Apple Announces New Pro Software 479
yroJJory writes "Apparently, Apple has just announced new pro software today. First off is the new app Motion, which is a new motion graphics program with real-time previews, procedural behavior animation and Final Cut Pro HD integration. Second, is Final Cut Pro HD, boasting the beauty of HD with the simplicity of DV. Capture DVCPRO HD over FireWire, edit using camera-native footage and output over FireWire with no generational quality loss. RT Extreme, now for HD, can deliver multiple HD streams, effects, filters and transitions in real-time to an attached Apple Cinema Display. Last, but most important to me, is DVD Studio Pro 3, which has slick new transitions, superb HD to MPEG-2 encoding, Graphical View, support for all professional audio formats -- including DTS -- (FINALLY!!), and integration with Final Cut Pro HD and Motion. Motion will be available this summer for $299. The Final Cut Pro HD update is available now for FCP 4 users. DVD Studio Pro 3 is expected to ship in mid-May." Reader green pizza writes "Apple today introduced Xsan, a clustered filesystem for Mac OS X systems."
Amateur motion capture? (Score:0, Interesting)
Wait ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple does it right (Score:4, Interesting)
Simply, they are the trend setters. Best computer company period!
HDTV over IEEE1394 (Score:3, Interesting)
It's things like this... (Score:5, Interesting)
To me, Apple seems a much better development house than Microsoft (not really necessary to state), and their products seem much more reliable/functional than Microsoft's efforts. Maybe it's the extra time spent in development, maybe it's the extra attention spent on details, or perhaps it's just the hardware.
Even though I don't currently use Apple hardware, I still appreciate what they are doing for the computing community in general with products like these that show what great design teams are really capable of.
weird (Score:2, Interesting)
XSan should receive more noteriety for this.
Xsan is a preannoucement. And that's Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
That is not something Apple does much if at all for its products. While silence until shipping is a good move (I would say) in the consumer space. It's bad for the Enterprise space. Apple has been criticized and justifiably so for not pre-announcing key technology so developers and enterprises can plan accordingly.
Now I agree that it's probably better to err on the side of less pre-announcement, but Apple took this to too much of an extreme.
I think this is an indication that Apple is 'getting it' more and more regarding Enterprise/Pro markets.
Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda off (Score:5, Interesting)
It is true that Adobe is scaling back some of their Mac operations. But apps like Premier and FrameMaker have been seriously neglected (four or more year w/o and update). So if these are the applications Apple risks losing because of their great software then so be it.
Avid/ProTools treats the Mac like a second class citizen so thankfully Apple has helped give them some competition. If it hadn't been for Apple who would have provide quality compositing, audio, video editing, DVD-authoring and now motion graphics software? Was Apple supposed to wait and hope that someone would come to the plate?
If anything, Apple is capable of producing great software. They will always be reliant on third parties with limited resources (or interest) for supporting great Mac hardware. Their strength is their software. It'd be great if Apple could get out their hardware sinkig ship and concentrate on bring great softare to different platforms.
HD over FireWire (Score:5, Interesting)
1080i HD content can be moved between a Panasonic HD VTR and a computer via FireWire with no generation loss:
"With Panasonic's new, compact AJ-HD1200A DVCPRO HD VTR, 24fps or 60fps progressive scan material shot by Panasonic's AJ-HDC27 VariCam HD Cinema camera or 1080i studio / sports truck footage recorded by DVCPRO HD VTRs can be transferred via the VTR's IEEE 1394 interface directly into Final Cut Pro HD without generation loss. Once transferred, the material is instantly available for real-time editing operations. All footage maintains its camera-original quality, because the IEEE 1394 FireWire interface transfers the native DV-HD high definition files, as originally recorded on tape in the VTR or Varicam, directly to the Power Mac G4 or Power Mac G5 host computer's internal hard drive."
Read the joint Apple/Panasonic press release [apple.com]
What to view it on? (Score:5, Interesting)
This also brings up something with the Panisonic HD DV camcorder simply because it is the only major minidv HD camcorder being pushed.
Good job apple.
Kudos to Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What impresses me (Score:4, Interesting)
It should be noted that Weta Digital opted for the more expensive Shake+Linux combination than going the full Mac route, heh
Sunny Dubey
Re:Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda o (Score:4, Interesting)
The other advantage in having Apple take these types of software under their wing is that they can strategically coordinate releases of both software and hardware. Looking at the Xserves, the XSAN, the software tools, OS X, etc., you can clearly see that they're targeting high-end, corporate users of media software (ie, entertainment). The scientific community is already sold on the Unix underlayer of OS X - X11 make is possible to port a lot of apps.
Is there a MacOS layer like Wine? (Score:2, Interesting)
Motion is open src security cam project, NOT apple (Score:1, Interesting)
Windows is what you look through to see outside, it's not really a OS, you can tell by how many restarts you have to do in a day.
Final Cut Express (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that these problems are fixed, I can safely say that Final Cut Express is the perfect entry-level video editing solution. At $299, it's a steal compared to the competition (Final Cut Pro is already a steal!). Plus, if you decide to upgrade to pro, Apple only charges the difference in the price, meaning you lose no money.
Talk about a company that's nice to their customers. Apple definitely sees the pro market as an area to capitalize - it has always been their strong point in the past. You can tell that apple's trying to capitalize on their strong points as they attempt to regain the Education market with the $799 1.25ghz eMac. The pro markets are faithful to apple, and can easily afford their hardware and software - compared to the 'real' pro-level stuff, Apple's a bargin (SGI workstations used to cost upward of $10k without software)
Re:Slight correction (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it was the need for multiple PCI busses, as at least AVID Mojo requires a "segmented PCI bus" in order to work at full capacity. Most Xeon-based machines sold for the last five years have had two PCI busses. I don't know if the PCI-X slots on the G5 now would have addressed this need had they done it back then, because I think each PCI-X slot in that machine is its own bus.
A Litte Offtopic (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/aprillaptops.ht
This is kind of odd, they usually announce new products on Tuesdays.
Re:What's the Apple complaint today? (Score:1, Interesting)
Just check this site [sonypictures.com] tomorrow. The axe is getting ready to fall already...
Re:It's things like this... (Score:5, Interesting)
I use osx all the time now (was a PC to mac convert 2 months ago), and I just find the one button mouse a much more elegant solution. I just find the keyboard and mouse combo is much more efficient. Interestingly enough, it wasn't that I was actually slower, but I was LAZIER with the two button mouse - I didn't want to bother using the keyboard, when i could do it in one hand - which in the end caused performance to suffer. And expose rocks my world. I keep finding myself how to switch windows on winxp, and I marvel at how I was able to survive without expose for so long (alt-tab doesn't cut it anymore). The app switching bottleneck is so gone now.
I work at a printshop, so I very much rather enjoy being able to work on 5-6 jobs at the same time. It reduces a lot of downtime, and I find that the biggest bottleneck on the computer is actaully me. Which, of course causes me to push bigger jobs faster, simultaneously, up until the point where the hardware is near it's limit. It's a vicious cycle, but productivity is the big winner here, and my boss likes that. Plus I feel like Johnny Neumonic(sp?).
(Score:-1, The Switch)
A new standard is set (Score:1, Interesting)
And it's good to see a standard set that Slashdot can be proud of, after holding previous records so long for "duplicate submissions" and "spelling mistakes in submissions".
Reminds me of Farside cartoon (Score:2, Interesting)
What slashdot wrote: (see above)
What I hear:
Apparently, Apple has just announced new pro software today. First off is the new app Motion, which is blah blah blah blah blah. Second, is Final Cut Pro HD, boasting blah blah blah. Capture blah blah over FireWire, edit blah blah blah. Blah blah, now for blah, can deliver blah blah blah to an attached Apple Cinema Display. Last, but most important to me, is DVD Studio Pro 3, which has slick new transitions, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, and integration with Final Cut Pro HD and Motion. Motion will be available this summer for $299. The Final Cut Pro HD update is available now for FCP 4 users. DVD Studio Pro 3 is expected to ship in mid-May.
Apple today introduced Xsan, a blah blah for Mac OS X systems.
Yes, Hardware is a sinking ship. (Score:1, Interesting)
Now I'm not saying that their current hardware isn't competitive, nor am I saying that their future hardware won't be competitive. I'm saying their hardware isn't profitable.
Apple has some great consumer and professional applications. They have the potential to deliver more. They have a world class operating system (that is very portable) and they have the best GUI/OS and store for portable music players. They also have a cash hoard that could fund a move away from hardware.
Let's put things into perspective. Adobe and Apple are about the same size in market capilization. Apple employs three time as many people and has 5 times the revenue that Adobe does. Yet Adobe is more than twice as profitable.
Who would you rather be, Adobe or Apple. Adobe isn't competing against every PC manufacturer for market share. In fact their business is healthy regardless of who wins the PC war. Apple could easily be in the same enviable position as Adobe with one significant differnece: Apple has two great operating systems too.
Re:What impresses me (Score:5, Interesting)
- BSD backend with full hardware/software support
- Incredible battery life. (I get 4+ hours with normal use)
- Weight
- Internal wireless with antenna integrated into the display
- Plenty of OSS software available
- Apple software bundle is impressive
- And lastly, all this for only $1099
Needless to say. I'm loving' it.Re:Actually, your cause and effect might bekinda o (Score:5, Interesting)
And doing it very well.
Apple's is a bargain, but not the best (Score:3, Interesting)
If you do the math, Apple's hardware RAID setups and per-seat SAN software prices are the lowest in the industry for now. BUT, the others have much longer feature lists and have many years of market experience. Basiclly, I wouldn't want to be the first one to trust my data to a new Apple SAN. Remeber, on a SAN each machine has direct access to the data via fibrechannel. There is no fileserver involved, just the SAN "traffic cop" management software. When things go bad on a SAN, very bad things can happen.
Re:Your cause and effect's all out of whack. (Score:4, Interesting)
Their purportedly multithreaded renderer in After Effects is so poorly done that you can damn near double a multiproc box's performance by running two jobs at once. Their multithreading is so poorly done a user can do it 2x better by making a few extra mouse clicks in their software.
Re:Kudos to Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my most fond memories while being an employee at NeXT before stepping into Apple was Steve's final CEO to Staff Rally Speech.
Besides the obvious, "We are already speaking to several key individuals, including John Rubenstein(sp?), etc" was the comment Steve made about when the OS hits the Shelf.
To the best of my recollection:
Now obviously Steve held to his Vision.
Re:What impresses me (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slight correction (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I remember that fracas.. One incident I loved hearing about was one Avid customer asking his sales rep "what about Mac compatibility?", only to be told "we don't have to be compatible with the Mac". The customer was incensed, and told the idiot "You have to be compatible with your own installed base, asshole."
There were a bunch of Avid customers who decided right then and there that Avid was history as soon as they had an alternative.
Re:Apple does it right (Score:5, Interesting)
We just bought a Dual G5 Xserve. I set it up last weekend. In about 4 hours. From my house. In my PJs. All done via Apple's Remote Desktop and Admin tools over my cable modem. Designers came in Monday morning and all their stuff was there and working as if it had always been there.
I know most hard core geeks who regularly SSH into their servers and various boxen won't be impressed by that, but please understand that I work for a decently sized (14 designers) graphic design company. I admin all the G5s and our web server, FTP, mail, etc., in addition to my normal duties as a production artist. I am a "geek" who regularly reads slashdot, but UNIX is not really my forte. I drop into the Terminal occasionally and sudo, but it's not really my main gig. I know enough to be dangerous, basically.
The G5 server is freaking amazing. Open Directory is very nice as well. Say what you want about overpriced hardware (though the G5 server and the X-RAID are pretty reasonable for what you are buying), but Apple does do things pretty well. You get what you pay for in my opinion. Could I have built or ordered a similar machine with Linux or Win2K3 and spent a little less? Probably. We spent about $5K and got 750 gig of storage and a gig of RAM. But the difference in the cost of my time (and headache trying to get it all running) is far outweighed by the simplicity of the Xserve. And the really nice thing is that there is a TON of usabilty built into the Xserve for those who need/want to delve deeper. PHP. MySQL. Open Directory (Apple's LDAP stuff). VPN. It's all there and easily configured or tweaked from the Admin Tools or from the CLI.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see more and more Xserves sneaking into data centers. They really do rock.
Re:Kudos to Apple (Score:4, Interesting)
Japan seems to break the mold here though. Recall that article a week or two ago about Toyota's long term development of alternative fuel engines... now Ford liscences them.
Re:What's the Apple complaint today? (Score:4, Interesting)
People, that money people use to pay for things actually goes back to the company and gives employees an incentive to sit there hacking away for 12 hours producing quality code and designing amazing new hardware. Volunteer work won't give you that kind of motivation (admit it, it won't), and it also won't let you quit your day job to devote all your time and energy to it.
Apple has the perfect balance--the kernel and rest of the OS is open source, but the stuff that really matters like their GUI and other software is proprietary closed. Ya have to buy it.
Re:Yes, Hardware is a sinking ship. (Score:1, Interesting)
You are looking at it from an end-user point of view. People are talking about it from Apple's side -- where they have to design and build the whole thing, convince suppliers like IBM and ATI keep them competitive, etc. Which is very expensive.
Ahhh, the smell of astroturf in the morning (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, Apple makes good products -- I just bought an iBook as my new laptop and would buy one again. It's a good machine. The hardware is well designed if expensive, the software good, if not the best of breed. But Apple is a bunch cut-throat-DMCA-loving-money-grabbing capitalists like Microsoft, just without the monopoly, and Steve Jobs eats his chocolate one bite at a time, just like everyone else.
Good software? Yes. Great software? No. Mac OS X doesn't play well with others, it drops those pissy little .DS_Store files in every single folder of a network it can find. iMovie can't deal with letterbox DV (like even Kino [schirmacher.de] can). Mail doesn't know TLS (which even the Beta of Mozilla Thunderbird [mozilla.org] can do). iTunes can't natively play Ogg Vorbis. Listing the ways that DVD Player is inferior to VLC [videolan.org] would take pages, and don't get me started on all the hacks that have been installed to cripple the iBook to make the PowerBook look better (starting with the stupid Spanning Block that is supposed to make sure that only what you see on the screen can be sent to a second monitor or TV). Good, yes. Great, no.
Dear astroturfers, on the long run you'll help Apple more by giving a balanced, fair view of what is offered instead of this mindless drooling cheerleading. These machines are, so to speak, merely human, not gods, and even at 10.3, OS X has lots of room for improvement.
Re:Ahhh, the smell of astroturf in the morning (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, if you really want people to take your comments seriously, you might cut out the anti-corporate, anti-capitalist rhetoric. Just because Apple makes a profit doesn't make them an "evil company". You know, Steve Jobs has to put food on the table too, and I happen to think that Apple makes the world a slightly better place by taking some of my computing headaches away.
Ever notice how the same posters that make anti-capitalist comments are always the ones bitching about lack of Ogg support in $VENDOR product? I think it's a communist conspiracy to replace all of our "encumbered" formats with a more communist friendly and free format like Ogg.
Re:Yes, Hardware is a sinking ship. (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it? Maybe. But outside of the clonebox PC market, that's exactly what every electronics manufacturer has to do. There is no chip with the ubiquity and appeal of the "x86" chip in, say, the PVR market, or the car stereo media decoder market. Sure, there are market leaders, but very rarely do you see one that has 97% of the market.
Which is, I think, the POINT to Apple's dogged insistance to keep running with their own chips. They want to be an alternative and they want to assert the 1980s idea that a computer is not an abstract concept that separates OS from hardware.