A quick video shot and edited on iPhone 4 in Beverly, MA. If you have trouble with the video above, watch it on Vimeo.

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.

“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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Of the seven items on my wishlist, five (and a half) of them were announced at today’s Apple event. I’m counting the new Nike + iPod announcement as a half since it wasn’t expanded to include iPhones. Kind of a bummer, but maybe that just means I have an excuse to buy a new iPod nano.

Today will also go in my calendar as the first time I’ve ever really been jealous of iPod touch owners. They have the ability to download the new 2.1 firmware immediately, while the iPhone firmware won’t be available until Friday. I’m anxious to get my hands on it. From what I’ve read so far however, there was no mention of the push notification service at the event today — which leads me to wonder if we’re in for another firmware update by the end of the month. It’s a feature that could be really handy for apps like NetNewsWire and Twitterific (or Twinkle, if that’s your thing), and I was surprised that there was no mention of it.

I like the new visualizer in iTunes. It’s actually not quite as awesome as I was hoping, but it’s still fun. I was a little curious as to why it’s listed under the nondescript label, “iTunes Visualizer” while the other visualizers have names like Lathe, Jelly and Stix. Either way, it’s something I probably won’t use very often. But it’s nice that it’s there.

I’m really excited about HD shows coming to iTunes. I’m not as excited about the 1.5GB that each episode is going to take up, but having the option there is very cool. It’s also worth noting that when you buy an HD episode (which is a dollar extra) you still get the standard version too.

Even cooler still are the Genius playlists. I have a lot of music that I never really listen to. I tend to roll through a few bands at a time, then slowly migrate to another. I’m not a fan of shuffle. I like listening to the albums the way they were produced — in order and (generally) uninterrupted. Shuffling makes me uneasy as I have no control over what’s going to play. The Genius playlists afford me a safety net of general musical similarity. I like that.

And now that I’ve settled down a bit, I can clearly see that we once again have no new displays. I really thought we had that one on lockdown this time. Oh, well. I guess you’re really can’t have it all. But HDTV sure is a good start.

1. HD television shows and movies available in the iTunes store
2. iTunes 8 (to support all those new TV shows and movies)
3. Nike + iPod upgraded and expanded to include iPhones
4. 4th generation iPod nano (pretty much a given)
5. 2nd generation iPod touch (also a given)
6. iPhone/iPod 2.1 firmware update
7. New cinema displays

Okay, that last one is kind of a joke. I think I’ve wished for new displays before every major Apple event for the past few years. Still, I can hope.

Something I’m not expecting are new MacBooks or MacBook Pros. As much as I’d love to see a new design for the Pro, I’m not counting on it happening this month. There have been rumors floating around for a while about a dramatically redesigned case for the next generation, but nobody’s mentioned any dates yet. October, perhaps? Maybe by the time new models do come out I’ll actually have enough money to buy one.

I guess I’ll just have to satiate my Apple addiction with September 9th’s event, and hope that before the day is out I will have finally realized my dream of downloading Mythbusters in HD.

About a year ago I worked for a few months teaching myself Ruby on Rails. I’m not a programmer, but I really wanted a tape logger that I could use on my iPhone, and one hadn’t been introduced yet. So I made my own.

It’s not perfect. I did the best I could with the knowledge of programming that I had at the time, and the result was a single release of a web app I called Tapes. Since it’s debut in Apple’s web app section I’ve had 5,485 people sign up as users. I have no way of checking to see if they’re actually using the application, but if even a handful of them still find it useful I’d be thrilled.

But now we have the ability to write native apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. I would love nothing more than to be able to sell Tapes (don’t worry, I’m thinking $4.99) through the iTunes store and do my part to fill the gaping void of production-oriented apps. My biggest problem in reaching this goal is that I’m STILL NOT A PROGRAMMER. I’ve been studying up on C since February, but I don’t really feel like I’ve got a firm grasp on it yet. And after that I have to learn Objective-C. And then the Cocoa-touch framework. And make sure the UI is intuitive. And then get accepted into Apple’s dev program even though I’m not really a developer. All without having a formal education in computer science.

Basically, it’s hard.

But hard isn’t bad. Just challenging. So I promise you this, Internets: If it can be done, it shall be done. I will do my best to come out with a native tape or footage logging application at some point in the future. I have no idea when, or how. But I’m going to try.

And if you know anybody that knows anything about writing Objective-C apps, please send them my way.

Because I need some help.

This summer has been pretty crazy what with moving across the country and everything. I haven’t had the time to write about everything that I thought was interesting, so I thought about creating a linked list (no affiliation to this guy, of course) to catch up on what’s been going on around here.

• The biggest news is that Meagan and I have moved from Orlando, FL to Salem, MA. We love it. Salem is amazing. You should definitely take a look at all of the pictures I’ve shot since moving.

• The real bombshell here, however, is that Meagan is going to be working with legendary, dragon-slaying designer Dan Cederholm, of SimpleBits fame. We’re all pretty excited about that, and I can’t wait to see what kind of mind-expanding creations these two come up with in the months to come.
• A week (to the day) after arriving in Salem, Meagan and I found ourselves attending the first ever gathering of The Build Guild. The Build Guild is a collection of web developers and designers from the greater Salem area, who meet to talk shop and eat some delicious Salem food. The first meeting was a lot of fun, thanks in a big way to the Guild’s founders, Marc Amos and Angelo Simeoni.

• A fews days prior to leaving Orlando, I wrote about my MacBook Pro having a logic board failure. After I got the computer back I decided to try and restore the system from my latest Time Machine backup. Something I wasn’t aware of is that Time Machine uses your computer’s MAC address to identify it for a backup. When that address changes (such as when you get a new logic board), you have to perform a bit of Unix voodoo to get it to work again. I found a great walk-through on the topic over at Mac OSX Hints. If you’re having a similar issue, this should straighten things out.
• I’m a big fan of The Edit Blog for it’s fantastic production-related content. On a recent post Scott linked to a post by a very frustrated filmmaker trying to work with Soundtrack Pro for audio mixing. He lists his grievances and calls for it’s immediate execution by Apple. I’ve had my share of frustrations with Soundtrack Pro, but I’ve never wished death upon it before. He makes some great points though. Definitely worth a read.
• Lastly, I’m going to bookend this post with another mention of moving. One of my new favorite blogs, Big Contrarian recently had a post about moving that I loved. Read it and subscribe immediately.

Around 2am, Thursday morning I put my MacBook Pro to sleep. I was going out into the living room to watch a movie with my roommates (the Mel Gibson tour-de-force, Ransom) when I figured I could use my computer to convert some video I was in the process of archiving. I went back into my room and lifted the lid. The screen didn’t turn on.

Now, I know that sometimes that happens. You just have to give it a minute before the screen kicks in and you’re right as rain. Well, I gave it half an hour and still nothing. I tried connecting my external display and nothing. I wasn’t even getting a backlight. NOTHING. At this point I went and made an appointment at the Millenia Apple store for that afternoon.

After taking a look at it, and hearing about my various restart/reset attempts, the Genius (named Jason, btw) told me that my logic board was probably fried.

Well, that sucks. He told me they’d send it out and have it back to me in about 10 days. The problem then is that I’m not going to be around in 10 days. I’ll be settling into my new home in Salem, MA at that point. So he kindly told me that they’d be happy to ship it there instead.

I went home and spent a few days trying to work exclusively from my iPhone. And as great as it is, it’s not a desktop replacement. At least not yet. So I dug out the first Mac I ever bought, a 12″ PowerBook G4. It was in need of a pretty serious cleaning as it had recently been put through the special kind of abuse only a 14 year-old can inflict.

After the cleaning, however, the trackpad wasn’t as responsive as I would have liked. I also lost the ability to use two-finger scrolling. I solved the latter by downloading iScroll2. But to fix the first issue, I’d have to do a little bit of Mac surgery. I went into the closet and pulled out a twin PowerBook G4 that only lived for about a week before being stepped on by an unapologetic professor with a weight and coordination problem.

I took stock of what parts I was going to harvest (I seemed to be missing a few screws from the working machine too) and got down to business. The process took about an hour, and in the end I had what felt like a much newer PowerBook G4 to play with. Which is what I’m writing this on now.

I look forward to getting my working MacBook Pro back in a week or so, but it’s always a humbling experience going back a few years in the Mac legacy. In fact, I’m amazed that this machine runs as well as it does. With a lone 1.33GHz PPC processor, and just 768MB of RAM, I don’t have a problem running Leopard, or doing all of the web-browsing things I’d want to do. Obviously I’m not doing any video work on this machine, but it’s fine for photos, and music, and most multi-media operations.

It’s just one more reason why I love these machines so much, and why I’m not ripping my hair out over a toasted logic board.