free

This is an article written but never published, and written before FCP 7 was released. While I am luv'in the new FCP, this post may be helpful for those working only with what god gave them (iLife 09) or for those that need a break from FCP and want to try something new.

Knockdown: iLife ’09 vs. FCP Studio 2.0
Introduction
The idea for this seemingly absurd Knockdown arose when I was faced with a recent baby project for my nephew and his family. They all came into the Studio one night with stills and videos from various cameras and in even more varied formats. It was all dumped on my desk just hours before my relations were to fly back home, and my wife was with them with a look on her face that said to me, you better get it done! They wanted a DVD of the materials that rivaled our studio work, with soundtrack, DVD menus, films, and photo slideshow. My first reaction was to calculate how long it would take to do in FCP using my wizbang editing bay before me. But then I looked at the clock - it was already 6 PM on a beautiful summer evening, and their flight was leaving first thing in the morning.

I groaned, thinking I would be up all night with this family project, editing raw footage in FCP, adding titles, creating special effects in Motion, editing music tracks in Soundtrack Pro, and then creating a still slide show with even more music, all before minting a disk using DVD Studio Pro. Just the thought of the project made my head hurt, knowing that the photos would be overexposed and film underexposed, and in general, a total mess of raw materials just ready to cause problems within my delicate FCP setup.

Coincidently, I had just updated iLife ’09 on all the studios shiny new Macs. I don’t know why I did that, except for the fact that whenever I get updates from Apple I feel obliged to install them, just for good measure. I had never even opened up any of the iLife apps before, and why would I with FCP Studio 2, Aperture, and all the other goodies at my full disposal! So I decided, what the heck, this would be learning experience and one that might be fun. To my utter amazement, in just a few hours, the project was done: 5 music video length videos of the kid at the playground, in the pool, at restaurants, and being bitten by my dog. Plus 1 animated photo slide show with over 100 of the best photos (from a pool of thousands), all packaged nicely on a DVD with animated menus and music. The footage in the videos looks great on a 24” flat screen TV, even though the majority of the video was shot on still cameras of various levels of quality and design. The relatives were extremely impressed, even more so when I transfered that exact same content to their iPod Nano for review on the plane trip home.

Tools Used

• iLife ’09 update
• iMovie
• iDVD
• iPhoto
• iTunes
• iMac 2.4 GHz w/ Leopard 10.5.7

Part 1. Using iLife ’09
IPhoto
Without using a manual or tutorial at all, I just dove right in. The first thing I did on a test lab was to load up the raw materials - about a hundred video clips and a thousand or so photos all from various kinds of memory chips. I first turned on iPhoto’s auto-import feature to capture all the media right into a new iPhoto library (Preferences/When Camera Opens/Use iPhoto).

I was pleasantly surprised when iPhoto sucked both photo stills and videos off the SD cards. One thing I have always hated about Aperture and Lightroom is their inability to handle video. This eliminated one step from my normal workflow with FCP: CatDV video file management!

Within 15 minutes or so I had a complete database of all the materials I needed for the project at hand. I was duly impressed. The interface to iPhoto is so simple (and visual) I was almost confused by it’s purity, as compared to file management in Aperture and other tools.

I had originally planned to bring all the stills into Photoshop CS4, but I found the built in editor for iPhoto to be good enough: one click red-eye, rotate, crop, and image adjustment, RAW handling, plus a limited assortment of cool special effects that reminded me of my Tiffen and other Photoshop filters. But without the heavy weight of having PS open all the time!

Okay, just one hour into the project and I had all my photos and video sorted and marked for use, with the photos all pre-processed. But the clock was ticking - and the harder parts were yet to come.



iMovie
This being the first time I had ever opened iMovie, I was left feeling a bit bewildered. Where the heck is the timeline? However, it was comforting to see that what iMovie calls an Event Library, were my video assets - just waiting for me to drag into a new project and to begin editing.

I was taken aback on how editing is done in iMovie, which is linear in a sense, but perhaps a bit too so. But once I got the hang of creating clips and stringing them together with transitions, everything fell into place nicely. I was really surprised by all the built in filters under the Video Effects pane (reminded me of Red Bullet Looks in FCP). There was also an interesting assortment of filters, transitions, and themes. Within minutes after clip assembly, I was able to get the timelines complete and ready to roll.

What I did miss was Apple Color, which at the beginning of this exercise I vowed not to use, so I was stuck with iMovie’s crude adjustments there.

Also a surprise, was the complete integration of iTunes assets within iMovie - so I grabbed some of the kid’s favourite tracks there, and within one hour point five, I had my 5 finished videos ready for DVD placement.

Total time so far, 2.5 hours. I remember thinking that if I could get through making a photo slide show and cool DVD menus soon, I might get a good night’s sleep before seeing my in-laws off at the airport.



iDVD
Usually at this point in any FCP project, I am so tired and cranky that I hate dealing with Compressor and DVD Studio Pro, two apps that always seem to have a bug at the last minute. What a joy iDVD is! I simply fired up the program sight unseen, and within minutes I was able to figure out how to create an animated menu structure with music (also sucked in from iTunes). A few clicks later I also had a decent photo slide show with more music from iTunes. Drag and click, click and drag, and it’s done. iDVD is much like DVD Studio Pro, but without all the headaches.

I was easily able to experiment with output compressions in iMovie, as I was not sure how the raw (and terrible) footage that my relatives had provided would play out, but it seemed not to matter what reasonable setting I tried, it all came out looking grand. I am so used to worry, it’s hard not too.

The one big timesaver throughout iLife ’09 seems to be assets management, as all assets are available at all times and neatly tucked away in libraries, unlike my FCP projects, which during production are usually all over the place and not handy when you need them, at least not without some amount of extra brain power.

As in iMovie, iDVD has a decent sent of canned effects and themes. Enough to find one that would knock the socks off my relatives, who have high standards being in the business and all, albeit on holiday and using a point and shoot to take videos (arg!).

But this project clocked in with a total time of 3.5 hours, including the time taken to read some of the online help and to figure things out as a first time user. 
I estimate that I must have saved at least 3.5 hours using iLife apps, then if I had gone the FCP route (with Color adjustments and animated Motion titling).



Part 2 - The Knockdown
Okay, there really is no Knockdown here, as its silly to try and compare iLife with FCP in the professional media production environment. But for a one-off project that needs to be done in hours instead of days, I found iLife ’09 to be acceptable to use - and will use again! So here is a table of what is worthy of iLife ’09 and what is not when compared to a professional editing suite like FCP 2.0 Studio.

I am not a fan of this software, but since i have carpal tunnel from 30 years of clicking away foolishly, I just started using it to dictate articles into Word (3000+ words per day). It works! But I thought that the requirement for a USB noise canceling microphone was nuts for a studio with a closet full of cartoids and dynamics the size of small dogs. So I tried configuring the iMac internal mic with some software you probably already know about: LineIn and soundflower inputs. Download LineIn from our friends at Rogue Ameoba, responsible for fine software like Airfoil for the AirPort Express. It's free and very useful regardless. Then install Mac Dictate and let it complain that you don't have a noise canceling certified by Macspeech expensive tacky microphone. Who cares, we have a way around that. Now, close down Mac Dictate and set up your internal mic using LineIn:


Set Input from: to Built-in Microphone
Set Output to: to Soundflower (2ch)
then click Pass Thru

Open Mac Dictate and you are off to training camp, having fooled Mac Dictate into thinking that you have a valid dictation mic. On my newer 20" iMac with 4gb, Mac Dictate works great with the internal mic, and really cuts down on my typing. Plus I saved 80$ on a mic I would only use for this program.

I have not tested on other Macs, like an MB or MBP, but I think it might work (others who have tried, please post). But it might not, as I have noticed the iMac mic is very good for a built-in, perhaps the best I have ever heard in that class, and the other not so good. Well, good luck!

Backing Up The Good

If your are as unlucky as I am and have had FCP Studio crash and burn towards the end of a deadline, you know how nerve racking that can be. When FCP Studio goes belly up, it’s very difficult to troubleshoot from within the belly of that beast, as there are so many connections to other programs: Compressor, Color, Livetype, and all the rest.

Fortunately, some smart folks at Digital Rebellion have sorted all this out and given us some FREE tools to work with when FCP is not working. Preference Manager (PF) will back up all of your FCP settings by User or Project, so you don’t ever have to worry about loosing all your settings again, as in the case of a complete reinstall or move to another machine. PF is great for troubleshooting, as you can just delete your preferences to try and fix any problem that comes up, and if you find out that it was not your preferences that were hosed, you can easily restore them from backup. For darker problems, in a few clicks you can even completely remove FCP Studio using the Remover tool provided on the Digital Rebellion website, then restore your prefs from backup.



Even if FCP never crashes on you, PM is useful two other ways: you can 1) save preferences across the board for all studio apps by user, and 2) even by individual project. And did I mention that this is all free?



In addition to PF, there is Compressor Repair, which will make things right if Compressor or Qmaster ever starts acting up. From experience, I can tell you that is a real nightmare when those two misbehave. I was down for 2 weeks once trying to sort Compressor out back when V6 of FCP came online. But if it ever happens again, I am hoping that Compressor Repair will make it a one-click fix.

Many thanks to Digital Rebellion for providing such nice tools, and doing that for free!

[See http://www.digitalrebellion.com/resources.htm for downloads.]

Gimmesometune, despite the really stupid name, is a nice bit of donationware that fills a need for iTune users that want some control over itunes, but do not want to waste a lot of desktop estate (like the Apple mini-player does).



Gimmesometune has most of the function that the payware CoverSutra has, but lacks Growl support. However, Gimme gives you a nice player control in the menu bar, which is all I really wanted anyway...something small and innocuous to control iTunes while it’s minimized.

You can even use the Apple Remote Control to control your tunes and bring iTunes to the foreground when you have it running out back. Pretty slick, and it does not have to cost you a dime!

The only con I could find (besides lack of Growl notifications), is that Pathfinder Desktop users will find the display of the now-playing window erratic, but many other apps behave this way as well with pathfinder, so this should be no surprise.

To download and/or donate, go here: http://www.eternalstorms.at/gimmesometune

I love little OSX utilities that are 1) coded elegantly 2) actually do something useful and 3) are free or cost pennies. Irradiated Software has produced just one app that does all of the above.

SizeUp is a tiny utility (hardly a footprint on ur OSX resources) and does what you wish Spaces did, meaning it allows you to manage windows without a lot of craziness. Just use some easy to remember (or custom) keystrokes and Voila, u can place and size windows across multiple monitors as easy as you can click the mouse and press a key.

Below is a screencap of resized windows in the upper left/right and lower left/right and a 150px margin set to the right (SizeUp automatically adds a margin for the menubar and OSX dock). You have options to make the formost app fullscreen (or put it anywhere with a keystroke) and even send it to another monitor and “snap it back when needed.



The app costs $2.99 or "name your price" (suggested price = $9.99), and there is even a free light version if that seems like too much to shell out. But as a simple-to-use replacement for Spaces, I would have paid twice that much. Well-done Irradiated!

I blog a lot about freebees these days; they are constantly on my mind as the US Dollar rises against the Nepali Rupee like David rose against Goliath. We are taking a pounding here in Nepal, so anything that saves a pound is worth looking at.

The free Zotero add-on for Firefox, along with it’s free MS Word/Open Office Integration is just that: a pound saver and super useful tool for anyone doing research on the internet and then using Word or Open Office to compile the output to create reports and papers and whatnot. As formal documents like these need citations and bibliographies, and the construction and management of them is just a pain in the butt, Zotero really shines as a free-bird star.

This is where Zotero plugs into the research process. You collect and manage your research using the Firefox plug-in:


And then when you are ready to write, you use the provided and auto-magically installed scripts to add/edit citations and create bibliographies in the required format (and some folks are so fussy about those formats it makes you want to smack them). So no more worries there. Here is what it looks like in MS Word 2008 on a Mac:

It’s simple, requires no manual, has a great support site, and best of all - it’s absolutely FREE!

“Free” is what I am all about these days, whether its looking for freedom on the open road atop a Royal Enfield, or free as in no charge for software. So for two years I was pretty much happy using Linotypes FontExplorer X as a font manager for a small fleet of new shiny Macs in the studio. But when it came time to update this nice low-cost feature rich manager for CS4 and other new font-intensive software, I found out from the company that the free version had changed to a fee version and that any updates would require hard cash. Nothing pisses me off more then that.

So I looked at the alternatives and was not so shocked to find something very cool, after all, if you are paying for something that really should be included as part of a world-class OS, it should be very cool yes? Well, Fontcase by www.bohemiancoding.com has done something very cool with font management, and that’s made it look and feel like music management ala an iTune’s styled interface, that even includes ratings and library sharing over your lan.

What I like about Fontcase:

• The interface, as mentioned, it’s just like iTunes, which I love.
• The library sharing across machines on our lan - no longer do I worry about having the right font on the right machine at the right time, all the time!
• The conversion process from Linotype’s FontExplorer X to Fontcase - that was painless and seamless. All my settings were preserved. U just have to remember to clear the font cache after removing FontExplorer.

What I don’t like about Fontcase:

• Performance, for both the import and ongoing use is a lot slower then with FontExplorer X. It’s not that the performance is bad, it’s just that you see the beachball at times, and that’s something I don’t like to see at all on my tuned iMacs and MBPs.
• There seems to be a problem with duplicates showing up within font family groupings, as illustrated below in the screenshot. I don’t understand this, but perhaps it’s a user error as I have not read the manual and don’t intend to. A cool font manager should not need one!

Well, my 15-day free trial period is almost over now, and I am seriously considering shelling out the $92 for the family pac. That’s far from free for something that should be theoretically included in OSX, but you get what you pay for as they say, so I should just shut up eh?