It's a Brave New World – Blog edited by Scott Arundale

Apple’s Final Cut Pro is the leading video-editing program. It’s a $1,000 professional app. It was used to make “The Social Network,” “True Grit,” “Eat Pray Love” and thousands of student movies, independent films and TV shows. According to the research firm SCRI, it has 54 percent of the video-editing market, far more than its rivals from Adobe and Avid.

On Tuesday, Apple pulled a typical Apple move: it killed off the two-year-old Final Cut 7 at the peak of its popularity.

In its place, Apple now offers something called Final Cut Pro X (pronounced “10”). But don’t be misled by the name. It’s a new program, written from scratch. Apple says a fresh start was required to accommodate huge changes in the technological landscape.

Apple veterans may, at this point, be feeling some creepy déjà vu. You’ve seen this movie before. Didn’t Apple kill off iMovie, too, in 2008, and replace it with an all-new, less capable version that lacked dozens of important features? It took three years of upgrades before the new iMovie finally surpassed its predecessor in features and coherence.

Some professional editors are already insisting that Apple has made exactly the same mistake with Final Cut X; they pointed out various flaws with the program after an earlier version of this column was posted online on Wednesday. They say the new program is missing high-end features like the ability to edit multiple camera angles, to export to tape, to burn anything more than rudimentary DVDs and to work with EDL, XML and OMF files (used to exchange projects with other programs). You can use a second computer monitor, but you need new TV-output drivers to attach an external video monitor. You can’t change the settings of your exported QuickTime movies without the $50 Compressor program.

Apple admits that version X is a “foundational piece.” It says that it will restore some of these features over time, and that other companies are rapidly filling in the other holes.

For nonprofessionals, meanwhile, Final Cut is already tempting — especially because the price is $300, not $1,000. It’s the first Apple program that’s available only by download from the online Mac App Store, not on DVD. All of the programs formerly called Final Cut Studio have been rolled into Final Cut except Motion and Compressor, which are sold separately. Final Cut Express and DVD Studio Pro are gone.)

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Once you’re past the shock of the new layout, the first thing you’ll notice is that Apple has left most of the old Final Cut’s greatest annoyances on the cutting-room floor.

First — and this is huge — there’s no more waiting to “render.” You no longer sit there, dead in the water, while the software computes the changes, locking up the program in the meantime, every time you add an effect or insert a piece of video that’s in a different format. Final Cut X renders in the background, so you can keep right on editing. You cannot, however, organize your files or delete clips during rendering.

Second, in the old Final Cut, it was all too easy to drag the audio and video of a clip out of sync accidently; little “-1” or “+10” indicators, showing how many frames off you were, were a chronic headache. But in the new Final Cut, “sync is holy,” as Apple puts it. Primary audio and video are always synced, and you can even lock other clips together so that they all move as one.

In fact, an ingenious feature called Compound Clips lets you collapse a stack of audio and video clips into a single, merged filmstrip on the timeline. You can adjust it, move it and apply effects as if it were a single unit, and then un-merge it anytime you like. Compound Clips make it simple to manage with a complicated composition without going quietly insane.

In the old Final Cut, if you dragged Clip A so that it overlapped part of Clip B, even briefly, you wound up chopping away the covered-up piece of Clip B. But now, the timeline sprouts enough new parallel “tracks” to keep both of the overlapping clips. Nothing gets chopped unless you do it yourself.

Source: David Pogue / NYTimes.com

Apple’s new non-linear editing app plots a roadmap to the future of video editing

by Gary Adcock, Macworld.com

With the release of its hotly anticipated Final Cut Pro X (FCP X), Apple breaks new ground—not just with its flagship video editor’s interface and underlying infrastructure—but with the whole mindset of what it means to be a working professional video editor.

Apple has revamped Final Cut Pro’s hands-on user experience in three major areas: Editing, media organization, and post-production workflow. New tools such as the Magnetic Timeline, Clip Connections, Compound Clips, and Auditions provide a smooth, intuitive editing experience.

With the rise of data-centric workflows and tapeless video recording, organizational tools such as Content Auto-Analysis, Range-based keywords, and Smart Collections work in the background to automate formerly tedious and time-consuming manual processes.

Post production workflows now offer customizable effects, integrated audio editing, color grading, and a host of streamlined delivery options.

With this new application, video pros can no longer follow traditional ways of working.

Clips in FCP X’s new Event Library are sorted by both user-created Custom Keywords (blue icons) and Smart Collections. The latter are created automatically by Content Auto-Analysis during import (purple icons).

Final Cut Pro X, despite its familiar name, is not an upgrade of Final Cut Pro 7. It is a brand new product. FCP X is also no longer part of a suite of applications such as Final Cut Studio, but rather one of a trio of component parts that include Final Cut Pro X ($300), Motion 5 ($50), and Compressor 4 ($50). All are available separately for download from the Mac App Store. There will be no boxed copies.

Rolling

Final Cut Pro X starts off by immediately analyzing your media as it begins to import footage, while at the same time archiving critical secondary information on color balance, motion, rolling shutter artifacts, tracking, and stabilization data on a clip-by-clip basis.

While handling the bulk of analytical information at ingest, FCP X is tagging the files with metadata in a manner that speeds secondary file processing, delivery, and rendering capabilities and vastly accelerates workflow. The heavy lifting of this content is invisibly handled in the background—between the application and the Mac operating system—as a byproduct of the conversion to a fully 64-bit application workflow.

The most profound interface changes to FCP X—beyond the new darker look—are the Event Browser and the Event Library. Importing your content into the app creates a new Event, a virtual folder that holds all of the information about your media: what it is, where it’s stored, and whether it’s from a specific date, place, or client. You can even rate, organize, and show or hide clips from view while accessing tools like Keyword and Smart Collections. Events are created by the application as part of the ingest, in addition to your organizational effort.

When you’re done creating your video, you can use the direct upload options within FCP X to share it on Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube, and CNN iReport. All Apple devices are available as options, as well as Podcast Producer, output for standard definition DVDs, and even Blu-ray devices, directly within FCP X. Plus, the application still offers fully integrated processing with Compressor. Standalone export output options offer all flavors of Apple’s ProRes, H.264, DVCProHD, Apple HDV, and even Sony’s XDCamEX format at 35Mbps and the 50Mbps version of the XDCamHD 422 codec.

Here are the currently available output options for file delivery when exporting your project directly from FCP X.

Magnetic Timeline

Acting as a trackless canvas for your video edit, the Magnetic Timeline allows you the freedom to arrange and re-arrange your media wherever you want. Existing clips on the timeline slide in and out of the way without danger of collision or overwriting a previous edit. They snap into place “magnetically,” dynamically aligning with existing media in the timeline. Despite being trackless, you can easily create multi-level compositions and properly maintain continuity as you move media around in your project. This feature interactively shows you exactly what’s happening in the timeline as you work, so you can easily execute your vision.

Clip Connections and Compound Clips

Designed to maintain the continuity of media in the timeline, Clip Connections are relational links between primary media in the timeline and secondary elements. Content such as titles, B-roll, sound effects, and even music, can be moved and repositioned seamlessly as a single clip, maintaining audio and video sync, and giving you a clear, visually defined connection to your assets.

Alongside Clip Connections and its facility at combining primary and secondary elements into a cohesive unit for editing and filtering, Compound Clips further advances the concept by allowing a complex multi-element group of media to be handled as a single clip. It’s easy. Just select the relevant media and choose Create Compound Clip from the File menu (or hit the Option-G key command).

Compound Clips let you move, duplicate, and handle clips as an individual segment. You can even share such clips across multiple projects or use a clip to apply filters and effects across all combined elements. The Compound Clips feature helps video editors remove clutter and simplify the timeline’s organization, while maintaining media continuity.

This is the Compound Clip when open.

The Compound Clip command offers a vastly simpler timeline that minimizes the additional track and clip information until needed. Think of it as a nested sequence on steroids. This is the Compound Clip when closed.

Auditions

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Auditions lets you dynamically preview multiple clips within the timeline without disturbing any other media.

Content Auto-Analysis and Keywords

Underneath the surface, FCP X mines metadata from your content from the second you ingest footage from the camera. That data stream includes information such as camera type, frame rate, white balance, and a host of other pre-defined parameters.

The Content Auto-Analysis feature can, during import, distinguish individual people, shot types (close, medium, and wide) and rolling shutter artifacts common to many CMOS cameras. It can also rectify stabilization issues with hand-held shots, adjust overall color balance, and analyze and remove excessive audio noise and hum or silent audio tracks from footage.

Much of FCP X’s automatic keyword creation is derived from this media detection functionality. The program uses the information gathered to create keywords and automatically assembles assets into Smart Collections within the Event Library. Thus, while importing your content, FCP X is sorting, categorizing, and auto keywording in the background. In addition to the keywords that the program assigns, you can add or edit your own keywords to identify specific shots in any manner you choose. Since you can have multiple keywords for the same clip, and all of those clips would appear in each search and link to a single original piece of media, you can accomplish faster, cleaner edits.

Applying customizable effects offers you a real-time preview of the effect on your video in the canvas. Note that the thumbnail view in the Effects Window also shows the clip. The new Skimming feature brings added power to the content preview in FCP X.

Another result of this metadata analysis is the ability to create a keyword selection across multiple pieces of media. Range-based Keywords allow you to flag a keyword across all or just small parts of multiple clips. Keywording offers a larger, far more flexible canvas. No longer are you restricted to specific bins or folders.

Content library access

Borrowing a page from its iLife line of consumer apps, FCP X lets you browse all of your attached media and content libraries within the program. View your iTunes, iPhoto, and Aperture content as well as Motion Libraries directly, as well as 1300 royalty-free sound effects offered as a free download, available via Apple’s software update, after you purchase FCP X.

Customizable effects

FCP X provides a wide array of content, including animations, titles, transitions, and effects sequences, all accessible and editable within the application.

Much of this content was created specifically for Apple by Hollywood effects pros and graphic designers. Customizable from the start, these effects allow you to preview a clip by selecting a shot and then using the skimming function to get a true instantaneous, real-time preview—both as a thumbnail and in the viewer—of how your shot will look with that effect applied.

You also have access to all of the transform functions (crop, scale, rotate, and distort) as well as keyframing of those effects without having to jump between different parts of the interface. Effects imported from Motion 5 can be managed to allow you to modify different parts of the program’s new Parameter Rigging feature.

Effects in viewer.

Audio editing

Apple has chosen to fully integrate audio editing into FCP X. Starting with the ingest, the program analyzes content for hum, noise, and dynamic audio changes. It even automates audio sync from an external recorder and the camera, matching audio and video via the waveforms, to connect content and sync it properly. This was formerly a manual process.

With a large library of sound effects and high-quality audio effects plug-ins available in FCP X, you now have greater control of your audio enhancements than ever before. You can access control for sub-frame audio edits as well as many of the available 64-bit versions of third-party Audio Units plug-ins.

Color grading

Whether you need a single-click correction or want to create a stylized look, all color work now happens within FCP X. From the first analysis, color balance and correction are mapped for use, allowing you to quickly match multiple shots in the same group or refine the look of any clip in the Event Browser or the timeline.

The Color Board gives you a dynamic way to make custom modifications to overall color, saturation, and exposure, while allowing keying and masking to be done simply and directly within the app. The Match Color feature offers a fast and easy way to match the overall color, contrast, and look between two different shots to maintain a project’s visual continuity.

The Color Board represents the essence of Apple’s FCP X interface changes. It allows you simple control over exposure, color, and saturation.

Bottom line

Apple’s new Final Cut Pro X has been re-designed from the ground up with a radically different approach—one that acknowledges and uses device and camera data in a manner that has never before been attempted in the video editing environment.

With this release, Apple shows us the future in which data streams from all the devices we work with communicate seamlessly, sharing media behind the scenes. Think of the advantages and possibilities when all the effort you put into setting up a shot or project continue downstream from your camera into post-production, or follow your content when it’s delivered on the web. That’s the promise of Final Cut Pro X. Will that promise be fulfilled?

[Gary Adcock is a Chicago-based consultant who specializes in building workflows for film and television productions. He is the founder and past president of the Chicago Final Cut Users Group, Tech Chairman of the NAB Director of Photography Conference, and a member of the I/A Local 600/ Camera Guild Training Committee, teaching tapeless production techniques and workflows to professional camera operators. His writings and musing can be found at his blog on Creative Cow .]

MasterImage 3D’s Cell-Matrix Parallax Barrier display provides Rightware the ultimate environment to showcase their ground-breaking Kanzi UI Solution for Autostereoscopic 3D

Computex, Taipei, Taiwan – June 2, 2011 – Rightware Oy, the leader in 3D user-interface (UI) technology, and MasterImage 3D, Inc. the leader in autostereoscopic 3D (AS3D) display announce a strategic partnership to offer the best out-of-the-box AS3D solution for immediate deployment. The combination provides device manufacturers a fast lane for creation of the most intuitive autostereoscopic 3D design for mobile, consumer and automotive devices. A demonstration is available at MasterImage 3D’s booth at Computex 2011 (Hall 3, G0766).

Both companies have leadership positions shaping cutting-edge glasses-free 3D experiences and providing ready-for-business solutions for their customers. In this alliance, MasterImage 3D’s patented Cell-Matrix Parallax Barrier uses a “cell gap” approach enabling the brightest, sharpest glasses-free 3D experience with the widest viewing angle. This barrier was recently announced in their latest 3D CELL reference tablet based on Texas Instrument’s OMAP™ 4 platform technology. Rightware focuses on the software aspects and has released the world’s first commercial AS3D user-interface software solution for embedded devices, using their celebrated Kanzi UI Solution.

“This partnership means device manufacturers can have access to the latest autostereoscopic 3D software and hardware from one partnership. We’ve been working closely with MasterImage 3D and we’re extremely excited about the quality of their cell-parallax implementation,” said Tero Sarkkinen, CEO of Rightware. “Device manufacturers are aggressively including AS3D in their new offerings, seeking ways to provide real consumer value and differentiate through enhanced 3D design.”

For device manufacturers, this partnership means faster time to market with the most compelling hardware and 3D user interface solution. This consumer-friendly 3D navigation can intuitively showcase the variety of 3D applications that will spark the growth of a next-generation mobile 3D ecosystem—from 3D movies, games, apps, video and user-generated content.
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“One of the most thrilling contributions to the 3D content ecosystem is dynamic and interactive visual navigation,” said Roy Taylor, Executive Vice President and General Manager at MasterImage 3D. “Rightware is an inspired pioneer in introducing new consumer experiences and their Kanzi 3D UI running on barrier really showcases the beginning of an incredible industry.”

About Masterimage 3D Inc.
Masterimage 3D Inc. is a 3D technology company that provides pioneering solutions for theaters, mobile devices and gaming. With digital 3D cinema systems installed over 60 countries, Masterimage 3D is a fast-growing digital 3D system supplier, offering audiences the clearest, sharpest 3D experience while providing exhibitors with a compelling ownership-based pricing model. The company invented, patented and mass-produced the cell-matrix parallax barrier, the leading 3D technology for auto-stereoscopic mobile display. It enabled one of the world’s first glasses-free 3D mobile phones and is in development for devices in 2011. Its 3D camera ASIC empowers users to create 3D content. Founded in 2004, the company is privately held and headquartered in Hollywood, with offices in the UK, Tokyo and Seoul. More information: http://www.masterimage3D.com.

About Rightware
Rightware® is the market leader in 3D User Interface technology, serving mobile, automotive and other embedded industries with its Kanzi® solution for rapid 3D user interface design and deployment. Rightware has introduced the world’s first stereoscopic 3D (S3D) user interface solution. Rightware also develops industry leading system performance analysis tools. Rightware’s renowned product portfolio includes the Basemark® product family for various benchmarking purposes, plus 3DMark® Mobile for OpenGL ES 1.x and OpenGL ES 2.0, VGMark® for OpenVG 1.x, and SPMark® platform benchmark for Android, MeeGo, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Linux and mobile Java. Rightware is headquartered in Espoo, Finland and has offices in Shanghai, Beijing, and Palo Alto. More information: www.rightware.com.

3ality Digital and RED Digital Cinema Partnership Kicks Off With S3D Production Classes and Presentation at REDucation

Burbank, CA. – June 1, 2011 – 3ality Digital, world leader in advanced technologies to empower creative digital stereoscopic 3D (S3D) acquisition, and RED Digital Cinema announced today a Stereoscopic 3D partnership, which launched during the recently completed REDucation sessions on May 24-28 at RED Studios Hollywood. 3ality Digital will be the primary 3D partner for RED Digital Cinema, and together the companies will train professional and aspiring filmmakers on how to create clear and pristine 3D images using the same equipment as elite Hollywood directors like Peter Jackson and Bryan Singer.

“The biggest tent pole movies shooting on the planet right now, like The Hobbit, are all shooting S3D on EPIC and 3ality Digital,” said Ted Schilowitz, Leader of the Rebellion at RED Digital Cinema. “The teams at RED and 3ality Digital have been working together for years behind the scenes. Now is the right time to take that relationship to the next level and integrate education components for the community.”

As the primary stereoscopic 3D partner for RED, 3ality Digital lent its technology, currently being used in feature films such as The Amazing Spiderman and Jack the Giant Killer, to REDucation’s 3-day introductory session May 24-26, as well as during the advanced classes May 27-28. The REDucation Open House included a screening of S3D content produced with 3ality Digital technology. Attendees also experienced special presentations from RED including the latest “Tattoo” EPIC Reel shown in 4k.

“S3D is here to stay and choosing partners at the forefront of the technology that really grasp what true, high-resolution cinema and S3D are all about is essential for business and for the community,” said Steve Schklair, CEO of 3ality Digital. “Educating filmmakers and getting RED and 3ality Digital technology in their hands at events like REDucation is a crucial step towards accelerating and facilitating S3D content production and ultimately consumer adoption.”

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–
About RED Digital Cinema
Red Digital Cinema is the brainchild of Jim Jannard, founder of Oakley, world-famous manufacturer of sunglasses, sports apparel and personal electronics. Mr. Jannard is a self-professed lover of all things photographic, having amassed an extensive photographic collection, as well as having been a shooter for most of his life. His search for the perfect video/film camera was never satisfied and proved to be the inspiration behind creating the ultimate full motion camera. His desire was to create a camera that matched the quality of, and processed images similar to, the very finest digital still cameras…. but at motion picture frame rates.

About 3ality Digital
3ality Digital is a pioneer and leading authority in stereoscopic 3D (S3D). 3ality Digital provides the film and television industry with camera platforms, stereo image processing systems and S3D image scaling technologies that are considered the “gold standard” for the production of compelling and immersive S3D entertainment. Whether for a feature film or live sporting event, its innovative technology empowers customers to stay in control of creativity when working with S3D.

Founded in 2000 by CEO, Steve Schklair, 3ality Digital has a reputation as an innovator in S3D, with its technology powering multiple live-action firsts. This includes: U2 3D, the first movie shot completely in live-action S3D; the first live S3D broadcast of an NFL game (Raiders vs. Chargers, December 4th, 2008, broadcasted to a select audience); the first live S3D sports broadcast available to consumers, including the 2009 BCS Championship Game, BSkyB’s landmark Manchester United vs. Arsenal soccer broadcast (January 31st, 2010), the first network hockey telecast ever produced in S3D (New York Rangers vs. Islanders, March 24th 2010 on MSG); the first S3D commercial broadcast during a Super Bowl (Sobe “Lizard Lake”); the first full episode of a scripted television series shot in live-action S3D (Chuck vs. The Third Dimension, aired on NBC on February 2nd, 2009); and first RED EPIC S3D Movie, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man.’

For more information, please visit www.3alitydigital.com

We knew it would come to this.  My kids who are fairly tech savvy even sniff at the 3D glasses now.  They could care less and tell me that it’s just another way to charge more.  The post production industry is still hoping for a windfall when it comes time to retrofit the enormous back library of titles and present them in 3D.  I am very interested to see how Titanic does when it returns next spring in stereo.

This article by David Lieberman at Deadline.com:

Investors are jumping on the anti-3D bandwagon as the weekend’s lackluster sales of 3D tickets for DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 2 seemed to confirm that audiences are fed up with the higher prices exhibitors are charging for the immersive visual experience. Shares of 3D technology company RealD were down 12% in mid-day trading to $27 — amounting to a 23% decline over the last two weeks. Even with the drop, RealD shares are up nearly 40% from this time last year. Investors appear to be more disenchanted with DreamWorks Animation, which is making all of its films in 3D. Its shares were off 3.3% at midday to about $24 — which is down nearly 20% vs this time last year. 3D tickets accounted for about 45% of Panda’s domestic box office revenues. By contrast, last year DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek Forever Aftergenerated 60% of its opening-weekend revenues from 3D, even though it was on 343 fewer 3D screens, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Barton Crockett notes. Wall Street’s most vocal critic of 3D — BTIG’s Richard Greenfield — reiterated his “sell” recomendation for DreamWorks Animation and lowered his 2011 earnings estimate for the company to $1.54 a share, from $1.81. The company’s movies “have not lived up to expectations and the global DVD market is in a free fall as consumers continue to shift from buying to renting.”

And the NY Times weighed in after the long holiday weekend:

Has the 3-D boom already gone bust? It’s starting to look that way — at least for American moviegoers — even as Hollywood prepares to release a glut of the gimmicky pictures.

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Matt Toder has been editing video professionally for eight years, and currently works at Gawker.TV. These are his thoughts on Apple’s latest Final Cut Pro release.

I landed my first job in post-production in 2003 at a small house which used Avid exclusively. It had plenty of problems; we struggled with the Dragon error for a few months, converted to Xpress Pro when it came out, and then wrestled with that. There just weren’t any other options. And then Apple’s Final Cut Pro was released, although it too had some problems. But when Avid stopped listening to their customers and became more and more inflexible, Final Cut Pro became an increasingly attractive option. By 2009, significant portions of the editing community were using it.

And now we’ve been given a glimpse of FCPX, a massive, from-the-ground-up revision of Final Cut Pro which proves one thing definitively: that Apple understood many of the problems that were inherent to Final Cut Pro. But, instead of fixing them, they just decided to change everything.

At the preview event, Peter Steinauer, FCP Architect, assured the audience that FCPX was just as much for professional editors as FCP7 was. It really doesn’t seem that way, though. After getting through some of technical aspects of what makes FCPX better than its predecessor in terms of processing power and such—which does seem awesome—Steinauer moved on immediately to color sync. He boasted that FCPX would make sure that pixels looked exactly the same throughout the editing process, noting “you can trust that the pixels coming off a pro file device track all the way through your workflow to display on the screen and ultimately out to output.” This all seems well and good, except it’s completely unimportant for professional editors who aren’t finishing in Final Cut. Some of us color correct in a da Vinci with a professional colorist and then conform in a Flame. Steinauer’s point proves the underlying key of FCPX: that it really isn’t for professional editors.

If it were a device for professional editors, FCPX wouldn’t require a complete rethinking of non-linear editing. It would have instead addressed some of the problems that Final Cut Pro presents for professionals, problems that have existed since day one and that have solutions in the Avid. Like the ability to save your export settings. Or the ability to have an upackable project that allows editors to share bins and not force them into creating multiple projects to share. Or a reliable shared media solution, like Unity or LanShare, so we don’t have to work off of local drives all the time. Or a reliable find bin command that doesn’t constantly tell you your clips aren’t in the browser when you know for a fact that they are. Or a title tool that not only allows you to kern your text but allows you to see what you’re doing in the sequence without having to click back and forth constantly. Or, as the most recent updates to Media Composer have, a way to read RED files directly and then export DPX files. Because, again, not everyone is finishing in Final Cut.

If this were truly a device for professional editors, those improvements would have been in FCPX, and Steinauer would have made a point of mentioning them considering the room he was playing to. But he didn’t. He also didn’t mention EDL’s, OMF’s, XML’s or any changes to the Media Manager that might make generating a cut list for telecine a little easier. He also would have mentioned how the new Compound Clip feature would react when EDL’s are being generated from a sequence full of them.

The idea of Compound Clips speaks to another issue with FCPX. One of the hardest adjustments an Avid editor had to make when switching to Final Cut Pro was no longer being able to load a sequence into the source monitor and cut it into the sequence while maintaining master clip information; FCP turned it into a new clip, which really was just a work around for not being able to generate video mixdowns. This meant that you couldn’t build a select string and then edit from it while still being able to match to your master clip. One would have hoped that FCPX would be able to do something like this, have a more nuanced understanding of the timeline, the way that Avid does, and improve upon a situation where every little move throws everything out of whack unless you’ve gone through and manually locked tracks.

Apple seems to know that keeping things in sync in Final Cut Pro was extremely problematic and have attempted to solve this with Clip Connections and the Magnetic Timeline. Clip Connections can lock a piece of video and its corresponding dialogue to, say, a specific sound effect so that they all travel together all the time. The Magnetic Timeline feature ensures that when this group is moved, you don’t get a clip collision or have to eliminate something from the next piece of media in the timeline. Instead, the next piece of media slides down one track in the timeline. Of course, the demo contains one track of video and two tracks of audio so it’s easy to see that everything works out. I wonder what will occur when you’ve got two pieces of video composited together with a title on top and your audio has dialogue, music, and a couple of sound effects. Will it move everything in the higher audio tracks down as well, thereby destroying the scheme of your timeline?

With tables being reserved online, nobody waits in their cars outside the restaurant for never ending hours to get a price viagra great erection. In fact, many of these tablets are becoming more popular due to acquisition de viagra bananaleaf.com.ph the ageing population. It is also not advisable to be used by everybody. discount generic cialis cheap cialis viagra Just a click on the reputed and reliable online pharmacy. The biggest, most apparent change is the absence of the source monitor: it’s the iMovie-ing of non-linear editing. Of all the people watching the preview, applauding wildly and yelling out “I want it!” and “thank you,” I can’t believe that one person didn’t scream, “where’s the freaking source monitor?” This represents a gigantic change in the way non-linear editing occurs, a nearly unfathomable one. Since non-linear editing was invented, the mainstays have been the source monitor, the record monitor, the browser and the timeline. To take one of these away means that non-linear editing has to be rethought entirely. I’m not quite sure how you can set an exact in point without it, especially when you’re forced into using the iMovie yellow selection brackets.

All this being said, there certainly are some incredible things about FCPX, most obviously that it will render in the background and that no one will have to stare at the “writing video” dialogue box anymore. That really does sound great. And that it will analyze clips upon import so it will stabilize more quickly (although it already does the analyzing in the background). The FCPX function of analyzing clips for shot length and content (wide two shot, close single, etc) also seems great, though it would have been nice for Steinauer to mention whether this increases import time or not. And since it’s doing all this during-import work, can it also provide a transcript of some sort? That would have been truly useful because it takes a lot of work find an interview subject saying the exact right phrase, much more work than scanning through dailies for the close up series.

Another thing that I would have loved Steinauer to discuss is whether or not an editor can customize how clips are analyzed upon import and how find bin will work now. Specifically, where you will get thrown when try to find a clip in the browser. Do you get thrown to the folder with other wide shots, with other two shots, with other sunset shots or do you get to the original master clip housed somewhere else? These are the questions that need to be answered, the ones that professionals are asking. Because these are the features that change individual workflow and force editors to alter the habits that they’ve developed over time.

(The audio also gets analyzed during import, to remove hum and balance levels. Do these adjustments hold when you export an OMF and do they carry over to ProTools? Who knows, Steinauer didn’t mention anything about the way FCPX talks to other applications.)

If this is the future of Final Cut Pro, and indeed non-linear editing, then that’s fine and I can’t change it. Just don’t tell me that it’s for pros, but you have to change the way you’ve been thinking about everything. And don’t make me change for the wrong reasons, for reasons applied because the improvements speak most to people who aren’t professionals. I love that editing is something that a lot of people can do now, that there’s a greater level of understanding about what it really takes to make a compellingpiece out of a collection of images and sounds and your imagination. Editing, for me, is still where the magic is. It’s one thing to make changes for the sake of the people you claim are your clients and quite another to make changes for the sake of people who aren’t. That’s what these changes are, they are changes for the sake of making editing more accessible, not more functional.

FCPX shouldn’t be about helping people who don’t know what they’re doing, it should be about helping people who do know what they’re doing work better and faster and, most often, that means giving them the flexibility to work however they please, using the techniques they’ve developed over years of working in tough conditions. Because when you don’t have a Senior Creative Director sitting behind you, you don’t really have to worry about finding clips fast enough or making precise edits immediately. But when you are in that situation, you won’t have time re-think the thing you’ve been doing for years and years.

When FCPX is released in June, the countdown will be on for FCP7. Whether it takes a year or possibly less, support will dry up and eventually it won’t be a viable editing platform anymore. I’m not gonna wait that long. Instead, I’ll reacquaint myself with my old friend Avid, catch up on what I’ve missed and fall back into the warm embrace of my fully customized appearance and keyboard settings. It’ll take a minute to get completely familiar with it, to remember everything, and even to be reminded of all the things that drove me crazy. But at least I’ll still have a source monitor.

source: uk.gizmodo.com

TV and film industries treated 3-D like any other premium tech, pumping it full of marketing dollars. Everyone lost money. Now they await a new generation of film directors to save them using the one thing money can’t rush: talent.

You could forgive them for thinking that selling 3-D movies and TV would be easy. Manufacturers and retailers banked on 3-D’s famous novelty; allegedly “good” films like Avatar; and gleaming new HD infrastructure to carry it all into homes. Instead, most of them lost money in Q1, prompting The Financial Times to declare 3-D content would be doomed to niches like gaming and sports.

Samsung has responded tepidly to the 3-D slump by bundling their TVs with a second pair of 3-D glasses for free. If the problem were solvable by marketing, retail price, or technology, the industry might have corrected its path already. But what’s missing isn’t so easy to conjure: good film-making.

Asked about mediocre 3-D TV sales, and Panasonic’s CTO Eisuke Tsuyuzaki echoes a common sentiment in the industry: the barrier is content. “What makes good 3-D TV is new 3-D services,” he says, “and we need to work with the content industry to do this.”

He’s talking about breadth. Panasonic has partnered with DirecTV to produce and manage content for a new 24-hour 3-D channel that will feature all genres of stuff, from sports to documentaries. Partners like DirecTV need a lot of “support,” says Tsuyuzaki, because producing video in 3-D is difficult. “You need a second crew, a second director, and new hardware,” he says.

But that’s not the real holdup, according to sources in Hollywood. Whatever 3-D bottlenecks once existed in the film and TV industry, they’re all but gone now, says Ted Schilowitz of RED Digital Cinema Company, whose menacing-looking Epic 3-D camera rigs are being used to shoot new blockbusters by directors like Peter Jackson, Ridley Scott, and Bryan Singer. “We’ve basically solved all the issues, and the cost wouldn’t even discourage a film with a tiny budget.” Schilowitz says one such film, an indie horror flick named Hellbenders, is being shot in 3-D in suburban New York this spring.

Intel, which makes most of the processors inside today’s 3-D TVs, says that another obstacle is distribution. “The only thing that’s standardized about 3-D is Blu-ray,” says Lance Koenders, the director of marketing for Intel’s digital home group. “What definitely isn’t standardized is how broadcast content and Web content is displayed in 3-D.”
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So while TV-makers are bickering over technology standards, Koenders says, many are also hedging their bets, loading TVs with cheap 3-D systems that offload most of the cost onto battery-powered glasses with active shutters in the lenses. (This little strategy is also the reason today’s home 3-D glasses cost $180 instead of $10, like the 3-D glasses you get in the theater.) “These are the well-calculated risks of breaking a chicken-and-egg problem,” he says.

Consumers haven’t been impressed with OEMs half-assed 3-D systems, which has put the burden on Hollywood to make 3-D appealing. But Schilowitz says that the move to 3-D isn’t like the move to HD. High-definition TV was about improving infrastructure and picture quality. Three-D, by contrast, is an artistic tool. ”When you get right down to brass tacks,” says Schilowitz, “it’s an education issue.” He says most directors of photography in Hollywood haven’t internalized 3-D in their creative process, and it will take time before movie-goers begin discovering films that have innovated with it. “We’re starting to see some guys who are really talented with 3-D,” he says, naming directors of photography like Darius Walsky, responsible for Pirates of the Carribbean 4, and John Schwartzman, who is rumored to be using RED 3-D cameras on the next Spiderman film in 2012. “John [Schwartzman] has taken to it like a duck to water,” says Schilowitz.

Unfortunately for companies like Panasonic and Best Buy, Americans only invest in a new TV an average of once every 8.6 years. By comparison, making a new TV show or movie takes a few months or a year. So retailers and manufacturers will continue to get hung out to dry while Hollywood finds its way.

Manufacturers like LG and Vizio are hoping to speed things by produce “passive” 3-D TVs that forgo geeky, expensive battery-powered glasses in favor of more traditional-looking 3-D eye glasses. As more 3-D blockbusters hit Blu-ray and more TVs come bundled with passive 3-D, consumers might get around to trying it. But the real panacea–and it’s not a quick one–may be the proliferation of consumer 3-D cameras. “There is a huge appetite for people to make their own content in 3-D,” says Tsuyuzaki, whose company has produced one of the first consumer-grade high-def 3-D video cameras. At $800, Panasonic’s 3-D video camera could be cheap enough to get people experimenting.

“Most people that buy those consumer cameras will have no idea how to use 3-D,” says Schilowitz, “but then again, some people will. And one of them will become the next Steven Soderbergh.” Until 3-D’s savior is united with his film-making destiny, a billion-dollar chicken and egg problem rolls on.

source: fastcompany.com

PART ONE
Apple just introduced a new version of Final Cut at the Final Cut Pro Supermeet during NAB 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Touted as “revolutionary as the first version” from 1999, Apple introduced the new Final Cut Pro X saying that every major broadcaster and film maker nowadays relies on FCP for their video editing needs.

Basing on live updates coming from attendees at NAB 2011, Final Cut Pro X has been built from scratch, and it’s entirely 64-bit. It’s based on technologies like Cocoa, Core Animation, Open CL, Grand Central Dispatch and it focuses on image quality. It features a resolution independent timeline up to 4K for scalable rendering — in fact, it appears the old render dialog is gone entirely as the app uses the available CPU to keep files always rendered. FCP X allows you to edit while you’re importing thanks to its new engine, and it’s also got automatic media and people detection on import, as well as image stabilization.

Apple is promoting the new FCP X as a complete and total rebuild. Smart collections look very similar to iMovie, and overall there is a feeling Apple has borrowed some UI elements from the iLife application to make the general design more accessible, even for professionals. For instance, Apple has brought “single keystroke nesting” to Final Cut Pro — a new functionality that allows you to group chunks of media into a single clip in the timeline.  The “inline precision editor” allows you to make edits by revealing media with an iOS-like menu.

Source: http://www.engadget.com

It’s possible that the GUI is more user friendly and the functionality has improved but based on the comments and features presented today the jury is still out as to whether or not FCP will be going head to head with the competition.  This means that ease of use may or may not improve functionality but instead lowers the playing field for all the non-editors out there.  I am all in favor of making editing easier but the roll-out today suggests a beta experience that does little to assist the professional editor in cutting a long form project.  Feels like a step backward on the time/space continuum and I always get a little queasy when the word iMovie is mentioned in the same breath as Final Cut.

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PART TWO

UPDATE 4.13.11

Upon watching the demonstration in full, I got the impression there were some shills in the audience shouting their appreciation for the new features.

Now that calmer minds prevail let’s look at the upside.  Instant nesting with a single keystroke. Easy keyword features. Better sync and collision options. Automatic color grading, stabilization and background rendering.  Excellent use of the 64 bit engine.  But all of this suggests Apple is more interested in the young editor cutting short form trailers than the longform editor trying to cut a feature, nevermind the hapless assistant who must keep it together.  Much of the work that FCP is trying to achieve is normally the work of the assistant but they pre-suppose that the editor is working solo.  Pity that editor if they don’t have a second pair of hands to help him or her.  I’m all in favor of having the machine do the work.  I’m ready as an Apple Certified Trainer to go back to school and re-learn how to cut faster and easier.  What I loved about FCP is that copy and paste makes it easy to move stuff around.  Apple has made it even “easier”, but again requires a new mindset i.e it takes more thought and fewer keystrokes to achieve the same thing.  If this is the future than I am in.  But it begs the question: who is the target audience for this product?  Surely not the Hollywood narrative professional.  Instead the trailer/bumper/extreme sports crowd may find these new features useful.  For improved storytelling techniques, the jury is still out.

-SA

Stereo 3D is becoming almost mundane in its ubiquity with virtually every company of note in the video space touting product which is capable of acquiring, recording, managing, manipulating, delivering or viewing 3D in some fashion. Sony and Panasonic showed off their new 3D camcorders a the National Association of Broadcasters show here on Sunday.

Cost remains the biggest Cost remains the biggest Cost remains the biggest impediment to production and Sony and Panasonic, both of whom have vested interests in 3DTV channels (3Net and DirecTV’s n3D) and a strategy to sell more 3D displays to consumers, are preparing to ship new inexpensive – and uncomplex – camcorders aimed at putting 3D production in the hands of any professional.

Indeed, by the year end both companies will have professional shoulder-mounted and semi-pro handheld integrated 3D camcorders on the market.

Panasonic’s handheld version (the AG-3DA1) is already out and will be joined in the fall with a second integrated 3D camcorder, this time with a larger imager recording to Panasonic’s memory card format P2. This unit, the AG-3DP1, is intended for use in live productions, sports, independent films and documentaries.

Panasonic claims this shoulder-mounted camera can record 80 minutes of stereo in 10 bit AVC intra to twin 64Gb P2 cards. It contains two 1/3”, 2.2 3MOS sensors. By contrast its predecessor contained 2.7 megapixel chips and records to SD cards.

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Also shipping this summer from Sony is a compact 3D XDCAM camcorder intended for videographers, events and corporate videos. The HXR-NX3D1 incorporates two ¼-type CMOS sensors, twin 10x zoom lenses and an internal flash memory of 96GB to enable around 7.5 hours of 3D recording.

Panasonic said its 3DA1was finding favour as a training tool at film schools and sports facilities, including at Florida State for college football.

An eye-catching use of the camcorder will be aboard the final mission of NASA’s shuttle Atlantis this June, during which astronauts will use it to document the International Space Station and experiments in orbit.

At CES earlier this year Sony, Panasonic, and JVC all announced consumer-friendly still imaging and digital video stereo cameras as they seek to create a groundswell of interest and even user generated content in the 3D format. The cameras announced at NAB are a step up in terms of professional ergonomics and imaging quality. Nonetheless there are many critics of such single-bodied twin lens cameras who argue that the fixed interaxial distance between the lenses hampers 3D capture of events, particularly when capturing close ups.

Source: streamingmedia.com

Source: Deadline Hollywood.

The Cameron-Pace Group, announced today at the start of the National Association of Broadcasters confab in Las Vegas, “seeks to accelerate worldwide growth of 3D across all entertainment platforms including features, episodic and live television, sports, advertising and consumer products.” The company, run by co-chairman James Cameron and longtime collaborator Vince Pace, will offer next-generation camera systems, services and creative tools to the entire entertainment industry, not just film. “Our goal is to banish all the perceived and actual barriers to entry that are currently holding back producers, studios and networks from embracing their 3D future,” Cameron said. “We are dedicated to building a global brand that is synonymous with high-quality 3D and spans multiple channels, from features to episodic television, and changes the boundaries of what is understood to be 3D material.”

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Cameron and Pace developed under Pace’s company PACE the Fusion 3D system, which was used for the 3D in such films as Avatar, Tron: Legacyand U2: 3D. PACE has begun the formal rebranding process, and its operation under the Cameron-Pace Group banner is effective immediately. CPG will be headquartered in Burbank, Calif., the current home to PACE.

CPG already is working on film projects that include Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Three Musketeers,The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Life of Pi and 47 Ronin.