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Stephen F. Nathans is editor of EMedia.
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Articles By Stephen F. Nathans
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Stephen F. Nathans | Alan Naumann's Complete Course on Funeral Videography, an expanded version of his award-winning Business Everlasting, rounds out the package in a handsome three-ring binder with additional material on marketing, working with Photoshop, working within different religious and cultural traditions, and designing an effective website among other business-growing tips.
Stephen F. Nathans | What's "The Real Value of Wedding Video," according to the 4EVER Group's Tim Ryan, who recently spoke to my local PVA on the topic? If you don't know the answer to that yourself, Ryan said, you won't be able to convey it to your clients, either.
Stephen F. Nathans | When will desktop HD disc production become a viable business strategy for small-studio video producers with HDTV-ready clientele?
Stephen F. Nathans | Chris Watson's terrific new training DVD (a sequel of sorts to his Supercharge Your Raw Footage title) helps you approach an edit in pursuit of two major goals: producing video that “feels honest” to your clients, and “making yourself invisible to your viewers through superior storytelling.”
Stephen F. Nathans | All the news that's fit to print from the 4EVER Group's second annual convention and trade show, held January 8-11 in Jacksonville, Florida.
Stephen F. Nathans | The 2005 EventDV 25 convenes in southern California for a heady two-day retreat, and EventDV introduces its 2006 All-Star Team.
Stephen F. Nathans | So far the new year has brought two major announcements, one I've been hoping to see for a long time--Adobe Production Studio for Mac--and another I've been hoping would never happen: the dreaded two-headed HD DVD/Blu-ray Combo player
2006 was an action-packed year for new product releases in the event video space, from the pre-NAB launches of Adobe's Dynamic Linked Production Studio and SmartSound's Mood Mapped Sonicfire Pro 4, to the CMOS-charged HDV cameras that electrified IBC. And if the much-hyped debuts of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc didn't make much of an impact in our business this year, there were plenty of new entries that did. We polled our contributing editors and columnists for their Best of 2006 list, and here we present the winners.
Stephen F. Nathans | Douglas Spotted Eagle's Complete Guide to HDV meets a maturing market with a book that is in fact three books in one: targeted technology overview, buyer's guide, and—most importantly—focused field guide for DV producers making the jump to HDV.
Stephen F. Nathans | How can wedding videographers weather the onslaught of pro-quality equipment marketed to consumers, and the Uncle Charlies that adopt it? Cast off the gearhead mentality that hypes technology over technique. Stop pitching what you use, and start pitching what you create.
Stephen F. Nathans | In an effort to get a better understanding of our readership, EventDV recently launched its first extensive reader survey, which provided plenty of data to help me do my job better. Here's a peek at what we discovered.
Stephen F. Nathans | Here we join Madison, Wisconsin-area videographers Philip and Sherry Hinkle of Frogman Productions for a ridealong of sorts, following them through the production of a Same-Day Edit on a July wedding shoot.
Stephen F. Nathans | Do the success and innovation of WEVA Expo 2006, held August 21–24 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, suggest that WEVA has answered its critics with vigor? Or does it simply mean these guys flat-out know how to put on an expo?
Stephen F. Nathans | Sometimes the struggle to convey the value of wedding video starts at home, or close to it.
Stephen F. Nathans | Deluxe Titler 3D ($199) is a great Casablanca extension not just for creating visually engaging titles for specific projects, but also for creating a look that will help identify, distinguish, and brand your work. The Free Motion feature in particular gives users great control over rotation and motion paths in an interface worthy of Casablanca's signature ease-of-use.
Stephen F. Nathans | Do you use copyrighted music in your event video productions without securing a license or paying for it? Here's a look at what the RIAA says about this widespread practice, and how we're working with them to solve the problems it creates. (Open the article and scroll down to vote in a READERS' POLL on this issue.)
Stephen F. Nathans | If you’re a Casablanca user and you do any kind of photo montage work, or are planning on adding photo montages or memorial videos to your services, Photo-Studio 2 is exactly what you need.
Stephen F. Nathans | A new site for videographers to promote their services and their industry to brides--entirely through video--set to launch later this month. Advertising rates now available.
Stephen F. Nathans | New CMP Books title teaches aspiring videography pros how to build a successul wedding video business
Premiere 2.0, After Effects 7.0, Dynamic Link, Clip Notes highlight new Adobe suite
Stephen F. Nathans | Video 06 delivers education, networking, and rollicking good times as 4EVER Group lays out future goals
Gick/Nathans | In this special edition of Continuing Education, we take an extended look at the new Complete Collection of training materials from Creative Video Productions, a landmark release in the event video space. The Collection includes Brett Culp's book, Capturing Creativity, three DVDs focusing on different aspects of CVP's approach to wedding and event videography, and two audio CDs. Each of the three instructional DVDs, starring a different member of the CVP team, provides a manifesto of sorts on a key aspect of professional videography: creativity, image, and efficiency.
Any videography outfit considering adding funeral video to their offerings would be well-advised to purchase Business Everlasting ($69.95), sit back, and let Alan Naumann teach them what he knows.
Reviewed by Stephen Nathans: Sports and School videography training DVDs by Bonnie Durkin of D-Vision Video
Terry Taravella and Julian St. Pierre of award-winning New Orleans studio Custom Video by Terry contemplate the fate of the New Orleans wedding business and their own future prospects
Stephen F. Nathans | Reviewed: Capturing Creativity by Brett Culp (CVP Press, 2005)
Besides price and reputation, what distinguishes professional software NLEs from pretenders? Tackling the sophisticated tasks that make ambitious productions successful. Here we identify six such tasks and describe how they're accomplished in five leading NLEs, plugging in relevant plug-ins and suitemates when the job demands it.
Not all library or royalty-free music is bad by any stretch—but I’ve seen few, if any, videos where it’s used to good effect. Until now. I’m starting to see—and hear—things differently. In early July Time Ryan at the 4EVER Group sent me a sample copy of a new set of royalty-free compositions created expressly for wedding and event video.
Posted 05 Aug 2005
/ Chrystal Corporate Profile [January 1999] Issue
By
Stephen F. Nathans
One company that’s taking on Digital Juice in the motion graphics market is TriLab Productions, with its Digital Hotcakes line. They offer a number of products designed specifically for the wedding market, as well as other animation sets such as Abstract Backgrounds, Nature Animations, and Worship Backgrounds. Here we sample two sets of Wedding Backgrounds, Volumes 3 and 4. There’s a host of attractive and relevant, easily imported material here for wedding videographers, and all the greenscreen clips clear very cleanly in NLEs like Premiere Pro and Vegas.
Posted 01 Aug 2005
/ Chrystal Corporate Profile [January 1999] Issue
By
Stephen F. Nathans
Some years back, a lifelong friend of mine asked me if I’d put together a DVD slideshow for his sister and her fiancé if they ever got married. Well, they finally set a date of June 4, 2005, and ten days before their wedding day I received a FedEx package containing two CDs: one with 115 scanned photos to use in the slideshow, and the other with 16 songs suggested for the soundtrack.
The 4Ever Group gave EventDV a ringside seat for its first-ever Videographer Challenge, giving us access to the judges' and participants' commentary and fruitful debate on montage-creation strategy and technique.
Long before Alienware shipped out what may be the ultimate gamer-targetted system, the Star Wars line they introduced this spring, the company figured out that the same sort of turbocharging components they were using to attract the gaming market were essential equipment for video producers as well, at least those who were looking to equip their editing bays with all-purpose Windows PCs that matched their needs more expertly than the usual run of assembly-line systems from the mass-market PC integration set.
Most of the exciting news at NAB concerns products and technologies that won’t be generally available for quite some time.
Posted 10 Jun 2005
/ Eastman Software Positioning Paper [Sep 1999] Issue
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Stephen F. Nathans
With some technologies, protracted delays can turn out to be good news. Case in point: Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
Posted 10 Jun 2005
/ Eastman Software Positioning Paper [Sep 1999] Issue
By
Stephen F. Nathans
Alienware seems poised to take the plunge into Dual Core alongside mass-market rival Dell.
Posted 10 Jun 2005
/ Eastman Software Positioning Paper [Sep 1999] Issue
By
Stephen F. Nathans
Disc Makers ReflexMax7 ($1,490) improves on its Reader’s Choice Award-winning predecessor, the ReflexPro, by adding 16X DVD recording, 4X DVD+R DL, and 48X CD-R to the seven-disc tower duplicator. CD-R burning was mostly consistent in testing and DVD recording was nearly flawless; while not setting any speed records in the emergent 16X set, the tower performed admirably, making excellent use of its seven Editor’s Choice-winning Plextor PX-716A drives and its sizeable 120GB hard disk, which neatly arranges multiple imported disc images for faster burning and full access to the seven target recorders.
Posted 06 Jun 2005
/ Eastman Software Positioning Paper [Sep 1999] Issue
By
Stephen F. Nathans
Posted 01 Jun 2005
/ Eastman Software Positioning Paper [Sep 1999] Issue
By
Stephen F. Nathans
Josh Fozzard of Moonlight Memory Video Productions wins in a split decision
Full-step Vegas upgrade includes native HDV support, nested projects; DVD Architect 3 also available with DVD+R DL support and Smart Rendering
New HD world yields Final Cut Studio, Xpress Studio HD, new Panasonic camcorder with eye-popping price
New 3-chip model with 4-channel audio and "true" 24p
Two stops remain on the WEVA Town Meeting tour: New York (March 31) and Las Vegas (April 19)
For many users, ACID is the go-to application for creating loops and mixing audio, and it’s a great tool for videographers who need to enhance their videos with snatches of royalty-free audio and looping clips. ACID Music Studio is the newest addition to the family, and it’s also part of another family—Sony’s new Studio group of products.
Stephen Nathans|ADS' Red Rover with Audition bundle combines Adobe’s powerful audio editor with ADS’ handy Red Rover remote controller.
Sound Forge Audio Studio is a lot like Sound Forge in the way Vegas Movie Studio is a lot like Vegas. It's fairly intuitive and quite easy to operate if you have some familiarity with other Sony Pictures tools. Of course, if you’re a Vegas editor working with Vegas 5, you’ve already got an NLE so jam-packed with audio features you may be able to get by quite well without an audio-specific editing application.
Stephen F. Nathans|Sony’s DVDirect knocked my socks off like no product I’ve seen in years. Billed as a product that combines the capabilities of standalone and desktop DVD recorders, DVDirect’s best feature is its ability to record live video to DVD as you shoot it. It boasts excellent image quality and limited but functional DVD menu creation. It’s also a rock-solid desktop burner, promising and delivering state-of-the-art high-speed DVD±R/RW and 4X double-layer DVD+R DL.
Stephen F. Nathans|Macrosystem’s AVIO DV-DVD PRO turnkey video editing system targets corporate and event videographers with a capable, stylish NLE that benefits mightily from its video-dedicated OS in its fleet, smooth, and stable performance. Its well-crafted editing environment makes it easy to move between windows and operations, from the main storyboard to effects configuration, audio mixing and envelope controls, and titling. DVD-Arabesk 2 is a functional DVD authoring environment that makes up for its rigidity with fine video output.
While no print publication can give you the keys to the kingdom of an essentially visual domain, our goal here is to assemble the voices that can speak most authoritatively on all the essential elements of event video work. Welcome to your magazine.
...in case you missed it.
A new CD/DVD publishing system designed to automate the production of up to 100 CDs or DVDs per job, the BravoPro may represent the best of all possible worlds for videographers with discs to produce.
In December 2004, Sony announced the first HDV camcorder both positioned as a pro product and fully equipped with the capabilities pro shooters expect.
Stephen F. Nathans|You’re new to event video, but you know you have a knack for it. You want to hit the ground running—even if it’s only a half-dozen events per year—but you need to watch your pennies as you go. You can’t commit $600+ to any one tool, but you’re too ambitious and too quick a learner to start with a consumer tool that’s functionally a dead end. You need software that’s built for a pro, but sold at consumer-level pricing, with select feature reductions accounting for the difference. Enter the Pre-Pro NLE.
Specialized tools help make standardized editing software funtional for three-camera editing
One of the great things about HDV is that it brings hi-def video to videographers who thought they’d be trapped in the world of standard-def video for years to come.
Sony's DVDirect is a groundbreaking product that—if it performs as advertised—sets a startling new standard for versatility in a DVD burner.
Legal videography has grown by leaps and bounds as digital video and DVD have emerged as common litigation tools, and made searching for the “Perry Mason” moment upon which cases often turn a simple matter of timecodes, syncing, and indexing. Much broader than taping depositions, the legal videography field presents unique challenges to videographers looking to expand their shooting scope.
In this month’s EMedia Industry News, we debut a new monthly item on the latest, greatest, or at least the most interesting announcements that come our way in the digital studio domain. Here we’ll note curiosities alongside catalysts, milestones alongside mysteries, breakthroughs alongside…well, you get the picture.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s no easier way to make an attractive, easily navigated DVD than using MyDVD, and that’s as much the case in version 6 as in version 5. Which is saying something, since the competition got better in the meantime.
Stephen F. Nathans|After skipping a couple of generations, DVDit! returns well-equipped for videographers looking to jump into pro DVD authoring and MyDVD users ready to move up. It’s also well-positioned to compete head-on with other prosumer contenders, thanks to powerful and accessible navigation customization features that deliver many of the functional hallmarks of professional DVDs.
discreet has announced 3ds max 7, a full-step upgrade to the company’s popular 3D modeling and animation tool. Foremost among the new features is the integration of the character motion toolset character studio into the core feature set of 3ds max.
MiniDV brought digital video recording to the masses, but dropouts, head clogs, and the post-production lag of real-time capture make it a less-than-perfect medium for pros. More and more videographers are turning to hard disk digital video recorders to back up or even replace tape. Here’s a look at the latest in tapeless DV storage.
Event video has come a long way since the 1980s, when the videographer couldn’t buy respect—he was “the fat, sweaty guy in the tux," as American Videographers Association founder David Robin says. Today, the form is established, the profession esteemed, and the equipment affordable. The field is growing by leaps and bounds, with opportunities for profitable and pioneering work emerging all the time.
Stephen F. Nathans | Ulead VideoStudio 8 is a new version of a popular video tool that hasn't forgotten its roots. Even though it expands a lot in one firection--toward ultra-consumer automatic editing--and a little bit in the prosumer direction with new filters and basic picture-in-picture, most of its enhancements target the entry-level editing space that VideoStudio has helped define.
Sony’s DRU-700A ($199), the first shipping dual layer-capable DVD recorder, performs mostly as advertised. It easily accomplished 7GB+ DVD-Video burns with the bundled Nero software on several Verbatim DVD+R DL discs provided for testing. Playback compatibility was mixed, however, with a 47% success rate on roughly 70 set-top players, portables, ROM drives, and burners.
With DVD MovieFactory 3 Disc Creator ($99), the first version of Ulead’s popular consumer tool to add CD burning, Ulead takes the lead in pared-down but purposeful editing capability with its multitrim feature. It also adds a solid CD burning tool in Burn.Now, continues its strong tradition of pleasing DVD and slideshow authoring, and makes sure all the parts hang together with impressive ease.
The first Vegas announcement of NAB 2004 came out of Madison, Wisconsin, as Sony Pictures debuted a full-step upgrade to its popular pro software NLE, Vegas 5. The company also offered up a new version of Vegas’ accompanying DVD authoring tool, DVD Architect 2.
Stephen F. Nathans | Attendees of NAB 2004 in Las Vegas will find media manufacturers like Verbatim and drive makers like Sony doubling down and gambling that professional DVD authors and, soon, their consumer counterparts will pay a modest premium to (nearly) double the capacity of their recording media.
Never has a consumer product in the digital media space packed so much power and versatility and made it so easy to get to. For application triage, Creator 7 has no peer. With the exception of the (still) disappointingly limited DVD Builder, they are all fine tools, and there are logical (and usually multiple) ways to navigate between them. What’s more, it’s got a mind-boggling price: it’s hard to argue with a suite jam-packed with top-notch apps for $99.
Plextor's ConvertX is much more than a simple A/D converter, and it's a little more than an analog-to-DVD device, too. It produces DivX and MPEG-4 files that rival their MPEG-2 counterparts in video quality and beat them handily in filesize. It's also bundled with Intervideo's solid entry-level DVD authoring tool, which makes it easy to move from capture to author to burn.
Studio 9 offers astute extensions of Studio 8’s strengths and adds features for prosumers and consumers alike, from an enriched effects palette to spatial sound fading and mixing to an opened architecture for third-party plug-ins and a cool automatic music-video generator called SmartMovie.
by Stephen F. Nathans
TDK distinguishes the 8X-capable IndiDVD with a well-thought out, generous software bundle.
MovingPicture, a $199 prosumer-level tool for panning, scaling, and frame-shifting still photographs, provides a powerful complement to popular NLEs
Consumer encoding breakout box based on ADS' OHCI-compliant Pyro FireWire technology
As 8X recorders and media hit the market, Philips demonstrates its next-generation technology.
Disc Makers has launched CD Self Service, a new Web-based service that enables users to place CD duplication orders online.
For new entrants into the NLE market, a relatively unknown vendor is just as likely to get their business as a market mainstay, which means a product like Magix’ Movie Edit Pro 2004 can sink or swim on its own merits—which, incidentally, are legion.
Synopsis: MyDVD 5 Studio Deluxe is the finest all-purpose CD/DVD creation software I’ve seen, offering as near to the best of DVD authoring and CD creation as you’ll find anywhere these days. And with its video editing features, MyDVD 5 essays competence in areas that others don’t even attempt.
The professional videography scene got a major shot in the arm in early October when Sony announced its new 3-CCD camcorder, the DCR-VX2100 MiniDV HandyCam.
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