Blog Archives

Confused when comparing Intel to Apple silicon systems? Jerry Thompson was, too. Here are the answers to your questions on what the differences are between Apple silicon and Intel, along with suggestions on how to spec a system.

Picking a high-quality computer monitor for video editing is surprisingly confusing. Here is Larry Jordan’s explanation of what specs you need to look for, which you can ignore, and what criteria he uses for picking computer and video monitors.

In this illustrated tutorial, learn how to animate multiple elements in the same graphic using Adobe Premiere Pro.

Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to animate multiple elements in a bar graph to illustrate a scientific concept. While this will work with most video editing software, I use Apple Final Cut Pro in this example.

Apple Keynote, like Apple Pages, supports text styles. However, these are more limited than you might at first think. Here’s a tutorial that explains more about how to create and modify them.

What is a “Retina Display?” What does it do and what monitors support it? This tutorial explains the term, why it’s used and what it means.

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.

Which combination of hard disk or SSD storage provides the fastest speed or highest capacity for video editing? This illustrated tutorial will answer these questions, plus provide a spreadsheet you can use to test your own numbers. This works for Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Apple Final Cut Pro editors.

Here are two very clever workarounds to create short extracts of much larger media files to save storage space when importing video into Apple Final Cut Pro.

Looking for ways to work faster? Here are five pretty much undocumented quick tricks – from import to export – that make Final Cut Pro work even faster.

Even the largest RAIDs fill up. If you own an OWC RAID, you can safely and easily archive RAID sets for archiving and storage. Loren Miller explains the process in this highly-illustrated, step-by-step tutorial.

Thunderbolt is an amazing protocol and essential to many video workflows. However, it isn’t a magic box. Once you understand what affects the speeds it can transfer data, you can better plan for how to use it. This tutorial explains what impacts the speed of a Thunderbolt device.

Sometime in October, Apple will release the latest version of the macOS: Ventura. First announced at the 2022 WWDC in June this version, like every macOS update, features a variety of new features and apps. Still, while this is exciting, …

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.

Axle.ai is a fast, powerful and customizable media asset management system that is designed for the needs of a small to medium sized workgroup. This is an in-depth product review, along with an interview with Axle.ai CEO Sam Bogoch.

Last week, I asked video editors to share how they organize and manage their media for video editing. Here’s what they told me.

There are seven Stylize effects in Apple Final Cut Pro that create illegal video levels. This tutorial shows what they are, the problems they cause and how to fix them before final export.

[ Updated Aug. 22, 2022, with comments from Ed Cilley. ] Kristen Flynn asks: “How do people keep track of stock music? Where do they keep it? How do they access it for an edit? I feel like I have …

Last week, Adobe released a detailed Premiere Pro Workflow Guide for Episodic and Feature film Editing. This week, I spoke with Morgan Prygrocki, at Adobe, about typical mistakes video editors make and how this Guide can help.

The reason we use effects is to help us tell our story more effectively. While creating effects can take more time than we expect, the results, when effects are chosen wisely, can be amazing. Here are a baker’s dozen of little-known effects in Apple Final Cut Pro.

One of the smaller changes in the June update to Premiere Pro is also one that can save you a bunch of time: Adobe revised Copy/Paste. Here’s what you need to know.

The CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 4 (TS4): More ports and more speed in one small box with a great price. However, there are a few key issues you need to understand before you buy. Here’s my detailed review.

One of our favorite – and most wide-ranging – sessions returns with “Ask Larry Anything!” Presented by Larry Jordan, this is a free-form conversation based on questions submitted by viewers. In this short video, Larry has a conversation about computer performance in the real-world, specifically for video editing.

One of our favorite – and most wide-ranging – sessions returns with “Ask Larry Anything!” Presented by Larry Jordan, this is a free-form conversation based on questions submitted by viewers. In this short video, Larry talks about Mac obsolescence and whether the new Apple silicon computers make older systems obsolete.

One of our favorite – and most wide-ranging – sessions returns with “Ask Larry Anything!” Presented by Larry Jordan, this is a free-form conversation based on questions submitted by viewers. In this short video, Larry answers Simone’s question about scanning photographs for digital video.

The TourBox is a small control surface for just about any Windows or Mac application – with a special emphasis on media creation and editing. It is well-built with a very well-designed software interface. There’s only one small problem…

Larry Jordan shows how to optimize preference settings for Adobe Premiere Pro 2022. Feel free to share your personal choices in the comments.

The Apple silicon version of Premiere does not support AAF export – yet. But the Intel version does. Here’s the workaround to get AAF export working in both versions of Premiere.

This built-in Mac utility is fast, easy-to-use and always available. When you need to rename files in a hurry, this is a good trick to know.

There’s an old axiom for everyone who works in video, “Editing is all about work arounds.” Carleton Cole presents a workaround for editing Microsoft Teams videos when the images randomly shift position.

Integrating vertical video into a horizontal video timeline is increasingly common. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to do it using both Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Audio Design Desk is an amazing program. It creates sound environments faster and easier than anything I’ve ever seen. Now they’ve extended it with Media Bridge connecting ADD with sound effects libraries across the web. Learn more!

Machine learning is a fact of life in video editing today, though its impact is often a two-edged sword. In this guest post, Jourdan Aldredge looks at Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s AI tool for video editors.

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.

Adobe added new features to their proxy workflow. However, you need to make sure permissions are set correctly, and, even then, they are hard to see. Here’s how this new feature works.

Relinking media in Final Cut has become increasing powerful and flexible. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how it works, along with advice on where to store media for different Final Cut Pro projects.

Adobe added two significant new workspaces to Adobe Premiere Pro (v22.5) to simplify editing projects on single monitors and laptops.

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.

This illustrated tutorial on creating retro film effects using Final Cut Pro was written by Burkhard Berger.

This tutorial creates a 3D text template in Apple Motion that allows Apple Final Cut Pro to put moving video inside adjustable, textured 3D text. There are many creative variations on this idea.

What I like about the Classic Color Meter is that it works the way you expect, measures colors six ways from Sunday and allows copying and pasting color values, even color images, from whatever you measured into whatever you need. Here’s how it works.

Last week, Apple reassured editors it remained committed to Final Cut. But were they firing up development or simply being nice? This article is an effort to spark a discussion between Final Cut editors on what features they want to see and how important those features are. I encourage you to add your suggestions and comments.

Multicam recording captures an event using multiple cameras. Multicam editing displays all those angles during the edit. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to create virtual angles in a multicam clip to provide more diversity in shot selection, as well as how to create a montage using multicam in Final Cut Pro.

Multicam recording captures an event using multiple cameras. Multicam editing displays all those angles during the edit. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to add visual effects and color grading to a multicam clip in Final Cut Pro.

In the 22.3.1 update to Premiere Pro, Adobe added two features that significantly speed exports: Smart Render and the Export Preset Manager. This illustrated tutorial shows how they work.

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.

This tutorial compares the export speed on an Apple silicon MacBook Pro of Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve; along with how effectively they used CPU and GPU systems.The results surprised me – none of them maxed out the system!

How many CPU cores do you need for video editing? This illustrated tutorial looks at how many CPU cores Apple Final Cut Pro uses during import, edit, render, export and multicam. The answer is surprising!

Why does Apple Final Cut Pro only use Apple silicon efficiency cores when exporting? And which cores do Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve use? Here’s a comparison between the three.

Recently, Adobe updated Premiere Pro to version 22.3.1. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use the new Quick Export and Export Preset Manager to quickly convert your Premiere sequence into finished media.