NAB 09 Day 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guide to Final Cut Pro Internal Tools

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



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

Adjust Windows

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

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

Before


After


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

App / Perf Info

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



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

Log OpenGL Profile Costs

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



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

Log VM Footprint

This outputs the current memory usage to the Console.



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

Movie Dumpster

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

Playback Meter

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



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

Screen Size Override

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

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



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

Statistics

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



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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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

New Mac Pros, iMacs and Minis

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

Mac Mini

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

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

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

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

iMac

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

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

Mac Pro

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

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

Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon

32GB memory (8x4GB)

Mac Pro RAID Card

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

ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB graphics

Two 18x SuperDrives

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

AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi Card with 802.11n

Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card

Xsan 2

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

AppleCare protection plan for Mac Pro

$19,994.00, shipping in 6-8 weeks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note the absence of the NVIDIA Quadro FX.

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

Speculation on Mac Pro refresh

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

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

CPU

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

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

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

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

Memory

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

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

Hard Disk Options

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

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

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

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

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

Graphics cards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things you shouldn't hold your breath for

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

Conclusion

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

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

Either way, 2009 looks pretty good for video professionals.

What does 2009 hold for Final Cut Studio?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So here are my predictions:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roll on 2009!

How to keep your job as an editor

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

Black frames

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



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

Unsafe luma levels

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



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



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

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

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

Peaking audio

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

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

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



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

Incorrect field dominance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Upcoming Snow Leopard features you should know about

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this the death of FireWire?

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

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

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

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

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

Final Cut Pro Audio Filter Guide Part 2

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

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

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

3 Band Equalizer

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

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

Band Pass Filter

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

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

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

Compressor/Limiter

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

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

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

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

DC Notch

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

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

Echo

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

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

Expander / Noise Gate

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

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

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

Gain

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

High Pass Filter

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

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

High Shelf Filter

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

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

Hum Remover

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

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

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

Low Pass Filter

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

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

Useful for reducing high frequency noise such as buzzing.

Low Shelf Filter

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

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

Notch Filter

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

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

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

Parametric Equalizer

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

Reverberation

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

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

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

Vocal DeEsser

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

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

Vocal DePopper

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

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

One Final Note

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

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

Browser corruption bug still not fixed

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

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



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



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

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