Don Gianatti from Phoenix, AZ, looked for a presentation solution for Mac users and writes on his weblog: "We have been using ProShow Gold and iMovie to make presentation samples for clients. [FotoMagico] looks nearly as robust as ProShow Gold (which unfortunately is PC only) and is very affordable. We have created custom portfolios, proof presentations and more and delivered them on CD / DVD. The results are impressed clients, no useable files trade hands and the clients share the presentations with many more possible clients than they do the prints/proofs that we used to deliver."

Recently we had the opportunity to take a closer look at the Sony HDR-FX1 HDV camcorder. It certainly has that "must have" factor and of course we would like to support it with iStopMotion. Unfortunately, it turns out that the camera does not provide an HD live feed, it can only provide HD when reading in from the tape. Neither iMovie HD nor Final Cut HD display a live feed like they do with DV cameras. The reason for this is probably that it is very hard to decode a 1080i HDV signal, which comes in MPEG-2, in real time. So, for now, we can not support the Sony HDR-X1, but we will keep an eye on the HD camcorder market for certain.

We are slowly recovering from a major (although self-inflicted) network blackout. So far all the sites are back up, but requesting demo keys needs some more work and will be available early tomorrow morning.

Our network infrastructure needed a major workover to remove configuration mistakes from the past and improve stability and security. On the plus side, we can now leverage a solid network base and improve our services on that.

A cool idea: German Apple Distinguished Educator Michael Fromm posted reports about his brickfilm animation workshops (done in Germany with iStopMotion) in comic form, using a nice application called "Comic Life" from plasq.

Brian Kolm runs the "Atomic Bear Press: News and Notes" weblog and reports about a hands-on demonstration of iStopMotion at the Bedford Gallery Family Day on Sunday, May 1st.: "Using Boinx iStopMotion on a mac laptop and a digital video camera, we produced 1 min of animation in about 2.5 hours. That's pretty good for animation." There is a picture of the setup on the page. Brian concludes: "The program is excellent."

iStopMotion rocks the kids in New Zealand. "During school holidays we offer free of charge creative workshops. During the April break students discovered the magic of stop-motion animation. It was a week-long road of discovery for the students as they came to grips with tight deadlines for production milestones at each stage of the process." says the Aranui Primary School website. Also online are pictures from the students clay animation workshop in April 2005.

German Mac Life magazine finally announced the winners of the iStopMotion movie contest they hosted back at the beginning of this year. The movies are on the cover CD of the 6/2005 issue. Great stuff. Hopefully, the movies will be online soon, so that we can link to them. Congratulations to the winners:

• Peter Scheidegger and Eva Affentranger - "Der Teig"
• Daniel Janssen - "White Christmas"
• Florian Gubernator - "Fridolin"
• Birte Schaefer and Stephan Preussner - "Big Jeff"
• Markus Witte - "Unter Geiern"

British iStopMotion reseller ICT Links has been approved to resell iStopMotion acting as a Curriculum Online approved content provider and content reseller on behalf of Boinx Software. Schools wishing to purchase iStopMotion through the UK eLearning Credits scheme can now do so through ICT Links ltd.