Apple has Announced Snow Lion

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Apple has announced the next version of their OS, which now drops the mac name and is just OS X Mountain Lion. This continues bringing OS X and iOS closer together.

New features include:

  • Further integration with iCloud, which keeps your mail, calendar, contacts and documents in sync.
  • iChat has become Messages, and includes support for messaging with iOS devices and you can download a beta today. It is still a little rough, but being able to have my iMessages synced across all my devices is very cool.
  • Reminders is now on the Mac and syncs with iOS, though this should have been there from the start.
  • Notes is now on the Mac as welll
  • Notification Center on the Mac access with a 2 finger swipe is just like the iOS version, and looks like it will replace GROWL for notifications on the Mac.
  • Share Sheets allows you to contextually aware share where you are from Safari, Notes, iPhoto
  • Twitter has been fully integrated into the OS, just like on iOS
  • Game Center is now integrated into the OS, and you can supposedly play some games between the mac and iOS.
  • AirPlay Mirroring allows you to mirror your computer to your Apple TV.
  • Gatekeeper is the most controversial new feature, initially is set to only allow apps from the Mac App Store, but can be turned off so you can install your own Apps.
  • Another unannounced feature is that Sotfware Update is now gone and integrated into the Mac App Store. This one I find weird, as you don’t upgrade your iOS device through the app store, you have to go into settings to do the update, so why shouldn’t you have to go to Software Update?

Of course it doesn’t come out to till the summer so features will change, and hopefully the color finder icons will return!

AND AN IMPORTANT NOTE FOR EDITORS AS FINAL CUT PRO 7 will likely no longer work on Mountain Lion, so it is time to move on.

Next MacPro 16 Core and NVIDIA Graphics?

Macnn is reporting on the latest set of rumors on a new MacPro, and lets hope it is true, and Apple is staying committed to the pro market in at least it’s hardware.

They would be powered by the new Ivy Bridge 22 nanometer Xeon processors which can have 8 cores and 20MB cache, making for 16 core machines, with 32 virtual machines. And even more exciting to me is the possibility of returning to NVIDIA and their soon to released Kelper hardware. This would mean CUDA acceleration in Adobe Premiere, and hopefully the next generation Quadros being released for the mac. This could mean that Jobs fued with NVIDIA is over. Wouldn’t that rock!

AVID releases AVID Studio for the iPad

FCP.co has an article on the newly released AVID Studio for the iPad. Here is the link to it in iTunes. It is currently $4.99, but will jump to 7.99 in 30 days. Looks pretty cool. Looks higher end than iMovie for the iPad. Looking forward to trying it out.
mzl.ckrcibdb

Big-screen moviemaking comes to the touchscreen with Avid® Studio for iPad.We’ve distilled the world’s leading film-editing technology into an easy-to-use app that enables you to edit video, audio, and photos at the speed of your creativity.’
‘Swiftly arrange your clips in the Storyboard, make precision edits using the Timeline, and add high-quality transitions, effects, and a soundtrack.Then share your movie directly to YouTube, Facebook, and more—or export your project to Avid Studio for the PC and continue editing with even more advanced tools.’Easily Access Your Media
Work with any media on your device—video, audio, and photos
Access media from external devices via an iPad Camera Connection Kit (sold separately)
Capture video and photos from within the app
See your media organized by Albums, Events, Faces, and moreEdit
Get started quickly with how-to materials
Easily navigate your project with intuitive gestures
Swiftly arrange clips in the Storyboard
Make precise edits and trim individual frames in the Precision Trimmer
Use the Razor Blade tool to cut on the fly and delete or replace the second half of the clip
Easily replace one clip with anotherEnhance
Quickly create multi-layer 3D animations, transitions, and titles with included Montage templates
Easily composite video tracks to create layered looks
Add high-quality fades and dissolves to help your story flow
Generate professional-looking motion titles and graphics with full control over text, font, color, size, position, and rotation
Create amazing Picture-in-Picture effects with full control over position, size, and rotation
Pan and zoom on your photos to create high-impact slideshows
Enjoy full-screen playbackCreate Soundtracks
Use your own audio or choose from the included sound effects
Trim audio to any length, set levels, and fade audio in or outShare
Easily share movies via YouTube, Facebook, email, and much more
Export projects to Avid Studio for the PCPro Technology, Pro Results
Created by Avid, the maker of the world’s leading film and music editing technology
Easy enough for the hobbyist, powerful enough for the pro

Apple Has Updated FCP X added Multicam, 3rd Party FCP 7 Project Import

Good old Larry Jordan has a great blog post on the update to FCP X 10 10.0.3, which is another free update.
APPLE’S RELEASE NOTES

According to the Release Notes from Apple, Final Cut Pro X version 10.0.3 adds the following features:

  • Multicam editing with automatic sync and support for mixed formats, mixed frame rates, and up to 64 camera angles
  • Media relink for manual reconnect of projects and Events to new media
  • Ability to import and edit layered Photoshop graphics
  • Advanced chroma keying with controls for color sampling, edge quality, and light wrap
  • XML 1.1 with support for exporting basic primary color grades and both importing and exporting effect parameters and audio keyframes
  • Multiple improvements to the Color Board, including new key commands, editable numeric fields, and adjustable parameters that act like infinite sliders when dragged
  • Ability to reorder color corrections in the Inspector
  • Reveal in Event Browser shows clip range in the filmstrip while in List View
  • Batch offset for clip date and time
  • Ability to search text added to Favorite and Reject ranges
  • Automatic restore of projects and Events in case of file corruption
  • Beta version of broadcast monitoring with third-party PCIe and Thunderbolt I/O devices

Final Cut Pro X version 10.0.3 also improves overall stability and performance, and addresses the following issues:

  • Improves performance when editing text in titles
  • Improves performance when applying an effect from the Effect Browser
  • Improves key-framing behavior in the Inspector, with keyframes automatically added when moving to a new point in time and adjusting a parameter
  • Modifies transition behavior so that all newly added transitions use available media and maintain project length
  • Fixes an issue which affected audio solo while skimming
  • Resolves issues related to using Synchronize Clips with media containing a silent audio channel
  • Fixes an issue in which constant speed retiming was not properly applied when using the Paste Effects command


The 3rd Party FCP XML transfer apps are created by Intelligent Assistance and include 7toX and Xto7. 7toX is available for $9.99 and Xto7 is $49.99 in the App Store, and both with XML much like Premiere Pro ability to open XML files from FCP 7.

Looks like Apple is listening and has added back many of the features that are necessary for a Pro to Use this software, even Beta support for broadcast monitors, and multicam, and especially the ability to relink media to different clips. The biggest are the utilities from Intelligent Assistance, which should be free and integrated, but it is great that they are available at all.

Compressor and Motion have also been updated.

Now FCP X does become a viable editing app and successor to FCP 7, though we still don’t know for how much longer FCP 7 will run on the latest OS’s, so it is time to freeze a system to keep FCP 7 viable and be able to even export XML to be able to import into FCP X (Since it does not work with project files).

And no matter what I still think that that the basic editing techniques of FCP X is broken. The inability to have numbered tracks just would not work with the DR workflows that I cut with and make Media Composer and Premiere the real solutions available for editing with. And honestly FCP X will make more people think they are professional editors and leave the high end jobs to people who can use the other software. Sure you will still be able to make good stuff with FCP X and it does have a powerful engine with impressive features, but it’s fundamental changes to editing are not going to revolutionize the industry, but instead continue to drive people to Adobe and AVID.

I still say Apple should have released this as a new App and made a 64 bit version of FCP 7, and slowly added the new features they wanted to implement instead of this scorched Earth policy which has and will continue to alienate the high end post people.

I think the fact that the Final Cut Pro User Group is now the Creative Pro User Group says a lot. Still the updates to FCP X will mean that more people can and will use it, and I am glad Apple is actually listening to some of the complaints, but mostly I hope it means that AVID and Adobe continue to upgrade their software. After all Premiere Pro really needs to be able to do more than 4 angle multi-cam and the automatic syncing, and being able to re-sync at a later time are very cool features that it could use.

Arstechnia on why Pros are moving away from Apple

Ars Technica has an article on why Pros are moving away from Apple. It talks about the whole Final Cut Pro debacle, the fact that MacPro’s have not been updated in so long, and are rumored to be EOL’ed, but it does end with quotes about how FCP X is not that bad, which may be true for some people in certain situations, but for most Pro’s it is too little and too late.
I mean my first Apple was a IIC, and then a Mac Classic and I have never looked at a Windows PC, but have been pricing them out of late, and even talked to adobe to find out the process for moving my Creative Suite license to Windows, as it is likely that Mac just won’t be around for me as a professional editor and graphics artist.

Bunim/Murray drops Final Cut Pro for AVID

Arstechnica is reporting that, that top reality show producer and long time Final Cut Pro proponent Bunim/Murray has dropped final Cut Pro and is moving back to AVID media composer.

Due to the large volume of media generated by our reality shows, we needed to re-evaluate our editing and storage solutions. At the same time, we were looking for a partner who would understand our long-term needs,



Basically FCP X is not good enough, and FCP 7 is old and gettiing long in the tooth, and with AVID now being 64 bit, they felt the need to make the move.

Apple finally brought iBooks inline with the Kindle App

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Well Apple has finally updated their iBooks app to be more like the Kindle App (can anyone say scared of Amazon Fire) and it now does full screen and night modes where you get gray text on a black screen. I complained about this to Apple right away, but went with Kindle App, because I have found the grey text on a black screen very easy to read, especially at night.

Did Apple have a completed 64 Bit Final Cut Pro 8 that they scrapped?

MacGasm is reporting on a video of Richard Harrington that FCP.CO reported on and posted the video which has subsequently been removed.

Harrington said in the video:

“There was a Final Cut 8 and it was 64bit and it was done and they looked at it and said ‘This is not what we want to do, this is evolutionary, this is not revolutionary’ and they killed it.”


If this is true I am totally disgusted. If it is true, Apple should have released the 64 Bit Final Cut Pro 8, and also released Final Cut Pro X as something else, probably iMovie Pro and then done what they could to implement some of the new technology as add ons to Final Cut Pro 8. They would have had a huge hit on their hands, and could have revolutionized editing, but instead they have killed Final Cut Pro as a professional editing program and made FCP X a completely consumer program. Sure it has some great technology, but it will never become a standard even if it does have some good new ideas, because it does not work as well or efficiently as Final Cut Pro 7.

I still can’t figure out why they did this to begin with. A new program that is a revolution is fine, but you should not throw out an industry standard program because you have a new idea.

Will Apple return to NVIDIA for Laptops?

Applinsider is reporting a rumor that Apple is set to return to NVIDIA for the next round of MacBook Pro’s. This would be great news for editors who have made the switch to Premiere Pro after the whole Final Cut Pro X debacle! I just hope the 17” adds the top of the line GeForce GTX 580M. That would be a pretty bad ass CUDA machine, and with a thunderbolt port could be a pretty serious editing system.

If this happens, maybe you will even be able to get an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 for the MacPro (if they release one more MacPro system at least), it won’t top an SLI system for CUDA, but would be a pretty serious CUDA system.

One can only hope!