Some Neat Tools

Test your internet connection
Speakeasy

Mac system info in a widget
iStat Pro

iStat Pro is basically a different view of what you can get from the Activity Monitor utility app. Includes some temperature readings. I was thinking iStat Pro would be nice to check network speeds. I did some tests on my network speeds last year and did the stopwatch method. iStat Pro/Activity Monitor seems like a better way to go for that.

Using HDTVs with Macs

With LCD TV's getting so cheap, and with all Mac's now sporting a DVI output, the link between your Mac and a HDTV is getting closer and closer. The consumder video connection HDMI is compatible with DVI and the new digital interface of choice for HDTV's (many TV's have plain-old DVI connections too.) Apple even seemed to be encouraging interoperability by pushing some new cheap HDMI & DVI cables from XtremeMac. If you do want to hook up a Mac to an HDTV, sometimes your Mac needs some help figuring out the resolution of a TV. Accelerate Your Mac has some good user reports on hooking up an HDTV to a Mac. Most folks are using this to turn their Mac in a home theater component to watch movie files. But I've hooked up Mac's to a 42" plasma for presentation purposes. BTW, Apple has delayed the release of Apple TV--their formal entry into the home theater market.

Hidden Tools in FCP

Larry Jordan describes how to get to the hidden tools in Final Cut including one that shows meter readings for the performance of a RAID. Pretty cool. I found the Larry Jordan article over at HD4NDs.

Keep Your Old Versions of FCP

This post at LIttle Frog in HD is a good description of how to keep more than one version of FCP on your system. The need for doing this has come up with me repeatedly. It is not a bad idea for working with old projects--in case an old project doesn't like being opened in a newer version of FCP than it was created in It also is useful if you have to trade a project with someone who has a different version of FCP than you.

FCP 5.1.4 Now Out

Shoot. I just installed FCP 5.1.3 on 3 systems, and its already out-of-date. 5.1.3, which was suposed to be a bug fix, apparently introduced some new bugs, like breaking plug-ins and Automatic Duck, according to this good blog Little Frog in HD. So download 5.1.4 or better yet, wait a week & make sure there's not another bug fix release. Luckily, we weren't effected by any of the big bugs in 5.1.3, and, knock on wood, things have been pretty smooth so far with 5.1.3.

HandBrake Is Dead, Long Live MediaFork

HandBrake was my free tool of choice to get movies from DVD's to my iPod. It would even handle CSS encrypted DVD's. The HandBrake interface was never terribly user-friendly, and I often forgot some setting or other which I only discovered after hours of transcoding. Well, a new application has taken up where HandBrake left off, MediaFork.

Hopefully, development will continue on this handy piece of freeware. The best improvement with MediaFork is that the settings for h.264 encoding (which is what I use for my iPod), now include an "iPod" setting, which was formerly called Baseline. The default bitrate is still too high for the iPod specs. I usually set the h.264 settings to 500 kbps. Then don't foget to scale the video down to 320x240 for the iPod.

BTW, some people ask me if I recommend using HandBrake (now MediaFork) to edit DVD's in FCP. For editing, I think it is worth the money to go with DVDxDV. None of the compression settings with MediaFork are really useful for FCP without more rendering.

New HDV Camera Owners: Free Tapes

Can't beat free. If you bought or are going to buy any of the following cameras between 8/1/06 and 3/31/07 then you get 5 free Sony HDV tapes via this offer:
Sony HVR-Z1U, HVR-A1U, HVR-V1, Canon XL-H1, XH-G1, XH-A1, or JVC GY-HD100U, GY-HD200U, GY-HD250U Professional HDV Camcorder

Please note that I am in general a cheap bastard and have shot HDV on Sony DV stock. But when you get a hit in the middle of 15-frame GOP, that's half a second of video lost, not just one frame (HDV compresses interframe using 15-frame Group Of Pictures.) I found this offer over at FresHDV.com.

AMUG SATA Drive Review and Tests

I have sung AMUG's praises before and once again they do a truly thorough review of some SATA drives. They compare a 320GB SATA drive from Seagate and HItachi with a 300GB Maxtor drive in a number of different setups. The interesting results are that some of these drives can run much slower when hooked up internally to a Mac Pro. Here's their bite on it:

"As the Seagate 320GB and the Hitachi T7K500 320GB both have performance issues with the internal Mac Pro SATA bus, it seems that the Mac Pro is fussy about which hard drives will perform well when mounted on the internal SATA bus."

So in their tests, the Maxtor Maxline III read at an average speed of 56.5 MB/s, but the Hitachi T7K500 only read at 41.1 MB/s when both were installed inside a Mac Pro. The Maxtor's average write speed was 55.7 MB/s, but the Seagate 7200.10 only managed to write at 39.9 MB/s inside a Mac Pro. (Apparently, the other size drives in Seagate's 7200.10 series don't have that problem with write speeds, according to AMUG.)

However, when working with a Sonnet Tempo PCI-E SATA host card, the performance of these drives was very similar. In fact, I just emailed Firmtek yesterday about what 500GB drive to hook up with their Seritek 1VE4 Host Adapter. They recommended a Hitachi T7K500. So while I wouldn't put that drive in a Mac Pro, I plan to follow Firmtek's advice on getting the Hitachi.

Final Cut Pro 5.1.3 Released

A download for Final Cut Pro v. 5.1.3 is now available from Apple, which they say is a "maintenance release." We're still mostly working in 5.0. When I upgrade to 5.1, which should be soon, I'll probably go right to this version. I think that even the projects for these incremental version are not backward-compatible. So if you start a project in FCP v. 5.1.3, then you can't work on it in v. 5.1.2. Seems a bit picky to me, but I didn't write the software code.

Below is what Apple says about the new release:

Late-Breaking News About Final Cut Pro 5.1.3
Final Cut Pro 5.1.3 is a maintenance release that resolves performance and other issues.

Render File Compatibility
Render files created on both PowerPC-based and Intel-based Macintosh computers
now work properly on either type of computer.

Keyboard Layout Issues Resolved
Final Cut Pro 5.1.3 adds several commands to the default keyboard layout that were
missing in the previous version.

Issues with Cross Dissolves in Nested Sequences Resolved
Final Cut Pro 5.1.3 resolves cases in which cross dissolves did not work as expected in
nested sequences containing still images with adjusted motion parameters.

Apple: Don't Edit Video over Ethernet

Don't store your media on networked drives using ethernet. That's the message from this support document from Apple. One of the problems seems to be that the TCP/IP protocol really slows down the transfer of data. While gigabit ethernet is supposed to be faster than Firewire, it practically can't move video and audio files fast enough to satisfy your non-linear editing system. So for affordable storage stick with drives hooked up with Firewire and SATA connections.

That being said, there are systems out there that provide shared storage for editing over ethernet. The advantage is that these systems are much cheaper than the shared storage systems based on fiber channel like Apple's XSan/XServe software/hardware combination. Last year, I got to talk to a sales rep for EditShare and at this MacWorld I talk to someone from 2 Degrees Frost. They both said they were able to use the ethernet cable and work around the limitations of TCP/IP and the Mac OS. They are significantly cheaper than any of the fibre-based shared storage, but still significantly more expensive than using local drives to store your video.

As I mentioned in a previous post "RAID-5 on a G4", I once experimented with using an old G4 as a file server for media files. I banged my head up against this problem with ethernet, TCP/IP, and Mac OS. While you may not be able to build a shared-storage system yourself, there are vendors and manfacturers out there offering the promise of using inexpensive ethernet networking to deliver video to editors.

Colorista Video Demo

A while back, I mentioned the release of Magic Bullet's Colorista, a plug-in for color correction. I thought the presets were cool, but in the back of my mind I thought "I'm sure I could get these effects with the 3-Way Color Corrector if I put my mind to it." Well, this video demo of Colorista shows why I was wrong. Colorista seems like a quick way to go if you want to get a moody look like you've see in feature films and TV shows. You can see in the demo how the blacks in Colorista stay black when an effect to the "shadows" is applied, where with the 3-way filter the blacks get tinted purple when the "shadows" are adjusted.

The maker of Colorista just wrote a book DV Rebel's Handbook where he argues that the online should be done in After Effects because its image controls and effects capability far outweigh anything in Final Cut Pro. A post on the ProLost blog talks about his argument for onlining in After Effects. I'm not going to be doing that anytime soon (and I hope never), but Stu Maschwitz clearly has good reasons for advocating it.

RAID-5 on a G4

I should probably file this under "Don't try this at home", but I really admire the chutzpah of the author of this article on hacking a RAID-5 setup. The author bought a RAID card which is only supposed to work in an Xserve running OS X Server and installed it in his old G4 tower running the regular Mac OS X. I in fact was wondering about this setup a year ago--could I use an old G4 to serve files from a RAID 5 array. I never figured it out, but this article at least make me feel like I wasn't crazy for thinking about it.

RAID 5 is so great because it has a very efficient way of providing redundant information that can be used if a single drive fails. RAID 1 does this too, but it basically consists of two drives that are duplicates of each other. So with RAID 1, you get to use 50% of the storage you pay for. RAID 5 works with a group of disks with one disk holding parity information. So in the case of this article the RAID had 4 drives with one drive storing parity information. In this scenario you get to use 75% of the storage that you pay for. If any drive fails, then you haven't lost any data. If you want to know more about RAID, I heard this is supposed to be a good primer on RAID setups at DV.com (registration required).

For PCI-X and PCI-E Mac there are more option for a RAID-5 setup. I gave up on a RAID-5 server because I figured out that regular Macs can't reliably serve video files over regular ethernet, which is what I wanted to do with my G4 RAID-5 setup.

BTW, HardMac is a translated version of a French website. They try out some cool stuff--they're about to publish an article where they are testing out an 8-processor setup on a Mac.

UPDATE: Gateway 24" LCD Display

UPDATE: I fixed the link for this article. It now properly goes to the review of the monitor at extremetech.com.

I've got my eyes on one of these, the Gateway FPD2485W. I recently got a refurbished Dell 2405 WFP (unfortunately for another edit room, not my own) It looks good and all of the real estate is great. But these aren't just computer monitors. The Gateway and Dell 24" displays can display video, including high-def video, and I like the idea of getting a computer monitor that can double as a high-definition video monitor.

I tried using the component inputs to display some HD from an HDV deck with my Dell 2405WFP, and I was disappointed. Seemed like the processing (de-interlacing, scaling) was poor quality. I was definitely seeing more detail than on an SD display but the image quality of HD video was subpar. These 24" screens have 1920x1200 resolution--very close to 1920x1080. Instead of displaying pixel for pixel, the 2405 WFP seemed to be scaling up the video to totally fill the screen. IMO, that definitely wasn't helping the video. I tried using Final Cut Pro's Digital Desktop playback on the monitor and ran into problems there too. This does display high-def video pixel-for-pixel, but the problem is that HDV isn't true 1920x1080. Instead the actual resolution is 1440x1080, which is stretched out to 1920x1080. Well, FCP also doesn't do a good job of scaling the video in Digital Desktop mode. Once again, I wasn't happy with the high-def video display.

Well, a couple of days after getting the Dell 2405WFP, I ran into the Gateway 24" monitor at CompUSA. First, I was bowled over by how bright the display was. Maybe not the greatest for a computer display, but a plus for video. Then, I noticed that the Gateway monitor had Faroudja electronics for processing video--that's a good sign because Faroudja is known for their chips in things like upscaling DVD players. All this, and the Gateway is only a few more bucks than my refurbished Dell 2405 WFP was.

This review of the Gateway 24" LCD compares its performance to the new Dell 2407 WFP. It says they are both good performers, but says that the Dell does better out of the box at giving accurate colors. The Gateway needs more tweaking of its settings. My experience in the store suggested that the colors were way-over saturated on the Gateway. I'm never done much calibration of my computer display, and the review even suggested tweaking your software settings as well the monitor's on-screen display settings.

UPDATE
HP is also getting competitive with Dell with their LP2465 24" LCD display. No analog video inputs, but instead has 2 DVI ports (I wonder what it would do with an HDMI signal with a HDMI>DVI adapter cable?). Macworld has a brief review of the HP LP2456. Nice to see more competitiion with Dell in the low-cost (relatively) 24" LCD market.

AVCHD Is a Pro Format

In a previous post, I had said that AVCHD was a consumer format. Well, Panasonic has announced a AVCHD "Pro" Camcorder. They're touting it as the smallest pro camcorder at 1.12 pounds. It records 1080i high-def video on 4GB of flash memory (no tapes). It also comes with an external unit with a 40 GB hard drive that is basically a storage unit for video. Three 1/4" CCD's, no viewfinder (just a LCD screen). Due out in March with a MRSP of $2,099. Camcorderinfo.com has the details on the AG-HSC1U. Still no NLE support for AVCHD, although there is some application that comes with this camera.

Sony B-Stock

This website seems to be a Sony B-Stock store. A-stock is the stuff that you will get through a certified retailer. I'm not really sure what B-stock is--maybe refurbished gear. Generally, it is stuff that Sony sells at a lower price than their MRSP. But the items at this store seem to have a warranty. As someone who looks to buy decks used, B-stock is an option. Although one item that I looked at, a HVR-M15U HDV deck, was listed at $1,1775. At B&H, an A-stock HVR-M15U is selling for $1,900. For me that's not enough savings to justify buying B-stock. However, an HDCam player was going for $9,474 as B-stock and $12,300 at B&H. That's some real savings. I found about the store over at FresHDV.

PiXel Check

It will find your dead pixels but it can't fix 'em, but beggars can't be choosers. PiXel Check is free. I've never had problems with dead pixels, but it seems like a good idea to look for them when you get your hands on an LCD screen. If the problem is bad enough, it can be grounds for exchanging a new display.

Good Backup Primer

More from Macworld--"Easy Mac Backups" is a good article on backing up your Mac. It explains the value of a bootable backup and off-site backup. Goes over different ways of handling backups and retrieving those backups. There's also some MacWorld reviews of the major Mac backup software. The lowdown--Retrospect has the most features & capabilities but it's got a steep learning curve. They recommend ProSoft's Data Backup. I haven't used it, but I've known about ProSoft because their program Data Rescue offers the hope of retreiving files after a drive goes bad.

At home, I use Apple's Backup 'cause it's so easy. I also use Retrospect Express to do a bootable backup of my iBook every now and then, especially before I do a major upgrade of my OS. Retrospect Express is nice because it comes included with a lot of hard drives, like the ones from OWC. At work, I've figured out how to use Retrospect Desktop to backup 4 systems over a network, thanks to this PDF book Take Control of Mac OS Backups. It costs $10 but it's worth it if you have to really understand the ins and outs of backup, and it has a nice addendum just on Retrospect.

Here's my personal backup success story (I have some horror stories too of lost data but I'm trying to keep it upbeat.) Somehow all my contacts from Address Book disappeared. I never figured out how. But it took me about 5 minutes to get it back thanks to my backup with Apple's Backup. An advantage with Apple's Backup is that I didn't have to figure out what file(s) Address Books used to store my contacts in--I just told Backup that I needed my contacts back, and it obliged. Disaster averted.

Quick Editing of DVD's

I picked up a copy of the magazine MacWorld at the MacWorld Expo. There's something to be said for a good magazine, and I found a number of good tidbits.

Here's a description of how to quickly edit DVD's found under "Editing old home videos" in this Mac 911 column. It uses MPEG Streamclip which is the Swiss Army knife of MPEG and free to boot. With MPEG Streamclip, you can do some simple cutting on a VOB files from a DVD without having to transcode it into something that Final Cut likes, like the DV codec.

I've also been able to do this without Toast. In the past, freeware MovieGate has worked with a headed M2V exported out of MPEG Streamclip. MovieGate's a bit funky but in the past it's let me work without Toast to make a DVD straight from a M2V file.

"How to Choose CD/DVD Archival Media"

I've found myself trying to track down this article twice before. So I thought I should just go ahead and post a link to it here. Some advice on optical media. Recommends the manufacturer Taiyo Yuden and DVD+R for archival.

Final Cut Pro Shortcuts

Here's a nice one page listing FCP shortcuts. There's a nice shortcuts listing that comes with Final Cut that's folded-up. This one sheet would be easy to hang up somewhere in the edit room.