Boodahjoo Music

If all hardware installs were this effortless…

You know, having built more PC machines than I care to remember, I think my ‘fear’ in doing RAM upgrades stems from those fateful salad days, when a RAM upgrade meant a number of things:

1) Is this really the proper RAM for this particular (OEM,custom) motherboard;
2) Will I have to go into the BIOS and make changes?
3) Will the machine recognize this memory at all;
4) Will I have perpetual BSOD and wind up re-installing the old RAM again?

I’m sure many of you have been there, and despite the fact that we’re now in 2012, I still get those same vibes every time I prepare for the inevitable ‘upgrade’.

16.0GB (8GBx2) PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz SO-DIMM 204 Pin CL9 SO-DIM

Well, I’m happy to say that the current offering from OWC gives your 2011 series MacBookPro an unbelievable boost in speed and power, one that you’re likely to notice almost instantly…especially if you’ve got an internal SSD drive and, even moreso, if you work across multiple 64-bit Creative Suite applications (like Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects and Adobe Media Encoder).

Two 8GB sticks arrived at my door in small, simple packaging in less than 24 hours. I placed the order around 4pm Central Time on Thursday, and literally had it in my hand before 1pm on Friday. Gotta love that. Crack open the seal, and there, atop some pink foam, were the keys to my new editing bliss…

Curiously, or perhaps not-so-curiously absent were any kind of installation instructions. Again, I’ve done this for every MBP I’ve ever purchased, so I wasn’t too concerned. A simple Google search yielded exactly what I needed, and just as I remembered: 9 simple screws (for my Early 2011 17″ MBP) was all it took to reveal the RAM slots; pop ‘em out, pop ‘em in and you’re done. Even as I began to remove the back cover, I thought to myself, “Do I have to ease it out? Any special tricks?” But again, it literally pops off, easily, and you just apply a little pressure (so that the edges are flush) when you’re replacing the screws.

The key to doing this quickly is lining up those screws! I always place them, visually on the table, in their exact layout. Apple uses different size screws, so it’s key that you return them where they belong. Not doing this, however, will lead to enormous frustration. I don’t even want to go there!

Within seconds of closing the back cover, I powered on the machine and literally, in about 5.5 seconds, I was greeted with the LogIn screen; a happy place to be! I logged in, quickly went to “About This Mac” and lo and behold, there it was…

I ran the machine for about 9 hours following the install, and everything seemed great. Fast, responsive, and ultimately, stable. Today I’ll be diving into some deep editing/rendering, so that’ll be the more definitive comparison test (having spent the better part of the year working with 8GB).

Now, I wanted to share this little tidbit. I had ordered this RAM when it was first made available (or rather, ‘announced’) sometime last March. In fact, it was my dear friend and fellow road-warrior Terry White that sent me the OWC link in the first place. At the time, the 16GB RAM upgrade was selling for $1600 . Steep indeed…but for mobile video editing, it would be a game-changer and a no-brainer on my part. I quickly made my purchase and awaited the goods.

Well, tragedy struck Japan, and the industry was immediately impacted by this unprecedented natural disaster. As such, I was immediately made aware by OWC that the part was ‘on backorder’ and would be shipping in approximately ’6 days’. A second email, about two weeks later indicated “20 days”; I received two more emails and one final communication at the end of April indicating, “Backordered Indefinitely”. Understandable, clearly…and I just assumed it wasn’t meant to be.

Now, my only complaint in this whole process was that OWC never contacted me again to let me know it was back in stock! And moreover, it was nearly 1/6 the cost! (with shipping, the total was approximately $266 USD). I found out, via several Twitter friends, that they were already using the 16GB upgrade and I had no idea it was even readily available. Since it was OWC who ultimately cancelled my order, I would have thought they would have contacted me to let me know it was once again available. They didn’t. So really, this is just a little ‘wrist slap’ to say, “Hey…I wanted to give you my money…and you could have had it sooner!”

All in all, this was the best (and most smile-inducing) RAM upgrade I’ve ever done (this being my sixth or seventh MBP). Time will indeed tell, but from where I’m sitting, it’s all looking up…and with 16GB of fast RAM…in my laptop.

I’ve just returned from Adobe MAX 2011 and unlike previous years, this year proved that no matter what your main ‘discipline’ is (ie, web dev, flash dev, HTML coder, etc) video and specifically video encoding is something you need to be somewhat familiar with, and it was definitely a hot topic amongst attendees. I presented a session at MAX on this very subject and, as is often the case, ran out of time during the final section of the presentation dealing with using the Adobe Media Encoder’s Watch Folder system (and the different methods of leveraging watch folders).

As promised, here’s a little video that simply covers the two types of Watch Folder-based encodes: using a single video source and encoding to multiple formats (with duplicated Watch Folders); or using a single Watch Folder to encode multiple video files to a single format.

Here’s a link to the FULL PRESENTATION AT MAX, viewable on Adobe TV.

Additionally, as the real ‘devices of choice’ for encoding were the Apple iPad2 and Samsung Galaxy 10.1, I thought I would also include the specs of these devices in this post (Blackberry’s Playbook spec is listed as well). This is stuff straight from their respective manufacturer’s websites, but having it one place is kinda handy…
—
iPad2 Audio/Video Specs
Audio formats supported: HE-AAC (V1 and V2), AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV

Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps**, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

Actual Tablet Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768

**I’m not sure what this is referring to exactly, as you can certainly encode at higher bitrates

Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Audio/Video Specs
Audio Formats Supported: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, RA

Video Formats Supported: Full HD video playback at 1080p/30fps. Codecs: WMV7, WMV8, WMV9, H.264, MPEG4, Xvid, DivX, H.263, VP8**

Actual Tablet Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800

**Having exported a few WebM/VP8 files (actual *.webm files) I’m thinking the spec refers to playing VP8-encoded media from within a site, but not an actual WEBM video file. I tried this (both as straight WEBM and QT-wrapped VP8 files without success.

Blackberry Playbook Audio/Video Specs
Audio Formats Supported: AAC (96Kbps or higher), HE-AAC V1 & V2 (128Kbps or higher) in stereo or 5.1, MPEG-4 AAC @ 128Kbps/Stereo/48kHz, MP3 (MPEG 1,2 layer 3, stereo, 128Kbps), Linear PCM (LPCM, A-LAW, U-LAW, ADPCM), WMA9, WMA10, WMA Lossless

Video Formats/Codecs Supported: 3GP, 3GP2, M4A, M4V, MOV, MP4 & MPEG-4 as H.264 (Profile: Baseline, Main *and* High Profile, up to Level 4.2, CBR @ 20Mbps) and MPEG4 (simple and advanced simple profile, level 0-6). Windows AVI (as MPEG-4 and H.264; same detail as above), Xvid, ASF, WMV9, WMV10, F4V (VP6/Sorenson Spark)

Actual Tablet Screen Resolution: 1024 x 600
—
And lastly, I had promised to include links for acquiring the Ogg Theora and WedM Quicktime components (which are accessible via AME and even in Photoshop’s Render Video options, once installed). Again, in AME these codecs will appear in Quicktime’s available codecs meaning these are quicktime-wrapped versions of Theora/WebM. Oddly enough, they *will* appear as their own, self-contained codecs in PSCS5.

I haven’t yet tested playback of these files, but they are most definitely true to format at least. Give it a try.

Xiph’s Ogg Theora/Vorbis Quicktime Components (Mac & PC)

WebM Installer Packages/Components (Mac & PC)

CAVEAT: these are 3rd party codecs and I’m offering links to these purely to give you the option of encoding to these formats within CS5.5. I cannot guarantee their functionality/stability and I would highly recommend backing up all system data/media content before performing any kind of codec installation/modification. You have been warned.

If you’re still looking for a quick and easy solution, you can use the freeware Miro Video Converter. Quite simply, this little app does a fine job for simple, drag-drop operation, especially for the aforementioned formats. Again, they’re all just tools to get the job done, so use what you feel best suits the task at hand.

Blog on.

Hello all. Well, today’s a rather exciting day at Adobe, as we’ve announced a very enticing, very aggressive discount on Production Premium and Premiere Pro for Final Cut and Avid users…50% off until 30 September!

There’s truly never been a better time to get your feet wet and roadtest Production Premium or Premiere Pro CS5.5.

If you’ve been thinking about switching, or if you’ve merely been trying to find a better workflow solution between your existing NLE (FCP, AVID) and Creative Suite products, the time has never been better to check out what we’re offering.

A couple of highlights in Premiere Pro & Production Premium:

–Truly native, file-based format support (incl. RED R3D, Canon XF, DSLR, AVC-Intra, DPX, etc);
–Dynamic Link integration between Premiere Pro, After Effects, Encore & Adobe Media Encoder for render-free application integration;
–Mercury Playback Engine in Premiere Pro for accelerated playback, effects processing (w/adding Mercury GPU acceleration) and rendering;
–Warp Stabilizer and RotoBrush in After Effects for effortless image stabilization and quick rotoscoping tasks;
–Native Photoshop (PSD) workflows in After Effects, Encore and Premiere Pro;
–32-bit Floating Point Color Workflow in PPRO, with switchable 8/16/32-bit options in AE;
–FCP XML/AAF/EDL support in Premiere Pro and OMF & FCP XML support in Adobe Audition;
–Easily background export to virtually any format for screenss and tablet device with Adobe Media Encoder.

These are, of course, only a few of the highlights. Check out all the online videos and help docs to learn more.

Switch to Adobe Premiere Pro

Blog on.