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THURSDAY UPDATE - SEE BOTTOM FOR COOL NEW FEATURES

My Apple contacts dropped me a note to let me know Final Cut Studio 2.0.1 was out:

About Pro Application Update 2007-01

Pro Application Update 2007-01 updates the following components

Apple ProRes 422:
Delivers improved encoding performance for Power Mac G5 computers.

ProAppsEffects:
Delivers filter improvements for Motion 3.0 and Final Cut Pro 6.0 customers.

PluginManager, FxPlug, ProFX, and FxPlugWrapper:
These shared components deliver updates to Effects Support, 3D Support, and Versioning Support.

Helium.framework:
Delivers improvements for SmoothCam. This update is required for customers using Motion 3.0 and Final Cut Pro 6.0.
Requirements for this update:

Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later
QuickTime 7.1.6 or later

Apple - Support - Downloads - Final Cut Pro 6.0.1 : "Final Cut Pro 6.0.1 contains several updates, including:
- Improved stability
- Support for the AVCHD format through the Log and Transfer interface
- FXPlug improvements with Motion and third-party applications
- Improved master template support
- Resolution of issues with long filenames (greater than 32 characters, up to 255 characters) on non-HFS file systems (network or Xsan volumes, FAT32 volumes, and so on)

This software update is recommended for all users of Final Cut Pro 6.0."

Final�Cut�Pro 6 Release�Notes

Apple - Support - Downloads - Color 1.0.1 : "Color 1.0.1 contains several updates, providing the following fixes:
- Improved stability
- Improved metadata support from Final Cut Pro
- Improved single-display mode
- Floating-point processing on computers with NVIDIA graphics cards
- Dissolves of 2K files during rendering

This software update is recommended for all users of Color 1.0."

Color Release�Notes

Apple - Support - Downloads - Motion 3.0.1 : "Motion 3.0.1 improves stability and resolves performance issues that may be encountered when using Motion 3.0 on both PowerPC-based and Intel-based Macintosh computers. This software update is recommended for all users of Motion 3.0.

This update Includes specific fixes for:
- 32-bit float projects
- Rendering of intersecting 3D groups
- Final Cut Pro integration"

Motion 3 Release�Notes

Apple - Support - Downloads - Soundtrack Pro 2.0.1 : "Soundtrack Pro 2.0.1 contains several updates, including:
- Improved stability
- Improved performance
- Delay Designer surround effect plug-in

This software is recommended for all users of Soundtrack Pro 2.0."

Soundtrack�Pro�2 Release�Notes

Apple - Support - Downloads - Compressor 3.0.1 : "Compressor 3.0.1 contains several updates, including:
- Improved performance
- Improved stability
- Provides compatibility updates for Apple Devices

This update is recommended for all Compressor 3.0 users."

Compressor�3 Release�Notes



Mike's Comments:

the good stuff is:

FCP 6

-AVCHD support - as expected, ONLY transcoding to ProRes or AIC is supported - this dodges the whole huge processor load and having to handle another long GOP format. Actually, AIC is an unexpected option - ProRes is what they discussed at NAB.

-FCP doesn't calculate transcoded sizes, so you need to pay careful attention to disk full situations when ingesting. Once again, VideoSpace (see blog from a few days ago) will help.

-AVCHD files are tiny. AIC and ProRes are NOT. From the release notes:

AVCHD has a much higher compression ratio than the Apple ProRes 422 codec, so the ingested files are significantly larger than the original files. For example, a 2-minute native AVCHD file is about 200 MB. After transcoding to the Apple ProRes 422 codec, the file size can be as large as 2 GB.


-can't set in and out points for AVCHD in Log & Transfer - bummer. Gotta pull in the whole clip at once. Maybe will be fixed in future, maybe not. So long takes - ESPECIALLY pay attention to estimated converted size. FCP really should give you some guidelines on this - while AIC and ProRes are variable (non-fixed) bitrate, a guess would help.

Motion 3.0.1

buncha little fixes, over a dozen bug fixes, some nice tweaks and changes to in depth stuff - read the release notes (link above)

Color 1.0.1

-drop frame now supported in sequences and media timecode - hooray!
-Color Corrector 3-way now converted to Primary In filters - NICE! Obvious and needed to happen. But due to Y'CbCr vs RGB issues, the conversions are approximate and not exact. But a good place to start. But only one CC 3way filter per clip - stacked 3way filters (wait, that sounds dirty) won't carry over.
-Cineon/DPX sequence EDLs support transitions now (biggie for film crowd), but linear dissolves only
-256MB or greater NVidia cards can now do floating point processing, they couldn't before
-ceiling and floor IRE now purportedly works right - I had trouble with this in Final Touch a year ago
-Pan & Scan settings now flow to FCP correctly
-960x720 render artifacts fixed
-read the known issues, there's still lots of things to be careful of. You absolutely cannot assume that any FCP project that you make will flop into and out of Color just dandy - there's still lots of things that can go wrong!

Compressor 3.0.1
-256 kbps for iTunes plus audio stuff
-custom pixel output ratios
-auto-center cropping (nice!)
-podcast fixes
-iPhone format support
BTW - I just realized I can blog from my iPhone. Oh My God.

Pro App Update

-encoding improvements for G5's for ProRes - should improve performance

Thursday Update

I happened to be working on some workflow issues for a client (they wanted to efficiently color correct hundreds of individual HDV shots and deliver to 8 different deliverable files from HDV down to 160x120 quicktime files...for an interesting usage scenario), and I sent them a bunch of customized Compressor settings to use for their specific needs. Final Cut Pro doesn't quite want to work in individual file batch mode, you have to alternately cajole it and beat it with a stick to get it to do it.

But in doing so, I learned a bunch of cool new stuff. I had sent them some presets that cropped 16:9 source down to 4:3 center cut - but it wasn't doing it for them. A little R&D later I figured out that was one of the new features in Compressor 3.0.1 - the ability to intelligently crop down to a given aspect ratio, THEN scale those results down. A very common need in this world of 16:9 source and 4:3 deliverables - awesome!

So DEFINITELY run Software Update for Compressor 3.0.1. And be clear and careful about usign it on 3.0 version of Compressor, because 3.0.1 has features 3.0 doesn't - so update ALL your machines. On the 3.0 system, the intelligent cropping got ignored, so their 16:9 source got squarshed into 4:3, rather than center cut and scaled down.

-mike

FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE - a sharp eyed reader noticed that AVCHD support apparently is only for Intel Macs - can anybody else verify? Read the comments for more on this.

Labels: Apple, Final Cut, Final Cut Studio 2, NLE