Frame playback is more complicated than you might think. General Specialist has a short survey of frame playback tools in Seven Ways to Playback Your Renderings Without Paying $5,400.
fnord software has a new blog, where Brendan Bolles recently announced that ProEXR has shipped. Included with the download of ProEXR is a collection of 4 free open source plug-ins that provide access to OpenEXR files in AE.
Earlier, Todd Kopriva outlined scripting changes in After Effects CS6, plus a new scripting guide. And Jeff Almosul and Todd Kopriva detailed the Scripting changes in After Effects CS5 at Todd's Blog. See also AE CS5 Help on Scripts and Expressions.
Jeff Almasol is gradually updating his redefinery scripts so they can be updated to work as dockable panels in CS3. These will include the DV Rebel Tools and ones for Mark Christiansen’s Studio Techniques book.
Motionscript by Dan Ebberts has both introductory and advanced stuff. It's a project-based resource for After Effects scripting and expressions (and there is a difference; for the user scripts are push button affairs). JJ Gifford's basic Expressions in After Effects is old but still attractive.
Other expression training can be found in books like Creating Motion Graphics With After Effects by Trish & Chris Meyer (Dan Ebberts likes the big bonus chapter on the DVD and contributes his own Scripting Overview chapter). They're also adding a 12-part series Deeper Modes of Expression on PVC, based on an extra in their book.
Lloyd Alvarez has an often-updated collection of scripts for AE, including BG Renderer CS3, at his domain AE Scripts that later expanded to add top scripting authors and a shopping cart for downloads. Most scripts are still free but the cart makes tipping easier. See also Lloyd Alvarez's AENY presentation on AE scripting. In 2009-2010, Lloyd had an ongoing course at fxphd, an Introduction to After Effects Scripting. 
redefinery from Jeff Almasol has a great script library along 'AE Scripting' fundamentals. Jeff Almasol is gradually updating his scripts so they can be updated to work as dockable panels in AE CS3. These will include the DV Rebel Tools and ones for Mark Christiansen’s Studio Techniques book.
Update (December 2008): After Effects Expressions by Marcus Geduld is a new book on expressions in AE from Focal Press. As noted by Todd Kopriva, Focal Press have made a couple of excerpts of this book available for free. There's also a review of the book by Steve Douglas on Ken Stone's FCP, and you can see the author in action on at least 2 training videos; check out videos Making key frames loop in After Effects and The "wiggle" expression in After Effects.
According to Wired Blogs, it's possible to block ads on YouTube, provided you’re using a Mozilla-based browser - at least so far.
"The Mozilla browser add-on TubeStop will replace all the video players on the YouTube site with the embedded player, which thus far do not support the in-stream ads."
I did a short review of the new-old Trapcode filters recently for SF Cutters.Trapcode 3S: Shine, Starglow and 3D Stroke filters
Rich Young, July 2007
Trapcode recently introduced upgrades to Shine, Starglow and 3D Stroke filter products with Universal Binary/MacIntel support so you can use them inside Final Cut Pro 5.1+, Avid Express Pro 5.5+ or Premiere Pro, as well as After Effects 6.5+ and Motion 3. The Trapcode 3S Pack, which bundles these 3 filters at a lower price, is also available. The filters feature a new rendering engine to produce high quality images fast, with 32-bit support (After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion) and 16-bit support (Avid AVX, Premiere Pro). The same plug-in should work in AE and Premiere Pro on both Mac and Windows, but it's different than the FxPlug version designed for FCP and Motion.
Trapcode Shine is a 2D volumetric light effect plug-in which combines render speed, control, and high quality to simulate sun rays from behind text or logos, God rays through clouds or trees, or to create animated backgrounds. Other filters like Light Rays in FCP and Motion or CC Light Burst in AE (8-bit only bundled) can give you beautiful results, but you get more control and subtle results in a shorter time with Shine.
Shine includes numerous ray coloring options including 3- and 5-color gradients with 22 tweakable presets and unique controls to make light rays shimmer without animating the light source or layer position. Additional controls include pre-processed Threshold and Use Mask commands to control the luminance value or area where the effect begins. This in addition to a Transfer Mode controls to add original layer information, as well as separate Opacity controls for Source and rays, is much more powerful than a simple Mix slider, though you could get similar results with more time, layers, and/or built-in effects. And fast updates during parameter adjustments makes setup quicker. See an intro of Shine in action and additional example movies at the Trapcode site.
Trapcode 3D Stroke uses paths from masks to render volumetric strokes that can be manipulated in 3D space.You can bend strokes in space and taper controls to make strokes that are thinner at the ends, or fly around or write-on vector art in 3D (which will not disappear when viewed from the side). In addition there are 40 preset shapes for generating outlines or swirling strokes, built-in transfer modes, and motion blur for more realism. It has a built-in camera for Final Cut Pro and Motion but also works with AE comp cameras. See an intro of 3D Stroke in action and additional example movies at the Trapcode site.
Trapcode Starglow is a fast-rendering glow that uses highlight values of a source layer to create glints and star-shaped glows. The star shape consists of eight points that can be assigned individual color maps and streak lengths. The controls are similar to Shine, with numerous coloring options and presets, built-in transfer modes, and shimmer, threshold, and mask controls. To get a quick handle on this filter, see the Starglow Flash intro and additional example movies at the Trapcode site.
Summary
Here's a nice workaround from Chris & Trish Meyer, paraphrased from a thread on the After Effects List...
Danny Prinz on the AE-List noted that Adobe announced a Flash Player 9 beta will enable "the delivery of HD television quality and premium audio content through the ubiquitous Adobe Flash Player and pave the way to expand rich media Flash experiences on the desktop and H.264 ready consumer devices. The latest update for Adobe Flash Player 9 will be available in beta for download today on Adobe Labs at http://labs.adobe.com/."
Mylenium has updated his website, Voir. It which includes projects and presets under a Creative Commons license, and a new After Effects error code knowledge base. His blog, Mylenium’s World, is still there too.
Toolfarm reports on a Windows-only uprezzing plug-in for AE and Premiere Pro.
LAFCPUG has QuickTimes (640x480 and iPod format) of Film Editor Walter Murch from the NAB 2007 FCPUG SuperMeet. Murch 'takes us through the Post Production Workflow on Francis Coppola's movie Youth Without Youth, defines "Editing," talks about the beginning of his career with Francis Coppola and how he came to use Final Cut Pro.' MacVideoTV has the same stuff.
Services like KeepVid let you to save an FLV from it's website. 
FreshDV notes a Creative Cow video Simple Object Removal in AE. [Not] Needed extras: ObviousFX CopyImage plug-in from the ObviousFX website.
As EBN mused, "Participate in your own manipulation!""The messaging system allows online buddies to see what the others have been watching. So groups of friends can synchronise their viewing habits and chat about what they've seen.
New Scientist thinks it's a powerful idea as Marketing experts have long recognised that personal recommendations from like-minded peers are far more influential than adverts or other forms of publicity."
Microsoft is not the first to believe in social TV, both Joost enables viewers to chat live with others watching the same channels and the service also works with Gmail. and Jabber instant-messaging accounts. And Babelgum will enable viewers to discuss, discover and recommend their favorite programs through a social network."
John Dickinson posted a note on his Photoshop CS3 Extended eSeminar for Adobe. I'm not much sold on Photoshop's model of the video future and there's nothing new, but John pulls together the handiest new features for video in one convenient presentation.
I owe several jobs to the inadequacy of Apple iMovie, so it's probably good to track its progress. The latest version (guided tour here) seems to be 2 steps forward and 2 steps back, adding slick features (like clickless scrubbing) but at a high price in waiting time for thumbnail rendering and removed features.
Off topic posts on the AE-List sometimes come with an honorary AE tip. This one's from Chris Meyer (co-author of top AE books), 16 Aug 2007 :
Recent reports from Wired and Daily Kos discussed attempts by certain organizations (Fox News, Diebold, Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil, the CIA, and the U.S. House of Representatives) to redefine reality by editing Wikipedia articles in their favor.
Avidion Media has released the Mac version of Real 3D, a filter that extends AE's 3D abilities. They have how-to movies to see it in action.
FXGuideTV and Animation World Network has daily web video of SIGGRAPH 2007, including a look at the Emerging Technologies exhibit and a conversation with HDR guru Paul Debevec. The Photoshop object extraction/matte technique in fxguidetv #004 might be worth your look too.
Motionographer, the motion graphics inspiration site, has several newish items with background info. I like the ink/blood text thingie.
Did someone Photoshop that picture or is 'My Pet Goat' really upside down? ...and from Crooks & Liars, a day late:
Of course we've been able to do this in AE for years, but free is free...The Edit Blog notes Mac Freebie plug-ins: Vee You, explaining "Only Motion 3.0 has audio behaviors which enable you to drive the eq and vu levels automatically but you can also use these plugins in Motion 2.0 or Final Cut Pro 5/6 if you want to manually animate the parameters of the plugins."
We're bizzy drones in San Francisco, though some like SNAFU want to limit willy-nilly building of antennas emitting radiofrequency (RF) radiation. Gavin Newson, Karl Rove's hero of the single issue 2004 election, wants to skip environmental reviews to build a sweetheart-deal wireless network instead of expanding the municipal installed base of fiber to compete with other countries (eg Korea) in internet speeds.
Intel Mac using Windows XP, Vista, and Mac OSX. XP seems to be 5 to 15% faster than OS X even with Boot Camp limitations. (via)
Jeff Almasol, host of the redefinery and a member of the AE team, has Additional Scripts for After Effects CS3 on Adobe Exchange. The package contains contains scripts for editing keyboard shortcuts (KeyEd Up), launching scripts (Launch Pad), create project folder hierarchies (Folder Setup), converting Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ase) files (Swatch You Want, kuler Shapes), and modifying a comp's motion blur settings interactively (Active Shutter).
At last night's SF Cutters, Alex Lindsay showed a bit of PF Hoe, a 3D tracking filter for AE and Motion. It's based on much more expensive software and might not be as full-featured as SynthEyes, but it is cheap and easy to use. To get a sense of how PF Hoe works see the parent app PFHoePro in action at CMI Studios.
from John Nack: Photographer's Journey "has made a list of the 10 best Firefox extensions for photographers, enabling everything from slideshows to uploading to geotagging."
