Do you have an RSS feed for your web videos or podcasts? Want to make that content accessible to iPhone and iPod Touch users?

You can either go on and create your own site that is compatible with the iPhone or just head on to VenueM, a new startup that takes your RSS feed and quickly (and on the fly) converts it into an iPhone ready website.

SearchEngineWatch.com is reporting that YouTube will launch a new feature called HotSpots this week that will allow video creators to monitor how viewings rise and fall within a video.

CNET is reporting today that YouTube will be adding pre-roll and post-roll ads to the videos that users uploads to their site.

TechCrunch reported today about a new video player called DimP (Direct Manipulation Player) which allows viewers to scrub through the video by dragging the actual objects in the video instead of the timeline.

A story in The Hollywood Reporter states that ABC.com has upgraded their video player with new features including:

• Full Screen Viewing
• Closed captioning
• Ability to send video links that can be embedded on blogs and social networks

Macworld reported today that Netflix has partnered with a company called Roku to bring a set-top box that will allow you to stream any movie that Netflix offers in their “instant” service.

I attended Digital Hollywood (you can check out my coverage by watching the EXPOzed Podcast) and learned a lot about monetizing your content, however, it seems that most people feel the only way to monetize your digital content, that is, your web videos, podcasts, blogs, website content, etc. is to get sponsors and/or advertisers.

Steven Spielberg, Harrsion Ford, George Lucas where on Seesmic promoting their new movie, Indiana Jones.

YouTube is now offering a new demographics section in their Insight analytics for YouTube. Log into YouTube.com, click on “my account” and under Performance and Data Tools, click on YouTube Insight.

There is really great company called Animoto that allows you to upload video and photographs and it will automatically create for you a very cool slide show (though it really looks more like a music video) to whatever music you give it.
It’s so cool, that it looks like the #1 Internet store in the world, […]

Are you or your company looking for a solution to webcast your next product introduction, news item or whatever else you want to communicate to the public? Check out Wirecast from Vara Software.

Telestream released today Version 4.4.2 of it’s video compression suite, Episode Pro.

Noise Industries today released version 2.0.2 of their Final Cut Pro FX Factory plug-ins. Updates include the following:

Flip4Mac WMV Components, the software that lets you run Windows Media video files on the Mac using QuickTime, has been updated.

I had the pleasure of attending the 2007 New Media and Podcast Expo in Ontario, CA.   The show goes on for 3 days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, September 28, 29 and 30.   I attended all the class sessions on Friday and tomorrow, Saturday, I will be back video taping the entire show floor, including interviewing all of the vendors there.

Who has not watched a video on the Internet?  YouTube anyone? Sometimes I get asked what is the difference between progressive video and streaming video?

We have an “intranet” web site (called SheaTV) in our company where we centralize all of our media assets (videos, podcasts, training on demand videos, etc.). From there, our users can easily find what they want to watch (or listen to) by searching through a variety of subjects.

As the Interactive Media Manager, I get to play many roles. From web design & development, to audio and video production and post production, to eMarketing, to photography.

Looks like they won’t be needing my services any longer if Adobe has a say in it. That is, my editing services. Adobe Premiere Express is an “online hosted” video editing (or as they like to call it…video remix) application that users can use to edit their online videos easily.

Ok, so they will still need professionals to do the good stuff, but the trend (and the rumors I heard at the Adobe CS3 Conference) is that all of Adobe’s “consumer” video (and image) editing applications will be going “online” and converted into “hosted” applications.

This means that there will be 2 types of media editing applications. The professional kind, such as Final Cut Studio, Adobe Production Studio and the “consumer” type that will be hosted on a server somewhere (read…no installation on the consumer side….automatic updates…ease of online publishing).

Apple released this morning updates to all of their applications in Final Cut Studio.

SoundTrack Pro 2.0.1

1. Improved stability
2. Improved performance
3. Delay Designer surround effect plug-in

Motion 3.0.1

Fixes for:

1. 32-bit float projects
2. Rendering of intersecting 3D groups
3. Final Cut Pro integration

What a fantastic conference! The Adobe CS3 conference was a two day (June 19 and June 20) networking, product immersion and just plain old fun “experience” for only $199; can’t beat that!

That price not only included a bunch of classes and networking opportunities, but also a fantastic dinner on the first day (I mean shrimp, prime rib, Chinese food and even an open hosted bar).

There were plenty of networking opportunities as well, including the lunches and dinners, the get-togethers after the days ended and a bird-of-a-feather meeting.

Pre-conference Sessions
The conference started with a “Pre-Conference Session”. There were 5 sessions to choose from, including Rich Internet Application for Developers, Video, Management/IT, Photographers and Print Service Providers.

I’m sure that after you read the title of this blog entry, you are asking yourself, “What the heck is The Digital Media Dude smoking, and why is he not sharing?”

Well, first of all, I don’t smoke anything, but if I did, I’m a selfish person and I would not share it with it you.

Anyway…getting back to my story.

What do I mean by Object Oriented video production? First, I have to explain a little bit to you about programming.

Many years ago…though not that long ago since I’m still only 20 years old….times 2…I used to exclusively architect and program web applications and web sites (still do, but not full time, now I mix it up with video, podcasting and photography).

In web development (and really, any other kind of programming since the 90’s) you break your software into “objects”. That is, you look for “common code” that is used in many other places and you remove that code and create “objects” that then you call through out your application. This is called object oriented programming (OPP).

During a video taping session I had in the studio the other day, after transferring my files from my Adobe OnLocation Project to my editing machine (I’ll blog about my workflow…which I think was great in a later blog) I noticed that some of my .avi files contained some clicks and pops. I’m not sure if this was caused due to the Microphone I had (it never did that before) or if it was something in the way onLocation captured the videos. (I need to do more research and will report my findings).

Regardless, instead of recapturing all of my video again (I also captured to tape at the same time as to hard drive), I decided to do some clean up on the audio of the video using Adobe Audition. Read on below to see my workflow:

Let’s start by creating your project in Premiere Pro 2 and then doing your rough edit. Below is my sample project that I already created and did a rough edit on.

Once you are done with your rough edit and want to do some sound cleanup, identify your offending clip and ALT + Click on your offensive audio click to “unlink it” from your video. Then Right click on the audio click and select “Edit in Adobe Audition”.

I finally got it! Thank you FedEx! My Final Cut Studio 2 came and I opened up the package like a little boy opening up his gifts during Christmas morning (or to be more accurate in my case, Hanukkah).

First of all, the box; it looks and feels really cool. Still same black color with the silver Apple logo on the side, but it feels heavier, better constructed then the previous version’s box. I hope I can say the same for the software too.

Inside the box you get 5 manuals, plus a software box containing 9 DVDs. Yes, I did not type the number incorrectly.

Four of the manuals are for Final Cut Pro 6 (Volume I, II, III, IV). The 5th manual is for Color (the set up guide).

You get the following DVDs:
Final Cut Studio Install
Audio Content 1
Audio Content 2
Audio Content 3
LiveType Media 1
LiveType Media 2
Motion Content
DVD Studio Pro Content
Apple Pro Training Final Cut Studio DVD Tutorial

I can’t believe this. I heard this morning that Apple is already shipping Final Cut Studio 2.0 ONLY if you purchase a new copy. If you purchased an upgrade, those are delayed 2 weeks and won’t ship until the end of the month.

What’s the deal with that Apple? So you penalize your loyal following that keeps purchasing your products?

I know that it’s only a 2 week delay, no big deal, but the point is that I have been purchasing Final Cut Pro since 4 and have been a loyal customer and I would expect to be one of the first ones to be able to get it, not the last ones.

Ok, so you run a small media/video studio and you are tired of typing up your script in Microsoft Word in really large font, printing it and taping it to the bottom of your camera lens so your talent can read it?

Come on! Admit it! You know you do that. I did and it was embarrassing as hell! That is until I found Prompt 6!, a shareware application from MovieClip.biz (http://www.movieclip.biz).

What a fantastic program. It’s a must have for anyone creating training videos (we do tons of them), interview style videos, newscasts, or any other kind of video that your talent needs to read material for (or does not want to memorize the script!).

The software costs only $40 if you like it (it’s shareware), and I have to tell you, I think it’s fantastic for that price. (A big thank you to the developer).

It’s really easy to use and comes in 2 flavors. The standard flavor is a regular application that runs on top of any other application you are running. The Prompt 6 on Black flavor, will completely black out your screen and only display the teleprompter in the middle (by default, but you can move it around the screen).

So you thought you were a complete pro at Premiere Pro and don’t need to learn anything new? Well, think again. Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 is out on public beta for you to check out and play with (go to http://labs.adobe.com to download it).

This new version brings on many new enhancements to the table and along with those enhancements, it brings on new preferences.

In this article, I will cover what the new preferences are and any changes to current preferences.

You can access the preferences in Adobe Premiere Pro by clicking on the “Edit” menu and then clicking on “Preferences” then select “General”.
General Tab

To support the new multiple bin view, you can now choose how you want the bins to open up.

1. Open in new window (Default) – When you double click on a bin, the bin will open up in a new window (pop up) so that you can “drag and drop” items in between bins very easily.
2. Open in place – This is the old Premiere Pro 2.0 way. If you double click on a bin, it will just switch to that bin inside the same window.
3. Open new tab – This is pretty cool. Instead of opening up your bin as a new pop up window, it will open it up as a new tab in your project window.

It’s out! Apple did it. They announced the new Final Cut Studio 2.0 which includes the following products:

1) Final Cut Pro 6.0 (Editing)
2) Motion 3.0 (Graphics, Compositing)
3) SoundTrack Pro 2.0 (Sound Editing)
4) Color (For Color Grading - Correcting)
5) Compressor 3 (For compressing files to different formats)
6) DVD Studio 4 (For DVD Authoring).

I can’t write much about it now since I’m in NAB 2007 and I’m on my lunch break, however, I will write about it tonight when I get back to my room.