Earlier this month Apple Computer revealed a new direction in the Final Cut Studio roadmap. In view of the release of the Adobe Production Studio, Apple made a majority of their Pro Applications into an all or none bundle. Previous editions of Motion, DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Soundtrack Pro stood as individual applications, but as of now are available only as part of the $1299 Final Cut Studio integrated suite. Shake, Logic Pro, and Aperture continue to be sold as stand alone tools.
Apple also announced the introduction of the Universal version of Final Cut Studio available by the end of march 2006 for a $49 upgrade fee, just in time for NAB in Las Vegas. Historically, Apple has used the NAB show in late April to showcase the development of the Final Cut Studio. In 2004, Apple and Panasonic stunned the high definition world with the introduction of the DVCPRO HD native codec into a Final Cut Pro timeline. In 2005 apple revealed Soundtrack Pro, and a tighter fusion of the Final Cut Studio applications. 2006 should be an interesting time for Apple as they prepare their software for both powerPC and Intel chip architectures.
In front of a well fed and eager crowd Giles Baker and Steve Kilisky of Adobe Systems demonstrated the Adobe Production Studio to the Motion Graphics Los Angeles User Group meeting at Barnsdall Gallery Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. Adobe sponsored a taco bar buffet line to warm up the appetites of creative professionals, and then walked through a vivid scenario using all the tools in the Adobe Production Studio, including Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, Adobe Audition 2.0, Adobe After Effects 7.0 Professional, Adobe Encore DVD 2.0, and a taste of Adobe Photoshop CS2. The glue that binds all these applications together is a unified dark gray user interface presentation layer, along with Adobe Bridge asset management and preset rangler, and the ability to import projects built in After Effects directly in Premiere Pro or and Encore DVD without rendering or final assembly, called Adobe Dynamic Link. Any change in the After Effects composition, updates automatically in the timeline.
Premiere Pro and After Effects also feature float based processing of effects to ensure maximum color fidelity and encourage the use of high dynamic range images. Premiere Pro now offers multicam editing. Most Production Studio applications also support GPU OpenGL acceleration for realtime previews of effects and edits.
Adobe seems to being playing catch up to Apple, with Motion, Final Cut Pro, and Soundtrack Pro already featuring multicam editing, GPU acceleration, 32-bit effects support, and many more features. Premiere Pro does offer more complete integration with Adobe Acrobat with a feature called Clip Notes, a robust edit approval system using PDF to generate notes and comments into the editing timeline.
I discussed directly with the Premiere Pro product manager support for the Panasonic DVCPRO HD HVX200 camcorder, and he balked that the licensing fee for the codec was too great to include in Premiere Pro directly. The only method to edit DVCPRO HD is using the Matrox Axio system priced at $11,495. The Adobe Production Studio sells for $1699.
adobe after effects 7.0 professional screenshotadobe after effects 7.0 professional screenshotadobe premiere pro 2.0 screenshotadobe clip notes screenshotadobe audition 2.0 screenshotadobe encore DVD 2.0 screenshotsteve kilisky of adobe demonstates the adobe production studio
It’s 2006 and the wait is over for the next generation Intel and Apple products. The many months of anticipation brings some interesting news. Intel used the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) as it’s launching point for the Core Duo processor, based on the Pentium M processor. The two cores can process information simultaneously, or used by the operating system to extend multitasking for rapid media creation.
The Core Duo was designed for high performance, but at low power, extending the life of a portable computer, or reducing the cooling load on a lightweight desktop. At CES 2006, Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, announced the rapid adoption of the Core Duo technology. It took Intel one year to ship the first one millionth Pentium processor, but plans to ship the one millionth Core Duo processors in just three weeks.
Core Duo will land in Microsoft Windows PC’s, the new media platform called VIIV, and the newest family of Apple Computer products called MacBook Pro and iMac. In previous incarnations of high penetration desktop and laptop computers, the highest volume processors included the Pentium and PowerPC lines of chips, but with Apple coming aboard the Intel train, only AMD stands alone.
In June 2005, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, announced that every version of Mac OS X since its inception has been compiled and performance tested to run of both PowerPC and Intel processors. In order for Mac developers to reap the full benefits of the Intel transition, a new type of application called a Universal Binary will have to be delivered, which will have the ability to run natively on either a PowerPC or Intel architecture. Applications from legacy PowerPC systems will run using a code translation technology called Rosetta.
At Macworld 2006, Apple released the Core Duo iMac and Core Duo MacBook Pro. Each machine shares the same family of graphics engine, the ATI Radeon X1600 GPU, and both have memory expandable to 2 GB. Both systems have a built in iSight cameras for video conferencing, quick snapshots, or rudimentary podcasting. The performance increase from previous systems is astounding, with at least 2X performance increase on the iMac and perhaps as much as 4X increase on the MacBook Pro as compared to the PowerBook G4. Apple has two major product leaps.
