HD For Indies

Red Giant Software has announced the availability of Magic Bullet Suite v2.0.

New features include:
-HD handling included in price - no more HD premium cost
-dongle no longer required
-MisFire film damage plugins - 13 new plugins for scratches etc.
-23 more preset film looks
-Look Suite G5 optimization - up to 5 times faster than G4

Mike's Comments: MBS has been a popular tool to get a more film like looking result from video sourced projects. It used to have two versions, a standard definition (about $800) and an HD version (something like $2K I think). So the HD version was a bit of a reach for indies for a software plugin. But at one new price of $800, that makes it more affordable and accessible. Good timing with HDV etc. coming on line.

Both Magic Bullet 2.0 and Nattress' Film Effects 2.0 (see review from over the weekend, scroll down) will do 60i to 24p conversion, I should sit down and compare the results. Do they both just drop every fifth field to handle the timing difference, or have they grown in sophistication? I don't know yet.

-mike