company out of the equation. "Hollywood shouldn't let Apple make all the money, especially since they are the ones making the movies," said John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates. "Judicious use of free mobile content can help drive ticket and DVD sales." The white paper specifically details steps to achieve profitable distribution of mobile content on mobile ... [full story]

February 25 - 3:05pm EST   Glue Tools today announced that it will release Cineon/DPX Pro for Final Cut 3.0 at NAB 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The latest release of Cineon/DPX for Final Cut Pro includes Cineon and DPX Sequence Presets along with a full Cineon or DPX Codec, completely eliminating the need to render sequences in Final Cut Pro's timeline. "No More Red Render Bar!" the company states. "Your imagery can be directly loaded into Final Cut Pro or Compressor, without needing to be compressed into an intermediate codec or movie format." The company is already accepting pre-orders for Cineon/DPX for Final Cut 3.0 at $400 per license. The update requires Final Cut Studio 2 and QuickTime 7.3.1. ... [full story]

February 13 - 3:50pm EST   Troi Automatisering today unveiled Troi Dialog Plug-in 5 for FileMaker Pro 9, a plug-in designed to extend FileMaker's dialogue boxes in a number of different ways. The latest version adds compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and an improved InputDialog function, which provides access to upwards of 15 input items. PresentImage has also been revamped, allowing users to view full screen slideshows of pictures or movies. Troi Dialog Plug-in 5 is currently available for $60, with free upgrades available for those who purchased v4.x on or after February 1st, 2007. [full story]

January 25 - 4:55pm EST   Although Apple has said it is confident that users are enjoying iTunes rentals, widespread critique began to form regarding the 24-hour rental period. Users insisted that it was simply not enough time to finish a movie due to a busy lifestyle, while others were exploring methods that would circumvent the time limit. Macworld.com notes that Apple has quietly extended the duration of movie rentals to allow users the opportunity to finish watching a film [full story]

January 14 - 2:25pm EST   Creaceed today began shipping its Hydra 1.0 HDR photography software for Mac, and unveiled a major upgrade to its Morph Age application for morphing as well as warping images and movies. Hydra aims to give the human eye perception to photographs by creating high dynamic range (HDR) images from a series of standard photographs, either from DSLRs or traditional point-and-shoot cameras. Hydra is priced at $60, but is available for an introductory price of $40 until the end of January. Hydra requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to run. [full story]

January 9 - 5:35pm EST   Major Hollywood content providers gave Apple and its iTunes Store a thumbs up during a panel discussion and Q&A session on Monday at the CES trade show in Las Vegas. The Cupertino-based company began offering hit TV shows and more than 2,000 music videos in October of 2005 after experiencing enormous success in the digital music industry. Deals with four Disney-owned studios -- Disney, Pixar, Miramax, and Touchstone Pictures -- were followed by a deal with Paramount Pictures and later Lionsgate films. [full story]

January 3 - 5:35pm EST   Macrovision, the company largely responsible for modern DVD copy-protection schemes, has officially integrated its technologies with CinemaNow to offer downloads of CinemaNow premium video directly to Macrovision-enabled consumer electronics devices. Users who have registered Macrovision-enabled hardware at CinemaNow.com can use those devices to watch movies, TV shows, and music videos from CinemaNow's online library of available programming, according to TWICE. [full story]