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ARRI Amira update (sort of)
Back at the IBC show ARRI announced a new digital documentary camera, the Amira. It would be based on the sensor of the original Alexa, but other than that, ARRI was rather cagey about what it would cost or even when it would ship.

But they have been showing prototypes and gathering opinions from users. According to Den Lennie, he and Rodney Charters got a demo of one of only three prototype cameras last week. Part of the demo took place at Britain's oldest pub.




OWC Confirms Mac Pro 2013 Processor Upgradeable | OWC
We got our hands on an Intel E5-2667 V2 8-core 3.30GHz with 25MB Cache processor, installed it in the new Mac Pro and have done some benchmarking to get an early look at the performance vs. the stock Apple / Intel E5-1650 V2 6-core 3.50GHz with 12MB Cache model. 


Thunderbolt 2 is NOT twice the speed of Thunderbolt 1 | Red Shark News
It turns out that the main difference between the two Thunderbolts is that version 2 has channel bonding and full DisplayPort 1.2, for full 4K video support. Whereas Thunderbolt 1 has 4 independent 10 Gb/s channels, Thunderbolt 2 combines these to give 2 20 Gb/s bidirectional channels. This leads to more efficient transfers, with less overhead, but the total bandwidth is unchanged.


Thoughts on Editing with FCP X 10.1 | Larry Jordan
The feature I like the most about Final Cut Pro X 10.1 is that Apple is committed to the program. They did not need to add all the features they did, nor as fast as they did. In fact, they could kill the entire program and not lose one iPhone sale. The fact they keep improving the program, and talking to users about what more they need to do, is a huge reassurance to me.


When movies don't let the facts get in the way of a good story | Los Angeles Times
Several news organizations now examine the accuracy of big releases as if they were campaign advertisements, and it's not just biographies that are subject to strict scrutiny. Even the makers of the fictional thriller "Gravity" have been forced to explicate their scientific research.

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