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Staff BlogsApple Category
How to run Final Cut Studio 3 on a MacBook The only problem is that, unlike FCS 2, the FCS 3 installer refuses to continue because it requires a 128 MB graphics card. Only Motion and Color are heavy on the graphics card, so the other applications in the suite will work just fine on a lesser machine. Luckily the block is easy to work around. Here's how I got it working on my MacBook: 1. You will need to change one of the files on the DVD. As you cannot write directly to the DVD itself, you will need to create a writable copy of the disc. Put in the Final Cut Studio DVD and open up Disk Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities). 2. Select the disc in the left-hand pane and click New Image in the toolbar.  3. Set Image Format to Read/write and Encryption to None.  4. Type a relevant filename and click Save. It will take several minutes to process. 5. Open up the disk image and ctrl-click on Install Final Cut Studio. Select Show Original.  6. A new window will appear with the FinalCutStudio.mpkg file selected. Ctrl-click on this file and select Show Package Contents.  7. Navigate to Contents/Resources and ctrl-click on the Requirements Checker bundle. Select Show Package Contents.  8. Navigate to Contents/Resources and open up minsys.plist in Property List Editor (if you have the Apple developer tools installed) or TextEdit.  9. Under the heading AELMinimumVRAM change the number from 128 to a number lower than or equal to your current video memory. I changed mine to 32. Alternatively you could change block to warn and the installer will warn you but let you continue installation.  10. Save the file, close all the folders that appeared and double-click Install Final Cut Studio on the disk image. You should now be able to install Final Cut Studio without problems. Some of the applications in the studio also contain a minsys.plist file that will need to be modified. These applications are Final Cut Pro, Motion, Color, Soundtrack Pro and DVD Studio Pro (even though the latter apparently has no changes from FCS 2). 11. Ctrl-click on the application in question and select Show Package Contents.  12. Navigate to Contents/Resources and open minsys.plist in either Property List Editor (if you have the developer tools installed) or TextEdit. 13. Under the heading AELMinimumVRAM change the number from 128 to a number lower than or equal to your current video memory. I changed mine to 32. Alternatively you could change block to warn. 14. Color will still warn you about your screen resolution - however you can just select Never show again and continue.  That's it! You will need to repeat steps 11-14 whenever you update Final Cut Studio. Note: Some people have suggested simply removing the Requirements Checker application but I do not advocate deleting files. Categories: Apple, Software, Final Cut Studio My thoughts on the new Final Cut StudioHere are my first impressions: ArchitectureThis is Leopard and Intel-only, which is a little surprising because there's only a couple of months until Snow Leopard comes out, and I think many of us thought a Snow Leopard-only release in September was likely. There is no word on whether or not it takes advantage of the new features of Snow Leopard such as Grand Central Dispatch or OpenCL, nor any indication that Final Cut Pro has been rewritten in Cocoa as has been so often speculated. I noticed a lot of the screenshots in Apple's examples were taken in Tiger, suggesting that perhaps the feature list was set long before Snow Leopard was announced.Apple claims that Final Cut Studio will not work on a device with integrated graphics - such as a MacBook or Mac Mini. However, they also say that ProRes 422 Proxy is designed for editing on a MacBook or MacBook Pro, so it would appear that Final Cut Pro can at least be used on a machine with integrated graphics, if not some of the other apps in the suite. It's also worth noting that the minor applications in the suite only received minor updates, as indicated by their version numbers. So it is likely that the problems with Compressor have not gone away. Blu-rayBlu-ray burning directly in Compressor - I certainly didn't expect this. And integrating it into Compressor is significant too. Although I never really thought about it before, the majority of the DVDs I make in DVDSP are rough cuts for client approval that don't need a fancy custom menu and I never make use of any of the advanced features like scripting. I would imagine many people are in the same boat and therefore burning a basic disc in Compressor is a much faster and more efficient way to work.It is telling though, that DVD Studio Pro did not receive a significant update for the second time running. We have been using essentially the same version for the past three years (an eternity in the technology world), and it suggests that Apple may perhaps discontinue this product in the future. More ProRes optionsDon't underestimate the importance of this. ProRes 4444 (the extra 4 refers to the alpha channel) allows you to convert footage shot with a high-end 4:4:4 camera to ProRes without sacrificing color information. With previous versions of Final Cut Studio, you would have had to leave it uncompressed (using up significantly more disk space and bandwidth), use Animation (slow) or explore a third-party codec.The mastering possibilities are interesting too. HDCAM SR has long been the industry choice for HD mastering but it is expensive. Using ProRes 4444, you could create an HD master of equivalent quality to HDCAM SR but on a significantly cheaper LTO tape (LTO drives cost less than 1/10th of the cost of an HDCAM SR deck). LTO is the standard for data backup / archiving in the IT world and offers a number of other benefits such as potentially faster-than-realtime writing and also being format, frame size and frame rate agnostic. Of course, the receiver would have to have an LTO deck and necessary equipment. LiveType discontinuedLiveType has long been superseded by Motion so it was only a matter of time before it was canned. In Motion 4 you can now adjust individual letters in a text object, meaning the one advantage LiveType had over Motion has now disappeared and consequently, LiveType has been discontinued. It was inevitable really.Avid-like featuresThere are some nice new features to emulate Avid functionality, such as the new floating timecode display, global transitions and the ability to automatically import clips just by plugging in a drive. This is the benefit of competition.Faster, better qualityI am a big fan of anything that makes things faster and/or improves video or audio quality. Background rendering and exporting is a huge feature and arguably should have been in Final Cut Pro 6 because they'd already laid the foundations with background SmoothCam processing.Soundtrack Pro has a significantly redesigned architecture which improves performance and will hopefully address some of the issues I have experienced, such as working for a while on a project and then suddenly not being able to save it. It also features improved audio cleanup tools. Faster frame control processing in Compressor gets my vote too. RED supportThe RED post workflow has always had issues and Apple has clearly developed the new Color and Cinema Tools with RED in mind. The main stumbling block in the RED workflow seems to be conforming the R3Ds once the offline edit is complete, and some third-party solutions have been created in an attempt to address this.Now you can maintain the relationship between your original RED camera footage and your editing proxies inside a Cinema Tools database (hopefully CT creates and links the proxies automatically). You edit the proxies, export to Color and grade the original R3Ds using the data from the database to conform. This greatly simplifies things, although some would argue that native REDCODE support in the FCP timeline would be even better - perhaps when RED Rocket comes out? Color also now supports 4K - although Apple will still be behind if the 6K Scarlet comes out this year as predicted. Media ManagementOne thing people haven't commented much on is the improved media management, which has been the bane of every Final Cut Pro user at one point or another. Spotlight in Mac OS X indexes the files on your hard disk in a database and Final Cut Pro 7 uses that data to quickly reconnect the files, as opposed to querying them directly.What this means is that FCP can reconnect files faster (so projects will presumably load a lot quicker) and hopefully be more intelligent when a file changes. Missed opportunities
Final ThoughtsThere's some good stuff here - Apple has (eventually) listened to a lot of our complaints about media management, exports typing up the application, etc. But how well these work in reality will remain to be seen. I won't get my copy until next week.But maybe it's not called Final Cut Studio 3 because there's not really anything there to justify calling it that. Although Final Cut Studio 2 also had few major features, it did at least come with a brand new application that used to cost $20k (Color). I think the new price cut reflects Apple's recognition that selling the upgrade at $499 would perhaps not be value for money, meaning future updates may not necessarily be as cheap. Interesting LinksOfficial Final Cut Studio pageFully-indexed online Final Cut Pro manual Final Cut Studio in Depth - 66 page document from Apple detailing all the changes Apple ProRes white paper Apple KB: Installing content when upgrading MacWorld review by Mike Curtis How to Install Final Cut Studio 3 Norman Hollyn's take In-depth review by Jan Ozer Mike Jones compares Final Cut Pro 7 to his wishlist Installing Final Cut Pro 6 and 7 side-by-side Changes in FCP 7.0 XML - for developers Studio Daily summary More links from xlr8yourmac.com Categories: Apple, Final Cut Studio, Analysis Could SD cards replace DVDs? Whether true or not, it would make a lot of sense. Steve Jobs has made it clear that he is not a fan of the licensing system for Blu-ray discs, and switching to SD or SSD distribution would not only remove the need to use a proprietary, licensed format but also provide the opportunity for more powerful hardware DRM / encryption to protect content, such as that used by the military. Although DRM is unpopular with consumers, it is a necessary evil in order to get content providers to embrace a new format. SD cards / SSD drives also have the benefit of being reusable (although distributors could choose to prevent writes at the file system or controller level) and being considerably smaller than optical discs, which is both convenient and good for the environment. As well as being smaller, they would be much faster at reading and writing than conventional discs. The content creation process would be much simpler too. Burned DVDs are inferior to replicated DVDs, and so any mass distribution requires you to send your master off to a replication facility, which is an expensive process that can be very inflexible when it comes to quantities. SD cards / SSDs, on the other hand, can easily be cloned in-house for no cost and there would be no physical quality issues in doing so. Computer manufacturers could use the space taken up by large DVD drives to increase the battery size of laptops, add more components (such as ExpressCard slots and eSATA ports, Apple), increase performance, reduce heat, or reduce the physical size of the computer. Television manufacturers could simply include an SD slot in the TV itself, removing the need for a separate player, saving both space and cost. As to the format on such a disk, it would be silly to use H.264 as it requires royalty and licensing fees, and one of the positive reasons for switching to SD / SSD is to get rid of such licensing fees. As you may be aware, a battle for web video formats is currently ongoing and Ogg Theora, while weaker in a technical sense, could be a great open format for SD/ SSD-based distribution as bandwidth and storage space would be much less of an issue than on the internet. SD distribution would also provide a means of increasing compatibility, as it would be possible to include NTSC, PAL, 16:9, 4:3 and HD versions on the same disk, which could be automatically selected based on the type of television being used (or the resolution of the computer display). If video formats should change in the future, it would be dead easy to include both the new and old formats on the same card to maintain full compatibility between old and new. Companies could even put 4K video on the card in anticipation of future technologies. It would have the potential to really level the playing field for independent filmmakers. Right now the safest option for indies is digital distribution because it doesn't cost any money to put your film online. It just sits there, for free, until it is sold - in stark contrast to the DVD approach, where you pay a lot of money up front and hope and pray that you make it back. Most indies will not be able to get their discs into physical stores like Wal-mart, which makes getting through inventory much harder. The downside to a download-only approach is that by not going the DVD or Blu-ray route, you cut out a significant portion of the audience who have no desire for digital downloads. It's very difficult for an independent filmmaker to create a Hollywood-quality DVD, as Hollywood has access to high quality hardware encoders and professional compressionists that are experts in squeezing out the maximum quality in the limited bandwidth available. With SD cards, bandwidth would be considerably higher and so it would take much less effort to produce a high quality image suitable for distribution. And if the video formats were open formats like Ogg Theora, there would be no license fees to pay for mass distribution. Will this ever happen? Well, there are currently two barriers. The first is that the cost per GB of solid state media is very high. This is something that will decrease with time though. The second, more pertinent, issue is the fact that many companies are heavily invested in DVD and Blu-ray technology including studios, post houses, distributors, replication houses, disc manufacturers, drive / player manufacturers, software developers, and let's not forget the consortium of companies that receive patent royalties. None of these will want to see their investments or, for some companies, their entire business model go out of the window. Of course, this is all pure speculation. When the cost and size of SD cards becomes viable, there could be a brand new technology which renders this solution unnecessary. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, what Apple chooses to do, and if they have the ability to make an impact on this issue. Categories: Apple, Industry, Analysis Final Cut Pro 6.0.6 releasedThe release notes name only one fix: Improved Real-Time Playback on Certain Mac Pro and Xserve Models Final Cut Pro 6.0.6 improves real-time playback capabilities with Mac Pro (Early 2009) models and Xserve (Early 2009) models when working with complex sequences or high-bandwidth media formats. There are no new features, but I wasn't actually expecting any - in fact, I wasn't expecting an FCP 6.0.6 update at all. I guess this was an urgent fix. Of course, this new update will raise questions about Final Cut Studio 3 but I am confident that it is in development. Apple's ProApp developers on the pro-apps-dev mailing list are very much alive and well, and frequently ask third-party developers what features they would like to see in future versions. Some kind of official acknowledgment and a tentative release schedule from Apple would be nice though. The usual guidelines apply - don't update in the middle of a project, don't update for several weeks so that potential bugs and issues have a chance to show themselves, don't update if you don't need the features in this patch (it only applies to 2009 models), and make sure to clone your drive before you update. Categories: Video Editing, Apple, Final Cut Studio WWDC 2009 Summary 15" MacBook ProApple announced a new 15" MacBook Pro with a built-in battery like its 17" sibling. This results in dramatically improved battery life, performance and reliability at the expense of a battery you cannot replace. To me this is not a problem at all but to some it will be a dealbreaker.It also has an improved display with a 60% greater color gamut, allowing it to display a much greater range of colors. It's much faster, with up to a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and up to 8GB of RAM, with a 500 GB hard disk or 256 GB SSD. It's also cheaper, starting at $1699 for the base model. However, much like its previous notebook offerings, Apple gives with one hand and takes with the other. In a move that makes me question how in touch Apple is with its pro users, they have replaced the ExpressCard slot with an SD card slot. So that means no more native SxS support - you'll need to fork out for a USB adapter. And expect a drop in transfer speed over USB too. Removing the ExpressCard slot drastically reduces the flexibility of the laptop. They've replaced a versatile port with one that has few uses (at least for video professionals). It also means we will not be able to connect eSATA devices or monitoring / conversion devices such as the Matrox MXO2 to MacBook Pros, drastically reducing their usefulness. This is a ridiculous decision for Apple to make on a device with "Pro" in the title. Sure, you can get around this issue by buying a 17" MacBook Pro but I feel an ExpressCard slot should come as standard and not require you to buy a bigger, heavier and more expensive machine just for that feature. Another aspect that is sure to irk ProApp users is the base model. Although it is good that Apple has reduced its price, it only features onboard graphics, unlike all the others which feature onboard and discrete graphics. This makes it unsuitable for applications like Motion and makes me question how future-proof this machine will be when Snow Leopard with OpenCL comes out. I think a machine with "Pro" in the title should be appropriately-specced to run Apple's professional applications. 13" MacBook ProSpeaking of which, Apple rebranded the aluminum unibody MacBooks as the 13" MacBook Pro. Although the specifications are similar to the base 15" model and will therefore also result in limited ProApp usage and questionable OpenCL performance in Snow Leopard, I don't have a problem with that because this is something that was never there in the first place - this is not something Apple has taken away from us.There's also some good news - Apple seems to have paid attention to the protests over the lack of FireWire ports in the previous generation and has now restored a single FireWire 800 port. The models are available up to 2.53 GHz with up to 8 GB RAM, an SD slot and a GeForce 9400M. The high-end 13" model is identical to the base 15" model in specification, which reiterates my opinion that the base 15" model is underpowered. MacBook AirLike the others, the MacBook Air has received a speed bump. It's also had a huge price cut and there is now only a few hundred dollars difference between the regular hard disk and SSD versions.Snow LeopardApple demoed a few features but as the main changes were under the hood, these will probably be explored in more detail during the rest of the week.Worthy of note:
The biggest Snow Leopard announcement is that Snow Leopard will cost $129 retail like all the rest but only $29 if you are upgrading from Leopard. Yes, you read that correctly. It comes out in September, a month before Windows 7. Safari 4Safari 4 is out today and is available for download for Mac OS X 10.5.7. and Windows. This was one of my favorite announcements of the day - why? Because it makes Safari 4 the first shipping browser to pass Acid3 and support many new HTML5 web features.One notable feature is video and audio tags. These allow you to play supported video and audio content directly in the browser without the need for Flash, Silverlight or other technologies. Plugins are always slower and more resource-hungry than native support for a particular feature, and open standards are always preferable. See this page for an HTML5 video that plays directly in your browser without Flash. These changes have also made it across to MobileSafari, and it means Flash on the iPhone is even less likely than before (not a bad thing). iPhone 3GSIt is a new iPhone but the name is very similar to the previous iPhone 3G, probably because no external differences were made to the phone or perhaps because it is still on the 3G network. It is considerably faster, features a 3MP digital camera, can record video, has a magnetometer (compass), 7.2Mbps HSDPA (faster 3G connection), voice operation, available in 16 and 32 GB on June 19th. The iPhone 3G has been reduced today to $99 and will continue to be sold once the new phone is out.Tethering is not supported by AT&T and MMS will only work on the AT&T network at the end of summer (other networks do not have this handicap). Even Apple seemed fed up with AT&T's general incompetence, making frequent jokes at AT&T's expense. One other notable feature is called Find My iPhone. Mobile Me users can log in and locate their lost iPhone on a map, send messages to it or make it emit a sound so that it can be located (even if it is on silent). If the phone has been stolen, you can remotely wipe your personal data from it. This is a pretty nice feature. Final Cut Studio 3This was missing in action, leading us to wonder when it will be released. Will it be released in conjunction with Snow Leopard - who knows? All I know is that Avid and Adobe CS4 have edged ahead and are looking mighty tempting, and Nuke is looking like a great replacement for Shake. When it comes to making your living, you can't wait around forever for software that you don't know anything about in terms of new features and may not even end up being released. You have to buy what you need when you need it - Apple needs to realize this.So in conclusion, there's some great stuff there for consumers but professional users appear to have been sidelined once again. Categories: Apple, Analysis, QuickTime Sign the DVD Studio Pro Blu-ray petition Although it's just a series of numbers, it is a useful indicator of just how much the applications have been updated. The most notable numbers are Color 1.5, Compressor 3.5 - indicating relatively minor changes - and DVD Studio Pro 4.2.2 - indicating virtually no changes at all. So for those of you hoping for a major DVD Studio Pro update that supports Blu-ray burning, it looks like you're going to be disappointed once again. There is now a petition circulating that asks Apple to reconsider its policy. "We, the undersigned, will not buy a new version of Final Cut Studio if it is still lacking Blu-ray support." Be sure to add your signature if you agree. Categories: Apple, Final Cut Studio, DVD Mac OS X 10.5.7 released The release notes are quite brief, however it is possible to get a much better overview by looking at World of Apple's seed notes for the 10.5.7 beta. This is not a comprehensive list but gives a good indication of the final changes. There's some good stuff in there - lots of networking fixes and several changes aimed at improving sleep/wake reliability (I've actually stopped putting my MacBook to sleep because it either wakes up constantly every 10 mins or never wakes up at all). It also contains updated graphics drivers. There's really nothing serious in there so you can update at your leisure. It's very much a polish update. If you are thinking of updating though, remember the Golden Rules: 1. Never update in the middle of a project 2. Wait a week or two for problems to surface 3. Perform a clone of your system before installing 4. You will experience greater reliability from the larger combo updater 10.5.7 Delta Update (10.5.6 -> 10.5.7) 10.5.7 Combo Update (10.5.x -> 10.5.7) 10.5.7 Server Delta Update (10.5.6 -> 10.5.7) 10.5.7 Server Combo Update (10.5.x -> 10.5.7) The bundled security update is also available separately for Tiger users as Security Update 2009-02. Update: Mac Mini users are reporting problems already. It seems like certain DVI displays are not being recognized correctly on Mac Minis. Categories: Apple, Software Compressor error - "You must enter a name for this batch submission" "You must enter a name for this batch submission. This is the name that identifies this submission in the Batch Monitor and History window."  This error pops up when you drag items into the batch window in the wrong order. You must drag the clip in first and then drag in the settings and destinations. There really shouldn't be a specific order for doing this but unfortunately Compressor can be very illogical at times. Categories: Video Editing, Apple, Final Cut Studio Recently updated AppleCare docs - 5/1/09 HardwareXserve: USB, FireWire, and optical drive do not respondMacBook Pro: Distorted video or no video issues Can't connect two DVI connectors to Power Mac G5 (Late 2005), Mac Pro (Original), and Mac Pro (Early 2008) video cards Xserve (Early 2009): Use the latest version of Server Admin Tools Mac Pro: Power consumption and thermal output (BTU) information Xserve (Late 2006 and later): Configuring Lights-Out Management (LOM) Xserve (Late 2006 or later): How to configure Server Monitor to access Xserve Xserve (Early 2009): Power consumption and thermal output (BTU) information Certain optical digital audio source sample rates may not work for some Intel-based Macs Final Cut Pro / ExpressFinal Cut Express: Camcorder supportFinal Cut Pro/Express: Some imported PSD files may only contain the background layer Final Cut Pro: Speed interferes with Smooth Cam Final Cut Pro: Troubleshooting Basics Final Cut Pro: Green frames or other anomalies on render with REDCODE Final Cut Pro: Quality issue with movies you export from the Viewer with filters applied Final Cut Pro: Log and capture with DV50 sometimes does not work in French or Japanese MotionMotion: Motion quits unexpectedly when exporting to REDCODECompressorCompressor: Troubleshooting basicsLogicLogic Express: Locating the Support ID and Serial NumberXsanXsan 2: Compatibility of Xsan clients with Grass Valley SAN shared storage systemsXsan 2: Xsan Admin Setup Assistant appears when opening Xsan Admin MiscMac OS X keyboard shortcutsMac OS X: How to log a kernel panic Categories: Apple, Hardware, Final Cut Studio NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac Pro There's now another one to choose from - the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800. It's incredibly powerful with 1.5 GB of memory, 192 CUDA parallel processing cores (!) and 76.8 GB/sec memory bandwidth. But its price tag matches its capabilities - $1799.  I would not actually recommend this for ProApp use, as the Quadros have not traditionally been optimized for Core Image operations (not to mention the small number of ProApps that utilize the GPU significantly) so a lot of that power goes to waste in Final Cut Studio. However, this card is often used for 3D modeling and visualization tasks. Why was this not released with the 2009 Mac Pros? One explanation could be the fact it requires OS X 10.5.7 which has not been released yet. The card is scheduled to be released in May, which suggests 10.5.7 would also be released around that time too. It is compatible with the 2008 and 2009 Mac Pros. Apple have not announced anything on their site so it remains to be seen if there will be a BTO option. Interestingly, NVIDIA's site only mentions Dual-Link DVI as a display option and does not mention Mini DisplayPort at all. Categories: Apple, Hardware
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