[Craig Seeman]

[john sharaf] “”Time Of Day” or “Freerun” code is not default drop frame.”

Maybe I should have added that I’m shooting 1080p30 Clock (Time Of Day) and I may have been wrong about Freerun though.

On Page 53 of EX1 manual
HQ1080/30P – Fixed to DF in Clock mode
HQ1080/60i – Fixed to DF in Clock mode
also
HQ720/60P (double count) – Fixed to DF in Clock mode
HQ720/30P – Fixed to DF in Clock mode

Whereas
HQ1080/24P – Fixed to NDF (Note 2: Even in Clock mode)
HQ720/24P – Fixed to NDF (Note 2: Even in Clock mode)

So in HQ 30p, 60i, 60p Clock mode (Time Of Day) is FIXED to Drop Frame. User can’t change this.

I’m shooting 1080p30 so Clock mode (Time of Day) SHOULD be Drop Frame. That’s not what Quicktime or Final Cut Pro is seeing.

[Craig Seeman]

https://www.flip4mac.com/

Download Flip4Mac. Free Player from the folks who also make Episode. Flip4Mac Studio series (not free) lets you export WMV from most any Quicktime base app. Episode gives you a full scale compression app supporting many codecs.

[Craig Seeman]

[walter biscardi] “How many people do you see on these forums running Studio on laptops and iMacs? Quite a few, so there goes the Mac Pro sales.”

Yep, Apple sells the ProApps and they LOSE iMac and MacBook, MacBookPro sales too. Just shows how much a MAJOR hardware loss to Apple if they sell the ProApps.

[walter biscardi] ” It’s possible that time has come where Apple is simply not selling enough hardware to Pro Users to make it worthwhile to essentially give away their software.”

It certainly seems they’re selling a healthy number of MacPros based on reports that MacWorld publishes when they do the Apple Financial Quarterly posts.

As I’ve said before, there’s fundamentally similar technology on mos of Apple’s computers so it’s not like they save anything substantial on hardware R&D.

[walter biscardi] “Consider Final Touch HD. $25,000 for 2K, $5,000 for HD, $999 for SD. Apple buys it and simply absorbs it into Final Cut Studio. In my mind still a very bad decision as they really get no return on investment. They have to sell a LOT of copies of Studio and hardware to make that investment pay off. “

Andy maybe they did this because they EXPECTED to sell lots of hardware.
Keep in mind COLOR my be driving a lot of G5 users to Intel upgrades.
Keep in mind Apple, to this point, probably hasn’t put in much software R&D to get that benefit (and why Color has use and interface issues).
Keep in mind the possible cost BENEFITS of motivating G5 users to move up to Intel that Color encourages. It means they can drop the backwards compatible R&D sooner for example.
Keep in mind that when Shake’s replacement hits, they’ll be ANOTHER INCENTIVE for user to further upgrade their hardware.

If anything I think Apple is looking at way to continually accelerate hardware upgrades by Video pros. The more demands software makes on hardware and the faster that happens, the faster we need to upgrade CPU/GPU boxes to keep up. Selling FCS would be a MAJOR hardware loss for Apple.

The delay in Shake’s replacement may be because they’re looking to push hardware purchases for a system that’s not yet ready.

The delay in Final Cut Server may be that they need to develop hardware PARTNERSHIPS so the can compete against Avid in the “heavy iron” department.

If anything, if FCS isn’t selling enough boxes to justify the R&D, Apple’s approach would more likely be to INCREASE the software’s demands on the system to push more hardware upgrades.

[Craig Seeman]

[Tim Wilson] “If Thomson can successfully integrate FCP, Thomson finally presents a seriously challenge on every current path of Avid’s growth.
“

And why does this make a sale a given?
First of all Final Cut Server will likely happen and will help BUT (as Tim alludes to) that’s not Apple’s FCP market. If FC Server is really meant to fill a need . . . and maybe it can’t on its own.

Far more likely is that Apple feels the return on it’s current market is getting saturated. At least it’s not worth expending money on NAB which will have little impact on its momentum. More likely is that Apple is NOT selling FCS but looking to expand into NEW markets.

More likely would be a PARTNERSHIP with Thomson. THAT could benefit both companies.

Again, I think it’s virtually impossible to for Apple to sell FCS and not get seriously hurt in its MacPro (desktop sales).

[Craig Seeman]

[walter biscardi] “It’s certainly expensive to continue to develop the pro-apps for little return on investment from a price standpoint. Why in the world Apple would purchase a $25,000 piece of software and just give it away is still beyond me.”

Exactly because Apple makes money on hardware not software. Software is used to sell hardware.

[walter biscardi] “So if your return on investment for the ProApps and the Mac Pros just isn’t approaching the return for the rest of the consumer brand, then maybe you dump it all.”

There’s common technology between iMacs and MacPros (and MacBooks/BookPros). MacPros do quite well for Apple if you’ve read their financials as posted on sites like MacWorld. Dump the Pro machines it will have have impact on the entire line.

[walter biscardi] “Speaking of Shake, anyone hear anything about that in the past two years? Last I heard it was going to be replaced in 2008. Well, here we are in 2008 and Apple has pulled off the NAB show floor. Hmmm, no big announcements? No Shake replacement? “

Nearly the ENTIRE FCS was developed initially OUTSIDE of Apple, FCP, LiveType, DVDStudioPro, Logic, Color. ALL came from someplace else. Motion I believe was Apple’s. Apple doesn’t have a history of developing their own beyond Motion and they did a GREAT job with Motion (which certainly helped sell more hardware CPU/GPUs as it needed the power). The Shake replacement will probably take a combination software/hardware solution and that whole package may NOT be ready yet.

Leaving NAB doesn’t mean Apple will stop marketing ProApps. It doesn’t mean they’re selling them. The hit on hardware sales would be SEVERE IMHO. It could well mean that Apple, the company that LOVES CONTROL (as I stated elsewhere) is waiting for a CONTROLLED marketing plan as Blu-ray support is added, as the Shake replacement is added.

[walter biscardi] “but it would be interesting to see who would purchase it and whether or not it gets ported to Windows.”

And you’ve just explained why APPLE WON’T SELL. Porting to Windows would really help Apple’s hardware sales. This is EXACTLY why Apple/FCP happened in the first place (remember Avid dropping Apple support). Again the ONLY way Apple would sell ProApps would be in conjunction to dropping Pro hardware sales and given that the entire line from MacBooks, iMacs, MacPros use much common technology that makes no sense. MILLIONS of FCP users = Millions of CPUs being sold. Software updates FORCE hardware upgrades (new CPU purchases).

Hey, I think tradeshows like NAB are important and I think Apple is making a mistake by pulling out but if Apple knows anything they KNOW Marketing and if I’d suspect ANYTHING I’d suspect a NEW marketing approach to the Pro user.

[Craig Seeman]

From Frank’s article:

“For Apple, the overwhelming bulk of its sales are $1,300 boxes of software?”

That people are running on ????

Apple sells ProApps because each one needs a box usually running from $2800 to $4500. Add a few more BTO options and monitors and that can from $4000 to $6000 or MORE! Maybe some of the bigger shops are buying Xserves too at $3000 and up.

Apple CONTROLS the whole experience from quality to marketing, by CONTROLLING the SOFTWARE.

Now maybe Frank’s arguing Apple is going to drop their whole MacPro market along with the Cinema Displays that go with the them. Maybe that’ll impact MacBookPro too.

If they sell the software to somebody else they lose control and it can seriously hurt their desktop sales if FCS is taken in a different direction by another developer.

If they can’t control FCS they risk major upper end hardware losses. Remember FC move accelerated when Avid announced they were stopping Apple support. That’s because Apple didn’t CONTROL Avid. Apple didn’t CONTROL Adobe when Premiere was a crash factory on the Mac.

The only way Apple would sell FCS would be if they were ready to dump out of that end of the hardware market too. Maybe Frank believes Apple is going to be just an iPod, iPhone, iMac, MacBook company.

Apple sells FCS, Shake (and whatever replaces it), FC Server (when that happens) at low prices because they all lead to big hardware purchases. In fact that software also accelerates the CPU upgrades. Even if one were to “pirate” the software (we know no one does that here) they have to buy the box.

[Craig Seeman]

[Phillip Ebed] “Can you use the EX1 as a play back deck and keep the info on the cards and plug straight to the PC or is is bad for the camera.”

You plug the camera into the computer via USB and copy the files to your hard drive. Why would you want to do anything else?

[Phillip Ebed] “Also I need to get a mac,is a night and day difference between g5 with mac processors and the new Pentium ones or just a little ?”

My G5 Dual Macstill works but it’s slow. I’ll be getting an 8 Core Intel Mac in the not too distant future. How much faster depends on what you’re doing but in video time=money is the new CPUs are major faster from ingest to render.

[Craig Seeman]

[Tom Wolsky] “ust to add, you could well be right. Apple could easily divest itself of its pro apps. It could easily sell them off to Adobe or some other company. “

Macromedia is getting it back and making it a Windows only app again. It’ll require Vista of course.

So Blu-Ray support in DVDStudio Pro isn’t going to be a big announcement? There’s at least 10 or 15 of us waiting for that worldwide.

[Craig Seeman]

I called Sony Pro tech support. I gave them sample settings over the phone and their camera did NOT exhibit the issue.

The told me to send my camera to San Jose CA for warranty service. I’ve heard of two others who have the same issue so it’s something people might want to check.

Sadly, the Park Ridge NJ Sony facility doesn’t handle this sort of thing otherwise I’d drive there. I know have to put some shoots on hold. Grrrr!

[Craig Seeman]

Turning shutter off matches the frame rate. In other words 30p is 1/30, 24p is 1/24, etc.

So if you’re shooting 180° it’s actually halfing the shutter speed since 180° would be 1/60 at 30p, 1/48 at 24p, etc.

[Don Greening] “It’s my understanding that by turning the shutter off the EX will automatically double the shutter speed with regard to frame rate. Not too sure about that though. My shutter button is always off and I’m always shooting 1080p 30. “