That’s like asking which car is the best and the answer is the same: there is no “best” NLE, each one has its pros and cons but, most importantly, they all do pretty much the same in pretty much the same way.

Read more about some of the pros and cons to consider for each program, and why ultimately any of the three major programs will do what you want provided you put the time in to really learn about properly using your NLE of choice.

The answer is NO. All my main editing and production equipment is Windows (Windows 7 mostly) based.  I do have a Macbook Pro and have made that my mobile admin and communication device, and I use it to troubleshoot some of my client’s Mac systems, and for cross platform compatibility testing.

While I do have Final Cut Pro and Compressor on the Mac I’m not using it other than to help FCP using clients out, or to convert the occasional Apple proprietary footage.

Thanks to everyone who asked!

Premiere Pro 4.1.0 has been expected to be released late May of this year so Adobe is pretty close. This update is important as is (supposedly) addresses numerous severe problems with Premiere Pro CS4.

We’ll see after a few weeks of using this new version if the update actually fixes these problems. Without going into too much detail (plenty of hate threads online about this) Premiere Pro CS4 was definitely not what it could have been and what it should have been.

Maybe…hopefully…today will change that.

Installation Notes

Adobe’s updater is notorious for being crap. Don’t get frustrated if your downloads or (more likely) installation of the updates fails on the first try. Simply go here to manually download and install all the latest Adobe fixes.

You also need to close all Adobe programs and probably manually kill the “processcoordinationserver.exe” process via the Task Manager.

Good luck and let me know about your experiences with these new updates.

Boilsoft Video Splitter and Free Video Cutter

A simple task such as cutting a clip in two or more parts shouldn’t be so hard but the number of decent video splitters online is astoundingly small. Most of the free splitters I’ve tried are pure junk. Even spending money on a splitter isn’t a guarantee that it’ll do what you want it to. I usually use the Boilsoft splitter because it doesn’t re-encode whatever I’m splitting. So that’s great for making clips out of large movies: it’s very fast and retains the quality.

If you’re building clips for galleries or online promos and just need to split and not edit anything, the Boilsoft splitter is decent. Not always entirely frame accurate but okay for most tasks. It’s not free but because it doesn’t re-encode and handles WMV, MPEG, AVI and other files very well it might be worth it.

Now there’s also the Free Video Cutter.

As the name implies, the Free Video Cutter trims down your movie and saves it in either MPEG4, WMV, FLV, DivX, MOV, or MP3 (Audio only). It’s a very basic application but it’s free and reasonably fast.

Free Video Cutter Notes

It seems to re-encode the clips, even if the output format doesn’t change from the input format. And it uses the old WMV8 codec (Four CC code: wmv2) to encode to WMV. WMV9 is the standard these days, it looks better and is more efficient. I wouldn’t use the Free Video Cutter to encode to WMV, unless the video quality isn’t absolutely critical to you. Still, for a cheap and easy quick video trim job this tool might be your ticket.

TIP: before you do anything, click the “Options” button and check the “Don’t create video thumbs” box. Depending on your system, FVC takes quite a while to create these thumbnails. Kinda defeats the purpose of super quick trimming, ya know.

Download Free Video Cutter (free)

Download Boilsoft Video Splitter (not free)

Both are for Windows programs and they work on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 (yes!)

Today I received an email from Brian Baumley announcing several different subscription packages including – get this – a FREE one. He wrote:

(…)   Market7 (www.market7.com) is introducing a variety of subscription packages (including free!) for its online video collaboration services to fit any budget or scale. Today, anyone can visit www.market7.com to get started with free to premium access to a comprehensive suite of collaborative tools that address the entire video production process, from pre to post.

So go check out Market7 right now. If you can’t remember what it is, check out the details about Market 7 here.

The free subscription is really meant for you to try this out to see if it fits your flow. It’s limited in storage allowance and number of Admins but it’ll give you a good idea of its capabilities. Enjoy!

Remember I told you about a tool for video editors, production teams, and clients that got me quite excited? Today I am happy to share with you my thoughts on Market7, a production collaboration service that works entirely online. Nothing to install and it works regardless if you or anyone you work with are on a Mac or PC.

Market7 Review

However there is one exception that really throws this all off and that’s the fact that MacDrive does not work with Windows 7 at all. You can’t even install it.

Mediafour is aware of the problem and doesn’t seem to care too much right now. Here is what they have to say about this.

Since some of my clients use external firewire drives formatted for the Mac, I’ve been using MacDrive for some time with great success on XP.

So if you plan on jumping over to Windows 7 (and I recommend it) then you won’t be able to use MacDrive.

One workaround:

1) Set up dual boot on your system. Say Windows 7 plus Windows XP.

2) Boot into Windows XP, import your footage to your main editing drive (I use RAID 0 drives for raw files) from those Mac-formatted drives using MacDrive as usual.

3) Restart and boot into Windows 7. This will work. A pain in the butt for sure but until Mediafour gets its act together there’s no other way.

Watch this space folks! I’ve been approached by a company that has a new tool for my fellow video and production folks that’ll downright revolutionize your workflow. I’ve had a mind blowing introduction to it from its creators and I’ve come away quite impressed.

This is a wonderful new tool for: video editors, production teams, animators, producers, and shooters.

More details to follow soon so stay tuned!

The folks over at HotHardware.com did a thorough write-up on Dell’s new XPS 730 series with Core i7 equipped machines. Very thorough.

We don’t care about gaming at all but for digital content creation (DCC) the XPS 730 seems a great fit.

Personally I don’t like the chassis look of this thing at all, but we’ll need to look beyond the appearance part and see what this thing can do for us in terms of high definition video editing, large scale photo manipulation, and graphics/Flash creation.

Not surprisingly, the Core i7 chip makes all the difference in the world, even compared to any of the “newer” Core 2 Duo/ Core 2 Quad processors. Read more about the XPS 730

NOW is the time to splurge a little on new software and hardware – December 31st is coming soon so here are my recommendations. Just the best of the best, no filler shit that you don’t need. THESE recommendations will make a difference for you. If not, it’s not the software or the hardware, it’s YOU….

1) Adobe Production Premium CS 4

More of less drastic improvements to Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Flash Professional, and After Effects. If you’re editing AVCHD video footage this is a must buy: Premiere Pro CS 4 now natively supports AVCHD codecs. Most other professional video editing programs do not. And you’re past the consumer software stuff, right?

As with Adobe CS’ previous versions, the integration between programs is very tight. If you have not jumped onto the Adobe wagon I strongly suggest you do that now – your workflow will drastically improve.

Adobe Production Premium CS 4 – WINDOWS

Adobe Production Premium CS 4 – MAC (with Intel chips only!)

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2) Intel Core i7 965  3.2 Ghz Processor; DDR3 Memory; Motherboard

One of the most dramatic speed improvements you can treat yourself with doesn’t come cheap. But Intel’s new Core i7 processor platform frankly kicks the shit out of everything I have ever encountered when it comes to processor speeds.

You could go a step lower (and cheaper) with the 940 and you’ll experience greatly improved speeds and efficiency in your workflow. But hell, why not go all the way and really squeeze out some power to shave off those extra seconds of rendering and encoding time, right?

Buy the boxed Intel Core i7 965 Extreme Processor here.

Important Note: the Core i7 processors do require a different motherboard and memory. You can NOT use your Socket 775 motherboard with this. You’ll need to upgrade to the Socket LGA 1366 platform. A good mobo is the Intel Extreme Series X58.

(Writing all this I really wish Intel would drop that silly “Extreme” moniker on their products. What is this, 1990’s New Jersey?)

Finally, you’ll need DDR3 memory to run this beast. The Corsair TR 3×6G set of memory sticks are decent, it’s a total of 6 Gigs and the price is acceptable too, particularly considering the performance. However, if you are running a 64 bit version of Windows Vista or XP then do take advantage of the fact that you can use more than the 4 Gig (yeah, yeah 3 plus) older 32 bit versions can.

You can probably get DDR3 memory cheaper if you shop around but be sure to skip the “value” memory junk you might encounter. Newegg.com is one of my favorite shopping sources.

Regardless, you’ll be spending a good chunk of cash for all this but the increased efficiency (and enthusiasm I might add) when it comes to your video and photo editing, animations, or Flash stuff, should make up for this. Did for me.

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No Final Cut Pro recommendations. Sorry, Adobe finally took the crown and is now the top choice for this current generation of serious video and photo pros. I tried ‘em all. All of them. Final Cut Pro, Avid, Sony Vegas, and Adobe’s Premiere Pro. Premiere Pro wins for me, hands down.