NetBlender Event in NYC

June 29th, 2009 at 11:43am
NetBlender is offering a demo of their software in New York City if anyone is interested. Here is a description of the event they sent me:
The cost and complexity of getting HD material from its source tape format to a Blu-ray compliant file can present a hurdle for many independent post production facilities.

NetBlender and DuArt are partnering to help post facilities in New York City with this challenge.  With this partnership, you can “sneakernet” your tapes to DuArt for turnkey Blu-ray encoding and QC services and pick up your encoded assets with the confidence that the encodes are high quality and 100% Blu-ray compliant, ready for authoring in NetBlender’s DoStudio BD Authoring Edition (DSA)

NetBlender customers will receive a discount on DuArt’s Blu-ray capture and encode services.

Event takes place Tuesday, July 7 from 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm at DuArt’s Manhattan office (245 West 55th Street) - Box Lunch will be provided

Visit this page for details and to register

Current Titles Updated

June 24th, 2009 at 11:20am

I went through and added a bunch of titles I’ve worked on to the Current Titles page. You can check them out here if interested.

A Really Goode Job

June 16th, 2009 at 9:41am

I normally don’t do things like this, but a friend of mine is applying for a job at a winery called Murphy-Goode. It’s a social media position, so it involves Twittering, Facebooking, blogging, YouTubing, stuff like that. He has to get a bunch of votes on a short 1 minute video he made.

He played a big role in me getting into web design and video editing, so I kind of owe him one. So if you have a free minute, watch it and vote. Or watch it and don’t vote. Or don’t watch it and vote. Or don’t do anything.

Anyways, here’s his video.

And you can vote for him here.

Thanks! Sorry, no Blu-ray news lately, except this.

By the way, anyone have trouble with the digital switch? I lost Fox and had to repoint my antenna, but that was it.

Scenarist Releases BD 5.1

June 4th, 2009 at 9:52am

Sonic just sent out the email, 5.1 is ready to download from their support site. They’ve added a bunch of interesting features to Designer 2.6, which are now supported in BD 5.1 which make authoring easier. Essentially, you can start authoring from the Photoshop phase. We haven’t done much with it because I like to leave the authoring to the authors, but it seems like an interesting idea. I could see implementing a lot of that into the HDMV Flash Viewer to add more control and options for client approvals.

Here’s what else is new:

  • Scenarist Designer Workflow Enhancements - It’s now quicker and easier to import and update Scenarist Designer files into your Scenarist BD projects. New features include the ability to add a new page to an existing Interactive Graphic (IG) as well as the option of updating a single page at a time - both big time savers that increase your production efficiency.
  • Scenarist Designer PS 2.6 Support - Version 5.1 features full support for the range of new features available in Scenarist Designer PS 2.6. Please see the Scenarist Designer PS 2.6 Release Announcement and Release Notes for more information.
  • Windows® Vista® and Windows XP 64-bit Support - Version 5.1 supports the latest Microsoft® operating systems: Windows XP and Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit).
  • Stream Editor Workflow Enhancements - Creating and updating streams has never been easier. Version 5.1 features the following enhancements to Scenarist BD’s Stream Editor:
    • Drag-and-drop to simultaneously create multiple Clips, PlayLists, and Subpaths
    • PlayItems are automatically named after the clip that was used to create them
    • Assets can be replaced without deleting and re-creating PlayItems
    • Stream trimming is now maintained when assets are replaced
  • Button and Button Object Group (BOG) Management Improvements - Version 5.1 can set button auto-action and sound property values for multiple buttons at once. It is also possible to re-order buttons and BOGs via drag-and-drop.
  • New STN Table Editor - Version 5.1 provides you with complete control over the stream ordering in your Scenarist BD projects. Scenarist BD’s new STN Table Editor enables you to re-order streams at the PlayList and PlayItem level, providing maximum flexibility and the kind of direct spec-level access Scenarist users rely on to create innovative first-of-kind entertainment.
  • Rimage Server Integration - Version 5.1 features integrated support for the Rimage range of publishing systems so you can send completed projects directly to any Rimage server, across the network, for seamless burning and publishing to BD.
  • Rimage Print Label Support - Print labels using your Rimage publishing system directly from Scenarist BD. Users can simply specify a PDF that is printed directly on to discs burned using a Rimage publisher.
  • Seamless Studio to Professional Upgrade - Scenarist BD Studio users can now upgrade to Scenarist BD Professional by simply entering an updated Activator Code - making upgrading effortless and ensuring zero down time.

DVDAfterEdit Releases BluStreak Premaster

April 27th, 2009 at 3:55pm

DVDAfterEdit has released their premastering application for the Mac called BluStreak Premaster. I’ve played around with it a little bit and it’s a nice little program. They describe the app as:

“BluStreak Premaster is a Macintosh application that creates the premastering folders and files required for replicating Blu-ray discs with mandatory AACS encryption. The output from any Blu-ray authoring application, on any platform, can be used as input.”

You can find out more at their site here: http://blustreak.dvdafteredit.com/product/blustreak-premaster

Blu-ray Tutorial 11: In and Out Effects

April 26th, 2009 at 6:38pm

I got this tutorial from bluewin.ch about in and out effects. I’ve been meaning to post a tutorial on this but never got around to it, so this is kind of nice of him to do this for us. I think it does a good job of showing how the effects work.

Read the rest of this entry »

NAB 2009 Update

April 26th, 2009 at 6:30pm

This is a tad late, so I apologize.

All in all, I felt NAB was pretty disappointing. As far as Blu-ray news goes, Sonic wasn’t there and I didn’t make it to the NetBlender hotel so I can’t comment on what happened there. Sony had their BluCode encoder, which looked interesting and they had their Ensequence reps talking about On-q (which added BDLive functionality, but other than that had nothing new). And Apple of course was completely quiet.

Non Blu-ray news I found interesting was Adobe’s choice to add Flash to set top players. When I first got into Blu-ray stuff I thought it would have been awesome to just use Flash as the interface so this is pretty cool, but a little late. I think it will be interesting to see if TiVo and others will pick up this technology and see what they come up with. They also announced something like 75% of computer users have downloaded Flash 10 in the 5 months it’s been out. That’s an amazing accomplishment for the Adobe team. Aja came out with the Ki Pro, which is a video capture device for HD cameras that records in Apple’s ProRes codec. It’s pretty cool.

That’s pretty much it. Sorry it’s a bit disappointing. It was obvious 2009 was not the year of Blu-ray for NAB.

NAB 2009

April 19th, 2009 at 10:46am

NAB starts tomorrow in Vegas, is anyone planning on going? I’m driving up Tuesday afternoon and will be at the show Wednesday and Thursday.

Hopefully we’ll see some nice Blu-ray products.

Sonic Releases Designer 2.6

March 31st, 2009 at 2:24pm

Sonic has come out with a new version of Designer. Here’s what they say is new:

What’s new in Scenarist Designer PS 2.6?

  • Faster Export Processing - Exporting your designs is now faster than ever. Version 2.6 saves huge amounts of time by enabling users to choose their export format(s) before they optimize their designs. For example, users designing 24-bit BD-J graphics no longer have to wait for palette optimization and dithering to complete before they can export.
  • Streamlined Dithering and Palette Set-up Controls - Tired of waiting for the preview window to load before making dithering or palette changes? The wait is over! Version 2.6’s new start-up dialog enables users to load a previously saved palette or carry out per-page or global palette optimization. The dithering algorithm and percentage can also be set in the start-up dialog so your design is optimized the way you want it from the very beginning.
  • New Photoshop® Scripts - Version 2.6 includes three all-new productivity scripts designed to help you create Designer PSDs faster. These scripts dramatically decrease the amount of time taken to flatten layers and automatically build Interactive Graphic (IG) and Presentation Graphic (PG) structures.
  • Adobe® Photoshop CS4 Support - Version 2.6 supports the latest version of Adobe Photoshop - CS4 - so you can create menu designs that benefit from the very latest Photoshop technology.
  • Windows® XP/Vista 64-bit Support - Version 2.6 includes a 64-bit plug-in for use with Photoshop CS4 64-bit Edition (Windows XP-64 and Vista-64 only).
  • New “Layer Options” Feature - Save time and start authoring at the same time as designing. Version 2.6’s new Layer Options feature lets you specify Button and Button Object Group (BOG) attributes as well as author simple navigation commands within Photoshop. Simply select a Button or BOG and run the “Set Layer Options” Script to start authoring button functionality (Note: Scenarist BD 5.1, available soon, is required to take advantage of this feature).
  • Scenarist BD 5.1 Support - Scenarist Designer PS 2.6 takes full advantage of the latest efficiency enhancements available in Scenarist BD Professional 5.1 including the ability to update and add Pages to existing Interactive Graphics. Please see the Scenarist BD 5.1 beta release announcement for details (Scenarist BD 5.1 beta is currently exclusively available to Scenarist BD Professional users with SonicCare coverage).
  • Smart Layer Groups - Got a group of layers you don’t want to export? Simply drop them into a Group prefixed with “I:” and Scenarist Designer PS will ignore them. Similarly if you label a layer in a Button Group “B:”, and don’t give it a Designer prefix, it will also be ignored when you export your design.
  • “Trim to Layer Set” Feature - A new feature that lets you crop and export multiple layers to a size equivalent to the bounding rectangle of the group, making the alignment of images during authoring much faster and easier.

NetBlender at NAB 2009

March 24th, 2009 at 8:52pm

NetBlender has announced a few free seminars at NAB this year including:

  • Blu-ray Disc Demystified - presented by Chris Armbrust
  • Making Sense of AACS and Blu-ray Replication presented by Bruce Nazarian
  • Understanding Audio for Blu-ray presented by DTS

You can register for them on their website here.

Sofatronic Kaleidoscope Workshop in London

February 27th, 2009 at 11:41am

sofatronic

I’d love to go to this, but once again wouldn’t be able to. Sofatronic is having a workshop in London on March 19th. Here’s a list of what’s included for the day:

09.00h Breakfast - Meet and greet
09.20h Opening - Short introduction, schedule (sofatronic)
09.30h Keynote - How’s Blu-ray doing today? (Screen Digest)
10.00h Technical Introduction to Kaleidoscope -
(BD-J, GUI, integration into workflow) (sofatronic)
11.30h Plugin Module Architecture -
How they work with Kaleidoscope (sofatronic)
12.30h QC - How to make sure the discs works (BluFocus tbc)
13.15h Lunch break
14.00h Live Modules -
How to integrate BD-Live in Kaleidoscope (sofatronic)
15.30h Coffee break
15.45h CDNs - Delivering digital content (Akamai)
16.30h Introducing the Kaleidoscope-Live CMS portal (sofatronic)
18.00h End of workshop -
19.00h Networking Dinner -
Our invitiation for some decent food and chit-chat
with other participants and our panel of speakers

You can find out more here.

DoStudio 1.7 Released

February 27th, 2009 at 11:35am

NetBlender DoStudio

NetBlender has released version 1.7 of DoStudio. New features include BD-50 discs and Managed Copy. They’ve also announced that they’ve shipped over 200 titles. Pretty impressive. Check it out here.

Sonic Releases Scenarist 5.0.2

February 25th, 2009 at 10:00am

Sonic has released a new version of their software. Here is a list of what’s new:

  • Multi-angle Clip Handling - Version 5.0.2 features full support for the use of multi-angle Clips in multiple PlayItems.
  • PlayItem Seamless Connection Limit Enhancements - It is now possible to seamlessly connect an unlimited number of PlayItems to Arrival Time Clock (ATC) delta entries.
  • Clip Info Arrival Time Clock (ATC) Delta Limit - The number of ATC delta entries is constrained to the spec maximum of 16 per Clip instead of 16 per project.
  • BD-J Object Parameter Handling - Version 5.0.2 supports BD-J Objects with a “number_of_parameter_bytes” value of zero.
  • Binding Unit Data Area (BUDA) Clip Support - Version 5.0.2 maintains the location (on BUDA or on Disc) of all Clips in projects created in version 4.5.3.
  • Title Key Generation - Version 5.0.2 consistently creates AACS files that reference the correct number of titles when a project is created using non-sequential Title ID’s.
  • Version 4.5.3 Project Compatibility - It is now possible to open projects created in Scenarist BD version 4.5.3, including those that contain an ‘online.crl’ file.

BDN (Scenarist) to DoST (DoStudio) Subtitle Converter

February 2nd, 2009 at 5:12pm

Scott from 22 Grey Street made a nice little web app that will convert your Scenarist subtitles to DoStudio subtitles. If you didn’t know, Scenarist subtitles are nothing more than an XML file with a PNG for each subtitle. Well this little program takes the XML (which is the BDN file) and converts it for you to a DoST file. You use the exact same PNGs so I imagine this is a very fast process.

I love the fact that it’s also online so that you don’t have to download a separate program or anything like that and you can use it on any operating system.

We just bought Softel Swift which will allow you to export the Scenarist subtitles pretty easily and I also have heard Subtitle Workshop will do it, but I don’t have any experience with it if you are looking for other subtitling options.

Check it out here.

Blu-ray Disc Association’s Definitive Blu-ray Authoring Seminar - CANCELLED

January 22nd, 2009 at 9:51am

For those interested, there is a seminar in Barcelona February 10-12 coming up. It sounds like speakers from BDA, Sonic, Technicolor, Sony DADC, Sony Creative Software, Blu-Focus, Blu-labs, Sun, Imagion will all be there speaking on a wide variety of topics. You can find out more at their website if you want to see a schedule of events, list of topics, or just want to learn more.

Also note that NetBlender is offering 10% off their product at the event. More information is available here. They also have a couple menu samples that are kind of fun to watch. I always like seeing what others are doing with menus since that’s primarily what I do.

Unfortunately I won’t be at the event, but I hope I can hear about it from anyone who can.

UPDATE: I just got this email that the event was cancelled:

“The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has decided to postpone the BD Authoring seminar planned for February 10-12 in Barcelona to a later date. This decision is linked with the number of registrations at this stage, resulting from the significant travel restrictions in many companies in the UK and in Mainland Europe. It is a regrettable move as the feedback received about the initiative in general and the program content was very good, the range of speakers very impressive. The BDA will inform the Authoring Community, BD producers and Content Owners about a possible new date by the end of the quarter.