VisualHub bumped up to v1.22

VisualHub, the popular and easy-to-use video encoding software by Techspansion, has been updated to version 1.22. This latest version offers a number of minor enhancements and bug fixes that should increase usability and productivity. There is nothing entirely new or groundbreaking to speak of, but it’s always nice to keep those video encoders up-to-date and running without a hitch. For reference, VisualHub is a robust encoding solution that handles MPEG-4, WMV, MPEG, FLV, AVI, DV, MOV, TS, and a bunch of other formats. Be sure to check out the full list of improvements on Techspansion’s page.

Get 35% off Flip4Mac

Ok, so for whatever reason you just need to have the ability to encode darling little WMVs on your Mac, Flip4Mac is probably the way you’ll want to go, and macZOT! makes the encoding software more appealing with a nice 35% off discount. The full-fledged Flip4Mac WMV Studio package typically runs $49, but with this offer (good for today only) the price gets knocked down to just under $32. As a side note, you don’t need to spend any money to play Windows Media files: simply grab the free plugin. The software requires OS X 10.3.9, and QuickTime 6.5 or later. (Don’t shoot the messenger!)

TrueDisc promises damage-resistant ‘master copy’ burning

Posted Mar 6th 2007 9:00PM by Brian Liloia
Filed under: Multimedia, Software

TrueDisc is a new CD/DVD burning application that features “master copy” burning capabilities, for the creation of discs that are highly resistant to damage. TrueDisc (yes, the company shares the same name as its software) claims that up to 90% of a disc’s data can be damaged before its software is unable to access and read it. To create a master copy, TrueDisc breaks up files into cells, adding special so-called “redundant cells” to protect the original content. That means the less data you burn to a disc, the more redundant cells that can be created, but TrueDisc promises maximum space efficiency, and the software uses a non-proprietary file format for the greatest ease of use for recovering data. The software supports burning of non-rewritable media only, such as CD-R, DVD-R, and DVD+R/DVD+R DL, and it is available for $52 for a limited time, with a regular price tag of $89.

Two versions of Photoshop CS3 coming your way

When the complete Adobe Creative Suite 3 package is revealed on March 27, Adobe will announce not one, but two distinct versions of Photoshop, including a standard Photoshop CS3 and the new Photoshop CS3 Extended. Photoshop CS3 Extended includes the same tools as Photoshop CS3, but it also contains a brand new set of features for the integration of 3D and motion graphics, and image measurement and analysis functions. This marks the first occasion in which more than one version of Photoshop will be made available, with the new version targeted at individuals in the fields of video, architecture, engineering, medicine, and science.

With the new PS CS3 Extended, video editors and artists can perform 3D model visualization and texture editing functions, as well as the ability to paint and clone over multiple video frames. Final animations can be exported as QuickTime, MPEG-4, and Flash video, among others formats. Additionally, users in the scientific, medical, and architectural fields will be able to extract quantitative and qualitative data from images with special measurement and analysis tools, with support for specialized image formats.

Kevin Connor, senior director of product management for Adobe digital imaging says: “At one point in time, we considered separate versions, but we found a lot of overlap in the features that these people needed…. Rather than create a new application, Extended is a superset of features that can specifically benefit people in those markets.” An official list of features for Photoshop CS3 Extended, in addition to pricing information will be unveiled on March 27, and the complete CS3 suite will launch later in the spring.

Apple is America’s most profitable retailer

In May of 2001, the first Apple Store descended upon Tysons Corner Center of McLean, Virginia. Six years later, there are now 174 Apple Stores spread across the globe, with the Fifth Avenue location in New York City attracting 50,000 customers per week. Sales average $4,032 per square foot (while shops like Tiffany & Co. stand at a measly $2,666), and in 2004, Apple reached $1 billion in annual sales faster than any US retailer, while sales hit $1 billion per quarter last year.

In short: Apple has become one of the most successful retailers in America. It’s not sheer chance or luck that has driven the success of Apple’s retail venture, however: Apple has reinvented the design and operation of the retail store from the ground up, as is noted in this excellent and enlightening Fortune Magazine article. Check it out for a fascinating look behind the scenes of the development of the Apple Store, and how Steve Jobs and co. have landed a spot in Fortune’s top 10 Most Admired Companies.

Democracy Player changes name to ‘Miro’

Posted Mar 12th 2007 5:30PM by Brian Liloia
Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Video, Internet, Open Source

What’s in a name? Lots of things, including the difference between confusing and creating potential users of your application, apparently. That’s why the Participatory Culture Foundation is renaming Democracy Player, its open source internet television surfing program, despite sticking with the original name for over a year.

“Our early Mac beta versions of Democracy Player were called ‘DTV’– we didn’t think that we could be ‘Democracy’ until we had something substantial to offer… In all our debates about whether you could call something ‘Democracy’ and how people would react to the name, we hadn’t realized that so many people would simply assume that the software was for politicians and videos about politics.”

With that, the new name will be Miro, and a there’s a lesson to be learned here in the meantime: if you’ve got a potentially creative, but ultimately too symbolic and image-burdened name for your software, think twice about it. You can’t always expect casual users to look beyond the name of an application to see its real use. Anyway, check out the official word from the folks themselves to get the full lowdown.

CookWare: organize your favorite recipes

Do you have too many random bookmarks to your favorite recipes, or print them out and shove the papers in a random cookbook somewhere? Ok, so maybe that’s just me, but CookWare Deluxe is an inspiring bit of niche software that promises to organize all your favorite recipes (up to 64 quadrillion, in fact), in addition to a wealth of other handy food-related features.

All you have to do is drag your favorite recipes into the application, and CookWare will reformat text and change quantity abbreviations according to your preferences, making everything nice and consistent when hunting through recipes later. You can even plan meals with the built-in calendar feature, and write and organize your shopping lists, and these lists and your recipes can be exported as HTML files so you can carry them around and to the store on your iPod. Ok, I think we’re getting a little food-organization-crazy now.

But seriously, the list of CookWare’s features are impressively robust, and the brand new version 3.0 introduces a wealth of new features and options, and other minor enhancements. Unfortunately, I have not been able to download the program to try out myself (something appears to be wrong with the download link as I write this), but I’m looking forward to a test run. A single user license for CookWare Deluxe 3.0 rings in at $35.95.

Apple leads in website traffic in computer hardware category

According to a study by internet traffic analyst comScore, Apple currently leads in website traffic in the computer hardware category, attracting more than 36.7 million unique visitors this year as of February. Compared to last year, Apple garnered 24.2 million visitors in the same amount of time, which translates into a 50+% traffic increase over the past year.

As far as other traffic stats, there were 66.4 million visits this February, with visitors averaging 1.8 visits. Notably, iTunes witnessed traffic growth of 71% since last year, with 26.5 million unique visitors this February. Whew.

Avid2FCP: making the switch to Apple’s Final Cut Pro

Avid has been the standard, and long-established, non-linear editing software of choice in the film industry until Apple’s Final Cut Pro began to challenge its dominance, and now many Avid editors are making “the switch” to FCP as it has picked up the pace. With that, the “Avid versus Final Cut Pro” debate has always reared its head wherever editors gather, on websites, forums, etc., but now, Avid2FCP, an official resource has launched that hopes to ease the user transition from Avid to Apple’s own video editing application.

Avid2FCP is run by a group of experienced editors who hope to shared their “Switcher Stories”, and other beneficial resources and guides for editors from Avid backgrounds that now work with Final Cut Pro. Despite the name of the site, it is not intended to be a jab at Avid, but instead make easier the shift to FCP, in a friendly and responsible fashion. There is some interesting content up now, and I expect that this site has the potential to grow into a very valuable resource for all video editors.

Apple TV hacked to play XviD format videos

Word has come in that the Apple TV has been cleverly hacked (yes, already) to play XviD format videos, according to users from the Something Awful forums.

To achieve this, the hardware hacker dissected the Apple TV, removing the hard drive and then mounting it on a Mac, where the drive pops up as a native HFS volume. (Notably, this proves that the device indeed runs a custom version of Mac OS X.) The user was then able to install Dropbear, an SSH server application, in combination with the video container Perian, and finally, a custom script was written to allow the Apple TV to properly read an XviD format video.

Normally, of course, the device only recognizes MPEG4 and H.264 format videos out of the box. No other formats have been tested as of yet, and this hack unfortunately prevents video synchronization since the it uses reference QuickTime files for the videos to properly play. Perhaps this is just the beginning, though.