[Alan Okey]

Yawn. HD is SO yesterday. I’m already editing Super Hi Vision on my 16.384 processor IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer.

RED? Please. 7K is here, baby!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_hi_vision

[Alan Okey]

Without more information it’s hard to determine what’s causing your issues with Compressor. If you’re not already doing so, I would recommend exporting the project form Final Cut Pro as either a self-contained or reference movie, then opening that movie file in Compressor. Never use “send to Compressor” from within FCP.

As a workaround, if you’re not able to get good results by encoding the full project as a whole, you can export the project in segments and compress them separately. Join them together in DVD Studio Pro by placing them back to back in sequence on the Track 1 timeline. The result will play back seamlessly, and your compression will be optimized for each individual segment. This is actually how big budget studio films are compressed for DVD: in segments, with compression optimized for content by scene.

[Alan Okey]

It’s probably fine as a computer monitor (displaying the user interface), but it won’t work for accurately judging the color of your video content.

[Alan Okey]

For background, read:

https://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/6

“If QuickTime X is so much better, why doesn’t QTKit use it for everything? The answer is that QuickTime X, like its Mac OS X namesake, has very limited capabilities in its initial release. While QuickTime X supports playback, capture, and exporting, it does not support general-purpose video editing. It also supports only “modern” video formats—basically, anything that can be played by an iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. As for other video codecs, well, you can forget about handling them with plug-ins because QuickTime X doesn’t support those either.

For every one of the cases where QuickTime X is not up to the job, QuickTime 7 will fill in. Cutting, copying, and pasting portions of a video? QuickTime 7. Extracting individual tracks from a movie? QuickTime 7. Playing any movie not natively supported by an existing Apple handheld device? QuickTime 7. Augmenting QuickTime’s codec support using a plug-in of any kind? You guessed it: QuickTime 7.”

Also read:

https://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2009/08/mac-os-x-10-6.ars/16

[Alan Okey]

[jason leue] “i have fcp 6

can i still do in fcp? “

You can’t output ProRes 4:4:4:4 in FCP 6, but you can still output Quicktime Animation with millions of colors +. That is your only choice for a codec that supports alpha channels in a Quicktime .mov file.

[Alan Okey]

If you are on FCP 7, you have two options: ProRes 4:4:4:4 or Quicktime Animation with \”millions +\” selected (the plus is for alpha).

[Alan Okey]

[Daniel Hornberger] “Since I’m now in the market for another external drive, do you have any recommendations?”

https://www.caldigit.com/CalDigit_VR/

https://www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid.cfm

https://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/Framework.cfm?page=mepal_splash_raid.html

[Alan Okey]

[Craig RussillRoy] “. OR the true story will be AutoDesk will support Blackmagic and of the shelve Graphics cards”

Blackmagic support is unlikely, especially given Autodesk’s established working relationship with AJA Video Systems. OTS graphics are also unlikely right away, at least for ATI cards. Autodesk has a strong relationship with nVidia, and I doubt that will change any time soon.

[Craig RussillRoy] “OR Apple release a SMOKE killer and kills off FCP for this newly written App for 64bit”

Apple isn’t going to release a “Smoke killer,” it simply won’t happen. Apple and Autodesk Media & Entertainment (formerly Discreet) are two completely different types of companies with completely different levels of experience focused on two completely different markets. Smoke is an extremely mature and comprehensive product (almost a decade old) and is coming from the top down. FCP was a Macromedia app bought and built upon by Apple and is coming from the bottom up. Apple’s focus has not traditionally been high end, it’s been prosumer to midrange pro. I don’t foresee Apple developing anything on its own form scratch that is targeted at a high end post market. There’s just not the right return on investment needed for them to do so.

Apple has an opportunity to make the next release of FCP/FCS something revolutionary rather than evolutionary, but I don’t think that will happen. Apple doesn’t want to alienate its huge installed FCP user base by making any drastic changes. It’s more likely that FCP/FCS will follow an evolutionary development path, building steadily on the existing applications and tools without making any disruptive changes to workflow.

I’m not sure why you state that Smoke can’t edit well… While Smoke isn’t often used to cut long form projects, the tools are quite capable. Smoke is even more similar to FCP/Premiere/Avid now that the source/record two-up view has been added. Just because Smoke’s UI paradigm is different from that of FCP/Premiere/Avid doesn’t make it any less capable of an editor – it just has a steeper learning curve for those used to a different kind of interface.

I agree with you that there will probably be future Mac ports from Autodesk. I think it’s highly likely that Lustre will eventually be released on the Mac as well, which would be a match made in heaven – Smoke and Lustre on the same system, running alongside FCP. Now that will truly be a force to be reckoned with.

[Alan Okey]

A few things:

Avoid using AVI files on the Mac. Use Quicktime instead. AVI is a Windows-based file wrapper.

DVCPRO 50 is a standard definition codec. Use Apple ProRes instead.

[Alan Okey]

If you haven’t seen it already, visit and absorb everything on Philip Bloom’s website – he’s an EX1 pioneer, especially when it comes to using the EX1 with 35mm adapters (and in particular, the Letus). He has a ton of great videos on the site.

https://philipbloom.co.uk