VideoSpace Update

VideoSpace, a free tool from Digital Heaven which helps you calculate file sizes and duration of footage based on several parameters has been updated to version 2.5 for Mac OS 10.5.2.

Check it out here.

Image Capture & It's Greyed Out Scan Button

Okay, this isn't specifically a Final Cut tip but since you may need to occasionally scan in things for FC you may find yourself inside of Apple's free Image Capture app.

If you do, and you find it working perfectly except for it's Scan button is greyed out, here's the solution:

Click in the preview window and drag out a square for it to scan from.

Yes, that's it. It's that simple. Click outside the scan marquee square you just made to start over. This had me puzzled for far too long.

Boris FX Update

If you use it Borix FX has been updated to 9.2.1.

Includes support for Adobe After Effects CS3, Vegas8, Mac Universal Final Cut Pro, Media 100 12.1 and earlier, Mac Universal Avid, older PowerPC hosts, and Windows hosts.

Jolt

Jolt is a bit of shareware that solves a common problem:

If you’ve ever wanted your display to stay on full power for just a few minutes, Jolt is for you. Simply click the Jolt icon and your system will stay on for a few minutes. After the time you’ve specified is over your mac returns to normal operation so that your battery doesn’t drain and you don’t have to fiddle with energy settings. Easily watch YouTube videos without moving your mouse every minute, deliver presentations without a blank screen showing up, or take your time reading a page without having to touch your mac.

What it may be good for is switching off Energy Saver for quick renders and edits when you're on the go. Plus, half of the shareware fee goes to charities listed on the Jolt site.

Quicktime 7.4 Update Problems

Looks like the latest update to Quicktime (v7.4) breaks some things, lest of all Adobe After Effects for many people. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not :) I'm not the biggest fan of AE in the world.

People are seeing this error after the update:

"After Effects error: opening movie - you do not have permission to open this file (-54)"

Some say it's a DRM issue others, a preferences SNAFU.

FCP 6.0.2 vs P2 Import

Some people are reporting the loss of the ability to import P2 Data using FCP 6.0.2 with Leopard (10.5 & 10.5.1) while others seem to be having no trouble. It may be a bug caused by specific software versions in conflict or specific hardware vs new software versions. The other day I was able to import P2 cards without a problem but I've gotten into the habit of importing them after copying them to a hard drive first.

Essentially, what I do is mount the P2 Cards via card slot or by mounting the camera and copying off the data directly to a hard drive then, later on, importing that into FCP. This seems to save a lot of time and hassles especially when this needs to be done on the fly depending on the conditions of the shoot.

Stomp, Another Video Converter

Stomp is a new entry into the video converter application space for Macintosh. It's similar to VisualHub, one of the standard video converters that many people use. But Stomp offers some interface and more importantly, some pre-set differences from VisualHub that may appeal to some users.

Stomp started its life as an idea to be the ultimate video recompressor, and ended up something so much more powerful than that. YouTube, Google Video, iMovie… The list goes on

It offers some basic image manipulation and some pre-sets not available in other converters and there is a video into to the application here.

Final Cut Studio Updated

Apple has released a pile of updates for their pro apps.

Pro Applications Update 2007-02

Final Cut Pro 6.0.2

DVD Studio Pro 4.2.1

Motion 3.0.2

Color 1.0.2

Soundtrack Pro 2.0.2

Compressor 3.0.2

Cinema Tools 4.0.1

Although some long-standing bugs remain some of the updates address specific user requests which have been desired for a long time now.

Final Print updated

Final Print, "which prints a list of clips in a bin or markers contained in a clip or sequence" was updated today to 1.5.1a. I'm not sure what's new exactly but there's new stuff in there. I'm fairly sure.

Check it out.

FCP 6 vs Leopard

There's been one confirmed and acknowledged conflict between FCP 6 and Leopard (10.5) in that Master Templates in FCP won't display under Leopard. Apple has a page about it here.