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Week
of Nov 2 1998
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Nov
6
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CONTEST
Macromedia is seeking entries for
the "Made with Macromedia People's
Choice Awards." The contest is held in
conjunction with the 1999 Macromedia
International User Conference and
Exhibition May 25-27, 1999 at San
Francisco's Moscone Center. Winners will
be selected in 16 categories covering
multimedia and graphics including:
Corporate Learning, Educational
Multimedia, Entertainment, Fine Art and
Interactive Business.
Entries
(it's free!) must be received by December
16, 1998 to qualify. To learn more about
the Made with Macromedia People's Choice
Awards and enter, visit the website.
<ucon.macromedia.com>
  
I'm the kind of person who only upgrades
when I have to. And though I've used
Director 6 off and on for the past
few months, it's only recently that I've
started using it for serious development.
Imagine my surprise to discover that Mac
The Knife (MacWeek's rumor
columnist) is reporting that Director
7 will be available by the end of the
year and will feature "new palettes,
enhanced Web support, including more
Shockwave features; and an assortment of
Bezier-based vector-drawing tools."
<www.macweek.com
column "Mac
The
Knife">
GRAPHICS
Adobe has posted an update:
Photoshop 5.0.2 which is available
free on their website. This fixes problems
including:
- Type
tool problems with Kerning
values
- Illustrator
8.0 files with special features can be
imported
- Small
size text anti-aliases
correctly
<www.adobe.com
update page "Photoshop
5.0.2 is
Here!">
 
Wired Inc's MediaPress
Transconder can convert directly from
QuickTime to MPEG2 and includes
realtime preview, selectable audio data
and sample rates, and CBR and VBR
encoding.
The
MediaPress Transcoder will ship at the end
of the month for $999. The MediaPress
realtime encoder is $4,999.
<www.wiredinc.com>
RAYflect Motion Blur, a plug-in for
Ray Dream Designer, contains a bug
in the Macintosh. Unfortunately, they
didn't say what the bug was, but the new
version can be downloaded at their
site.
<www.rayflect.com>
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Nov
5
|
The VRML Universal Media Element
Library (VRML-UMEL) Working Group is
attempting to create a library of
Textures, Sounds and 3D objects that would
be locally resident on users machines.
This library would be widely distributed
and would provide a standard set of media
that doesn't need to be fetched from the
net, but instead is retrieved directly
from the user's hard drive, CD-ROM, video
card, ROM, or set-top box hardware
depending on installation. This would
improve performance of VRML models because
the 3D model is the ONLY thing that comes
over the wire.
The
library could also be used for traditional
applications. One example is the Living
Desktop, an automated desktop artwork
(wallpaper) utility.
Due
for launch at VRML99 in February you can
join the "Content Review" list and be
involved in the process to select media
for the UMEL.
<www.vrml.org/WorkingGroups/vrml-umel>
<www.LivingDesktop.com>
While HDTV television transmission
tests have just begun, the consumer
electronics industry and the cable
television industry have only just
reached an agreement on a standard for
connections between digital set-top
boxes and digital television
receivers. Based on the IEEE-1394
specification ( "firewire") the two
industries say they must still work to
ensure that copyrighted material sent over
this digital link is protected, in
recognition of the concerns of the Motion
Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Because
of these delays, consumer electronics
manufacturers may not produce 1394-enabled
digital television receivers with content
protection technology for retail
distribution until November
1999.
The
specification is available as CEMA
document EIA-775 and OpenCable document
OCI-C1, both of which will now undergo the
formal acceptance process required by
standards setting organizations.
<www.ncta.com>
Puffin Designs has shipped Version
1.6 of Commotion, its real-time
painting and rotoscoping video tool. The
upgrade is free is owners of version 1.5
and adds a new Wiggle Brush as well as
enhancements to the composite window and
rotospline tool. A cartoon fill feature
automatically fills line artwork with
color and can fill multiple frames at
once.
<www.puffindesigns.com>
HyperCard was the authoring tool
that seemingly started the computer
multimedia revolution way back when.
Unfortunately, it fell on hard times, and
now it seems that Apple is discontinuing
development. There were rumors that the
next release would use QuickTime as it's
file format; and now there are reports
that all HyperCard developers have been
transfered to QuickTime development. Of
course, this latest development could just
be a confirmation that HyperCard has
become entwined with QuickTime. Also,
Apple bought the QuickTime development
team and technology Final Cut from
Macromedia. Whether this all means that
Apple has some great new QuickTime
authoring tool up their sleeves - or that
they have no idea what they are doing -
time will only tell.
But
if HyperCard is really gone, then I will
be sorry to see it go. And HyperActive
Software is urging HyperCard fans to email
Steve Jobs, to "save" the technology.
Write to:
Steve
Jobs
Office of the CEO
Apple Computer, Inc.
M/S 301-CEO
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
<www.hyperactivesw.com>
C-Cube Microsystems has announced
DVxplore, the world's first
single-chip consumer MPEG-2
and DV codec. With DVxplore, C-Cube
says they are the first to enable the
consumer market for recordable DVD on the
PC. DVxplore's programmable architecture
and integrated PCI interface make it an
optimized solution for PC applications.
DVxplore enables PC video applications to
include:
- MPEG-2
and DV25 encoding and decoding;
- Frame
Accurate Editing of MPEG-2 and DV
video;
- Realtime
DV to MPEG-2 transcoding;
- Dual
Stream MPEG-2 decoding and Realtime
Rendering of Special
Effects;
- Ultra-low
bitrate MPEG-1 encoding
- DVD
playback with CSS
decryption;
- Variable
Bitrate (VBR) Recording.
Microsoft,
Matrox, Creative Labs), and Ulead are
already endorsing DVxplore.
The
DVxplore codec is planned to ship to OEMs
in Q4 1998. Products based on DVxplore are
anticipated to hit the retail market Q2
1999. The codec is priced at $75 in
volume.
<www.c-cube.com>
QuickTime is associated with
digital movies, but it also has features
which make it possible to create more than
just simple video sequences.
Unfortunately, there have been no tools
allow you to do more than that. This
situation will soon change.
Totally
Hip Software is developing a new tool
called LiveStage that will enable
users to add scripting to QuickTime
movies and create interactive banners and
movies or simple roll-over
buttons.
LiveStage
is not yet available, so it's difficult to
evaluate exactly what the tool will be
good for. In some respects it is very
similar to Electrifier Pro, which
is being developed by Lari
Software, and will also allow authors
to create interactive - and more complex -
QuickTime movies. Both tools should be
available before the end of the year.
<www.totallyhip.com>
<www.larisoftware.com>
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Nov
4
|
Liquid Audio is shipping Liquid
Music System 4.0, a mastering,
publishing and delivery system for
copyright-protected, music over the
Internet. This release includes AAC audio
compression, territory management, custom
faceplates and support for the
RealNetworks RealPlayer G2. Interestingly,
the Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) (who is in court to stop
MP3) supports Liquid Audio because of it's
copyright protection features.
Liquid
Music System 4.0 provides territory
control for audio distributed over the
Internet. This allows content owners to
specify on a country-by-country basis
whether particular content can be
previewed, purchased or both. It also
supports downloadable faceplates so that
the Liquid Music Player's look and feel
can be customized and branded by the
content owner. BMG Entertainment North
America and MCA Records are among the
sites supporting this
technology.
Liquid
Music System 4.0 is composed of the
Liquifier Pro mastering tool encoding
software; the Liquid Music Server, which
manages the encoded music content and
guarantees secure delivery; and the Liquid
Music Player, free software that lets
consumers preview and purchase CD-quality
music from the Internet, as well as burn
their own custom CDs using
industry-standard CD-R and CD-RW drives.
The
mastering software is available for
Windows 95, 98 and Macintosh. The Liquid
Music Server is available for Windows NT,
Sun Solaris and Silicon Graphics IRIX. The
Liquid Music Player is available for
Windows 95, 98, NT and Macintosh
<www.liquidaudio.com>
Squamish Media Group has released
soundsaVR 1.1, which embeds
directional stereo sound in QuickTime VR
movies. The new release supports 'Fast
Start' streaming and fixes
incompatabilities with some types of
movies. The limited introductory price is
US $70.
<www.smgVR.com>
Sonic Solutions has secured a
United States patent on the MPEG-2
video encoding technology used in Sonic's
DVD Creator and DesktopDVD systems.
The patent covers "Variable Encoding Rate
Plan Generation," an algorithm developed
by Sonic for the variable bit-rate
encoding of video for DVD and other
applications. The advantage of Sonic's
approach is in its method of optimizing
the distribution of data across a long
program so as to maximize the quality of a
compressed video stream.
The
patent received by Sonic relates to a
model Sonic developed to analyze video
content and then optimize the distribution
of encoded video data across the entire
program.
<www.sonic.com>
Media 100 Inc will be shipping
later this month Media 100 Version
5.0 as well as a DV Option,
which will be available for Media 100
models le, lx, xe, xs and xr.
Version
5.0 system includes support for ITU-R
BT.601, making Media 100 programs
compliant with current broadcast
standards. The DV Option is the Company's
first product to offer digital signal I/O
for all Media 100 models, so users will be
able to import and export DV via IEEE
1394.
The
DV Option avoids limitations of DV by
upsampling 4:1:1 DV media to a 4:2:2
M-JPEG file in real-time while preserving
the original image qualityso users can
apply multiple effects to DV media.
Some
of the new features in Version 5.0
include:
- 16:9
frame aspect ratio support for
widescreen television.
- Media
100 codec sharing for improved
integration with QuickTime-based
products like Adobe After Effects,
Puffin's Commotion, Videonic's Effetto
Pronto and others.
- CG
enhancements
The
cost of the DV Option is $2,995 and is
available for Version 5.0 Media 100 le
through xr systems. A Media 100 user can
update to Version 5.0 software for
$1,295.
<www.media100.com>
Kodak has lowered its prices on
digital cameras:
- DC120
zoom $499
- DC200
$399
- DC210
zoom $499
- DC220
zoom $699
- DC260
zoom $899
<www.kodak.com>
Olympus has announced two new cameras,
The D-400 and the D-620L.
The D-400 Zoom has a 1.3 megapixel
resolution (1280 x 960), 3X F2.8 autofocus
zoom lens, 4 mode flash, auto white
balance with 5-step manual override,
center weighted and spot metering systems
for auto exposure with +/- 2 step manual
EV control in 1/2 step increments. The
D-400 Zoom also includes a FlashPath
floppy disk adapter and high-speed D-RAM
allowing users to shoot and capture up to
10 images in half second
intervals.
The
D-400 Zoom will be available in November
with an expected street price of $799. All
software supports both Windows and
Macintosh computer systems.
The
D-620L has the same resolution and
a 3X zoom lens as well as TTL (through the
lens) viewfinder, with an external flash
sync/PC connector. A higher burst mode
allows 3.3 frames per second and the
D-620L uses Nickel Metal Hydride batteries
and an intelligent battery recharger.
The
D-620L is expected to sell for $1199 and
is due in the market in November. For 90
days, starting November 2, 1998 - January
31, 1999, Olympus will he including one
free additional 8MB SmartMedia card in the
box of each D-620L making a total of two
8MB cards.
<www.olympus.com/digital>
GRAPHICS
Extensis is making PhotoText
2.0 available for free download.
PhotoText adds the following
WYSIWYG typographical controls to
Adobe Photoshop:
- Support
of Multiple Text Blocks;
- Character
Style Sheets;
- QuarkXPress
Style Kerning, Tracking and Leading
controls;
- Individual
Character Color;
- And
provides more character formatting
choices -- bold, italic, underline,
outline, shadow, all caps, small caps,
character width and height, left,
center, right and full
justification.
PhotoText
is compatible with Photoshop 3.0.5, 4.0
and 5.0, Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0 and 5.0,
and Power Mac OS 7.5.5-8.5.
<www.extensis.com>
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Nov
3
|
Several readers questioned my off-hand
remake about the Iomega Buz box at
the end of my <Aurora
Fuse video card
review>
It just goes to show you have to be more
careful when trying to come up with a
pithy conclusion to a review.
In
fact I have never used a Buz box, and had
mistakenly believed that the Buz didn't
capture full frames. mea culpa.
Thanks to those who pointed out that the
Buz might be better than I had
thought.
In
particular, thanks to Scott Lopatin
at MacOnCall <www.maconcall.com>
who sent me his comments about using the
Buz which I have made available at the
page listed below.
<Buz
User
Report>
The cost of DV camcorders continues
to fall. The JVC GR-DVA1 has a MSRP
of $1099.00 and Best Buy lists it
in their latest flyer at $899. The JVC
GR-DVF10 which is similar but adds
an LCD display is MSRP $1,119.95 and is
listed at $999. Canon's low price
ZR digital camcorder is listed by
Circuit City for $999.
While
I'm not personally interested in these
particular cameras, it does suggest that
DV camcorders will soon replace Hi8 in the
consumer market.
DirectXtras has released
DirectEmail 1.5 Xtra. DirectEmail
is a Scripting Xtra for Macromedia
Director and Authorware that lets you
compose and send e-mails, with
attachments, from within Director,
Authorware and Shockwave applications.
The
new version has been optimized, improved,
and now available both for Windows (9X/NT)
and MacOS (PPC). A fully functional trial
version of DirectEmail Xtra 1.5 can be
downloaded from their website.
<www.directxtras.com>
CNET reports that Diamond
Multimedia, GoodNoise,
MP3.com, MusicMatch, and
Xing Technology have created the
MP3 Association. They plan to work
together to promote MP3, as well as pool
legal resources (probably necessary since
the Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) is already going after
Diamond Multimedia in court.
Meanwhile
Nullsoft, Inc., developer of
Winamp, a music MP3 player for
Windows, and the Internet music site
MP3.com have announced that they
will partner to release a Winamp and
MP3.com co-branded player. It's expected
to be released within 30 days and will be
available as a shareware download from
MP3.com.
<www.news.com
news report "Association
will promote
MP3">
<www.winamp.com>
<www.mp3.com>
RealNetworks has announced
RealNetworks Radio Toolkit,
designed to enable radio broadcasters and
music programmers to easily create new
radio businesses for the
Internet.
"With
more than 1700 radio stations broadcasting
on the Web and more than 36 million
registered users of the RealPlayer, the
critical factors are in place for an
explosive growth of the Internet radio
industry in the coming year," said Rob
Glaser, chairman and CEO, RealNetworks,
Inc.
RealNetworks
is working with partners to develop and
publish a standardized interactive music
programming broadcast format -- the
Standard Interactive Radio Format
(SIRF) -- including monitoring and
reporting for advertisers and copyright
holders. SIRF defines the set of content
elements that make up an interactive radio
broadcast and the Internet-radio specific
protocols used to transmit the
content.
Pricing
and availability of RealNetworks Radio
Toolkit will be announced in the second
quarter of 1999. For more information on
RealNetworks Radio Toolkit, contact Chris
Otto, RealNetworks, 206-674-2304,
otto@real.com
<www.real.com>
STORAGE
CNNFN reports that SyQuest has
suspended operations, and may file for
Chapter 11. The company says it will
maintain a limited support staff for
customer service while operations are
suspended.
<www.cnnfn.com
news report "Computer
storage device maker may file Chapter 11,
requests trading
halt">
Allaire is shipping HomeSite
4.0, its HTML editing tool. It is
priced at $99 for CD-ROM, and $89 for the
electronic version. Special upgrade
pricing is available. A fully functioning
30-day evaluation version of HomeSite is
also available
Allaire
is also shipping ColdFusion 4.0,
it's cross-platform Web application
server.
<www.allaire.com>
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Nov
2
|
The Aurora Fuse video card is a
low-cost (less than $700), yet high
quality video card for the Macintosh. I've
spent some time playing with it and have
written up a short review.
<Aurora
Fuse video card
review>
The Mac Java tool called
AgentSheets was used to simulate
the behavior of E. coli bacteria in
microgravity aboard the Discovery space
shuttle with John Glenn.
AgentSheets
is a construction kit to build interactive
SimCity-like simulations and games that
can be exported as Java applets (no Java
programming required). Applets generated
run 50 times faster than any comparable
product on the PC.
AgentSheets
is designed for the Mac, and provides
users with high-level access to Apple
technology that includes:
- Java
MRJ
- Text-to-speech
- TCP/IP
(to read web page content into
simulation/game in real
time)
- Sound
& QuickTime Music
- AppleEvents
See
examples and get a FREE beta version at
their website. They also have a patch
which fixes a problem with OS 8.5
<www.agentsheets.com
web page "Examples">
<Information about the experiment at
www.foxnews.com>
Pinnacle Systems has announced
ReelTime software version 1.6. The
upgrade is free to all registered ReelTime
customers, and adds many new features and
capabilities to the Company's highly
regarded ReelTime family of products.
The
new version adds a software codec version
of ReelTime, Pipeline Digital's ProVTR
Plus video deck control plug-ins,
Pixélan Software's Video SpiceRack,
featuring 300 visual effectsand a set of
VU meters added to the
interface.
ReelTime
family software version 1.6 will be
available October 27, 1998.
<www.pinnaclesys.com/framesets/rtupdates.html>
Ulead Systems has released
VideoStudio 3.0, which should
arrive in stores by the end of October.
VideoStudio is a video editing application
designed for the home user.
<www.ulead.com/vs/runme.htm>
Ulead FX Razor 2.01, a Web
development suite for Windows 95/98 and NT
is available now and includes five Adobe
Photoshop modules for creating special
effects for Web
graphics.
FX Razor costs $89.00, and is available
for immediate download over the Internet.
Ulead FX Razor includes the following
features:
- Web.Plugins
2
- Type.Plugin
1.0
- Particle.Plugin
1.0
- ArtTexture
Plugin 1.0
- FantasyWarp
Plugin 1.0
<www.webutilities.com>
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