Blog Archives

Yes, the new M1 MacBook Pro is very, very fast. But, the M1 did not win every race when tested against a 2013 MacBook Pro and a 2017 iMac. These twelve tests are a good comparison between performance benchmarks and real-world media processing of the improvements you can expect if you upgrade to these new systems.

When you need to get the best streaming video possible – for Mac or Windows, live or recorded – here is the gear you need, links to find it and instructions on how to get it all to work.

The revised speech-to-text transcription and caption workflow in Adobe Premiere Pro is fast, easy to use and, now. extremely useful. If you haven’t looked at the new options for Speech-to-Text in Adobe Premiere Pro, now is a great time to start. This one feature can save you hours.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about, well, anything you want to ask. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to export captions from YouTube, then what you need to do to convert them for import into Adobe Premiere.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about, well, anything you want to ask. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan demos the new Speech-to-Text transcript and caption workflow options in Adobe Premiere Pro.

DPI (Dots per Inch) is a measure of image resolution. It also confuses a lot of people. Here’s an illustrated guide to where DPI matters, where it does not, and why images look bad when you scale them larger.

The iRig Pre HD means you can travel wherever you want, with whatever mics you want and record them on whatever device you have handy and get high quality results. Here are the details.

The iRig Pre 2 does what needs to be done: provide a high-quality audio interface between your recording gear and your mic. Easy to set up, light-weight and easily portable, the iRig Pre 2 lets you record the sounds you want, wherever you go.

It’s easy to digitize SD video. But the quality isn’t great, the audio is often noisy and the results, for pros, are disappointing. Here’s a system to digitize older media and maximize audio and video quality.

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.

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.

Adam Wilt shares his thoughts on why Blackmagic Design released a camera recording 12K frame sizes. And, it isn’t the reason you expect.

Here is an interested workaround to fool Apple Final Cut Pro X into importing just portions of a clip, rather than the entire clip. This is especially useful when you have extremely long media files, but only need to use a very short section.

A step-by-step, illustrated tutorial on how to create a new sequence preset using the ProRes codec. This settings works for both Mac and Windows systems.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates a hidden feature in Apple Final Cut Pro X that can improve media handling during import.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains what the Media Import settings mean and how to optimize them for editing in Final Cut.

Storage Locations, which specifies where Final Cut Pro X stores media, provides a significant and useful compromise between the security of storing all files in the library, with the flexibility of directly accessing files scattered about your hard disk.

Hidden inside Final Cut is a batch renaming feature that makes renaming clips fast and easy. This illustrated tutorial shows where it is and how it works.

I’m impressed with how Image Capture simplifies moving files between iPhone and Mac. It is easy to use, capable, fast and secure. And, best of all, it’s already installed on your system.

Here are the details behind Adobe Audition support for M/S (mid-side) Audio in Adobe Audition.

Simon Says On-Prem is a secure, fast, and easy-to-use transcription system that supports all major NLEs. It’s designed for editors needing a high volume of accurate transcripts with absolute security. Here are the details.

This is a detailed look at Apple’s Afterburner card for the 2019 Mac Pro. This explains what it is, what it does and when to considering buying it.

This is a table of updated file sizes for all iPhone video formats, based on frame size and frame rate. Use these to plan your storage needs.

Survey of applications and web services providing automated speech-to-text transcription focused on media creators.

An explanation of why iPhones don’t shoot 25 or 50 frames per second video.

A user-writeup of a custom shooting rig for the Blackmagic Design 6K Pocket Cinema Camera.

An explanation of when and why media is copied during import, plus a discussion of Premiere’s new Ingest option.

Raw files give us the most control over the color and gray-scale values in our image, but they create massively large files and require significant time spent color grading. Log files allow us to retain highlight detail. And LUTs allow us to quickly convert an image or clip from one look to another. This article explains what each of these are and how they relate to video editing.

An illustrated tutorial on how to use AirDrop to move images and video from your iPhone to a Mac.

The Vuze+ VR Camera, developed and manufactured by HumanEyes, is an eight-camera, four-mic unit for recording stereoscopic (3D) or monoscopic (2D) 360/VR video images, accompanied by either stereo or surround audio. Here’s a review of my experience using it.

A detailed tutorial on the audio and video analysis settings as part of the Media Import window in Apple Final Cut Pro X. Not always accurate, not always fast, but perhaps worth knowing.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC does not include any Apple ProRes sequence presets.. yet. Here’s how to create them. (Updated March, 2020, with new advice throughout.)

An illustrated guide to using the new Punch and Roll feature to record audio ranges in Adobe Audition CC (2019).

An illustrated tutorial on how to use Apple Final Cut Pro X 104.6 (or later) to convert soon-to-be-incompatible 32-bit media into something more future-proof.

Kyno is a full-featured, flexible media manager for both Mac and Windows, with powerful transcoding built-in. Here is an overview of the new features in the 1.6.1 release.

Michael Powles writes about problems using SDXC camera cards with Apple Final Cut Pro X. Larry Jordan provides additional answers.

A detailed, illustrated look at the different media formats and shooting options with the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, along with recommendations for best editing in different NLEs.

An illustrated review by Larry Jordan of the Samsung T5 Portable SSD, with an emphasis on video editing.

Convergent Design’s Apollo multicamera recorder has a special feature that allows easy transfer of multicam files from the Apollo to Apple Final Cut Pro X.

An illustrated review of Apple Screenshot, included in Mojave, along with a list of what it still needs to do.

Audio not recording? It’s a new preference in Mojave that you need to change. Here’s how.

Nothing causes quite the confusion in video editing as media management. Before we can even begin editing, we need to figure out what to do with all the files that were generated on set. In this short video excerpt, you’ll discover a variety of media management techniques for Apple Final Cut Pro X.

A step-by-step tutorial on how to create a disk image to preserve and protect media files recorded to a camera card.

Import problems with Canon XA-10 cameras into Apple Final Cut Pro X have been fixed. However, this short article details what you need to know when working with media files stored on camera cards.

An in-depth Q&A answering questions about how to pick the right storage for video editing.

The usefulness of QuickTime Player has significantly improved over the years and, if you haven’t looked at it recently, the time has come to give it a second look. This is a detailed, illustrated tutorial on what you need to know.

A collection of new products for media creators announced at the 2018 NAB Show from companies you may not have heard about.

If you are struggling to understand how audio works, this session is for you. In this short video excerpt, Larry Jordan explains what double-system sound is and how to sync and edit clips in Final Cut Pro X.