Apple Updates the Mac Pro

Apple has refreshed the Mac Pro--the first full turnover of the Mac Pro since it was first announced in August of 2006. The line has switched from being dominated by Quad-core Xeon's to being dominated by Octo-core Xeon's. There was an uptick in price for the recommended system from $2500 to $2800 for an 8-core 2.8 GHz Xeon Mac Pro.

There are some other improvements in the system architecture and early results show good improvements in system performance. While adding 4 more cores doesn't double the speed, these systems look signficantly faster than older Mac Pro's, especiallly in encoding video. Check out this benchmark test from MacWorld for more info:
"From the Lab: Internal changes bolster latest Mac Pro"
I was surprised at what low marks they gave the internal hard drive that ships with the new Mac. I've always assumed that those had decent performance, but MacWorld found a significant speed bump on their multi-app test by putting a hard drive from an older Mac Pro into the current 8-core 2.8 GHz Xeon. For some good specs on hard drive performance, check out Bare Feats. Apple also has some performance comparisons with other Mac towers here, including rendering & encoding with FCP and After Effects.

There had been rumors that Apple was ready to add a Blu-ray drive for playing back high-def movies to the Mac Pro's. For PC's, adding an HD DVD or Blu-ray drive, or both, is now a common option. Nothing from Apple about Blu-ray for these new computers, but an announcement could come at the MacWorld Conference. I'm anxious to see Apple add Blu-ray disc authoring to DVD Studio Pro, as well as decent support for the HD DVD standard. Adobe's Encore already does this. Commentator Bob Cringely suggests that Jobs will ignore high-def discs because he sees them as a threat to iTunes ruling the media world in his latest column (he also thinks Apple will buy Adobe, which seems a bit far-fetched to me.)

Capture HDV as ProRes 422

"Really? Capture HDV to ProRes in FCP? Over FireWire?! Yes!"
This is a short tutorial over at the Creative Cow about converting HDV to ProRes 422 during capture. Will give you an idea about how to do this and how it works.

Note that in the comments section, the author advises against reimporting the clips from the finder in order to rename them (something that is recommended in the article itself). The reason he changed his mind is that FCP 6 lets you rename clips and then changes the name of the media files to match--pretty cool.

More notes on this process here at Little Frog in High Def:
CAPTURING HDV AS PRORES...VIA FIREWIRE

Utility Offers Import of AVCHD on G5's, G4's

I read about a nifty looking utility in a Final Cut Express review at macworld.com. Voltaic is the missing link for PowerPC users who want to cut AVCHD footage.

The need for this utility arises from Apple's refusal to support AVCHD on PowerPC Macs--only newer Intel Mac's can convert AVCHD footage to something that you can edit. This applies to both iMovie '08, Final Cut Express, and Final Cut Pro. Voltaic lets PowerPC users convert their AVCHD footage to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec.) AIC is supposed to be similar to ProRes 422 with the main difference being that AIC is 8-bit and ProRes 422 is 10-bit. Also, Voltaic offers a workflow for cutting AVCHD footage recorded onto DVD's, which Apple isn't supporting now.

So what's AVCHD? If you don't know, you can check out these older posts:
AVCHD Support in FCP
AVC: More Format Wackiness
AVCHD Is a Pro Format

While we're on the topic of AVCHD, Canon has announced a couple of new camcorders, which record in AVCHD using flash memory, as well as a replacement for the popular HV20. Here's the news on that:
"Canon Debuts First High Definition Solid State Camcorders: HF10 and HF100"
"Move Over HV20, Here Comes the Canon HV30"
These flash memory camcorders are really small, and I have hopes that Canon's new camcorders will produced some good looking high-def video. I got to play around with Sony's AVCHD flash memory camcorder the HDR-CX7 recently--could be a decent B-Cam and its size makes it inconspicuous and good for travel.

Camcorderinfo.com's annual list of the best consumer cameras CamInfo Selects 2007 saw Canon take home the top honors. The HV20 was the best camcorder, and the HG10, which records AVCHD to a hard drive, was also honored. Apparently Canon's cameras do a better job of encoding video into AVCHD than either Sony's or Panasonic's camera. This isn't good news for Panasonic because unlike Sony and Canon, Panasonic is trying to use AVCHD in cameras marketed to Pros.

Upscaling Software Comparison

"Integrating DV Source Footage into HDV Projects, Part 2" by Jan Ozer

Need to incorporate some standard-def footage into a high-def project? Then check out this article. It compares results of upscaling standard def footage to HD with 5 different packages, including FCP. The long and short of it is that it looks like spending $99 on Red Giant Software's Instant HD provides some nice improvements over the built-in scaling of FCP and Premiere Pro.

The article has some very handy comparison shots of the results from different packages. Click on the image with this post to see a larger view of a comparison of Instant HD and FCP. The image shows at the top, Instant HD, and below it, FCP. The handy red circles gives you points of comparison. Instant HD doesn't help with every shot though, and it doesn't create miracles, i.e., make your SD look as sharp as if it was actually shot in HD.

Not included in the comparison is a workflow mentioned by the author in another article that I posted about earlier--using Compressor. I think a good deinterlace from Compressor would have helped with some of the jaggies that showed up in all of the FCP examples of up-rezing. On the other hand, Compressor's good deinterlacing is very slow and the workflow is more complicated than just popping on a filter, like Instant HD, right in Final Cut.

The clear winner in the comparison, Algolith by AlgoSuite, is no longer available. The company has decided to discontinue the software to focus on dedicated hardware that does real-time processing. Not tested in this article is hardware-based upscaling like the AJA Kona 3 does or the Terranex.

iPod as Control Interface

This is a cool demonstration of beta software that uses the touchscreen of an iPhone or iPod touch to control ProTools. Who knows, maybe someday you'll be mixing your audio on your phone or audio player? More info over at FreshDV

Scaling Up your Video

Integrating DV Source Footage into HDV Projects, Part 1 By Jan Ozer

This is a good article on the basic issues on scaling up footage for high-definition video. Goes over frame resolution, pixel aspect ratio, and interlace. One good tidbit mentions an advantage to using Compressor with interlaced footage:

On the other hand, when converting from interlaced DV to progressive HD, deinterlacing is a huge component of the quality equation, which could and perhaps should change your workflow, particularly for Final Cut Pro editors. That’s because Final Cut Pro deploys different deinterlacing algorithms than Compressor, which uses the glacial but ultra-high quality Optical Flow algorithm from Shake. If converting from interlaced source to progressive, you may produce noticeably better quality by scaling and particularly deinterlacing in Compressor. This means creating a separate sequence for your SD footage, rendering it out through Compressor, then re-importing the file back into Final Cut Pro. On the other hand, I found scaling quality relatively close between Final Cut Pro and Compressor, so if you don’t need to de-interlace, scaling in Final Cut Pro should work just fine.

This article says that FCP and Compressor do an equivalent job of scaling-up video. But early this year I wrote about a tip for getting better-quality uprez with Photoshop. A tricky workflow, but if quality really matters then it's doable.
[via FreshDV]

Tutorial on Setting up Drives for Editing

Formatting & Partitioning a Hard Drive in OS X - Tiger and Leopard
By Ken Stone

A short tutorial from kenstone.net that covers the basics on setting up a hard drive for editing. Goes over formatting and partitioning. I sometimes will partition a hard drive. A hard drive's performance drops as the drive fills up, so I will often split up a disc in a faster partition and a slower partition. (One reason I like G-Raid's is that you can get good performance out of the drive even when it is full.)

Article also covers good things to know about permissions and journaling.

[via StudioDaily blog]

Breaking Stereotypes about Muslims

The One Nation, Many Voices film contest is looking for films that break stereotypes about Muslim Americans. They are offering $50,000 in prizes, including a $20,0000 grand prize. Deadline for entries is 12/31/07. So hurry up and make that film.

Adam Wilt on Sony's EX-1

"EX-1 Experiments: Shooting with Sony's XDCAM EX System"
By Adam Wilt

Adam Wilt takes a look at an engineering sample of Sony's totally-tapeless camera the PMW-EX1. Sounds like the video is very good, but he says it's really hard to hand hold the camera. Here's his summary:

Overall, the EX1 is a very promising camera: pin-sharp, sensitive imagers with what looks to be considerable latitude, variable frame rates, the benefits of solid-state recording, HD-SDI and lots of tweakability. It's painful to handhold, and the analog I/O cabling is sub-optimal, but those problems have to be set against what may yet be turn out to be the finest images in the sub-$10k field. I'll be very interested to put a production model EX1 through a rigorous evaluation.

[via hdforindies.com]

MacWorld Looks at 20" LCD Monitors

I remember when a 20" monitor was a big deal, and 2 years ago they cost around $500. Well, seems like Moore's Law is working its way into LCD displays, and prices are dropping. But there are so many models and manufacturers, it's often hard to find that sweet spot between quality and value.

MacWorld has just done a series of reviews on six 20" widescreen LCD monitors. These aren't the uber-expensive monitors for graphic professionals, and the review doesn't even include what has been my monior-mainstay: the Dell UltraSharp line. So I guess these would be considered value monitors geared more towards the consumer. Personally, I'm more worried about having a quality monitor for my video and less for my computer work-space. As long, as the color is decent, and the graphics crisp, I'm usually fine with my computer display.

With that philosophy in mind, it looks like they identify a couple of good monitors with words like "affordable", "inexpensive", and "effective" featured prominently in the reviews. The NEC MultiSync LCD205WXM monitor scored highest with a rating of 4 out of 5. The Dell E207WFP LCD monitor (not an UltraSharp) and the Samsung SyncMaster 206BW LCD monitor both got a rating of 3.5 out of 5. Also below I've thrown in some links to a HP 24" monitor (rating:4) and a ViewSonic 22" monitor (rating:3) that MacWorld has reviewed in the last 6 months.

NEC MultiSync LCD205WXM monitor 4 mice

Dell E207WFP LCD monitor 3.5 mice

Samsung SyncMaster 206BW LCD monitor 3.5 mice

BenQ FP202W V3 monitor 3 mice

Envision G2016wa LCD monitor 3 mice

HP w2007 monitor 3 mice

ViewSonic VA2026w LCD monitor 3 mice

HP LP2465 flat panel monitor4 mice
Large wide-screen LCD display offers good value

ViewSonic VX2245wm ViewDock monitor 3 mice

NEC Multisync LCD225WXM
Mac Life looks at the 22" NEC (the bigger brother to the 20" NEC that MacWorld likes) and gave it a 3 out of 5 rating. Good for office use, but not much beyond that. Complains about banding in gradients--ew, that's not good. Makes you wonder if the 22" performs worse than the 20" or if Mac Life has higher standards than MacWorld.

Firewire 800 on Mac Towers

"REVIEW: Sonnet Technologies Tango Express 800 PCIe Card"

An interesting new product review here with lots of good tidbits about a number of different factors that have been affecting firewire on the Macs with PCI Express slots. Bare Feats says that this Sonnet card brings a new level of performance to its product class after some disappointing products from some other manufacturers (I think I have one of those disappointing products.)

Final Cut Studio Gets New Features, Leopard Support

Apple updated all of the apps in Final Cut Studio with official support for OS 10.5 today (the updates also work with 10.4.11, also out today.) But wait, there's more! If you call now, you'll also get support for some of the new high-def cameras.

The XDCAM EX format is now supported under FCP 6.0.2. So footage from Sony's PMW-EX1 is now supported. AVC-Intra, which Panasonic is using on its high-end cameras, is supported. And JVC's HDV recordings in 720p60 and 720p50 are supported. There looks like there is also more support for progressive recording from Canon's cameras and Sony HVR-V1. Check out the release notes for all of the details.

I looked at the release notes for the other products and nothing jumped out at me. It looks like Color got a lot of bug fixes based on the release notes.

Mike Curtis offers more detail and some commentary on the new features at HDforIndies.com.

Sony Officially Names Removable-Lens Cams & Announces New HDV Products (Updated)

Information is trickling in today about Sony's big new steps in HDV. First off, the new cameras that I mentioned in September now officially have names HVR-S270 for the shoulder-mount and HVR-Z7 for the handycam size. Lots of stuff coming along with it too. How about a new deck, the HVR-M35. The main feature addition seems to be 24P and 30P recording on this deck as well as HD-SDI output and more support for JVC and Canon HDV recordings. There's also a flash memory recording unit for both of these cameras the HVR-MC1 that records to Compact Flash in HDV, DVCam and DV.

Unfortunately, the only official announcements are from Europe and Japan and not for the US market. The Japanese I can't read (help from my Japanese readers?) and the European models don't have 24P support (they are all about 25P over there.) Official announcements from both Europe and the U.S. are out. Here are links to more info available now:

"SONY UNVEILS NEXT GENERATION OF PROFESSIONAL HDV PRODUCTS"
Official U.S. press release on these products. Also includes link to those super hi-res photos of the deck and the 2 cameras.

"Sony refreshes HDV line- HVR-S270U and HVR-Z7U"
Good coverage here with some analysis from the IEBA Tech Thoughts blog.

Sony: The Next Generation Of HDV Products
Sony's Europe page on the new products

Frank's thought on HDV
Info on HVR-S270, HVR-Z7, and HVR-M35

More on Sony's New DV-Compatible HDV Camcorder and Deck
StudioDaily has US-focused info including some comments from Sony and prices:
HVR-S270U $10,500
HVR-Z7U $6,850
HVR-M35U $5,540

These products should be in the States in February '08.

Seems like Sony's HVR-Z7U is really very competitive with it own PMW-EX1. The $6,900 PMW-EX1 doesn't have an interchangeable lens and doesn't record to tape but has larger 1/2" sensors and the variable-bit rate 35 Mbps recording mode. The HVR-Z7U has 1/3" sensors but interchangeable lens and with the HVR-MC1 can record to flash memory as well as tape. I'm not sold on the solid-state memory recording as the only media for a camera personally.

The new cameras come with 12x lens with optical image stabilization.

I'll need to keep up with this. I'm not really sure if there is some new flavor of HDV that Sony is using for progressive-frame support. The V1 has 24p but records to 60i using 2:3 pulldown. Makes for easy compatibility but tricky to post as native 24p. (Update: This just got easier with the FCP 6.0.2 release.) I'm puzzled by the 24p and 30p modes for the HVR-M35 deck (which are visible on this photo) and what that means for these recordings compatibility with over Sony gear, like the HVR-M15, HVR-M25, and HVR-1500. Any difference in posting progressive recordings from this new gear? This progressive support on the deck may just be for displays, as 99% of HD displays (e.g., LCD & plasma) are progessive and not interlaced, so why send those display an interlaced image. The progressive displays have to have de-interlace, which causes a loss in vertical resolution.

Update: after thinking this over, I think a more likely benefit of the 24p and 30p playback mode is for using HD-SDI to capture and dub footage. HD-SDI signals support progressive video at 24, 25, 30 fps, as do capture cards like the Kona LH and Kona 3. So it seems like this opens up the option to capture without having to use your computer to remove pulldown to get to progressive video clips. Or it could be to dub footage to formats like HDCAM. Well, really I'll probably have to wait until this deck comes out, hopefully in February, to find out.

Update: There's a PDF of a brochure out for the European cameras and deck that make it clear that they can record in a progressive frame at 25 frames per second. Similary the HVR-M35E can record and playback 1080 progressive frames at 24 fps, 25 fps, and 30fps. So I'm guessing when more details emerge about the American models that we will see a different flavor of HDV that is 24fps, true progressive with no pulldown added. Canon is doing this with the HV-20, and the HVR-M35 is supposed to support tapes from that camera. So what happens if you try to put one of these tapes with 24fps footage into an older deck like the HVR-M10 or HVR-M25 or even the HVR-1500? I'm guessing you are in trouble. Also the HVR-S270 can record 4 channels of audio--a first for the HDV format. Will older decks support this format?

My Most-Used Freeware--Bitrate Pro

I don't know why Apple doesn't include something like this in Compressor and/or Final Cut Pro. The free Bitrate Pro will do a lot for you. How much space will 2 hours of DV footage take up? 20.95 GB. If I want to fit 1 hour and 45 minutes of video on a single-layer DVD what is the highest bitrate that I should use? 5.98 Mb/s. These are the kinds of calculations you can do with bitrate pro. Includes all kinds of handy info about how much data is on a DVD single-layer vs. dual-layer and what data rates different codecs use like ProRes, DV, DV50, and DVCPro HD.

AJA has a similar piece of freeware AJA Data Rate Calculator that is more geared toward figuring out storage for editing. They have presets for most of the editing codecs that their hardware has native support for.

I couldn't remember the name of Bitrate Pro, but I was able to track it down on this cool page that Apple has for video software downloads. You can always use versiontracker or macupdate, but I get overwhelmed by all the software on those sites. I think Apple helps make it manageable to explore freeware and shareware (although there's a lot of demo stuff thrown in there too.)

Free MacWorld Pass

Here's a deal from dealmac.com to get into the MacWorld exhibition hall for free. If you show up on the day-of and aren't registered, expect to pay $45 just to get into the exhibit hall--ouch. There will be other deals, but if you think you want to go then why wait. Just do it. Register now.

Here's one reason to go to the exhibit. Get your iPod battery replaced for around $20 while you wait. No shipping off and waiting to get your battery with more expensive services. Or even worse, trying to swap your battery on your own and breaking your iPod (I did that.)

MacWorld Expo
Jan. 15 - 18, 2008
Moscone Center
S.F.