It is certainly NOT that my memory is failing. Nope. It is that I seem to be completely unable to remember a script. It was time to buy a teleprompter. Here’s my review of what I bought.
Feathering converts a hard edge to a soft fade. Feathering an image out is easy. Feathering an image in, though, is much harder. Here’s what you need to know, as Larry Jordan explains.
Over the last week, I tested Apple Final Cut Pro 11, Adobe Premiere Pro 25 and DaVinci Resolve 19.1 using a variety of computers from 2018 to the new M4 Pro Mac mini. This article summarizes what I’ve learned with an emphasis on the M4 Pro Mac mini and M2 Max Mac Studio.
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!
“How fast is fast enough?” is a question I’ve been pondering this last week. I decided to compare the speeds of two popular SSD drives: the T9 and T5 from Samsung. Partly, to see how fast they were, and partly to see if they were “fast enough” for video editing.
On October 9 – 10, 2024, I recorded thirty 10-minute one-on-one video interviews at the NAB Show in New York City. To do this, I used a mixture of my own gear and rental equipment. Here’s what I used and learned.
I’ve been a fan of Lume Cube lights for a long while now. Last week, I purchased the Studio Panel Lighting Kit, which contains two LumeCube LED panel lights, with tripods and barn doors. Here’s my review.
The Røde Podcaster Pro II is a beautiful machine, damaged by poor documentation, led astray by poorly-trained and over-stretched technical support, and done in by inadequate attention to audio levels; especially regarding live streaming – for which it was originally designed. It is fine as the front-end to a DAW, but very expensive to use just for that purpose.
Three years ago, I purchased and reviewed the Stream Deck from Elgato. I thought it was fine – but not particularly helpful to me. Until this week. Suddenly, I’m finding ways where it can save me a ton of time in ways I totally did not expect. So, time to revise my review.
Once it’s setup, the OWC Jellyfish delivers on its promise: high-speed shared file access in a portable server to support a local media workgroup of up to six.
The Warm Audio WA-87 R2 is a studio microphone with a great sound. Here’s my review, including an audio comparison between three different narration mics, along with situations where it works – and where it doesn’t. Basically, this sounds better than any other narration mic I’ve ever used. An audio sample is included so you can hear it for yourself.
3D 3D Video Polygons, from Luca Visual Effects, creates highly-adjustable eye-catching 3D effects and transitions that push the boundaries of 3D in Final Cut Pro.
The OWC Thunderblade 8 SSD RAID is a silent, well-built, high-speed, high-capacity storage system that is easy to set up, flexible to configure, and designed to last for years. Here’s my detailed review.
Hawaiki Keyer 5 is a high-quality, infinitely-adjustable chroma-key plugin for Premiere Pro, After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Motion. Offering controls that simply aren’t available on other keyers, when you need to create a truly clean chroma-key, even with substandard production, you need Hawaiki Keyer, from FxFactory.
Two weeks before Christmas, my old Synology server died. Dead. I had all my data safely backed up – but on an expansion chassis that required a functioning server to access. Here’s what I learned in migrating to a new Synology server.
The rise in paid product reviews and influencers has led to an increasing distrust in product reviews. Larry Jordan has some thoughts on this.
For speed, solid construction, ease of use and portability, the OWC Express 1M2 is amazing. Faster than Thunderbolt, about the size of a deck of cards. Fits in your pocket. Oh… and no power brick. Here’s mu review.
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.
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.
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.
StreamVoodoo allows you to stream high-quality live video to one person, a group or a crowd. No special software. No logins. No accounts. One click and they are in. The problem is figuring out how it works. That still needs help.
This collection provides easy links to the nine detailed testing and performance reviews Larry Jordan wrote about the 2023 M2 Mac mini computer from Apple.
For video editors, any M-series Mac computer is a vast improvement over any Intel system. In this detailed review, Larry Jordan looks at setup and performance tests of the M2 Mac Studio computer using Adobe Premiere Pro.
For video editors, any M-series Mac computer is a vast improvement over any Intel system. In this detailed review, Larry Jordan looks at setup and performance tests of the M2 Mac Studio computer using Apple Final Cut Pro.
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,.
About a month ago, I purchased a BenQ PD2725 monitor because I wanted a color accurate monitor for scanning still images and video editing. Based on what I’ve learned and seen, I’m comfortable making color and composition decisions based upon what I see with the BenQ PD2725U.
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.
I like this Levitouch Dual-arm Monitor Mount from Gabor a lot. It is solidly built, easy to assemble, and supports two computer monitors from 17 – 32″ and up to 19.8 pounds each. Here’s my detailed review.
If you are frustrated trying to make your audio sound better, the Crumblepop AI-assisted audio plug-ins will decrease your stress and improve your audio without requiring an advanced audio degree. And, when it comes to noise reduction, they can do magic.
Topaz Videa AI, from Topaz Labs, does amazing work deinterlacing and enhancing clips. This is an overview of how it works.
Topaz Video AI delivers dramatic results, with a great deal of promise for the future. It’s not cheap and not all features work well. But, for the most part, this is an outstanding tool to improve image quality. Here’s my detailed review.
The Apple Studio Monitor is an amazing display. But, as a monitor, it has too much — and too little. This could be the perfect monitor for you – or it could be far more than you need. It’s complex. Here are my thoughts.
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.
Topaz Photo AI almost works magic enhancing still images. Here’s a detailed review of what it does and how it works. It isn’t cheap, but the results are worth it.
This articles details the performance of the M2 Pro Mac mini, specifically the speed of rendering visual effects and exporting projects in Apple Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro. 77 tests were performed and some of the answers are surprising!
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.
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.
The Synology WRX 560 Wireless Router is fast, powerful and amazingly flexible. It is designed for networks that need lots of controls. But, installation is a challenge.
Measuring the speed of storage is an exercise in futility for a whole lot of reasons. Here’s what you need to know when you want to measure the speed of your system.
The OWC Thunderblade is a four-blade SSD RAID with speeds that more than meet the needs of virtually all video editors or audio mixers. This thing is plenty fast – the trick is figuring out exactly HOW fast. Read a detailed product review from Larry Jordan.
The speed our storage transfers data, is surprisingly variable and complex, especially regarding SSDs, RAIDs and Thunderbolt. In this conversation with Tim Standing, from OWC, learn what limits the speed of Thunderbolt storage and what you can do to maximize it.
This review of storage speed-testing software AmorphousDiskMark, from Katsura Software. This details how it works, the consistency of its results and compares it to Blackmagic Design’s Disk Speed Test. However, there are questions about its accuracy.
This guest post from Laura Fields looks at video editing tools that would be good for educators and students.
Nothing replaces directly-connected storage for speed. But nothing is better at sharing than a server. The Synology DS-1522+ is an excellent choice for any small network. Here’s a detailed review, including configuration and performance tests.
Servers are designed for sharing data. In this tutorial, Larry Jordan looks at how to install hardware into Synology DS 1522+ server, then interviews Patrick Deshere, from Synology, about how to pick the right server for your office.
No monitor is perfect, but if images are your life, you should make the effort to check out the ViewSonic VP2776. When I look at the same image on all three monitor connected to my Mac, the ViewSonic looks the best. Here’s a detailed review.
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.
