In case you haven't read the light grey print on Apple's website....
Mac OS X Snow Leopard requires an Intel-based Mac.
No whining, no griping, if you haven't upgraded to an Intel Mac, then stay on Leopard and keep working away. When the time is right, you will be able to upgrade to an Intel Mac and Snow Leopard at the same time.
Oh and Snow Leopard is only $29 to upgrade from Leopard so that's pretty cool. No $129 upgrade fee or whatever is has been for the past few OS updates.
Recently a thread in the Apple Color forum had somebody remark that if you're delivering to the "Big Boys" such as Discovery and PBS you really should have external scopes in your shop. It's also been suggested that external legalizer boxes really should be used as well when delivering to the high end networks.
The true fact of the matter is, the scopes in Color are very accurate, to the point that I don't see any differences on an external scope when we do have one. The Broadcast Safe in Color is good enough for "the big boys." We have delivered about 66 episodes of "Good Eats" in HD to the Food Network, not a single rejection for video quality, and have now delivered two HD programs to PBS. No external scopes, no external legalizer. Just FCP to Color to FCP and out to tape. In fact, about 20 or so episodes of Good Eats was color graded ONLY using FCP's 3-Way CC, Broadcast Safe and Levels filters. All of those were legal.
If you can afford an external scope and want to drop $12,000 to $20,000 for a good Tektronix scope, then by all means have at it. We actually could afford one if I really felt I needed it, but I personally would rather spend that money on something more useful to our day to day operation, say like 3 FSI color reference monitors to replace our aging CRT monitors.
But as far as being perfectly broadcast legal and delivering to the "big boys" of broadcast, the tools within FC Studio are perfectly capable of delivering a legal product in the hands of an operator who knows how to use them.
As usual, the guys at FSI keep adding in more and more features based on user input and the latest round of updates have a couple of especially neat updates. And of course, these are free to all current owners of FSI monitors, just download the update from the website.
EBU Gamma. True 2.35 EBU standard gamma setting for the monitor for anyone delivering material to european broadcasters. Yes, 2.4 is mighty darn close, but because of a request from a European user, they decided to make the monitors go exactly to the European gamma spec.
Timecode Display. The monitors themselves can now display on screen timecode pulled directly off the SDI feeds using LTC, VITC 1 and VITC 2. So no more having to turn on the TC display via a tape deck or a camera, the monitors themselves can now display on screen TC. I've actually asked for a few improvements to this feature already.
NTSC Setup. You can set the monitor up to 7.5 IRE if you're working on SD material that requires 7.5 delivery.
Scope Position. Now you can put the scopes in any of six positions instead of just having it in the lower right.
Active Boundary Marker. This is really really neat and it took me a moment or two to really figure out what they had done here. Because the monitors have the ability to show full resolution video without using up the entire screen, it can be difficult to tell if you're missing any lines of image in the picture. For example, in 1:1 SD mode on any of the monitors. You see black on the top and bottom of the image because it's sitting in the middle of the monitor so if there are any lines of resolution missing in the image, you can't tell because it'll just look like the black border around the image.
Turn on the Active Boundary Marker and a line is placed 1 pixel above and below the image frame. Now you can see where the edge of the image SHOULD be. If you see black between your image and that line, then you're missing image information.
And of course there's more stuff in the latest updates, but these are some of the highlights that I've noticed so far. Very cool stuff!
So I was at an Apple Business Networking event last week here in Atlanta and I asked my business rep about signing up for some One-on-One training for iWeb. It's a simple enough program but there are some aspects of it and re-working my website that would be better if I worked with a trainer one-on-one at the store. He told me I can't sign up for one-on-one unless I purchase a computer. It's Apple's new policy that people cannot simply sign up for one-on-one training anymore unless you purchase a product.
Ok, so I have 4 Mac desktops, 4 iMacs, 1 MacBook Pro, 1 Mini an iPhone, 2 iPods and 3 full copies of Final Cut Studio, iWorks and iLife. And that's just what I currently have. All told we've been through about 20 or 30 Macs since 1998 with my two companies. But I'm not permitted to purchase one-on-one training because my last purchase was about 3 months ago?
You would think that in this economy we'd be looking for ways to add revenue stream, not remove it. Nice way to treat a long term customer.
After seeing the FSI monitors and all their features at the first demo, I suggested to Dan Desmet they should create a video version of their user manual to make it easier to understand everything. Well that conversation led to the new How To video manual that was launched on the website last week.
Ok so the "official 18% grey paint" is something like $80 per quart and up. Thanks to this tip from Dan Desmet at Flanders Scientific, here's a really REALLY close knock off of that color for a lot less.
You want Sherwin Williams SW 7071 color.
The one to get is Duration Home, Extra White Matte Base, 6403-63925. The BAC code should be
The National Science Foundation has issued a press release announcing the launch of the new series Science Nation along with taking the new website live. Biscardi Creative Media is providing all post production for the series which has reunited principal Walter Biscardi, Jr. with multiple CNN colleagues.
Biscardi Creative Media congratulates Producer Connie Simmons for receiving two Daytime Emmy Nominations for her series "Landscapes Through Time."
Connie is nominated for "Outstanding Special Class Directing," where she is competing against shows from ABC, CBS and NBC.
Writer David Dunlop is nominated for "Outstanding Special Class Writing" where he will be competing against shows like Ellen.
BCM Principal Walter Biscardi, Jr. was the Colorist for the first two episodes of "Landscapes Through Time" helping to establish the overall look of the finished programming and provided the program with Post Production consulting. The series travels throughout the world taking the viewer to the locations of famous paintings where David Dunlop walks you through the techniques of the masters. The series appears on PBS.
Congratulations again to Connie and the entire production team for a job well done! Good luck!
Professional Video Editor, Producer, Director since 1990.
Credits include multiple Emmys, Tellys, Aurora and CableAce Awards.
Owner / Operator of Biscardi Creative Media, a full service video and film production company with about 65% of our work in HDTV. The show you know us best for is "Good Eats" on the Food Network. I developed the HD Post workflow and we also create all the animations for the series.
Favorite pastime is cooking with pizza on the grill one of my specialties. Each Christmas Eve we serve the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a traditional Italian seafood meal with approx. 30 items on the menu.
If I wasn't in video production I would either own a restaurant or a movie theater.
