Noise Industries has upgraded the FxFactory to 4.0 and added Premiere Pro CS 6 Support. I have a ton of their compatible and free plug ins, but don’t actually own this suite (always thought it was a tad expensive), but this gives me one more reason, as I have moved from any version of Final Cut and now prefer Premiere Pro (though I of course still have Media Composer which works with very few plug ins).
Apple has updated it’s iMac and it is thinner and more powerful, and now sans a CD rom drive.
Most impressive for editing are NVIDIA Mobile processors across the line, so they should all be great for CUDA in Premiere Pro. The low end has a GT 640M with 512MB of RAM, the second has a GT 650M with 512MB, the 3rd has a GTX 660m with 512MB and the high end has a GTX 675 with 1GB of RAM (best for editing right there). Even better the high end is configurable to a Geforce GTX 680MX with 2GB of RAM!
Too bad ll the stock models have i5 processors, but you can upgrade to an i7 that is 3.4Ghz. The high end also has user addable RAM, though the smaller model is soldered, but comes with 8GB to start.
Another exciting upgrade is the Fusion Drive you can get in BTO. It has 128GB of Flash Ram tied to 1 or 3 TB of regular hard drive, so your system can be on the fast Fusion, but you seamlessly get FLASH speeds for your system.
Starting at $1299-$1999 and available in November to December.
You have to configure it, but it really could be a great editing machine, especially with Thunderbolt, though I would prefer a non-mobile video card personally.
FCP.Co has an article on installing a PC GTX570 in a MacPro to get better OpenCL performance in FCP X, but it will also increase your CUDA power for Premiere Pro and After Effects CS6.
Still you can score over 1000 on Luxmark if you go for a GTX670 instead (which has a huge amount more of CUDA cores, and can still draw it’s power from the internal power supply instead of say a 680, which would require an external power source to run), but they are not as well supported on the Mac. Either way you will need to go to Netkas to get some instruction and some help (though some of the help can be rather surly, but it is worth it if can really beef up using your MacPro). Someone at Netkas has also figure out how to Firmware update recent MacPro’s to the latest firmware for the newest itineration, allowing beefier XEON’s into your old MacPro.
The instructions are pretty easy, but I have found that they don’t always work, so think about re-installing your NVIDIA drivers once you are done, as that did it for me.
You will also need to do some hacking to Premiere Pro and After Effects to get them working with the CUDA cores on a new video card.
StudioDaily has an awesome article on how they are using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 on SNL. They were in Final Cut Pro and decided to move to Premiere Pro, especially because of the workflow with After Effects.
Still I am surprised it is all Mac, but they obviously had Macs for Final Cut. So far I am impressed with CS6, but there have been some stability issues for me, especially with CUDA, though hopefully that last NVIDIA update fixed that. I would think PC’s would be faster and more stable, though I do still love my Mac. They had just better make a really kick ass MacPro really damn soon!
CoreMelt has released the free ActiveText plug in for creating text with pre-animated templates, no keyframes.
I am not too much of a fan of templated effects, but you really can’t argue with free.
Pond 5 has released a new plug in to search for stock footage from within Premiere Pro. You can browse their library, and automatically import free watermarked clips into your project, and if you purchase the clips, you can automatically conform to replace the clips with full versions! A very cool idea!
I know, I know iChat theater is old technology and has been out since Final Cut Pro 7 was was released, but it is still awesome tech. If you have a web camera or iSight you can share what you are viewing in Final Cut Pro 7 using iChat (or messages in Mountain Lion) and you can hear the person on either end and see Timecode as well. It has it’s issues (audio often drops out and you have to restart the computer to get it back, and often it is hard to get the chat to actually start), but overall it works very well and allows for remote monitoring of an edit.
Sure you can share your screen with Skype, but that shared the whole screen, timeline and all, and the video is small. iChat theater allows you to share just what is playing back from Final Cut Pro. It is awesome for editors who like to work at home, and producers who like to do the same. And it works very well overall.
The problem is that Final Cut Pro 7 is EOL and will never be updated again, and is really showing it’s age. Sure many companies have such an investment that they are still using it before the go with AVID (though I prefer Premiere Pro, if only it were more stable). And neither Premier Pro or Media Composer have anything like it.
iChat theater and Final Cut Pro 7 is an elegant solution to a problem that is very relevant today (editors working remotely), and a new solution needs to be implemented in AVID and Premiere Pro.
I wonder if it could be done via a plug in like BlackMagic or AJA, as if it was going out via video to Messages or Skype or a proprietary messaging program? The thing is it is such a great piece of software that the competitors need it (even if FCP X doesn’t have it anymore either).
Working from home means companies need less edit bays, editors get more sanity from not driving, and it is better for the environment not having to drive, so someone please come up with a solution and fast!
Studio 1 Productions has an article on how to unlock Adobe Premiere Pro to work with almost any CUDA card. A must have for those who want the most power on MAC with Premiere Pro, since the Mac is generations behind on it’s video cards.
From Todd Kopriva at Adobe. And over at NVIDIA. Causes crashes when going from Safari to Premiere Pro.
Hmm, doesn’t sound like the same issue that I have been having, but hopefully it is similar, and accounts for the Premiere Pro instability.