the Peat group-Links-Video Links

These are links to sites we think are of value to video editors. If you know of any that you think should be here, please e-mail us with the link and description at: links@thepeatgroup.com.



	2-POP This is an incredible site. Totally devoted to Final Cut Pro and other digital editing hardware and software. They have bulletin boards that you can share information on, links to teaching articles, PDF getting started guides, and user created effects.

	AEFreemart An After Effects resource site.

	Apple's Macintosh Products Guide Looking for a piece of software or hardware for your Mac? Try this database of hundreds of products.

	desktopvideo.about.com This site has numerous links to anything related to desktop video on the web, including Final Cut Pro.

	dvcreators.net Training and resources for DV creators.

	DV Format Another good DV resource site.

	DVD Forum The group behind the DVD Spec.

	Recipe 4 DVD Everything you need to know about DVD authoring.



	Digital Juice BackTraxx A Whole library of professional, royalty free music. Pretty good stuff from what I can tell.

	FreePlay Music This site has TONS of free royalty free musc. THAT'S RIGHT, IT'S FREE! If you have an Apple iTools account, you'll find a chunk of this library on your iDisk.

	iaMusic Downloadable MP3 tracks at reasonable Prices. You can download 3 free sample tracks. You can also buy CD's from their library. To be honest, I wasn't impressed with the instrument quality of their samples, but then, there were only 3 of them!

	Music Bakery This site has numerous links to anything related to desktop video on the web, including Final Cut Pro.

	Narrator Tracks A huge catalog of leased music. You can lease year by year, or purchase discs with credit from your lease when you cancel it.

	PBTM Royalty free background music.

	Smart Sound Makers of Movie Maestro and Sonic Fire Pro. Create your own length songs form their music building blocks. Pretty cool stuff.

	Sound-Ideas These guys have HUGE volumes of sound effects and royalty free music tracks. The prices aren't cheap, but you get a lot of stuff.

	Voiceover-uk.co.uk Looking for custom voice over work? Colin Day has a deep british voice that really stands out.



	12 Inch Designs Cool stuff. Similar to Digital Juice, but each set comes with extras like mattes and variations. You can even download single clips. Make sure you watch their QT demo movie.

	3dBackgrounds These guys sell several collections of motion backgrounds. They appear to be the same company as Video Animations and Mediatechpro.com.

	Art Beats "The leader in royalty free stock footage" (from their site).

	Budget Films This site is a serious Pro video clip library. Prices aren't cheap by any means, but looking at a list of their clients and doing a search in their library shows you why.

	BuyOutFootage.com Public domain and royalty free stock footage. Not cheap for the average user, but if you need a vintage clip, they probably have what you're looking for.

	Cascom Special Effects, Stock footage, Archival footage.

	Corporate Motion Animated backgrounds for corporate media (From their site).

	Digital Juice These guys are the kings of looping motion backgrounds. Check out their Editor's Toolkit package. A full review is coming soon.

	DVLogic Some very nice loopable backgrounds for reasonable prices.

	Easy Motion Royalty-Free Animated Motion Graphics (from their site).

	EyeWire Some very cool video and animation clips.

	FreeStockFootage.com Lots of different video clips in various themes. Lower rez is free, higher rez is a reasonable price per clip.

	Graffic Jam Whether it's royalty-free motion graphics or custom animation, we can save you some time, aspirin, and cash (from their site).

	Historic Films Stock footage library consists of over 45,000 transferred and date-based hours of stock footage and over 30,000 different musical clips. (from their site).

	LiveStockfilm High quality, royalty free stock footage.

	Reel1 While their site is a bit confusing, it looks like they have several BackSlap volumes. Usability is hit or miss.

	ReelCities This site features video clips from various cities around the country. Good stuff.

	Synthetic Aperture Video clips and QuickTime Effects, Plus a VERY COOL Mac system extension that lets you output any Quicktime feed out your FireWire port to a TV!

	TriLab Productions Some pretty descent, reasonably priced motion backgrounds and special effects.

	Tommy Video Tommyvideo sells a series of "Backs" similar to Digital Juice. Usability is hit or miss, but most look good and the prices are decent.

	ULead Pick-A-Video Collections of Real World and Abstract digital video clips. Pretty reasonable prices.

	Video Animation They make motion backgrounds and animation clips...lots of rendered 3d stuff. I believe they are the same company as 3dBackgrounds.

	Videoicandy These guys don't have a huge collection, but there are some nice loops in there. Some are a little busy, but overall the quality is good. They also provide custom work.

	Videometry These guys sell a bunch of real world clips such as people, food, animals, location, etc.

	World Clips This site sells royalty free clips of various destinations around the world.

	Worshipscapes Royalty free Mpeg1 clips for use with programs like EasyWorship. SClips are pretty much all nature related. I have used their samples that come with EasyWorship and they look pretty good on a projected screen.



	Apple Hardware Apple's hardware site.

	Aurora Video Systems Aurora makes a TON of video cards with tons of add-on components.

	Canon DV Camcorders Canon's web page for their DV camcorders.

	Canopus ADVC-100 Canopus Firewire Media COnverter. This one has locking audio, something none of the others in the price range have.

	Contour Shuttle Pro A USB Jog and Shuttle controller with customizable buttons. See my review.

	Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge This is the cheapest Analogue to Firewire adapter out there, and it works great. See my review.

	Digital Voodoo These guys make some seriously high end vdeo capture cards for Final Cut Pro.

	Matrox RTMac The cheapest way to real time with Final Cut Pro 2. Works with FCP 3 ONLY in 9. I believe this is also the only way to get RT with Premier on a Mac.

	Pinnacle CinéWave The SERIOUS uncompressed video capture card. Also in an HD version.

	Sony Consumer Camcorders Sony's web page for their consumer camcorders.

	Sony Professional Camcorders Son'y web page for their Professional camcorders.



	Adobe After Effects The standard for special effects on the desktop.

	Adobe Premier Good basic video editing program. If you're using a Mac though, skip it and go for Final Cut pro!

	AlamDV Cheap effects generator that can do things like lightswords and lasers.

	Boris These guys make a whole bunch of effect and titling plug ins.

	Cleaner If you do any media conversion or web development, you NEED Cleaner. There is no subsitute.

	Combustion Seriously powerful video effects program. Very much a level above After Effects.

	Commotion This is what the pros use for bluescreen and rotoscoping.

	DVD Studio Pro Create professional DVD's with this powerful authoring program. While not nearly as easy to use as iDVD, it is FAR more powerful.

	Final Cut Pro Apple's flagship Video product. See below for links to FCP plug-ins and effects.

	iDVD Apple's easy to use basic DVD cration software. See below for more iDVD links.

	iMovie Apple's easy to use basic DV editor. If you're just starting out, give this one a serious look before buying something more expensive. See below for iMovie links.

	India Titler Animated DV titling program similar to Boris Graffiti but with special DV animated fonts. NOTICE: Apple bought the program from them.

	Sorenson These guys make Codecs that can be used alone or withing Cleaner. If you create video for the web, it's worth the money to get the developer codec.

	Video Funhouse This thing is crazy! Great for youth group stuff. Warp a DV video image in real time-we put it up on the video projector and everyone takes a turn.



	ArtMetric This company makes one big set of FCP plugins. There are some pretty cool effects, transitions and generators in there. They have a demo package that you can download if you are unsure before buying.

	Buena Software, Inc. They make a Plug-in set for Final Cut Pro 3 (plus some other stuff). Get a free plug-in when you download the demo.

	Bunny World Download a free FCP Particle effect.

	CGM These guys make a series of cool filters for FCP. A limited version of these ship with FCP 3. Be sure to check their download area.

	CHV-Plugins A whole series of interesting plug-ins at affordable prices.

	Eureka Filters Cool free FCP filters. Jiggle is my favorite.

	Final Cut Pro What started it all for me. This thing is spreading through Hollywood like a wild fire.

	Joe's Filters Cool set of FCP filters.

	John Craig Shareware Cool set of FCThis guy makes an Applescript that will create FCP title images out of a template made in Photoshop. It looks like it could be at time saver if you need multiple titles with lots of effects added in PS.

	Ken Stone's FCP Site All kinds of links, articles, resources and even some free plug-ins.

	LA FCP Users Group A TON of great info on this site. See my FCP Tutorials area for links to some tutorials on their site.

	Virtix These guys used to only make iMovie plug-ins. They have branced out into FCP filters.



	iDVD Apple's easy to use basic DVD creation software. Don't underestimate iDVD, you'd be amazed at what you can do with it.

	iDVD AppleScripts Some nifty scripts that do nifty things in iDVD.

	iDVD Backdrops Volume 1 is still backgrounds, but Volume 2 has both static and motion themes for iDVD. Their stuff looks pretty good, and it's cheap!

	iDVD Companion A cool AppleScript program that allows you to align buttons in iDVD. If you use iDVD, you NEED this program.

	iDVD Theme PAK Central These theme packs are a cut above. Stylish motion and still backgrounds, custom buttons. Overall they look every bit worth the price.

	iDVD Themes This company also makes Themes for iDVD. While it looks like they just exported some favoite settings along with new backgrounds, you can't beat the price, especially if you aren't too good with the video editor and can't afford professional looping backgrounds.



	Apple's iMovie Page Apple's iMac page, with all kinds of info and links.

	Apple's Free iMovie Plug-in pack (for OS X) Follow this link for a BUNCH of free effects for iMovie.

	Apple's iMovie Free Stuff Page Lots of free stuff for iMovie.

	Ezedia Plug-ins This company makes several really good plug-ins for iMovie. My personal favorite is eZeClip. It allows you to do transparent overlays of video, or picture-in-picture effects with a second video. pretty cool stuff. Great for creating motion menu backgrounds for iDVD.

	GeeThree Slick Effects for iMovie GeeThree makes 4 iMovie plug-in packs with new transitions and effects. Free sample plug-ins are available.

	Stupendous Software with 6 different plug-in packs you can't go wrong. Each collection has a some FREE effects included in the demo download.

	Virtix iMovie Plug-ins These guys offer a ton of plug-ins in three different packages. Everything from laser bolts and lightening to image zooming and flames. Free sample plug-ins are available.