Software Category: Digital Rebellion Blog

What to do if you lose your Pro App serial number

Thu, 03 Jul 08 00:24:11 -0600

Apple have a new AppleCare doc on their site asking a question that comes up quite often - what do you do if you lose your Final Cut Studio (or other Pro App) serial number?

You need to fax or email them proof of purchase giving details of the product purchased, the price paid, when it was purchased and the name and address of the reseller. I am emphasizing reseller here because the purchase must have been made from either Apple or an authorized reseller in order to qualify. If you bought it from eBay or from a friend, you're out of luck, unless they happen to be authorized.

This actually raises one more question - legal purchasers of Final Cut Studio are allowed to transfer their license to one other person as long as they remove all traces of FCS from their system, but most people sell their software and don't bother to fill in the transfer form. The article doesn't state whether the recipient of the transferred license would be eligible for this scheme, although I would imagine the answer is yes. Apple used to provide a way of offering feedback on AppleCare docs but unfortunately they no longer do this.

Hopefully we'll have another doc up soon answer another common question - what do you do if your disc gets lost, stolen or damaged?

[via LAFCPUG]

Leopard 10.5.4 update

Tue, 01 Jul 08 23:41:50 -0600

Yesterday Apple released OS X 10.5.4. I'm going to post the full list of changes as it's quite short. I get the impression that this is not the full list of actual changes because Apple asked developers to test more than just these areas in pre-release versions of this patch, unless those additions were taken out for some reason.

General

* Includes recent Apple security updates.
* Resolves an issue with saving and reopening Adobe Creative Suite 3 ï¬�les on a remote server.
* Includes additional RAW image support for several cameras.
* Addresses an issue that may result in a partially installed X11 application.
* Improves L2TP VPN client reliability.

AirPort

* Addresses AirPort reliability issues with 5GHz networks.
* Addresses AirPort issues that may result in slower performance in Logic Studio or MainStage.

iCal

* Improves overall iCal reliability for meeting requests, cancellation notices, delegation, and syncing with iPhone.
* Resolves an issue that prevents deleting an iCal event without notifying the creator.
* Addresses an issue in which events in all calendars affect availability. A checkbox now enables information-only calendars to be transparent from free/busy lookups.
* Resolves a UI issue preventing delegated calendars from showing up as a separate window.
* Addresses an issue with copying and pasting attendees from one event to another.
* Resolves an issue in which iCal may not delete events after a speciï¬�ed time interval, even when set to do so in iCal preferences.
* Addresses an issue in which To Dos cannot be marked private.

Safari

* Addresses a potential performance issue when loading secure web pages.
* Resolves issues that may be encountered when accessing secure web pages with client certificates that reside on a smart card.

Spaces and ExposÃ©

* Addresses an issue in which switching from a space with a Finder window keeps the Finder as the active application instead of the application residing in the destination space.
* Fixes an issue in which dragging an application from the list of application assignments in Spaces System Preferences does not assign the application to the desired space.
* Resolves an ExposÃ© issue that may result in only a subset of windows being shown.

Delta installer (88 MB)
Combo installer (561 MB)

The combo updater is recommended for safety. Usual warnings apply - clone your system before installing, don't update in the middle of a project and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Tiger users today received the Security Update 2008-004 patch which was included in the above update for Leopard.

PPC
Intel

This update marks a milestone for me. I always wait until at least version x.x.4 of an operating system before upgrading to it for professional use. This gives Apple time to iron out bugs and improve stability and gives third party developers time to make their software compatible with the new OS. So I will now be thinking about upgrading. It's complicated, however, by the fact that I am still on a G5 PowerMac and have a fair amount of PPC software that cost an arm and a leg to buy, so what I will probably end up doing is buying an Intel Mac Pro and gradually upgrading my software packages one at a time.

Mac Pro and Xserve overclocking tool

Sun, 29 Jun 08 15:07:46 -0600

This has been going around the internet for the past couple of days. The German division of ZDNet has released an overclocking tool for Mac Pro and Xserve machines running Leopard.

Overclocking is the process of artificially increasing the clock speed of your processor and memory in order to make it operate at a faster rate. For example, you could make a 2.8 GHz processor operate at 3.0 GHz without the expense of purchasing a faster CPU. This is very popular in the Windows world, particularly with hardcore video gamers, who have managed to push CPUs beyond 4 GHz.

However, increasing the clock rate also increases the power consumption and heat output of the CPU. Upgrading the power supply and increasing the CPU cooling may be necessary - areas that may be tricky with tightly-designed Apple products.

I wouldn't advise doing this on a machine that you depend upon every day but it might be useful for a render farm machine where speed is important and the task will be taken up by another machine if there are any crashes or failures.

Another final thing to note is that your system performance will only be as fast as the slowest link in the chain. If you overclock your CPU but have a really slow hard disk or not very much RAM, the performance increase will be limited.

All in all though, this is a very useful tool for Mac users as long as they are aware of the dangers and potential issues. It could also encourage more video gamers to switch to the Mac.

Final Cut Server 1.1 update

Fri, 27 Jun 08 01:03:02 -0600

Apple just released Final Cut Server 1.1. Here are the fixes:

QuickTime 7.5 and FCP 6.0.4 support - QT 7.5 is REQUIRED for this update. With Final Cut Pro 6.0.4, FCServer can now access the project file directly. It does not need to create a separate XML file in order to access the data. Remember to keep versions on your network synchronized - if you upgrade one machine to FCP 6.0.4 and FCServer 1.1, it is best to upgrade them all.

Updating Checked Out assets - You can now manually update Checked Out assets when not using Final Cut Pro (i.e. DVD Studio Pro, Motion, etc).

Edit Proxy Files - You must reanalyze your 1.0 proxies after installing 1.1.

Final Cut Pro file preferences - These are now respected when opening FCP projects.

Multi-byte character sets - Multi-byte languages such as Greek and Russian now display correctly.

See the Release Notes for more information.

I probably don't need to say this any more but it's always best to - NEVER update in the middle of a project, don't update if you don't need these fixes and always keep a clone for safety.

Pro Applications Update 2008-02 aka FCP 6.0.4

Fri, 27 Jun 08 00:48:44 -0600

Yesterday Apple released Pro Applications Update 2008-02 which contains Final Cut Pro 6.0.4 and Compressor 3.0.3. It is important to note that this is not a new version of Compressor. It was included in Pro Applications Update 2008-01 earlier this year but I guess it is compulsory for this update so they included it again.

Not a great deal of fixes:
Enhanced Final Cut Server support - If you have Final Cut Server 1.1, you can now access projects directly without converting them to XML first. It would be interesting to see if other applications can use this as well.

XDCAM 422 preset - Changed to include 24-bit audio as default

Capturing HDV clips - With QuickTime 7.5, HDV clips in Capture Now mode can capture beyond the end of the tape. This update now allows you to press Escape to stop it. I'd advise going to Final Cut Pro > System Settings and setting the Capture Now limit to the length of your tape. This stops your disk space being eaten up with blank data.

Usual warnings apply - NEVER update in the middle of the project, don't update if you don't need any of the features provided in this patch and always have a clone of your drive as a backup.

Release Notes

In a future patch I'd really like to see stability fixes for Compressor, Soundtrack Pro and working with Motion clips in an FCP timeline.

Houdini coming to OS X

Tue, 17 Jun 08 00:33:30 -0600

Houdini, the nodal 3D modeling application used on many movies today, is finally coming to OS X. Side Effects has released a beta compatible with OS X (64-bit Leopard), Windows and Linux.

Houdini is unique in that it combines a 3D modeling application with a nodal interface, giving you much greater flexibility and allowing you to use the industry-standard interface used for a large number of visual effects applications. I have not used it myself but I will definitely be checking it out.

Four editions available:
1. Free Apprentice edition with watermarked output
2. Non-watermarked Apprentice HD for $99
3. Houdini Escape for $1995
4. Houdini Master (Escape but with particles, dynamics, cloth, etc) $7995

There is also a Batch edition for render farms for $1495.

Right now, only Apprentice and Apprentice HD are available but the rest will be released on July 15th.

QuickTime 7.5 released

Mon, 09 Jun 08 23:54:29 -0600

"QuickTime 7.5 improves application compatibility and addresses security issues."

The timing suggests it is related to the recent iPhone announcements so I doubt this patch does much for ProApp users.

I have heard reports of crashes, choppiness and missing audio although of course your mileage may vary. It is always better to sit on updates for a while to check for problems before installing. I would not advise installing this one though because it probably won't offer ProApp users anything new.

And remember the Golden Rules - never update in the middle of a project and always have a clone.

Edit: This update points directly to the QuickTime site rather than a specific file on the server. This makes me think that Apple will no longer be keeping old versions around so make sure to back this up.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard announced

Mon, 09 Jun 08 23:12:10 -0600

Apple just released a few preliminary details about Mac OS X Snow Leopard (I think they're running out of cat names...). The interesting thing to note is that NOWHERE does it say that this is OS X 10.6. It could be a major point update for 10.5. I think it probably is 10.6 but it's worth bearing that in mind though.

Apple has stated that the focus will not primarily be new features but improving the quality of the OS. I think a lot of people will be disappointed by the lack of features but this is great for people who demand high performance (a lot of people reading this blog I'd imagine).

Here are the improvements:
* Multi-core optimizations with a new technology called Grand Central. This makes it much easier for developers to create multi-core optimized applications (FCP dev team, I'm looking at you...)
* OpenCL support - Enables developers to use the processing power of the GPU to perform tasks. It will be interesting to see how developers take advantage of this but it could use your graphics card as an extra processing core when rendering and encoding for example.
* Theoretical support for 16 TB of RAM. But how much can each application address?
* QuickTime X - "optimizes support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback". That's a little vague so I'm wondering if there is some kind of GPU acceleration involved. And the "modern audio and video formats" bit makes me wonder if Windows formats such as WMV are supported out of the box, without requiring something like Flip4Mac.
* Support for Exchange 2007
* Safari speed improvements
* Takes up less space on disk
* Released in "about a year"

There have been rumors that 10.6 will be Intel-only but this report neither confirms nor denies this.

Also, there is no word on price. Consumers might be hard to win over if there are no new features so Apple may adopt lower pricing. I have heard some people say that performance and stability should be in Leopard anyway so the update should be free (which I disagree with). I personally would pay full price for an update that "unlocked" my graphics card for use as an extra core though. To me, that is worth paying for. And it'd probably result in a bigger performance boost than buying $130-worth of hardware.

WWDC 2008

Mon, 09 Jun 08 13:03:06 -0600

It's Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) today and Steve's keynote just finished.

Here are the important announcements:

iPhone firmware update 2.0
* Released in "early July"
* Free for iPhone users, $9.95 for iPod Touch users (it's an accounting thing)
* Enables applications and the iTunes App Store as previously announced
* Enterprise features - Push email, push contacts, push calendar, autodiscovery, global address lookup, remote wipe.
* Positional audio (openAL) and fast graphics with OpenGLES.
* Word, Excel, PowerPoint and iWork document support
* Apps that are 10 MB or less can be downloaded over the cellular network - all others must be downloaded over WiFi or synced from iTunes.
* Enterprise users can set up private storefronts and distribute over their intranet.
* Push notification for applications - Instead of running in the background and wasting battery, the iPhone can receive messages and give you notification (alerts, sounds, badges) without needing to have the application running.

MobileMe
* The new .Mac
* Push email to all devices including iPhones, Macs and Windows PCs
* Online calendar and photo album - syncs with iCal and iPhoto. Drag and drop support.
* $99 per year, 60 day pre-trial available
* Available "early July"
* .Mac users get to keep their existing email addresses which will forward to a MobileMe address

3G iPhone
* Metal back replaced with glossy plastic
* Thinner at the edges
* Solid metal buttons
* 3.5" screen (same as original)
* Flush headphone jack
* "Dramatically improved" audio
* 10 hours of 2G talk time, 5 hours of 3G talk time, 300 hours standby, 5-6 hours web browsing, 7 hours video, 24 hours audio
* Built-in GPS - updates Google Maps live
* A LOT of extra countries - 70 new countries this year
* Price drop - Was: originally $599 for 8 GB. Now: $199 for 8 GB, $299 for 16 GB, $399 for 32 GB. These are the maximum prices for every country.
* Launches on July 11th (22 countries)
* Special edition white version

Steve went through the list of (almost) everything that was bad about the original iPhone and improved upon it dramatically. This is a great update.

As always, Engadget has the scoop + pictures.

P.S. I've disabled comments because whenever I post anything about the iPhone I get a TON of spam comments.

Using Frame Controls in Compressor

Wed, 04 Jun 08 15:44:33 -0600

Compressor has some very sophisticated technologies in the Frame Controls tab of the Inspector to enable it to perform high-quality resizing, retiming and deinterlacing of footage.

These are incredibly useful but it is very tempting to set everything to "best" when it is not at all necessary and causes a significant impact upon the processing time. So what this post aims to do is outline what each function does and when it should be used.

Firstly, if you are not resizing, retiming or deinterlacing footage, do not switch Frame Controls on at all.

Resizing controls
When an image is resized, new pixels need to be calculated. If you downsize an image, an area that was once 10 pixels could now be 2 pixels and vice versa if you are upsizing. Compressor goes through the resulting image and calculates what each pixel value should be based on the value at that point in the original image. These are not always integers. For example, a pixel at point (3,3) in the resulting image might correspond to point (2.8, 2.8) on the original. As there is no pixel at (2.8, 2.8), Compressor has to calculate a suitable value. The following options are different ways of calculating these pixel colors.

Fast (nearest pixel) - Compressor takes the value from the closest whole pixel in the original image. This is very fast but can result in significant visual artifacts and inaccuracies, particularly when resizing by a significant amount.

Suitable for: Minor size changes, situations where a fast encode is more important than a high quality one.

Better (linear filter) - This improves on the nearest pixel method by taking the values of four surrounding pixels and weighting them, increasing accuracy.

Suitable for: Most downconversions (e.g. 720p to NTSC).

Best (statistical prediction) - This uses more complex algorithms to maintain edge sharpness, at the expense of processing time.

Suitable for: Upconversions (e.g. NTSC to 1080p HD)

Anti-aliasing slider - This smooths rough edges but don't set it too high or you will visibly soften the image.

Suitable for: Smoothing jagged edges when upconverting footage (e.g. PAL to 720p HD)

Detail Level slider - This sharpens edges, increasing our perception of detail in the image. Use sparingly to avoid adding noticeable noise or jagged edges to the image.

Suitable for: Sharpening soft edges when upconverting footage.

Deinterlacing controls
To deinterlace, first select Progressive from the Output Fields drop-down menu. Use this instead of the Deinterlace filter in the Filters tab as it will provide greater output quality. Choose one of the following from the Deinterlace menu:

Fast (line averaging) - The two fields are blended into one frame. This, however, can result in strange motion artifacts because you are playing two fields at the same time that were originally offset in time.

Suitable for: Situations with very little motion.

Better (motion adaptive) - This method analyzes the fields and only deinterlaces areas that require deinterlacing.

Suitable for: Most situations except those with extremes of motion. In most cases you will not get any benefits from choosing higher settings than this if you are working in Standard Definition (e.g. NTSC, PAL).

Best (motion-compensated) - This uses optical flow technologies to track the motion of objects and analyzes multiple frames at once. This is incredibly processor intensive.

Suitable for: Situations with extremes of motion (e.g. sports).

Retiming controls

Fast (nearest frame) - If you slow down footage, Compressor will need to add extra frames. This option just duplicates the nearest existing frame. It is very speedy but it can result in very choppy / juddery motion. If you are speeding up footage however, the choppiness will probably not be noticeable.

Suitable for: Minor speed adjustments, fast motion

Good (frame blending) - This blends frames together to create "in-between" frames and is a lot smoother than the nearest frame method, at the cost of processing time. This is suitable for most applications unless you are performing extreme slow motion.

Suitable for: Most speed changes with the exception of extreme slow motion

Better (motion-compensated) - This uses complex algorithms to analyze a range of frames and interpolate (predict) what the in-between frames should look like based on their surrounding frames. It then creates these new frames from scratch. Obviously this is very processor-intensive.

Suitable for: Extreme speed changes or footage with large amounts of motion (sports for example)

Best (high quality motion-compensated) - Apple's documentation is a little unclear on what makes this particular option higher quality than the one below it. It could be that it analyzes more frames to produce the final result, it blends using a higher bit depth for greater accuracy, or it recreates every single frame instead of just the in-between ones for greater smoothness. Or maybe all of them.

Either way, this is incredibly processor intensive and should only be used if you cannot get good results with lower settings.

Suitable for: Extreme speed changes or significant frame rate increases (e.g. 23.98 to 59.94 fps)

Conclusion

So what does this tell us? It tells us that "Good" or "Better" should be adequate for most situations and it is not worth choosing "Best" unless your footage actually needs it. The best way of finding a happy medium is to start with everything on "Fast" and perform small test renders (10 seconds or so) for multiple areas of your movie. If you are not happy with the quality, go up to the next level and keep going until you reach a level of quality you are happy with.

Mac OS X 10.5.3 released

Wed, 28 May 08 16:50:15 -0600

Apple just released Leopard 10.5.3 via Software Update.

Apple's change list page is quite sparse while other sites have posted a much larger list of fixes based on beta versions of the patch. What is unclear is whether or not these changes made it to the final patch release or not (although the answer is probably yes as the final patch is 536 MB).

As always, NEVER upgrade in the middle of the project and if your system ain't broke, don't fix it. However, if you are suffering from a major issue fixed by this patch, wait several days to see if there are any major problems with it (I have heard of Airport issues already) and then only install it after performing a full system clone.

If you are considering upgrading, you are advised to download the full combo updater rather than relying on Software Update:
Mac OS X 10.5.3 Combo Updater

Activity Monitor 101: System memory

Thu, 15 May 08 00:21:08 -0600

Activity Monitor (located in Applications/Utilities) is a great tool for monitoring system resource usage, and is a great way of locating rendering bottlenecks in your system.

In particular, the Memory tab shows you a great deal of information (note: this is from Leopard; Tiger's Activity Monitor looks a little different).

But what does this information mean? What exactly is wired memory? Here is a breakdown of what each item in the Memory tab refers to.

(For clarification, a swap file is a file on disk used to store currently inactive memory in order to make room in the system memory for active applications. For example, if you have Firefox running and you minimize it and then open iTunes, there is a good chance that a lot of Firefox's memory will be written to disk and the space freed will be assigned to iTunes. When you restore the Firefox window, it will copy the data from the disk back into memory again. Your hard disk is much slower than your memory chips so it is best to keep swap file usage to a minimum. This can be achieved by adding more memory to your system.)

Free: Unused memory that is available for any application to use.

Wired: Memory used by the operating system that cannot be touched by other applications. This memory cannot be written to a swap file.

Active: Memory currently used by applications. Note that this might not represent all of the memory used, as some may be stored in swap files.

Inactive: Memory stored from an application that is no longer running. OS X stores application data in a cache so that you can quickly relaunch applications a second time. If you start running out of free memory, the operating system will automatically start using inactive memory.

To clear inactive memory manually, go to Applications/Utilities/Terminal. When it launches, type purge and press enter. Note: it takes several seconds to process.

Used: Memory currently in use that cannot be immediately written to a swap file or allocated elsewhere.

VM size: The size of the swap file.

Page Ins / Page Outs: How often OS X is reading data from and writing to the swap file.

When deciding if you need an upgrade, consider the following:

Are your page ins/outs approximately equal to one another? Are they increasing rapidly?
Is the majority of your memory wired?
Do you have 10% or less of your memory free?

If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, consider more memory.

How to fully remove Final Cut Server

Wed, 07 May 08 23:40:40 -0600

Apple has just released an Applecare document listing the files installed by Final Cut Server and detailing how to remove them. This follows on from the difficulties a lot of people had with removing it due to the large number of files it places in hidden system folders. This was further complicated by Apple not wanting fixes made public until they had a chance to address the issue themselves.

I will use this information to add support within FCS Remover shortly.

Autodesk acquires Realviz

Wed, 07 May 08 14:49:01 -0600

This is very interesting. Autodesk (Maya, 3ds Max, AutoCAD, flint, flame, Lustre.... the list goes on) has just acquired the assets of Realviz. Realviz Stitcher (for combining multiple images into panoramas) and ImageModeler (creating 3D models from still images) are very popular in the visual effects industry and have been used on several high-profile features such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

A quick visit to Realviz's site reveals that its products have already been Autodesk-branded. I see this acquisition as a good thing because it is clear that the purchase is not a defensive move and that Autodesk does genuinely want to develop the products further. I would particularly like to see Movimento, ImageModeler and MatchMover incorporated into Maya in one form or another.

Autodesk also announced today that it had completed the acquisition of Kynogon, makers of Kynapse artificial intelligence software.

Update: VFXWorld has an exclusive interview with Marc Petit, Autodesk's SVP about the acquisitions. He confirms that the products will be integrated into existing product offerings such as Maya but will also be available separately.

"We are seeing some fundamental changes in the way movies, television programs and games are produced. Being able to gather 3D data from 2D material can help at many stages of the production process. We see it in pre-visualization, where it's easy to build 3D environments or virtual sets by stitching pictures together or derive 3D models very quickly from set photos using image-based modeling. Games now require a lot of facial animation. Animators can rough out facial animations using a webcam and optical motion capture. Adding assist cameras on location to capture scenes from multiple points of view is a good insurance policy for post-production. Of course, you can extract camera moves to enrich the post-production process but you can also rebuild sets in 3D from these multiple points of view. Multiple cameras enable optical motion capture of actors in non-intrusive ways without the need for suits or dedicated stages. The performance of an actor can then be modified or augmented during the post-production process using regular 3D tools such as Maya or Flame. Moreover, combining all of these technologies with spatial image-based lighting allows for highly realistic integration of CG elements with live action. We believe that weaving these technologies and products more tightly into our existing portfolio should lead to some interesting new capabilities and will provide for a more efficient production environment."

ATI Radeon 3870 due next month for Mac Pro?

Wed, 30 Apr 08 15:50:47 -0600

AppleInsider is reporting that the ATI Radeon HD 3870 will be due "next month" for both current and legacy Mac Pros.

Details are scarce (and possibly fictional) but the card is said to include 512 MB of DDR4 memory and support for CrossFire mode (linking two cards up to boost graphics performance, usually in video games) within Windows.

More importantly for professional users, it provides a mid-range alternative to NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GT which has ProApp performance issues.

Color users are particularly advised to invest in an ATI card because they support rendering in 10-, 12- and 16-bit modes in addition to NVIDIA's 8- and 32-bit offerings. The NVIDIA card gives you a choice between best and worst, with no in-between values. This can cause problems for people wanting something higher than 8-bit without the massive performance hit when working in 32-bit mode.

At present, the only way to get a mid-range ATI card in your new Mac Pro is to buy one of the ones from the old Mac Pros and update the firmware, although this has the caveat that you have to install it in an older Mac Pro first in order to update it. This news would appear to be the answer to many professional users' prayers, although I hope that Apple introduce a driver update for those that have already upgraded to the 8800 GT.

Why FCS Remover misses out the Final Cut Server database

Thu, 24 Apr 08 15:57:16 -0600

I've been getting this question a lot lately. FCS Remover removes all of the files on the disk but it does not remove the Final Cut Server database. This can cause problems when reinstalling because the installer does not ask you for information such as the profile (e.g. Video Production) and Media / Proxy Media locations again, as these are stored in the database and not in a preference file on the disk like most of its other applications. This database is hidden away in the depths of the filesystem and this thread on Apple's discussion boards suggests Apple's thoughts on the subject of removing it:

Apple and myself worked on this issue for the past two hours. We found the solution and I got mine fixed in about 30 seconds. However, Apple has respectfully asked me not to post the solution here for a variety of reasons. This IS new software and they are working very hard on providing resolutions in their support area and in FCS updates.

While I would love to help all of you... please wait for Apple to offer their solutions. It will def. be better than the quick fix that we found tonight.

It sounds like Apple is aware of the problem and wants to be given the opportunity to fix it in their own time. I will respectfully grant them that opportunity, although I am prepared to add support in FCS Remover should Apple choose not to fix the problem.

Final Cut Server released

Tue, 08 Apr 08 09:45:20 -0600

It's Tuesday, which means more goodies from Apple. Apple today released their long-awaited and much-delayed Final Cut Server software, based on the Artbox software they bought from Proximity.

Final Cut Server is an asset management system that allows you to keep track of your media. It is especially useful for facilities with a large stock footage library or companies dealing with large amounts of footage, such as news rooms.

It is also useful for smaller facilities as well. I particularly like the versioning system which tracks changes made to a file, showing you who made the change and when, and offering you a way of reverting the changes if necessary.

One of my favorite features is the event system. You can ask Final Cut Server to watch a specific attribute such as a metadata field and perform an action when that is changed, such as uploading files to a server.

The server software is Mac-only but the client software is for both PC and Mac (this probably had something to do with the delays). Here are the system requirements:

Server software
* A Mac computer with a 1.8GHz or faster PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor (Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor recommended)
* 2GB of RAM (4GB recommended)
* AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Server is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* Mac OS X v10.5 or later
* QuickTime 7.4.1 or later
* A CD drive for installation
* 500MB of available disk space

Client software for Mac computers
* A Mac computer with a 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor
* 1GB of RAM
* AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Server is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
* Mac OS X v10.4.11 or later
* QuickTime 7.4.1 or later
* Java for Mac OS X v10.4 Release 6 or later
* Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 or later for Final Cut Pro integration
* 20MB of available disk space

Client software for Windows-based computers
* A PC with Windows XP (SP2) or Vista
* 1GB of RAM
* AGP or PCI Express Quartz Extreme graphics card (Final Cut Server is not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors)
* A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
* QuickTime 7.4.1 or later
* Java SE Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 Update 4 or later
* 20MB of available disk space

Important areas to note:
* The server software is Leopard-only.
* You must fit a separate graphics card to the machine as the on-board graphics will not suffice. Also note that the G5 servers do not even have on-board graphics. This also affects any machine that you connect to it as well, which rules out MacBooks and low-end PCs.

Final Cut Server is now available for $999 (10-client version) and $1999 (Unlimited version). Interestingly, the upgrade for the 10-client version is $999 which makes it cheaper by a dollar to upgrade the 10-client version than it is to buy the unlimited version outright.

Poor GeForce 8800 GT Pro App performance

Tue, 04 Mar 08 01:06:07 -0700

BareFeats has some benchmarks of the new Nvidia 8800 GT in Motion 3. The interesting thing is how badly the two Nvidia cards (8800 GT and Quadro FX 5600) perform compared to the ATI cards, causing many people to cancel their orders.

The Nvidia 8800 GT is meant to be considerably more powerful than the ATI Radeon 2600 XT but it beats it in all of the tests except gaming, which isn't much help to readers of this blog.

Then add the fact that Color doesn't work well on Nvidia cards as they only offer a limited set of working bit depths, and there is a serious problem for owners of the new Mac Pros. They do not have a high-end ATI graphics card option, and it seems like all pro apps are optimized for ATI.

Their only solution is to go back to the ATI X1900 XT, which is a great card, but it is old tech. You also need to jump through a few hoops in order to get it working. I think the ATI buyout by AMD has complicated the situation for Apple and Intel, which is unfortunate. Let's hope Apple will release some new drivers soon to at least reduce the performance issues.

NewsFire now completely free

Sun, 02 Mar 08 00:32:01 -0700

I just heard that the developer of NewsFire is now offering the popular Mac feed reader for free. I recommended this even when it cost money (I am a paid user) so I recommend it even more now that it is free.

So what is it and why do you need it? Well, those little orange buttons you see on web pages are links to RSS feeds. An RSS feed is a tiny file containing textual information such as posts from a blog or software updates. If you have a favorite site or blog, you can be notified of updates without having to visit the site every day. Obviously this saves a lot of time and bandwidth.

I didn't think I needed one until I tried it, and the time I saved was tremendous. If you see a new site you like the look of, put it in your feed reader and forget about it until the next update. Visiting a site to check for updates that don't exist is very inefficient.

NewsFire is a great program because, as the developer himself says: "Unlike other readers, NewsFire is designed with a deliberately minimal interface. The news is what matters and it takes center stage." And now it's free, so try it out.

We have several feeds on this site, listed here. We also have an appcast feed that tells you when one of our applications is updated.

[via TUAW]

How to clone and restore your system

Fri, 22 Feb 08 15:25:17 -0700

This is a quick guide to cloning and restoring your system. I'd advise that you print this out and keep it in a safe place by your machine so that you won't waste time looking for it when your machine goes down.

Cloning your machine will create an exact copy of every single file on your computer onto a second hard drive. This can be either an internal or external disk. I'd advise external over internal because if something damages your machine, the external disk won't get damaged as well. The best time to create a clone is right after you have done a fresh Erase and Install of your operating system, have installed all of your apps and are ready to go.

Cloning
1. Download and install Carbon Copy Cloner.

2. If you are cloning to an external drive, connect it now.

3. Fire up Carbon Copy Cloner from your Applications folder. In the dialog that appears, select your system drive as the source and set your backup drive as the target.

4. Under options, make sure "Copy everything from source to target" is selected. You must check "Erase target volume" too, so as not to cause conflicts with data already on the disk. If you do not check this, the drive may not be bootable and this whole process would be pointless.

5. Click Clone and wait for it to finish. Be aware that this could take several hours.

6. Unmount your external disk (if applicable) and keep it in a safe, dry place, not too hot and not too cold. If you're paranoid like me, I'd advise connecting it to your machine every so often and verifying the disk in Disk Utility to make sure that it everything is ok.

Restoring
So the worst has happened. Your system is completely hosed and you have a deadline in 12 hours. What do you do?

Temporary Solution
1. Mount your backup disk, go to System Preferences and click on Startup Disk. If it is an external disk, it must be connected via FireWire in order to be bootable.

2. Select the backup drive in the drives list and click Restart.

3. The system will now restart in the backed-up "fresh" operating system.

This is a temporary solution to help you get your project finished without wasting time. You are advised to follow the permanent solution below.

If you have an external disk, make sure that it doesn't get disconnected either deliberately or accidentally. That's a good way to cause a kernel panic, which is never good. Don't put the machine to sleep. Shut the machine down completely before unplugging the drive. I once forgot the machine was asleep and unplugged it and my system completely froze. Not good.

Permanent Solution
1. Backup any data that you do not want to lose.
2. Boot to the backup hard disk as detailed in the Temporary Solution above.
3. In Carbon Copy Cloner, clone the backup disk over the startup disk. Follow the steps for cloning above but select your backup drive as the source and your startup disk as the target.
4. You must select "Erase the target drive".
5. Click Clone and wait for it to finish. Again, this could take several hours.
6. Go back to System Preferences > Startup Disk and set your startup disk back to the old drive and click Restart.

Apple releases Xsan 2

Tue, 19 Feb 08 09:11:47 -0700

Apple today announced Xsan 2, a brand-new edition of its popular Storage Area Network (SAN) software.

SAN software allows you to manage storage devices on a network. It manages the reading and writing to the volumes through one machine (a server), otherwise data corruption can occur if two machines are reading and writing to the same area at once. It also allows you to control access to the data on these volumes. It is commonly used for managing video editing storage networks (we use Xsan 1.4 here at Digital Rebellion) so while it's probably not particularly exciting for most people, it is a big deal.

New features include a completely overhauled Xsan Admin (yay) which offers greater speed, greater stability and more monitoring features. There is now an Easy Setup wizard, a new filesystem offering up to 2 PB per volume (1 petabyte = 1024 terrabytes), and templates that optimize the system for a particular task (e.g. HD video, SD video, file sharing, etc).

There's also a new MultiSAN feature that allows you to connect to other SANs on the same server, such as a SAN for dailies and a different one for stock footage for example. It also comes with Spotlight support.

My number one favorite feature though would have to be the ability to direct files to a specific location. You can automatically set certain types of files to go to certain volumes such as dailies in one place, audio in another, project files in a third. This is very cool and is a great way to keep everything organized without having to impose rules on everyone.

I am very much liking the sound of this. My major complaint about Xsan 1.4 (and the same goes for Color and Shake) is that it didn't feel very Apple-like. It was complex to set up, it didn't "just work" and it was difficult to manage. Apple is famous for its ease of use but it was lacking in the previous version of Xsan.

I would be upgrading in the near future were it not for the following caveat: it is Leopard-only. The system requirements for the server are much higher too - 2 GB RAM minimum, plus 2 GB per volume (up from 512 MB per volume). I would not advise the use of Leopard in a critical environment yet. Some people edit on Leopard and have no problems at all but I am waiting until at least 10.5.4 before I consider upgrading.

Despite this, this is a great upgrade. Xsan 2 is available now for $999 per machine.

To see the difference an Xsan 2 network will make to a video editing network, see the graphs at the bottom of this page.

The proper way to install a Mac OS X update

Tue, 12 Feb 08 11:22:52 -0700

As always, I advise you not to update a working system, especially not in the middle of a project. And I am hoping that those without a working system are at least waiting a few days to see if any major issues crop up.

With that out of the way, here is the proper way to update your Mac OS X system.

1. Clone your system drive using something like Carbon Copy Cloner. This may take a while but it is worth it.

2. If you have a laptop, make sure it is plugged into the mains. You don't want it switching off mid-update.

3. Make sure you are logged in as an administrator.

4. Don't use Software Update. Always download the Combo Update manually, which is less likely to cause problems because it includes all previous updates.

5. Close all applications, including ones running in the background, minimized in your dock and residing in your menu bar. You don't want anything conflicting with an OS update.

6. Go to Disk Utility and repair permissions on your startup disk.

7. Install the update. Don't fire up any applications after it finishes, just restart immediately.

8. Your computer may reboot more than once; this is perfectly fine.

9. When it loads back up, go to Disk Utility and repair permissions again.

10. Install updates for your third party software to ensure compatibility with the new OS version (if applicable).

11. Repair permissions.

12. Test your applications thoroughly (including capturing, rendering, etc).

13. If it all went wrong, restore from the clone you made in step 1.

10.5.2 Graphics and Security Updates

Mon, 11 Feb 08 15:09:48 -0700

I just noticed that in addition to the Leopard 10.5.2 patch, Apple also delivered Leopard Graphics Update 1.0 (requires the 10.5.2 patch) and Security Update 2008-001 (available for Leopard and Tiger).

The graphics update interests me a lot more than the security one. Such an update may offer better performance and bug fixes for certain graphical issues such as this one. Apple's description is incredibly vague though.

If you are experiencing such issues, you are advised to test this patch and see if it fixes it. As always, do not update a working system or you may regret it.

Mac OS X 10.5.2 Leopard patch released

Mon, 11 Feb 08 14:58:14 -0700

Apple just released the much-anticipated 10.5.2 update to Leopard. You are not advised to upgrade a working system but if you are having serious issues with Leopard that the patch fixes, you have nothing to lose by trying it.

I personally am waiting for 10.5.4 or so to come out before upgrading because it is usually around the .4 mark that new operating systems become stable and serious compatibility and stability issues have been ironed out.

Changelog:

Active Directory
* Addresses issues which could hinder or prevent binding Mac OS X 10.5.x clients to Active Directory domains.

AirPort
* Improves connection reliability and stability
* Includes 802.1X improvements.
* Resolves certain kernel panics.

Back to my Mac
* Adds support for more third-party routers.

Dashboard
* Improves performance of certain Apple Dashboard widgets (such as Dictionary).
* Addresses an issue in which Dashboard widgets may no longer be accessible after switching to or from an account that has Parental Controls enabled.

Dock
* Updates Stacks with a List view option, a Folder view option, and an updated background for Grid view.

Desktop
* Addresses legibility issues with the menu bar with an option to turn off transparency in Desktop & Screen Saver preferences.
* Adjusts menus to be slightly-less translucent overall.

iCal
* Improves iCal so that it accurately reflects responses to recurring meetings.
* Addresses an issue in which a meeting may remain on the calendar after being cancelled.
* Addresses stability issues related to .Mac syncing of iCal calendars.
* Resolves an intermittent issue in which editing an event with attendees would cause the event to shrink and not register that the event was updated.

iChat
* Addresses an issue with simultaneously-logged in accounts in which iChat sounds generated from one account might be heard in another account.
* Fixes an issue in which iChat idle time is affected by Time Machine backups.
* Improves connectivity when running iChat behind a router that doesn't preserve ports.
* Enables logged chats from previous versions of iChat to open faster and more reliably.
* Addresses an issue with text chats in which users may be unable to receive messages from the sender.
* Addresses an issue that may prevent rejoining an AIM chat room without reopening iChat.
* Addresses video chat compatibility issues with AIM 6 and third-party routers.
* Fixes an issue with case-sensitivity of AIM handles.

iSync
* Adds support for Samsung D600E and D900i phones.

Finder
* Addresses an issue in which Finder could unexpectedly quit when displaying folder contents in Column view.
* Addresses an issue in which Finder could unexpectedly quit when accessing Users and Groups in a Get Info pane.
* Resolves an issue that prevented setting permissions on a folder alias.
* Resolves an issue in which the Eject command could write to a disc in the optical drive.
* Fixes an issue in which the scroll bar might disappear when deleting a file within a folder that includes files that are out of view.
* Fixes an issue in the Sharing & Permissions section of Get Info windows, in which the gear icon appears to be gray/disabled after authentication.
* Addresses an issue in which the Show Icon Preview preference might not be not saved when turning it off.
* Fixes an issue that could occur when trying to print an image from the Finder.

Mail
* Addresses an issue with Message menu's Mark > As Read choice.
* Fixes an issue in which duplicate On My Mac folders may appear in the sidebar after upgrading to Leopard.
* Improves the accuracy of the Data Detectors feature.
* Resolves an issue with scrolling through a Note that is displayed using the split view in the message window.
* Fixes an issue with deleting messages located in the Drafts folder.
* Fixes an issue in which dragging the icon in the Safari URL field into a Mail message creates an attachment instead of a link.
* Addresses an issue found when opening a item in the Notes folder that is not a Note.
* Fixes an issue that may prevent RSS feeds from being delivered in Mail.
* Resolves an issue in which a selected message could "flash" from blue to gray when in Organize by Thread mode.
* Fixes an issue with scrolling between multiple To Dos in an email message.
* Fixes an issue in which the body of email messages with certain MIME structures may not be displayed.
* Improves performance with America Online (AOL) account-based messages in Mail.
* Addresses issues with some ISPs during automatic set-up in Mail.
* Addresses an issue in which Mail might not send mail on some networks to some SMTP servers.
* Mail now automatically disables the (unsupported) third-party plugin GrowlMail version 1.1.2 or earlier to avoid issues.
* Adds an option to view large icons in the Mailbox list.

Networking
* Addresses a hanging issue that may occur when connecting to an AFP network volume.

Parental Controls
* Improves stability when opening the Parental Controls System Preferences pane.
* Fixes an issue that may prevent changes to the email address for permission requests.
* Addresses an issue with printer administration for a guest account enabled with Parental Controls.
* Addresses an issue with setting printer administration privileges from another Mac on the local network.
* Fixes an issue that could prevent certain applications from being allowed.
* Addresses accuracy issues with the web content filter.

Preview
* Improves stability when scrolling through a PDF document.
* Fixes an issue that prevents tabbing within a PDF document after clicking on the PDF.
* Improves the Mail Document feature so that email attachments are more reliably created from Print Preview.

Printing
* Addresses an issue in which remote printers may be deleted when the computer is put to sleep.
* Improves printing performance when using some Microsoft Office applications.
* Resolves an issue with some printing options, such as landscape orientation, number of copies, two-sided printing, and so forth that may not have functioned with some printers shared by Microsoft Windows.
* Adds support for certain printers connected to the USB port of an AirPort Extreme or AirPort Express base station.
* Resolves a stalling issue that could occur when installing certain Canon printing software from a disc.

RAW Image
* Adds RAW image support for several cameras.

Safari
* Addresses issues with Safari reliably resolving certain domains.

Login and Setup Assistant
* Addresses an issue in which Setup Assistant could unexpectedly appear each time Mac OS X 10.5 starts up.
* Improves stability and performance during log in.

System
* Improves the accuracy of the grammar checker.
* The computer will now shut down if an automatic disk repair does not succeed during startup.

Time Machine
* Adds a menu bar option for accessing Time Machine features (the menu extra can be enabled in Time Machine preferences).
* Improves backup reliability when computer name contains slash or non-ASCII characters.
* Fixes an issue in which the backup disk displayed in the Finder may be out of sync with the disk chosen for Time Machine.
* Addresses issues in which some external drives are not recognized by Time Machine.
* The status menu now appears by default.

Other
* Improves general stability when running third-party applications. - Interesting...
* Addresses an issue in which the incorrect search results may be displayed for certain Automator Find/Filter actions.
* Addresses an issue with the Latvian and Russian keyboard layouts.
* Addresses an issue in which the backlight could turn off before Energy Saver's backlight setting.

Sonic drops HD DVD Scenarist support

Thu, 31 Jan 08 02:23:26 -0700

Video Business is announcing that Sonic Solutions has discontinued support for its HD DVD Scenarist authoring software. This is important because Scenarist is a popular product that is used professionally for disc authoring.

Sonic claims it wants to focus on Blu-ray and add extra functionality to the Blu-ray edition of Scenarist, rather than splitting its time and resources between two formats. Customers of the HD DVD version can exchange it for the Blu-ray edition.

As Toshiba seems unwilling to kill off HD DVD, many companies have chosen to pounce on it now that a possible winner has emerged. I think this is good for the industry, and the sooner Toshiba realizes this, the better.

DiskWarrior 4.1 adds Leopard support

Fri, 25 Jan 08 01:17:49 -0700

I've mentioned DiskWarrior before. It has been a life-saver to me, and is well worth the asking price of $99.95. It will diagnose and fix hard disk problems that Disk Utility cannot. DiskWarrior is an essential editors' tool in the fight against data loss.

Version 4.1 adds Leopard support and support for Leopard-specific features such as the ability to repair Time Machine volumes.

Note, however, that you cannot repair Leopard volumes from within Tiger, so if you were trying to repair a Time Machine volume it would fail.

After Effects 8.0.2 released

Tue, 22 Jan 08 17:03:25 -0700

Adobe has released a new patch for Macintosh After Effects users. This patch allows you to natively import and work with Panasonic P2 data, and adds Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard support.

More details of bug fixes are available here.

This does not, unfortunately, fix the QuickTime 7.4 rendering issues, although Adobe are "working with Apple to resolve the problem".

Interesting Apple patents

Sat, 29 Dec 07 11:50:58 -0700

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

Tue, 25 Dec 07 17:06:48 -0700

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

Sun, 23 Dec 07 02:58:35 -0700

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.