I spent this last week immersed in editing in DaVinci Resolve Studio 19. Here’s how it compares to Final Cut and Premiere, along with features that drive me nuts.
This review looks at the performance differences in video editing running DaVinci Resolve 19.1 on a variety of Macs from the 2018 Mac mini to the new 2024 Apple M4 Pro Mac mini.
This review looks at the performance differences in video editing running Adobe Premiere Pro 25 on a variety of Macs from the 2018 Mac mini to the new 2024 Apple M4 Pro Mac mini. The results may surprise you!
Guest post: Dr. Imed Bouchrika, PhD and BSc, is a Computer Science professor from the University of Southampton, UK, who specializes in eLearning, image processing, and biometrics. (Here are Larry’s rules for guest posts.) Implementing efficient export workflows can save …
Droplets are great stand-alone mini-apps. Watch folders are fast Compressor automations. Both can speed your work by automating the process of doing the same thing over and over Here’s how they work and which to pick for your work.
As a heads-up, I’m running into a perplexing, consistent bug in Apple Compressor (v4.8). This has been an on-going problem for the last several months. And I thought it was about time to give you a heads-up about it.
In this tutorial, I tested different export options to see which is the fastest way to create an H.264 or HEVC compressed file from a Final Cut Pro project. Several results surprised me.
VideoProc Converter is a highly-affordable media clip compression and adjustment software. While most of its clip manipulation and trimming features already exist in professional video editing software, its support for transcoding virtually all known video formats makes it an attractive addition to your toolkit – once it fixes problems in the Mac version.
Export segmentation is one of the new features in Final Cut 10.7 that becomes available when you upgrade to macOS Sonoma. This harnesses the power of multiple media engines in Apple silicon chips to accelerate H.264 and HEVC exports in FCP or Compressor. While this makes exports faster, it also has other benefits – and limitations.
Apple updated Final Cut Pro to version 10.7 and included a number of new features. Here are details on three that are especially useful: Timeline scrolling, collapsing clips and faster H.264 and HEVC exports.
I’m confused. What’s the difference between a “format” and a “codec?” The answer is that sometimes these are the same and sometimes these are different. Here’s a good way to think about these.
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.
Even if you don’t own – or like – Apple Final Cut Pro, you can use Apple Compressor to manipulate media in ways other software doesn’t. For example, use Compressor to change the timecode of a video clip. Here’s how.
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.
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.
Animated GIFs are short animations that are posted to a web site and viewed in a web browser. Not only can you create stunning animation in Motion, this short tutorial illustrates an EXTREMELY fast way to automate the process.
Peter asked me recently to write an article on how to optimize files for posting to YouTube, download or streaming. As Internet speeds continue to improve, and YouTube adjusts its rules, now is a good time for an update on my recommendations.
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.
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.
Video bit depth makes a difference when you are creating effects, color grading or working with HDR material. Here’s an explanation of what bit depth is and when to care about it.
Based on a reader’s comment, this compares image quality between three different source codecs (ProRes, MPEG-2 and H.264) compressed into H.264 using Apple Compressor. This also illustrates how many CPU and GPU cores were active.
Step-by-step illustrated instructions on how to encode image sequences using Adobe Media Encoder.
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.
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.
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.
Recently, Apple updated Compressor to version 4.6, where a highlighted feature is automated Watch Folders. In this video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how these work and how you can use them to automate compression of video, audio or still images exported from any media application.
Watch Folders are an important new feature in Apple Compressor 4.6 that can speed your workflow. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how they work.
“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.
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.
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.
New with the 4.5.3 update to Compressor are compression settings which simplify cropping and compressing square and vertical media. These new settings simplify the conversion of, say, horizontal media to vertical making it easier to repurpose existing assets for new uses.
“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.
“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 embed labels, called “metadata,” into video files during compression using Apple Compressor that can be viewed later during playback. These files could be ProRes, MP4, MP3 or QuickTime.
Both the new M1 and existing T2 chips from Apple support hardware-assisted encoding and decoding of H.264 and HEVC media. Here’s how to enable it in Adobe Media Encoder.
Both the new M1 and existing T2 chips from Apple support hardware-assisted encoding and decoding of H.264 and HEVC media. Here’s how to enable them in Apple Compressor.
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.
Apple released minor updates for Final Cut Pro and Compressor, along with stability improvements and a name change.
Watch Folders are a fast, automated way to compress files. But, when you nest them, they can simplify even highly complex compression tasks. Here are two examples.
There’s a feature in Adobe Media Encoder that can speed your compression work: Parallel Encoding, especially when you are creating multiple versions of the same source file. Here’s how it works.
Video compression is essential to all media today, from social media to broadcast to streaming. In this short video, Larry Jordan shows how to stitch multiple clips into a single movie during compression in Adobe Media Encoder.
Video compression is essential to all media today, from social media to broadcast to streaming. In this short video, Larry Jordan shows how to crop and reframe video, along with creating a short segment to test compression settings in Adobe Media Encoder.
Video compression is essential to all media today, from social media to broadcast to streaming. In this short video, Larry Jordan shows how to add overlays, like watermarks or timecode, to video during compression in Adobe Media Encoder.
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.
Apple has expanded hardware acceleration on recent makes. Here’s what you need to know to vastly improve the speed of video compression.
Video compression is essential to all media today, from social media to broadcast to streaming. In this video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how job chaining in Apple Compressor can save significant time when applying multiple compression settings to a source file.
Video compression is essential to all media today, from social media to broadcast to streaming. In this video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use Apple Compressor to crop or reframe a video clip prior to media compression.
Video compression is essential to all media today, from social media to broadcast to streaming. In this video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to apply both still and moving watermarks to compressed video using Apple Compressor.
Video compression is essential to all media today, from social media to broadcast to streaming. In this video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use Apple Compressor to create a custom compression setting for use in Apple Final Cut Pro X.
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.
