Digital Motion dot net

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]