Sony releases FCP plugin to handle M2T files

The Sony DR60 and the new “Memory Recording Unit” (as part of the HVR-Z7U) return standard M2T files in HDV mode. That’s a problem if you want to use them with Final Cut.

Or, it used to be. Today they’ve released their plugin to rewrap M2T files in Quicktime to work with Final Cut. This was mentioned in the Final Cut 6.0.2 release notes, but was previously unavailable.

Get it here, and enjoy your tapeless workflow. So long Focus, so long …

Screenflow – screencasting with zazz!

Vara software has just released a new screencasting application called ScreenFlow. It combines the features of a typical screencasting like SnapzPro or iShowU, with the ability to bring in onscreen video from a camera, as well as some neat 3d transitions and all.

Screencasting is becoming increasingly popular as a teaching tool, and this looks set to make the process simple and very attractive. Cool.

DNxHD approved as a standard

I wasn’t aware Avid was trying to push this as a standard, but Engadget has the news that SMPTE has approved DNxHD as a standard, called VC-3. DNxHD is similar to Apple’s ProRes422, though many folks consider it to be slightly higher quality. It’ll be interesting to see how this gets adopted – having a high quality, cross platform interchange format sure would be nice.