Final Cut Pro vs. Avid

Final Cut Pro VS Avid from Jill DiBiase on Vimeo.

Cable wrapping

Ok, so in post maybe we don’t usually deal with 100′ cords. But we do have our fair share of cables. I saw this and thought, I may never “over-under” again. Now to practice it…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaEv9wm6gy0

My NAB review

This was my first trip to NAB and it was a great experience. I learned a lot and picked up a bunch of new tips and trick from the classes and then there were the toys… The show floor was massive. On the post side there were a lot of large and shared storage options. A few people had some Thunderbolt interface stuff up for demo (I/O boxes, drive arrays) but nobody was shipping before this summer. Looks like the interface is going to take off soon and it has a lot of promise.

One cool gadget I feel I should mention is the Atomos Samurai and Ninja. These are cool little full color touchscreen external recording devices for your camera. The interface is simple and useful. The touchscreen doubles as a full color monitor. You can use any 2.5 inch drive in their chassis and it records direct to Apple’s ProRes.

Let me say that again, ANY DRIVE YOU WANT. SSD for a non-spinning solution for run-n-gun? Ok. 1TB laptop hard drive for FOURTEEN HOURS OF RECORD TIME? Sure.

The Samurai takes HD-SDI in and the Ninja HDMI and they are about $1500 and $1000, respectively. But that price gets you a nice Pelican-type case, batteries, charger, and more. I saw boxes that were displays only that cost more.

Final Cut Pro X

A few weeks ago, during NAB, Apple announced the new version of Final Cut. I was there and got to see the demo. There were things that got me excited and things that made me wary. It looks like a completely new application and I think it will be a big shift in the way you actually edit in the timeline. Overall I can see how this new interface could improve the process but to me there are elements in it that feel “pro-sumer”. It’s still too early to tell. I am cautiously optimistic.

Here are some of the features they released:

• 64-bit Application
• No more 4GB memory limit
• Built on Cocoa
• New color management, WYSIWUG
• Higher quality effects
• Resolution independent playback system
• Can use all cores in your machine, including GPUs
• “Render bars are gone” background rendering for everything using idle time (similar to SmoothCam processing)
• Can edit while ingesting footage. Background ingesting.
• Automatic media detection, image stabilization, color balancing (nondestructive), audio cleanup (nondestructive) available on ingest
• Adding people detection-automatic metadata on shot type (wide, medium, etc.)
• Range based keywording. Like the old marker system but expanded
• Ability to create smart-bins based on metadata (think smart iTunes playlists)
• BIG one- “Magnetic timeline“, tracks dynamically rearrange in the timeline to avoid intersections and overwrites.
• “Compound Clips” – A much improved and dynamic nesting system allowing for both linking of multiple clips together as well as creating different versions of cuts right in the timeline.
• New trim mode in the timeline
• Intra-frame audio editing in the timeline
• Dynamic waveform displays, change with mix levels & effects
• No need to keyframe for audio dissolves, click & drag
• Improved dynamic speed effects. Bye time-remap tool.
• Automatic color match tool for scene-to-scene color correction
• Work with footage natively in the timeline. Support for h264
• Shape based secondary color correction tool
• Improved keyframe editing in the timeline

That’s a quick list of what I saw. It was impressive. $299 for sale, standalone, in the Apple App store this June.

There was no mention of tape based media, ingest or output. Also no mention of the other pro apps, but in talking with some people before and after the event, they are in development and I expect to see announcements on them before the end of the year.

Final Cut Pro 8?

The NDA’s are still in full effect but some juicy, unverifiable tidbits still keep leaking out. Here’s what I’ve gleaned so far:

• 64 bit application suite
• Mulit-core, multi-threaded rendering
• Major interface update
• Improved round-tripping and integration with Motion
• Shake-like features integrated into Motion
• Improved support for tapeless codecs
• Timeline editing of h.264 and other non-traditional editing codecs
• Released mid to late 2011

I say all this without having seen a thing firsthand so who know what magic is in store. Whatever the improvements are they will be “awesome” according to Jobs.

Guide to FCP’s audio filters

Here is a great guide explaining what the different audio filters in Final Cut do for you.

2011 We will all go tapeless

Since the devastation in Japan, Sony and other media makers production plants were knocked offline. Just about all major pro media formats are still made in Japan and you can expect what’s on the shelf currently to be all that is available for the foreseeable future. If you thought SR tape was expensive before…. Behold the “Tapeocalypse.” It will be interesting to see how the tapeless media & archival folks will be positioning their products next month at NAB. Time to invest in flash memory manufacturers.

Check this great article from Broadcasting & Cable

PS – If anyone knows how I can monetize the term “Tapeocalypse” email me immediately.

New Laptops from Apple

Apple has refreshed their laptops today with some great improvements.

• New Intel processors. Quad core!
• More powerful graphics. Onboard AMD processing with up to 1GB VRAM. This is huge for 64-bit processing and should unlock faster realtime in Adobe applications now and Final Cut when it is re-coded.
• “Thunderbolt” (AKA Intel’s Light Peak) as an all-in-one high bandwidth interface. As Apple says: “The Thunderbolt port will give you plug-and-play performance with a whole new world of Thunderbolt peripherals, as well as with the Apple LED Cinema Display and other Mini DisplayPort peripherals. You can daisy-chain as many as six devices, including your display. And with support for video and eight-channel audio, it’s easy to connect HDMI-compatible devices — like your TV and home stereo — using the HDMI adapter you already have. Current VGA, DVI, and DisplayPort adapters are also supported.” Let’s see what Intel says will be available today.
• Higher resolution webcam

That’s pretty much all the big stuff. Ok, Lacie & G-Raid, where are my Thunderbolt RAID arrays?

Hey! Look! A new Final Cut rumor!

New Final Cut Pro Is Real, And It’s Spectacular (And It’s Expected Spring 2011)

http://t.co/AXyrkaU via @techcrunch

New MacBook Pros To Sport Light Peak Technology?

Edible Apple is reporting that, in April, there will be an update to the MacBook Pro line along with a Final Cut Pro update. Possible removal of the optical drive, addition of a SSD drive and the debut of Light Peak. I could see an option for replacing the optical for a SSD but I doubt a complete removal of it is coming.

That would just be annoying.

Kind of like replacing the expresscard slot with a SD reader perhaps?

Now who would do such a thing?

It’s not like I continue to burn DVD’s for clients or watch my Netflix DVD’s on my laptop. Perhaps Apple will be kind enough to enforce their forward thinking philosophy and decide I don’t need those features conveniently installed inside my portable computer/edit suite/media portal anymore. Sigh…

Maybe the addition of Light Peak will be worth it. Then I would just get a Light Peak external Blu-Ray burner and author and burn HD videos right out of Final Cut Studio. Oh wait…