I have finally found a satisfactory replacement for the Microsoft Trackball Explorer and it is the Elecom Deft Pro

So I have been a trackball user all of my life, I have always liked clacky keyboards and trackballs. Mice never made sense to me, and I must specify that I am a finger trackball user, I can’t use thumb trackballs at all.

My trackball of choice for many many years was the Microsoft Trackball Explorer. It has awesome ergonomics and was just a great trackball, but microsoft stopped making them years ago, and the 3 I previously owned just stopped working.

For I while I moved the Kensington Expert Mouse Wired Trackball. I have owned a few and still use one that I carry to work with me. It is a great product, and I actually had of the red plastic beads the ball sits on break and contacted Kensington and they sent me a whole new trackball to replace it. Really great company, but it just doesn’t have the ergonomics of the Trackball Explorer.

A couple of years back I was looking at replacements and found the Japanese company Elecom made finger (and thumb) trackballs and I picked on up, the wired Elecom Deft (I never understood needing a wireless trackball). It had ergonomics much like the trackball explorers and was a decent pointing device, and I replaced my at home Kensigton with it. It is a very good trackball, but not as good as the Trackball Explorer. And it had some faults with Mac, it needs a paid 3rd party driver to really take advantage of it’s features.

Now this never bothered me since Microsoft had stopped it’s trackball explorer drivers long ago and I had moved the the Japanese company Plentycom’s awesome SteerMouse years back.

SteerMouse lets you use all your buttons and program as you want, and has acceleration based cursor control. it is amazing. I own 2 licenses so I can bring it to work with me with my Deft.

The Deft was good, but felt a bit cheap, but then I found the Elecom Deft Pro! And I got the top of the line model, which has wired (it is USB micro, wireless with an adapter that lives inside of it unless needed and bluetooth) which is how I use it. It has 8 buttons and a wheel that scrolls and goes up and down. And it has changeable DPI settings (though since I don’t use it for gaming I have never changed them).

The Deft Pro is amazing, and it is the only trackball I will use form now on! It is awesome! I could not recommend this trackball any more! It is a must!

Red Giant has updated to Universe to 3.3 with 2 new tools 4 updates

 

Red Giant has updated it’s Universe Plugs ins to version 3.3 with 2 new tools and 4 updates plugs ins.

The new Tools are:


  • Quantum: a tool that creates the illusion of an animated light trail in front of or behind a layer. Great for text and motion graphics
  • Modes: a tool that makes it easy to combine layers in entirely new ways using powerful features that go beyond the native blend modes found on your editing timeline.

 And the Updates are:

  • Glow: Now offers Inverse-square glow falloff, multi-pass chromatic aberration and the ability to glow a single color channel.
  • Glimmer: This update gives you 6 mono or bi-directional glow streaks with variable intensity and color mapping, an animatable shimmer, variable rotation control, and Color maps aligned with Trapcode’s Starglow.
  • Chromatic Aberration: This tool now includes control over the focus area, the ability to split the aberration into multiple passes, and chromatic rotation.
  • Hacker Text: The addition of customizable random characters and the ability to auto-animate the encryption and decryption.

 

 Always excited for new Universe tools as I have a lifetime on them, and they are always very fast with GPU support.

Have to play with Modes, though Modes themselves exist in Premiere, so it will be much more amazing in AVID which doesn’t have layer modes for compositing.

Does anyone else lament the loss of Red Giant’s Keying suite from the VFX suite?

 

Now it isn’t like I don’t love the Red Giant VFX suite, but I have been a Red Giant user for many years, and I miss all the tools of the Keying Suite. 
Now I am not complaining about Primatte Keyer 6 which is included in the Red Giant VFX Suite. It is very powerful and easy to use, though since Primatte 5 doesn’t really seem to work with 2020 or Beta it had better be good, but I do miss all off the ancillary plugs ins of the Keying suite, and I do know that many of the effects have been incorporated in SUPERCOMP, but I want all the controls of the individual plug-ins again.
I will admit that I am using keyers in a different method than most, as Primatte works great for a standard green screen (which I am using as well), and I find it vastly superior to the build in Keylight. The thing is I am doing puppeteering and using a green glove to puppet a teddy bear, so instead of just the green, I want to expand the green beyond the glove, instead of objects inside the green screen. And yes I can do that with rotoscoping, but that kind of negates using a green glove as I have to animate every frame.
And I have to admit I had an easier job doing that when I had the tools all in separate plug ins. I miss the key correct plugs in. I miss seperate versions of Alpha Cleaner, Light Wrap (which I know is in SUPERCOMP), Matte Feather, Smooth Screen, Spill Killer (I know this is in Primmate 6) and Wire/Rig Remover, which is more what I am trying to do. And yes I still have the old plugins, but they really don’t work in After Effects 2020.
Now I know I am using the plug ins out of their comfort zone, but using the separate plug ins I was much better able to do what I wanted to, and with Primatte 6 only having some of the plug ins integrated I am not as happy with what I can do.
And that is beyond the whole SUPERCOMP not working with Motion Blur thing which really needs to be fixed.

Apple’s policies that block Microsoft’s XCloud and Google Stadia make no sense, as they allow video services to do exactly what they are blocking

 So it has been all over the news that Microsoft has stopped development of it’s Xcloud gaming service for iOS because of Apple’s store policies, so it is only coming out for Android. And the same is true for Google’s Stadia service and it is a ridiculous policy, especially becaue exactly what they are blocking for games is what Video Apps do with content.

Apple is saying they only allow games owned by the developer and specifically allowed by Apple, so for a service that runs games on it’s own servers and gives you a video stream on your mobile device so you can play from anywhere. This is completely ridiculous because it isn’t like Apple approves every show on any of the streaming services it allows, so why does it require it for games?

Sure it is in the App store rules, but it is arbitrary because it only applies to gaming apps. And it is even like these games would compete with Apple Arcade because they are a whole different category of games.

This isn’t protecting consumers from anything, it is actively harming consumers for some dumb reason that I can’t even fathom.

Apple updated the iMac today and made the lowest iMac Pro 10 core, are these the last Intel Macs?

Apple upgraded the iMac today with new processors, all SSD (say goodbye to Fusion drives), up to 10 core 10th generation intel processors, AMD 5000 series graphics cards, and the option to have a matte finish for $500. They also got rid of the 8 core iMac Pro, making the bottom model 10 cores, to match the cores of the new top 5K. Still look the same, a new look will wait for Apple Silicon.

Tim Cook mentioned that they still had Intel machines in the works. Is this the last Intel machine before Apple Silicon arrives? It seems likely unless there is one more laptop processor upgrade, but it seems unlikely.

Roto Brush 2 in the After Effects Beta is a vast improvement

So I have been using Roto Brush for years in After Effects. It was a tool that worked with a lot of user input, but it was so incredibly slow. And honestly with footage getting larger I think it had actually gotten slower, but Adobe has finally been working on an upgrade that is available in the current Beta.

Roto Brush 2 stills needs user input and it doesn’t do well with a lot of motion blur, but it is so much faster! It used to take sometimes minutes to calculate a single frame, and now in minutes it can calculate a whole clip.

I am not sure how much better of a roto that it does than the old version, but the speed in which it works means you can make changes and even work frame by frame, and work quickly enough to do a basic roto very quickly.

I am so glad for the public betas and them letting us use unreleased features.

I missed this, the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K Data rates are insane!

Ok so I missed this first looking at the URSA Mini Pro 12k, but they have listed the data rates for it’s video settings in the tech specs and they look great!

Storage Rates

Storage rates based on 24 frames per second.

12K – 12,288 x 6480
Blackmagic RAW 5:1 – 578 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 8:1 – 361 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 12:1 – 241 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 18:1 – 160 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW Q0 – 241 to 578 MB/s 1
Blackmagic RAW Q1 – 144 to 361 MB/s 2
Blackmagic RAW Q3 – 96 to 241 MB/s 3
Blackmagic RAW Q5 – 72 to 180 MB/s 4

8K – 8192 x 4320
Blackmagic RAW 5:1 – 258 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 8:1 – 161 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 12:1 – 107 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 18:1 – 72 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW Q0 – 107 to 258 MB/s 1
Blackmagic RAW Q1 – 64 to 161 MB/s 2
Blackmagic RAW Q3 – 43 to 107 MB/s 3
Blackmagic RAW Q5 – 32 to 81 MB/s 4

6K – 6144 x 3240
Blackmagic RAW 5:1 – 145 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 8:1 – 91 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 12:1 – 61 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 18:1 – 40 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW Q0 – 61 to 145 MB/s 1
Blackmagic RAW Q1 – 36 to 91 MB/s 2
Blackmagic RAW Q3 – 24 to 61 MB/s 3
Blackmagic RAW Q5 – 18 to 45 MB/s 4

4K – 4096 x 2160
Blackmagic RAW 5:1 – 65 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 8:1 – 41 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 12:1 – 27 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW 18:1 – 18 MB/s
Blackmagic RAW Q0 – 27 to 65 MB/s 1
Blackmagic RAW Q1 – 16 to 41 MB/s 2
Blackmagic RAW Q3 – 11 to 27 MB/s 3
Blackmagic RAW Q5 – 8 to 20 MB/s 4

Recording Formats

Blackmagic RAW Q0, Q1, Q3, Q5, 5:1, 8:1, 12:1 and 18:1 at 12,288 x 6480, 11,520 x 6480, 12,288 x 5112, 7680 x 6408, 8192 x 4320, 7680 x 4320, 8192 x 3408, 5120 x 4272, 6144 x 3240, 4096 x 2160, 3840 x 2160, 4096 x 1704 and 2560 x 2136 stored as 12 bit non-linear with film, extended video, video or custom 3D LUT embedded in metadata.

1 Constant Quality setting Q0 storage rates quoted are indicative only, based on a 5:1 – 12:1 compression range.
2 Constant Quality setting Q1 storage rates quoted are indicative only, based on a 8:1 – 20:1 compression range.
3 Constant Quality setting Q3 storage rates quoted are indicative only, based on a 12:1 – 30:1 compression range.
4 Constant Quality setting Q5 storage rates quoted are indicative only, based on a 16:1 – 40:1 compression range.
Actual storage rates are entirely dependent on image subject matter.

These data rates are insanely low, wow! Honestly this blows the Canon R5 and R6 out of the water. Wow, will this move down to the BMPCC? Lets hope so!

BlackMagic updates the Ursa Mini Pro to 12K and improves BlackMagic RAW to deal with it

Wow, so BlackMagic has done it again and instead of going full throttle with 8K like Canon, has jumped right to 12K for $9.999 with the new 12K Ursa Mini Pro! And with a full 35mm sensor that has no pixel binning and can supposedly do different resolutions with the full sensor. Wow, will have to see it, but if so that is really impressive. And they showed playback with BlackMagic RAW 12K on an Apple Macbook, and they said that Metal is in fact ahead of windows right now.

I have to admit I was hoping for a full frame BPCC 6K or 8K, but this is a very impressive high end camera. Wonder what it is going to do for high end cinema.

NBC/Universal’s new streaming service Peacock has launched, and it claims to be free, free, free, free, but it really isn’t

So NBC/Universal launched it’s much vaunted Peacock streaming service last night and I took a look at what is available.

And yes there is free content with commercials, but all their original shows and even shows like Cheers only allow you to watch one episode for free before you have to pay for their premium content starting at $4.99 a month with commercials.

What first struck me was it’s dearth of content. Each category that came up seemed awful short and so many of the shows repeat again and again.

And how much of the content is paid. And I wouldn’t mind that since some is free if it with adds, but it the campaigns that said Free, free, free, free, free, free, free, free which makes me question it more. It actually makes me think they are going to get sued for saying it was all free!

As for the content, this to me is just like CBS all access, if there is something I will watch I will pay for a month, and if not I won’t care a lick about it. Maybe once the new Battlestar Galactica comes out, but really I would be happier with a continuation of the original instead of the reboot.

Jean-Louis Gassée on Apple Silicon and the passing of Wintel

Jean-Louis Gassee formerly of Apple and also fo BeOS has an article on the new Apple Silicon and how it could be the death knell for Wintel, the powerful combination of Intel hardware and Windows.

His take is that since ARM is in fact a more efficient processor and if Apple manages to push the hardware and software to be faster than Wintel (which is could be since it is RISC instead of CISC) it will push Microsoft to really get behind it’s ARM version of Windows that it has been playing with and releasing, but without enough support. And that will push Intel to have to get back into ARM processor development or break the WINTEL partnerdship.

Let’s hope Apple Silicon is eventually that much more powerful and faster and more efficient than anything Intel comes out with, because with Apple writing the software it will mean a sea chance, and for once it would be awesome for Apple to be faster than WINTEL, but pushing Microsoft to ARM I hadn’t even thought about as the fact that Microsoft haven’t even made versions of all their software for their arm hardware, and yet they are working on it for Apple Silicon.