The iPhone Development Story

Mike Ash has an interesting and witty article about the hurdles he went through when submitting his application to the iTunes App Store.

He sums up at the end:


We are currently at the Step 3: Wait for your account to be verified stage. We have been at this stage for weeks now with no communication from Apple or any company appointed by Apple. And that is why none of our web apps have counterparts in the store as of yet. I fully agree with Mike that the iPhone development and submission processes are not up to the high standards we have come to expect from Apple and I hope this is a temporary phase.

[via TUAW]

Troubleshooting - FCS Remover does not remove files

I've received a few emails about this recently. Some people have been firing up FCS Remover, running it and restarting their machines - only to find that all their Final Cut Studio files are still there.

This is most likely a permissions problem. You must have the necessary write permissions for all files that FCS Remover will try to remove. If FCS Remover is unable to delete a file from your system, it will post a message listing the offending file in the Console. Go to /Applications/Utilities/Console to view these messages.

I am working on version 2.0 of FCS Remover which will give more information about any errors encountered, as well as allowing you to select individual items to remove. Keep an eye on this blog or our appcast feed.

P.S. I've also had a lot of mail asking me to convert our iPhone web apps to App Store applications. Digital Rebellion submitted an application to be a developer a while ago and we still haven't heard back yet. I will keep you posted as things progress.

Preference Manager 1.0.5 released

Yes, it's been a while but here is a minor update to Preference Manager with a couple of new features:

* File locking - You can now lock preference files so that you (or Final Cut Pro or some rogue application on your system) can't modify them. This can help to prevent them becoming corrupted. You can still change user preferences but the settings will be reverted to the locked ones when you restart Final Cut Pro. This is useful if you know someone else is going to be using your machine and you don't want your settings messed about with.

* Restoring trashed prefs - If you trash your preferences and then change your mind, never fear - Preference Manager can now restore those preferences for as long as they remain in the Trash (if you click Empty Trash, they are gone). Just go to File > Restore Trashed Preferences.

You can download the new version here or use the updating facility within the software.

For those that don't know, Preference Manager is an application that allows you to trash, lock, backup and restore preference files for Final Cut Studio. Preference files contain user settings and other information but over time they can become corrupted, causing problems such as being unable to launch the application. Preference Manager can trash these (meaning the application will recreate them but you will lose your settings) or restore from a previously-working backup. It is completely free.

We are trying to make the best application we can so we appreciate any feedback you can give us. Also check out our resources section for more tools.

Bug Report
Feature Request

How to change default preferences for our online tools

I recently had a question about this. We have several useful online tools in the resources section of the site, many of which are used by people on a regular basis.

However, if you consistently work with a particular format (e.g. HDV) or work in meters instead of feet, it can be annoying to have to change the settings each time you want to use it. Here's how to get around that.

1. Delete your old bookmark for the page.
2. Go to the page and select the settings you would like to be the new defaults.
3. Click "Link to this calculation".
4. Bookmark the page.

For bonus points, you could create separate bookmarks for different settings - e.g. one for HD projects and one for SD for example.

"Codec overrun" error when installing our applications

A couple of people have emailed me to say that they are getting "codec overrun" errors when trying to mount disk images of our applications.

This error means that the file got corrupted during the download process. The most probable reason for this is that they are using download manager software such as Speed Download that breaks up the file into chunks and downloads each one separately before piecing them back together.

Some people have reported that they receive this error when sharing their internet connection via Airport (for some bizarre reason).

The solution to this problem is to either disable such software or download the zipped alternatives that I have now made available on every product page.

FCS Remover
Preference Manager

New tool: Power Load Calculator

We've just released a new online tool to the resources section of our site - Power Load Calculator.

Power Load Calculator allows you to calculate the load on a particular circuit when certain devices are plugged in. For example, you can calculate whether or not the circuit breakers in a location can handle the lights you want to use and if not, the size of the generator that needs to be hired. This sort of thing is better discovered during pre-production and not on the day of shooting, so this calculator is very useful in that regard.

You can also calculate the minimum circuit breaker size for a given power load which is very useful if you are upgrading a building's power supply in order to accommodate your needs.

As usual, there is also an iPhone edition available.

Check out our resources section for more tools.

Digital Rebellion 1 year old today

Digital Rebellion is exactly a year old today! And unlike a lot of start-ups, we're still here and going strong (amazingly).

It's been a year of great things for us. Perfect Sport is now complete and is doing very well at festivals, and our free online resources are proving popular. Looking forward, we have some more projects in the pipeline and I hope I can make an announcement towards the end of the year regarding these.

We've always encouraged comments and feedback and I feel this has been important to our success so I encourage that further. Either use our contact form or use the feedback link at the bottom of every page.

I'm not going out to celebrate or anything, but if you are planning on going to a bar, you are more than welcome to use this as an excuse for the wife :p

New tool: Lens Angle Calc

We've just released a new online tool: Lens Angle Calc. This allows you to calculate the horizontal or vertical lens angle from a given frame width / height and lens focal length.

This is very useful because it allows you to plan your shoot on paper and work out exactly where the camera should be placed before you even arrive on set - saving valuable time and avoiding awkward situations in small locations where you can't see the subject on your widest lens with your back against the wall. It is invaluable for effects work, where everything must be planned out in meticulous detail.

It can also work out the focal length of the lens from a given lens angle and frame width or height - very useful for working out which lens should be used in a certain situation.

Lens Angle Calc
Lens Angle Calc (iPhone version)

See our other web applications here.

FCS Remover 1.0.7 released

We've just released FCS Remover 1.0.7.

The biggest new feature is Final Cut Server support (thanks to Morten Schmidt for helping with this). Clicking "Remove Final Cut Server" will remove the Final Cut Server software but not Compressor or Qmaster. To remove these as well, you will have to click "Remove Final Cut Studio" as unfortunately these two applications overlap into both pieces of software.

It also removes some Final Cut Studio support files that were missed out in previous versions.

FCS Remover allows you to remove Final Cut Studio 1 and 2, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Server at the press of a button.

Bug report
Feature request

Preference Manager 1.0.4 released

We've just released Preference Manager 1.0.4. There's only one new feature but it's a big one.

We've completely overhauled the backup system so that backups are now stored in one compressed file instead of several folders. A lot of users want to synchronize settings between, say a work machine and a home machine. This new feature makes it much easier - just keep a copy of the file and Preference Manager on an external disk, install Preference Manager on the second machine and double-click the file. Easy.

However, these changes have caused old backups to be completely incompatible with the new version. They won't even appear in the Restore list. Don't worry though - I added a function to convert old backups to the new format. Just go to File > Convert Backups to New Format. Browse to your backup folder (default is ~/Library/Application Support/Digital Rebellion/Preference Manager/Backups), select all of your old backup folders and click the Open button to convert them to the new format. The old folders will remain on the disk in case you need them but if not, they can be safely deleted.

Preference Manager is a utility for trashing, backing up and restoring Final Cut Studio preference files, button bars, keyboard layouts, window layouts, user plugins, column layouts, track layouts and custom settings. This allows you to repair problems and copy useful settings to a second machine.

Thanks to everyone who put in feature requests and bug reports. Keep them coming.

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