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The Videoguys' Insider Vol 1 Issue 2 In this issue of the Videoguys' Insider I talk with with Colin Sharp the Manager of Software Sales at Pinnacle Systems about the latest version of Commotion - 4.0 Videoguy : Good to see you again Colin, you've been involved with Commotion since before the acquisition of Puffin Designs by Pinnacle. When you first came on board with Pinnacle you gave me a great demonstration of Commotion DV and I instantly fell in love with it. Commotion was the first video compositing software that was easy enough for me to use and master. Now you've just released version 4.0 and it is even easier to use and much more powerful. You must be very excited, Commotion 4 is a killer upgrade. Give us a quick look at what's new in 4 Colin: Faster, Better and More Powerful. Commotion 4 has been greatly improved over previous versions by becoming a faster product, an easier to use product with a new timeline interface and grouping controls as well as more powerful product bringing new features including Photoshop layer import and time-remapping functionalities Videoguy: Can you give us some examples of just how much faster Commotion 4 is? Colin: The compositing "engine" is up to 50% faster compared to previous versions while supporting much more complicated composites.  The paint engine is now up to twice as fast as previous versions with superior edge softness. Commotion offers dozens of unique brushes as well. The new Timeline browser shows the whole composite at a glance. You can easily change the current view to look at the whole composite, or single groups.  This alone is a huge advancement increasing your overall work-flow. Compositing Time Test: A four layer compositing test, using no filters but high quality scale, positioning and opacity compsiting. All layer are D1 material, 2 movie files, 2 stills Paint Test: Typical autopaint write-on test of 90 frames (3 seconds), D1 material

Videoguy : WOW!! Those are some dramatic improvements in rendering times. When you combine these with the new grouping and browser controls Commotion just got a whole lot more productive. This next question is a bit more tricky, but we here it all the time: What exactly is the difference between Commotion and Adobe After FX??? Colin : Commotion differs with After Effects in many ways and in many ways is similar. I like to think of Commotion as an indispensable tool for anyone working with video just like Photoshop is for any graphic designer. Commotion offers paint tools familiar to anyone who's familiar with traditional image manipulation programs. It combines this powerful attribute with a timeline compositing interface. I've included a screen shot from the movie, "Driven" which shows the wires that tugged the cars along for the crash scene. Pixel Magic used Commotion to paint and clone out these wires. The other is of the Commotion interface. Videoguy: Thanx for clarifying this. I think we all now have a much better understanding about Commorion 4 and why we want it. Now for an easier comparison. What exactly is in Commotion Pro and why do we want it? Colin : Commotion Pro adds our famous Motion Tracker for image Stabilization as well as Primatte Keyer for Blue/Green Screen keying as well as Composite Wizard for creating excellent composites and Image Lounge for dazzling filter effects. Commotion Pro's motion tracker allows a user to select a spot within their footage with sub-pixel accuracy and track the movement of this spot.  This can be really handy to either stabilize shaky footage or apply effects to objects.  For example, you could apply your own logo to the side of a moving bus. Primatte Keyer is probably one of the industries best keyer, especially good with DV footage, which tends to be difficult to manage.  Shoot someone or something on a blue or green-screen and then use Primatte Keyer to quickly remove the blue/green enabling you to composite against a background.  With the help of Composite Wizard to color match your foreground and background footage, expect to see some really realistic looking composites.  To clarify color matching, imagine you've shot someone against a blue screen outdoors and you want to composite them against a scene which takes place indoors.  Obviously, the lighting and overall color of these shots will differ dramatically.  Composite Wizard allows you to color match the two shots to make them look more realistic.  Very powerful and handy. Videoguy : Thanx again. You've really helped us understand all that Commotion has to offer. As I mentioned in the beginning of this interview, you've come to Pinnacle with their purchase of Puffin designs in 1999. Well it's now 2 years later. Pinnacle has put together an incredible array of software titles in addition to Commotion. There's Hollywood FX, TitleDeko Pro and Impressions DVD. Can you give us a look at the "Big Picture" with Pinnacle software groups. Colin: Power attributes of each of these software products are becoming included in many of Pinnacles hardware products. An example would include a version of Impression bundled with both the DV500 and Pinnacle Pro-ONE. This type of integration brings more features to Pinnacle users. Additionally, discounted upgrades are typically offered to Pinnacle hardware owners of these powerful products. Videoguy: I realize you're in the software group, but I was wondering if you've had a chance to heck out the new Pro-ONE. They've done an amazing job making Hollywood FX RT. To think that digital videographers can now get all of Hollywood FX 3D transitions w/ keyframing in real-time blows me away! When I saw the image stabilization feature it immediately made me think of the motion tracking feature in Commotion pro.Any chance that we'll see some real-time commotion capabilities in future Pinnacle products? Colin: Pinnacle Pro-ONE is an amazing product which incidentally leveraged part of Commotion to bring owners of Pro-ONE image stabilization. This feature is based on the same fastest, most accurate desktop motion tracker found in Commotion Pro. Real-time capabilities within Commotion and continued integration with Pinnacle hardware is definitely on the roadmap. Videoguy: Cool!! Thanks a lot for taking the time to share with us all the great new stuff coming from the Pinnacle software group. Colin: Thank you, I'm glad I could offer some useful information about Commotion. I've included a screen shot of the Commotion 4 GUI. I've highlighted some of the key functions / areas of the interface. As you can see, Commotion is very easy to use. The paint tools will be very familiar to anyone who has worked with an imaging program such as PhotoShop. In the tool palette, you'll notice 8 different tools which familiar to you. An airbrush, a paint brush, an eraser, our famous FX brush for creating an unlimited variety of natural media and texture brushes such as charcoal, crayon, and neon, a line tool, a pencil, a clone brush for sampling a section of your footage and applying it to another section, and finally our SuperClone brush which allows you to sample footage and clone from a different frame or different clip onto your footage. Commotion can record your keystrokes, so you could use it to have your titles "Written" on the screen, or to paint on the video, while it is in motion. Commotion's AutoPaint functionality acts simply like a recorder, recording anything you do to your footage. Simply press record and then begin painting, cloning or using any of the paint brushes and Commotion's AutoPaint will record these actions. After you press Pause, you can 'play' your recorded strokes back over the entire length of your clip or any duration you're interested in applying it to. Click here to download a really cool sample of the "write on" effect! 1597Kb MPEG file The new browser lets you organize your clips and view clips in 'Groups' This is especially important when you're dealing with large or complicated composites. Additionally, Groups allow you to apply effects to many clips saving time in having to render each effect to each clip. The improved project window now lets you keep track of you clips, very familiar to anyone who's worked with a program like Adobe Premiere. Finally, look how clean and simple the multi-layered compositing window is. It displays your Effects, Properties of each clip, including Scale, Rotation etc and includes what Mattes you've created. Each clips attributes can be easily retracted to only show the name of the clip and it's thumbnail. To the right of this information, you'll notice a keyframe timeline. Subscribe to the Videoguys Insider email newsletter Commotion $399.95 | Commotion Pro $899.95 click here for more info about Commotion

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