The Palette Gear Controller

I can’t believe I never heard of the Palette when it was in it’s Kickstarter campaign, but this is a fully customizable controller with analogue controls. It has 4 levels of kit from $199-$899mfor a wooden controller,mand you can also get additional buttons, controllers and sliders which are all controllee by the core untit, amd they have programable lcd lights, so you can remember which button is set for what.

This sounds very cool, and I would love to try one out, though the lack of SpeedGrade control makes it certainly not as impressive, though it does work with basically the rest of the suite.

Jonny Elwyn has an awesome review, which goes heavily into the details.

Adobe Creative Cloud blog on the Essential Sound Panel in Audition CC

Durin Gleaves at the Adobe Creative Cloud blog has an awesome article on the new Essential Sound Panel in Adobe Audition for mixing DIalogue, Music, Sound Effects, Ambient or Environmental Audio in easy, but powerful ways. It can even retime or recompose a music clip to match a certain time!

Well worth a read, I am looking forward to trying this out, though wish it was integrated into Premiere so I don’t have to do a separate mix, but could instead have it happen with the timeline (which I already put on different tracks for different mix types).

Adobe has licensed Apple ProRES playback for Wndows

Adobe today announced that they have licensed playback of Apple’s ProRES, so it will be natively supported within Adobe Creative Cloud, without having to use Apple’s Quicktime to do so (since it has been killed for Windows). Now it won’t be able to write out to ProRES (so Window users will need another format), but it will be able to be read, and should be out soon.

They are also adding export support of mov wrapped DNxHD and DNxHR as well as playback of AAC audio and PNG compressed frames, and the native reading and writing of the legacy Animation format.

At least this gives ProRES a lifeline, though it is really too bad that it won’t be able to write it as well, as ProRES is a great format, that looks to be in decline from now on.

I love that Adobe is doing this, but I still can’t wrap my head around Apple’s thoughts on this. Sure it saves them money in development, and in licensing fees, but to have a really pro format it needs to be cross platform!

Honestly with Apple’s history with Pro Products (constantly making them great then killing them), and with the MacPro not being customize-able or upgrade-able at all (and not having been upgraded since it release in 2013), it looks to me like Apple is moving completely out of the high end pro market, and I worry that any of their high end software may not survive either!

Yet again it looks like no SpeedGrade Upgrade in the next version of Creative Cloud

RedShark has a post on the Roadmap for the next version of Creative Cloud for Video to be shown at NAB this year. And the rumors look like once again, no more upgrades for SpeedGrade.

At a press briefing a few weeks ago where we first learned of these upgrades, but of course were not allowed to speak until the official announcement, a journalist questioned Adobe about Speedgrade future development and received a response to the effect of “we’re concentrating on Premiere Pro in this iteration.”

Actually what Adobe is doing with SpeedGrade seems to mirror what Apple did with Shake. Buy it, make it cheaper without changing it much, and integrate some part of it’s tech into it’s other apps, then stop updating it, until they just eventually kill it.

And the unfortunate thing is that SpeedGrade is a really great program, and the fact that a full grade comes back into Premiere Pro as a plug in is so much greater than having to render out each shot in DaVinci. And really the only thing it needs to get better is to let you move windows to a seperate monitor so you can have scopes be as big as you want.

And while it is great to have more SpeedGrade tech in Premiere (and even better to have it carry into After Effects), the simplified Lumetri color panel is so much less powetful than a full grade from SpeedGrade that it is almost useless. And really should have a more advanced version that allows for more powerful grades instead of lightroom like simplified controlls!

Adobe Media Encoder won’t put chapter markers in H264 Video

So this is something that has annoyed me for some time, and has really been annoying me of late, so I have been trying workaround.

So basically the issue is that you can create Chapter Markers in Adobe Premiere Pro in your sequence, which are ostensibly for use in Adobe Encore, but that program stopped with CS6, and after my last hard drive bailed after the El Capitan Update I don’t even have it installed on my current hard drive.

Anyway, back in the day with Final Cut Pro 7 I could export a video with chapter markers and compress an H264 video with chapter markers using compressor. It would make Apple Compatible m4v files instead of a normal mp4 files, but chapter markers would work in most programs and show up on the web in most cases.

Unfortunately Adobe Media Encorder won’t do this, as it only makes straight mp4 files, and since Encore is a dead program, the Chapter Markers in Premiere Pro are pretty much useless.

After much searching, and seeing all the ways people were making chapter markers (most of which are really a pain the ass, and don’t use standard formatting for either the text file, or the timcode), I went back to basically my old way of doing this.

This is to export my video as a ProRES video which includes chapter markers, and then use HandBrake to encode it with Chapter Markers. Now not only this take longer, but also take up more hard drive space, but at least the chapter markers work!

And while m4v is a subset of mp4, it does play in most players including directly in Firefox, though doesn’t show the chapters markers, but at least it plays fine. And I am OK with my chapters only working on Macs, because at least they will show for most people looking at my reel.

Why are there not Ergonomic Editors keyboards?

So I have been an editor for a long time now, and I spend so much time on a computer that at times I get massive Carpal Tunnel attacks. I have figured out solutions, and my main one is to use an ergonomic keyboard. I currently use a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.

In fact I own 2. And I carry one to work with me ,as well as Kensington Expert Trackball as I never really got why you would need a wireless mouse or especially trackball.

 Of course at home I still use my last (my 3rd) Microsoft Trackball Explorer, which they stopped making years ago, and now sells for around $200 on ebay for a used one, and will never be replaced as the best Trackball ever made. No idea what I will do when my current one dies, but that is a bit off topic of this post.

So back on topic, I always use an ergo keyboard, and have an Aeron on home to help with my wrists (as well as some exercises with rubber bands I do when things get bad), but I would love to have an Editing keyboard. Yes I know most of the keyboard shortcuts I use on a regular basis, but there are still some in Premiere I don’t know or think about and would love an a Premiere Pro editing keyboard, but they tend to be the standard Apple keyboards, which are flat and have no key travel (I like my keys to click and loved the old apple clicky keyboard) and they hurt my wrists! WHY OH WHY HAS NO ONE MADE AN ERGONOMIC EDITORS KEYBOARD?

I mean most editors spend way too much time on a computer, so you would think someone would do this! So if anyone is listening an Ergonomic Editors keyboard would be AMAZING! AS would someone copying the Microsoft Trackball Explorer, though unless I someday become a billionaire I doubt either will ever happen! Oh well.

Adobe Upgrades SpeedGrade update, but still not multi-monitor support, SpeedGrade needs an interface upgrade now!

Eric Philpott at Adobe blogs has the info on the latest update. While I am excited for some of the updates, especially LumetrinColor changes in Premiere carrying over to SpeedGrade, overall I am completely dissapointed.

I have really come to love SpeedGrade, and it’s ability to put the grade as filters on clips, but the program needs an interface overhaul! The fact that it is still a single monitor program is unforgivable! You need to be able to move the viewer and scopes to a seperate monitor as you see fit! I want my controls and timeline on one screen and 3 scopes and a viewer on a second monitor (the viewer for doing masks, which you really can’t do on an external video display). 
Sure DaVinci is a more powerful program, but the integration with Premiere and not having to render out your grade is amazing, but Adobe needs to stop porting it’s features into Premiere, and fix it’s interface!