ideasarehere

Quick Tips: Final Cut Pro 7 SmoothCam & Apple Color

Not having posted for a long time, I thought a share some tips as a comeback teaser.

In various forums, people have reported problems with camera stabilization inside Final Cut Pro 7 using the plugin SmoothCam (which orginally comes from Shake, no pun intended), but not in Final Cut Pro 6. For comparison I ran some tests on both systems and came to the conclusion that FCP7′s SmoothCam does not work properly with interlaced footage no matter which codec you use. FCP6′s SmoothCam does the job with whatever kind of video.

Two more tips for Apple Color:

Always de-interlace when using Color, especially when working with Color FX. There are two ways to do this, one via the Clip Settings Tab and the other in the Color FX Tab. I haven’t compared whether they give different results but my guess is it’s not going to be that dramatic (we’re talking video ‘ere).

Last one: When migrating a Color project from Version 1.x (Final Cut Studio 2) to 1.5.x (Final Cut Studio 3) and you want to keep a copy of the old version, be careful to keep them in different folders. Thing is, when you rename the .colorproj bundle (it’s not a file, but a file package), Color will crash when opening the project (because he filenames inside the package don’t match). So you can either re-name the backup, open the current version, update & save-as the project and then re-rename the backup file, or just use different folders.

Posted on July 28th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments Closed

Idea: Speed Composing on a Music Collaboration Platform

Here’s a proposal for something I can’t turn into reality myself:

There are a number of music collaboration platforms on the web already, but most of them don’t seem to be very productive, because all projects are open-end, there’s no deadline, no need to ship. Hence engagement soon drops after the initial euphoria. I think making music is more fun when it happens quickly and spontaneously, as well as under a time constraint, something you can see in the many remix contests that only allow participants to work on their remix for a few days or even a few hours.

So here’s the beef:
A collaborative music platform where there’s just a limited amount of time to finish a song. Not measured in real-word time, but in project-time. Huh? Very simple. A song has to be finished in, say, 12 hours. For instance, a guitarist starts a new project by uploading a riff. Someone downloads the music file and adds a bass part. The timespan until the new file is uploaded again will be added to this project, so when the bass player needs 90 minutes to contribute her part, there’s 10 hours 30 minutes left to finish the song. To spice it up even further, the whole thing does not happen in linear fashion, there can be multiple forks or branches per project. Again, huh? Well, say there are two bass players and each has a different idea (likely to happen), there will be two branches on each of which the project can be continued, each with its own timeline. Combine that with 3 different lyrics, 5 vocalists, one drummer, you might end up with 30 results based on the original part.

I’d be extremely happy to see someone turn this into reality. Got questions? Just drop me a line.

Posted on June 12th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments Closed

iCloud – The Triumph of Free (?)

Suppose the currently circulated news about Apple’s soon-to-come iCloud service that artists will get paid whenever someone adds their music to his iCloud account no matter how he obtained this music, there is no reason not to give away your music for free now (as long as it’s available on iTunes, that is). Even if it’s just a fraction of a penny per song, it adds up, and even more so when it’s easy to spread. Musicians now have more power over their destiny (in terms of income) than ever.

Posted on June 11th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments Closed

The Basics of Spreading Ideas

Once an idea makes it to the TV screen, it’s approved. Otherwise TV wouldn’t spread it, we assume, so we can spread it avoiding the risk of going out on a limb.

But that’s not what we need. To make it really clear: We need to spread ideas that have not been approved yet. Not only is this when innovation happens, it’s also where the money is made.

Posted on June 9th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments Closed

You are Peter Jackson (so is everyone else)

Yes, the Peter Jackson. How so? Well, first off you might be equally talented but never had the guts to try it. Not necessarily in film, something you care about. But that’s not what I’m talking about today, so should you want to elaborate on this aspect a little more, you might want to read this and this.

The idea to this post came to me when I read some of the comments on Peter Jackson’s Facebook Page after his last update (before they exceeded 100). There was quite a number of people half-heartedly applying as actors for the Hobbit shoot, like “Check out my page and contact my agent.” and I felt like is this how you say “Look me up, I’m on this new thing, it’s called Internet! Can you believe it?!?!” in 2011? Like any other person, or I dare say more than any other person on this planet, he won’t have the time. None of us has.

So please… even if you (secretly) are Peter Jackson, don’t ask anyone to “come and get it” unless they know (and most people don’t, so there’s a paradox at work here) that you’re the best (if not only) person in the world to deliver this kind of thing. Until then, you’ll have to keep sending your colleterals, applications in whatever form, whatever. Thank you.

Posted on June 6th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments Closed

Two Kinds of Products, Two Ways of Buying

The other day it occured to me in (almost) any market segment there are two kinds of products with entirely different ways of buying:

Mass-produced products: This is everything made “in a factory” in a standardized process which leads to (almost perfectly) identical copies distributed to all retailers.
Unique products: These are products that are made “by hand” specifically for you and only you, unique.

The difference between the two is like buying a shoe in a shoe store or from a shoe maker. The first is a finished, tangible, testable, take-it-or-leave-it product. The second is not really a product because it doesn’t exist yet, it’s a service.

The problem is we as consumers buy 99.9% off-the-shelf stuff, and thanks to the Internet this side of the market has become very transparent. Whatever we want, we type it into the search field and within seconds we know about price and availability. And because we do it all the time we have come to believe that this holds true for any product. Which is not the case, of course. How do you compare products that have no been made yet? Obviously you can’t, and the only thing you can do is make guesses by talking to the manufacturers to see how you like them, or talk to people who have bought something there.

So when people are hesitant when it comes to buying products that are not comparable, one of the better things to do when you’re the one making these products is facilitating the exchange of user experience, creating a community of fans and curious people, a go-to place. Do not leave them lost. Help them make a decision they are happy with, whether it’s in your favour or not.

Posted on May 19th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments Closed

(Not) Buying Tyres

Two weeks ago, I started looking for new tyres, so I went to the place where I got my last set about 3 or 4 years ago. They gave me the quote, and that was it. Take it or leave it. Not too hard a choice, thanks.

The next dealer I went to was entirely different. Besides talking a breakneck speed, he was really competent without selling anything, and at one point he said: “Y’know, everyone can go out and compare prices these days via the Web, it’s completely transparent, you know in a few seconds what I pay for tyres myself when I order them for you. It’s completely transparent, so there’s no sense in trying to make something up, all I can do is recommend and share my experience so you can make a good decision.”

You wouldn’t expect to find this insight in a courtyard garage, but it’s all what being a merchant is about today: Making your customers happy by helping them make a decision they’re feeling good about.

Posted on May 18th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (2)

Clothes

If every morning you woke up you had no clothes at all but had to wear them you like you do now, how much would you spend? How much would it be worth to you to enjoy the good and comforting feeling of this additional shell, per day? 20 bucks, 30, maybe 50? Or even 100, when you’re working in a suit position?

Maybe you already figured where this is going: How much do you actually spend on clothes? Per month, per year, doesn’t matter. The math is easy, you won’t need any directions, but I reckon everyone spends far less than they would in the above scenario. To me it’s worth a few minutes to think about.

Thing is, unless you’re buying in a fair trade store, buying expensive clothes helps everyone but those who really make them. I trust you to be smart enough to figure the rest out yourself. And I trust you to be brave and responsible enough to really commit to it.

Posted on May 17th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments Closed

New Problems for Old Economies

In the last post I mentioned that our scarcest resource today is time, and ended on the question why so few people successfully solve the problem of helping us find what we want.

The problem companies with an industrial background now are facing is this is not a repetitive process, something you can manufacture cheaply and sell for a lot. It’s a process which requires you to care about one single topic more than everyone else so you become the go-to person (or company), and you have to accept that you probably can’t repeat this in another area, because you have to sift ever more, so your own time gets ever more scarce as well. But you only have to have a following in one area of demand to have enough leverage to monetize on it.

So here is the wrap-up of the whole axiom:

New users take the standard when they joined a (technical) movement for granted.

Continuous technical improvement combined with a continuous intake of new users creates an erosion cycle of the perceived quality of service.

With more content available, unobtrusive, personalized recommendations play a larger role than new content.

These recommendations can only be effictively mirrored in highly complex algorithms or better be done by a real person, someone who cares about the topic.

This care or curatorship creates credibility, credibility leads to a following, a following creates leverage, and ultimately leverage creates revenue.

Posted on April 28th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (0) | Comments Closed

New Rules

More than ten years into it, formerly major players still haven’t figured out how the Web works and what they can do, especially because they’re asking the wrong questions. The question is not “How can I re-establish the old system, when I had the power, in this new medium and keep it at the same level for a long time to come to make as much money as possible with processes that have been working for me in the last 50 years?” Asking for something like this seems pretty silly, but it’s exactly what big companies do. Why? It’s the people who work there. They want to do the job they’ve been doing ever since, but we don’t need these jobs to be done anymore, at least not in the same fashion.

What every player, regardless of size or age, needs to admit at first is that not only yesterday, but also today is a sunk cost, because you can’t change it, not at a significant level. So the question becomes “How do the achievements of today (i.e., the latest technical innovation) shift user expectations for tomorrow, and how can I use what I got to satisfy or exceed them?” Example: YouTube today is not what it was 6 years ago. Today’s standards make it very unlikely someone will watch a shaky mobile phone video with your cat chasing the woolen ball over and over and tell all her friends. What we want is high definition video, professionally shot and, even more important, a good story worth our time. We’ve moved beyond the point of boredom and doing stuff only for excitement, because there’s no more scarcity of entertainment for its own sake.

No, the new scarcity is one that major movie studios could fill if they only decided to abandon their old-fashioned monetization chain. They need to figure out how to get HD video in 3D to my home, so easy, comfortable and cheap that torrent downloads or physical pirate copies are not attractive any more to everybody worldwide. What’s as important: They can help me discover more movies, just like Amazon does. But they could use a different algorithm, and only when I’m logged in. I don’t want a useless recommendation e-mail invade my inbox each day just to make me come back and spend more money.

Just like the music industry wouldn’t have had to invent iTunes, but Spotify. We have always needed and still need someone to help us discover more of the stuff we already like and buy, and only then do we need someone to actually give it to us, not the other way round.
The Internet has not ridded us of all scarcities, it just shifted them a lot. The ultimate scarcity is now time, because there is too much to choose from, and people and companies are adding ever more stuff. Today we need someone to help us find the stuff we want. And there’s a reason why there are not many people around trying to solve this problem successfully.

Posted on April 25th, 2011 by Erik Dobberkau | Permalink | TrackBack (1)