[tallscot]

>And as for catching up, I think Adobe as led in the past with a number of features

Final Cut Pro 6 was catching up to Premiere Pro in several areas. Wow, multiple formats on the timeline?
DVD Studio Pro hasn't been updated in years and still can't do a basic thing like allow you to select multiple tracks and set the same End Jump. Does HD-DVD. A lot of good that does me.
Motion 3 was catching up to After Effects in almost all of its new features.

When is QuickTime going to natively support AVCHD? Transcoding on import from a hard drive-based camcorder is seriously lame.

[lin2log]

gballey said:

He knows about Toast's ability to encode and burn Blue Ray discs. But the menu and layout options are pretty limited.

Not if you know where to dig. ;-P

But yes, the current options on a Mac are less than ideal. But again, I don't see how you equate that with Apple not supporting Blu-Ray, since you can very well hook a Blu-Ray burner up to any Mac and author BDs with them. Unless you mean Apple's own software, such as DVD SP. In which case I can only point the fact that DVD SP is the only software of FCS that wasn't updated in any way within Studio 2. For a good reason and for reason's of "political uncertainty" as far as the format wars were concerned. You can pretty much expect a major update to show up soon. One that again will blow other BD-authoring options away in terms of possibilities and true support of every facet of the BD format capabilities (e.g. Java). I'm equally as annoyed to have to wait, yes. But I know the wait is worth it. ;-)

l2l

[mcdonkeyboy]

Must be one of those South Pole elves.....

[lin2log]

As opposed to one of those baby north american trolls, yeah. Sad.

Flame all you like. You seem to need it to compensate for other things you quite obviously lack. I have better things to do.

[mcdonkeyboy]

so much anger in such a small body. Why all the hate, little man?

[gballey]

[quote name='lin2log']
>

gballey said:

> He knows about Toast's ability to encode and burn Blue Ray discs. But the menu and layout options are pretty limited.Not if you know where to dig. ;-P

But yes, the current options on a Mac are less than ideal. But again, I don't see how you equate that with Apple not supporting Blu-Ray, since you can very well hook a Blu-Ray burner up to any Mac and author BDs with them. Unless you mean Apple's own software, such as DVD SP. In which case I can only point the fact that DVD SP is the only software of FCS that wasn't updated in any way within Studio 2. For a good reason and for reason's of "political uncertainty" as far as the format wars were concerned. You can pretty much expect a major update to show up soon. One that again will blow other BD-authoring options away in terms of possibilities and true support of every facet of the BD format capabilities (e.g. Java). I'm equally as annoyed to have to wait, yes. But I know the wait is worth it. ;-)

l2l

OK, how about if I say that Apple is not supporting BD sufficiently to produce commercial-quality discs?

Of course I'm talking about Apple's DVD SP software. Final Cut Studio is presented as a complete solution, but it can't handle the only HD disc format that is now out there, and serious producers have to buy additional software to make acceptable Blue Ray content. I guess that , technically, you could say that Apple hardware "supports" anything with a USB or Firewire interface, but Apple has always been about the combination of hardware and software.

My friend is shipping BD product now, so the possibility of an upgrade real soon now is not great comfort for him. He had to put out the investment for Adobe's software to satisfy his current clients. That's money spent regardless of what Apple does in the future. So, yes, he is pretty annoyed.

[tallscot]

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You can pretty much expect a major update to show up soon

I don't expect it until next Spring, but maybe it will be sooner. I haven't read anything that says that there will even be a DVD SP (has been ignored for a while) and that it will do Blu-ray authoring. I'm assuming they will and it will, but I haven't confirmed it with any evidence. Until then, I'll use Encore.

Updating OS X to allow me to watch BD movies on my Mac would be nice.

[lin2log]

eaddison said:

As for the features, I'd consider Dynamic Link with AE more then a nice little add-on.

Well, I was talking about the clip note's, thinking you knew that FCS has what Adobe calls "Dynamic Linking" as well, only on a higher level. Namely between all the apps, not just two. I have renderless exchange to ALL the FCS apps. From and/or to FCP from and/or to Motion, DVD SP, Soundtrack Pro, Color and Compressor. If you're going anywhere outside of PP and/or AE, you're rendering. In fact, there is no BACK to PP from AE without rendering.

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But can you honestly say the FCS is as complete a package as the Adobe Suite?

Very much so, yes. Even better and more so across the board.

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Motion is good, but it's not AE.

Motion has never tried to be nor has or was it ever positioned as such by Apple. In fact Apple openly positions it as a great real-time pre-vis for AE, which it is. You can also import Motion project files into AE without rendering, in case you didn't know. Don't see Adobe doing anything like that.

Ever hear of Shake tho? Renderless integration with FCP even there. If anything, that's what you'll want to be comparing to AE... for a fraction of the cost by the way. (And what it's about to turn into is a whole nuther story)

Oh and by the way, I can very well import Photoshop files with seperate layers and opacity settings etc. etc. The only thing NOT natively supported are things like Layer Effects... which I can rasterize before import if needed, so hardly a huge problem.

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Color is great, but could be better integrated.

Oh come on. Color is essentially a version ONE. And even so it is very respected and a caliber of color grader that Adobe can't match, which you should know if you know Color and color grading.

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While it's true FCP has had it longer, are you telling me that the abilty to pull the files right from the P2 or SxS card (or XDCAM disc) and drop them right onto the timeline - without wrapping it as something else isn't better then the way FCP handles it?

You mean as opposed to wrapping it as, say, an AVI??
You don't know what you're talking about, sorry. AGAIN: wrapping does nothing to the native file. QT, like AVI, is nothing but a container. You may want to understand that first. There is zero transcoding going on, as I already said. You might want to check if you're not using Final Cut Express, in which case there IS transcoding going on, yes. Then check and see what Premiere Elements will do for that matter...

The way it's always been explained to me was Final Cut Pro does not work with MXF natively.

Then you were explained wrong. It's all there on Apple's site by the way. In some cases you need an additional plug-in, but these are all available for download for free on the respective manufacturers' site's.

Instead it unwraps the MXF data and rewraps it in Quicktime during the import process.

It UNwraps the MXF?? Ermm... no, sorry. And just because these apparently sounds like some terrible thing to you, it in fact isn't.

But when it comes to AVCHD, transcode would be the word to use - FCP has to convert to ProRes (or something else) in order to edit that footage.

Hmmm, AVCHD is far from a pro format, so really not an actual concern of mine, but yes, that is true. Both AVCHD and AVC-Intra are transcoded to ProRes, in multiple's of real-time, so? If you ask me, a damn good thing, too. That lowers the overhead and CPU-load massively and makes for much better editing (yes, even better subsequent quality if you're doing more than just hard cuts). The reason I in fact even transcode HDV footage, should I actually get it. Editing ANY long-GOP format natively as opposed to in 4:2:2, I-frame only? Nope... don't think so. (you don't even have the ProRes option on a PC to begin with) But if being able to yell "all native!" is more important to you than your time, all the power to ya.

and I go back to the Video Toaster (UGH!).

Try the Video Machine for Mac, on NuBus.

I've just found that many Mac and FCP users are these almost relgious-like zealots who think that FCP is the end-all, be-all.

I believe you're mistaking us with Avid-Users. And I often ask myself, when I hear such polemic cries such as "religious" or "fanboy" or the likes, whether it's really what the "fanboy" is saying or if the listener just doesn't like and/or can't deal with what they're hearing for the exact opposite reason's.

You don't ask the guy who works on your car what kind of tools he uses, you just want him to do a great job.

No, but only because I don't know anything about his tools and therefore can hardly pass judgement. It's also irrelevant, since we're not talking about anyone else's preferred tools, are we? But either way, the same mechanic with the same amount of knowledge and experience will do a better if not at least faster job with the better tools as opposed to the worse ones.

For some people, FCP allows them to do their best, for others PPro - they both have good points and things that need to be improved.

Oh come on. That's a given and I never said anything else. But that's not what we're talking about here, sorry. As I said to begin with, to maybe specify it a tad more: there is very little to no reason nor advantage, for someone NOT being a switcher and accustomed to using PP on a PC, to get Premiere for Mac as opposed to FCP. The point being, that I cannot see why Adobe brought it back to the Mac, seeing that they stand no logical chance against FCP or rather actually gaining additional users as opposed to simply serving the existing ones (pretty much 95% of Avids remaining business also, btw)... which apparently you are the perfect example for... and unless you can show me any significant numbers or companies that prove it otherwise, I'm sticking with it.

Or just put it off as mine own silly religious fanboy opinion that bears no objectivity or truth and leave it at that. No skin off my back. ;-)

l2l

[tallscot]

>You can also import Motion project files into AE without rendering, in case you didn't know.

This hasn't been true for a long time now.

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The only thing NOT natively supported are things like Layer Effects... which I can rasterize before import if needed, so hardly a huge problem.

It's a huge problem for me. They are live for a reason. And next month, Photoshop CS4 files won't be compatible, I'm guessing, since it's different. But AE CS4 reads it. AE will always have this benefit since it's developed by Adobe. AE CS4 supports the new 3D layers in Photoshop CS4, for example.

[tallscot]

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Both AVCHD and AVC-Intra are transcoded to ProRes, in multiple's of real-time, so? If you ask me, a damn good thing, too. ... makes for much better editing (yes, even better subsequent quality if you're doing more than just hard cuts). The reason I in fact even transcode HDV footage, should I actually get it.

That's a great point, but isn't that a limitation of Final Cut and not other applications? I remember using Vegas and importing different codecs without rendering anything and the quality of new content and FX on the footage wasn't reduced down to the footage codec. The same is true with Premiere Pro CS3. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[lin2log]

gballey said:

My friend is shipping BD product now, so the possibility of an upgrade real soon now is not great comfort for him.

Yeah, life's a bitch and then ya die, huh? Sounds like he's doing some heavy-duty BD, too.

Shame on Apple for being the first and only on the Mac (even PC's couldn't before them for that matter afaik) to author HD-DVDs, huh? They of course should have known that the format would be killed... ts ts ts. Never mind THAT, huh?

Odd that I don't hear your friend lamenting about the fact that even Adobe has little more than a half-baked (if not -assed) solution for Blu-Ray. Zero HDi, zero BD-J (should your friend even know what that is), hooray. In other words: a glorified Toast. If you dig into Toast, you can do nearly the same. Encore doesn't even support basic scripting for regular DVDs. Ouch.

Yeah, heavy-duty.

DVD SP will support HDi and BD-J from the get go, you quite obviously have no idea what that means in terms of development. But hey, as long as we can all complain now... especially since what he's getting for his money otherwise is a huge rip-off, huh?

And by the way: every BD-player is backwards compatible to HD-DVD. So insisting on doing a mere faux "native" BD-disc with Encore instead of a decent HD-DVD disc via DVD SP (which due to the lack of HDi etc. amounts to pretty much exactly the same thing ) is pretty silly and pointless, technically speaking.

l2l

[tallscot]

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Namely between all the apps, not just two. I have renderless exchange to ALL the FCS apps. From and/or to FCP from and/or to Motion, DVD SP, Soundtrack Pro, Color and Compressor.

It's not as seamless as you are making it.

FCP to and from Motion doesn't transfer sound, for example. If you do sound in Motion, you have to export it out manually and import it into FCP and then manually sync the two.

Motion to Compressor has so many bugs I am forced to export out of Motion.

[tallscot]

I'm curious why you keep pointing out that Toast has more BD support than DVD SP. It doesn't help your cause.

Encore CS4 has more BD capabilities than CS3, though I wouldn't dare speculate as to how extensive or weak it is compared to the unshipped DVD Studio Pro 5 that I have yet to read anything on. But the main point here is DVD SP does no BD authoring and Encore does. Maybe the next version of DVD SP will do a lot more. I'm guessing it will, but so what? It's not here yet. DVD SP 4 shipped in 2005. We are still waiting. You keep saying "just wait!", though.

[lin2log]

tallscot said:

This hasn't been true for a long time now.

Erm... excuse me?? :-D It very well has been and even more IS true, sorry. Where do you get this stuff?

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It's a huge problem for me. They are live for a reason. And next month, Photoshop CS4 files won't be compatible, I'm guessing, since it's different.

Very poor guessing, since that's also utterly ridiculous. Certain new feature's won't make the transition, but most definitatly not the file as a WHOLE. Mind you, I've already been working with CS4 for quite sometime. Nice try tho.

And sorry, for anyone that puts that amount of importance into Layer Effects while in an NLE(!) needs to do some serious thinking about his workflow. Editing PS files to that degree in an NLE as opposed to AE is just silly.

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But AE CS4 reads it. AE will always have this benefit since it's developed by Adobe. AE CS4 supports the new 3D layers in Photoshop CS4, for example.

Okay. Let's just change it to a discussion about feature's that are purely relevant to AE and PS. We'll just completely forget about Premiere. I'll admit, there's really not much more to be said for Premiere, yes.

l2l