[Phil Wherry]

It looks like the FireStore HDV problem is potentially a big one. Apple’s been rewriting a lot of things that used to be part of QuickTime and putting them into their new AVFoundation framework. I’m fairly sure at this point that the AVFoundation HDV codec doesn’t like the data stored in the .MOV files generated from HDV sources and saved on a FireStore drive. I’m not sure whether the problem is in Focus’ FireStore code or if it’s an Apple problem, but I can predict the outcome: Focus will blame Apple and Apple will placidly ignore the reports of trouble.

Since AVFoundation is taking a bigger role in the upcoming “Lion” release of Mac OS X, it seems probable that FireStore-generated HDV files may become unreadable to a much broader set of tools. In particular, it seems likely that FCP (not FCPX) will fail to read the files under the new OS. Those who depend on FireStore HDV files should probably wait until others have confirmed that the files are going to be usable under Mac OS 10.7.x.

Phil