Houdini coming to OS X

Houdini, the nodal 3D modeling application used on many movies today, is finally coming to OS X. Side Effects has released a beta compatible with OS X (64-bit Leopard), Windows and Linux.

Houdini is unique in that it combines a 3D modeling application with a nodal interface, giving you much greater flexibility and allowing you to use the industry-standard interface used for a large number of visual effects applications. I have not used it myself but I will definitely be checking it out.

Four editions available:
1. Free Apprentice edition with watermarked output
2. Non-watermarked Apprentice HD for $99
3. Houdini Escape for $1995
4. Houdini Master (Escape but with particles, dynamics, cloth, etc) $7995

There is also a Batch edition for render farms for $1495.

Right now, only Apprentice and Apprentice HD are available but the rest will be released on July 15th.

QuickTime 7.5 released

"QuickTime 7.5 improves application compatibility and addresses security issues."

The timing suggests it is related to the recent iPhone announcements so I doubt this patch does much for ProApp users.

I have heard reports of crashes, choppiness and missing audio although of course your mileage may vary. It is always better to sit on updates for a while to check for problems before installing. I would not advise installing this one though because it probably won't offer ProApp users anything new.

And remember the Golden Rules - never update in the middle of a project and always have a clone.

Edit: This update points directly to the QuickTime site rather than a specific file on the server. This makes me think that Apple will no longer be keeping old versions around so make sure to back this up.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard announced

Apple just released a few preliminary details about Mac OS X Snow Leopard (I think they're running out of cat names...). The interesting thing to note is that NOWHERE does it say that this is OS X 10.6. It could be a major point update for 10.5. I think it probably is 10.6 but it's worth bearing that in mind though.

Apple has stated that the focus will not primarily be new features but improving the quality of the OS. I think a lot of people will be disappointed by the lack of features but this is great for people who demand high performance (a lot of people reading this blog I'd imagine).

Here are the improvements:
* Multi-core optimizations with a new technology called Grand Central. This makes it much easier for developers to create multi-core optimized applications (FCP dev team, I'm looking at you...)
* OpenCL support - Enables developers to use the processing power of the GPU to perform tasks. It will be interesting to see how developers take advantage of this but it could use your graphics card as an extra processing core when rendering and encoding for example.
* Theoretical support for 16 TB of RAM. But how much can each application address?
* QuickTime X - "optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback". That's a little vague so I'm wondering if there is some kind of GPU acceleration involved. And the "modern audio and video formats" bit makes me wonder if Windows formats such as WMV are supported out of the box, without requiring something like Flip4Mac.
* Support for Exchange 2007
* Safari speed improvements
* Takes up less space on disk
* Released in "about a year"

There have been rumors that 10.6 will be Intel-only but this report neither confirms nor denies this.

Also, there is no word on price. Consumers might be hard to win over if there are no new features so Apple may adopt lower pricing. I have heard some people say that performance and stability should be in Leopard anyway so the update should be free (which I disagree with). I personally would pay full price for an update that "unlocked" my graphics card for use as an extra core though. To me, that is worth paying for. And it'd probably result in a bigger performance boost than buying $130-worth of hardware.

WWDC 2008

It's Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) today and Steve's keynote just finished.

Here are the important announcements:

iPhone firmware update 2.0
* Released in "early July"
* Free for iPhone users, $9.95 for iPod Touch users (it's an accounting thing)
* Enables applications and the iTunes App Store as previously announced
* Enterprise features - Push email, push contacts, push calendar, autodiscovery, global address lookup, remote wipe.
* Positional audio (openAL) and fast graphics with OpenGLES.
* Word, Excel, PowerPoint and iWork document support
* Apps that are 10 MB or less can be downloaded over the cellular network - all others must be downloaded over WiFi or synced from iTunes.
* Enterprise users can set up private storefronts and distribute over their intranet.
* Push notification for applications - Instead of running in the background and wasting battery, the iPhone can receive messages and give you notification (alerts, sounds, badges) without needing to have the application running.

MobileMe
* The new .Mac
* Push email to all devices including iPhones, Macs and Windows PCs
* Online calendar and photo album - syncs with iCal and iPhoto. Drag and drop support.
* $99 per year, 60 day pre-trial available
* Available "early July"
* .Mac users get to keep their existing email addresses which will forward to a MobileMe address

3G iPhone
* Metal back replaced with glossy plastic
* Thinner at the edges
* Solid metal buttons
* 3.5" screen (same as original)
* Flush headphone jack
* "Dramatically improved" audio
* 10 hours of 2G talk time, 5 hours of 3G talk time, 300 hours standby, 5-6 hours web browsing, 7 hours video, 24 hours audio
* Built-in GPS - updates Google Maps live
* A LOT of extra countries - 70 new countries this year
* Price drop - Was: originally $599 for 8 GB. Now: $199 for 8 GB, $299 for 16 GB, $399 for 32 GB. These are the maximum prices for every country.
* Launches on July 11th (22 countries)
* Special edition white version

Steve went through the list of (almost) everything that was bad about the original iPhone and improved upon it dramatically. This is a great update.

As always, Engadget has the scoop + pictures.

P.S. I've disabled comments because whenever I post anything about the iPhone I get a TON of spam comments.

Using Frame Controls in Compressor

Compressor has some very sophisticated technologies in the Frame Controls tab of the Inspector to enable it to perform high-quality resizing, retiming and deinterlacing of footage.

These are incredibly useful but it is very tempting to set everything to "best" when it is not at all necessary and causes a significant impact upon the processing time. So what this post aims to do is outline what each function does and when it should be used.

Firstly, if you are not resizing, retiming or deinterlacing footage, do not switch Frame Controls on at all.

Resizing controls
When an image is resized, new pixels need to be calculated. If you downsize an image, an area that was once 10 pixels could now be 2 pixels and vice versa if you are upsizing. Compressor goes through the resulting image and calculates what each pixel value should be based on the value at that point in the original image. These are not always integers. For example, a pixel at point (3,3) in the resulting image might correspond to point (2.8, 2.8) on the original. As there is no pixel at (2.8, 2.8), Compressor has to calculate a suitable value. The following options are different ways of calculating these pixel colors.

Fast (nearest pixel) - Compressor takes the value from the closest whole pixel in the original image. This is very fast but can result in significant visual artifacts and inaccuracies, particularly when resizing by a significant amount.

Suitable for: Minor size changes, situations where a fast encode is more important than a high quality one.

Better (linear filter) - This improves on the nearest pixel method by taking the values of four surrounding pixels and weighting them, increasing accuracy.

Suitable for: Most downconversions (e.g. 720p to NTSC).

Best (statistical prediction) - This uses more complex algorithms to maintain edge sharpness, at the expense of processing time.

Suitable for: Upconversions (e.g. NTSC to 1080p HD)

Anti-aliasing slider - This smooths rough edges but don't set it too high or you will visibly soften the image.

Suitable for: Smoothing jagged edges when upconverting footage (e.g. PAL to 720p HD)

Detail Level slider - This sharpens edges, increasing our perception of detail in the image. Use sparingly to avoid adding noticeable noise or jagged edges to the image.

Suitable for: Sharpening soft edges when upconverting footage.

Deinterlacing controls
To deinterlace, first select Progressive from the Output Fields drop-down menu. Use this instead of the Deinterlace filter in the Filters tab as it will provide greater output quality. Choose one of the following from the Deinterlace menu:

Fast (line averaging) - The two fields are blended into one frame. This, however, can result in strange motion artifacts because you are playing two fields at the same time that were originally offset in time.

Suitable for: Situations with very little motion.

Better (motion adaptive) - This method analyzes the fields and uses simple linear blends (equivalent to the Fast setting) on areas with no motion. For areas with motion it discards one of the fields and uses interpolation to build up a whole frame from the other field's data.

Suitable for: Most situations except those with extremes of motion. In most cases you will not get any benefits from choosing higher settings than this if you are working in Standard Definition (e.g. NTSC, PAL). The downside to this method is that you lose vertical resolution if there is a lot of motion in the image.

Best (motion-compensated) - This uses optical flow technologies to track the motion of objects and analyzes multiple frames at once. This data is then used to split the image into blocks (typical sizes are 4x4, 8x8 or 16x16) and then shift these blocks so as to align motion between the two fields. This is incredibly processor intensive and will take some time.

Suitable for: Situations with extremes of motion (e.g. sports).

Retiming controls

Fast (nearest frame) - If you slow down footage, Compressor will need to add extra frames. This option just duplicates the nearest existing frame. It is very speedy but it can result in very choppy / juddery motion. If you are speeding up footage however, the choppiness will probably not be noticeable.

Suitable for: Minor speed adjustments, fast motion

Good (frame blending) - This blends frames together to create "in-between" frames and is a lot smoother than the nearest frame method, at the cost of processing time. This is suitable for most applications unless you are performing extreme slow motion.

Suitable for: Most speed changes with the exception of extreme slow motion

Better (motion-compensated) - This uses complex algorithms to analyze a range of frames and interpolate (predict) what the in-between frames should look like based on their surrounding frames. It then creates these new frames from scratch. Obviously this is very processor-intensive.

Suitable for: Extreme speed changes or footage with large amounts of motion (sports for example)

Best (high quality motion-compensated) - Apple's documentation is a little unclear on what makes this particular option higher quality than the one below it. It could be that it analyzes more frames to produce the final result, it blends using a higher bit depth for greater accuracy, or it recreates every single frame instead of just the in-between ones for greater smoothness. Or maybe all of them.

Either way, this is incredibly processor intensive and should only be used if you cannot get good results with lower settings.

Suitable for: Extreme speed changes or significant frame rate increases (e.g. 23.98 to 59.94 fps)

Conclusion

So what does this tell us? It tells us that "Good" or "Better" should be adequate for most situations and it is not worth choosing "Best" unless your footage actually needs it. The best way of finding a happy medium is to start with everything on "Fast" and perform small test renders (10 seconds or so) for multiple areas of your movie. If you are not happy with the quality, go up to the next level and keep going until you reach a level of quality you are happy with.

Mac OS X 10.5.3 released

Apple just released Leopard 10.5.3 via Software Update.

Apple's change list page is quite sparse while other sites have posted a much larger list of fixes based on beta versions of the patch. What is unclear is whether or not these changes made it to the final patch release or not (although the answer is probably yes as the final patch is 536 MB).

As always, NEVER upgrade in the middle of the project and if your system ain't broke, don't fix it. However, if you are suffering from a major issue fixed by this patch, wait several days to see if there are any major problems with it (I have heard of Airport issues already) and then only install it after performing a full system clone.

If you are considering upgrading, you are advised to download the full combo updater rather than relying on Software Update:
Mac OS X 10.5.3 Combo Updater

Activity Monitor 101: System memory

Activity Monitor (located in Applications/Utilities) is a great tool for monitoring system resource usage, and is a great way of locating rendering bottlenecks in your system.

In particular, the Memory tab shows you a great deal of information (note: this is from Leopard; Tiger's Activity Monitor looks a little different).



But what does this information mean? What exactly is wired memory? Here is a breakdown of what each item in the Memory tab refers to.

(For clarification, a swap file is a file on disk used to store currently inactive memory in order to make room in the system memory for active applications. For example, if you have Firefox running and you minimize it and then open iTunes, there is a good chance that a lot of Firefox's memory will be written to disk and the space freed will be assigned to iTunes. When you restore the Firefox window, it will copy the data from the disk back into memory again. Your hard disk is much slower than your memory chips so it is best to keep swap file usage to a minimum. This can be achieved by adding more memory to your system.)

Free: Unused memory that is available for any application to use.

Wired: Memory used by the operating system that cannot be touched by other applications. This memory cannot be written to a swap file.

Active: Memory currently used by applications. Note that this might not represent all of the memory used, as some may be stored in swap files.

Inactive: Memory stored from an application that is no longer running. OS X stores application data in a cache so that you can quickly relaunch applications a second time. If you start running out of free memory, the operating system will automatically start using inactive memory.

To clear inactive memory manually, go to Applications/Utilities/Terminal. When it launches, type purge and press enter. Note: it takes several seconds to process.

Used: Memory currently in use that cannot be immediately written to a swap file or allocated elsewhere.

VM size: The size of the swap file.

Page Ins / Page Outs: How often OS X is reading data from and writing to the swap file.

When deciding if you need an upgrade, consider the following:

• Are your page ins/outs approximately equal to one another? Are they increasing rapidly?
• Is the majority of your memory wired?
• Do you have 10% or less of your memory free?

If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, consider more memory.

How to fully remove Final Cut Server

Apple has just released an Applecare document listing the files installed by Final Cut Server and detailing how to remove them. This follows on from the difficulties a lot of people had with removing it due to the large number of files it places in hidden system folders. This was further complicated by Apple not wanting fixes made public until they had a chance to address the issue themselves.

I will use this information to add support within FCS Remover shortly.

ATI Radeon 3870 due next month for Mac Pro?

AppleInsider is reporting that the ATI Radeon HD 3870 will be due "next month" for both current and legacy Mac Pros.

Details are scarce (and possibly fictional) but the card is said to include 512 MB of DDR4 memory and support for CrossFire mode (linking two cards up to boost graphics performance, usually in video games) within Windows.

More importantly for professional users, it provides a mid-range alternative to NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GT which has ProApp performance issues.

Color users are particularly advised to invest in an ATI card because they support rendering in 10-, 12- and 16-bit modes in addition to NVIDIA's 8- and 32-bit offerings. The NVIDIA card gives you a choice between best and worst, with no in-between values. This can cause problems for people wanting something higher than 8-bit without the massive performance hit when working in 32-bit mode.

At present, the only way to get a mid-range ATI card in your new Mac Pro is to buy one of the ones from the old Mac Pros and update the firmware, although this has the caveat that you have to install it in an older Mac Pro first in order to update it. This news would appear to be the answer to many professional users' prayers, although I hope that Apple introduce a driver update for those that have already upgraded to the 8800 GT.

Final Cut Server released

It's Tuesday, which means more goodies from Apple. Apple today released their long-awaited and much-delayed Final Cut Server software, based on the Artbox software they bought from Proximity.

Final Cut Server is an asset management system that allows you to keep track of your media. It is especially useful for facilities with a large stock footage library or companies dealing with large amounts of footage, such as news rooms.

It is also useful for smaller facilities as well. I particularly like the versioning system which tracks changes made to a file, showing you who made the change and when, and offering you a way of reverting the changes if necessary.

One of my favorite features is the event system. You can ask Final Cut Server to watch a specific attribute such as a metadata field and perform an action when that is changed, such as uploading files to a server.

The server software is Mac-only but the client software is for both PC and Mac (this probably had something to do with the delays). Here are the system requirements:

Server software
* A Mac computer with a 1.8GHz or faster PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor (Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor recommended)
* 2GB of RAM (4GB recommended)
* AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Server is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* Mac OS X v10.5 or later
* QuickTime 7.4.1 or later
* A CD drive for installation
* 500MB of available disk space

Client software for Mac computers
* A Mac computer with a 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor
* 1GB of RAM
* AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Server is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
* Mac OS X v10.4.11 or later
* QuickTime 7.4.1 or later
* Java for Mac OS X v10.4 Release 6 or later
* Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 or later for Final Cut Pro integration
* 20MB of available disk space

Client software for Windows-based computers
* A PC with Windows XP (SP2) or Vista
* 1GB of RAM
* AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Server is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
* QuickTime 7.4.1 or later
* Java SE Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 Update 4 or later
* 20MB of available disk space

Important areas to note:
* The server software is Leopard-only.
* You must fit a separate graphics card to the machine as the on-board graphics will not suffice. Also note that the G5 servers do not even have on-board graphics. This also affects any machine that you connect to it as well, which rules out MacBooks and low-end PCs.

Final Cut Server is now available for $999 (10-client version) and $1999 (Unlimited version). Interestingly, the upgrade for the 10-client version is $999 which makes it cheaper by a dollar to upgrade the 10-client version than it is to buy the unlimited version outright.