[David Jahns]

Hi Kevin.

I was just refreshing my memory about this JAMF issue and saw your post from a year ago. Did you get this resolved?

if not, let me know – I’ll be happy to share the JAMF KILLER terminal commands I know.

Dave

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[David Jahns]

Todd – I know PP can read Quicktimes, but I read in multiple places that it can’t read DVCPro Quicktimes that were generated during FCP Log & Transfer – some strange codec or wrapper issue. Not sure if that is really the case or not, which is why I was posting here for confirmation.

Chris – I do not have access to the raw P2’s any more – only the FCP generated QT’s.

Turns out i was able to talk directly to the PP Windows editor, and we settled on HD MPEG-2s – not ideal from my perspective, but certainly better than burning everything to a DVD.

With the demise of FCP, I’m eager to learn more about Premiere, so thanks for the help!

Dave

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[David Jahns]

Hello again, Jonathon and others!

In my quest for a single system grading/finishing, I’m now looking at Scratch on Mac.

From my initial readings, it seems that, compared to Smoke, Scratch is stronger in grading, but less capable in VFX/Finishing – including no SDI I/O on Mac.

Anyone have experience to confirm/refute/elaborate?

As always, thanks for any insights…

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[David Jahns]

Thanks.

Yeah, I’m sure Resolve can do the output to tape just fine – but if you’re Coloring in Resolve, then finishing in Smoke (without the K3 card), would you re-import the rendered finished pieces back to Resolve for output to tape?

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[David Jahns]

Thanks, Jonathon.

This is quite helpful. I have done color & finish on 3 features, but the bulk of my work is short form – mostly TV spots, but also some web films, non-broadcast corporate vidoes, etc… I could probably live with Smoke’s Color for most of that work, even if it’s a little less efficient, as long as it’s powerful enough, which it sounds like it is.

But I’m still interested in the Resolve option!

Our finish process & broadcast protocols usually involves mastering to HD-SR at 1080psf23.98 in 4:2:2, so whatever configuration I use needs to have HD-SDI out to tape (with embedded audio), and to our Color Grading monitor.

In your setup using the BM card, how would you master to tape? I suppose you could render everything out from Smoke filebased & import it back to FCP 7 (or Resolve?) for output through the card. Seems a bit clunky, but it would probably work, eh?

Thanks for your help!

Dave

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[David Jahns]

Hi – wanting to chime in on this thread to get news/replies…. I’m looking for:

The Ultimate Medium Cost Finish Suite for Mac

I’ve been an editor for 11 years – started on Avid, learned FCP when HD was coming on. Most of our work has been broadcast advertising, and over the last few years I have been doing more and more finishing in house, using mainly FC Studio – Color, Motion, Cinema Tools, with AJA KONA 3 hardware, CalDigit RAID, HDCAM-SR, etc…

As my finish skills have grown, I quickly saw FC Studio’s limitations, and have been looking into Smoke on Mac – envisioning installing it on the same Mac/Kona system I use for FCP/Color. I really love Apple Color, and saw a workflow of FCP offline, send to COlor for grading, send back to FCP, send to Smoke for Finishing.

Now, with the demise of Apple Color, I am keen to migrate to DaVinci Resolve – but of course, I’m running into the situation where Smoke needs an AJA K3, and Resolve, of course needs a Blackmagic card.

That’s my dream system – take an offline edit done elsewhere in whatever (FCP7/Avid/Premiere?), send XML to Resolve for grading, send XML to Smoke for finishing.

Until Resolve supports the K3, though… obviously won’t happen – unless… With Resolve Lite, I’m considering testing the workflow of using Resolve in “Desktop” mode only for the initial grading pass, then making further modifications in Smoke if necessary, once we can output SDI to a grading monitor.

But maybe Resolve isn’t even necessary? Question – how robust is the Color Grading in Smoke? From my brief experience with demos, it seems decent, but that’s not really what it was designed to do – which is why Autodesk has Lustre, right? So, I’m pretty sure I still want a dedicated grading app in my workflow. Adding the Avid Color Panel seems like it would help quite a bit, but I’m still not sure it will be an all-in-one grading / finishing system without a Resolve. Thoughts from experienced Smoke-Mac users?

Thanks for any input!

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[David Jahns]

Ah – thanks for the clarification, Mitch. I didn’t hear the details about that. (the video out walk back.)

Yeah – ColorSync – gonna be awesome, right?!

I went to NAB this year, and the day after the Supermeet, a guy from AJA was walking around the floor muttering to himself, “I know too much, but can’t say anything, Argghh…. I know too much…”

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[David Jahns]

[Mitch Ives] “It was the London event that uncovered this “no video out” thing…”

????

Here’s what I read about London:

6. FCPX Broadcast video output via #Blackmagic & @AJAVideo coming soon…

https://alex4d.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/notes-from-apples-london-pro-briefing-on-final-cut-pro-x/

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[David Jahns]

What is this “licensing issue” BS?

Can someone explain? Are you theorizing that Apple bought a software product and all of its’ code, and promised to only sell future versions of that code for only 12 years?

Is that even remotely a possibility?

I am not in the software business, but that seems ridiculous, and I seriously doubt any acquisition Apple makes would come with strings attached. What other technologies would FCP7 be licensing? MPEG compatibility? No, Compressor & Quicktime Pro 7 use MPEG – what else would be licensed?

Even if there is a legitimate license issue, it’s still no excuse. They’re sitting on 60 billion in cash, don’t tell me they can’t afford a contract extension if they wanted to…

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR

[David Jahns]

Legal Schmegal!

Broadcast TV is dead, right? 😉

the funny thing is… I wish I we lived in the world that FCP-X will excel at. I hate dealing with interlacing, broadcast levels, format conversions, etc. (but that might put me out of job, I suppose!)

To me, it’s like if Adobe said today, “Print is dead. We see the iPad as the future of publishing, and our new products have dropped support for all print and CMYK workflows. Sorry.”

Sure – someday printing on dead trees won’t be the norm (and how many people other than print professionals need CMYK support anyway?), but look at the magazine industry? Is it going away anytime soon? So, yes – FCP-X is forward looking – just a bit too forward looking for those of us in “the film/video industry”.

Someday all moving images will be computer based h264 RGB… it is most definitely the future, but how far off? (My joke is that when I someday retire, that’s when we’ll never have to deal with “video” artifacts.) But in the here and now, some of us DO have to deal with broadcast video and all of its overhead and artifacts.

And until FCP-X can do that (which might happen soon, according to the London event) – it’s not the app for any pro video industry workflow. (and, of course, all of the other issues that have been flagged repeatedly…)

David Jahns
Joint Editorial
Portland, OR