During IBC 2019 we met up with Sam from Frame.io who talked us through the updates in Frame.io version 3.5 update. This new version brings useful features like range-based comments, advanced searching filters, and some new functions for the Adobe Premiere Pro Frame.io app, like proxy files downloading. Secure sharing is also a new feature, which is currently in beta version only. Frame.io V.3.5 – new filters Frame.io is a collaborative online platform where everyone in a team can give feedback to uploaded assets, like videos. There is now a new version 3.5 of the platform, which got released just before the IBC 2019. During the show we met up with Sam from Frame.io to hear the most important new features of the version 3.5. Frame.io Version 3.5 New Features Range-based comments is a new feature providing users with a possibility to comment on a particular section of the video rather than only on a specific frame. The range can be specified very precisely – by holding “Shift”, users can move the range by a single frame (precision scrubbing). Frame.io V.3.5 – new range-based comments Advanced searching filter provides a more customizable and convenient way to look at all the assets in frame.io. Users can combine filters to see only the exact assets they want to. Secure sharing is a new feature, which is only in the beta version now. It provides users with a more secure sharing option. When sharing an asset, there is now a new “invite only” setting. When this option is selected, the sent link will only work as an invitation to the platform. To see the shared content, the person needs to first register to frame.io. This way, users can control who sees their shared asset. One more new feature for the Frame.io Adobe Premiere Pro app is the ability to download low-resolution proxy files. Frame.io automatically creates a low bitrate H.264 proxy file for every asset uploaded. Previously, it was only possible to download full-resolution files. This will help in situations when working in a remote location with a poor internet connection. Frame.io V.3.5 – new sharing options (still in beta only) Price and Availability Frame.io version 3.5 is already out and all existing users will get this update for free. Frame.io is an online subscription service that starts at $19 per month for a Pro membership and $49 for a Team plan. They also offer seven days trial version for free. What do you think of the new Frame.io 3.5 features? Do you use Frame.io for your team work? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.

Premiere Pro CC, Avid Media Composer and Edius now have the capability to read and edit Blackmagic RAW 1.5 with the latest updates. Editors can now celebrate and download the latest free update to BRAW 1.5, which includes a plug ins that enables native editing in Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer. Importing and editing the RAW footage is now possible in Edius, by updating to version v9.5. File transcoding is no longer required, which will increase the efficiency of the workflow. This also benefits the grading suite, as the metadata stored inside of the RAW files is passed through to DaVinci Resolve. Additional updates to Blackmagic RAW include the Speed Test, which tests the GPU and CPU against the different RAW constant bitrates, and how fast the processors can decode them. There are also minor bug fixes too The update is completely free, and you can download the latest BRAW 1.5 update via the Blackmagic website here.

Auto Reframe intelligently reframes your footage or sequence to social media aspect rations, coming soon to Adobe Premiere Pro. Ever had a client request 9:16 or 1:1 aspect ratio videos after you shot standard 16:9 landscape? Yep me too. In this latest update, if you are editing a vertical or square aspect ratio sequence that has 16:9 footage, the process of changing the aspect ratio is very simple. You can drag and drop the Auto Reframe tool onto clips in the timeline, and the tool will dynamically adjust the position and movement of the footage to keep the action in the centre of the frame. Keyframes can be adjusted to be slower, faster depending on the type of action in the video clip, or removed all together. Reframe Your Sequences For Social Media Formats   The process is even simpler with sequences, as the Auto Reframe tool can create a new sequence with the desired aspect ratio (square, vertical etc). The reframing will be applied to all the clips in the sequence, again keeping the most important content in the centre of the frame. For lots of action, the motion preset may need to be fast, or for slower movements or content the movement may be slow or static. As the movement is keyframed, it is very simple to adjust or remove the movement. Video clips and graphics are independently resized and moved for the different aspect ratios, meaning time isn’t wasted by then adjusting the position or keyframing of text or effects. This also reduces the time needed to edit for different social platforms too. Best of all, this tool is non-destructive; as an effect the tool can be turned on or off. The tool creates duplicate sequences, or you can choose to nest pre-edited clips too. Auto Reframe for Adobe Premiere Pro CC is coming soon (no details on release date yet), so we will keep you updated when the feature will be included in the next version of Premiere Pro CC. It will, however, be interesting to see how well Adobe Sensei functions to isolate the action and put what we see in the demonstration video to practice. Will the footage need to have high contrast, or only feature one piece of action for it to work? Have you been in a situation where Auto Reframe would have saved the day? Will you be updating Premiere Pro CC when Auto Reframe is included? Let us know in the comments.

ProRes RAW will be implemented as a standardised format across Premiere Pro CC, joining Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Edius. It’s a big week for RAW, and it has now been confirmed that Apple ProRes RAW will be supported by Adobe Premiere Pro CC, joining Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Edius (as of IBC 2019) as an industry wide standard. This news will be a relief for video producers and editors that have needed to switch editing platforms to be able to work with ProRes RAW. Adobe will be working on the integration of ProRes RAW into Premiere Pro CC, rather than using a plug in, like it is the case with Premiere support of Blackmagic RAW. There is no indication yet as to when the update from Premiere supporting ProRes RAW will become available though. We also don’t know yet whether only Premiere Pro CC on the Mac or also Windows will be supported. For Atomos device owners, this is fantastic news, as Jeromy Young (CEO, Atomos) says; This is a great day for creatives, a standard RAW video format is what we need to enable computer processing for creativity and we are proud to see ProRes RAW supported natively in Premiere Pro CC, Final Cut Pro X and Media Composer. There are lots of ongoing discussions between manufacturers surrounding whether RAW can be outputted from specific cameras. We have since found out that the Nikon Z6/Z7 and Panasonic S1H will be able to, will Canon’s and Sony’s future offerings follow suit too and allow RAW output? What do you think of this latest development in RAW support? Can you now edit ProRes RAW from your Atomos device in Premiere Pro CC or other NLE’s? Let us know in the comments.

MASV Panel integrates the MASV file transfer service right into Adobe’s Premiere Pro, while maintaining the same speed and reliability. This enables users to send full Premiere projects, project sequences, or files from the bin with a few clicks. It is possible to export sequences to Media Encoder, and then automatically send the output files without the need to wait for them to render. MASV Panel – integrating file transfers into Premiere Pro MASV is an online service for delivering huge files (in fact, unlimited file sizes) over the internet. It is based on a pay-per-transfer model, to be precise, pay-per-download at the moment. In May 2019, my colleague Olaf, a long-time MASV user, published his MASV 3 review. Make sure to check it if you are interested in such a service. MASV’s creators are expanding the service with new features quite often. Recently, they added Slack integration, new desktop apps, and the ability to extend the 10-day delivery limit. For more information about the update, please read this article. Within this article, I will take a look at the latest update, which has brought MASV Panel – the Adobe Premiere Pro integration with the MASV service. What exactly does MASV Panel offer? MASV Panel – Sending Huge Files Directly from Premiere Pro With MASV Panel for Adobe Premiere Pro you can send full Premiere projects, project sequences, or files from your bin with a few clicks. When sending project sequences, MASV Panel enables selecting any export preset, exporting the sequences to Media Encoder, and then automatically sending the output files without the need to wait for them to render. MASV Panel uses the same code base as the MASV desktop application, which provides highly reliable transfers. It is no problem to change wifi locations, put the computer in sleep mode in the middle of a transfer, or work while using an unreliable cafe network. MASV runs on Amazon Web Services, which – according to MASV’s creators – offers high security trusted by large companies. The transferred and stored data is encrypted and complies with GDPR privacy guidelines. Sending files with MASV Panel The MASV Panel comes as part of the MASV membership, for no additional cost. The membership itself is free – MASV charges you $0.25 per gigabyte of data downloaded. The standard availability timeframe of transfers is 10 days. To extend the availability, you can pay $0.10 per gigabyte per month. More information on pricing can be found here. Do you already use MASV? How do you like it? Did you ever need to send an entire Premiere Pro project to someone via the internet? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.

Today, Red Giant Software released the latest addition to their already impressive collection of effects and grading suites. The Red Giant VFX Suite offers 9 freshly coded effects for immediate use in Adobe After Effects. Four of the nine also work in Premiere Pro. And all these effects can be tweaked and tailored to your specific needs, of course. The (very) impressive ‘Supercomp’ FX in action. Most of Red Giant’s software bundles aim for specific user needs. The ‘Trapcode Suite’ is for 3D motion graphics and most of its tools require Adobe After Effects as a host application. The ‘Shooters Suite‘ offers practical tools for working on set (Shooter Offload) and when entering post-production (Shooter PluralEyes for syncing audio or Shooter Instant 4K for example). The popular ‘Magic Bullet Suite‘ bundles cool, yet easy to build effects and color treatments for your post-pro pleasure. All of these tools can be purchased as individual tools of course. So what’s next you might ask. Well, the Red Giant VFX suite offers 9 brand new tools for serious After Effects pros while some of the new FX, namely the impressive ‘Supercomp’, still maintains Red Giant’s own and easy to follow workflow GUI, even for not-so-pros. Like me. In order to get you started right away, watch the intro video below: Red Giant VFX Suite First off, let’s get the probably most asked question out of the way here and the answer is: yes. All 9 plugins of the VFX suite come with a GPU-accelerated engine, so working with them smoothly and –even more importantly– getting results fast is key here. The Red Giant VFX Suite comes with nine tools in total: Supercomp Primatte Keyer 6 King Pin Tracker Spot Clone Tracker Optical Glow Chromatic Displacement Knoll light Factory 3.1 Shadow Reflection For me, the most impressive (and most innovative) plugin of the whole suite is called ‘Supercomp’. It’s a complete compositing environment that makes it easy to create complex, seamless composites. 1/ Supercomp If you’re familiar with Magic Bullet you’ll feel right at home here. You don’t need to pre-comp everything over and over.. a pretty common task in After Effects after all. With Supercomp you get everything you need within a nice effects UI but still within After Effects, no need to leave the app or roundtrip to a standalone FX app. It’a seamlessly integrated within After Effects, just like the other 8 plugins. You can drag’n’drop single effects to certain layers, rearrange everything, try different values, reorder layers, you name it. But the cool thing is that the resulting composition will update in real time, so you see exactly what you get. Effects like a 3-way color correction are built right in, same goes for chromatic and optical glows, fire effects, light wraps, volumetric fog, edge blends for merging foreground layers into background plates and many more. In order to conveniently control the vast amount of possible effects and tools within Supercomp, Red Giant build a context-aware rotary picker tool which is really handy to use instead of drop-down menus. 2/ Primatte Keyer 6 Primatte Keyer is already part of the Keying Suite but included in the Red Giant VFX Suite is the new version 6 of the plugin. Primatte Keyer is a tool for fast and pretty much automatic chroma-keying and both, green and blue screens can be used for it to work. Red Giant have updated the UI for cleaner looks and improved usability. On first click, Primatte tries to pull an automatic key in order to separate your subject from the background. While this first pass might be ok already you can tweak and refine the matte to your liking of course. Several tools assist you on the way, a brand new one is called Core Matte: It keeps the inside of your key solid while preserving fine semi-transparent details on the edges. in the above image you can see Core Matte in action controlling the fine details hair while preserving the inside of the key. Since the whole Red Giant VFX Suite is GPU optimized, users can expect a speedy Primatte 6, with previews and renders up to 3x faster than in previous versions, according to Red Giant. Primatte Keyer can also be used in Adobe Premiere Pro. 3/ King Pin Tracker King Pin Tracker gives you fast, accurate planar tracking, right inside Adobe After Effects. It’s a bit like Red Giant’s Warp plugin (part of the ‘Effects Suite’) but much more sophisticated. With King Pin you can integrate 2D objects into your shot and it’s pretty simple, indeed. The object you want to integrate doesn’t even have to be rectangular and with the supplied “to” and “from” pins and the ability to rotate and/or offset your object in planar space it’s easy to pin whatever you want. King Pin won’t stop tracking at the edge of frame but will continue beyond the frame and it also will track surfaces in changing lighting accurately. Even a white wall will give King Pin something to hold on to, I’ve seen it in a demo Red Giant hosted prior to the release. Pretty impressive, indeed. 4/ Spot Clone Tracker This tool of the Red Giant VFX Suite does exactly what you think it does: It tracks moving objects within your footage and replaces them with a defined target. Think clone stamp tool in Adobe Photoshop. Easily fix blemishes or remove small, unwanted items. Spot Clone Tracker tries to match your lighting automatically, with options for how it clones light, color and texture. You also can add transparency to blend your target in smoothly. 5/ Optical Glow Optical Glow adds realistic (and therefore beautiful) glows to your composition. With built-in gamma management, glows look realistic in all kinds of footage: log or linear. Optical Glow offers lots of control for making lightsabers, starship engines, police lights, neon signs and more with beautiful, photo-realistic results. Again, if you ever have used a Red Giant tool before, you will find yourself right at home. Adding a glow to things make them blend more naturally with their environment. That’s actually the main core feature of the whole Red Giant VFX Suite: Blend things into other things with tons of options and realistic results (even if ‘realistic’ means a giant Transformers-style robot standing in a lake next to some mountains and holding a ridiculously large glowing saber-like weapon, shown in the aforementioned demo hosted by Red Giant). Optical Glow can also be used in Adobe Premiere Pro. 6/ Chromatic Displacement Chromatic Displacement uses one layer to displace the pixels of another, while smoothly separating out the colors. The displacement image is being used as a height map here, which gives you nice looking, organic results. Chromatic Displacement was designed for creating professional visual effects, such as force fields, heat ripples, light refractions, cloaking effects, and much more – but it’s also good for motion graphics. The above effect looks really cool and I think without this plugin is pretty hard to build from scratch. The tools of the Red Giant VFX Suite makes things a bit easier as they try to achieve realistic results with a few clicks while still maintaining a vast list of options for variation. Furthermore, since the whole suite is fully integrated with Adobe After Effects you can deploy any tool/command/effect you want on top of the Red Giant VFX, of course. Chromatic Displacement can also be used in Adobe Premiere Pro. 7/ Knoll Light Factory 3.1 Knoll Light Factory is a tool for creating photo-realistic lens flares. Thanks to the aforementioned GPU acceleration you get these flares and light effects in less time and since these effects try to mimic real-life lens designs  it all blends together nicely. With the build-in lens editor, you can create your very own flares from scratch, or customize one of the (many) included presets which are clearly inspired by quite a few blockbusters of past years. Knoll Light Factory 3.1 can also be used in Adobe Premiere Pro. 8/ Shadow Shadow is a plugin for After Effects that makes it easy to add a perspective shadow in front of or behind a layer, based on its alpha channel, brightness, and more. With options for softness, bend, length, color and many other properties, the Shadow effect extends the various shadow tools available inside After Effects. 9/ Reflection Last but not least, Reflection is a plugin for After Effects that makes it easy to add a reflection to your layers. Bundled with it, controls for softness, distance fade, length and more are available. Again, this tool might not be the do-it-all super-tool but it solves a common task for motion graphic artists and the vast but dedicated options make it easy to work with this plugin. Pricing and Availability The Red Giant VFX Suite is available now and you can download it over at redgiant.com. The full version is $999 but there’s also an academic version available which will set you back $449. All tools are available for purchase individually, too: Supercomp $399 Primatte Keyer &199 King Pin Tracker $199 Spot Clone Tracker $99 Optical Glow $99 Chromatic Displacement $99 Knoll Light Factory $199 Shadow $99 Reflection $99 All nine tools of the Red Giant VFX Suite run on both Windows and MacOS machines and require Adobe After Effects CC 2018 and later as a host application. Knoll Light Factory, Primatte Keyer, Optical Glow and Chromatic Displacement also work in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018 and later. If you want to take a deep dive into these new tools, I highly recommend a visit to Stu Maschwitz’ Prolost.com. Stu is a veteran in the VFX industry and currently serves as the Chief Creative Officer of Red Giant. Basically, he’s one of the creative minds behind the new Red Giant VFX Suite. A 52-min tutorial on Supercomp can be found on his site. Link: redgiant.com | Prolost.com What do you think? Do you use any of Red Giant’s products already? Would you use any of these new tools for your workflow? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Syncly Music is not just another stock music library or music licensing platform. Of course, they have some cool songs for your next project, but this platform aimed at filmmakers is bringing something new with a robust integration directly into Premiere Pro. Also, you can customize the tracks by removing instruments or increasing the tempo. Let’s take a look. What Is Syncly Music Syncly Music is a new platform designed from the ground up with filmmakers in mind. They know that budgets are often really tights for independent content creators. Most of the time, you only have the budget to buy a pre-existing soundtrack, and you try to make it fit your film as best as you can. Do you remember the countless hours looking for the perfect track for your film? How many times did you hear an awesome song and all of a sudden, an instrument kicks in and ruins what you had in mind? What if you could mute that instrument? This is the idea behind Syncly Music; create something else. A platform where you could pick a song, and adjust it to your likings, with one goal: make it sound unique. Syncly Music soundtracks are not “baked-in”; they are based on stems. If you are not familiar with what a stem is, it is a discrete or grouped collection of audio sources mixed all together. For example, the “acoustic guitar” stem in one song can be all the guitar tracks of a particular guitar. Same goes for every other instrument. This stem technology behind Syncly Music is what allows you to reduce the volume of an instrument in a track, or mute it entirely. Syncly Music For Filmmakers There are two ways to use Syncly Music: directly on their website, or via an extension inside of Adobe Premiere Pro. As a filmmaker, option two makes more sense to me. All you have to do is install the extension, open it in Premiere Pro – a small window pops up – you sign-in to your account, and you immediately have access to all the music libraries. You can search for songs by type, mood, instrument, or browse the various existing libraries. Each library contains six tracks. Once you select a track, it plays automatically. On the right, next to the song, you have three choices: you can download it as it is, share it with someone else via email, or customize it. This customize button is the real deal here. By clicking it, a menu opens with every stems from the track you selected. That way, you can “create” your version by lowering the volume of each instrument or muting some tracks. Don’t like vocals? Mute it. Syncly Music has told me that a VST version is coming in the next few months. You will have the ability to keyframe instruments directly inside of Premiere Pro. I’m curious to see how it will work. Indeed, if you are in a hurry and want a quick preview of some versions of the song, there are 3 “pre-built” versions of each song. These are located at the bottom of the interface under the “customize” button. You have the choice between full, underscore, and sparse version of the song. Finally, next to this customize button is a slider for adjusting the tempo by plus or minus 15%. It allows you to speed up or slow down a song quickly. Once you are done, all you have to do is click the download button, and your track is ready. The beautiful thing is it imports directly inside of Adobe Premiere Pro (and asks you where you want to save the file on your computer). Also, when you download a track, they automatically send you an email with a license for the record you just downloaded. So, you can use it professionally in any project you like. Room for Improvements Is Syncly Music perfect? Of course, it’s not. During my trial, I wished that for preview purposes, the Syncly Music extension could synchronize with my video/playhead in the timeline without the need to do it manually. When I wanted to see if a track fitted my video, I needed to go to the beginning of my timeline, hit Play for my video in Premiere, and quickly hit Play in the Syncly extension. That’s annoying. Also, I’d like to see the initial BPM next to each track, even if there is a waveform in the extension. It will make my life more comfortable if I’m searching for something slow, for example. Pricing and Availability Like most music providers these days, Syncly Music is based on a subscription plan. If you have limited music needs or want to try it out, the Basic Plan is free and allows you to download one track every month. You can use the soundtracks for personal projects and can’t use them for commercial/paid projects. The Premium Plan is $25 per month or $240 per year. It allows you to download as much content as you need, and use the songs in any project you want. Syncly Music is available right now on their website. What do you think of this new approach at soundtracks licensing for filmmakers? Do you already have a licensing plan anywhere else? Did you try it out? Let us know in the comments below!

Adobe has announced changes to their Creative Cloud applications. From now on, Creative Cloud customers will only have direct download access to the two most recent major versions of Creative Cloud desktop applications. Creative Cloud changes applications availability. Source: Adobe For Creative Cloud users it was possible to download older versions of the applications included in their subscription. Not anymore. On Wednesday, May 8th, Adobe’s CC communications team published the following note on their blog: A Creative Cloud subscription offers numerous benefits, including frequent product updates with new features and capabilities, critical bug fixes and important security updates. We recommend all customers use the latest release of Creative Cloud for optimal performance and benefits. Please note that going forward, Creative Cloud customers will only have direct download access (from the Creative Cloud Desktop app and Adobe.com) to the two most recent major versions of Creative Cloud desktop applications.* Focusing our efforts on the latest two major releases of Creative Cloud applications, which the vast majority of Adobe customers are already using, will further enable us to develop the features and functionality most requested by customers and ensure peak performance and benefits across Windows and Mac operating systems. Business customers in need of an older version of a Creative Cloud application should contact their IT Administrator to see if one is available. *Exception: Only the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat is available for download. This decision might cause some problems for some Creative Cloud users who wanted to continue using an older version of Premiere Pro or other CC applications. Adobe, of course, always wants their customers to use the latest version of their applications. With Premiere Pro there is, however, a lot of feedback from filmmakers reporting about stability issues with the latest versions. Personally, I also use Premiere Pro CC and I usually don’t download the latest version right away, as I am worried it may contain stability issues. Source: Adobe What do you think of Adobe’s recent decision? Is it going to be limiting for your work? Let us know in the comments underneath the article.