Final Cut User

My friends at Adobe are doing a nice NYC event with alot of heavy hitters AJA,Matrox,Gridiron,Motu,Panasonic,Black Magic lots of demo’s and prizes . Broken into 2 sessions so they day workers can make the night sessions.See you there.

Adobe Digital Video Tools Showcase

Thursday, May 29, 2008First Session: 11:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.Second Session: 3:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

New Yorker Hotel Crystal Ballroom, 2nd Floor 481 8th Avenue at 34th Street New York, NY 10001

 Make sure to register here. Register Link.

Another NAB has gone and lots of announcements big and small came but nothing from Apple camp about full Blu-ray support.This topic has been buzzing around for a while now and you can see it really being brought up in response to Adobe having the only solid way besides Sonic Solutions for full Blu-ray authoring .Look I am a Mac zealot and part of my workflow on a daily basis includes Adobe apps like Photoshop,After Effects and now Encore. To be fair I did not touch Encore until mid 2007 because  I needed to upgrade all my Adobe apps to Production Premium because I had never really needed to go outside Final Cut Studio for disc based authoring.We know Apple has been on the Blu-ray Board since 2005 ,remeber this Apple Blu-Ray Board Press Release. and we also know backing HD DVD was something they thought was the right option for that time only to see its demise happen.

So where does this whole mess leave us and by us I mean the smaller shops , the freelancers,  and even big studios on the being able to have full support for Blu-ray authoring on the Mac from Mac based applications ? The answer is who knows . Do I think Apple has been working on updates? YES they are .When you ask ?I hope soon because going from one app to another and having to worry about what will work and wont for file support and failed encodes I do not want to deal with.I want a solution that works so I also do not mind waiting a little bit longer and i would also like to not only be able to author my work or clients work on a personal level I would like to have the option to back up a huge chunk of personal and business information to a 50gb disc.With only a few big release’s that usually drop between now and September we have minor machine updates coming and WWDC in June could we see Blu-ray capable Mac’s? Let’s hope so because the Adobe workflow I have going now is pretty solid for authoring Blu-ray and testing on a PS3. Did I mention Dynamic Link and not re-rendering is also nice .

Here is also some helpful workflow between Compressor and Encore from Adobe’s Dave Helmly.

 Compressor & Encore workflow.

Studiodaily has a first look video of Imagineer’s new Mogul Review system by CE Raum product designer for Imagineer Systems.I hope to get some more info on all the new changes coming from Imagineer in a upcoming post. Studiodaily look at Imagineer Mogul Review System.Here is a nice little video from Imagineer’s site as well explaining some more about Mogul. Mogul Video. 

My buddies over at Gridiron and Toolfarm.com have a extended NAB deal for today only on Nucleo Pro 2 so if you even use After Effects for anything you want this . It is AE rendering on steroids .Here is the link  Toolfarm.com Store.

Nucleo Pro 2

Nucleo Pro 2 is the latest version of GridIron’s popular workflow and performance solution for Adobe After Effects. Features include:

• Background Render Queue: Keep working while your projects render in the background.
• 3D Projects: Drag-and-Drop 3D projects from apps including Cinema 4D, 3ds Max, Maya, Lightwave and more to the Background Render Queue.
• Pre-Composition Proxies: Define a proxy for compositions with one-click and Nucleo Pro will keep it up to date.
• Spec Preview: Uses free compute resources to automatically generate previews in the background.
• Spec Render: Build your composition and render it at the same time.
• Commit to Disk: Replace layers with rendered footage to optimize your previews.
• Cache Manager: Clean up spec-preview and spec-render cache files.
• Fast Render and Preview: Uses all available system resources, all CPU’s and Cores, to accelerate rendering and previewing in AE.
• Support for After Effects CS3 & 7 (Looking for AE6.5 support? Get Nucleo Standard for only US$37.50!).

I have been checking out some of the Adobe TV channels and the presentations that i missed while working at the Gridiron booth and man i can’t believe i missed Steve Holmes and Jacob Rosenberg (og Plan B ,H-street skateboard cinematographer).So here are some of the links and vids for you to check out . I did get to catch the technology preview which was awesome to see that Adobe is working on some nice new tools like Cinema DNG (one RAW codec to rule them all) for digital cinema cameras,speech to transcript and what looks like the Thermo beta from TedTalks which is like Flash,Actionscript for non coders to make interactive work. So check out the main link here Adobe Presentations at NAB 2008.

There’s a million of these out there, so why not one more. Here’s a 4k 2:1 grab from a recent project, but also laid out in comparison sizes down to the 1k proxies that are currently being used to cut with. When you think of 1k compared to 4k, it’s 1/4th the resolution (which it is - 4k 2:1 =4096 x 2048. 1k 2:1 =1024 x 512). Though if you take a look at the image, you can actually fit 16 of the 1k images within the 4k frame size. Click the image for the full size tiff. 

Studiodaily has a nice little post up about post workflow with Final Cut in a episodal situation on the series “Everybody Hates Chris.” Take a quick read if you have a chance. My favorite part of the article is about time/cost savings over previous seasons. Check the grab below.

The MXO2 has been announced and I have been waiting for this bad boy for a while now.We all knew some new toy would come after the success of the MXO and being that the MXO was just preview and everyone wanted an MXO with capture support Matrox has a new offering in the form of the MXO2 .Talk about your all in one check out the specs.

Key features

• Truly portable – fits in your laptop bag, runs off a field battery (or its AC adapter)
• HD/SD SDI, HD/SD analog component, Y/C, and composite inputs and outputs
• Genlock – SD analog black burst (bi-level) or HD tri-level sync
• HDMI input, output, and monitoring with calibration controls including blue-only
• 10-bit realtime hardware up/down/cross conversion
• Up to five user selectable simultaneous video outputs – HD and/or SD on HDMI, SDI, and analog
• Professional audio inputs and outputs with 5.1 surround sound monitoring
• RS-422 machine control for frame-accurate capture and print-to-tape
• Captures to a variety of codecs – Apple ProRes 422 HQ, 10-bit uncompressed HD, and many more
• Supports file-based workflows – XDCAM, XDCAM HD, XDCAM EX, P2
• Works with Final Cut Pro, Apple Color, Adobe Premiere Pro and all QuickTime applications that support the V-out component
• For use with Intel-based MacBook Pros and Mac Pros

Inputs

Video

• SDI - HD/SD
• Component - HD/SD
• Y/C
• Composite
• HDMI - HD/SD

Audio

• 2 XLR - stereo pair (balanced)
• 2 RCA - stereo pair (unbalanced)
• 2 AES/EBU
• SDI embedded – up to 8 channels
• HDMI embedded - up to 8 channels

Outputs

Video

• 2 SDI - HD/SD
• Component - HD/SD - 12-bit
• Y/C - 12-bit
• Composite - 12-bit
• HDMI - HD/SD

Audio

• 4 XLR - 2 stereo pairs (balanced)
• 6 RCA - for surround sound monitoring (unbalanced)
• 2 AES/EBU
• SDI embedded – up to 8 channels
• HDMI embedded - up to 8 channels

Genlock

Matrox MXO2 provides SD analog black burst (bi-level) or HD tri-level sync genlock. It can genlock to any type of video input or to house sync. Timing offset controls can be used to align your video output relative to your external genlock source to compensate for cable delays within your facility.

Realtime hardware up/down/cross conversion

Matrox MXO2 lets you deliver in any format your clients demand. The 10-bit hardware scaling provides high-quality mastering.

HD to SD downscaling

Matrox MXO2 provides realtime HD to SD downscaling so that you can monitor or record an SD master of your HD project in real time. Proper conversion of the HD color space to the SD color space and proper aspect ratio conversion to anamorphic, letterbox, and center cut are supported.

SD to HD upscaling

Matrox MXO2 provides realtime SD to HD upscaling with proper conversion of the SD color space to the HD color space.

Cross conversion

Matrox MXO2 offers realtime cross conversions from 720 to 1080 and 1080 to 720. Realtime frame rate conversion is also supported with the following cadences – 2:3:2:3, 2:3:3:2, and 2:2:2:4. This feature is useful if, for example, your source material is recorded at a different frame rate or resolution than the delivery format your client requires. It also facilitates monitoring when, for example, you need to work with 23.98 fps footage but your monitor does not support that frame rate. You can use MXO2’s realtime frame rate conversion to view your project at 29.97 fps.

Now with all this and the price coming in at 1,599.00(US) Matrox has just thrown its hat in the ring for the all time bad ass capture and preview tool award from me.The real killer sell for me is basically this is a true capture device for your Macbook Pro over Express card slot and not over firewire. Having to work in 8 and 10 bit still makes the MX02 a no brainer for alot of people in broadcast and on set . As soon as i can get my hands on one i will have a full feature report testing with both Mac towers and portables both studio and on set. So we can see how it actually handles in real world workflow. 

Matrox MXO2 

While reflecting on post for a couple of projects this morning, I began drifting along through cyber space poking at some info on Panasonic’s P2 update of the Varicam.  It struck me that I didn’t recall any tape based releases from Panasonic during NAB.  Shocked by this sudden realization I quickly referred to Panny’s Press Release Page to see if maybe I was mistaken… but there isn’t any mention of tape. I just perused Sony’s Press Releases too - there’s a bit of tape in there but it’s out numbered by developments in alternative recording methods.
So many, and I mean MANY - types of production rely on tape and will need tape for archiving for a long time to come. It will be very interesting to see how long before professional tape based recording is phased out…. more to come.

Here are some quick links to the uncorrected 4k Tiffs that I mentioned I would post-  Each one has a low res jpeg preview here click the link to download. 48MB Each

Grab 1

Grab 2

Grab 3

Grab 4