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We're pleased to announce our newest product, Post Haste for Mac. Post Haste is a tool for organizing your projects. Everyone has their own way of structuring project folders on their hard disk. Post Haste simplifies this by allowing you to assign folder templates for different project types or scenarios, such as editing, visual effects and motion graphics.
When you start a new project, launch Post Haste and enter a few details about the project such as the project title, client name and the name of the editor. Choose a template and the directory you wish to place the new project folder into and click Create Project. Post Haste will copy the contents of your template into a new folder for that particular project. It's a big timesaver.
Post Haste was originally conceived and developed by Paul Conigliaro and we have now taken over the project, although Paul is still involved. Post Haste 2.0 is a complete rewrite of the application. You can read Paul's thoughts on the new version here.
We've completely overhauled the interface and provided the ability to setup an unlimited number of templates and filename parameters.
Templates can now be setup directly within the application through the built-in template editor. The location of templates can be customized, allowing you to store them in a shared location on your network to make them available to everyone.
One new and very useful feature is folder breaks. Folder breaks allow you to break parameters across folders, turning a project name like Client_Project_Current Date to Client > Project > Current Date. To get an idea of how this function works, watch the filename preview at the bottom of the window update as you toggle the Folder Break check boxes on and off in preferences. This is explained in more detail in the user manual.
To get a better idea of what Post Haste has to offer, take a look at our latest podcast episode that gives a general overview:
Post Haste is available as a free download from our site. Existing Post Haste 1.x users will need to download the software manually. It is also available on the Mac App Store, making it our first application on the store.
We're very interested in hearing feedback on Post Haste 2.0 from new and existing users alike. Use the links in the Help menu within the application or use the contact form to let us know what you think of the new version.
Apple released a Final Cut Pro X update today which added several much-needed features, one of which was XML import and export. I've seen a lot of confusion on Twitter so I'm going to clarify some terminology.
XML is a format for ordering data within a file. XMEML is a subset that Final Cut Pro 7 and below uses for creating a plain-text version of a Final Cut Pro project or sequence that other applications can read. The data is ordered in much the same way as it is within the project file, with the browser contents at the top, followed by the sequences, tracks and the media within.
FCPXML is the new subset for Final Cut Pro X. It is organized in the way FCPX organizes its data internally, which is completely different from the Final Cut Pro 7 way. You have resources at the top (all files and generators within the project) followed by a single sequence with the storylines and clips inside. There are no tracks and each clip is organized into a parent-child relationship rather than chronological order. Timing information such as in and out points are expressed in time units rather than frame units.
So the two formats are completely different and there is no way to directly import FCP 7 XMEML into Final Cut Pro X or vice versa. Apple seems to be leaving this up to third-parties. DaVinci Resolve supports FCPXML and XMEML so it may be possible to convert one to the other (I haven't tested this). Some features will not translate back and forth because they don't exist in the other application.
Currently XML in and out exists only as a menu command. There is no way for applications to automatically communicate with FCPX at this time. Update: Apple just confirmed you can programatically send an XML file to FCPX but there is no way of receiving XML data yet. It is also not possible to update an existing project - importing or sending an XML file will create new projects and events.
Also note that for some reason, you can't export project-based XML when the project is loaded. You have to go back to the Project Library, select the project name and then export the XML.
As you may know, lack of XML in and out prevented us from granting feature parity with Final Cut Pro 7 users in Pro Media Tools and our other products. We're going to begin integrating support in stages, so expect updates very soon.
Update: It would appear that the XML export function in its current implementation doesn't preserve important information, which is a problem when roundtripping. We still aim to support it in our applications and hopefully these issues will be addressed by Apple very soon.
We've just released Editmote 1.0.2 with some great new features. Editmote is an iOS application to remotely control your editing software. Add markers and control playback and volume levels - all without having to leave your chair.
Version 1.0.2 adds a much-requested feature: customizable keyboard layouts. If you have customized the default keyboard layout for your editing application, you can now go into the Editmote preference pane and change the default layout to match the changes that you made. You can also use this feature to map unused buttons to extra functions within your application.
Editmote supports Final Cut Pro 6 and above, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer 5 and above, QuickTime Player 7, QuickTime Player X, Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5 and above and Adobe After Effects CS 5 and above. However, you can use the Keyboard Layouts tab in the preference pane to add an unlimited number of additional applications.
The full list of changes is available here. When upgrading, remember to install both the new iOS application and the new preference pane otherwise you won't get all of the extra features in this version. The preference pane is available on the right-hand side of the Editmote page.
Editmote is a useful addition to an editor's toolkit. Find out more with our overview video and check it out on the App Store.
Yesterday we released Cut Notes 1.0.4, a maintenance update for our iPad note-taking application. Cut Notes makes it easy to create timecode notes during a screening.
The changes in this version are as follows:
Cut Notes makes a great addition to an editor's toolkit. Find out more in our overview video and check it out on the App Store.
Last week we released Pro Media Tools 1.0.5, a small maintenance update for our suite of tools to streamline media management. It fixes some XML issues, reduces memory usage in Edit Detector and speeds up Quick Bins.
The changes are as follows:
Pro Media Tools is an essential toolkit for post production professionals. Download the free 15-day trial to see how it can enhance your workflow.
Apple's recent obsolescence of Final Cut Studio has forced a lot of us to reexamine which editing platform we want to use for future work. Ironically, Adobe Premiere Pro is a much easier transition for FCP 7 users than Final Cut Pro X due to its similar interface, support for old FCP projects and ability to use FCP's keyboard shortcuts.
The transition to Premiere is easier than any other NLE but there are lots of little things that I miss from Final Cut Pro. Here's a list of some of them, in no particular order.
The Ctrl+V keyboard shortcut in Final Cut Pro can be used to make a cut on the timeline at the current playhead position. While Premiere also has a keyboard shortcut for cutting (Cmd+K), it pauses playback when it does so. There is no way to cut and continue playing.
Premiere Pro is limited only to four multicam angles.
Unlike Final Cut Pro, the audio mixer in Premiere doesn't work on a clip-by-clip basis. Every adjustment affects the entire track.
It took such a long time for colored markers to be introduced in Final Cut Pro 7 that I was sad to see them disappear in FCPX. Premiere needs this too.
Final Cut Pro can also export text-based marker lists, which is a great way of sending markers to another application. If Adobe were to implement this, I would also recommend they include a way of importing markers from a list, which Final Cut Pro unfortunately lacks.
Like Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere has a useful Paste Attributes command. However, unlike FCP, this function does not allow you to specify which attributes you would like to paste - it just pastes everything. This is often not what you want.
Ctrl-G in FCP can be used to easily close a gap in your timeline. There is no equivalent keyboard shortcut in Premiere to do this in one step.
Update: This one seems to have been misunderstood by a lot of people so I'll repeat it with additional emphasis: there is no way to do this in one step. There are many ways to do this in more than one step.
Only one project can be open at a time in Premiere. There is no way to refer back to another project without closing the first one.
When you cancel a render halfway through, Premiere discards the entire render file, unlike Final Cut Pro where the portion you rendered remains valid.
Using the JKL keys to navigate through media in Premiere can sometimes be tricky because the audio becomes high-pitched and difficult to understand.
Scrolling your mouse vertically scrolls the Premiere Pro timeline horizontally. This is useful if your mouse is only capable of vertical scrolling, but if you have a trackpad or a mouse with a scroll ball, there is no way to scroll vertically to see extra tracks. There should at least be a preference for this behavior.
(FCP tip: if you have a mouse with a vertical scroll wheel only, hold down Cmd when scrolling and it will scroll horizontally.)
There is no indicator icon to show a through edit. A through edit is a cut within a clip where the frames on either side of the cut are adjacent to each other. It appears to the viewer as if there is no cut at all, and in most cases it is unnecessary and should be removed.
When media goes offline, you can browse to the location of the file if you know where it is but there is no way to search your entire hard drive.
When inserting or overwriting a clip to the timeline in Final Cut Pro, the tracks that the video and audio will end up on are controlled by the buttons in the patch panel that are normally marked v1, a1 and a2. If you don't want to insert a track, click the button in the patch panel to disconnect it.
In Premiere things work differently. The patch panels AND the tracks need to be selected in order for this to work. If you want to insert video on video track 2 without any audio and have disconnected the A1 patch button, having an audio track selected will insert a blank space into that track. It seems redundant for patch buttons and audio tracks to need to be selected in order for this to work as expected when only patch buttons are needed in other NLEs.
Walter Biscardi gives a video overview of this problem here.
Final Cut Pro 7 finally brought us a long-requested timecode overlay window. While Premiere does show timecode in the Info window, this is not a direct equivalent.
In Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 and higher, if you drag a clip and press the N key to toggle snapping, snapping will be switched on or off only for the duration of the drag. Once you let go of the clip, snapping reverts to its previous value. I found this feature very useful.
Final Cut Pro can place markers on a clip whenever an audio peak occurs. There is no such function in Premiere.
While you can view how many times an entire clip has been used, there is no way to see if a particular frame has been used more than once. This is crucial for film projects that will be having a negative cut.
Sequence markers in Premiere Pro allow you to set a name, description, duration and various other options. Clip markers cannot be customized at all.
This is a list of things I think FCP does better than Premiere. In some cases, Premiere has no equivalent feature. In others, the feature exists but I feel it is lacking. None of these problems have prevented me from editing successfully with Premiere, but things would be smoother and certain workflows much easier if these features were present. I'm sure Adobe has been getting a lot of feedback from former FCP users and I have high hopes for CS6.
Sound off in the comments if you can think of any more things Adobe should borrow from Final Cut Pro.
Last week we released Pro Maintenance Tools 2.0.1, which adds several new features to our suite of tools for maintaining and optimizing your editing system.
System Toolkit has several new additions to make Lion behave more like Snow Leopard. You can disable window launch animations, prevent Lion restoring windows when relaunching apps, re-enable key repeating, disable automatic spellcheck and restore the old keyboard shortcuts for open and save dialogs.
You can also easily show or hide the current user's Library folder with a single click, which can be useful even if you have not yet upgraded to Lion.
Other new features include support for Avid AVX2 plugins in Plugin Manager and extra Housekeeper tasks. There are many new bug fixes too, including several for Pro Admin. The full list of changes is here.
Pro Maintenance Tools is an essential toolkit for editors and post production professionals on the Mac. Download the 15-day trial today to see how it can simplify troubleshooting and maintaining your system.
What made Final Cut Studio great was the sheer number of tools you got for the price. The demise of Final Cut Studio has left a void in the market which the closest competitor, Adobe Creative Suite, does not yet fill completely.
We've had several people come to us in recent weeks with requests to replicate certain Final Cut Studio functions that they depended on because they wanted the piece of mind that these functions would still be available after they switched to another NLE.
We implemented two of these in the latest version of QT Edit in Pro Media Tools - Cinema Tools-style frame rate conforming and a replication of QuickTime Pro's export dialog. The latter is useful for people who don't want to purchase a separate QuickTime Pro license, which they used to get free of charge with their Final Cut Studio installation.
The frame rate conform function is an improvement upon the Cinema Tools equivalent because it allows you to specify a custom frame rate. The advantage of implementing these features into applications that have not been long-abandoned by their manufacturer is that these features will continue to be improved over time.
We're interested to hear of any other Final Cut Studio features you use that could feasibly be added to our software. We're not planning to create our own versions of Cinema Tools or Color, but are keen to hear of any small features from the suite that would fit well into our existing applications. Let us know in the comments below or via our contact form.
Last week we released Pro Media Tools 1.0.4, which adds many new features and optimizations to our suite of tools for simplifying media management and streamlining workflows.
There have been several performance optimizations so many of the apps are now much faster than before, particularly Quick Bins and Project Overview.
We've added several new features to Auto Transfer based on your feedback, namely ARRI Alexa support, an option to bounce the Dock icon when the transfer is complete, the ability to choose a custom archival folder in Preferences and an option for SHA-1 checksums instead of MD5.
Project Overview saw a lot of changes too - markers now load significantly faster, it is much quicker to batch modify a large number of marker settings and there were lots of bug fixes including an issue where clip usage counts were set to zero.
Quick Bins is now significantly faster when saving to XML or sending data to Final Cut Pro. Export times from my test project went from around 15 seconds to less than 5.
QT Edit had two new additions, both of which were in response to customer feedback. The first is a frame rate conforming function, similar to the one in Cinema Tools, used to quickly convert from one frame rate to another without transcoding. It's actually more flexible than the one in Cinema Tools because you are not limited to common frame rates and can enter any rate you like into the box. This feature is located under the Settings tab when the movie is selected in the track view.
The second new feature is the ability to transcode to other codecs, just like QuickTime Pro. This feature is located under File > Export > QuickTime Conversion.
Both of these features were requested by customers because they were concerned with the obsolescence of Final Cut Studio and wanted piece of mind that such functions would continue to be available to them.
There were many other changes and features and you can read the full changelog here.
Pro Media Tools is an essential toolkit for post production professionals. Download the free 15-day trial to see how it can speed up your workflows.
Last week we released version 1.0.3 of Pro Media Tools, our suite of utilities for simplifying media management and streamlining workflows.
Version 1.0.3 is now compatible with Final Cut Pro X and OS X 10.7 Lion. Apple has made many improvements in Lion that have resulted in a noticeable speed boost in all of the applications.
We've also made several changes to Auto Transfer. The verification feature has been overhauled to be faster and the verification progress more accurate. It now also shows the estimated time remaining for both transfers and verification.
Based on user feedback, we've added a new option in Render Watcher. You can now request that it only alerts you if the application doing the rendering is in the background. This stops alerts from appearing for short renders and it will only show them if you start doing something else while waiting for a long render to finish. This option is off by default but it can be switched on in the Actions pane of Render Watcher.
We've made several other minor changes which can be viewed here.
Pro Media Tools is an essential time-saving toolkit when working with video. You can download a 15-day trial here and view a video overview here.
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