Last week we released Pro Media Tools 1.0.2, a significant update to our suite of tools for processing and managing media in Final Cut Studio, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro.

The focus of this version was Auto Transfer and lots of new features have been added.

New verification window

Auto Transfer now checks the file sizes before running the full verification check, allowing it to spot errors very quickly without needing to run a time-consuming verification.

Info panel

More Actions

Add timecode from THM files in QT Edit

To add timecode from a THM file, go to the Quick Tasks pane and select Create Timecode Track from THM file. Click Perform Task and navigate to the location of the THM file on your memory card. A new timecode track will be added with the information from the THM file.

This is a small overview of the changes in Pro Media Tools 1.0.2. The full changelog is available here. A 15-day trial of Pro Media Tools is available here.

Last week we released FCS Maintenance Pack Network Admin 1.0.8, a maintenance update for our tool to remotely troubleshoot Final Cut Studio over a network.

The biggest change in this version is support for entering a manual IP address and port. This is essential for negotiating some corporate networks.

Just follow these steps to set it up:

1. Open up the FCS Maintenance Pack Network Client preference pane.

2. Select a specific network interface to listen on and tick the option to specify a custom port and to disable Bonjour broadcasts.

3. Once the client restarts, the current IP and port will be listed on the left-hand side.

4. Launch Network Admin, click the + button in the bottom left and select Add Manual IP.

5. Enter the IP address, port and a descriptive name and click Connect.

6. The service will appear in the left-hand Services pane.

Unlike Bonjour services, manual ones will always appear in the list even if the destination computer is offline.

A 15-day trial of Network Admin is available here.

We're pleased to announce our newest product - Editmote, an iPhone and iPod Touch remote control for Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro and QuickTime Player.

The app is available on the iOS App Store and requires the Editmote Preference Pane to be installed on your Mac.

After installing the preference pane, simply flick the switch to the On position to make the computer name appear in the Editmote services list. You need to be connected via wi-fi on your iPhone and be on the same network as your editing machine for this to work correctly.

Once you are connected, launch a supported application and you'll be able to control the playhead, add markers, set in and out points and adjust the volume remotely. A full list of buttons is available in the user manual.

We've also prepared an introductory video to help you get everything set up.

Editmote is an essential tool for editors and producers during a screening. To discover more about Editmote, follow our Twitter and Facebook pages. For more post production tools for Mac and iOS devices, see our products page.

Update: Want a free copy of Editmote? We've teamed up with FCP.co to give away copies to two lucky winners. More details here.

With Final Cut Pro X on the horizon, it seems like a good time to talk about the future of FCS Maintenance Pack.

FCS Maintenance Pack has solved countless Final Cut Studio problems and is used around the world by freelancers, production companies, post houses, broadcasters and studios. It is in use at most of the major broadcasters in the USA.

We're now going one step further by announcing Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro support and renaming the suite to Pro Maintenance Tools. We also intend to support Final Cut Pro X.

As well as support for new NLEs, Pro Maintenance Tools will be 64-bit and compatible with Lion. A full list of features will be provided upon release.

We're planning to release it approximately two weeks after the release of Final Cut Pro X. It's difficult to be more precise due to the lack of a firm release date for FCPX from Apple.

This will be a paid upgrade for existing users, although people who purchased the software from February 1st 2011 onwards will be eligible for a free upgrade. Upgrade pricing will be announced closer to the release.

We will be entering beta for Pro Maintenance Tools in just over a week and are looking for testers who can submit crash and error logs to help us build up our Crash Analyzer database for these new applications.

We're looking for people who use the Mac versions of Avid Media Composer or Adobe Premiere Pro on a daily basis and are prepared to give detailed feedback. Testers will receive a free copy of the suite when it is released. (Due to non-participation problems in the past, we only give out free copies to people who actually send us bug reports and feedback.)

If you meet the requirements and would like to participate in the beta, please contact us to request addition, including a little bit about yourself, your system and your workflow. Please note that places are extremely limited so try to apply as soon as possible.

Yesterday we released Cut Notes 1.0.3 which incorporates many of the feature requests and suggestions we have received from users. Cut Notes is an iPad app for quickly taking timecode notes during a screening.

We noticed that we had been receiving requests for features that were already in the app, so there is now a Quick Start tutorial when you first launch it to highlight the major features. There is also a link to the user manual in the Actions menu.

We've also made it much easier to change the timecode settings. Just click the little "i" button next to the timecode display and you can quickly modify the frame rate, starting timecode and various other settings. These can also be modified in the Projects menu as in previous versions of the app.

The biggest new feature is support for feet and frames instead of timecode, making Cut Notes much more useful in feature film environments.

Just press the "i" button, switch Feet + Frames to On and select your film type. Note that choosing this will limit your output options to formats that are capable of supporting feet + frames. You will not be able to export FCP markers or Avid locators from feet + frames projects.

There is also a new output option: Edimarker lists allow you to import notes into Pro Tools via the third-party application Edimarker.

Cut Notes for iPad is available for $7.99 on the iOS App Store. We recommend Project Overview in the Pro Media Tools bundle for managing markers exported from the app and bringing them into Final Cut Studio and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Earlier this week we released Pro Media Tools 1.0.1, which offers new features and bug fixes for our suite of utilities to process and manage media in Final Cut Studio and Avid Media Composer.

The biggest new feature is support for Adobe Premiere CS5 for Mac. Premiere users have feature parity with Final Cut Studio users and can use the tools in the suite by exporting their projects to Final Cut Pro XML.

We've also improved the email settings dialog in Render Watcher to help those who had difficulty setting it up in version 1.0. There are now presets for common email providers, you can specify custom ports and there is now a button to check the settings by sending yourself a test email.

Edit Detector had several changes too. The sensitivity slider now behaves more predictably (this fixes an issue where it would not detect changes for movies with subtle edits, regardless of how high you raised it), thumbnails can now be switched off for improved performance when detecting changes, and edit points can now be added manually by pressing the N key.

We've also created a video overview of the tools in the suite:

The full list of changes is here:

• Support for Adobe Premiere CS5 for Mac
• Auto Transfer - Fixed an issue where multiple copies of the application could be launched in Auto Mode
• Auto Transfer - Fixed an issue where progress bars may not start at zero
• Batch Renamer - Speed and memory usage improvements when dragging in a folder with a large number of files inside
• Batch Renamer - Fixed an issue where Add Suffix would place the text at the beginning instead of the end
• Batch Renamer no longer adds an underscore separator character when adding a prefix or suffix. To regain this functionality, type the underscore in the prefix or suffix text itself.
• Batch Renamer - Fixed a crash when removing frame numbers
• Edit Detector - Left and right arrow keys now step through the movie
• Edit Detector - Thumbnails can now be switched off for improved performance
• Edit Detector - The sensitivity slider now behaves more predictably
• Edit Detector - Added a button to manually insert an edit point (shortcut key N)
• Quick Bins - Added a Send to FCP button on the toolbar
• Quick Bins - Fixed an issue where it would try to send data to FCP when trying to save a standalone XML file
• Render Watcher - Added a button in the preferences dialog to test email configuration
• Render Watcher - Presets for common email providers
• Render Watcher - Support for specifying custom email ports
• Render Watcher - Fixed an issue where email passwords would not save correctly
• General bug fixes, tweaks and improvements

Pro Media Tools is available for an introductory price of $99 and there is a 15-day trial available here. It will run on Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 on both Intel and PowerPC computers.

If you want to find out more about Pro Media Tools, check out screenshots and the user manual.

We've just released episode 2 of the Digital Rebellion Podcast that gives a brief overview and demonstration of all of the utilities in our newest suite, Pro Media Tools.

You can subscribe in iTunes or via the direct feed. The Episode 2 video is available for direct download here. The podcast is free and is optimized for iPhone 4 and iPad.

We're open to requests for future tutorials so please let us know if there is something you'd specifically like to see.

We've just created a video podcast to show how to get the most out of Digital Rebellion products. We plan to show tutorials and demonstrations for common workflows and focus on tips and tricks that people don't know about. The first episode is the Cut Notes overview video from earlier this year and more episodes will be coming shortly.

You can subscribe in iTunes or via the direct feed. The Episode 1 video is available for direct download here. The podcast is free and is optimized for iPhone 4 and iPad.

We're open to requests for future tutorials so please let us know if there is something you'd specifically like to see.

Apple just gave a sneak preview of Final Cut Pro X at the NAB Supermeet. I wasn't there so thanks to everyone who tweeted and posted photos of the event.

There's a lot to like - 64-bit Cocoa rewrite, OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch support, color management to prevent gamma shifts, no rendering or transcoding, native support for DSLRs and many more features. You can read the full list here.

Apple only talked about new features so there was no mention of existing features that had made it into the new version. Consequently the presentation left more questions than it answered - what about XML, EDLs, tape workflows, scopes, DVD output? We won't find that out until the release.

There is an emphasis on automation in the new version - it can automatically detect audio hum and remove it, and the magnetic timeline can simplify L- and J-cuts by automatically moving clips to a new layer to prevent clip collisions. I think this is great, as anything that makes me a faster editor makes me a better editor, however I can see a lot of cases where this would be unwanted and I hope it can be disabled when necessary.

My favorite features are the 64-bit rewrite, the lack of rendering, the new keyframe editor and Plural Eyes-style audio syncing.

The feature I'm most unsure about is dynamic tracks. Tracks will appear and disappear as you move clips around and new tracks will be added when you use the magnetic timeline. This could cause organizational problems if you always put music on tracks 8-9 for instance, and it would be a nightmare if you need to output a multi-channel show. Apple sought professional feedback so I assume this issue was brought up and that they have a solution for it.

There was no mention of other apps in the suite. Final Cut Pro X will be sold in June via the App Store so this means it will be a self-contained app. There is no way to sell a group of apps via the store, however it would still be possible to sell them separately like iWork. It also means there is no way of upgrading if you own an old version of Final Cut Pro, however the $299 price point is the same as the FCP 6 to FCP 7 upgrade cost.

What about my top 5 developer requests? Number 1 looks to be done; I'm not sure about any of the others.

Although I haven't tried the new version, I'm cautiously optimistic. There are a lot of features designed for speeding things up and that's always a good thing. It's also clear that Apple isn't trying to do everything, so it leaves a lot of gaps for third-party developers like myself to fill. As it is an App Store app, it won't overwrite the old version of Final Cut Studio so you can still go back if anything is missing.

The new version would be great for a lot of my smaller projects for the web but I don't yet know how well it would translate to larger projects where I need Cinema Tools, tape ingest / output and DVD creation. That's something I'll only find out when it's released.

P.S. Anyone else prefer the old icon to the new one?

Update: "Today was just a sneak peak of Final Cut Pro, stay tuned," an Apple representative told The Loop. This implies that there may be additional apps available separately.

Lots of people have been posting wish lists for the next version of Final Cut Pro with such features as 64-bit support, OpenCL, etc. One thing I haven't seen is a wishlist from a developer's perspective, so here's mine.

I've included a description of the feature, how likely I reckon it is to be implemented and what we could do with it if it was.

1. Store settings in preference lists (plists)

Apple introduced a standardized format for preference files in Mac OS X that allows applications to easily read and write from them. Final Cut Pro, which dates back to the days of OS 9, uses a proprietary binary format that only Apple knows how to read from and write to. It is also the reason why Final Cut Pro preferences get corrupted so easily.

What we could do with it: You could choose to backup only certain settings in Preference Manager instead of the entire file. Path Manager could modify and sync Final Cut Pro scratch disks.

Likelihood: Certain. If they've rewritten FCP, there is no reason why they would not use the standardized OS X preference system.

2. Make the FCP project file format more open

There is currently no method of reading from or writing to Final Cut Pro project files. The workaround is to export an XML copy from Final Cut Pro. The downsides to this are that Final Cut Pro has to be running, exporting to XML is slow and it locks up FCP so the user can't continue working.

There are several solutions to this problem - Apple could keep the format the same and release detailed specifications, they could create an API for reading and writing or they could convert the Final Cut Pro project format to XML (perhaps with binary and plain-text options like Maya). I don't really mind which method they choose as long as a solution arrives.

What we could do with it: FCP Versioner would be faster and would no longer lock up Final Cut Pro when exporting to XML. Pro Media Tools would be much faster and would not require FCP to be installed in order to read an FCP project file.

Likelihood: 50/50. I'm sure Apple will make big changes to the file format but we'll have to see if these are developer-friendly.

3. Add a playback and timecode API

The only way to get timecode from a Final Cut Pro project is to setup a fake MIDI device to receive the information. The downside to this method is that it is not very user-friendly - the user must specifically setup the device as a control surface in FCP and must have the audio mixing window open at all times.

A playback and timecode API would allow developers to control the Final Cut Pro timeline and receive timecode without any intervention on the user's part.

What we could do with it: Final Cut Pro syncing for Cut Notes with no complex setup for the user.

Likelihood: Ordinarily I would think this was unlikely but there are rumors that there will be an official iPad control app for Final Cut Pro. If this rumor is true, I highly doubt that Apple is using the user-unfriendly method of setting it up as a MIDI control surface.

4. Programmatically initiating exports

With Apple Events, developers can send commands directly to Final Cut Pro for such tasks as saving a project or highlighting a clip in a bin. There is no way to automatically export a sequence to a QuickTime movie without user intervention.

What I'd like is a command that exports all or part of a sequence to a file the developer specifies along with the ability to specify export settings such as the codec, if it is self-contained, whether or not it should contain markers, etc.

What we could do with it: This would be incredibly useful for a super-secret future product...

Likelihood: Unlikely.

5. Adding interface items

All third-party applications have to be launched separately and there is currently no way to integrate a third-party application with Final Cut Pro. What I would like is the ability to add interface buttons or menu items to send data to third-party applications in the background. The applications could then send data back without the user leaving Final Cut Pro.

What we could do with it: Lots of things, including adding buttons to manually initiate FCP Versioner backups from within FCP, a "Send to Edit Detector" command that cuts up a clip on your timeline at each edit point, an "Add Quick Bin" menu item, and more.

Likelihood: It's a long shot.

I hope at the very least that 1 and 2 are implemented in the new FCP. I guess we'll find out tomorrow. Do any other developers have requests?