Top Ten DV Fanatics Blogs of 2013

The top ten DV Fanatics blogs from the past year.

The end of every year is the season of the Top Ten lists, so in the spirit of the season, this week is the list of top ten DV Fanatics blogs for the past year. These are the DV Fanatics blogs that received the most readers in 2013.

I hope you've enjoyed reading these posts as much as I've enjoyed writing them. Here is the list of the most popular DV Fanatics posts from 2013. These are listed in the order of most popular first.

1. Digital Asset Management for the Small Post House (Feb 4, 2013)
   I've always wondered why someone doesn't build a digital asset management system (DAM) for the small video post house. Now someone has.


2. Adding Effects to a Chroma Key Foreground in Avid (May 6, 2013)
   A reoccurring complaint about how effects work in the Avid Media Composer editing system, is that if you apply an effect to a key, you end up affecting the background as well as the foreground. Here is a work-around.


3. Avid Editing Tips and Tricks - Part VII (Oct 14, 2013)
   This installment of the Avid Tips and Tricks series includes saving titles without source, selecting ranges of audio keyframes and drag and drop imports of clips into bins.


4. How to Become a Video Editor (Nov 11, 2013)
   It's most important to learn the grammar of film and video. Another words, how best to tell your story. The tool you learn on is not as important as learning the craft itself.


5. Is Being Just a Video Editor Enough? (Mar 25, 2013)
   These days a successful video editor must know all of the different video tools and be able to jump from one system to the next without hesitation.


6. What is the Best Video NLE Out There? (Nov 4, 2013)
   The best NLE depends on how well it does the job you need to accomplish at the moment. Paying attention to online polls to determine the best NLE is a lot like checking in with an online poll to determine your favorite color.


7. Avid Editing Tips and Tricks - Part IV (May 27, 2013)
   Tricks to create a sequence of stills with dissolves, editing titles directly from the bin and enlarging and reducing audio waveforms in the timeline.


8. Avid Editing Tips and Tricks - Part V (Jul 01, 2013)
   A trick for setting up a render cue for multiple sequences, a more efficient alternative to the Fade Effect option and an updated trick to create a sequence from stills with dissolves at every transition.


9. Avid FX (Boris RED) in Avid Media Composer (Jun 17, 2013)
   For more complex compositions, I still prefer Adobe After Effects, but for those times when my workflow is best served by staying within the Avid Media Composer, Avid FX is a huge addition to my toolset.


10. My Problem with Adobe Creative Cloud (Jun 3, 2013)
    I've read a lot about Adobe going to the subscription-only model that they call Creative Cloud. At first I thought it would be a great idea - license the software only when you need to use it, but the more I think about it the less of a fan I become.

I hope that all of you DV Fanatics readers have a prosperous and happy new year. We'll see you next year.