GenuineJD - Adobe

Adding Windows 7 64-bit PDF Indexing

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:04:00 -0500

I have been using Windows 7 64-bit since its official release in October and have loved everything about it so far. I was surprised at first when my PDFs weren't getting indexed, but was happy to know that it took very little work to get it to index them in just a few easy steps.

Verify that PDF files are selected for indexing
- Open the Indexing Options by clicking Start and typing, "indexing options" (without the quotes) and hitting enter
- Click the Advanced button
- Select the File Types tab
- Scroll down to .pdf, which should already be selected, but probably says, "Registered IFilter not found"
Download and install the Adobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64-bit platforms

That's it! You may need to rebuild the index (click click the Rebuild button in the Indexing Options), but afterwards, you should be able to search on PDF content. 32-bit users should be able to index PDFs out of the box.

Reading Embedded XMP Packets using ColdFusion

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:29:00 -0500

In working more and more on our Digital Asset Management initiatives, I've become more involved in working with XMP. Mostly as an experiment, I wanted to see if I could read and write this embedded metadata from and to a file. The Adobe XMP Toolkit indicates how this can be done based on the structure of specific types of files. It also indicates that packet scanning techniques can be used when file structure is unknown, however, is not encouraged.

I recognize it might not be the BEST way to read the XMP packet, however, all is fair in love and ColdFusion experimentation :) It's important to note that this code looks only for the FIRST instance of the string <x:xmpmeta and if there are multiple instances of XMP packets, subsequent instances are ignored. Adobe also indicates that if there are multiple packets, there is no way to know which packet is the correct one.

Needless to say, using the code below, I was able to read and parse XMP packets from all the Adobe sample files included in their toolkit. It may not be the end-all solution, and may not work for writing back to the file, but it's a start!

<cfparam name="URL.source" default="xmp-asset.jpg">
<cffile action="readbinary" file="#ExpandPath(URL.source)#" variable="data">

<cfset hex_data = BinaryEncode(data,"hex") />

<cfset xmp_string_begin = "3C783A786D706D657461" />

<cfset xmp_string_end = "3C2F783A786D706D6574613E" />

<cfset idx_start = FindNoCase(xmp_string_begin,hex_data) />

<cfset idx_end = FindNoCase(xmp_string_end,hex_data,idx_start) + Len(xmp_string_end) />

<cfset xmp_hex = Mid(hex_data,idx_start,Evaluate(idx_end-idx_start)) />

<cfset xmp_string = ToString(BinaryDecode(xmp_hex,"hex")) />

<cfset xmp_xml = XmlParse(xmp_string) />
<cfcontent type="text/xml">
<cfoutput>#xmp_string#</cfoutput>

Be sure to check out the Adobe XMP Developer Center for more information.

Cygwin Setup Finally Working

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:19:00 -0500

I had been trying to get my environment set up to play with Adobe Alchemy, but kept running into problems with my Cygwin setup. After several frustrating hours of installs, re-installs, uninstalls and some out-of-control Perl threads, I think I've got it ready to go.

The problems I was running into were largely due to two things: 1) The path of my home directory containing spaces ("C:\Documents and Settings\...") and 2) my inexperience with Cygwin.

In regards to #1 above, I think this was causing my home directory (/home/username) to not get created properly. That meant additional difficulties in customing my environment by editing my .bashrc file. After the initial learning curve and interpreting the less than specific Adobe Getting Started on Windows instructions for Alchemy, I was able to get the sample library compiled and working correctly.

I did run into a few other problems, but I was able to get through them. I'll be doing a write up for getting started with Alchemy and Cygwin for Windows users with very little Unix experience when I get some more time. Of course, now that I've got Cygwin running, I'm hoping to do try out something more significant than Hello World :)

Adobe Alchemy: Initial Setup Impressions

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:02:00 -0500

My first thoughts on the Alchemy project were of doubt. What would be the benefit of running C/C++ code on the AVM2? It seemed more like a novelty, like running old school NES games on the Wii. The more I started to think about it (and get past my bad memories of Computer Science C/C++ classes in college), the more I started to realize just how powerful this could be. There are so many open source C/C++ libraries for a wide variety of applications that, when paired with Flash, could have an amazing impact on Flash and AIR.

I thought I would tinker with it a bit. Of course, coming to the realization that Alchemy is still limited by the Flash player sandbox was a little disheartening, but I suppose understandable. I found the initial download and setup quite cumbersome. One of my biggest roadblocks was working with Cygwin. I admit, that using Cygwin has its advantages, but configuration thus far has been a beast. Additionally, the getting started section for Windows section left something to be desired in terms of details. I'm the first to admit I'm no UNIX or Linux expert, but I'd like to think I know my way around a bit.

After a few hours of trying to just get my environment set up, something more important required my attention, so I have yet to get the provided examples working. I hope to get back to this more in the next couple of weeks. I've got a few open source C++ libraries I'd love to test out. I'm extremely intrigued, but until I get my environment set up, I'm still skeptical.

Branden Hall has written a good overview of Alchemy.

Adobe Media Orchestrator: Video Asset Management?

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:02:00 -0500

One of my colleagues at Adobe MAX in San Francisco sent me a text message last night. He was at the sneaks session and indicated that there was a preview of an Adobe product called Media Orchestrator. This AIR application, in conjunction with existing products like Premiere and LiveCycle, will facilitate video production workflow, from production to review, feedback and rights application.

Considering that we have been spending most of our time lately at work trying to write a custom video asset management solution using Adobe products, this announcement is really bittersweet. It's fantastic that Adobe is (or considering) releasing this as a product, however, it most likely won't be available any time soon and we need it right now.

More information and pictures on Serge Jespers and Andrew Shorten's blogs where they were live blogging the sneaks event.

can it be?

Carbon Coder at the Core of Adobe Flash Media Encoding Server

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:59:00 -0500

Ever since September 10, I've been quite excited about the announcment that Adobe was finally releasing an encoding server solution called Flash Media Encoding Server. I was able to secure a pre-release version through work to take it for a test drive.

Initial results were great. Of course, being a pre-release, there were several challenges. The first being that the software required a USB drive for a USB key. In a time when virtualization is sweeping the corporate world in an effort to reduce costs, the requirement for something as simple as a physical USB port was very irritating. We overcame that with a hardware/software solution, not the most desirable (spending money just for trial software), but oh well.

The next challenage was the documentation, or rather, the lack thereof. Yes, the basic steps for installing the software were included, as well as the basic steps for setting up watch folders. One of the big features I was anxious to test, though, was the SDK. Surprise, surprise. No SDK documentation. We're hoping to put FMES (or some transcoding agent) in the front of our video asset management workflow to generate proxies of video assets for review within out applications. Most of our applications are homegrown and based on Adobe technologies (ColdFusion, Flash/Flex, AIR, etc). So the ability to leverage a transcoding solution via SDK is a vital element.

Aside from the lack of documenation with the pre-release trial, I did find that several of the source files I tried to run through FMES couldn't be encoded. Ok so they were odd codecs (WMV3, muxed mpeg, etc), but still. The error messages gave me little to go on besides the error message, "There is a video decoding error." Using some other transcoding tools, I was able to encode the problem files, however, so why couldn't FMES process them?

Finally, my biggest surprise is that in testing FMES, I discovered that at its core, it's really a product by Rhozet called Carbon Coder. After a little quick digging, I discovered this press release indicating Adobe's intentions. It seems to me that, basically, Adobe has taken Rhozet's product, swapped out the words "Rhozet Carbon Coder" with "Adobe Flash Media Encoding Server" and limited the outputs to only those that are compatible with Flash. The licensing model is slightly different than Rhozet's, however, it is more or less the same product.

At this point, I'm trying to decide why we would want to go with FMES over Carbon Coder. If we're going to spend several thousand dollars to a transcoding solution, why not spend a few more and not be limited to only Flash-enabled media outputs?

Now that FMES is available for purchase, Adobe will have more documentation or white papers available that can make a good argument, in addition to not choking on certain input formats. Granted, video transcoding experts can probably explain why some of these problems exist and how to solve or get around them, but for a product that seems as if it should be a turnkey solution from Adobe, I would have hoped my intermediate skills in working with video transcoding should be more than enough to work with FMES.

More to follow in the coming weeks, I'm sure...

Adobe SwitchBoard

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:50:00 -0500

Although I was excited each time a new version of Flex and AIR were available on the Adobe Labs site, I am really excited about Adobe's new AIR/Create Suite project, SwitchBoard.

At work, I'm involved a lot with our Digital Asset Management projects. Our company deals a lot with high-volume photo shoots. In almost every aspect of the creative workflow in regards to digital photography, our employees use Adobe products to manage, manipulate and edit our assets.

While we do have a large and expensive Digital Asset Management system in place, we constantly find ourselves writing custom applications to better facilitate the workflow amongst our photographers, image techs, photo editors and our legal staff.

I think there is a lot of great potential with the announcement of SwitchBoard to really take our DAM applications to the next level! I'm hoping to do some testing with it in the next couple of weeks to see how we can leverage SwitchBoard's features in our workflows.