Blog Archives

What is the best version of ProRes to use for HDV?

An overview of working with proxies for your media in Final Cut Pro X.

Subscriber Mike Henry writes in to see about finding the most highly recommended practices with mixing cameras with different resolutions.

A subscriber writes in asking for the best codec to use to get the great HD quality of her footage transferred onto a 4.7GB DVD, which is, unfortunately, a question with no easy solution.

In responding to a subscriber’s request for AVCHD advice, I explain my recent change of opinion, and why I now favor using the Log and Transfer function.

What’s the difference between 8-bit and 10-bit video and why should editors care? Well, if you are doing a lot of effects, you should care a lot and this article explains why.

Dean Schweinler writes in to ask if he needs an AJA or a BlackMagic capture card to edit HDV. This article explains three options for capture.

ProRes 422 is a new codec, invented by Apple, that seeks to minimize the massive file sizes of some HD formats. It also has benefits when you are working with HDV or other GOP-compressed video formats. In this article, I show you more about this codec and how to use it.

Wendy is searching for a universal HD output format to simplify distribution of her projects. In this article, she discovers that’s easier to say than to do.

With the release of Final Cut Studio 2, Apple created a new high-end codec entitled ProRes. With the release of Final Cut Studio (3) they expanded it from two variations to five. What is ProRes and how do you decide which version to use for your projects? Answering that question is the purpose of this article.

In this article I discuss the criteria I use in judging which camera to buy, as well as factors that may not be that critical in making the decision.

The issue of converting to ProRes is addressed along with a walk-through of the pros and cons of the different version.

How do you capture the screens from a game. There are a number of screen capture utilities on the market. This article explains which works best on the Mac for capturing a game.

HDV is the latest video format craze, but it isn’t like DV; or any other video format we are used to working with. This article explains how HDV is different and what you need to know to use it successfully.

Trying to get up to speed on HDV quickly. This article gives you a primer on the current status of HDV – what’s good, what’s bad, and what you need to know.