News: Adobe Updates After Effects
SEPTEMBER 28—Adobe today released a free update to its flagship compositing and effects package, After Effects. The update works for both Standard and Production Bundle versions, although none of the Production Bundle's specific elements are updated. After Effects 4.1.1 incorporates several bug fixes and performance enhancements, as well as support for Photoshop 6 files. Read More

News: Macromedia Fires Back at Adobe
SEPTEMBER 28—Adobe and Macromedia have entered round 2 of their bout to find out whose technologies infringe upon whose patents. Last month Adobe charged that Macromedia was infringing on Adobe's interface by using tabbed elements in its palettes. Now Macromedia says both Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Premiere violate some of Macromedia's patents. Read More

News: Kodak Reduces Price of PalmPix, Adds Mac Software
SEPTEMBER 27—Kodak says it will reduce the price of its PalmPix digital camera and add Macintosh software to the package beginning Sept. 29. The $149 PalmPix is designed to work with a handheld device. It allows users to take pictures and transfer them to their desktop through the device's HotSync cradle. Pictures are viewed on the Palm handheld's LCD screen as grayscale images and Palm IIIc's LCD as color images. Pictures are stored as standard JPEG or PICT files for Macintosh users. They can be accessed as full-color, 640 x 480 pictures. Read More

News: Agfa Unveils 1.3 Megapixel Camera for $229
SEPTEMBER 26—Agfa today unveiled two new models in its line of ePhoto digital cameras, shifting the price point down on the low end while bringing the resolution up. The lowest-rez camera, the ePhoto CL20, is a 640 x 480 camera that interpolates up to 1,280 x 960 using Agfa's PhotoGenie technology (which has appeared in other Agfa cameras, such as the ePhoto 780c). The other camera, the CL34, brings the hardware (true) resolution up to 1.3 megapixels. Read More

News: Viewsonic Ships New Flat Panels
SEPTEMBER 26—Viewsonic has started shipping two new flat-panel monitors, the first two to use the company's SuperClear MVA LCD technology. The new screen technology combines high-contrast imaging with multi-domain vertical alignment, improved response time and wider viewing angles. Viewsonic has also developed a new liquid crystal panel technology, 3X-LCD, which increases video response up to three times faster than existing LCD technology, according to the company. Read More

News: Maya Paint Effects Plugin for After Effects Ships
SEPTEMBER 25—Alias|Wavefront seems to be taking a shying to the Mac these days. Earlier this year the company announced plans to bring its flagship Maya 3D application to OS X, and now the company has actually released Maya Paint Effects for OS 9. Paint Effects is a plugin for Adobe After Effects 4.1 that allows artists to generate organic and painterly effects directly within the compositing environment. Read More

News: Beatnik Ships Editor 2.0
SEPTEMBER 25—Beatnik, the company founded by Thomas Dolby Robertson back in 1996, has announced the latest version of its flagship digital audio editor. Beatnik Editor 2.0, a Mac and Windows tool for creating interactive music content in Beatnik's Rich Music Format (RMF), has a new analog-looking interface and adds support for dragging and dropping MP3 files directly from the desktop. Read More

News: BitHeadz To Release Tempo Tantrum for Mac
SEPTEMBER 22—BitHeadz today announced Tempo Tantrum, a virtual sampling library that combines the Unity DS-1 sample engine with more than 200 MB of stereo drum loops. Tempo Tantrum features the ability to speed up or slow down each loop without affecting pitch using Unity's oscillator stretching technology. Oscillator stretching uses sample split points to allow the tempo of a loop to be adjusted in real time without affecting the loop's pitch. Read More

News: Maxon Brings Out 3D Painter, Network Renderer
SEPTEMBER 22—Maxon today announced several developments in its Macintosh software program. First off, the company said it will add OS X support to its flagship 3D modeling, rendering and animation package, Cinema 4D XL. The new version, to be released concurrent with Mac OS X, will also add enhanced multiprocessor support. Read More

News: Sonic Sides with DVD-Audio
SEPTEMBER 22—Sonic Solutions today announced support for the DVD-Audio specification version 1.2. DVD-Audio is a new audio format that builds on the DVD-Video format, incorporating sampling rates of 96 kHz and 192 kHz with up to 24 bits of information per sample (compared to the CD standard of 44.1 kHz and 16 bits per sample). Read More

News: Logic Audio USB MIDI Fix Ships
SEPTEMBER 21—Emagic today launched its new Logic Audio update that fixes the USB MIDI problem affecting the latest generation of G4s. According to Emagic, the fix allows users to work with USB MIDI interfaces on the new Apple machines, including Unitor8ÊMkII, AMT8 and MT4. Read More

News: WoodWing Set To Ship XML Exporter for InDesign
SEPTEMBER 20—WoodWing Software, based in The Netherlands, today announced Smart XML Export, the company's third plugin for Adobe InDesign. Smart XML Export generates XML to repurpose the content of InDesign documents (both text and images) for other media, such as the Web.

News: Kodak Ships DC3400 Digital Camera
SEPTEMBER 19—Kodak has started shipping its new DC3400 digital still camera. The new model, with a 2 megapixel resolution, includes a 2x optical zoom (38 mm to 76 mm) and a 3x digital zoom. The camera also offers macro mode for focusing as close as 9.8". A built-in electronic flash offers auto, fill and red-eye reduction modes and has a 9.8 foot range.

News: Panasonic Set To Ship First SD-Capable Digital Still Camera
SEPTEMBER 19—Panasonic next month will ship a new digital still camera with the capability to use SD Memory Cards, a removable flash memory disk technology about the size of a postage stamp. (The cameras will not initially include one of these cards.) The new camera, the ipalm PV-DC3000, offers a resolution of 3.3 megapixels, a 1.5" LCD screen and a 2x optical zoom (equivalent to a 32 mm to 64 mm lens on a standard 35 mm camera) and a 3x digital zoom.

News: Mac Swift3D Development Complete
SEPTEMBER 18—Electric Rain says it's now completed development of the Macintosh version of Swift3D and expects to ship it in the first week of October, a slight delay from the previously planned Sept. 15 release. Swift3D is a piece of software that allows users to create and work with vector 3D objects that can be animated and placed into Flash files.

News: Canon To Ship PowerShot G1 in October
SEPTEMBER 18—Canon USA today announced it will start shipping its latest PowerShot model, the G1, in October. The new G1 takes over the top slot in the PowerShot line with a 3.3 megapixel resolution and a high-resolution, eight-element 34 mm to 102 mm (35 mm equivalent) f/2.0-2.5 3x zoom lens. The G1 allows users to produce full-color or black and white high-resolution images up to 2,048 x 1,536 pixels. The camera also offers two additional resolution settings of 1,024 x 768 (Middle mode) and 640 x 480 (Small mode).

News: Emagic Claims Fix for G4 USB Problems
SEPTEMBER 15—Emagic, a German digital audio software developer, says it's found a fix for the USB MIDI problems users are experiencing on the new G4s. The company will release this fix for its Logic Audio suite later this month in a 4.5.1 upgrade.

News: RE:Vision Releases ReelSmart Shade/Shape
SEPTEMBER 14—RE:Vision Effects today announced ReelSmartª Shade/Shape, an After Effects plugin that turns 2D elements into 3D rendered artwork. Using the matte channel, Shade/Shape gives imagery volume and depth without 3D modeling. ReelSmart Shade/Shape generates 3D models from 2D graphical and picture elements using RE:Vision's proprietary shading from shape technology. The models are then lit and rendered in 3D.

News: Retro AS-1 2.1 Now Available
SEPTEMBER 14—BitHeadz has released version 2.1 of Retro AS-1, its virtual analog synthesizer for Mac. The new version offers support for dual processors in the new G4 lineup. This support includes a doubling of the maximum number of voices and the use of the second CPU for background operations for overall speedier performance. Retro AS-1 will achieve up to 128 stereo voices.

News: Sonnet Doubles Bus Speed with Fortissimo
SEPTEMBER 13—Sonnet Technologies today announced it's developed a new technology that doubles the bus speed for upgrading older Macs to take advantage of faster processors. According to Sonnet, the new technology, Fortissimo, allows owners of older Macs to take full advantage of these new chips. Fortissimo versions of Sonnet's Crescendo G3 and G4 upgrades for NuBus and PCI Power Macs take advantage of the fastest of these processors for the first time.

News: 3dfx Promises Voodoo5 Mac AGP Card by October
SEPTEMBER 13—Voodoo5 5500 AGP for Macintosh uses two VSA-100 graphics processing chips running in parallel by coupling them in a Scan Line Interleave mode configuration and performing 3D acceleration from both chips simultaneously. The result is a doubling of overall 3D performance. Voodoo5 5500 also features the companyÕs T-Buffer digital cinematic effects engine.

News: Radeon Comes to Mac
SEPTEMBER 13—ATI has started shipping its Radeon graphics accelerator for the Mac, and Apple has started offering the card (exclusively as of press time) as an addon for build to order systems via the Apple Store. The Radeon option will ad $100 to any G4 or G4 Cube order. Prior to a public relations fiasco around the time of Macworld New York earlier this summer, the Radeon card was expected to ship standard with some Mac systems. (Some iMacs that reached retail floors even indicated on their boxes that their graphics were powered by Radeon.) But now it's official.

News: Fuji To Ship Two New Digital Cameras
SEPTEMBER 13—Fuji today announced two new digital cameras in its FinePix line. The new FinePix 1300 offers a 1.23 megapixel hardware resolution for $249, making it the lowest-priced digital camera on the market with a resolution that high. The company also introduced the FinePix 2400 Zoom, a 2.1 megapixel model that sells for $499.

News: VST Introduces Combo SmartMedia, CompactFlash Reader
SEPTEMBER 12—SmartDisk today introduced its new USB-based VST Flash Media Reader, a dual-slot desktop flash memory reader for both CompactFlash and SmartMedia cards. The VST Flash Media Reader features side by side media slots.

News: Radialogic Brings Panasonic DVD-RAM Support to Mac
SEPTEMBER 12—Panasonic and Radialogic today announced support for Panasonic's 4.7 GB DVD-RAM drives for the Mac using Radialogic's Storage master suite of DVD utilities. Radialogic's drive management utility and driver package supports all PowerPC-equipped Macintosh computers using Mac OS 8.1 or higher. The Mac OS X version will be released by next year.

News: Sony To Ship FireWire Spressa Mobile CD-RW
SEPTEMBER 11—Sony today announced a FireWire-based mobile CD-RW drive. The Spressa Mobile, available with Mac and Windows software, offers 8x write capabilities, 4x rewriting and 24x playback. Sony's new drive comes with both four-pin and six-pin IEEE 1394 interface cables and a recording software package called Sony Spressa Mobile Software Suite.

Talkin' Smack: The Mac Trips Out at IBC in Amsterdam
SEPTEMBER 11—If you're anything like me, you didn't miss your one opportunity to watch this year's MTV Video Music Awards last Thursday. If you did miss it, you really lost out, and now you'll never get the chance to see it again, owing to MTV's policy of never repeating any of its content.

This year's ceremony marked the first time MTV decided to shun the glamor and money of the major pop stars and focus on more deserving, unknown performers. This was the year underground artists like Britney Spears, NSync and Backstreet Boys finally received the mainstream recognition that's been eluding them lo these many years.

News: Pinnacle Ships Commotion 3.1
SEPTEMBER 8—Pinnacle Systems/Puffin Designs has started shipping Commotion 3.1, a stand-alone compositing and effects package. The new version adds a few enhancements, including functionality improvements in the timeline and the ability to remember the contents of the Curve Editor when opening and closing the editor window.

News: Digidesign Announces MasterList CD 2.3, Reverb One
SEPTEMBER 8—We had a load of stories today from Digidesign. The company's showing off the forthcoming Pro Tools 5.1 and has announced the availability of Pro Tools LE 5.1. In addition, the company announced it will be offering Pro Tools 5.0.1 as a free download beginning next month.

Amid these big announcements, there were also some smaller product releases. First, the company will soon start shipping Reverb One, a reverb processing plugin for Pro Tools TDM. According to Digidesign, the plugin is dedicated to a single MIX chip on the Pro Tools|24 MIX platform and includes fully automated real-time processing of all parameters and multiple use on Pro Tools|24 MIX systems. It also includes a set of software shaping tools that allow users to customize the characteristics of the reverberant space, including equalization, modulation, decay optimizations and room reflections. Reverb One is available for both Mac OS and Windows NT Pro Tools|24 MIX and MIXplus systems. It requires Pro Tools software version 5.0 or higher. Reverb One will be available soon. Pricing information was not available, though Digidesign said it would be "affordable."

News: Pro Tools 5.1 Coming Late 2000
SEPTEMBER 8—Digidesign says it plans to release version 5.1 of its Pro Tools TDM audio suite late this year or early next—possibly a few weeks following the AES convention, which will be held later this month. Digidesign says the new version is a major upgrade to its digital audio workstation, introducing integrated surround mixing, more processing power, enhanced MIDI functionality and major enhancements to editing, navigation, session interchange and system integration.

News: Digidesign Launches Pro Tools LE 5.1 For Digi 001, Digi Toolbox
SEPTEMBER 8—Digidesign today launched version 5.1 of Pro Tools LE software for Digi 001 and Digi Toolbox XP systems. Version 5.1 includes new editing and mix enhancements, integrated stereo tracks, enhanced MIDI functionality and "significant improvements to ... navigation and session interchange," according to the company.

News: Medea Gives Away Boris Software with Disk Arrays
SEPTEMBER 8—Medea and Boris FX have teamed up to offer free Boris FX titling software with the purchase of certain VideoRaid disk arrays. The software, Boris Graffiti and Boris Factory, retail for more than $500.

News: DVD Creator Gains Web Functionality
SEPTEMBER 8—Sonic Solutions Sonic today announced version 2.1.1 of DVD Creator, a Macintosh DVD authoring system. The new version adds Sonic's eDVD Web technologies, as well as enhancements to workflow and video encoding.

News: Epson Offers New 2,880 DPI Inkjets Starting at $99
SEPTEMBER 7—Epson today announced four new printers in its lineup of four-color inkjets. The new models start at $99, and three of them offer resolutions of 2,880 x 720 DPI—twice that of their previous offerings.

News: Boris FX Gains Dual-Processor Support
SEPTEMBER 6—Boris FX says it's converted over its entire product line to support dual processors on the Mac. Boris' line of software includes plugins for Adobe After Effects (and other effects and editing packages), such as Boris RED, Boris FX, Boris Graffiti, Boris AE and Boris Continuum. In addition, the company says it plans to offer Velocity support in future products, such as Boris RED2. This will include accelerated versions of vector-based geometry functions like splines, paint and text tools, as well as accelerated compositing functions.

News: Retas! Pro Gets Update to 5.2
SEPTEMBER 6—Trimedia has posted updates to several components in its Retas! Pro digital 2D animation system for Macintosh. (Updates are also available for Windows versions.) Included in the updates are CoreRetas 5.2, TraceMan 5.2.1, PaintMan 5.2.1 and RenderDog 5.2.

News: EditDV Packs Multiprocessor Support
SEPTEMBER 6—Digital Origin has announced a free upgrade to EditDV, its content creation and streaming media authoring tool. The new version is now fully optimized for the new multiprocessing G4s.

Road Hog: FireWire and Fiery Wires
SEPTEMBER 6—It turns out that that this year's flavor of G3 PowerBook (Pismo) has had some problems with its star attraction, to wit, FireWire. This is the Apple-developed data protocol also known as IEEE-1394 (the geekspeak of the international electrical standards board), iLink (Sony's brand name) and DV (barely this side of flat-out wrong, but on the other hand, close enough). It offers monstrously fast throughput, which is great for video files ... when it works.

News: Epson Cuts Prices on Scanners
SEPTEMBER 6—Epson has reduced the price of its Perfection 610 scanner and the Stylus Scan 2000, 2500 and 2500 Pro all in one models. The Perfection 610 is now available for $99. It delivers a maximum hardware resolution of 600 x 2,400 DPI and 36-bit color depth and includes USB connectivity. The Perfection 610's software bundle includes PictureWorks Hot Shots for image editing, NewSoft Presto! PageManager for document management, Newsoft Presto! PageManager OCR for scanning text and Broderbund The PrintShop PressWriter for extra creative publishing tools. Epson's TWAIN driver is also included.

Roundup: The Best of Seybold
SEPTEMBER 5—This year's Seybold convention in San Francisco proved to be one of the more enjoyable Web expos I've attended. Which is odd, of course, seeing as its a publishing show. Nevertheless, the topic on the lips of anyone who could rally a small crowd to his or her booth was the repurposing of content for the coming convergence—whatever that means. (I think it has something to do with scamming investors.)

Talkin' Smack: My Trip to Seybold
SEPTEMBER 5—First of all, very funny. Very funny indeed. It seems we have some comedians in the audience out there. Last week I asked you to e-mail my boss and tell him to buy me a PowerBook for my trip to the Seybold convention. I stuck it in the last paragraph of the second page of my column so he wouldn't get too bombarded with Mac fanatic venom, seeing as he's a peecee user and all. But plenty of you found it anyway.

News: BitHeadz To Add Multiprocessing Support to Retro and Unity
SEPTEMBER 5—BitHeadz Inc. says it will release multiprocessor-aware versions of its two flagship audio products, Retro AS-1 and Unity DS-1. The company says the new architecture will allow the programs to offload all synthesis and sampling tasks to the secondary processor. "By freeing up the host processor, we make more room for today's powerful sequencers to accommodate extra audio tracks, plugins and software instruments," says BitHeadz CEO Steve O'Connell. "We believe this is a milestone in the evolution of the computer-based virtual studio."

News: CValley Releases FILTERiT 3.0.1
SEPTEMBER 5—CValley has released version 3.0.1 of its Mac-only FILTERiT plugin for Adobe Illustrator. The new version adds enhancements designed to make it run more smoothly under Illustrator 9, though it remains compatible with Illustrator 8.

News: Altamira Brings Genuine Fractals to Quark
SEPTEMBER 5—Altamira this week announced Genuine Fractals PagePro XT, an Xtension for QuarkXPress. Altamira's PagePro XT allows designers to place, crop and resize Genuine Fractals images within QuarkXPress layouts.

News: Media 100 Acquires ICE Technology
SEPTEMBER 1—Media 100 Inc. announced it has acquired technology assets and intellectual properties from ICE, a maker of hardware accelerators for Macintosh.

News: Corel Releases Bryce 4.1 Update
AUGUST 30—Corel has released an update to Bryce 4, a graphics application it acquired from Metacreations last spring. The new version, 4.1, is available as a free download from Corel's support site for owners of Bryce 4 or 4.0.1. The company says the update includes enhancements to existing features, as well as one new feature to give users a taste of what's to come in Bryce 5, scheduled for release early in 2001.

News: Sonic Brings DVDit! to Mac OS X
AUGUST 30—Sonic Solutions has announced plans to introduce a version of DVDit! for Mac OS X. The DVD authoring software was introduced last fall for the Windows platform. According to Sonic, DVDit! for Macintosh "will combine the simplicity and affordability of Sonic's DVDit! for Windows with the power and integrated video capabilities of the Macintosh product line, allowing anyone with a Macintosh to create DVD titles on their desktop."

News: Canon Brings Color to Wide-Format, High-Output Devices
AUGUST 30—Canon has announced four new color output devices, including the CLC 5000 for high-end production color, the CLC 3100 for entry-level production environments, the Color imageRunner C2050 for the corporate office and the BJ-W9000 for wide format applications.

News: SmartDisk Ships 120 GB FireWire Array
AUGUST 30—SmartDisk Personal Storage Systems, formerly VST Technologies, has started shipping its 120 GB VST FireWire-based RAID array for FireWire-equipped Macintosh computers. The VST FireWire RAID array is a compact, portable tower that supports up to four VST FireWire hard drives, which can be used separately or together for storage and rapid transfer of digital data. The new array is being targeted toward video and audio professionals. It also includes a built-in battery pack for portability and field editing.

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