The Elgato Stream Deck is an easy-to-use, flexible and well-built external keyboard specifically designed to trigger actions by pushing a button with your fingers, not the mouse. For live events, webinars, gaming and general productivity, this is a great little device.
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 …
LG makes good monitors, but, in the case of the 27UK500, if you are tall or need to tweak how your monitor looks, the 27UK500 monitor should be avoided.
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.
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.
Last week, as part of Adobe MAX, Adobe released a flock of new features and improvements to Premiere Pro. Here’s a summary of what’s new.
Apple released new MacBook Pro laptops featuring high-performance Apple silicon chips. Given all the options, here are Larry Jordan’s recommendations for the best system for your budget.
The sound these monitors produce is very clean, crisp and rich that fills the space. If you are looking for accurate, high-quality sound in a small space, give these Yamaha monitor speakers a good listen. Larry Jordan has a review.
“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 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.)
Smart Collections are flexible, easy to create and very, very deep. I use them for almost all my projects – except the very simplest. Here are illustrated examples of how these work.
The ProCo Power Mute CPMD mic switch is a ruggedly-built, easy to use and reasonably quiet mic mute, well-suited for live events or recording. Here’s Larry Jordan’s detailed product review.
New Pfieffer Report testing confirms Adobe software, running natively on M1 Macs, is far, FAR faster than the same software running on Intel Macs. Speeds are almost double. Read the details here.
Atomos today announced the big brother to their 5″ Shinobi camera monitor: the Shinobi 7. Available in June for $699, here are the details – and a link.
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.
Any M1 system is impressive, when measured in performance. What these new 24″ iMacs lack, though, is more ports, more RAM and access to 10 Gb Ethernet. These first M1 iMac systems are targeted at consumers and general computer users. While they can be used for video editing – even serious video editing – be sure you can work with their limitations before ordering a system.
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.
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.
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 Whirlwind Micmute PMD has exactly one job – to mute a microphone – but it fails miserably at it. It generates a loud noise spike every time the mute button is pushed. The details are in my review.
The microphone you use for recording audio is more important to audio quality than any cable, plugin, software or hardware you use to record it. Here’s my thoughts on how to make yourself sound better.
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.
“Should you upgrade?” is the wrong question. Here is a better answer on when to upgrade to Big Sur – along with links to help your transition go smoothly.
Apple’s new M1 SoC chips launched to incredible reviews – but the best is still to come, especially for media creators. Read Larry Jordan’s thoughts on this new technology.
Apple has expanded hardware acceleration on recent makes. Here’s what you need to know to vastly improve the speed of video compression.
OWC releases a new 4-port Thunderbolt 3 dock that provides more Thunderbolt ports to any Mac with Thunderbolt 3 and running Big Sur. This is actually a big deal. Here are my thoughts.
Storage speeds vary widely. Here’s a tip to measuring them accurately.
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.
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.
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?
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 …
The brand-new ArmorLock SSD from G-Technology is fast, secure and rugged. But, it has problems when trying to add multiple secure users to the drive. It’s a great idea that needs tweaking.
Apple continues to make it easier – though not intuitive – to bring an errant Mac under control. Here are the steps you need to take to get you Mac running right.
Configuring a 2020 27″ iMac for video editing, with recommendations for system components, along with a discussion of this system vs. new Apple silicon gear.
Adam Wilt shares his thoughts on why Blackmagic Design released a camera recording 12K frame sizes. And, it isn’t the reason you expect.
In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to trouble-shoot Apple Final Cut Pro X, as well as providing links to trouble-shooting Macintosh systems.
Apple Silicon – new CPUs from Apple – were announced at WWDC 2020. Here’s Larry Jordan’s take on what this new hardware means to media creators.
In this short video excerpt, Larry Jordan demonstrates a very fast technique to copy files from an iPhone to a Mac.
ChronoX is a very useful app for testing your system in a real-world setting to help you maximize its performance. Here’s a detailed look at what it is and how it works.
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