Analysis Category: Digital Rebellion Blog

Thoughts on Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:32:53 MST

Today Apple released Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3 which offers several new features such as multicam and broadcast monitoring (beta) that were previously missing.

Looking through the details, it's hard to find anything that would appeal to consumers and it is clear that this is an attempt by Apple to appease at least some of the pros. My first reaction (and the reaction of a lot of people on Twitter) was that this was the version Apple should have released back in June.

Here are some of the features I found interesting:

Multicam - 64 angles are supported and lots of options for syncing, including PluralEyes-style analysis of the audio waveforms. In comparison, Adobe Premiere Pro supports 4 angles and Final Cut Pro 7 supports 128.
Media Relink - You can now reconnect to files, which is useful if you need to swap out VFX shots or FCPX for some reason loses the link. This really should have been a 1.0 feature.
XML 1.1 - As mentioned earlier on this blog, the previous version of FCPXML didn't support audio levels so you'd lose your levels if you transferred the project elsewhere. This is now supported in FCPXML 1.1, although it's worth noting that Apple's developer documentation still says XML is not a perfect copy and does not contain everything that a project file does.
Broadcast monitoring - Apple's description is vague about which devices are supported but today AJA released new drivers that support FCPX output from SDI. There is no word yet from Black Magic Design or Matrox but I would assume new drivers are coming soon. It's worth noting that broadcast monitoring is only supported on Lion.

That doesn't make it a perfect tool for the professional broadcast / film industries of course. I really can't see EDL support ever being added, nor support for broadcast tape capture. But over time I think this will matter less and less. Case in point: I'm working on a feature right now and was very surprised when the post house asked me to deliver the Final Cut Pro 7 project for grading / mixing instead of EDLs and OMF.

I think Apple is very much gambling on the future here and I am definitely considering looking into it for short form work.

Update: Larry Jordan offers more info on the differences between FCP7 and FCPX's multicam implementation. Thanks Larry!

FCP 7 would LINK up to 128 cameras in a multicam clip, however you could only view 16 of them. FCP X links and allows you to view up to 64 clips at once, by switching between up to four banks of 16 cameras each. Also, edits can be made in real-time or by positioning the playhead.

18 features Adobe should borrow from Final Cut Pro 7

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:24:30 MDT

Apple's recent obsolescence of Final Cut Studio has forced a lot of us to reexamine which editing platform we want to use for future work. Ironically, Adobe Premiere Pro is a much easier transition for FCP 7 users than Final Cut Pro X due to its similar interface, support for old FCP projects and ability to use FCP's keyboard shortcuts.

The transition to Premiere is easier than any other NLE but there are lots of little things that I miss from Final Cut Pro. Here's a list of some of them, in no particular order.

1. Cutting on the fly

The Ctrl+V keyboard shortcut in Final Cut Pro can be used to make a cut on the timeline at the current playhead position. While Premiere also has a keyboard shortcut for cutting (Cmd+K), it pauses playback when it does so. There is no way to cut and continue playing.

2. Sixteen angles in a multiclip

Premiere Pro is limited only to four multicam angles.

3. Audio mixer affecting clip levels

Unlike Final Cut Pro, the audio mixer in Premiere doesn't work on a clip-by-clip basis. Every adjustment affects the entire track.

4. Multi-colored markers and marker lists

It took such a long time for colored markers to be introduced in Final Cut Pro 7 that I was sad to see them disappear in FCPX. Premiere needs this too.

Final Cut Pro can also export text-based marker lists, which is a great way of sending markers to another application. If Adobe were to implement this, I would also recommend they include a way of importing markers from a list, which Final Cut Pro unfortunately lacks.

5. Choosing attributes to paste

Like Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere has a useful Paste Attributes command. However, unlike FCP, this function does not allow you to specify which attributes you would like to paste - it just pastes everything. This is often not what you want.

6. Close Gap command

Ctrl-G in FCP can be used to easily close a gap in your timeline. There is no equivalent keyboard shortcut in Premiere to do this in one step.

Update: This one seems to have been misunderstood by a lot of people so I'll repeat it with additional emphasis: there is no way to do this in one step. There are many ways to do this in more than one step.

7. Multiple open projects

Only one project can be open at a time in Premiere. There is no way to refer back to another project without closing the first one.

8. Partial renders

When you cancel a render halfway through, Premiere discards the entire render file, unlike Final Cut Pro where the portion you rendered remains valid.

9. Pitch correction when using JKL keys

Using the JKL keys to navigate through media in Premiere can sometimes be tricky because the audio becomes high-pitched and difficult to understand.

10. No way to scroll tracks vertically with the scroll wheel

Scrolling your mouse vertically scrolls the Premiere Pro timeline horizontally. This is useful if your mouse is only capable of vertical scrolling, but if you have a trackpad or a mouse with a scroll ball, there is no way to scroll vertically to see extra tracks. There should at least be a preference for this behavior.

(FCP tip: if you have a mouse with a vertical scroll wheel only, hold down Cmd when scrolling and it will scroll horizontally.)

11. No through edits

There is no indicator icon to show a through edit. A through edit is a cut within a clip where the frames on either side of the cut are adjacent to each other. It appears to the viewer as if there is no cut at all, and in most cases it is unnecessary and should be removed.

12. No ability to search for clips to reconnect

When media goes offline, you can browse to the location of the file if you know where it is but there is no way to search your entire hard drive.

13. Tracks have to be selected when cutting clips onto the timeline

When inserting or overwriting a clip to the timeline in Final Cut Pro, the tracks that the video and audio will end up on are controlled by the buttons in the patch panel that are normally marked v1, a1 and a2. If you don't want to insert a track, click the button in the patch panel to disconnect it.

In Premiere things work differently. The patch panels AND the tracks need to be selected in order for this to work. If you want to insert video on video track 2 without any audio and have disconnected the A1 patch button, having an audio track selected will insert a blank space into that track. It seems redundant for patch buttons and audio tracks to need to be selected in order for this to work as expected when only patch buttons are needed in other NLEs.

Walter Biscardi gives a video overview of this problem here.

14. No timecode overlay

Final Cut Pro 7 finally brought us a long-requested timecode overlay window. While Premiere does show timecode in the Info window, this is not a direct equivalent.

15. No temporary snapping toggle

In Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 and higher, if you drag a clip and press the N key to toggle snapping, snapping will be switched on or off only for the duration of the drag. Once you let go of the clip, snapping reverts to its previous value. I found this feature very useful.

16. No function to mark audio peaks

Final Cut Pro can place markers on a clip whenever an audio peak occurs. There is no such function in Premiere.

17. No dupe detection

While you can view how many times an entire clip has been used, there is no way to see if a particular frame has been used more than once. This is crucial for film projects that will be having a negative cut.

18. Fewer options for clip markers than sequence markers

Sequence markers in Premiere Pro allow you to set a name, description, duration and various other options. Clip markers cannot be customized at all.

This is a list of things I think FCP does better than Premiere. In some cases, Premiere has no equivalent feature. In others, the feature exists but I feel it is lacking. None of these problems have prevented me from editing successfully with Premiere, but things would be smoother and certain workflows much easier if these features were present. I'm sure Adobe has been getting a lot of feedback from former FCP users and I have high hopes for CS6.

Sound off in the comments if you can think of any more things Adobe should borrow from Final Cut Pro.

5 great Lion features for editors

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 07:13:36 MDT

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was released earlier today. I've heard a couple of people say they're not enthusiastic about it and, with features like Autosave and Launchpad, it's mainly geared at consumers. I completely disagree and here's my list of five features that are great for editors and video professionals (in no particular order).

AirDrop

Even in the 21st century, many people I know still use good old Sneakernet to distribute files between computers. People still use such a low-tech method of transferring files because the machines don't need to be networked to each other, there's no setup process and you're not opening yourself up to potential security issues (assuming the files and the drive are virus-free, of course).

AirDrop allows you to send files to people physically located nearby who are not necessarily on the same Wi-Fi network. When you want to send a file to someone, both of you click the AirDrop icon in the Finder sidebar and you then drag the file onto the person's name. If they accept the file, it is encrypted and sent directly to their Downloads folder.

You only appear to other users on the network if you have the AirDrop folder open. This provides greater privacy and security than having regular file sharing running constantly.

Lion Server and Xsan

Every Mac now has the potential to be a server for just $50, giving you a great deal of control over your system and the users that access it.

Lion now includes Xsan, a network file system popular with video editors. This used to cost $999 so it's a huge saving for large installations.

AV Foundation

Love it or loathe it, you can't deny that Final Cut Pro X is built on a great technical foundation. AV Foundation ships with Lion and allows developers to utilize the same technology in their applications. It's something we plan to explore to improve future versions of Pro Media Tools.

It's also worth noting that the QuickTime 7 API is still there so existing QuickTime applications will continue to work. Final Cut Pro 7 runs just fine in Lion.

Merging folders

This feature has been part of Windows for decades and I'm surprised it's taken this long to make it to the Mac. If you drag a folder onto another folder with the same name, it now gives you the option to merge the two together. This is a huge timesaver.

Versions

We're big fans of incremental backups, which is why we created FCP Versioner. It's great to see something similar included in the OS for applications that support it.

Other nice features include the ability to encrypt an entire drive without a perceptible performance drop (according to Apple's marketing), OpenGL 3.2, Resume and Time Machine local snapshots, for recovering files when you're on the road without your Time Capsule or backup drive.

Lion seems faster too - I've seen noticeable performance improvements in all of our applications when run under Lion.

Of course, there are downsides too. Firstly, it's only available from the Mac App Store. If you are running OS X 10.5 Leopard, you will need to first upgrade to 10.6 Snow Leopard in order to access the store and download Lion. Apple will be selling Lion USB keys for $69 in August for users on Leopard or without broadband internet access.

Secondly, Rosetta is dead. This means that applications built for PowerPC computers will not work on Lion, including the Final Cut Studio 2 installer.

Thirdly, for some reason Apple decided to invert scrolling in Lion, meaning that dragging two fingers down scrolls up and vice versa. This would work well on a touchscreen but feels unnatural with a scroll mouse or trackpad. Fortunately it can be disabled in System Preferences but I don't know why Apple decided to make this the default.

Fourthly, features that some professionals have been demanding for a while, such as OpenGL 4.1, 10-bit monitor support and Blu-ray playback via third party drives still haven't materialized.

Overall, I think Lion is a step forward for professionals that provides much-needed additions to OS X. Driver and application support will likely take a while to catch up, despite the beta period, so as a rule I wouldn't recommend using it for professional use until the .3 or .4 update ships, even though I've actually found it to be quite stable in my testing.

Final Cut Pro X from a Developer Perspective

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:07:04 MDT

I've already mentioned The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Final Cut Pro X but when it comes to developer features, there's a lot more to like.

Chris Kenny has been doing some delving and discovered that there are references to Python and AppleScript in the Final Cut Pro X app. This would be a big step up from the current method of sending commands via Apple Events.

There are also references to XML import and Final Cut Pro XML import, which implies that they will be two different formats. This makes sense, as the structure of FCPX projects has changed significantly (no more bins and no concept of tracks for instance) and there is a greater focus on metadata.

Neither of these are publicly accessible right now but they show that Apple has at least experimented with these functions and it is likely that they will be enabled in a future release. There has been speculation that import of FCP7 projects or XML may never come as the project formats are too different, but I think it's likely that we will at least see an FCPX-specific exchange format at some point in the future.

Final Cut Pro X now uses the Motion engine to render effects, which means that plugin output is now consistent between Final Cut Pro and Motion - something that was not the case in previous versions. Developers need to wrap their Motion plugins as Final Cut Effects in order for them to show up in Final Cut Pro X.

Other notable changes include more control over plugin user interfaces, support for multi-threading, keyframing, undo and bezier paths. These have been requested for a long time so it's great that they're now here. Thanks to Darrin Cardani and Paul Schneider at Apple for listening to the needs of developers.

Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5 require plugins to be compiled as 64-bit so most users' plugins won't be compatible. This is only a temporary problem until plugin developers catch up and the benefits of a 64-bit environment and FxPlug 2.0 will make it worthwhile. (There are, of course, some bugs in the implementation as would be expected in a 1.0 release.)

Just before Final Cut Pro X was unveiled at NAB earlier this year, I wrote a post about my Top 5 Developer Requests for the Next Final Cut Pro.

Storing settings in preference lists was number one and, as expected, this was implemented. While the reasons for wanting it so badly (mainly for programmatically changing scratch disk locations) are less important in Final Cut Pro X, we can still do a lot of things with it.

Making the Final Cut Pro project format more open was second on the list. This one is a little more complex because on the one hand, it's in SQLite format which makes it readable by the sqlite3 Terminal command but on the other, Core Data assumes that no-one other than the owning application will ever touch those files and so it's very easy to corrupt it if you're not careful. Also, while the SQLite format offers some predictability, Apple are free to structure the database any way they see fit and change it without notice in future versions. I've written a basic filename parser but I'm going to wait for official documentation or an API before doing anything more substantial.

Third, fourth and fifth on the list were requests for more API control. This is not in the initial release of Final Cut Pro X and remains to be seen if it will be in future versions.

Of course, I wrote this on the assumption that FCPX wouldn't remove any developer features that were in the previous version. While the developer features are sparse in the current version, the future looks bright, especially as it appears that Apple is expecting third-party developers to fill in many of the gaps in FCPX's feature set.

Final Cut Pro X Bug List

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:57:54 MDT

This list will document the bugs in Final Cut Pro X as they become apparent.

1. Projects not saving

This one is scary. There are several reports of people losing work due to FCPX's autosave function (which is the only way to save) not working.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15469208
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15460282

2. Clips going offline

When you add media from another drive and choose not to copy the files to your Final Cut Events folder, FCPX adds symbolic links to the Final Cut Events folder that point back to these files.

Some people have been reporting that they relaunched FCPX to find all of their media offline. When they looked in the Final Cut Events folder, FCPX had either deleted the symbolic links or failed to save them in the first place.

You can reconnect them by going to File > Import > Files but this causes another bug to surface: the files will always be copied to your Final Cut Events folder even if you deselect the option to do so.

3. Undo disabled

Some people are reporting that Undo is disabled for them. What makes this an especially big problem is that FCPX saves automatically and so any mistakes they make are immortalized forever if they can't undo them.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15467240
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3136611

4. Projects disappearing

There are reports of projects disappearing from the project library.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15497434

If you experience problems with media, I would recommend updating to OS X 10.6.8 which "Fixes an issue when importing certain media files into Final Cut Pro." I don't yet know if it solves these particular issues though.

8. Systems with two graphics card exporting QT movies with green artifacts

Apple recommends only running FCPX on machines with one graphics card.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3842

9. Templates, generators and titles appearing blue

This can be caused by templates from previous versions of Motion residing in the ~/Library/Application Support/Motion folder. To get around this, move the templates from this folder. More info here.

10. Video in the preview monitor is missing the green channel

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15582977#15582977

11. Drives don't appear in the list

This can happen if certain folders exist on the drive. The poster in this forum thread says folders called "private" and possibly "backup" can cause this issue:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15794411#15794411

I'd be interested to hear if anyone finds any other folders that can cause the drive to disappear in FCPX.

More bugs will be listed as they surface.

Update: There are more bugs listed in the comments of this post, on LAFCPUG and at FCPX Quirks.

Final Cut Pro X - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 13:04:12 MDT

Final Cut Pro X is finally here and I've been playing around with it this morning. I haven't used it for any projects yet, so don't consider this a formal review, but here are my first impressions.

As a software developer, I understand that a 1.0 release is difficult and not every feature can be added. However, I feel that Apple made some glaring omissions with FCPX that I will cover in the "ugly" section.

Good

FCPX is FAST. I tried to break it with lots of stacked clips and effects but it played them all seamlessly.
FCPX uses AVFoundation instead of QuickTime. The QuickTime API is clunky, antiquated and the modern features Apple tacked on don't work as well as the older stuff. Breaking free of the shackles of 1990s-era technology is the best thing that ever happened to Final Cut Pro.
Everyone's been complaining about FCP's media management since version 1.0 and the new database file format and keyword-based metadata tagging are huge improvements.
FCPX will import a memory card in the background, allowing you to edit the footage directly from the card and then replace it seamlessly with the media on the hard disk once the transfer is complete. I think this is a great idea.
Effects and titles were never FCP's strong point and these have been greatly improved.
I'm also enjoying the little touches I've spotted here and there, like the way an edit point turns red when you select it if the in and out points are at the outer limits of the clip. These features are tiny but they make a big difference.

Bad

It took a long time for multiple marker colors to be added to Final Cut Pro. Now we're back to one marker color again. There are no chapter markers either.
You need an OpenCL-compatible graphics card. This has left some Mac Pro owners out in the cold.
The QuickTime movie output options in FCPX are poor, which means you're obligated to pay an extra $49 for Compressor 4 because you can't send to Compressor 3.

Ugly

Compressor 4 is still 32-bit and doesn't look like it's received an overhaul, meaning that the problems many of us have suffered are likely to continue. I have already had several issues with Qmaster.
No multicam. This is a massive oversight in my opinion.
No XML import / output. Another huge oversight.
A lot of plugin developers have been left out in the cold with no answers from Apple.
No support for old FCP 7 projects.
No credible broadcast monitor output. The current solution is to mirror your desktop through a capture card, which does not result in a broadcast-quality output.
Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor are $400 combined. This is a great price, however if you need features that are not in FCPX, you're going to end up paying more. If you need OMF output, you need to pay $500 for Automatic Duck. You will also most likely need to pay to upgrade any plugins once support for FCPX has been added. Rumors have suggested that Apple may be offering these missing features as additional applications for a fee, which also contributes to the overall cost. When you consider all of these potential costs, FCPX doesn't seem as cheap as it does on the surface.

As you can see, there are some serious issues with FCPX. However, the biggest problem is that Final Cut Pro 7 support ends today. All of the above issues could be forgiven if Apple had allowed the two to co-exist until FCPX had matured enough to be a viable replacement. This is especially important considering the lack of support for importing Final Cut Pro 7 projects.

Unless you're using DSLRs to create content solely for the web, I would recommend having a more fully-featured NLE on your system in addition to Final Cut Pro X. Apple has made this difficult by discontinuing Final Cut Studio 3, so I would recommend Avid Media Composer or Adobe Premiere Pro. (Premiere Pro is probably easier for Final Cut Pro users to pick up.)

Final Cut Pro X Frequently Asked Questions

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 10:37:26 MDT

Update: Apple has posted an official FAQ here. It has fewer answers than ours but gives a good indication of Apple's future roadmap.

Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about Final Cut Pro X.

Q: Does it overwrite Final Cut Pro 7?

A: No. All of the Final Cut Studio applications are moved to a Final Cut Studio folder in your Applications directory.

Q: Can I still purchase Final Cut Studio if I need it?

A: Not directly from Apple. I'm sure third-party resellers still have it in stock, but probably not for very long.

Q: Is there Motion and audio content like in previous versions?

A: Yes, but it is not installed by default. You need to launch Final Cut Pro X and go to Final Cut Pro > Download Additional Content.

IMPORTANT: Even if you don't need the content, I recommend doing this so that you have access to Final Cut Pro X's codecs.

Q: Should I also buy Compressor 4?

A: I would recommend it because Export to QuickTime Movie only offers a handful of codecs and options. To have control over the files you are exporting from FCPX, you definitely need Compressor 4.

Q: What about the other apps like Color, Cinema Tools and DVD Studio Pro?

A: They may come later but don't hold your breath. DVD Studio Pro is almost certainly dead.

Q: Will it work on my Mac?

A: Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5 require OpenCL-compatible graphics cards (not to be confused with OpenGL) and the Mac App Store will prevent you from purchasing it if you don't have the correct card. Apple has provided a list of cards that are not compatible.

However, HardMac is reporting that it does work on supposedly unsupported systems if you purchase it on a supported system and transfer it across. I would not recommend doing this in mission-critical or production environments though.

Q: Can I install it on more than one computer?

A: You can install it on up to five systems. All systems must be 64-bit Intel and running OS X 10.6.7 or higher. To install it on the target system, launch the Mac App Store, go to the Purchased tab and click the Install button next to each item.

(Note: some people are reporting that the Mac App Store is "forgetting" their purchase of FCPX)

Q: Can I open old Final Cut Pro projects in FCPX?

A: No.

Q: Can I import or export XML?

A: No.

Q: Can I export EDLs or marker lists?

A: No.

Q: Can I import layered Photoshop files?

A: No. All PSDs will be flattened upon import.

Q: Can I capture from tape?

A: Yes, but only through Firewire, which limits it to DV, HDV and DVCPROHD capture. It's very basic and there's no way to customize it so I would recommend using another application to capture from tape.

Q: Can I output to tape?

A: No.

Q: Can I use my old Final Cut Pro 7 plugins in Final Cut Pro X?

A: No.

Q: Does Final Cut Pro X have native R3D or XDCAM support?

A: No.

Q: Can FCPX work natively with H.264 and DVCPROHD from P2 cards?

A: Yes.

Q: How do I change where my render files are stored?

A: Render files are stored in the project directory so you need to move the project to a different drive. To do this, click the film strip icon in the bottom left corner to open up the Project Library, then drag the project to another drive. Only HFS+ drives will be displayed in this list - you cannot copy to Xsan, AFP, NFS or SMB volumes. (Thanks to Shamol Majumder for the tip)

Q: How do I reconnect media?

A: Go to File > Import > Files and browse for the original media files. If the files are already in the project, they will be reconnected.

There are two caveats: firstly, there is no way to reconnect to a different file (such as if you were replacing a temp VFX shot with the finished one) and secondly, it will always copy the file to your Final Cut Events folder even if you tell it not to. The latter would appear to be a bug.

Q: Can I export a reference (non-self-contained) QuickTime movie?

A: No.

Q: Can I output to a broadcast monitor?

A: If you have an AJA Kona card then yes (PDF here), however the output should not be considered broadcast quality.

So in other words, no.

Update: Blackmagic and Matrox cards support this feature too. Thanks Andy!

Q: How do I output OMFs / AAFs to Pro Tools?

A: Purchase Automatic Duck Pro Export FCP.

Q: Can you split the interface across multiple monitors?

A: To a limited extent. In the Window menu there are two options: Show Events on Second Display and Show Viewer on Second Display.

Q: Is there an audio mixer?

A: No. There is no mixer and no way to keyframe audio in realtime.

Update: There's been a little bit of confusion over this statement. I'm not saying you can't keyframe audio at all, just not in realtime while your timeline is playing.

Q: Does FCPX support Euphonix control surfaces?

No. This thread quotes an Avid representative:

"As of this moment, no - Apple has not integrated EuCon support into FCPX. They have the option to do so, but would need to do the work on their end to support EuCon. Whether or not that will happen is unknown - given the nature of FCPX, my guess is that it's intentionally been left out. "

Q: Can I run Final Cut Pro X and Final Cut Pro 7 at the same time?

A: No, FCP X detects that FCP 7 is running and asks you to quit.

Q: Can I park the playhead on an individual field?

A: Yes! This is a feature long overdue for FCP.

Q: Why do DV files imported from iMovie play without audio?

A: iMovie creates raw DV files without track information or other metadata. FCPX is expecting the files to contain information on the structure of tracks. To fix this, you must rewrap the .dv files as QuickTime movies. To do this, open them in QuickTime Player 7, go to File > Save As and choose the option to save as a self-contained movie.

Q: Why do I get an error message when I launch Final Cut Pro 7 saying it is incompatible with Motion 5?

A: After installing Motion 5, you need to launch Motion 4 and then close it again to make this error disappear.

Q: Can I open my old Motion projects in Motion 5?

A: Yes. You will be prompted to upgrade the project (not recommended) or open it as an untitled project (recommended) in order to save it under a different name.

Q: Are Motion and Compressor compatible with Final Cut Pro 7?

A: Neither Send to Motion nor Send to Compressor work with the newer versions, however they both function as independent applications so you can still use them separately.

You cannot embed Motion 5 projects on a Final Cut Pro 7 timeline (it displays a message about missing media, even if you only add generators to the project) but you can export a QuickTime movie and bring it into FCP7. Also note that Motion 5 projects are not compatible with Motion 4 and there is no way to downgrade them.

Q: Do I need to buy Motion 5 in order to use third-party plugins?

A: Although FxPlug 2.0 plugins use Motion's rendering engine, you do not need Motion 5 installed on the system in order to use them.

Q: Compressor looks almost the same. Has it changed?

A: The biggest change is that Qmaster is now integrated directly into Compressor.

Q: Is Compressor now 64-bit?

A: The background task that handles encoding is 64-bit but only for 64-bit codecs. The Compressor application is 32-bit.

Q: Can I use the Send to Compressor command in FCPX to send to Compressor 3?

A: No, you need to purchase Compressor 4 to use this feature.

Q: How do I get Compressor 4 to use all of my processing cores?

A: Go to Apple Qmaster > Share This Computer. Tick the option for Share This Computer and select Services Only.

Then, when submitting a batch, tick the option for This Computer Plus.

Q: Are there are incompatibilities with Compressor 3.5 and Compressor 4?

A: Yes, you must disable Compressor 3.5 Quick Clusters before using Compressor 4 Quick Clusters otherwise batches will fail.

Q: What about Final Cut Server and Final Cut Express?

A: The Final Cut Server and Final Cut Express pages now point to Final Cut Pro X, which would indicate that they have been discontinued.

Q: Does Final Cut Pro X recognize Xsan, NFS, AFP and SMB volumes?

A: These volumes do not appear in the Event Library, however you can still import files from them by going to File > Import > Files.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to deselect the option to copy files to Final Cut Events folder otherwise all of the media will be copied to your local disk.

FCP X will then add a symbolic link to the remote media on your local hard drive. Be aware that render files will be stored in the same location as the project file. To move the project, drag it to another drive in the Project Library. This can only be an HFS+ drive so you cannot store it on an Xsan volume.

(thanks to Brian Summa for the clarification)

Q: Does Final Cut Pro X work with ExFAT volumes?

A: Apparently not, but the workaround for Xsan volumes listed above may solve the issue for people experiencing this problem.

(ExFAT is a new cross-platform file system that is much better than FAT32 for transferring files between Mac and PC.)

Q: Can I store projects or events on different drives?

A: Projects will be stored on the local disk by default. To change this, click the film canister icon in the bottom left corner to open up the Project Library. You can then drag the project to any supported drive in the list. (Thanks to Shamol Majumder for the tip.)

Events can be stored on external disks by going to File > Import > Files, selecting Create New Event and choosing the name of the disk under Save To. You can change the location of an existing event by going to File > Move Event.

Note: this only appears to work with HFS+ formatted drives so Xsan and AFP drives won't appear in the list.

Q: How do I get a refund on FCPX?

A: Use this form and select "The app didn't function as expected". Even though Apple's terms and conditions prohibit refunds, several people have managed to get them by using this form.

I will update this FAQ as more questions and answers become available.

My thoughts on Final Cut Pro X

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:53:02 MDT

Apple just gave a sneak preview of Final Cut Pro X at the NAB Supermeet. I wasn't there so thanks to everyone who tweeted and posted photos of the event.

There's a lot to like - 64-bit Cocoa rewrite, OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch support, color management to prevent gamma shifts, no rendering or transcoding, native support for DSLRs and many more features. You can read the full list here.

Apple only talked about new features so there was no mention of existing features that had made it into the new version. Consequently the presentation left more questions than it answered - what about XML, EDLs, tape workflows, scopes, DVD output? We won't find that out until the release.

There is an emphasis on automation in the new version - it can automatically detect audio hum and remove it, and the magnetic timeline can simplify L- and J-cuts by automatically moving clips to a new layer to prevent clip collisions. I think this is great, as anything that makes me a faster editor makes me a better editor, however I can see a lot of cases where this would be unwanted and I hope it can be disabled when necessary.

My favorite features are the 64-bit rewrite, the lack of rendering, the new keyframe editor and Plural Eyes-style audio syncing.

The feature I'm most unsure about is dynamic tracks. Tracks will appear and disappear as you move clips around and new tracks will be added when you use the magnetic timeline. This could cause organizational problems if you always put music on tracks 8-9 for instance, and it would be a nightmare if you need to output a multi-channel show. Apple sought professional feedback so I assume this issue was brought up and that they have a solution for it.

There was no mention of other apps in the suite. Final Cut Pro X will be sold in June via the App Store so this means it will be a self-contained app. There is no way to sell a group of apps via the store, however it would still be possible to sell them separately like iWork. It also means there is no way of upgrading if you own an old version of Final Cut Pro, however the $299 price point is the same as the FCP 6 to FCP 7 upgrade cost.

What about my top 5 developer requests? Number 1 looks to be done; I'm not sure about any of the others.

Although I haven't tried the new version, I'm cautiously optimistic. There are a lot of features designed for speeding things up and that's always a good thing. It's also clear that Apple isn't trying to do everything, so it leaves a lot of gaps for third-party developers like myself to fill. As it is an App Store app, it won't overwrite the old version of Final Cut Studio so you can still go back if anything is missing.

The new version would be great for a lot of my smaller projects for the web but I don't yet know how well it would translate to larger projects where I need Cinema Tools, tape ingest / output and DVD creation. That's something I'll only find out when it's released.

P.S. Anyone else prefer the old icon to the new one?

Update: "Today was just a sneak peak of Final Cut Pro, stay tuned," an Apple representative told The Loop. This implies that there may be additional apps available separately.

Top 5 developer requests for the next Final Cut Pro

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:41:10 MDT

Lots of people have been posting wish lists for the next version of Final Cut Pro with such features as 64-bit support, OpenCL, etc. One thing I haven't seen is a wishlist from a developer's perspective, so here's mine.

I've included a description of the feature, how likely I reckon it is to be implemented and what we could do with it if it was.

1. Store settings in preference lists (plists)

Apple introduced a standardized format for preference files in Mac OS X that allows applications to easily read and write from them. Final Cut Pro, which dates back to the days of OS 9, uses a proprietary binary format that only Apple knows how to read from and write to. It is also the reason why Final Cut Pro preferences get corrupted so easily.

What we could do with it: You could choose to backup only certain settings in Preference Manager instead of the entire file. Path Manager could modify and sync Final Cut Pro scratch disks.

Likelihood: Certain. If they've rewritten FCP, there is no reason why they would not use the standardized OS X preference system.

2. Make the FCP project file format more open

There is currently no method of reading from or writing to Final Cut Pro project files. The workaround is to export an XML copy from Final Cut Pro. The downsides to this are that Final Cut Pro has to be running, exporting to XML is slow and it locks up FCP so the user can't continue working.

There are several solutions to this problem - Apple could keep the format the same and release detailed specifications, they could create an API for reading and writing or they could convert the Final Cut Pro project format to XML (perhaps with binary and plain-text options like Maya). I don't really mind which method they choose as long as a solution arrives.

What we could do with it: FCP Versioner would be faster and would no longer lock up Final Cut Pro when exporting to XML. Pro Media Tools would be much faster and would not require FCP to be installed in order to read an FCP project file.

Likelihood: 50/50. I'm sure Apple will make big changes to the file format but we'll have to see if these are developer-friendly.

3. Add a playback and timecode API

The only way to get timecode from a Final Cut Pro project is to setup a fake MIDI device to receive the information. The downside to this method is that it is not very user-friendly - the user must specifically setup the device as a control surface in FCP and must have the audio mixing window open at all times.

A playback and timecode API would allow developers to control the Final Cut Pro timeline and receive timecode without any intervention on the user's part.

What we could do with it: Final Cut Pro syncing for Cut Notes with no complex setup for the user.

Likelihood: Ordinarily I would think this was unlikely but there are rumors that there will be an official iPad control app for Final Cut Pro. If this rumor is true, I highly doubt that Apple is using the user-unfriendly method of setting it up as a MIDI control surface.

4. Programmatically initiating exports

With Apple Events, developers can send commands directly to Final Cut Pro for such tasks as saving a project or highlighting a clip in a bin. There is no way to automatically export a sequence to a QuickTime movie without user intervention.

What I'd like is a command that exports all or part of a sequence to a file the developer specifies along with the ability to specify export settings such as the codec, if it is self-contained, whether or not it should contain markers, etc.

What we could do with it: This would be incredibly useful for a super-secret future product...

Likelihood: Unlikely.

5. Adding interface items

All third-party applications have to be launched separately and there is currently no way to integrate a third-party application with Final Cut Pro. What I would like is the ability to add interface buttons or menu items to send data to third-party applications in the background. The applications could then send data back without the user leaving Final Cut Pro.

What we could do with it: Lots of things, including adding buttons to manually initiate FCP Versioner backups from within FCP, a "Send to Edit Detector" command that cuts up a clip on your timeline at each edit point, an "Add Quick Bin" menu item, and more.

Likelihood: It's a long shot.

I hope at the very least that 1 and 2 are implemented in the new FCP. I guess we'll find out tomorrow. Do any other developers have requests?

Why Thunderbolt is a game-changer

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:31:21 MST

Today Apple released brand-new MacBook Pros with Intel's LightPeak technology, now called Thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt is a 10 Gbps port that can daisy-chain up to six devices including a display. To give you an idea of how fast it is, USB 3.0 is 5 Gbps, Firewire 3200 is 3 Gbps, eSATA is 2.4 Gbps and Fibre Channel can be up to 4 Gbps.

To me, this is a game-changer because these ports can become any type of port as long as you have an adapter, so Apple essentially added support for USB 3.0, eSATA and anything else you like in one go. Thunderbolt is a huge leap forward for professional users. Its power is in its versatility.

It also means that laptops can finally rival desktops in I/O performance. As an example of the amount of throughput you'll be able to get on a laptop, Apple showed a demo of Final Cut Pro running four streams of uncompressed HD on the 15" MacBook Pro, peaking at 600MB/s.

And if you're in a shared environment you'll be able to easily add laptops, or indeed any type of Mac, to an Xsan network for fast access to shared storage, which is something that was difficult to do before.

Finally, Apple posted some new details about Mac OS X 10.7 Lion today and revealed that the desktop and server versions of the operating system will be merged together, meaning that every Mac is now a server out of the box. Couple that with Thunderbolt and the Mac Mini suddenly looks reasonable as an Xsan metadata controller (and indeed for many other server tasks) now that the Xserve has been discontinued.

My thoughts on the new Final Cut Studio

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:54:23 MDT

Wow, I go away for a couple of days and Apple has a brand new version of FCS waiting for me when I get back (although I do think the fact that it is simply called Final Cut Studio and not Final Cut Studio 3 will cause confusion).

Here are my first impressions:

Architecture

This is Leopard and Intel-only, which is a little surprising because there's only a couple of months until Snow Leopard comes out, and I think many of us thought a Snow Leopard-only release in September was likely. There is no word on whether or not it takes advantage of the new features of Snow Leopard such as Grand Central Dispatch or OpenCL, nor any indication that Final Cut Pro has been rewritten in Cocoa as has been so often speculated. I noticed a lot of the screenshots in Apple's examples were taken in Tiger, suggesting that perhaps the feature list was set long before Snow Leopard was announced.

Apple claims that Final Cut Studio will not work on a device with integrated graphics - such as a MacBook or Mac Mini. However, they also say that ProRes 422 Proxy is designed for editing on a MacBook or MacBook Pro, so it would appear that Final Cut Pro can at least be used on a machine with integrated graphics, if not some of the other apps in the suite.

It's also worth noting that the minor applications in the suite only received minor updates, as indicated by their version numbers. So it is likely that the problems with Compressor have not gone away.

Blu-ray

Blu-ray burning directly in Compressor - I certainly didn't expect this. And integrating it into Compressor is significant too. Although I never really thought about it before, the majority of the DVDs I make in DVDSP are rough cuts for client approval that don't need a fancy custom menu and I never make use of any of the advanced features like scripting. I would imagine many people are in the same boat and therefore burning a basic disc in Compressor is a much faster and more efficient way to work.

It is telling though, that DVD Studio Pro did not receive a significant update for the second time running. We have been using essentially the same version for the past three years (an eternity in the technology world), and it suggests that Apple may perhaps discontinue this product in the future.

More ProRes options

Don't underestimate the importance of this. ProRes 4444 (the extra 4 refers to the alpha channel) allows you to convert footage shot with a high-end 4:4:4 camera to ProRes without sacrificing color information. With previous versions of Final Cut Studio, you would have had to leave it uncompressed (using up significantly more disk space and bandwidth), use Animation (slow) or explore a third-party codec.

The mastering possibilities are interesting too. HDCAM SR has long been the industry choice for HD mastering but it is expensive. Using ProRes 4444, you could create an HD master of equivalent quality to HDCAM SR but on a significantly cheaper LTO tape (LTO drives cost less than 1/10th of the cost of an HDCAM SR deck). LTO is the standard for data backup / archiving in the IT world and offers a number of other benefits such as potentially faster-than-realtime writing and also being format, frame size and frame rate agnostic. Of course, the receiver would have to have an LTO deck and necessary equipment.

LiveType discontinued

LiveType has long been superseded by Motion so it was only a matter of time before it was canned. In Motion 4 you can now adjust individual letters in a text object, meaning the one advantage LiveType had over Motion has now disappeared and consequently, LiveType has been discontinued. It was inevitable really.

Avid-like features

There are some nice new features to emulate Avid functionality, such as the new floating timecode display, global transitions and the ability to automatically import clips just by plugging in a drive. This is the benefit of competition.

Faster, better quality

I am a big fan of anything that makes things faster and/or improves video or audio quality. Background rendering and exporting is a huge feature and arguably should have been in Final Cut Pro 6 because they'd already laid the foundations with background SmoothCam processing.

Soundtrack Pro has a significantly redesigned architecture which improves performance and will hopefully address some of the issues I have experienced, such as working for a while on a project and then suddenly not being able to save it. It also features improved audio cleanup tools.

Faster frame control processing in Compressor gets my vote too.

RED support

The RED post workflow has always had issues and Apple has clearly developed the new Color and Cinema Tools with RED in mind. The main stumbling block in the RED workflow seems to be conforming the R3Ds once the offline edit is complete, and some third-party solutions have been created in an attempt to address this.

Now you can maintain the relationship between your original RED camera footage and your editing proxies inside a Cinema Tools database (hopefully CT creates and links the proxies automatically). You edit the proxies, export to Color and grade the original R3Ds using the data from the database to conform. This greatly simplifies things, although some would argue that native REDCODE support in the FCP timeline would be even better - perhaps when RED Rocket comes out?

Color also now supports 4K - although Apple will still be behind if the 6K Scarlet comes out this year as predicted.

Media Management

One thing people haven't commented much on is the improved media management, which has been the bane of every Final Cut Pro user at one point or another. Spotlight in Mac OS X indexes the files on your hard disk in a database and Final Cut Pro 7 uses that data to quickly reconnect the files, as opposed to querying them directly.

What this means is that FCP can reconnect files faster (so projects will presumably load a lot quicker) and hopefully be more intelligent when a file changes.

Missed opportunities

No ScriptSync (Avid) / Speech-to-Text (Premiere) - There is no way of syncing dialogue up to a script or automatically converting it to text. This means that, unless you have an assistant to transcribe it for you, you have to search through a load of footage in order to find the line of dialogue or the soundbite you are looking for.

No XML project files - Please Apple, this would make it far, far easier to seamlessly integrate Final Cut Pro with other applications.

No word on Phenomenon - Contrary to speculation, the Shake replacement codenamed Phenomenon was not included in Final Cut Studio or bundled into Motion, which begs the question of whether it will ever arrive.

Final Thoughts

There's some good stuff here - Apple has (eventually) listened to a lot of our complaints about media management, exports typing up the application, etc. But how well these work in reality will remain to be seen. I won't get my copy until next week.

But maybe it's not called Final Cut Studio 3 because there's not really anything there to justify calling it that. Although Final Cut Studio 2 also had few major features, it did at least come with a brand new application that used to cost $20k (Color). I think the new price cut reflects Apple's recognition that selling the upgrade at $499 would perhaps not be value for money, meaning future updates may not necessarily be as cheap.

Interesting Links

Official Final Cut Studio page
Fully-indexed online Final Cut Pro manual
Final Cut Studio in Depth - 66 page document from Apple detailing all the changes
Apple ProRes white paper
Apple KB: Installing content when upgrading
MacWorld review by Mike Curtis
How to Install Final Cut Studio 3
Norman Hollyn's take
In-depth review by Jan Ozer
Mike Jones compares Final Cut Pro 7 to his wishlist
Installing Final Cut Pro 6 and 7 side-by-side
Changes in FCP 7.0 XML - for developers
Studio Daily summary
More links from xlr8yourmac.com

Could SD cards replace DVDs?

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:36:33 MDT

ComputerWorld has an interesting opinion piece entitled Is Apple trading SD cards for DVDs in MacBooks?. The author, Seth Weintraub, speculates that the inclusion of SD card slots in Apple's latest notebook line signifies a gradual shift away from optical media to solid state, similar to the way Apple killed off the floppy disk.

Whether true or not, it would make a lot of sense. Steve Jobs has made it clear that he is not a fan of the licensing system for Blu-ray discs, and switching to SD or SSD distribution would not only remove the need to use a proprietary, licensed format but also provide the opportunity for more powerful hardware DRM / encryption to protect content, such as that used by the military. Although DRM is unpopular with consumers, it is a necessary evil in order to get content providers to embrace a new format.

SD cards / SSD drives also have the benefit of being reusable (although distributors could choose to prevent writes at the file system or controller level) and being considerably smaller than optical discs, which is both convenient and good for the environment. As well as being smaller, they would be much faster at reading and writing than conventional discs.

The content creation process would be much simpler too. Burned DVDs are inferior to replicated DVDs, and so any mass distribution requires you to send your master off to a replication facility, which is an expensive process that can be very inflexible when it comes to quantities. SD cards / SSDs, on the other hand, can easily be cloned in-house for no cost and there would be no physical quality issues in doing so.

Computer manufacturers could use the space taken up by large DVD drives to increase the battery size of laptops, add more components (such as ExpressCard slots and eSATA ports, Apple), increase performance, reduce heat, or reduce the physical size of the computer. Television manufacturers could simply include an SD slot in the TV itself, removing the need for a separate player, saving both space and cost.

As to the format on such a disk, it would be silly to use H.264 as it requires royalty and licensing fees, and one of the positive reasons for switching to SD / SSD is to get rid of such licensing fees. As you may be aware, a battle for web video formats is currently ongoing and Ogg Theora, while weaker in a technical sense, could be a great open format for SD/ SSD-based distribution as bandwidth and storage space would be much less of an issue than on the internet.

SD distribution would also provide a means of increasing compatibility, as it would be possible to include NTSC, PAL, 16:9, 4:3 and HD versions on the same disk, which could be automatically selected based on the type of television being used (or the resolution of the computer display). If video formats should change in the future, it would be dead easy to include both the new and old formats on the same card to maintain full compatibility between old and new. Companies could even put 4K video on the card in anticipation of future technologies.

It would have the potential to really level the playing field for independent filmmakers. Right now the safest option for indies is digital distribution because it doesn't cost any money to put your film online. It just sits there, for free, until it is sold - in stark contrast to the DVD approach, where you pay a lot of money up front and hope and pray that you make it back. Most indies will not be able to get their discs into physical stores like Wal-mart, which makes getting through inventory much harder. The downside to a download-only approach is that by not going the DVD or Blu-ray route, you cut out a significant portion of the audience who have no desire for digital downloads.

It's very difficult for an independent filmmaker to create a Hollywood-quality DVD, as Hollywood has access to high quality hardware encoders and professional compressionists that are experts in squeezing out the maximum quality in the limited bandwidth available. With SD cards, bandwidth would be considerably higher and so it would take much less effort to produce a high quality image suitable for distribution. And if the video formats were open formats like Ogg Theora, there would be no license fees to pay for mass distribution.

Will this ever happen? Well, there are currently two barriers. The first is that the cost per GB of solid state media is very high. This is something that will decrease with time though.

The second, more pertinent, issue is the fact that many companies are heavily invested in DVD and Blu-ray technology including studios, post houses, distributors, replication houses, disc manufacturers, drive / player manufacturers, software developers, and let's not forget the consortium of companies that receive patent royalties. None of these will want to see their investments or, for some companies, their entire business model go out of the window.

Of course, this is all pure speculation. When the cost and size of SD cards becomes viable, there could be a brand new technology which renders this solution unnecessary. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, what Apple chooses to do, and if they have the ability to make an impact on this issue.

WWDC 2009 Summary

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:37:37 MDT

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.

NAB 09 Day 1

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:17:32 MDT

Yesterday was the first day of NAB. I'm not going to list every single announcement (for that you can go here), but I'm going to focus on what I feel were the biggest or most interesting announcements.

Avid completely redesigned their logo - I can see what they were trying to do but I'm not a big fan of it. Luckily they had some bombshell announcements to go with it. In a surprising move, Avid qualified Final Cut Pro to run on its Unity MediaNetwork and ISIS storage. This makes it considerably easier to use both FCP and Avid systems on the same project.

Avid also redesigned its support offerings and showcased RED support and stereoscopic 3D integration. Avid has always had the edge on FCP when it comes to media management but the recently-introduced AMA architecture takes that one step further. There is no need to Log and Transfer - just link to the P2 or XDCAM volume and all of the clips just pop up in the bin, complete with metadata. This is clearly a lot better than FCP's clunky implementation (hopefully something Apple will address in FCP 7) and Avid were keen to show it off.

Adobe announced it has partnered with several manufacturers to create TVs with Flash support. So you could theoretically watch a documentary on a subject and then view interactive content related to that subject.

But far more interesting was Adobe's post announcements. Adobe Story is a collaborative screenwriting application that is integrated with Adobe Premiere. There are very few details but it seems likely that it will build on Premiere's transcription function to introduce an Avid-like Script Sync feature.

This continues the recent trend of linking pre-production processes directly to post production software - something we will no doubt see more of in the future. Right now Apple appears to be considering storyboard integration.

Blackmagic Design announces UltraScope - 3Gb/s SDI and optical fibre scopes for $695. This is huge. Hardware scopes cost more than some cars, so a scope for $695 is a real game-changer. Lets hope it's good - Blackmagic's products normally are.

It is a PCI Express card that plugs into a Windows computer with a 24-inch monitor (alas no Mac support as yet) to display output on the screen. As one PVC commenter notes - the lack of Mac support is not necessarily a bad thing as you would probably not use the machine for any other purpose, thus a cheaper PC would be a better option.

This is a clever solution to an age-old problem and I wish I was at NAB to see it in action.

Blackmagic's HDLink looks to be a worthy opponent to the original Matrox MXO. This gives you HD monitoring via DVI or HDMI for only $495. Monitor 4:4:4 SDI video on a regular computer monitor.

In addition, Blackmagic have lowered the prices of several of their existing products.

Matrox CompressHD is a PCI Express hardware H.264 encoder. This allows you to encode H.264 faster than realtime using Matrox's MAX technology. Also announced is the MXO 2 Mini, which is a cut-down, smaller, cross platform version of the MXO 2. It lacks XLR and SDI ports, unlike its larger and more expensive brother but it works on PC, Mac, and all QuickTime-compatible editing applications. It costs $449 or $849 with the H.264-accelerating MAX option.

AJA has a very nice new website and have introduced the KI Pro. It connects to a camera and records to ProRes422 in the field, without the aid of a laptop. It is the only device to do this because AJA have an exclusive contract with Apple for ProRes support.

This means you can import footage into Final Cut Pro instantly without the need for transcoding. It also means that the post production team is dealing with the same video format each time, no matter what type of camera was used on set.

It can accept SD/HD SDI, HDMI and component inputs and can connect to your computer via FireWire 800 or Ethernet. It can also convert from one video standard to another in realtime. You can record to removable ExpressCards or an external hard disk. It can be remotely controlled through Wifi via a laptop or iPhone (nice!).

AJA also announced the Io Express which looks to be similar to the Matrox MXO 2. I haven't had time to do a feature-by-feature comparison yet though.

Finally, Panasonic is developing a 3D camera and JVC is developing a very pricey $200,000 4K camera.

That's what interested me... did I miss anything?

Look for the FCPUG SuperMeet on Day 2 (today) where a brand-new exclusive version of our very own Preference Manager will be given out on the SuperDVD.

Also, a lot of people think that Apple will release new details of Final Cut Studio 3 today. I don't think this will be the case - we'll have to wait and see I guess.

Best and worst of iPhone 3.0

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:34:53 MDT

Apple released details of iPhone OS 3.0 yesterday. It's got all kinds of great features - turn-by-turn GPS, copy and paste, MMS, tethering, to name a few. Here's my take on the best and worst features.

The Best

Stu Maschwitz from ProLost was particularly impressed with the new accessory APIs, which is probably the biggest new feature that no-one is talking about. Do not underestimate the importance of this - it is HUGE. This bridges the gap between software and hardware and takes the phone from a simple smartphone to a full-scale development platform.

No other phone developer is offering this. A lot of them are jumping on the app store bandwagon now but Apple just increased the gap even further. Apple is once again taking advantage of their control over hardware and software - I believe Apple's toughest rival is Google but it would be difficult for Google to replicate this with Android as they do not control the hardware.

Of course, hardware development is more complicated from a business perspective as you'd need to manufacture it, handle billing, arrange shipping and keep inventory (which is always a little risky, particularly in a recession). So this is purely aimed at companies and not bedroom developers. I don't know if Stu will get his wish for an iPhone scope (I hope so) but it will be very interesting to see what developers come up with. There are loads of on-set applications here ranging from remote operation/focus pulling to synchronized iPhone timecode slates to an app for editing camera/lens metadata. I could totally see the RED guys embracing this technology.

The Worst

The most worrying aspect is the new in-app payment system. I can picture only a few scenarios where this would be genuinely useful (such as an e-book reader or GPS app with its own maps) and I can see a lot of developers abusing this. It really will bring out the worst in developers.

The problem with the iPhone development platform is that it's far too easy for developers to charge money. If they were selling software on their own sites they would need to pay for marketing and sort out a system for billing. It's a lot more complicated and there are more up-front costs so they'd need to ensure they were selling something of value.

With the iPhone it is very easy for someone to create a poor application in five minutes and charge for it, and if some poor sucker buys it that's a win for the developer. If no-one buys it, then the developer hasn't lost anything either. It's win-win for them.

There are lots of applications on the app store for $0.99 that are completely valueless (for example the multitude of "flashlight" apps that display a white square on your screen). The devs are charging $0.99 because they can. It's too easy. And Apple's just made it even easier. I see this as a bad thing for the consumer.

Although I am certain this will be abused, I think the benefits of the accessory APIs will far outweight abuse of this feature. If developers need to keep inventory, they will have to ensure they have something worth selling. Sure, not every developer will choose to use in-app purchasing, and I'm sure many will offer excellent value for money. But when the new apps are accepted into the store, it will be important to read the small-print and be aware of exactly what you are getting for your money.

Having said that, I can't wait to see what developers come up with.

Guide to Final Cut Pro Internal Tools

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:48:09 MDT

Did you know Final Cut Pro has a hidden menu? Just hold down Cmd + Option + Shift and click the Tools menu. You should now see a new menu item called Internal Tools.

This is a debug menu used by the developers of FCP, but it actually has some uses for us mere mortals as well. It's especially useful for plugin developers and system troubleshooters, but some features benefit all users. Here is a rundown of what's in the menu.

Adjust Windows

When you open the Audio Mixer, Frame Viewer and several other tools in the Tools menu, they open in a tabbed window called the Toolbench. This normally appears on top of the Viewer and is hidden behind it when you select the Viewer again.

The Adjust Windows menu item adjusts the window layout so the Toolbench can fit in without being obscured by other windows. If you don't have the Toolbench open when you click this item, it will leave a gap in your window layout.

Before

After

To restore the default window configuration again, press Ctrl+U.

App / Perf Info

This generates a text file containing just about everything you could ever wish to know about your FCP configuration.

Probably the most useful part is the Project / Sequence Information section. This gives various statistics about your project including the total number of clips placed in your timeline and the proportion of those clips that were unique. It will even tell you how many edits you performed per minute (don't let your boss see this!).

Log OpenGL Profile Costs

This function displays timing information about OpenGL Profiling in the Console. It will do nothing until you start profiling (see the Statistics section below), at which point it tells you how long (in ms) it took your machine to process the given frame sizes and codecs.

One thing I noticed about this is that it takes a fair while for the data to be posted to the Console - around 1-2 minutes.

Log VM Footprint

This outputs the current memory usage to the Console.

Resident refers to data in physical memory, Virtual refers to data on the disk ready to be copied into main memory as required. Note that the system often assigns more virtual memory space than it needs, so not all of that space will actually be used. So if you see a ridiculous number like 4 GB, it is not necessarily a cause for alarm.

Movie Dumpster

This one crashes Final Cut Pro for me, so I wasn't able to ascertain exactly what it does. However, Apple offers a tool called Dumpster on their developer site which gives you a large amount of technical information about a specific movie clip. I would imagine this would be similar if it worked.

Playback Meter

This will show you how your media drives are performing, and is probably the most useful tool in the menu.

If you are not using a RAID, only the audio bars will work. Everything is fine while the bar is green, but if it turns yellow or red, this is an indication that your computer cannot keep up.

Screen Size Override

This allows you to fool Final Cut Pro into thinking that you have a different-sized monitor.

Just select the desired resolution from the pull down menus and press Ctrl + U to automatically resize the windows to the new dimensions.

If you mess things up, just restart Final Cut Pro and press Ctrl + U to restore the windows to the correct position for your screen resolution.

Statistics

This displays a lot of technical information about what's going on under the hood of FCP.

For instance, select the Render check box, drag the playhead across the timeline and then click the Average button. This will average the times taken to perform the various function calls required to render the image to the screen. If your system is getting sluggish, you may find it useful to use the Averages function to see which areas are taking a long time to process.

Most of the checkboxes are self-explanatory so I won't elaborate on them here. However, I would advise selecting them one at a time otherwise you'll end up with an overflow of information.

If you want to clear the text box, click Reset. Copy copies the entire data to the clipboard and Copy Avg copies only the averages. Unset All deselects all of the checkboxes.

Both Auto Profile and RT Verify go through each item in the Browser (video clips, sequences, images, etc), playing each one four times and averaging the data. Sequences take longer because the profiler initially tests with only the V1 track enabled, and then gradually enables V2 and V3 to perform compositing tests (if such tracks exist of course).

It's worth mentioning that since it goes through everything four times, it will take a while to finish processing, depending on the size of the project. You cannot switch to another application either or the profiling will fail. I would advise creating a brand new project with short media clips and sequences. If you truly have serious bottlenecking, this will still be apparent in the shorter sequence.

All the timing information is stored inside the Profile.csv log. Although you can view this in TextEdit, it will be difficult to read because it will not be formatted correctly. A spreadsheet application, such as MS Excel or the free NeoOffice or OpenOffice packages, is recommended.

If you are experiencing poor performance, look at the timings in this file to see where the major bottlenecks are. For instance, a slow FXScript filter could be indicative of a CPU bottleneck or an inefficient script. A slow Flop operation could be indicative of a GPU bottleneck.

Auto Profile and RT Verify appear, on the surface, to perform exactly the same task. However, it is likely that Auto Profiling actually updates your RT information whereas RT Verify merely performs the test without changing anything. This is difficult to verify without official documentation though.

Most of the functions in the Internal Tools menu will be too technical for a lot of users, and so the menu will likely remain something of a novelty. But if you are troubleshooting performance issues or developing applications and plugins for FCP, it is an invaluable source of information on the inner workings of Final Cut Pro.

The only downside is that the menu must be reactivated every time you start Final Cut Pro. If anyone knows of a way to enable it permanently through a preference file, I'd love to hear about it.

New Mac Pros, iMacs and Minis

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:25:17 MST

Apple has hit us with three hardware refreshes in the same day.

Mac Mini

2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo	2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory	2GB memory
120GB hard drive	320GB hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive	8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics	NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics
$599, shipping within 24 hours	$799, shipping within 24 hours

I'm really glad this little guy is still going strong. There were fears it would be discontinued but thankfully this has not proven to be the case.

Not the greatest specs in the world, but the GeForce 9400M is a welcome addition that should provide a decent performance boost to graphical apps.

Apple is claiming that it now uses 45% less power, making it even more viable for server-related tasks (my personal favorite use for Minis). It's worth noting that the case has not been redesigned to match the iMac, as was rumored.

iMac

20" display	24" display	24" display	24" display
2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo	2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo	2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo	3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB memory	4GB memory	4GB memory	4GB memory
320GB hard drive	640GB hard drive	640GB hard drive	1TB hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive	8x double-layer SuperDrive	8x double-layer SuperDrive	8x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics	NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics	NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 256MB memory	NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 with 512MB memory
$1,199.00, shipping within 24 hours	$1,499.00, shipping within 24 hours	$1,799.00	$2,199.00

Not much to say here - just a speed bump and NVIDIA graphics across the whole line. The 24" now starts at a lower pricepoint.

Mac Pro

Quad-Core	8-Core
One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" processor	Two 2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" processors
3GB (three 1GB) memory	6GB (six 1GB) memory
640GB hard drive	640GB hard drive
18x double-layer SuperDrive	18x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB	NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB
$2,499.00, ships within 4 days	$3,299.00, ships within 4 days

And here's a custom configured Mac Pro with pretty much everything you'd ever need:

Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

32GB memory (8x4GB)

Mac Pro RAID Card

4 x 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s

ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB graphics

Two 18x SuperDrives

2 x Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)

AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n

Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card

Xsan 2

Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (needed for 2x 30" displays

AppleCare protection plan for Mac Pro

$19,994.00, shipping in 6-8 weeks

Processor - You might think it's just a speed bump but the Nehalem series of CPUs has a completely redesigned architecture that removes a lot of traditional bottlenecks. This will significantly improve performance (particularly memory throughput) over previous Mac Pros.

The new architecture also allows two threads per core, meaning that 16 threads can be run simultaneously on the 8 core. I had wondered if Apple would market it as a 16 core machine but they chose not to, which is probably best as it could have been misleading.

Go for the 2.93 GHz processor if you can afford it.

Memory - Apple has been generous with the memory in the 8-core model. My usual advice would be to custom configure the machine with the minimum amount of memory possible and then buy it separately from cheaper sources. Note however that the custom configurator offers a minimum of 6 GB of memory, which will be enough for the majority of people.

Hard Drives - There are four bays, each offering a 640 GB or 1 TB SATA drive at 7200 RPM. I'd advise against ordering additional drives from Apple. Instead, shop around and you will get a much better deal. They are dead simple to install.

Apple has chosen not to offer solid-state disks as an option.

Graphics - Apple is offering two cards - the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB and the ATI Radeon HD 4860 512MB. The GeForce card is available in multiples up to 4. I would not advise purchasing multiple graphics cards in anticipation of Snow Leopard, as you'd be forking out a lot of money for something that has an unknown performance benefit. You don't know that it would improve performance enough to warrant the extra cost, and you don't even know if Final Cut Studio 3 will be able to use the extra cards. You can always buy extra cards later.

The Radeon is advised for Pro App use, however, as it has much better Core Image performance and a much greater range of working color depths. It is much faster than the GeForce and no comparable NVIDIA cards are yet offered as a BTO option for the Mac Pro. Both cards come with dual-link DVI and Mini DisplayPort connectors.

Note the absence of the NVIDIA Quadro FX.

Optical Drives - Not much to say really, except no Blu-ray.

Displays - The new graphics cards have support for the DisplayPort standard so the new 24" LED Display can now be used by Mac Pros, in addition to the traditional 30" Cinema Display. It looks like the 20" will not be replaced.

Note: you must have two GeForce cards in order to connect a second 24" display, or a Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter if you are connecting two 30" displays.

My advice would be to go for the 30" because it is not glossy (there unfortunately isn't a matte option for the 24") and if you want to connect more than one, your choice of graphics card is not restricted.

Other minor aspects - There is no FireWire 400 - it's FW 800 only, like the MacBook Pro. You can use FW 400 devices with a converter cable. Bluetooth is now built-in.

Conclusion

It's a product refresh - you can't expect a whole host of new features. I think the Mac Pro refresh was a decent one (and long overdue) although I would prefer more display options from Apple. The 24" should have a matte option for those that prefer it, but what I dislike the most is that you are tied to the much slower GeForce if you want to add two of these.

Additionally, no-one really knows the future of the 30". Is it wise to buy one now when there could be a possible refresh in the near future? Or is it actually better to buy one now in case Apple gives us an inferior refreshed product in the future (it has happened before)? Or should we just buy from an alternative manufacturer? That is the question.

I'm really glad they chose to release these machines while Leopard was still around. It means that when I come to buy one in the near future, I can downgrade to Leopard if problems occur with Snow Leopard. It's not best to be an early adopter of an OS if you use it for professional work, nor is it best to downgrade to an earlier OS that does not support your computer.

The price hike for the Mac Pros was less welcome but this is mainly due to the increased cost of the CPUs from Intel, so it was not unexpected. Whenever Apple gives us something, they take away something else - but I do think in this instance Apple has given more than they have taken.

Update: Apple also gave the 15" MacBook Pro a speed bump.

Why the RED delay is not a big deal

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:42:19 MST

Jim Jannard of RED announced today that the new Epic and Scarlet cameras will be delayed due to the current economic climate.

There has been a mixed Twitter reaction to this news. Here are five reasons why I don't think this is a big deal, and could even be considered a good thing:

1. Jim only expects a delay of "a month or two".

2. The RED One is beyond anything the competition currently has to offer. The RED One is not a bad camera, nor is it outdated (quite the opposite in fact). Does it need to be replaced quite so soon?

3. More RED Ones on the market mean lower rental prices and better availability (especially if demand is falling, as Jim says).

4. The RED One will be on the market for longer, meaning better NLE support and improved post workflows. Bigger production houses are looking for dependability with tried-and-tested workflows.

5. Components are constantly improving and prices are constantly falling (SSDs in particular). This delay may help RED deliver better and/or lower priced cameras.

Speculation on Mac Pro refresh

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:21:39 MST

It's been more than a year since the current Mac Pros came out. Although the software to fully take advantage of them is still not here, a year is a long time and technology has moved on. As a 2009 refresh is very likely, here's some speculation on what the new machines are likely to be like.

First of all, a release to coincide with Snow Leopard is very likely, as the Mac Pros are the best-equipped machines in Apple's lineup to show off the new OS. Snow Leopard will be released (assuming no iPhone-related delays this time) in either Q1 or Q2 2009, discounting any hardware that is due to be released after this date.

CPU

I'm almost certain this will be a Xeon 5500 series "Gainestown". That will be Intel's most powerful CPU line until Beckton towards the end of the year.

Although the clock speeds are identical to the Harpertown range inside current machines, they offer significant performance boosts elsewhere. The biggest of these is an on-die memory controller (i.e. built into the CPU instead of on the motherboard). This reduces bottlenecking significantly and is something AMD's chips have had for several years. It will provide a major performance boost.

Another new technology is QuickPath Interconnect, which replaces the legacy Front-Side Bus (FSB). The FSB connects all system devices and memory to the CPU through a single interface. This is now split up, with the new memory controller handling memory and QuickPath Interconnect dealing with the other system components. You may have noticed that the caches on these CPUs are smaller than their predecessors - this is because the greater efficiency in the new architecture means data spends less time in cache memory.

There have been several optimizations to multithreading, including hyperthreading which allows two threads per core (great for Snow Leopard). Although Gainestown is limited to four cores per CPU (8 in total in a Mac Pro), Apple may market it as a 16-core machine because of the 8 extra logical cores. True 16-core machines will not be available until the end of the year when the Beckton series is released.

Memory

You're probably familiar with dual channel memory which doubles memory bandwidth. That's why you have to install Mac Pro memory modules in pairs.

The new architecture has triple channel memory! Mac Pro motherboards are expected to have three rows of four memory sockets, totaling a maximum of 96 GB (12 x 8 GB). You would be required to install chips in groups of three.

Hard Disk Options

2 TB internal hard disks are now available so it seems likely that Apple will offer these in their machines. This will allow up to 8 TB in total.

What about solid-state disks? I doubt they will be offered for the Mac Pro just yet. They're too small for media storage (unless you can afford to RAID them) and although they are a decent size for boot disks I don't think they are suitable for that purpose just yet.

I always put Western Digital Raptors (10,000 RPM) as boot disks inside my machines because they reduce boot times, load applications faster, and everything is generally more responsive as memory can be paged to and from disk a lot faster. So the fast read speeds of SSDs are welcome from me, but there are two problems. Writing is slow. The OS writes a lot of data to disk and you will notice a slowdown when multitasking or using a lot of memory at once.

The second problem is that each memory cell inside the drive has a lifetime of around 100,000 writes. You can easily exceed that in the lifetime of your computer, particularly if it is switched on constantly. Modern chips try to get around this by writing evenly to all areas of the disk in order to balance it out, but the usefulness of this will depend on the total size of the disk.

SSD technology looks very promising and these are problems that will be overcome as time goes on, but they are not ready for this kind of usage just yet in my opinion.

Graphics cards

I don't know what the stock graphics card will be but the following cards may be offered as options:

Radeon 4870 - This is a high-end card capable of accelerating H.264 and MPEG-2 encoding and decoding. ATI's drivers are traditionally much better optimized for Core Image than NVIDIA's so Final Cut Studio performance is likely to be good. Crossfire technology is available on the PC version of the card - it remains to be seen if this is something Apple will embrace. Another version, the 4870 X2 with dual GPUs, will not be available for the Mac.

It comes with DisplayPort and HDMI connectors. Apple may request a Mini DisplayPort connector instead (or in addition).

GeForce GTX 285 - This is a single-GPU card that is SLI-capable (NVIDIA's equivalent to Crossfire), should Apple choose to utilize that technology. This card does not offer DisplayPort by default so this is something likely to be requested by Apple for the Mac version.

Let's hope NVIDIA improve their Mac drivers to offer better Core Image performance.

Quadro FX 5800 - This card supports DisplayPort technologies as well as the brand-new OpenGL 3.0 specification (which the other cards do not). It's very fast but also very expensive. It is not necessarily guaranteed to make a significant difference to Pro App usage because, while it has a lot of raw power, it does not have some of the optimizations that the other cards have (e.g. H.264 hardware acceleration), and I don't know how well-optimized for Core Image they are. In addition, raw power is worthless if it is bottlenecked by other components in your system.

With the launch of Snow Leopard, Apple will be trying to sell us multiple graphics cards in our machines. I would personally wait until I have read reviews before deciding on purchasing multiple cards for Pro App usage. Also, I would have to wait until Final Cut Studio 3 came out anyway because multiple cards with FCS 2 cause problems.

Things you shouldn't hold your breath for

* eSATA - Apple has completely ignored this particular technology in the past - this time around will most likely be no different.
* FireWire S3200 / USB 3.0 - It's early days and I'm not aware of any devices currently supporting the new standards.

Conclusion

It's pure speculation but if my predictions come true, there will be a hell of a lot of new tech in the Mac Pros. Which is great because they'll be leaving a lot of legacy technologies behind - but on the other hand, new things carry a certain degree of risk.

The first-gen Mac Pros needed a couple of firmware updates to fix minor issues, and I have my own rule that says I refuse to use an operating system for professional work until at least 10.x.4. This rule will be particularly crucial for Snow Leopard which now has a 64-bit kernel, meaning every system component will need new drivers. This is fine for the hardware that ships with your machine but what about third-party capture cards, graphics tablets etc? I don't think it's going to be a huge problem but it's worth thinking about in advance.

Either way, 2009 looks pretty good for video professionals.

What does 2009 hold for Final Cut Studio?

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:50:50 MST

Now, 2008 has been a year of frustration for us editors. We've seen few Final Cut Studio updates (and some of those have broken more things than they fixed), we've seen matte displays replaced with glossy ones, we've seen no Apple at NAB 2008 and we've seen very little in the way of Mac Pro updates.

Has Apple abandoned pro users? Are they more interested in making iPods? Yes and no. Yes, of course, they will want to put a lot of resources into something that contributes strongly to their bottom line. However, I don't believe they have abandoned pro users at all.

Everything changes with Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard is Apple's way of telling us it still cares. Look at the feature list - Grand Central, OpenCL, QuickTime X, even the 2.2 gamma change - is there anything there that will benefit the average Joe Bloggs user when he's checking his email? No, this is a lean operating system designed for performance. And it's also designed to sell Mac Pros of course, and make the 8-core Mac Pro you bought a year ago worthwhile. This is an operating system designed to put the Mac back on top of the list of pro must-haves. Apple has a massive head-start on Microsoft here.

And what better way to promote Snow Leopard and the Mac than with a highly-optimized version of its flagship pro suite, Final Cut Studio.

I don't think Apple is abandoning us at all. I think they are just diverting their pro app resources into something much better. Think how the number of patches and the number of fixes has dwindled lately. Updates are rare and they only fix major issues. It makes sense that Apple would only put resources into fixing major bugs if Final Cut Studio 2 was at the end of its life.

Another thing I find interesting is that Apple is putting Shake updates in Pro Applications Updates but it is not putting Logic or Aperture updates in there. This would suggest that there may have been a merging of the Shake and Final Cut Studio teams.

And let's look back at the original launch of Final Cut Studio 2. If you remove Color from the equation, there's really not much there. Worth upgrading, sure, but no big architectural changes like FCP 4.0 to 4.5 or 4.5 to 5.0. Could it have been a version designed to tide us over until the big changes came along? Only Apple knows the answer to that question.

So here are my predictions:

1. Final Cut Studio 3 launches in 2009 to coincide with the release of Snow Leopard. I don't know how backwards-compatible it will be, it could well be Snow Leopard-only (which also means Intel-only). It will be largely rewritten to take advantage of new Snow Leopard features and hardware acceleration.

2. LiveType will be killed off and its features will merge into Motion. Motion will inherit some of the features of Shake. This will better position it to compete with After Effects. It remains to be seen whether Apple will keep the node-based interface from Shake or spin it off as a separate application. I don't think Apple will completely merge the two together as they have different target markets and different complexity levels.

3. There will be greater interoperability between Final Cut Studio applications. Color will be redesigned to better fit into the studio. Interfaces will be improved so that there is greater coherence between applications.

4. Media management will be redesigned and there will be tighter integration with Final Cut Server.

5. The current NLE fashion is to have an automatic transcription tool. I would imagine Apple would implement this too, as it has great potential, even with the inevitable inaccuracies. Imagine this with Final Cut Server - you could easily search for that elusive line of dialogue within hundreds or even thousands of media files.

Ok, some of these are predictions, some of these are wishful thinking. But I believe Apple will at least optimize FCS3 for Snow Leopard technologies, because Snow Leopard is pointless if software isn't written to support it. At the end of the day, performance is what matters most.

Other features that may not come but I'd like to see anyway:

1. Why do we have to keep exporting to XML? Why not just make the FCP project file XML?

2. Add scripting abilities to the applications in the Studio and improve their expandability. Apple can't possibly think of everything - let third party developers fill in the gaps. It might also win over some larger companies who will be able to integrate it with their other applications and databases.

3. Blu-ray - Who even knows? It might interfere with Apple's iTunes business model but either way, BD support in Adobe Encore is proving that there is a demand for it and it is possible to provide it in an authoring application despite the draconian licensing issues.

Roll on 2009!

How to keep your job as an editor

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:32:53 MST

As an editor, there are certain technical things you can do that will, in most cases, result in instant dismissal by your employer. Here are some tips on how to avoid these pitfalls.

Black frames

We've all done it - you've got the timeline zoomed out, you drag a clip and think it snapped to the end of another clip but really it snapped to a marker or overlapping bit of audio right next to it. Consequently there'll be a gap and a flash of black when the clip is played back - which producers and audiences never fail to notice.

Before you output, put the playhead at the start of the timeline and press Shift-G. This will jump the playhead to the next gap in the timeline. If you encounter a gap, press Ctrl-G to close it. If no more gaps can be found, the playhead will jump to the end of the timeline.

Unsafe luma levels

Maximum white is higher on a computer than it is on a TV. Consequently, it is possible to set white levels beyond maximum levels for NTSC broadcast. If this happens, overmodulation can occur which means that the signal can leak to radio frequencies other than the ones assigned to the TV channel, resulting in the TV company getting into big trouble with the FCC. Not surprisingly, this trouble would come your way very quickly (that's a worst-case scenario by the way).

When I am color correcting, I always switch on the luma indication in Final Cut Pro (View > Range Check > Excess Luma). This will tell you with a warning triangle and red "zebra" lines which areas are above the recommended limit. You can then use a 3-way Color Corrector to bring down the highlights until the triangle changes into a green tick.

Then, just before my project is ready for output, I create a new sequence in Final Cut Pro and nest the old sequence inside it by dragging it from the Browser into my new timeline. I then go to Effects > Video Filters > Color Correction > Broadcast Safe to make the entire nested sequence broadcast safe.

Why do I perform this step when I already made it safe earlier? Because you can't be too careful. Maybe I thought I'd corrected each one but I'd actually missed one out by mistake. Maybe I added a last-minute clip that I forgot to correct. And if you're wondering why I nest it instead of just selecting all the clips and applying the filter to all of them, that's because I might be asked to make a last-minute change right before it goes out (in the world of broadcast TV anything is possible at the last minute). Nesting the sequence ensures that everything inside that sequence will be broadcast safe, no matter what I change later on.

It's also worth mentioning that the default settings for the Broadcast Safe filter work for the vast majority of cases. It's rare to have to modify them.

Peaking audio

Like luma levels, audio levels have a maximum limit as well. If they exceed 0 dBFS on Final Cut Pro's audio meters, they will produce an audible "crunch" noise that is very ugly to hear and will instantly distract any engaged viewers.

For broadcast work, it is recommended to have your dialogue around -12 dBFS (but not lower than -18 dBFS), with very loud sounds not exceeding -6 dBFS. Film post production tends to work with a higher dynamic range so the dialogue is normally around -18 dBFS.

The most important thing, however, is that your audio doesn't exceed 0 dBFS. To ensure this, after you've completed your mix, drag the sequence from the Browser to the Viewer, then go to Mark > Audio Peaks > Mark. This will put markers in your timeline at every point where the audio exceeds 0 dBFS. This is another of those situations where even though you've already mixed it, it's so quick and easy to check for peaks that there's no reason not to do it.

To remove the markers again, go to Mark > Audio Peaks > Clear or Mark > Markers > Delete All.

Incorrect field dominance

Here's one you probably won't spot unless you are using a broadcast monitor. This is why it's important to use a broadcast monitor or at worst, a regular TV, to view your work before output.

Interlaced video uses fields to display the image. There is a field for odd-numbered lines and a field for even-numbered lines, and they are displayed one after the other for every frame. But which one should be displayed first?

NTSC video uses the Lower (Even) field dominance, meaning it shows the even-numbered lines first. If you add a clip to your timeline that has Upper (Odd) field dominance, its fields will be reversed and the motion between those fields will be reversed, so moving objects will tend to judder as they move forwards and then backwards. PAL and HD video use the Upper (Odd) field dominance, with the exception of DV-PAL, which uses Lower (Even).

This is generally not a problem with footage acquired from an NTSC or PAL camera, as it will already have been shot with the correct field dominance. The problem usually occurs with motion graphics and visual effects sequences because they have been created in software that can create both types of footage and has to be manually told which dominance it should use.

If you have been given footage that has the wrong field dominance, first try to obtain correct footage from the person who originally supplied it. If this is not possible, go to Effects > Video Filters > Video > Shift Fields to swap the fields around.

In some cases, Final Cut Pro can get confused and think that a file with the correct dominance is incorrect, so it automatically adds a Shift Fields filter when you import it. If you suspect that the file is actually correct, first check the clip for automatically-assigned filters and remove them.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that when you drag the first clip to a new sequence, Final Cut Pro 6 will ask you to change the sequence settings to match the clip if they differ. A lot of people click Yes without thinking, but taking a moment to check whether the clip in question does actually have the correct settings will save a lot of head-scratching later on.

I hope this article has given you ideas on how to avoid these problems because in a lot of cases, mistakes aren't made through ignorance but instead lack of time, lapses in concentration, tiredness, etc. That's why most of the steps in this article are very quick and easy ways of double-checking after you've already implemented corrections. These are important aspects to keep under control so it helps to have a range of defensive measures in place. When your job could potentially be on the line, you can't double-check often enough.

Why release a 28K camera?

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 02:56:09 MST

As you surely must know by now, RED yesterday announced a revamped product line which included a camera capable of shooting at up to 28K.

Once the excitement of such a large number had worn away, I started to wonder what their strategy was. In a world where the biggest display available (IMAX) maxes out at around 9-10K, what is the purpose of releasing a camera that shoots nearly three times this resolution?

The answer can be found by looking back at the RED One. Now here was a camera that bucked the trend in all areas, but particularly the area of workflow. The unique workflow resembled photography more than film, and a lot of its features were designed so that you could be very flexible and change things in post that would normally be baked into the footage of a regular camera.

It seems that RED is putting large sensors in its video cameras for the same reason that SLR camera manufacturers are putting ever-larger sensors in their cameras. For a start, it's good for marketing, but more importantly, it offers you increased flexibility. For a long time, still photographers have been taking large photographs and cropping them down to frame the areas they want in the image, without having to make that decision on location.

So with RED's 28K camera, you could just sit the camera on a tripod shooting a static wide of the whole scene, add close-ups, zooms and pans in post, and then still be able to release for IMAX. Directors would not be tied to any of the decisions they made on set.

Now, to my mind, this would appear to take away some of the skill of filmmaking - following the general trend in which directors are increasingly directing their films in post, rather than on set. But then again, films are not judged on how they are made. If Francis Ford Coppola had made The Godfather the movie it is by sheer accident and luck, that would not change the fact that it is a masterpiece. Still photographers have been doing this for a while and they are not considered any less-skilled because of it. And although such a trend is uncomfortable for the purists like myself - if it results in better movies, this would be a good thing for the industry as a whole.

Upcoming Snow Leopard features you should know about

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 03:20:07 MDT

Snow Leopard is the name of the next version of Mac OS X, due next year. The idea behind Snow Leopard isn't to add a lot of features but instead to overhaul and optimize the OS for maximum performance. Developers are already receiving pre-release versions - here are some of the biggest features:

* No PowerPC support - This operating system will be Intel-only I'm afraid.

* Full 64-bit support - This was somewhat rudimentary in previous versions and consequently developers didn't really take advantage of it.

* New default display gamma - This one is very important for editors. With previous versions of Mac OS X, the default gamma was 1.8 which was great for print work. The default display gamma in Snow Leopard is now 2.2, which brings it closer to most TVs and Windows computers.

* Cocoa rewrites for all applications - "Almost all" of the visible applications (including Finder) have been rewritten in Cocoa. Cocoa and Carbon are two different application programming interfaces (APIs). Basically, Apple has decided that it wants to transition developers away from Carbon (which is more convenient if you are also developing for Windows) and towards Cocoa instead. Consequently, Cocoa tends to get all of the new features (such as 64-bit support) while Carbon gets left behind.

Ars Technica speculates that Carbon applications in Snow Leopard could be "wrapped" in Cocoa. I imagine this would affect performance and it should be noted that Final Cut Pro is currently written in Carbon. A Cocoa rewrite of FCP is inevitable (and much appreciated) but of course, no-one knows when that will occur.

* And then of course, all the features mentioned in the original press release - Grand Central for more efficient multi-core processing, OpenCL for using the GPU as another processor (must be why the new MacBook Pros have two GPUs) and QuickTime X which offers "optimized support for modern codecs and more efficient media playback" which would imply some kind of acceleration.

So all in all, this looks to be a promising update for people in the film and TV industries.

Is this the death of FireWire?

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:03:49 MDT

One of the biggest things making the rounds this week is the fact that Apple's new MacBooks have had their FireWire 400 port removed. Now why would Apple do this when they were the company that popularized it in the first place?

Someone posted an email purportedly from Steve Jobs onto Flickr in which Steve states that most modern consumer camcorders nowadays operate over USB 2. That may well be the case but as we all know, FireWire is the superior standard and it seems silly in my eyes to phase it out in favor of an inferior format. It seems like a case of Betamax vs VHS in which the most convenient format and not the best format actually won, with the best format relegated solely to the professional market. It's a great shame in my eyes.

Advertising may also play a part too - USB 2 is advertised as operating at 480 Mbps vs FireWire's 400 Mbps which looks good on paper but as we all know, FireWire is capable of sustaining 400 Mbps whereas 480 Mbps is just a theoretical limit for USB 2.

FireWire still hasn't achieved mass adoption among PC users. Apple is its primary proponent so if Apple lets it go, it will most likely die (as a consumer format at least). It's good to see it remain on the professional side - where I think it will stay for some time - but it's a little more inconvenient to now need an adapter to use FireWire 400 equipment. This is inconvenient because there seems to be considerably more 400 equipment out there than 800.

The most troubling thing for me isn't the demise of FireWire, it's the lack of a suitable replacement from Apple. eSATA would be great for hard drives but Apple seems to be shunning it for reasons unknown.

Final Cut Pro Audio Filter Guide Part 2

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 10:12:09 MDT

This is the second part of the Final Cut Pro Audio Filter Guide. Part 1 covered the Audio Units that ship with Mac OS X and is available here. This part will cover the audio filters that ship as part of Final Cut Pro.

This guide is intended to inform Final Cut Pro users of the options available to them for fixing bad sound. It is worth mentioning at this point that this guide is intended for users of Final Cut Pro 6.

Now, one thing you may have noticed is that there are often duplicate filters such as AUBandpass (an Audio Unit) and the built-in Band Pass Filter. So which should you use? Well, for a start, bear in mind that some of those filters have the same function but different parameters. I would generally advise you to pick the built-in filters over the Audio Units whenever possible, as they tend to use up fewer system resources.

3 Band Equalizer

This allows you to take three separate bands (low, med and high) and adjust the gain up and down individually. I personally prefer AUFilter (in the Apple folder) because it gives you a bit more control and allows you to adjust 5 bands.

This is useful when you need to boost the bass of a voice or improve a flat-sounding voice.

Band Pass Filter

This will allow a range of frequencies on either side of the center frequency to pass through and reduce (attenuate) frequencies outside this range.

This is identical to the AUBandpass filter (in the Apple folder) except that instead of the bandwidth parameter, it has a mysterious one called Q. Q stands for Quality Factor and is a different way of representing the bandwidth. There are numerous articles about it on the internet that get quite technical but all you need to know is that it's the relationship between the center frequency and the bandwidth (f/b) so Q is inversely proportional to the bandwidth (i.e. when the bandwidth goes up, Q goes down by a proportional amount). It is worth noting that Q is not the bandwidth itself but it is related to it. If you want to find out the bandwidth, just divide the center frequency by Q.

If you don't understand the above explanation just play it by ear or use the AUBandpass filter.

Compressor/Limiter

The Compressor / Limiter reduces the volume of sounds above the threshold amplitude. This is a useful way of minimizing the difference between two subjects talking at different volumes or making sure that the audio fits within the limits of the playback device.

Obviously this reduces the volume of the overall audio so Preserve Volume rectifies this (although I find it is often then too loud). Attack time refers to the time it takes for the filter to decrease the volume once it has detected a frequency with an amplitude above its threshold. Release time refers to the time taken for the filter to increase the volume again once the high amplitude frequency has finished playing. Higher values allow for a smoother and less noticeable response but set them too high and the compressor won't respond quickly enough. This is something inherited from live audio mixing where you don't know what's coming next. Setting the threshold to just under your preferred limit allows time for the compressor to lower the volume in anticipation for a louder sound once the threshold is reached.

Ratio tells the compressor by how much it should reduce the volume when a sound exceeds the threshold. If the ratio is set to 2 (2:1), then a 10 dB increase in volume above the threshold will be halved to a 5 dB increase. It is worth noting that the compressor lowers the volume of sounds above the threshold but does not necessarily reduce them to a value at or below the threshold. Be aware that very loud sounds could still theoretically peak.

Finally, it is also worth mentioning that the compressor reduces the volume difference between the subject and any background noise, so background noise will be more noticeable upon boosting the audio after applying the compressor.

DC Notch

Sometimes you may experience a DC current leakage through the mic, causing noise in the recorded audio. A DC Notch filter will remove the DC offset component which you probably need a degree in audio engineering to fully understand. It has no parameters.

This is one of the lesser-used filters FCP provides.

Echo

This one obviously adds an echo. Effect Mix allows you to mix the echoing audio with the original in order to better blend it in. Effect Level controls the volume level of the echoes (but not the original audio). Brightness controls the degree that the echoes will overlap. Feedback controls how long each echo will last and delay controls the spacing between each repeat.

It is worth noting that the echoes will be abruptly cut off unless you lengthen the audio clip or fade it out.

Expander / Noise Gate

The opposite of a compressor. A compressor takes high amplitude sounds and lowers them whereas an expander takes low amplitude sounds (sounds below the threshold) and lowers them. I know it probably seems strange to lower sounds that are already quieter than the rest of the audio but this is designed to increase the dynamic range of the clip.

Threshold is the amplitude below which the expander will kick in. Ratio controls the proportion of expansion - for example with a ratio of 2 (2:1), a 3 dB fall below the threshold will be adjusted to a 6 dB fall. Attack time is the time for the volume change to be applied once it falls below the threshold. Release time is the time for the volume to return to normal once the signal goes above the threshold again.

A noise gate is a more extreme expander that will completely eliminate frequencies below the amplitude threshold. This can be achieved with high ratios (e.g. 10).

Gain

This is a simple filter that raises or lowers the volume of the audio. It is added automatically to clips when you use the Modify > Audio > Apply Normalization Gain command.

High Pass Filter

This will attenuate (reduce) low frequencies below the threshold. This is the same as a Low Shelf Filter. Use the Q slider to modify the bandwidth (width of the frequency range).

Useful for cutting out low frequency noise such as the rumbling of traffic or very low notes in a deep voice.

High Shelf Filter

This will attenuate (reduce) high frequencies above the threshold. This is the same as a Low Pass Filter. Gain allows you to adjust the volume of audio that passes through the filter.

Useful for filtering out high frequency noise such as buzzing on the soundtrack.

Hum Remover

This is similar to the Shelf / Pass filters but it has several extra parameters. Frequency, Q and Gain have been explained many times above. In order to explain what the harmonic check boxes mean, we need to delve into a little audio theory.

The fundamental frequency is the lowest frequency in a harmonic series (the Frequency value in this case). Harmonics are integer multiples of the fundamental frequency - e.g. if f=60, 2f=120, 3f=180, etc. These play at the same time as the fundamental frequency and contribute to the tone of a sound. The Hum Remover is more powerful than a Shelf / Pass filter because it allows you to remove these specific frequencies without removing any frequencies in between these. For example, if f=60 and you wanted all harmonics up to 5f removed, a Low Shelf or High Pass filter would remove ALL frequencies up to 300 Hz, potentially affecting the quality of your sound. The Hum Remover would not do this.

Despite being called Hum Remover, the use of harmonics makes it useful for other purposes such as enhancing or reducing a musical instrument on a soundtrack.

Low Pass Filter

The Low Pass Filter has the same effect as the High Shelf Filter - it will attenuate (reduce) frequencies higher than the specified frequency range, keeping lower ones intact.

Frequency refers to the center frequency and Q is a way of representing the bandwidth (the width of the frequency range).

Useful for reducing high frequency noise such as buzzing.

Low Shelf Filter

The Low Shelf Filter has the same effect as the High Pass Filter - it will attenuate (reduce) frequencies lower than the specified frequency range, keeping higher ones intact.

Useful for reducing low frequency noise such as air conditioner hums.

Notch Filter

The opposite of a Band Pass filter. Instead of only allowing frequencies within a certain range, this cuts out frequencies within a certain range.

Frequency refers to the center frequency and Q is a way of representing the bandwidth (the width of the frequency range).

Useful if you have noise of a constant frequency on your soundtrack (such as a buzzing sound).

Parametric Equalizer

This is a combination of Band Pass, Notch and Shelf filters combined into in a single filter. Frequency is the center frequency, Q is related to the bandwidth (see the explanation above) and gain allows you to boost or cut the frequencies passing through the filter.

Reverberation

This is similar to the Echo filter but considerably more sophisticated. Rather than simply repeating sounds with a delay, it allows you to mimic the characteristics of echoes within various locations. This is incredibly useful when performing ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) because it is highly likely that the sound booth you record the ADR in will sound nothing like the original location. This allows you to mimic the effect of sound waves bouncing off walls, with some canceling each other out and some increasing in intensity. It can also be used sparingly to improve a flat-sounding voice.

Subtlety is often the key with this filter and Effect Mix allows you to mix the reverb with the original sound to help blend it in. Effect Level controls the intensity, Brightness controls the degree that the echoes overlap and Type allows you to specify various preset locations.

It is worth mentioning that the reverberation will end abruptly unless you extend your audio clip or fade it out at the end.

Vocal DeEsser

This helps to reduce the intensity of "s" sounds, most noticeable if the actor has a lisp. The controls are similar to a compressor but it is optimized for reducing sibilant ("s") sounds. Ratio controls the amount of reduction - e.g. if the "s" sound is 6 dB and the ratio is 2, it will be reduced to 2 dB.

Emphasis controls the sensitivity of the filter and Broad Band Mode widens the bandwidth so that more frequencies around the center frequency are affected.

Vocal DePopper

Sometimes if a microphone is directly in front of an actor's mouth they will accidentally breathe into it while speaking, causing a wind-type noise to be generated. This filter aims to minimize these.

The parameters are similar to a compressor - ratio controls the ratio of reduction proportional to the intensity of the sound. Broad Band Mode widens the bandwidth so that more frequencies around the center frequency are affected.

One Final Note

These filters do a decent job of repairing troublesome audio but they are not miracle cures. Sometimes (and this is never popular with producers) it just isn't cheaper to fix it in post. Even big Hollywood movies with access to multi-million dollar sound studios re-record a lot of their audio. It is important to always think realistically.

However, I hope this two-part guide has been useful in showing you just what can be improved. I noticed a significant improvement in the sound quality of my projects once I understood more about the audio filters available to me, and I hope you'll be able to say the same.

Browser corruption bug still not fixed

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:36:49 MDT

I can't believe Apple still hasn't fixed this. This bug has been in Final Cut Pro for as long as I can remember (since at least version 5) and is so simple to replicate that you'd think they'd have fixed it by now. I've been experiencing it for a long time but for some reason it really annoyed me today.

1. In the Browser, modify the height of the window so that the bottom element in the list is at the very bottom of the window but not so much that the scroll bar appears.

2. Use your mouse's scroll wheel to scroll downwards.

It's really annoying when it happens accidentally, especially if a client is looking over your shoulder. I fix it by making the window a bit smaller to force the scroll bar to appear.

This is by no means the worst bug of Final Cut Pro but it really shouldn't have been here for so long. It's ridiculously simple to fix because it's so easily replicable.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Intel-only

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:12:24 MDT

MacNN has listed the minimum specifications of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X, due to be released in "about a year". The biggest change is that it is Intel-only - PowerPC users are left out in the cold.

Or to be precise, the Developer Preview is Intel-only but I think this will extend to the final release as well. Why? Because Snow Leopard is about speed and optimization of the operating system and what better way to optimize the OS than to remove code for systems that haven't shipped in 3 years (by the time it is released next year)? There are very few applications out now that aren't Universal Binary or Intel-optimized, and three years is pretty generous I must admit.

However, before you throw out your old PowerBook or PowerMac, remember that Snow Leopard has very little in the way of features and is purely an optimization release. As you're not running cutting-edge hardware anyway, the extra performance probably doesn't make much difference to you. But I'm sure the frantic selling will begin regardless.

More WWDC 2008 Day 1 news

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:40:51 MDT

Since my previous post some more things have cropped up:

3G iPhone
* Not 3G but is actually 3.5G
* Thinner at the edges but actually thicker in the middle than its predecessor by 0.7mm and slightly taller (people are making way too big a deal about this)

AT&T
* Apple no longer gets a cut of the subscription fee from AT&T
* No more prescribed service plans - mix and match data and voice
* Starting price: $30 a month for unlimited 3G data plus $39.99 a month for voice. Text messages are no longer included so add $5. This means the price increases from $59.99 a month to $74.99 a month. And that is the base plan.

As someone who was put off more by the monthly price than the initial cost of the phone, this doesn't make me happy. And this is entirely an AT&T thing because Apple no longer receive money from them.

However, if you want to use your phone as an iPod Touch with internet access even when you're not near a WiFi point, this is a good thing. Or if you only use voice, for example.

* In-store activation only, no more activating via iTunes
* GoPhone service no longer available

[via TUAW]

So Apple adds features, AT&T takes features away. Great.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard announced

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:12:10 MDT

Apple just released a few preliminary details about Mac OS X Snow Leopard (I think they're running out of cat names...). The interesting thing to note is that NOWHERE does it say that this is OS X 10.6. It could be a major point update for 10.5. I think it probably is 10.6 but it's worth bearing that in mind though.

Apple has stated that the focus will not primarily be new features but improving the quality of the OS. I think a lot of people will be disappointed by the lack of features but this is great for people who demand high performance (a lot of people reading this blog I'd imagine).

Here are the improvements:
* Multi-core optimizations with a new technology called Grand Central. This makes it much easier for developers to create multi-core optimized applications (FCP dev team, I'm looking at you...)
* OpenCL support - Enables developers to use the processing power of the GPU to perform tasks. It will be interesting to see how developers take advantage of this but it could use your graphics card as an extra processing core when rendering and encoding for example.
* Theoretical support for 16 TB of RAM. But how much can each application address?
* QuickTime X - "optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback". That's a little vague so I'm wondering if there is some kind of GPU acceleration involved. And the "modern audio and video formats" bit makes me wonder if Windows formats such as WMV are supported out of the box, without requiring something like Flip4Mac.
* Support for Exchange 2007
* Safari speed improvements
* Takes up less space on disk
* Released in "about a year"

There have been rumors that 10.6 will be Intel-only but this report neither confirms nor denies this.

Also, there is no word on price. Consumers might be hard to win over if there are no new features so Apple may adopt lower pricing. I have heard some people say that performance and stability should be in Leopard anyway so the update should be free (which I disagree with). I personally would pay full price for an update that "unlocked" my graphics card for use as an extra core though. To me, that is worth paying for. And it'd probably result in a bigger performance boost than buying $130-worth of hardware.

Rough cuts

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:41:42 MDT

Shane Ross has a great post about "rough" rough cuts and how frustrating it is when producers cannot see past a lack of audio or sound effects, or a dodgy transition. What is worse is when the producer gets it into his or her head that you are trying to pass that off as the end product, despite your protestations to the contrary. That has happened to me and is a nasty situation for all involved.

I think the key is to make the producer comfortable with you. Normally these kind of problems go away on the second or third project as the producer realizes that you can do the job and are not a cowboy, and they get familiar with the way that you work. I also find that a comfortable producer will give you a lot more creative freedom (I prefer to see scripts as a guide rather than a rulebook for example) and in return you will take advantage of that freedom to return a better product, so it is mutually beneficial.

Analysis Category: Digital Rebellion Blog

Thoughts on Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3

18 features Adobe should borrow from Final Cut Pro 7

1. Cutting on the fly

2. Sixteen angles in a multiclip

3. Audio mixer affecting clip levels

4. Multi-colored markers and marker lists

5. Choosing attributes to paste

6. Close Gap command

7. Multiple open projects

8. Partial renders

9. Pitch correction when using JKL keys

10. No way to scroll tracks vertically with the scroll wheel

11. No through edits

12. No ability to search for clips to reconnect

13. Tracks have to be selected when cutting clips onto the timeline

14. No timecode overlay

15. No temporary snapping toggle

16. No function to mark audio peaks

17. No dupe detection

18. Fewer options for clip markers than sequence markers

5 great Lion features for editors

AirDrop

Lion Server and Xsan

AV Foundation

Merging folders

Versions

Final Cut Pro X from a Developer Perspective

Final Cut Pro X Bug List

1. Projects not saving

2. Clips going offline

3. Undo disabled

4. Projects disappearing

5. Crashing when importing from iMovie

6. Crashing when typing accented characters

7. Various issues with DV-based media

8. Systems with two graphics card exporting QT movies with green artifacts

9. Templates, generators and titles appearing blue

10. Video in the preview monitor is missing the green channel

11. Drives don't appear in the list

Final Cut Pro X - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Good

Bad

Ugly

Final Cut Pro X Frequently Asked Questions

My thoughts on Final Cut Pro X

Top 5 developer requests for the next Final Cut Pro

1. Store settings in preference lists (plists)

2. Make the FCP project file format more open

3. Add a playback and timecode API

4. Programmatically initiating exports

5. Adding interface items

Why Thunderbolt is a game-changer

My thoughts on the new Final Cut Studio

Architecture

Blu-ray

More ProRes options

LiveType discontinued

Avid-like features

Faster, better quality

RED support

Media Management

Missed opportunities

Final Thoughts

Interesting Links

Could SD cards replace DVDs?

WWDC 2009 Summary

15" MacBook Pro

13" MacBook Pro

MacBook Air

Snow Leopard

Safari 4

iPhone 3GS

Final Cut Studio 3

NAB 09 Day 1

Best and worst of iPhone 3.0

The Best

The Worst

Guide to Final Cut Pro Internal Tools

Adjust Windows