Lightworks has released a Mac Beta of it’s free editing software!



Lightworks the open source editing software with a venerable history has now released a public beta of the Mac version of the software. It is version 12.0.a

Lightworks is free, though to get the Pro version, it is either $7.99 a month, $79.99 a year or you can buy it outwirght for $279.99. And for serious editing you will want this, since not only does it include other export optins, but it allows you to use Hardware I/O from BlackMagic, AJA or Matrox. It also allows project sharing and the ability to set project locations.

I have never tried lightworks, but need to give it a try. It certainly betrays it’s feature editing roots in that it can only work with one frame rate for the whole project. So if you need to import footage of a different frame rate you will need to convert it first.

Lightworks includes a lot of videos on their web site to get to know the program and learn how to use it.

A free or at least inexpensive cross platform editor is a great thing, but I need to play before I see how it actually is.

Looks like a Bluetooth LE Adapter will not enable handoff in older Macs

MacRumors is reporting that Bluetooth LE Adapters do not add Handoff support to older Macs.

If this happens in the final release (which seems likely) it is really shitty of Apple, and just a way of trying to get users who want the feature to buy new Macs.

Especially annoying when something like the IOGEAR Bluetooth 4.0 USB Micro Adapter adds full Bluetooth LE support out of the box without software. So it looks like it is a physical lockout on the part of Apple on older machines instead of a technical issue.

Hopefully if it is the case someone will release a 3rd party hack that enables this very cool feature.

StudioDaily has a first look at the new Adobe Creative Cloud Video Suite Features

StudioDaily has a great first look at the new features being released with the latest Creative Cloud release.

Effects Masking and Tracking within Premiere Pro sounds like an awesome addition, as are Master Clip effects, which will make color correction a breeze.

As for SpeedGrade the direct link to Premiere Pro feature where you actually open your timeline in SpeedGrade would seem to answer about half of my issues with SpeedGrade. Now they just need to get some curves going in there.

The ability to apply filters per mask in a layer will greatly speed up effects, and simplify timelines. And the Live templates features is very very cool. Where you can set text lines in After Effects to be editable by an editor within Premiere to quickly make lower thirds and the like based on a graphical template.

All in all it sounds great, and I hope the download is available soon!

What Machines will OS X Yosemite’s Handoff work on?

Macgasm has a chart, and it shows may users won’t be happy.

Handoff is the very cool new feature where with OS X Yosemite, you will be able to hand off things from iOS to your Mac, such as composing an e-mail or looking at a web page. And even answer phone calls from your cell phone via your mac and it’s microphones.

That’s a no for non 2013 MacPro’s. Hopefully a 3rd Party bluetooth 4.9 adapter will solve that (or some 3rd party software), as it shouldn’t matter if it is built in or via a 3rd party adapter. Or at least we can hope!

LaunchBar 6 has been released by Objective Development

Objective Development has updated their awesome all purpose launch for Mac OS X to version 6. This is an awesome program that allows you to launch applications or documents using keyboard shortcuts, but is smart and learns your shortcuts so you can quickly launch apps or do things on the computer with a few simple keystrokes. And you can do custom keyboard shortcuts for different thing, even launching an e-mail addressed to a specific person. It is $29 for a single user or $48 for a 5 user Family License.

The new version adds a new interface and themes, and is now extensible. You can do live searches of Google, Wikipedia, DuckDuckGo or dict.cc. It adds information browsing to items by hitting shift and the right arrow.

Personally I have replaced the command-space spotlight search with Launchbar (moving spotlight to ctr-space), and can hit a few simple keys to launch apps. Such as command-space ap to launch adobe photoshop. or command space apr to launch adobe premiere. It is an amazingly fast and versatile app.

Honestly it has so many features that I don’t even know, but is worth it just for it’s launching features. It will speed up your computer usage so much. Honestly I miss it whenever I am on a clients computer as it really speeds everything up. This is the power user app that you should really check out.

Got a new Puppy, Indiana Bones, so I may be posting less for a while, as she requires a lot of attention!

She is such a little cutie, but requires a lot of attention! She is a good girl though, and just too cute!

I grew up with a Shar Pei, Jabba the Mutt, so I had to get another one. Love that she came potty trained (or as the advertisement said Party Trained), but sure hope she starts learning other stuff soon! Come on Monk puppy training do your magic!

XtraFinder for OS X

XtraFinder

I recently discovered Tran Ky Nam’s XtraFinder for OS X.

It is a program that adds extra abilities to the OS X finder. It is intended to add tabs and control tabs within the finder, but since this has been added to Mavericks, it still has many other cool features.

Some of my favorites are recoloring the Finder Sidebar Icons, which I think makes them much easier to see.

ColoredSidebar

Another really cool feature is adding back the full colored label to labels in OS X. Mavericks had changed this behavior to tags, so that there is only a tiny colored dot, but you can turn back on full colored tags which I think makes them much easier to spot.

FinderLabels

You can also add items to finder menus:

AddItemsToFinderMenus

Here is show hidden items:

ShowHiddenItems

And the ability to launch an application as root!

LaunchAsRoot

Overall a very cool finder extension, especially for the power user!

The Verge on the 22 most important things Apple Announced at the WWDC

The Verge has an excellent look at the 22 biggest things Apple announced at this years World Wide Developer Conference for OS 10.10 and iOS 8.

Still I was surprised not to see any big new product announcement. Not that what they announced wasn’t cool, but a big new product announcement would certainly have driven up Apple’s stock prices. Be it the iWatch, some home automation device, a new Apple TV with apps, or a MacPro with real expansion and NVIDIA graphics cards (HA, never happen, but one can dream). Something would have been great, and it will continue the talk that Tim Cook can’t innovate until something new does get announced.

Still new features do sound great, especially extensibility in iOS. Lets hope that we can now set other apps as defaults, like you will be able to with 3rd party keyboards!

NVIDIA GTX Titan Z released

So NVIDIA’s new flagship GeForce GTX Titan Z has been released, and as I have said before it is a beast! A dual Titan Card with 5760 CUDA cores! Damn I want to see how this would run on Premiere Pro. Probably only be able to use One Core for now, but if you could use the other to run your monitors, that would rock! Still $3000, youch!

Makes me want to build a PC for my next editing machine. Still can’t believe the new MacPro’s make me want a PC!