Alpha channels – never heard of them? Sounds like something out of a science fiction movie or maybe a special package available from your cable provider. The truth is – if you’re a digital video editor, you’re probably going to need to use alpha channels at some point in your

with Chuck PetersVisual special effects have risen to new levels becoming a mixture that’s part art and part computer science, but complicated composite effects can be costly and time consuming. Luckily some of the most effective special effects can cost next to nothing and provide effective

Until last year, there was only one way for Adobe Premiere DV editors to avoid rendering: get a Canopus card. And since Canopus had a lock on this market, real-time DV editing came at a not-unreasonable-but-relatively-expensive price. Thanks to faster computers, there are now a few competitors for C

$299 Apple 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014 (800) MY-APPLE www.apple.com We love iMovie. We love Final Cut Pro. Until recently, there really wasn’t much for Mac users between these two applications besides $1,000. And Final Cut Pro (beyond the price) can be intimidating. You know it is pow

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up! Inside this tent you’ll have a remarkable opportunity to get closer than ever before to digital video, otherwise known as DV. I’ll give each of you an unusual close-up look at the mechanics of DV, at the various DV formats on the market and at the re

At first glance, AIST’s MoviePack eXtreme looks (more or less) like any other video editing software, and that was how we were going to review it. After an hour of use, however, we realized it was really much more than just an editor, but is instead a wide-ranging compositing and animation too

ambient sound (ambience) Natural background audio representative of a given recording environment. On-camera dialog might be primary sound; traffic noise, sounds from wildlife and refrigerator hum would be ambient. bidirectional Microphone pickup pattern whereby sound is absorbed equally from two s

Even though your editing software offers hundreds of digital video effects (DVE), you may want to create your own scene transitions with your camcorder and simple editing. Why bypass all those nifty flips, flops and fly-ins? To build unique effects, fine-tune emphasis, reinforce continuity, avoid c

$549 Adobe Systems Incorporated 345 Park Avenue San Jose, CA 95110 (888) 724-4508 www.adobe.com Adobe Premiere is a very popular software video editor. The 6.5 release is the first major upgrade to this tool since the version 6.0 release almost two years ago. During the intermission, competitors ha

with Stephen Muratore, Chuck Peters, Tony Kilcollins and Charles Fulton For a product to qualify for an award, it must have shipped in the 2002 calendar year, and it must have passed through Videomaker headquarters for examination by our editors. From there, we judged products based on the following

$3,495 MacroSystem US 5485 Conestoga Court Boulder, CO 80301 (303) 440-5311 www.casablanca.tv Buying a video-editing computer can be a complex task. What CPU should you get? How much RAM will you need? Should you buy a Mac or a PC? Which editing software is best? You could study an entire year̵

1 Beyond DV Pro 2600 Laptop $3,995 1 Beyond Inc. 61 Medford St. Somerville, MA 02143 (877) 663-2396 www.1beyond.com DVGear DVMobile Pro Dell Latitude C840 $4,749 DVGear 10634 E. Riverside Dr., Suite 130 Bothell, WA 98011 (877) 415-0628 www.dvgear.com We’

$1,649 DVDez 11646 Hummingbird Place Moreno Valley, CA 92557 (909) 437-9551 www.vinpower.net If your clients have not asked for DVDs yet, they will; if not today, then tomorrow. Once you get beyond needing to copy 10 discs per project, you’ll need a duplicator. And while choosing authoring so

…in conclusion, the term "continuity" implies that your story unfolds in the order your audience expects. Events follow each other in a natural sequence – beginning, middle and end. And anything that appears to put things out of order or breaks the natural flow of a story is s

Today’s computers juggle floods of data as we ask them to respond to our creative urges in real time and create DVDs while we wait. High performance AV media drives are pivotal components. If you haven’t considered upgrading your media storage recently, maybe it’s time. Whether yo

The ADS USB Instant DVD MPEG-2 encoder’s initials are enough to fill a bowl of alphabet soup, but the product itself is easy enough to understand. Resembling an external USB modem, the USB Instant DVD device converts analog video to DVD-ready MPEG-2 via a USB port. The conversion happens immed

Finding multi-layer composited video on TV these days is about as tough as finding bark in a forest. Show openings, newscasts, commercials even the basic content from whole networks such as CNN are awash in keys, alpha channel tricks and mattes. You say you want to do some of that cool multi-layer

$75 MAGIX Entertainment Corp. 11400 W. Olympic Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90064 (888) 326-2449 www.magix.com Music is an important part of most video productions. If you produce video for money, broadcast or public display, then you need either buyout music or some sort of music composition software. Wh

When new technology replaces old, it is interesting how it’s mirrored in the terminology we use. Very few people dial a phone or play records anymore, but the terms persist. Video case in point: the term "filter." In traditional still and motion-picture photography, a filter was a s

Rear View Mirror A telescoping, swiveling inspection mirror is handy for seeing the rear panels of A/V components installed in cabinets or racks. You can use the mirror to reach behind hard-to-access components and see the locations of inputs and outputs. Also, it’s much easier to verify cabl