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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.