Testing out the new Canon 7D and its 60p mode made me want to doing something I was never comfortable with in 24 or 30p and that is, shooting in slow motion! Unfortunately, if you use Apples Final Cut Pro and you slow even 60p past 50% the results become choppy. These results, made me began to question how this could be done and with a little research and  recommendations I found Twixtor from Revision Effects with a pretty hefty price tag weighing in at $329.99- $595.00. The results with Twixtor, were stunning,though the pluggin was difficult to figure out. There is something mesmerizing about the output even with some of the artifacts created when the footage is interpolated. After digging around a bit deeper, I found out that After Effects had a pluggin called Time-warp that achieves the same effect new to CS3.

Here is some test footage I posted

If you are looking for some fun free mac software check out voice candy on the Mac Heist website. In order to get the free version you must have a twitter account and tweet about Voice candy. Mac Heist will walk you through the easy steps to downloading your new wares. Voice Candy is a program that can change your voice to a Robot, Darth Vador, or even a Chipmunk. There is glorious amounts of time wasting to be done with this application. Normally Voice Candy cost around $12 so get it while it is free. Enjoy!

Here are some examples I created from Voice Candy:

Chipmunk:

Vador:

Robot:

We at IDCA want to honor the life of Sherry Callahan one of our Founding Board Members, Our Mother Hen, and our Shining light. Sherry was an inspirational force to our organization and her contributions will be missed but not forgotten.

This is not a warning these are actual shots being fired and hitting the iPhone!

The release of the Droid phone has this seasoned and loyal apple user in question if the iphone will continue to hold space in his pocket. I think Apple has gotten to comfortable in its smug little position. Who cares that you reinvented the smart phone if you let your core customers down. I feel I am pretty hard to displease but if you cross me to many times I will never indorse you again so tread lightly apple. Until now no one has come close to touching this phone because to the sheer number of apps, utility and sexiness. But as an iPhone 3G user I have slowly escalated to disdain its short comings. I actually find the phone to be dangerous while driving with its lack of voice dialing and real GPS and thought there may be an app for that it won’t run in the background for me to use at will. Some will argue the 3GS has voice dialing, but why do I have to buy a new phone when this is a software issue. Apple is notorious for putting our crippled hardware features when you know they know how to do it (“The infamous right click button comes to mind”). So I am going to list some features needed soon with no new purchase of hardware if Apple wants to keep my business.

1. Drop AT&T or add more networks like Verizon
2. Voice Dialing on all your phones
3. Bluetooth wireless sync
4. Internet Tethering
5. Real GPS and is integrated with the Address Book
6. MovieSupport on all your phones(I know you can do this because of the jail break apps)
7. Add Flash for crying out loud, No excuses

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Closing Thoughts:

The big google advantage is the Android operating system that more phones will have in the future. This and this alone posses the biggest treat to the iPhone dominance. This means there will be more and more developers clamoring to get over to Android based phones because there app will be more accessible and who knows maybe even easier to develop for. Look out Apple!

We are now officially blogging for Examiner.com so many of our posts will show up there as well as on our home blog. Very exciting development indeed!

A FREE Machiest Bundle! No Way! I love free so I would not pass this up but I must say that honestly I really only found 2 useful apps in this bundle. I will spare you my talking about the others so here it is.
ShoveBox and Twitteriffic are the only apps worth Mentioning and here is why.

ShoveBox:
Give you and easy menubar way to create and organize information snippets on your computer. I find this to be far superior to using Stickies because it is alway in my upper right hand corner and I can assign quick keys to it. It is also light weight and fast

Twitteriffic:
Simple easy to use menubar interface that keeps me from using a web browser to tweet.

Now for my random rant
My biggest friction point with the web is the browser. I hate it!!! Any desktop app that reaches out to the web for one single purpose already has one points with me.

OMG just got a free netbook at the PayPal conference

Today IDCA is at the PayPal X conference in SF and will be live blogging about what is seen here today.

The big announcement today is that Paypal is opening their platform to developers at www.x.com . They seem to have taken a note from The open source community and FaceBook. The people at PayPal realize that they can not innovate as fast as the world is moving, so why not get the world to work for you for free. This idea of crowd sourcing is not new but we will see how well this concept works around making money. People don’t seem to have a problem working for the man if they are able to make their own income and determine their own destiny, so it seems. Apple, Google, Sun and others have all caught on to this and created platforms that they really control but still give the feeling of openness.

Here are some photos from the expo.

I must ask for a moment of silence as we morn the death of GeoCities.

When I was young and ruff around the edges, my first web building memories were with GeoCities. I remember how free and how open Mr. Cities was with everyone . The internet was a different place then with its
under construction signs, visitor counters and animated gifs. I say with a heavy heart that I will sincerely miss your file by file uploading system and you unicorn riddled sites. With that said we will miss you Mr. Cities or as your friends so dearly called Geo.

When considering this article I had to consider some bias’s I have on the software described. First I must let you know that I was an “Avid” no pun intended user of Protools. I believed it to be the industry standard and holy grail of direct to disk audio recording. I bought the Digi 001 (Which is no longer Supported) in 2000 and loved the freedom and flexibility of recording on my desktop for many years. I was introduced to reason 1 about year after and was blown away by it use and application of midi which was far more advanced then the Protools implementation. I began from that point on to do all my midi work in reason and my audio work in Protools. My first problems arrived when OSX was first released and I have to pay for and upgrade to Protools but it seemed to make sense at the time. As each update and upgrade apple made to the OS, I would be charge and charged again for software with no improvement and no new features. I have worked in software for many years now and I describe and update and an upgrade like this.

Update: Fixes to bugs, compatibility fixes, improvements to existing features, FREE

Upgrade: Added Features, Added Value proposition to the software, PAID

Due to this Upgrade/Update issues I began to become frustrated with Protools. I always said if reason could record I would never use protools again. That did not come soon enough for me. I gave up on waiting for protools and started to use Apples Sound Track to record audio. Then enter record and I was compelled to compare the two.

With that said my friend who used to work at DigiDesign still try to convince me that Protools is justified in all the extra charges because of the total rewrites they would have to do to fix what Apple broke in the update. Personally as an end user I don’t care, I paid for something to work and if you wrote it fix it!

Record Pros

1. When I updated to Snow Leopard it still worked (No Paid Update required)
2. Record has the best Live audio processing I have ever used
3. Works with any audio interface
4. Record has the most awesome mixer
5. No need for rewire to use reason
6. Resembles Real Audio Gear
7. 299.00 USD full version
8. Offering a 64-bit summing bus, the mixer is modeled on the legendary SSL 9000K large-format console.
9. mix-bus compressor to polish your mix before your mastering chain.
10. Built-in audio time stretch
11. Unlimited Audio Tracks
12. World Class FX, Mixing and Mastering Gear
13. Large number of Software instruments

Record Cons

1. Hard to set up multiple audio interfaces
2. locked to a hardware key

Protools Pros

1. Lots of plugins
2. $279.00 lowest end version with hardware
3. 48 simultaneous stereo audio tracks
4. A complete award-winning songwriting, multi tracking, mixing, and production environment
5. 7 vintage analog emulation processing plug-ins, including Moogerfooger effects
6. 7 virtual instruments including drums, piano, organ, synths, and samplers
7. Full MIDI recording and editing, including control of virtual instruments

Protools Cons

1. If Protools breaks as a result of a system update DigiDesign will charge you
2. Years of horrible midi implementation
3. Works only to DigiDesign or M-Audio Hardware
4. Non reliable Rewire Implementation

1. Cumbersome Audio and FX implementation
2. Don’t have to use rewire to have good midi
3. Protools Midi Sucks
4. Record

Record Wins!

I will keep adding to this list as I learn how much better the program is