Posts Tagged apple
Tips from DMA Pros: Navigation in OS X
Digital Media Academy News + Events | February 26th, 2009 by Ben
In this movie, I’ll be showing you some navigation shortcuts in OS X that can increase your productivity.
Here’s a recap of the keyboard shortcuts I cover in this movie.
Exposé:
F9: Display All Open Windows
F10: Display Windows From the Current Application
F11: Show the Desktop
The SwitchBar:
Cmd-Tab: Change Applications
Cmd-tilde (above Tab): Change Windows Within Current Application
Hold Shift to slow down Exposé animations.
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Apple, Can You Give my new iMac a Battery Pack?
Digital Media Academy News + Events | February 20th, 2009 by Philip Harding
I love the new black and aluminum Apple iMac. It looks great, and it works great. Awesome design. At Digital Media Academy our courses are always taught with the latest technology (software and hardware – Mac or PC). We used a hundreds of the latest Intel iMacs in our summer courses this year. We ran a lot of Macs as PC’s running Bootcamp in many of our Video Game Design courses across the country.
I am amazed whenever I see an older, white G5 iMac. The old iMacs look gigantic compared to the new, sleek model. The new iMac is small enough that I have actually taken it with me across the country on plane flights and road trips, to coffee shops and hotels. Yes, I love my 15″ Apple MacBook Pro, but sometimes the iMac becomes my mobile computer of choice. I have been stopped by airport security and stared at by fellow Starbucks drinkers.
The iMac has become so sleek that it fits into this odd category. It’s not really a full desktop computer (as we’ve known them) size, and it’s a little too big to be considered laptop size… but it’s getting close! Sometimes I just have to take it with me. Until I can get my 8″ iPhone… (cough, cough Mr. Steve Jobs) I guess I just have one request…
Can someone make a battery pack for my iMac?
No, this isn’t my black iMac. This is the birthday cake my wife Rachelle made for my party last year. She made an iPhone cake this year. Oh yes. Stay tuned for that!
My Favorite iPhone App of the Moment : Stay Tuned!
Digital Media Academy News + Events | February 19th, 2009 by Philip Harding
I’m loving all the new iPhone Apps! I loved my iPhone before Apps, and now I love my iPhone even more. I will continually be bringing you “My Favorite iPhone App of the Moment.”
I had only dreamed about doing this stuff with my iPhone back when I was standing outside the flagship New York 5th Avenue Apple Store in the crisp, cool evening air unwrapping my first iPhone or when I was standing in the back of the line in the Detroit area, Michigan mall Somerset Apple Store (yes, we barely made it after trying two other Apple Stores) waiting for my shiny, black iPhone 3G.
This is great! I can control my entire in-home theater system, audio throughout my house, I can listen to any music I want anywhere I want, I can instantly become “knowledgeable” about any random topic, and I can almost never get lost again. This is the life.
Stay tuned as I continue to unwrap the most amazing, fun and useful iPhone Apps!
- Philip H.
Apple Motion Special Effects Tip with Instructor Mark Spencer
Digital Media Academy News + Events | February 19th, 2009 by Philip Harding
Mark teaches Motion Training Courses (FCS 101) at Digital Media Academy, is a Bay Area editor, and has written several books on Motion. Mark has also taught the Final Cut Studio Integration course at DMA. Mark’s website is an amazing resource for tips and inspiration in using Final Cut Studio.
Mark Spencer gave us a Motion tip at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco where DMA teamed up with the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus to offer hands-on computer workshops. This video was shot on the bus. Check it out!
Video Compression for Producers and Editors : How Big is It?
Digital Media Academy News + Events | February 19th, 2009 by Philip Harding
Written by Jeff Sobel of the John Lennon Bus
A video producer often needs to be able to estimate the size of a video file before that video has been recorded, imported or exported. Do you need a magic crystal ball to predict how large a video file will be before you hit that Export button? Nope. You just need a 5th grader’s grasp of basic math. Here’s how:
Let’s take the example of exporting a video using Apple’s Compressor which comes standard with Final Cut Studio 2.
The first thing you should know is that digital video is encoded at a certain datarate, commonly called the bitrate. Higher bitrates generally produce better quality video (less “pixelation” or graininess) but will create larger files. You need to be sure that you choose a bitrate that’s high enough to achieve satisfactory quality but not so high that the video can’t be streamed on the web, downloaded in a reasonable amount of time, emailed, or however you intend to get it to your audience. Compressor has presets which are great starting points for making this decision.
The screenshot below shows Compressor’s stock presets for iPod, iPhone, and AppleTV:
You’ll see that there are two different presets for iPod/iPhone. The 1st is “h.264 video @ 600kbps” and the 2nd is “h.264 video @ 1500kbps”. Now, it’s safe to assume that the 2nd preset will produce better quality video, but how big will the files be? Let say we have a 2min long video and we’re hoping to compress it to a small enough filesize to be able to email it. Will the 600kbps setting do that for us? Let’s figure it out.
The 1st thing you need to know is that “600kbps” stands for “600 kilobits per second”. Now, we’re all pretty used to hearing about kilobytes, megabytes, even terabytes. But what’s a kilobit? A bit is the smallest piece of data there is. We represent bit with a lowercase b and byte with an uppercase B. All you need to know is:
There are 8 bits in a byte.
There are 1024 bits in a kilobit.
There are 1024 kilobits in a kilobyte.
There are 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte.
It’s not nearly as complicated as it might seem at first. It’s just like measurements you make in a kitchen. You know, 16oz in a pint, 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon, etc…
So let’s figure out how big our 2min video is going to be after we compress it using the 600kbps preset in Compressor:
600kbps / 8 = 75 kilobytes per second
75KB/s * 60 = 4500 kilobytes per minute
4500KB/m / 1024 = 4.4 megabytes per minute
Our 2min video is going to be about 9megabytes when exported with this preset. Small enough that you might be able to email it.
Now what if we compressed it using the AppleTV preset? That’s a 5mbps bitrate (5 megabits per second) so:
5mbps * 1024 = 5120 kilobits per second
5120kbps / 8 = 640 kilobytes per second
640KB/s * 60 = 38,400KB per minute
38,400KB / 1024 = 37.5 megabytes per minute
At this setting our 2min video will be about 75 megabytes. Much larger. But it’s going to look much better as well, even on an HD TV.
In our next installment we’ll talk about how you can estimate how much disk space you’ll need before capturing or importing your footage from a video camera.
Digital Media Academy teams up with the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus to Offer Courses at Macworld
Digital Media Academy News + Events | January 29th, 2009 by Phil Gibson
Visit DMA in the North-Hall at Booth – 4528
The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is non profit multimedia studio dedicated to providing free opportunities to create original music, video and still photo projects. Short 45 minute courses will integrate Lennon Tour Bus produced content with hands-on learning experiences provided by Digital Media Academy. Topics to include Apple Final Cut Studio, Logic, Adobe After Effects, and more.
The DMA courses will be offered throughout the expo January 6 – 9, 2009. Click here for the full course schedule.
