Damien Allen at PVC has released a 2021 Video Workstation Buyer's Guide with both Mac and PC options. As with all PVC Articles well worth a read if you are looking for a new machine this year. The Mac world is really in so much flux with only consumer oriented Apple Silicon M1 chips released so far. Personally I am so looking forward to what pro Apple Silicon will do, but will certainly have to wait for that.
Apple’s new iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro both feature a new Cinematic Mode, which is basically iphone’s portrait mode for video. So the video also has a depth map, and with AI can track faces and even switch faces or do manual rack focus. It is not true depth of field, but fake depth like portrait mode, and it only works in 1080 30p. According to the video you should also be able to focus after the fact, which would be incredible! This will be a very impressive feature, and will enhance video, though won’t be perfect just like portrait mode which enhances but not like a real lens with real depth of fieldh. And hopefully someone will make a plug-in for NLE’s that allows focus after the fact much like the awesome focos app. And let’s hope it can be integrated into Filmic Pro as well, as I find it unlikely to record at non-variable speeds And the extra GPU core of the iPhone Pro and at least 256gb of hard drive space will eventually be getting ProRes recording. Now I am sure that it won’t be ProRes RAW or even ProRes HQ, but instead lite or proxy, but that will beat H.264 or H.265. Of course ProRes is going to wreak havoc on icloud photo storage, and really show how slow lightning cables are. The Pro can also capture in dolby vision hdr up to 4k 60 fps. I think this means that cinematic mode doesn’t include Dolby Vision HDR, but then what computer monitor can play that back for adjusting color? I also wonder if the LiDAR scanner in the Pro will enhance the cinematic mode? I guess they would have said so if it did, though it’s depth map would be better you would think, though maybe it is only for night mode.
FilmEditingPro has an article on how to install LUTs in Adobe Premiere Pro, Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve, Avid Media Encoder, and Final Cut Pro. Again useful for those of who are constantly moving between machines and systems.
DL Cade has a great article on possible new features of the next Apple Silicon MacBook Pro. It is very good read, but a couple of things on graphics really stood out for me. According to several different leaks, the M1X SOC will be available in 16- and 32-core variants that could offer performance on par NVIDIA's GTX 1650 and RTX 3070, respectively, while sipping less than half of the wattage. If these rumors turn out to be true, the M1X will offer the most powerful iGPU experience on the market, offering more than enough power for most GPU-accelerated photo and video editing tasks. However, even if the M1X meets these expectations, we would also love for Apple to bring back support for eGPUs. For now, only Intel-based MacBooks support eGPUs, but according to French publication Mac4ever, M1 Macs can detect eGPUs when they're connected, just don't have the necessary drivers to put them to use. This could simply be a holdover for Intel-based Mac users on Big Sur, or it could be an indication that eGPU support is coming for more "professional-grade" users of Apple Silicon Macs. We sincerely hope it's the latter. Both of these are exciting. The current M1 scared me without it's external GPU support and while that might or might not be coming, the possible performance of the GPU cores is fairly impressive, especially if they really make one with a lot more graphics cores. I still hate the ram being shared, and soldered since it will be so expensive, but if you can get at least 128 GB you will likely be pretty damn powerful. All speculation now though.
FilmEditingPro has a good article on how and where to install Keyboard shortcuts on all the major editing platforms. Most useful for those of us who are constantly on different machines.
Jose Antunes has an article at ProVideoCoalition on the recently released upgrade to LumaFusion for iPad, version 3.0. The update includes stabilization software from CoreMelt, and the ability to use external drives, especially for the new iPad Pro with USB 4.0. It also has a new graphic equalizer. I have actually used LumaFusion as it is the most standard type editing program on iPad, if you can use Premiere or AVID you can easily use LumaFusion. It is well worth it's $29.95 price.
Blackmagic has updated it’s DaVinci Resolve software to 17.3. The big feature is 3x faster with Apple Silicon M1 enabling 8k editing and grading. As well as H.265 encoder enhancements. It also includes the ability to rotate garbage mattes. Another great sounding free update. Can’t wait to give it a try.
Adobe has announced updates to Photoshop iPad and updates to the desktop app. On the iPad this includes the healing brush and magic wand as well as canvas projection if you connect your iPad to an external monitor or TV display via hdmi or USB-C. Photoshop Desktop has updated Sky Replacement with more skies, you can now import 500 skies at once. And updated Transform Warp Bezier Handles. And Photoshop will be releasing it's Photoshop Beta program as of next month. Adobe has also updated Fresco on the iPad with Color Adjustment Layers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TD3_g8YIeU Other World Computing's Rocketyard has a great video and post for setting up an Editing system. Now of course as a company that sells products they are going to recommend their stuff, but since I mostly use their stuff anyway... Still it is a little dated since it recommends and iMac Pro (which is EOLed) and a top of the line Intel iMac will likely be faster anyway.
Scott Simmons at the ProVideoCoalition is reporting that Adobe has End Of Lifed as of September 8th, 2021. The article also talks about that Bridge remains, and there is Lesspain Software's Kyno, or maybe Hedge which was bought by Divergent Media and could be merged with EditReady. Now I hate to see the creative suite having less apps, and I hated when they removed SpeedGrade (and am still hoping for a return as Lumetro Pro), but while I have opened Prelude I can honestly say I have never used it. Honestly I think Prelude should have been upgraded and made free instead of killed. Adobe Premiere could use a full metadata system and they could learn a lesson from Final Cut Pro X and it's metadata super powers. And if they made Prelude free and easy to use anyplace including on iPad and iPhone to be able to metadata footage quickly and easily and pass it to Premiere it would be beyond useful. I am happy that Adobe seems to be really big on new features in Premiere right now, but axing apps from their suite doesn't seem like a good start.