Today, Elemental announced the release of Elemental Accelerator 2.2 for Mac, a major update to its GPU-accelerated video processing plug-in for Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS4. With release 2.2, Elemental Accelerator provides CS4 users on the Mac significantly faster transcode speeds through support for GPU-accelerated H.264 and MPEG-2 video decoding, processing and encoding. This release offers the same easy integration with Adobe Premiere® Pro® CS4 as Elemental Accelerator for Windows, while offering 2X-4X performance improvements and time savings over CPU-only encoding solutions.

What's new?

New features available in this release include:

Recently, I was interviewed by the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) for a member spotlight and it got me thinking about how important shared resources are to new ventures. Elemental’s co-founders and I know firsthand how challenging it is to turn an idea for a business into a legitimate company -- not to mention delivering on the commitment of a high ROI for our stakeholders.

Luckily, Portland has some great resources for new firms. Along with the OEN, the Software Association of Oregon has networking events and valuable services for member companies. Then there are other local startups that have built impressive businesses, including Jive Software, Tripwire, and Kryptiq. Many of the executives at these success stories are active in the community and always willing to share their stories and experiences with new companies. 

In the hopes that Elemental has something to contribute to the dialog, I thought it would be worthwhile to jot down the places I've gone for advice, wisdom, and inspiration. Perhaps these resources will be useful for others. 

Blogs 

It's that time of year when we dust off our pile of good intentions and decide how this year will be radically different and dramatically more productive! Well, according to one video editor in Virginia, those don't have to be hyperbolic statements if you follow five easy steps to boost your system. With some essential upgrades to your hardware (and software), you can actually see some of the drama everyone is talking about with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, such as video encoding that takes two hours instead of ten and ensures you can actually meet the rush deadline that just came up.

Won Novalis' article, "Essential Ugrades to Boost Your System," for the After Effects user site ae.tutsplus.com presents an incredibly useful upgrade guide to start the year off right. Won breaks it down into five steps complete with supporting graphics and videos, including:

   1. Get a Bigger Desk (Memory)

   2. Get Lighting That's Easy on the Eyes (Monitor)

   3. Hire a Video Specialist With Her Own Office (Video Card)

   4. Get More Storage Space (Hard drives)

   5. Get a Presentation Room to Review Your Work (I/O Card)

Today, we're excited to announce a recent addition to our executive team: sales and software veteran Daniel Marshall. As our new VP of Sales, Dan will spearhead development of a global sales team and worldwide sales strategy to drive adoption of Elemental’s enterprise-class video encoding products. After 25 years in the trenches of the enterprise storage, media and broadcast industries, Dan has had an influence on every part of the sales cycle. Learn more about his past successes in the news release. Dan has built a legion of relationships in the video industry in boardrooms, trade show floors and cocktail lounges around the world. Oh, the stories he could tell...

When he's not racking up frequent flyer miles like George Clooney in Up in the Air, Dan calls San Jose home (where he also houses his collection of rare comic books and vintage guitars). An accomplished guitarist, over the past 30 years Dan has played everything from folk to heavy metal in music venues around the Bay Area and with such legendary bands as Silk and Steel and Yellow Hurl.

What will it take to create a video processing system that maximizes content output and minimizes management input?

Producing a "smarter server" will take a lot of time and effort, but the seeds of innovation are clearly in the market today. While an industry roadmap is not yet established, Elemental CEO Sam Blackman weighs in on the development potential for a smarter server. Here's an excerpt from the Streaming Media article: