Category Archives: Review

253 articles found

LED Camera Lights: Finally Up to the Job?

If you want to ditch the battery belt needed to keep more power-hungry lights in continuous use, LEDs are a lightweight, surprisingly bright alternative. I still wasn't convinced, until I got the chance to take four LEDs, including a cheap consumer version, out for a test run. more »

Review: Autodesk Mudbox 2011

Don’t let the fact that Mudbox 2011 is on a development fast-track scare you: Autodesk is not cutting any corners. This major release ships with an overhauled 3D painting system, a streamlined sculpting workflow and the much-anticipated vector displacement. more »

Review: Automatic Duck Pro Import AE 5.0

If you're an editor who uses Adobe After Effects then you've probably been faced with this question: How do you get your footage, easily and without a lot of wasted time, into AE for further post? There's always the option of just working with a single clip in After Effects or importing a single clip at a time to build a new compin After Effects. But that can be a very tedious task, to say the least, for a large, complex edit. more »

Review: Autodesk Maya 2011

Hoping to better integrate the film and video editing process, the new Camera Sequencer in Maya 2011 improves productivity from storyboards to finished animation. more »

Review: Sonnet Qio

The Sonnet Qio (pronounced Que-Eye-Oh) is a high-speed card reader for professional solid-state media cards, which are quickly replacing tape in modern video cameras. Secondly, the Qio is an eSATA hub, letting you connect fast eSATA hard drives to your computer. These two features aren't necessarily related: you may just want a fast card reader, or you may be interested in eSATA connectivity. But with the $999 Qio, you get both. more »

Review: Autodesk 3ds Max 2011

A significant update, 3ds Max 2011 delivers important new features and continues improvements started in 3ds max 2010. The release ships with an improved user interface (UI) and workflow, great additions to the modeling tools, a new and improved system for building materials, integration of CAT, and best of all, a top-notch 3D/2D paint system. more »

Review: Imagineer mocha v2

Imagineer mocha v2 is a planar tracker that moves beyond methods used by traditional point trackers and can often track the untrackable. more »

Review: HP Z800 Workstation

Content creators crave speed, and HP delivers with its latest Z800 workstation. The gorgeous case, built from the ground up last year, remains the same, as do all the other components except for the addition of the hottest, fastest Intel processors on the planet. more »

Review: Adobe Premiere Pro CS5

Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5) has plenty of enhancements, but Premiere Pro received the biggest upgrade of all. more »

Aquafadas PulpFX Abstract 1.0

Oh, the still image slide show. Whether you love or hate them, most editors have to deal with them in some form. While they might not be terribly common, we all have been asked to do them at some point in our career. This new tool automates the process with some basic effects. more »