The first thing that’s important to keep in mind when getting yourself rolling with Titler+ (Titler+) is that it’s now more like titles in other applications.  Titles in Premiere and Resolve are just what you would call “Generators”, meaning that no actual physical media is being created, when adding titles to your timelines.  This is a different concept for Media Composer editors, who have been used to their titles always being actual media.  What this means for you is that if you remove a title from your timeline, it’s gone forever.  Can’t match frame it back, or go back to your bin to find it, so that’s something exceptionally important to keep in mind.  Second thing to keep in mind is that, since the titles are no longer clips to drop in your timeline, I highly recommend NOT adding titles to media/clips that currently live in your timeline.  If you want to add a title, you’re going to select the region you want to have the title appear in, add a couple of edits, and drop it in that way.  Now, with all of that said, there’s something else important that you’ll need to keep in mind when it comes to Titler+, and that is that since your title is not an actual piece of media anymore, you won’t be able to add effects to it like Continuum or Sapphire.  You get the title, and that’s it.  This, for me, is the real downside of Titler+ but, again, if you’re serious about your titling, you’re doing it all using Title Studio or After Effects anyways, so in the grand scheme of things, it’s more of an annoyance than anything.

Your “enjoyment” of Titler+ will vary based on which version of Media Composer you’re using.  With 2024.10 of the application, there has been a major enhancement and re-writing of the effect as it was very cumbersome to use in previous versions.  Now, I’m not going to list through all the updates in one shot.  Let’s start using the effect, and we’ll talk about updates as we go.

The easiest way to search for the effect is to simply head to the Effect Palette and in the search window, just hit “+”.  You’ll notice two effects appear.  The pre-2024.10 update version of the effect, as well as the updated version of the effect. 

So, apparently you can’t update any older instances of Titler+ (but apparently no one was using it anyways), so it’s only there for legacy projects that happen to use it.  Anyways, don’t choose the “Legacy” version, only use the current one.  Once you take the effect and drag it and drop it into the space you’ve made in your timeline, the Titler+ dashboard, as well as the Effect Editor will open up and you’ll be ready to use Titler+.

DASHBOARD VS EFFECT EDITOR

If you haven’t used Titler+ before, the dashboard that pops up when you apply the effect will be something a little different for most Media Composer editors.  We’re accustomed to only having these types of windows appearing when we tell Media Composer that we want them there.  Audio Tool, Audio Mixer, etc.  When it comes to your workflow inside of Titler+, most of us will probably want to stick with the Dashboard only (which we’ll talk more about a little later), but I want to point out that you can easily toggle the Dashboard on and off through the Effect Editor, by hitting the grid icon in the upper right corner.  I’ll say that you can do 90% of your work in either the Dashboard, or the Effect Editor, but at some point you will need to use both, if you plan on animating your titles.

Alright, let’s get back into it!  Once the windows open, nothing is really happening here.  You’re going to need a title to get yourself rolling.  So let’s create one.  With the Text Tool selected, simply click anywhere in the Sequence window to add your title.  Keep in mind that you’ll probably want to make sure that you’re viewing the top most layer in your timeline, so you see the text appear right away.

What is important to keep in mind in Titler+, as opposed to how you titled before is that you can add as many titles to the frame that you need, and the Effect Editor will only show you the parameters of the title you have selected, not all of the titles at the same time.  You titles, even though there may be many of them, can always be selected, and animated (if you want), as individual elements, an not as one all encompassing title, as it has been in the past.  Now, there is a way to manipulate all the titles at the same time to animate them on and off, but we’ll discuss that later in the article when we talk about the “Foreground” parameter of our Title.

NEW ANCHOR POINT TOOL

If you know me, or my tutorials, you know we’re going with Impact, as it’s a good, thick font to start out with.  I want to mention, before we move any farther forward, that there really are two thought processes when working with Titler+.  You can work in the interface entirely, until you’re ready to animate (if you’re going to animate at all), or you can do a combination of working in the interface, and in the Effect Editor, which we’ll be doing in this article.  Once you have your first set of text input into the interface, you can now switch over to the Selection Tool (M) to reposition it.  With that said, here’s where we can start to find some simple, yet effective differences between the old Title Tool (TT) and Titler+.  You’ll notice, first of all, that there is a little crosshair sitting at the lower right corner of your text.  This is the Anchor Point, and it’s quickly adjustable in one of two ways.  If you want precision, you can move to the Effect Editor, to SELECTED OBJECTS>TRANSFORM>ANCHOR POINT, and adjust it’s position with a selection in the dropdown menu.

Or, if you click on the actual Anchor Point located in the lower left corner of the text, you’ll notice the Selection Tool turn red, and now you’re adjusting the Anchor Point dynamically, and you can now position it anywhere you want it to go.

Now, with that said, there are a couple of issues with the way Anchor Point behaves.  For example,  First, when the text is first input in the interface, the Anchor Point is locked to the lower left corner of the text, not the bounding box, which makes perfect sense.

However, if you head to the Effect Editor, and adjust the Anchor point to the “Bottom Left”, it puts at the corner of the bounding box, and not at the corner of the text that was input, which is inconsistent to the point where I find myself never using this way of setting it up.  The Anchor Point should always be relative to the text it’s affecting, not the bounding box the text sits in.  

Speaking of the bounding box, I found it odd that there was so much space at the top and bottom of it, as opposed to on the left and right sides.  I’m of the feeling that the it really should have been set up like After Effects’ bounding box, which is tight to the text, for more precise functionality.

The last thing that I think is important to talk about, when it comes to Anchor Point, is that when it’s adjusted via the Effects Editor, your text position will adjust with it.   By default, the Anchor Point is in the lower left corner, so the last thing you want to do is get everything setup and ready to go, only to realize that you now want to adjust your Anchor Point, as it will throw everything off.  It would be super helpful to have a User Setting that would let you pick the default Anchor Point behavior, but hey, this little engine has come pretty far from its humble beginnings, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for an update that will add this feature in there, and as I said before, you can always adjust it dynamically, which won’t impact the text’s position.

MUCH BETTER TEXT SIZING AND SCALING

With the new, dynamic Anchor Point comes another mind bending feature for Media Composer editors, and that’s scaling.  Now, I know that sounds very odd, but what I mean by that is that what Media Composer editors are accustomed to, when it comes to issues like text size, is that once you have set the size of your text inside of the legacy TT, if you increase the scale of the text through the titles 3D Warp capabilities the larger you make it, the crappier it looks, due to the fact that the text is not vector based.  Well, those days are now gone.  Titler+ has the capability to not only set your text size pretty large (100 Avid point size – whatever that means), but you can then go in and adjust the scaling of the text up to a factor of 1000, keeping the text nice and crisp, along the way.

CONSISTENT COORDINATE SYSTEM

One thing that you’ll notice across applications like Media Composer, and even DaVinci Resolve is the way the Coordinate system is set up.  Unlike in After Effects, where the coordinates start in the upper left corner at 0,0 and the dead center of an HD 1080p frame is 960×540, Media Composer, across all its effects, has always treated the dead center of the frame as 0,0, and with the update to Titler+, this has now become the same for this effect, to match all the other standard effects, inside of the application.

WORKING WITH THE FOREGROUND

I talked about this concept earlier in the article, and I want to swing back and talk about the Foreground now.  I had mentioned that each title is its own element that can be selected and animated as an individual element in Titler+.  But, what do I do in a situation where I’d like to have all the titles fade on, or wipe on at the same time.  That would be a bit of a logistical nightmare trying to match up all the animations across the different titles.  Well, that’s where the Foreground parameter comes into play.  This is an interesting concept in Titler+ that I really like, and am hoping that will get a slight update to it in the future.  Here’s how the “Foreground” parameter works inside of Titler+.  All of the objects that sit in your frame populate the “Foreground” of the title, no matter what the stacking order is.  Let’s say that we want to have all of the elements fade on at the same time.  With either a title selected, or even no title selected at all, you can navigate to the “Foreground” section of the Effect Editor, twirl it down, and you’ll notice three parameters in there.  Fill Overlay, which controls the opacity of the “fill” portion of your title, the Opacity of your title(s) and a Crop parameter to have titles wipe on from the top, bottom, left or right.  I LOVE this feature except for one major omission, and that is that they didn’t include feather for the Crop parameter.  Foreground is a great, simple feature that is available when a title is selected and also available when nothing is selected, as it’s impacting the frame the titles sit in, more so than the titles themselves.  Fingers crossed for an update with crop feather in a future update.

A FEW OTHER FEATURES

I want to make sure that I mention a few other features that are included in the update to Titler+ which include better Font support meaning that you’ll have a better overall experience with your TrueType, OpenType and FreeType fonts in Titler+ as well as better cross platform compatibility.  To be honest, I’ve always found that the legacy Title Tool was pretty solid on it’s font support, so I would expect the same here in Titler+.  Tracking is included in Titler+ but, I’ll be 100% transparent.  I hate the tracker in Media Composer and would never use it, so if you like using it, you have access to it in Titler+, and last, but certainly not least, there is much more simplified workflow when it comes to Rolls and Crawls in Titler+.  You now have access to not only a linear time graph in the Effect Editor, but you can also scrub through your timeline in Edit mode to make sure that all of your crawl/roll layouts look exactly the way you need them to look.  Again, 100% tranparancy, I don’t do rolls and/or crawls in Media Composer, as there is no support for including logos, which is a deal breaker for me, so I do all my credits in After Effects, which gives me everything I need and much, much more. 

LET’S BUILD ONE!

Alright, so for kicks, let’s build a quick, good looking title inside of Titler+.

1. Let’s select a seven second range of our timeline for our title to appear in.  One second fade up and out, five seconds for the content to be on screen.
2. Head to the Effect Editor, punch in “+” in the search window and drag and drop Titler+ to the seven second hole that’s in our timeline
3. Once the effect has been applied and the Titler+ Dashboard has appeared, if the Type Tool isn’t selected, select it, double click in your timeline and let’s add our first title.  Our Boxer needs a name, so we’ll enter the name “IVAN GRAGO”.  What’s always important to keep in mind is that Titler+ will always default to creating you a title that matches the look of the previous title you created.  If it was simple white with a black drop shadow, that’s what you get.  If it looked like the thumbnail of this article, that’s what it’s going to look like.
   
   
4. Now, “IVAN GRAGO” is a little bit big.  We can use the Size parameter in the Dashboard to adjust it, or we can do something that I haven’t mentioned yet, and we can adjust it dynamically by holding SHFT and grabbing on of the corner bounding box points, and dragging the bounding box smaller.  This will keep the aspect of the title’s sizing the same, and just adjust it’s over scale.  If you wanted to adjust the X/Y scale independently of each other, you could hold OPT/ALT and drag to achieve that look.  
5. Once I have the size correct, I’m going to move “IVAN GRAGO” towards the lower left corner of the frame, and much like in the legacy Title Tool, I’m going to use the rectangle tool to draw a rectangle around “IVAN GRAGO”, I’m going to add a blue outline to it, and then turn off the fill, so I only have a blue rectangular border around it. 
   
   What’s important to keep in mind is that stacking order is still important, much like in the legacy Title Tool. I now have a transparent rectangle on top of my text, so I can just quickly hit the “send to back” button on the dashboard to move the rectangle behind my text, so if I need to make an adjustment, I’m good to go.
6. Now, a quick selection of both title elements and a Copy/Paste will give us a duplicate of what we have, and I’m going to update the text to say “Professional Boxer”, and use the technique we talked about in #4 to adjust the size of the text dynamically, give the outline a quick adjustment and we can now move that title below “IVAN GRAGO” to give us a very cool title look.
   
   
7. Now, with that said, we have a bit of a problem.  The entire title is too big.  Well, again, much like in the legacy Title Tool, we can quickly group elements together and make them smaller, so they fit exactly where we need them to fit.  One thing that’s important to keep in mind is that the engineers at Avid have kept all the icons for things like Stacking, Grouping, Select Next Object, etc the same, so that your transition to Titler+ is as smooth as possible.
   
   
   
8. Now that we have the Title placed where we want it to go, we can simply ungroup, head up to the Foreground parameter, and animate the titles fading in and out for 30 frames, and this title will be ready to go!

I’d say that was quick and simple, and it took me WAY longer to write that out, then it did for me to actually create it.

Let’s be honest.  Avid completely fumbled the ball on Titler+ when it was first released, and have had to play catchup getting it back up to where it needs to be.  Have they done it?  I’d say they have.  My biggest gripe is the fact that now I can’t use any third party effects on my titles, but that’s a very minor gripe that just means that for those specific titles, I’ll have to create them in After Effects, otherwise, good-bye legacy Title Tool and Marquee Title Tool.  It was fun while it lasted, but I’ll stick with Titler+ moving forward.

INTELLIGENT….IT CERTAINLY IS

Now, I’ll start this article out by saying that I’m not getting a dime from Boris FX for this article.  I’ve been a Continuum since before it was offered free to all Media Composer editors who upgraded to Symphony (I know Media Composer editors all remember that), and have used it in After Effects for as long as I can remember.  Most of my “WOW” benchmarks for advancing my workflows haven’t come from the NLE or Compositing applications.  It’s been from Continuum.   

I mean, let’s be honest, Boris FX have pulled out some pretty surprising acquisitions over the last few years.  GenArts, Imagineer Systems, WonderTouch, Syntheyes, and even the licensing of Primatte technology has really made Boris FX the one stop shop for just about anything an editor or compositor could need.  For me, the biggest leap forward in, easily, the last 15 years has been the integration of Mocha technology not only across almost all of the effects inside of both Continuum and Sapphire, but its licensing in After Effects, which easily makes it the standard for tracking in AE today.  So, you’re probably thinking, what does this have to do with AE and machine learning.  Well, Boris FX just released the 2024.5 update for Continuum, and in it, is a tucked away look at the future of the effects package.  Believe it or not, it’s the Witness Protection effect that will lead the way to the next generation of effects in Continuum, and in the process, save editors and graphic designers countless hours of tedious work, even with the best tools available now.

Now, since everything these days is called “SOMETHING AI”, Boris FX decided to go down a bit of a different path by calling theirs ML or “MACHINE LEARNING”, and you can find the four “ML” effects in Continuum, simply by searching for them.

So, looking at the Media Composer version pictured above (the ML effects are available across the other host applications of Continuum as well), you’ll notice that there are actually four different ML effects including DeNoise, ReTimer, UpRez and Witness Protection which, for Media Composer, is a real-time effect.  So, what is the Witness Protection effect exactly?  Well, you’ve seen it a million times before.  Need to blur someone’s face out who’s walking down the street, as you don’t have permission to use their likeness in your production?  That’s where you would use an effect like this.  However, it’s worked very differently in the past and, to be honest, the effect went from wonky to very cool to awesome.  It started out wonky as it used the Continuum tracker to do all the motion tracking.  We all know how terrible point tracking can be, and having Mocha integrated with almost all the effects in Continuum really stepped this effect up a notch, as it made the tracking process much easier and much more precise.  It was, however, not without its issues.  If the talent walked behind a tree, or lamppost, or other object, it would require more work to be done inside of Mocha and, really, any time this type of effect was required, it always came with a bit of cringe from the editor, as we know how much time it really took to do this type of work, and it could be painfully slow.  Well, not anymore.  How does it work?  Drag and drop.  Yep.  That’s it.  Drag the effect (or apply it, depending on the application you’re using), and that’s it.  Talent walks behind something?  No problem.  The ML (Machine Learning) effect will be dropped back on as they come back out from behind it.  Does your character walk on or off screen?  Again, no problem, as ML will add the effect back on when they reappear.  Take a look at what I mean below:

The effect still contains everything else that you had available to you before, like the ability to switch to a mosaic pattern instead of a blur if you want to, and you can even turn ML off all together if you wanted to apply the effect to something different like a logo on someone’s shirt.

With that said, this is where I really see the potential in this effect.  Right now, the ML component is designed to detect faces, and basically add an ellipse to it as a mask, to then have Continuum either blur or add a mosaic to someone’s face.

I was floored by how quick and accurate it was.  The only adjustment I actually had to make was to add a bit of a feather to the mask, and make it slightly bigger, but otherwise, it did all the work for me.  It’s the first time that I’ve done anything with AI and thought “HOLY ****, I CAN ACTUALLY SEE MYSELF USING THIS ON A REGULAR BASIS”.  Now, let’s take a look at this effect moving forward.  What about logos on shirts or on products?  What about the ability to blur out nudity?  What about the ability to look at a transcript and blur over someone’s mouth who swears.  Now these applications are something that editors, especially ones who work on reality TV can really use in their day to day workflow that will save them an absolute ton of time in the compositing chair.  We can even look across other effects in Continuum to see where applications like this can speed up our workflows.  For example, in any lens flare effect.  Simply type in what you want your lens flare “attached” to, and you’ve already saved me a ton of time.  Sun, headlight, flashlight.  Something so simple, can save use minutes and even hours of time tracking.    For me, this one effect has gotten me excited about Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning in my NLE/Compositing application, as it’s something that I can easily see a wide range of editors using, in all different types of productions.  For more information about Continuum 2024.5, you can check it out at borisfx.com .

So what better reason to have a brand new set of Useful Tools for Editors than the upcoming eclipse? I’m sure you’ll get a total solar eclipse somewhere near you someday.

Date Up!

My favorite useful tools are simple little utilities by independent developers which might simplify a tedious task. Date Up! from Ulti.Media is a very affordable app that “renames the files you drag on it by adding to the name a suffix with the date and time (of creation or of dragging)” in an effort to help the file name challenged () keep track of the media a little better.

And there are many parameters you can setup for how you would like the files to be renamed.

Yes, you can probably do this with the file renaming app you might already have, and yes, you have to be careful when changing the original file names of some media, but if you know what you’re doing, DateUp! is very, very useful.

Ulti.Media Converter 2

And speaking of Ulti.Media, they also have a very useful file conversion utility called Converter 2. This drag/drop tool has been around for a while now and is “the Swiss army knife for transcoding, workflow and multimedia file management.” Converter can really hit a lot of your media conversion needs with support for video, audio and still images.

While the interface makes it simple to use with a drag and drop interface, the setup of the different operations can be very detailed with options of how to convert, name and handle any file you throw at it.

There’s even a “Presets Bazar” where you can download and presumably share your own presets. There’s really a lot to dig into with Converter 2, including AI operations like subject extraction and upscaling to spend some time reading over everything it can do as well as the tutorials to learn more. Conveter is around $16 and has a free 7-day trial available.

OWC Drive Speed

For years and years we’ve tested the drive speed of hard drives connected to the desktop, now, thanks to Other World Computing we can do the same for SSD drives connected to an iPhone with OWC Drive Speed (App Store Link). This free iPhone app might come in handy since we live in a world now where you can plug an SSD into a new iPhone and shoot ProRes directly to it.

The app is a bit tricky to use as you have to use the iOS file navigator to select a connected SSD manually. And you can choose a record test time from one minute all the way up to a hour. That’s some thorough testing! It would be nice if the app could automatically choose a connected SSD since if you have one connected to your iPhone you most likely want to shoot to that disk. But overall, you can’t really complain too much about a free and useful tool, so thanks, OWC!

EasyFind

If you’re working on a Mac and your Spotlight search doesn’t seem to be searching a large attached volume, you might need another tool for a deep search. This free utility called EasyFind has been my goto for awhile now. You choose the volume you want to search and your search operator and let it go to work.

EasyFind is lean and fast and very useful, all the things you want in a Useful Tools for Editors.

Sidus TC Sync public beta

I usually don’t post beta apps to my Useful Tools column, but the public beta of Deity Microphone’s new Sidus TC Sync tool might be of particular interest to those shooting multiple cameras with timecode, be it proper SMTPE timecode or audio timecode recorded to a camera’s audio channel. As someone who cuts a lot of multicam, I love tools that can help with sync, as the internal NLE syncing tools can’t always handle what you throw at them. (Did you see my audio waveform sync shootout?)

I threw my 3-camera with secondary sound and good timecode multicam test at the beta and this was the result without me doing any manual setup:

Try as I might I could not get Sidus TC Sync to place all the audio in the image above on the same track, which it should be. By manually assigning the sync groups I was able to get the C-camera onto one track. A perfect sync app would be able to see how the files are setup in their own folders in the OS and be smart enough to assign camera angles/groups from that. Once you’ve got your sync, just export a list to your NLE.

If you think this app looks a lot like Tentacle Sync Studio then you’re correct. Almost a copy. Sidus TC Sync is available for free in this public beta for both Mac and Windows.

It looks like Sidus is a China-headquartered company (https://t.co/bzTJmM7cKL), so I’d imagine any copyright infringement claims would be tricky. I assume Deity Microphones is just reselling the software.

— Chris Hocking (@chrisatlatenite) March 30, 2024

QCTools

This one is presented without comment. I saw a thread somewhere recently asking about “free QC (quality control) tools for broadcast,” and while many/most of them can be quite expensive, a link was provided to the free QCTools. It is open-source and comes from the folks behind MediaInfo and is described as “a software tool that helps users analyze and understand their digitized video files through use of audiovisual analytics and filtering.” The website lists a whole litany of features and filters that are too numerous to mention here, so click over and give it a read if something like this is of interest to you. The graph it gives you after analyzing a file sure does look impressive.

MediaArea has quite a few video-focused open-source projects available. Their website says they worked on QCTools “in the past” so I’m not sure how recently it has been updated.

Gal Toolkit for Premiere Pro

In my last Useful Tools for Editors, it was dedicated to Premiere Pro and I talked about the new toolkit for that Premiere Gal has created. Here we are not even a year later and this toolkit is already at version 3. There’s currently a one year anniversary sale that runs until April 5th so you can get the toolkit for $87. There’s also a version for After Effects.

Another reason I wanted to highlight this updated package is that I think it’s a great alternative for editors doing a lot of work in the social media space who don’t have the time or the willpower to constantly dig through what can be the endless time suck of template sites like Envato Elements or Motion Array. While those kinds of sites are amazing resources, you can spend hours upon hours trying to find the perfect asset and then even more hours second-guessing yourself and looking even more. Packages like the Premiere Gal Toolkit can provide a great selection of overlays, lower thirds, graphics and many other options without the insanity that is literally thousands upon thousands of what looks like variations of the same thing.

Adobe Acrobat tools

I was sent a bunch of multipage PDFs the other day to use in an edit. While looking for fast ways to convert every page or every PDF to JPEGs I discovered that Adobe Acrobat has a ton of tools for many different PDF related purposes. And what made this even better is that since I have an Adobe subscription these Acrobat tools were part of my subscription.

I have a feeling there are other things that are part of my Adobe subscrption that I am unaware of so this was a nice discovery. Head to the Adobe Acrobat section of Adobe’s website and you can browe all the Acrobat tools, including combing multiple PDFs, splitting them, deleting pages and AI assisted PDF tools as well.

Links from Twitter:

Part of the difficulty of editing documentaries is “finding the story”. The trick is to find the 6 key story elements:

1. Who is the hero?
2. What is their goal?
3. What is the obstacle?
4. What sparks their journey?
5. What is the journey?
6. What is the resolution?

— Jesse Koepke (@jessekoepke) March 18, 2024

On my first 2nd Assistant Editor job, I would sometimes work on as many as 7 hours of rushes/dailies.

So I have learned a *lot* about syncing rushes.

Aspiring Editorial Trainees, Edit Assistants, and Assistant Editors, listen up. You’ll want to take notes. #postchat

— Eleanor Mance-Moran (@elliem_m) March 18, 2024

Incredible handout at @HPAonline #TechRetreat for allies and folks who want to support a more diverse workforce. Here’s a piece of it: pic.twitter.com/l6vLpEko3S

— katie hinsen (@katiehinsen) February 22, 2024

The title says it all.https://t.co/h4RxEgrkFu

— Michael Kammes (@michaelkammes) February 21, 2024

“What was the 1st NLE you used as an editor? Final Cut? Avid? Premiere?”

Me: pic.twitter.com/YujyeGHI2v

— Andy Young (@AndyYoungFilm) February 9, 2024

Wait, I could’ve been #editing @LEGO_Group movies with their own proprietary NLE?! Where the hell was I when this came out? Look at that title tool #postchat✄ pic.twitter.com/5rOTkKyKuj

— Corey Frost (@coreysfrost) February 9, 2024

Fellow #videoeditors! Let’s talk shop: Efficiency isn’t just about mastering keyboard shortcuts or hoarding templates to speed up approvals. It’s also about trimming the fat off client onboarding and making sure the money flows in smoothly.

Let me give you a sneak peek at my…

— D.L. Watson (@avideomakr) January 25, 2024

pic.twitter.com/ADnhT4R7xK

— Darren Hallihan (@Editor_Darren) December 22, 2023

Using art to create this spectacular illusion

Howard Lee
pic.twitter.com/ii4jufjYFY

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) December 2, 2023

Osprey emerging from the ocean clutching a barracuda

Mark Smith
pic.twitter.com/tCrDhZiEM7

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) December 10, 2023

Here is my review of the Asus PA279CRV 4K HDR 27” monitor (U$469) for video editing/grading «etalonaje». Asus graciously lent it to me for this review. The spoiler is that the PA279CRV from Asus has the closest ever (of all of the other monitors I have reviewed so far) to a perfect directly-attached monitor for this task, much better than the Apple Studio Display and even than the most recent “junior” DreamColor I reviewed. When I say directly attached, I mean without the need for expensive third-party hardware. When I say I am also appreciative that the Asus representatives were patient with me as I insisted upon what they may have seen as geeky details I wanted clarified and improved, hopefully in a future firmware update. But even if those never come, the Asus PA279CRV indeed comes closer than ever before to being perfect in this regard.

Goals for a video grading/editing monitor in 2023/2024

These are the goals in my opinion:

• To have a faithful grading contrast and color space matching industry standards
• To have a very high-quality matte (aka «anti-glare») panel
• To support 4K UHD spatial resolution 3840×2160 as well as lower spatial resolutions
• To support all desired DCI film and television rates, i.e. 23.976 – 24 – 25 – 29.97 – 50 – 59.94 – 60 (the last one is for gaming-only)
• To offer the officially supported rates via EDID so that users (i.e. video editors, video graders/«colorists») can match and view the proper cadence of a project as it is intended to be delivered) without the need for third-party hardware interfaces both with macOS and Windows computers
• Audio pass-through via HDMI, with an analog output, so that the audio sent to powered speakers will be in sync with the same clock sending the video to the display when the user has not purchased an third-party video/audio interface, but prefers connecting the monitor directly to the computer… or has chosen to purchase an inexpensive device (i.e. U$125) which offers video at all desired rates, without analog audio output, i.e. the U$125 UltraStudio Monitor 3G from Blackmagic.

Basic features of the Asus PA279CRV

• 27″ 16:9 IPS Panel
• HDMI 2.0 | DisplayPort 1.4 | USB-C
• USB power delivery (96-watt via USB-C can even charge your laptop)
• Integrated USB Hub
• Multi-input support (PIP/PBP)
• Picture-in-Picture (PIP), Picture-by-Picture (PBP)
• 4K UHD 3840 x 2160 resolution at up to 60 Hz (and lower too, fortunately!)
• 99% DCI-P3 | 99% Adobe RGB
• Calman verified and factory pre-calibrated to Delta E < 2 color accuracy
• Very high quality matte display (aka “antiglare”)
• TÜV Eye Care ASUS Flicker-free and ultra-low blue light
• Ergonomic design with tilt, swivel, pivot, and height adjustments for comfortable viewing
• VESA 100×100 mm mount
• On screen display/menus available in 8 languages including Castilian (castellano) and English
• Adaptive sync
• 5 ms (GtG) response time
• 1000:1 static contrast ratio
• 400 nits peak brightness
• 1.07 billion colors with HDR10 (210 x 210 x 210 = 1,073,741,824 aka 1.07 billion using the short scale billion)
• Supports audio over HDMI (a feature sadly removed from the most recent DreamColor “junior” I reviewed), both for the PA279CRV’s built-in speakers and for its 3.5 mm TRS output, for use external powered speakers, locked to the same clock as the video source (more about this ahead)
• Fortunately, supports all video and film rates officially, although offers only some of them via EDID (more about this ahead).

Audio support in the Asus PA279CRV

Especially for those video editors and graders who prefer to avoid purchasing a costly video/audio interface with its own analog audio output,I am so glad that the Asus PA279CRV supports audio, especially after being so disappointed that HP decided to remove it from the most recent “junior” DreamColor I reviewed in January 2022. This is not because the internal speakers in the Asus PA279CRV are great (they aren’t), but because there is a stereo 3.5 mm TRS jack to plug in your own powered speakers. That way, the audio is in sync with the video clock used, be it the built-in one in your GPU or if you (for other reasons, as explained ahead) purchase a video interface which lacks analog audio output.

This means that whether you listen to audio via the PA279CRV’s built-in speakers or (much more likely) through your external self-powered speakers, your audio and video will match, so you can trust it if you notice anything out of sync.This help to simplify the overall system cost and complexity for those who want to have the Asus PA279CRV be connected directly to a computer, or via a lower cost video interface which lacks any analog audio output, i.e. the U$125 UltraStudio Monitor 3G from Blackmagic.

Video rates supported by the Asus PA279CRV

Fortunately, the Asus PA279CRV supports all of the desired rates for DCI film and television, including:

• 23.976 (aka «23.98») which is the closest broadcast-friendly one to the exact 24 rate. It is broadcast-friendly in the NTSC or ex-NTSC regions. Although some TV stations who are unaware may demand a telecined version over 59.94, it is still better to edit/grade in the native 23.976 cadence. This rate also works on the web and with set top boxes.
• 24 exact (used for DCI film, filmout and for the web). It also works with fewer set top boxes than 23.976.
• 25 exact (used in PAL and ex-PAL regions) This rate also works on the web and with set top boxes.
• 29.97 (used in NTSC and ex-NTSC regions) This rate also works on the web and with set top boxes.
• 50 exact (used in PAL and ex-PAL regions) This rate also works on the web and with set top boxes.
• 59.94 (used in NTSC and ex-NTSC regions) This rate also works on the web and with set top boxes.

However, as of publication of this article, the Asus PA279CRV only specifically mentions the integer versions of those rates via EDID. This is why if you directly connect it to an Apple Mac computer, it will only reveal those rates in the macOS system preferences adjustments, as you’ll see in the following screenshot I made on my Mac Mini running 12.7.1:

If you use an Apple Mac computer and want to connect the Asus PA279CRV directly, you won’t be able to set the computer to output rates like:

• 23.976 (aka «23.98»)
• 29.97
• 59.94

If you have a Windows computer, the rates will depend upon your specific GPU (graphic processing unit). Many of them do offer the non-integer rates, although they often abbreviate the rate to a single decimal, like:

• 23.9
• 29.9
• 59.9

or even without the decimal point, like:

• 23
• 29
• 59

In my experience, the GPUs that do that on Windows fortunately output the proper desired rate. They are just very frugal with space when displaying the rate in the pulldown menu.

What to do if you use an Apple Mac and need the mentioned non-integer rates

First of all, I want to clarify when you would need those non-integer rates:

1. If you are editing or grading material that is going to be broadcast on-air in an NTSC or ex-NTSC region.
2. If the footage you receive was shot using one of those non-integer rates and you don’t want to retime everything to a different rate, which can be very time consuming. Sony cameras that only show the options for the so-called 24, 30 and 60 are actually recording 23.976 – 29.97 or 59.94. Some JVC cameras that state «24» actually record at 23.976 except if you shoot in 4K DCI mode (1.90∶1 instead of 16:9), when they shoot in exact 24. Non-JVC cameras that are really capable of shooting 23.976 will either show it that way or show it as «23.98».

If you are editing/grading with any of the mentioned non-integer rates:

• 23.976 (aka «23.98»)
• 29.97
• 59.94

and want to view the material in its native cadence (who wouldn’t?), until Asus adds a firmware update to offer the non-integer rates via EDID, you can purchase a device like the U$125 UltraStudio Monitor 3G from Blackmagic. I have discussed this with Asus, who says that they are studying the issue.

Ratings

Build quality

Matte panel

HDMI digital audio passthrough to analog 3.5 mm

USB hub and power

Official support for all desired rates (without EDID) for DCI film and television

EDID offering for Mac computers running macOS

Image credits

Except for the screenshot done by me, all images shown are courtesy of Asus.

Conclusions

For only U$469, the Asus PA279CRV 4K HDR ProArt Display is a much better value proposition than the HP DreamColor 4K Z27xunior» I reviewed in January 2022 (which cost U$674), since the the Asus PA279CRV 4K HDR ProArt Display. Unlike the HP DreamColor 4K Z27xs «junior», the Asus PA279CRV 4K HDR ProArt Display offers proper digital HDMI audio conversion to analog 3.5 mm jack and officially supports the full spectrum of rates required for film and television, although (as covered in great detail within the article), currently only offers some of those rates specifically over EDID when connected directly to an Apple Mac computer running macOS. However, even with that current limitation (which will hopefully be improved via a future firmware update from Asus), the the Asus PA279CRV 4K HDR ProArt Display is still an excellent value proposition. Within the article, I covered how to resolve that with an Apple Mac running macOS by using a device like the U$125 UltraStudio Monitor 3G from Blackmagic.

Lee este artículo en castellano

Reseña: Monitor PA279CRV 4K HDR ProArt de Asus para videoedición y etalonaje

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FTC disclosure

ASUS is not paying for this review article, although ASUS lent the item to Allan Tépper to facilitate the review. Some of the manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. So far, none of the manufacturers listed above is/are sponsors of the TecnoTur, BeyondPodcasting, CapicúaFM or TuSaludSecreta programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are, may be (or may have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine. Some links to third parties listed in this article and/or on this web page may indirectly benefit TecnoTur LLC via affiliate programs. Allan Tépper’s opinions are his own. Allan Tépper is not liable for misuse or misunderstanding of information he shares.

HOW DOES NOBE OMNISCOPE WORK

If you’re a user of Nobe Omniscope, a new version has just been released as of October 2023 that includes.

• Enhanced OCIO Color Management
• Advanced HDR Quality Control and New QC Timeline
• New Multi-Input Support
• New Virtual Production Workflows for Unreal Engine & Unity
• Performance Boosts, macOS Optimization and much more.

You can get more in-depth details at this link!

Now, the first thing you’ll need to figure out with Nobe Omniscope, is how you’ll access it in your application of choice.  When you install Nobe Omniscope, you’ll have a choice of which applications to install, based on your workflow(s).

Once installed, you’ll now have the Nobe Omniscope application, but you’ll need a bridge to get from Premiere, After Effects, Resolve, etc to Nobe Omniscope.  Plug-Ins have been installed for all applications, except for Media Composer (but we’ll talk about that in a second), and using Resolve as an example, you can simply switch your Node window over to Timeline as opposed to Clip, add the Omniscope Connect effect, and that’s all it takes in Resolve!

Now, all you have to do is connect inside of Nobe Omniscope, and you’re all set to go!

To be honest, the process takes about 2 minutes, and once you’re set to go, all you need to do is put Nobe Omniscope on a secondary monitor, and you now have your software scopes set to go!  

The process works almost exactly the same for Premiere/After Effects, except instead of it being added as an effect, you can simply use the Mercury Transmit feature to output to Nobe Omniscope.  The setup in Nobe Omniscope is the same as Resolve, just check the Premiere/AE option, as opposed to Resolve.

Now, Media Composer works a little differently, and you’ll need to make sure you add an important “option”, when installing Media Composer.  When installing, make sure you have the Newtek NDI Plug-In option selected, as we can use that to send our signal from Media Composer to Omniscope.

Once installed, make sure that in Media Composer the HW/SW output is set for NewTek NDI (much like how you would export to external physical hardware).  

Once you do that, you’ll now see a new option to connect called NDI, and the name of your computer.

That’s it!  Real-time playback out of Media Composer to Nobe Omniscope, with a ton of scope options, that we’ll discuss in the next section!

WHAT YOU GET

Well, first, let’s get this out of the way right now.  Nobe Omniscope is supported on both Mac and Windows, including the M1/M2 processors, so both platforms are good to go!  

The first thing you’ll notice when working with Ominscope is that it’s well, fast.  The same as your NLE.  Hit play there, and they playback on Nobe Omniscope is instantaneous.  To be honest, it doesn’t look like much when you launch it, but with 18 scopes, you’re never going to say “I wish I had this scope”….. 

What I normally do is set up a “Default” layout that has my Source Signal (from my NLE), a Waveform, Vectorscope and Audio meters.  The basics of my color/finishing workflows.

From here, this is where things get really interesting.  Nobe Omniscope has it’s settings, but so do all the scopes contained within it.  

Using the Waveform as an example, you can first, choose between the different modes.  Luminosity, RGB, RGB Parade, YRGB Parade and YCbCr Parade.  Then add Colorize, Enhanced Render, Smooth Trace a Scale Override and even a Low Pass Filter, and all of that is just in the Display tab.  You can adjust the further Appearance of the scope, and even add 3D LUT’s to your footage, right there within the scope itself, and this isn’t unique to just the Waveform.  All the scopes have this type of in-depth options for you to choose, depending on what you want things to look like.

One thing that is important to mention is that Nobe Omniscope supports both SDR and HDR (Pro Version) as well as Dolby Vision and, depending on the version you’re using, it will function as a QC playback application as well.  With the Pro Version of Nobe Omniscope, you have access to QC features including Gamma Check, Blanking Detection, HDR Stats, Single Line (view the signal on a specific line) and HDR Gammut Check and even a timeline that you can see QC details in real-time.

Once I have my basic setup good to go, I then start creating alternate layouts (with Histogram, CIE Plot, etc) to use, as I need them.

ISSUES

If I had to pick one issue that I don’t like Nobe Omniscope, and it’s something that I haven’t been able to easily figure out, and that is how to hear audio out of the application itself.  This is not an issue when I’m playing back Media Composer, Premiere or Resolve, as I can hear the audio coming out those applications themselves, but when I playback a video that I want to QC in Omniscope, I see the VU meters moving, but can’t hear any sound coming from the application.  I’m sure it’s something I’ve overlooked, and will update the article, if and when I figure it out.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Hardware scopes are expensive, especially if you’re working in a hybrid location (home/office), or even if you’re working in a smaller studio.  Nobe Omniscope has taken the need for expensive I/O hardware that would be required for hardware scopes, and made them unnecessary, by giving you the ability to go from your NLE to Nobe Omniscope in realtime.  If you’re delivering for broadcast on television or for the theatre, Nobe Omniscope is an absolute no-brainer of a purchase that every editor, colorist and motion graphic designer should have in their post production toolkit.  For more information, or to download a free demo of Nobe Omniscope, you can check it out at this link!

Let’s Edit with Media Composer – Lesson 1 – Before You Edit

In our first lesson, we’re going to discuss things that you need to consider, and understand, before you start editing.  Media Composer is not like other NLE’s.   For example, we start out talking about Plug-Ins, but not in the way you might think.   Media Composer can edit all kinds of different footage from RED to BRAW to ProRes.  The only issue is that you’ll need to install a plug-in to get rolling.  I know that sounds a bit odd, but it’s similar to how you have to download and install BlackMagic RAW before you start working with BRAW footage.  The same concept applies with other types of footage as well.

The next thing that’s important to consider, when creating your new project in Media Composer is, where will it live in your system’s hierarchy?  Do you want it to only be accessible by you?  By all the users on your system?  Or, do you want it in a location that you can just “Grab and Go”, and take it with you on the road?

Finally, we discuss Media Composer’s best, and sometimes confusing feature for new editors, and that is the media hierarchy that Media Composer uses when transcoding or consolidating media.  Even though you can just link to footage and edit with it, it’s not recommended, and has never been an ideal workflow.  Converting your media to “Avid Friendly” media is always the best way to go, and we’ll discuss how Media Composer manages media, and where you should store it!

Don’t forget to like, subscribe and share the tutorial, if you found it helpful!  As always, if you have questions or comment about the tutorial, you can send them to me at kevinpmcauliffe@gmail.com !  Enjoy!

Since it’s been designed as a touch-first experience, you access tools and perform operations quite a bit differently than you may be used to with Final Cut Pro on a Mac. The fastest way to get up to speed is tap the More button at the top right to access the video tutorial we produced. 

The first nine lessons and the last lesson are free to watch and cover everything from setting up projects and importing media, through organizing, editing, trimming, and sharing projects.

If you don’t have an M1 or M2 iPad, we’ve made these lessons available to everyone in this YouTube video.

Whether you are brand new to Final Cut Pro or an experienced user of the Mac version, spending a half—hour to watch these lessons is the quickest way to get familiar with Final Cut Pro for iPad.

In this article, I’ll explain some of the differences between the iPad and Mac versions from a workflow perspective, starting from creating projects and working through to sharing a completed project. While you can use keyboard shortcuts with an attached Magic Keyboard, I’ll focus here on the touch-based process since that was the design focus.

Creating Projects

You won’t see any Libraries in Final Cut Pro for iPad (unless you export one for the Mac, more on that later). You create and edit projects in the Project Screen, where each project is self-contained, and can include multiple timelines.

Importing Media

You can import your media via the Photos app, or from any “Location” available on the iPad such the Files app, iCloud Drive, or services like DropBox; from a connected drive; or straight from a connected SD card. For example, I connected my Sony A7SIII directly to the iPad with a USB-C cable to import clips.

Imported media is copied into the project bundle. You can’t import ranges – not even from connected SD cards like you can in FCP on the Mac – and you can’t leave files in place. You also can’t add folder or Finder tag keywords, assign roles, or analyze audio or video on import.

You can also import media directly from the built-in FCP for iPad Camera, which has the ability on M2 iPads to shoot in ProRes – which you can’t do with the Camera app.

The media is imported into the currently open project. While you can access that same media from any other timelines within that project, the only way to get clips into another project is to first export it and then reimport it.

Organizing Media

There are no Events in FCP for iPad – all your media appears in the Browser, where you have several useful viewing and sorting options. 

It’s very fast and easy to skim and play clips and set ranges in the Browser.

You can reject and favorite entire clips or clip ranges.

You can add keywords to clips and clip ranges as well.

You can select multiple clips in order to rate or keyword them all at once. 

You can then filter your media based on ratings, keywords, and media types.

Editing from the Browser

You can perform all the standard append, insert, overwrite, and connect edits either by dragging clips from the Browser to the Timeline, or by tapping the selected edit option.

Once you have a few clips in the timeline, you pinch open or closed to zoom in and out, and swipe to move left and right. You can tap-drag a marquee to select multiple contiguous clips, or tap the checkmark to select non-contiguous clips.

Enabling snapping make is easier to perform insert edits, connect edits at an edit point, and to swap clip order.

To precisely position the playhead for a connect or overwrite edit in the middle of another clip, the use the intuitive Jog Wheel. You can also use it to nudge clips and keyframes; and to trim clips precisely.

Trimming

There are three different Select Modes for trimming in the timeline. In the default Clip mode, you can trim start and end points; in Range mode, you can set a range within a clip or across multiple clips to delete the range; and in Edge mode you can roll an edit point.

You cannot, however, perform slip or slide edits. And while you can have connected clips, you can’t create connected storylines. And you can’t create compound clips. And while we are talking about the timeline – no markers of any kind; and no timeline index.

Color Correction

You won’t find the grading tools you may be used to in FCP for Mac in FCP for iPad – Color Board, Color Wheels, Color Curves, Hue/Saturation Curves. And no HSV qualifier.

Instead, there is a Color Adjustment Effect with sliders for exposure, contrast, brightness, saturation, highlights, black point and shadows. It also lets you control “Warmth” and Tint by highlight, midtone, and shadow luminance ranges. It’s effective, but you don’t get the level of control that you have in FCP on the Mac. 

The default automatic setting for Color Conversion will tone-map HDR clips to SDR projects and visa-versa – or you can manually choose the conversion and how to map your HDR brightness levels. This new automatic color conversion is part of today’s FCP 10.6.6 Mac update as well and is a welcome addition.

It includes scopes: a Waverform with an RGB overlay, a Vectorscope, and a Histogram. You can only display one at a time, which makes sense given the limited screen real estate.

If you import LOG-encoded footage, you can select from a set list of Camera LUTs to apply to Browser clips. You can’t load custom LUTs.

Audio

You can assign audio roles but you are limited to dialog, effects, and music, which can’t be edited or added to; and no subroles.

Video has just a single role.

Audio levels can be adjusted per clip, and you can select multiple clips to adjust them all at once.

You can duck audio by setting a range first, which will add keyframes just like in FCP on the Mac.

Audio can be panned and faded, and “enhanced” with noise removal, Loudness, and the excellent Voice Isolation effect.

Audio can be expanded, but can’t be detached.

In addition there are quite a few audio effects in the Effects Browser for EQ, Levels, Spaces, Echo and more.

The dozens of included Soundtracks have a cool feature in that they will auto-conform the music to the duration you trim them to so that the music will end naturally for any project length. This feature only works for the included sound files.

Multicam

This feature works much like it does in FCP on the Mac except that you are limited to a maximum of 4 total angles. 

You can sync by audio and then adjust sync, levels, trim, and grade full angles in the Angle Editor. 

You can edit in real time by tapping the angle you want to cut to. When adjusting edits, you can choose to “Split & Switch” (Cut) or “Switch Only”.

Titles & Transitions 

While many of the transitions in FCP for iPad are the same as the ones you are familiar with in the Mac version, the titles are all completely new. In addition to the 7 “Essential” titles, there are 7 sets of Dynamic Titles, each comprising 5 title styles: an opening and closing title, lower third, bumper, and a non-graphic version for placing over video. Each one has 3 animation styles and customizable color palettes. Each also includes a transition in the Transitions Browser.

In addition, there is a Backgrounds Browser containing a simple solid and gradient; dynamic animated elements (which can’t be modified);  and pattern backgrounds. There’s also an Object Browser containing a couple of text generators, basic shapes, and animated social objects.

Effects

The Effects Browser includes basic color effects, including the Color Adjustment effect discussed above; plus effects for blurs, distortion, masking, keying, and stylizing footage. In addition there are 23 color grading presets that use the Color Adjustment effect so they are fully customizable. What’s cool is you can preview any of these on a selected clip by simply tapping them.

There are also two entirely new effects in FCP for iPad that are included in today’s update to FCP for the Mac as well: the Scene Removal Mask for placing a subject on a different background; and Auto-Crop that analyzes footage that has a different aspect ratio from your project and conforms it while tracking the main subject.

Note that the Scene Removal Mask has specific requirements to work well, including the need for a “clean plate” in which the subject to be removed is not present at the start or end of the shot. See Steve Martin’s excellent tutorial on using this effect in FCP for Mac.

FCP for iPad doesn’t include stabilization, Optical Flow, or the Object Tracker features of the Mac version. There is also currently no way to publish Motion templates to FCP for iPad, so no third party content capability in this 1.0 release – although Apple states on their website that this functionality is “coming soon.”

Not really an “effect” exactly, but a new Live Drawing feature lets you write with your finger (or Apple Pencil) over your footage with a variety of drawing tools. The drawing then animates on a stroke at a time and you can adjust the overall animation timing.

Export

In addition to exporting the video, you can export audio only, a still frame, or a Final Cut Pro for iPad project; this last option will create a Final Cut Pro library bundle including all the media which you can then move to a Mac via a drive, Airdrop or copying directly to a connected Mac.

Note that this is a one-way trip as you can’t go from FCP on the Mac to FCP on the iPad. 

When exporting a video, you can choose from 4 presents or manually select a codec, resolution, file type, and color space. It’s cool that you can work in 4K full HDR and export in HDR as well, especially for material that will be viewed on HDR-capable devices like any recent Apple laptops, phones, and iPads.

Conclusion

I hope I’ve given you a good sense of the differences between the iPad and Mac versions of Final Cut Pro. 

The obvious use case is for fast turnaround delivery of short video pieces, particularly for social media purposes. 

But in my opinion, this 1.0 version of FCP for iPad is so well-designed and so responsive, it makes it possible and even preferable in some cases to bring just an iPad to a location shoot, load it up and get footage organized, tagged, rated, and a basic edit in place on location or while traveling back to the edit suite for finishing on the Mac. In fact, a shoot I just completed last week over 5 days included about a half-terabyte of 4K footage shot on mirrorless, iPhones, drones, a GoPro, and a 360 camera – all of which still fit on a 1TB iPad. 

Thoughts?

Adobe is introducing a way to make all of this happen directly inside Premiere Pro with the new Text-Based Editing feature powered by Adobe Sensei (which you of course read in a long drawn out whisper). The new feature is part of Adobe’s NAB Show 2023 rollout.

Text-Based Editing seeks to speed up and shift transcript-to-editing workflows. Premiere Pro’s AI automatically transcribes your footage, and then, as you edit text and move elements around in the Premiere Pro transcript, the timeline will match the shifts and changes. If you a move a line in a transcript, the sequence will match the new order. It’s essentially a paper-edit (or post-it edit, or Google Doc Edit, or Trello edit, or whiteboard edit) playing out in realtime.

Text-Based Editing is currently in the public Beta version of Premiere and, according to Adobe’s blog post, will be released in May. Adobe will be showing this new feature at NAB Show 2023 in Las Vegas.

For more on this release, and the 30th Anniversary of After Effects, head to Adobe’s Blog posts.

The above demonstration video is from Hindenburg, as well as the information below.

New look

The new high-resolution user interface makes it easier to distinguish tracks, create fades, and more. Now you can use colors as a storytelling tool by adding different ones to your regions to identify people, sounds, FX and more in the Workspace.

Clipboard

Keep your session – and workflow – organized and manageable with the new Clipboard, the fastest way to sort, organize and access your audio Clips. Preview audio directly from the clipboard and quickly find specific sound bites using the new Transcription search features. We’ve also added Sub-Groups to make organizing larger sessions even easier, and now you can rename Clips, Groups and Sub-groups so you can work the way you want.

Video track (to be added later)

Later, Hindenburg Pro 2.0 will add a Video Track that lets you import video while you edit, create and master the audio track. Hindenburg Pro 2 will then export an unaltered video file with the new audio. This will be great for audio narrators, audio descriptions, voiceover talent, voice actors, audio post production, YouTube creators and more.

Sound libraries (to be added later)

Hindenburg Pro 2 will later include access to Soundly’s massive database of royalty-free, radio-ready sound effects. The Standard Library includes 2,000 sound FX and the Gold Library includes over 20,000 sound FX.

Audio cleanup (to be added later)

Hindenburg Pro 2 will later offer a complete suite of advanced tools for removing unwanted sounds, distortion/clipping, clicks, mouth smacks, breaths and plosives.

Call recorder (to be added later)

Hindenburg Pro 2’s Call Recorder will allow multiple participants directly from Hindenburg to a private, secure interview space with live video monitoring. Each participants’ high-quality audio (WAV) will be saved as an individual track in real-time for easy transcription and editing.

Pricing and availability

Pricing for Hindenburg Pro 2.0 is not yet available. So far, I know that only existing users of Hindenburg Pro (originally called Hindenburg Journalist Pro) will soon have access to the ßeta version 2.0. I don’t yet have dates for version 2.0. I don’t know whether all of the above features will cost extra or not. Stay tuned and be on one of my lists below to be informed when I publish more.

(Re-)Subscribe for upcoming articles, reviews, radio shows, books and seminars/webinars

Stand by for upcoming articles, reviews, books and courses by subscribing to my bulletins.

In English:

• Email bulletins, bulletins.AllanTepper.com
• In Telegram, t.me/TecnoTurBulletins
• Twitter (bilingual), AllanLTepper

En castellano:

• Boletines por correo electrónico, boletines.AllanTepper.com
• En Telegram, t.me/boletinesdeAllan
• Twitter (bilingüe), AllanLTepper

Most of my current books are at books.AllanTepper.com, and also visit AllanTepper.com and radio.AllanTepper.com.

FTC disclosure

Some manufacturers listed above have sent Allan Tépper review units or NFR software for review, including Hindenburg, although later Allan Tépper paid full retail price for Hindenburg Pro. Some of the manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. So far, none of the manufacturers listed above is/are sponsors of the TecnoTur, BeyondPodcasting, CapicúaFM or TuSaludSecreta programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are, may be (or may have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine. Some links to third parties listed in this article and/or on this web page may indirectly benefit TecnoTur LLC via affiliate programs. Allan Tépper’s opinions are his own. Allan Tépper is not liable for misuse or misunderstanding of information he shares.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly growing field that has the potential to revolutionize many industries, including the field of video editing. However, despite the advancements in AI technology, it is unlikely that it will threaten the jobs of video editors.

First and foremost, AI is still in its early stages of development and is not yet advanced enough to fully replace human editors. While AI can assist in certain tasks such as color correction and motion tracking, it still lacks the creativity and human touch that is necessary for high-quality video editing. Additionally, the field of video editing is constantly evolving, with new technologies and techniques being developed all the time. This means that even if AI were to become advanced enough to replace human editors, it would still need to be constantly updated and trained on the latest techniques.

Another important factor to consider is that video editing is not just about technical skills, but also about creativity and storytelling. Human editors bring a unique perspective and understanding of storytelling to the editing process, which AI is currently unable to replicate. Additionally, human editors are able to understand and interpret the intent of the director and the overall vision for the project, something that AI is not yet capable of.

Furthermore, the field of video editing also requires strong communication and collaboration skills. Human editors work closely with directors, producers, and other members of the production team to ensure that the final product meets the desired vision. AI, on the other hand, is not yet able to fully understand and respond to human communication, making it difficult for it to effectively collaborate with other members of the production team.

Another important point to consider is that AI will not eliminate jobs but rather it will create new opportunities and change the way video editing is done. AI can be used to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, allowing editors to focus on more creative and artistic aspects of the job. This will not only free up their time but also make the editing process more efficient.

In conclusion, while AI has the potential to revolutionize the field of video editing, it is unlikely that it will threaten the jobs of human editors. The field of video editing is constantly evolving, and AI is still in its early stages of development. Additionally, human editors bring a unique perspective and understanding of storytelling to the editing process, which AI is currently unable to replicate. Furthermore, video editing also requires strong communication and collaboration skills, something that AI is not yet able to fully understand and respond to. Lastly, AI will change the way video editing is done and create new opportunities. It is important that video editors adapt to these changes and embrace the new technologies to continue to be successful in their field.

NB: This article was written 100% with chatGPT with the prompt “create a 5,000 word article explaining why AI does not threaten jobs for video editors.” Although it gave me less than 500 words, the argument is cogent. Featured image created with MidJourney using the prompt “an old man hunched over a computer running Final Cut Pro with an AI monster coming out of the screen and engulfing him.”