Highlights: Articles Written by Charlie White

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Behind the Scenes: Monday Night Football
On a cold November night on the frozen tundra of northern Wisconsin, a team of nearly 200 of the world’s best video warriors staked out their turf, planting 25 HDTV cameras all around the legendary Lambeau Field. It was time for Monday Night Football starring Bret Favre and the Green Bay Packers, and ABC was there with its convoy of trucks containing only the best technicians, artists, leaders and technology, all poised to bring their unique interpretation of NFL football into millions of living rooms across America. Are you ready for some football? Read

InFocus ScreenPlay 777
(12/2/05) Here we go into the stratosphere of projectordom, with the InFocus ScreenPlay 777. Originally $30,000, this three-chip DLP projector, destined for only the most chic of screening rooms, now sells for half that price, $15,000. We put this 45-pound flying saucer-like monster under the microscope here at the Midwest Test Facility Theater, prodding it with light meters and colorimeters, and projecting a variety of source material onto different types of screens. Taking a cue from its futuristic appearance, as we gazed at its pristine images we quickly realized we were looking into the future of projector technology. details

Logitech Harmony 880 Universal Remote
(11/25/05) In our ongoing search for the perfect universal remote control, Logitech Harmony has come the closest to that esteemed goal. Its previous models were able to eliminate all those remote controls strewn all over your coffee table, and let you switch between watching TV, watching DVDs and many other activities by pushing just one button. Let's take a look at the top of the Harmony line, the Logitech Harmony 880, a rechargeable and programmable remote control that sports a small cellphone-like LCD screen. details

Plane Quiet Solitude Headphones
(11/23/05) I've often wondered why I get so tired after a coast-to-coast flight. After just sitting there, motionless for hours, I usually feel like I've run a marathon. Studies have shown that a constant low-frequency noise will introduce fatigue. When I received the Solitude Headphones ($200) from a company called Plane Quiet, I hoped maybe my days of feeling worn out after sitting inside a pressurized tin can for a half a day might be over. Beyond that, I wanted to hear some tight music through a pair of good-sounding headphones. These Solitude phones did not disappoint on either count. details

Clear Channel Centralizes Master Control
(11/22/05) Clear Channel has developed an operations center that can handle master control duties for multiple television stations in far-flung locations. Already handling those operations for three television stations coast to coast, the company plans to add a fourth by the end of this year and more next year. We talked with Clear Channel’s senior VP and director of engineering, Mike DeClue, along with Sonny Hollingshead, chief engineer/technology officer of the center in Tulsa, as well as Brian Coombs, chief developer of this technology. In part one, the three talk about the economies of scale achieved by this centralized system. details

Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8
(11/21/05) Ulead has released a new version of its MediaStudio Pro application, now in version 8. This new iteration of Ulead's top-of-the-line nonlinear editing software offers a more unified interface and support for HDV files. It also adds new templates for a unique new automatic compositing routine, and a clever new way of dealing with proxies to reduce the time necessary to edit large HD files. We took Ulead MediaStudio Pro 8 out for a test drive, and here's our review. details

Interview: Making Small Companies Sound Big
(11/17/05) Intellicomm offers a service called Innoport, which gives individual users and businesses the functions of automated telephone hardware such as a hosted PBX without its associated high costs. The service can make a small business seem like a major corporation by screening callers, handling fax-to-email functions and finding its users by automatically calling a list of phone numbers, all the while playing the user's choice of music to callers while they wait. Digital Media Net's Charlie White talked with Harprit Singh, President and CEO of Intellicomm, about the company's services in this two-part interview. details

iPod nano Tubes
(11/14/05) If you just got an iPod nano you've probably noticed how easily it scratches. You're not alone -- thousands of other nano buyers have noticed the same thing, to such an extent that some have filed a class action lawsuit against Apple because the new digital music player is so easily damaged. Apple has reacted by including a plastic case with each new iPod nano. Here's a better alternative -- a package of five iPod nano tubes ($29), flexible gel sheathes in an assortment of five candy-like colors. We tried them on for size and liked what we saw. details

Verbatim Store 'n' Go HD 4GB
(11/14/05) The ability to fit large amounts of data in your pocket is a something many of us have begun to take for granted. At the same time, the amount of data that can fit in a very small space continues to rise, with Verbatim offering a 4 GB version of its Store 'n' Go hard drive. Using a tiny 1-inch hard disk, the drive has a plug that's incorporated into the unit, which makes it even more compact and easy to use. details

HP xw9300: Dual Core Dual Opteron 280s Inside
(11/8/05) As AMD raises the bar on its Opteron line of dual core processors, bumping the speed up to 2.4 GHz, HP sent us its latest xw9300 workstation packing a pair of the new chips inside. This is brand new technology -- the Opteron 280 processors were released toward the end of September, 2005. Keeping in mind that the fastest machine we've ever tested here at the Midwest Test Facility was equipped with dual core Opteron 275 chips, let's take a look at this newest generation of the Opteron, wrapped inside HP's industrial-strength package. details

Book Review: The Cult of iPod
(11/4/05) If you're looking for hard-nosed criticism of anything having to do with Apple, the Mac, or iPods, author Leander Kahney is not your man. But if you're looking for a beautifully published and well-written book about the cultural phenomenon known as iPod, his newly published book, entitled The Cult of the iPod ($16.47 plus shipping from Amazon), is a coffee table tome that contains lots of interesting information, graphics and anecdotes. details

Sony DRX-810UL DVD Burner
(11/03/05) While we all wait for the final appearance of blue laser-based media such as HD DVD and Blu-ray, DVD burners keep getting better, faster and cheaper. Sony has upped the ante of its offerings with a new dual-layer burner that the company claims is able to crank out a dual layer DVD+R disc with over 8 GB of data in around 15 minutes. We tested that claim, reviewing Sony's new model DRX-810UL ($125 street) external DVD burner. details

MainConcept H.264 Encoder v2 for Windows
(11/02/05) The new H.264 codec is going to be easy to get used to. Besides the fact that both HD DVD and Blu-ray have chosen H.264 as a mandatory playback feature, the codec happens to be able to deliver high quality at unusually low file sizes. MainConcept has made it easy to use with its H.264 Encoder v2 for Windows ($499), a stand-alone application that converts video files into this new codec. It doesn’t stop there, though. It gives you a tremendous amount of control over exactly how your video is compressed, and even lets you capture video within the application. details

Fantastic Freebies!
(10/30/05) If you've been wandering around the Internet lately, you've probably noticed there are lots of useful applications available that won't cost you a cent. We've gathered together the top ten of these fantastic freebies, and brought them all into one place for you. Some of these are Internet-based apps, others are loaded onto your PC, and about half of them even work on Macs as well. Granted, there are many more than ten worthy free applications available, but these are our favorites. So come along and we'll do some downloading and some goofing off, and it's all free! details

Alienware MJ-12 7550a Workstation
(10/28/05) Alienware's MJ-12 7550a Workstation ($7906) is loaded with dual AMD Opteron 275 dual core processors and is also packing two NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 256 MB graphics cards. As we unpacked this behemoth, we wondered -- what would happen if you strapped together four 64-bit processors and two of the most powerful graphics processing units available today, resulting in the third-millennium equivalent of a 40-mule team? With this kind of power, which impressed us as being nearly comical in its sheer audacity, we expected extraordinary performance. We were not disappointed. details

Apple iPod nano Lanyard Headphones
(10/27/05) The Apple iPod nano is as close to an ideal personal music player that exists on the market today. Not only does it sound great, but it's so beautiful you'll be tempted to wear it around your neck like a piece of jewelry. Now you can, with the iPod nano Lanyard Headphones ($40) a nicely-designed accessory that lets you show off your nano and abandon that annoying tangle of wires. We put one of these lanyards to the test, and liked what we saw -- and heard. details

One-on-One Interview: Avid Unity ISIS Media Network
At a press event in New York, Avid unveiled its new Unity (10/25/05) ISIS media network ($107K per 8 TB chassis), a Gigabit Ethernet-based storage system that features enhanced scalability and security for real-time video data. ISIS, an acronym for Infinitely Scalable Intelligent Storage, leverages what the company calls distributed-intelligence architecture. The new product fits between two existing members of the Avid Unity network storage family, the high-bandwidth Unity MediaNetwork and the lower-end Unity LANshare. Digital Media Net's Charlie White talked with Andy Dale, Avid's senior product manager for networking and storage about the new system in this one-on-one, in-depth interview. details

Avid Xpress Pro Adds HDV Capability
(10/22/05) Avid Xpress Pro's long-awaited HDV capability is now available, and that same feature will be released for Media Composer Adrenaline later this month. When Avid designed its HDV implementation, its goal was flexibility, with the HDV workflow the same as it is for other formats, including the ability to mix resolutions on the timeline. As an added enticement, Avid has dropped the "HD" from its Xpress Pro nomenclature, offering this new HDV editing capability at no extra cost. We tested Xpress Pro's HDV ingest, editing and output routine, assessing how the application would fit into a real-world editing situation. details

Disc-Go-Pod Plus Disc Repair Machine
(10/21/05) DVDs and CDs have a familiar weakness that most users have encountered: They get scratched. Disk-Go-Tech has released the Disc-Go-Pod Plus disc repair machine ($499), an industrial-strength unit that immerses your disc in a gritty liquid, and then goes about working it over until all of its scratches and imperfections are gone. Besides being entertaining to observe in action, we found the Disc-Go-Pod Plus to be effective. It's not perfect, though. Let's take a look at this beast. details

Matrox Axio: A Conversation With Alain Legault, Part 3
(10/19/05) Matrox recently introduced Axio, its new real time high-definition and standard definition digital video editing system running Adobe Premiere Pro software. Digital Media Net's Charlie White visited the Matrox corporate headquarters in Montréal, and talked with Alain Legault, Vice President of Product Development for the Matrox Video Products Group. Legault is the driving force behind Axio and its hardware, which Matrox calls "The Power of X." In the third part of this three-part interview, Legault talks about the future of Axio, his company’s cooperation with Adobe and the underpinnings of this new software and hardware editing system. details

Omron Body Fat Analyzer
(10/18/05) If you're trying to lose weight, what you really want to know is how much fat you're losing. That's where the Omron Body Fat Analyzer ($40) can help. This small plastic device sends a weak electrical current through your body that can accurately measure your percentage of body fat. We tested the analyzer on a variety of body types and found it to be easy to use and accurate from one day to the next. Here's our review. details

Digital Cable or Satellite?
(10/15/05) Are you a digital cable television subscriber thinking about switching to satellite TV? Or, have you been receiving your programs via satellite and you’re thinking about switching to digital cable? Either way, we have suggestions to help you make your decision. details

Matrox Axio: A Conversation With Alain Legault, Part 2
(10/12/05) Matrox recently introduced Axio, its new real time high-definition and standard definition digital video editing system running Adobe Premiere Pro software. Digital Media Net's Charlie White visited the Matrox corporate headquarters in Montréal, and talked with Alain Legault, Vice President of Product Development for the Matrox Video Products Group. Legault is the driving force behind Axio and its hardware, which Matrox calls The Power of X. In part two of this three-part interview, Legault talks about the native HDV editing capabilities of the upcoming version 1.5 of Axio, and how it compares to other software-based editing products. details

Chromakey Stock Footage from Ribbit Films
(10/12/05) As high definition production continues to gain in popularity, stock footage providers have also begun to offer more of a selection of HD clips. Until now, though, there’s been a shortage of blue screen, green screen and keyable stock footage. The selection is growing at Ribbit Films, which is offering a variety of stock footage for download. We took a look at the selection of HD shots, and noticed that not only are they reasonably priced, they are of high quality as well. details

Ciprico Huge MediaVault 4110
(10/11/05) Ciprico and Huge Systems, now part of the same company, offer the Huge MediaVault 4110 ($4240), a rack-mountable array of disks with a capacity of 1.6TB. Combining the next-generation 4 gigabit (4Gb) Fibre Channel interface with ten garden-variety ATA disk drives packed inside, the array is touted as an ideal storage solution for DV, standard definition video, high definition video and uncompressed film editing/playback. We installed a compatible ATTO Celerity FC-42XS Fibre Channel adapter into our Power Mac G5 dual 2.7GHz machine – so let's see what happens when we connect the Huge MediaVault 4110 to it. details

First Look: xm|edit Traffic for Final Cut Pro
(10/7/05) Traffic for Final Cut Pro ($299) by xm|edit is a new stand-alone application that works alongside Final Cut Pro, letting users work in a node-based editing paradigm similar to the workflow of high-end editing and compositing software such as Avid DS Nitris. This versatile toolset allows editors to execute multiple functions at a time, and it also is capable of displaying a string of editorial functions where nodes can be connected to other nodes, rearranging them for completely different effects. Here's a first look at this hyper-efficient way of taking the tedium out of editing in Final Cut Pro. details

Matrox Axio: A Conversation With Alain Legault, Part 1
(10/5/05) Matrox recently introduced Axio, its new real-time high-definition and standard-definition digital video editing system running Adobe Premiere Pro software. Digital Media Net's Charlie White visited the Matrox corporate headquarters in Montréal, and talked with Alain Legault, Vice President of Product Development for the Matrox Video Products Group. Legault is the driving force behind Axio and its hardware, which Matrox calls "The Power of X." In part one of this three-part interview, Legault talks about the new capabilities of Axio, its real-time performance, and the differences between Axio and its predecessor, DigiSuite. details

Garmin Forerunner 301 Personal GPS with Heart Rate Monitor
(9/29/05) If you're a walker, runner, biker, or if you engage in any other sport that requires you to move from one place to another, there's a high-technology tool that helps you keep tabs on your workouts. Not only does the Garmin Forerunner 301 ($325 retail, $210 street) know where you are and how fast you're going, it knows how hard your heart is working, too. Packed into this wrist unit is a GPS receiver, along with a heart monitor that receives signals from a device strapped around your chest. What will they think of next? details

VASST Ultimate S 2.0 Vastly Improves Sony Vegas
(9/28/05) If you're using Sony Vegas editing software, there's a powerful group of tools and scripts that can make your life easier. VASST Ultimate S 2.0 ($149) is an add-on to Vegas 5.0 or 6.0 that can create complex effects with just a simple click of the mouse. It's also packed with practical editing tools, audio and video effects enhancements, a great Film Look applet, and even a utility for editing multicamera productions. After plugging Ultimate S 2.0 into Vegas 6.0, I went to work, and found myself repeatedly saying, Ultimate S, where have you been all my life? details

Diskeeper 9 Professional Keeps Your Ducks in a Row
(9/27/05) Sometimes, computers are weird. If left to their own devices, they'll scatter little pieces of data all over your hard disk, eventually resulting in severely degraded performance. That's where disk defragmentation can help. Microsoft includes a defragmenting applet in Windows XP, but it requires initiative and effort to use it -- you must launch it and initiate the defragmentation yourself. Diskeeper 9 Professional Edition ($50 street) can do this for you automatically. I've been using various versions of Diskeeper for the past few years, and this new Diskeeper 9 is the best yet, getting the job done with set-and-forget ease. details

Part 2: ViewStart’s Improved Web Streaming
(9/26/05) As we mentioned in part 1, ViewStart is a company that’s aptly named. That’s because when you see one of its videos on a Web page, it starts playing right away. Besides its quick start, the video appears at a larger size than most and looks better, too. How does this company do it? Digital Media Net’s Charlie White interviewed Ole Sakkestad, ViewStart’s Executive VP of Sales and Marketing and in this part two of a two-part interview, asked about the company’s status as a Web video facilitator for ad agencies and the state of the on-line streaming business. details

Apple iPod nano Raises the Bar
(9/23/05) Suppose you're in charge of a corporation that dominates its market, your best-selling product commanding a tremendous lead over all competitors. You might be tempted to stay the course, milking that product until sales began to fade. That's not what Apple’s Steve Jobs did. He scrapped the iPod mini, Apple’s best-selling music player, in favor of the new iPod nano ($200 for 2GB model and $250 for 4GB), a 1.5-ounce jewel that looks as good as it sounds. After thoroughly testing the new nano, all I can say is, the king is dead; long live the king. details

Don't Throw Away Those Old Hard Disks!
(9/20/05) Do you have any old hard disks lying around gathering dust? If so, we've found a good use for them. You can either turn a disk into a FireWire or USB 2.0 drive, or you can put it in an enclosure that lets it act as network attached storage (NAS). So don't throw those old hard disks away, at least not until you've read about how easy it is to dress them up in a brand new enclosure. Using the ADS Dual-Link Drive Kit, as well as the ADS NAS Drive Kit, we turned lemons into lemonade. details

VideoTraxx Film & Video Library Volume 3
(9/19/05) Digital Juice's VideoTraxx Film & Video Library Volume 3 ($599) continues the tradition started with VideoTraxx Volumes 1 and 2, giving you first-rate stock footage in a format that’s easy to search and use. VideoTraxx Volume 3 offers a tremendous amount of footage, over 3000 film and video clips in all. Taking a close look at all the shots included in Volume 3, we can only conclude that Digital Juice has done it again. It's hard to find such a great value in stock footage today. details

Part 1: ViewStart’s Improved Web Streaming
(9/16/05) ViewStart is an appropriately-named company. That’s because when you see one of its videos on a Web page, it starts playing right away. Besides its quick start, the video appears at a larger size than most and looks better, too. How does this company do it? To find out its secrets, Digital Media Net’s Charlie White interviewed Ole Sakkestad, ViewStart’s Executive VP of Sales and Marketing and in this part one of a two-part interview, asked about the company and its VeyeTech technology. details

Seiko S351 Multimedia Producer Timing Device
(9/14/05) If you're a television director or producer who always needs to know how much time is left in your broadcast or segment (and who doesn't?), you've probably been looking for the perfect stopwatch. Seiko may have the answer for you, with its S351 Multimedia Producer Timing Device ($195 street). It's expensive, but it's beautifully made and can add and subtract times, countdown and count up, and even tell you the time of day to make sure you're still on schedule. We took the Multimedia Producer stopwatch into a real-world television broadcast situation, wondering if it was really worth it. details

Decked Out: iPod Shuffle Accessories Roundup
(9/14/05) Apple’s iPod Shuffle is a tiny and wonderful little portable music playback device that not only sounds great, but invites you to carry it with you everywhere you go. Since it was released a few months ago, a burgeoning market to accessorize this little jewel has risen to the occasion, offering numerous add-ons from which to choose. All cost under $30, and some of them are highly useful and effective, while others, well, are not quite so practical but still add interest and individuality to the iPod Shuffle. Here’s a roundup of some of the great and not-so-great. details

Matrox Axio HD Review, Part 2
(9/9/05) In part 2 of our Matrox Axio HD review, we take the new editing system based on Premiere Pro 1.5 on a road test, stretching its capabilities to the limit. How many layers of uncompressed 10-bit HD footage can we stack up before it starts dropping frames? How about graphics layers? We'll pile 'em on, seeing what this baby can do. Since we we're using a dual Opteron 275 machine, where the processors are dual core and giving us the equivalent of four processors, the results are impressive. Hop in and we'll see how fast this sucker can go. details

Grass Valley K2 Debuts at IBC
(9/8/05) Grass Valley announced a new product called K2, a media server and media client system that will be featured at this year's IBC in Amsterdam. Starting at $35,000, company representatives said the product will be available in the fourth quarter of this year (2005). Expected to eventually replace Grass Valley's widely-used Profile server products, K2 lowers the cost of high speed server networking in a video facility by using common technologies such as Gigabit Ethernet. This cuts prices compared to Profile, which uses more expensive Fibre Channel technology. Grass Valley gave Digital Media Net a sneak preview of K2. details

Matrox Axio HD Review, Part 1
(9/7/05) Matrox Axio HD is a high-definition video editing system combining hardware acceleration and unique video codec software that significantly speeds up Adobe's first-rate editing software, Premiere Pro 1.5. Available only as a turnkey system in both standard-definition (about $15,000 turnkey including storage) and high-definition (about $30,000 including lots more storage) versions, Axio proves that you can edit 10-bit high definition video without a lot of waiting around for rendering. We blasted Axio through a rigorous test drive, evaluating its hardware and software features, punishing it with multiple layers of high-definition video footage. Let's see what it can do. details

First Look: Matrox Axio 1.5
(9/7/05) Building on the early success of Matrox Axio 1.0, the company is announcing a new version 1.5 of Axio HD and SD at IBC. Digital Media Net had a chance to visit Matrox's Montreal headquarters for an early look at the update, which adds new capabilities to its already-potent feature set. This new upgrade contains features that were sorely missed in version 1.0 such as HDV and DVCPro HD native acquisition and real-time downscaling from HD to SD. These new additions further improve Axio, which is already an excellent hardware and software acceleration package for Adobe Premiere Pro. details

Coolness Roundup: The Podcast
New talk format entertains while it informs, chance to win valuable prizes, too
(9/3/05) From Athlons to Xeons, from iPods to IMAX, Coolness Roundup will keep you up to date. You’ve read Charlie White’s articles, reviews and rants; you’ve learned from Stephen Schleicher’s reviews and tutorials, and now you can hear what both of them have to say in this exclusive weekly half-hour podcast. Coolness Roundup invites you on a wild ride through the world of consumer electronics, taking you on a fast-paced tour of the best ideas and innovations from around the world. Each week, they also answer listener questions, and the best question of the week wins a valuable prize. Charlie and Stephen are seasoned professional technology writers with an infectious delight in the world of gadgets, doo-dads and coolness, and in their new hit podcast they entice listeners from all walks of life to learn about the devices that are changing our world. Listen to this week's podcast

HD Digital Video Recorders by Scientific-Atlanta
No match for TiVo, but the Explorer 8300HD is good enough
(8/29/05) If you're getting your high definition television from a cable company such as Time Warner, in most areas of the country you're now offered a choice of set-top boxes. Time Warner is two digital video recorders (DVR) by Scientific-Atlanta, the Explorer 8000HD and the Explorer 8300HD, that are capable of storing and playing back HDTV. If you're a TiVo aficionado, however, don't expect to be impressed by either these choices. We took a close-up look at both of them, and noticed that neither one are as good as TiVo, but then, that's a tall order. Read the review

Sony Vegas 6 Pays Off
New version of already-excellent nonlinear editing software further refined, faster
(8/22/05) Sony Media Software has released a new version of its video editing software, adding new features that make it easier and faster to use. Vegas 6 ($600, upgrade from Vegas 5, $200) is a refined editing software package, building on its powerful feature set with new ways to group, search, and find your video clips. It also adds new compatibility with additional audio plug-ins, and much more. We tested Vegas 6 and found that this already-excellent editing software product has been improved even more with this new release. Read the review

Dell Latitude X1 is Just Right
Not too big, not too small
(8/17/05) If you’re looking for a small, thin and light notebook that still has plenty of power for PowerPoint presentations, Photoshop editing, voice recognition, and even video editing, the Dell Latitude X1 ($1895 with $100 Dell small business rebate) might make your short list. We packed up the X1 and took it along on two grueling road trips, trying out every function a road warrior might need on a typical field adventure. We carried it through airports, drained both of its batteries numerous times, and used it in every conceivable situation. Step right this way and see how it performed. Read the review

Vonage: Six Months Later
A follow-up to our review of the VoIP phone service
(8/10/05) Vonage is a low-priced phone service that lets you use your Internet connection instead of a conventional phone line to make unlimited long distance phone calls in the United States and Canada. Its $24.99 monthly cost is half that of regional Bell phone services with comparable features. After our original review from six months ago, in which we awarded the service 8 stars out of 10, we thought it would be a good idea to give you our long-term impression of Vonage. Did it deliver on its promise of comparable phone service for half the price? Read the review

Apple's Mighty Mouse
Just another pretty face
(8/8/05) After nine years of mulish resistance, Apple has finally decided to create a mouse that not only has more than one button, but -- gasp -- contains a scroll wheel and other buttons, too. Gussied up in the typical sleek, minimalist Apple style, the new Mighty Mouse ($50) cautiously invites Apple users into the scary and highly advanced world of multi-button scroll mice, yet allows those who prefer a single button to stubbornly stay put right where they are. We plugged the Mighty Mouse into both Macs and PCs, and here’s our hands-on review. Read the review

Combining a SAN with a Render Farm
Terry Cullen, CEO of 1 Beyond explains how and why it's done
(8/8/05) Massachusetts-based 1 Beyond is a workstation builder and high-end digital hardware provider for the graphics and video editing industries. The company’s CEO, Terry Cullen, has a forward-looking philosophy that does justice to the company’s name. At this year’s SIGGRAPH convention, Cullen demonstrated his concept of teaming up Mac and PC workstations with very fast storage and a render farm. With the tremendous throughput required to edit uncompressed high definition files, his company’s Harmony SAN (storage area network) teamed up with the Red Line render farm may be just the prescription for moving, rendering, and outputting those huge files. Read the article

First Four-Way Dual Core Opteron Workstation
Groundbreaking technology demonstration staged at SIGGRAPH 2005
(8/4/05) In a technology demonstration at SIGGRAPH 2005, AMD and Boxx Technologies unveiled a four-way dual core Opteron workstation running the Windows XP x64 operating system and a beta 64-bit version of LightWave 3D animation software. The four-socket dual core AMD Opteron 875 processor workstation boasted four processors plugged into a prototype motherboard made by Tyan which is one of only three currently in existence. Digital Media Net was there, and took a close-up look at this brand new technology. Read the article

Serious Magic Ultra 2
Great stand-alone keyer gets even better
(7/26/05) When we reviewed Serious Magic Ultra back in December, 2003, the stand-alone Windows chromakeying application proved itself to be both impressively powerful and easy to use. Although pricey at $795, it was able to do a great job of keying even poorly-lit chromakey shots. Equally at home with standard AVI and QuickTime files, it even made keying DV footage easier while raising the quality level at the same time. Now Serious Magic has released a new version, Ultra 2 ($495), which offers new features along with improvements of those that were its claim to fame in the first place. Read the review

Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW 24-inch LCD Display
Big, wide flat panel offers exquisite output, low price, unique features
(7/19/05) If you’re looking for a big, wide-aspect flat panel display, here’s one that will fit the bill without breaking the bank. Dell’s UltraSharp 2405FPW ($1200) is an LCD monitor that gives you a lot of bang for your buck. Its 1920x1200 (WUXGA, 16:10) resolution covers a full 24 inches measured diagonally, and also offers unique features I haven’t seen in any monitor at any price. As I tested this unit, I kept thinking over and over that you sure get a lot of monitor for $1200. Read the review

Top 50: What's Hot and What's Not?
See what's rising and falling for 2005!
(7/15/05) Have you been wondering what is truly hip in the world of digital video editing, content creation and beyond? Well, look no further, because we've compiled the newest and most definitive list of what's hot and what's not -- it's the Top 50 list of What's Out and What's In for 2005. Read the article

Native HDV on Final Cut Pro 5
DV workflow for HD footage?
(7/11/05) Until recently, high definition video production has been too expensive for mere mortals. Now, the HDV format has changed all that. But isn’t there still a lot of data being bandied about? How will the footage be edited? Apple’s newest version 5 of Final Cut Pro has a solution to this problem, where the object of the game is to keep the HDV signal as untouched as possible as it winds its way through the computer and then back out to tape. Here’s a close-up look at this native HDV editing process in Final Cut Pro 5. Read the article

Coolness Roundup 2005, Part I
A dozen gadgets, doodads and devices and fun stuff to make your life easier
(6/29/05) It’s that time of year again where you can practically fry an egg on the sidewalk, and that means your Coolness Roundup 2005 is here. This year, we have a special 2-part expanded edition that encompasses not only professional and consumer electronics gear, but any objects that use technology to make your life more enjoyable. Some of these items are prosaic, readily available to everyone, while others are stratospherically priced. Either way, lusting after these techno doodads is a great way to relax and have fun within the steamy confines of the hottest season of the year. Read the editorial

Seven Questions: Is HDV Good Enough?
Miranda's Michel Proulx thinks so, for some projects
(6/25/05) Miranda’s vice president of product development, Michel Proulx made a bet on the success of the new HDV format over a year ago, developing products whose success hinged on whether HDV would be good enough for broadcasters to use on the air. Miranda introduced a HDV -to-SDI converter that lets broadcasters easily use the HDV footage along with their other broadcast equipment. DMN’s Charlie White talked with Proulx about the new HDV format and its role in the broadcast workflow in this exclusive interview. Read the interview

Interview: Grass Valley CTO Ray Baldock
Technology gets better and smaller
(6/23/05) As technology makes geometric leaps in sophistication, the size of broadcast equipment continues to shrink. At the same time, more functionality can be fit into smaller spaces. Ray Baldock, Chief Technology Officer at Grass Valley, talks to Digital Media Net’s Charlie White about the astonishing progress made in the smaller size and higher efficiency of broadcast technology over the past few decades in this exclusive interview. Read the interview

NEC's LED/LCD Monitor Breaks New Ground
We test a prototype of this new 2180UX-WG high-end display
(6/21/05) Most flat panel displays, otherwise known as LCD monitors, use fluorescent backlight to provide illumination for their screens. But NEC has a new way to provide backlight, using light emitting diodes, or LEDs, evenly lighting the screen of its 2180UX-WG display. Although its decidedly high-end price of $6,500 will scare away most consumers, seasoned professional content creators whose lifeblood is accurate color will be delighted to see the precision with which this product can reproduce more colors than anybody’s ever seen on a monitor. NEC sent us a prototype of the 2180UX-WG for this First Look. Read the article

Avid Xpress Pro HD
New version of highly scalable editing software nails it
(6/15/05) Avid Xpress Pro HD ($1695 software only, $295 for students) is a new version of Avid’s lowest-cost line of editing software. Adding to its mile-high feature set are improvements such as DVCProHD support, along with real time HD multicamera editing. You get a lot for your money with this package, but there’s one important thing missing from its extensive list of features that Avid says we’ll seeing by the end of this year—native HDV editing—although it will be provided free to all Avid Xpress Pro HD customers. Let's take a close-up look. Read the review

Mac vs. PC VI: Boxx 7400 Dual Opteron 275 Workstation
Who's your daddy, Mac G5? Dual core, dual processor Opteron, that's who
(6/13/05) Boxx Technologies is now shipping its first dual processor, dual-core AMD Opteron workstation, the Boxx 7400 ($5669 as tested). It’s equipped with two Opteron model 275 processors, each using AMD’s newest dual core technology and running at 2.21 gigahertz. Since we now have the newest PC and Mac machines in the same place at the same time—both so fresh that they still have that new-car smell—we decided to pit them against each other in the sixth edition of our ongoing series, Mac vs. PC. If you’re one of the Mac faithful, the results might surprise you. Read the review

Interview: Bluetooth's Past, Present and Future
(6/7/05) Bluetooth, the wireless technology designed to connect digital gadgets such as cell phones, computer keyboards and mice (and soon, remote controls) across rooms and through walls, has reached a milestone—5 million Bluetooth chipsets are now shipping each week. There’s new technology on the way, too, where Bluetooth will offer even more neat tricks to consumers in the coming years. Consumer Electronics Net’s Charlie White talked with Mike Foley, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group’s (SIG) Executive Director, about the past, present and future of this increasingly popular wireless protocol. Read the interview

LaCie d2 SATA Hard Drive
(6/6/05) LaCie recently began shipping the d2 SATA Hard Drive ($275 including PCI card), a serial ATA 7200 RPM 250 GB drive that can be used either separately or together in an array configuration on either Mac or PC. Let’s strap together a pair of these hard drives in a RAID-0 striped array and see how fast they’ll go. For our testing, we installed the included SATA PCI card into our Mac G5 2.7 GHz test machine. These were some great-looking drives with performance to match. And, they were easy to set up and quiet, too. Let’s take a look. Read the review

Sony VRD VC-20 DVDirect DVD Recorder
(6/4/05) Moving video from camcorder to DVD has always been a multistep process, at least, until now. Sony’s VRD VC-20 DVDirect Video Recordable DVD Drive ($270) makes it much easier to accomplish what used to be a complicated task. This stand-alone unit gives you the option of transferring your DV tapes to DVD without even using a computer at all. But then, if you’d like to have all the benefits of a high-speed state-of-the-art DVD/CD burner, simply plug this unit into your computer via USB 2.0. Here’s our review of this versatile product. Read the review

Hard Core Dual Core: Dell Precision 380 Workstation
(6/1/05) A new era in computing has begun, and its first example is the new Intel dual core Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840. The chip arrived here a few days ago inside a new Dell Precision 380 workstation, and we immediately began testing it using both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows XP. It is an astonishing performer, especially in its 64-bit trim. Do dual core processors really act like two processors in one? Jaws dropped as we realized that the Intel Pentium 3.2GHz EE 840 processor, formally called Smithfield, was the fastest single processor ever seen around these parts. Read the review

Fastora ExBoot Backup and Instant Recovery System
(5/27/05)You’ve been putting off backing up your valuable data, haven’t you? It’s too much trouble, it’s too difficult, and it takes way too much time. But now there’s Fastora ExBoot Backup and Instant Recovery, a system that claims to be able to solve your problem in no time flat. A 160GB USB 2.0 hard disk and easy-to-use software, this product allows you to back up all of your data on one disk, and then boot from that disk in the case of a disastrous hard disk failure. This ExBoot system sounds too good to be true. Does it work? We picked one of our notebooks that’s equipped with USB 2.0 to give the ExBoot system a round-trip test. Our mission: To back up the notebook<’s drive and the restore it, seeing if its data is still intact and no worse for the wear. Read the review

Mac vs. PC 5: Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7GHz
(5/25/05) The Apple Power Mac G5’s dual processors recently received a speed bump to 2.7GHz ($4598 as tested). In an atypical move, Apple sent us an up-to-date machine just a few weeks after its release. This gave us a chance to compare it with the fastest PC we have here the Midwest Test Facility, a dual Xeon 3.6GHz computer from Dell. We pummeled the new Mac with our battery of benchmarks, concentrating on a processor-intensive content creation application, Adobe After Effects. For good measure, we also used the newest G5-enhanced CineBench tests. Could the fastest Mac unseat our speed champ? Read the review

50 More Things I Learned
Last year on Digital Media Net you might have seen an editorial entitled "50 Things I Learned." A large number of readers responded positively to that column. Due to popular demand and after much thought and deliberation, here is the second list of 50 concepts, truisms, old sayings, half-truths and simple opinions I've picked up on my way to looking up other things. This list is not confined to just technology issues or digital video editing, or anything else for that matter. Keep in mind, many of these items are just my personal opinion. I could be wrong. But probably not. Read the editorial

How to Shoot
So there it is: A brand new DV camcorder. This is going to be great! You're ready to get out there and spread your extraordinary vision to the rest of the world. But maybe you've never shot any video before. What do you need to know to effectively communicate your ideas to your audience? If you're just starting out, there will be lots of tips in this article that will help you avoid the distractions that can ruin even a well-thought-out video presentation. If you're a seasoned veteran, read along anyway, while smugly assuring yourself that you're doing everything exactly right. Whatever your level of experience, I'm here to help. Read the tutorial

Avid CEO David Krall
At the NAB 2005 convention in Las Vegas, Avid Technology, Inc. CEO David Krall spoke with Digital Media Net’s Charlie White in this wide ranging, exclusive interview. In part 1, Krall talks about Avid’s new products introduced at the show, and looks ahead at what he thinks will be the next frontier for high definition television broadcasting. In part 2 coming up at the end of this week, Krall talks about Avid’s transition plans as the proposed purchase of Pinnacle Systems is consummated this summer. Read the interview

Sunbelt Software CounterSpy
Greed is running rampant on today's Internet. Because you can get monetary credit for each time someone clicks on an ad, unscrupulous characters are tempted to hijack someone's browser and harvest all those click numbers for themselves. That's why spyware was invented and is seemingly everywhere – malware, browser hijackers, surveillance programs, and worse are breathing down your neck, doing their best to enslave you. To the rescue comes software specially designed to hunt down and kill these scoundrels. One of the newest is called CounterSpy (Windows only, $20 for a one-year subscription). Let's see if it works. Read the review

Charlie White is an award-winning television producer/director, digital video aficionado and technology journalist who has been working in broadcasting since 1974. Talk back -- send Chazz a note at chazz@charliewhite.net. Want to know more about Charlie? Here's his bio.

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