Matrox MXO now runs on Leopard

Matrox has just released a patch for its MXO HD monitoring system. The patch offers "Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard) support, Apple Color v1.0.2 support, Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 v3.1.1 support and genlock timing offset controls."

The Matrox MXO is a box that you connect between your graphics card and an Apple Cinema Display that allows you to perform accurate high definition monitoring for under $2000. This is a great product for indies, as monitoring solutions normally start at about $8000-9000, and the Matrox MXO is definitely comparable with these higher-priced solutions. The best experience will always be on a CRT monitor but this is a close second for a fraction of the price.

Visit Matrox's MXO support page to download the patch. Note that you will need to be a registered user on their site in order to do so.

[via Broadcast Engineering]

How to trash preferences

If an application in Mac OS X fails to load or exhibits strange behavior, a common way of fixing the problem is to trash preferences. But what does this mean?

Application preferences such as window layouts and sizes, user-selected options, etc, are all stored in a preferences file ending in .plist. There is a different file for each application. When you delete this file ("trash" it) and fire up the relevant application, the app will notice that the file is missing and create a new one with default preferences. This can solve many issues.

Below is a table of common professional applications and where their preference files are located (note that ~ refers to the current user's Home folder):

Application	Folder	Filename
Final Cut Pro	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist
Compressor	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.compressor.Compressor.plist com.apple.Compressor.CompressorSharedService.plist
DVD Studio Pro	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.dvdstudiopro.plist
LiveType	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.LiveType.plist
Motion	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.motion.plist
Shake	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.shake.plist
Soundtrack Pro	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.soundtrackpro.plist
Apple Color	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.color.plist
Adobe Photoshop	~/Library/Preferences	com.adobe.Photoshop.plist
Maya 7	~/Library/Preferences	com.alias.Maya.7.0.plist
Maya 8	~/Library/Preferences	com.alias.Maya.8.0.plist
Vue 5 Infinite	~/Library/Preferences	com.e-onsoftware.vue5infinite.plist
Vue 6 Infinite	~/Library/Preferences	com.e-onsoftware.vue6infinite.plist
Boujou	/Library/Preferences	com.boujou.plist

Additional Final Cut Pro settings are stored in the ~/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data directory. You need to trash "Final Cut Pro 6.0 Preferences" (and any previous versions), "Final Cut Pro Obj Cache" and "Final Cut Pro Prof Cache".

After deleting the files, empty the trash and fire up the application again.

Update 4/4/08:
We now have an application called Preference Manager for trashing, backing up and restoring preferences.

Capture HDV to ProRes via Firewire in Final Cut Pro 6.0.2

Chris Poisson over at Creative COW has discovered that the recently released 6.0.2 update to Final Cut now allows you to capture from HDV directly to Apple's ProRes codec via Firewire.

This provides a means of getting rid of the awful HDV codec in one step, resulting in dramatically decreased render times, improved rendering quality of footage, and more latitude in color correction due to the 4:2:2 color space (as opposed to 4:2:0). Capturing to ProRes used to require a fast Intel Mac with an accelerated capture card, or AJA's Io HD. With the new update, you can now capture on a G5 Power Mac without any additional hardware, which very much levels the playing field.

As Chris explains, however, it is not quite a perfect solution just yet. It would appear that Apple has made some compromises (half raster import for example) in order to improve capture speed on slower machines. The preview window will also be considerably behind the actual footage being captured, making it difficult to monitor on-screen (an external broadcast monitor is always recommended, if you can afford it). But if you can live with these minor setbacks, you can capture to ProRes for a fraction of the previous hardware cost.

Before you rush to upgrade though, be aware that some people have been experiencing issues with the latest patch. As always, I would recommend not installing it in the middle of a production, and have a clone or backup of your working system before you upgrade.

Essential Tools: OnyX

Mac OS X has a lot of maintenance features built into the operating system. Unfortunately, some of these features only run in the early hours of the morning (if the machine is on, of course) and some can only be run manually.

OnyX has the capability to run all of these manually or you can schedule more convenient times for these to run. It has a lot of features including checking your hard disk for impending failures, checking the structure of system files, extra options for customizing your system that are not present in System Preferences, repairing permissions, and optimizing your system's performance. These are essential tools to ensure the smooth running of your system. When you make a living from your computer, you want it to always perform at the peak of its capabilities.

OnyX is freeware and is available for Mac OS X versions 10.2 - 10.5.

Final Cut Pro and Quicktime 7.3 issues

A lot of people have been experiencing issues with the latest QuickTime version. The most common issue seems to be captures stopping after 10 minutes or so, leaving behind a ridiculously large file. Other people are finding incompatibilities in third party applications that use QuickTime.

The issue seems to stem from the fact that Software Update recommends the update because it is compatible with your operating system BUT it is not compatible with less-than-current versions of Final Cut Pro. So if you have version 4 or 5, you're out of luck, and it appears to be these users that are experiencing the issues.

What a lot of people don't realize is that Final Cut Pro depends heavily on QuickTime and so any QT updates will directly affect FCP. QuickTime is not just a "feature" of the operating system. It is also worth noting that the latest version of Final Cut, 6.0.2, requires QuickTime 7.3 and will not run well without it.

This is why you should never update a machine in the middle of a production. If you are not in the middle of a production, you should wait to see if other users have issues before installing the update. It is also best to have a cloned version of your hard disk so that you can get up and running again as quickly as possible. For the latter, I would recommend Carbon Copy Cloner.

I made a post the other day about downgrading from FCP 6.0.2 to 6.0.1.

Essential Tools: Carbon Copy Cloner

Carbon Copy Cloner is a utility for performing an exact clone of your hard disk. The idea is that you install your operating system and software and then immediately run Carbon Copy Cloner. The program will create a bootable disk image on a separate disk or machine. If you run into problems in the future, you can then immediately boot from this image and instantly have a working system again.

The problems people have been running into lately make this an essential utility for video editors, or indeed anyone who cannot afford any system downtime.

The software is donationware, which means you can download a fully working version for free but a donation is appreciated.

Apple to adopt Intel's mobile platform

This has not been confirmed by Apple but AppleInsider is reporting that Apple has taken a liking to Silverthorne, Intel's new 45-nm mobile platform chip. The chip is slated for release in early 2008 and uses between half a watt and two watts of power.

Intel describes it as a "landmark" release. The chip is fast for a mobile chip, consumes very little power and is less than the size of a US penny. It is also incredibly cheap. Intel described an "average price" of a device with the chip as only $100.

The most obvious choice for the processor would be the iPhone. Currently it uses an ARM processor. This new chip would offer a smaller form factor, better battery life and more powerful capabilities. However, the best feature of the new chip in my eyes would be the fact that the iPhone would now be running on x86 hardware. This means that software such as Adobe Flash Player can be ported very easily, and is the reason why Flash support does not exist on the current iPhone model.

There are two reasons why I haven't purchased one yet. The first is the lack of Flash support (need it for web development) and the second is the fact that I want to completely replace my iPod and unfortunately my music collection is about 33 GB. 32 GB flash drives are available now so my hopes are high for an iPhone that fits the above criteria in late 2008 / early 2009.

Downgrading from Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 to 6.0.1

I like to keep an eye on my server logs and I get a list of what people searched for in order to reach the site. A significant number of people have been searching for a way to somehow downgrade from Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 back to 6.0.1. I didn't realize so many people were having problems.

There is no easy "rollback" method of downgrading. You'd have to uninstall FCP completely and reinstall it again. You would, however, be stuck at version 6.0.0 because Apple only offers 6.0.2 on its site, unless you can find a mirror somewhere (I couldn't).

The best way of preventing this issue in the future is to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your hard disk onto another disk. You can generate an exact carbon copy of your working installation and instantly restore to it if you run into problems in the future. An essential editor's tool.

Also be aware that if you happened to save one of your projects under 6.0.2, you will be unable to open it in a previous version. I am not aware of a way of converting them back again. The best way to prevent this in the future is to save a backup before you upgrade.

The moral of this story is: don't install on a machine in the middle of a production unless you are having serious problems that the patch claims to fix, and always prepare a way of getting everything back to normal before you upgrade.

P.S. If you're installing Final Cut Pro 6 on top of Final Cut Pro 5, it is best to uninstall version 5 first. In most cases, it won't do anything untoward, but for a lot of people a working machine is their livelihood and you don't really want to take unnecessary risks when you can avoid them.

Update: We now offer a tool for removing Final Cut Studio from your system.

OS X Leopard security update 2007-009

Apple just released a security update for OS X Leopard 10.5.1. It is recommended for all users and fixes the following:

Core Foundation
CUPS
Flash Player Plug-in
Launch Services
perl
python
Quick Look
ruby
Safari
Samba
Shockwave Plug-in
Spin Tracer

With regards to installing on a production machine, it's kind of a fine line. On the one hand, you don't want to break anything but on the other, hackers often reverse-engineer a patch in order to find out what the original security issues were. They then target unpatched machines.

Obviously this is significantly less of an issue with OS X than it is with Windows but I would say that generally speaking, there is no harm in installing security updates on a production machine, but it's probably best to give it a day or two first and keep an eye on Apple's Leopard support forum to see if anyone else had any issues.

Update:
Didn't realize Apple posted one for Tiger at the same time too. It fixes:

Address Book
ColorSync
Core Foundation
CUPS
Desktop Services
Flash Player Plug-in
gnutar
iChat
IO Storage Family
Launch Services
Mail
perl
python
ruby
Safari
Safari RSS
Samba
Shockwave Plug-in
SMB
Spotlight
tcpdump
XQuery

New Firewire standard on its way

The 1394 Trade Association, the body responsible for managing the Firewire standard, has announced Firewire S3200, the successor to Firewire 1394b (Firewire 800).

This new specification quadruples the speed to 3.2Gbps. Crucially, the specification uses existing Firewire 800 cables and connectors to make the upgrade process as painless as possible for existing Firewire 800 users. The standard is expected to be ratified in February, so expect to see Firewire S3200 devices 6-12 months or so after that. Apple has traditionally been a big supporter of Firewire so I would imagine they would adopt it pretty quickly.

It has stiff competition from USB 3.0 though, due to be released in the first half of 2008. It offers a 10-fold speed increase from USB 2.0, to 4.8Gbps. It also uses existing USB connectors for full backwards compatibility. CNet has an article about it here.

Each offers its own advantages and disadvantages. I tend to prefer Firewire over USB because it is rock solid whereas USB can sometimes be a bit flakey. Firewire also offers gives more power to devices such as hard drives, often making an external power supply unnecessary. But it doesn't really matter, as I'm sure the majority of machines will ship with both.