Macintosh internal speaker output volume fix

This is a frequent problem on mac when the internal speakers go mute. This are the solutions I found on the internet which also worked for me many times on different systems on mac platforms.

Scenario 1: 

Its a problem when a switchers gets jammed. It seems to work with headphones but the internal speakers does not give any sound output.  (I am no mac expert so you can search about it on the internet)

1) Open system preferences and go to sound control preference and then select the output tab so that you can see your output options.

Get your headphone audio jack and then gently poke around the back your audio output. 

The aim is to poke a  switch inside jack output which needs to get pressed.

Scenario 2:

Watch the output in the system preferences as it turns from Built-In Speakers grey.

1) In a finder window select/open: Macintosh HD - Library - Preferences - Audio


2) Copy any files in this audio folder onto your desktop to keep as a backup.


3) Delete any files in the audio folder


4) Open the System Preferences - sound control preference and then click a few things to force the computer to generate new uncorrupted plist (or preferences list) files in the folder you just purged.


5) If all goes well and you have sound through a built-in-speaker audio output option delete the "backup" .plist files you copied to the desktop.

Credits: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2767922?start=0&tstart=0

Adobe premiere pro cs6 missing presets sequence fix on mac

Adobe Premiere Pro CS 6 trial version dialog box screen shot

Now a days film and tape based recording formats is being replaced by tape less camera in form of meta data in cameras like Red, Arri Alexa and Canon DSLR's. Even adapting to new formats takes times that's the place I come in resolve frame rate mi-match issues, mixing different formats, XML and EDL offline to online matching during the process of digital intermediate, DVD authoring with multiple language subtitling, DCP (Digital Cinema Package) creation for digital movie projectors. Trust me I am good at it most of the time but sometimes it becomes also a learning process on the job. Actually its more fun than a job. As a editor I enjoy editing films but really hate the rush to complete films but I have to be practical since the producer has paid huge money laying on the film. The film has to be released soon for the movie to earn profits. Its your speed,skills and know how on line to finish the project on time. As a student I trained on Apple Final Cut Pro 7 in film school and learned Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 during my school summer vacations.

So to cut it short.

Apple released Final cut Pro X (Version 10) in the market with new state of the art editing pipeline with interesting new features. Most of them liked it some compared "FCP X" to "I-movie" on steroids catered to armature market. Most of them shifted to Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro. But I personally don't think software matters much its the skills I have even edited big projects on Sony Vegas Pro, Windows Movie Maker and even on Nero Vision and got handsomely rewarded. In the end, the editing suite of your choice is just a tool of the profession. Its the picture that matters to the audience.

I too use Final Cut Pro 7 and use Adobe software's like After effects for movie titling and Photoshop. Recently I started using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 for editing web programs at CND on Apple Macintosh computer and discovered small bugs which got resolved with the Adobe Premiere Pro CS 6.2 update.

After few days I accidentally uninstalled Premiere Pro CS6 from my mac book Pro but I reinstalled the software again to my shock I realized that all the sequence presets went missing in the preset window in Adobe Premiere Pro CS 6.2. So I looked on the net and found about the problem on the mac system so temporary solution was to "drag and drop" the premiere project file on premiere to continue editing since I had deadline. Luckily it worked and I was able to drop it to my clients on time.

Later on I went to the internet and I found out that its a licensing problem for which I have to deactivate my Premiere Pro license but it didn't work even after reinstalling and downloading the newer version of premiere from the internet. Meanwhile, I continued working with this problem and later on I left my job and went independent so I had to return the license to my client.

After a while, I gave up finding answers to why all the default presets sequence went missing on my mac version of Adobe Premiere Pro CS 6 and nothing seemed to work and I did a massive system clean up to solve the problem and tired with a trial version of Adobe Premiere Pro and it worked.

This is the solution which worked for me:

Note: Do it at your own risk. This is a step to clean Adobe program data to fix missing sequence presets to reappear so do not ask for illegal hacks,cracks or keys. You need to have adobe ID.

1. Uninstall Adobe Premiere Pro or the Master Collection.

2. Download 'Adobe Creative Suite Cleaner tool' from the Adobe website.

3. Go to User (or Name) - Documents and delete the folder called "Adobe"

(Its OK if the folder is not there move on to the next step)

4 . Go to 'Application support' and delete "Adobe" folder

5. Again Go to User (or Name) - Library - delete the folder called "Adobe" go inside the folder called Preference Pane inside it delete all com.adobe file also check for com.adobe file in the cache folder.

(Note be careful do not delete any other com. files or folders)

6. Re-install Adobe Premiere Pro. 

Set your serial numbers and preferred language and activate with Adobe.

ALSO TRY: (Updated)
I would recommend you to go to the mac desktop click on any where on the screen. You see finder on top of the apple menu icon on the white bar then press option (alt) -> go to library. Its a hidden folder in the go menu and delete any adobe products. But you do need to have a legal version to get the full adobe premiere cs6 features on your mac.

Hope it works for you :)

Apple ProApps QuickTime Codecs v1.0.2

#Important Codec Update: ProApps QuickTime Codecs v1.0.2

Image Source: apple.com

http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1396

This update adds the following video codecs for use by QuickTime-based applications:
Apple Intermediate Codec
Apple ProRes
AVC-Intra
DVCPRO HD
HDV
XDCAM HD / EX / HD422
MPEG IMX
Uncompressed 4:2:2
XAVC

This update is recommended for all users of Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, or Compressor 4.

Ways to edit Itunes information in mac os

Some DVD's or Audio CD's may not have embedded information of the singer composer, album and track etc. on the cd due to which the files are named as untitled and unnamed album.

Note:
The I-tunes makes a duplicate backup of music imported. so I tunes makes two copies of the song. If you delete the song from I tunes the files kept in the original files remains. It affects the I tune library only. (If you import from cd's then there will be only i tune file.)



Steps to follow:
Insert the CD
Open I tunes
import the tracks (songs)

Once its synced

Now, Right click on the song/track
Click on "Get Info" tab

Change the required information and click on "OK"

Now to be on a safer side to keep a backup of all the information.

Select all the songs and back it up on a separate folder by drag and drop method or via selecting the songs in the library by copying via right clicking and pasting on to the folder.

R.I.P Steve

"Stay Hungry, Stay foolish" - Steve Paul Jobs (Founder of Apple and Pixar)

Color correction with Apple color

Recently,  I used Apple color for my mise-en-scene exercise at my film school at Whistling Woods International, India for color correction. As a student we were supposed to shoot a long shot and multi-cam with two cameras where two different formats on film and digital which was used on aweek long workshop which was a collaborative exercise with different departments in my film school.

The formats used for the long shot was shot with 16mm arriflex (with 500T 7219 Kodak - 400 foot) on single pref on a collapsible set which could be easily customized to suit the narrative and on day 2 we shot with Sony D50 on DVCAM tapes.

As editor,  I was expected to edit the film shot on 16 mm and the Sony D50 rushes on a 4 day shift in the Edit lab and sound to be designed by my dear friend Rahul B. I was shocked to find that the colors were extremely warm. The lighting had dominant reddish-orangish-yellow look which looked very bad on the Panasonic broadcast monitor. I edited the multi-shot exercise on final cut pro 7 gave it for the sound to my friend Rahul but I didn't feel right to just submit the assignment without proper visuals when as film student who has to show his work to the get jobs in future commercial projects.

Few months ago as a student of editing specialization in film school.  We learned to use apple color by my professor Vivian Sir and few months ago we also had learned to use 3 way color corrector on final cut pro from David Hover's editing workshop. To get the optimum visual quality I sent my video to apple color via round tripping and corrected the black and whites of the luminance and the selected portions of highly lit areas on the frames affected due to lighting exposure issues. First few hours was difficult as I was not familiar with the color software as we didn't give a seriousness to it but as the project progressed I was able to master apple color with tracking and manipulating the selected areas of frame with secondaries on apple color after doing the color correction by setting the hue, saturation of the shadows (Blacks) and highlights (whites). I was even able to remove the camera markers recorded on the frame accidentally on one of the clips. 

Only bug this software has is that I had to make new files to save color files to make sure that a new render files was to created with all the preferences of the render settings in the project set prior to the creation of apple file color project or sending it from final cut pro to apple color. The other bug is the codec preset and the pixel size always changes to NTSC setting so I had to do again and again reset the project setting of the color project file from original format to apple pro-res and back and then back to original format may be it has been fixed in the newer version. 

Apple color is a best starter tool as a editor and colorist which gives you basic touch up features on your frames for films and television and even for low budget film makers which even lets you highlight a specific character on screen to enhance narrative with the vignette.

External hard drive fix in mac or to format

The solution to fix your external hard drive in mac are as follow:

Formatting:
1.Make a backup of your data on a windows pc/mac. 

2. Format your drive with mac disk utility tool in Macintosh hd ->applications -> utilities -> disk utility. 

Now, select your hard drive and go to erase tab and select "Erase" and format it to your required file format system.

Self eject solution:

If you have problems with your external hard drives ejecting itself after few seconds which only gets fixed when you restart then make sure when you are running your hard drive on mac. 

Make sure you have unchecked "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" in the battery tab. (Make sure you recheck it after you done by ejecting your HDD)

Other Solutions:

1.Check the Finder's -> Preferences and General (Tab) -> put a check mark in "External disks" (on the desktop)

2. Go to Macintosh hd ->applications -> utilities -> disk utility if you see your your external hard drive. Then the drive is not dead.

Select the drive and unmount it so the external hard drive will disapear from desktop and side bar. 

Now to get it back the HDD drive on side bar and desktop select mount. But make sure to "EJECT" it before disconnecting.

If you still have problem please take it to a apple mac store or hard drive manufacturer service center.

If mac store doesn't help put the hard drive in a zipped locked air tight bag for 2-3 days and try copying the files by connecting it to your computer you may be able retrieve some data. 

You can also try using the NTFS3G (Free version) software if you are using a dos formatted hard drive to copy files from a mac to windows file formatted hard drive but it would still may give hiccups if you are copying files above 4 gb.

Bonus:

 You use Macdrive software to read and write mac formatted hard drives to be read on windows just like any ordinary pen drive. 

You can also use a 'HFS Explorer' which is a free read only software to read mac formatted hard drives on pc and also cdr and dmg files on windows. 

Hiding files or folders in spotlight and finder in Mac OSX 10.3

Sometimes you require to hide sensitive information in spotlight from unauthourized access.

You can change and disable the search for a particular folder or files ilke word documents, power points, images etc.

Follow the following steps:

A. Go to Spotlight

B. Type anything inside the text box

C. Click on Spotlight preferences

D. Select Privacy tab

E. Select the + sign

F. Now select the folder fom the folder destination with all contents in it or individual files

Select Choose

G. Close the browser

Important points to be noted

1. Its not full proof as you still see the name of the folder but not the contents inside the folder. (Make sure you make folder in folder)

2. - sign in privacy is to remove the exclusion of the file or folder from spotlight to make the file or folder to be enabled back to be searched in the spotlight.


3. Don't forget to clear recent items from the apple logo

Apple I-Phone 4 Launched but not in India :(

Apple I-Phone 4 Launched but not in India :(

I don't know why Steve Jobs does not release Apple products same time in India as world over.

Apple Ipad is here

The Apple I-pad may not have print option or printer cable so only way to print your images and document is put your Ipad in the scanner just like you Xerox your documents :)

No USB | No Flash | No Camera

Apple I-Pad Tablet Launched

New Apple iPod Nanos Unveiled With Camera and More

Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes to the stage once again to demo the new camera and FM tuner-equipped iPod Nanos

Apple on Wednesday unveiled a refreshed lineup of iPods, as well as new iTunes, and iPhone/iPod Touch system software at an invite-only event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in downtown San Francisco.

Apple introduced an updated version of the iPod Nano that sports a built-in video camera and microphone located on the lower left-hand side. It also features a slightly larger 2.2-inch display, up from 2 inches. There is still no Wi-Fi or built-in Web browser, so users will first have to sync the videos to their computers to access and edit the files. The upgraded device also has an FM tuner, a feature iPod users have been pining for, for a very long time.

iTunes 9 launched

Play | Buy | Sync your music and more

iTunes is a free application for your Mac or PC. It organises and plays your digital music and video on your computer. It syncs all your media with your iPod, iPhone and Apple TV. And it’s a store on your computer, iPod touch, iPhone and Apple TV that has everything you need to be entertained. Anywhere. Anytime.

What's new in iTunes?

The redesigned iTunes Store. The hits just keep coming. If you thought you were entertained before, wait until you see (and hear) iTunes 9.

Learn more