Multimedia, AV Archive

The guys over at Griffin Technology were very kind to send us over two of their products for evaluation: the SightLight and the iFire. Here's what we think about these two Mac products.

I wanted to write something about the great progress being carried on linux as OS of choice for a professional Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) since a long time. With the inclusion of the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) into the 2.6 kernels, time has come to extend my experiences to all of you.

On Saturday March 20, I spent my lazy Saturday morning browsing the web for Linux news. I surfed over to DistroWatch.com & read the latest happenings in regards to Linux distributions. I read a news blurb on latest release of dyne:bolic 1.2. dyne:bolic is self described as a free multimedia studio in a GNU/Linux live CD. I was intrigued by the prospect of playing with a multimedia studio on live CD that won't interfere with my PC's current setup. I downloaded the ISO via Azureus Java bittorrent client. I burned it to CDR using K3B and booted my DAW off the dyne:bolic CD.

I've recently started a video production business. I decided to use Linux for my "office" type applications for security, stability, and budget reasons. I've really been impressed with the quality of these applications. I use Open Office, KOrganizer, Mozilla, and Gnucash for most of my work. After having such a pleasant experience with these programs I began to investigate what Linux apps were available for video production. I found a linux counterpart of just about every program I use:

Macminute reports that Apple today released a public beta version of iChat AV 2.1, an update to its instant messaging application that adds support for video conferencing with those using AOL Instant Messenger 5.5 for Windows (also released today). Apple has released Bluetooh Software 1.5, the latest version of the short-range wireless connectivity technology for Mac OS X. Version 1.5, available via the Software Update preference pane, provides support for Bluetooth-enabled headsets and printers.

About 3 years ago I was looking around for something to add multimedia capabilities to my GNOME desktop. At that point in time there wasn't really that much around. I think the most advanced video player for Linux in those days was XAnim, which was neither were moving quickly or could qualify as free software, except in the beer context. Projects like Xine and mplayer had either just started up or not come into existence yet.

Gnome 2.4 comes standard with GnomeMeeting 0.98.5, a Free video-conferencing application. I have used iSight/iChat and MSN Messenger with a web camera for quite a while now and so here's how Gnomeemeeting compares to these other options.

After 1-2 years of waiting, Microsoft has finally updated their Windows Media Player for OSX and brings version 9 to the Mac. Along with it, it also brings DRM and a Safari browser plugin. Now, someone go tell Yahoo! to fix their code so the Safari WMV/A plugin can work with launch.yahoo.com.

Two weeks ago we featured an early pick on iTunes for Windows, but today iTunes' main competitor Napster 2.0 was released for a free download. We had a play with it and here is what we think about it and how it compares to iTunes.

Apple's iTunes 4.1.0.52 for Windows was released today. I downloaded it a few hours ago, and so here are my first impressions on the product. Screenshots included.

With the computer market exploding into success the last 20 years more and more movies are featuring people using computers. Being a computer geek myself, I expect a level of "technological reality" for the movies that are not in the realm of "sci-fi", but directors usually are feeding their movies with superficial scenes about computers just for the happy clapping from the computer-illiterate audience.

Thanks to a provision in the 1976 Copyright Act, U.S. law allows the first purchaser of copyrighted material (a book, CD, etc) to subsequently re-sell that item without the copyright owner's consent. In this age of online distribution and the budding, halting attempts at legitimizing it, is the the right to re-sell going to be upheld?

I am a happy G4 450MHz Cube user and I use it even more these days since I got the freebie iSight camera at WWDC last month. Now, picture this: The sound coming out of my speakers is often heard to the other chatter's speakers! I obviously needed a way to cancel the sound of my speakers, and the best way to do this would be to use headphones or use a special headset with a mic that cancels the general noise. Gotcha! The Cube doesn't have audio jacks at all. Enter Griffin Technology's iMic.

In response to Adobe's decision to drop the Mac version of Premiere, Apple now offers a trade-in program to entice Premiere users to move to Final Cut Pro/Express. If Adobe users trade in their disks with Apple, they will receive a free copy of Final Cut Express, or a $500 rebate for Final Cut Pro. In other Apple multimedia news, Apple released Soundtrack for $299, a music composing application.