Digital Video Solutions: Serious Magic
Question: I read recently that Adobe acquired a company called Serious Magic. Why? Are their products any good? Is there a key technology they were after? Is this like the Macromedia deal or does it have something to do with that deal? Will this affect future Adobe video products?
Answer: Wow, that’s a lot of questions! But they’re all very good ones. You’re correct that in October of last year Adobe acquired a company called Serious Magic headquartered in Folsom, California. Serious Magic made a name for itself creating unique video products that were powerful in their performance, but also easy to use. Some of the products in their arsenal include Vlog It!, Ultra, Visual Communicator, and DV Rack.
As to why Adobe bought the company, on the day of the announcement, John Loiacono, Senior Vice President of Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe, stated, “The purchase of Serious Magic accelerates our vision to make, not just video but all dynamic media, an even more ubiquitous communications vehicle, whether you’re delivering content for the broadcast market, over the Web, or on mobile devices.” In other words, Adobe was hoping that this acquisition would strengthen its position in the video software marketplace with both professionals and consumers. And why not? The rule of thumb these days is if you find a small company with hot technology, you better buy them before Apple or Microsoft does!
As to your question about whether or not this has anything to do with the Macromedia deal, the answer is both yes and no. Yes, because everything at Adobe has to do with Flash right now. Flash is the reason that Adobe bought Macromedia and Flash is also where it’s staking its future—for the time being. No, because the purchase of Serious Magic has no direct effect on the Macromedia deal. The money used to purchase a small company like Serious Magic wouldn’t even pay for Macromedia’s catering budget for the year.
You mentioned the future of the Adobe video product line and whether this acquisition of Serious Magic would have a direct effect on those products. While none of us will be able to know for sure what Adobe has up its sleeve for future development (until they announce or release a beta), I have a guess as to what we’ll see first. I believe the immediate impact on the Adobe product line will come from one key technology and one key product.
Vector Keying
The key technology that I think we’ll see integrated first into Adobe video products is called Vector Keying. It’s found in Serious Magic products such as Vlog It! and Visual Communicator, but its most powerful incarnation is in Ultra 2. It’s a technology that simplifies chroma-keying, which is at the heart of all green screen and blue screen keying effects that have become so popular. In essence, the Vector Keying technology was designed to make “un-keyable” sources keyable. While other technologies focus on a linear key at the pixel level, Vector Keying looks at the area as a whole and adds or subtracts objects based on the difference between before and after shots.
Having this powerful new capability in your production toolbox means that your keying setup can now be done in minutes instead of hours, on location instead of in studio, and even outdoors instead of indoors. It also means that green screen keying can be done with minimal portable lighting and a portable folding green screen in less-than-optimal conditions. I’ve even seen this technology used with no additional lighting on the green screen, relying solely on the ambient lighting of the room. It was very impressive. It would not surprise me to see this technology embedded into programs such as Premiere Pro and After Effects in the near future.
DV Rack
The key product from Serious Magic that I believe you’ll see integrated quickly into existing Adobe applications is DV Rack. This direct-to-disk recording and monitoring software helps generate quality video from an SD or HD camera connected to a laptop. Once a shot is recorded to the hard drive, clips are ready to edit in your NLE of choice (Premiere Pro) without any digitizing from tape needed. That’s a huge timesaver!
DV Rack HD 2 also includes a calibrated all-digital Field Monitor to check for video accuracy and provides various scopes, including a waveform monitor and vectorscope, for checking quality and continuity. It even does real-time quality alerts while recording, and the product supports DV, HDV, DVCPro50, and DVCProHD formats. All in all, I think you’ll see a number of components from the DV Rack application integrated into several Adobe products very soon.
Standing ovation
Serious Magic has created a loyal user base through the years and their booth at NAB was always standing-room only. To the dismay of Mac users everywhere, all of the products were for Windows only. While Adobe will continue to sell the existing product line, I doubt if they will convert any of the products into Mac versions. However, the recent announcement that Adobe is porting all of its existing video apps to the Mac, and that they will have parity with their Windows counterparts, means that any integration of Serious Magic technology into Adobe applications will also be available on the Mac. Here’s to more creativity on all platforms!
Photoshop
Illustrator
Indesign
Dreamweaver
Fireworks
Premiere
Flash
After Effects
Lightroom
Acrobat
Featured Partner 
- Dragging an Object Between Documents
- TV Scanline Effect
- Trick to the Glossy Effect
- 3D Text
- Changing Type on a Path
