finalcutpronews

Another anti-spindown app

$10 shareware app that keeps those pesky external drives from spinning down.

Simply add the volumes you wish to no longer spin down, then enter in an "interval" (for instance... if your drives are set to spin down after 60 seconds of inactivity, enter in an interval of 59). The lower your "interval" number, the less chance there is of your drivespinning down.

[From Mac OSX Software Development]

Of course, there is the freeware disksomnia which we mentioned a couple of months back from Digital-Heaven

utility

Disksomnia

It's the little brilliant apps that are great.

Disksomnia keeps your external drives from going to sleep - something I've struggled to get Energy Saver to do on my mac.

It's a must have in your toolkit.

Full details here:http://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/freeware/disksomnia.php

Preference Manager for Final Cut Studio - Trash Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro Preferences - Restore and backup

Updated to 1.0.6

This tool allows you to manage preference files for Final Cut Studio. Preference files store information about user preferences, window and toolbar placements, and launch settings. Sometimes these can become corrupted, causing problems. Preference Manager allows you to trash corrupted preferences and keep backups of working preference files in order to quickly restore your settings.

[From Preference Manager for Final Cut Studio - Trash Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro Preferences - Restore and backup]

Videopier: solving the DVD camera problem

I hate getting told that footage is coming from a DVD camera (and then, y'know, you have to deal with mpeg streamclip....)

VideoPier is the missing link between MPEG2 camcorders and your Mac. It lets you visualize the clips on your camera that Quicktime would otherwise refuse to open. VideoPier lets you copy them to disk, and export them to any format for viewing (iPod, AppleTV, iPhone) or editing (iMovie 06/08).

http://www.aquafadas.com/en/videopier/

Software update...Pro Apps Update 2008

Software update.

6.0.3 FCP

3.0.3 Compressor

Nothing yet for motion or Color. :(

Update:

http://www.apple.com/support/releasenotes/en/Final_Cut_Pro_6.0_rn/

There are the release notes.

Of note...

"You can place generator clips in FXScript filter clip wells. Some FXScript filters read only the first frame of the generator clip, whereas others read multiple frames from the clip. For example, the FXScript filters Bumpmap, Gradient Wipe, and Page Peel use only the first frame of a generator clip placed in their clip wells. If you have animated a text generator clip, making the text move, and you place the clip in an FXScript filter clip well, the text appears animated or not depending on which FXScript filter you’ve chosen. "

This has bitten me, as I try putting a caustics into a bump map...and the caustics don't do anything. (This creates the look of your footage underwater if you're in Motion.)

Scene Detector

Frank Capria mentioned the After Effects Scene Detector -

John brought to my attention the Final Cut Scene detector. (Thanks John!) Way too cool!

Why is this useful? If you've ever had to perform color correction on a finished item, this tool saves you from having to find each edit. You do a little round trip dance with the clip (send it out with some XML, bring the XML back....and have markers).

Now, you're ready to use the 3 way color corrector, Colorista, or even Apple's Color.

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Scene Detector is advanced utility for automatic detection of scene boundaries in a movie. Scene detection is performed using only frame image data, no timecode or audio metadata is used.

It opens Final Cut project file (exported in XML format), asks user what clip to detect scenes in, and exports project file (in XML format) with markers added at scene boundaries. User has to import the XML it outputs back into Final Cut. The clip file is not changed during this operation, so it can reside on read-only device.
Current version of the product is 1.1.

[From Scene Detector | Contacting us]

Squared 5 - MPEG Streamclip video converter for Mac and Windows

MpegStreamClip - that open source swiss army knife has been updated.

[From Squared 5 - MPEG Streamclip video converter for Mac and Windows]

FCS Remover - Uninstall Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Compressor, Soundtrack Pro, Color, DVD Studio Pro, LiveType, Cinema Tools

Nuke it from orbit...it's the only way to be sure.

This app nukes everything.

This utility allows you to uninstall all Final Cut Studio components with the press of a button. Apple does not offer an uninstaller, making removing or downgrading to an earlier version very difficult. Simply deleting the Final Cut Studio application icons does not remove the suite, nor does it make it possible to reinstall it again. FCS Remover allows you to quickly and easily uninstall Final Cut Studio either permanently or in order to reinstall an earlier version over the top.

[From FCS Remover - Uninstall Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Compressor, Soundtrack Pro, Color, DVD Studio Pro, LiveType, Cinema Tools]

Hope you're not using AE + QT 7.4

Cause DRM is disabling it. .

That's right. If you're using AE7...and the latest QT 7.4....after about 10 min of rendering you're done.

Details still developing.

Image editing Redux.

Thought it's only about photoshop?

There's Acorn and Pixelmator.

Jon Whipple compares the two.

Studiodaily asks if Pixelmator supports Alpha Channels

(the answer is yes, but it does some other funky stuff.