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Microsoft Expression Encoder

Microsoft Silverlight is like the proverbial elephant; your impression depends upon where you touch it. In this article, I'll touch it at the Expression Encoder, which is the encoding component of Expression Studio. Specifically, this article desc

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Encoding for the iPod

Many videographers are creating iPod-compatible files for clients or for posting as demo files on their websites. You would think that with a gazillion iPods sold, the process of getting video onto an iPod would be very straightforward. Well, there’s straightforward, and then there’s straightforward. If you’re a soccer mom showing off vacation videos, your audience will be impressed that …

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Review: Focus Enhancements FireStore FS-C

Focus Enhancements‘ FS-C direct to edit (DTE) recorder is a high-performance, feature-rich product that’s the perfect complement to Canon camcorders like the XL H1, XH A1, or even XL2 (I tested with the XH A1). The only catch is price; at $1,799.95 for the 100GB model at B&H Photo, the unit may be hard to justify for all but the …

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Setting Up Dual-Monitor Editing for Premiere Pro

Dual-monitor editing stations used to be exotic, expensive, and hard to set up and maintain. Today, with virtually all new graphics cards offering dual-output ports, flat-panel monitors priced well below $300, and rock-solid support in Windows XP and popular prosumer NLEs like Adobe Premiere Pro, building a dual-monitor station is both financially and technically within the reach of most professional …

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Editing Audio for Video in Adobe Soundbooth–Five Key Tasks

I’m a big Adobe Audition fan, and when I heard that the powerful multitrack audio editing program found in Adobe Production Studio would be replaced in the upcoming CS3 bundle by a more feature-limited version, I was less than pleased. That

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Finishing Up

This brings up a critical point on saving intermediate files while editing. Though you can undo all of the tasks described above while you’re editing the file, once you save the file, you can’t go back—Soundbooth applies all edi

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Capturing High Quality Audio

It generally only takes a video shoot or two before you realize that the weakest link on your camcorder is the microphone. Don't worry: It's not you, or really your camcorder for that matter, just the simple fact of life that all onboard microphon

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Checklist for using an external microphone

When you attach an external microphone to your camcorder, you're going to have to change some settings on the camcorder to tell it to ignore its internal microphone and record from the external. You'll also have to set gain controls to make sure that

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Choosing a microphone: the three questions

This leads us to the three issues you need to address before buying a microphone. Note that you have to ask the same questions whether the microphone is wired or wireless, since the issues are identical.What is the pickup pattern?First is the pick

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Choosing an XLR adapter for your camcorder

So, if you want to use a high-end microphone with your camcorder and you don't have an XLR jack, you'll have to find a way to convert from the XLR cable to the 3.5mm connector on your camera. We explored two alternatives.The first was a "line matc

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