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Apple NAB announcement summary

lights-camera-apple.jpg

My favorite live blogging is always from Engadget.

My summary:

  • New Final Cut Digital Asset Management/Transcoding Server: $999/10 users or $1999 for unlimited users (available summer)
  • Final Cut Studio 2
    • Final Cut Pro 6
      • ProRes 422: compression for HD (1TB -> 170GB “at same quality”)
      • Support for Sony’s new HDCAM SR 1080p60, Silicon Imaging’s Red Camera
      • Aja-built IO-HD input box for encoding ProRes 422 in real-time on external box ($3495)
      • Open-format timeline: mix formats, resolutions, framerates
      • Smooth-cam camera shake elimination (from Shake)
      • Better Motion integration
    • Motion3
      • Match-moving
      • more 3D
      • Paint
      • Audio-driven animation
    • SoundtrackPro2
      • Better 5.1 support
      • 5.1 and stereo in same project
      • frequency spectrum editing (ripped off from Audition/Soundbooth)
      • Video HUD for better synching
      • “conform” feature (not sure what that is yet)
    • Compressor3
      • Faster
      • More codecs
      • Preview overlays and watermarks with a before and after slider
      • Integrated chapter markers
      • Better multi-threading
    • $499 upgrade, $1299 new, $699 to upgrade from FCP
    • Available May
  • Color (new application)
    • Color grading
    • looks like this what at least part of the Shake team is doing now (my guess)
    • Same UI for 3-way color correction with
      • RGB and luma curves
      • lift
      • gamma
      • gain
      • visualization of color in 3D space
    • Mattes from chroma, luma, saturation, custom vignettes, hue and saturation curves
    • Color effects — string them together with a node tree
    • Geometry
    • included in Final Cut Studio 2

Wow, so FCS 2 was expected, but a lot more was also expected in this announcement given that Apple announced the 8-core MacPro a couple weeks ago with crummy video cards and no new iLife for ’07 and lappys and iPod designs getting a little stale. Wonder what else would have been announced today if Apple hadn’t announced the delay of Leopard earlier this week?

I just realized that there was no update to DVD Studio Pro. Hrm, wonder why…

[added links to the apple website and comment about DVD Studio later at 3:51 pm]

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