And yet, if we look at the most recent work of the Chief Video Architect (apparently for both pro and consumer applications) Randy Ubilos we see that Location metadata is a requirement for the application. According to Apple’s FAQ for iMovie for IPhone if you don’t allow iMovie for iPhone to access your location metadata:

Because photos and videos recorded on iPhone 4 include location information, you must tap OK to enable iMovie to access photos and videos in the Media Library.

If you do not allow iMovie to use your location data, then the app is unable to access photos and videos in the Media Browser.

You can still record media directly from the camera to the timeline but, without the Location metadata, you’re pretty much locked out of iMovie for iPhone for all practical purposes.

There is no location metadata from tape capture! There’s not much from non-tape media right now, although some high end Panasonic cameras have an optional GPS board. However P2 media (both DVCPRO HD and AVC-I) as well as AVCCAM all have metadata slots for latitude and longitude.

Now, I’m NOT saying that Apple should force people to use metadata – particularly if it’s non existent – and this type of restriction in a Pro app would be unconscionable. I merely point out that this shows the type of thinking within Apple. In iMovie for iPhone they can create a better user (consumer) experience because they use Location metadata for automatic lower third locations in the themes.

Where I think it’s a little relevant is in counterpoint to some of my commentors: building an app that’s reliant on metadata is a different app than one relying on simple reel name and TC numbers.

Tape is deadish now, will be more so in 2012.

After revising the HD Survival Handbook last year I realized that HDV and tape in general was dead. HDV was the last tape format for acquisition and that too is now (according to me) officially “dead”. (Not that it’s out of use, but that it’s unwise to invest further in that format.)

So, given that I have considered tape to be “dead” for a year, how dead will it be in another 18-24 months? Very dead.

Sure, there will be people who need to capture from tape and output to tape. Output is already handled by Blackmagic Design and AJA with utilities that ship with their hardware. Blackmagic Design’s version includes capture.

Rewriting Log and Capture will waste engineering resources that should go into an improved Log and Transfer.

If tape capture and output is a third party opportunity (and both Blackmagic Design and AJA utilities are better at accurate insert editing than FCP is itself) then the engineering resources could go into improving Log and Transfer: speed and metadata support could be beefed up.

Dropping old technology and moving to new is in Apple’s DNA

We’ve dropped the floppy disk, ADB, and a host of other technologies. In the iDevices, Apple have frequently used the latest and greatest technology, so it’s much less likely they’d invest the resources that would be necessary to rebuild Log and capture.

So, I’m convinced: Log and Capture must go. Even though they have Cocoa code in the HDV version of Log and Capture I can’t see the benefit when the vast majority of FCP users in 2012 so it has to go. Leave an opportunity for third parties and move FCP into a newer, modern future.

Updated: Matt has a point in the comments that I should have addressed: tape will be with us for quite a while and I made almost all the same arguments to Terry before becoming convinced I was wrong.

Beside, tape is dead according to this image from Chris Roberts of a Copenhagen shop window:

First off iAds go in Apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad – or they will from early next month – and are an integral part of iOS 4. Any developer can add ads to their App simply and 60% of the revenue from ads goes to the App developer (or owner). That’s $36 million that’s going to be paid out to someone, why not your independent project?

I’ve long thought that the future of programming was Apps. An App, like a website, gives a single place for everything about your project: blog, previews, special content, upcoming events, merchandising etc. The advantage of not only having a website, but wrapping it an App is that the App will be a better fan experience, and it’s easy to add in-App purchasing of digital goods.

So, create an App for your project. This App will have:

• An area where you can read the production blog;
• Forums and chat around your project;
• The Twitter feed from your project;
• Connection into your Facebook presence;
• Previews of scenes or trailers of movies;
• The full project, with a little in-App purchasing (or not).
• Calendar for screenings, parties and other events around your project, including signup (filtered for just the geography of the fan if they want, thanks to GPS on most of the devices)

Having everything to do with your project in a mobile app on iPhone or iPad makes it much easier for your fans, friends and followers to stay involved and participate. Involvement will improve. (Connecting with Fans and giving them a reason to buy is a basic tenet of independent production in the digital era.) Plus fans will likely be clicking on some of those ads if they’re well targeted, bringing revenue to the project.

Plus, there a minor security advantage. There’s no download function in Mobile Safari and Apps can’t download very much. Plus there’s no way to actually get anything downloaded within an App out of the App to a computer. That means your finished, high quality version could be viewed in the iDevices without much risk of it being distributed without authorization. (Recognizing though, that it will get distributed unless you project just plain sucks!)

Who’s going to be the first to give it a try?

We often create or are presented with messy, confusing timelines… This is the perfect way to simplify unwieldy timelines… It’s ideal for efficient use of drive space before media managing and re-conforming; and also for consolidating sequences to one track for exporting old style CMX EDL’s.

Filter Removal for FCP. Unlike Final Cut Pro’s Filter Removal tool, this one allows selective removal.

So often we find ourselves with sequences with tons of filters of all varieties. For example, say you have a whole sequence that’s been de-interlaced, colour corrected, with some maybe blur and film effect filters peppered around too, and you want to remove just the interlace filter… its impossible without deleting all the others. The workaround for this little problem is as tedious as it gets, you’ve got to pick through each and every clip and manually delete each of those pesky de-interlace filters… Now with EM Filter Remover you simply select the sequence whose filters you want to edit, and it does it all for you!

And one more that I didn’t tweet about is Auto Scratch. Automatically set the Scratch Disk to follow the project. Yah!

Particularly useful for machines and facilities with many operators and projects… EM Auto Scratch remembers where each projects render files and media destinations are meant to be, even when you hop between projects. No more excuses for colleagues who’ve accidentally deleted all the media for the project you’ve been working on for months!

Until today I wasn’t even aware of Edit Mule – out of the UK and creating some nice tools.

At 58 minutes into the keynote, Randy Ubillos is demonstrating adding a title to the video he’s editing in iMovie and iMovie automatically ads the location into the title. Not magic, but it’s simply reading the location metadata stored with images and videos shot with an iPhone and using that to generate part of the title. This is exactly how metadata should be used: to make life easier and to automate as much of the process as possible.

Likewise the same metadata draws a location pin on the map in one of the different themes. Exactly like the same metadata does in iPhoto.

In a professional application, that GPS data – which is coming to more and more professional and consumer video camcorders – could not only be used to add locations, but also to read what businesses are at the address. From that source and derived metadata (address and business derived from location information) we can infer a lot.

Check out my original article on metadata use in post production and for a more detailed version, with some pie-in-the-sky predictions of where this is going to lead us, download the free Supermeet Magazine number 4 and look for the article (featured on the cover) The Mundane and Magic future of Metadata.

Apple’s minimalist approach certainly fits that screen factor, but there’s no real way to get Internet content there, other than where there’s a special deal, such as with the YouTube access. But here we run into the fundamental problem with this kind of interface: try searching for a video in YouTube, or heaven forbid (if you’ve hacked the Apple TV with ATV Flash to get a browser), actually typing in a URL!

Yahoo and Google want to bring a “social” presence to the big screen, as do Boxee and others, but I think they’re fundamentally going about it the wrong way.

Why do we watch TV on that big screen anyway? I think there are two fundamental reasons why we watch TV on a big screen instead of a computer screen (and one of them may indeed be bogus): a bigger image and watching socially.

In our household we have an old G4 laptop that serves as the primary media server via an Apple TV to the biggest screen in the house: in the living area. We frequently watch shows on our computer screen instead of the big screen, particularly when it’s a show I might enjoy, but my partner may not. Or I watch old TV episodes while scanning slides or processing images. But we watch some TV together and when we do that, we watch it on the big screen. Why? Because we’re watching communally.

When I’m watching TV communally I’m already involved in a little social networking with the person, or people, across the room. If I wanted to tweet my approval (or not) of a particular program, I wouldn’t want to do that on the communal screen, I’d do it on a personal screen: in my case my laptop.

The big screen argument may well be bogus: where I’m sitting right now I have a view of our main TV and my laptop screen and my laptop screen takes up approximately 4x more of my field of view than the TV. I would have a bigger screen experience watching on my laptop at 3′ than a big TV at 20′. So, for a lot of content, it’s really only the social aspect that requires the large TV.

I simply don’t want Twitter/Facebook etc. on the program screen. (That big TV.) And I don’t really ever want to explore web video on a big screen TV display without a keyboard or better input device.

And the it hit me: Apple and Google (et al.) are going about it the wrong way. The program goes on the big screen. Period. The interface is on our laptop, or iPhone, or iTouch, or (the killer one) an iPad. All have a keyboard for easy entry of urls and search; there are social applications that work just fine on those existing screens.

Trying to put the interface on a screen 20′ away without a keyboard (and wireless keyboards aren’t really an option) is just wrong: not only is it the wrong place, I don’t want to clutter my program communally (which presumably I’m watching because I enjoy it) with social media that’s personal.

The two screen approach makes much more sense. Put the program on the screen – uncluttered like  the program’s director intended – and put the control and any desired interactivity on another screen. An iPad would seem to be perfect for this, but since I don’t plan on getting one, an iPhone or iTouch or Laptop could also run the interface anywhere on the same local area network.

It turns out that an interface designed for a 20′ experience works equally well as a 2′ experience, but with touch and keyboard at hand.

Ironically a display designed for 20′ all works well at 2″ on a smaller display.

However, they couldn’t be more wrong. Factually they have the entire history of Pro Apps at Apple just plain wrong. That’s probably because Prince McLean isn’t exactly well known in the professional video communities and because that history is only known by those who where paying attention at the time. (And also, Apple have definitely encouraged the inaccurate version of the Pro Apps history mistakenly quoted at Apple Insider.)

More on that in a minute. Aside from the factual errors in the history, I think they have had some data from an insider that they’ve totally misinterpreted and the true interpretation is incredibly positive for Final Cut Pro.

Now for the standard disclaimer. I’m not a rumor monger. I gather data from a lot of different places; have watched the professional video software industry closely on a day-to-day basis; and am very good at interpreting and interpolating meaning from the data points. However, I do have a way-above-average history of accuracy in my predictions, something that cannot be said for Apple Insider (G5 Powebook anyone? Where’s my Final Cut Extreme Apple Insider?)

In the late 1990’s Macromedia were going head-on against Adobe: whatever Adobe could, they could do better. There was Freehand against Illustrator; Fireworks to ImageReady; Dreamweaver vs GoLive; and there was to be KeyGrip against Premiere. In fact Macromedia snagged the three core members of the development team for Premiere 1-4.2 and they started work on KeyGrip. KeyGrip had evolved to become Final Cut by NAB 98, where it was being shown in a small demo room in the basement. That was my first exposure and I still have the T shirt (which fits a much younger man).

Macromedia suddenly decided to stop fighting Adobe and jump on this new thing called the Internet. Good call. So Macromedia had no need for Final Cut and where in fact shopping it around before NAB 98. Media100, who were going to use KeyGrip on PCs with their Vincent Card but became frustrated with how far behind schedule it was they went on to develop Finish, passed on buying Final Cut, probably because of the history. 1998 was the year that Media100 launched a Windows app. Premiere had gone cross platform at 4.2 and Premiere 6 was developed for both platforms.

This was the year that it wasn’t looking all that good for Apple. NAB was PC all the way. Even Avid had endured the “we’re going only to PC” debacle/rumor/whatever.

Apple eventually purchased Final Cut about three weeks after NAB in reality to ensure that there would continue to be a Non Linear Editing application on the Mac. I also believe that someone figured that Apple’s FireWire (they developed it) port combined with the iLink on Sony’s DV cameras just released (in reality, also FireWire) combined with the new software could sell some Macs. That was a smart move. When I saw Final Cut in March 98, it was working with some Targa dual stream cards, which was not as robust as when Final Cut Pro was release at NAB 99. But Final Cut Pro had native FireWire/DV support: perfect with those new Blue and White G3 towers with native FireWire!

But Apple bought Final Cut Pro as a defensive (and marketing) move. I seriously doubt that there was a cohesive Professional Applications Strategy in 1999. Or 2000. But by NAB 2002 there had been some serious planning going on. By then (or shortly before) there was definitely a Pro Apps strategy in place. (If I recall correctly, largely attributable to Richard Kerris.)

I do know that the Final Cut Pro team were a whole lot more open then than they are now. It was a different time at Apple. I’m very confident, from conversations at that time, and when Apple went on the Pro Apps buying spree, that the strategy of a Pro Apps group came well after the Final Cut Pro purchase. When Apple saw how successful Final Cut Pro had become, and how valuable its nascent involvement in the professional film and television world was for selling iMacs with iMovie in the heartland, a Pro Apps strategy evolved.

And Apple went on a buying spree:

• eMagic (Logic, Logic Pro, Garageband and Soundtrack Pro have evolved from that purchase)
• Prismo Graphics for “LiveType” (a Cocoa version of India Pro)
• Nothing Real (Shake) and Silicon Grail
• Astarte (DVD Studio Pro 1-1.5)
• Spruce (DVD Studio Pro 2 onward)
• The Motion team who had previously created combustion and it’s ancestors (well, they had just been let go from discreet and Apple employed the whole team so technically Motion was developed by Apple employees)

and so on.

Apple have poured a lot of money into the Pro Apps and in turn it’s made them a lot of profit on the software division. “Highly Profitable” according to one very reliable source.

So, to the substance of the Apple Insider rumor: is Apple turning Final Cut Pro into Final Cut Prosumer? Let’s consider some data points.

1. Apple does not like to be second best in anything. Consider DVD Studio Pro. DVDirector, the product they purchased Astarte for, was released by Apple as DVD Studio Pro 1 – effectively DVDirector 2.0.  There was a 1.5 release but DVD Studio Pro was not getting the professional respect that Apple hoped for. (Was that polite enough?) So they purchased Spruce. Although it was PC only and immediately killed, Apple bought the best available knowledgeable engineering team and abstract layer code. This became DVD Studio Pro 2 with the Pro Apps kit interface. (The first app with that Interface Framework.) They genuinely want Final Cut Pro – or its successor – to be a truly great application for their target market, which may not be senior editors on studio pictures!
2. Apple derives a lot of benefit from the Pro Apps.
   1. The division is highly profitable. (500,000 users upgrade a version of the Studio and it’s $150 million). Not iPod territory but respectably profitable. (And they do help sell some of those expensive MacPros.)
   2. The technology is now interwoven throughout their iApps.
   3. There is a huge marketing advantage from the Pro Apps, such that it’d be worth keeping them if they were only just profitable. Every time a documentary is nominated for an Academy Award edited on Final Cut Pro, Apple sell 10,000 copies of Final Cut Express and an iMac or MacBook Pro in the heartland – it’s aspirational but affordable.
3. Apple are pushing all their applications to 64bit and to Cocoa. Final Cut Pro has a harder-than-most development path because of the history (cross platform app to OS 9 to OS X to Intel and now to Cocoa and 64bit).
4. Apple need to come out with a very strong version at the next release. Avid have been very strong with their recent Media Composer releases, particularly with workflow features that editors appreciate (a better open timeline than Final Cut Pro, for example). Adobe have just released a version of Premiere Pro that leverages Apple’s hardware for performance far better than Final Cut Pro does. Apple know this.
5. Apple has the financial resources to wait until something is right, rather than release a half-finished version.
6. Apple does not leak. OK, I think I’ve substantiated that Randy Ubillos is back in a senior designer position (or more) but really, Apple employees don’t leak. They’re my worst source of information that isn’t necessarily public knowledge. Randy, for those who don’t know, was one of those original three that went from Adobe to Macromedia: he was the original designer of Premiere 1-4.2. He is also the lead designer for Aperture and iMovie 09 was almost a personal project before Apple picked it up.
   1. So Apple Insider have not had a review copy of any development version of Final Cut Pro (next); it’s almost certain they don’t have any substantial information at all, just a snippet. Perhaps a quick view of an interface or mockup? There isn’t anything substantial in the article.

Ok, given all that, here’s why I think Apple Insider are about as wrong as anyone could be. They got something: a tip or a sneak peak or something. The most likely thing they saw that could lead to this type of misinterpretation is they saw, or more likely someone visiting Apple saw, a screen supposedly from the next version of Final Cut Pro and it looked, superficially like iMovie. Combine that with Randy Ubillos’ move back to Final Cut Pro and the leap is obvious, but wrong.

Apple appear to be revising the Pro Apps kit from it’s original incarnation in 2002-03. We’ve seen hints of more HUD (the white-on-black interface for Motion’s floating palettes) like interface design in places, and that look is very similar to iMovie 09. They’re looking for designers now. It’s likely that whatever the current interface design is, it’s not there yet or they wouldn’t be hiring designers now!

Let me go out on a limb and say that it much more likely means that Final Cut Pro is getting a very thorough rewrite. Not just a 64 bit/Cocoa rewrite (and hopefully take advantage of modern OS X features) but a complete rethink.

When iMovie 09 was demonstrated at LAFCPUG, there were a lot of people who wanted iMovie features incorporated into Final Cut Pro. Not dumb Final Cut Pro down to iMovie but take the best features of iMovie and incorporate them. While you’re at it, if nothing’s sacred in the current design, let’s take the best from Avid (metadata management – the groundwork has been happening since FCP 5.1.2 and the evidence is in the XML); the importance of performance from Adobe (strap in Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL and make a showcase for Apple’s technologies); the best of iMovie.

This actually makes me much more hopeful and positive for the next version of Final Cut Pro. It suggests that Apple are serious about rewriting and not just changing out the minimum possible. And if it looks a little like iMovie 09, that wouldn’t be all bad. (But could you borrow customizable interfaces from Adobe, please?)

That’s why I believe Apple Insider misinterpreted the snippet of information and that the opposite is true: Apple are serious about making the next release the killer release everyone is hoping for.

Above all else, I reserve the right to be wrong. It’s a guess: an intelligent guess, yes.

Flash is an interactive player that produces a consistent result across browsers and platforms. That’s why publishers like it. But most Flash use is at a very basic level: a simple video player. That is also why early QuickTime interactive programmers liked to use Flash (yes, as a QT media type) for controls and text as QT text did not display consistently across platform.

Flash is a player and not a codec or file format. The current iteration of the Flash player plays:

• the original “Flash video” format, which is sequential JPG files, up to 15,000 a movie
• Sorenson Spark, the first real video codec for Flash; based on the very ancient H.263 videoconferencing codec it did not produce good video quality.
• On2 VP6, a good, high quality codec now owned by Google with their purchase of On2. Still not a bad choice for Flash playback if you need to use an alpha channel for real-time compositing in Flash.
• H.264 in MP4 or MOV (with limitations) format. Licensed from Main Concept (now owned by DivX).

Note that those same H.264/MP4 files can be played on Apple’s iDevices using the built-in player; or using the <video> tag supported by HTML5 in Safari or Chrome (and IE9 coming sometime).

Flash as a simple video player is probably dead in the water. Flash for complex interactivity and rich media experiences probably will continue for a while, at least until there are better authoring environments for the more complex interactivity provided in “HTML5″.

That brings me to HTML5, which is not a simple player but a revision of the whole HTML tags supported by browsers, that allow native video playback by the browser without plug-in (the <video> tag); local storage (similar to Google’s temporary Gears offering, now replaced by HTML5 support) and a whole bunch of other goodies. Add to this CSS for complex display (and I mean complex – mapping video to 3D objects in the browser, for example); Javascript for interactivity and connectivity to remote servers/databases; and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) for creating graphic elements in a browser (useful for interface elements in rich media).

Javascript used to be very slow and not even comparable to the speed of interactivity possible in Flash, but over the last three years all Javascript interpreters have become massively faster, making complex software possible in the browser. (Check out Apple’s implementation of iPhoto-like tools in their Gallery – online version.)

Summing up: HTLM5/CSS/Javascript is already very powerful. Check out Ajaxian for examples on what is already being done. For simple video playback, Flash is probably not the best choice. MPEG-4 H.264 video AAC audio probably is the best choice. For rich interactivity targeted at anything Apple, build it with HTML5/CSS/Javascript – it’s the only choice. It is also a powerful one: Apple’s iTunes Albums are essentially HTM5-based mini-sites; iAds are all HTM5/CSS/Javascript based and not lacking in rich interactivity or experience.

If you’re building a rich media application to connect with a web backend targeting mostly desktop computers, then Flash could still be the best choice.

For building Apps for iPhone, iPad: use the Xcode tools Apple provides free. While Adobe might be complaining to the Feds looking for “anti-trust” sympathy, they won’t get it as Apple is nowhere near dominant in any market, which has to be proven before taking up the point as to whether or not they have abused a monopoly position. Apple are not the dominant smartphone manufacturer; nor dominant MP3 player, nor dominant Tablet manufacturer. (Ok, they probably are dominant in MP3 players and Tablets but they are not, by definition, a monopoly, and Apple will work very hard to ensure they never are.)

Not what QT was at least. The iDevices support H.264 video and AAC audio, primarily in a MPEG 4 file wrapper (although some devices will play H.264/AAC in a MOV wrapper) that is really not what QuickTime has been. (More below). Try playing a Sorenson video file on an iPad. What about QuickTime interactivity (Wired Sprites)?  Ever seen a QT VR play on an iPhone?

Of course not. QuickTime is not supported on any Apple device other than desktop and laptop computers. I also believe that the QT I loved and evangelized heavily late last Century is destined for the scrapheap. It’s been increasingly obvious, since around 2002/2001 that Apple decided that the future of web video was MP4: open standards. Initially they supported the MPEG-4 Simple Profile (just MPEG-4 in Apple’s world) in QuickTime 6 and then H.264 – the Advanced Video Codec from MPEG 4 Part 10.

Now, a lot of MPEG-4 is adopted from QuickTime. Apple donated the QT container to the MPEG group for consideration as their container format. Because of that MPEG-4 can do pretty much anything that QT could do, except there are very few implementations of anything beyond basic video playback. So with the QT container at the center of MPEG-4 it was easy for Apple to adopt and support this evolving (at the time) technology.

So QuickTime became the pre-eminent MPEG-4 player. When it came to the Apple TV, iPhone, iTouch and now iPad, the decision was made to only support simple MP4 playback. When QuickTime X was announced it referenced “the experience of the iPhone video” suggesting that QuickTime X was a different approach. When it was released it’s clear that QuickTime X will be the next generation of consumer-facing video playback.

So I expect that QuickTime X will never get the advanced features that QuickTime currently has. There’s no business model for it within Apple, which was always the problem with QuickTime. Frankly that Apple never provided a development environment was why Flash was able to so quickly “take over”. Remember that in QuickTime 6, Flash 5 was a supported media type. (Support was dropped because of security concerns with that version of Flash.) It took Flash to version 8 before it equalled all the features of QuickTime 3! (Seriously).

Few people made use of the advanced features of QuickTime. Our Australian company was one of them, making all the movies for the DV Companion for Final Cut Pro, and most of the other Intelligent Assistants with QuickTime wired sprite animations so the file size was acceptable. We were in the era of small hard drives after all. There was never a development environment from Apple: Totally Hip stepped up with our development environment (LiveStage Pro). Had there been a business model within Apple for QuckTime then the story of the web would have been different.

The advanced features in QuickTime have had no development since, well, QuickTime 4 (before the return of Jobs to Apple). I believe, without proof, that there was a fundamental shift within Apple around that time to, really, abandon the features they could get no return on, and make QuickTime the best MPEG-4 player; a great architecture for creating media and the foundation of their total media strategy. Without the advanced features, because, by this time Flash had “won” the interactivity war.

Now we can have better interactivity using features from HTML5, Javascript and CSS, which are all web standards overseen by a body outside of one company. It’s not just Flash that won’t see the iDevices, but any resemblance to the old QuickTime won’t make it either.

And I’m OK with that. QuickTime – MOV distribution – served Apple well and continues to power their iLife applications and Professional Video and Audio applications, but without the features that it had, and no longer needs. Apple are always “good” at dumping technology that no longer meets their need. I think it’s one of Jobs’ strengths.

I also believe Apple are being consistent by not allowing Flash: it’s on a par with their own technology also not getting on the platform.

Digital Production BuZZ

The little show that I co-created nearly five years after a successful five years with DV Guys (although I was only managing editor for the last 3 years of that show) has now been the official NAB Podcast for 2009 and 2010. Big props to Larry Jordan, Cirina Catania, Debbie Price and the amazing team they put together for NAB 2010. I filed some special reports, which you can hear among the more than 70 shows the team pulled together in the six days of NAB.

3D Everywhere

Whether it’s Panasonic’s “Lens to Lounge” or Sony’s “Camera to Couch” 3D was everywhere. Everywhere except actually being able to do something with all the 3D content we’re being pushed to produce. I’m aware that the top grossing movies last year were 3D and 3D movies perform better than 2D. I just don’t see that as being relevant to my universe where I don’t distribute my work through a major studio to 2000 cinemas.

So short of that, where’s the outlet for all the 3D? YouTube plays 3D (but is incredibly hard to monetize). The Blu-ray 3D spec is finalized but no shipping players, burners or encoders are available.

While I have no real quibble with the cinema experience – although films need to be designed for 3D, and shot with 3D in mind, to be successful 3D experiences (and few are) – I am very skeptical about 3D in the home, at least for the next couple of years. The problems of the glasses – I multitask a lot of the time while watching TV, what about visitors, or preparing dinner? – and the very different nature seems to limit the future of 3D in the home to those who have dedicated home theaters and dedicated, monotasking viewing time.

The missing Apple

Of course, if you’re a regular reader you’ll know it came as no surprise that Apple wasn’t at NAB. They don’t do trade shows any more so it was highly unrealistic to expect anything at NAB this year, next year, or any year. When they have something to announce, they’ll announce it.

You’ll also be aware that I believe Apple is doing a lot of what they need to do with Final Cut Pro to make it the “awesome” release that Steve Jobs tells us it will be. Maybe 2011 some time, but more likely early 2012 for the next awesome Final Cut Studio release. Or whenever Apple is ready!

Avid Media Composer 5 and editing in the cloud

The new management (current management) at Avid certainly appear to be spot on track. Media Composer 3.5, 4 and now 5 have all been great releases. As more of the work this management team are pushing comes to the public, the more I see the company back on track.

In fact hearing “interoperable” and “openness” sprinkled regularly into the press event and marketing materials seems slightly out of character from the old Avid, but is very welcome. Direct editing of QuickTime media, HDSLR or RED media via AMA for quick turn-around content is a huge advancement. Improvements to audio filters (and eventual round-tripping to a future version of ProTools) are long-standing requests from Avid’s customers. Even the “expensive” monitoring (output only) requirement has gone thanks to support for an MXO Mini for monitoring. (I wish that was an option back in January – it would have saved a client of mine about $18K!)

While only a “technology demonstration” at this point, Avid’s “edit in the cloud” (i.e. over the Internet or from a Local Server) looks like the real deal. Scott Simmons has a review of the demo over at Pro Video Coalition. Avid is back and we like it.

Adobe CS5

I doubt there’s much to add to Adobe’s CS5 announcements. The Mercury Engine is a major step forward in performance and it will take the others a while to catch up. To be competitive Apple would have to rewrite FCP to 64 bit and then implement Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL to deliver that level of performance (and that’s what I expect they’re doing). Adobe’s platform-agnostic code (at the core) has made it easier for them to move to 64 bit, and tight integration with Nvidia’s CUDA engine, on top of some mighty software optimizations, gives the performance boost.

The whole Master Collection is a must-have for post production for After Effects, Encore, Photoshop and Illustrator alone. Premiere Pro is a bonus and could well become the Swiss Army Knife of editing tools as it supports pretty much any format natively.

Pick of the show

The pick of the show for me is, without a doubt, Get: phonetic search for Final Cut Pro. Search your clips for specific words wherever they occur. The exact opposite of Adobe’s Transcription (although that can be boosted by feeding it a script in CS5) Get does not attempt to derive meaning from the waveforms that make up the audio. Instead it predicts what the waveform for your search terms should look like, then goes and tries to match it in your media.

It has certainly set my thinking cap buzzing. What we could do at Assisted Editing with this technology would be amazing – almost delivering my “magic future” for metadata I spoke of at my two presentations. But for now, Get is an amazingly powerful tool that every documentary filmmaker will want to be using.

Hardware trends you might have missed

Not many of the main news streams picked up on the trend to multiple cards, or multi-channel cards, this NAB. Obviously 3D capable cards were announced (by AJA and Blackmagic Design) but AJA also announced that multiple Kona cards can co-exist in the one host computer; while Blackmagic Design announced a dual channel card, and Matrox promised a four channel I/O card.

What we’ll be using this multi-channel capability for, I’m not quite sure, as no software supports it, yet. Except, Blackmagic Design used to have a two channel software switcher in their product range (although it seems to be missing from their website right now). A dual channel Decklink card, with software switcher, makes a very powerful and inexpensive studio or location tool with a Mac Pro. Seriously undercuts dedicated switchers from Focus Enhancements or Pansonic.

$999 daVinci

Blackmagic Design almost deserve a post of their own on the NAB announcement (that you no doubt followed here) of the $999 software-only daVinci. Scott Simmons reminded me in a Tweet that I had accurately predicted a dramatic price drop for the daVinci system. What I didn’t predict was how far, and how fast, Grant Petty would drop the price. What I expected to come in at $60K was announced as a turnkey system for $30,000! I didn’t expect the software only version, although in reality, with hardware, monitors, scopes and storage, that’s still likely a $20,000 investment, for what used to be a minimum of $300,000 or more.

This is, of course, consistent with everything that Grant Petty has done with Blackmagic Design. I remember the first Decklink announcement (on the DV Guys show) at under $1,000 and everyone wondered how the industry would cope. Those cards are now much more powerful, and even cheaper, and now we’re going down the same path with daVinci.

Friends, fun and the Future

For me, NAB is as much about friends as it is about the technology. It’s a time when my virtual communities intrude into real space. Once again, NAB proved to be two days too long and four nights too short. With about 20 parties happening Monday night and a similar number Tuesday, we need more nights to spread them over, and fewer days. I was done with the show floor by Tuesday afternoon and there were two days to run.

This year’s MediaMotion Ball was a great social event, as it always is; running into the Adobe party following. Tuesday’s Supermeet broke new ground with the “Three A’s” on stage together for the first time.

I made my contribution to the show via my Supermeet Magazine article, The Mundane and Magic Future of Metadata, which I also delivered as a presentation at the ProMax event and in the Post Pit on the show floor. The Supermeet Magazine should be available soon from Supermeet.com.

The future of post production automation is metadata. Check out the article and tell me what you think.

And that’s my NAB wrap for 2010. Other than to say, worst WiFi experience ever at the Sahara. Expensive and slow. It’s time for broadband to be included in the price of a room, like air conditioning (didn’t use); the Television (only to get the sign up details for the Internet connection); etc.