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Week
of Nov 9 1998
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Nov
13
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Radius MotoDV, the DV transfer
solution will now ship with
PhotoDV, Radius' still-image
capture software for DV. MotoDV runs on
both Macintosh and Windows 95/98 platforms
and will still sell for its original price
of $499.
MotoDV
enables users to transfer digital video
between a DV camcorder or tape deck
equipped with a DV FireWire port (IEEE
1394) and a Macintosh or Windows-based
computer. PhotoDV, designed as a plug-in
for Adobe PhotoShop, captures still images
from DV footage. Adobe PhotoShop LE for
both Mac OS and Windows is included with
the product.
Radius
MotoDV includes the MotoDV and PhotoDV
software on Windows/Mac OS cross-platform
CD-ROM's, Adobe PhotoShop LE, the Radius
1394 FireWire card and cable (6-pin to
4-pin), and a user guide.
<www.radius.com>
Radius is also providing a 45-day
preview edition of EditDV Unplugged
for Windows as a free download to
registered MotoDV users. This first
version of EditDV Unplugged for Windows
includes the basic "cutting room" tools of
the non-linear video editor, such
asthree-point editing of DV footage,
on-the-fly marking of in and out points,
real-time playback of cuts, and the
ability to substitute an alternate audio
track. EditDV Unplugged for Macintosh,
available since July 1998, includes some
additional features such as titles,
transitions, and special effects.
Unplugged
for Macintosh without the time restriction
may be purchased on the website for
$99.
<www.radius.com>
Epson has announced its first
megapixel, 3X optical/6X zoom digital
camera with Epson's HyPict image
enhancement technology, the PhotoPC
750Z.
Like
Epson's PhotoPC 700, the PhotoPC 750Z
utilizes a 1.25 megapixel CCD sensor with
1280 by 960 pixel resolution. The HyPict
technology increases resolution to 1600 x
1200 inside the camera, before JPEG
compression. While high resolution images
can be captured in 3 seconds, Continuous
Shoot provides the ability to capture two
640 by 480 images per second up to 16
images. This feature is great for
capturing images to create Web animation.
The
PhotoPC 750Z features automatic focus,
flash, shutter, white balance and exposure
adjustment. For more control over images,
users can manually adjust setting exposure
values, white balance, macro, panorama,
and black and white modes.
<www.epson.com>
PLAY IT COOL is a QuickTime and
QuickTime VR player that will load the
entire movie into RAM for smooth playback.
You can play movies at up to five times
normal speed, forward or in reverse, and
perform simple editing tasks like cutting,
copying, and pasting.
<www.kagi.com/rwc/>
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Nov
12
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Tribeworks has announced
iShell, a cross-platform digital
media suite that enables creation of
interactive media-rich applications
without writing code.
iShell's
Editor features integration of all media
types supported by QuickTime 3, including
full-motion video and CD-quality audio,
from any location whether local or over
the Internet. Media creators save
significant development time through
iShell's ability to reuse common
interactive elements, thus streamlining
the production process. iShell can be
highly customized via plug-ins and
scripts, which are integrated into the
visual editor's user interface.
The
complete iShell suite, including iShell
Editor, iShell Runtime and iShell Software
Developer's Kit (SDK), is available for
$2,000 as part of the Tribeworks'
Developer Network membership. You can also
download a trial version of the
software.
<www.tribeworks.com>
Microsoft has announced a Web
30-day trial version of PhotoDraw
2000. A CD version is also available
to U.S. and Canadian users and can be
ordered from Microsoft for a nominal
shipping and handling charge.
PhotoDraw
includes more than 20,000 pieces of clip
art, 300 templates, 400 cutouts, 375
textures, 75 edges and 200 fonts. It
shares features familiar to users of
Microsoft Office, such as Help, and tools
such as Office Art to get business users
up and running quickly.
PhotoDraw
2000 is available now in stores for a
suggested retail price of $149 and can be
found within the new Microsoft Graphics
Studio line.
<www.microsoft.com
web page "PhotoDraw
2000">
The December 98 issue of Digital
Camera magazine (on newsstands now)
contains part 2 of an Immersive
Imaging article written by Jim Anders
of Kaidan. This article covers Object
photography.
Yamaha has announced several new
multimedia products including:
- Five
new CDRW 16x-read speed models with 4X
ReWrite Speed drives including: the
CRW2216SZ, an internal SCSI-2; the
CRW2216E, an internal E-IDE drive; the
CRW4416EZ, an internal E-IDE drive; the
CRW4416S, an internal SCSI-2 drive; and
the multi-platform
CRW4416SXZ.
- The
YST-MS55D is Yamaha's first USB speaker
product, a three-piece system
delivering 80 watts of
power.
Polaroid's ColorShot Digital
Photo Printer connects to a PC and
prints digital photos on Polaroid Instant
Film. Image area is 3.6 x 2.9 inches and
it takes about 15 seconds to print an
image. The USB device is currently only
available for Windows.
<www.polaroid.com>
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Nov
11
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GRAPHICS
BitJazz is shipping
PhotoJazz, a $99 Windows and Mac
solution enabling lossless compression
averaging 2.5X in photo-quality images.
Designed initially for use with the Adobe
product family, the perfectly lossless
technology used in PhotoJazz allows
graphics professionals to cut file sizes
to less than half their original image
size for efficient transmission and
storage with no loss of quality.
A
demo version of PhotoJazz is available for
download as is a free PhotoJazz file
reader for Mac and Windows. PhotoJazz Pro,
which sells for $99, has full-write
capability. PhotoJazz Lite, priced at $49,
outputs RGB only.
BitJazz
is also shipping its cross-platform
BitJazz Software Development Kit (SDK)
that enables developers to include
PhotoJazz support in their Windows and Mac
OS software.
<www.bitjazz.com>
Yesterdays report about Microsoft's claim
that that QuickTime's failures when
running on Windows was caused by
programming errors made by Apple prompted
me to take a look at both the Mindcraft
report, as well as the testimony at the
DOJ site.
Unfortunately,
it was less than illuminating. While
Apple's Avadis Tevanian does claim that
Microsoft limited QuickTime's abilities
under Windows 98 he is actually repeating
a claim made by another person (and while
the testimony has a sitation I couldn't
find that testimony.) An appendix to
Tevanian's testimony shows file formats
that QuickTime "isn't allowed to
play."
However,
Mindcraft's evidence of Apple error's only
relates to three files formats.
Without
more details it's impossible to tell who
is write
<www.mindcraft.com
web page "QuickTime
Fix">
<www.usdoj.gov>
Rumors continue that Apple may
announce QuickTime streaming either
in time for, or at, MacWorld in January.
The new QuickTime software is said to be
based on the streaming media protocol,
Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). The
decision to base its technology on RTSP
which would allow QuickTime content to be
streamed from standard Web servers.
<www.apple.com/quicktime>
Looking for an inexpensive digital camera?
The Barbie Digital Camera retails
in the mid-$60 range and stores up to six
low-resolution (120 x 280-pixel) digital
pictures on board. Images are transferred
to the PC using a serial cable. The camera
saves images in a proprietary compressed
format, then converts them
to
one of five standard formats, including
JPEG, and TIFF. [The press release
said it also saves images in HTML
format!-Ed] Included software lets
users do a number of things with the
images including simple editing,
assembling scrapbooks, etc.
<www.mattelmedia.com>
Web site developer OnRadio said it
will offer streaming media services to its
more than 500 radio stations nationwide
using Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Media
Technology. Terms of the deal with
Microsoft were not disclosed.
<www.onradio.com>
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Nov
10
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Microsoft has demonstrated
Windows Media On-Demand Producer, a
powerful and easy-to-use authoring tool
for streaming media. The new tool,
released for public beta testing today,
was codeveloped by Microsoft and Sonic
Foundry and will be included with the
Microsoft Windows Media Technologies
streaming media platform.
Windows
Media On-Demand Producer delivers
production and encoding features for
Internet and intranet content developers.
Web developers with existing
download-and-play content can use Windows
Media On-Demand Producer to convert WAV
and AVI files to the Advanced Streaming
Format (ASF) for streaming to Windows
Media Player. The tool simplifies the
process of integrating video into a Web
site by automatically generating HTML
pages with the embedded Windows Media
Player.
The
beta release of Windows Media On-Demand
Producer is available for free download
from the Microsoft Web site. The final
release of this new encoding tool is
expected in early 1999 and will be a
no-charge addition to the Windows Media
tools available today on the Microsoft
Windows Media Technologies Web site.
<www.microsoft.com
web pages "Windows
Media
Player",
"On-Demand
Producer">
Boy, these guys are
lucky.
After
Real Media made the claim that
Microsoft broke their installation
Microsoft came out and said that Real
Media had actually made a mistake. Now
they've done the same for Apple's
allegations about the breaking of
QuickTime installations.
Microsoft
says it has definitively shown that
QuickTime's failures when running on
Windows are in fact caused by programming
errors made by Apple, not
Microsoft.
"Apple's
willingness to claim 'sabotage' without
basis in fact is very disappointing," said
Tod Nielsen, General Manager of
Microsoft's Developer Relations
Group.
Microsoft
says the findings have been verified by an
independent software testing and
development lab, Mindcraft who issued a
report on Apple's bug.
A
Microsoft software developer has created a
simple fix for customers to download and
install to correctly complete the
installation process for QuickTime. The
fix is available for download from the
Microsoft Developer Network Web site.
<www.mindcraft.com
web page "QuickTime
Fix">
<www.microsoft.com
web page "QuickTime">
Macromedia has announced
Dreamweaver 2, their HTML editor.
Among the many new features, Dream
Templates lets designers specify which
sections of a site can be edited by
content contributors, while a new site map
and automated link and file management
simplify the creation and maintenance of
Web sites. Users can now insert an image
to use as a guide while designing pages
and allows pixel-precise positioning of
elements on an HTML page, with one-step
conversion of layers to tables for
compatibility with 3.0 browsers.
Dreamweaver will display Macromedia Flash,
Macromedia Shockwave, and other plug-in
content live within the authoring
environment. The software also now parses
and respects a user's XML code. Since XML
standards are still evolving, the support
for XML in Dreamweaver is extensible.
Customers can define XML tags using the
new tag database, add new XML objects to
the Dreamweaver object palette, and create
property inspectors for editing XML.
A
beta will be available to existing owners
of Dreamweaver at the Dreamweaver
website.
Dreamweaver
2 will be available in December 1998 for
an estimated street price of US $299 (U.S.
and Canada) for Windows 95/98, Windows NT
4.0 or later, and MacOS 7.5.5 or later.
Registered users of prior versions of
Dreamweaver may upgrade to Dreamweaver 2
for US $129 (U.S. and Canada).
<www.dreamweaver.com>
Equilibrium has shipped the
DeBabelizer Pro 4.5 for Windows
Video/Animation Service Pack.
DeBabelizer is a tool for automatically
preparing digital graphics and video for
delivery in any medium on any platform.
The Service Pack extends DeBabelizer Pro's
automation capabilities to include support
for Apple Computer's QuickTime 3, full AVI
support, improved animated GIF compression
technology for Web animations, and
expanded support for Adobe Photoshop
plug-ins and files.
With
the new Video/ Animation with sound
compression support, DeBabelizer users
will be able to automatically process and
compress content for web sites, CD-ROMs,
kiosks and corporate
presentations
The
Equilibrium DeBabelizer Pro 4.5 for
Windows Video / Animation Service Pack is
available for free immediate download from
Equilibrium's Web site. Equilibrium
DeBabelizer Pro 4.5 has an estimated
street price of $399.
<www.equilibrium.com>
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Nov
9
|
SHOW
Every year Hunt's (a store known
for Photo equipment) hosts a Photo and
Video show in Boston. While it's not a
huge show, it's certainly large enough to
fill an hour or two and it's a good way to
catch up with the latest stuff. And maybe
get a good discount on
something.
The
only thing I don't like about the show is
that all purchases must be paid for at a
single location, and the line was about
half an hour long when I was thinking of
buying something. I decided it wasn't
worth it for the package of paper I was
going to buy!
<www.wbhunt.com>
The Nikon CoolPix 900s is a cool
looking digital camera. It was interesting
to sit through a half hour presentation on
the features of the camera.
- Nikon
makes a wide angle and fish-eye lens
and the camera has settings so that you
can tell it that the lens is
attached.
- The
presenter said they use only 4:1
compression, which results in better
image quality, but 500K files (and he
made a passing shot at Sony saying that
they use much higher compression to get
images on a floppy disk.)
- They
also mentioned (though not by name)
that the camera was chosen as the best
digital camera by a "leading consumer
magazine." This is true, though in that
comparison neither the Olympus 600L or
the Kodak DC260 were included, which is
unfortunate as they are the closest
competitors to the 900s.
- The
presenter said that the first thing any
purchaser of a digital camera should do
is buy rechargeable batteries: alkaline
batteries just don't cut
it.
- The
900S, unlike the 900, now includes a
lens cap (and the presenter suggested
that if you were a 900 owner and
contacted them they would send you
one.)
- The
fisheye lens includes IPIX software and
software keys for three nodes (extra
nodes cost $25)
<www.nikonusa.com>
Canon was showing their entire
range of DV cameras, including the
XL-1, and they played a very
impressive demo reel.
- Someone
asked about focusing issues with the
XL-1 and the rep immediately admitted
that the lens can be a little slow to
start focusing and that for
professionals that could be a
problem.
- He
also said that Canon was looking at
making a fully mechanical lens for the
camera.
<www.canondv.com>
A little off topic, but I also saw the
Hasselblad XPan, a 35mm camera that
takes panoramic photographs. What's
unusual about it is that the camer uses
the whole negative (rather than cropping
down a regular 35mm frame.) You can also
take regular format images.
The
camera is pretty large for a 35mm camera,
and I was surprised that when I looked
through the viewfinder the first thing
that I saw as...my fingers! The
positioning of the viewfinder at the side
of the camera meant I had to adjust how I
operated the lens. According to the XPan
website, the camera is developed in
co-operation with Fuji Photo Film
Corp.
The
camera costs about $1,600, and I doubt it
would be of any use for creating immersive
imaging (i.e. QuickTime VR), but it's an
interesting concept.
<www.xpan.com>
Last friday I reported on the bug in
RAYflect's new filter Motion
Blur (which is fixed), but only over
the weekend did I get a press release on
the product itself(!)
RAYflect
Motion Blur adds motion blur to scenes
rendered within Ray Dream Studio 5 and is
available at $49.00 for 95/98/NT and Power
Macintosh. Features
- applicable
to animated objects, cameras, shadows,
shaders, reflection and
refraction
- applicable
to animated special effects such as
lens flares, light cones, and much
more
- Time
- sets beginning and ending point of
the blur effect
- Intensity
- sets motion blur effect's
intensity
- Blur
- increases blur effect precision for
high resolution animations
- Blur
Radius - sets the motion blur's
size
- Render
First Frames - allows the creation of
recurent movies
<www.rayflect.com>
GRAPHICS
MetaCreations has announced a new version
of Kai's Power Tools (KPT), a set
of plug-in applications for use within
Adobe Photoshop, or any image editing
applications that support the Adobe
Photoshop plug-in architecture, including
MetaCreations' Painter 5.5.
KPT
5 includes new real-time 3D tools,
particle growth effects and professional
blurs. Among the new plug-in applications
featured in KPT 5:
- KPT
ShapeShifter creates shapes and objects
with refracting glass edges
- KPT
Orb-It explodes a source image into
thousands of spheres.
- KPT
FiberOptix creates anything from furry
text, to green shag carpet, pink
plastic silly string, and lush creeping
vines.
- KPT
Blurrrr is a suite of filters including
zoom, spin, and other blurs.
- KPT
FraxPlorer is a Fractal
Explorer.
KPT5
will be available this fall at an SRP of
US $199. Upgrades to registered users of
KPT will be available for US $99.
<www.metacreations.com>
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