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Staff BlogsJon Chappell
FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2.2 out now - redesigned Corrupt Clip Finder and more Corrupt Clip FinderCorrupt Clip Finder has a redesigned user interface and now offers more options for dealing with files once they have been found. You can now assign a color label to corrupt files in the Finder so that they are easily recognizable, as well as quarantining them into a separate folder or moving them to the Trash. Corrupt Clip Finder now supports batch operations so these actions can be performed quickly to a large number of files.   In addition, Corrupt Clip Finder is now more tolerant of reference QuickTime movies, and will automatically close any QuickTime dialogs that pop up as a result of trying to process these files. FCS HousekeeperFCS Housekeeper has been greatly simplified to be more user-friendly. The new Preset drop-down at the top of the window gives you a choice of two presets.Basic is for everyday housekeeping tasks where Final Cut Studio is not necessarily misbehaving and Comprehensive is specifically designed for troubleshooting. You can also select and deselect tasks individually.  These are just a couple of new fixes and tweaks. Here's the full changelog:
FCS Maintenance Pack is available for $129 and a 15-day trial is available which will fix many problems for free. We're always on the lookout for feature suggestions and the changes in this release are a direct result of user feedback. So if you have a request, however important or trivial, use the Help > Suggest a Feature link in each application, contact us or send us a message on Twitter. Categories: DR News, Front Page News, Utilities FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2.1 releasedAs well as the usual bug fixes and performance improvements, this update also offers a couple of new features. File Salvage now supports Big Endian audio formats and also offers audio support for DV QuickTime movies; Corrupt Clip Finder can now locate corrupt audio files in addition to corrupt movie clips; and Preference Manager can now automatically launch the Final Cut Pro System Settings dialog when you open a new project to encourage users to double-check their scratch disk settings. Here's the full changelog:
FCS Maintenance Pack is $129 with a free 15-day trial available here. Check out the Resources section of the site for more useful tools. Categories: DR News, Front Page News, Utilities FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 releasedThere are far too many tweaks, bug fixes and optimizations to mention in detail but here's a summary of some of the biggest changes. Three new tools
Final Cut Express support FCS Maintenance Pack now supports Final Cut Express 4.Redesigned File Salvage File Salvage has been redesigned with a focus on batch processing. Multiple files can now be salvaged sequentially - saving a lot of time if you have a large number of files to process.It also supports significantly more formats than the previous version, including DVCPRO HD and all flavors of ProRes. Audio support has been added for several file formats and you can specify custom frame sizes and frame rates for formats where these parameters are variable. One very useful new feature is the ability to read information from a working QuickTime file with the same encoding settings (captured with the same camera or exported with the same Compressor preset for instance) and apply these settings to the corrupt clips in the batch. This is very useful if you can't remember the exact codec or frame size, for example. Crash Analyzer now supports all Final Cut Studio apps Crash Analyzer is no longer limited to Final Cut Pro support but can now analyze crash logs from Final Cut Express and all applications in Final Cut Studio. This is, of course, in addition to the usual updates to crash definitions. Crash Analyzer now supports over 60 different categories of crashes (yes, FCS really is that unstable). Users of previous versions of FCS Maintenance Pack will have to install the update manually. This is to ensure that all users have the recent software updater components on their system which will allow future updates to progress smoothly. FCS Maintenance Pack is available for $129 and a 15-day trial is available here. Many of the improvements in FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 are a direct result of user feedback. We're always keen to hear from people and find out what works well and what doesn't. Just use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links in the apps themselves, contact us or message us on Twitter. Categories: DR News, Front Page News, Utilities FCP Versioner 1.1 released
FCP Versioner is a backup and versioning utility for Final Cut Pro. This is how it works - you add the FCP projects you wish to backup to the list of watched files. Then, every time you save, Versioner creates an XML copy of the project and compiles a list of changes so that you can see exactly what changed between revisions. If you need to restore a specific version of a project it is dead simple to find the one you are looking for by looking at the changelog. You can also set it to autosave your project file at specific intervals. So it offers three main advantages over more general backup solutions: 1. You get a list of changes so you're not just looking at a filename or date 2. It saves the project as XML so you get a plain-text version for safety and compatibility 3. It offers flexible backup management options to ease disk usage FCP Versioner costs $59 ($49 until Christmas) but a 15 day trial is available here. It requires OS X 10.5+ and Final Cut Pro 6.0.2+ (autosave requires FCP 7.0). As always, we appreciate any and all feedback - just use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links within the application. We have lots of other software for Final Cut Pro; see our Resources page for more details. Categories: DR News, Front Page News, Utilities FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 2 releasedFCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 is a significant update to FCS Maintenance Pack so we're releasing it as a public beta to gather feedback and locate bugs. Please use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links in the Help menu of each application to let us know of any issues, however severe or trivial, and help us discover the features our users want. Although Beta 2 is pretty stable our official line is that it is not recommended for use in a production environment. You can download the beta here: FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 2 (DMG) FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 2 (ZIP) Also note that FCS Maintenance Pack is currently on special offer - if you buy before Dec 25th you will receive 15% off the retail price. Changes in FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 2:
Changes in FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1:
Categories: DR News, Front Page News, Utilities Christmas promotion - 15% off everything You can get FCS Maintenance Pack for as little as $84 and FCP Versioner for just $49. You don't need to do anything special - just visit the product page, click the Buy Now button and the lower cost will be reflected automatically. This is an excellent time to buy if you're on the fence, as introductory pricing on FCS Maintenance Pack will be ending in January (the price of FCP Versioner will stay the same). This is your last chance to get it for a rock-bottom price. Merry Christmas! Categories: DR News, Front Page News, Utilities Introducing FCP Versioner And even if you never use the versioning capabilities, it is still very valuable to have XML copies of your project files because XML files are plain text and therefore it is virtually impossible for them to become corrupt beyond use. We've all had the situation where our FCP project got corrupted and it corrupted half of the autosaves as well. In addition, it offers a wealth of options for managing your backups to ensure they don't eat up all your disk space. Rather than simply keeping a certain number of total backups, Versioner can choose to keep a certain number per day, week or month, allowing you to see much further back in time while minimizing disk usage (the current day's backups are always kept in their entirety unless you set a limit on them). So it offers three main advantages over more general backup solutions: 1. You get a list of changes so you're not just looking at a filename or date 2. It saves the project as XML so you get a plain-text version for safety and compatibility 3. It offers flexible backup management options to ease disk usage FCP Versioner costs $59 but a 15 day trial is available here. It requires OS X 10.5+ and Final Cut Pro 6.0.2+ (autosave requires FCP 7.0). As always, we appreciate any and all feedback - just use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links within the application. We have lots of other software for Final Cut Pro; see our Resources page for more details. Categories: DR News, Front Page News, Utilities Combining odd and even frames in Shake At first glance, it would appear to be as simple as using the Select node to switch between them, however you would miss out half of the frames by doing this. Here's the solution that worked for him: 1. Import the two files into Shake via the FileIn node. 2. Add a TimeX node to the first clip and set it to 0.5*time (this doubles every frame) and do the same for the second clip. 3. Add a Select node and plug the output of the two TimeX nodes into it. So that it's not confusing later on, make sure the output of clip 1 goes to the first input and clip 2 goes to the second. 4. In the Branch parameter of the Select node, set a keyframe at frame 1 with a value of 1 (i.e. the first input), then step to frame 2 and keyframe the value to 2 (the second input). 5. Load the parameter into the Curve Editor by clicking the clock icon next to the Branch field so that a tick icon appears, and then click the Curve Editor tab. 6. In the Curve Editor, change the Cycle parameter to MirrorValue. 7. When you render the FileOut, make sure to double the frame range as the sequence is now twice as long. Categories: Compositing, Software, Visual Effects FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1 releasedPlease use the Report Bug or Suggest Feature links in the Help menu of each application to let us know of any issues (however trivial they might be) and help us discover the features our users want. This is a beta so it is not recommended for use in a production environment. If you want the latest stable version choose version 1.1.6 instead. Changes in FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1: * New application - XML Repair. Fixes illegal characters, malformed XML, missing tags and elements not supported by the current XMEML version. * New application - QT Repair. Repairs various structural problems with damaged QuickTime movie files to allow them to be opened by QuickTime again. * New application - Path Manager (replaces Content Manager). Allows you to manage your user and content paths from a central location. * Autosave Cleaner now supports Motion. * Plugin Manager now allows you to change whether or not a plugin is available to the current user or all users. * Plugin Manager - added a new tool to validate Audio Units * Corrupt Clip Finder - now works on movie files without a .mov extension * Corrupt Clip Finder - improved the accuracy of corrupt clip detection * Redesigned FCS Housekeeper UI * FCS Housekeeper now works even if Spotlight is disabled on the scratch drive * Crash Analyzer now supports all applications in Final Cut Studio * Crash Analyzer - dramatic improvement in loading speed * System Toolkit can now restore streamline backups * File Salvage now supports Apple Intermediate Codec, ProRes and DVCPROHD * Redesigned File Salvage interface with a focus on batch processing Download FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1 (DMG) Download FCS Maintenance Pack 1.2 Beta 1 (ZIP) Categories: DR News, Front Page News, Utilities Speeding up Compressor Don't export directly to Compressor from Final Cut ProAlthough sending your timeline directly to Compressor may seem faster because it cuts out the step of exporting as a QuickTime movie, it is much slower overall because Compressor needs to request each frame one-by-one from Final Cut Pro instead of just reading the data out of the movie clip. It gets even slower if you're using Frame Controls or doing multi-pass encoding.Just go to File > Export > QuickTime Movie (not QuickTime Conversion) and make sure Setting is set to Current Settings and Recompress All Frames is switched off. This ensures that the movie will not be recompressed unnecessarily.  Here's a tip - if most of your timeline is already rendered, deselect Make Movie Self-Contained. This creates a small reference movie that links to the render files on disk instead of writing the data into the file. This will be much quicker to export. If your timeline is not rendered, however, this setting is unlikely to offer any speed advantages over a self-contained movie. Once the file is exported, drag it into Compressor and set up your batch as normal. Only use Frame Controls where necessaryFrame Controls allow you to improve the quality of resizing, retiming and deinterlacing operations, however they should only be switched on when you are actually performing one of these operations. In addition, you should use Better quality instead of Best, as Best is usually reserved for extreme circumstances and in most situations gives you a massive performance hit with no benefit. Perform heaving-lifting in a separate pass to the encodingUsing Frame Controls with a multi-pass or long-GOP encoder can really slow things down because the Frame Controls processing will need to be reapplied to every frame each time it is read. Even if you're not using Frame Controls, compressing from a processor-intensive codec such as HDV or H.264 can seriously slow things down.It makes sense, therefore, to perform all these processor-intensive operations on an intermediate movie clip (ProRes would be a suitable codec for this) and then drag in the intermediate clip and encode it to the desired format. But there is an easier way. Job chaining is a little-used yet very powerful feature of Compressor that allows you to plug the output of one job into the input of another for additional processing. Here's how to do it: 1. Drag your movie clip into Compressor. 2. Drag either the ProRes 422 for Interlaced Material or ProRes 422 for Progressive Material (depending on your source media) setting onto the job in the batch window. 3. Go to Job > New Job with Target Output. This will add a new job to the batch with a chain symbol to show it is linked to the job above it. 4. Drag your desired output setting onto the chained job and set up the destination as normal. 5. Submit the batch  Use a clusterA cluster is a group of computers where each machine processes a portion of the movie simultaneously, potentially providing a massive speed boost. This service is provided by Qmaster and can be set up in the Qmaster section of System Preferences or the Apple Qadministrator utility.You will need Qmaster set up on each computer in the cluster, and all computers should have the required codecs installed and have full access to the source media and cluster storage area. If you have a multi-core computer, Qmaster can emulate the effects of a cluster by launching multiple copies of Compressor side-by-side to process the movie in a "virtual cluster". This can make a dramatic difference to encoding times. I wrote a tutorial on this a while back. ConclusionCompressor is not the fastest encoder in the world but with these tricks you can make it a lot more bearable. One important trend to note is that the simplest method isn't always the fastest - with a little extra setup beforehand you can save a significant amount of time overall.Categories: Video Editing, Software, Final Cut Studio
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QT Repair repairs QuickTime movies and is intended as an alternative to the heavy-handed approach of using File Salvage to extract data to a new file. It can also repair invalid CLUT IDs that can corrupt movie clips created with older versions of QuickTime and optionally restore trimmed or edited media if you make an edit that you regret (providing the media is still within the file).
Path Manager provides a central place to manage Final Cut Studio content and user paths. It replaces Content Manager and offers extra options such as mass path organization, path locking and syncing, and more.
XML Repair verifies and repairs Final Cut Pro XML files. Can also convert between Final Cut Pro XMEML versions for compatibility with older versions of Final Cut Pro.