Blog Archives

Most technical problems with media editing are often the result of insufficient bandwidth caused by bottlenecks in the media, the operating system, software, or hardware. This looks at each in detail to provide ideas to get your system working better.

Apple introduced new security technology with M1 Macs that affects 3rd-party RAIDs, hard disk and other external gear frequently used by professionals. Here’s what it is and how it affects you.

Apple brags about how the new M1 Max CPU can play multiple streams of 8K ProRes video in real-time. But that’s using a fully-loaded system. I wondered: How well does a new MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro CPU handle …

The G-DRIVE ArmorATD is a solid value for a reasonably-rugged, medium-capacity, portable hard drive. It isn’t the fastest, it isn’t the most rugged, but it is made by a reliable company that should meet the needs of anyone needing portable storage.

The OWC Mercury Pro U.2 Dual provides extremely fast, high-capacity storage that’s essential for many creative workflows today. It works perfectly as plug-and-play, but has problems if you tweak.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about subjects related to editing. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains what an LTO tape drive is, the differences between LTO generations, recommendations for LTO software and how media creators can use this technology to safely archive their media and projects for decades.

The latest version of LTO – generation 9 – is now available. Storing 18 TB / tape, and archiving faster than generation 8, here’s a quick overview of the new version of archiving technology.

The OWC Envoy Pro FX SSD delivers performance, compatibility and ruggedness. It is also smokin’ fast. It supports both Mac and Windows computers and provides storage from 240 GB to 2 TB. Here’s my review.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about, well, anything you want to ask. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains where to store media in Apple Final Cut Pro and how the storage you use affects performance. This also includes a chart detailing the speed of different storage.

Here’s how to connect camera source files to proxy media in Adobe Premiere Pro, when the proxies were created outside of Premiere and the master files arrived after you started editing with the proxy files.

Here is a variety of online techniques to get you and your Adobe Premiere Pro system back up and running quickly.

Your Mac system is acting flakey. Here are a variety of tests and trouble-shooting techniques you can use to get your system and running. (This includes a special section on trouble-shooting for media editors.)

Seagate and Axle.ai partner to provide “Smarter Media” – edge-to-cloud mass storage with a media asset management front end. This new service, named “Lyve” is designed to provide cost effective smart media solutions for real world applications.

Apple updated Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor last week and both Final Cut and Compressor got a flurry of new features. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to reduce the file size of an animated image sequence. We do this without losing any video quality, by using indexed color and Apple Compressor.

Apple updated Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor last week and both Final Cut and Compressor got a flurry of new features. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to control what metadata is embedded into your movies during compression using Apple Compressor. This is a very useful technique when security or privacy are important.

Recent versions of Final Cut Pro have a feature called: “Consolidate Library Media.” This tutorial looks at what this feature does, when to use it and how it can aid archiving and collaboration.

Library Properties determine fundamental media handling settings for all the media, events and projects in a Library. When you need to make changes, here’s what you need to know.

When you export a finished project from Apple Final Cut Pro, you can specify a variety of labels with the file. What are these, how do you change them, and what applications can read them? Learn more!

“Ask Larry Anything!” is a free-form conversation about technical questions of interest to video editors. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to create a custom compression setting, using Apple Compressor, to create a 10-bit HEVC video file with surround sound.

Bryan asked me to explain the media workflow for both master and proxy files from Frame.io’s “Camera 2 Cloud” into Final Cut Pro. It is surprisingly easy – provided you start in the right place.

Last week, Dalet Amberfin announced significant updates to their Amberfin media transcoding software. I contacted Eric Carson, Director, Amberfin Product Strategy at Dalet to learn more about Amberfin and its new features.

This week, Signiant announced that it had acquired Lesspain Software, best known for it’s media asset management software “Kyno.” To learn more, I sent questions to Margaret Craig, CEO of Signiant. Here is our interview.

Most of us have heard of Apple’s transition from Intel CPUs to its own Apple silicon. But these new systems upend the established rules for how to configure a computer system for media editing. Here’s what you need to know about the new M1 SoC from Apple.

The OWC Envoy Pro Elektron is a small, rugged, fast, bus-powered storage system that easily fits in your pocket. With speeds averaging over 900 MB/second, it can easily support multicam or traditional HD editing. Here’s a detailed review.

Whether you use Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro, exporting and archiving an XML file of a finished project is a good way to preserve it for the future. Here’s a step-by-step tutorial explaining how.

There have been 12 updates to Apple Final Cut Pro since version 10.4.0 was released in Dec. 2017. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates the new ways we can copy libraries, including the ability to create a proxy-only library, in Apple Final Cut Pro.

Here’s a quick illustrated tutorial on how to create, find, access or delete backups for Apple Final Cut Pro X libraries.

Video compression is essential to all media today, from social media to broadcast to streaming. In this short video, Larry Jordan shows how to create Watch Folders to automate media compression using Adobe Media Encoder.

With the release of macOS Mojave and continuing into Catalina and Big Sur, older media codecs are no longer supported, nor displayed. Here’s a simple technique to find and transcode outdated files using Kyno.

New with the 10.5 update to Apple Final Cut Pro X is the ability to copy libraries, events and projects and, if necessary, create proxy media while all project media is being copied. This simplifies creating projects to share between editors.

Storage speeds vary widely. Here’s a tip to measuring them accurately.

Technology constantly changes, but older codecs and media don’t. What do you do if you can’t play older media in macOS Catalina or Big Sur? Watch as Larry Jordan shows how to use Kyno to potentially find and convert older media.

In the past, we would use Safe Boot to repair and maintain our Macs. But that was then. Today, we need to use Recovery Mode. In this short video, Larry Jordan shows what you need to know to keep your Mac running right.

Final Cut Libraries store stuff. But how that stuff is organized is up to you. Here are a variety of thoughts on working with libraries in Apple Final Cut Pro X.

Thunderbolt 4 is already on the market – and it isn’t what you expect. What does it mean for Mac and PC users? Is our Thunderbolt 3 gear out-of-date? Larry Jordan interviews Larry O’Connor, Founder/CEO of OWC, a leading Thunderbolt manufacturer, to learn more.

After testing, a 7200 RPM RAID is about 30% faster than a 5400 RPM RAID. Also, journaling makes a difference. When speed is important, here’s what you need to know.

Disk Warrior is an essential Mac-based trouble-shooting, repair and optimization tool for any Mac system accessing spinning hard drives. I’ve used it for years and continue to highly recommend it.

Easy to connect, easy to use and extremely well-built. The OWC Thunderbolt 3 10G Ethernet Adapter works exactly as you would expect. And what higher praise is there?

Regardless of which video editing software you use, storage is more important than your computer for multicam editing. Here, Larry Jordan presents the three storage criteria that multicam editing demands – and why they are important.

The Mercury Pro LTO tape system is a well-constructed, high-speed and easy to use tape archive system for media creators. Bundled with myLTO software, it can get new users archiving quickly, yet fully support more demanding archive applications.

The answer is “Maybe.” This detailed article explains the fundamentals of high-speed networking, illustrates how to connect a Mac to a 10G Ethernet network, then measures performance between 1G and 10G connections, with a focus on video editing.

Josh asked me to explain the pros and cons of using internal, direct-attached, and network-attached storage for media editing. Here’s an overview, along with recommendations on what you should consider for your own system.

I’ve spent a lot of time this week thinking about how to improve the speed and responsiveness of my storage. Here’s a relatively inexpensive way to improve the responsiveness of a server, especially for smaller workgroups. When it comes to …

This article details what I learned trying to access often corrupted digital images that are 15 – 25 years old. It illustrates the software I use to recover images, video codecs that are obsolete and techniques I used to preserve media for the future. This covers AppleWorks, PICT, PhotoCD, JPEG, TIFF, audio, and video media.

You exported your video file only to find that it is WAAAY too big! Here’s an explanation of file sizes, codecs and media workflow for beginners.

A list of folders where Adobe Premiere Pro stores settings and work files. These are the first place to look when you need to track down a missing file.

I first wrote these “Media Planning Guidelines” as a series of bullet points to help us think about media and the storage necessary for video editing. In this article, I expand these to explain my thinking to help you make better media decisions for your next project.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan discusses the impact of video frame size, frame rate and codec on storage capacity and video editing, whether you use Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro X.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains why converting video frame rates often causes video playback to stutter, whether you use Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro X.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains why H.264 and HEVC media are considered inefficient for video editing, whether you use Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro X.