Posted by Jason on June 9th, 2009
As Apple throws all caution to the wind by skipping two full versions between iterations 7 and 10, I can’t help but wonder what QuickTime X — and Snow Leopard — means for the future of Final Cut Studio.
For now the only information I can find is the bit about ColorSync that was mentioned in the WWDC Keynote on Monday, and the small section under Snow Leopard’s New Technologies heading. ColorSync is Apple’s system for maintaining consistency across imaging devices like displays, printers, scanners, and digital cameras so that the color viewed on screen is the same as the color printed out.
Maybe this means an end to those tricky gamma-shift issues that occurred when exporting to specific formats in Compressor.
Snow Leopard is due out in September, so it would be great to hear something about Final Cut Studio around then, but I won’t get my hopes up. I wouldn’t be too surprised if it’s April before we hear any mention of Final Cut Studio 3. But holy cow, that would have to be some upgrade, right? It will have been three years since the last major release, and I expect the Final Cut team have been keeping themselves busy since 2007 — especially with all those new Snow Leopard goodies like Grand Central Dispatch to play with.
Posted by Jason on January 16th, 2009
John August, screenwriter, blogger, and somebody I have great respect for, had this to say about the new iMovie,
“Among the products Apple announced today is iMovie 09, an update to their entry-level video editor that I currently find completely unusable. They have demo videos up showing some of the new features, which range from very helpful (stabilization) to fairly gimmicky (the animated maps).
What’s most clear, however, is that they’re sticking with the bizarre and unfortunate editing interface.”
I disagree. When I look at iMovie in its current state I don’t see a “bizarre and unfortunate editing interface.” I see the future of what digital editing could be.
If we’re talking about bizarre and unfortunate look no further than Final Cut Pro’s familiar, but relentlessly unchanged, UI. It’s a time capsule, showing off all the worst parts of digital editing. It’s clunky, chunky and crowded. It’s also extremely uninviting. If you sit a novice in front of Final Cut Pro and tell them to get to it, you’re going to get that same stunned silence usually reserved for grandparents and cell phones.
On the other hand, anybody can open iMovie and immediately see how skimming a clip initiates playback. Or how dragging a clip onto another will give you options after you’ve dropped it — not like that moment of what-just-happened panic that occurs after dragging a clip from FCP’s browser to the canvas for the first time.
iMovie ’09 brings with it an entirely visual process, and that’s exactly what editing should be. I’m excited, and hopeful, that these changes will be the basis for tools and features in future versions of Final Cut Pro.
Posted by Jason on October 23rd, 2008
The initial benchmarks for the new MacBook Pro models are about what you’d expect — they’re good. I haven’t seen any testing done with the 2.8GHz chips, though I imagine those numbers will look even better.
But probably not out-of-the-park better.
Today I saw this post from Engadget, which provides a few answers about the new Nvidia chips, straight from the source. Apparently the new chipsets really are capable of on-the-fly switching, simultaneous processing, and provide support for up to 8GB of RAM.
8GB of RAM. In a notebook. That blows my mind.
It’s up to Apple to write support for these technologies, however, and it’s unclear whether that’s in the cards for the notebooks in the immediate future. It certainly seems possible that those kind of enhancements could be delivered through Software Update, although I can’t recall another time when such a massive performance upgrade was delivered in such a way.
It’s going to be exciting to see what happens here, and whether or not we’re going to see the kind of processing home run we know these machines are (at least on paper) capable of.
Posted by Jason on October 22nd, 2008
The world is falling apart and it’s all Apple’s fault.
That’s right, it’s USB and glare-induced pandemonium out there, people. But we can get through this. It’s not the first time we’ve lost a beloved technology (I’ll never forget you, Floppy), but we can get past this. We have to. We just need to calm down.
In my own attempt to restore peace and balance to the world, I drove to an Apple store to see the new machines for myself. I liked them. A lot. Here are something things I noticed:
Things I Noticed
The screen is bright — really bright
Speaker grills are super freaking tiny
The light sensor has moved to the display
Black keys look better with black screen bezel
Glare is most noticeable with dark colors and blacks
Trackpad is only clickable starting about a third of the way down
It costs $99 extra to connect to a current-gen 30in cinema display
I’m really not too terribly concerned about the glass screen. I have to believe that Apple wouldn’t leave all of those color-conscious designers and colorists out in the cold like that. Apple has billed their MacBook Pro line to be a mobile and professional solution for things like digital film production. Personally, I’m holding off judgment until I see some benchmarks and color accuracy tests. Which, I’m guessing, won’t take long.
The FireWire 400 problem is a little different, but solvable. Or work-around-able. Granted a work-around isn’t ideal, but if this is the end of FireWire 400 I’d rather it leave us when companies are still making FireWire 400 devices (like hard drives), than not. As it is now, in the event of a new MacBook Pro arrival, I’ll be able to connect my DVX100a via FW400 into one of my triple or quad interface hard drives (I call that future-planning). That’ll slow the FW800 data rate during import, but I can handle that.
Anther possibility (and I haven’t tried this myself, so maybe it doesn’t work) is to use a hard drive to connect the camera via FW400 and connect the notebook via USB 2. I think it’s possible — and even probable — that it’ll work. It’s something I plan to test soon. [UPDATE: As StevP points out in his comment this is not likely to work. However, I still have not tested this myself.]
You could always just check your camera’s manual to see if footage capture is possible over USB. If you’re working with mid to high level consumer gear this is probably an option you didn’t even know you had.
Apple adds native Soundtrack Pro support
The biggest surprise, however, is also the least publicized: Native Soundtrack Pro support. I’m thrilled to see Apple starting to address the issues users are facing when working with their pro apps. I’m talking about the new thumbscoop on the unibody where you lift to open the display. It’s an extremely well designed and understated feature. And the best part is that the corners are razor sharp — perfect for those long hopeless nights troubleshooting Soundtrack Pro error messages. Simply use one of the new gestures (listed as a “wrist swipe”) to activate the wonderful red release.
Finally. A way out. Thank you, Apple.
But seriously, folks. I can subjectively say that these new MacBook Pro models are beautiful. They feel solid, they look great, and the alleged graphical processing improvements are very welcome. More than anything I just want to see how the new Nvidia chips improve Final Cut Studio’s performance, specifically Motion.
While the concerns over the glass and FireWire issues are mostly legitimate, I don’t see a huge scandal developing over either. Professionals will continue to use monitors for color grading, and cameras will continue to evolve their footage (and file) transfer methods. It’s a surprising change, yes. But it’s not a deal-breaker.
Posted by Jason on October 9th, 2008
Slate [iTunes] popped into the App Store a few days ago. It’s a $1.99 iPhone/iPod touch app that acts in place of a physical slate for marking scenes and syncing picture to audio.
It’s a great idea, and probably the best dressed production-related iPhone app I’ve seen yet. You’re given a black on white (or white on black, your choice) interface with fields for production title, scene and take numbers, and director’s name. When you touch the clap sticks at the top, a visual cue appears for a moment and an audible beep or clap is played through the speaker. Scene and take counters are incremented when you tap the current scene or take number. The screen is dominated, however, by a running timecode which acts more like a glorified clock than a helpful way to keep things in sync.
I think I’d prefer to have the option to choose my own starting timecode — and have it freeze when clapping — instead of flashing “clap” (or “beep”, depending).
I’m also not hugely impressed with Marker Felt as the font choice here. It’s got the same tacky feeling that Comic Sans has. I get that maybe it’s supposed to feel like the words were handwritten on there, but it doesn’t. To me, it looks like somebody just took the easy way out. There are better fonts out there.
I’m also a little frustrated that you can’t fit much in the production field without running into an ellipsis. I can’t stand that. It’s like when Twitter gets confused and accidentally lets you type more than 140 characters, but then just throws up an ellipsis condemning the rest of your thought to oblivion.
I think part of the problem is how much space the “Prod.” abbreviation takes up, especially considering the app’s vertical orientation. If only I could rotate my phone and put this whole thing into landscape mode. That would solve my ellipsis gripe, and make a lot more sense visually.
But really, Slate isn’t too bad at all. Especially for just $1.99. It’s very usable and seems like it’ll be a handy tool to have while shooting. For that, I’m happy. I’m also happy to see somebody finally trying to fill the void of production-related apps in the App Store. I expect that these Swedes probably have some more things planned for the iPhone and I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for whatever is next.
In the meantime I guess if I don’t like it I could always just try and build my own.