Kollaborate
Pro Maintenance Tools
Pro Media Tools
CinePlay
Post Haste
Preference Manager
FCS Remover|
Maintain, optimize and troubleshoot your NLE
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Professional cloud workflow platform
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Simplified media management
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Today Apple aimed to reaffirm their commitment to professional users with more details on the new Mac Pro. While some have correctly pointed out that the starting price for the new version is higher than the old model, this seems entirely reasonable to me given the significant leap in specifications. I was also relieved that it is reasonably upgradeable, minus the graphics card, although Mac users have never had a wide variety of cards to choose from anyway.
However, at the same time Apple took away some professional options. The Retina MacBook Pro was updated with more screen size options and improved specifications, however it has almost entirely replaced the older non-Retina model.
There are very specific reasons why some pros would choose a non-Retina model: matte display, greater availability of ports and upgradeable interior. The only option Apple is offering is a 13" version, which seems strange because I would have assumed that the type of user who chooses the non-Retina model would aim for the largest screen size possible. This would suggest that Apple is not aiming this laptop at spec-sensitive professionals at all, but instead users who are looking for a cheap option. However, it's only slightly cheaper than the 13" Retina so I'm really not sure what their target market is (if you can figure it out, let me know in the comments).
My 2011 MacBook Pro recently got destroyed so I was in the market for a new one. I considered a Retina laptop but in the end I opted for a 15" non-Retina MacBook Pro that was barely faster than my 2011 model. I could grudgingly cope with the glossy display and reduced ports but the lack of upgradeability was the deal-breaker for me. While it is good that Apple has reduced the prices of the Retina model, you'd be a fool not to max it out at the time of purchase. As I've said before on this blog, Apple is charging a premium price for a throwaway computer and they really need to factor that into the initial selling price.
While Apple recently instituted a policy of offering older versions of an app to users on older versions of iOS, it does not have the same policy on the Mac App Store and has so far given no indication that it will make older versions of OS X available upon the release of Mavericks. Consequently, the moment OS X 10.9 is released (possibly tomorrow), OS X 10.8 is likely to cease to be available for purchase.
Sometimes it can be difficult to juggle the OS compatibility of multiple third-party applications, particularly if you are still using deprecated apps in your workflows (e.g. FCP 7). So even if you have no plans to install it any time soon, we'd recommend buying OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion on the App Store today so that you have it tied to your account for future use.
Update: While 10.7 and 10.8 are no longer available for direct purchase from the Mac App Store, Apple is now offering redemption codes for OS X 10.7 and OS X 10.8 on its main online store.
Do you really need to buy Compressor when you can export from Final Cut Pro X?
FCP 7's export functions were traditionally poor and FCPX's are much better, but here's why you still need Compressor.
Prepare a Mac for OS X Mavericks the Right Way
Mavericks will be out soon. Here's how to prepare for it, although you probably don't want to upgrade your production machines on day one.
RED editing? Dedicated controllers? Could this be a tablet that professionals can use?
The Microsoft Surface 2 tablet looks interesting as a potential post production tool.
Some Power Titling Tips in Premiere Pro
Very useful tips for dealing with titles in Premiere Pro CC.
Power tips for playing video in QuickTime Player X.
Where did the light go in the waveform monitor?
FCP 7's waveform brightness function may help you to see hot spots that don't show up under the default settings.
Here's another installment of bugs in your NLE you should know about.
Premiere will crash if you adjust the border on a wipe transition
Contiguous clips in an EDL will be imported without cuts (Avid has this behavior too but FCP 7 doesn't)
Media files corrupted by "Write XMP ID to Files on Import" feature (I always switch this off - it's damaged too many files to risk it)
Durations are wrong, nests must be pre-rendered
Crash when importing multichannel AVI files created by Blackmagic Media Express
TickTime error can occur on media where Interpret Footage is activated
It's better to license CS6 and CC on different Adobe IDs
Bins in subfolders move about as you navigate the project
Media creation setting not sticking for NTSC projects
Splitting stereo audio to dual mono may result in two A1 tracks
Background processing may not work if your DNS setup is incorrect
Yesterday we released Pro Maintenance Tools 2.0.17, a minor update to our suite of tools to maintain, optimize and troubleshoot your editing system.
The changes in this version are as follows:
We've also updated the error message database in Crash Analyzer and you can view a list of all supported NLE error messages here.
Pro Maintenance Tools is an essential maintenance and troubleshooting toolkit for every editor. To find out more, view the feature list, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download the free trial.
As of today, Post Haste will no longer be available from the Mac App Store. Due to Apple's App Store sandboxing restrictions, it can be difficult to deliver a good user experience from file management apps like Post Haste that need to read from and write to a variety of locations on your hard drive.
In addition, we've known for a while that features on our future roadmap (e.g. scripting) would put us in direct conflict with Apple's App Store policies, despite being highly requested by our userbase. We knew that at some point in the future we'd need to make a decision about Post Haste on the store but hadn't expected it to happen quite so quickly.
We are unable to provide future updates to the current version nor offer a cut-down version without making what we consider to be unacceptable user experience changes, so we have made the decision to remove Post Haste from the store completely.
To be clear, development of Post Haste is alive and well for both Mac and PC, and the software will continue to be available for free download from our site. Most customers won't be affected by this because the majority have downloaded directly from us, but we apologize to those affected and encourage them to download a more up-to-date version of the app from our site.
It's common nowadays for videos to be processed through one or more applications prior to editorial. Unfortunately that can result in camera metadata being stripped from the processed files. This can cause lots of problems later on if you need to relink back to the original files for grading.
QT Edit solves this by letting you import metadata from another QuickTime movie. Here's how to do it:
1. Open up the destination movie.
2. Go to File > Import > Metadata. Browse for the camera original source file.
3. Select the metadata items you'd like to import or just import all metadata from the source file.
4. Save the destination file.
Being able to choose the metadata that is imported allows you to copy metadata fields between files even if the source file isn't the camera original version. Metadata can be added, removed or edited after import.
Pro Media Tools helps studios, production companies and freelancers alike forge new workflows every day. To find out more view the feature list, read the user manual, watch the overview video or download the free trial.
We've just launched Preference Manager 4.1, a major update to our free preference management tool for Mac.
Preference Manager now supports Logic Pro X, allowing you to trash, lock, backup and restore Logic Pro X preferences, channel strip settings, key commands, patches and plugin settings.
It's also been modified to be compatible with OS X 10.9 Mavericks, which will be released later this month.
Mavericks makes some significant changes to the preference system in OS X, meaning that simply trashing .plist files in your Preferences directory may not be enough. Preference Manager works around this, so what some already consider to be an indispensable tool just became even more indispensable because the manual methods may no longer work reliably.
We've made a variety of other tweaks and you can read the list of changes here.
Preference Manager is an essential part of video and audio post production workflows around the world. To find out more, view the feature list, watch the video overview, read the user manual or download the app free.
Earlier we launched CinePlay 1.2, a major update to our professional iOS video player.
You can now take part in Synced Sessions directly in CinePlay. This allows your CinePlay playhead to be controlled by someone else so you can take part in collaborative viewing sessions with multiple people on your project.
Note: CinePlay can only act as a guest and cannot currently host a session.
You can now upload a Color Decision List to Kollaborate and have CinePlay color correct a video file according to the values in the CDL.
Here's how to do it:
1. Grade the video and export a Color Decision List from your grading software.
2. Upload the ungraded video to Kollaborate.
3. Upload the CDL to Kollaborate.
4. On the Files page, click the arrow to the right of the CDL and select Relationship Editor.
5. Click New Relationship.
6. Select the video, then set the relationship type to CDL.
7. Play the video in CinePlay and you will see the new grade. If you already had the video open, go back to the menu and select it again.
CinePlay will not apply the CDL if the movie's timecode does not fall within the bounds of the CDL clip start and end points. What this means is that you can use one CDL to apply different grades to different videos, or set the in and out points high to make it apply to multiple videos.
Like Cut Notes, CinePlay will now show an on-screen notification when someone else makes a note on the video you are watching.
We've significantly overhauled the playback architecture which provides a base for many additional new features in future. We've also optimized the app to improve memory usage and performance and made it iOS 7-compatible.
You can read the full list of changes here.
CinePlay is an essential tool for video professionals, especially when used in conjunction with our Kollaborate cloud workflow platform. To find out more, view the feature list, read the user manual, watch the video overview or buy on the App Store.
We've just released Kollaborate Server 1.0.3, an important update to our in-house version of the Kollaborate workflow platform.
As well as the great new features of the cloud version, we've made some big additional changes.
We've revamped the installation process to be more straightforward and require fewer steps. Kollaborate Server can now be configured directly from the installer, or at a later date, from the admin console.
Licensing is much simpler too - simply sign in with your kollaborate.tv login then copy the file it downloads to the location it tells you to.
Email has traditionally been the hardest feature to setup properly because you need to do a lot of things to make sure that the emails don't end up in recipients' spam inboxes.
We're now simplifying that by offering an Email Routing service. For a monthly fee of $10-20 (priced according to the Kollaborate Server package you chose) it will route emails through our servers to make sure they appear valid to email clients.
Not only does this simplify installation, it also makes Kollaborate Server cheaper to run because you can now run it through a dynamic DNS service without penalty instead of paying for a fixed IP address.
You can now modify the site logo and color scheme from the Tools > Customize Style section of the admin console.
Also, per user feedback, we've also made departments and positions modifiable from the admin console.
Kollaborate Server is now supported on Windows, and we have provided Windows installation instructions and installation scripts.
The full list of changes is available on the Kollaborate Server page after logging in.
Kollaborate is a cloud workflow platform that keeps getting better. To find out more, view the feature list, read the Kollaborate Server documentation or sign up for the free 15-day trial.
Cut Notes
CinePlay
Aspect Ratio Matte Generator
Video Space Calculator