This Final Cut Pro X title template displays a series of four texts, zooming from one to the next:

Here are the controls:

The title defaults to starting by zooming towards the first text, and at the end, zooming out from the fourth text. Use the Build In and Build Out controls to choose whether to display these zooms.

If you want the four pieces of text to start from behind the camera, drop into place and then fly into the distance, click the Reverse check box.

Rectangle Frequency: controls the number of rectangles displayed per text. A value of 2 will show a rectangle around each text and an intermediate rectangle in between the text and the following text. A value of 3 will show two rectangles between the texts.

There are controls to modify the fill and border of the rectangles.

The further away the text and rectangles are from the camera, the more blurred they get. You can choose the blur method: Gaussian is a faster mathematical blur, Defocus more accurately simulates blurs seen in camera lenses, but is slower to render.

You can set the typeface, colour, size, alignment and more of the text using the Text tab of the inspector. Click one of the texts in the viewer to start.

As well as the parameter controls, you can use and on-screen. control to reposition each text. This control becomes visible once you start editing the text by clicking it in the viewer.

In this case the position control appears next to the E of ‘Each.’

The duration for each text is determined by the total length of the title. It defaults to taking 22 seconds to show. If you reduce the length of the title of the title in the timeline, the duration of each of the four texts will reduce in proportion.

Installation

Download this disk image:

It includes an installation script for Spherico’s Motion Template Tool application, if you don’t have it on your Mac, download it. It is a freeware/donationware tool that simplifies effects installation for Final Cut Pro X users. MTT installs effects for Final Cut Pro X in the correct folders, creating them if need be. You don’t need to have Motion 5 or MTT installed for these effects to work.

Once you have MTT installed on your computer, double-click the ‘Install Alex4D Zoom Four 1.0.mtt’ file.

If you don’t want to use the Motion Template Tool, install these effects in Home / Movies / Motion Templates / Titles / Alex4D:

The title will appear in the Alex4D section of the Titles browser.

Double-click to add it to your timeline.

Check out my other effects and articles on my Final Cut Pro X home page.

When first trying out downloaded effects, transitions, titles and generators in Final Cut Pro X, sometimes the viewer turns blue.

If this happens to you, the most likely problem is that your version of Final Cut Pro X is too old. You need to use the Mac App Store to check for updates. You’ll see the update if you are signed into the App Store with the same Apple ID as you bought your copy of Final Cut Pro X.

In practice most people who provide transitions, effects, generators and titles update their versions of Motion 5 and Final Cut Pro X when they come out, so any tools they make available after that only work on the new version of Final Cut.

This means most effects and transitions made available after September 20th, 2011 won’t work in version 10.0.

Most effects and transitions made available after November 16th, 2011 won’t work in version 10.0.1 or earlier.

Most effects and transitions made available after January 31st, 2012 won’t work in version 10.0.2 or earlier.

Most effects and transitions made available after April 10th, 2012 won’t work in version 10.0.3 or earlier.

Most effects and transitions made available after June 11th, 2012 won’t work in version 10.0.4 or earlier.

Most effects and transitions made available after October 23rd, 2012 won’t work in version 10.0.5 or earlier.

Most effects and transitions made available after December 6th, 2012 won’t work in version 10.0.5 or earlier, but will work in the out of date version: 10.0.6.

10.0.7 update

On December 6th, 2012 Apple introduced the Final Cut Pro 10.0.7 and Motion 5.0.6 updates. Interestingly, the blue ‘effect too new’ result doesn’t happen when trying to use a 5.0.6 Motion-generated effect in Final Cut Pro 10.0.6.

A workaround for 10.0.3-10.0.5 users

Although version 10.0.6 added many new features, some editors haven’t upgraded yet because some hardware and effects they need don’t yet work.

If you have version 10.0.5 and you’d like to use an effect released since October 2012, newer templates can be modified to work in 10.0.5, 10.0.4 and 10.0.3.

Effects, transitions, generators and titles are implemented using template files made in Apple Motion. These Motion templates can be modified in a text editor. Drag the Motion template file (stored in the template folder) onto an application that can edit text – such as TextEdit.

10.0.6 compatible .moef, .motr, .motn and .moti files start with the following text:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE ozxmlscene>
<ozml version="5.5">

<displayversion>5.0.5</displayversion>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE ozxmlscene>
<ozml version="5.2">

<displayversion>5.0.2</displayversion>

Over at the fcp.co forum, a user named ‘parchabg’ was trying to get better results when exporting interlaced PAL from Final Cut Pro X. I suggested using Apple Compressor’s ‘DV Stream’ setting. It allows control over interlace field order.

If you use a Compressor preset very often, you can use that preset as a Share Destination from within Final Cut Pro X.

Compressor keeps presets in .setting files.

If these .setting files are in

Your user name/Library/Application Support/Compressor/Settings/

…you can use them within Final Cut Pro X.

I haven’t bought Compressor 4, I still use Compressor 3.5.3. It stores its .setting files in a place that Final Cut Pro X cannot see: Your user name/Library/Application Support/Compressor/

That means if there’s a .setting file I want to use in Final Cut Pro X, I need to move it into a sub-folder named ‘Settings’:

To add a Compressor setting as a destination, go to the Share submenu of the File menu. Choose ‘Add Destination’. Double-click the Compressor Settings icon:

The dialogue box that appears shows the Compressor presets stored in .setting files:

Choose the preset you want as a new Share destination and click OK. Once you close the Preferences dialogue, a new item appears in the Share menu: your new Share Destination:

No Compressor 4 needed

If you need a custom destination but don’t have Compressor, you can copy custom .setting files from people with Compressor and this technique still works. This is because Final Cut Pro X includes all the code required to run these presets.

If you’d like to try this PAL DV Stream preset, you can download it from here.

This Final Cut Pro X title template is similar to the built-in Basic Title title template with the addition of keyframable parameters

Here is initial part of the controls:

In other Final Cut titles, you can’t use keyframes to animate text tracking, slant and other parameters in the Text tab of the title inspector. This title overcomes that limitation. By setting keyframes for Tracking for example, you can animate the spacing between letters.

As well as Size, Line Spacing, Tracking and Baseline, and graphical effects which are found in the Text tab, you can also control Slant, Letter Rotation and how the text is typed on.

If you keyframe Type On End from 0% to 100%, that will control the speed the text appears character by character.

Installation

Download this disk image:

It includes an installation script for Spherico’s Motion Template Tool application, if you don’t have it on your Mac, download it. It is a freeware/donationware tool that simplifies effects installation for Final Cut Pro X users. MTT installs effects for Final Cut Pro X in the correct folders, creating them if need be. You don’t need to have Motion 5 or MTT installed for these effects to work.

Once you have MTT installed on your computer, double-click the ‘Install Alex4D Basic – Keyframable 1.0′ file.

If you don’t want to use the Motion Template Tool, install these effects in Home / Movies / Motion Templates / Titles / Alex4D:

The title will appear in the Alex4D section of the Titles browser.

Double-click to add it to your timeline.

Check out my other effects and articles on my Final Cut Pro X home page.

This Final Cut Pro X effect is for combining HDR footage produced using the Magic Lantern tool for Canon DSLRs. Magic Lantern is open-source firmware that adds many useful features to cameras.

This effect is for HDR clips recorded with Magic Lantern. High Dynamic Range imagery relies on taking two pictures of a scene using different exposure settings: the first underexposed, the second overexposed. Combining these pictures results in more detail in the brightest and darkest areas. Magic Lantern does this for video by modifying exposure settings for alternate frames. Alex4D Magic Lantern HDR gives you control on how these frames are combined.

Visit the Magic Lantern site to find out more about the many features it adds to Canon cameras.

Here are the controls:

This is an effect that you apply to an Magic Lantern-recorded HDR clip.

Prepare the clip

Before you work with this effect, make sure the frame rate of the clip matches the project you are using it in. It is best to edit ML HDR clips in projects with matching frame rates i.e. 59.94 fps clips in 59.94 projects and 50 fps clips in 50 fps projects.

If the frame rate of your HDR clip doesn’t match your project, once you have added it to the timeline, select the clip and choose Conform Speed from the Retime menu:

The effect should be in the Alex4D section of the Effects Browser.

With the HDR clip selected, double-click the effect to apply it, or drag it onto the clip.

In the effect, choose the frame rate of the project you are using:

Choose composition settings

Depending on your footage you can choose whether you want to compose, or ‘comp’ the lighter frames over the darker frames, or vice versa. You can also choose which blend mode to use, opacity, contrast for each set of frames. You can also ‘key out’ or not to include the brighter or darker areas of the frames.

The effect defaults to showing the even frames overlaid on the odd frames using the Lighten blend mode with an opacity of 50%. This adds some detail from the overexposed frames on top of the underexposed frames.

For each set of frames have their own composition controls:

For more on the differences between these modes, visit the Motion online documentation on the subject.

The next section is the Luma Key section – you choose whether to include the darkest or brightest parts of the frame. If Luma Low = 0, the darkest parts are included. If you increase this value, more and more of the darker parts are not composited. Higher values of Low Smooth soften the edges of the darker keyed out areas. If Luma High = 1, the brightest areas are included. If you reduce this value, more and more of the brighter parts are not composited. High Smooth softens the edges of the brighter keyed out areas.

You can use Levels section change the brightness and contrast of the frames using Adobe Photoshop-style controls.

You can use the View pop-up menu to show the source frames, the even frames composed over the odd frames, the even frames without processing, the even frames with processing (showing blend mode, opacity setting, luma keyed version and contrast using Levels controls), the odd frames without processing, odd frames with processing and the odd frames comped over the even frames:

Which frames are which?

This effect counts its frames from the start of the clip as used in the timeline. Be careful about choosing your first frame. If you trim off a single frame from the start, the even frames will become odd, and the odd frames will become even.

Installation

Download this disk image:

It includes an installation script for Spherico’s Motion Template Tool application, if you don’t have it on your Mac, download it. It is a freeware/donationware tool that simplifies effects installation for Final Cut Pro X users. MTT installs effects for Final Cut Pro X in the correct folders, creating them if need be.

You don’t need to have Motion 5 or MTT installed for these effects to work.

If you have MTT installed on your computer, double-click the ‘Install Alex4D Magic Lantern HDR 1.0′ file.

If you don’t want to use the Motion Template Tool, install these effects in Home / Movies / Motion Templates / Effects / Alex4D:

Check out my other effects and articles on my Final Cut Pro X home page.

There are 423 commands available in the Command Set editor in Final Cut Pro X. 279 have default keyboard shortcuts.

I’ve designed a PDF listing all 423 commands with a short description of what they do and their default shortcuts if available.

You can see the PDF by clicking

http://www.alex4d.com/plugins/fcpX/Alex4D_Final_Cut_Pro_10.0.7_Commands.pdf

If you Control- or Right- click the link, you can save the PDF to your computer.

If you also have the current Final Cut Pro User Guide open, clicking a command will scroll the User Guide to the relevant page:

1. Download the current version of the Final Cut Pro X User Guide from

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/final_cut_pro_x_user_guide.pdf

2. Store it in the same folder on your computer as Alex4D_Final_Cut_Pro_10.0.7_Commands.pdf

3. Open them both in their own window in Preview or Acrobat.

Clicking a command will scroll the User Guide to the relevant page. Some commands aren’t directly mentioned in guide, but they’re linked to the correct section.

To assign a keyboard shortcut to one of these commands, use the Command Editor (Option-Command-K):

More Final Cut Pro X – including over 50 free effects, titles and transitions: my FCPX home page

As part of 685,000 blog views, visitors downloaded my Final Cut Pro plug-ins many thousands of times.

If you follow my blog via email using the control on the top left of the blog page, you’ll get advance notice of new posts and plug-ins and more.

Thanks to my many visitors in 2012. I plan to make many more Final Cut Pro X effects, transitions, titles and generators in 2013!

Final Cut Pro X Top 10

1. Blurs

Six blurs and one sharpen effect

2. Mask+

Define 4, 8 or 16 points of a mask with animation control over scale, rotate and perspective distortion

3. Colour effects

11 colour control effects

4. Magic Lantern HDR

Composition controls for resolving HDR clips generated by Magic Lantern on Canon SLRs

5. Bad TV

More controls than the standard version

6. 4 Up

Display four clips on the same screen, or switch between them

7. Aged Film

More controls and ‘Bad TV’-style rolling

8. Distorts

Four distort effects

9. Adjustment Layer

Any effects or transformations you apply to this title will be applied to all timeline clips below

10. Smooth Move

Defines a start and finish position, scale and rotation for clip content with controls for how the clip moves from start to finish

Final Cut Pro 6 & 7 Top 5

1. Closing Credits

This plugin gives you typographic controls over all names or credits or section titles at the same time. You can also set the credits to scroll at specific speeds.

2. Access to all your fonts

Apple’s plugins don’t give you access to all your fonts. Use these replacement versions to use any installed font.

3. Lower Third

This generator provides extra text and positioning options for labelling people and places.

4. Vignette filter

A vignetting plugin giving control over position and aspect ratio.

5. Improved text Crawl

This generator removes the limit on the amount of text you can use in a crawl, and adds extra features.

On Tuesday January 8th, 2013 I appeared on a webinar at Moviola.com hosted by Michael Horton of the Los Angeles Creative Pro User Group.

The web broadcast was free to watch live. The webinar is available for download on demand for $15.

Download the on-demand webinar to see me change the default settings for built-in Final Cut Pro X effects, bring the additional effects available in Motion 5 into Final Cut, and combine Motion’s advanced controls into single Final Cut Pro X effect controls.

The final effect that I make in the webinar corrects the kind of fish-eye distortion that some wide angle lenses can add to footage. I show how it corrects narrow, medium and wide angle GoPro footage.

The download includes:

- The hour+ webinar
- The footage I used in a Final Cut Pro event
- The timeline I used in a Final Cut Pro project
- The new effects created in Motion which you can immediately use in Final Cut
- My script, on which I based my completely ad-libbed presentation:

If you follow along, you’ll have made new effects you can immediately use in your editing projects.

All the Final Cut Pro X effects, transitions, titles and generators I’ve made available for free on this blog were made using Motion 5.

The webinar is an introduction on how Motion 5 works with Final Cut. It will start you on a journey towards making effects to save you time on your own projects and tools you can share with the rest of the Final Cut Pro X world.

Here are some comments from those who attended the live webinar:

“Cracking insight.” - Seth H.
“Listening from Wexford ireland – you have saved me a ton of time. Thanks Alex!”- Christian O.
“Very useful, great presentation.” - Artesia A.
“Thank you. Great webinar and thanks for your time.” - Ray B.
“Just a quick note, this is brilliant!” -Jim M.
“Just wanted to thank Alex for all his hard work, filters, blog, shares etc.” - Snow R.

Thank you!

Today Finnish company Lacquer updated their Conduit Live product and made it free for Macintosh users. Renamed PixelConduit, it is a video effect development system for motion graphics designers.

It was conceived as a live video performance tool. The application was designed take multiple video sources, apply many complex effects in real time and distribute the results to multiple screens. In recent years, it has been designed for more uses (from the manual at PixelConduit):

- Previewing visual effects on set.
- Theatrical shows and other video-based performances.
- Video installations.
- Compositing and other finishing work.
- Post-production workflow automation.
- Rendering custom graphics in post.
- Live graphics with custom control interfaces, e.g. for TV productions.

In order for real-time video effects to work, the UI metaphor is based on flowcharts that can be quickly manipulated while live video is being fed in:

Conduit flowcharts are made of specialised nodes. This flowchart shows a .conduit file that adds an orange tint to the input image.

In this case, the Input node is connected to a live camera. Whichever nodes it is connected to get frames from the camera.

The Gradient node has three Color nodes connected. It usually produces a vertical gradient between three colours.

The Luminance node takes a picture from the Input node and converts it to monochrome based on it’s luminance.

When the Gradient node also has a greyscale image connected to its fourth input, it renders the greyscale image based on the colours in the gradient (the black pixels in the source image as the first colour, ranging up to the white pixels as the third colour).

So, in this case, the camera input has been fully colourised based on shades of orange (the three input colours to the gradient).

I’ll come back to the Set Matte and Premultiply nodes later.

The Slider 1 node passes in the value of a slider that is manipulated live.

The Blend node takes two images and overlays one on the other using a transparency value based on the value from the slider. In this case, the amount of orange tinting is controlled by how transparent the fully colourised version of the source is when overlayed on the original input video.

The Output node then sends the result to the screen of your choice.

PixelConduit has evolved to be used for non-live video. This kind of flowchart can be applied to video clips in editing software timelines.

Instead of a live camera connected to the Input node, the video of a Final Cut Pro timeline clip is sent into the flowchart. The Slider node is connected to a control in the Final Cut Inspector. The Output node sends the result back to the Final Cut Pro timeline.

This is why the Set Matte and Premultiply nodes are needed. They take the transparent pixels in the source video clip and apply the same transparency to the gradient colourised copy of the source clip. If this wasn’t done, the transparent parts of the timeline clip would be blended with the black parts of the colourised version.

PixelConduit and Apple Motion users

PixelConduit is aimed at Apple Motion users who know how to create effect templates for use in Final Cut. The underlying framework that makes Conduit files play in Mac apps such as Motion and Final Cut is called the Conduit Effect System.

To create Conduit Effect System-based effects in Motion, apply the ‘Conduit’ effect to a layer:

Then click the Show Conduit Editor button to create a new .conduit file

Add nodes to the flowchart by dragging them from the left-hand palette.

Here I’ve added some nodes and am dragging a Luminance node into the editor:

To connect one node to the other, drag from the output connector of the start node to the input connector of the destination node.

Once you’re happy with your Conduit, close the editor window and choose how to connect your new Conduit to your Motion template. A single Conduit filter applied to a layer can have eight slider inputs. You can have up to seven image inputs. These inputs can be Motion clips or layers. There also four colour pickers. As well as connecting these inputs to Motion elements, you can also publish them to Final Cut Pro, so editors can manipulate them directly.

Once you are happy with your PixelConduit-enabled effect you can save it and make it available in Final Cut Pro X.

There is more detailed PDF on creating effects in Motion 5 for Final Cut Pro X using the Conduit Effect System from the PixelConduit website.

PixelConduit and Final Cut Pro users

The vast majority of Final Cut users won’t be spending their time creating Conduit files to use to solve editing problems. However now that the Conduit Effect System and the PixelConduit applications are free, it might usher in a whole new set of plug-ins from ‘fourth-parties’ (people who use third-party tools to make products).

You can download sample Final Cut Pro plug-ins from the PixelConduit website.

You don’t need to download the PixelConduit 3.0 application, the plug-ins download includes the sample effects and frameworks that add the Conduit Editor window to Motion and Final Cut. You can also use Motion to take a look at how the sample effects were implemented as Motion templates (The Conduit plug-ins that appear in Final Cut Pro aren’t installed in the Motion Templates folder, but in Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro/Templates instead).

Bug

Due to an Apple bug in Final Cut Pro X 10.0.6 and 10.0.7, when these effects render sometimes there are random frames when the image is tinted and flipped upside down. There’s nothing that Lacquer can do about this – it will only be fixed if Apple deals with the bug in a future version of Final Cut Pro.

In the next post I’ll investigate the advantages that PixelConduit has over creating effects using Motion.

Where does PixelConduit come when comparing the various methods for making Final Cut Pro plug-ins?

The post powerful Final Cut Pro effects are FxPlugs: implemented in Objective-C, using the same kinds of tools that make OS X and iOS apps. This is the hardest method.

Then come Quartz Composer-based effects. Quartz Composer is part of Apple’s developer tools, first introduced as an application that creates complex programmatically driven user interface elements for OS X and iOS apps. FxFactory was introduced to bundle ‘Quartz Compositions’ into Final Cut Pro effects – connecting Quartz compositions to controls in the effects inspector.

Although fans of QC say you can get great results without any programming, Quartz Composer is hard to learn and use. Even though it is a matter of connecting nodes, the nature of some operations requires combining many little nodes to get straightforward results.

FxFactory can also be used to distribute plug-ins made in Motion with the advantage of enabling trial versions that can be unlocked simply and templates that can’t be opened in Motion. These days, the majority of FxFactory-distributed plug-ins are made in Motion.

Useful effects made in Motion can get complex too. You might need many layers, groups and controls to provide a simple tool for Final Cut Pro editors.

If ranked in difficulty in learning, PixelConduit fits between Motion and Quartz Composer for most people.

However, if you can’t get the hang of Motion, you don’t need to know much about it to implement a Conduit Effects System-based effect. It’s a matter of how you think. Many compositors prefer a node-based user interface over Motion’s ‘link anything to anything’ interface.

What can PixelConduit bring to Final Cut Pro effects?

If the Conduit Effect System becomes popular with people who make plug-ins for Final Cut Pro, what new features might we see in effects, transitions and titles released in the coming months?

As Conduit files are made up connected nodes, it’s a matter of what specific nodes can do that isn’t yet possible in Motion.

Colour Correction

The most obvious advantage of Conduit in Final Cut is that some of its nodes output a larger range of colours.

Here are some comparisons.

First the source clip – with out of range RGB values:

The RGB values are clipped when the Brightness/Contrast effect as applied with settings that shouldn’t change the RGB waveforms:

When a Conduit Effects System-based colour correction effect is applied with settings that shouldn’t modify the waveforms, the waveforms are only slightly clipped.

When Broadcast Safe is applied using the ‘Reduce Luminance’ method, the excess values are clipped:

If I apply a Conduit Effects System-based effect that can scale colour values to change the darker values so the darkest value is 0, the waveforms change correctly:

Added to the previous effect is a Conduit Effects System-based effect which applies a Knee to scale the upper parts of the waveform so the highest values are less than 1:

If you’d like to try these effects, first download the frameworks and plug-ins from the PixelConduit site - use the Download for Final Cut Pro X and Motion 5 button. Once installed, install the Motion templates in this archive.

Here are the controls for the two included effects:

There are also more options for converting colour spaces. Here are some of the nodes which can be included in conduit files:

Using nodes like these, timeline clips could be converted to different colour spaces, have mathematical operations applied and converted back again.

Graphics

As well as being able to include multiple video inputs (from different layers and drop zones in Motion), the Shapes node can be used to create shapes that are available to other nodes – primarily to mask video inputs:

It would be useful if there was a publishable input button in the Conduit effect as applied in Motion. Effects designers could then add a ‘Edit Mask’ button to their effects, so editors could define and change shapes used in the effect – without seeing the rest of the Conduit Editor.

Calculations

Motion’s mathematical calculations are limited to addition and multiplication (using Link parameter behaviours), there are more mathematical nodes available in the Conduit Editor:

Given the power of these nodes, it would be very usefui if the next version of PixelConduit had a Conduit Calculation generator for Motion. Such a generator could then export a value that could control parameters of other Motion layers using Link parameter behaviours.

Scriptability

As well as the nodes that can connect together to produce results, PixelConduit includes two scriptable nodes:

Supernode – scriptable: create your own nodes using the Javascript language. You can define a number of inputs and their types. Supernode tutorial.

Canvas – scriptable: create graphics using Javascript. This node doesn’t yet have parameter inputs for scripts. Canvas tutorial.

More Nodes

There’s details on all the Conduit Effect System nodes available on the Lacquer website.

Is PixelConduit worth your time?

So, if tackling Quartz Composer compositions is too hard, and Motion is either too limited, or the model not right for you, it’s worth investigating PixelConduit.

The main worry is that the people working on the system might not be able to invest the time in fixing bugs in the parts of PixelConduit of interest to NLE effects designers. According to the blog at Lacquer, their income comes from delivering installations and supporting events using PixelConduit.

Perhaps it is up to interested parties to make it worth Lacquer’s while to support motion effects designers. Given that they are the best at making Conduit files, and know their system, if they sold effect plug-ins, it would be worth their while making the Conduit Effects System work well with new versions of Final Cut Pro, Motion, Photoshop and After Effects.

I would say it is worth a play, and once Apple fixes the current rendering fault in version 10.0.7 that afflicts many plug-ins, I hope we’ll see effects designers create interesting plug-ins using Motion and PixelConduit.

In just over three weeks, BVE 2013 starts in London. I’ve been looking forward to it for months.

BVE is a production and post-production trade show with over 300 exhibitors and over 150 seminars. At one event you can visit Adobe, AJA, Anton/Bauer, Arri, Autocue, Avid…

It is designed for editors, camera operators, producers, directors, broadcast engineers, writers… everyone involved in media production at all levels and stages.

Entry is free if you register in advance.

The question to ask about trade shows these days is whether you can learn more ‘live’ than by researching on the web. The great thing about BVE (which used to stand for Broadcast Video Expo) is that in my experience, exhibitors staff their stands with very knowledgeable people. It used to be that UK-based shows were made up of British hardware and software distribution companies who didn’t know much more than the text found in the brochures found on the stands.

Although I get very useful information at the stands, I’m most looking forward to the seminar programme. Seminars range from the very technical presentations by engineers to industry debates featuring TV channel commissioning editors. As well as the seminars, there is The Future of Media Summit 2013, a ‘Media Business Event For Content Owners, Tackling The Challenges Of Content Monetisation & Revenue Generation In The Digital Landscape(!)’

Because I blog here on Final Cut Pro and post-production and enjoy reporting from seminars using Twitter, this year I’m an ‘official BVE 2013 blogger’. In return for at least two blog posts and using a BVE banner or two, the event organisers are giving me access to the conference, the press facilities and a link from their site to here.

Given that I don’t usually write about industry events (the last time was for NAB four years ago), I’d class this post as an advertorial. However, I’m writing this because if I were to talk to you in person today, I’d ask if you’ll be joining me at BVE.

[Edited on 5 February at BVE2013's request to replace large image with smaller animated gif, and changed exhibitor links from home pages to their pages on BVE site]

Looking back, it’s interesting to see how the way Apple has described itself has changed over the years. Luckily for us, press releases usually include a definition of the company issuing them. I’ve been back through Apple’s site and used The Wayback Machine at Archive.org to research the evolution of the way Apple sees itself.

April 1995 – A standard mid-nineties computer company

The only distinction being a mention of ‘personal digital assistants’:

Apple Computer, Inc., a recognized pioneer and innovator in the information industry, creates powerful solutions based on easy to use personal computers, servers peripherals, software, online services and personal digital assistants. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) develops, manufactures, licenses, and markets products, technologies, and services for the business, education, consumer, scientific & engineering and government markets in over 140 countries.

January 1996 – Apple’s only asset?

In 1996, Apple decided to define QuickTime as one of its major assets:

Apple Computer, Inc., a recognized innovator in the information industry and leader in multimedia technologies, creates powerful solutions based on easy-to-use personal computers, servers, peripherals, software, online services, and personal digital assistants. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) develops, manufactures, licenses and markets solutions, products, technologies and services for business, education, consumer, entertainment, scientific & engineering and government customers in over 140 countries.

April 1997 – The Newton declines

As less complex PDAs started to gain market share, ‘online services, and personal digital assistants’ became ‘handheld computers and Internet content‘:

Apple Computer, Inc., a recognized innovator in the information industry and leader in multimedia technologies, creates powerful solutions based on easy-to-use personal computers, servers, peripherals, software, handheld computers and Internet content. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple develops, manufactures, licenses and markets solutions, products, technologies and services for business, education, consumer, entertainment, scientific and engineering and government customers in more than 140 countries.

September 1997 – Steve Jobs changes everything

10 months after Steve Jobs returned to Apple, four days before his appointment as Interim CEO, the definition almost completely changed:

Apple Computer, Inc. ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II, and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is now recommitted to its original mission-to bring the best personal computing products and support to students, educators, designers, scientists, engineers, businesspersons and consumers in over 140 countries around the world.

July 2004 – ‘Original mission’ achieved

It took almost seven years for the definition to change again. Steve’s 1997 mission achieved, the definition includes specific products and what they do.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning desktop and notebook computers, OS X operating system, and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital music revolution with its iPod portable music players and iTunes online music store.

March 2007 – Next market disruption announced

Almost three years later, the distinction between desktop and notebook computers was dropped and the iPhone was included:

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and will enter the mobile phone market this year with its revolutionary iPhone.

April 2010 – Three revolutions joined by a fourth

A small addition for the iPad, Apple’s fourth market revolution

“Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.”

June 2010 – Computers, yes, also…

The Apple II is dropped and the amount of text on the Mac is reduced:

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

January 2012 – iPad mission achieved

The current definition is a year old:

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

January 2013 – Something MacPro users will love?

Writing as a long-term user of Apple’s professional software, I find it interesting that despite predictions of Apple abandoning pro users, pro software has been part of the way Apple identifies itself since July 2004. However given that iLife and iWork haven’t changed very often over the last few years, they’ll either be updated soon, or dropped from Apple’s corporate definition.

Given that an email from Tim Cook reassured that later this year Apple will introduce a product that MacPro users will love, how could that redefine Apple? Here’s a possible definition from me:

Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad. Apple helps people organise their lives with iLife, iWork and iCloud. Apple makes Macs, OS X and professional software: the best content creation tools in the world.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple have decided to change their PR policy to counteract recent bad press: they’re ‘subtly increasing’ their activity.

There does seem to be a correlation between Apple’s success and the number of press releases issued per month:

When Steve Jobs was appointed as iCEO in September 1997, there seems to have been a change in policy. The only month since March 1998 that had over 20 releases was June 2008, which was filled with iPhone partnership announcements.

As industry analysts are desperately searching for signs of Apple having reached its peak, perhaps a flurry of press releases in the coming months will be seen as a lack of confidence.

However, Microsoft’s equivalent graph isn’t as straightforward. They seemed to change their policy a few times over the years. Up to five years ago, they produced many releases a month, and have gradually reduced that side of their PR activities since:

You can tell that the number of press releases doesn’t correlate with the amount of activity each business needed to promote. There are no spikes for hardware or software launches. However, Microsoft still produces more than twice as many press releases as Apple, perhaps because they are more than twice as diversified as Apple.

On the latest episode of the Critical Path podcast Horace Dediu and Moisés Chiullan talked about the future of TV. Horace said that he thinks that the future of TV is in applying software engineering tools to story and interactivity development. Apple have some tools that could achieve some of this.

I wonder if the Final Cut Pro Share menu will one day include the iTunes Store as a destination

—
Alex Gollner (@alex4d) February 07, 2013

@alex4d So you can directly upload it to your own seller profile page?

—
Marc Lucas (@MarcLucasHQ) February 07, 2013

Apple have a section for self-published authors in the iBooks section, @MarcLucasHQ. Perhaps they'll be an equivalent section for video…

—
Alex Gollner (@alex4d) February 07, 2013

@alex4d definitely possible! So to further the integration you could have an export to iBooks Author from #FCPX

—
Marc Lucas (@MarcLucasHQ) February 07, 2013

In a recent market survey, Canalys claimed that Apple was number 1 when it comes to worldwide shipments of personal computers in the fourth quarter of 2012 with a share of of 20%. This figure includes shipments of iPads – a device many people don’t count as a personal computer.

Let’s turn the ‘is the iPad a personal computer’ question around and ask ‘If tablets are our personal computers, what are Macs for?’ If there’s a useful new definition of Macs and OS X, Apple will continue to improve both in the coming years.

At the moment people use Macs to organise and to create. Organisation in this case covers the personal, family and work aspects of our lives. iPads, iOS and iCloud are designed to support these sort of tasks.

It seems that the organisational aspects of our lives will soon be better supported using iOS and Android devices (and perhaps the mobile aspects of Windows 8). This leaves Macs and OS X as tools to support creative endeavours only: music composition, graphic design, illustration, photo manipulation, software development and media production and post production. A definition similar to the markets that supported Apple in the 90s.

As I mentioned in my post on how has Apple defined itself over the last 18 years, they might very well change the part of their definition that describes the Mac. Currently they say:

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software.

Perhaps they’ll break up that sentence by function:

Apple helps people organise using iLife, iWork and iCloud. Apple makes Macs, OS X and professional software: the best content creation tools in the world.

This would be a logical consequence of Steve Jobs’ ‘car vs. truck’ distinction. When interviewed on stage in 2010 as part of the D8: All Things Digital conference he likened Macs and PCs to trucks and tablets such the iPad to cars:

When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that’s what you needed on the farms. Cars became more popular as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became popular … PCs are going to be like trucks – They are still going to be around…they are going to be one out of x people. This transformation is going to make some people uneasy…because the PC has taken us a long ways. It’s brilliant. We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it’s uncomfortable.

He went on to say that technology improvements will make it easier to create complex content on tablets:

The software will get more powerful. I think your vision would have to be pretty short to think these can’t grow into machines that can do more things, like editing video, graphic arts, productivity. You can imagine all of these content creation possibilities on these kind of things. Time takes care of lots of these things.

Expanding on his metaphor would be that the 90% who have cars only need to transport large amounts of stuff or travel rough country rarely are perfectly well served by cars. That is, iOS and other personal devices will soon be able to support 95% of all content creation tasks even if people using them only need the features rarely.

However there are a couple of times when having a truck is useful: if your job requires that kind of power, or you need to transport a large amount of goods that your car can’t handle.

Perhaps the future of Macs is as multifunction add-ons to iPads and iPhones. The equivalent of a 12-wheel trailer plus an extra engine and gearbox to support it. To drive Steve’s idea into the ground, some iPads could become more like long-haul truck cabs than cars.

There is a precedent for this kind of product from over 20 years ago. Back in 1992, the Macintosh Duo system provided an advanced desktop dock for use with a specialised Powerbook Mac:

Images from Apple Collection

Back then it was hard to create a full-colour portable Mac at a reasonable price. PowerBook Duos could only display 16 shades of grey at a resolution of 640 by 400. The Duo Dock added

• a co-processor,
• a SCSI connector for hard drives,
• ethernet,
• keyboard and mouse ports,
• a display connector for connection to a variety of displays,
• an extra hard drive
• and two slots for expansion cards (a video capture card is used as an example in the brochure at Apple Collection).

What features who pro users want to add to an iPad today to make it powerful enough to edit video, make music and develop applications on? How about a Mac that provides

• multiple Intel multicore processors,
• a thunderbolt connector for hard drives,
• ethernet,
• keyboard and mouse ports,
• another thunderbolt connector for connection to a variety of displays,
• extra storage
• and slots for expansion cards.

Today’s iMac can fulfil all but the last of these requirements.

The question is whether there would be any advantage to combining an iPad and Mac into a single device. This would be reminiscent of the new Surface from Microsoft. It can run both traditional desktop software as well as tablet apps. The difference would be that when the iPad is on its own, it would only run iOS software. The Mac would also run only OS X. When connected they could then act as accessories to each other – an extra retina touchscreen for the Mac, a fully-featured dock for the iPad, switching roles depending on the task.

The kind of user interface to allow is kind of co-operation between iOS and OS X is the kind of thing I imagine Jony Ive would relish.

Whether Apple would be interested in doing this would depend on whether the engineering resource to keep Macs as distinct products given the increasing power of tablet technology. For now all we have is Apple CEO Tim Cook’s reassurance that fans of Mac Pros are going to love a new product that Apple will be launching later this year.

My new free Final Cut Pro X transition slices the outgoing clip into two parts and pulls them apart with a horizontal ribbon appearing based on the pixels at the slice position. The ribbon crossfades into a ribbon representing a single column of pixels from the incoming clip. The two parts of the incoming clip to the left and right of the column then join together on screen:

Here are the controls:

The controls let you select where the split appears: where the ribbon starts and finishes. They default to the horizontal centre of the clips.

In the case of Matt Davis here, a value of 50 splits the clip and creates the ribbon so that his left ear is separated from his head:

If I set the split value to 38, I can set the split to line up with the centre of his face:

Installation

Download this disk image:

It includes an installation script for Spherico’s Motion Template Tool application, if you don’t have it on your Mac, download it. It is a freeware/donationware tool that simplifies effects installation for Final Cut Pro X users. MTT installs effects for Final Cut Pro X in the correct folders, creating them if need be. You don’t need to have Motion 5 or MTT installed for these effects to work.

Once you have MTT installed on your computer, double-click the ‘Install Alex4D Ribbon 1.0.mtt’ file.

If you don’t want to use the Motion Template Tool, install these effects in Home / Movies / Motion Templates / Titles / Alex4D:

The title will appear in the Alex4D section of the Transitions browser:

Check out my other effects and articles on my Final Cut Pro X home page.

Part of the deal for me to be an official blogger at next week’s BVE2013 in London is for me to have at least two blog posts mentioning the event. This is the second. Given my recent popular post on how Apple defines itself I wondered whether TV and film post production companies are good at defining themselves clearly.

Can you get 17 out of 17?

Here are the definitions of some companies in the post production industry attending BVE2013 next week. I’ve removed the company and brand names, see if you can guess who is who. To see of you’re right, if you’re using a computer move your cursor over the ??s – if you wait a few seconds the missing name will appear, on devices without pointing devices, tap the ??s.

1

??????? creates the digital audio and video technology used to make the most listened to, most watched and most loved media in the world – from the most prestigious and award-winning feature films, music recordings, and television shows, to live concert tours and news broadcasts. Some of ???????’s most influential and pioneering solutions include BRAND1, BRAND2, BRAND3, BRAND4, BRAND5, BRAND6 and BRAND7.

2

An Emmy® Award-winning company whose products have defined the world of digital and broadcast graphics, ??????? offers leading graphics solutions including the BRAND1 online content creation software and order management system, on-air graphics systems, clip servers, channel branding, graphics asset management, graphics over IP, and second screen solutions.

3

??????? is the pioneer in networked shared storage and tapeless, end-to-end workflow solutions for the post-production, TV and film industries. Our products include BRAND1 video capture and playout servers, BRAND2 shared storage, BRAND3 backup software, BRAND4 media asset management, and BRAND5 – the world’s first three-platform (Windows/OS X/Linux) professional NLE application.

4

Whether it’s a smartphone or tablet app, a game, a video, a digital magazine, a website, or an online experience, chances are that it was touched by ??????? technology. Our tools and services enable our customers to create groundbreaking digital content, deploy it across media and devices, and then continually measure and optimize it based on user data. By providing complete solutions that combine digital media creation with data-driven marketing, we help businesses improve their communications, strengthen their brands, and ultimately achieve greater business success.

5

??????? creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and film restoration software for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries.

6

??????? is a leading manufacturer of high-quality and cost-effective digital video interface, conversion and desktop solutions supporting the professional broadcast and post-production markets.

7

For more than 50 years, ??????? has been synonymous with innovation, leadership, and performance. With an eye to the future, we are committed to advancing our industry by being a strategic and trusted partner. Leveraging IP technology with our proprietary knowledge of media processing and storage, we develop product and service solutions that deliver unmatched interoperability and financial efficiency, and have the flexibility to change and grow as business evolves

8

??????? is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of professional broadcast, 3D, AV and CCTV products. ??????? is committed to providing high-quality professional video equipment to customers all over the world.

9

??????? “The oldest” camera manufacturer, will be showing their NEW Dockable 1.5/3G HD/SD low Cost Camera channel, as well as New POV cameras and a full range of HD/SD Monitors during this BVE 2013. We supply the European, Middle Eastern and African Market with products from three different business fields: Broadcast and Professional Video equipment, Medical Video equipment as well as CCTV solutions.

10

??????? Audio Video equipment offers the industry’s best-performing products which are used across the globe. Capable of operating faultlessly in a myriad of environments; from the dry and dusty Savannah to the freezing temperatures of the Antarctic, ???????’s range of HD studio cameras, convertible camera systems, Industrial Medical Vision cameras and energy-efficient LCD monitors provide an efficient, reliable and truly end-to-end solution for outstanding production quality.

11

Located in Munich, Germany, ??????? was founded in 1917 and is the largest manufacturer of professional motion picture equipment in the world. Throughout its 95-year history, ??????? has been associated with constant innovation and revolutionary technologies in all of its core businesses. The company is involved in all aspects of the film industry: engineering, design, manufacture, production, visual effects, postproduction, equipment rental, laboratory services and studio lighting solutions.

12

??????? have helped to create distinctive images in many famous movies, e.g. Skyfall, Life of Pi and have already received 3 Technical Academy Awards. Innovative products as the BRAND1 lenses and in BRAND2 deliver high image quality in a winning combination for HD video and offer great flexibility.

13

???????is well known as a manufacturer of Super Slo Mo cameras. The BRAND1 range of cameras are used within the broadcast industry, known for image quality, light sensitivity, reliability and ease of use. BRAND1 cameras for years have lead the way in high speed video applications within crash testing, and manufacturing, complimenting ???????’s broad range of Industrial testing and inspection equipment, where this product first came to market. The camera’s sheer performance proved it can hold it’s own within broadcast’s competitive, evolving market. See the new BRAND2 at stand B4.

14

??????? is a world-leading innovator and provider of imaging and information technology solutions for the home and office environments.

15

??????? manufacture and sell a variety of camera support systems and professional grip equipment at an affordable price. As one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of camera support systems the ?????? range is both extensive and diverse and at BVE many different products will be on display and available for demonstration. This includes Jibs, Cranes, Booms, Tracking Dollies, Camera Slider Systems, Stabilizers, Shoulder Mounts, Steadymounts, Remote Control Power Heads, Suction Mounts, plus a variety of Clamps and Mounting Brackets, Monitor Brackets and Video Accessories. There will be many special offers available with special show prices on many items.

16

??????? offers the most affordable and versatile line of camera stabilizers and related accessories available in the world today. Check out the many new and exciting products at this years show. We will show new handheld units including the BRAND1 for your IPhone, body mounted systems and the new BRAND2. We will also show the new BRAND3. The BRAND3 is a remote controlled pan-tilt head for small cameras up to 7 pounds.

17

??????? is recognized as the world’s innovator and premier provider of batteries, chargers, lighting and mobile power systems for the professional broadcast, video and film industries. Based in the United States with offices in Europe, Asia and South America, ??????? was established in 1970 and has expanded its product offerings to include many signature lines including the leading BRAND1 system, BRAND2 chargers and BRAND3 batteries. Our superior quality products have become an industry standard and are compatible with virtually every camera brand.

For free tickets to BVE 2013, click the banner:

Here are the answers in white – select to see who is who:
1 – Avid
2 – Chyron
3 – EditShare
4 – Adobe
5 – Blackmagic Design
6 – AJA
7 – Grass Valley
8 – JVC
9 – Ikegami
10 – Panasonic
11 – ARRI
12 – Carl Zeiss
13 – Olympus
14 – Canon
15 – Hague Camera Supports
16 – Glidecam
17 – Anton/Bauer

Last year I made a set of generators that could be used on video clips to get more precise control over speed changes using an animation graph similar to that available in older versions of Final Cut Pro.

Since the 10.0.6 update to Final Cut Pro, the generators I uploaded in March 2012 no longer work. Here is an effect you can use instead.

With these graphs, the steepness and direction of graph determine the speed and direction that the video clip frames play. The Y co-ordinate of the graph controls which source frame is displayed.

In this case the clip will play back in slow motion (because the angle of the graph line is shallow between the first and second keyframe – the Y co-ordinate is changing slowly), then in faster than normal motion. The video will then freeze between keyframes three and four (because the Y co-ordinate of the graph isn’t changing – the line is horizontal). Between keyframes four and five the video will go into reverse, as the Y co-ordinate is getting lower over time. Between the fifth and last keyframe the video will play back very quickly because the value of the graph’s Y co-ordinate is changing quickly.

As this is an effect, it is used in a different way from last year’s generators.

1. Once it is installed, apply it by going to the Alex4D section of the Effects palette and drag the Alex4D Time Remap effect onto your video clip.

2. In order to get the animation graph which you can edit, you first need to set animation keyframes for your clip.

In your timeline, move to the last frame of your clip. With the clip selected go to the video tab of the clip inspector and click the ‘Add Keyframe’ button of the Show Frame % control:

3. In the timeline, go to the first frame of the clip and set the value of the Show Frame % control to 0:

4. Due to a limitation in the way Final Cut Pro effects work, you need to enter the length of the clip into the controls of the Time Remap effect. To find out the length of your clip in frames, change your editing preferences to show time displays in frames instead of timecode. Choose Preferences… from the Final Cut Pro menu and select the Editing tab:

Now if you look at the Video panel of the clip inspector, you’ll see length of your video clip shown in frames. Set the value of the Clip Length control to match the length of the clip:

5. This has set up the time remap curve for your video clip. To see it, choose Show Video Animation from the Clip menu,

6. Choose Solo Animation from the Clip menu,

7. The small downward-facing arrow next to Compositing: Opacity in the Video Animation panel is a menu control. Use this control to go to the Alex4D Time Remap submenu and choose Show Frame %: 

8. The panel will then show an unexpanded version of the time remap graph, so click the expand control at the right-hand end of the clip:

You’ll see an unaltered version of a time remap graph:

9. You can now use the inspector (set differing values for the Show Frame % control at different times) or Option-clicking the graph line to add keyframes that change the speed at which the frames from the clip are displayed:

In this case the angle of the graph between the first and second keyframes is the same as the unaltered graph. This means the clip will play back normally (at 100% of its normal speed). The graph is then steeper, which means the video will play back more quickly. Between the third and fourth keyframe, the Y co-ordinate of the graph doesn’t change, so the video freezes over this time period. Between the fourth and fifth keyframe then video goes into reverse – almost back to the beginning – because the value for Y reduces down to almost zero. The video frames will then play back very quickly until the sixth keyframe before slowing back down to normal speed until the end of the clip.

10. If you want to control the shape of the curves between keyframes, right- or control- click the line and choose between the options in a pop-up menu:

Drag on a curve from left to right to control the curviness of the curve (between linear and the kind of curve you’ve chosen in the pop-up menu).

11. Note that the graph doesn’t have to start at 0 and end at 100. If you want to start at the middle of your source clip and reverse to the beginning before spooling forward to the end and back to the middle, set the first and last keyframes to 50, and set the middle keyframes to 0 and 100:

Limitations

Due to a limitations in the Motion effect that this plug-in uses, you can only retime clips that are up to 1,000 frames long. Also you cannot use any frames that are in the event clip that aren’t displayed in the timeline. That is, if you trim a clip so the first and last frames from the source effect don’t appear in the timeline, adding this effect will not let you ‘rewind back past the beginning’ or ‘forward past the end.’ Also video effects cannot modify audio, so any audio your clips have will play back as normal.

Installation

Download this disk image:

It includes an installation script for Spherico’s Motion Template Tool application, if you don’t have it on your Mac, download it. It is a freeware/donationware tool that simplifies effects installation for Final Cut Pro X users. MTT installs effects for Final Cut Pro X in the correct folders, creating them if need be. You don’t need to have Motion 5 (the application that I used to create this effect)  installed for this effect to work.

Once you have MTT installed on your computer, double-click the ‘Install Alex4D Ribbon 1.0.mtt’ file.

If you don’t want to use the Motion Template Tool, this effect will still work. Install the plug-in in Home / Movies / Motion Templates / Titles / Alex4D:

Check out my other effects and articles on my Final Cut Pro free effects page.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how Apple’s corporate definition has changed over the years. I took the definition from the paragraph that appears at the end of each press release – the text that explains to the media the nature of the company that issued the information.

Here’s a quiz that demonstrates how well these definitions work for technology companies. I’ve removed the company and brand names, see if you can guess who is who. To see of you’re right, if you’re using a computer move your cursor over the first instance of the ??s in each paragraph – if you wait a few seconds the missing name will appear, on devices without pointing devices, tap the ??s.

1

??????? is a $US30 billion personal technology company – and the second largest PC company in the world, serving customers in more than 160 countries. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices, ???????’s business is built on product innovation, a highly-efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution. Formed by ???????’s acquisition of ???????, the company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services. Its product lines include legendary BRAND1-branded commercial PCs and BRAND2-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smart phones. ??????? has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina.

2

??????? creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, ??????? brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems.

3

??????? listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more.

4

??????? is a global leader in consumer electronics and the core components that go into them. Through relentless innovation and discovery, we are transforming the worlds of televisions, smartphones, personal computers, printers, cameras, home appliances, medical devices, semiconductors and LED solutions. We employ 227,000 people across 75 countries with annual sales exceeding US$143 billion. Our goal is opening new possibilities for people everywhere.

5

??????? designs BRAND1, the best personal computers in the world, along with BRAND2, BRAND3, BRAND4 and professional software. ??????? leads the digital music revolution with its BRAND5s and BRAND6 online store. ??????? has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary BRAND7 and BRAND8, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with BRAND9.

6

??????? is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices.

7

Founded in 1975, ??????? is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

8

??????? is changing the world through digital experiences.

9

???????’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students PERSON1 and PERSON2, ??????? today is a top web property in all major global markets. ???????’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. ??????? is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia.

10

Founded in 2004, ???????’s mission is to make the world more open and connected. People use BRAND1 to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

11

Founded in 1997, ??????? is the creator of many award-winning mobile devices and industry firsts. By putting people at the center of everything it does, ??????? pushes the boundaries of design and technology to create innovative and personal experiences for consumers around the globe. ???????’s portfolio includes smartphones and tablets powered by BRAND1, a multilayered graphical user interface that vastly improves user experience.

12

A global leader in wireless innovation, ??????? revolutionized the mobile industry when it was introduced in 1999. Today, ??????? aims to inspire the success of our millions of customers around the world by continuously pushing the boundaries of mobile experiences. Founded in 1984 and based in Waterloo, Ontario, ??????? operates offices in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

13

A global leader in wireless innovation, ??????? is a global leader in mobile communications whose products have become an integral part of the lives of people around the world. Every day, more than 1.3 billion people use their BRAND1 to capture and share experiences, access information, find their way or simply to speak to one another. ???????’s technological and design innovations have made its brand one of the most recognized in the world.

14

???????, a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. ??????? seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. ??????? and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. BRAND1 provides ???????’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on ???????’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. BRAND2 is the most-advanced e-reader ever constructed with 62% more pixels and 25% increased contrast, a patented built-in front light for reading in all lighting conditions, extra-long battery life, and a thin and light design. The new latest generation BRAND3, the lightest and smallest BRAND3, now features new, improved fonts and faster page turns. BRAND4 features a stunning custom high-definition display, exclusive Dolby audio with dual stereo speakers, high-end, laptop-grade Wi-Fi with dual-band support, dual-antennas and MIMO for faster streaming and downloads, enough storage for HD content, and the latest generation processor and graphics engine—and it is available in two display sizes—7″ and 8.9″. The large-screen BRAND4 is also available with 4G wireless, and comes with a groundbreaking $49.99 introductory 4G LTE data package. The all-new BRAND5 features a 20% faster processor, 40% faster performance, twice the memory, and longer battery life.

Here are the answers in white – select to see who is who:
1 – Lenovo
2 – HP
3 – Dell
4 – Samsung
5 – Apple
6 – Intel
7 – Microsoft
8 – Adobe
9 – Google
10 – Facebook
11 – HTC
12 – Blackberry
13 – Nokia
14 – Amazon

Today Apple released its Final Cut Pro X 10.0.8 update. It is 60% about fixing bugs, there are a few new features too. Although the NAB professional trade show is just around the corner, this isn’t a industry-shaking update.

From TV and film industry point of view, new features supporting ARRI ALEXA and Sony F5 and F55 cameras hint that Apple are interested in courting high-end full-time editors as well as the hundreds of thousands of creative people that use Final Cut Pro as part of a non-editing job.

Apple also added a pair of case studies to their Final Cut Pro X In Action page on their website. One shows how Final Cut is the right tool for journalists and reporters, the other covers an example of modern feature film workflow.

Bug fixes

The biggest news for the majority of Final Cut Pro users is that tricky graphics bug has been fixed.

A problem introduced by the 10.0.6 update was a fault that affected many important third-party plug-ins: random green and upside-down frames in renders. This was probably a side-effect of moving rendering from Mac CPUs to GPUs. This fault was not fixed in 10.0.7, but Apple says it is gone in 10.0.8.

Here are the rest of Apple’s release notes on the update with some commentary:

- Resolves performance issues that could occur with certain titles and effects
In 10.06 and 10.0.7 some effects worked best when rendered by CPUs, so they were slower until they were optimised for GPUs in 10.0.8.

- Mono audio files in a surround project export with correct volume levels

- Drop zones no longer reset to the first frame of video after application restart

- Fixes a performance issue which resulted from selecting multiple ranges on a single clip

- Fixes an issue where the Play Around function did not work properly on certain clips when viewed through external video devices

New features

- Ability to use key commands to adjust Clip Appearance settings in the timeline
Control-Option-up and down arrow cycles through the clip appearance controls, and each appearance is associated with numbers 1 to 6:

- Support for Sony XAVC codec up to 4K resolution
To use Sony XAVC footage at up to 4K,
1. make sure you have the most up to date ProApps QuickTime codecs: choose Software Update from the Apple menu. If they need to be installed, they will appear as an item in the Software Update window. If the ProApps QuickTime codecs do not appear as an item in the Software Update window, they up to date, so you can skip this step.
2. Visit the Sony Creative Software Download page and download version 1.1 or newer of the XDCAM Plug-in for Final Cut Pro X. Read the release notes about Sony XAVC clips and camera support.

- Option to display ProRes Log C files from ARRI ALEXA cameras with standard Rec. 709 color and contrast levels (without extra rendering time).
This viewing mode only works with footage shot on ARRI cameras that have been updated using version 6.1 or later of the ALEXA Software Update Packet.

- Time reversed clips render in the background

- Ability to view reel number metadata located in the timecode track of video files

Additional minor changes

The metadata tag for file size has changed a little: In 10.0.7 and earlier File Size returned the size of the  file associated with a clip in bytes. In 10.0.8 the Size metadata tag stores the size of the file rounded up to the block size of the disk (the amount of space taken up by the file on the disk instead of the actual size of the file in bytes).

There is a new metadata tag to define whether a clip uses Log Processing.

The default keyboard shortcut for typing special characters (Command-option-T) has been removed. The command is still there, but if you want to use a keyboard shortcut to get quick access, you’ll have to add your own (Using the Commands… sub-menu of the Final Cut Pro application menu.

Small changes to the User Guide and online Help system

The updated user guide is now available as a PDF. and the help system has been updated also.

Page 141 / Online help ”Adjust Timeline clip appearance and height” keyboard shortcuts

Page 281 / Online help  How you can create an audition with a duplicate of a clip using the effects and attributes from another clip.

Page 369 / Online help  How to control ARRI Log C clip display.

Page 404 / Online help  A new note about how when duplicating projects with files imported as reference files (pointing to media outside the Final Cut Events folder), only the reference files are copied, not the source media.

Getting the update