This is very cool. WritersDreamTools.com provides all the things you would want to know about any decade from the 1650's on. Things like major historical events, catch phrases, who the major characters were, who died, the bad guys, what music played, what was the entertainment like and so on. You can see how useful this would be for a writer. It can also be very useful to directors, set designers, costume people and cinematographers. But even more than that, it is very nice way to learn history.

I am certainly not a big Hi-def DVD supporter. I am perfectly happy with my standard definition DVD's. Until now. Someone took stills from the HD DVD and regular ol' DVD versions of Lord of the Rings and put them side by side to compare. To no one's surprise, the HD quality was better but the amount of difference shocked me and I am guessing will shock you. The HD had better colors, better resolution, was brighter and less contrast. The picture was generally prettier. Long shots were especially better with HD. Take a look for yourselves, roll your mouse over to see the difference.

(via Gizmodo)

Update: The HD footage is from HDTV and not Hi-def DVD. Thanks Richard.

It has been a lovefest for Mactel users. Yesterday and today, Photoshop came good by releasing a universal binary Beta version. Today, Poser 7 is released as a universal binary. The upgrade was not just relevant to Mactel users as Poser released other features including lip syncing, multiple undo, non-linear animation, universal poses and a new morphing tool.

Poser is a pro 3D human figure and animation software for Macs and Windows. It is priced at $249 while the upgrades are $129.99.

Steve Mullen explains some of the problems exporting HDV footage (thus mpeg-2) from the timeline. Mpeg-2 records one I-frame and 6 to 15 B-frames (depending on the camera). I-frames keeps track of the B-frames by checking the changes of one frame to the next. When you bring your HDV footage into your NLE, new I-frames are created because cuts usually require one. When you export it back to HDV, it takes forever (as I found out recently). The two diagrams of the GOP strings of essentially before and after shots are vastly different. This is something that NLE's will be paying more attention in round two of HDV compatibility. If this interests you, I'd suggest reading the article.

(via FresHDV)

This sounds a lot more exciting that it actually is. Verbatim is selling color discs that are compatible with Lightscribe disc label etching software. So in a sense the background is colored, everything else remains the same. The colors include red, yellow, green, blue and orange. A 25 Pack will run you $19.

Kinda hard to believe it has taken this long for a color background. Some company could seriously come in and clean it up because I am tired of writing on discs or using a paper printer. An easy, very fast and cheap disc labeling technology would be great. One setting for everyday backup stuff and another setting for pretty festival DVD's.

(via Engadget)

Rob Griffiths offers a great little tip for you Mactel (Macs with Intel) users. Normally with Macs, there is one volume setting for both headphones and speakers. So when you plug in your headphones, the first thing your reach for is the volume because it is way too loud. Well now on Mactels, you can set a different level for headphones. With this tip, you can also turn off the volume on your laptop speakers and only play sound through your headphones. Thus preventing any sound to escape when you are trying to avoid disturbing someone else or embarassing yourself.

Screencasts are when people publish the video captures of what is playing on their screens. Something that we plan to do more often on the DVguru podcasts to illustrate a tutorial or something. It works a lot better than say using your camera to shoot the screen.

Most screen-capturing softwares usually offer several codecs, which one is best? This article goes into depth on all of the ones offered in iShowU. [Spoiler alert] The winner is the Animation codec. No surprise. Check out the article for all the nitty gritty.

EventDV.net examines the codec of the year: HDV. The article could be titled "The Story of HDV" with Sony playing the lead, Canon and JVC as the sidekicks. While Panasonic plays the perilous villain. I am exaggerating but HVX is not really given a fair shake, as it infers HVX is better suited for the rental house. This certainly makes sense when you realize the article is written for Event videographers, who record for long periods of time. Which is one of the biggest problems with the HVX currently. This could change with when P2 cards get more memory.

Anyways, check out the article, it gives a very good overall picture of the HDV's products

Wii Transfer is a Mac application that converts movies to be played on Nintendo's awesome new Wii. The Wii accepts most digital camera codecs but the codecs that are not supported, you will need Wii Transfer. The application is a Universal Binary and costs $9. If you are one of those lucky folks with a Wii, you will most likely need this.

Tip one is about what is the best practice for naming projects and assets in Final Cut Pro. Applecare suggests using letters instead of symbols. Something I try to stay away in general when naming any file. Symbols won't necessarily not work as titles but it will complicate matters when shared or changing platforms.

Tip two involves canceling FCP audio renders as it may change the render state of audio tracks. Meaning, a portion of audio content which previously was rendered, may afterwards be unrendered. The workaround is to simply choose Sequence > Render Selection > Audio. Instead of Render All or whatever.

The New York Times article titled "2006, Brought to You by You" talks about the latest buzz word "user generated content." Content that is created by everyone, distributed sideways instead of the traditional top-down distribution model that Hollywood has cherished for a long time.

I like the article's comparison of this phenomenon to folk cultures: "Folk cultures often work incrementally, adding bits of individuality to a well-established tradition, with time and memory determining what will last. In the user-generated realm, tradition is anything prerecorded, and all existing works seem to be there for the taking, copyrights aside." Which leads to this quote: "The amateurs may seem irreverent, disrespectful and even parasitical as they help themselves to someone else's hooks. But they're confirming that the pros came up with something durable enough to demand a reply. Without icons, what would iconoclasts mock?"

But the problem remains how do filmmakers, those by profession, stand out among all these choices. You have to reach a certain level of popularity before you can be successfully mocked. I certainly do not suggest going back to the top-down model because outside of landing that elusive Hollywood deal, there is the festival circuit which seems to suck filmmakers dry instead of providing them with a platform. The Internet is much easier to build a following but just as hard to reach mainstream.

AVCHD has been touted by Sony and Panasonic as the next step in prosumer codecs. So DV, then HDV and now, supposedly, AVCHD. Part of the initial lack of excitement was that none of the NLE's was able to support it. It was only a matter of time, that problem was to be resolved.

According to this Press release in Japanese, and then translated at Digital Camcorder News, Canopus "will be releasing a new AVCHD converter product that will convert your footage into an editable format. However, because of the fact that it converts it into the 'Canopus HQ Codec,' it is unlikely that the files will be usable outside of Canopus' Edius NLE systems." Sadly, I am not aware of any Mac Canopus products and I am guessing that is not going to change but this is the first step of many that will bring AVCHD to the fold.

The most exciting thing about AVCHD is that it fixes my biggest complaint with HDV, the mpeg-2 sound compression. So here is hoping this starts a trend by NLE's to support AVCHD.

Anton Linecker at Macworld sheds some light on some of the Apple's recent buying spree. In the last couple of months, Apple has bought Silicon Color's Final Touch, the real time, high-end color correction tool. And Proximity, a company specializing in broadcast-level asset management. Linecker believes that both these softwares will address some of Final Cut Studio's shortcomings -- high-end color correction tool and media management. This would be fantastic.

In 2002, a similar spending spree led to Shake, Logic, LiveType, SoundTrack (& Garageband). It is exciting to imagine what comes out of the latest spree. How these tools will be integrated? At what price for the Studio users? And whether Apple is finished with its Holiday shopping?

How much ever I might be annoyed with Adobe right now, I am still amazed at how good After Effects 7 is. This is easily my favorite Adobe software. Every other user interface by Adobe sucks in my book (Lightroom is impressive but I don't use it). I spent the weekend pulling my hair out while working with Illustrator. Anyways, After Effects 7 made the Annual Editor's Choice awards from Macworld. For the full list, check here.

Some of the other choices included iMac Core 2 Duo, Aperture 1.5, Fission 1.1, iLife '06, Mac Pro,, MacBook, Panasonic's DV camera PV-GS500, Visual Hub, G-Drive and YouTube.

Also: We will have our annual list of Best & Worst list coming up within the next week, keep an eye out for it.

The rumors have been flying the last couple of days that Photoshop (with Intel Mac capability) will be updated sometime very soon. Think Secret believes it will happen within the week, Cabel's special "Rumor Santa" says the upgrade will come before Christmas but he believes it is just Photoshop and not the entire Creative Suite. That is fine with me, who needs Illustrator?

I am not sure if this update will have all those proposed features from CS3 but the Intel Mac compatability will make a lot of people (including Apple) happy during the holidays.