iChat theater has issues, but is still a wonderful solution that Adobe and AVID need to implement

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!

MacMatrix Updates SideEffects to work with Mountain Lion

MacMatrix has updated SideEffects which combines SIMBL and and ColorfulSidebar to return colored icons to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. The best part is having your custom drive icons back (as they really do help you hit them).

The only thing that did not work for me was the finder restart added to your Users startup items, and I had to use my own I made with Automator, but I am back to color icons.

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Don’t these look so much better, and I love my custom icons as well!

I am still have some SIMBL crashes though, but have been in contact with the creator to see if we can clear them up, as I love my color finder icons!

Apple releases Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 for Mac

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So Apple has released Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 via the Mac App store for $19.99! Sure are undercutting Microsoft there, and with a year between released they can really add in the near and the short term.

So far my favorite part if that Contacts has returned to a 3 pain view so you can see the groups and contacts at the same time as you could before lion. Still hate the B&W icons in the Finder Sidebar, and the stupidification of the OS (such as hiding the User/Library folder).

Also had some issues, lost the icons in the sidebar and had to dump the sidebar preferences to fix them. The finder also ground to a halt after the upgrade, but I fixed it with Diskwarrior. And I have had some scrolling issues where I would scroll and it would instantly jump back to the top. And Launchbar had to wait for the OS to re-index with Spotlight before it worked (wow, I can barely function without Launchbar at this point). Had to change the settings to allow all apps to launch, so I could install apps from anywhere to get everything working though.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 is unofficially supported in MacPro

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Tej’s Tech Blog has a post on installed an NVIDIA GTX 570 PC card into a MacPro and it seems to work except for EFI (so it goes straight to desktop or login screen, you don’t see the spinning ball at the start. Guess you can’t do safe mode or boot to another drive then from startup, though not positive on that).

You will have to do some Terminal tricks to get the Adobe suite to see it as compatible as the card is not listed for Mac, but it can be done.

This is great news. Wonder if NVIDIA is going towards one driver for all their cards, or if it means that Apple is planning to include NVIDIA if and when it ever updates the MacPro?

No matter what, more NVIDIA support for Macs is a good thing. And it is great that the new MacBook Pro and the MacBook Pro Retina are run by NVIDIA cards, as more CUDA support means more realtime with the Adobe Suite.

Biscardi Creative FCP to CS6 Part 3

Biscardi Creative has posted part 3 of it’s switch to CS6 from Final Cut Pro 7. A good read with interesting points.

•Because of Native editing, they their render time is basically down to realtime render, so a 30 minute show has around a 30 minute render! That is a huge change!

•It requires more setup before hand, and it is smart to organize everything before import.

•Still using FCP 7 for videotape ingest!

•Use Davinci Resolve for grading, though it does not support all the files that Premiere Pro does, so a flattened ProRes Quicktime file is created from final timeline and use resolve’s scene detect tool!

There is of course more, and this is a must read for switchers!