August 11, 2005

Final Cut Studio

Well, I went out and did the dirty deed -- I purchased Apple’s Final Cut Studio for my PowerMac G5. And, like the giddy geek that I am, I photographed the unveiling so that I could relive the moment over and over again.

First of all, the package itself is impressive. For all of its weight, you’d think that it might contain the entire Windows 2003 Server Resource Kit.

However, when you lift the cover and slip the main box open to its side, you can see that there are embedded Apple goodies.

When I poked the big box in the throat, it puked out two upright containers full of manuals and software.

Which, of course, when turned around and “posed” for the picture, shows no less than eight main manuals and maybe a couple of small starter books. The real beauty is when you throw it all over the floor.

Well, maybe not “throw” per se, but possibly “neatly arrange” as if it is the spoils of a victory over a neighboring enemy (someone swing the incense before the parading prisoners).

This is, without a doubt, the largest package of software I’ve yet encountered. About half of those disks are DVD-ROMs with loads of content for LiveType, Soundtrack Pro and DVD Studio Pro. Just think of the possibilities.

Thank you for indulging me. It’s not every day I get to spend that kind of wad on some “light” reading and several pieces of polycarbonate plastic. Oh yeah, pardon my toes.

Posted by Nathan Dickson at 05:02 PM | Comments (1)

July 25, 2005

iStabilize

My dad shot this with his VHS-C camcorder recently at Rock House, which is a fantastic formation at Hocking Hills in the State of Ohio.

The footage on the left is raw and unmodified, but is cropped to the video "action safe" boundary. The action safe area is what you see on a CRT-based television set in the United States and is typically only about ninety percent of the entire frame.

The footage on the right is also cropped to the action safe zone, but has been stabilized using a piece of software called iStabilize for the Macintosh. This amazing application is available from http://www.iStabilize.de. Unfortunately, this software does not work on Windows-based computers.

Posted by Nathan Dickson at 08:25 PM | Comments (1)