Sending Mail From A Google Group

Google groups are a great way to address a group of folks under a single e-mail address.  They can be used for announcements and discussions.   At SCVi Charter School, we use them for two basic purposes.


1) A way to address many users under a single e-mail.Having a group with many users allows you to address many people at once. You don't  have to worry about whether you CC'd or BCC'd them, you simply send to the group and everyone will get it.  It is a very useful way for a Facilitator to address parents or for a a club to addres it's members.
 
2) A way to have multiple people read the same mail accountThere are times when multiple people want to be able to read messages going to a single mail address. They can all be given access to a group where they can read mail sent to the group, or even send mail as though it comes from that address. Since groups allow you to send mail as the group, it is o a way to show a mail as coming from a "generic" address such as "school-mascot@scvi-k12.org". Many folks may read, or send mail from the address, but it always appears to come from the same user.

This posting walks you through sending mail from a group instead of as an individual. This assures that replies go to the entire group instead of just one person. Anyone who is a owner of a group can do this. Here is how it is done.

1)  Go to the group page. 

You can see all your groups at SCVi by going to your groups page.

https://groups.google.com/a/scvi-k12.org/forum/#!myforums

As you can see here, I am currently a member of 4 groups and they are all listed on this page.  You can select the group you want to send mail from.

 2) Start a new topic

Once  you have selected the group you want to read, select "New Topic".

3) Choose to post as the group.

You'll notice that there is a "By" option for who should send the message. You can choose to send on behalf of the name of the group you are reading.

4) Send your message!

Your message will appear to come from the group instead of from an individual. Folks can then log in to the group and continue the discussion.  Here is the discussion I sent. You can see that it shows as being sent from "technology" instead of from myself.

But Wait,. There's more. 

If you have a group that you ALWAYS want ALL messages to show as coming from the group instead of as an individual user, you can set up the group this way.  First go to the Manage section (button in upper right hand corner):

Then under Settings:Email Options set the Post Reply option to "To the entire group."

Setting Up Your iDevice To Read Google Mail

Like many other schools and businesses, SCVi uses Google for Mail and Calendar hosting.  As a school, we get this for free!!  For folks using an iPad, iPod, or iPhone, setting up Google Mail for the first time can be a bit confusing.  These instructions walk you through it step by step.

1.) Click on the "Settings" App Icon

2) Choose Mail, Contacts, Calendars

3) Scroll down and choose "Add Account".

4) Select Microsoft Exchange as the server type.

5) Enter in account information

• Email          : Your First.Last@scvi-k12.org address. 
• Server         : m.google.com
• Domain       : Leave Blank
• Username   : Your SCVi Google Email again
• Password    : The password for your Google Mail
• Description : Put what you would like to see when this shows up in your list of accounts. For example: "SCVi Google".

6) Read your mail!

You should now see your SCVi Google mail listed as an option in your list of accounts.

SCVi's Internet and Phone Service Wiring

This posting explains the physical infrastructure that provides Internet and Phone service to SCVi. It was written to help Staff, Parents, and Voluteers understand SCVi's hard wiring for future troubleshooting or upgrades.

SCVi currently has two internet providers, Telepacific and Fireline Broadband.  Each has different physical infrastructure.

Fireline

Fireline connects to the school through a microwave dish on the roof.  We currently have 10 Megabits of internet service through this connection.

This is powered through a P.O.E injector in the data center.  The P.O.E. injector sends power up to the transceiver that is mounted on the back of the microwave dish to power it.  It is connected with an ethernet connection so that network traffic can be provided to our gateway router.

Overall, they have been a reliable provider.  There have been three times when this connection has gone down.

1. A fire on Mt. Wilson interrupted service. - Fireline let us know and restored things when the fire had cleared.
2. The P.O.E. injector failed.  Fireline's technicians promptly came and replaced it.
3. Config problems at central office. Fireline immediately resolved the issue after we called them and notified them. 

Telepacific

Telepacific connects to the school through the outdoor electrical room. This is the room in back of the school that says "Electrical Room F.A.C.P. Inside" on the door. We currently have 10.5 Megabits of internet service through this connection.

There are 8 different connections that come in to the school. They each have a small control interface locked inside a box.  There are two separate boxes for the 8 interfaces. One box has the voice connection and one data connection. The other box has 6 data connections.

These then travel through a large cable to the communications panel inside the Roof Access electrical room upstairs near the main stairwell.   Note, there are also two POTS lines that run from the outdoor electrical room to specific places in the building. One is being used for the elevator, the other is currently unused.

The 7 data connections are bound together in the data center.  This provides a single output that can then be connected to our gateway router.

The phone line goes to the call manager.

This table summarizes the circuits.

Connection Type	Circuit Number	Purpose
PRI (Phones)	13-HCGS-732952-PT	Provides phone connection for VOIP Phone system
Data 1	13-HCGS-746439-PT	Bonded to form 10.5 Megabit Data connection
Data 2	13-HCGS-792043-PT	"
Data 3	13-HCGS-792044-PT	"
Data 4	13-HCGS-792045-PT	"
Data 5	13-HCGS-792046-PT	"
Data 6	13-HCGS-792047-PT	"
Data 7	13-HCGS-792048-PT	"

Overall, Fireline has also been a  reliable provider.  The only time we lost service was due to a wire being unplugged in the outdoor electrical room. 

Overview

This diagram explains the entire system.

Cisco Router Versions

The PRI connection from Telepacific connects to a Cisco 2821 call manager.  

CVI-CM#show version
Cisco IOS Software, 2800 Software (C2800NM-IPVOICEK9-M), Version 12.4(24)T1, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc3)
Cisco 2821 (revision 53.50) with 196608K/65536K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID FTX1022A1X0
2 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
9 Serial interfaces
1 terminal line
1 Channelized/Clear T1/PRI port
2 Voice FXO interfaces
4 Voice FXS interfaces
1 cisco service engine(s)
DRAM configuration is 64 bits wide with parity enabled.
239K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
250880K bytes of ATA CompactFlash (Read/Write)

The internet connections go into a Cisco 2801 gateway.

 Cisco 2801 (revision 6.0) with 195584K/66560K bytes of memory.
Processor board ID FTX1116W1Z1
3 FastEthernet interfaces
1 Virtual Private Network (VPN) Module
DRAM configuration is 64 bits wide with parity disabled.
191K bytes of NVRAM.
62720K bytes of ATA CompactFlash (Read/Write)

SCVi 2012 Summer Technology Projects

Summer is a time to get projects done at SCVi.  There are many projects going on at the school with construction in the building and changes to infrastructure.   This page gives a summary of some of the things we'd like to accomplish this summer.  Accomplishing this ambitious list will require a great deal of help from our staff and parent volunteers.

Project	Description	Why Are We Doing This?	Estimated Effort	Estimated Purchases
New Power For Island [Jana]	Need at least one 220V circuit and 5 Dedicated 20Amp circuits to the Island.  These will have to be pulled from the utility closet at the stairs. At a minimum we need: 220V : Data UPS 20A : Network UPS 20A : Alarm System (Not yet installed) 20A : Data Center Air Conditioning 20A: Data Center network panel. (Telepacific and Fire Line) 20A: Data Center Expansion (Future UPS)	All power to the Island was cut in the construction.  We will not be able to supply internet to the school in the fall with the current power configuration.	Contractor + Permits	$10,000
Wireless Bridge For Cafe [Matt]	Install Aruba iAP-175 outdoor access point. Install switch and wireless bridge in cafe.	We don't have a conduit between the buildings. Price is per bridge.	80 hours	$4,000
Cafe POS System [Dawn/Matt]	Purchase and install a POS system for Cafe.  Purchase three laptops for staff use.	We will have a new cafe to replace the snack shack. POS system needs to be installed before school starts.  Dawn will have a laptop that runs the software and so will her assistant. One backup machine will be kept in the Island.	40 hours	$5400 (System) $2100 (Sony Laptops)
New Cabling For Downstairs [Melissa]	Run network cable and install a switch downstairs.  Install access points. This includes At least two ethernet connections per classroom.  Wireless Access Point Cables  Installation of iAP-175 outdoors.  Phone line run from AT&T Demarc to outside Heath Office.	Entire downstairs was gutted. Needs wiring replaced. Cisco switch from Kindergarten needs to be re-installed.	80 hours	$1,000 (Volunteers Price - Supplies Only)
Google Transition [Matt, Shannon, Jana, Cheryl]	Move to  our scvi-k12.org domain for all  mail, calendar, and groups.  Some Known SubTasks: Organize new calendars [ Cheryl, Jana] Help folks with moving to Gmail [Jana, Shannon]  Create Facilitator/Staff user accounts [Shannon] Create student user accounts Start looking at Google Sites [Jana]	Allows centralized mail, calendar and groups. Same system used at High Tech High, Disney, and  other schools and business.	160 hours	$0
Upgrade phone System [Elaine, Shannon]	Upgrade existing Cisco 2821 with a new Cisco 2851 Some Details: I believe the cisco 2851 is the newer replacement.  It can handle 96 phones where our current one can handle 48. If you look on CDW's web site, there are may different models of Cisco 2851's.  Which is the best one for us?  If we call CDW, will they help us select one?  Cisco 2851 Integrated Services Router Cisco 2851 Voice Bundle (Maybe we want this one?) We will likely need a Cisco professional to help us get it set up, but we want to maintain it after that. We will add and remove users just like we do now.   This is why I budgeted a few thousand extra dollars into the project. We really try to avoid re-curring costs, so be wary of any annual maintenance fees or subscriptions.  We need to clearly know the benefits of any program they try to sell us. Once we find someone who can answer questions, we need to ask these questions: Will the new system come with Voice Mail, or do we need to use our old Voice Mail system? If we have to use our old one, will our old voice mail system work with the new Call manager? Will the new system work with our old phones (7910 and 7960) Are there any other compatibility issues ? We don't currently plan to change anything about our phone service.  Our VOIP connection is supplied by Telepacific and we have 20 DID lines and a few POTS lines. Most of the on-site numbers  only exist in our system.  We just want to upgrade our current system to support more users.	Our current system is ready to crumble and at the maximum number or clients.  We are growing and our needs are increasing.	80 hours	$9,000
Apple Macbook Air Cart [Shannon]	Purchase 30 Mac book Air comptuers and cart. Sticker/ Add to inventory Image hard drives	Laptop cart for Middle School.	24 hours	$30,000
iPad Cart [Shannon]	Purchase 30 iPads and cart. Sticker/ Add to inventory. Resolve any iTunes ID issues	iPad Cart for Grades K-2.	8 hours	$15,000
New Computers [Shannon]	Purchase 20 Mac book Pro comptuers and cart. Sticker/ Add to inventory Image hard drives	New Staff, replacement for existing Staff, replacement for missing student computers and new Mac Minis.	24 Hours	$30,000
Drop Box Replacement [Tad Miller, Matt]	Replace our use of dropbox with a Synology NAS hosted on site. How many accounts can I create? Is there a annual support fee on the enterprise grade stuff (RS212 specifically) What disk can I use. Does it have all the same software supported as the consumer grade stuff? Other questions??	We have filed up our drop boxes and need something better. Synology works on computers and iPhones.   We can host for multiple iLead sites at SCVi.	20 hours	$1,000
Hallway Music	Play classical music in upstairs hallway - Project was stalled due to concerns with doing it properly	Gives a soothing and inspiring atmosphere -	20 hours	$600
PA System For Downstairs	Run speakers through entire downstairs and hook to existing PA system at front desk	This can easily be done why the school is open and we already have the Amp	40 hours	$600
Wired Conduit To Maui Wowie	Run a conduit to Maui Wowie and install a switch and Access Point	We could do a wireless bridge if we prefer, but a conduit might be cheaper in this case.	40 hours	$200
Lobby TV's	Install 4 TV's in the front of the lobby to stream media	Gives a nice presence when you walk in the building	8 hours	$1,500
Top Of Stairs TV's	Two TV's at the landing on the stairs. This will involve running power to this location	Announcements to see as you walk upstairs in the AM	4 Hours + Contractor	$3,000
Hallway TV	TV mounted on wall in new High School area.	Kim Adam would like a TV to show student work in the hallway upstairs. It will constantly stream student artwork projects as an interactive art display	4 hours	$500
Island Projects	Set up new shelving Set up new tables Clean up Accumulated items	We want to make daily life in the Island easier. Make more computers available to students	50 hours	$300
Donated Hardware	Catalog, configure, and deploy donated computers	We have many new donated computers and monitors stockpiled in Storage and the Island. We need to get them in the hands of our learners.	40 hours	$0
Inventory System	All computer hardware and other electronics tracked in inventory	We have a good start, but we need to make progress and get everything in the school stickered and added to inventory.	40 hours	$0
Tech Support Tent Cards	A tent card in classrooms explaining how to contact support	Make it clear to everyone how to get help for technical issues	8 hours	$0
Re-Image Macbook Air Cart [Shannon]	Update our laptop image to latest spec then wipe all the macbook airs to the new image Multiple Accounts New Software additions	Many of the macs were changed and we learned some things during the school year.	20 hours	$0
Broken Macs [Shannon]	Fix broken Macs in Island New Mac Minis White Mac Laptops Macbook Airs Old Mac Minis	We have broken laptops and Mac Minis in the Island. All need to be re-imaged and re-deployed. Some may need hardware upgrades	20 hours	$0
Class Web Sites	Work with teachers to get class web sites organized for start of school.	We will have a combination of different sites, Wix, Google Sites, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Teachers need help getting theset tied in to their EdLine landing page.	80 hours	$0
Matt's Tasks	---	----	---	---
Manage This List	Track progress of tasks on this list	I can't do all of this... I need lots of helpers.  List will probably move into Pivitol Tracker or Trello to track status of tasks.	40 hours	$0
Document Exit Process	Documentation clearly stating what we do when we exit someone	Folks stick around in email and groups. The steps required by IT staff should be clearly documented. Also document other procedures to be followed by IT staff.	8 hours	$0
New Ethernet Switch	Donated Gig-Ethernet backbone switch needs to be investigated and configured	This could greatly improve our internet backbone if we can figure out how to use it	4 hours	$0
SCVi Technology Web Page	A section on the SCVi home page explaining technology Presentations Vision Policies Internet Filtering iPad Program Tech Support Volunteer Opportunities Examples of student work	Communicate our vision and answer basic questions. List opportunities to volunteer.  Show this table so folks can pick up tasks.	20 hours	$0
Other Tech Tasks (Probably Not This Summer)	---	---	---	---
Wii Smart Boards	Try to get Wii Smart Boards Working	This project was stalled in 2011. Can we make it go now?	40 Hours	$0
Volunteer Hour Transparency	Show top volunteers and each person's volunteer status	There is no recognition for folks that volunteer and no reminders for folks that don't. We need to make volnteer hours fully visible so you can see where you stand and so we recognize those that contribute the most	40 hours	$0
iPhone App	App to show latest events and volunteer hours	An easy portal for parents to know what is happening on the school and see their contributions to voluteer hours and family giving	200 Hours	$300

My Little Bro-nies

Something odd happened the other day.  One of my sons started talking about "My Little Pony".  Now, what I remember of My Little Pony was that it was a collection of cartoons and toys targeted at little girls from the 1980's and 1990's. So, it seemed really odd to me that my son would know about it, let alone be interested in it.

 

I decided to investigate a little more.  He said he liked the show and that boys who like My Little Pony are called "Bronies." OK,. What? I remember that show.  What, if anything, could possibly appeal to him?  Turns out, the My Little Pony franchise was rebooted in 2010.  He had never seen the original show and didn't even know it existed.  It's the 2010 reboot that caught his interest.

This time, things were a bit different. They did a much better job of making shows that would appeal to to a larger audience. The stories are more clever and bring in more action, magic, and conflict than the original. Though, this alone still might not have been enough.  What really brought the show home was a small, cameo character named Dr. Whooves.

For those that don't recognize the caricature, this particular pony has a resemblance to actor David Tennant, who portrayed the tenth incarnation of The Doctor in the British science-fiction TV series Doctor Who. My kids are all huge Dr. Who fans. My son even asked to have his hair cut and dyed like actor David Tennant.  The appearance of this character, who just happens to bear his inspiration from their favorite TV character, was all it took to make them willing to start watching the show.  Once they started watching, the show was entertaining enough to hold their interest so they were hooked.  In fact, my son now says that My Little Pony is his second favorite show. (after Dr. Who)

Of course, bringing two long running Television Icons together, it was only a matter of time till the clever You Tube content came into being which gave the show even more appeal.

The creative My Little Pony reboot folks didn't stop with Dr. Who either.  They also have characters or episodes that mimic Indiana Jones, The Terminator, Q From Star Trek, and Spider Man. If you'd like to get a good idea of what the show is like, this particular clip gets a lot of play in my house. It shows you the quality of the animation and music.

If it had not have been for Dr. Whoove's, maybe I wouldn't have any Bro-Nies in my house.  Though, I really don't mind having a Brony or two, so it's OK. 

Understanding WASC Accreditation At SCVi

SCVi is a public Charter School in the northern Santa Clarita Valley.  For the 2011-2012 school year, the school covered grades K-10. The 2012-2013 school year will add 11'th grade and 12'th will be added in  2013-2014 school year.  With the prospect of a senior class graduating in 2014, parents and students want to be assured that the credits they have earned will be honored by the college of their choice.

Since SCVi is a new school, there is quite a bit of confusion about how the learning done at SCVi will be respected at higher learning institutions. Is SCVi accredited for college? Will the classes taken at SCVi carry the same weight as those taken at a traditional public high school?  Who accredits a high school and what is the processes?

In order for classes taken at a high school to be honored by a college, the high school must have accreditation through the Western Association Of Schools (WASC) at the time the first class graduates.  This means SCVi will need to have full accreditation by 2014.  Though, you don't have to have full accreditation at the time the class starts, but you must at least have what is called "candidacy status."

Having "candidacy status" means you have started the process of WASC accreditation and are working towards being fully accredited.  Getting WASC  is not as simple as filling out a few forms and getting a quick response.  It's a multi year process that can take 3-6 years.  For SCVi, we are going with a 3 year accreditation process. This means the process will be completed by 2014.

While this process continues, SCVi has "Candidacy Status'.  This is considered a good thing in the WASC world and credits earned at SCVi will be respected by other high schools.  As this process continues, you can check SCVi's status on the WASC web site. 

NAB 2012

I attended NAB 2012 in Las Vegas. It's a massive conference with lots to see. This was a chance to talk face to face with vendors and technical support staff as well as a great opportunity to meet with other folks that work in the entertainment industry. I spent a total of two days at the conference. The first day was spent in meetings with vendors  The second day I spent walking the show floor asking questions and learning about new products.  This posting is highlights from the second day.

Day 1: Meetings

Day 1 at NAB was spent mostly in meetings with vendors and colleagues. I met with Adobe, Avid, Apple, Telestream and many other folks from ABC and Disney.

Avid CEO Meeting.  Tuesday 4/17 10AM

I got a chance to sit with the CEO, CIO, and other senior management at Avid.  This was a small group with about 15 people total in attendance.

Meeting Notes

• There was an initial overview of many of the new features in Media Composer 6.  Specifically called out was the move to 64 bit and the increased stability that came with it.
• JPEG 2000 is now supported natively in Avid.
• The avid can create Pro Res media on Mac, or in Window Server.  Can not be created on Windows desktop.
• Pro Tools and Avid are being brought closer together.  Avid uses the same audio engine as Pro Tools.
• They have more Open API's.  They need to make them available and then make sure they are used internally for development.
• Interplay is expected to become more effective in post workflows.
• There are many new cameras coming out.  Vendors have the ability to add AVID support through AMA plugins. They supply the AMA toolkit to the camera vendors.
• Future:
  • Interplay Sphere is coming in Q3.
  • MC 6.5 is coming in the second half of the year. 
  • Not willing to discuss MC7 right now
  • They are supporting AS02 workflows.
  • Avid sees future media experiences to be an integrated media experience. TV's have Internet. People want their hand held device to talk to the TV as more than just a remote.  There is a tend towards Multi-Screen.
  • Viewers on hand held devices want to see high quality content.
  • They are working on Frame Rate independence, color management, and  LUT support.

Telestream Meeting.  Tuesday 4/17 1PM

This meeting focused on telestream's media conversion and transcoding products such as Vantage, and Flip Factory.

• General philosophy behind Vantage is to take the linear workflow that flip factory had and open it up to better process design tools, non linear decision making witout loosing focus on transcoding.  - Take all the knowledge they have form flip factory and use it for media processing.
• They want all their transcoding products and  workflow products to "feel and quack" the same way.
• They have analysis tools,  decision making frameworks,. etc. It's good for when you have a mixed bag of media and need to convert it.  All the decisions that need to be made can be worked in.
• Flip factory is still selling like crazy, but folks are starting to move to Vantage.
• They have introduced x264 as a commercial license in vantage.
• With vantage you drop 100 files in a hot folder and it figures out what to do with them
• They are different code bases than flip factory so here are a few features that doen't exist in Vantage. If you are doing long form episodics, Vantage is still a good choice.
• Lots of discussion on audio compliance and SMPTE 2052 files.
• They are releasing a lightspeed which can do H.264 conversion quickly.  If doing 720P or 1080p you get much faster acceleration.  You put Vantage on a windows server and it has the license for the lightspeed server.  This can replace a Flip Factory Server.  I can be a 5X speed increase. You can make an array of transcoding farms that is CPU aware (better than round robin)
• Talked a little about Rosette which is now called "Pro Media Carbon".  It does delivery and media processing work flows. They've gotten a lot of requests for an API to drive it.

Adobe Meeting.  Tuesday 4/17 3PM

• Presenting:
• Bill Roberts - Adobe CS6 Product Manager. 
• Zach Fisher - Adobe Major Account Manager

• Announcments for NAB:
  • CS 6 - Incremented every product in the suite and added two products to the suite.
  • Story - Script writing application is a good source of metadata and cloud based.  Over 100K folks are now using story.
• Front end of production pipeline is an area they wanted to focus.  - Prelude. You can transcode, tag metadata,..
• They have an app for folks who work on metadata systems. it coms out of the box and just works. It's working with CNN's and BBS's metadata system.
• They developed an API that can be used to make logging more interesting.  Demo of ipad app where he is clicking on the screen and using that to do logging.
• They have the biggest release of technology that they had in a decade.
• Adobe has a "Creative Cloud" and a "Marketing Cloud".  The vision they set down 5 years ago is now there. They are proud of the vision. Creative Cloud - $50 a month gives you all products and cloud storage.
• Things are moving back towards remote architecture. You may have an on site server or one in the cloud but premiere is running remotely.  Adaptive media streaming allows scaling of media based on bandwidth.
• Premeire  - They have been focusing on making it technical grade.  They have a completely revamped UI and work flow. Because of Apple FC issues a lot fo people have tried their product.
• Premiere looks gorgeous -they believe they have the fastest editor in the world right now.
• After FX - They broke up the team. One team is on 3D environment the other handled the rest. They spent a lot of work focusing on Performance.  They now have a powerful 3D tracker in After FX.
• After FX has always been, at best, 2.5D. They now fully embrace the Z axis. They have a true hierarchal radiosity engine casting photons.
• No one is talking about resolution on cameras any more because they gotten big enough but folks are looking at high dynamic range.
• Adobe Media Encoder - Software architecture for encoding to any device. you don't have to worry about file size or cadence.  Compositionally aware encoder, it knows by the kind of data what it has to do.
• Audition - Their audio solution.  It is the fastest audio editor and can sit next to pro tools. They have a fast ADR tool.  They are doing ADR so they can handle dual system sound - i.e two cameras.
• Audition is fast and launches works in 4 seconds. You can run it on a 5 year old macbook pro.  It does a great job with Audio cleanup.
• They are working on making all their products open platforms and using open standards.
• Adobe is very focused on standards and using XMP which is based on XML.
• They acquired Automatic Duck. There will be integration in CS7. Support for XMP and AAF.
• Broadcast Engineering - A group internally of 13 engineers. They pick up projects that customers need and integrate them into the products. These guys work on getting these features into the product. They don't do it as a service, they do it to win business.  The work flows into the main product.
• Lots of Premiere users.. half million folks run after EFX.
• Adobe Premiere was used to edit  on Social network and girl with the dragon tattoo.
• They now support 3D lookup tables. They are then going to standardize Rec709 for all of their tools.  They will use .look for the LUTs.

Apple Final Cut Pro Meeting.  Tuesday 4/17 5PM

Presenting:

• Luke Tystrom : Product Manager for Final Cut, Compressor.

• One of the strengths of FC Pro 7 was third party integration. They've kept that.  Final Cut Pro 10 XML has greatly increased integration.
• Autodesk announced a new smoke for Mac. Both this version and current version support FC import.
• Marquis has a tool that imports from FCut into Pro Tools.
• The new smoke has gone from 10K to 3.5K and has a much more Mac look
• There is no private API, all the XML is on the web site.
• FC 10 - 10.0
  • First version was ground up new app.
  • 64 bit,. Magnetic time line, Content auto analysis
• 10.1
  • XML, XSAN, Audio Stems.
  • Audio Stems - files can be marked with metdata.
• 10..3 Multi Cam
  • Chroma Keying - Advanced chroma keying controls.
  • Broadcast Monitoring.
• 10.4
  • Performance optimization
• They used to release every 18 mos, now they can release much more rapidly.
• They are committed to building FC Pro as a video editing system for professionals.
• Advanced Chroma Keying controls.
  • When you apply the chroma key, it does an automatic evaluation of the image.
  • You can manually adjust the range of chroma that is being keyed out.
• Multi-Cam
  • Folks in the room are doing between 2 and 6 cameras.
  • You can have 16 angles in one view and up to 4 banks of 16 angles.
  • With QT7 you had to make sure they were all the same frame rate, codec, and resolution before you synchronize the media, now you no longer need to conform.
  • There is an angle editor
  • If using Arri Alexa or Canon C300 you can sync with time code, but Go Camera and 5D don't.
  • You can also sync using audio in FC pro. It analyzes the waveforms.
  • Also can sync using time/date.
• New Broadcast and post NLE purchase ; Adobe 19%, Avid 19%, Apple 52%, Other 10%.
• Later This Year - Coming
  • Multi Channel Editing Tools
  • Dual Viewers - Folks liked the FC7 Source/Record windows
  • MXF Plugin Support for Import/Export
  • Direct Support for Red Cameras.
• They've been working with Sony to update their full plugin range.
• They are also talking to ARRI.
• Cannon already has a plugin to import their C300 MXF.
• They are looking closely at what they do with the XML and developer API's
• There is no built in 3D support. There are dashwood fliters through MX factory which applies a Left and right filter and edit them side by side.  In the near term it's likely 3rd party support.
• Hobbit and avatar are 48 frames.  They are not talking about 48 frames right now.  FC does not particular bother about that, but the codecs would be the issue.
• Is there support for Ases - IDT, ODT, This is the Academy standard format.
• There is a lot of effort going into developer API's.  They could then have a $300 editing project and some of these things might be in 3rd party.
• Question about Motion being moved into the application.  He won't answer.

Day 2: Notable Show Floor Exhibits

Blackmagic Design

The Blackmagic Design booth was large and prominently placed at the entrance to the lower South Hall.  It constantly drew a large crowd.

 

They had their new Cinema Camera on display.  It was constantly surrounded by folks taking pictures of it and talking about it.  I heard several folks say they planned to purchase one.

The camera was getting a lot of attention.  The had a great area to try it out. Cameras were set up in front of a fake movie set.

Adobe

Adobe had a large booth with large video screen. Their focus was on their movie editing and post production tools such as Adobe Premiere.  They had a technical person posted there to answer questions. I asked some questions about Adobe Photoshop but he said he was only there to talk about video products. I then was able to talk to him for a while about work flows in Adobe After Effects.

AVID

I spend a lot of time building software that is wrapped around Avid Products so the Avid booth was particularly interesting to me.  Avid had a very nice booth situated right at the opening of the upper south hall.  You could not miss it.  The booth had a large video screen giving demos of most of their products.

 The booth was consistently this busy.  I wanted to stop and talk with a few folks but the booth was so busy, I gave up. Fortunately, I got a great overview of what Avid is doing in the meetings I had on Tuesday so all was well.

Planar Systems

I was drawn to the Planar booth by these interesting mosaic tiles.  At SCVi, we've been talking about putting together a "Donor Wall" to recognize folks who have donated to the organization. It would be very neat to incorporate this product.

I found a few links describing them in more detail.

• Interesting example with some pictures on Ubergizmodo
• You Tube Link showing a demo at DSE 2012
• Planar Web Site Explanation

They also had some interesting large display screens.

Sennheiser

Sennheiser had a nice booth with lots of microphones on display.

 

You could speak into the Mic and hear how it sounded on the headphones.  Very cool way to demo them. 

 These would look very nice in my Ham Shack!

Sony

Sony's booth was amazing and absolutely enormous.  They had a hub with lit stages surrounded by all kinds of equipment. You could go up to a piece of equipment and try it out in a real studio setting.

Cool And Interesting Booths

I thought these were interesting booths to look at so I snapped some photos.

 Dazzling displays from InfiniLED

The Canon booth was also quite enormous.

The Foundry, makers of Nuke, a popular compositing software used heavily in the entertainment industry.

In the back of one hall, they had a 200 inch stereo display that could be watched without glasses. I was impressed with it.  Though, I didn't get a picture.

These folks were selling "Whisper Rooms" meant for audio recording.  They are sealed rooms you can use to either contain noisy things or to go when you need silence.  I bet there's a few preschool teachers that wouldn't mind having one of these. Hehehe.