Interesting Apple patents

Apple was recently granted several interesting patents.

The first one offers a method of analyzing video frames and working out their attributes such as if the footage is interlaced or progressive, and if pulldown has been applied or not. This would allow software such as Final Cut Pro to change project settings to match these attributes automatically without any user intervention. It would also allow software like Compressor to work out which fields in interlaced footage are duplicates and only rendering them once, thereby speeding up rendering times and reducing file sizes. I would imagine this is geared at ProRes, Apple's professional codec.

The second patent is for a DVD web system that provides a method of controlling - and being controlled by - internet content. Web content is currently available via next generation HD DVD and Blu-ray players but this patent specifically caters for two-way communication and control.

Their final patent covers color correction using an accelerated graphics card rather than the processor. My first thought was that it was a patent for the technology in Apple Color but further reading revealed that Apple proposes a playback system (such as QuickTime) where the original color space of the video (such as NTSC) could be converted to the current color space of the monitor to ensure accurate color reproduction.

It must be noted that Apple ultimately may not choose to implement these technologies into their products.

[via AppleInsider]

How to trash preferences

If an application in Mac OS X fails to load or exhibits strange behavior, a common way of fixing the problem is to trash preferences. But what does this mean?

Application preferences such as window layouts and sizes, user-selected options, etc, are all stored in a preferences file ending in .plist. There is a different file for each application. When you delete this file ("trash" it) and fire up the relevant application, the app will notice that the file is missing and create a new one with default preferences. This can solve many issues.

Below is a table of common professional applications and where their preference files are located (note that ~ refers to the current user's Home folder):

Application	Folder	Filename
Final Cut Pro	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist
Compressor	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.compressor.Compressor.plist com.apple.Compressor.CompressorSharedService.plist
DVD Studio Pro	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.dvdstudiopro.plist
LiveType	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.LiveType.plist
Motion	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.motion.plist
Shake	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.shake.plist
Soundtrack Pro	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.soundtrackpro.plist
Apple Color	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.color.plist
Adobe Photoshop	~/Library/Preferences	com.adobe.Photoshop.plist
Maya 7	~/Library/Preferences	com.alias.Maya.7.0.plist
Maya 8	~/Library/Preferences	com.alias.Maya.8.0.plist
Vue 5 Infinite	~/Library/Preferences	com.e-onsoftware.vue5infinite.plist
Vue 6 Infinite	~/Library/Preferences	com.e-onsoftware.vue6infinite.plist
Boujou	/Library/Preferences	com.boujou.plist

Additional Final Cut Pro settings are stored in the ~/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data directory. You need to trash "Final Cut Pro 6.0 Preferences" (and any previous versions), "Final Cut Pro Obj Cache" and "Final Cut Pro Prof Cache".

After deleting the files, empty the trash and fire up the application again.

Update 4/4/08:
We now have an application called Preference Manager for trashing, backing up and restoring preferences.

Essential Tools: OnyX

Mac OS X has a lot of maintenance features built into the operating system. Unfortunately, some of these features only run in the early hours of the morning (if the machine is on, of course) and some can only be run manually.

OnyX has the capability to run all of these manually or you can schedule more convenient times for these to run. It has a lot of features including checking your hard disk for impending failures, checking the structure of system files, extra options for customizing your system that are not present in System Preferences, repairing permissions, and optimizing your system's performance. These are essential tools to ensure the smooth running of your system. When you make a living from your computer, you want it to always perform at the peak of its capabilities.

OnyX is freeware and is available for Mac OS X versions 10.2 - 10.5.

Essential Tools: Carbon Copy Cloner

Carbon Copy Cloner is a utility for performing an exact clone of your hard disk. The idea is that you install your operating system and software and then immediately run Carbon Copy Cloner. The program will create a bootable disk image on a separate disk or machine. If you run into problems in the future, you can then immediately boot from this image and instantly have a working system again.

The problems people have been running into lately make this an essential utility for video editors, or indeed anyone who cannot afford any system downtime.

The software is donationware, which means you can download a fully working version for free but a donation is appreciated.

OS X Leopard security update 2007-009

Apple just released a security update for OS X Leopard 10.5.1. It is recommended for all users and fixes the following:

Core Foundation
CUPS
Flash Player Plug-in
Launch Services
perl
python
Quick Look
ruby
Safari
Samba
Shockwave Plug-in
Spin Tracer

With regards to installing on a production machine, it's kind of a fine line. On the one hand, you don't want to break anything but on the other, hackers often reverse-engineer a patch in order to find out what the original security issues were. They then target unpatched machines.

Obviously this is significantly less of an issue with OS X than it is with Windows but I would say that generally speaking, there is no harm in installing security updates on a production machine, but it's probably best to give it a day or two first and keep an eye on Apple's Leopard support forum to see if anyone else had any issues.

Update:
Didn't realize Apple posted one for Tiger at the same time too. It fixes:

Address Book
ColorSync
Core Foundation
CUPS
Desktop Services
Flash Player Plug-in
gnutar
iChat
IO Storage Family
Launch Services
Mail
perl
python
ruby
Safari
Safari RSS
Samba
Shockwave Plug-in
SMB
Spotlight
tcpdump
XQuery

Apple software updates

Apple posted a LOT of updates today (or yesterday; I'm a little jetlagged and don't really know what day it is right now). We've got Final Cut Studio updates, plus patches for Leopard AND Tiger.

Mac OS X
Leopard 10.5.1 - The most important fix is the Finder data loss bug, whereby data could be completely lost when moving files from one volume to another.

Tiger 10.4.11 - Safari 3 is no longer in beta - it is now part of the operating system. This may cause issues for some people, as a lot of add-ons are incompatible with the latest version. It also increases compatibility with third party wireless routers and improves reliability when mounting USB hard drives, both of which are very much appreciated by me, having experienced both problems recently.

Final Cut Studio 2
The most important update here is OS X 10.5 Leopard compatibility. I was unaware that it was previously incompatible, having not upgraded yet. It's normally pretty safe to install so-called "point updates" that fix minor issues.

Color 1.0.2 - Better format support, greater roundtrip reliability from Final Cut Pro to Color and back again, better image quality, greater control surface compatibility. All very useful things to have. I have had a LOT of problems with FCP roundtripping (e.g. clips being offline, clips being replaced with the ungraded originals) so I hope this will fix these issues.

Motion 3.0.2 - New format support and improved Master Template performance in FCP. The latter is very welcome for me.

Compressor 3.0.2 - Color space options for certain formats, in addition to the aforementioned Leopard support.

Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 - Sony XDCAM EX support (with a plugin from sony.com), Sony HVR-H1 support, Sony HDV camcorder hard drive support, improved AVCHD support (Full HD and spanned clip support), AVC Intra support (must be transcoded to ProRes and requires a plugin from Panasonic), DVCProHD 720p50 support, new HDV easy setups, 60fps drop-frame support, improved 50p support, Sony BWF metadata support (iXML), and extra interface options.
Please note that Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 projects are not backwards compatible with version 6.0.1.

Soundtrack Pro 2.0.2 - 50 and 60fps support, various effects issues resolved.

DVD Studio Pro 4.2.1 - Native support for extra HDV and H.264 formats for HD discs, improved still image processing.

Cinema Tools 4.0.1 - Pull lists show correct lengths for speed changes, messages included in exported lists, PDF format support for change lists, AL files now match sound timecode, reel and roll names now sort more predictably.

Pro Applications Update 2007-02 - Improved HDV 50 and 60p support, performance improvements for IMX codec, various bug fixes.

Seems like a good set of patches there. Based on the issues reported with Leopard, I'm not planning to upgrade production machines until around 10.5.3 or 10.5.4 which is normally around the time that all of the major issues are resolved and the operating system is finally stable and able to be trusted in a production environment.

If you do have Leopard though, it is advisable to install that patch.

Note: Tiger users must first install OS X 10.4.11 in order to see these updates. I would imagine that Leopard users have to install 10.5.1 in order to see them too.

Alsoft DiskWarrior

Now this is a piece of software no Mac user should be without. I can't count the number of occasions that this has saved my life.

There are a lot of occasions where an external hard drive will become corrupted and refuse to mount or appear in Disk Utility. If it doesn't appear in Disk Utility, you can't use the Repair Disk function to fix it so you might think that your only solution is to wipe the whole disk, losing all of your data in the process.

DiskWarrior can detect disks that Disk Utility can't and it will scan them for errors (you'd be surprised how many errors even an operational hard drive has) and repair them, bringing the drive back into operation again and saving your data. The only times that the software has failed to work for me were when drives had physical damage and obviously the software can't do anything about that.

It's not free but you have to ask yourself how much you would lose if your data was destroyed. It is available here for $99.95 and it is well worth it.

Red Giant releases Magic Bullet Looks

Red Giant Software has just released Magic Bullet Looks, the latest edition to the Magic Bullet family of color correction tools.

What makes Magic Bullet Looks different from other tools is its interface. It doesn't deal with Primary Ins and Secondaries, it follows a very logical model of a camera, starting with the lens, going through the body and coming out at the end.

The genius behind this is Stu Maschwitz, who writes on his blog:

"When you drag tools out from the drawer, an image of a camera appears. Some tools, such as lens filters like Diffusion and Gradient, only operate in one category of the camera. Others, like Exposure, work anywhere in the chain. The camera diagram reminds you that you're building a simulation of how light travels through a camera and is modified by film stocks and post-processes such as Bleach Bypass (neg or print), custom film stocks, and color correction."

As if that wasn't enough, it also offers over 100 look presets for simulating various film stocks and effects. If you've used Magic Bullet Editors, you know how useful these are.

Pricing is $399 or $99 if you already own Magic Bullet Editors or Magic Bullet Suite. If you purchased Magic Bullet Editors on or after April 11th 2007, you can claim a free upgrade here.

Apple announces Leopard release date

Apple have just announced the release date of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: October 26th, with it available for pre-order today.

Anxious to show that they delay was for a reason, they have listed every single feature on their site for you to peruse at your leisure.

Worthy of note:
* New Finder (long overdue)
* Updated OpenGL
* Multicore Enhanced
* New Airport Menu (now shows locked networks)
* Self-Tuning TCP (tunes network settings for optimum performance)
* Improved printer support. Support in Tiger was good but had lots of room for improvement.
* Tagged Downloaded Applications. Leopard asks for permission before opening downloaded files. Sounds a bit like a Vista feature, but we'll see how irritating it is once it ships.
* Library Randomization. Hackers often hack a specific memory address to execute a system function but Leopard relocates system libraries to random addresses.
* AutoFS automatically mounts and dismounts network volumes on separate threads. This means that the system no longer hangs for 10 mins (literally) when a network drive is disconnected for whatever reason.
* Improved 64-bit support. Steve showcased it at the Keynote. He opened a 4 GB image file in both Tiger and Leopard side-by-side. The Tiger one took a very long time to open and the Leopard one was near-instant.

This is in addition, of course, to the features already announced. And even without the new features, Apple updates always improve system performance. You'd expect them to get slower with time but they actually get faster.

My upgrade strategy is to try it out on my laptop that I use for general stuff first, and if something happens it's not a major loss. I then upgrade it on my other laptop that runs video editing and visual effects applications (again no major loss if it breaks). Assuming all goes well and it is compatible with the apps I am using, I then upgrade one desktop machine before upgrading the rest. Finally, I upgrade the server (that's always a headache) and all is done. We want to upgrade as soon as possible to make use of the performance improvements Leopard offers. These would increase our productivity a lot (our ultimate goal) without compromising quality and without a major financial investment.

Update: To clarify, when you pre-order you will get it on your doorstep on October 26th with the free delivery option. It is actually being shipped out before the 26th for those that pre-order. With that in mind, ignore the options for faster delivery on the checkout page.

Vue 6 xStream for Mac released

I've been waiting for this day for ages. The Windows version has been out for a while but the Mac one's only just come out. The standard version of Vue 6 has been out for a while for both platforms but I've been holding out for the xStream version.

This software lets you create breathtaking 3D landscapes incredibly easily. It has a technology called Ecosystems that allows you to duplicate objects with random variations such as scaling, rotation, etc, making the objects look more natural. It can also change the densities of the objects based on the elevation of the ground they are on because in real life, trees get thinner as the ground gets higher. It has a lot of really great features that I won't go into now but they're listed in detail on e-on Software's Vue 6 page (not to be confused with eyeon Software).

The xStream version takes that one step further by offering integration with your favorite 3D modeling package. Now you can create a complex atmosphere with sunlight and fog and integrate it seamlessly with your models.

This software was used for Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (and probably 3 as well) and ILM have publicly endorsed the software, and that's a pretty big endorsement.

They offer a free Personal Learning Edition for you to play around with, as well as some pretty cool movies on their site. I suggest you check them out because this software's pretty amazing.

Trial page: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/?page=try
Vue 6 xStream page plus videos: http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_6_xstream/