Video Editing Category: Digital Rebellion Blog

Speeding up Compressor

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:47:26 MDT

Is Compressor taking too long to encode? Here are some tips to speed it up.

Don't export directly to Compressor from Final Cut Pro

Although 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 necessary

Frame 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 encoding

Using 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 cluster

A 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.

Conclusion

Compressor 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.

Final Cut Pro 6.0.6 released

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:10:33 MDT

Apple today released Final Cut Pro 6.0.6.

The 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.

Compressor error - "You must enter a name for this batch submission"

Sun, 03 May 2009 02:31:35 MDT

Sometimes when you submit a batch, you may get the error:
"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.

NAB 09 Day 1

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:17:32 MDT

Yesterday was the first day of NAB. I'm not going to list every single announcement (for that you can go here), but I'm going to focus on what I feel were the biggest or most interesting announcements.

Avid completely redesigned their logo - I can see what they were trying to do but I'm not a big fan of it. Luckily they had some bombshell announcements to go with it. In a surprising move, Avid qualified Final Cut Pro to run on its Unity MediaNetwork and ISIS storage. This makes it considerably easier to use both FCP and Avid systems on the same project.

Avid also redesigned its support offerings and showcased RED support and stereoscopic 3D integration. Avid has always had the edge on FCP when it comes to media management but the recently-introduced AMA architecture takes that one step further. There is no need to Log and Transfer - just link to the P2 or XDCAM volume and all of the clips just pop up in the bin, complete with metadata. This is clearly a lot better than FCP's clunky implementation (hopefully something Apple will address in FCP 7) and Avid were keen to show it off.

Adobe announced it has partnered with several manufacturers to create TVs with Flash support. So you could theoretically watch a documentary on a subject and then view interactive content related to that subject.

But far more interesting was Adobe's post announcements. Adobe Story is a collaborative screenwriting application that is integrated with Adobe Premiere. There are very few details but it seems likely that it will build on Premiere's transcription function to introduce an Avid-like Script Sync feature.

This continues the recent trend of linking pre-production processes directly to post production software - something we will no doubt see more of in the future. Right now Apple appears to be considering storyboard integration.

Blackmagic Design announces UltraScope - 3Gb/s SDI and optical fibre scopes for $695. This is huge. Hardware scopes cost more than some cars, so a scope for $695 is a real game-changer. Lets hope it's good - Blackmagic's products normally are.

It is a PCI Express card that plugs into a Windows computer with a 24-inch monitor (alas no Mac support as yet) to display output on the screen. As one PVC commenter notes - the lack of Mac support is not necessarily a bad thing as you would probably not use the machine for any other purpose, thus a cheaper PC would be a better option.

This is a clever solution to an age-old problem and I wish I was at NAB to see it in action.

Blackmagic's HDLink looks to be a worthy opponent to the original Matrox MXO. This gives you HD monitoring via DVI or HDMI for only $495. Monitor 4:4:4 SDI video on a regular computer monitor.

In addition, Blackmagic have lowered the prices of several of their existing products.

Matrox CompressHD is a PCI Express hardware H.264 encoder. This allows you to encode H.264 faster than realtime using Matrox's MAX technology. Also announced is the MXO 2 Mini, which is a cut-down, smaller, cross platform version of the MXO 2. It lacks XLR and SDI ports, unlike its larger and more expensive brother but it works on PC, Mac, and all QuickTime-compatible editing applications. It costs $449 or $849 with the H.264-accelerating MAX option.

AJA has a very nice new website and have introduced the KI Pro. It connects to a camera and records to ProRes422 in the field, without the aid of a laptop. It is the only device to do this because AJA have an exclusive contract with Apple for ProRes support.

This means you can import footage into Final Cut Pro instantly without the need for transcoding. It also means that the post production team is dealing with the same video format each time, no matter what type of camera was used on set.

It can accept SD/HD SDI, HDMI and component inputs and can connect to your computer via FireWire 800 or Ethernet. It can also convert from one video standard to another in realtime. You can record to removable ExpressCards or an external hard disk. It can be remotely controlled through Wifi via a laptop or iPhone (nice!).

AJA also announced the Io Express which looks to be similar to the Matrox MXO 2. I haven't had time to do a feature-by-feature comparison yet though.

Finally, Panasonic is developing a 3D camera and JVC is developing a very pricey $200,000 4K camera.

That's what interested me... did I miss anything?

Look for the FCPUG SuperMeet on Day 2 (today) where a brand-new exclusive version of our very own Preference Manager will be given out on the SuperDVD.

Also, a lot of people think that Apple will release new details of Final Cut Studio 3 today. I don't think this will be the case - we'll have to wait and see I guess.

Backup Options for Filmmakers

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:56:51 MST

As filmmakers, we put a tremendous amount of trust in our equipment. With the rise in popularity of solid-state media, many of us are no longer shooting on tape or film. This offers many advantages but also several disadvantages. Unlike a film workflow in which many prints are made, or a tape workflow where the tapes are digitized to a hard drive and then stored safely away, filmmakers are often erasing their solid-state media and relying on a single hard drive copy to last them throughout the post production process and onto distribution/release.

Three things are guaranteed in life - death, taxes and hard drive failure. It is a fact that every hard drive will eventually fail. No-one can predict when it will happen and you may not have an opportunity to salvage the data before it does.

So it is wise to assume it will happen and have a good backup policy in case it does. Here are some of the options available for data backup.

Data Tape

While there used to be many consumer options available such as the Iomega Ditto, tape backup is now almost exclusively geared towards enterprise users. Higher-priced options have high capacities and autoload capabilities - i.e. where you insert multiple tapes at once and the system switches them automatically so you don't have to. Lower-priced options will generally require you to change the tape far more often - if you're fine with that, you can save a lot of money.

Most backup drive manufacturers are moving towards the LTO format. This is an open standard so you know that the data you backup now will work on a competitor's drive for the next 1-2 LTO generations.

One way to save money is to use an older, less advanced format. A lot of manufacturers still offer older proprietary systems for sale. These are not as advanced as the LTO options (nor as compatible with competing products) but they are much cheaper. As stated earlier, cheaper drives have lower storage capacities and are less likely to have autoloading functionality. They are also likely to have much lower data transfer rates, unlike LTO -3 and LTO-4 which can transfer data at higher speeds than a conventional hard drive.

When purchasing a drive, consider also the connector and the supplied software. Some drives use SCSI and will need a SCSI card installed inside your machine, but setup will be much easier if you opt for a Firewire version instead (not to mention allowing greater drive portability). Check if the supplied software is compatible with your operating system and if not, check if there is a compatibility update available.

Because these tapes are designed for enterprise use, they are very sturdy and have extremely low failure rates. They have normally been stress-tested by the manufacturer, and most manufacturers will offer you failure statistics on their site. You are, of course, paying for this privilege though.

Format types: LTO, VXA, SLR, DLT, DDS, AIT/SAIT, Travan, T10000
Drive manufacturers: Tandberg (formerly Exabyte), HP, Quantum, IBM, Sun StorageTek
Software: Retrospect, NetVault, CommVault, UltraBac, PresSTORE, ATempo

Pros:
* Low failure rate
* Tried and tested
* LTO-4 tapes can store terrabytes of data and access it faster than a regular hard disk

Cons:
* Expensive
* Can be complex to set up
* If you opt for a cheaper, small capacity, non-autoloading version, you will spend a lot of time changing tapes
* Overkill if you don't have much data to backup

Verdict:
Great if you're backing up a large amount of data and only plan to keep one copy.

Hard disk

The main advantage of hard disks is market penetration. You can go into almost any store and buy a disk at short notice. They are priced very low per GB, there are lots to choose from and (unless you have an old machine) you shouldn't need any new hardware or software in order to use it.

As this is primarily intended as a backup, go for an external drive. Speed is not an issue here so mounting the drive internally will offer no worthwhile performance benefit. Additionally, an external disk safely stored away will not be damaged if something happens to your machine.

It's worth mentioning that some manufacturers offer separate Mac and PC editions of their external disk drives. This is not a marketing gimmick - there is a difference! Some of the I/O controllers in certain drives (often cheaper ones) are not Mac-compatible and you will experience issues if you use one of these drives. Choose a drive enclosure with an Oxford controller where possible. Check online reviews if in doubt.

Finally, one aspect people often don't realize is that hard disks store data magnetically and must be "refreshed" every six months or so to prevent data loss, as Larry Jordan explains in this article. This must not be overlooked when considering hard disks as a backup medium.

Manufacturers: Lacie, G-Tech, Samsung, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Hitachi, Toshiba

Pros:
* Cheap
* Ubiquitous
* High capacity
* Fast transfer rate

Cons:
* Relatively high and unpredictable failure rate
* Physical bumps and bashes increase the chance of failure

Verdict:
Good for cost-effective backups but multiple backups are advised.

Solid-state flash drives

The main advantages of these drives are their small size, high potential read speed and high damage tolerance. It is likely that these will eventually replace conventional hard disks in the future and this will be a good thing, however current models have certain caveats.

The biggest of these is price. The cost per GB is considerably higher than any of the other formats on this page, and available capacities are much lower than those offered by conventional hard disks. In addition, although read speeds are fast, write speeds are considerably slower than those of conventional hard drives.

One of the most interesting aspects of flash SSDs is the way that they fail. Unlike rotating disk hard drives, SSDs do not suffer from mechanical failure but gradually wear out as you write to them. Although they have quite a high failure rate (each memory cell is limited to 100,000 writes), failure doesn't actually result in data loss. When a memory cell fails, you will be unable to write data to that cell - but you will have no problems at all reading data from it. This would be awful for a scratch disk that is written to many times but perfect for a backup in which reading is more important than writing.

However, controller chips inside the drives have been known to fail, meaning you will need to call a data recovery expert to recover the data from the disk. And there lies another problem - a lot of manufacturers uses proprietary chips that are constantly changing, making it difficult for a data recovery expert to keep up with developments. And in many drives data is difficult to recover by design, as these systems were originally developed for the military to carry sensitive information.

Efforts are being made to resolve some of these issues - such as putting two drives in a RAID 0 to improve write speeds, and balancing write operations across the entire drive to reduce the load on a single cell. Prices are going down and capacities are going up, but they will only become viable when the cost hits $1.50 per GB or less.

Manufacturers: Samsung, IBM, Intel, Corsair, SanDisk, Toshiba

Pros:
* Very fast read speeds
* Tolerant of physical abuse / damage
* More predictable failure rate than regular HDDs
* Data can still be read when drive fails

Cons:
* Very expensive per GB
* Slow write speeds
* Current drives have relatively low capacities
* Limited number of times the drive can be written to

Verdict:
One to look out for the future but limited to small backups right now.

Online Backup / Storage

There are several online backup services available. Some will give you a certain amount of space for free, requiring you to upgrade if you need more, while others offer a trial service. The advantage of one of these services is that the data is stored elsewhere and so will not be affected by theft, fire, water damage etc affecting your facility. Many of them offer software that runs on your machine and backs up your specified backup folders automatically, ensuring an up-to-date backup even if you forget.

When considering this option, you should consider security as a priority. You are handing over your files to someone else so you need an assurance that they will not end up in the wrong hands. I use Mozy to backup my laptop and all files are encrypted by default. The simplest option is to let Mozy create an encryption key for you but this is not as secure as specifying one yourself. If you do specify a custom one, beware that your data will be permanently inaccessible if you forget it.

The two biggest problems are storage space and transfer speeds. It is impractical to upload files greater than a few hundred megabytes, especially as the service takes quite a while to encrypt them before uploading. So backing up terrabytes of footage is not possible, but these services are very useful for backing up important project files. Many of them will store multiple versions of a file so you can restore to a version several days or weeks in the past. I wouldn't recommend this as your sole backup, but it would be useful as an extra cushion, especially as some companies give a small amount of space for free.

Services: Mozy, Carbonite, Dr. Backup, DropBox, iDrive

Pros:
* Simple and automatic
* Great for backing up small files

Cons:
* Not suitable for large files
* Subscription fees

Verdict:
Great as an additional backup but don't rely on this as your only option. Only suitable for small files.

Videotape

Videotape backups offer some distinct advantages over data tape backups. Firstly, unlike the LTO specification that has various revisions, video formats adhere to strict standards that rarely change. These standards tend to stick around for a long time. A brand-new DVCAM deck will play a DVCAM tape made a decade ago with no problems. LTO drives are only backwards-compatible with the last 1-2 generations which could cause problems with long-term backup.

Secondly, there is greater predictability. Tapes are rated at the hour or half-hour, making it much easier to calculate how many would be needed and how long it would take to record/play the footage, which is invaluable if you are planning to rent a deck. The downside of this, of course, is that transfer speeds are much lower than modern LTO drives.

However, when creating a videotape backup of your footage, it is important to choose the format carefully to avoid quality loss. If you shot on the Panasonic HVX-200, which shoots DVCPRO HD, it is recommended to output to DVCPRO HD tapes. If the codec you are using does not have a tape equivalent, output to a tape format that closely matches the frame size, frame rate, color sampling and approximate data rate of the original footage. Some formats like Redcode RAW 4K do not have tape equivalents and so a different backup method must be used unless you are willing to lose information.

Also make sure your tape timecode matches the timecode of the original footage, otherwise your NLE will not be able to accurately reconnect the footage to the clips on the timeline. You will spend a lot of time manually rearranging and synchronizing footage.

Formats include: MiniDV, HDV (varies per manufacturer), DVCAM, DVCPRO, DVCPRO HD, HDCAM, HDCAM SR, D1, D2, D3, D5, BetaCam, DigiBeta.
Manufacturers: Panasonic, Sony, JVC

Pros:
* Durable
* Established standards

Cons:
* Limited to real-time capture and playback
* No tape equivalent of certain formats
* Information must be captured rather than simply copied to a hard disk

Verdict:
Great for backing up established formats. Excellent for long-term backup / archival.

Blu-ray

Blu-ray discs can store around 50 GB and have a relatively low price per GB. They are compact and, if stored in a solid case, are relatively durable compared to regular hard disks. They are not as durable as tape-based alternatives, however.

Blu-ray hasn't caught on as well as everyone had hoped after the format war ended, and Apple has not yet implemented hardware or OS support for it yet. This has severely limited the availability of Blu-ray burners and software for the Mac, with the only option for data discs being Roxio Toast 10 plus the Blu-ray plugin. PC users have a lot more choice but even despite this, it has still not fully caught on in the PC market either.

Transfer rates are quite low and the format doesn't offer as much disc space as other formats. However, BD-R does have an advantage as a backup medium because it can only be written to once. Every other format can be written to or erased (some more easily than others) after a backup has occurred.

Drive Manufacturers: Sony, LaCie, LG, Pioneer
Software Manufacturers: Roxio, Sonic Solutions, Nero, Adobe Encore

Pros:
* Discs relatively cheap per GB
* Data cannot be overwritten

Cons:
* Not much support on the Mac
* Slow read/write speeds
* Low disc space compared to other offerings

Verdict:
Don't rely on it as a sole backup. Not suitable for large amounts of data.

A Game of Chance

None of the options listed above are infallible, however the point is to lower the chance of losing your data. If you have one backup, that lowers the chance of critical data loss to 0.5. Make another one and it goes down to 0.25. Backups are especially crucial if you're running a RAID because the chance of data loss increases with every drive you add (unless it is a RAID 1 of course).

So it doesn't really matter which option you choose, as any one of them will reduce that chance - some more than others of course. A mix of multiple types is the safest way to go. And when thousands or millions of dollars, plus the culmination of months or perhaps years of hard work are at stake, it helps to have a pro-active backup policy planned from the start. The fate of your movie might well depend on it.

The links to companies and products in this article are intended for guidance and not as an endorsement.

Why does my DVD audio level differ from the level in FCP?

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:29:35 MST

Have you noticed a discrepancy between the audio in your Final Cut Pro timeline and the audio of the finished DVD when using Compressor's DVD presets?

That's because the Dolby Digital 2.0 audio preset in Compressor has several functions to improve unsuitable audio, but if you have already mixed your audio they might do more harm than good in some cases. Rather than just telling you which settings to use, I'm first going to explain what these functions are designed to do because there are a lot of misconceptions about them.

Compression alters your dynamic range (the difference between the loudest and quietest sounds in a soundtrack) by compressing the level of sounds to fit within a certain range. The loudest sound in a Dolby soundtrack can be 105dB. Considering the fact that prolonged exposure to 90 dB audio can result in hearing loss, most people do not play their audio at 105dB. When you set up a Dolby decoder with a reference tone, you are telling it the volume level it should play 105dB audio at. So if this is lower than 105dB (which is likely), you will lose some of the very quiet sounds on the soundtrack. The compression presets allow you to regain these sounds by sacrificing some dynamic range in the process.

It is set to Film Standard by default but if you have already performed a mix with a moderate dynamic range, further compression is not likely to be necessary and so it is worthwhile to switch this to None.

Dialog normalization is a feature on several Dolby decoders that ensures all content plays back at the same level. The listener sets their preferred playback level and the dialogue in every DVD and TV show plays back at the same level, meaning you don't need to keep reaching for the remote in order to adjust the volume. Contrary to popular belief, it only adjusts the overall volume level when the source changes (i.e. when you begin playing the DVD or when a new TV program begins) so dynamic range is preserved throughout the movie. It does not dynamically adjust the volume as the movie is playing.

The normalization value indicates the difference between the overall level of dialog and the maximum audio peak of 0 dBFS. The default is set to -27 dBFS, which is the established level for film soundtracks. It is also the level most decoders are set to by default. If you have your decoder set to -27 dBFS and then, for example, try to play a -25 dBFS movie, the decoder will lower the overall volume by 2 dBFS so that the general dialogue level remains the same. If you do want to switch it off when compressing your audio files (if you've already leveled your sound mix for example), set it to -31 dbFS.

So if you would like your audio to be exactly how it was in Final Cut Pro, set Dialog Normalization to -31 dBFS and set Compression in the Pre-Processing tab to None. However, these functions do serve useful purposes for the end user and it is worthwhile to bear their needs in mind.

Replacing the CRT

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:46:05 MDT

Broadcast Engineering has a great article called Replacing the CRT. This details some of the existing and upcoming technologies looking to resign CRT broadcast monitors to the grave. They are:

* Plasma
* DLP
* SED (which looks very promising - not out yet though)
* OLED
* FED

This article is well worth checking out.

Apple releases ProRes codecs for non-FCP machines

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:53:56 MDT

A couple of days ago, Apple released Apple ProRes QuickTime Decoder 1.0 for Mac and Apple ProRes QuickTime Decoder 1.0 for Windows. This allows Windows users and Mac users without Final Cut Pro 6 installed on their machines to view ProRes-encoded files. This is great because in my experience, there are very few options when it comes to sending high-quality files to Windows machines and it should aid adoption of the ProRes format.

It should be noted, however, that you still need Final Cut Pro 6 in order to write ProRes files.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates but I haven't had internet access in about a month, which sucks big time.

Speed editing

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:24:26 MDT

There is a great article currently up on the COW about ways to speed up your Final Cut Pro editing. This inspired me to add a few of my own. Of course, they're specific to the kind of work I'm doing (currently TV) and the way I work but other people might find them useful.

Playing things back at a faster rate
I think the purists will hate this one. For TV shows, I often get pre-cut footage from the studio (from the on-set mixer) and it's my job to cut out the parts where they screwed up. I normally get a wide cam as well, as something to cut between for safety. I've found that I can cut it very quickly if I play it at a faster-than-normal rate and use keyboard shortcuts.

If you press L once, it will play at a faster rate (1.5x?) BUT, crucially, you can still understand every word that is said. Go to Tools > Keyboard Layouts > Multiclip and you can use the Cmd-Numpad 1 and Cmd-Numpad 2 (and so forth) buttons for cutting between cameras. Then I press Ctrl + V when someone screws up so that a cut point is generated, which I later come back and delete. So I can get a rough cut done in less than the time it would take to watch it normally. This works very well for the kind of shows I'm currently working on, but this method obviously won't work for every situation such as drama and music videos.

Use Multiclips whenever you can
If you have two cameras shooting in sync, there is no reason to not use Multiclips. I'm a big fan of them because you sync them once and once only. Then the hard work is over and when the Producer demands that you change a shot to the other angle, you can do it in a matter of seconds.

Use keyboard shortcuts instead of tools where possible
Keyboard shortcuts for certain functions can save time. But what really saves a lot of time is using a keyboard shortcut to replace a tool. Here are a few of them -

Ctrl-V - Razor blade (cuts at the playhead)
R, then V, then < or > - R selects the Roll tool, V selects the nearest cut point and < or > rolls the clip backwards or forwards.
RR, then V, then < or > - RR selects the Ripple tool, V selects the nearest cut point and < or > ripples the clip backwards or forwards.
S, then < or > - S selects the Slip tool and < or > slips the selected clip backwards or forwards.
SS, then < or > - SS selects the Slide tool and < or > slips the selected clip backwards or forwards.
[ and ] - Press V to select the nearest edit point and press [ or ] to trim it left or right.
Type a number anywhere on the timeline (e.g. 5 or -10) - Moves the selected clips the specified number of frames

Keep your timeline rendered as much as possible
If you go on a break or something, press Alt + R to render your timeline. That way, the majority of the timeline should stay rendered, with only the parts you change requiring a re-render. When your client asks you for a preview copy, you can very quickly render out a reference movie, plug it into Compressor and then continue with your work. The next time you do it, it will be even quicker. And when (if) you come to put it on tape, it will speed up the rendering process there too.

Use Motion projects instead of rendered movies
If you use Motion for effects, it is far quicker to insert the actual project into your timeline than it is to render out a movie clip. And if you want to make a change just Alt + Tab to Motion, make your change, save, Alt + Tab back to FCP and there it is. No exporting necessary. This method depends on you having a decent graphics card.

Use Master Templates where possible
Taking it one step further, if, say you have a standard animated namestrap format for a show. You could take it into Motion, change the name then save it as a new copy but this takes time and you end up with hundreds of files. Instead, create the template version and then in Motion go to File > Save as Template. Create a new folder and name your new template. Now go back to Final Cut Pro and in the Generators pop-up or the Effects window, click on Master Templates and select your new template. Go to the Controls tab and you can enter any text you like. Much quicker.

One final note - there is a fine line between a fast editor and a sloppy one. There is very much an art and a science to editing and I believe that you can speed up the science but rushing the art will make it suffer. Producers like to give me a lot of footage. I like this a lot because it gives me more to work with but for some reason, the more footage they give me, the faster they expect the end product. The more footage I have, the more decisions I can potentially make and so it takes longer to decide on the "right way" to cut it (there is no right way but you know what I mean). This can't really be sped up.

I'll probably think of some more later so keep your eyes peeled. And if you've got any speed tips of your own, I'd love to hear them.

Update: Thought of another one. When I'm cutting montages, I like to go through the footage finding short clips I like and putting them up the other end of the timeline so that they are easily within reach. I used to mark the ins and outs, manually drag the clip to the timeline, then click on the Viewer to select it again. You can do this much quicker with keyboard shortcuts. Mark the ins and outs (I and O) then press F9 to insert edit the clip or F10 to overwrite edit it (note: Tiger and Leopard have F9 and F10 bound to Expose by default). Then press Cmd-1 to re-select the Viewer. I can go through footage very quickly with this method.

Comparing footage with difference mattes

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:18:17 MDT

It's a common question - how much quality do you lose when converting from Format X to Format Y or when you are forced to recompress footage? You can compare data rates and squint at it all day but that's not really telling you much.

Here's an easy way to tell exactly what has been lost.

Final Cut Pro
1. Take your Final Cut Pro sequence and export to the second format (the one that you plan to convert to). Or, if your footage didn't originate in FCP, import both versions (before and after) and place them into a new sequence.

2. Place the "before" version onto the bottom track and the "after" above it.

3. Ctrl-click on the "after" version and select Composite Mode > Difference.

Shake
1. Import the "before" and "after" versions into Shake using FileIn nodes.

2. Click on the Layer tab and click on MultiLayer.

3. Connect the noodles from the FileIns to the MultiLayer.

4. In the Parameters tab, change the composite mode of the second clip (the one listed at the top) to Difference.

Both applications will produce an image similar to the one below. This image tells you what has been lost from one version to the other. The clearer this image is, the more data has been lost. If you can clearly make out the edges of objects from the original image, this data loss is probably unacceptable. I personally would consider the image below unacceptable but how much data loss you can accept depends, of course, on the final destination of the clip. For example, web users will be much more forgiving than cinema-goers.

Removing Easy Setups

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:01:10 MDT

A question caught my eye on Apple's support boards today. Someone had created an Easy Setup in Final Cut Pro, deleted it and yet it was still present in the Easy Setups menu.

Here's how to remove them properly:

1. Close Final Cut Pro.

2. Go to /Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Custom Settings and delete the preset in question.

3. Go to ~/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data and delete the file called Final Cut Pro 6.0 Prefs (or whatever version you have).

Alternatively, a much easier method is to use our free Preference Manager application to do it for you, along with a whole host of other options.

4. Empty Trash and start up FCP again.

The downside to this is that you lose your user preferences and must set them again.

Using Frame Controls in Compressor

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:44:33 MDT

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 uses simple linear blends (equivalent to the Fast setting) on areas with no motion. For areas with motion it discards one of the fields and uses interpolation to build up a whole frame from the other field's data.

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). The downside to this method is that you lose vertical resolution if there is a lot of motion in the image.

Best (motion-compensated) - This uses optical flow technologies to track the motion of objects and analyzes multiple frames at once. This data is then used to split the image into blocks (typical sizes are 4x4, 8x8 or 16x16) and then shift these blocks so as to align motion between the two fields. This is incredibly processor intensive and will take some time.

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.

Rough cuts

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 23:41:42 MDT

Shane Ross has a great post about "rough" rough cuts and how frustrating it is when producers cannot see past a lack of audio or sound effects, or a dodgy transition. What is worse is when the producer gets it into his or her head that you are trying to pass that off as the end product, despite your protestations to the contrary. That has happened to me and is a nasty situation for all involved.

I think the key is to make the producer comfortable with you. Normally these kind of problems go away on the second or third project as the producer realizes that you can do the job and are not a cowboy, and they get familiar with the way that you work. I also find that a comfortable producer will give you a lot more creative freedom (I prefer to see scripts as a guide rather than a rulebook for example) and in return you will take advantage of that freedom to return a better product, so it is mutually beneficial.

PhotoJojo Final Cut Pro keyboard sleeves

Sat, 24 May 2008 00:50:55 MDT

PhotoJojo is offering desktop and laptop keyboard sleeves for professional apps including Final Cut Pro and After Effects.

Applications
* Photoshop
* Aperture (1.5)
* Final Cut Pro/Express
* Pro Tools
* After Effects
* Logic Pro

Keyboards
* MacBook Pro
* Macbook (Black and White)
* Macbook Air
* Apple Thin Keyboard
* Apple Thin Wireless Keyboard
* Apple Classic Keyboard

They're rubber and are great at protecting your keyboard as well as being useful. Laptop sleeves are $30 and desktop sleeves are $40 and then $6 for shipping on top of that.

"The filter failed to render" error fix

Thu, 22 May 2008 23:26:48 MDT

Just saw an interesting fix for the big red "The filter ____________ failed to render" message some people have been getting in Final Cut Pro.

I have 2 graphics cards: GeForce 7300 GT and ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (in MacPro) running 3 displays. The 2600 runs my 2 main displays and the 7300 runs a the smaller one.

So I just unplugged the display on the 7300 and rebooted. My FCP project spans the 2 remaining displays.

Boom, the render error message is gone and the effect (Prism) renders fine.

I seem to get it randomly every now and again but this is a useful fix for those who were experiencing it on a permanent basis. Pity you need to lose a monitor though.

Final Cut Pro: Copying Filters

Thu, 22 May 2008 13:10:55 MDT

I never realized until today just how many methods there were for copying filters from one clip to another in Final Cut Pro.

1. In the Filters tab for the clip, Ctrl-Click on the name of the filter and select Copy or press Cmd-C. Select the other clip, switch to its Filter tab and press Cmd-V.

2. In the Filters tab, drag the filter name and drop it onto the other clip(s).

3. Some tools like the 3-way Color Corrector give you a little "grab" icon within its interface that you can drag onto other clips.

4. Copy the entire clip, ctrl-click the second clip and select Paste Attributes. Deselect everything except Filters.

5. Use the copying commands in the Modify > Copy Filters menu or use the shortcut keys: Ctrl+Alt+2 = Copy from 2nd clip back, Ctrl+Alt+3 = Copy from 1st clip back, Ctrl+Alt+4 = Copy to 1st clip forwards and Ctrl+Alt+5 = Copy to 2nd clip forwards.

6. Select all of the clips you want to apply the filter to (Edit > Find is useful for this) and drag them up to a higher track. With the items still selected, go to Sequence > Nest Items and make sure the settings in the dialog match your current timeline settings. Click Ok and then apply the filter to the nested sequence.

7. Go to Effects > Make Favorite Effect. You can then select the other clips and go to Effects > Favorites (under the Video heading) and select your filter to apply those settings. Alternatively, you can drag the filter (using one of the methods of grabbing it described above) to the Favorites bin in the Effects tab in the Browser (you can also give it a more descriptive name here).

That's 7 ways I can think of... can anyone think of any more?

CalDigit SAN announced at NAB

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:13:42 MDT

I just got this in my inbox courtesy of the LAFCPUG mailing list.

Right now at Digital Rebellion we're running Xserve RAIDs on Xsan 1.4. I love these things but they're loud, they kick out a lot of heat and they're no longer being made. They're still pretty good and they're not out of date yet but I have been looking at alternatives with the future in mind.

CalDigit, famous for their hardware RAID cards, demonstrated such an alternative at NAB. One major departure from the Xserve RAIDs and their replacement, the Promise VTrak E-Class, is the fact that it does not use 2 or 4 Gb Fibre Channel cables (which cost around $80 per cable) to transmit data. It uses ePCIe which allows it to transmit data at speeds of up to 20 Gbps and allows for very long cable lengths of up to 300m.

With the recent announcement of the entry-level Scarlet camera, the demand for real-time access to extremely high resolution streams looks set to increase dramatically and, luckily, the CalDigit SAN has the bandwidth to transfer multiple 2K streams in real-time.

Uniquely, there is also an ePCIe ExpressCard device to allow laptop users (MacBook Pro only) to access the SAN. This is not currently available for fibre-based networks.

There's nothing on their site as of yet but they have a press release out and it looks like more details will be announced nearer the shipping date, which is currently unknown. This is definitely something I'm keeping my eye on.

My Compressor issues solved

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:29:19 MDT

UPDATE 11/9/2008: We've now released a tool to automate this fix, called Compressor Repair.

I recently experienced the dreaded "Unable to submit to queue. Please restart your computer or verify your Compressor installation is correct" error message when submitting batches with Compressor. I noticed that it listed "No Value" under Cluster instead of "This Machine".

Going to Qmaster Preferences and clicking Start Sharing gave me a message saying that "qmasterd" was not running. This was the cause of the problem.

The first thing I did was look on Apple's support boards where I found many posts on the subject. Unfortunately most users found that they managed to solve their issues by removing and reinstalling Compressor or the entire Final Cut Studio. This is something I did not want to do.

I used the terminal command sudo qmasterprefs -reset (this seems to be equivalent to trashing prefs as far as I can gather) and then sudo qmasterprefs -restart to relaunch qmasterd. I then relaunched Compressor and everything worked as it should.

Except when I restarted my machine, at which point I was back to the same error messages again. I knew that a fix must be possible without a reinstall, and it was probably something simple. So I did some digging around and I discovered that the folder /Library/StartupItems/Qmaster had the wrong permissions. It was set to No Access for some bizarre reason, preventing OS X from seeing any files inside it. Note that this was not picked up by Disk Utility when doing a permission repair. So I set the owner back to system and clicked Apply to enclosed items to be 100% sure that the permissions would be correct for all files.

I restarted my machine and everything worked. Two restarts later and it still works.

I can't say it will work for everyone but try it if you are experiencing these symptoms.

Why does QuickTime report a different resolution?

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 03:02:01 MDT

Ever wondered why QuickTime reports a completely different resolution to the one you exported at?

Welcome to the world of non-square pixels. NTSC and PAL use rectangular pixels to fill up space on the screen and save transmission bandwidth, which was more of an issue when the standards were invented. Computer monitors use square pixels and so QuickTime has to squeeze one side of the image in order to prevent it looking stretched. This is purely for display and the file is not modified.

The pixel aspect ratio of NTSC footage is 0.889 meaning 720 x 0.889 = 640 so it is displayed at 640x480. For PAL it is 1.067 so 720 x 1.067 = 768 and it is displayed at 768x576.

QuickTime also has some options for controlling how the movie is displayed. Open up your movie, go to Window > Show Movie Properties and click on the Presentation tab.

You will see an option marked "Conform aperture to:" with the following options:

Classic - Classic is identical to having the conform aperture setting switched off.

Clean - Scales the image to compensate for the pixel aspect ratio and crops it to mimic the overscan on a broadcast monitor.

Production - Scales the image to compensate for the pixel aspect ratio but does not crop the image.

Encoded Pixels - No modification is made to the footage. Note the stretching caused by non-square pixels.

This is one of the many reasons why a broadcast monitor is essential.

Final Cut Pro 6.0.3 released

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:39:02 MDT

Can you see an update in Software Update called "Pro Applications Update 2008-01"? Well, confusingly, that's actually Final Cut Pro 6.0.3 and Compressor 3.0.3. It also includes Apple HDV Codec 1.4 and Plugin Manager 1.7.3.

Release Notes

Final Cut Pro 6.0.3

This update contains the following:

XDCAM HD422 support
"Project is too new or unreadable" error fixed (yay)
Still images are now exported using their native aspect ratios
FCP now uses the aspect ratio of the clip when stacking multiple filters in a mixed-format timeline
When using XML import, FCP can now reconnect files that contain slashes (/) in their filenames
You can now place generator clips in FXScript filter clip wells, although read the release notes for the caveats

If this update is not appearing for you, you must have OS X 10.4.11 or OS X 10.5.2 installed.

Compressor 3.0.3

This update contains the following:

You can now create Apple TV movies with non-square pixel aspect ratios and there is now a Dolby AC-3 output for it as well

I was very disappointed that it did not fix any of the bugs with Compressor on Leopard.

Apple HDV Codec 1.4

This update contains the following:

4:2:2 support

Plugin Manager 1.7.3

This update contains the following:

This fixes FxPlug plugins on FCP 5.1.4 that were broken my previous Plugin Manager updates

As always, never update a system mid-project. Don't update if you are not affected by the changes listed above - if it ain't broke, definitely don't fix it in the world of FCP. If you do update, make sure to make a clone of your system first.

You can get the update here as well, but you will need to have your Final Cut Studio serial number handy.

Exporting chapter markers to DVD Studio Pro

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:35:36 MDT

I am constantly seeing posts on Apple's support boards by people who can't get this to work. This seems to be a common problem so I'm going to give a step-by-step workflow followed by troubleshooting tips at the end.

1. In the Final Cut Pro timeline, navigate to the point you wish to place the marker, press M once to place a regular marker and then press M again to open up the Edit Marker dialog.

Make sure that you are adding the markers to the sequence itself and not to an individual clip. There are some rules though - Don't place one within 1 second of the beginning, don't place one within 1 second of the end and don't place them less than 1 second apart.

2. Click the button marked Add Chapter Marker and it will automatically insert some text into the box. Do not change this text; just click Ok.

Repeat for every marker.

3. Go to File > Export > QuickTime Movie. Do not export as QuickTime Conversion. Under the Markers drop-down, select DVD Studio Pro Markers.

Or Go to File > Export > Using Compressor. This will not display a dialog box but you will be able to see markers on the timeline in the Preview window.

4. Export the file.

5. Open up DVD Studio Pro and drag the exported file onto a track.

In the timeline, drag the edge of the horizontal scroll bar to decrease the size of the timeline and see everything at once. You should be able to see all of your chapter markers.

6. Go to Simulate and double-check that they work.

Troubleshooting

I think most problems are caused by not knowing the restrictions on chapter markers. This is from the FCP 6 manual:
* No chapter marker should appear closer than 1 second to the beginning or end of
your edited sequence.
* A chapter marker should be at least 1 second away from any other chapter marker.
* A maximum of 99 chapter markers can be placed within a single program.
* When you export from a sequence, only sequence markers are exported; markers in
clips are ignored.
* When you export a clip from the Browser, the clip's markers are exported.

Markers within nested sequences will not be exported.

You must select DVD Studio Pro Marker and not Chapter Marker under the QuickTime export options.

Don't put chapter and compression markers in the same marker!

I have had better luck with DVD Studio Pro Marker rather than All Markers in the QT export dialog.

Be aware that if you export a QT movie with markers and then import it into Compressor, you will lose your chapter markers if you do not have Compressor 3 (included with Final Cut Studio 2).

I have heard of people having success by trashing their preferences. We have a free utility that will automate it for you - Preference Manager.

Let me know if you can think of any more troubleshooting tips.

QuickTime 7.4.5 released

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:17:01 MDT

Apple just released QuickTime 7.4.5 to coincide with the release of iTunes 7.6.2 and Front Row 2.1.3. The coincidence of these releases suggests that the QT update specifically affects those applications and offers no specific benefits to Final Cut Studio. If you have a working system, DON'T install it!

On the other hand, if your system is not working, you have nothing to lose. I'd advise cloning your system beforehand though, as a non-working system could potentially be made even worse by this update.

Here are the links... use at your peril!
QuickTime 7.4.5 for Panther
QuickTime 7.4.5 for Tiger
QuickTime 7.4.5 for Leopard

I have also updated our list of QuickTime downloads.

Does Application X work with Application Y?

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:43:00 MDT

Does Shake work with Final Cut Pro 4.5?
Does Motion work with Final Cut Express?
Does Compressor work with iMovie?

These are very common questions and I get these questions so often that I'm going to type the reply here to save me time in the future. The answer is very simple. Some applications have workflows between each other, such as round-tripping from Final Cut Pro > Color > Final Cut Pro. Obviously such workflows would not be possible with the above-mentioned scenarios but at its core, each application has the ability to import and export media files and it is just the simple case of exporting a QuickTime from one to the other and back. The "Send To" option is doing exactly the same thing in some cases, just automatically.

How to banish the Final Cut Pro registration screen forever

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:26:47 MDT

Update: We've now developed an automated solution for this with System Toolkit in FCS Maintenance Pack.

Everyone hates it - the annoying "please register" screen that pops up every 5 or 6 launches of Final Cut Pro and Apple's other ProApps. Of course, the easiest way to get rid of it is to just register but that may not always be practical or advisable. Many companies do not connect their editing machines to the internet (quite rightly) and some of the tinfoil hat-wearers among us might not be keen on giving their personal data out to Apple.

Whatever the reason, here is a method of stopping the Final Cut Pro registration screen from appearing again without having to register.

1. Make sure all Final Cut Studio applications are closed.

2. Go to /Library/Application Support/ProApps and open the file Final Cut Studio System ID.

3. In Property List Editor, click the arrow next to Root and you will see some details about the unique ID that FCS has created for your machine. On this machine, I upgraded from Final Cut Studio 1 to Final Cut Studio 2, so I have two IDs listed under 100-1 and 100-6. If you look under fullKey1, it tells me that the original ID is marked 100-1 so the new one (FCS 2) must be 100-6.

Yours may differ a little but if one doesn't work, try the other.

Update: If you don't have the Apple Developer Tools installed, you won't have a copy of Property List Editor on your system. In this situation we recommend using System Toolkit in FCS Maintenance Pack.

4. On the 100-6 option (or whatever yours says), double-click the data under the Value tab to select it and then copy it to the clipboard.

5. Go to /Library/Preferences and open com.apple.RegFinalCutStudio.plist.

6. Click the arrow next to Root and delete all of the entries in the list.

7. Now select Root and click New Child. Enter the name AECoreTechRegInfo, select Data as Class and paste the value you copied earlier into the Value column.

Update: For Final Cut Studio 3, you need to add an additional String with the name AECoreTechRegister and value of YES.

8. With the entry you just created still selected, click New Sibling up the top and type AECoreTechRegSent, keep the Class as String and enter a value of YES. Your final plist should look like this:

9. Save the file and enjoy a nag-free Final Cut Studio experience. It works for all applications in the Studio, not just FCP.

It is worth noting that this works for all of Apple's ProApps including Shake, Aperture and Logic. For Shake, use /Library/Application Support/ProApps/Shake System ID and /Library/Preferences/com.apple.RegShake.plist. The issue is especially annoying with Shake because if the registration screen appears, Shake will "forget" the project or file you wanted to open, so you have to open it again.

Also, if you do want to register but don't want to keep opening and closing the application until the registration dialog appears, just delete the com.apple.RegFinalCutStudio.plist file, launch FCP and it will appear immediately.

160 GB SSDs coming soon?

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:08:11 MDT

This is a few days old but still worth mentioning. Intel has announced that it is entering the SSD (solid-state disk) market this year. In addition to bringing down prices through extra competition, Intel is also offering speed improvements over existing SSD drives from other manufacturers.

Details are sparse but enough to whet our appetites - there will be a SATA (3 Gbps) version and the drives will range from 80 to 160 GB in size (in comparison, the largest generally-available ones are 64 GB). This means that SSDs can, for the first time, directly compete with hard drives on a technical level. They can't yet compete with hard disks on price but Intel is predicting prices of less than $200 by 2010.

This means a lot because solid-state disks are considerably smaller, faster and more reliable than conventional hard disks. Tests with the MacBook Air have shown considerably faster boot and application loading times. The traditional downside to SSDs (and something Intel did not mention) is that their write speeds are considerably lower than their read speeds - in fact, lower than the write speed of a conventional hard disk. This will no doubt change with time but for some tasks such as high-bandwidth acquisition, they are not yet ready to replace something like the RED Drive.

They would be great in a video editing environment though, where you don't need to write large amounts of data very often and much of the your time is spent reading data. With a lot of editing systems (particularly with the advent of 8 core Mac Pros), the bottleneck lies in the disk speed. It can also improve the responsiveness of applications like Final Cut Pro that store only a limited amount of timeline information (such as clip thumbnails) in the main memory, with the rest on disk. I can't wait to see these new drives in a RAID 0 configuration.

New Macbooks and MacBook Pros

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:53:27 MST

Apple just refreshed its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines to support Intel's new Penryn chipset. Here are the specs:

MacBook

	2.1 GHz model	2.4 GHz models
CPU (Core 2 Duo)	2.1 GHz with 3 MB cache	2.4 GHz with 3 MB cache
RAM	1 GB	2 GB
FSB	800 MHz	800 MHz
Hard disk	120 GB 5400 RPM 160 or 250 GB 5400 RPM	160 or 250 GB 5400 RPM
Display	Glossy TFT	Glossy TFT
Graphics	Intel GMA X3100 144 MB MB shared	Intel GMA X3100 144 MB MB shared
Battery Life	4.5 hours	4.5 hours
Trackpad	Two-finger standard	Two-finger standard

More details here.

MacBook Pro

	15" model	17" model
CPU (Core 2 Duo)	2.4 GHz with 3 MB cache 2.5 or 2.6 GHz with 6 MB cache	2.5 or 2.6 GHz with 6 MB cache
RAM	2 GB	2 GB
FSB	800 MHz	800 MHz
Hard disk	200 or 250 GB 5400 RPM 200 GB 7200 RPM	250 GB 5400 RPM 200 GB 7200 RPM 300 GB 4200 RPM
Display	LED backlit Optional glossy display	Anti-glare TFT Optional LED-backlit display Optional glossy screen
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT: 256 MB with 2.4 GHz CPU 512 MB with 2.5 or 2.6 GHz CPU	Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT with 512 MB RAM
Battery Life	5 hours	4.5 hours 5 hours with LED display
Trackpad	Multi-touch	Multi-touch

More details here.

If you are buying an editing machine, you will want to choose a non-glossy display (preferably LED) with as fast a processor as you can afford. Buy the minimum amount of RAM and get it somewhere else for much less. Apple's memory is notoriously expensive compared to other retailers, even though it is identical. You are paying a premium for Apple's assurance that it will work, but I have never run into problems with third-party memory.

The biggest difference between the two is the fact that the MacBook Pro has dedicated graphics, which means that you will experience much better performance in applications like Motion. Color will not start up at all on a MacBook because of this reason.

The MacBook Pro also has the advantage of FireWire 800 ports for faster data transfers to external hard disks - essential for HDV editing.

So a MacBook Pro is recommended but you can get by with a MacBook if you are only editing SD footage and you will not be using Motion or Color.

Update 2/29/08: Engadget has some benchmarks showing that the speed is slightly faster between the new MacBook Pro and the old one but the heat output is considerably less.

How to clone and restore your system

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:25:17 MST

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 2008 09:11:47 MST

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.

List of QuickTime downloads

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:12:28 MST

Are you looking for a non-current version of QuickTime to ensure compatibility with old software? Look no further.

QuickTime 7:
QuickTime 7.6 for Leopard
QuickTime 7.6 for Tiger
QuickTime 7.5.5 (Leopard)
QuickTime 7.5.5 (Tiger)
QuickTime 7.5 (Leopard)
QuickTime 7.5 (Tiger)
QuickTime 7.5 (Panther)
QuickTime 7.4.5 (Leopard)
QuickTime 7.4.5 (Tiger)
QuickTime 7.4.5 (Panther)
QuickTime 7.4.1 (Leopard)
QuickTime 7.4.1 (Tiger)
QuickTime 7.4.1 (Panther)
QuickTime 7.4 (Leopard)
QuickTime 7.4 (Tiger)
QuickTime 7.4 (Panther)
QuickTime 7.3.1 (Leopard)
QuickTime 7.3.1 (Tiger)
QuickTime 7.3.1 (Panther)
QuickTime 7.2
QuickTime 7.1.6

QuickTime 6:
QuickTime 6.5.3
QuickTime 6.5.2
QuickTime 6.5.2 reinstaller for QuickTime 7.0.1
QuickTime 6.4 reinstaller
QuickTime 6.3.1
QuickTime 6.3 reinstaller
QuickTime 6.0.3

QuickTime 5:
QuickTime 5.0.5

QuickTime 4:
QuickTime 4.1.2
QuickTime 4.0.3

Unfortunately Apple's site does not offer versions below 4, but I doubt many video editors out there are using a machine old enough to require QuickTime 3.

The proper way to install a Mac OS X update

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:22:52 MST

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.