Apple Compressor is a stand-alone, Mac-based program that compresses audio and video into a variety of formats for distribution. Long derided for its slow speed and poor image quality, since the release of Apple silicon Macs, upgrades have dramatically improved its speed and quality. Here’s how it works.
Goodbye PostScript. You were a true star that built industries, redesigned the world and changed lives. You shall be missed. macOS Sonoma no longer support PostScript or EPS.
Help needed: Robin is seeing black frames in his video which fail to export in Final Cut Pro 10.6.x and display severe artifacts in Premiere Pro. Why is this happening?
Hard drives stored on a shelf can lose data over time. This simple macOS Terminal statement will restore and re-energize any hard drive.
Interesting trivia on hard disks, SSDs, servers and LTO drives. The world will not end if you don’t read this, but you’ll enjoy it if you do.
This is a big deal for media creators: Intel announced Thunderbolt 5. Here are the details.
RAID chunk size affects performance by determining the size of data blocks that are written to an SSD or HDD RAID. Here’s an explanation of chunk size with a recommendation of which size to choose when optimizing a RAID for media.
The OWC Jupiter Mini server is a capable, cost-effective, general-purpose desktop server that, once you get it setup, provides high-speed performance with the ease-of-use that you expect from a server. Here’s my detailed review.
You can’t use what you can’t find. Logging and tracking clips in a single project is supported by all NLEs. My question is what do you use to track media across projects? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Camera archives appeared with the initial release of Apple Final Cut Pro more than a decade ago. However, they aren’t talked about too much these days, which is a shame, because they have several useful functions.
This webinar, and excerpt, focuses on video editing, specifically organizing and backing up media, optimizing preferences, and the other small decisions you make at the start of a Premier or Final Cut project. Presented by Larry Jordan.
This webinar focused on video editing, specifically organizing and backing up media, optimizing preferences, and the other small decisions you make at the start of a Premier or Final Cut project. In this short excerpt, Larry Jordan presents the routine maintenance you should do with a Mac computer to keep it running smoothly.
The OWC MiniStack STX is fast, convenient, and capable way to expand storage for a Mac Mini or a Mac Studio. It expands the number of available Thunderbolt 3/4 ports, and provides user-upgradeable HDD and SSD storage capacity. Here’s my review.
Curiosity is a dangerous thing. While it seems to make sense that creating smaller files would be faster, I never really timed it. So, today, before I sat down to write my newsletter, I figured I should. The results surprised me.
Personally, most of my projects are stored in a single library. However, if I needed to tackle something really big, I’d probably go with Option 3. Here are three options for organizing, managing and exporting large projects in Apple Final Cut Pro.
It is generally possible to expand the storage capacity of an HDD RAID, without buying a new enclosure; which can save hundreds of dollars. Here’s what you need to know to add storage to your RAID.
Wondering how to improve the speed and performance of your computer – especially for video editing? In this short video excerpt Larry Jordan illustrates how to improve the speed of a video editing computer system by selecting the right storage for your edit.
All too often, we think we need the biggest and fastest computer and storage to edit video. This analysis of storage speeds, media formats, and hardware shows how to maximize performance without breaking the bank.
Productions are Adobe’s system for handling large, complex, collaborative projects. Productions were designed for collaboration, but even single editors can benefit from the speed and organization Productions provide. Learn more.
Lou asked: “Should I partition the internal drive of a Mac to get the maximum speed for video editing?” The answer is no – but not for the reasons you might suspect. Larry Jordan provides the details on maximizing system speed.
Wondering how fast your computer is compared to the latest Apple silicon Mac desktops? We have the answers! In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan measures the differences in computer speed between Intel and Apple silicon Macs when running Apple Final Cut Pro and compressing video.
Wondering how fast your computer is compared to the latest Apple silicon Mac desktops? We have the answers! In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan measures the differences in computer speed between Intel and Apple silicon Macs when running Adobe Premiere Pro and compressing video.
As video images get bigger, faster and bigger storage becomes critical. Enter the RAID. In this short illustrated video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains what computer RAIDs are and the differences in speed, capacity and data protection between the different RAID types.
Time Machine is a built-in feature of the macOS that automatically backs up personal data, including apps, music, photos, email and documents. But, does it backup personal files stored on iCloud? Here’s the answer.
With its latest releases, Apple now offers M2 versions of the Mac mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro. This article is to help you decide which hardware best meets the needs of media creators, then provide tips on how to best configure the system.
The OWC Express 4M2 is really, really fast. Well-built. And, provided you format your storage as RAID 4 or 5, expandable. Here’s a detailed review along with suggestions on how to optimize it for your media editing,.
The need for EXTREMELY fast storage is a special case. Most of us will be fine with a single-bus Thunderbolt device. But, if maximum speed is your need – this dual-drive SSD lash-up is amazing – and faster than Thunderbolt!
The purpose of this review is to answer the big question: Just how fast is this? The answer: As fast as it gets. Here are the details.
CZUR has thought carefully about the features a book scanner needs to offer. The CZUR ET24 Pro is fast, flexible and provides key output options. It has limitations, but, for the price, it will do what needs to be done for most of us.
Most USB drives are formatted as FAT32. This older format is highly compatible, but very limited in terms of file names and size. A better option is to reformat the drive as ExFAT which is supported natively by both Windows and Mac systems.
If you want power to burn in a space small enough to fit on your desk and still have a desk left, the 2023 Mac mini with the M2 Pro SoC is impossible to ignore. Here are my thoughts on strengths, weaknesses and configuration.
I am often asked which NLE is “better.” That question can’t be answered, except to say “It depends…” However, we CAN test render and export speeds, along with multicam streaming support using the new 2023 M2 Pro Mac mini. I did – and here are the results.
This review specifically looks at video editing performance using Adobe Premiere Pro with the new 2023 Mac mini with an M2 Pro SoC. This concentrates on render and export speeds, along with multicam editing.
The new 2023 Mac mini is a powerhouse – especially when equipped with an M2 Pro SoC. In this detailed analysis, Larry Jordan looks at the performance of the M2 Mac mini specifically for use editing media in Apple Final Cut Pro.
Premiere Pro is not bad at multicam editing. If you are only editing a few clips, Premiere will be fine. But, for complex projects, or where you want to customize proxy compression settings, Premiere is not the fastest or most capable choice. Here are the details.
This you won’t believe. I tested to see how many streams of 4K media Final Cut Pro can edit in a multicam clip. The answer blew me away. These are the details.
A frequent question is whether a computer has the power an editor needs. Here I look at what Adobe Premiere Pro needs for 4K multicam editing and the speeds your storage needs to support. The answer is not what you expect.
A frequent question is whether a computer has the power an editor needs. Here I look at what Apple Final Cut Pro needs for 4K multicam editing and the speeds your storage needs to support. The answer is not what you expect.
There are people who make a living predicting the future. I am not one of them. Still, I want to share some thoughts about the future of video editing because media is about to get much more challenging.
Earlier this week Alteon.io announced Alteon Accelerator, a new desktop application that maximizes upload speeds. Here’s an interview with Matt Cimaglia, CEO of Alteon, to learn more about what this service offers.
Digital video no longer requires state-of-the-art hardware. We no longer need the biggest, fastest, most powerful system to get our work done. Here’s what you need to consider for a video editing system today.
Apple is famous for killing useful technology. For media creators, meant the death of software to create DVDs. With his livelihood at stake, Richard Osso went on a mission to find a way to continue creating DVDs for clients. This is his story.
These well-built units, wrapped in an aluminum case with a variety of colors, are small, solid, require no extra cable, inexpensive and work great. Here’s Larry Jordan’s review.
Here are some real-world speed tests of 2-, 3-, and 4-drive SSD RAIDs using the OWC Thunderblade. Speeds are fast, but none fully fill a Thunderbolt 3/4 connection. Still, they are more than fast enough for almost all editing.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for the Mac brings missing files back to life. It does so for a wide range of files and devices. But the interface is flaky, core features are unreliable, and the entire application needs someone to pay much closer attention to it. Here’s Larry Jordan’s review.
macOS Ventura is significantly (masses of megabytes!) slower than macOS Monterey for both ExFAT- and APFS-formatted SSD drives. No one know why. Worse, formatting drives is now harder than before. Here are the details.
If you are wondering whether it is time to upgrade, 13.1 is a good place to start. Just give yourself time to get everything sorted once the upgrade is complete. Here’s a detailed look at what to do, the problems I ran into and links for more information.
“Ask Larry Anything!” is a free-form conversation about video editing technology. In this short tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates real-world speeds for SSDs and RAIDs, along with details on how much storage speed we actually need for editing video smoothly. The answers will surprise you.
This tutorial measures and illustrates the difference in speeds between different SSD (Solid State Drive) RAID levels. This also provides definitions of these different levels and recommendations on which to use for your storage.
How fast does our storage need to be to edit video successfully? In other words: How fast is “fast enough?” Surprising, the answer is: Not as fast as you think. Here’s what you need to know.
