macworld

Shane Ross hipped me to this. Until he posts his MacWorld ruminations, I'll tell you about it.

The Apple Cinema Display is just fine, thanks -- but here's a 30-inch monitor that's faster and brighter, with higher contrast and a wider viewing angle. It can be hardware calibrated - way way WAY overdue for ACD. (Professional monitor? Hmph.)

2560x1600 res, dual DVI including HDCP-encryption and analog inputs, 12-bit LUT...

Now throw in automatic backlighting and pixel-level adjustments to ensure uniform color across the screen and across time. Did I mention killah and crazy? It is.

Of course, MacWorld isn't exactly gizmo central. Not even vaguely close if you compare it to CES. Indeed, CES is where NEC introduced their bigger, beautifuller, even more expensive monitor, a 42-inch CURVED DISPLAY.

Okay THIS is the one that I want at least 3 of.

2880x900 (double WXGA+) panel with a contrast ratio of 10000:1 - yes TEN THOUSAND to 1. DLP, no bezel, 170% of the NTSC color range - hey! even more than PAL! And for you kids with your fast-twitch reflexes -- the pixel redraw time is .016 MILLISECOND!!

My math is pretty weak, but I think of one and a half-ish tenths of a millisecond as FAST.

NEC is pitching it to hardcore gamers, hence CES. The specific pitch: the curved monitor mimics peripheral vision, perfect for shooting things and making them explode even from the corner of your eye.

Oh yeah, and the specs. And how it looks.

So here's the business model:

1) Show 'em the cutting edge.
2) Charge what you want.
3) Get very, very rich.

Since there aren't many meaningful games on Mac, it's easy for Mac users to forget that GAMING is the dominant force driving computer innovation. Period. It's also easy for video guys like us to comprehend that video games generate more money than theatrical movie releases, DVDs, music and books COMBINED.

Having said all that, why would you NOT want to have a monitor this purty that's 2880 pixels wide?

And having said THAT, I admit that the first one is more practical. So I buy 2 of those for the office, at only $2200 each. Don't know when it will ship or how much it will cost, but I don't care. I'll get the curved one for the game room. Wait! I don't play computer games! So I need to buy some computer games too.

Looky there - I have at least 3 NEC monitors, mixed and matched. Sweet.

Or I could change my mind and go on vacation for a month. Which assumes I could stop working for a month. Which means that buying the monitors is the only smart thing to do.

Within freaking MINUTES of the COW newsletter going out this week (Jan 22 '08), people were on my case arguing with my assessment of this as the best MacWorld in years. So I figured I should answer once, and point everybody else here.

As I teased in the graphic but will say here straight out, this was the weakest set of announcements from a MacWorld keynote that I can remember. And while I've missed the last couple, I've been to nearly all of the other MacWorlds, on both coasts (and both east coast cities).

That includes shows where there was no Jobs keynote because he didn't work there anymore (or yet), and one where Apple's own presence was so diminshed that I can't remember if they even showed up. "Paging Dr. Amelio -- please report to the Lost Children counter."

Although to put keynote buzz in context, the most excited I've ever seen a MacWorld audience was for the introduction of the Mac Cube and Apple's first clear plastic mouse -- one of which was attached under every seat. Freakin' pandemonium.

And neither of those products is still around. So there you go.

This year was still weak by my measure. Scroll down the blog home page for ample agreement.

Now look at the rest of the banner in the newsletter: all the good stuff happened outside Apple's booth, and had nothing to do with Air. Except this, which is wicked cool. Has to do with Air, but not from Apple.

I'm going to take some time to unspool my argument over the next couple of days -- or right here in the comments section of this entry -- but I'm sticking to it. I'll go further and say that there were more, and cooler, announcements in this MacWorld than there have been in recent NABs -- a show whose day has passed, as we're well on record saying. 

Here's another way to put my position in context. There was a time when MacWorld was THE show for video pros, because the only interesting pro video was being done on Macs. That's why companies like DT and Puffin launched Media 100 and Commotion, respectively. Over the years, MacWorld has continued to be a pilgrimmage destination, but less and less a pro show.

Around the turn of the century, it was little more than mousepads. The biggest booths were Microsoft and Palm. (Was Palm at MW this year? And not that there's anything wrong with MSft -- they still sell more Mac software than anyone but Apple.) While it has been picking up for a while, MacWorld was still more about iPods and accessories than data vaults.

The fact is that this would be the best MacWorld in years for storage alone. You can scroll through some of my "News Not to Lose" entries, most of which have at least some mention of storage.

Here's a fantastic storage roundup from MacWorld the magazine. (You remember that the show is named after the magazine, right?) Some of these I'd already found, and I was tracking down the full stories on others...but again, in the spirit of speediness, I wanted you to see where I was coming from.

Seriously, take a look at that lineup: our pals from Sonnet, CalDigit and G-Tech all had big news, as did ATTO, Nexsan and others including LaCie, SansDigital (RAID controllers), Silicon Image (now you can mirror part of your array and leave the rest just, well, arrayed), Samsung (ridiculously small drives), and  Newer, with silicone sleeves that let you pop in any bare drive to become an external protected hard drive -- starting at $8. Crazy.

All of this stuff works on Windows too, btw.

The most striking example of the return of MacWorld to super-duper hardcore pro relevance is another Best of Show winner, Gridiron Flow. Gary Adcock wrote effusively about it here. As you can see from what I wrote a couple of days earlier, I completely agree. 

Even if you've got a small office, but have lots of data and digital assets, Flow is going to blow you away. If your office or workgroup is even a LITTLE bigger than small, this will be your most important purchase for the next several years.

Tiny editorial note: when Gary sent me his article to post, I changed one word. See if you can guess which word.

He says that Flow "is so freaking cool I can't stand it."

Now that you've guessed which word I changed, any guesses what I changed it FROM? :-)

Okay, that's enough for now. I look forward to you chiming in. And whether you're looking forward to it or not, I'll be chiming in some more too.

Maybe these folks have stayed on your radar, but definitely not on mine. I was going to call this "Where are they now?" but the story is more "Behind the Music." Once you know they're alive it's easy enough to track them down, but unless you're really old yourself, somebody really old needs to explain what the big deal is.

Magma was one of the companies we saw as real live heroes back in 1997. This is the year that the Power Mac and its 6 PCI slots gave way to the G3 with, appropriately enough I suppose, 3 PCI slots.

Today, you can do all kinds of video work with no add-in cards at all, but that was still years away. In fact nonlinear editing was pretty new as anything resembling widespread, and we needed expansion cards to make it all work, starting with a mondo-expensive capture card. (Although at the time, a $20,000 edit system was still considered a bargain.)

When the G3 came along, we marvelled at its speed -- 233 Mhz! -- but many of us were literally dead in the water without our extra slots. Magma came to the rescue with an outboard chassis that only took one PCI slot, but held 6 cards inside. Ahhh! Back in business!

[Historical footnote: my brother-in-law was working at Apple at the time. His job in market research led him to discover that, out of 6 slots in the 9600, the average number in use was 1.1. Double that, round up to be safe, and lo and behold, 3 slots was deemed the law of the land. He apologized to me, but hey, Apple was still looking a little shaky. Gotta do what you gotta do.]

As the world comes around again, slots are back in demand, especially when it comes to high-performance applications. (There are some applications, like Pro Tools, for whom the demand for expansion chassis never went away.)

This is a very long lead-up to tell you that Magma is back on the radar with a 1U 7 slot PCIe expansion chassis, ready to go for all you folks ready to build your own blade computing servers. And seriously, for servers, multiple monitors, new Pro Tools systems, etc. Magma has always been all about extending the options for heavy iron computing, and it's great to know they're still at it.

Iomega was another company that hit hard when they hit. Their Zip drives were all the rage -- still the cleverest ad campaign in Mac marketing history (spare me the I'm a Mac bullshoes), backed by the one of best grassroots marketing campaigns in any industry. (Ask your dad about the yellow buttons.)

Not that they needed all that much help making noise. The Zip drive was removable storage offering the capacity of ONE HUNDRED FLOPPY DISKS in a form barely bigger than a couple of floppies stacked.

Did you hear me? ONE HUNDRED FLOPPY DISKS. On one disk. Still takes my breath away. In fact, I'm going to argue that there was nothing that moved the needle this far until we got to DVD storage. CD-Rs were fine, still are. But Zip changed the world of computing in a much bigger way.

Then there was the follow-up to Zip: Jaz. Oops. One gig removable storage, but fragile disks -- look at it funny and it would break. Same with the drive, too. So we had ten times the capacity and ten times the headaches. Buh-bye.

I confess, I had no idea what Iomega was up to until I saw the new eGo drives. Now THESE things are cool looking! And check the size vis a vis the key!

Have to love this, too -- up to 160 GB and still powered by USB!!! It's almost unheard of. (It also supports FW, where self-power in this range is pretty common.) Ain't it cute?

As you poke around the Iomega site, you may be as surprised as I am to find that they've ventured into some relatively serious arrays and other heavy-ish storage...but I'm always going to think tiny storage when I think Iomega, and this one looks like a winner.

Assuming it works more like Zip than Jaz. I'm going to assume it is until I hear otherwise.

Okay, a lot of words for 2 small announcements but hey, there you go.

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! None of this "I'm going to MacWorld to check out the professional video news" bullshoes. What? You think is 1995 or something? No way, man. Feel free to pooh-pooh Apple's news, because the one and only reason to go to MacWorld anymore is to check out iPod doo-dads.

Pun intended. But no kidding. This is a combination iPod dock and toilet paper dispenser that they just ROLLED out. Holy crap!

Seriously. This is a real live iPod dock with stereo speakers that sits right on top of your toilet paper roll. I'm repeating myself because even *I* can barely believe it. It's  the iCarta, by Atech Flash Technology.

You mean Atech FLUSH Technology, right? 

Music in the toilet? They should have called it Loo-ey Loo-ey.

I'm trying to figure out a punchline with the word "Air" in it, but I can't think of anything yet. Anyway, get it here. As of today, it's still on sale for only $69.

This is the best MacWorld ever.

Not necessarily hardcore pro gear, but gear that pros will definitely use.

Actually, this is pro tool: a 640MB portable raid from the highly respected folks at Sonnet. It's built on 2 2.5 in drives for a crazy small size: 5.9 x 6.2 x 0.72 inches! This is insane, in a good way. Also runs at TWICE the speed of FW arrays.

Iogear makes a number of products that may already be part of your kit, but here's a new one that REALLY caught my eye: a KVM switch with 2 DVI ports! AFAIK, this is the first product like this, allowing two Macs to share a single keyboard, video monitor and mouse (the K, V, and M). I use mine to share a single monitor, kbd and mouse between my desktop and laptop, and absolutely love it.

But this one is ideal for sharing a single Cinema Display or other DVI monitor between your desktop and laptop without resorting to that nasty VGA connector.

This one also has crazy additional features that I've also never seen. Switching a single set of speakers betwen two computers is pretty common, but the one from Iogear allows you to listen to speakers from ONE computer while working on the OTHER. It's called asymmetrical switching, and is one example of KVM switches I've never seen before.

Mine doesn't have anywhere close to all of this. If I'd seen this one first, I'd have bought it in a trice.

The newest news: our friends at G-Technology have been acquired by Fabrik Inc. They're a California company whose previous offerings were in the consumer space, but who were interested in G-Technology for their Mac and professional content creation orientation.

G-Tech also announced the world's first 500 GB 2.5" external drive -- bus powered over FW, no less. (It also supports USB 2.0.) They also have an update to the G-RAID mini line, now up to 1TB, also a triple interface device (FW 400 and 800, USB). The details aren't up yet, but we can assume it's in more or less the 9x5x3-ish inch form factor as the current mini.

We've known founder Roger Mabon -- now a VP at Fabrik -- since before there was a G-Tech and before there was a Cow. Along with his father Stuart, Roger was part of Medea, the storage company that opened up all kinds of new markets and new possibilities for video production. If you weren't around at the time, it's hard to describe how big a deal this was. We were proud to be the first in line to champion Medea, and we we're happy to be first in line (or close enough) to wish Roger and G-Tech all the best in their new home.

Hey Fabrik! Welcome to the Cow!

In more teensy storage news, LaCie and Samsung announced Little Drive, a 1.3-inch hard disk in 30GB or 40GB versions, as well as an update of their USB Key Max, Crazy man, crazy.

I mentioned earlier Sonnet's new Fusion F2, 640 MB of ridiculously fast, ridiculously small storage: roughly 6x6x POINT SEVEN TWO inches. It's designed for use with the Sonnet Tempo™ SATA ExpressCard/34 adapter for the MacBook® Pro and Windows notebooks, and -- get this -- even in RAID 1 mirrored mode, can still capture directly to Pro Res HQ HD through the AJA Io HD. You can read more details here.

(Speaking of the Io, we have a review of that here.)

I've saved for last the product that I think may well have the biggest impact of any MW announcement I've heard yet --  GridIron Flow.

The context you've most often heard GridIron mentioned in is background rendering for After Effects, but that's only one feature in a toolset designed to manage a wide range of After Effects workflow: pre-comp proxies, improve cache management, optimize performance, preview comps while building them, and on and on. A workflow tool

The short version of Flow is that it's a real-time asset tracking technology that automatically builds workflow maps.

Wake up! I'm talking to you here!

Basically, it understands file formats from virtually all creative professional applications, including those from Apple and Adobe, and maintains the relationships between stills, movies, sound clips, fonts, plug-ins, and color swatches on all local, network, and removable storage devices. 

Awake now?

Hey, and anybody with a public beta is already aces in my book. And they do. So they are. 

This is big. 

The day before the keynote is usually very very quiet, which has always surprised me. Why NOT try to get your story heard before the big wave hits? Maybe there will be more news later in the week, but here are a handful of stories for media creation pros that shouldn't get lost in the flood. 

Maxon To Showcase 3D For The Real World At Macworld 2008 I list this one first because it affects the most apps: "render straight out to popular editing and compositing applications including After Effects, Final Cut, Shake, Combustion and others, on the MAC OS X."

GenArts Announces Upcoming Sapphire Plug-ins Support for Apple FxPlug Products If you haven't dug into FxPlug, and I mean dug really really deep, you're missing the most exciting development for content creation pros on the Mac since, well, I can't even say when. The cool thing about this announcement for folks already using the world-renowned Sapphire plugs in FCP and Motion, this major new capability is being added for free. Yeah, yeah, they're behind Noise Industries and Boris FX on this news...but did I mention that it's Sapphire? And that it's free?

Experience Holophone®’s H4 Supermini Firsthand At MacWorld 2008 Dude, a single microphone for recording the whole 5.1 surround from a scene? You're kidding, right?

"H4 SuperMINI features an integrated multichannel pre-amplifier and monitor. Offering users added flexibility, the mic also comes equipped with an audio zoom button, which increases the forward bias of the pick-up pattern and an auxiliary center channel microphone input (XLR) for attaching an external shotgun or wireless lavalier microphone."

Apparently not kidding.

Ambric Am2045 GT Video Reference Platform Brings H/W-Accelerated Performance to Adobe Premiere Pro CS3  It has always mystified me that there's no hardware acceleration of effects performance and rendering on Mac - it's been a staple on PCs for years. Of course it USED to be on Mac for FCP - offered by Matrox and Pinnacle. Folks who've been with FCP from the beginning will join me in saying "Oops."

The story here is not just acceleration for effects, but for HD H.264 and MPEG rendering at 8x software speeds. Very cool 

So why is this only for Premiere Pro? For one, Adobe has always been aggressive about third-party hardware partnerships. For the other, well, with 2 notable exceptions, Apple has never been committed to long-term third-party partnerships. Again, folks who've been around for a while can think of several other Oopses, some going back nearly a decade now.

Godspeed AJA and Blackmagic Designs. May you continue to sail with the wind at your backs. 

In the meantime, if you want to see hardware acceleration for effects and rendering, don't talk to Ambric. I'm sure they'd love to see it happen. Talk to Apple.

And I guess it turns out that I'm not as mystified that these products are so late in coming to Mac. I'm mystified that Mac users aren't in Cupertino with pitchforks and torches demanding the same performance for Mac that PC users have enjoyed for so long? Is it that Mac users don't know how much faster PCs can be, or that they don't care? You tell me. 

Pyro AV Announces Pyro Kompressor HD for Super-Charged, High-Quality HD Video Compression

See above. Awesome story, way overdue on Mac, not currently plugging into FCS.

The good news about Kompressor HD, though, is that it's a standalone app. Presumably you can send out your ref movies from non-CS apps and pick up the accelerated render that way.

Looking for direct FCS integration? Again, talk to Apple.

Largest MWSF show floor since 2000

With the addition of the Moscone West convention hall, Apple has ended the easy traverse between halls in the underground passage between the ever familiar North and South Halls. Had this years Macworld show been held at its usual first full week in January, I might have been a little more upset by the move. Yet Show management has moved a few new booths into the new space.

Places to see in the West Hall- Berkley School of Music has a large booth with seating dedicated to showing and teaching about creating and editing music on the Mac. I spent 30 minutes watching them lay down multiple tracks of Live instruments for playback later during the week. It was wild to watch a drummer play directly into the mac interface to record his performance.

HP printers is sponsoring a "digital Imaging theatre" with hands on training sessions using Photoshop to edit, color and enhance digital still images. Outside of the training area booth in the West hall also has an excellent celebrity photography exhibit by photographer Francis Hall.

Gaming is also in full swing in the West Hall, but not being a gamer who cares, but then I was reminded of a recently scene bumper sticker that said "my gamer just fragged your honor student"

Robert Cringely is one of the higher profile tech pundits, and like all pundits, is only barely credible based on predictions coming to pass.

But he brings up again the possibility of Apple buying Adobe. 

Actually, he says flat out it's going to happen. His reasons are a teensy bit more interesting this time, plus "inside sources," but I wasn't persuaded before and I'm not now.

He uses the Final Touch acquisition as an example of Apple's commitment to pro apps, and it is...but Final Touch wasn't a $36 billion purchase, as Adobe is likely to be. 

Another example he uses is just flat out wrong: "Of course content creation has been the heart of Apple's business ever since the original LaserWriter and the invention of desktop publishing...."

Sorry, try again. Apple didn't own any desktop publishing software. Clarisworks was interesting, but they killed it for good reason. It was a distaction from their core business of building computers and OSes.

Although Apple's core business is changing -- which Apple acknowledged when it dropped "Computer" from its name -- but look at how it's changing. 

The first big clue was QuickTime, which is still being used far far FAR more as a distribution and consumption platform than a creation platform. Seriously, QT is critical to us, but are there hundreds of millions of us? No. And the most compelling content being sold in the iTunes Music Store is sometimes only marginally created with QT at all. (I said sometimes.) And even there, the big money is in distribution and consumption.

iPods? Distribution and consumption.

The iPod/iTunes infrastructure is especially interesting to me. It used Mac users as a beta test before rolling it out to the whole world...which is frankly what non-Mac users comprise. Although Apple is growing far faster than the rest of the industry, it'll still be a while before it breaks out of single digit market share, and will likely never reach the heights Apple had before Mac.

(In fact, until stabilized at 3%-ish for a while, and starting a meaningful rise this year, Apple's market share has plummeted at least 90%. Discuss.)

My point here isn't primarily about market share, but about strategy: nobody, and I mean NOBODY, who's playing for keeps can do it on the Mac alone. (Sorry FCP.) Apple's iPod/iTunes business didn't change the world until the whole world could use it.

iPod. iTunes. Distribution. Consumption.

Not creation. You can barely use 'em to create anything.

Add iPhone to the mix: one-to-one distribution, if you will, on a massive scale. 

Look, I'm an idiot. I don't know a thing. But I only barely see Adobe fitting into this. Macromedia? Absolutely. I was among the thousands of people who thought Apple should have bought the whole company when they bought FCP from Macromedia. They could have gotten it for a song compared to what Adobe paid.

(Speaking of which, I believe that Adobe paid to be taken over by Macromedia -- the best money that Macromedia never spent. Discuss.)

I say that because Flash is a far bigger distribution platform than QuickTime, and because of its dynamic nature, is part of business infrastructure in ways that QT never will be. Websites are just the beginning. QT may never be useful in a database driven infrastructure. Flash is already being used as an actual driver interface in cars! 

So where does the rest of Adobe fit into this. Photoshop might seem like a big fish, but I've heard Adobe folks tell me that they see this as the most vulnerable app in the portfolio: being undercut by digital cameras, iPhoto, Aperture and the like. Those apps are forcing Adobe to change their game to meet Apple's challenge. So why buy it? Maybe to get at Pshop's science and medical business, but that's awfully niche-y.

After Effects? Meet Motion. Encore? Premiere? Encore? Buh-bye. Not that these don't all offer some superior aspects, but $36 billion?

After Flash, PDF is the other central Adobe technology...and Steve spent a full 45 minutes spanking Flash at the WWDC a couple of years ago. Included side-by-side comparisons of performance, image quality, the whole deal. Apple's flavor of PDF came out on top.

I think some of this was a shot over Adobe's bow: yes, PC has been your dominant platform for a decade, but leave Mac development behind at your peril. But how could he not have also been saying, we'd rather have you do this for us...but we can do it ourselves very, very easily.

Again, PDF has powerful features like built-in desktop sharing, video conferencing, etc. -- but I'm still waiting to see anything here that adds up to $36 billion.

Cringely says it will be announced this week. Do you? 

Let's get some of the speculation out of the way before the actual news begins.

 Here's what purports to be a leaked outline of Steve's keynote. Right. Still fun to read:

How can speculation be more substantial than the supposedly leaked keynote? When it's this substantial. 

Best guesses I've seen about the "one more thing." 

Not just keynote speculation, but some ideas of potential news all over the show. My favorite: Jay-Z and Apple starting a label together. I really really doubt it, but that would be the coolest thing that came out of the show for me. :-) 

Another good rumor round-up. 

A nice list of all the meetings at the show. If you're reading this, you're likely not at the show, but some clues for follow-up.

There are many many more such links, but these are definitely the best I've found so far. Any comments on other rumors? Post 'em here.