Do You Believe in Magix?

It hasn't been all that long since editing video was an expensive proposition. You'd have to take the video to an off-line editing suite and rent time, often hundreds of dollars an hour. Now for the cost of an hour or so, we can buy video editing software and cut together videos at home.

In many ways this parallels the course of publishing. Until the mid 1980s, publishing was specialized, time consuming, and expensive. Over the years, desktop typesetting and layout have placed powerful technologies in the hands of just about everyone. And not always with stellar results. In the early days, some users who had access to 100 or more typefaces felt that that had to use each one in every document, but people eventually stopped doing that and took advantage of the speed and control offered by the technology.

This is happening with desktop video editing now. Given 100 splashy transition effects, some people feel they have to use every one of them in every video. This too will eventually pass.

One of the companies that was there at the beginning is Germany's Magix Software. Now, after half a dozen years of development, Magix has released Video Pro X6, which is a native 64-bit application. Supporting 64-bit hardware means the program can use more memory, work faster, and offer more powerful features.

The new version features major updates that are visible and many that exist behind the scenes to make things work better. Video Pro X6 includes some bundled plug-ins and all of these are also 64-bit applications.

This is a program that offers some surprising features for a program that costs only $400 (considerably less if you're upgrading from a previous version.)

The interface components can now be scaled to fit your monitor (or monitors) and your needs. You'll find some new tools that push the application more toward the professional market -- vectorscope, waveform monitor, and histogram for example. And if you're combining video from multiple sources, and possibly differing formats, there are controls that allow subtle modifications of color and luminance to match the various sources. And, yes, if you can afford a high-definition 4K camera, Magix Video Pro X6 can edit it.

Two videos that are well worth watching if you're interested in editing your videos:

• A short introduction (1:23)
• A tutorial that buyers of Magix Video Pro X6 will see (11:44)

You'll find support for HD consumer cameras such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and GoPro HERO3+. You would expect that. But Video Pro also supports cameras such as Canon's EOS-60D, which are used by professionals who are on a budget, and the true professional cameras such as Sony's F series or the Canon EOS-1D.

One of the greatest challenges video editors face is the number of clips, cuts, and transitions in a video. Take a close look at what's on your television and you'll see cuts and other transitions about every 5 seconds. That could come out to be 120 or more cuts in just a 10-minute video.

Video Pro X6 allows users to create individual scenes (Magix calls them "nested movie objects"). Once you've done that, you can combine these objects to create longer scenes. And if you decide that one of the nested objects needs to be changed, you can go back to the original, change it, and then see the results of your changes in the finished video.

Testing Magix Video Pro X6

I had some scraps of video lying around from last Christmas, so I decided to cut some of them together, along with a few clips of Chloe. (It should be no surprise to you that Chloe is a cat.) The program's control interface makes things surprisingly easy.

In this case, I used 2 video tracks. I had no particular reason for doing this except that near the end of the brief video I wanted to insert a clip without cutting the clip that was already on the time line.

You'll see the insert, second from the left on the lower video track. This clip replaces the video on the upper clip for the time that it's present. Some might find it counter-intuitive that the lower video track is the one that's visible, but it's no problem once you understand it.

The extra tracks can be used to create picture-in-picture effects or a double-exposure effect.

I found the interface to be easy to use.

There's a surprising amount of audio processing power in this video program. Here I've added an audio track (green) and I've reduced the volume of the video tracks. It's easy enough to eliminate audio from the video tracks, but I wanted to retain a bit of ambient sound.

The audio track is "Jingle Blues" by Super Sigil, licensed under terms of the Creative Commons.

When it's time to export the finished video, Magix Video Pro X6 helps by selecting the most common settings that match the video you've given it.

Here's my test video:

What You Should Not Expect

Don't expect to buy Magix Video Pro X6 and be able to create award-winning videos by next weekend.

Five words: It. Doesn't. Work. That. Way.

Just as you can't buy a word processor and immediately become a best-selling author, you'll need to spend some time to understand the craft of shooting and editing videos if you want your presentations to be anything more than mediocre. There's no question that Video Pro X6 will make the process about as easy as it can be made, but you still have to take the time to learn when cross-fades are more appropriate than cuts (and vice versa), how audio and video relate to each other, when using a transition effect other than a cut or a fade is called for, how and when to add text to a scene, and a lot more. After all, the visual language that's used for film and video has been developing for nearly a century. To create a worthwhile video, you need to be able to speak the language. Oh ... and you'll also need to learn about frame rates, safe areas, video compression, and lots more. So now is the time to get started.

If you're like me, you'll think that your first videos are amazing. As you learn more, you'll realize just how pathetic they are. Welcome to the world of audio and video performers. There's probably not a disc jockey, a broadcast journalist, a video editor, or an audio editor who hasn't watched or listened to work done early in their career and cringed. Literally.

If you want to create video presentations, get started now.

Magix Video Pro X6 makes near-professional tools available to all

This video editor is a perfect fit for serious amateurs who want to improve the videos they capture as well as for professionals who are on a budget. The ability to add titles, create numerous effects, add and sweeten audio, and then output the finished program in any of several formats makes the entire process easy. The high-end features that are present might even make it a viable choice for professionals.
Additional details are available on the Magix website. And if you're not ready for all the features offered by Video Pro X6, check out the Movie Edit line from Magix.

We're In for Better Weather

The National Weather Service has a website, but I prefer to use Weather Underground. Features have been added continuously over the years so that it is now what I consider to be the undisputed leader when it comes to information about weather. Without the National Weather Service, Weather Underground would not exist, so this isn't a public-versus-private argument. What Weather Underground has done is take data provided by NWS and make it more accessible to people.

Yes, you have to pay for Weather Underground, either by accepting ads or sending in $5 every year. Yes that's about 42 cents per month. What you get for your 42 cents is a huge amount of information in a format that makes it easy to use. And now Weather Underground has redesigned its Web presence to make things even better.

The radar view makes an astonishing number of overlays available with a satellite view, precipitation information, severe weather alerts, web cams, stream and river information, and various seasonal (ski, snow) and geographic (drought, fire, seismic activity) information depending on the time of year and location.

The main page provides immediate insight into the current weather for the location you specify as your default. And you can define list of "favorite" locations to include places where you travel or where friends or relatives live.

The site seems to be more responsive, too. According to the Weather Underground site, "We've implemented changes that have improved both server-side and client-side loading times. We've streamlined images and code, concatenated scripts, added server-side compression, and minimized calls. We've also adopted new technologies, including the Foundation framework and the Flot library in order to improve data visualization and accessibility across devices."

You can switch between 10-day and hourly displays. The forecast graph provides a quick visual explanation of what's coming, but there's also numeric data.

When you want to drill down, clicking the Hourly tab switches from the 10-day view to an hour-by-hour forecast.

Weather Underground even changed the typeface it uses. In recent years, it has become possible to use more than just the dozen or so typefaces that were considered "safe" for use on browsers. Previously the site used Helvetica (Arial for Windows users).

Now the site uses a face called Verb. Its more legible because of improved character spacing, better character shapes, and fewer ambiguous characters. The site has a cleaner look and it's easier to read.

To read more about the redesign, see http://www.wunderground.com/redesign/.

Even better, Pittsburgh is now spelled correctly. (I believe that this was corrected several years ago.)

Short Circuits

Facebook Eliminates a Feature and Says it's an Improvement

Did you ever notice how messages that begin with "for your convenience" never are? That seems to be the case with Facebook's latest advance. Prepare to say goodbye to instant messaging on Facebook, at least on smart phones.

The change will happen first outside the United States, specifically in Britain, France, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Later built-in messaging will be removed for US users, too.

Facebook will be replacing the built-in messaging function with a separate app. If you want to forge ahead, you could download the app now even if you're not in Britain, France, Norway, Sweden, or Finland.

The instant messaging system is popular, but Facebook managers insist that users will prefer the new separate application because it will bring new features: If you're planning an event for a specific group of participants, you will be able to create a specialized group in the new app. And even though users will now have to manage 2 apps instead of just one, the two apps will be highly integrated and Facebook says the user experience will be better.

The new Messenger app has been available since late last year. Its reported to be faster and more customizable than the current built-in application. Some features from WhatsApp, which Facebook is in the process of spending $16 billion to acquire, will be included in the new app.

So maybe this change really is "for your convenience", but it's also for Facebook's bottom line. The more time you spend in any Facebook application, the more time Facebook has to show advertisements to you.

And Facebook once again proves that it hasn't quite learned the lesson about privacy that users have repeatedly tried to teach: Facebook's new messaging application automatically includes information about your current location in every message. This will happen even if you turned that feature off in the current Facebook messaging app. If you prefer not to disclose this information, you'll need to turn it off again.

But just sit back and relax. After all, Facebook knows what's best, doesn't it?

Mozilla Gains an Interim CEO, Loses a User

Chris Beard has been named interim CEO of Mozilla, the company that's responsible for the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird e-mail client. Although unrelated to this event, I'm re-evaluating the use of Firefox as my primary browser.

Let's take that second part first. After all, I've touted Firefox for years as my primary browser, but I stopped using it about 2 weeks ago. It was a sudden decision and I've retained all of the information and settings that I would need to go back if I decide that the decision was a bad one.

What triggered the change was a repeating series of events during which it seemed that Firefox was causing the computer's performance to suffer. And by "suffer", I mean that it was all but unusable.

It's important to note that I run approximately 20 Firefox add-ins and that I typically have 8 to 12 browser tabs open. Firefox has suffered from what are called "memory leaks" from the beginning and Mozilla seems to be incapable of fixing the problem.

When the computer (Intel i7 processor with 32GB of RAM installed) slowed to a crawl a couple of weeks ago, I looked to see what was tying up all of the resources. What I found was shocking: Fully 75% of the system's CPU cycles and an astonishing amount of system memory were being consumed by Firefox. At the same time, I had an instance of Chrome open with about the same number of tabs; it was consuming less than 5% of the CPU and an equally small amount of memory.

In the past, I've generally just closed Firefox and re-opened it. This time, I closed Firefox, set Chrome as my primary browser, and set it to load the 11 pages I always load in Firefox. Then I started searching for plug-ins to replace those that I considered essential in Firefox.

Because I usually need to have a second browser (and sometimes a third) open, I've selected Maxthon as the secondary browser and Internet Explorer as the third.

All of this is subject to change and I'll tell you more after I've tried this arrangement for a few more weeks.

Mozilla's Interim CEO

Beard was named CEO after the former CEO, Brendan Eich, abruptly resigned. When Eich was promoted to CEO, employees learned that he had donated $1000 to support Proposition 8 in California's 2008 election. That's the measure that banned same-sex marriage in California and employee backlash claimed that this was not in tune with the Mozilla's corporate values.

Chris Beard has been with Mozilla from the beginning. He will join the board of directors. Beard's experience pre-dates even version 1.0 of Firefox. Beard, on Twitter, said "Excited to step in as interim CEO to continue shaping the future of the Web for public good."

Heartbleed: Not as Bad as it Might Have Been ...

... but a harbinger of bad things to come. A brief and well written article by Wendy Grossman on the Scientific American website explains why the recent security mess turned out to be less serious than thought initially, but why you shouldn't be encouraged by this.

The good news is that the problem affected fewer sites than first believed and the better news is that many of the affected sites have already been patched.

The exceedingly bad news is that this is likely to happen again because of the goofy way that software developers are paid.

OpenSSL is an open-source application, but only 4 developers are working on it and only 1 is assigned to the project full-time. If you think that security is important, you might question why this number is so low.

Grossman's article says "The volunteer German programmer responsible for introducing the flaw accidentally while updating the software with some bug fixes and new features, Robin Seggelmann, an employee of a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, has openly taken responsibility for committing it to the code (saving his changes) on New Year's Eve, 2011."

Additionally, reports by Bloomberg News and the New York Times say that the National Security Agency discovered the bug and has been using it for 2 years. The NSA denies this.

The problem is that critical software is being maintained by volunteer developers who are paid poorly, if at all.

The full article is on the Scientific American website.