If you use multiple cameras in your projects, you’ll be overjoyed at multicam editing making a return. This was one of the most important missing features from the initial release of Final Cut Pro X, and it automatically syncs clips from your shoot using audio waveforms, time and date, or timecode to create a Multicam Clip with up to 64 angles of video, which can include mixed formats, frame sizes and frame rates. With the Angle Editor you can change, add, or delete camera angles at any time and work with different codecs, frame sizes, and frame rates without conversion.

With broadcast monitoring you can use third-party PCIe cards or Thunderbolt I/O devices to connect to waveform displays, vectorscopes, and calibrated, high-quality broadcast monitors to ensure that your final project meets broadcast specifications. This is currently in beta, and Apple is working with third-party developers to improve it over time.

Current owners of Final Cut Pro X can get the update for free from the Mac App Store. For those interested in giving it a try before you buy, there’s a 30-day free trial available, and you can purchase it for $299.99 from the Mac App Store.

Here is a roundup of some of the best audio products demonstrated by several companies, some old standbys and a few fresh faces:

Bang & Olufsen

The venerable Danish firm B&O used Macworld | iWorld to demo the first B&O Play device, the Beolit 12. B&O Play represents a new iDevice-centric sub-brand for the upmarket firm, with their signature focus on simplicity and stunning design all at a more affordable price.  The Beolit 12 is a portable, rechargeable speaker capable of playing tunes via AirPlay, audio in, or USB connection. 

Gavio

A surprise newcomer, and a selection in Appletell’s Favorite Products of Macworld | iWorld 2012, Gavio turned many show attendees’ heads with their impressive audio and even more incredible designs. The Wrenz speakers, which look like small metallic or jewel-encrusted birds, and Sgul earphones, which resemble the Terminator sans skin carried loads of style and an impressive sound to match. 

Polk Audio

The display at the Polk Audio booth certainly matched its description in the press materials: High-Flying and High-Fidelity. The stars of the acrobatic trampoline act were pro acrobats demonstrating the staying power of the Polk’s new Ultrafit sport & fitness headphones, while the stars of the booth were the Ultrafit headphones themselves. The 500, 1,000, and 3,000 series in-ear headphones looked good and sounded better, while the 2000 series on-ears were comfortable and provided convenient controls right on the headset.

SRS Labs 

Rounding out the bunch is SRS Labs and their MyTunes iPhone app. This app provides audio enhancement, equalizer, and volume leveling technology developed by SRS labs for custom hardware—Apple even used the SRS Surround Sound processing tech in its old MultipleScan AV line of displays. With customized audio enhancement profiles for various output devices like car audio, in-ear or on-ear headphones, or speakers, MyTunes makes your music sound its best regardless of where you’re listening. The free version provides a time-limited trial, while the full version is $4.99 on the App Store.

Be sure to check out the rest of our Macworld | iWorld 2012 coverage.

FableVision Learning and Toon Boom Animation are bringing their best-selling Animation-ish software to the iPad in early Summer 2012. At the same time, they’re also going to reveal Animation-ish 2.0 for Mac and PC, which will provide key enhancements based on input from Animation-ish fans around the world.

Animation-ish is designed to be used for students from K-12, with three levels depending on the student’s level: Wiggledoodle-ish provides simple tools and three frames, FlipBook-ish gives infinite frames, and Advanced-ish has the mover tool which allows for more complex animations. It also provides a number of tools which will help educators use the software, such as animation lessons and over 50 “Inspire Me” video clips featuring Peter H. Reynolds, creativity champ and NY Times best-selling author/illustrator.

For more information on what Animation-ish can do for your, go to their website.

Luca has just put out four different plug-in packs, and I’m reviewing them all under a title none of them share: Grindhouse. This is because all four plug-ins—Sprocket Slip, Film Leader, Light Leaks, and Grunge FX—though sold separately, work together to give your footage the grainy, distressed, and ill-treated look of the entirely disreputable and occasionally beloved trash cinema of the ’70s. If you want your high-def digital footage to look like it was put into a film can and left to congeal in a sleazy Times Square theater, boy, have I got some plug-ins for you!

As I’ve come to expect from Luca/FxFactory plugins, these plug-ins are customizable as all get out. Each one comes with an abundance of presets that should suit you just fine But you can dig around in the settings if you want, adjusting the color, pattern, and texture of all the effects. The film leaders allow you to type or import your own text, as well as adjust the typeface, kerning, and leading. Plus you get the ability to keyframe those settings, meaning that if the default footage isn’t jittery and random enough for you, you’ll be able to tweak it to your hearts content.

Here’s a quick preview of what the effects can do, using some footage I shot of actor Tim Uren:

All of the plug-in effects work in a different way (and have to be purchased separately). Here’s how they break down:

Sprocket Slip Transition

Sprocket Slip Transition goes between two pieces of footage (or a slug, or break in one shot) to create the illusion that the film has slipped off the sprockets in the projector (ask your parents) and then resets. It comes with 18 presets (some of which are variations on others) and a slew of controls that let you set the light leak (type, source, and color), the speed and blur of the slip effect, and the visibility of the frame edge.

I’ve tried to duplicate this effect by hand (keyframing the footage jumping around quickly in the frame), but this transition absolutely nails the look and feel of watching a social hygiene short in the ’70s. It’s a fire-and-forget plug-in that does one job, very well.

Film Leaders

Film Leaders is a video generator that replicates the extraneous pieces that would be attached to film strips to help editors sort them. Normally taken out before the audience sees them, they’re a great way of indicating that you’re seeing something in a less-than-reputable situation. Film Leaders comes with over 50 presets. You can alter the background (six overexposed, rough texture, or “none”) but the place where this plug-in shines is in letting you tweak the text. Face, Size, Aspect and Flip (reverse the text), color, opacity, etc. You can even add a texture to the text itself.

Some caveats: this is not a generator for creating credits. The text jumps around like crazy, and if you have anything more than a few words, the audience won’t be able to read it at all. In fact, Film Leaders comes with two abstract fonts for a couple of presets to make the leader text completely unreadable. Another issue is that sometimes the text doesn’t blend with the background believably, either because it’s too bright or the way the text jumps around the screen doesn’t match the motion of the “film” underneath it, so you’ll need to tweak the blur and glow, and make sure the font looks as old as the footage.  But again, for creating this exact effect (bits of celluloid that no one is supposed to see in the first place), it’s a great solution.

Grunge FX

Grunge FX is actually plug-ins: Grunge Overlays and Grunge Transitions. The confusing part is that both of them are video generators; that is, you apply them both over footage to give it a textured, “ruined” look. The difference between the two is the way they’re animated. Overlays are set up to texture the footage; to make it look like it’s covered in scratches or burns, as if the film has been mishandled or badly processed. Again, you get a lot of presets and textures, as well as the ability to control and keyframe the distortion to your heart’s content.

The Transitions, on the other hand, effectively ruin the footage by progressively obscuring it midway through. You get scribbles and smears, giving you something that looks like an editor purposely marked up the footage so that it couldn’t be used…unless an unscrupulous producer got hold of it, of course. Rather than using it like a normal FCP transition, linking two bits of footage directly, you have to use Transitions as a bridge on top of the two pieces in the timeline. The bonus of this, of course, is that if you want, you can use Grunge Transitions simply as an overlay if you wish.

Light Leaks Generator

Light Leaks occur when the body of a film camera gets a hole in it, exposing the original negative to, well, light. Big Budget movies would reshoot the scene, but in a low-rent grindhouse picture, they can’t afford to reshoot, so they simply use it and hope no one notices, which they always do. Luca’s Light Leaks Generator works as an overlay (you composite out the background to make it semi-transparent over the footage). It comes with 14 presets, 15 different types of light, and, again, a ton of controls to control the geometry, color and style. Instead of relying on stock footage of light leaks, you can customize the look, meaning you don’t need to keep buying new bits of stock.

In Summary

With the release of these Luca plug-ins, filmmakers now have almost total control over a nearly infinite number of possibilities of how to make their digital footage look like it was shot, processed, and handled by complete incompetents. I’m not sure why we romanticize the flaws of celluloid so much, perhaps because when digital goes bad, it simply disappears, whereas with grindhouse pictures you get the sense that these people were really struggling to get their pictures made against the obstacles of money, time, and, well, simply the process of making a film itself, what with everything that could go wrong.

Speaking of cheap, there are ways to do a lot of these effects yourself, by hand, for free. But the Luca plug-ins all automate and animate the process, giving you an amazing array of effects as well as the ability to customize the hell out of them. And if you’re planning on using them frequently, the price (50 to 100 bucks) is right.

If I had to pick one as a favorite, it’d have to be Light Leaks, which is $59 and perhaps the most subtle, meaning it’s also the most useful (and least distracting) for creating the mood of these kind of films.

Appletell Rating (all four plug-in packs):

Buy Buy Luca Film Leaders, Grunge FX, Sprocket Slip Transition and Light Leaks Generator

Late last week, Apple made Logic Pro and MainStage available in the Mac App Store. Logic Pro is available for $199, while MainStage costs $29.99. Both apps have also been updated with new features and improvements. MainStage has received a revamped interface, it can now take advantage of Macs with 4+ processor cores, and it supports more MIDI devices.

Logic Pro comes preloaded with an extensive collection of instruments, effects, and Apple Loops, making it simpler to create stunning sounds and songs.

These programs will now only be available through Apple’s digital app store, as it appears that the Cupertino company discontinued distribution of their boxed versions in retails stores.

Products [Logic Pro and MainStage]

While Boxee has been making waves in the Internet video space and helping people make the switch over from cable for a few years now, they still recognize that cable offers certain shows that Internet TV simply can’t. So what are they planning on doing? Available in January, Boxee will be shipping their new Live TV stick, an antenna add on for Boxee Boxes that will give free access to your favorite cable shows. If you’re really excited, you can even preorder it now.

The problem with canceling your cable subscription and relying just on the Internet has been the lack of live sports, local news, special events and live TV shows (think Dancing with the Stars). But these things are all available on broadcast TV channels like ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC for free, over the air in HD. With Boxee Live TV you can watch them all on your Boxee Box (and still get all the regular Boxee stuff you love to watch too).

It’s good to see that Boxee recognizes this issue with their products currently available and has been working hard to address them. As always, keep up the great work, Boxee!

Via [Boxee Blog]

• Canon PowerShot S100
• Nikon 1 J1
• Nikon 1 V1
• Nikon COOLPIX P7100
• Olympus PEN E-PL1s
• Olympus PEN E-PL3
• Olympus PEN E-PM1
• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ150
• Sony Alpha NEX-5N
• Sony Alpha SLT-A65
• Sony Alpha SLT-A77

Support for more RAW formats in OS X was added with Lion (as well as the more recently released OS X 10.7.2), with a full list of supported RAW formats detailed in Apple’s own support document on the topic. Whether you have any need for the Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.9, it’s available now (for free, of course) in Software Update and in Apple’s Support Downloads section.

Via [MacStories]

Disclaimer: Neither Appletell nor Jaksta Technologies condone or encourage the illegal copying or sharing of copyrighted content. Per the disclaimer on Jaksta’s website: “Jaksta is not intended for use in circumventing copy protection mechanisms or for making illegal copies of copyrighted content. Please respect the rights of the content owners when recording.”

Have you ever seen the perfect live performance by an artist on YouTube, only to find out the live versions of those songs are not available anywhere to download? Or what about unique content that is published only on the web, requiring that you watch it on a device with a web browser and an internet connection (not all TVs are as smart as the rumored AppleTV)? Jaksta for Mac offers simple, configuration-free downloading, saving, and conversion of audio and video from a variety of sources around the web. With Jaksta, you can even capture homemade videos uploaded to Facebook for downloading or sharing whenever and wherever you like.

Islands in the Stream

Some artists give spectacular or unique live performances, like Adele or the ever-changing jam band Phish. Pandora is chock full of remixes that seem to be available nowhere outside the DJ’s set, which leaves listeners in a distinctly pre-iPod quandary; how do they take the music they love with them wherever they go? With Jaksta, saving the streamed media to your Mac is a cinch, and from there you can take it to your iPod or AppleTV, or watch on your Mac wherever you go. Jaksta can automatically convert downloaded streams for different devices, such as AppleTV or iPhone. It even offers extraction, which means you can take just the audio out of a movie file and automatically add it as an iTunes track, which can then be synced to an iPod. The best part of the conversion process is the lack of configuration options, which means no accidental conversions to an unplayable format—just pick your target device and Jaksta does all the heavy lifting.

Upon launch, Jaksta asks for an administrator password which may (and indeed, should) feel a little uncomfortable to the alert Mac user. Although not plagued by the volume of malware present on Windows, Mac users have increasingly been targeted by shady hacker groups, so unexpected password prompts should be treated with suspicion. The app uses your password to connect to the network interfaces in use on your Mac, so as to monitor traffic for media streams to capture. A quick check of an outgoing network filter showed that Jaksta connects only to its own home server for authentication and to media servers when you visit a YouTube/Grooveshark/Pandora (etc.) page, so the app is on the up and up. This password requirement and system monitoring behavior are enough to keep Jaksta out of Apple’s tightly controlled Mac App Store.

Play it Again, Sam

Jaksta can be used on any unencrypted and DRM-free media stream. This means grabbing shows from Hulu or Netflix is a no-go (though Jaksta is perfectly happy to grab the unencrypted commercials that play in Hulu streams). As Jaksta monitors your Mac’s incoming media streams, it can alert you via built-in sounds or Growl notifications that a download/conversion is complete. Target formats for conversion include the arsenal of iDevices, AppleTV, Google TV, Android Smartphone/Tablets, and the PSP/PS3. The built-in sounds are intrusive when you are listening to streaming music, so the Growl support is really a killer feature for unobtrusive notices.

Jaksta’s list of compatible sites is really based on two factors: the availability of streaming media in one of the formats it understands, and the media being DRM-free. This means videos from sites like Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, iTunes (good for full length movie trailers) adult sites (if you are of legal age), any site with a live webcam (adult or otherwise), and thousands of others can be easily saved to your Mac and converted. Audio files need to come in one of three formats—including mp3, mp4/m4a, or Flash—which means sites like Grooveshark, Pandora, SoundCloud, and most artist’s websites or MySpace pages can all be used. Jaksta will intelligently keep iTunes-compatible formats rather than reconverting, so audio quality is not lost. This is a boon since most streaming audio is already compressed with a lossy codec. By establishing a direct connection to the media server and not playing the downloaded file, Jaksta is able to grab media at impressively high speeds.

By default, Jaksta does not automatically delete or clear its download list, so users with space constraints will need to pay attention to their downloads folder. As an example, a single three minute song on Grooveshark can take up about 8MB, which equals out to about 160MB per hour. If you listen to music all day, that adds up to over 1GB. Luckily, there is an option in the right-click menu to delete both the Jaksta entry and the corresponding file for all the songs in the download list, so clearing out a day’s worth of music is a snap.

While it is theoretically possible to capture any streamed media using just Safari and Quicktime, there is no doubt Jaksta’s simple interface and intuitive conversion features make the process infinitely easier. HTML5 and Flash (with a QT plugin) video is downloadable directly from Safari’s Activity window, but the additional work to locate the file, convert, and import to iTunes makes the process cumbersome enough to be functionally impossible. Jaksta makes it both quick and effortless to grab streaming media, so it is now possible to enjoy the wealth of unprotected video and audio content the Web has to offer even when you are not directly connected.

Appletell Rating:

Buy Jaksta for Mac

Pluraleyes is a piece of magical software that solves a very specific problem: synching video from multiple sources of the same event. The original was a godsend, you import your footage into the timeline (each camera on its own track), open the Pluraleyes (PE) application, make sure it’s pointed at the right sequence, and click. Working very quickly, PE analyzed the audio source and flawlessly lined up the video, which meant you could switch cameras easily without the frustrating work of nudging bits of video one frame at a time, trying to get the good sound from Camera 1 to match up the with good video from Camera 2. Pluraleyes has been updated to version 2, and the big change is that it runs faster.

As far as a review how the software works: that’s it. It’s so astonishingly simple that it shouldn’t work as well as it does. But it does. The only thing that matters is that all the video sources have an audio source that PE can match. The software offers two finishing options: it can create a multiclip sequence (if the dimensions of the source match) allowing you to quickly switch between camera angles on the fly, or a sequence where the clips are lined up (which means you’ll have to cut the clips by hand). And once you have them lined up, you can drop out all but the best audio. And with the rise of DSLRs for videography, PE has another use as well: combining the video from the camera (and its primitive audio) with a separate, better audio source.

Here’s a demo of a finished product. Pluraleyes 2 took about a minute to process all four video sources:

Pluraleyes 2 fixes an aggravating, picayune problem quickly and simply. At $149, it’s not cheap, but in terms of the time you’ll save trying to move clips back and forth, frame by frame, it’s worth it. It’s one of those programs you expect Apple to buy and integrate into the program.

Appletell Rating:

Buy Pluraleyes 2

BoinxTV is an ingenious compositing program, designed for people who want to do professional webcasts. The program works in layers, allowing you to do dynamic backgrounds, multiple video sources, overlays, live web searches and fly-ins using a simple, intuitive user interface.

The program comes with several templates that can make your video look like CNN, a G4 segment, a sports show, an astrology show (really!), or a two-screen webinar. The included templates are visually arresting as well as highly configurable, and after a few hours of poking around them, you’ll be ready to create your own from scratch.

As a compositor, BoinxTV works in layers; in a news cast you’d have the background image, the spinning globe or waving flag (if you’re the Colbert Report), then the reporter. On top of the reporter you might have a Chiron with their name, the date of the reporter, and the show. On the bottom of the screen over that you’d have a ticker of current news. Flying in and out you’d have graphics, a map showing the area, or another video source if you’re doing a video interview. If you really want a live TV effect, BoinxTV can do an up-to-the-minute Twitter search based on terms you define.

The program is simple to learn. The layers are labelled well and contain variables that are easy to understand. Do you want your graphic to fly in or dissolve? You can easily resize graphics, and depending on the layers settings, revolve them in 3D. The layers work in an obvious manner: elements at the top of the list appear in front of elements lower on the list. Each element contains a number of user-designed variables. You can easily assign where your images will appear on the screen, what your 3D spinning globe will look like (wireframe, glowing, or a more realistic representation), as well as choices that will make your presentation your own: using your company logo to create a spinning ball effect, or rotate an image or video on all three axis.

With all this customizability, the only thing BoinxTV is really limited by is your video card’s VRAM, because the video card is what’s processing the live video. It can record live video (using your Facetime, iSight, webcam, or external camera), but this obviously eats up a lot of processing power. A better idea is to record your video beforehand, then drop that in to your project, allowing you more time to do effects. It uses less processing power, and if you’re recording your videocast solo, allows you to activate the effects and transitions more easily.

As you’re recording, a handy meter lets you know how much of your VRAM you’re using. If it goes over 100%, expect stuttering video and missed transitions. However, on my 2009 Macbook Pro, it was easy to avoid this by prerecording the video. Here’s an example of something I put together in about 30 minutes total (altering the template, recording the video (and editing out a few muffed lines), recording it in BoinxTV, and processing).

Once you’ve got your video, BoinxTV records it raw, then gives you the option of processing the video into different formats (FCP, Apple TV, iPhone, or Divx, among others). You can save the completed video to your hard drive or upload it to YouTube.

BoinxTV is astonishingly easy to use. It’s a great tool for the purpose of creating a professional-looking webcast, and is easily configurable to your needs. It’s not cheap; at $500, this is strictly for pros, but there is a limited version for consumers known as BoinxTV Home (you can compare the products here). You can give BoinxTV a 15-day trial before you have to shell out half a grand, but if you need to create the look of a studio on a fraction of the budget, this is the one.

Appletell Rating:

Buy BoinxTV