WWDC 2009 Summary
The WWDC Philnote ended a few minutes ago. If I were to sum it up in one sentence, it would be "one step forward, two steps back".
15" MacBook Pro
Apple announced a new 15" MacBook Pro with a built-in battery like its 17" sibling. This results in dramatically improved battery life, performance and reliability at the expense of a battery you cannot replace. To me this is not a problem at all but to some it will be a dealbreaker.
It also has an improved display with a 60% greater color gamut, allowing it to display a much greater range of colors. It's much faster, with up to a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and up to 8GB of RAM, with a 500 GB hard disk or 256 GB SSD. It's also cheaper, starting at $1699 for the base model.
However, much like its previous notebook offerings, Apple gives with one hand and takes with the other. In a move that makes me question how in touch Apple is with its pro users, they have replaced the ExpressCard slot with an SD card slot. So that means no more native SxS support - you'll need to fork out for a USB adapter. And expect a drop in transfer speed over USB too.
Removing the ExpressCard slot drastically reduces the flexibility of the laptop. They've replaced a versatile port with one that has few uses (at least for video professionals). It also means we will not be able to connect eSATA devices or monitoring / conversion devices such as the Matrox MXO2 to MacBook Pros, drastically reducing their usefulness. This is a ridiculous decision for Apple to make on a device with "Pro" in the title.
Sure, you can get around this issue by buying a 17" MacBook Pro but I feel an ExpressCard slot should come as standard and not require you to buy a bigger, heavier and more expensive machine just for that feature.
Another aspect that is sure to irk ProApp users is the base model. Although it is good that Apple has reduced its price, it only features onboard graphics, unlike all the others which feature onboard and discrete graphics. This makes it unsuitable for applications like Motion and makes me question how future-proof this machine will be when Snow Leopard with OpenCL comes out. I think a machine with "Pro" in the title should be appropriately-specced to run Apple's professional applications.
13" MacBook Pro
Speaking of which, Apple rebranded the aluminum unibody MacBooks as the 13" MacBook Pro. Although the specifications are similar to the base 15" model and will therefore also result in limited ProApp usage and questionable OpenCL performance in Snow Leopard, I don't have a problem with that because this is something that was never there in the first place - this is not something Apple has taken away from us.
There's also some good news - Apple seems to have paid attention to the protests over the lack of FireWire ports in the previous generation and has now restored a single FireWire 800 port. The models are available up to 2.53 GHz with up to 8 GB RAM, an SD slot and a GeForce 9400M. The high-end 13" model is identical to the base 15" model in specification, which reiterates my opinion that the base 15" model is underpowered.
MacBook Air
Like the others, the MacBook Air has received a speed bump. It's also had a huge price cut and there is now only a few hundred dollars difference between the regular hard disk and SSD versions.
Snow Leopard
Apple demoed a few features but as the main changes were under the hood, these will probably be explored in more detail during the rest of the week.
Worthy of note:
- Snow Leopard takes up around 6 GB less space than Leopard
- "Fewer wait cursors"
- Exposé is built into the dock - click and hold on a Dock icon and the app's windows will zoom out
- Browser plugins are put in a separate process so that they do not crash the browser when they fail (it's unclear whether browsers other than Safari will be able to take advantage of this)
- QuickTime X has been rebuilt from scratch, is hardware accelerated, has built-in ColorSync support and can stream data from any HTTP server (unfortunately more detailed information was not given)
- QuickTime X has a minimal UI - it's very similar to QuickLook. Simple editing and uploading to popular video sharing sites built-in (essentially QuickTime Pro for free).
- All system apps run in 64-bit
- Grand Central allows developers to manage threads to make multi-threading more efficient
The biggest Snow Leopard announcement is that Snow Leopard will cost $129 retail like all the rest but only $29 if you are upgrading from Leopard. Yes, you read that correctly. It comes out in September, a month before Windows 7.
Safari 4
Safari 4 is out today and is
available for download for Mac OS X 10.5.7. and Windows. This was one of my favorite announcements of the day - why? Because it makes Safari 4 the first shipping browser to pass
Acid3 and support many new HTML5 web features.
One notable feature is video and audio tags. These allow you to play supported video and audio content directly in the browser without the need for Flash, Silverlight or other technologies. Plugins are always slower and more resource-hungry than native support for a particular feature, and open standards are always preferable. See
this page for an HTML5 video that plays directly in your browser without Flash.
These changes have also made it across to MobileSafari, and it means Flash on the iPhone is even less likely than before (not a bad thing).
iPhone 3GS
It is a new iPhone but the name is very similar to the previous iPhone 3G, probably because no external differences were made to the phone or perhaps because it is still on the 3G network. It is considerably faster, features a 3MP digital camera, can record video, has a magnetometer (compass), 7.2Mbps HSDPA (faster 3G connection), voice operation, available in 16 and 32 GB on June 19th. The iPhone 3G has been reduced today to $99 and will continue to be sold once the new phone is out.
Tethering is not supported by AT&T and MMS will only work on the AT&T network at the end of summer (other networks do not have this handicap). Even Apple seemed fed up with AT&T's general incompetence, making frequent jokes at AT&T's expense.
One other notable feature is called Find My iPhone. Mobile Me users can log in and locate their lost iPhone on a map, send messages to it or make it emit a sound so that it can be located (even if it is on silent). If the phone has been stolen, you can remotely wipe your personal data from it. This is a pretty nice feature.
Final Cut Studio 3
This was missing in action, leading us to wonder when it will be released. Will it be released in conjunction with Snow Leopard - who knows? All I know is that Avid and Adobe CS4 have edged ahead and are looking mighty tempting, and Nuke is looking like a great replacement for Shake. When it comes to making your living, you can't wait around forever for software that you don't know anything about in terms of new features and may not even end up being released. You have to buy what you need when you need it - Apple needs to realize this.
So in conclusion, there's some great stuff there for consumers but professional users appear to have been sidelined once again.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Jun 8 2009 to
Apple,
Analysis,
QuickTimePermalinkSign the DVD Studio Pro Blu-ray petition
AppleInsider recently had an
article listing the version numbers of the applications in Final Cut Studio 3.
Although it's just a series of numbers, it is a useful indicator of just how much the applications have been updated. The most notable numbers are Color 1.5, Compressor 3.5 - indicating relatively minor changes - and DVD Studio Pro 4.2.2 - indicating virtually no changes at all.
So for those of you hoping for a major DVD Studio Pro update that supports Blu-ray burning, it looks like you're going to be disappointed once again.
There is now a petition
circulating that asks Apple to reconsider its policy.
"We, the undersigned, will not buy a new version of Final Cut Studio if it is still lacking Blu-ray support."
Be sure to add your signature if you agree.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Jun 5 2009 to
DVD,
Apple,
Final Cut StudioPermalinkPreference Manager 2.0.3 released
Preference Manager 2.0.3 was released earlier today with some minor new features.
Preference Manager is an application for managing the preference files of Final Cut Studio. Preference files store user preferences and other settings, and can cause strange behavior if they become corrupt. Preference Manager allows you to trash, backup, restore and lock these files for maximum flexibility.
Here are the changes in the latest version:
Preference Manager is completely free and is available for download
here. View the
user manual for a walk-through of some of the new features.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Jun 2 2009 to
DR News,
Front Page News,
UtilitiesPermalinkPreference Manager 2.0.2 released
We've just released
Preference Manager 2.0.2, which is primarily a maintenance release but has a couple of small features too.
Preference Manager is an application for managing the preference files of Final Cut Studio. Preference files store user preferences and other settings, and can cause strange behavior if they become corrupt. Preference Manager allows you to trash, backup, restore and lock these files for maximum flexibility.
The main changes are:
Preference Manager is completely free and is available
here.
Posted by Jon Chappell on May 17 2009 to
DR News,
Front Page News,
UtilitiesPermalinkMac OS X 10.5.7 released
Apple has finally released the much-delayed 10.5.7 update to Leopard. There was much speculation that it was delayed to coincide with the full release of Safari 4 which is currently in beta, however this is clearly not the case as Apple has just released
Safari 3.2.3 and an updated beta of
Safari 4 (you won't see this in Software Update until you update to 10.5.7 though).
The
release notes are quite brief, however it is possible to get a much better overview by looking at World of Apple's
seed notes for the 10.5.7 beta. This is not a comprehensive list but gives a good indication of the final changes.
There's some good stuff in there - lots of networking fixes and several changes aimed at improving sleep/wake reliability (I've actually stopped putting my MacBook to sleep because it either wakes up constantly every 10 mins or never wakes up at all). It also contains updated graphics drivers. There's really nothing serious in there so you can update at your leisure. It's very much a polish update.
If you are thinking of updating though, remember the Golden Rules:
1. Never update in the middle of a project
2. Wait a week or two for problems to surface
3. Perform a clone of your system before installing
4. You will experience greater reliability from the larger combo updater
10.5.7 Delta Update (10.5.6 -> 10.5.7)
10.5.7 Combo Update (10.5.x -> 10.5.7)
10.5.7 Server Delta Update (10.5.6 -> 10.5.7)
10.5.7 Server Combo Update (10.5.x -> 10.5.7)
The bundled
security update is also available separately for Tiger users as Security Update 2009-02.
Update: Mac Mini users are
reporting problems already. It seems like certain DVI displays are not being recognized correctly on Mac Minis.
Posted by Jon Chappell on May 12 2009 to
Apple,
SoftwarePermalinkCompressor error - "You must enter a name for this batch submission"
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.
Posted by Jon Chappell on May 3 2009 to
Final Cut Studio,
Apple,
Video EditingPermalinkHacking Firefox extensions to work on beta versions
This is a little off-topic but some people might find it useful. For the past three months or so, I have been using the
Firefox 3.5 betas as my main browser. Why? Well, it is considerably faster than the previous version, renders pages more accurately (much less difference between Firefox and Safari now) and has some features I now cannot live without, such as the ability to restore closed windows as well as tabs.
But the trouble with using a bleeding-edge browser is that third-party developers take time to update their extensions to make them compatible. This can be frustrating, as often no code changes are necessary and all that needs to be done is a simple modification of the maximum version string.
There are two things you can do here - switch off compatibility checking or modify the maximum version of the extension.
Switch off compatibility checking
1. In Firefox, type
about:config into the address bar.
2. Select "I'll be careful, I promise" if a warning appears.
3. Ctrl-click anywhere and select
New > Boolean.
4. Enter
extensions.checkCompatibility (note the capital C) as the name.
5. Select
false as the value.
I have heard people report problems with this so if you want to specify exactly which extensions you want to make compatible, read on.
If the extension is already installed
1. Make sure Firefox is closed.
2. Navigate to
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles.
3. You should see a folder with a gobbledegook name ending in ".default". Open this folder.
4. Delete or rename the file
extensions.cache.
5. Open the
extensions folder.
6. You will see more gobbledegook folder names. The only way to tell which one is the extension you are looking for is to open each folder one at a time and look at the contents of the folder's
install.rdf file in TextEdit. The file's contents include the name of the extension, a description and compatibility information.
7. In the
install.rdf file, look for the tag
<em:maxVersion> and change the tag value to your current version (at the time of writing this is
3.5b4).
8. Save the file (you may need to change permissions on the file so you can write to it).
9. Launch Firefox and go to
Tools > Add-Ons to verify that the extensions are now recognized by Firefox.
If the extension is not already installed
1. The
Mozilla add-ons site won't let you download the extension if you have an incompatible version of Firefox. The easiest way to get around this is to fire up Safari, navigate to the add-ons page for the extension in question and download it manually (this works in Safari 4 - I don't have version 3 to test with).
2. Change the file extension of the .xpi file that is downloaded to .zip and unzip it. This will create a new folder on disk with the contents of the archive inside it.
3. Open
install.rdf inside the folder and follow steps 7-8 above.
4. Select all files inside the folder, ctrl-click and click
Compress X Items. You must compress the files inside the folder - do not compress the folder itself.
5. Rename the
Archive.zip file to have an xpi extension.
6. Drag the XPI file into Firefox or go to
File > Open File and navigate to it.
7. Firefox will now install it as if it was compatible.
Note - the extensions I modified were compatible with 3.1b3 (the previous version) so it was not much of a jump and I didn't experience any issues. I would not advise major version jumps (e.g. 2.x to 3.x) as this is likely to cause problems.
Posted by Jon Chappell on May 2 2009 to
Off-TopicPermalinkCompressor Repair 1.1.3 released
We've just released a quick maintenance update to
Compressor Repair, bringing it up to version 1.1.3. This one improves Tiger compatibility and compatibility with foreign language versions of OS X.
Apple's Compressor relies heavily on the Qmaster service in order to work. Qmaster allows you to split rendering tasks across multiple machines in a render farm but it is still required even if you are only rendering on a single computer.
The link between the two is so important that if the Qmaster service fails to launch, Compressor will be unable to submit batches. Should this occur, Compressor Repair checks for problems that could be preventing Qmaster from operating correctly. It checks for missing files, incorrect permissions, an invalid hostname, and attempts to manually start the qmasterd process.
Compressor Repair remains completely free and is available
here.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Apr 25 2009 to
DR News,
Front Page News,
UtilitiesPermalinkPreference Manager 2.0.1 released
We've just released
Preference Manager 2.0.1 (if you're wondering what happened to 2.0.0, that was exclusive for FCP SuperMeet visitors).
Preference Manager is a utility that allows you to trash, lock, backup and restore your Final Cut Studio user preferences. Unlike other apps, it supports all applications in the Final Cut Studio suite, not just FCP. It is useful as a troubleshooting tool and as a simple means of transferring your preferences to another computer.
Version 2.0.x is a complete rewrite with a redesigned and improved interface. It was designed to be easier for casual users while still being useful for power users. So if you click Backup or Quick Trash in the Basic tab, this will just trash or backup
all of your preferences, which is fine for most users.
People who want a bit more control can click on the Advanced tab, where they will have more precise control over what is trashed or backed up, and also have the option to lock files to prevent modification.
You can also assign categories to better distinguish backups. There are three categories - User, Project and Workflow. These categories are just different ways of representing the backups and have no bearing on the content stored in the file or the operation of Preference Manager - they're purely for organization (incidentally, I am open to suggestions for additional categories).
However, it is possible to optionally link a project to a Project-categorized backup. This doesn't just apply to FCP projects either - you can add Motion projects, Color projects, Compressor jobs, etc. Whenever you launch the project, the backup will automatically be restored before the application launches. This enables you to easily set scratch disks and other settings on a per-project basis (you must open the project file in the Finder - you can't click File > Open).
As these are major changes to the application, I would fully appreciate feedback on what works for you and what doesn't. Everyone uses the app in a slightly different way, so it'd be interesting to hear what would improve your particular workflow. Just reply to this post, use the feedback form at the bottom of the
Preference Manager page, send us an
email or contact us on
Twitter.
Preference Manager remains completely free and can be downloaded
here. If you are running version 1.0.7, you will need to download and install the update manually due to a bug with the updater in that particular version.
Posted by Jon Chappell on Apr 25 2009 to
DR News,
Front Page News,
UtilitiesPermalink
KollaborateCloud platform for pro video
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FCS RemoverUninstall Final Cut Studio and FCPX
Cut Notes
CinePlay
Aspect Ratio Matte Generator
Video Space Calculator
