That was the year that was...

Our wefcpug 2011 ended* with the December meet, in the BBC at Bristol.  Richard celebrated his attainment of Jedi status (FCP X accreditation, congrats) with his own canter through the app.  Opinions were voiced, eyebrows were raised, tuts were tutted.   As the Chinese were alleged to say about the French Revolution's effect, it's 'too early to say'.   We're still at the point where we're (all, I think it fair to say) are impressed by the speed and power of the thing, but no-one amongst the paying customers has used it for paying work.   For the future?  Sure, how long are you planning/guessing for?   There's no doubt that eyes and credit cards are wandering towards Avid's Media Composer:  the one thing we all (subject to later recount!!) seemed to agree on is that knowing the MC toolset and workflow is, right now, compulsory for craft editors in Broadcast/Film.  And especially so as we'll move into collaborative working in 2012 and beyond.

As for the rest (Premiere, Lightworks, FCP X next gen) it's going to be an interesting year to come.  I'm not (this is Phil, folks) declaring 'end of days' for FCP just yet, but I do feel like a big reset button has been pressed for those of us still somehow in the broadcast/film/post-production industry and we're back in year 2000.   This time, the impetus and the brains are with Adobe; Avid 2011 seems a different beast to Avid 1990's, and Apple are playing elsewhere.   And this time the intriguing outsider might turn out to be an old favourite, Lightworks.   Or they might all go bust (apart from Apple and their cash mountain).

I shall try, and succeed, resisting the temptation to download any free trials for the holiday period.  There are other fish to fry, or turkeys to roast at least.   There may well be further trivia on this blog, possibly even a review of the year, before we meet again in 2012.  If you have been reading, thank you, and have an enjoyable holiday.   Unless you've failed to commission/employ us.  Further important news follows on the blog.

*except for the 2011 meal out, probably in the Indian restaurant in the Ashton Gate area, probably on Tuesday 20th.   You may well know more than I do by the time you read this.

when the dust settled...report on Oct11 wefcpug

It may have been a Monday night, and after work, but there was plenty of lively discussion and a widespread divergence of views and opinion at this month's wefcpug.   For once, we weren't arguing the future of editing tools, but important topics like narratives and story-telling.   And what provoked this outbreak?   Viewing of just one of the graduate films from the Newport School of Film Doc, with many thanks to John Burgan, who brought the material along.

Sure, the discussion did range around FCP X versus the rest - with a growing group that comprises 'the rest'.   There'll be another exclusive screening at next month's wefcpug, when distinguished editor and wefcpug member Don Fairservice shows his current work.   Keep following this blog for details - the date is 7th November 2011.

In the meantime, we'll be keeping tabs on the tech developments, both in FCP X and in Lightworks, as they move out of beta phase / continue their update paths {delete where appropriate}

wefcpug aside, there's an eventful media calendar in Bristol - see the next entries.

wefcpug Oct 2011 - Monday 10th

Monday's wefcpug continues the conversations from last month, with a unique chance to view new work from rising talents at one of Wales' leading film schools:

Documentary at the Newport Film School

Founded by the father of British documentary John Grierson in 1966, Newport Film School is one of the oldest film schools in the UK. It all started with just one clockwork Bolex camera, but Grierson was unapologetic – “Give them a box, a cardboard box with a hole in it. You don’t need sophisticated equipment. What you are going to say is more important.”

Ten years ago the film school launched the UK’s only BA (Hons) course solely focused on documentary film-making which has grown steadily since then. Programme Leader John Burgan will present a selection of shorts from the current crop of graduates.

And we return to the new boy on the block, FCP X.  With the recent .1 update is the package ready for the real world yet?    As they say everywhere, your voice counts...

Join us at BBC Bristol, 7pm on Monday 10th Oct - email me or Richard to be sure your name is on the list for the guys at security.  There is no charge for entry to this meeting.

Sep '11 report - moving on with Lightworks

The September meet and another year begins for the wefcpug, and the only thing we can say for certain is that this will be another year of changes and innovation. To begin with a report. Phil demo'd both FCP X and Lightworks on the same machine, a MacPro tower.

Admittedly the Lightworks demo was courtesy of BootCamp and Windows7 (and thus slightly disadvantaged in terms of system access). A fuller write-up will be along shortly when I've finished another project or so, on both systems.

But in brief, the subjective results I presented:

> FCP X is fast, powerful, easy to use and well suited to self-contained file-based workflows. Compressed long-GOP camera formats are no longer a problem - conversion to ProRes (in FCP newspeak 'optimised' formats) takes place in the background and doesn't delay editing. Much better handling than classic FCP 7.

> The 'magnetic' timeline is very useful for certain edits (and editors) - especially when working with cutaway (or B-roll) shots that aren't inserted into the main video track, but left floating (with their audio tracks) to delay decisions. FCP X promises to remove the danger of overwriting clips that aren't seen in the timeline window and will preserve sync at all cost. (But it has done away with out-of-sync indicators).

I'm less impressed by the interface, which is too crowded and inflexible. Other current negatives are, of course, the lack of integration with video hardware (eg Matrox) and audio fader panels, (and for that matter the lack of audio tracks in the conventional sense), inability to export OMFs natively, though I can probably live without EDLs now, and lack of tape support (excepting dumb 'capture now' through firewire).

I think the main disappointment I have is with the inflexible, gloomy interface.

I came to Lightworks without expecting much. It's a beta release of an open source version of a 20 year old product. Furthermore, it's running in a slightly crippled version because I don't have a native Windows machine any more, hence it's on a BootCamp drive sitting atop Windows7. Just tweaking the hardware to work properly (NOT the fault of Lightworks, requiring a bit more compatibility between BootCamp and W7 - now fixed by updates) took a couple of days. But, as I said at the meeting, what I found was surprisingly easy to work with, and a good intuitive piece of editing software.

In total contrast to FCP X, you can't get a more minimal desktop than Lightworks: it's just about blank. You populate it with clips and assemblies, which you fit into racks when you feel like it. You can be as tidy or as messy as you like - have as many clip 'tiles' in view as you need: and for that matter any clip can become an assembly - ideal for adding auxiliary or replacement audio tracks. 

Input on my setup is Firewire, with the ability to log and capture.   Setting up the deck control was quick and easy - the dialogues had obviously been written by people with TV engineering experience - and offered the surprise option of capture into MXF files. I really like the edit/trimming methods which are intuitive and fast to operate.

I could go on, and I will in the fuller document - but it's obvious that I am very impressed by Lightworks. Just 10 minutes was enough to convince me that this is software I can work with: best of all, I found myself thinking more about pictures and sound than about menu options or keyboard shortcuts.

So, where does the future lie? Jason mentioned on Monday that there was the promise of a statement from Lightworks this week, and it's here . There's the promise of a port of the beta version to Mac and Linux this year, with a launch of the commercial Lightworks (windows) in November. This offers free and paid options, the paid version giving access to pro codecs. And there's Matrox support too.

In the meantime, we must surely soon see an update to FCP X to bring it up to pro level. So, watch this space (and I haven't even mentioned the A's: Avid and Adobe).

Meeting next week - Monday 9th May

What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn; 

(Antonio's opening speech, 'Merchant of Venice', Wm Shakespeare) 

Admittedly, the Bard probably didn't have Final Cut Pro X in mind when he put quill to parchment, but the sentiments fit. Antonio goes on to say  

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, That I have much ado to know myself. 

But we'll have no sadness at the wefcpug meeting next Monday, 9th May, usual place (BBC Bristol), time (assemble from 630pm). Rather we'll echo 'two-headed Janus' (Merchant again) and look back to NAB, forward to the aforesaid FCP and how to prepare.

The webscape is full of (mostly) uninformed speculation, guesswork, uncertainty and doubt, or as Bill S put it: an infinite deal of nothing.   We'll be doing a bit better than that, I hope, with a rundown on this year's new hardware and how it's going to change the way we work.   Let's talk cameras, storage, graphics and yes, tech stuff too!    (Note, the presentations will NOT be in verse, nor in iambic pentameter.   Unless you insist).
 

I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.

The next wefcpug year - 101st birthday

And cue another set of fanfares please, join with us as wefcpug celebrates our 5th birthday with an extra special meeting. Details have 'evolved' a little since the last meeting, and from the emailings that have been decorating your electronic pigeon holes. So read carefully:

We've arranged a special evening in conjunction with Quad Logic at Aardman's new private cinema at Gas Ferry Road, Bristol.

This is a ticket only do (£5.00 each) with all proceeds going to The Wallace & Gromit Appeal Fund. (Sorry, no spouses, partners, etc.) Send no money now, it'll be collected on the night. If you would like to come along then you MUST please let Richard know as we only have a limited number of spaces

And what's on the agenda?

Well, first and foremost the guys at Quad Logic (and our old friends from London, On-Sight) are there all day demonstrating FCP 7, Red, CatDV, Color 1.5, etc... If they have any energy left then they'll carry on in the evening just for us! We can't presume that this will happen but I bet it does! (If you want to know more about what Quad Logic are doing during the day then get in touch with Ken at Quad Logic - ken.bell@squareboxmedia.co.uk).

Plus we want a showing! Please bring with you about 5 minutes (no more, please) of the best of what you have done with Final Cut Studio, preferably on DVD - or on some format that we can play off a Mac! (Other) Production deadlines mean we've shifted away from doing a pre-edit, it'll be a live play-out on the night. So there should be plenty of fun and enjoyment at the slick presentation so typical of a wefcpug playout. With scope for spontaneous applause and audience participation. (Juke Box Jury anyone).

And there'll will be a Phil-style raffle with a prize of one FCS3 UPGRADE courtesy of Apple !!!!!!!

Go on... give us your best, help us kick off another glorious year.

The details -
weFCPug 5th anniversary SuperMeet at Aardman, Gas Ferry Road, 23rd September 2009 @ 6.30pm on.

The end of another year

Congratulations to all who negotiated the change in rooms - the big plasma in our new temporary venue made all the wandering around worthwhile! And relayed apologies again from Darren at Matrox for their last-minute non-show due to technical problems - they WILL be back, they promise, with a demo running 'on all cylinders'.

My demo this month was a tale of four keying methods for green screen: all working on some (non-ideal!) HDV material - a realistic challenge for many of us.

First off, to only moderate applause, is the FCP 'built-in'. Provided you choose correctly between the Green Blue Effect, and the Green AND Blue Effect, the latest version provides a graphical interface for eye-dropping colour and adjusting chrominance / saturation / luminance keying levels.

With a little more tweaking than I did on Monday night AND with the 'Color Smoothing Filter' enabled (!) the key looks like this:

There's noticeable fringing / stepping just about visible on the uploaded pic - on the edges of the arms especially - which is the result of trying to key off HDV, a 4:2:0 standard, meaning reduced chroma definition.

I'd rate the key as OK - but difficult to get good quality all across the frame, meaning I'd have to do extra mattes with garbage filters for uneven backgrounds.

Next up was the keying effect included with Motion - Primatte. The matte produced here was very good from the first 'eyedrop' - again you can see the interlace-like stepping caused by the lack of chroma resolution. (The footage is progressive, by the way, and we're viewing results obtained on a ProRes timeline). There are controls to soften the matte, which loses the jaggies, but makes for problems with details such as hair, of course.

Verdict so far - better keying from Primatte, but with the hassle of round-tripping to and from Motion, which isn't always practicable, especially on a project with lots of short keyed sequences, which may need recutting (frequently).

Two other contenders, one newly re-launched, and another established name:

The new kid on the block is 'Chroma Key Studio' from Boris. There's more than a simple key here, the package adds extras such as a wrap-around edge based on the background picture. There's also an option for working off a 'plate' - for locked-off cameras - a 'background only' shot used to generate the key (in the same manner as iChatAV now offers).

The grab here shows the matte with a little softening applied, which helps the jaggies - too much and the hair detail will disappear, of course.

And finally, one that I'd forgotten about until a chance conversation with Matt at the Supermeet last week - dvMatte Pro from DVGarage. This is another FCP effect (actually an FX plug-in), with a more complex keying system to set up - with two droppers for high and low background levels. Plus the now familiar edge lighting and matte softening.


This filter I found to be extremely easy to use, and gave results as good as Primatte in Motion (which until now I'd considered the gold standard for FCP keying).


For ease of use, I'd rate the Boris Chroma Key studio and dvMatte Pro joint equal. The built-in FCP key is fiddly and didn't give as clean or as adjustable an end result, and though the Primatte key is fine, sometimes you just want to keep in one App, on the timeline.

Both the Boris and dvgarage products are downloadable as trial versions
here for the Boris package. Note this also offers real-time keying for studio application.
here for dvMatte pro.

I ought to say - don't judge the quality of any of these keyers on my rough-and-ready efforts for the demo purposes. But at least they have the benefit of equal treatment and attention.

And while you're downloading, there's another filter tip from Monday, thanks to Jason.

It's new to me, and it's free - in fact one of many freebies on the same website. It's known as the Captain's blowout fixer, and is a clever repair, no a very clever repair kit for overexposed footage, written by Patrick Sheffield, who would appear to be a Shake wunderkind, and a generous one as well. The fixer works by abstracting detail from other colour channels (eg if Green is blown out, there's a good chance that Red isn't) and substituting. It shouldn't work, but it does.

The download page has some wonderful Technicolor simulators - great fun to see.
Here is the site.

And, apart from Richard's promised sumup of his DVD experiences, that's it for Year 5 of the wefcpug. See you at the 5th birthday big bash. There will be blog updates over the Summer (who needs vacations) and maybe a podcast too.

What we saw in the wilderness

October's meeting, which kicked off our 5th year saw a presentation by Dilesh Korya, editor of renown in these parts, and long-term wefcpug member. Dil has been working on 'Wilderness Explored', which has just finished its first series run on BBC4 here in the UK. It's always great to get the inside track on current projects, and they don't come much more current than this one! The programme was a mix of library (drawing on the huge back catalogue of the BBC Bristol's Natural History library - but with much of the footage previously untransmitted rushes from their block-buster round the world series as well as historic archive material), new interview and a lot of motion graphics and layered effects. All achieved in FCP, and in a couple of cases, right before our very eyes.

The usual warm-up acts came from Richard, who, in response to an audience request last month, worked the changes on Motion to do an (almost) instant moving face blur. We could tell you who requested this feature, but we'd have to kill you...

and by way of even lighter relief, Phil (c'est moi) gave a first-impressions report on Dirac, the open-source video codec which has emerged from BBC R&D. (I nearly wrote a 'report on what I understand about Dirac' but that is something of an exaggeration - and it would have made a very short presentation). Brief advantages are: it's good quality, at lower bit-rates than current codecs (mpeg-2) - one example quoted by the Beeb is the use of an SD circuit from Beijing to carry a Dirac-coded HD signal; it's scalable, meaning it's a possible competitor for H.264 in streaming/downloads to home - see the iPlayer next year; it's open-source, meaning there are no royalty payments for developers/users - and you're free to tinker with the code yourself.

Yeah, right, I hear you saying. But if you are so inclined, head over to http://diracvideo.org/ for the unexpurgated technical details, or a (slightly) more readable intro from the horse's mouth at http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac/ . There are links on the dirac project pages to a couple of mac-specific projects. One is an experimental codec for Quicktime (the Shroedinger project) and another is for playback through VLC. I'm pursuing these, though I don't think I'll be doing much rewrites of code (!) and will report back one day.

Keep watching for news of our exciting big plug-in night in November....£2500 worth in prizes already garnered by Richard, with promises of more to come.

Headlines and links from the March Meet

I gave a short resume of what's happened in the Mac and broadcasting worlds in the last month - or at least the bits that came to my notice!

OS X - the big update to 10.5.2 arrived, weighing in at 343.4MB for the combo update. iTunes and QuickTime have had various facelifts too. The changes in the OS that I've noticed are improved wifi and bluetooth connections (meaning stability), the new ability of TimeMachine to backup to networked drives (provided these are hosted on other Leopard Macs), the look of the Dock and the ability to customise the stacks that pop up (or out) for Documents and Downloads. All in all, a worthy update to have (not that you'll have a choice, really).

There's a new version of Aperture, selling at a reduced price to version 1.
Newly updated too are Skype and XQuartz - the latter is essential if you wish to use the X11 program (required for OpenOffice and the Gimp as well as a myriad of other apps which were written for the XWindows system).

Best of all, a new version of news feed reader Newsfire - and now it's a free download.

Panasonic have announced that 64GB capacity P2 cards will be available in Autumn 08. This will offer some 2hrs 30mins recording time at DVCProHD resolution, 5hr + DVCPro. Price to be announced (North of £1750 my guess).


Broadcasting: The BBC now offers a limited selection of TV programmes for sale on the iTunes Music Store. Maybe this presages a new version of the iPlayer for Mac, given that the iTMS now offers movie rentals in the US (so there is a DRM system in place). Ashley Highfield, the Beeb's digital boss, has been hinting in interviews and in his blog that there will be a Mac-compatible iPlayer offering downloads sometime (as opposed to the streaming-only option at present). That said, which is good news, the streaming service isn't TOO bad, at least on small screens. (Blame Flash encoding for this).

Also noted that the previously announced BBC target for full HD commissioning by 2010 is now regarded as 'aspirational' according to Broadcast mag.

For other news items, not covered here, including exciting sponsorship offers new to wefcpug, watch this space.

Jan 2008's meeting - report and links

Oxygen wasn't rationed, but we were just about at capacity for 2008's first wefcpug. Maybe everyone needed something to kickstart the brain after holiday season.

Here are the links for the presentations -

The GIMP is an open source graphics program long known to Linux and Unix users, and (as I reported a year or so back) has been ported to the Mac, where it works in the X11 windowing environment. At least, it DID work, until Leopard was released. There are now two updates that restore a working Gimp to the platform:

the latest version of the Gimp itself here at the charmingly named Wilber-loves-Mac site. (Worth visiting the second link first if you need to read things up.)

and an open-source modified version of the Apple X11 system for Leopard installations. My understanding (which only just stretches this far) is that the modified X11 on this link adheres to the XWindows standard in ways that the X11 bundled with Leopard does not. If you're happy downloading a modified X11 (which I believe incorporates changes into the Quartz graphics layer as far as it affects X11) you can make it work! One of the open-source developers quotes an Apple team member saying they hope to make this an official Apple update one day.

So - you might want to wait until the next point upgrade to the OS, 10.5.2, which we expect any day now.

Other Leopard news: Skype and AudioHiJack have both released updates to be better compatible with Leopard.

Simon Walker presented the first Show'nTell of 2008, creating an impressive 30" commercial spot in Motion from humble ingredients. His website is here.

Anika Tokarchuk showed trailers and clips from her Tibetan trilogy of films - read more about them here.

Next meeting - Feb 4th

What happened at the July07 wefcpug

A crowded house celebrated the finale of this year's wefcpug meets, and with a summer break in mind, what better way to ensure peace of mind for Autumn restarts than by looking at ways to keep a Mac happy?

Backups in a nutshell: (not literally recommended except for squirrels)

If you want a bootable clone of your system disk then head for Carbon Copy Clone
It's a very small app (as the developer writes, actually a collection of Applescripts) that can clone a disc onto an external firewire drive. For intel macs especially, making such a drive bootable involves more than the old OS9 technique of dragging a system folder across. Oh, for such simple days! Plenty of info about this on the developer's site. It's donation ware - PayPal drinks money accepted.
Note that, although Carbon copy can do scheduled sync'ing of files, this requires another (free) routine (psync) which may have to downloaded too. Also note that CCC doesn't work with network attached drives.

For this, I recommended Chronosync which is a $30 app. Chronosync does work with networked drives - in my case, a 500GB RAID array on a G4 attached via ethernet - and is configurable as you like to backup folders, files on a schedule. It will even wake up the source Mac, mount and unmount the remote drive. The first run is obviously the longest, when the whole material is copied over, subsequent sync's will only copy over changed files: you can decide whether to mirror deletions, archive previous versions of files, exclude certain folders. The best feature for me is that the backup copies are a straightforward copy with the same hierarchy of folders, no fancy 'restore' software required. Chronosync can of course be configured to go into reverse mode, to restore say a complete set of User folders, but it's also easy to find individual files on the target machine, using Searchlight.

From experience, I recommend backing up the entire User tree, including the Library folders (which contains preferences, metadata as well as cache files) - but restoring with care when it comes to prefs etc. I don't myself backup the Apps folders this way - CCC is the way to go for that. Note that Chronosync is NOT recommended for system restores (ie bootable drives).

Yet to come, with the Leopard release of OS X, is the Time Machine, which it seems will do much of the above with a great 'back in time' interface.

If you don't have a backup strategy yet, and don't want to install extra apps yet, do at the very least use the routines built in to several of the iApps for backup of data. For instance, iCal and Address Book have 'backup database' options under 'File', and iPhoto and iTunes both have options to export albums and data.

Maintenance
Richard Harrison spoke very highly of AppleJack for routine maintenance as well as for persuading a misbehaving Mac back to work. It's donation ware, and runs in Single User mode (Command S on startup) - which is especially good if your system is ill and not booting up to the full login window. The app runs a set of Unix cleanup routines (checking permissions, purging caches) which, if you don't fancy Single User mode, can also be invoked using Onyx
- if you decide to download Onyx, make sure you choose the correct version (there is a 'Panther only' previous version on the page too).

And Finally
Despite all the helpful suggestions from the audience, Richard worked his way through a live demo of sound cleanup using Soundtrack pro. Many more of these demos to come in the next season, when we'll all have had time to unwrap and play with FC Studio 2....see you in September.

Do keep checking here on the blog for updates, news, gossip, and unfounded rumours.

Lost Vagueness comes to wefcpug

Time to dry out your tents, wash the mud from your wellies and focus back on things FCP - or just stop watching Glasto repeats on the red-button services of course.

It's another wefcpug meet, next Monday - July 2nd - at the BBC Bristol Whiteladies Rd branch. 7pm as usual.

Richard writes:

I've had requests to talk about certain elements of Final Cut that people are unsure about, including how to get rid of nasty noise from the background of a clip and also take an in depth look at trimming and, in particular, the Trim Edit window.

So that's what he'll be doing. Apparently Phil is going to be delving into the history of, and in particular, the what of ten years ago or so. Mm... should be interesting!

I can't wait for that myself. What I think I'm actually doing is - allegedly for light relief - revisiting a presentation I made some 10+ years ago on the future of non-linear edits. More seriously, I'm also looking at backup and data protection (in the sense of protection from loss) possibilities, in the run-up to Leopard (or is it Cougar, or Civet, or Lynx) and the Time Machine. No tardis involved, but some free and reasonably priced software to tide us over.

Plus the usual give-aways and some unusual ones - book your place with Richard.