Monitor what’s filling your mac hard drives with WhatSize or DaisyDisk

As an editor at some point you are going to fill your hard drives, and before they get too full you are going to want to clear up some space and to do that you need to see exactly what is filling them up. To do that I have 2 really good paid utilities that you can use to see exactly what is taking up so much space on your mac. These are WhatSize and DaisyDisk.

Now I have been using and continue to use WhatSize as my primary, mainly because I prefer it’s interface. It is more expensive at $14.99, but it has a 30 day trial and works on Big Sur just fine.

Why do iOS mobile sync’s take up so much damn space?

And it also includes a graph form interface if that is your thing, though I prefer the lists view which I find makes much more sense.

DaisyDisk on the other hand is all built along it’s graph view, which is very pretty, but I do find it much harder to use than the column view of WhatSize.

It is very pretty, but column view just makes more sense to my mind.

As an added bonus it also works on M1 Macs already.

Both programs take a bit of time to scan a disk and then give you the results. As I have said I prefer WhatSize, but that is entirely your decision and you can try them both out before you buy, so…

Either way being able to delve into your files and find out what is taking up so much space on your hard drives in a quick and easy way is tool every editor and graphics artist should have in their tool belt.

9to5Mac commentary on Apple’s Inflexibility on flexible working hours

Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac has a great article Comment: Apple’s inflexibility on flexible working seems likely to backfire, is really worth a read. I don’t see this as just applying to Apple but to the entertainment industry as well.

As an editor sure some interaction is great at times, but for the most part I am in a dark room by myself and I am so much more comfortable at home, and even better not having to drive. And I can work on my own computer which is set up exactly like I want. Now certainly there should be some discussion about equipment rentals since we won’t be in the office using their gear or bay (or need to have as many editing bays).

And yes there is something to be said for live screenings, but I really do want to setup a remote workflow so like the one Sofi Marshall talked about and I posted about.  Often times just screening for someone will make me as an editor see stuff that I need to fix, and I think doing a remote session would solve this in most cases.

Sure sometimes editors will need to screen in person, but with Covid-19 and mask mandates returning to Los Angeles on Saturday I don’t want to be in an office even fully vaccinated. And with me having had open heart surgery, I seem to catch everything I come in contact with.

 

Chadwick Shoults and his creative video tips, 10 Mind Blowing Tips to Edit Faster in DaVinci Resolve is a must view

I stumbled across this video and was literally blown away. Great tips, and a must listen.

And you can check out his site Creative Video Tips, and his tutorials are awesome, you can also see his videos directly on YouTube. Well worth the time to check out if you use DaVinci regularly.

Hackaday is reporting that the last Analogue broadcast station of NTSC video ended on July 13th, 2021, now if we could just get rid of SD

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Jenny List at Hackaday has a report on the fact that the last remaining analogue ntsc transmitters have finally gone off the air. So now it is all broadcast digitally.

It is just too bad we can’t get rid of Standard Definition video all together, and raise the bit rate of HD Cable signals to make it look better. It is so compressed it looks terrible right now. As  someone who cuts commercials and direct response I would also love to to see it go so I could stop doing 4:3 Centercut graphics on a 16:9 image for the SD broadcast.

AppleInsider on how to batch rename files in the Apple Finder

You learn something new every day, I didn’t actually realize that this was now built into the Mac OS, as I have always used A Better Finder Rename (and awesome app with more power than this, but it costs $22.95 unlike this tip but if you do check it out also check out A Better Finder Attribute it’s companion app).

So check out this article by Macolm Owen at AppleInsider.

Every editor will need to batch rename files at some point, and the fact that it is so easy to do in the finder now is an amazing thing.

Woohoo, the negative press worked, Engadget is reporting that Apple has returned the tab bar to Safari in the latest macOS Monterey Beta

Cherry Lynn Low at Engadget is reporting on the latest Beta of macOS Monterey which returns the tab bar to Safari.

And it is on by default, though you can return to the new method if you want to (but why would you). She is also reporting that the tab bar will make a return on iPad OS 15 in a future beta.

I had posted about this and was using it in Safari Technology Preview in Big Sur. A new version hasn’t been released, but I will take a look at it once it comes out, to see if it is improved. Now if only Apple would add the option of tree style tabs, ha one can only dream.

Knights of the Editing Table has updated Excalibur to 1.1.3 with ability to mark clip, control track targeting and select all disabled clips

Knights of the Editing Table have updated their awesome keyboard launcher Excaliubur for Adobe Premiere Pro to 1.1.3.

Here is the Change Log for this app that you will quickly find to be indispensable. For current users you download the update from the Excalibur settings app within Premiere Pro.

NEW

Sequence module:
– Add Marker to Clip
– Target Video/Audio Tracks
– Mute Video/Audio Tracks
– Lock Video/Audio Tracks
– Sync Lock Video/Audio Tracks

Selection module:
– Select Clip Above/Below
– Extend Selection
– Select All Clips after/before Playhead
– Invert Selection
– Select All Disabled Clips

Preferences module:
– Display Color Management
– Snap playhead in Timeline
– Selection Follows Playhead
– Linked Selection
– Transparency Grid
– Show Rulers
– Show Guides
– Snap in Program Monitor

Other:
– Multiply, divide, percent operations are added for Position/Scale/Rotation and etc
– Excalibur Settings could be open from a search bar

FIXED

– “Copy Frame to Clipboard” didn’t work on some macOS machines
– “Export Media/Selected Clips” in a search bar used project location as an export path. Now it defaults to Premeire Pro last used export path (which could be controlled with Compass)
– Unnecessary undo step was performed for Duration/Speed command if duration/speed couldn’t be changed or was the same for an affected clip
– Effect presets that used “Vector Motion” (part of Essential Graphics) added additional “Vector Motion” effect instead of changing values of an existing one
– Optimized “Nest Clips” command
– Optimized “Paste Clip on Same track” command
– Optimized preloading of a search bar
– Enter pressed multiple times in a search bar caused Excalibur to execute command multiple times

—–

This app really is amazing and will guaranteed speed you up within Premiere. My biggest problem is working on other machines where it is not installed! Honestly I might be buying multiple licenses when I eventually have to go back to working in an office instead of working from home.

Why is it so hard to find Lossless and Spatial Audio on Apple Music?

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of Apple’s addition of Lossless music up to 24bit 192hz and Spatial Audio (a new Dolby Audio suround mix for stereo headphones, here with Apple’s proprietary chip), but my big problem is finding what music is available. Sure there are Spatial Audio playlists, but no Lossless Playlists but I would like to be able to search by album and spatial or lossless to find music to listen to.

And yes I know most people can’t hear the difference with Lossless, but if it is mixed well I have an Emotiva XDA-1 DAC a good headphone amp and nice headphones, so it does sound pretty damn good.

And I have been impressive with Spatial Audio, at least well mixed spatial audio and my PowerBeats Pro headphones. It does sound pretty damn impressive for bluetooth headphones, much like Dolby on my headphones on my XBOX. Pretty impressive when mixed well.

And there lies the problem, make it easier to search for Apple! I know they are all for simplicity, but simplicity at the cost of functionality is not worth it.

In Apple Mail if I sort by Newest at bottom, why does it have to scroll to the top every time I open the app?

I know this is a weird little thing, but it always bothers me. I sort my mail so that the newest is at the bottom (this was the default for Eudora which I used for many many years as my default mail program). Now Apple Mail if I sort so that the oldest is at the top, every time I open it it scrolls so that the I am seeing the oldest first. Just because I want my newest mail at the bottom of the list doesn’t mean I want to see my oldest e-mail in my inbox every time I open the app!

I know I should switch to newest at the top then, but I hate being told how to do things, and should be able to chose. Honestly it is a lot of why I don’t like Final Cut Pro X, it is a program that forces you to do everything one way, as chosen by an engineer and not an editor. I like when there are many ways to do something as in Premier Pro and AVID. Don’t tell me that the way I do something is wrong, put in many ways to do something and let me chose which way works for me, but especially don’t leave a way in but handicap it!

End of rant.

Blackmagic RAW and ProRES RAW compared in video by Sherif Mokbel and article by Jakub Han at CineD

I learned about this excellent video from an article by Jakub Han at CineD, which goes into the differences between the 2 formats.

It is well worth checking out the differences. And it seems that ProRes RAW does seem better, but it doesn’t work in DaVinci Resolve, and BRAW works better in DaVinci Resolve. So it depends on how you are finishing, and I would assume ProRES RAW works better in Final Cut Pro X.