Sept. 26, 2016

Welcome to Fall, well, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere. My favorite time of year arrived five days ago and I'm celebrating by looking at photos of fall foliage. Here in LA, our drought is so bad that even the plants that are brown are turning brown-er. If you have any rain to spare, please send it this way...

Five new articles this week - along with, um, an apology. Two weeks ago, I ran a survey asking about optical media. Hundreds of you replied, which was great. Then, I totally forgot about the survey when I wrote last week's newsletter. So, THIS week, the results are my lead story. What's interesting about your comments are the number of readers who are still using optical media and the software they are using to create them. Also, I found the Blu-ray numbers very interesting.

Over the last few years, I've been rethinking my philosophy on where to set audio levels. It wasn't that the advice I was giving was bad, but it was incomplete. I don't have all the answers, yet, but I wanted to share what I've learned and what I'm doing now to improve the sound of my mixes. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

I've been really impressed with the guests on the Digital Production Buzz over the last two weeks. IBC saw a lot of significant announcements on acquisitions and new products. Two weeks ago, Al Mooney, from Adobe Systems, discussed the changes they've made to their media suite. Then, last week, we had Dan May, Blackmagic Design, and Boris Yamnitsky, BorisFX, talked about their acquisitions of Ultimatte, Fairlight, and Genarts. You can hear all their interviews on The Buzz - their thoughts make fascinating listening. Links are below.

Just a reminder, if you haven't visited DoddleNEWS yet, you are missing a great summary of the latest news and products in our industry. Its a cool site, check it out when you can. Heath, James and Danny are doing a great job of staying current with a fast changing industry.

I'll chat with you more next week. In the meantime, edit well.

This Week On The Buzz!

This week, we covered more on IBC:

   * Dan May
   * Boris Yamnitsky
   * Ned Soltz
   * Laura Blum
   * Scott Page
   * James DeRuvo

Dan May, Blackmagic Design, discussed acquiring Ultimatte and Fairlight, Boris Yamnitsky, BorisFX, talked about acquiring GenArts, Ned Soltz talked about new lenses and cameras, Laura Blum on films of the Arab Spring, Scott Page on growing a creative business and James DeRuvo with the latest from DoddleNEWS.

Watch or read each full episode here.

Text transcripts provided by Take1.tv. Read the transcript from this week's show here.

New shows air live every Thursday evening at 6:00 PM Los Angeles time.

Tune in live here.

Subscribe to The Buzz on iTunes. Click here.

Here's the link to the show with Al Mooney, from Adobe Systems.

Last Week: How to Make Up-Res Video Look Better

Up-resing is the process of converting lower resolution video into higher resolution.

While there is no single, perfect way to convert low to high resolution - and nothing you can do will make low-res footage look as good as if it were shot in high-res - there are tips and techniques you can use to make your conversion look as good as it can.

Includes demos with:
   * Adobe Photoshop
   * Apple Final Cut Pro X
   * Apple Compressor
   * Adobe Premiere Pro CC
   * Adobe Media Encoder

Get the download here - or become a member of our Video Training Library.

This Week: 3rd-Party Tools for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Adobe Premiere can do some amazing things. But, when you combine Premiere with some of the powerful third-party tools that a worldwide community of developers has created for Premiere - your imagination can truly be unleashed.

This week's webinar concentrates on tools that enable us to do more with Premiere, rather than transitions or effects.

I'm still working on the complete list of what we will talk about.

Registration is free, as it is for all our live shows.

Register here.

� Survey: How Are You Creating Optical Media? (Survey)

� I surveyed my readers and asked. These are your responses.

� Rethinking Audio Levels (Tutorlal)

� Audio technology and mixing are changing. Peak levels are not enough.

� Why Does Up-Res Video Look So Bad? (Video)

� This explains bitmaps, interlacing, and the challenges of up-resing video.

� FCP X: Reframe High-Res Video for Multicam Editing (Tutorial)

� I didn't think we could do this - but we can, and it is VERY cool.

� GenArts Sapphire 10 Now Available (DoddleNEWS)

� Sapphire is an industry-standard. And, now, it's been updated.

� EQ: Warm a Voice, Improve Diction

� Premiere Pro: Boost & Smooth Audio Levels

� Premiere Pro CC: Use Two Monitors

� FCP X: Optimized, Proxy, Native Media

� View tutorials here

� 202: Animated Titles in Apple Motion 5

� 199: The Power of Reaction Shots

� 200: The Essential Sound Panel in Audition

� 176: Color Correction in Adobe Premiere Pro CC

� View all webinars here

� Dan May: Blackmagic Design's IBM news

� Ned Soltz: New cameras & lenses at IBC

� James DeRuvo: DoddleNEWS Update

� Boris Yamnitsky: BorisFX IBC news

� View all interviews here

� 2016 Larry Jordan & Associates, Inc.