http://www.lafcpug.org/basic_upgrade3.0..html – Phil Hodgetts explains FCP3 upgrade procedure, incl for OS X
http://www.lafcpug.org/feature_config_nle.html – Charles McConathy of Promax on how to configure a NLE system——-
I was trying to use the EventStream feature of Cleaner 5 from discreet to make a CD-ROM-based video lecture trigger accompanying presentation slides in an adjoining browser window or frame at the proper points. It’s a test project for a large not-for-profit client I had been told could only use RealPlayer G2 to watch multimedia on their machines. I don’t like Real; their player installation takes advantage of user’s unfamiliarity and attempts sneakily to take over as many file associations as it can, meaning most multimedia – videos, MP3s, almost everything – will end up playing through their player with its wretched interface, constant ads, and pushy reminders.
Their codecs have improved – they can sound and look really good – but I hate the intrusiveness of their player and the company’s in-your-face sales pitches. Educational multimedia should be, in my opinion, free of advertising to the degree that it’s possible, and it seems impossible with Real. In addition, it’s not as fully featured as QuickTime, and can’t update a frame (or “target”) in the same web page in the way QuickTime can. So I don’t like working with Real. If NPR put their audio archives on the web in any other format, I wouldn’t have it on my machine at all. Real, to me, is bad.
I hate Real. Clear?
Okay. I met a representative of the potential client yesterday and told him that authoring in Real was proving difficult, and he said that QuickTime would be okay. After I left, I went back to work on it, and within an hour I had a crude but working QT version of the demo. Now all I have to do is clean up the web page and its frames, make a better looking demo, and if they approve it, it could mean a very large grant for us for producing similar training videos.
If we get the grant, I’ll post an overview of how we do it.
This will be the last update until we come back in January, probably on the 7th, the same day as Steve Jobs’ Macworld keynote. There could be some serious stuff announced there. This is a great time to work in educational multimedia and instructional technology. The tools keep getting better, we can put them in the hands of more people and more people are working and learning and communicating. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in 2002.
——-Charles Roberts, the terrific Chawla of 2-pop message board fame, has posted FCP v.3.0 for Mac OS 9.2.2 – Ambitious Beginning… on Ken Stone’s how-does-it-keep-getting-better-it’s-so-good-already FCP page. (Check the date, and ask Chawla how that time-travel thingie works. :-) )
Judy and Robert have posted their weekly QT news, as hoped, with a particularly welcome answer to this question:
Want to embed QuickTime movies in Windows-based PowerPoint presentations?
YES. I’ll check it out and report back.
——-After posting a question to the 2-pop DV for Teachers discussion, I read a thread on microphones and found this Equipment Emporium article on Audio for Hi8, which would apply to DV as well. Solid tips in the thread and in the article.
Yet More FCP News
Ken Stone’s Final Cut Pro site has a new design (much easier on the eyebones – thanks, Ken), and new articles on a new training CD-ROM for iMovie and on authoring with iDVD 2. Very impressive site; articles often show up here before surfacing on 2-pop or LAFCPUG.org.
Dave Nagel at Creative Mac interviews Frank Casanova, director of QuickTime product marketing at Apple:
Casanova promises very small, streamable video files with near MPEG-2 quality—and if you didn’t know, MPEG-2 means DVD quality. He says further on:
“What began as a sneak peak at the upcoming QuickTime Live conference quickly turned into a discussion about the future of QuickTime and open standards like MPEG-4. It turns out the next full release of QuickTime-
in other words, QuickTime 6-will use MPEG-4 as its file format. We also discussed how open standards like MPEG-4 and the AAC audio component* fit in with competing technologies from Microsoft and Real.”
*(link is a PDF download)
Everything Apple does-
from the Unix bases of OS X, to FireWire being IEEE 1394, to USB to all the various facets of what we do, from AirPort being 802.11-we want to make sure that every piece of our architecture and infrastructure are based on industry standards. QuickTime is no different. Our streaming protocols are RTP/RTSP as defined by the IETS; and now … you’ll see our file format of QuickTime is the file format for MPEG-4. As you may remember, [ISO has] selected the QuickTime format as the basis for MPEG-4. And then what we’re doing is we’re building our own audio and video CODEC, but based on the recipe as published by this standard body, by ISO, for … video and audio for music and speech. There’s a few different CODECs in there. And that’s what we’re doing going forward. And you can expect to see incredible video quality using these new MPEG-4 CODECs.
Teachers have to add video to their toolbox, because students need to know how to use this. Preparing and publishing documents on the web, and now publishing or distributing video on the web, will be less of a specialized practice. More and more communication, for businesses and schools and churches and families, will happen via computers, and students will need to know how this works.
I’ve long thought that schools – and parents – did a poor job of teaching students how to ‘read’ television and film, how to critically watch news and commercials, and indeed all mass communication. There is so much artifice in these images and sequences that is glossed over, and students should have the experience of creating some of their own to understand the power of this medium. We teach them to read and write so (ostensibly) they can read and write and think critically; we should do no less with video, now that the tools for doing so (a $29.95 application that edits video in numerous formats – applies titles – and compresses for the web!) are so very affordable.
——-Phillip Hodgetts of the DV Guys at LAFCPUG on Final Cut Pro 3:
“Any one of these features alone would make this a valuable upgrade, combined they add an awesome amount of extra power to Final Cut Pro 3. Writing a tour of the new features is difficult, because if I focus on the ‘big ticket’ items it’s very easy to miss the dozens of small enhancements that make everyday editing more productive. Final Cut Pro 3 should put to rest, once and for all, any questions about how ‘serious’ Apple is in building Final Cut Pro as a professional editing and finishing tool. The features in this release are clearly aimed at the ‘high end’ of the market as well as providing features every working editor will value.”A very good overview from an acknowledged authority and FCP trainer.
DV.com: URBAN LEGENDS OF VIDEO: ”...many of these legends revolve around frame rates and interlaced fields.” The sometimes difficult-to-understand, now explained by Chris Meyer. With pictures!!
——-Well! I was wondering why 2-pop had seemed… a bit inert of late, not updating articles with the same frequency, getting articles and features after they were published at Ken Stone or the LAFCPUG site (see the links at right side of my home page), among other places. It’s great to see an invigorated look, with new articles and news links on the main page. Looking more like a blog now – it’s a good thing.
Here’s an example of the new stuff I’ve been waiting for at 2-pop: A MovieMaker’s Guide to “Wired” Quicktime. A must read for all film/video makers, and their teachers.
——-The demo showed some valuable improvements in Final Cut Pro. The much-ballyhooed Real-Time capability is really a Preview mode; it will show the effect in real-time on a connected NTCS monitor (if your G4 has a card with composite or S-Video out, like the PowerBook does :-)), but it won’t and can’t create the necessary DV files for exporting the sequence to DV in real time.
Other interesting new features: Apple licensed and includes a tool from Boris for much improved creation of titles, and what they claim are high-end quality color correction tools. Which means that if your students don’t get their color balance right, or if your mixing video from a Sony and a Canon, for instance, you can – ahem – fix it in post.
FCP3 should begin shipping by the end of the year; I’m grateful we can at least order the upgrade right away.
This afternoon I’m going to a demo of FCP3 at the Atlanta Apple Market Center, and trying to justify leaving work later for the Atlanta FCP Users Group December Meeting. Jim Kanter is leading the way with this effort, and we owe him thanks. His site has useful links for editors and video/filmmakers; even some I haven’t seen (forgive the immodesty). Now I need to get him to link to me here….
——-Brad Dominy on the O’Reilly Network: An Introduction to AppleScript on Mac OS X: “Many applications that come with Mac OS X are already scriptable, including the Finder, iMovie, Internet Connect, iTunes, Mail, Print Center, QuickTime, Sherlock, and Terminal.” I plan to explore the ways AppleScript can streamline the process of capturing and compressing video for CD and the Web. When I do, you’ll hear.
Dave Nagel of Creative Mac talked Apple’s Final Cut Product Manager in this “Interview: Final Cut Pro on Mac OS X”.
Judy and Robert did update the Little QuickTime Page, bless them, and it’s worth a look for the news on QuickTime and MPEG-4, codecs and compression software for OS X, a French-language site about video and QuickTime, and numerous software updates.——-
Words of wisdom about when to upgrade to Final Cut Pro 3, from Charles McConathy, head of Promax Systems, posted on the Yahoo! Groups: DV-List: “I personally would wait until all the software and PCI cards become OS-X
compatible before moving to OS-X. You are not locked into OS-9. ”
Judy and Robert usually update The Little QuickTime Page on Tuesdays.
——-