Mac OS

This question comes up a lot- how does one label a DVD-R? I would never use a print on inkjet disc- because they smear with just a droplet of moisture nor stick on labels because they peel and jam. Instead- I'd go for one of three technologies- depending on budget and how professional the labels need to look:

1. Sharpie. This is cheap as dirt and works like a charm for sending to replication houses and for internal backups. But not so much given to clients- looks decidely ghetto for that...
2. LightScribe- this is a type of DVD burner than works with special media and lets you burn a monochrome image directly onto the disc surface. Looks a lot more pro than Sharpie for clients and has no issues with peeling off.

Here's a tool for anyone working with the solid-state and tapeless workflow, for example the Panasonic HVX200 and Sony EX1. If you've been dragging and dropping footage from your folders to your hard drive you could be a bit more at risk than you realize.

ChronoSync is a data management tool that allows you to efficiently synchronize files and folders from one disk location to another with full verification and resume capabilities. In other words, it's perfect for copying footage from your SxS card or P2 card onto your hard drive.

About the only real drawback with ChronoSync is that it doesnt generate a checksum for the files. So verifying can be a a bit slow.

For more information and to order, visit econtechnologies. Here's the link:

I wrote two articles for the Final Cut Pro User's Group Supermeet at NAB. They appeared in the SuperMag magazine. Here's part one of the second article looking at Simplemente's work with the Phantom HD camera:

Rune Hansen and Monica Reina at Simplemente in Mexico City recently acquired a Phantom HD Digital Cinema camera from Vision Research. We got to shoot a bunch of slow-motion footage and then worked with it in Final Cut Pro to create demo reels for theatrical projection. We needed to accomplish all of this in the space of about 48 hours.

The Phantom HD’s claim to fame is the ability to shoot uncompressed, high speed footage at up to 1,000 frames per second (fps) and up to 2K (2048x2048 pixels) resolution using a special CMOS imager. It accepts standard PL-mount 35mm cinema lenses and is also capable of capturing in standard and HD resolutions from 1 fps all the way up to 1,000.

I wrote two articles for the Final Cut Pro User's Group Supermeet at NAB. They appeared in the SuperMag magazine(which I named btw). Here's part two of the first article looking at an Apple network system that is being used at the Beijing Olympics this summer in China. For part one click here.

Simplemente chose to work with Gallery Software, a UK-based company that has been making QuickTime-compatible applications for over a decade. For the Beijing project, Simplemente selected Gallery’s SIENNA, a complete integration suite for connecting Final Cut Pro workstations to the traditional newsroom broadcast workflow. SIENNA was developed in response to the huge demand for Final Cut Pro integration from the world's leading news broadcasters. It brings compatibility to existing newsroom equipment for workflows based around native QuickTime and enables single media shared storage with Apple's Xsan.

I wrote two articles for the Final Cut Pro Supermeet at NAB this year. Here's part one of the first article looking at an Apple SAN network system that is being used at the Beijing Olympics this summer in China:

Last NAB, we visited Simplemente, a production/post-production house and Apple Authorized Training Center/Dealer based in Mexico City. They’ve been working hard alongside one of their biggest clients, Televisa, the world’s largest Latin American broadcaster. This year Simplemente embarked on its most ambitious project yet, a complete post-production solution for Televisa’s coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

Ok, to start, I've been reading about Shane's exploits for a long time on lafcpug here and now on his blog and he's had some interesting rigs involving rubberbands (i seem to remember that was you in a g5 with a rubberbanded set of drives) and now his latest macbeast.

Well i've had my mac pro since about a month or so before the octos came out. And Since then I've added a HDD a few times, which started first as a place to put media, than it was a third drive to put music and project files on. then it was another drive which i raided with the other 500 inside to create a 1tb raid 0 setup. I repartitioned 1 drive to install leopard on 1 part and keep music and projects on another.

So at this point I'm up to 4 drives, and 1 optical drive and the stock 2 gigs of ram (i know...i know)

This is something i wrote in another forum about "Phenomenon" apple's new compositor.

it's sad. i trouble shoot fcp daily...actually..a lot more than that. they do such a sh*t job of making apps. really they do. I have NO faith in any major app they release with the spotty work they have done since i got into their proapps

fcp 4.5 was THE most stable fcp ever, 5.0 went down the hole, 5.1 showed a resemblance of coming back to ok, and to say that i've been happy with fcs2 and all that has happened around that is an overstatement.

I run fcp in a few worlds. I have a boot drive for it running in tiger and it's pretty good in a hard core THis is an editing system environment.

Tim Wilson over at the Creative Cow started this blog post as a comment on the blog post I made over there about upgrading to Leopard (a reprint of what I posted here). It really goes in depth about the dangers of upgrading, and how really there is no way that Apple and other third party vendors can possibly test every possible combination of hardware and software to ensure that no bugs sneak through the cracks.

I purchased my first Mac in January of 2007 and have always been dissapointed (shocked, really) that the Mac OS refuses to write to NTFS formatted drives. However, as of yesterday, I am no longer dissapointed, thanks to Paragon's NTFS for Mac utility.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

I tried editing files over an NTFS drive via that utility and worked like a charm and purchased the product instantly. Highly recommended and 5 cows!

- Aanarav

All CalDigit products are compatible with Leopard. This is a good thing as I am flush with Duos and a Firewire VR. Not that I have Leopard yet...on the G5. I do on my Powerbook, and I use these on this machine. And I can say that yes, they work.

Oct 29, 2007 Placentia, CA CalDigit, the new leader in RAID storage solutions is pleased to announce the immediate compatibility of all of its products with Apple's new Leopard OS X operation system.

Starting with the FireWireVR (Triple Interface RAID), our FASTA-2e 2-port eSATA card, our FASTA-4e and FASTA-4X 4 port Superlane eSATA cards, FASTA-1ex ExpressCard34, to our HDPro and RAID SHIELD Management utility, all CalDigit products are ready to go with Leopard.

First, I want to underscore Shane Ross's outstanding, super-critical advice on upgrading your operating system. Although he wrote it in the context of upgrades to Leopard affecting your Final Cut Pro installation, it applies much more broadly of course. What he recommends is the right thing to do for any OS update, on either platform.

The new version of Mac OSX is due out on October 26...Leopard. To install, or not to install, THAT is the question.

Now...those of you with editing systems should proceed with caution. I always, repeat ALWAYS say, "if you have a stable working system, DO NOT UPDATE IT!" Having a stable working editing system is the key to a smooth running business, a stress free life, and more time you can devote to reading, riding your bike, playing with the kids...ANYTHING but sitting in your office for hours trying to figure out what went wrong.

OK, if you find that you MUST update your system and play with all the new toys it has to offer, I have a few suggestions to make to cover your butt:

Hi everyone - I've been pretty silent for the last few months because I've been hard at work on a new Creative Cow Master Series DVD - "Internet Killed the Video Star: A guide to Creating Video for the Web." The 4.5 hour DVD will be available very shortly. Feel free to spread the word.

Here's the basic description of the DVD:

Now here's a guy with a serious love of All Things Apple!

Over 100 Apple computers from the classics to today in his basement!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/08/08/mac-collector.ap/index.html

A technology company I regularly talk to told me about this cool little tool that can really help keep your Mac Pro cooler by increasing the Fan RPM's inside the box. What's really nice is that the change in RPM is completely silent.

So I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a fan of the Blackberry. Really don't need that thing strapped to my waist at all times so I can answer an email at a moment's notice. Don't want to deal with that little tiny keyboard and besides, better than half the emails I recieve require some sort of document to be sent back to the recipient, which resides on my laptop.

So on March 23 we hear that Leopard's coming in October rather than spring, to wait for Vista compatibility. Later that day, Apple's official response is that we don't respond to rumors. The same day, someone says that Apple says Leopard'll come out on time. Three weeks later Appple announces that Leopard is coming out in October, but the reason is iPhone, not Boot Camp. So there you go. Wait. Did somebody say they're delaying Leopard to wait for Vista compatibility?!?!

We've arrived in Sunny Las Vegas! Checked in to the fabulous Flamingo hotel which we really used to enjoy for the penquins in the outdoor habitat, but they checked out last year so it's not quite the same. Still gotta love staying in the "original" strip hotel that started it all.

Spotlight? What's that?

For the non-Mac folks that don't know what Spotlight is, it's a search-all tool that Apple introduced in OS X 10.4. From what I understand, it'll search your computer for all files that include a word or phrase that you are searching for, including searching email and metadata included within the files. Sounds neat. Now only if there was a Windows version of something like that ...

Windows Desktop Search

To all my fellow MAC user buddies out there, if you haven't heard Google has released the first version of their Google Desktop software for the MAC. I installed it last night and it has a pretty slick interface and is supposed to be a replacement (or competitor) for Apple's own Spotlight (which I admit to using less and less of since I started using Quicksilver).

We've been poised to get a Mac Pro for some time now, but knowing that the octo-core Mac was coming out soonish, we were hesitating. Add that the uncertainty whether Apple would match the 3.0 GHz clock speed of their existing quad-core machine and we were pondering whether to just jump on what was out and move on. In fact, on Sunday we were standing in the Apple Store in Boulder, ready to buy right there.

So a recent thread in the Creative Cow Final Cut Pro forum about Internal vs. External RAID's got me thinking more about the subject. I'm a firm believer in external RAID's and really don't have any desire to install 3 or 4 drives inside my Mac Pro tower.