Check out my review in OnlineMedia.net, where I found FCPX’s multicam feature “fabulous” and concluded: Looking at the bigger picture, Apple deserves credit for delivering on a promise and doing a largely good job of it. Functionally, Final Cut Pro X can now get the job done for most event and other multicam intensive shooters, at least on the video …

The future of CDN-delivered video is cacheable, HTTP streaming, with MPEG DASH ultimately taking over, says Highwinds' Chris Bray

Here’s a video I produced for OnlineVideo.net on using Premiere Pro’s Ultra Key and Garbage Matte. It’s an intro- to mid-level video that applies the effect on three videos of varying complexity. The good news? One video is of a (fully clothed) lovely dancing lady. The bad news? The lady’s face is not showing (those pesky permission issues) and the …

I produce lots screencams, and some customers like having a live greenscreen video intro in front of the screencam. “What’s the harm,” they ask? It’s only 30 seconds of video, how long will that take to shoot?” Well, if you’re like me and you don’t have a dedicated studio and staff for such productions, they can take awhile. If fact, …

I recently reviewed Singular Software’s Presto for OnlineVideo.net; you can read the review here. As the lead states: Capturing and producing presentation videos typically involves multiple options, all of them bad. For example, you can frame wide and capture both the speaker and the projected slides, but then your speaker is tiny and the slides degraded. You can shoot closeup …

One of the brightest stars in the encoding universe is Fabio Sonnati, who blogs at Flash Video Technology and Optimizations. I was researching H.264 encoding parameters and revisited his site, noting that his presentation from Adobe MAX2011 entitled Encoding for Performance on Multiple Devices had just come online. You can click here to watch his 60-minute presentation, or click here …

This article is derived from a lesson in Streaming Media 101: Technical Onboarding for Streaming Media Professionals. If you’re looking for an efficient way to get up to speed on key streaming terms, technologies, workflows, and best practices, check out the course here.  Depending upon your encoding tool, you may have access to a checkbox or number box that controls …

I was noodling around in Compressor 4’s presets, and noticed the presets for HTTP Live Streaming. “HMMM,” I thought, “I wonder if Apple chunks the files and creates the required manifest files?” (Didn’t in my tests). Then I pondered, “I wonder if Apple’s presets match their recommendations in Technical Note TN2224?” So, I opened all the presets, recorded their encoding …

Few things in life are more fun than playing with the latest, greatest notebook computer. For the last few months, I’ve had the pleasure of working with HP’s EliteBook 8760w, which is the most powerful notebook I’ve ever tested. It’s a highly potent combination of Intel i7 CPU, NVIDIA 5010M GPU and an appropriately named DreamColor display. You can read …

Sometimes I get so caught up in Flash video that I forget that Flash does many other things, from serving as the environment for the WeVideo editor to enabling sites like the Economist to present interactive data relating to the upcoming presidential election. If you visit the Economist, you can click each state to see the latest poll figures for …