My thoughts on the new Final Cut Studio
Wow, I go away for a couple of days and Apple has a brand new version of FCS waiting for me when I get back (although I do think the fact that it is simply called Final Cut Studio and not Final Cut Studio 3 will cause confusion).
Here are my first impressions:
Architecture
This is Leopard and Intel-only, which is a little surprising because there's only a couple of months until Snow Leopard comes out, and I think many of us thought a Snow Leopard-only release in September was likely. There is no word on whether or not it takes advantage of the new features of Snow Leopard such as Grand Central Dispatch or OpenCL, nor any indication that Final Cut Pro has been rewritten in Cocoa as has been so often speculated. I noticed a lot of the screenshots in Apple's examples were taken in Tiger, suggesting that perhaps the feature list was set long before Snow Leopard was announced.
Apple claims that Final Cut Studio will not work on a device with integrated graphics - such as a MacBook or Mac Mini. However, they also say that ProRes 422 Proxy is designed for editing on a MacBook or MacBook Pro, so it would appear that Final Cut Pro can at least be used on a machine with integrated graphics, if not some of the other apps in the suite.
It's also worth noting that the minor applications in the suite only received minor updates, as indicated by their version numbers. So it is likely that the
problems with Compressor have not gone away.
Blu-ray
Blu-ray burning directly in Compressor - I certainly didn't expect this. And integrating it into Compressor is significant too. Although I never really thought about it before, the majority of the DVDs I make in DVDSP are rough cuts for client approval that don't need a fancy custom menu and I never make use of any of the advanced features like scripting. I would imagine many people are in the same boat and therefore burning a basic disc in Compressor is a much faster and more efficient way to work.
It is telling though, that DVD Studio Pro did not receive a significant update for the second time running. We have been using essentially the same version for the past three years (an eternity in the technology world), and it suggests that Apple may perhaps discontinue this product in the future.
More ProRes options
Don't underestimate the importance of this. ProRes 4444 (the extra 4 refers to the alpha channel) allows you to convert footage shot with a high-end 4:4:4 camera to ProRes without sacrificing color information. With previous versions of Final Cut Studio, you would have had to leave it uncompressed (using up significantly more disk space and bandwidth), use Animation (slow) or explore a third-party codec.
The mastering possibilities are interesting too. HDCAM SR has long been the industry choice for HD mastering but it is expensive. Using ProRes 4444, you could create an HD master of equivalent quality to HDCAM SR but on a significantly cheaper LTO tape (LTO drives cost less than 1/10th of the cost of an HDCAM SR deck). LTO is the standard for data backup / archiving in the IT world and offers a number of other benefits such as potentially faster-than-realtime writing and also being format, frame size and frame rate agnostic. Of course, the receiver would have to have an LTO deck and necessary equipment.
LiveType discontinued
LiveType has long been superseded by Motion so it was only a matter of time before it was canned. In Motion 4 you can now adjust individual letters in a text object, meaning the one advantage LiveType had over Motion has now disappeared and consequently, LiveType has been discontinued. It was inevitable really.
Avid-like features
There are some nice new features to emulate Avid functionality, such as the new floating timecode display, global transitions and the ability to automatically import clips just by plugging in a drive. This is the benefit of competition.
Faster, better quality
I am a big fan of anything that makes things faster and/or improves video or audio quality. Background rendering and exporting is a huge feature and arguably should have been in Final Cut Pro 6 because they'd already laid the foundations with background SmoothCam processing.
Soundtrack Pro has a significantly redesigned architecture which improves performance and will hopefully address some of the issues I have experienced, such as working for a while on a project and then suddenly not being able to save it. It also features improved audio cleanup tools.
Faster frame control processing in Compressor gets my vote too.
RED support
The RED post workflow has always had issues and Apple has clearly developed the new Color and Cinema Tools with RED in mind. The main stumbling block in the RED workflow seems to be conforming the R3Ds once the offline edit is complete, and some third-party solutions have been created in an attempt to address this.
Now you can maintain the relationship between your original RED camera footage and your editing proxies inside a Cinema Tools database (hopefully CT creates and links the proxies automatically). You edit the proxies, export to Color and grade the original R3Ds using the data from the database to conform. This greatly simplifies things, although some would argue that native REDCODE support in the FCP timeline would be even better - perhaps when RED Rocket comes out?
Color also now supports 4K - although Apple will still be behind if the 6K Scarlet comes out this year as predicted.
Media Management
One thing people haven't commented much on is the improved media management, which has been the bane of every Final Cut Pro user at one point or another. Spotlight in Mac OS X indexes the files on your hard disk in a database and Final Cut Pro 7 uses that data to quickly reconnect the files, as opposed to querying them directly.
What this means is that FCP can reconnect files faster (so projects will presumably load a lot quicker) and hopefully be more intelligent when a file changes.
Missed opportunities
- No ScriptSync (Avid) / Speech-to-Text (Premiere) - There is no way of syncing dialogue up to a script or automatically converting it to text. This means that, unless you have an assistant to transcribe it for you, you have to search through a load of footage in order to find the line of dialogue or the soundbite you are looking for.
- No XML project files - Please Apple, this would make it far, far easier to seamlessly integrate Final Cut Pro with other applications.
- No word on Phenomenon - Contrary to speculation, the Shake replacement codenamed Phenomenon was not included in Final Cut Studio or bundled into Motion, which begs the question of whether it will ever arrive.
Final Thoughts
There's some good stuff here - Apple has (eventually) listened to a lot of our complaints about media management, exports typing up the application, etc. But how well these work in reality will remain to be seen. I won't get my copy until next week.
But maybe it's not called Final Cut Studio 3 because there's not really anything there to justify calling it that. Although Final Cut Studio 2 also had few major features, it did at least come with a brand new application that used to cost $20k (Color). I think the new price cut reflects Apple's recognition that selling the upgrade at $499 would perhaps not be value for money, meaning future updates may not necessarily be as cheap.
Interesting Links
Official Final Cut Studio pageFully-indexed online Final Cut Pro manualFinal Cut Studio in Depth - 66 page document from Apple detailing all the changes
Apple ProRes white paperApple KB: Installing content when upgradingMacWorld review by Mike CurtisHow to Install Final Cut Studio 3Norman Hollyn's takeIn-depth review by Jan OzerMike Jones compares Final Cut Pro 7 to his wishlistInstalling Final Cut Pro 6 and 7 side-by-sideChanges in FCP 7.0 XML - for developers
Studio Daily summaryMore links from xlr8yourmac.comPosted by Jon Chappell on Jul 24 2009 to
Analysis,
Final Cut Studio,
ApplePermalinkFinal Cut Pro 6.0.6 released
Apple today released
Final Cut Pro 6.0.6.
The
release notes name only one fix:
Improved Real-Time Playback on Certain Mac Pro and Xserve ModelsFinal Cut Pro 6.0.6 improves real-time playback capabilities with Mac Pro (Early 2009) models and Xserve (Early 2009) models when working with complex sequences or high-bandwidth media formats.
There are no new features, but I wasn't actually expecting any - in fact, I wasn't expecting an FCP 6.0.6 update at all. I guess this was an urgent fix.
Of course, this new update will raise questions about Final Cut Studio 3 but I am confident that it is in development. Apple's ProApp developers on the
pro-apps-dev mailing list are very much alive and well, and frequently ask third-party developers what features they would like to see in future versions. Some kind of official acknowledgment and a tentative release schedule from Apple would be nice though.
The usual guidelines apply - don't update in the middle of a project, don't update for several weeks so that potential bugs and issues have a chance to show themselves, don't update if you don't need the features in this patch (it only applies to 2009 models), and make sure to clone your drive before you update.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Jun 23 2009 to
Final Cut Studio,
Video Editing,
ApplePermalinkWWDC 2009 Summary
The WWDC Philnote ended a few minutes ago. If I were to sum it up in one sentence, it would be "one step forward, two steps back".
15" MacBook Pro
Apple announced a new 15" MacBook Pro with a built-in battery like its 17" sibling. This results in dramatically improved battery life, performance and reliability at the expense of a battery you cannot replace. To me this is not a problem at all but to some it will be a dealbreaker.
It also has an improved display with a 60% greater color gamut, allowing it to display a much greater range of colors. It's much faster, with up to a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and up to 8GB of RAM, with a 500 GB hard disk or 256 GB SSD. It's also cheaper, starting at $1699 for the base model.
However, much like its previous notebook offerings, Apple gives with one hand and takes with the other. In a move that makes me question how in touch Apple is with its pro users, they have replaced the ExpressCard slot with an SD card slot. So that means no more native SxS support - you'll need to fork out for a USB adapter. And expect a drop in transfer speed over USB too.
Removing the ExpressCard slot drastically reduces the flexibility of the laptop. They've replaced a versatile port with one that has few uses (at least for video professionals). It also means we will not be able to connect eSATA devices or monitoring / conversion devices such as the Matrox MXO2 to MacBook Pros, drastically reducing their usefulness. This is a ridiculous decision for Apple to make on a device with "Pro" in the title.
Sure, you can get around this issue by buying a 17" MacBook Pro but I feel an ExpressCard slot should come as standard and not require you to buy a bigger, heavier and more expensive machine just for that feature.
Another aspect that is sure to irk ProApp users is the base model. Although it is good that Apple has reduced its price, it only features onboard graphics, unlike all the others which feature onboard and discrete graphics. This makes it unsuitable for applications like Motion and makes me question how future-proof this machine will be when Snow Leopard with OpenCL comes out. I think a machine with "Pro" in the title should be appropriately-specced to run Apple's professional applications.
13" MacBook Pro
Speaking of which, Apple rebranded the aluminum unibody MacBooks as the 13" MacBook Pro. Although the specifications are similar to the base 15" model and will therefore also result in limited ProApp usage and questionable OpenCL performance in Snow Leopard, I don't have a problem with that because this is something that was never there in the first place - this is not something Apple has taken away from us.
There's also some good news - Apple seems to have paid attention to the protests over the lack of FireWire ports in the previous generation and has now restored a single FireWire 800 port. The models are available up to 2.53 GHz with up to 8 GB RAM, an SD slot and a GeForce 9400M. The high-end 13" model is identical to the base 15" model in specification, which reiterates my opinion that the base 15" model is underpowered.
MacBook Air
Like the others, the MacBook Air has received a speed bump. It's also had a huge price cut and there is now only a few hundred dollars difference between the regular hard disk and SSD versions.
Snow Leopard
Apple demoed a few features but as the main changes were under the hood, these will probably be explored in more detail during the rest of the week.
Worthy of note:
- Snow Leopard takes up around 6 GB less space than Leopard
- "Fewer wait cursors"
- Exposé is built into the dock - click and hold on a Dock icon and the app's windows will zoom out
- Browser plugins are put in a separate process so that they do not crash the browser when they fail (it's unclear whether browsers other than Safari will be able to take advantage of this)
- QuickTime X has been rebuilt from scratch, is hardware accelerated, has built-in ColorSync support and can stream data from any HTTP server (unfortunately more detailed information was not given)
- QuickTime X has a minimal UI - it's very similar to QuickLook. Simple editing and uploading to popular video sharing sites built-in (essentially QuickTime Pro for free).
- All system apps run in 64-bit
- Grand Central allows developers to manage threads to make multi-threading more efficient
The biggest Snow Leopard announcement is that Snow Leopard will cost $129 retail like all the rest but only $29 if you are upgrading from Leopard. Yes, you read that correctly. It comes out in September, a month before Windows 7.
Safari 4
Safari 4 is out today and is
available for download for Mac OS X 10.5.7. and Windows. This was one of my favorite announcements of the day - why? Because it makes Safari 4 the first shipping browser to pass
Acid3 and support many new HTML5 web features.
One notable feature is video and audio tags. These allow you to play supported video and audio content directly in the browser without the need for Flash, Silverlight or other technologies. Plugins are always slower and more resource-hungry than native support for a particular feature, and open standards are always preferable. See
this page for an HTML5 video that plays directly in your browser without Flash.
These changes have also made it across to MobileSafari, and it means Flash on the iPhone is even less likely than before (not a bad thing).
iPhone 3GS
It is a new iPhone but the name is very similar to the previous iPhone 3G, probably because no external differences were made to the phone or perhaps because it is still on the 3G network. It is considerably faster, features a 3MP digital camera, can record video, has a magnetometer (compass), 7.2Mbps HSDPA (faster 3G connection), voice operation, available in 16 and 32 GB on June 19th. The iPhone 3G has been reduced today to $99 and will continue to be sold once the new phone is out.
Tethering is not supported by AT&T and MMS will only work on the AT&T network at the end of summer (other networks do not have this handicap). Even Apple seemed fed up with AT&T's general incompetence, making frequent jokes at AT&T's expense.
One other notable feature is called Find My iPhone. Mobile Me users can log in and locate their lost iPhone on a map, send messages to it or make it emit a sound so that it can be located (even if it is on silent). If the phone has been stolen, you can remotely wipe your personal data from it. This is a pretty nice feature.
Final Cut Studio 3
This was missing in action, leading us to wonder when it will be released. Will it be released in conjunction with Snow Leopard - who knows? All I know is that Avid and Adobe CS4 have edged ahead and are looking mighty tempting, and Nuke is looking like a great replacement for Shake. When it comes to making your living, you can't wait around forever for software that you don't know anything about in terms of new features and may not even end up being released. You have to buy what you need when you need it - Apple needs to realize this.
So in conclusion, there's some great stuff there for consumers but professional users appear to have been sidelined once again.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Jun 8 2009 to
Apple,
Analysis,
QuickTimePermalinkSign the DVD Studio Pro Blu-ray petition
AppleInsider recently had an
article listing the version numbers of the applications in Final Cut Studio 3.
Although it's just a series of numbers, it is a useful indicator of just how much the applications have been updated. The most notable numbers are Color 1.5, Compressor 3.5 - indicating relatively minor changes - and DVD Studio Pro 4.2.2 - indicating virtually no changes at all.
So for those of you hoping for a major DVD Studio Pro update that supports Blu-ray burning, it looks like you're going to be disappointed once again.
There is now a petition
circulating that asks Apple to reconsider its policy.
"We, the undersigned, will not buy a new version of Final Cut Studio if it is still lacking Blu-ray support."
Be sure to add your signature if you agree.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Jun 5 2009 to
DVD,
Apple,
Final Cut StudioPermalinkMac OS X 10.5.7 released
Apple has finally released the much-delayed 10.5.7 update to Leopard. There was much speculation that it was delayed to coincide with the full release of Safari 4 which is currently in beta, however this is clearly not the case as Apple has just released
Safari 3.2.3 and an updated beta of
Safari 4 (you won't see this in Software Update until you update to 10.5.7 though).
The
release notes are quite brief, however it is possible to get a much better overview by looking at World of Apple's
seed notes for the 10.5.7 beta. This is not a comprehensive list but gives a good indication of the final changes.
There's some good stuff in there - lots of networking fixes and several changes aimed at improving sleep/wake reliability (I've actually stopped putting my MacBook to sleep because it either wakes up constantly every 10 mins or never wakes up at all). It also contains updated graphics drivers. There's really nothing serious in there so you can update at your leisure. It's very much a polish update.
If you are thinking of updating though, remember the Golden Rules:
1. Never update in the middle of a project
2. Wait a week or two for problems to surface
3. Perform a clone of your system before installing
4. You will experience greater reliability from the larger combo updater
10.5.7 Delta Update (10.5.6 -> 10.5.7)
10.5.7 Combo Update (10.5.x -> 10.5.7)
10.5.7 Server Delta Update (10.5.6 -> 10.5.7)
10.5.7 Server Combo Update (10.5.x -> 10.5.7)
The bundled
security update is also available separately for Tiger users as Security Update 2009-02.
Update: Mac Mini users are
reporting problems already. It seems like certain DVI displays are not being recognized correctly on Mac Minis.
Posted by Jon Chappell on May 12 2009 to
Apple,
SoftwarePermalinkCompressor error - "You must enter a name for this batch submission"
Sometimes when you submit a batch, you may get the error:
"You must enter a name for this batch submission. This is the name that identifies this submission in the Batch Monitor and History window."
This error pops up when you drag items into the batch window in the
wrong order. You must drag the clip in first and then drag in the settings and destinations.
There really shouldn't be a specific order for doing this but unfortunately Compressor can be very illogical at times.
Posted by Jon Chappell on May 3 2009 to
Final Cut Studio,
Apple,
Video EditingPermalinkNVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac Pro
The 2009 Mac Pros don't have a great range of graphics cards to choose from. You can go for the cut-down GeForce GT 120 or the more advanced Radeon 4870, and that's it unless you plump for an older card (not to mention of course the fact that you must buy one card for every Mini DisplayPort monitor you own, which screws up FCP).
There's now another one to choose from - the
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800. It's incredibly powerful with 1.5 GB of memory, 192 CUDA parallel processing cores (!) and 76.8 GB/sec memory bandwidth. But its price tag matches its capabilities - $1799.
I would not actually recommend this for ProApp use, as the Quadros have not traditionally been optimized for Core Image operations (not to mention the small number of ProApps that utilize the GPU significantly) so a lot of that power goes to waste in Final Cut Studio. However, this card is often used for 3D modeling and visualization tasks.
Why was this not released with the 2009 Mac Pros? One explanation could be the fact it requires OS X 10.5.7 which has not been released yet. The card is scheduled to be released in May, which suggests 10.5.7 would also be released around that time too.
It is compatible with the 2008 and 2009 Mac Pros. Apple have not announced anything on their site so it remains to be seen if there will be a BTO option. Interestingly, NVIDIA's site only mentions Dual-Link DVI as a display option and does not mention Mini DisplayPort at all.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Apr 21 2009 to
Apple,
HardwarePermalinkIncoming network connection dialogs keep appearing
Amazingly for an OS that markets itself as secure, the firewall in OS X is not switched on by default. So if you switch it to the recommended mode, "Set access for specific services and applications", OS X will prompt you to allow or deny incoming connections.
But sometimes that dialog will not go away! Certain applications such as QmasterStatusMenu.app and Batch Monitor.app cause the dialog to pop up every 5 seconds (or every 20 seconds if you ignore it) which gets annoying very quickly.
The reason for this is that applications like QmasterStatusMenu.app and Batch Monitor.app don't communicate on the same port each time. It is constantly changing, as this log excerpt shows:
This really confuses the very basic OS X firewall.
Some people have recommended switching the firewall off but I wouldn't recommend this. There's always a trade-off between security and convenience, but this trade-off is far too big. Instead, it is much better to just obtain a more advanced firewall.
I would recommend
Little Snitch for this job. It gives you infinitely more options than the default firewall, lets you see where apps are sending data, doesn't bug you too often, and most importantly, it copes with applications that constantly change ports so those annoying 5-second popups go away.
The demo gives you full functionality for 3 hours, after which you just restart the firewall again. That's a lot better than popups every 5 seconds, but if 3 hours is too often, you can buy a single license for $29.99.
Just install Little Snitch, restart the computer and switch the default OS X firewall to "Allow all incoming connections". Little Snitch then takes over - you can now use Qmaster and be safe at the same time.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Apr 19 2009 to
Apple,
Final Cut Studio,
UtilitiesPermalink
Cut Notes
CinePlay
Aspect Ratio Matte Generator
Video Space Calculator
KollaborateCloud platform for pro video
Pro Maintenance ToolsMaintain, optimize and troubleshoot your editing system
Pro Media ToolsMedia and workflow management for video pros
CinePlayProfessional video player
Post HasteCreate projects from customizable templates
Preference ManagerTrash, backup, lock and restore preferences for your video apps
FCS RemoverUninstall Final Cut Studio and FCPX