FCS Maintenance Pack Q&A on PVC

I recently did a Q&A with Scott Simmons over at Pro Video Coalition about our flagship product, FCS Maintenance Pack. It gives a good insight into the reasons for creating the suite and answers many common questions.

If you haven’t been having any noticeable problems with Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Studio, do you need Maintenance Pack?

If you haven’t run into problems in the past, that’s no guarantee that you won’t run into problems in the future. And of course, those show-stopping problems always happen on a deadline.

FCS Maintenance Pack is not just limited to fixing problems though. It has been designed as a prevention, diagnosis and cure rolled into one. You can run common housekeeping tasks to keep Final Cut Studio performing well and minimize the chances of a problem developing, use Crash Analyzer to diagnose your crash logs if a problem does occur, and then use System Toolkit, Project Repair, QT Repair, or one of the many other tools to fix it.

Some of the applications, while being invaluable if a problem arises, are useful applications in their own right. Plugin Manager, for instance, allows you to organize your Final Cut Studio plugins into groups, selectively enable and disable them, toggle between making them available to all users or just the current user, and painlessly install new plugins - all without having to worry about which one of the many plugin folders the plugin resides in.

So FCS Maintenance Pack is still useful for users who might not currently have problems, and it will be invaluable once problems do crop up (and I can guarantee they will sooner or later).

You can read the full article here, and feel free to leave a comment with additional questions.

FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2.2 out now - redesigned Corrupt Clip Finder and more

Yesterday we released FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2.2. This update adds several new features, a few of which I will detail below.

Corrupt Clip Finder

Corrupt Clip Finder has a redesigned user interface and now offers more options for dealing with files once they have been found.



You can now assign a color label to corrupt files in the Finder so that they are easily recognizable, as well as quarantining them into a separate folder or moving them to the Trash. Corrupt Clip Finder now supports batch operations so these actions can be performed quickly to a large number of files.




In addition, Corrupt Clip Finder is now more tolerant of reference QuickTime movies, and will automatically close any QuickTime dialogs that pop up as a result of trying to process these files.

FCS Housekeeper

FCS Housekeeper has been greatly simplified to be more user-friendly. The new Preset drop-down at the top of the window gives you a choice of two presets.

Basic is for everyday housekeeping tasks where Final Cut Studio is not necessarily misbehaving and Comprehensive is specifically designed for troubleshooting. You can also select and deselect tasks individually.



These are just a couple of new fixes and tweaks. Here's the full changelog:

• Improved Corrupt Clip Finder clip detection
• Corrupt Clip Finder - Batch operations on corrupt clips are now supported
• Corrupt Clip Finder - Corrupt files can now be color coded in the Finder for easy identification
• Corrupt Clip Finder - UI improvements
• Corrupt Clip Finder - Added a timeout to prevent reference movies with missing data from tying up the application
• Path Manager - Support for Final Cut Pro user paths (read-only)
• Autosave Cleaner - Added the ability to specify autosave paths manually
• FCS Housekeeper - Simplified the application by adding presets for common tasks
• File Salvage - Improvements in responsiveness when creating a QuickTime movie
• QT Repair - UI improvements
• Updated Crash Analyzer definitions
• General bug fixes, tweaks and improvements

FCS Maintenance Pack is available for $129 and a 15-day trial is available which will fix many problems for free.

We're always on the lookout for feature suggestions and the changes in this release are a direct result of user feedback. So if you have a request, however important or trivial, use the Help > Suggest a Feature link in each application, contact us or send us a message on Twitter.

FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2.1 released

We've just released FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2.1, a small maintenance update to our popular Final Cut Studio troubleshooting software.

As well as the usual bug fixes and performance improvements, this update also offers a couple of new features. File Salvage now supports Big Endian audio formats and also offers audio support for DV QuickTime movies; Corrupt Clip Finder can now locate corrupt audio files in addition to corrupt movie clips; and Preference Manager can now automatically launch the Final Cut Pro System Settings dialog when you open a new project to encourage users to double-check their scratch disk settings.

Here's the full changelog:

• Improved Task Scheduler memory usage
• Fixed an Autosave Cleaner crash
• Improved compatibility with PowerPC processors
• File Salvage now supports Big Endian audio formats
• File Salvage now supports audio for DV QuickTime movies
• Path Manager automatically creates a subfolder for safety if you set a path to an important directory such as your user library or system root
• Corrupt Clip Finder can now locate corrupt audio files
• Preference Manager can now automatically launch the Final Cut Pro System Settings dialog when a new project is opened
• Updated Crash Analyzer definitions
• General bug fixes, tweaks and performance improvements

FCS Maintenance Pack is $129 with a free 15-day trial available here. Check out the Resources section of the site for more useful tools.

FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 released

We've just released FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2, a significant update to FCS Maintenance Pack.

There are far too many tweaks, bug fixes and optimizations to mention in detail but here's a summary of some of the biggest changes.

Three new tools

• QT Repair repairs QuickTime movies and is intended as an alternative to the heavy-handed approach of using File Salvage to extract data to a new file. It can also repair invalid CLUT IDs that can corrupt movie clips created with older versions of QuickTime and optionally restore trimmed or edited media if you make an edit that you regret (providing the media is still within the file).
  
  For more heavily damaged files, it can rebuild the clip by combining the movie data of the damaged file with the QuickTime structure of a working file.


• Path Manager provides a central place to manage Final Cut Studio content and user paths. It replaces Content Manager and offers extra options such as mass path organization, path locking and syncing, and more.


• XML Repair verifies and repairs Final Cut Pro XML files. Can also convert between Final Cut Pro XMEML versions for compatibility with older versions of Final Cut Pro.

Final Cut Express support

FCS Maintenance Pack now supports Final Cut Express 4.

Redesigned File Salvage

File Salvage has been redesigned with a focus on batch processing. Multiple files can now be salvaged sequentially - saving a lot of time if you have a large number of files to process.

It also supports significantly more formats than the previous version, including DVCPRO HD and all flavors of ProRes. Audio support has been added for several file formats and you can specify custom frame sizes and frame rates for formats where these parameters are variable.

One very useful new feature is the ability to read information from a working QuickTime file with the same encoding settings (captured with the same camera or exported with the same Compressor preset for instance) and apply these settings to the corrupt clips in the batch. This is very useful if you can't remember the exact codec or frame size, for example.

Crash Analyzer now supports all Final Cut Studio apps

Crash Analyzer is no longer limited to Final Cut Pro support but can now analyze crash logs from Final Cut Express and all applications in Final Cut Studio.

This is, of course, in addition to the usual updates to crash definitions. Crash Analyzer now supports over 60 different categories of crashes (yes, FCS really is that unstable).

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Users of previous versions of FCS Maintenance Pack will have to install the update manually. This is to ensure that all users have the recent software updater components on their system which will allow future updates to progress smoothly.

FCS Maintenance Pack is available for $129 and a 15-day trial is available here.

Many of the improvements in FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 are a direct result of user feedback. We're always keen to hear from people and find out what works well and what doesn't. Just use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links in the apps themselves, contact us or message us on Twitter.

FCP Versioner 1.1 released

We've just released FCP Versioner 1.1 with the following changes:

• Added the ability to only backup a specific sequence, boosting performance
• Added the ability to initiate a manual backup snapshot
• Improved marker support
• Improved changelog generation performance
• Fixed extraneous "New filter added" notifications
• Improved memory usage when generating logs
• Frame values are now converted to timecode
• Markers can now be filtered
• Fixed an issue where it was not possible to remove the base copy of a project

FCP Versioner is a backup and versioning utility for Final Cut Pro. This is how it works - you add the FCP projects you wish to backup to the list of watched files. Then, every time you save, Versioner creates an XML copy of the project and compiles a list of changes so that you can see exactly what changed between revisions. If you need to restore a specific version of a project it is dead simple to find the one you are looking for by looking at the changelog. You can also set it to autosave your project file at specific intervals.

So it offers three main advantages over more general backup solutions:
1. You get a list of changes so you're not just looking at a filename or date
2. It saves the project as XML so you get a plain-text version for safety and compatibility
3. It offers flexible backup management options to ease disk usage

FCP Versioner costs $59 ($49 until Christmas) but a 15 day trial is available here. It requires OS X 10.5+ and Final Cut Pro 6.0.2+ (autosave requires FCP 7.0).

As always, we appreciate any and all feedback - just use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links within the application.

We have lots of other software for Final Cut Pro; see our Resources page for more details.

FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 2 released

We've just released FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 2. This is a performance and stability update for users of Beta 1.

FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 is a significant update to FCS Maintenance Pack so we're releasing it as a public beta to gather feedback and locate bugs.

Please use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links in the Help menu of each application to let us know of any issues, however severe or trivial, and help us discover the features our users want.

Although Beta 2 is pretty stable our official line is that it is not recommended for use in a production environment.

You can download the beta here:
FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 2 (DMG)
FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 2 (ZIP)

Also note that FCS Maintenance Pack is currently on special offer - if you buy before Dec 25th you will receive 15% off the retail price.

Changes in FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 2:

• Corrupt Clip Finder - Improved progress display
• Corrupt Clip Finder - Stability improvements
• Corrupt Clip Finder - Corrupt files are now displayed in the list as they occur
• Corrupt Clip Finder now searches directories recursively
• File Salvage - Fixed an inaccuracy when processing DV NTSC footage
• File Salvage - Added support for NTSC and PAL ProRes files
• File Salvage - Drag and drop support added
• Project Repair - Stability improvements
• System Toolkit - Checks apps are closed before streamlining
• Crash Analyzer - Updated definitions
• Path Manager - Updates parent directory when an individual item is edited
• Plugin Manager - Lots of bug fixes and performance boosts
• Plugin Manager - Audio Unit Validation UI improvements
• Plugin Manager: Added the ability to drag plugin folders into the window
• QT Repair - Stability and memory usage improvements
• QT Repair - Added support for removing edits from QuickTime files
• QT Repair - Now supports files larger than 4 GB
• General bug fixes and performance improvements

Changes in FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1:

• New application - XML Repair. Fixes illegal characters, malformed XML, missing tags and elements not supported by the current XMEML version.
• New application - QT Repair. Repairs various structural problems with damaged QuickTime movie files to allow them to be opened by QuickTime again.
• New application - Path Manager (replaces Content Manager). Allows you to manage your user and content paths from a central location.
• Autosave Cleaner now supports Motion.
• Plugin Manager now allows you to change whether or not a plugin is available to the current user or all users.
• Plugin Manager - added a new tool to validate Audio Units
• Corrupt Clip Finder - now works on movie files without a .mov extension
• Corrupt Clip Finder - improved the accuracy of corrupt clip detection
• Redesigned FCS Housekeeper UI
• FCS Housekeeper now works even if Spotlight is disabled on the scratch drive
• Crash Analyzer now supports all applications in Final Cut Studio
• Crash Analyzer - dramatic improvement in loading speed
• System Toolkit can now restore streamline backups
• File Salvage now supports Apple Intermediate Codec, ProRes and DVCPROHD
• Redesigned File Salvage interface with a focus on batch processing

Introducing FCP Versioner

We've just released a brand new application called FCP Versioner, which is a backup and versioning utility for Final Cut Pro. This is how it works - you add the FCP projects you wish to backup to the list of watched files. Then, every time you save, Versioner creates an XML copy of the project and compiles a list of changes so that you can see exactly what changed between revisions. If you need to restore a specific version of a project it is dead simple to find the one you are looking for by looking at the changelog. You can also set it to autosave your project file at specific intervals.



And even if you never use the versioning capabilities, it is still very valuable to have XML copies of your project files because XML files are plain text and therefore it is virtually impossible for them to become corrupt beyond use. We've all had the situation where our FCP project got corrupted and it corrupted half of the autosaves as well.

In addition, it offers a wealth of options for managing your backups to ensure they don't eat up all your disk space. Rather than simply keeping a certain number of total backups, Versioner can choose to keep a certain number per day, week or month, allowing you to see much further back in time while minimizing disk usage (the current day's backups are always kept in their entirety unless you set a limit on them).

So it offers three main advantages over more general backup solutions:
1. You get a list of changes so you're not just looking at a filename or date
2. It saves the project as XML so you get a plain-text version for safety and compatibility
3. It offers flexible backup management options to ease disk usage

FCP Versioner costs $59 but a 15 day trial is available here. It requires OS X 10.5+ and Final Cut Pro 6.0.2+ (autosave requires FCP 7.0).

As always, we appreciate any and all feedback - just use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links within the application.

We have lots of other software for Final Cut Pro; see our Resources page for more details.

FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1 released

FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 is a significant update to FCS Maintenance Pack so we're releasing it as a public beta to gather feedback on some of the changes.

Please use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links in the Help menu of each application to let us know of any issues (however trivial they might be) and help us discover the features our users want.

This is a beta so it is not recommended for use in a production environment. If you want the latest stable version choose version 1.1.6 instead.

Changes in FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1:
* New application - XML Repair. Fixes illegal characters, malformed XML, missing tags and elements not supported by the current XMEML version.
* New application - QT Repair. Repairs various structural problems with damaged QuickTime movie files to allow them to be opened by QuickTime again.
* New application - Path Manager (replaces Content Manager). Allows you to manage your user and content paths from a central location.
* Autosave Cleaner now supports Motion.
* Plugin Manager now allows you to change whether or not a plugin is available to the current user or all users.
* Plugin Manager - added a new tool to validate Audio Units
* Corrupt Clip Finder - now works on movie files without a .mov extension
* Corrupt Clip Finder - improved the accuracy of corrupt clip detection
* Redesigned FCS Housekeeper UI
* FCS Housekeeper now works even if Spotlight is disabled on the scratch drive
* Crash Analyzer now supports all applications in Final Cut Studio
* Crash Analyzer - dramatic improvement in loading speed
* System Toolkit can now restore streamline backups
* File Salvage now supports Apple Intermediate Codec, ProRes and DVCPROHD
* Redesigned File Salvage interface with a focus on batch processing

Download FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1 (DMG)
Download FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1 (ZIP)

FCS Maintenance Pack 1.1.4 released

We've just released a maintenance update to FCS Maintenance Pack, bringing it up to 1.1.4.

Change list:

• Improvements to trial validation
• Updated Crash Analyzer definitions
• System Toolkit now shows per-file progress when refreshing large files
• General bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

FCS Maintenance Pack is a utility pack designed to keep your Final Cut Studio machine running at optimal performance and help resolve problems when they arise.

Major problems always seem to occur right on a deadline - FCS Maintenance Pack is designed to quickly diagnose and fix common issues, ensuring you meet your deadline. With the Task Scheduler utility, you can even schedule maintenance tasks in the background and not have to worry about them.

FCS Maintenance Pack costs $99 but a 15-day unrestricted trial is available here. See the Resources section of the site for more useful tools.

FCS Maintenance Pack 1.1.2 released

We've just released FCS Maintenance Pack 1.1.2 with the following features and changes:

* Snow Leopard compatibility
* Improved Crash Analyzer UI
* Added a crash reporter to all applications
* Plugin Manager window now refreshes automatically
* Autosave Cleaner now updates automatically
* Updated Crash Analyzer definitions
* Significant improvement in Task Scheduler launch speed
* Added registration option to launcher
* General bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

This means that all of our products are now Snow Leopard compatible.

FCS Maintenance Pack is $99 and a fully-functional 15-day trial is available here.