Equipment and Software Reviews - Independent Fim Makers

Sony PMW-EX1 Review by Antonio Tibaldi
The Film director/videographer gives us a hands on review of the Sony PMW-EX1

Apple Color Overview for users of Final Cut Studio. All about Apple Color - great software-based 2k color correcting for Mac users more

The Plug-In Pavilion - The editor's tools: 3D compositing, titling, FX creation, lighting, color-correction and more with BorisFX, Graffiti 5.1, Red 4, and Boris Blue 2.

If you're getting serious about producing high definition video (and DVDs and animations), you should think about moving up to a workstation-class system. After all, HD is a big jump in the stress on a system -- going from DV (720 x 480) to HDV (720p, 1280 x 720 and 1080i, 1440 x 1080), much less to full HD (1920 x 1080) with 6 times the amount of pixels.

So what kind of system should you be looking at to edit HD video, and what are the best cost / performance trade-offs in today's market? more

Audio for Professional Video - While video editing tools like Sony Vegas+DVD Production Suite and Adobe Premiere Pro have strong support for audio, dedicated audio editing tools, Sony Sound Forge goes much farther as a professional digital audio production suite. It is designed for the entire audio workflow: record, analyze, and edit more Sony Sound Forge 9

Adobe SoundBooth Review - Adobe has included Soundbooth, in the new Adobe Production Premium bundle, as part of the new Adobe Creative Suite 3. Available for both Windows and Intel-based Macs, the new Adobe Soundbooth is a clean, yet powerful, waveform editor, focused on audio recording, basic editing, cleanup, and enhancement with effects. In addition, it includes tools for audio generation, both by building loops from segments of clips, and with AutoComposer for automatic creation of customized scores.

read the review - Adobe Soundbooth Review - Audio for Video

If you are looking for a powerful, full featured and relatively easy to master video editing program, you should take a look at the Pinnacle Studio family and especially the most recent entrant, Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 11. Regardless of what format you shoot in, or how you plan on sharing and distributing your finished videos, Studio 11 has an answer. read the review

Digital Video Professionals Association Launches FREE Online Adobe Production Premium Resource Center

Ulead VideoStudio Review - Ready to get started with video editing? Maybe you've some video that you'd like to make into a nice little movie production, complete with transitions between scenes, background music, title text, and some fun video effects. And you can share your movies as video files for computer playback, or post for friends to view over the Web, or download to a iPod to take with you, or even burn on DVD to watch in the living room.

Is your house or business too big for CAT 5 cables? Do you need to get video and audio from one end to the other but don't want to run cable? Check out the TV One 1T-VGAST-CAT-XL.

This unit can send both stereo audio, either from a PC or microphone, and a 1280x1024 VGA resolution image to a maximum distance of 1000 feet.

The unit consists of a transmitter that takes in the Stereo Audio and VGA signal and the receiver which outputs the same Stereo Audio and VGA Signal. This makes it possible to send both signals to a remote location and maintain the Stereo Audio. A VGA loop-thru is provided and there are gain and equalization adjustments at each receiver. more

Mac and Windows users can now easily add extra monitors to their machines without having to open up their machines and add in special video cards. Matrox Graphics Inc. announced that the Matrox DualHead2Go™ and TripleHead2Go™ are now compatible with Windows and Mac® systems. From the Graphics eXpansion Module (GXM) product line, both DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go are palm-sized boxes that connect externally to a notebook or desktop computer and uniquely allow users to attach two or three monitors respectively for an incredible multi-monitor configuration. This is great for video editing! more

Do you need a music soundtrack to add emotional depth to your video productions? Even if you're a musician who can compose, play, and record your own scores, that's still a lot of work. The answer for many producers is an automated soundtrack tool. Check out the latest from SonicPro and from Sony. All about SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 4 and Sony Media Software Cinescore Both of these soundtrack creation tools now allow you to drill deeper into customizing the score by actually adjusting the mix and mood of the soundtrack elements, providing a whole new level of control over the emotional feel of the piece in sync with the visuals. more

Adobe System's Adobe® Soundbooth™ software is a new innovative, intuitive and relatively easy to use audio software product for creating and editing audio and fixing common audio flaws using visually-oriented tools. Unveiled to customers for the first time at the MAX 2006 Adobe user conference in Las Vegas, creative professionals now have the opportunity to test this new beta download and submit feedback to the Adobe Labs at http://labs.adobe.com/soundbooth. Adobe Soundbooth is available for both Intel-based Macintosh and Windows systems. more

Vidiac Live is the first true live streaming service offered for free. Based on Microsoft's Windows Media 9 Technology, Vidiac is able to provide vastly improved picture resolution, quality and frame rate over typical webcam software. more

Wendt X3 Compact Field Mixer
With this highly-portable field mixer, simplicity and durability meet top quality sound

REVIEW - Sony Vegas 7+DVD is a professional editing platform capable of taking an editor from capture to export. The Vegas7+DVD includes Vegas 7, DVD Architect 4, and Dolby Digital AC-3 encoding software. Vegas allows for real-time acquisition and editing of DV, HDV, SD/HD-SDI, and all XDCAM formats. Vegas 7 has the capability to fine-tune audio with the precision of a digital audio workstation. DVD Architect 4 provides the capability to author surround sound and dual-layer DVDs. more

The Sony HDR-FX7 1080i Camcorder
A new extremely lightweight camcorder that records 1080i HD video to Mini DV tapes. High Definition on MiniDV Tapes using HDV format; 3 CMOS sensors - one for each color channel

Expand Your Video Display by adding additional video displays and monitors. Great for game players and video editors. more

Do you need to amplify and distribute composite video around your house, your office, your production studio? And you want it to look really, really good? Check out the Panasonic WJ300C Video Distribution Amplifier more

Fostex FR-2LE Stereo Field Memory Recorder is the little brother to Fostex’s popular FR-2 digital field recorder. The FR2-LE records Broadcast Wave Format (BWF) or MP3 files to affordable type II CompactFlash or Microdrive cards, at up to 24-bit/96kHz resolution. It features powerful on-board editing functions and a USB 2.0 port for high-speed file transfers to PC editing suites. Time stamping of .wav or MP3 files is provided; allowing for easy time alignment of audio files in Audio/Video software workstations.

This easy-to-use unit is equipped with two Mic/Line inputs (with phantom power) on Neutrik combo jacks, stereo RCA analog outputs and a 1/8" stereo headphone output with level control. The FR-2LE’s flexible powering options include: (4) "AA" batteries or a 12V DC input. The top panel has a large LCD display and transport and menu keys, & the front panel adds Rec/Standby controls, LED Metering and input trims. A wired remote control comes standard with every unit.

The Fostex FR-2LE’s combination of pro features and low $499.00 price makes this versatile recorder a top choice for Electronic News Gathering, location sound and live music applications.

Need to master video editing the Adobe way? Check out our new articles about:

Are you producing and editing high definition video? Here is the latest insight regarding the high definition video editing systems. Solutions from Macintosh, Adobe, Windows, Dell, etc. Doug Dixon article

Shooting HiDef? JVC's new GY-HD110U. It implements a number of additional features requested by our growing circle of producers and cinematographers and now added to the multiple-award winning GY-HD100U. more

Read Doug Dixon's review of Adobe Video Collection -- Adobe Premiere Pro for video editing, After Effects for motion graphics and visual effects, Audition for professional audio mixing and editing, and Encore DVD for DVD authoring. It now also includes Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2 from the Adobe Creative Suite, plus Adobe Bridge for asset file browsing and organizing. more

Make FLASH Easy - Wildform develops video, animation and presentation software including the WildPresenter, Flix Flash video encoder, the Wild FX Pro video titler and text animator, the Linx easy Flash editor and the Wildform Video Library. click here for more info....

If you want to make Flash Video - you need to check out Wildform and its new program, WildPresenter, which enables anyone to easily create outstanding Flash presentations, product demos, training videos, and sales & marketing materials. WildPresenter includes: 1) a screen recorder that can record anything you see or hear on your computer; 2) a unique PowerPoint to Flash converter that creates fully editable files including text, art, animations and transitions (and doesn’t require PowerPoint); 3) a video/audio converter; 4) a suite of drawing, flowcharting and text tools; 5) software to capture video and audio from a webcam, microphone and videotape; 6) an animation and transition generator; 7) a text effects engine; and 8) a user-friendly timeline editor to put it all together. more

Are you planning on shooting high definition digital video and looking for a good way to edit it? Or, if you just need a great and easy to master video editing program, especially if audio is of prime importance, make sure you check out Sony Vegas. Read Doug Dixon's article about how to use Sony Vegas Video Plus DVD to edit your HDV footage and create great looking DVDs and final productions.

Do you want that cool "film look" for your movie or video but just can't seem to get it right? Checkout the newest version of Magic Bullet™ Editors 2 from Red Giant Software. The world’s first real-time film look plug-in for Mac and Windows desktop video editors offers 16 plug-ins including Look Suite, a tool for mimicking various film processes and shooting styles; MB Deartifacter, a new plug-in for cleaning up DV and HDV chroma problems; and Misfire plug-ins for generating a wide variety of damaged film characteristics. Using the new DeepColor RT GPU render engine, Magic Bullet Editors 2 Look Suite plug-in now runs up to 12x faster than the CPU alone—allowing users to do real-time film look treatments on the desktop in standard definition. more

Looking for the best video editing program on the market? There's a lot of choices but if you want to make it in Hollywood, you got to know Avid. Check out the new and improved Avid Express DV. Review

Are two heads better than one? Many video professionals use multiple displays with their PC based systems to get additional acreage for editing, production and other computer tasks. Now Matrox has announced a special two head adapter for laptops. DualHead2Go is the world's first external upgrade designed to deliver multi-display support to compatible laptops. The DualHead2Go, which connects to the VGA output of a laptop, allows a user to attach two external displays to their system in order to run a Microsoft Windows desktop at a resolution up to 2560x1024 stretched, across both displays. more

Do you need a easy to master yet complete video editing solution at an affordable price? Check out CyberLink’s PowerDirector4. In addition to the standard video editing, capture, and titling features, it also has four new video tools for automated video editing and color correction applications. The new PowerDirector4 for Windows XP and Windows 2000 users, is available for a list price of $89.95, and provides everything you need to capture, edit and share video productions. read the review

It might be Magix. The new Magix Movie Edit Pro 10 offers everything most professional videographers need from an editing package- and at at a very affordable, entry level price. Under $100! read the review

If you are a video hobbyist or prosumer, and need a rock-steady and affordable video editing software package that's easy to use, you should check out the new and improved Ulead VideoStudio 9. Read the review by Doug Dixon.

We buy our gear from B&H. Yes, they are a sponsor of this site, but we have been using them for years and years long before there was such a thing as streaming video. Fair prices, honest and great service.

TV One's new C2-7200 Dual Channel Video Processor provides the ultimate flexibility in analog and digital conversion as will as video and computer convergence. It features two independent video processing and scaling engines and two video mixers for maximum flexibility in handling virtually all analog and digital video signals and is equally at home in Broadcast or Display environments. more

JVC has introduced another industry first with the SR-DVM70-US three-in-one digital video recorder. Nobody else has anything like this. I'm sure there are a lot of electronic designers at JVC competitors scratching their heads asking themselves , " Why didn't I think of this? Incorporating the all-digital format of MiniDV, 160GB hard disk drive, and DVD burner in a compact, easy to use package. more

Ulead System's new Video Toolbox 2 provides a handy, easy to use and affordable three-step process for converting video formats into more convenient and accessible video files. A review by Douglas Dixon of Manifest Technology - more

Are you looking for a high powered and easy to master video editing solution for under $100? Check out the new Adobe Premiere Elements - read the review by Doug Dixon

LEAD Capture & Convert is a very cool product for capturing and converting video, audio and graphics programs and files. In many ways this is a video editing program which does everything except edit and trim clips – you can capture video, add effects and text, and then output it in a variety of formats as well as extract still images from video and convert video, audio and graphic files. It includes a bunch of effects filters that are not available on other video and graphics packages. more

Have you been to Vegas lately? Check out the new version of Vegas Video 5 Editing Suite and Vegas Video 5 - DVD-Architect 2 program combined into one package called Vegas + DVD Production Suite more

Make FLASH Easy - Wildform develops video, animation and presentation software including the Flix Flash video encoder, the Wild FX Pro video titler and text animator, the Linx easy Flash editor and the Wildform Video Library.
click here for more info....

SONY UNVEILS ITS FIRST COMPLETE PROFESSIONAL HDV SYSTEM - Pro 1080 Camcorder and VTR, Advanced Professional Media Combine with Broad NLE Software Compatibility to Create Entry-Level HD Production Workflow more

Do you need some video gear, hardware or software? Looking for components or complete turnkey video editing systems? Need videotape, cassettes - do what we do, give B&H Photo Video a call. 1-800-569-1725 Good service, great prices.