Patently Apple on Frame.io’s CEO on the new 2021 iPad Pro’s display being the ideal viewing solution

 

2 days ago Apple announced the release of the new iPad Pro with the M1 chip (not as big an upgrade as it is for Macs since it is based on previous iPad chips, but still an upgrade). 

Well the 12.9 model (all are $100 more expensive than previous models) has an upgraded display that includes apple XDR mini-LED display with IPS tech, and that may be more important than you think. It includes P3 color space and could support HDR 10, 10+ and Dolby Vision.

Patently Apple has an article about how Michael Cioni the VP of Onnovation at Frame.io told the Hollywood Reporter that this could be the perfect viewing display, since it can display work as it was originally intended.

I would actually like to see the original interview. I question the iPads viability because I know just how weird Apple’s color science is. Maybe it would work well with footage from Final Cut Pro X that has Apple’s weird color science baked in, but with footage from Premiere and DaVinci, I will bet it will be just as messed up as a Mac is even if it could show the correct colors. Unless maybe Frame.io is working on a solution in it’s app to bypass Apple’s funky as Color Science. If Frame.io figured out how to bypass the wonky color science or read what machine it is on and display correctly that would make Frame.io even more worthwhile.

Apple’s new M1 24” iMac is an impressive and beautiful consumer machine.

 

So one of the things Apple released yesterday, was there new 24” inch iMac in up to 7 colors like the iMac was originally. And this is an impressive and thin Machine, at only 11.5 mm thicks, wow!

And with the impressive performance of the M1 chip and a beautiful 4.5 K 24” display thus will be an impressive machine for many users, though it is obviously not meant for pros, and especially the $1299.00 base Machine which only has 2 thunderbolt/ USB 4 ports and unlike it’s bigger brothers doesn’t include gigabit ethernet on the power block (and a pro machine would have 10 GB ethernet).

The higher end machines for $1499 and $1699 have one more gpu core and 2 usb 3 ports as well as the afore mentioned ethernet, and their magic keyboard includes touch id (which are also color matched to your machine), though one with a numberpad is an extra cost.

And the 16GB unified memory for both CPU snd GPU will be further hampered by the larger display, and lack of cooling fan for pro work.

I really look forward to seeing what the pro variant of the m1 chip is and if it has external graphics support, or even pci support. And any pro iMac will need to be thicker and have a fan, and maybe a bigger display.

Strangely this computer is so thin they couldn’t keep the headphone jack on the back and had to put it on the side, which is certainly easier to use.

I like that you can order one with a vesa mount instead of the included stand, since the stand doesn’t have height control. Maybe an iMac pro could include height control as well, as long as it doesn’t cost as much as the stand for the MacPro HDR display.

And with Final Cut Pro X and DaVinci working well on M1 Macs and Premiere having Beta support the future looks bright for M1 pro users, though it isn’t here yet. And an expensive plug in upgrade cycle to M1 support is certainly in our future.

Still for most users this should be an impressive machine, though why the chin? I know iMacs have had it for a while, but I would rather not have it and have the display edge to edge.

The wait to see the M1 Pro Chips is killing most pro users right now, but hopefully Apple is using the time wisely, and going to really blow us away with what they release.

This machine is really quite impressive, and many users will be very happy with it, but does anyone think it is weird to not have an Apple logo on the chin?

I can’t wait to see one, though with the pandemic that may be a while.

The Adobe Support community is an important tool for finding answers to your questions and issues

 

The Adobe Support Community is a huge resource for those who are having issues with their Adobe software. While Adobe isn’t on the forums that often (they are sometimes), other users are very helpful and will do what they can to help you.

And the Premiere Pro and After Effects forums are very useful.

Separately from the forums you should also know about the Feature Request / Bug Report form which is where you should post specific requests or reproducible bugs to Adobe.

You can also try Adobe’s Help page, though I find you get more results from the community.

Color Correct your external monitor using Spear and Munsil

 

After all the talk of gamma shifts and trying to balance the color on your computer monitor, really and truly the only way to really see if your video is right is to be watching it on an external video monitor. An external video monitor is the way to see what the image truly looks like, but you need to adjust your external monitor to correct balance and to really do that to the best that your TV can do you need Spear & Munsil. Of course some people use a computer monitor, but that will never show what TV delivery will look like, you need to view on something that resembles what you are delivering for.

I use a Blackmagic UltraStudio 4K to play my video out, though I wish I had the newer model with Thunderbolt 3 instead of 2, and which is smaller, quieter and cooler, but the Ultrastudio works great.

You should be viewing your video on an external studio video monitor, but for home use that is a pretty big expense. Personally I use a Samsung UHD TV, unfortunately it’s HDR capabilities are fake (I had to get it for a job and it was the right price, and it listed HDR, but unfortunately is not actually an HDR display). It is a Samsung so it has one unique bonus among consumer televisions for getting the color correction right and that is that it has a blue only mode. This helps in the calibration greatly.

The discs no longer include a getting started guide, so you will need to go online and follow the extensive instructions. It will take a little while, and your room should have the lighting that you will use when editing (I have light blocking shades on my office windows to keep a consistent color and lighting).

This is such an important step for television delivery, and should part of every editors home office.

The importance of Monitor Calibration and the datacolor SpyderX

 

As an editor, colorist and motion graphics artist, I of course use dual monitors. And they are 2 very different displays, but even if they were the exact same type of display you need to try and balance them as mush as you can, and that is why I own and us a datacolor Spyder X (and yes the printing is smudged and coming off on mine).


This is the menu bar launcher.

And where you calibrate the displayers, you will then put the device on the spot on the display and turn up the brightness and it will measure your displays.

It measures both displays, has you set matching brightness, and then lets you adjust based on perception. It can be difficult if you have very different displays but is certainly worth it so your 2 displays are as close to each other as can be.

My only complaint is that having bought the device, the software is linked to my computer. And I would love to be able to take it with my to match monitors at work, especially with rental computers, but obviously they want them to buy there own, unfortunately most companies won’t bother.

ProVideoCoalition article on Understand Premiere Pro’s Color Management is a must read

 Oliver Peters at ProVideoCoalition has posted a great article on Understand Premiere Pro’s Color Management and it is a must read for all video editors editing with Premiere Pro on a Mac.

I had neglected to mention the Display Color Management (requires GPU Acceleration) setting in my previous article on the Gamma shift of Macs, so wanted to post this so people can see why this setting is important.

The article is a companion article to another recent article of his on Trusting Apple Displays. And is another must read.

Creative Cloud only supports the most recent and previous versions, what if you need an earlier version?

 

Since Adobe Creative Cloud only supports the latest 2 versions of your apps, if you need an earlier version what do you do? Well the first thing you can do as an active creative cloud subscriber is contact support and ask for an earlier version.

The other thing you can do is go to ProDesignTools and check and see if he has the direct download links for the version you need. He has the links from 2019 to 2021, so you can still get 2019 if you need them (and if you are using them for a job, maybe it is a good idea to download their direct installers just in case as they are no longer available from the Creative Cloud app).

The Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner tool the last step for fixing problems

 So I was seeing some posts on various Premiere forums on Facebook about having a version of Premiere not work at all, not launching or not installing and I want to post about a possible solution and one that has worked for me in the past. Now this is a last resort, after you have removed your plug ins and reset your preferences and cache files, and if stuff still ins’t working.

The absolute last resort tool to try is the Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner tool. This will wipe out everything Adobe on your system, and you can completely re-install form scratch. It will sometimes solve problems that a standard uninstall won’t touch.

Now if you are using older versions of your programs, you might want to check in the Creative Cloud app to see if the version you are running can still be re-installed, as it seems that Adobe has killed most earlier versions at this point and currently only supports Premiere Pro 15.0 and 14.9, with version 13.1.5 (2019) unable to be re-installed, so take caution before doing an uninstall at this point!

So the Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner tool will literally scrub your system of all things Adobe, and this blank slate could help solve some serious issues, so it is something you should know in case of major issues.

Jonny Elwyn Film Editor is a great resource for Video Editing, Assistant Editing and Color Correction

 

I ran into this site when looking for a post on using the Stream Deck for video production (I will be doing a future post about the Stream Deck as I got one for Christmas and am just loving it), this is the home page of Film Editor Jonny Elwyn. 

Really this site is well worth a long delve into and read, and they are not just short posts, but well thought out and researched. This is a really great site that you should subscribe to and read through when you have a chance.

He has hardware recommendations, free luts and links, and there isn’t a short or useless article in the bunch.

Do yourself a favor and check it out.

BeatEdit V2 for Premiere Pro is a very useful plug in for editing to the beat

For the editors who aren’t musicians or just want a quick speed up to their editing workflow, BeatEdit V2 is a Premiere Pro script from mamoworld tools available at AEScripts (which I will talk about in the future).

BeatEdit detects the beats in your music and generates markers for them in your Premiere Pro timeline. Create automatic edits in sync with the music, or let BeatEdit assist your manual editing process.

This is an awesome and quick to use tool. Great for creating an edit of photos or just to give you edit points on the beat.
Any time you are editing to the beat this will speed up your workflow, and the $99 will be worth it in a few jobs.
BeatEdit is in the Window Menu Extensions

This is the window. You select a music clip in your timeline and hit load music.

This will load the track and after a few seconds.

The drop down at the top lets you chose sequence or clip markers.

And here you select how many beats get markers, I chose every 4, but should have done more.
You then hit the create makers button.

And you get this result.

There is much more it can do and this video will explain the rest.

I have run into a problem with the script though having to do with the new world scripting engine of Premiere Pro, so to use it you need to switch to the old scripting engine (which will stop the text entry script Excalibur from working) and unfortunately it doesn’t have a way to quickly turn new world on and off.

So you will have to activate the old scripting engine and restart to get it to work, and to get any extensions working that use the new New World Scripting Engine. 

First hit command -F12 to call up the Premiere Pro console.
Then from the dropdown menu at the top select Debug Database view.

Now type in “newworld” and it will show the following 2 commands, AME.ScriptLayer.EnableNewWorld and CriptLayerPPro.EnableNewWorld and make use to set them both to true. A quick restart later and you will have re-activated the New World Scripting Engine.