Apple Pro Apps and Apple Pro Video Formats Updates

Apple Pro Apps, Final Cut Pro, Compressor and Motion got an update on 11/15/18, showing up in App Store:

Apple Pro Video Formats 2.0.7 is also showing up in the Software Update on Mojave:

FYI here are the differences between 2.0.6 and 2.0.7:

cMP Boot ROM Version: 140.0.0.0

Mojave 10.14.1 also installs a new firmware update Boot ROM Version: 140.0.0.0
It allows for the use of NVME M2 blade SSDs! Yes!

Unfortunately for people who installed Mojave 10.14, the Firmware update is not mandatory when updating to 10.14.1 via Software Update, hence we get stuck with Boot ROM Version: 130.0.0.0 which DO NOT ALLOW NVME blades to be used in the classic Mac Pros.

MacRumors Forum and tsialex to the rescue! Here is the how-to update the Firmware.

Was real quick on my machine, now sporting 140.0.0.0.0

Groovy! Until next time for a report on M2 SSD inside cMP

Apple revamps its refurbished products website, and oversimplify things again

Apple redesigned its refurbished products pages, unfortunately Apple does not allow us to list every offer at once. One has to navigate through several pages without the possibility to see all products at once. Why?

Another even more serious limitation: Apple lists only the main specs for the machines, as in CPU and screen size, and color, that's it. And one can only filter results by model and screen size and sort by price. Excuse me?

Can you tell the difference between these two Mac Mini machines? Me neither.

How about the difference between these two MacBook Pros? Good luck.

Or these two?

My! Two identical MacPros, why the price difference?

There is no mention of the year the machine was built, which graphic card is installed, or what is the size of the RAM or the size and type of drive inside. When you buy a $3K+ machine you generally pay attention to the details. To me that's more important than the color.

These are SERIOUS LIMITATIONS Apple. There is no way to quickly assess how these machines compare to each other, something that was possible in the previous iteration of the refurb website pages. Now one has to go to each item single page to have access to the full specs. No way to compare quickly.

To me this is moving BACKWARD. Some crappy job of oversimplification here. I like to see much more filtering capabilities on this page, and more info AT ONCE. The complete Overview would be just fine. Thank you.

Final Cut Pro 10.4.4 is out, and so is a reminder that Apple is ditching legacy media

Today Apple released Final Cut Pro 10.4.4, Compressor 4.4.2 and Motion 5.4.2

As always before upgrading, wait until you are in-between projects, and backup your current apps, and your current Libraries.

On the news release page you will notice this small paragraph:

Compressor, the advanced encoding companion to Final Cut Pro, moves to a new 64-bit engine that takes advantage of all the memory in a user’s Mac for improved performance when encoding high resolution, high frame rate video. Compressor maintains support for 32-bit codecs, so editors can continue to work with key legacy formats. And the app now supports SRT closed captions, which is an important format for delivering captioned video to the web and international markets.

Nick Montgomery @Merch_Media Tweeted another notice from Apple:

Legacy media files are compatible with macOS Mojave, but they won't be with future macOS releases. Legacy media can include footage recorded with cameras like Sony HDCAM-SR cameras, footage from GoPro cameras recorded in the CineForm format, video files in the Avid DNxHD/DNxHR format created with software, footage shot with many other older cameras, or files modified with older software.

Here we are confronted with macOs Mojave being the latest of the OSes to support 32-bit apps. With the next release of macOs in fall of 2019, 32-bit no more. That includes Quicktime7.

We knew this was coming with the 2013 announcement of Apple transition from legacy Quicktime to AVFoundation. So Quicktime Player 7 will stop working, and any legacy media files will need to be converted.

For understanding this transition, here is a great article by Larry Jordan: Media Doesn't Last Forever from July 2018.

And a in-depth article by digital Rebellion: Thoughts on 32-bit codecs being phased out in macOS.

What are the concerned codecs one might ask? Apple is vague at best. Luckily Charlie Austin comes to our rescue:

Here is the list on my machine:

ApplePlanarRGB

SorensonVideo

SorensonVideo3

AppleBMP

AppleCinepak

AppleH261

AppleH263

AppleMotionJPEGA

AppleMotionJPEGA

AppleMotionJPEGB

AppleMotionJPEGB

ApplePNG

AppleNone

AppleNone

AppleVideo

AppleGraphics

AppleTGA

AppleTIFF

AppleComponentVideo

AppleJPEG2000

ApplePixlet"

Most of these are obsolete and personally I have never edited with any of these in the past. I had many esoteric codecs coming from client, but the first thing for me is to always convert any exotic codec into an editing friendly codec.

I think this ditching of legacy codecs is a necessary move from Apple in order to make and keep FCPX fast and smooth. Just like I would not edit with h264, it makes sense to me that we need modern tweaked-for-speed codecs to work with. Not to mention codecs that are capable of more bandwidth to accommodate improvements in camera capture, although that's another subject.

That means yes, we will have to do more transcoding in the future. I am not too worried: there are tools for that, and there will still be tools to convert legacy footage into modern codecs to work with in FCPX for the years to come.

Here is a newer article by the guys at Latenitefilms/CommandPost: Legacy Media in Final Cut Pro that explains the situation even better, specifically the .mov wrapping part, and it confirms what I'm thinking.

Which is faster? Mac mini 2012 vs. classic Mac Pro 2012, Encoding HD 1080 h264 comparison

Encoding a 60min. HD ProRes422 to HD h264 (Best/MultiPass Quality) file on cMP (6 cores Xeon), and on Mac Mini (quad core i7)

1) Using Compressor:

1a) cMP = 210min. Abysmal!

VTEncoder almost never goes over 400% CPU

Using only 6 cores at 70% and 6 cores at 10%. Total never goes over 40% User CPU load.


1b) Mini = 50min. Best results!

VTEncoder barely goes over 200% CPU

Using only 4 cores at 10% and 4 cores at 5%. Total never goes over 40% User CPU load.

2) Using Adobe Media Encoder:

2a) cMP = 90min. Meh.

AMEncoder goes up 750% CPU

Using 6 cores at 80% and 6 cores at 60%. Total goes over 65% User CPU

2b) Mini = 84min. Meh.

AMEncoder goes up 600% CPU

Using 4 cores at 80% and 6 cores at 60%. Total goes over 65% User CPU

3) Machines configs:

cMP 2012 6 cores 3.46GHz, 32GB Ram, Radeon 7950 3GB.

Mini 2012 4 cores i7 2.3GHz (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz), Intel 4000 1.5GB

Conclusion: Even though its specs are underwhelming compared to the cMP, the Mini wins with Compressor.

The cMP is really terrible! (x4 real time!!! What?) The Mini encodes the 60min. file in less than 50min. - under real time. 

On the other end with AME (which is much more power hungry) it's about the same on both machines and it takes longer than real time (x1.5 real time more or less.)

The Mini sports a dedicated h264 encode/decode chip, makes sense that the performance is better, it seems though only Compressor is accessing this added power. Adobe? What the heck??

Have a good day!

After Effects 3D Camera Tracker Analysis Solve Failed - Fix

Maybe you've encountered the dreaded Analysis Solve Failed in After Effects using the 3D Camera Tracker tool?

More than likely it's because you have two shots, or even a single rogue frame in your footage.

Solution: check your footage for a blank frame or a frame from another shot. Trim it, and try again.

Adobe Premiere Rush on macOS First Impressions

My first impressions on Adobe Premiere Rush on macOS.

GOOD
- It's fast and relatively intuitive: drag, drop, move things around, click on icons do do specific things, keyboard shortcuts for most things.

- Good for quickly putting together a short video. Journos will love this.

- It uses the superior FCPX Magnetic Behavior (only works for video clips, not audio clips), and Connected Clips behavior (for both video and audio.) 

- 4 Video Tracks (video + synced audio), 3 Audio Tracks (mono or stereo.) Enough for small projects.

- Fast and feels good scrubbing in the Project Assets Panel (= FCPX Browser), and in the Timeline.

- Share (= Media Export), by the way this is the wording as FCPX, is possible to the local computer, in addition to direct publish to Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Behance. Not for me but since this is geared towards Youtubers, makes perfect sense.

- Selectable frame rates (?)

- Wide selection of Titles.

- Basic transitions available. Duration Editable.

- Color tool with: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Temperature, Tint, Vibrance, Saturation, Faded Film, Sharpening, and Vignette. Build-in Presets, and ability to Save Your Own Presets.

- Audio Tool with: Volume, Mute, Auto Volume, and single Channels mutability. Selection of Type of Audio (Voice, Music, Other) opens specific tools for each. Auto Duck for Music, and for Voice Balance sound, Reduce Background noise, Reduce echo and enhance speech (with Male / Female options.)

- Transform tool with Horizontal and Vertical positioning, Rotation, Scaling with or without maintaining proportions, Cropping, Opacity (YEAH!) and Edge feathering. Scaling goes BEYOND the frame, up to 200%. Much better than iMovie which is pretty terrible in this department.

- All tools have on/off buttons.

- Preview quality selectable between High/Medium/Low.

- Full screen playback available. Monitor size is adjustable.

- Expand Audio button to see waveforms better.

- Mute, Lock and Hide track controls.

- Has access to Audio In/Audio Out Mac devices, including USB interface.

- Pre-rendering ON/OFF turnable.

- Media Import folder selectable (on Local computer.)

- Media is either imported "in place" or copied to the Media Import Folder (if the Copy Media box is checked before adding the Media to the Project.)

- Open Premiere Rush Projets into Premiere Pro, no problemo. Only the PP Project panel is the same unorganized mess as it is in Rush.

BAD
- I assume it saves Premiere Rush projects files in the Cloud ONLY (?) I cannot find a file corresponding to my Project. I hate this. But wait, when I turn off Syncing, I can still open my project, so it must be stored locally. Only not as a common file. WHY? I don't like this Adobe.

- Cannot rename Clips in the Project Assets Panel.

- Cannot organize the Project Panel: no folders, no bins, nothing just a bunch of clips. Can only Sort by Names and Filter by Type of Clip/Media. Cannot resize Clips in there. Sequences are stored in this Project Panel as well... They look like Clips. What a mess!

- Cannot organize the Your Projects Panel either as far as I can tell. I mean Youtubers? They make tons of videos, it will quickly be a sorry mess in here!

- Media Import Folder has no subdivision, all imported Media go in there, no matter what project it's for. Oh boy!  Hold on! There is also a Manage Media Folder.  Hmmm, not sure how these work, some digging to do.

- Setting Clips I/O is a weird two/three steps: Open the clip, then set I/O, drag to the Timeline if you wish from here, but then click on Back to Grid View to close and go back to the assets... Pfff, pfff, too many clicks. FCPX is superior here.

- Cannot drag Clip from Timeline to the Project Assets Panel. Another FCPX behavior, not my fav actually.

- Share has only MP4 available, and only Facebook and Youtube Settings. Pretty basic, maybe on purpose. I'm sure this will grow in the future.

- No Title Safe. Who cares anymore?

- No Timecode, only a counter. Timecode? Whats' Timecode anyway?

- Open Premiere Rush Projets into Premiere Pro ONLY via Cloud Syncing? What?? Really Adobe? Really?

WRAP UP
- It's a work in progress, not bad for a first version.

- Feels fairly stable and reactive. Fun and fast, I might say better than iMovie! I will try it on iPad, if it works just as good it will surely get some traction.

- Project Assets Panel is sorely missing in features.

- Hiding Project files, not explaining how this works, Cloud only saving - all deal killers for me. NO WAY Adobe!