Staff Blogs

Aperture changes in Compressor 3.5

Have you noticed that movies compressed with Compressor 3.5 have a slightly different frame size when viewed in QuickTime Player?

Compressor 3.5 gives all QuickTime movies a Clean aperture by default (previous versions of Compressor set the aperture to None). This means that, although the actual frame size of the movie hasn't changed, when playing back, QuickTime scales and crops the movie to account for the non-square pixel aspect ratio of various video formats such as DV.

This has confused a lot of people because videos encoded with Compressor 3.5 are displayed differently to those encoded with Compressor 3.0. Although it is easy enough to change this within QuickTime Player, it needs to be done on a per-movie basis.

Luckily, Apple included an option in Compressor 3.5.2 (in the Pro Applications 2010-01 update) to switch this off. Just upgrade to Compressor 3.5.2 and deselect Add clean aperture information in the Encoder tab.

Categories: Apple, Final Cut Studio, QuickTime
0 comments Posted Saturday April 24 2010 12:22 PM Permalink

WWDC 2009 Summary

The WWDC Philnote ended a few minutes ago. If I were to sum it up in one sentence, it would be "one step forward, two steps back".

15" MacBook Pro

Apple announced a new 15" MacBook Pro with a built-in battery like its 17" sibling. This results in dramatically improved battery life, performance and reliability at the expense of a battery you cannot replace. To me this is not a problem at all but to some it will be a dealbreaker.

It also has an improved display with a 60% greater color gamut, allowing it to display a much greater range of colors. It's much faster, with up to a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and up to 8GB of RAM, with a 500 GB hard disk or 256 GB SSD. It's also cheaper, starting at $1699 for the base model.

However, much like its previous notebook offerings, Apple gives with one hand and takes with the other. In a move that makes me question how in touch Apple is with its pro users, they have replaced the ExpressCard slot with an SD card slot. So that means no more native SxS support - you'll need to fork out for a USB adapter. And expect a drop in transfer speed over USB too.

Removing the ExpressCard slot drastically reduces the flexibility of the laptop. They've replaced a versatile port with one that has few uses (at least for video professionals). It also means we will not be able to connect eSATA devices or monitoring / conversion devices such as the Matrox MXO2 to MacBook Pros, drastically reducing their usefulness. This is a ridiculous decision for Apple to make on a device with "Pro" in the title.

Sure, you can get around this issue by buying a 17" MacBook Pro but I feel an ExpressCard slot should come as standard and not require you to buy a bigger, heavier and more expensive machine just for that feature.

Another aspect that is sure to irk ProApp users is the base model. Although it is good that Apple has reduced its price, it only features onboard graphics, unlike all the others which feature onboard and discrete graphics. This makes it unsuitable for applications like Motion and makes me question how future-proof this machine will be when Snow Leopard with OpenCL comes out. I think a machine with "Pro" in the title should be appropriately-specced to run Apple's professional applications.

13" MacBook Pro

Speaking of which, Apple rebranded the aluminum unibody MacBooks as the 13" MacBook Pro. Although the specifications are similar to the base 15" model and will therefore also result in limited ProApp usage and questionable OpenCL performance in Snow Leopard, I don't have a problem with that because this is something that was never there in the first place - this is not something Apple has taken away from us.

There's also some good news - Apple seems to have paid attention to the protests over the lack of FireWire ports in the previous generation and has now restored a single FireWire 800 port. The models are available up to 2.53 GHz with up to 8 GB RAM, an SD slot and a GeForce 9400M. The high-end 13" model is identical to the base 15" model in specification, which reiterates my opinion that the base 15" model is underpowered.

MacBook Air

Like the others, the MacBook Air has received a speed bump. It's also had a huge price cut and there is now only a few hundred dollars difference between the regular hard disk and SSD versions.

Snow Leopard

Apple demoed a few features but as the main changes were under the hood, these will probably be explored in more detail during the rest of the week.

Worthy of note:

• Snow Leopard takes up around 6 GB less space than Leopard
• "Fewer wait cursors"
• Exposé is built into the dock - click and hold on a Dock icon and the app's windows will zoom out
• Browser plugins are put in a separate process so that they do not crash the browser when they fail (it's unclear whether browsers other than Safari will be able to take advantage of this)
• QuickTime X has been rebuilt from scratch, is hardware accelerated, has built-in ColorSync support and can stream data from any HTTP server (unfortunately more detailed information was not given)
• QuickTime X has a minimal UI - it's very similar to QuickLook. Simple editing and uploading to popular video sharing sites built-in (essentially QuickTime Pro for free).
• All system apps run in 64-bit
• Grand Central allows developers to manage threads to make multi-threading more efficient

The biggest Snow Leopard announcement is that Snow Leopard will cost $129 retail like all the rest but only $29 if you are upgrading from Leopard. Yes, you read that correctly. It comes out in September, a month before Windows 7.

Safari 4

Safari 4 is out today and is available for download for Mac OS X 10.5.7. and Windows. This was one of my favorite announcements of the day - why? Because it makes Safari 4 the first shipping browser to pass Acid3 and support many new HTML5 web features.

One notable feature is video and audio tags. These allow you to play supported video and audio content directly in the browser without the need for Flash, Silverlight or other technologies. Plugins are always slower and more resource-hungry than native support for a particular feature, and open standards are always preferable. See this page for an HTML5 video that plays directly in your browser without Flash.

These changes have also made it across to MobileSafari, and it means Flash on the iPhone is even less likely than before (not a bad thing).

iPhone 3GS

It is a new iPhone but the name is very similar to the previous iPhone 3G, probably because no external differences were made to the phone or perhaps because it is still on the 3G network. It is considerably faster, features a 3MP digital camera, can record video, has a magnetometer (compass), 7.2Mbps HSDPA (faster 3G connection), voice operation, available in 16 and 32 GB on June 19th. The iPhone 3G has been reduced today to $99 and will continue to be sold once the new phone is out.

Tethering is not supported by AT&T and MMS will only work on the AT&T network at the end of summer (other networks do not have this handicap). Even Apple seemed fed up with AT&T's general incompetence, making frequent jokes at AT&T's expense.

One other notable feature is called Find My iPhone. Mobile Me users can log in and locate their lost iPhone on a map, send messages to it or make it emit a sound so that it can be located (even if it is on silent). If the phone has been stolen, you can remotely wipe your personal data from it. This is a pretty nice feature.

Final Cut Studio 3

This was missing in action, leading us to wonder when it will be released. Will it be released in conjunction with Snow Leopard - who knows? All I know is that Avid and Adobe CS4 have edged ahead and are looking mighty tempting, and Nuke is looking like a great replacement for Shake. When it comes to making your living, you can't wait around forever for software that you don't know anything about in terms of new features and may not even end up being released. You have to buy what you need when you need it - Apple needs to realize this.

So in conclusion, there's some great stuff there for consumers but professional users appear to have been sidelined once again.

Categories: Apple, Analysis, QuickTime
0 comments Posted Monday June 8 2009 3:37 PM Permalink

QuickTime 7.6

As I'm sure you are already aware, QuickTime 7.6 was released yesterday. Unlike a lot of recent releases that were provided solely for compatibility with new iTunes versions, this one has a lot of things that can benefit pro users.

First, let's look at the change list:

Video:

* Improves single-pass H.264 encoding quality
* Increases the playback reliability of Motion JPEG media

Audio:

* Improves AAC encoding fidelity
* Audio tracks from MPEG video files now export consistently

Almost all of the main features improve exporting, and so it only benefits Pro App users and people who purchased QuickTime Pro. Furthermore, they all improve quality and performance in one way or another.

But Apple never details every single change made in detail. Discrete Cosine discovered that QT 7.6 can now demux MPEG-1 audio, meaning you can convert an MPEG-1 file to another format and the resulting file will have both video and audio.

Meanwhile, on ProLost, Stu Maschwitz discovered that QT 7.6 fixes clipping issues on footage imported from the Canon 5D MK II. However, as he notes, this could drastically change the look of an existing project if you update in the middle of it.

So in all, this looks like a pretty good update for Pro App users. However, the update has only been out for a day which doesn't leave much scope for discovering potential problems. If you look at the ProLost link above, some commenters are already complaining about slow playback performance with some codecs.

The Golden Rules (TM) of Updating

As always, the Golden Rules (TM) apply:
1. Never update in the middle of a project.
2. Only update if this update fixes a problem you have been experiencing (i.e. don't install it if you don't use these codecs).
3. If you do decide to update, give it a couple of weeks for any significant issues to surface that would affect your workflow.
4. Make a clone or backup of your system drive before you install.

Here are the download links:
QuickTime 7.6 for Leopard
QuickTime 7.6 for Tiger

Important Update!
MacFixIt is reporting many problems with this update. It would seem Apple has made significant changes under the hood that are causing compatibility issues with everything from the Finder to third party codecs - even to video games. The MacFixIt page lists several workarounds.

My advice is to avoid this like the plague until Apple releases 7.6.1 or third party developers update their software to be compatible.

Categories: Apple, Final Cut Studio, QuickTime
0 comments Posted Thursday January 22 2009 5:37 AM Permalink

Perian 1.1.1 released

Perian, the free QuickTime codec pack, was just updated to v1.1.1. It allows you to play back more obscure media in QuickTime such as Flash FLV, DivX, 3ivx and MKV.

Changes:
* H.264 in AVI fixed
* Some anamorphic AVI files are now supported
* Performance problems due to PIC fixed with Xcode 3.1
* Incorrect frame skipping on H.264 intra frames fixed
* Better character set detection
* The update checker is now much more polite
* Several parsing and rendering bugs with subtitles fixed
* Player freezing while loading subtitles with embedded fonts fixed
* Audio fixed for some older MKV files with AAC/FLAC
* Strange values in MKV chapters or video sizes are handled better
* Initial support for SAMI subtitles added
* Worked around a QuickTime bug (#5770288) causing frames to be lost during export
* New codecs: DosBox ZMBV, VP6+Alpha, Nellymoser ASAO
* FFmpeg: Crashing on PPC G3 fixed
* Fraps decoding artifacts fixed

Perian can be downloaded for free from Perian.org.

[via TUAW]

Categories: Software, Utilities, QuickTime
0 comments Posted Tuesday September 30 2008 12:49 AM Permalink

QuickTime 7.5.5 released

Apple today released QuickTime 7.5.5 to coincide with iTunes 8, FrontRow and various other patches released today. The update is required for the latest iTunes update and also fixes vulnerabilities from maliciously-crafted movies and images. If you just use your machine for editing, this patch is not necessary. If you are likely to be using iTunes 8 or doing a lot of web surfing on your FCP machine (it's ideally best to avoid using your FCP machine for other purposes) I would advise waiting around for at least a week for any issues to surface.

As always, only update if it is absolutely necessary, NEVER update in the middle of a project unless there is a serious problem preventing you from completing the project, and always clone your disk before updating so that you have an exact copy of your original configuration to revert back to.

QuickTime 7.5.5 for Leopard
QuickTime 7.5.5 for Tiger

Categories: Apple, Final Cut Studio, QuickTime
0 comments Posted Tuesday September 9 2008 6:22 PM Permalink

Apple releases ProRes codecs for non-FCP machines

A couple of days ago, Apple released Apple ProRes QuickTime Decoder 1.0 for Mac and Apple ProRes QuickTime Decoder 1.0 for Windows. This allows Windows users and Mac users without Final Cut Pro 6 installed on their machines to view ProRes-encoded files. This is great because in my experience, there are very few options when it comes to sending high-quality files to Windows machines and it should aid adoption of the ProRes format.

It should be noted, however, that you still need Final Cut Pro 6 in order to write ProRes files.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates but I haven't had internet access in about a month, which sucks big time.

Categories: Video Editing, Apple, QuickTime
0 comments Posted Saturday August 30 2008 9:53 AM Permalink

QuickTime 7.5 released

"QuickTime 7.5 improves application compatibility and addresses security issues."

The timing suggests it is related to the recent iPhone announcements so I doubt this patch does much for ProApp users.

I have heard reports of crashes, choppiness and missing audio although of course your mileage may vary. It is always better to sit on updates for a while to check for problems before installing. I would not advise installing this one though because it probably won't offer ProApp users anything new.

And remember the Golden Rules - never update in the middle of a project and always have a clone.

Edit: This update points directly to the QuickTime site rather than a specific file on the server. This makes me think that Apple will no longer be keeping old versions around so make sure to back this up.

Categories: Apple, Software, QuickTime
0 comments Posted Monday June 9 2008 11:54 PM Permalink

Why does QuickTime report a different resolution?

Ever wondered why QuickTime reports a completely different resolution to the one you exported at?



Welcome to the world of non-square pixels. NTSC and PAL use rectangular pixels to fill up space on the screen and save transmission bandwidth, which was more of an issue when the standards were invented. Computer monitors use square pixels and so QuickTime has to squeeze one side of the image in order to prevent it looking stretched. This is purely for display and the file is not modified.

The pixel aspect ratio of NTSC footage is 0.889 meaning 720 x 0.889 = 640 so it is displayed at 640x480. For PAL it is 1.067 so 720 x 1.067 = 768 and it is displayed at 768x576.

QuickTime also has some options for controlling how the movie is displayed. Open up your movie, go to Window > Show Movie Properties and click on the Presentation tab.

You will see an option marked "Conform aperture to:" with the following options:

Classic - Classic is identical to having the conform aperture setting switched off.




Clean - Scales the image to compensate for the pixel aspect ratio and crops it to mimic the overscan on a broadcast monitor.




Production - Scales the image to compensate for the pixel aspect ratio but does not crop the image.




Encoded Pixels - No modification is made to the footage. Note the stretching caused by non-square pixels.




This is one of the many reasons why a broadcast monitor is essential.

Categories: Video Editing, Analysis, QuickTime
9 comments Posted Sunday April 13 2008 3:02 AM Permalink

QuickTime 7.4.5 released

Apple just released QuickTime 7.4.5 to coincide with the release of iTunes 7.6.2 and Front Row 2.1.3. The coincidence of these releases suggests that the QT update specifically affects those applications and offers no specific benefits to Final Cut Studio. If you have a working system, DON'T install it!

On the other hand, if your system is not working, you have nothing to lose. I'd advise cloning your system beforehand though, as a non-working system could potentially be made even worse by this update.

Here are the links... use at your peril!
QuickTime 7.4.5 for Panther
QuickTime 7.4.5 for Tiger
QuickTime 7.4.5 for Leopard

I have also updated our list of QuickTime downloads.

Categories: Video Editing, Apple, QuickTime
0 comments Posted Thursday April 3 2008 12:17 AM Permalink

Using Pacifist to downgrade QuickTime

Since I often need to use this information for reference, I am posting a guide here. As you may already be aware, certain versions of QuickTime can cause havoc with Final Cut Pro and other professional applications like After Effects. For example, many users of FCP 4.5 HD have been unable to capture long clips after installing QuickTime 7.3 and up.

Apple does not offer a means of uninstalling a rogue version of QuickTime so the solution is rather "hacky". It will solve the problem but for best results, you are recommended to perform a full Erase and Install to reinstall Mac OS X.

Also, don't perform this process unless it is absolutely necessary.

1. Download Pacifist.

2. Check which version of QuickTime works best with your software.

3. Download the version of QuickTime you wish to downgrade to.

4. Start up Pacifist and drag the QuickTime package onto the Pacifist logo in the main window.



5. A new window will pop up. Use the disclosure triangles to select the following two directories:
System/Library/Components
System/Library/QuickTime



It might be worth backing up the existing /System/Library/Components and /System/Library/QuickTime directories on your hard disk before performing this.

6. Now click Install up the top.

7. You will get this message, click Install and then type in your admin password:



8. It will spend a minute or so extracting and verifying files then this message will appear:



Click "Don't ask again for this installation" and then hit Replace.

9. When it finishes, restart your machine. If you go to QuickTime Player, it will still say the version number of the old version but if you open Final Cut Pro, it will now work as it did previously.

Full credit for this tip goes to Fred Turner.

Edit 2/17/08: Fixed a couple of errors.

Update 11/16/08: Erik Smith sent me another solution to the issue, although I would definitely say try it at your own risk.

Categories: Apple, Final Cut Studio, QuickTime
17 comments Posted Friday February 15 2008 10:00 AM Permalink