DC Metro FCP UG

Here are some thoughts from the recent GVExpo from our member, Paula Toviessi:

I recently had the pleasure of spending a few days with Larry Jordon at the GV Expo 2009. Larry Jordan is a producer, director, editor, consultant, and trainer with over 25 years of experience in video production and post-production. Larry and Creative Planet’s Digital Buzz were the official podcast of the GV Expo 2009 and conducted several interviews throughout the expo.
I had a blast working with Larry who is very knowledgeable about video production in all phases of the production. During the expo, Larry’s interviews touched on training, Blu-ray Discs, archiving media, Panasonic’s new 3D technology, interactive white boards, PowerPoint/video/web integration, and video streaming. All of the interviews can be heard at the following site:

While at the expo, I also had the great opportunity to listen in on a panel lead by Bruce Nazarian, president of the International Digital Media Alliance about the future of Blu-ray Discs. During the discussion, panelists debunked myths about the use of Blu-ray Discs, how to use blu-ray Discs with Final Cut Pro and the future of Blu-ray Discs for all producers. My GV Expo 2009 experience was fascinating and I gained so much knowledge about all facets of video production and the industry. Please make sure you visit the Creative Planet’s Digital Buzz at http://www.digitalproductionbuzz.com/ and listen in to Larry Jordan on Thursday evenings. I look forward to the 2010 GV Expo and hope you all can make it.

Paula Toviessi
Independent Filmmaker

AJA DataCalc Data Rate Calculator Available Now as Free Download from Apple iTunes App Store

Grass Valley, CA (December 11, 2009)–AJA Video Systems, a leading manufacturer of professional video interface and conversion solutions, announced today the release of AJA DataCalc. AJA DataCalc is a free storage requirement calculator designed for video professionals and is available now as a free download from the Apple iTunes Store here.


Designed as a fast and simple tool for audio and video professionals, AJA DataCalc can be used in the field during acquisition, or in the edit bay during post-production, allowing the user to effortlessly calculate their storage consumption and data capturing requirements.


“We’re all big fans of the iPhone and wanted to create an application that would be useful to our customers in professional digital content creation,” said Nick Rashby, President, AJA Video Systems. “DataCalc is right in line with AJA’s product philosophy which aims to deliver products that simplify and streamline the often complex workflows of video professionals. It’s a simple little application, that has already proven to be very handy in the field!”


AJA DataCalc supports a wide array of video compression formats such as Apple ProRes, DVCProHD, HDV, XDCAM, DV, RGB and YUV Uncompressed and more. Video standards supported include NTSC, PAL, 1080i, 1080p. 720p, 2K and 4K.


The application features an intuitive user interface where most settings can be entered with a simple finger scroll through lists of the most common file format configurations. Durations can be entered in units of days, hours, seconds or even in a precise time code frame count. A ‘More’ button allows the user to further select and specify frame rates, frame sizes, compression type; or in the case of audio: sample rates and bits per sample. From the ‘More’ page, press on the ‘Information’ icon to get to a ‘Summary’ page to review results and have the option to deliver the data via email.


About AJA Video Systems, Inc.

Since 1993, AJA Video has been a leading manufacturer of high-quality and cost-effective digital video interface, conversion and Desktop solutions supporting the professional broadcast and post- production markets. With headquarters in Grass Valley, California, AJA maintains an extensive sales channel of dealers and systems integrators around the world. For further information, please see our website www.aja.com.

DCFCPUG members:

In the spirit of holiday giving, Peachpit would like to give us a unique opportunity to provide our members with high-quality FCP articles and video instruction from Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman’s critically acclaimed Peachpit book Video Made on a Mac: Production and Postproduction using Apple Final Cut Studio and Adobe Creative Suite absolutely FREE.

For six months, we will be posting high quality FREE training content from the recent Peachpit publication entitled: “Video Made on a Mac: Production and Postproduction using Apple Final Cut Studio and Adobe Creative Suite”. This book was written by two of our local FCP and Color experts: Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman!

Discounts available to our membership! Inquire, if interested! Awesome book as a Xmas present to your favorite FCP editor/colorist.

Stay tuned to this post, as more detailed information is provided and shared on DCFCPUG!

The site is back in production mode. Thank you for your patience while I took the opportunity to do a little housekeeping for the 2010 season.

DCFCPUG Admin

As the holidays approaches, I’ve been busy working to refresh the look and feel of the DCFCPUG website, cleaning up some of the legacy artifacts from the previous developer, and strengthening the site security posture by performing maintenance upgrades, patches, and upgrading where possible supporting applications, etc.

The following function(s) will be a candidate for retirement at the end of 2009: bbPress – forums for DCFCPUG. The developers for this plugin need to upgrade the code to be more competitive with features users are looking for in this type of product. While they contemplate their future and development effort, we will experiment with another forum plugin on our new development internal site before any release on the production server.

After the primary site upgrades are complete and stable, I will research and install, if applicable, a supported and maintained “bbPress like” forum function and try to revive this feature. If no one really uses it, then the service will be removed, permanently. I was successful in getting it operational in the current release of WP (2.9) so keep using it and give me some feedback if this capability is working for you.

Starting 15 December – 18 December 2009, the DCFCPUG.ORG site will begin to undergo major upgrades and may require our users to re-register with the site upon completion of the upgrades. All of these changes are necessary to prepare the site for our 2010 program. UPDATE: The upgrades were a success and no re-registration is required. I am turning on the NEW LOOK of the website this morning

I hope you like the new and improved look!

There are a lot of changes coming in 2010… I’ll save the best for last….

Stay tuned for the exciting news coming in a few weeks……

Happy Holidays to all!

Rodney
DCFCPUG