Blu-ray and Macs

As I've said before on this blog, Apple isn't giving Blu-ray any love. No drives, no playback, no authoring software. Apple is supposed to offer some support for burning Blu-ray data discs now, but Apple has been slow to jump on the next-gen for optical media (remember how Apple was out in front with DVD players in their computers back in the day?).

Right now, 3rd party software is providing support for burning. Toast 8 and 9 let you burn data Blu-ray. Toast 9 is supposed to let you burn high-def video to Blu-ray that will playback on Blu-ray players. But Adobe's Encore, part of Production Premium CS3, is now the best solution for putting high-def video onto Blu-ray. With a Blu-ray burner on the way to Link TV, and a copy of CS3 Production Premium available, we are on our way to burning our first Blu-ray discs. (Now if I can only convince my boss to buy a high-def TV and a PS3, so we could play the darn things.)

Adobe can encode your video for you, but there's a recent blog post Apple's Compressor & Encore Blu-Ray from Adobe that helps you figure out how to encode your high-def in Compressor. Adobe gets kudos for playing well with others. They don't pretend like they are the end-all and be-all of post-production software and that anything you would ever want to do can be done on their software. And I like the concept of an Adobe blog as a personable way to distribute info about software. The closest thing Apple gets to providing updated info on their software is their antiseptic support documents.

Adobe can't find a way to get h.264 encoding from Compressor working with Blu-ray, so they are using MPEG-2 encoding. Adobe will encode your high-def to h.264 for you, but it's nice not to have to do an export of your entire high-def show before you even start to encode.

I found this blog post over at Final Cut User who is also bemoaning Apple's lame response to Blu-ray.

FCP's Competition--Avid & Adobe

Big news from Avid today. The cost of the software-only version of Media Composer has been cut in half to $2500. And they are killing Xpress Pro.

I haven't worked on Avid in over 5 years now. So I can't really comment on how it measures up now to Final Cut Pro. IMHO, I don't think this is going to upend Final Cut Pro's dominance. But it may help Avid from losing too much more market share. They are also offering an educational license of Media Composer for $295. For owners of Xpress Pro, you can upgrade for $500.

Good commentary on these blogs about the latest news from Avid:
ProVideo Coalition
HD for Indies
Studio Daily Blog

I'm about to get a copy of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium. I'm getting it is as a swap. Unlike Avid and Apple, Adobe has a non-profit pricing. So Production Premium CS3 retails for $1700, but the non-profit price is under $600. When you look at everything that's in the Production Premium, it's a competitive product. Here are the apps:
After Effects CS3 Professional
Premiere Pro CS3 (runs on Intel Macs but not PowerPC Macs, e.g., G5's)
Encore CS3
Photoshop CS3 Extended
Flash CS3 Professional
Illustrator CS3
Soundbooth CS3
Device Central
Ultra CS3 (Windows Only)
OnLocation CS3 (Windows or Bootcamp)

Afters Effects and Photoshop Extended each cost $1000 retail if you buy them separately. So the bundle has some value. When you compare what Apple is offering for $1300, it leaves me wanting more from Final Cut Studio. While I'm very happy with Final Cut Pro, Apple needs to do more work on the secondary apps. Color has bad buzz for being unstable. I know Motion 2 left a lot to be desired in reliability and performance--I'm hoping that once I start working with Motion 3, I'll be happier. And no update for DVD Studio Pro when Final Cut Studio 2 came out. What is up with that Apple? I'm still holding out hope that Apple's waiting until they can introduce a Blu-ray burner in their laptops and then they are going to announce support for authoring Blu-ray discs in Final Cut Studio. But I wouldn't hold your breath. Adobe's Encore CS3 already does Blu-ray authoring. (Recently Toast 9 was announced with support for authoring Blu-ray video discs.) The fact that the MacBook Air doesn't even come with a DVD drive makes me worried that Steve Jobs thinks that the iTunes Store means that no one needs a disc to watch video anymore--or reading between the lines, Blu-ray is just competition for Steve's dominating video like he dominates music.

The things I'm most looking forward to in After Effects CS3 are better performance and 3D text effects. But frankly, I'll probably never even try out Adobe Premiere. I worked on it ages ago and felt burned. I'm happy with Final Cut Pro and it's not worth it for me to learn a new app when I don't know that if it's as powerful and reliable than FCP (much less better.) Not to mention the advantage Final Cut Pro has by being the de facto editing package for the type of work that I do.

Lots of Adobe Stuff Going On

"Adobe offers Premiere Pro, After Effects betas"
Betas of Premiere Pro for Mac and After Effects Pro 8 available. Premiere Pro is only for Intel Macs, not G5's or G4's. After Effects Beta is only available for folks with a serial number for After Effects 7, but the article doesn't mention any similar restrictions on Adobe Premiere Pro for Macs. Article reminded me that Adobe is working on Blu-Ray authoring for Encore, which will be on Macs later this year. What's up Apple? Where's your next-gen authoring for DVD Studio Pro?

"Adobe to show off media player"
Adobe is working on a stand-alone flash player. Looks like it has sort of an iTunes interface.

"Adobe ships Creative Suite 3"
Days after I order a copy of Creative Suite CS2, Adobe ships a new version. (OK, there are good reasons why I ordered the old version after I knew CS3 was on its way.)