The Post Post

How long has FCPx been in development?

2011-04-12T15:05:00.003+01:00

So one the eve of a new and "jaw dropping", "awesome" and "prepare to be stunned" release of Final Cut Pro/Studio what can we expect?

A sensible way of guessing would be to have a stab at trying to work out how long the new application has been in development. Let's look at the history,

Final Cut Studio 2 made a big splash at NAB 2007 primarily because Apple had the balls to release the suite with Color a full grading application formerly costing $25,000. I think this release was the last release where the majority of the Pro Apps team worked on the application suite. The inclusion of Color really drew the eyes away from an average release. Take away Color and FCS2 wouldn't have appeared so great.

In 2009 we had the FCS3 release which was well received mainly due to the knock down price of the upgrade but it has to be said it was a lack lustre release and included non of the performance that many of us were expecting. I fully expected OpenCL and many of the Snow Leopard technologies to be used but they were not.

Looking back at the releases since NAB 05 only really Final Cut Pro and Motion have seen substantial features added. SoundTrack Pro has been given a bit of love to stop it crashing so too Crapressor but poor old DVD Studio Pro has been dead in the water. Even as far back as NAB 05 Apple may have already been shifting the direction of FCS. Apple after all is well known for developing the next version of OS X while maintaining updates of the current version so it's not entirely implausible that they have taken this approach with the new version of FCS.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the new version will be have been in development as long as iMovie 08 probably meaning the 2006 time. So 2006 gives us 4.5 to 5 years of development and the last two years since FCS3 would've seen the full compliment of Pro Apps team working on this release.

4.5 years of development is certainly long enough to bring a new fully featured suite together so I am expecting "jaw dropping."

What have the developers of DVD Studio Pro been doing since NAB2005? Apart from minor bug fixes not a lot it seems. Despite the many and deafening calls for Bluray Studio Pro, Jobs has held firm with his distain for the format in particular the licensing buggeration factor. I am convinced the real surprise at the Supermeet demo will be in what replaces DVDSP. Whatever it is has potentially had 5 years of development and it could be huge. It absolutely won't include BR though! The puck has already passed BR and we're skating towards post disc based media delivery so set full steam ahead for a massive change in post production.

I'll be awake at 3am Wednesday morning here in the UK watching twitter for updates from the Supermeet.

Blog Plagiarism

2011-04-10T18:31:00.006+01:00

The weirdest thing happened today, I've just been accused by @philiphodgetts on twitter that my blog post on the new FCP Suite has plagiarised his blog. Apparently he and only he was the person to break that the new FCP would be based on AV Foundation. Of course that means no one else could possibly have an original thought on the matter so let's end the discussion there. Well actually, no.

I lifted the AV Foundation reference right from Apple's developer website for what's new in OS X Lion. It was a complete guess but an educated guess based on iOS and OS X moving forward together. That's what Lion is all about after all, here's what Apple say:

AV Foundation

AV Foundation framework provides essential services for working with time-based audiovisual media. Through an Objective-C interface, you can easily play, examine and compose audiovisual media in your app. An array of powerful classes also make it simple to edit and encode media files. You can even capture audio and video from external devices and manipulate them in realtime.

It's fair to assume that Apple would produce their next gen creative suite on the latest technology at their disposal. Maybe not.

It's rather disturbing that a blog that literally nobody reads and serves primarily for my own amusement would have ridiculous allegations thrust upon it. Fuck me that's sad. You have to LOL.

The mistake I made was to copy a link to @walterbiscardi as he had just posted a link to a blog (http://blogs.computerworld.com/18095/apples_final_cut_will_end_the_flash_wars) about the imminent death of Flash. I absolutely agree with the article and have almost identical views although the computerworld post was much better written. Hodgetts obviously saw this put 2 + 2 together got 10 and went mental.

It's weird what the internet does to people, @philiphodgetts obviously takes himself far too seriously. He has tweeted me several times now seemingly increasingly desperate to say he broke the story about AV Foundation. When someone breaks a story in the real world it means someone has got a scoop and released a known fact before anyone else. @philiphodgetts doesn't appear to know what breaking a story is as the AV Foundation basis for the new FCP Suite is pure guess work by all parties. This is not breaking a story. This is guess work. He guessed before me but has falsely accused me of ripping him off which is just not the case.

Apart from being a suggested follow on twitter I've never come across @philiphodgetts before and never read an article by him before I wrote about the new FCP Suite.

It makes you wonder what the motivation is for all this is, perhaps he feels the need to acknowledged in someway. Quite sad.

The trouble with social media is that it gives idiots and cranks direct access to your brain without filtration. The vast majority of Twitterites seem to be okay but the odd one ruins an otherwise good experience.

The Shame of Pixel Farm

2011-03-25T10:05:00.009Z

I have just had the biggest surprise of my VFX career when trying to move my license for PFMatchit from my old 2,1 Mac Pro (with an aged on its last legs graphics card) to my new machine.

I contacted Pixel Farm technical support to ask if they would create a new license for me as the new machine obviously has a different Ethernet address which is used to lock the license to a particular machine. I received the following reply:

Hi Guy,

Thank you for contacting the Pixel Farm Ltd, please fill out the attached license declaration form and send it back to me. We will require the new PFHostID of the system you will be transferring the PFMatchit license to. There is an administration fee of £200 for transferring the license - I can send you an invoice for this charge as soon as I get the green light from yourself.

Kindest Regards

Jena Scott

Operations Administrator

The Pixel Farm Ltd

Unit 1 Pattenden Business Park

Pattenden Lane

Marden

Tonbridge

Kent

TN12 9QS

T: +44(0)1622 808670

M: +44(0)7795 843371

F: +44(0)1622 833019

E: jena@thepixelfarm.co.uk

£200!!!

Yes, £200 (or $320 US) administration fee. That's exactly 33% of the price of the software alone just for moving the license from one machine to another.

Frankly this is a shameful attempt to make money at the expense of a customer who has entered into a contract in good faith bearing in mind there was absolutely no mention of this charge when I purchased this software. I've rechecked the Pixel Farm website and Escape Studios to see if I missed any mention of an administration fee, well I can't see it anywhere if it exists at all.

I have to say that the resellers Escape Studios have been very supportive and not to mention surprised by the size of the fee too. I really don't know what to do and how to resolve this for the best. I am in no position to throw £200 after bad money but I feel I want to fight this out of principle. I am going to seek legal advice and get in contact with consumer protection groups.

I own every piece of software on my Mac and spend a fortune each year upgrading it and I would never advocate piracy. But what message does this send to the customer? Does it send the message that we value your custom? No it doesn't at all. What benefit do I have for being a customer of the Pixel Farm over a scumbag pirate? Clearly I'm not valued at all and just seen as someone to exploit.

I've given Pixel Farm an opportunity to respond and earlier today I have informed them I intend to take this matter further. Perhaps this is an honest mistake, a typo and will be a storm in a tea cup soon to blow over. If not I can only reasonably come to the conclusion Pixel Farm are shysters and this a naked money making scam.

By way of comparison last year my Macbook Pro's HDD died and I was forced to move my Imagineer's software (Mocha and Mokey) to the Mac Pro. Imagineers use a similar licensing system, they sent me a download link and new license files by return of email and charged me not a single penny £0.00!! Not to mention £200 is almost three times what I paid for the Syntheyes 2011 update!

I can absolutely say that they may well have got the money for PFMatchit out of me but they will not get another penny in ridiculous administration fees and I'll never buy another product from them again.

If you feel similarly to me about these charges please let your colleagues know before they purchase anything from Pixel Farm.

Buyer beware...

_________________________________

Update:

I have been emailed by The Pixel Farm to say it has been a misunderstanding and they "overlooked" that I had a current maintenance agreement! Strange, because I've been logging into support and downloading updates to PFMatchit all this time. I have been given my new license file an PFMatchit now runs fine on my new machine.

But, and it's a big BUT, if you don't have a current maintenance agreement with the Pixel Farm for your product they'll quite happily charge you £200. The maintenance for PFMatchit only costs £100/yr!

Why should you need maintenance to move the software from one computer to another without incurring a massive charge? Why does it cost so much when simply running a keygen takes no more than 30 seconds? It simply must be naked profiteering there is no logical explanation for the cost.

I simply must find out who to write to at Pixel Farm and explain, from a customers point of view, how obscene this charge is. In the long run it will be counterproductive, honest customers will simply turn their backs on a company that treats them like this and they'll either go elsewhere or they'll simply download a crack.

I am all in favour of piracy protection but not to the point where it impinges on my consumer rights and enables me to be exploited and scammed. A nodelocked license, as far as I'm concerned, is meant to stop you running the machine on multiple computers at the same time. Fine. But absolutely not meant to punish you when, for many, legal and completely honest reasons you might want to move the license to a different machine.

If there are any people out there reading this post who have pirated PFMatchit I'm sure it makes them feel somewhat vindicated.

Dear Pixel Farm treat your customers like decent human beings as they are the ones that support you long term. I sincerely hope this has been a massive mistake and you'll get around to sorting out a system that doesn't treat your customers so shabbily.

I'll never walk into another software purchase without know exactly what it is going to cost to move the license, will you?

The New Final Cut Studio

2011-03-16T23:25:00.010Z

I started this post some weeks ago but never got round to completing it as I thought I'd have much longer to write it...

So there's been news that a selected group of industry heavy weights have been invited to Apple HQ to see the next version of Final Cut Pro. Apparently it's "jawdropping."

Good. Hopefully the loooong silence and wait have been worthwhile...

You only have too look at iMovie 11 and the iPad version and you'd guess that something cracking is coming for more professional users. The moment I saw iMovie 08 I said to colleagues that I thought we might just've seen the direction that FCP would be taking. Of course that was derided. I generally am so I'm used to it.

Core Everything.

You can bet that this release with be a showcase for all the core technologies in OS X that have appeared in OS X and iOS releases, OpenCL, AV Foundation and Grand Central etc etc

Face Detection

The Trailer generator that has recently arrived in iMovie 11 is probably just a subset of a much grander set of tools for rapid pre-viz and assembly editing to appear in the new FCP Suite.

MultiTouch

Having seen the iPad2 demo of iMovie I think touch will be an important factor in the new release utilising the Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad or even an iPad. It just looked so natural. I can see using a Wacom for fine control and a Magic Trackpad for gestural navigation an interesting proposition, nah, a much better proposition than anything that has gone before!

Media Management

Think Aperture...The new FCP will almost certainly be the video version of Aperture for media management. I expect that tape based workflows will not be catered for and perhaps FCP7 will be used in a "Classic" role just to help get "obsolete" media into the new system.

HTML5

I have a feeling that HTML5 output will be included, Apple has bet on HTML5 and H264 in all of its delivery platforms but they haven't yet provided an application to deliver a finished project. Think interactive Keynote presentations neatly wrapped in HTML5 that takes the place of the current DVD Studio Pro application. Think of all those interactive podcasts, product demos, iAds and the ilk that you could spit out and probably deliver straight to iTunes. Disc based media delivery is not going to be catered for (it doesn't make money for Apple), DVDSP hasn't seen an update for years so a modern replacement based around HTML5 is due. Let's call it HTML5 Studio Pro or iTunes Studio Pro. :)

I almost never buy CDs anymore and I'll never buy another DVD or Blu-ray but even though I enjoy renting film downloads from iTunes I miss the DVD additional content. I finally think we'll be getting that and an application to generate those additional features which will spit out a neat download "package."

FCP is currently getting all the speculative attention but I think the successor to DVD Studio Pro is going to be an astonishing development and after the presentation all the discussion will be on the content delivery.

Motion & Color & Phenomenon

I think these applications will be absorbed into the main application, so we're not really looking at a suite more of an interactive media composing über application for want of a better description, a "Phenomenon."

Apple have often been accused of arrogance, what's the betting the whole application/suite was known as Phenomenon rather than just the replacement of Shake? "Jaw Dropping!" remember. Anyway I'd expect a fully fledged compositor in a serious modern media composing application and a RT Shake would fit the bill.

I fully believe the new Final Cut Studio, if that's what it is even called, will be a revolutionary product probably too revolutionary for many right at this moment in time. Remember when the iPad 1.0 was released how quite a few seasoned pundits absolutely did not get it? Think that revolutionary x10. I hate the phrase but a "paradigm shift" away from traditional media delivery catered for by Avid and Adobe.

Think online delivery (iTunes packaging types), think tapeless, think thoroughly optimised RT everything and most importantly Think Different. Think Flash is DEAD.

I hope Apple does deliver the above because that's what I want and need. These are my hopes for the future of digital media creation and more importantly it's what my clients want.

I have been kicking around a business idea for a couple of years but I haven't been able to join all the dots together from production, post-production, delivery and reception. I'm think the answer is coming in the form of the new FCP Suite combined with HTML5, iTunes and iDevices.

Not too long to wait...

Edit:

Having watched the Editors' Lounge casts (http://vimeo.com/channels/editorslounge) I think my predictions above are inline with what others (more learned) are expecting. I definitely agree that Apple is "skating to where the puck will be," I mean, they are in a wonderful position of being able to determine where the puck will be as they, after all, are setting the agenda with post PC devices, in fact, they are the puck.

They have changed my media consumption in a very short space of time. My 1st gen Apple TV has completely changed how much satellite TV I watch and the number of DVDs I hire from Blockbusters. The new version is designed to connect the iPad and iPhones to the TV. Instead of the Apple TV containing all the media you're going to watch the iDevices carry that around and are then relayed to the TV. You can see why Apple want to develop software to specifically target broadcasting....on their own terms.

Steve Jobs has said that standard model of broadcasting is a barrier to entry and it has been difficult for them to break into that market (with the AppleTV) as they don't control the content nor the wires. In this new model they control the content via iTunes and the wires are cut in favour of iTunes to iPad to AppleTV delivery. You can bet a whole new broadcasting paradigm is truly within our grasp. The shear popularity of the iPhone and iPads means there are the audience numbers to make it possible for companies like mine to think seriously about IP delivery.

Flash is DEAD... Can you see why Flash was never going to get onto the iPad or iPhones?

I'm sure the experience with the App Store (Mac and iOS) will play some part int he plans. Imagine being able to have an in-podcast purchase, every time a viewer purchases a product sponsored through a podcast Apple get a slice which is very similar to how the in-App purchases work. The beauty of this system is that the player knows where you are for example, you watch a Trailer a window pops up asking you if you want to be reminded when the film arrives at your local cinema or even book the tickets for you. The benefits of being able to drive business accurately this way far out performs standard broadcast TV's ability to do the same.

There has to be a reason for the huge new Apple data-centre! Apple will also be able to control the media generation for the network if the so desire and at the very least the new FCP Suite will give their customers a head start in providing highly engaging interactive content that drives business.

So the new FCP Suite is just another cog in the iTunes and iDevice broadcasting network.

Flash is DEAD...

ZX81 to 12 Core Mac Pro

2011-03-07T17:58:00.003Z

I was reminded by an article in The Register that it was the anniversary of the ZX81 at the weekend. I have just purchased a new 12 core Mac Pro and it's sitting across the room from me while the ZX81 sits in a drawer on the other side of the room. In the space of 30 years we've gone from 3.25 MHz z80As, 1KB RAM, C90 Tape storage to the 2.93 GHz 12 core/24 thread 20 GB RAM and 5870 GPU and 5TBs of storage.

It is astonishing, to me at least, the progress in just 3 decades an it begs the question how long will it take for the Mac Pro to be as insignificant as the ZX81 is today? For certain it won't be 30 years.

Happy days.

Cinema 4D R12 Review.

2010-09-07T09:31:00.000+01:00

It's fucking awesome.

Matchmove Training.

2010-08-14T15:00:00.002+01:00

I don't want to turn this blog into a lame place for repeating what's been posted on Twitter or on other blogs but I thought I'd post this link to some SynthEyes training at www.cmivfx.com because any promotion of SynthEyes is a good thing. The tutorial looks fairly basic but includes camera and object tracking combined and for $60 you can't go wrong.

Do check out fxphd.com for other excellent SynthEyes courses as well as PFTrack courses too. Introduction to SynthEyes SYN101 is running this term.

I've not taken the SynthEyes courses at fxphd but I have it on good authority that they are excellent. I've taken most of the PFTrack courses there and they are first rate giving the student a real lesson in matchmoving not just pressing buttons.

That should keep you going while waiting for the release of SynthEyes 2011 and PFMatchit in September.

SynthEyes 2011 New Features List

2010-08-03T10:21:00.008+01:00

Wow, the Set Reconstruction tools look comprehensive and something I've been wanting for sometime, well worth the upgrade alone. Russ has done some work on the interface which is further good news.

Of course a list of features is only as good as they perform in the real world but they have whetted my appetite and I'm actually looking forward to SynthEyes 2011 more than PFMatchit now.

If you haven't used SynthEyes and thought perhaps that it is too cheap to be a serious production matchmover, just give it a go. There really is no need whatsoever to spend several thousand £$£$£ on other software and with every release Russ makes you look even more stupid if you do.

Thanks to Dr. Sassi for taking this snapshot from Siggraph and sharing it.

Matchmoving Software

2010-08-02T16:31:00.005+01:00

So it looks like Pixel Farm are going to be duking it out with Ssontech for the affordable matchmoving crown as both companies have made significant announcements at Siggraph.

Pixel Farm have introduced PFMatchit a nodal flow based GPU accelerated solution priced at $700 which lacks many of the image based modelling tools of PFTrack. Incidentally PFTrack has been reduced in price to $3300 which is good news. There has been a lot of stir on the twitterverse about PFMatchit as it a new technology base rather than a stripped down version of PFTrack. GPU support obviously is welcome as those of us that used PFTrack will know it wasn't exactly a speedy beast being only single threaded.

Syntheyes 2011 has been announced by Russ Andersson in a typical media unsavvy way shunning publicity with almost nothing coming out of Siggraph. What little he did say sounds very interesting with the latest update sporting a whole toolset for set reconstruction and modelling. This is exactly what I've been waiting for and to be honest I'm more excited to see Syntheyes 2011 than the Pixel Farm technology. Russ has done a fine job bringing a highly optimised accurate solver and the best point trackers I've ever used to the masses and the inclusion of modelling tools has to be a good thing.

I'm really looking forward to test driving them when they are both released in September (got to confirm that but twitterverse seems to know).

Who is going to buy Boujou and 3D Equalizer?

Update:

The Foundry of NUKE fame are releasing a Camera Tracker for After Effects on August 10th (today). More info here:http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/cameratracker/

There are several lack lustre demos and an excruciatingly tedious three part AE - C4D - AE tutorial to be found on ae tuts which capably shows what a fag it is to work with. No word on pricing yet but one can only hope that it is priced at PFHoe levels as that would appear to be the main competitor for this plug-in. This tracker looks like it is aimed at those who only have a passing interest in matchmoving and there's not too much to get excited about if you already own SynthEyes or are interested in PFMatchit.

Update2:

The Foundry's Camera Tracker for AE is priced at £170+VAT. This is approx $320 at current exchange rates. For $79 more you can get SynthEyes 2011. There is nothing I've seen in the Training Resources that would make me purchase the Foundry tracker over SynthEyes. The scenes that are "tricky tracks" look like they would solve on full auto in SynthEyes. I've downloaded the training materials and SynthEyes has no problems with jumping trackers shown in Class 07 and estimates the correct lens focal length.

Give the Foundry's rather expensive CameraTracker a miss and get SynthEyes. Buy SynthEyes now and get the 2011 version as a free upgrade when it is released. That's a really good deal.

New Mac Pros

2010-07-28T11:52:00.009+01:00

So the new Mac Pros have been released to a chorus of disappointment and confusion in some quarters.

Why the hit whoring blogs have got the new Mac Pros completely wrong...

For the frst time Apple have produced Mac Pros for a truly wide gamut of creative professionals and creative applications from CPU dependent applications to High Performance Computing GPU optimised applications. I can't remember any previous Mac Pro range so configurable for such a wide range of production needs.

Many blog writers, including all of the usual suspects, piled into Apple and used the quiet update to the Mac Pro range to recycle the claims that Apple are no longer interested in the creative professional and Apple now follow rather than lead the desktop computer market. I write these words not as an Apple apologist but as someone who simply does not understand the full-scale anxiety in Apple's commitment to the higher end. Why the pre-occupation other than to draw traffic to feed advertisers?

The Mac Pro now supports processor options of 4, 6, 8, and 12 cores, dual GPU options, bucket loads of memory, and space for 8TB of HDD internally. Oh, but no USB 3 or more than 4 PCIE slots which for some people is simply too few! I see choices there for all budgets and production needs from photographers, to video editors, to colourists and 3D artists but according to one blog Apple has built a Mac Pro for no one! There's no argument that these Mac Pros are spendy in the extreme but that does not appear to be Apple's fault as I priced up a home brew PC based on similar specs as the new Mac Pro and it came out at a similar horrifying price. It may well have been a couple of hundred pounds cheaper but I would have to spend time building it and of course I could not run OS X legally on it and I wouldn't want to run Windows on anything that expensive as a personal choice which will further my credentials as a Apple fan-boi in some quarters.

What Apple were unable to announce, presumably not to piss nVidia off by stealing their thunder, was that aforementioned GPU makers are bringing the Quadro 4000, a step change in GPU power, to the Mac in October. That isn't all, it will be a single slot card as described by nVidia as a cost effective solution, perhaps a nod to their previous Quadro attempts on the Mac that weren't cost effective at all. Two of these bad boys in the Mac Pro and you've got the beginnings of an awesome Davinci Resolve station add a BM card, RAID and control surface and you're set to tread on some pretty major toes (assuming you have talent!). AD's Smoke and Adobe's CS5 suite would also be a very nice accompaniment to the Quadros too. Adobe claims 1 Quadro 4000 is capable of streaming 4 streams of full res RED 4K. Clearly no need for that over priced proprietary RED Rocket card any longer. Bin it along the a long line of other proprietary accelerator cards that have dotted recent history.

If I was buying a new Mac Pro for Davinci Resolve what would it be? (I'm not, I lost too many clients to the recession but as business builds again this is what I'll most likely purchase.)

I'd certainly look no further than the single 6 core/12 Thread 3.33GHz model, 2 Quadro 4000s, 8 GB RAM, BM card and RAID. The 6 core is comfortable faster than an 8 core Harpertown Mac Pro in most operations and Resolve really will eat up those 2 Quadros quite nicely.

I've been doing a bit more reading into the Quadro 4000 and found that it is quite a cut down version of the Fermi family and way lower in spec than a nVidia GTX 460 card. This also means that the BTO option of the ATI Radeon 5870 is an excellent choice as it has a comparable performance to the nVidia GTX470 only trounced by the GTX 480. For a workstation running Final Cut Studio the 5870 looks to be an excellent choice for the here and now and the future too comfortably more powerful than a single Quadro 4000. Maybe nVidia will bring the consumer range to the Mac perhaps a GTX 480 in due course. The rumour sites were reporting drivers for that particular card had been leaked or found in a developer build of OS X. Who knows? If true that will mean even greater choice for the Mac owner.

But you haven't mentions lack of Blu-ray I hear someone cry at the back. Fuck Blu-ray, I'm with Jobs on this. Blu-ray won a format war that was absolutely nothing about providing the consumer with affordable high quality content but all about the studios maintaining control of the market. This limits our choices in the way we want to consume media and until the studios learn that we are entering, er, have entered a new era where the user should choose the mode of reception I will remain a devout Blu-ray avoider.

The Future of Color

2009-12-03T14:23:00.003Z

I saw on the Apple Color forums the question what hardware was required for RT playback.

I don't think it is a question of hardware as most people can easily afford a suitable disk array that supports RT HD or 2k etc and the top end graphics cards are powerful enough for RT grading in other competing software like Scratch.

With the release of Snow Leopard and the Nehelem based Mac Pros our expectations have risen and we expect our software to make use of all that new shiny expensive hardware. one only has to look at the Intel processor roadmap and the ATI and nVidia ones to get an idea of the configuration of the next Mac Pro. A 12 core/24 thread monster with hugely powerful GPGPUs should be ideal for Color in fact the whole of the Final Cut Studio suite of applications. It's a shame that Apple's Pro-Apps software development is lagging so far behind the availability of the hardware, even my 1st gen 8 core Mac Pro has barely been given a workout by FCS. Even if Color 1.5 can muster RT playback on the latest Mac Pro but it could certainly do more if the code was brought up to date to support OpenCL.

The main limitation to RT grading and playback is Color's current ability to utilise only one GPU so wouldn't it be great if all CPU cores and multiple GPGPUs in a system were available for rendering? This is what OpenCL will bring to Color and FCS.

Get on the Apple Color feedback form and request OpenCL support.....please.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/color.html

Thoughts on Smoke for Mac

2009-11-30T13:17:00.007Z

Well, well, who'd guessed Autodesk would've gone so far as to announce that they intend to release a non-crippled version of Smoke for the OS X platform? It comes as a follow up to their releasing of Flare a crippled "junior artist" seat of Flame but what makes this release interesting is that there is no owning a system product preconditions this time, anyone with the right amount of money and has a Mac Pro with Quadro GPU and Kona 3 + fast storage can own Smoke. This is not a crippled version either this is the bottom end version which does not feature Batch and for the time being it lacks Sparks support although that will arrive in a later version according to Autodesk. Apparently they simply could not get Sparks support built in time for this release which was the case when they moved from SGI to Linux.

This is big news for many especially all those production companies built on Final Cut Studio. FCS is an excellent studio package but the disparate nature of the individual applications can make an efficient finishing workflow quite challenging. I like to think of Smoke as the entire FCS package plus Shake rolled into one in with an extremely efficient GUI. It really is a joy to watch an experience Smoke artist rip around the interface and galling at the same time for those of us working with FCS and having to "Send To" all the time.

So why now are Autodesk joining the "race to the bottom" with a software only product? The world has obviously changed a lot in a short space of time and there continue to be extremely challenging market conditions in many areas of media production. Smoke on OS X obviously addresses some of those concerns with a really quite affordable price of $15,000 + yearly maintenance. To have such an integrated toolset for finishing has never been so affordable.

It should be interesting to see how (or if?) Avid respond with their DS offering. Reading a thread on the Avid community forums found its member in typical cynical mood as to the wisdom of Autodesk's move. I don't share their outlook I think this is a watershed moment in the pricing of mission critical software. It also makes one wonder if other system products will find their way to OS X as a software only version? What of Lustre? It is obviously a non-trivial task writing for another platform but neither is it knowing what to give and what not to give as Autodesk could easily cannibalise its system products market quite easily. I get a bit of de ja vous from the 3D application pricing of old to where it is now. Apps like Maya and Softimage were at one time so incredibly expensive I never thought I'd be able to afford them when I was experimenting with Imagine 3d and Lightwave all those years ago, now look at the pricing. I expect Autodesk's system products to follow a similar path never to compete on pricing with the likes of Apple and Adobe but to be that, er, reassuringly expensive level but not totally out of the question. The UK price of Smoke is estimated to be about £9000 while that is beyond my budget it aint all that far away! Maybe in a couple more years, eh?

John Montgomery from fxphd.com has hinted quite strongly that they will be running Smoke courses beginning in January. I highly recommend fxphd.com to anyone interested in Smoke training and for that matter any courses they offer tend to be of the highest order.

Images in FCP are Darker than in Color

2009-04-08T15:13:00.003+01:00

The definitive answer comes via HP who have been writing several white-papers on using the DreamColor monitor in Video post productions scenarios.

The very simple answer is that Color uses OS X's colour management system to display its image on the grading monitor while FCP does not. FCP assume the Cinema Desktop monitor has a gamma of 1.8 regardless of what it actually is and makes the adjustment resulting in darker images if you've graded in Color on a monitor with a gamma of 2.2 or thereabouts.

It is widely acknowledged that Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 will do away with the references to 1.8 gamma and so will later versions of Final Cut Studio. GREAT!!!

In the meantime the best workaround is to have two monitor profiles for your preview monitor one for FCP that has a 1.8 gamma and one set at 2.2 for Color. Oh, and remember to switch off the FCP compatibility switch in QT Pro if using the 2.2 gamma profile.

While OS X has some of the best colour management features in any operating system it is left to the programmer to decide whether the application uses it or not. Apple are not exactly the best advocates of consistent colour management in their application with Quick View, Safari and Preview having wildly different implementations.

I sincerely hope that all applications under Snow Leopard will adhere to colour management best practice.

HP DreamColor Monitor

2009-04-08T14:52:00.002+01:00

I've just returned my monitor because of screen consistency issues albeit very slight but still noticeable and on a monitor designed for critical colour work not as easy to accept as on my cheap and cheerful Dell.

The hue shift was very slight but noticeable in the grey interface elements of OS X although not when a moving image or photo was displayed full screen. My view was that if I can see it my clients will probably see it so the monitor had to be exchanged. After all the DreamColor is a £2100 monitor and not a cheap and cheerful Dell.

I'll write my thoughts on the monitor when I get the replacement.

New Mac Pros

2009-03-03T14:39:00.002Z

Apple has updated their desktop processor line. Of particular note to the Color colourist are the Mac Pro which feature the blindingly fast Core i7 processors and updated graphics cards such as the nVidia 120 GT and the top of the line Radeon HD 4870.

The Radeon HD 4870 will be available separately from Apple as an upgrade in 5-7 weeks for those with older Mac Pros.

Happy days if you can afford it!

New Courses at FXPHD

2009-01-01T12:13:00.002Z

FXPHD have colour grading courses for the Jan 09 term.

Introduction to Da Vinci Resolve

Apple Color 201

Scratch and Grading RED.

http://www.fxphd.com/courseInfo.php

I shall be signing up this term without hesitation.

See you in the classes...

OpenCL

2009-01-01T11:29:00.002Z

Good article from Anandtech on OpenCL.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3488&p=6

Since Apple was instrumental in pushing OpenCL I would expect drivers and a fully working implementation in Snow Leopard.

We can only hope the left-hand and the right-hand inside Apple have been talking and FCS3 will support OpenCL.

BTW, Happy New Year.

WiP

2008-12-22T15:00:00.001Z

Smiling Toothless Old Man

Essaouirra, Morocco 2008.

Project, Moving Postcards

The Future of Apple Color

2008-12-20T10:42:00.001Z

I'm going to kick of my grading blog with a few hopes and dreams for the development of Apple Color. It will be two years next April when Apple shocked many by including the once $25,000 application Final Touch, re-badged as Color, in Final Cut Studio 2.

Version 1.04 has just been released and I wanted to talk about some of my hopes for its future development. Color isn't without its problems but as it stands it is a very capable tool in the hands of a competent colourist but what of its future? Will Apple allow it to stagnate with minor upgrades over time or do they have the ambition to transform it into a competitor to the other file based grading solutions? I have to say right away that I fear the former but hope for the latter but we won't know for sure until Final Cut Studio 3 arrives sometime whenever.

Anyway, let's be positive and expect Apple to be feverishly working away at Color 2.0 so I'll have a chat about the features I would like to see in a future version. I've already sent these requests to Apple via the Feedback form and I urge everyone to send their feature requests too.

Colour Consistency.

It's about time Apple took colour management more seriously in their video applications. No more Gamma Shifts round-tripping between FCP and Color. There is no reason why the image should look different even on a DVI monitor in FCP and Color. Sort out the gamma issues that continue to confuse and inflict pain on everyone!

Support the Wave Panel.

Please add support for the Tangent Devices Wave panel. An attractively priced panel that I'm sure many Color users would rush out and buy if it were compatible.

Radical UI Change.

Instead of the "Rooms" where one has to work left to right I'd like a Nodal workflow. I'd like the "Rooms" to become Nodes that can be selected and mixed and matched in which ever order I want.

Secondary Room.

Hue control confined to matte selection and/or vignette. Unlimited number of tabs, sometimes 8 is just not enough if one is painting with vignettes. I would also like to be able to change the ordering of the secondary tabs dynamically just like Safari tabs. Add a blur parameter to the secondary room too.

Color FX Room.

Shouldn't we just have Shake here? Along with all of Color's nodes add all of Shake's nodes here. I find matte generation woefully inadequate in Color. The ability to bring in external mattes from Mocha would be fantastic not only to have external mattes but to be able to circumvent Color's horrid geometry room and trackers. Boolean operators to combine and subtract mattes would be hugely beneficial too.

Additionally the ColorFX room should move to the Secondary Room and be available to each tab. This assumes my Nodal workflow doesn't happen and the UI remains the same as it is now.

Geometry Room.

I never thought I'd pine for Shake's roto tools but that's what I do regularly when faced with using Color's. The tracker is also dog slow and inaccurate so should be changed immediately. Why not include Shake's tracker code?

The biggest improvement to this room would be to allow 3rd party tracking data and roto shapes, a Shake SSF importer.

Round Trip.

Complete FCP timeline compatibility. All CODECs, Motion clips, blend modes and timewarps be allowed inside Color. Editing of the timeline should also be possible for those last minute changes of mind which do happen after picture lock mid grade.

Audio.

I know there are those that say they couldn't care less about grading with audio well I'm not one of those. Audio provides clues for grading choices and should be added. Even it is just a RAM preview at least the director/client would get an idea of the final programme with synced audio prior to rendering the whole sequence out. OpenCL and Grand Central (below) might mean RT grading with audio without rendering? We can live in hope.

Snow Leopard.

OpenCL and Grand Central are two key technologies that could revolutionise the FCS suite. Color could definitely benefit from both especially if multiple graphics cards could be installed in a Mac Pro and then be utilised under Open CL. Da Vinci's Resolve system uses nVidia's CUDA technology to awesome effect (20 layers of 4k in RT!). Of course I'm not expecting that sort of performance from a couple of GPGPUs in a Mac Pro but significant performance increases would be possible. Fully embracing the technologies in Snow Leopard could make Color a very powerful tool.

What have I missed?

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Guy