HD For Indies

AppleTV Take 2: New Software, Same Hardware is my third piece up on the new Pro Video Coalition site, which I'm a part of (more details in a forthcoming announcement).

It is (IMH unbiased O) more than the title suggests, outlining what the hardware capabilities of the AppleTV are, how they compare to other high definition options in broad strokes, and what it may mean for the industry.

The most important thing to realize about AppleTV Take 2 is that it is the EXACT same hardware (with a bigger hard drive option, which we've had for months) as before, but with new features enabled via software, such as direct movie rental and purchase, etc. While the video quality is better on many other options (HD PPV, Xbox 360 downloads, Blu-ray and HD DVD), the simplicity MIGHT make a compelling case for the set top box - will it be like music and MP3s and iPods, that we want simplicity and choice over quality? We'll have to wait and see.

Be sure to check out all the other articles up on Pro Video Coalition as well.

-mike

Labels: Apple, AppleTV

You can pre-order a Time Capsule (either 500GB or 1TB) from the HD for Indies Amazon Store:
Apple Time Capsule, 500GB version - $299.99
Apple Time Capsule, 1TB version - $499.99

HD for Indies gets a small commission on the standard Amazon price to help keep HD4NDs on the interweb tubes.

You can also order one of the sexy new MacBook Air models:

MacBook Air - 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard drive - $1794
MacBook Air - 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard drive - $2094
Macbook Air - 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 64GB solid state drive - $3093

You can also order an AppleTV as well:

AppleTV - 40GB model - $229
AppleTV - 160GB model - $399 as of 10am Wednesday, should drop to $329 shortly.

You can also get reasonably priced HDMI, toslink, and component cables ($2-$10) on the online store as well.

Labels: Apple, hardware, MacBook Air

This afternoon is a great example of the distinction between RELEASED and AVAILABLE. The new iPhone software has been released, and OK, is technically available as of this writing (1:35pm CST), but is not ACCESSIBLE at the moment - Apple's servers are apparently beswarmed with folks trying to get the new update. If it lasts the afternoon, understandable, but if is still the case tomorrow, utterly unacceptable.

In theory, the new iPhone update is available immediately, but Apple may be a victim of its own success...and not planning their IT infrastructure for the hit.

When the movie rentals are available, they better not have this problem....

-mike

UPDATE: Here we go...


Got it installed, and of course immediately wanted to see how well the Locations feature worked. Sitting in my house, I hit the button and the circle (indicating "You're in this circle...somewhere") looked to be something like 1/2 mile wide...encompassing my entire neighborhood. Walked outside on the porch, hit it again, and it narrowed it down to about 3 blocks, almost centered on my actual location (across the street and up the short block). Pretty good! Not as good as GPS, but certainly a boon for "Where the hell am I?" when travelling with no GPS.

Ooops - then again, hitting it again inside and the Circle of Confusion is a mile or more wide - not terribly helpful. So Step One is to go outside - it DEFINITELY works better outside than in.

-mike

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Shortly after the keynote ended, these became available via Software Update if you're running 10.4.11 (haven't tried from 10.5.1 yet, can't check at the moment, middle of massive backup).

iTunes 7.6:

Rent and download your favorite movies with iTunes on your computer or directly to your living room on Apple TV. Enjoy rented movies in sizes up to 720p HD with surround sound on your Apple TV and sizes up to DVD-quality on your computer. Transfer your rented movies from iTunes to your iPod or iPhone and enjoy them on the go.

Also, purchase and download your favorite TV shows, music, and more directly on your Apple TV. Effortlessly transfer purchases made on Apple TV back to your computer with iTunes.


QuickTime 7.4:

QuickTime 7.4 addresses security issues and delivers:
- Numerous bug fixes
- Support for iTunes

This release is recommended for all QuickTime 7 users.

For detailed information on the security content of this update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798.


iMovie 7.1.1

This update addresses issues when publishing movies to a .Mac Web Gallery, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.


...and probably will help with AppleTV content viewing for the .Mac stuff.

Installing all of it right now.

Labels: Apple, AppleTV, Mac, OS X, QuickTime

Steve Jobs is giving his annual keynote right now, here's the highlights:

-iPhone getting substantial software updates, including better Maps with GPS-LIKE but not really truly GPS capabilities. Other improvements as well. Should go live today, but isn't live yet (I'll check later tonight). SDK coming in February for 3rd party apps.

-iPod Touch gets Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes, and Weather....for a $20 upgrade done via iTunes. Your iPod Touch is now an iPhone sans phone...for $20.

-New gadget called Time Capsule that works with Leopard's Time Machine to wirelessly do backups. Is a fully featured Airport Extreme Base Station with a hard drive for Time Machine backups (for multiple machines, presumably). Halle-F'in'-Lujah. I'm buying a 1TB model for my parents so I don't have to sweat backups for them. Available February.

-OK, now it gets juicy - iTunes will do movie rentals...in HD All the major studios are in. Over 1000 films by end of February....but 30 days after DVD release (doh! Major acquiescence to the studios!). Can start watching in less than 30 seconds IF you have a fast connection. 30 days to start watching it, but only 24 hours to finish it (lame! 48 or 72 - you rent movies for 2-3 days, right? This'll harsh on the parental watching, where movies are watched in snippets over several days).

-Apple TV "Take 2" - FREE software update out in a couple of weeks, price cut to $229. Syncs w/computer, but computer not necessary - can buy and interface directly from the AppleTV (finally!). Can rent movies directly from AppleTV while sitting on the couch. Movies in SD or HD (gonna be 720p24, I promise) with 5.1 (5.1 HD only it seems). Also does streaming pics from Flickr and .Mac, and streaming YouTube. Can buy TV shows and movies directly as well (and those'll sync to computer as well - can you have AppleTV sync with TimeCapsule? That'd be GREAT). Movie rentals are $2.99 for SD catalog releases and $3.99 for new releases, and HD are $4.99. Note it says HD for for rental, but I haven't noticed HD movies for SALE. Drat. Over 100 HD titles to start, more coming. Different/improved UI. TV shows $1.99/episode, syncs back to Mac/PC.

Some DVDs will come with pre-compressed versions for iPod - Family Guy: Blue Harvest stuff that slipped out last week is included in that.

-MacBook Air - tiny skinny laptop with no optical drive, 1.8" hard drive (80GB HD, or 64GB SSD, yes that's Solid State Drive). 0.8 tapering down to 0.15 inches thick. 13.3" screen, backlit keyboard. Aluminum exterior, dark (plastic?) interior. Large trackpad, multi-touch aware. So iPhone touch UI is migrating to Macs, first in this product. GOOD. The catch will be we'll need an OS and application upgrades to support it. But it is a good thing. 1.6 or 1.8 GHz processors, so slower than current Macbooks, but not massively. Software to access a Mac or PC's optical drive since none included. ONE USB 2.0 port, no FireWire mentioned, mini-DVI, NO ethernet port. Bluetooth of course (2.1+EDR), but minimal connectivity. Oh - $99 external SuperDrive module if you want it. Even with wireless on, 5 hour battery life (I'll betcha that's with the SSD not HD though). 3 pounds. iSight. 1.6 or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo. 2GB standard RAM, dunno how expandable. $1799 to start (not bad). No mention of the GPU, but obviously lightweight, light grade presumably.

No "One More Thing."

So...Apple's already down more than $9 for the day, since nothing particularly hugely exciting announced. I'm surprised the Mac Pro update was last week, since this is a thin MWSF for the overall market. Really just some nice/expected software/service updates, and a niche laptop.

The iTunes rentals and HD movies are the big deal for this readership. Apple TV Take 2 - OK, thanks, getting it closer to what it shoulda been in the first place. Maybe I'll update my AppleTVhacker.com website. Next step - getting indie content access to that system.

-mike

UPDATE:

MacBook Air Links & Details:

Apple - MacBook Air - with additional links for design, features, wireless, Mac OS X & iLife, and tech specs.

Apple - MacBook Air - Guided Tour

Macbook Air GPU stats from the website:
Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor with 144MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory

Extended desktop and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 1920 by 1200 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors

iPhone/iPod update info:

Apple - iPhone - Guided Tour Update 2 - Large - for the new features.

Maps - uses info from WiFi and cell towers to get approx location. New button to find location. Also have Drop Pin (to mark a location) and a Traffic button. Gives you your location with a circle to give an idea of where in the circle you are. There's Search and Directions buttons.

Drop Pin - lets YOU set a location, and save as a bookmark, move it around etc.

Hybrid view shows streets and sattelite views merged - like Google Earth does it.

Can save an icon on homescreen to be an icon on homescreen. No biggie.

-you can rearrange icons on your Home Screen

-send SMS to multiple people

-iTunes movie rentals - can't rent straight to iPhone, but can sync rentals to the iPhone.

-chapter markers now in iPhone - good for podcasts too

-song lyrics, Google Mail IMAP, and other benefits.

AppleTV Take 2 Info:

Apple - Apple TV - Guided Tour

Rentals will play on Mac, PC, iPods, iPhone, or AppleTV. Can rent on AppleTV, sync back to Mac, and sync iPod/iPhone to watch in multiple locations.

-new improved UI, easy searching

-individual movie info gives plot summary, can show preview, or let you rent in SD or HD (HD is a buck more).

-movie starts downloading, SD movies will be ready to watch in short order. HD obviously takes longer, but they don't say how long. I'll of course give a hands on review ASAP when the software comes out.

-24 hours to watch as many times as you want, but if you're halfway through after 20 hours..SOL

-TV shows can be bought a day after they air

-no mention of HD for TV shows, only one price, so presumably still HD only

-Flickr & .Mac, or your own photos seen on your TV at high res

-podcasts viewable via AppleTV as well - nice.

Apple - Time Capsule

Overall, a B- Stevecast. Nice updates, a few useful new products, but nothing that makes me want to OMFG go buy it right now.

So, products:

Mac Pro: updated last week but lets lump it into MWSF - I'm happy with my current OctoMac, when they get Blu-ray burners in'em I'll start getting That Itch again to buy

Laptops: I feel no urge to get the MacBook Air personally. And it isn't a viable lightweight FCP box either - hello, no FireWire means no capturing video, and OH YEAH - no reasonably fast external storage. USB 2.0 is barely fast enough for DV/HDV but not any of the heavier codecs like DVCPRO HD (full rate) nor ProRes....so count it out, besides the GPU limitations.

Time Capsule: yep, I'll get one...for my Mom & Dad. No rush for now for me - I'm looking at back devices with 10 times the capacity (or more) for my studio needs. But for backing up boot drives and apps and iTunes and photos....hmmm, maybe I will get one.

iPhone: no new models, but new software later today that I'm VERY excited to get, especially the locations feature, which was my #1 feature I missed the most.

iPod Touch: for $20, you're an iPhone, sans the phone stuff. Good deal.

Leopard - no big changes, but Time Capsule is a hardware product for a software feature/function

iTunes - rentals - GREAT. HD rentals, even better. HD purchased movies? Hello? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

AppleTV - a heap of updates and upgrades that should've come out, frankly, 6 months ago. Will it be a viable competitor to everything else? Yeah. Will it supplant DVDs etc? Nope. My most interesting thought from various conversations with friends - Can Apple make the Next Big Thing for media devices in the home? Mike Says No. Here's why:
-ultimate device would let you DVR TV content, burn to DVD (or HD DVD or Blu-ray), have TiVO type functionality, sync to iPod/iPhone, let you buy/rent videos, distribute to the other formats you want, etc. Apple won't do that. If they offered DVR functionality, or integration with cable TV, they'd be undercutting their rental/sales iTunes content - no way they'll do it. So they're out. Be interesting to see who can supplant the cable set top box and DVD player as the next content distro methodology of substance.

Apple's "Go it alone, brave new frontier, don't look back" ethos has served them well in the past - but it'll bite them here. TV is too big to ignore (and so are DVDs, for that matter).

-mike

more updates:
More details on Apple's iTunes movie / HD rentals - Engadget HD
-1280x720 @ 24p still max (hardware limitation w/H.264)
-HD rentals ONLY available via AppleTV, NOT iTunes
-5.1 only on SOME HD rentals
-hmm....when it goes live, time to get AppleTVhacker.com back up and rolling...

Hands-On: MacBook Air Hands-on - with LOTS of pics. Thanks to Matt of FreshDV for the link (and the one below).

..and MUCH more importantly for us road warriors, MacBook Air doesn't have a user-replaceable battery - Engadget

DAMN. That's a MISTAKE in my book. Deal killer. Not buyin' one, even for Mom.

Labels: Apple, AppleTV, MWSF

Some simple Apple Online Store twiddling shows:

-stock quad 3.2 GHz (no changes but for processor speed) will ship in 3-5 days (with standard ATI 2600 HD card)
-two quad core 2.8 GHz stock box ships in 1-2 days (with standard ATI 2600 HD card)
-two quad core 3.0 GHz processor box ships in 3-5 days (with standard ATI 2600 HD card)
-two quad core 3.2 GHz with the NVIDIA 8800 GT card is 3-5 weeks from shipping

...so as usual, those wanting top end graphics card...will have to wait. And it is not at all uncommon for shipping estimates to be just that - estimates. It is not unheard of for it to take months for new GPUs to actually ship to customers.


-mike

Labels: Apple, Mac, Mac Pro

Apple - Mac Pro - Performance - has a series of interactive graphs to compare between the new 8 core 3.2 GHz boxes and either a Quad G5, a quad core 2.66 (last gen) Mac Pro, or the previous 3.0 GHz 8 core Mac Pro (which I've got).

Of particular interest are the FCP tests (right up front). The numbers below indicate how much faster the NEW 8 core 3.2 GHz is over the mentioned machine. I wouldn't be surprised if the new Mac Pro had a SAS RAID, either.

Quickie rundown, comparing the new 8 core 3.2 GHz to:

HDV rendering
faster than Quad G5: 1.8x
faster than Quad Mac Pro: 1.4x
faster than Previous 8 core Mac Pro: 1.2x

ProRes Rendering
faster than Quad G5: not shown
faster than Quad Mac Pro: 1.4x
faster than Previous 8 core Mac Pro: 1.2x

HDV encoding
faster than Quad G5: not shown
faster than Quad Mac Pro: 1.9x
faster than Previous 8 core Mac Pro: 1.1x

ProRes encoding
faster than Quad G5: not shown
faster than Quad Mac Pro: 1.3x
faster than Previous 8 core Mac Pro: 1.1x

After Effects CS3 Nightflight benchmark
faster than Quad G5: 2.8x
faster than Quad Mac Pro: 1.9x
faster than Previous 8 core Mac Pro: 1.1x

They have a bunch of other tests including audio, Maya, etc. I'd be curious to see Motion and especially Color benchmarks, to see if performance improved there, as the PCIe bus was a limiting factor (among others) to achieve 1080 resolution realtime performance.

But as compared to the prior 8 core Mac, which cost less, the performance gain is very modest - 10, sometimes 20% for video applications according to Apple's on tests.

RAID cards:
SAS RAID 5, 3x300GB: 250 MB/sec reads, 197 MB/sec writes (sequential)
SATA RAID 5, 3x1TB SATA: 165 MB/sec reads, 127 MB/sec writes

Simultaneous FCP streams:
10 bit 1080i60:
SAS: 1 stream
SATA - can't do it

ProRes 422 HQ (which is 10 bit) 1080i60: 5 streams for either SAS or SATA

ProRes HQ 720p24:
SAS: 14 streams
SATA: 11 streams

Keep in mind that SAS setup costs $1800 more and holds less than 1/3 as much content....but it is faster.

Labels: Apple, Mac, Mac Pro

Super short version: slightly faster processors, new graphics cards, NO NEW HD OPTICAL DRIVES - so we wait for NAB apparently, as expected.

Apple rolled out new Mac Pro models today.

The deal, marching down the config options:

New Harpertown Processors, available in following configs:
-single quad core 2.8 GHz ($2299 base price)
-dual quad core 2.8 GHz ($2799 base price, so +$500)
-dual quad core 3.0 GHz ($3599 base price, so +$1300)
-dual quad core 3.2 GHz ($4399 base price, so +$2100)

Welcome to Intel based pricing. As usual, be smart about when to buy and NOT to buy the tippy top CPU - is it worth the money? Depends.

RAM - standard 2GB, can config from Apple up to 32GB...for an additional $9100. Ouch! Few users will actually see benefit from that. And NO, gobs of RAM will not make REDcode crunch any faster. I SWEAR.


RAID Card
-glad they have it, but still limited to 4 drives, and one needs to be a boot drive. They have cut the price form $1000 to $800, though - a good start guys. REQUIRED WHEN SELECTING SAS DRIVES.

Hard Drive Options
-you can get a 300GB, 15K rpm SAS drive - saw that and thought good, ultimate boot drive. But dammit - if you go one SAS drive, ya gotta go all SAS. And that 300GB SAS drive is $800. Ouch!
-you cn now get 1TB drives internally in addition to 500 and 750 GB drives. Drive costs have been dropped to more reasonable prices as well...but still higher than third party pricing.

Graphics have all new choices, it appears ALL cards will support two 30" displays. Also includes PCIe 2.0, which is 2x faster than the prior version, new on this box.
-default is ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT w/256MB VRAM, you can get up to 4 of them to drive up to 8 monitors up to 30" apiece
-NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB is a $200 bump up
-NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 has 1.5GB VRAM for $2850 extra. Guess who needs that.

Displays
-no changes - 20, 23, & 30 are still $600, $900, and $1800 a pop (actual $$$ less $1)

Optical Drives
dammit, no changes. 1 or 2 16x dual layer SuperDrives, NO BLU-RAY OR HD DVD OPTIONS. Drat. Wait for NAB to see the next cards be turned over.

Wireless
-appears Bluetooth is built in, Airport extreme card is $50

Fibre Channel Card - dual or quad 4Gb cards for $600 or $1000

The Rest - appears all the same. Oh, wait - you get the new flatty keyboard, which I like, expect for the wretched Caps Lock key.

BOTTOM LINE

Speed bump. New, presumably faster GPUs (need to read up on those more). The box I'd want is just shy of $11K with monitors. Ouch.

As usual, I am available for consulting on system configurations, which inevitably has more to do with what you want to do with it rather than what the available options are. The process can be steered by price or appropriateness for a given task, or the more interesting blend of the two to optimize every dollar spent.

Apple - Mac Pro - Technology - Processor:
-45nm process
-2.8-3.2 GHz Harpertown quad core processors
-12MB L2 cache per processor, 6MB per pair of cores
-two 1600Mhz front side buses
-up to 25.6GB/sec processor bandwidth - GOOD
-800 MHz DDR2 buffered memory
-SSE4 SIMD tech
-256 bit wide memory architecture

Apple - Mac Pro - Technology - Graphics
-PCI Express 2.0
-ATI HD 2600 XT with 256 MB, two dual link DVI ports (supports two 30" displays)
-NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT has 512 MB VRAM
-NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 has 1.5GB VRAM



UDPATE - Apple also introduced new 8 core Xserves

Labels: Apple, Mac, Mac Pro

About the Mac OS X 10.4.11 Update - looking at the description, I didn't see anything vital for editing purposes, BUT, only after you update can you see Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 as an available update (see article on those changes here).

So, YES, you MUST have 10.4.11 to update to 6.0.2. The MANY benefits of that are outlined in the article above.

Other updates:

Apple - Support - Downloads - DVD Studio Pro 4.2.1

-Compatible with 10.4.11 and 10.5
-Still images added to DVD Studio Pro project now encode correctly
-Now correctly supports following HDV formats for native use in NTSC HD projects:
-720p24/30/60
-1080p24/30
-1080i60

DVD Studio Pro now correctly supports the following HDV formats for native use in PAL HD projects:

720p25/50
1080p25
1080i50

-Now correctly supports following H.264 formats for native use in NTSC HD projects:

720p24/30/60

Apple - Support - Downloads - Color 1.0.2

LOTS of meaningful changes in here, thanks to intern Gideon for summarizing and quoting below:

-Compatible with 10.4.11 and 10.5 (what about 10.5.1? Anybody try it yet? Let me know in the Comments, please!)
-AVCHD and AVC-Intra formats are transcoded by FCP on import as either ProRes 422, ProRes 422 (HQ), or Apple Intermediate QT files.
-XDCAM EX media is imported by Final Cut as XDCAM HD, which is supported by Color for import, but not as Original format or as an Export Codec.
-Improved Round Trip Support for Upconverted Media Rendered by Color.1.0.2

Improved Handling of Aspect Ratio and Field Dominance
The following issues with Aspect Ratio and Field Dominance handling have been fixed:

After a Final Cut Pro to Color round trip of a sequence combining standard definition and high definition HDV clips, the aspect ratio of each clip rendered by Color now matches that of the original media.
Instances where interlaced sequences sent to Color and then back to Final Cut Pro would have their interlacing set to None have been fixed.
Instances where sequences with non-square pixels sent to Color and then back to Final Cut Pro would have their pixel aspect ratio set to Square have been fixed.
Improved Image Processing
The following improvements have been made to image processing:

Improvements have been made to address color and luma shifts appearing in some formats.
Visible noise introduced by adjusting the Luma curve has been reduced.
Instances of artifacts in mattes created by the HSL qualifiers have been eliminated.
Improved Project Reconforming
Color’s Reconform command has been improved:

Instances where the Color Timeline did not match an updated Final Cut Pro sequence after a reconform operation have been fixed.
Instances where Color would send a version of the project that existed prior to a reconform operation back to Final Cut Pro have been fixed.
Color now properly reconforms altered Motion parameters from Final Cut Pro sequences.
Improved Rendering of Clips with Speed Effects
The following improvements have been made to the handling of clips using speed effects from Final Cut Pro:

Keyframed secondary vignettes now work properly with clips using speed effects.
Clips using the reverse speed effect now render with the proper frame range in Color and are sent back to Final Cut Pro with correct In and Out points.
Any Volume Can Be Used to Save Color Projects
Color will now function properly on systems with home directories saved on any volume or partition, and the Default Project Directory can be set to any volume or partition you choose.

Improved Media Handling During Final Cut Pro to Color Round Trips
The following improvements have been made to media handling during Final Cut Pro to Color round trips:

Clips that start with 00:00:00:00 timecode are now sent back to Final Cut Pro with the correct timecode.
Final Cut Pro programs containing nested sequences with cross dissolves on the first clip no longer cause problems in Color. This corrects the issue covered in the Color 1.0.1 Release Notes.
Improved Handling of Motion and LiveType Clips, and Offline Media
The following improvements have been made to the handling of Motion and LiveType clips:

Motion templates, Motion projects, and LiveType projects all appear as offline shots in the Color timeline, instead of as gaps as in previous versions of Color. These media types, although unsupported in Color, reappear when your sequence is sent back to Final Cut Pro.
Offline shots in the Color timeline no longer obscure shots in video tracks underneath them.
Fixes to Undo
The Undo command has been fixed in the following instances:

You can now undo operations in the Render Queue.
The Reset Secondary and Reset All Secondaries buttons can now be undone.
In the Primary Out room, using the Undo command after clicking the Reset Primary Out button now properly restores the Ceiling Red, Ceiling Green, and Ceiling Blue parameters to their former state.
Attaching and Detaching shapes can now be undone.
You can undo the application of a saved effect in the Color FX room.
Operations in the Shot List can now be undone.
Creation and removal of shapes in the Geometry room can be undone.
Many of these fixes correct issues covered in the Color 1.0 Release Notes.

-Superimposed text tracks no longer affect playback
-copied and pasted grades are now autosaved properly
-Improved text fields

Click once within any field to place the text cursor at the position you clicked.
Double-click within any field to select the word at the position of the pointer.
Triple-click within any field to select the entire contents of that field.

-Adjustments and corrections made in the Secondaries room now appear correctly in the Color application's video scopes
-Keyboard Shortcuts fixed and updated

The keyboard shortcuts for Copy Grade > Mem Bank 1-5 (Control-Option-Shift-1 through 5) have been fixed.
The keyboard shortcut for Set Beauty Grade has been changed to Control-Shift-B.
The Rooms > Shot List command (Command-9) has been fixed.
The Rooms > Project Setup command (Command-0) has been fixed.

-Hiding Color no longer causes rendering to pause
-Modifications to supported keys for the CP100 control surface include:

F4: Alternate panel encoders
F5: Set scope resolution to 100%
F6: Set Scope Resolution 25%
F7: Parade Waveform
F8: Histogram Waveform
In the Secondaries room:

F4: Alternate Panel Encoders
F5: Toggle Secondary
F6: Toggle Secondary In/Out Control
F7: Toggle Vignette
F8: Previous Secondary
F9: Next Secondary


Apple - Support - Downloads - Compressor 3.0.2

-Compatible with 10.4.11 and 10.5
-Compressor and Apple Qmaster updates may disable any existing clusters you have configured, so set'em up again
-To use Compressor distributed processing feature with 10.5, you must manually enable NFS
-filter pane of Inspector now includes Color tab for adjusting color space settings. Only available for H.264, Apple ProRes 422, Apple Intermediate Codec, and JPEG output formats. HOPEFULLY THIS FIXES THE GAMMA ISSUES!
-Square Pixels Pop-Up Menu is now called Correct for Pixel Aspect Ratio


Apple - Support - Downloads - CinemaTools 4.0.1

-Compatible with 10.4.11 and 10.5
-Pull lists show the correct value in Footage length, Time length, and Count length for speed changes
-Exported film lists includes information and warnings about issues occurring during export process
-Change lists exported from FCP and Cinema Tools now support same PDF formatting as other lists that you are able to export
-When importing an ALE file, the frame rate for the sound timecode now matches the Sound TC rate of the database you are importing

Apple - Support - Downloads - Motion 3.0.2

-3.0.2 compatible with 10.4.11 and 10.5
-Supports 50fps
-60fps Drop Frame Timecode Support
-Master templates playback performance enhanced
-Master templates can be moved and scaled without render problems
-Master templates used in FCP sequences with mixed frame rates or rates that don't match master template are no longer improperly scaled.
-Field dominance settings are correctly reported in PAL FCP sequences containing master templates
-Printing to video renders properly in FCP sequences containing master templates with drop zones
-In FCP, opening a master template containing drop zones that have been cut and pasted no longer causes FCP to stop responding

Apple - Support - Downloads - Soundtrack Pro 2.0.2 - I'm not enough of an audio guy to detail the changes, but go knock yourself out....

Also see Red public software updates here

Labels: Apple, DVDs, Final Cut, Final Cut Studio 2, software

UPDATE - Scott Simmons has a nice bit on some of the new features here:

The Editblog � FCP updated. Now more Avid-like

Nice breakdown of the new features in Final Cut Pro 6.0.2.


Oddly, it isn't showing up in my Software Updates (probably because I need to update to 10.4.11 first, also new UPDATE YES THAT'S WHY), I had to go dig it out after hearing about it elsewhere. So here's one place to get it:

Apple - Support - Downloads - Final Cut Pro 6.0.2

NOTABLE IMPROVEMENTS (found here: Final Cut Pro 6 Release Notes)

-6.0.2 compatible with 10.4.11 and 10.5, ONLY
-Sony XDCAM EX support, but requires the Sony XDCAM extra here
-supported formats under XDCAM EX:
-1080p24/25/30 VBR, 1080i50/60 VBR, 720p24/25/30/50/60 VBR
-can either connect camera directly, or put the SxS card in a MacBook Pro's ExpressCard/34 slot
-the format suports 25mbit CBR (constant bitrate) or 35mbit VBR (variable bitrate)
-when capturing from the HVR-V1, can capture to native codec, or Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC), or ProRes422
-has some nice notes about optimal workflows for working with 24p on 60i and 3:2 pulldown removal, etc.Hell, I'll just quote it:

24p/60i on tape: Capture to the 24p Apple Intermediate Codec or Apple ProRes 422 codec, then output to the HVR-V1 camcorder in 24p/60i mode.
25p/50i on tape: Capture to the 25p Apple Intermediate Codec or Apple ProRes 422 codec, then output to the HVR-V1 camcorder in 25p/50i mode.
30p/60i on tape: Capture to the 30p Apple Intermediate Codec or Apple ProRes 422 codec, then output to the HVR-V1 camcorder in 30p/60i mode.

-support for had drive based HDV cameras via Log & Transfer, such as Sony HVR-DR60
-AVCHD o Intel Macs (1920x1080 interlaced) such as Panasonic HDC-SD3 and HDC-SD5, spanned clips NOW recognized since 6.0.1 didn't properly recognize them
-AVC-Intra support - Log and Transfer window, BUT: must transcode to ProRes, Intel Mac only, no audio playback when limited playback capability (due to too slow of a Mac???), full video preview requires Mac Pro, Panasonic's AVC Intra codec must be installed. So - LOTTA caveats there
-720p50 DVCPRO HD native support now works right
-Canon HDV 1080F24/25/30 setups!
-more setups, such as HDV-Apple ProRes 1080p24 ProRes 422 for Sony HVR-V1, and HDV-Apple ProRes422 and the same with ProRes HQ - EXCELLENT
-60fps Drop Frame Timecode support
-50 fps timecode in ALL timecode fields and project properties, including 50@25 timecode format for decks and EDL compatibility
-720p50/60 support for JVC's GY-HD200 and GY-HD250 cameras
-improved BWF (Broadcast Wave Format) support concerning iXML support
-Skipping Directories in the Reconnect Files Dialog - I'll use this a LOT, as I'm constantly relinking files
-Hiding Clip Names in the Timeline
-New Playhead-Centered Zooming Commands in the Timeline:

Zoom In on Playhead in Timeline: Keeps the Timeline playhead centered while zooming in (regardless of the selection in the Timeline).
Zoom Out on Playhead in Timeline: Keeps the Timeline playhead centered while zooming out (regardless of the selection in the Timeline).
Scroll to Playhead: Horizontally scrolls the Timeline so that the playhead is centered in the window.

-Opening a Nested Sequence Displays the Playhead in the Expected Position
-Holding Down the Shift Key Forces Final Cut Pro to Open with an Empty Project
-Gamma Import Option Has Been Renamed
-“Show as Sq. Pixels” Option is Now Called “Correct for Aspect Ratio”
-Log and Transfer Window Improvements
-FxPlug Plug-in Improvements
In Final Cut Pro 6.0.2, FxPlug plug-ins display collapsible parameter groups in the Filters tab of the Viewer.

New Apple Events Support
Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 responds to three new Apple Events that allow you to:

Query which effects are currently installed
Query which projects are currently open
Select specific clips based on UUIDs.
For details, go to http://developer.apple.com/appleapplications.

-Lost Render Files for Duplicated Sequences Issue Resolved
-Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 projects are not backward compatible with Final Cut Pro 6.0.1. - SO UPDATE ALL AT ONCE!
-for latest 3rd party stuff:

For P2 driver software from Panasonic: Go to https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/desk/e/download.htm.
For Sony XDCAM Transfer software and XDCAM EX plug-in: Go to http://www.sony.com/xdcam.

WHEW! Lots of good stuff and new goodies.

I wonder if retimed (especially ramped retimed) shots work after being Media Managed? One of my biggest online editor gripes.

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

Apple CEO Jabs HD Camera Makers || The Mac Observer

Steve Jobs picks on consumer HD camcorder makers for not making true, full, high definition images. A fair complaint, but considering there are cameras costing many tens of thousands of dollars that don't resolve full 1920x1080, it isn't exactly picking on a kid your own size.

Or is this also justification for the half res mode in the new iMovie? Were they finding consumer pushback due to long render times at full res, and with 1/4 as many pixels to push around at 960x540, most folks couldn't tell the difference?

Conveniently/interestingly, AppleTV does 960x540 as well - but that is the maximum resolution supported for a 30p or 60i image. It will do 1280x720, but only up to 24p.

So would it not be fair to complain AppleTV can only make less than full res video from 1920x1080 sources?

-mike

Labels: Apple, AppleTV, cameras, hardware

from Apple online store description:

The Mac Pro RAID card offers improved performance and data protection to your Mac Pro system — up to 304MB/s of sequential read performance in RAID 0. Ideal for video and creative professionals with demanding storage needs as well as for tower server applications, this hardware RAID option supports RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 0+1, and Enhanced JBOD. It has 256MB of cache and an integrated 72-hour battery for protecting the RAID cache. The card occupies the top PCI Express slot (slot 4) and connects to the four internal drive bays.

To enable your Mac Pro for hardware RAID, select the Mac Pro RAID card option and two or more hard drives in bays 1 through 4. Each RAID level has minimum requirements for the number of hard drives:

RAID Level Drive Requirements Benefit
Enhanced JBOD One to four drives A non-RAID configuration with the ability to migrate to a RAID set at any time
RAID 0 (striping) Two to four hard drives Maximum performance and capacity for the most demanding I/O requirements
RAID 1 (mirroring) Two hard drives Maximum protection for critical data
RAID 5 Three or four hard drives Data protection, up to 199MB/s of sequential read performance, and efficient capacity utilization
RAID 0+1 Four hard drives A mirror of striped drive pairs providing performance and data protection
The Mac Pro RAID card supports the creation of multiple RAID sets in a system and multiple volumes per RAID set. For optimal disk utilization in a RAID set, all hard drives should be the same size. Your Mac Pro system ships with each hard drive individually configured in the Enhanced JBOD level with Mac OS X installed on the drive in bay 1. Using Apple's RAID Utility software, you can migrate the drives into a RAID set without reinstalling Mac OS X or reformatting the drives, or you can customize your RAID volumes to meet your exact requirements.

Please note: The Mac Pro RAID card occupies one of the available PCI Express expansion slots.


Key thing of note - 199 MB/sec read speeds under RAID 5. Magic number for uncompressed 1080i60 10 bit 4:2:2 video: 200 MB/sec is the usual recommended number. For 1080p24 10b444 RGB: about 230-240 MB/sec. Whither write speed, Apple? Write speed is almost always slower in RAID 5 than read speed, so if read is about 200, and that's the minimum for uncompressed HD, where's the write speed? It is probably lower, and that's a bummer.

Also, that 199 MB/sec - will it hold that through the capacity of the array, or slow down as the drives get full...like most other storage? Remains to be seen.

More later, I'm testing an Octo Mac with a Highpoint 2322 RAID 5 right now, and it works pretty darn well....

There's new versions of iWork, now with a spreadsheet, and iLife, now organizing stuff by Events and yielding TONS more storage space for .Mac accounts (with my 2GB bumped to 20GB, and those who paid for 4GB bumped to 30GB). That's now enough space to back up all my photos...I THINK (double check).

iPhone output is mentioned in iMovie, and you can now FINALLY store all our video in one place in iMovie, organized by Events. Gotta read more, but I'll pick it up at a store ASAP to doodle with. I hope it has improved multi-machine sync capabilities as well...but I doubt it.

-mike

Labels: Apple, hardware, Mac Pro, storage, workflow

UPDATED with Windows product info, see bottom

Similar to Geoff Frost's post on HVX200 production tips, my other intern, Andy Nelson, has been doodling around with a Canon HV20, and I asked him to post his notes on his experiences with the HV20. Below is his article on dealing with 24p. BTW - if looking to figure out how to get optimal results out of the HV20, FreshDV's interview with Bruce Allen (he of recent Cinegear report) has some EXCELLENT specific details on hands on usage and testing on how to get the most out of the HV20.

This is thematically similar to Steve Mullen's recent piece on dealing with the V1's 24p in Final Cut Pro

More coverage to follow on that, but here's Andy's report on the HV20 and 24p, my comments in italics:

==============

For a thousand bucks the Canon HV20 isn’t a bad little camera, especially after putting some work into getting 24P from it. The HV20 uses HDV, so it only records 60i to tape and adds 3:2 pulldown for its 24fps mode. You can, however, acheive some pretty good results with a reverse telecine to remove the pulldown for full-on progressive beauty. To do this I began by capturing with the Apple Intermediate Codec, as to bypass the temporal compression of MPEG2 that comes with native HDV, and then went two routes for the reverse telecine…(Mike comment - the MPEG-2 compression is from the source HDV, by transcoding to AIC, FCP can process that footage faster, and your recompression/generational losses will be less. This was with FCP 6 not 5.x, BTW)

The Hard Way:
The first way I did this was using Cinema Tools (After Effects or something like JES Deinterlacer will also work ...but using After Effects, with its RGB processing, can clip superwhite and sub-black values - mike). After opening my clip in Cinema Tools, I used the Reverse Telecine button at the bottom of the window. Cinema Tools does not do a “smart” reverse telecine, you have to tell it where to start and what to do. 3:2 pulldown puts the 24P footage down as 60i on tape in a pppii cadence, p for progressive frames and i for interlaced (three progressive and two interlaced, hence 3:2). Essentially, you must tell Cinema Tools what frame of this cadence you are starting with.  The button brings up a window with options for Capture Mode, Fields, File, and Frames. It is quite a process to determine the Capture Mode and Fields options, while File and Frames are rather straightforward.  This diagram from the Cinema Tools manual was helpful...


Capture Mode has to do with the repeating frame sequence of the clip. I used “Field 1 – Field 2,” which means that my footage contains both fields with Field 1 Dominance, as opposed to the other options: Field 2 Dominance, Field 1 Only, or Field 2 Only. 
Mike's continuation of that - ...and then export that in some high quality codec, preferably 10 bit, such as Apple Uncompressed 10 bit 4:2:2 or ProResHQ - THEN process via Compressor, THEN bring the levels back in FCP when you color correct (or maybe in Color - I need to check that round trip workflow to see if superwhites and sub-blacks are maintained).

-andy & mike

Labels: Apple, hdv, NLE, workflow

iPhone will soon support Adobe Flash - iPod/iTunes - Macworld UK

"Apple will introduce built-in support for Adobe Flash on the iPhone in the 'next couple of months', according to a leading technology pundit.

The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg believes support for Adobe's ubiquitous online standard will be introduced into the iPhone in the form of a future software update."


Just because a pundit says it doesn't make it so. I've heard both sides - that they need to add it, and also that they never will, due to a burgeoning format war in the mobile content delivery format space. Adobe's Flash Lite vs. hardware accelerated H.264 and MPEG-4 on iPods and iPhones. The mobile market is VERY fractured - if Apple comes out with more phones at affordable prices in the future, they could do to phones what they did to MP3 players. And price matters, but not indefinitely - people know quality when they touch it, and they want it. Whether they can afford it is another matter.

-mike

Labels: Apple, iPhone

This one's perfect timing - I spent a big chunk of today working with Jen White, a DP friend of mine, introducing her to Color and having her run it through the paces on a music video she shot. So then I see this:

Creating Node Trees in Apple Color at FreshDV

"The lovely and talented Wendy Gribble (Graeme's better half) has shared an informative tutorial on Apple Color over at Ken Stone's site. The article talks walks you through creating node trees and dealing with interlaced sources. She also shares a quick example of the G Smart Denoise plugin, part of the Nattress Advanced Plugins for Color package. And while you are over at the Nattress site, snag the free G Blend blending mode plugin for Color."

I STILL think that indie DP's should be looking at Color as the back half of their process (if they can't afford to have a serious colorist do it for them) - I think there is a lot of talent to be found (as well as a lot of egregious beginner's mistakes to be made) from folks shooting video and then treating it in Color - much like there was a LOT of bad Photoshop art & retouch in the 90s, but out of that came some fine talent and a new ethos about image making.

-mike

Labels: Apple, Color, post, software

AppleInsider | Apple may extend multi-touch to computer mice

"Apple Inc. has filed for a patent describing a computer mouse having a touch-sensative shell capable of accepting multi-touch finger gestures, similar to the surface of the company's iPhone handset."


Ooooooooooooooh. Nice - after messing with my iPhone all weekend, I started downloading pix from it into iPhoto, and I wanted to zoom in and started to reach for some kind of multi-touch controller - but it wasn't there. I stared at the little scale slider and had one thought: "Lame."

Don't you hate it when you suddenly feel all your cool gear is instantly obsolete, out of date?

Multi-touch will be BIG. When I can get a laptop that has normal and multi-touch modes (frogdesign designed a laptop that had a double hinge design that would tablet or normal mode). Have a "real" keyboard and touch tablet (which itself could multi-touch), and then touchable screen - THAT would be killer. I'd buy one, and pay what - a $500 premium?

EDIT - ah - here's that Vadem frog designed back in 2000 (thanks to Mark for digging this out of the archives). So imagine a Macbook variant with a screen that flips like this:


More iPhone notes:

Design on Wall Street / frog in the News / frog design My former boss and fellow iPhone line waiter Mark Rolston (he was in a lawn chair at 1pm right after this interview on Bloomberg News Channel waiting for his own, about 30 people in front of my group) talks about the iPhone before release, and the expected flaws, and how it'll be received by the industry - and whether/how fast RIM will react. Way to go Mark! Also, way to go on dressing up for national news - I see you wore a t-shirt without visible logo, touche. :D

Mark told me some years ago that a lot of cell phone UI and OS are pretty much written ground up each time - so UI and functionality changes are a big, hairy, obnoxious deal - think how rarely you hear about cell phones getting updates available. Unlike with iPhone, where it is just a cut down OS X, with an API and *nix underneath, allowing for easier updates, with a built-in distribution methodology (updates via iTunes just like an iPod).

Other notes on iPhone - there is no way to Bluetooth beam or even email your contact info to someone. Feh.

You can't Bluetooth to use the iPhone as a modem for your computer. Double feh.

On the Go playlists either forget themselves entirely or I'm doing it wrong - twice I've spent time putting together playlists, and it is gone later.

BTW - I've continued to add, on a daily basis, to the end of my egregiously titled iPhone post from Friday.

-mike

Labels: Apple, hardware

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

Santa Rosa-based MacBook Pro review roundup - Engadget

Ars Technica is my favorite/most trusted of these sources.

-mike

Labels: Apple, hardware, Macbook Pro

Barefeats points out new option: TransIntl.com - 4GB FB-DIMMs x 8 = 32GB

They point out how Compressor 3 and After Effects CS3 can use that much memory when they spawn off processes to render or compress more/faster.

Pricey at nearly $650 apiece, though.

-mike

Labels: Apple, hardware, Mac Pro

Macworld: Review: Final Cut Pro 6

My review of Final Cut Pro 6 for MacWorld Magazine is up right now on their site (top article at the moment, ahem. Pride.).

I discuss Open Format Timelines, the advantages of the ProRes codec, touch on some issues with SmoothCam (which is otherwise way cool), surround sound audio, the (optionally) huge 55GB install (make room on that boot drive, buddy!) and some of the other refinements to the application.

-mike

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

I'm bringing back the concept of the Blogwad - everything that I either didn't have time to properly address during the week, or that didn't merit it's own post, or that came in on Friday and therefore gets lumped in with the rest of the blogwad.

I've at least broken it down into categories - post software, post hardware, acquisition, cameras, general...and iPhone, since there's so much going on with that.

POST SOFTWARE

IRIDAS Extends DualStream Stereoscopic Technology across Product Line | Studio Daily - very niche, but good to know

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Click-thru Tutorial: Magic Bullet Looks | Studio Daily

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Click-thru Tutorial: GenArts Sapphire | Studio Daily

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Interview with Automatic Duck's Wes Plate

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Getting Intimate with CineForm Intermediate Part 2 (I trust you can follow the links to part 1)

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Creating Node Trees in Color and the special case of interlaced video (Final Cut Studio 2) -good Ken Stone tutorial, thanks to a sharp eyed reader for sending this in.



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POST HARDWARE

MacNN | MacBook Pro 17" Hi-res: Best LCD yet

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MacNN | Overnight 200GB, 250GB laptop drive upgrades - if you don't want to do it yourself...but what about data backup and data integrity and security?

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Matrox MXO 2.0 review

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ACQUISITION

Codex Digital Announces Portable Field Recorder | Studio Daily

9 pounds, carbon fiber, rubber weather seals, HD to 4K, size of a lunch box, powered by standard batteries, can do dual link 4:4:4, has Infiniband, Ethernet data connections, can do 10 gigabit optical I/O, 8 channels of audio, wireless MP4 video output, Red One RAW output (!!!), this sounds incredibly cool, useful, and improved - I should write more on this later...

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short version - 4K capable S.two to be shown at CineGear

Press release:


S.two Corporation’s DFR4K™ Digital Field Recorder announced at NAB 2007 will premier at Cine Gear Expo 2007.

New 4K capable portable recorder will feature in movie making workflow demonstration with the Dalsa Origin 4K camera.

Reno, NV—June 22nd 2007— S.two announces it will demonstrate for the first time its new 4K recording solution at this week’s Cine Gear Expo. The new DFR4K™ features full integration with Dalsa Origin 4K cameras using InfiniBand Fibre connections. The coupled systems will be shown on the S.two stand #T4 at the Wadsworth Theatre and Grounds June 22-23, 2007.

The DFR4K plays Dalsa 4K images in real time up to the maximum supported frame rate of the Dalsa camera. This closely coupled integration with Dalsa Origin cameras adds all the capabilities of the camera plus all the on set convenience, productivity, efficiency and robustness that S.two has shown on many completed feature films, the most noted of late being David Fincher’s ‘Zodiac’.

An Industry “first”, the 24V DC powered DFR4K™ production units allow the camera to be free of location logistics so that true ‘run and gun’ style movie making can be done in 4K resolution.

This debut showing of the DFR4K™ prototype heralds a complete set of DFR4K™ products for all extended resolution cameras and projects allowing a full choice of palettes for the discerning filmmaker. S.two extended definition workflow will be fully adapted for 4K movie making including offline, archiving and post integration. The DFR4K™ extended definition workflow is added to S.two’s HD, HD RGB, 2K and 3K products supporting other leading cameras.

“As the leading uncompressed digital film recording company, S.two is pleased to be able to provide our field portable, field proven, compact DC powered recording solutions to higher resolution users, bringing our un-rivaled on set experience and reliability to an emerging 4K market” states Steve Roach, Vice President, S.two. “The DFR4K™ provides 4K users a proven end to end workflow with the same benefits S.two has supplied on multiple movie projects around the world.”


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CAMERAS

Ikegami and Toshiba Provide Details of Advanced New Tapeless ENG Camera, Editing and Production System | Studio Daily

=======

Press release:

DALSA and the Digital Cinema Society (http://www.digitalcinemasociety.com/) are co-hosting a 4K presentation at the Cine Gear Expo, the industry's premiere film, video and digital media expo. The event which takes place on Saturday, June 23rd will explore 4K for production, post, and projection. Various samples acquired in 4K RAW with the DALSA Origin camera, edited in HD with Apple's Final Cut Pro, then conformed using EDL into the final project for color correction and creation of the DCP will be projected in 4K via the Sony SXRD Projector.

Following the screening, James Mathers, President and Co-founder of the Digital Cinema Society, will moderate a panel made up of Cinematographer David Stump, ASC; DALSA's Rob Hummel; Sony's Andrew Stucker; Denis Leconte of Pacific Title, as well as Directors Anurag Mehta and Joe DiGennaro.  The presentation is a great opportunity to find out the benefits and challenges of Digital Filmmaking at 4K resolution.

The time slot is 10-10:45 AM on Saturday, the 23rd at the Wadsworth Theatre at Cinegear.  Note:  You must be registered for the Cine Gear Expo - Free of Charge Until June 15: For more information on Cinegear, visit http://www.cinegearexpo.com



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Zacuto to offer turnkey HD camera packages with Redrock M2 adaptors

Press Release:

Zacuto and Redrock Micro today announced Zacuto will begin offering turnkey digital camera solutions equipped with the Redrock M2 adapter.

"We've had great success providing camera packages setup for the Redrock M2 and have gotten to know it very well," said Steve Weiss, Marketing Director at Zacuto. "Offering our customers complete packages including Redrock's M2 made perfect sense to us. We are thrilled to be teaming up with another US manufacturer."

"Zacuto is putting together fantastic camera packages for digital cinematographers," added James Hurd, Chief Revolutionary for Redrock. "We're delighted to be working with a company that maintains a strong reputation for quality, expertise, and customer service."

Zacuto targets their cinema bundles to customers requiring a complete camera package and have a budget ranging from $20,000-$30,000. The Zacuto cinema solution bundles will include a Zacuto-branded Redrock adapter kit, Panasonic HVX-200 camera, Zeiss Nikon-mount lenses, tripod, Zacuto support system, fitted Zacuto case, and other needed accessories.

Redrock's M2 35mm lens adapter is always available directly from Redrock's website, available with other Redrock accessories including the award-winning microFollowFocus, microMattebox, and microRemote. Redrock pricing starts at $995 for complete SD solutions, and $1,295 for HD solutions.

Redrock and Zacuto will both be at Cinegear Expo 2007 in Los Angeles June 22nd and 23rd. Redrock will be in Booth 30 (located near Panasonic and JVC booths). Zacuto will be located at Booth 77.


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GENERAL INFO

Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

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Cinematical Seven: Tips for the Indie Filmmaker - Cinematical

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Shooting Animation Verit-Style for Surf's Up | Studio Daily

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HD DVD Production - white paper details on HD DVD structure/setup

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Apple`s Safari for Windows offers simple interface, good performance but not essential

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MacNN | Apple patent: power adapters for security

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Mac OS X 10.4.10 Released

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YouTube to Test Software To Ease Licensing Fights - WSJ.com

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CinemaTech: Could new RealPlayer spark legal action?

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SoftRAID 3.6 doesn't work under 10.4.10 - so don't upgrade yet!:

"SoftRaid 3.6 does not recognize 10.4.10, and will not allow access to preferences for changes or statistics. The only option is to close the software. To paraphrase the error message, it says that I don't have the proper OS installed and that I should install 10.4.X.

I sent an inquiry to SoftRaid, LLC about this and I received an answer back in under 5 minutes as follows:
'Either go back to 10.4.9, wait until 3.6.2 is out, or ask to be on the beta list for 3.6.2. This is caused by Apples hack to make a 10.4.10 possible, which violates their naming standards.'"


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IPHONE

iPhone data plans to surface before launch day - Engadget
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AppleInsider | New iMac, iPhone hints turn up in Apple software update

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AppleInsider | AT&T exec: iPhone data plans to be announced June 29th [Updated]

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AppleInsider | Apple retail stores to close, re-open ahead of iPhone

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AppleInsider | AT&T recommending "Crowd Control Devices" for iPhone launch

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AppleInsider | Apple gets new EU extension; iPhone dock; 7.6 percent Mac share

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Apple - iPhone - A Guided Tour - new on Apple's site.

EDIT 9:45PM - I'm watching this right now on my HDTV via my AppleTV (the file is Apple TV compatible, natch). My garage got burgled today - my trusty mountain bike (Bridgestone MB-1, heavily modified over last 16 years) got stolen, and my car pilfered. Drat it - so much for my comfy neighborhood vibe - alarm to be used EVERY time I leave the house from now on. But anyway, feel better sitting home tonight and locking all the windows, etc. Back on topic - the iPhone has more little features I hadn't noticed before, so that's good. A silent ringer dedicated button. Speaker and microphone both on bottom (odd!). Another speaker up by your ear. Sleep/wake button is nice - can still receive calls and listen to music, but the big screen is off to save battery. The speaker on the bottom is for speakerphone mode - nice! Conference calling is nice and easy - I could never figure it out on any other phone system before without going to the manual. Lots of subtle quality UI touches. The cost is starting to not matter as much seeing all this - this is how it ought to work. If they released a phone with no video, no audio, and just the UI in a smaller form factor..it'd sell just fine. can surf multiple simultaneous pages - keep'em open. Email on iPhone can read/view JPEG, PDF, Word, Excel, RTF, HTML, etc. The keyboard is "smart" they say as it catches typos, etc. They suggest starting with your index finger and then advancing to thumbing - "in about a week you'll be typing faster on the iPhone than on any other phone" - so get ready for a learning curve. Still only being demo'd in vertical keyboard only mode - I've always been wondering when they'd get a wide mode keyboard mode - I have fat thumbs (and all that...oh never mind). Stock widget is exactly like the OS X widget. Google Maps - it doesn't seem to be self-aware of where you are as some has hoped - you have to tell it where you are. Traffic updates can be live - nice! YouTube - yeah, gotta be on WiFi from what they seem to be saying. Has an airplane mode - no WiFi, Bluetooth, or cell signals come out of it in this mode (well thought out!). Set your ringtone - they don't mention loading your own, but part of me wants to use this one (NSFW).

Whew!

That'll hold us for a bit...

-mike

Labels: Apple, blogwad, cameras, Cineform, codec, Color, disk based recording, Final Cut Studio 2, hardware, high end, iPhone, Kirsner, Mac, NLE, plugin, post, post equipment, tutorial, workflow

How many gigabytes of space does 3 1/2 hours of 1080p23.98 ProRes HQ take up? Now you can quickly answer that - Digital Heaven's VideoSpace has been updated, and now includes settings for Apple's new ProRes codecs and DVCPROHD 720p50 codecs. It also now offers automatic selection of fps for PAL & NTSC codecs. The big deal with this OS X Widget is that it can calculate time or storage space requirements (based on the other).

I use this thing DAILY, and other than Safari, Final Cut, TextWrangler, etc. is probably one of my most used pieces of software. Simple but perfect for the task of figuring out how much space and/or how much time is a given codec, frame size, and frame rate. I emailed to whine about lack of ProRes inclusion a few weeks ago and they said they were working on it - excellent answer.

If you're an editor (or producer) trying to figure out how much space you'll need, this is PERFECT. You can even specify how many tracks of what type of audio for perfectly accurate datarate calculations. Also useful to figure out how fast your storage needs to be. Can I say any more nice things about it? I don't know, I just Luvs It - and it is Free As In Beer.

Other handy info as long as we're talking datarates -

MB/sec * 3.6 = GB/hr

What's that mean? If you multiply the megabytes per second of a given datarate by 3.6, you get gigabytes per hour. MB/sec is handy for figuring out how fast your storage needs to be (add 25-35% for healthy QuickTime overhead room), and GB/hr is handy to know how MUCH storage you need. (Yes, I figured that out by myself, and am thusly proud of it - see the screen grab above for an example of MB/sec as compared to GB/hr) : )

Other Digital Heaven news:

DH_Grid and DH_Guides are two other bits of FCP related freeware you can download when getting VideoSpace.

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Digital Heaven's Final Print:

"Final Print is a standalone application which prints a list of clips in a bin or markers contained in a clip or sequence. This provides a very useful workflow enhancement when handing off a project to someone else for further work.

NEW! Version 1.5 now available
Adds printing of bins and markers on source clips"

Not free, but still darn handy.

-mike

Labels: Apple, FCP, Final Cut, OS X, software

Apple - iPhone - Internet in�Your Pocket

see the row of demos at the bottom? Far right is now YouTube.

SchaaaaaaWEET!

YouTube is converting (or will they start accepting?) videos to H.264, which iTunes, iPhone, (AppleTV anyone?) can access. Of course, this will work best when in range of a WiFi network you can get on, and it'll be interesting to see how long it'd take to buffer a video over the EDGE network (and also what the data rate plans will cost - I'd hate to have a 3 digit data bill from getting bored and watching YouTube....

And as long as we're talking geek, there's always this:

Waiting for Your iPhone: Five Ways to Handle the
Unbearable Stress

Yes I am probably silly for wanting one, but I do. My friends are doing it. I am powerless and weak.

Must.....obey.....Steve......

Has......new.....shiny.......

-mike

more coverage:

MacNN | YouTube coming to iPhone, live on Apple TV

"Apple today announced that iPhone users will be able to enjoy YouTube's originally-created content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube's content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on the iPhone's 3.5-inch display. In addition, Apple announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV, following its announcement last month."

Labels: Apple, iPhone

AppleInsider | Apple prepping major Xsan update

"Specifically, the Mac maker hopes to allow Spotlight searches within Xsan and guarantee a seamless experience with Leopard when it launches in October. Many of Leopard Server's new server programs such as iCal Server and Podcast Producer will be recognized out of the box by the update, those people say."


This would be darn handy for workgroup stuff.

-mike

Labels: Apple, software

iPhone Delivers Up to Eight Hours of Talk Time

So it is somewhat of a stretch to call it HD related, but it IS a content playback device.

And I'm being pulled into the "Ooh-I-want-one" vortex of geekiness on it.

Here's the fun new stuff:

1.) longer talk time: 8 hours of talk time now, 6 hours of internet use, 7 hours of video playback, 24 hours of audio playback, up to 250 hours (more than 10 days) or standby mode

2.)glass not plastic screen - perhaps because fear of a scratched screen was such a prevalent concern, Steve Jobs said “We’ve also upgraded iPhone’s entire top surface from plastic to optical-quality glass for superior scratch resistance and clarity."

3.) Also a couple of charts from Apple's PR release with claimed battery life and comparisons to other smartphones.

In related news, AppleInsider | Regulators O.K. Apple's Bluetooth headset for sale alongside iPhone

"Federal regulators this week gave Apple Inc. the go-ahead to begin selling its seldom-mentioned Bluetooth headset alongside iPhone later this month.

Apple has said little about the pen cap-like accessory since introducing it back in January alongside its first-ever mobile handset -- iPhone. Similarly, it has not said how much it plans to charge for the device or precisely when it will be available."

Labels: Apple, iPhone

In a previous article, I'd linked to a useful article that discussed how to substantially increase your Compressor 3 encoding times. They made brief mention of how to make the necessary adjustments "in System Prefs" but I went and looked and at first blush (10 seconds spent) didn't see how to do it. Then I was encoding some 720p24 footage on the Mac Pro to high def H.264, and realized, after seeing it still had a couple of hours to go "Ya know, I really should figure that out...right about NOW." So I went and figured it out, and for your edification, here's a walkthrough of exactly how to do it, click by click, as a screen grab walkthrough.

Click here to go to the picture page, and Start Slideshow will walk you through the Step By Step.

Wave the mouse over the picture to see the pause/forward/back controls - da usual iWeb stuff.

How many instances to launch? Depends on your machine, but if you're a dual or quad core box, 2 is almost CERTAINLY going to be an improvement over the default single instance. The BareFeats article's chart showed an 8 core Mac Pro doing best with 8 instances, so as many as you have cores is one possible answer - but It Could Depend, I don't know yet, and I don't know exactly WHAT it depends on as well - bus speeds? Source clip datarate & disk transfer rate? How compute intensive or light the encoding is per frame? Long GOP vs. I-frame only - does it substantially affect optimal # of cores? I'll have the interns do some benchmarking next week hopefully to learn some more, but I'm certain whatever answers are learned, carefully qualifying those answers with details on testing methodology will be key.

-mike

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

Fast And Furious: No iPhone SDK Means No Killer iPhone Apps - Gizmodo:
"So no SDK == no access to iPhone's cool frameworks == no revolutionary apps, no real new concepts coming from third-parties, no eye candy available for anyone but Apple and no possibility for some really crazy games that will fully exploit the graphic and multi-touch power of the iPhone."


I have to say this is a pretty good argument. Read on. The good thing is that we'll still have good video performance on the device.

Thinking along those lines, watching QT in a web page should be doable, but not downloading it to save on your iPhone's media library, I'll betcha.

But this argument is also of the moment - this is just where we stand, now, before the product even ships. In time, I'd be very disappointed if they don't release an SDK. But this is at least a place to start, if a limited sandbox.

-mike

Labels: Apple, iPhone

Slashdot | Apple Confirms No ZFS in Leopard: "'Despite recent rumors about the possible inclusion of ZFS as the filesystem of choice for MacOS X 10.5 'Leopard', an Apple executive has denied this possibility. "

So there you go.

BIG IMPORTANT UPDATE - the article has been updated, ZFS WILL be an option in Leopard.

What Apple meant to say was, "ZFS would be available as a limited option, but not as the default file system."

Labels: Apple, OS X, software

Color/Final Touch - lots of heavy bugs and issues. - Reduser.net

Poster "laguun" did a nice job of organizing a bunch of quotes from the manuals relating to workflow related issues, and discussing their possible ramifications. Nice work, sir or madam! Further discussion ensues. If you're thinking about doing serious work with Color and never used Final Touch, you really ought to read this.

-mike

Labels: Apple, Color, post, software

Apple's ProRes 422

Big long article I wish I'd had the time to do on the ins, out, details, and caveats of Apple's ProRes codecs. I'm not saying much here, but this is a long, detailed article going into the pros and cons of this new codec that you'll likely be using in the future if you're on a Mac.

Footnote: I have detailed, extensive, further thoughts on Final Cut Studio 2, ProRes, Color, etc., but I have to wait for certain articles to be released in other publications before I can say more. All my info and knowledge is, of course, available to my paying consulting clients at any time.

-mike

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

WWDC turned out to not be as warm-n-fuzzy special as I'd hoped - just a bunch of Leopard demos and iPhone details, and Safari 3 beta for Mac & Windows. Good, but not spectacular.

My thoughts on the biggies as they apply to what I/we do:

-full 64 bit support - good - means faster apps for us
-Time Machine - automate backups - we need these, and by far not enough folks do it
-Spaces will be nice when you're doing several things at once - It is entirely reasonable to imagine having FCP, Photoshop, Motion in spaces, or for later in the production pipeline Compressor, DVD Studio Pro, and FCP
-new Finder & Desktop are nice but not stupendous
-searching across the network will be handy (maybe Spotlight integrated next year?)
-Core Animation promises more pre-scripted motion graphics goodness in the future
-Boot Camp improves for running Windows apps on your system for those apps not on OS X
-Safari 3 beta for OS X...and XP and Vista as well - yep, Apple is making a free Windows web browser. Apple probably realized that iTunes was a tease of the Mac experience on Windows, and since iTunes already had so much web connectivity, it probably wasn't that hard to make the port.
-new and improved iChat may make remote work more viable. Somewhere I have a link about how to use a second Mac to stream Final Cut Pro video output to a client over iChat..improvements may make it work better
-Back to My Mac will be nice for remote work - your laptop on the road and your machines back home know each others' IP address (syncs via .Mac) - if you forgot something you can snag it (if not too big to pull it over broadband)

A lot of this stuff I don't particularly care about, but the thing that'll make me buy it for all my machines will be 64 bit support, Time Machine, and the ability to Spotlight search across the network.

Here's Engadget's posts on the matter, good summaries:

Apple's Mac OS X Leopard fully unveiled - Engadget

iPhone to ship on June 29th at 6pm - Engadget - 6pm, drat! So does that mean the line builds all day? I'd been planning on hanging out with some friends in line in the morning, this puts a dent in that plan.

That also makes it awkward - 6pm California time? Local time in each time zone? How will that work?

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Apple announces third-party software details for iPhone - Engadget - third parties have to be a web app - therefore have to have a data connection, either WiFi or burning minutes/kbytes on your plan. Less than optimal, but it does let 3rd party developers in.

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Safari 3 for Windows - Engadget - yep, Safari for Windows, Apple - Safari 3 Public Beta - download it here for OS X, Vista, or XP.

MONDAY NIGHT UPDATE - I went to dinner with one of my oldest friends who is developing software that iPhone's presence potentially affects. I asked him what he thought of this third party developer situation, and he said it was excellent spin on Apple's part - they get to pitch it as "We were listening to you, and here's how we're going to support you." when in fact it is a "feature" that iPhone has had all along - the ability to load fully functional, Web 2.0 + AJAX type pages. But it still requires a web connection, and it isn't any new functionality whatsoever - 3rd parties are relegated to only what can be done with the sandbox of web pages. To me, that fits into the "Gee, that's mighty white of you." category.

I also talked to this same friend about geting an iPhone, and was equivocating saying I wanted to play with the software based touchscreen keyboard before I plunked down $600 for the thing. He was already shaking his head before I got to the end of the sentence. "Dude - you're talking to someone who bought a Newton." After I finished my laughing fit, he further elaborated - not MessagePad 1.10, NEWTON. He also bought an original Macintosh. Not a Mac 512KB, a MACINTOSH, back when there was precisely ONE product in the lineup.

I'm sure Jobs loves guys like that. (And I love him too, just for slightly different reasons).

Other comments - new folder icons - eh, not so great to me.
-mike

Labels: Apple, OS X, software