Useful Tools for Editors: Test Gear 2.5

A few weeks ago we posted about Scopo Gigio, an add-on for Adobe After Effects that brought video scopes to AE. Another longtime supplier of AE scopes is Synthetic Aperture, with its Test Gear product. Just this week Synthetic Aperture released version 2.5, which brings full 64-bit, CS5 compatibility. Here’s the Test Gear 2.5 feature highlights (from the Synthetic Aperture website):

• Provides a multitude of objective test instruments within Adobe After Effects CS3/CS4/CS5.
• Resolution independent to work with NTSC, PAL, SD, HD, and film.
• Support for ITU.R 601, ITU.R 709, and SMPTE 240M color systems.
• Standard waveform monitor and vectorscope display with numerous display options.
• Histogram display with minimum, maximum, peak, and mean measurements.
• Gamut display shows RGB, luma, and chroma levels.
• Photoshop-style color picker with RGB, HLS, HSB, and grayscale modes.
• Color swatch books make it easy to pick colors from a pre-approved set.
• Image slice display shows channel levels through an arbitrary slice of the image.
• Audio waveform monitor with optional level warnings.
• Audio phase display with XY and stereo image modes.
• Audio spectrum analyzer.
• No need to apply an effect to get display.
• Uses standard After Effects panels.
• Includes User’s Guide in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format.

I like the inclusion of the audio analyzing tools, since most video post-production applications do not have these tools built-in. Price? A very reasonable $95. And if you’re upgrading from an older version of Test Gear, it’s $49. Test Gear 2.5 is available for both Mac and Windows versions of After Effects CS3, CS4 and CS5 and a demo version is available.