Blog Archives

Which combination of hard disk or SSD storage provides the fastest speed or highest capacity for video editing? This illustrated tutorial will answer these questions, plus provide a spreadsheet you can use to test your own numbers. This works for Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Apple Final Cut Pro editors.

Here are two very clever workarounds to create short extracts of much larger media files to save storage space when importing video into Apple Final Cut Pro.

Even the largest RAIDs fill up. If you own an OWC RAID, you can safely and easily archive RAID sets for archiving and storage. Loren Miller explains the process in this highly-illustrated, step-by-step tutorial.

Thunderbolt is an amazing protocol and essential to many video workflows. However, it isn’t a magic box. Once you understand what affects the speeds it can transfer data, you can better plan for how to use it. This tutorial explains what impacts the speed of a Thunderbolt device.

August is vacation time. Still, over these five weeks, we published 19 tutorials and product reviews. Here’s a summary of everything we released this month. Something to look through during the holiday weekend.

Axle.ai is a fast, powerful and customizable media asset management system that is designed for the needs of a small to medium sized workgroup. This is an in-depth product review, along with an interview with Axle.ai CEO Sam Bogoch.

Last week, I asked video editors to share how they organize and manage their media for video editing. Here’s what they told me.

[ Updated Aug. 22, 2022, with comments from Ed Cilley. ] Kristen Flynn asks: “How do people keep track of stock music? Where do they keep it? How do they access it for an edit? I feel like I have …

One of our favorite – and most wide-ranging – sessions returns with “Ask Larry Anything!” Presented by Larry Jordan, this is a free-form conversation based on questions submitted by viewers. In this short video, Larry has a conversation about computer performance in the real-world, specifically for video editing.

Apple Compressor can analyze the technical settings of a media clip and, in some cases, allow you to change them. This illustrated tutorial shows you how.

Adobe added new features to their proxy workflow. However, you need to make sure permissions are set correctly, and, even then, they are hard to see. Here’s how this new feature works.

Relinking media in Final Cut has become increasing powerful and flexible. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how it works, along with advice on where to store media for different Final Cut Pro projects.

This tutorial compares the export speed on an Apple silicon MacBook Pro of Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve; along with how effectively they used CPU and GPU systems.The results surprised me – none of them maxed out the system!

There seems to be a problem between Time Machine, Final Cut Pro and external RAIDs. Learn more.

Adobe changed the Premier Pro export interface — cleaning it up without removing any of the power or flexibility. Here’s a tutorial with a look at the new changes.

This is an excerpt of a recent PowerUP webinar called “Ask Larry Anything.” In this short tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to change where Final Cut Pro stores library elements, how to change that location, then how consolidate media into a single new location.

Here’s a great tip that saves wear-and-tear on your storage system when editing multicam clips using Apple Final Cut Pro.

The New Mac Studio computer is stunning. But, is it for you? Here’s what you need to know to configure it for video editing – yet save money at the same time.

Here’s a very effective technique to manage your storage called “Optimize Storage.” It’s free and built into every Mac. Let me show you how this works.

Last week, Axle ai released a new cloud-based video editor call axledit. This is a browser-based video editor with integrated collaboration, search, and publishing features that’s hooked into axle ai for media management. Here are the details.

evrExpanse, a media metadata and transcoding tool, was updated to 2.1.6. The new version provides support for more codecs and faster performance. Here’s a first look.

The process of wrapping up any Final Cut Pro project is fairly simple, especially if you think about where to store media and project elements before you start editing. Here are four options on what to do when an editing project ends.

In this article, I compare the compression speed of Apple Compressor, Adobe Media Encoder and ffWorks (ffMPEG) on an Intel system versus a new M1 MacBook Pro. Along the way we also discover that speed is not dependent upon how hard the CPUs are working.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about questions related to media production and editing. In this short excerpt, Larry Jordan explains what Final Cut Pro’s export tags are, where they are located and how to change them.

SilverFast SE Plus 9, by LaserSoft Imaging, provides high-quality image scans for professional use. However, it has an interface that takes time to learn. It does a great job, not because of its interface, but in spite of it. Here’s my review.

Leigh Reeves owns a Canon R5 camera and needs to record ProRes RAW to an Atomos Ninja V. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to configure the gear to do this.

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.