Official VisualHub Update for Lion

Really.

It's here.

It's official.

It's free.

There have been a few (pretty complicated) ways to update VisualHub to get it to run under Lion and Kagi did somethings that maybe weren't really thought out well (and charged for it) but now there's a real-deal update that's free.

Unfortunately, it's likely the last update ever.

DVCHDPROAudio.plugin Console Error

I'm sure you've seen it if you've ever launched your Console and looked at All Messages. Something like:

8/8/11 12:50:03 AM Mail[212] Error loading /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin/Contents/MacOS/DVCPROHDAudio:  dlopen(/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin/Contents/MacOS/DVCPROHDAudio, 262): no suitable image found.  Did find:
/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin/Contents/MacOS/DVCPROHDAudio: no matching architecture in universal wrapper

You'll see it for VLC, Mail, loginwindow, SustemUIServer, UserEventAgent and a bunch of other stuff.

You don't need it. Or at the very least, it's highly unlikely you'll need it.

So what to do? Since Apple has never really clarified what's going on here and it's a LONG STANDING bug/error/incompatibility and older versions can't even load on Intel machines (there is a universal version from 2007 of the plugin) I went to where it was, zipped it, trashed the original and left the zip file sitting there.

It's located in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL

What is this thing anyway, you ask?

I think it's a USB driver for 1:1 audio connections that apps like Reason, Audacity, Cubase and Logic use; or at least used to.

If you want to poke around the file you can take a look at it in the Terminal: copy and paste in:

ls -IR /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin

and you'll see some helpful-ish information:


drwxrwxr-x  6 root  admin  204 Apr 20  2007 Contents


/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin/Contents:
total 24
-rw-rw-r--  1 root  admin  1258 Mar 30  2007 Info.plist
drwxrwxr-x  3 root  admin   102 Apr 20  2007 MacOS
-rw-rw-r--  1 root  admin     9 Mar 30  2007 PkgInfo
-rw-rw-r--  1 root  admin   514 Apr 20  2007 version.plist


/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin/Contents/MacOS:
total 2456
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  1254748 Mar 30  2007 DVCPROHDAudio

So it's not a permission's issue.

Then you can try: (again, copy and paste into the Terminal)

file /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin/Contents/MacOS/DVCPROHDAudio

and you'll see some slightly more helpful things like:

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin/Contents/MacOS/DVCPROHDAudio: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin/Contents/MacOS/DVCPROHDAudio (for architecture ppc): Mach-O bundle ppc

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/DVCPROHDAudio.plugin/Contents/MacOS/DVCPROHDAudio (for architecture i386): Mach-O bundle i386

So, hey, at least the version you may or may not have is Universal.

And you can even right-click on it and Show Package Contents and dig around. You can open the DVCPROHDAudio file in Contents/MacOS with something like Hex Fiend and confirm that it's an audio driver for some obscure and some fairly outdated stuff.

Bottom line is you'll know if you need it. If you don't know, then you don't need it and likely never will. For my system it seems okay to zip the original package in the HAL folder and trash the original plug-in. This way it won't load (because it's not a .plugin file) and should the occasion arise when you do need it, just double click it to unzip it right where it needs to be.

ffmpegx updated for Lion

I'm still not on the Lion train (officially) but some friends mentioned that ffmpegx has received an update so it's compatible with Lion, right here.

MakeMKV Updated

I love MKV and I have hopes that one day in the distant future people will standardize on it since it's such a great container format and an open standard.

I've been pushing mkv on clients for a while now and some who play things I do for them in lobbies on big tvs or on video boxes like WD TV Live or something don't care because it just works. Which is what I tell them, "Yup, .mkv just works," I'll say subtly pushing it into the recesses of their brains so they hopefully end up parroting it later to others.

Anyways, MakeMKV was just updated. Yayz! (and it's currently FREE)

Converting .MOD files for Final Cut Pro and Multiclip

I've been handed a few SD cards with .MOD files that eventually need to be edited as a multiclip sequence.

Joy.

I've talked about these problematic files before here and here but never really got into the meat of the best way to transcode them for use in Final Cut Pro. Silly me thought I'd never have to deal with them again.

Here's something to keep in mind about .MOD files (from the wiki page):

"Standard definition video can be recorded in 4:3 and 16:9 formats. Some video decoders do not interpret the aspect ratio information in the media file header correctly, so 16:9 video may appear squeezed horizontally when viewed.^[4] Software that is shipped with camcorders is capable of processing the aspect ratio information correctly, aided perhaps by the metadata stored in MOI files. There are also third-party tools for modifying the wide-screen aspect ratio information in the media file header so that it satisfies decoders which would otherwise fail to interpret this information correctly in an unmodified MOD file.^[5][6][7] Some tools such as MediaInfo can correctly report the aspect ratio of widescreen MOD files, but media players may or may not display them correctly depending on the capabilities of the video decoder that they are utilizing at the time."

Sure are a lot of May, May Not & Somes in those paragraphs; there's even a perhaps!

These are some weird file types.

In order to nail down the workflow for transcoding these things (which, btw are Standard Definition in this particular case) I've been running some tests using MPEG Streamclip to transcode them and here's what I've discovered: (you'll likely need the MPEG-2 Component for Quicktime in addition to MPEG Streamclip)

A: Renaming the .MOD to .MPG or .mpeg and then transcoding with MSC (MPEG Streamclip) doesn't make any difference.

B: The top listing of the two ProRes exports in MSC is a HQ variety. (You may or may not see doubled up listings in your MSC exports listing depending on your setup/system etc…)

I transcoded a sample .MOD file (of about 24 seconds) to various formats, with various settings and then set up a 3 camera multiclip sequence and tested how well it played and if it was the correct aspect ratio.

What I found -after MANY MANY transcodes then importing those into FCP, setting up a multiclip sequence, then exporting and opening with Quicktime Player 7- was that what worked best for me for these files is to transcode them into:

DV25
16:9
De-interlaced

Then setup and edit your Multiclip project and export to Quicktime Movie…

Then open up your export in Quicktime Player 7 and hit Command + J for "Show Movie Properties" and hit the Presentation button and tick "Conform aperture to: Clean". 

See the transcodes from MSC will have this option ticked, but after you export the multiclip from Final Cut Pro this little checkbox will no longer be ticked but will still work. In my tests this checkbox has no effect on .MOD files transcoded to ProRes which would have been nice.

Now with an edited export at the correct aspect ratio you can transcode it to H.264 or whatever you need and it should retain the aspect ratio.

Why DV25? Well the original files are MPG2 in a .MOD wrapper and taking data per pixel, data rates and all that there's not a whole heck of a lot of quality loss (a couple of percentage points?) going to DV25. I suppose DVCPRO25 would work just as well.

Now, keep in mind this is what works for me right now, with .MOD files with this setup that I'm sitting in front of at the moment. The resulting file will be high quality and at the correct aspect ratio.

Burning Multiple Discs in DVD Studio Pro

Today I was burning off a handful of copies of a DVD for a client when someone asked what I was doing since they "hadn't seen that before" in DVD Studio pro.

There are two basic ways to burn multiple copies of a DVD project in DVD Studio Pro.

1. If you only need to burn off a few copies, say less than 10, I usually get everything ready to burn and then hit Shift + Command + F to Burn a disc, test it then proceed if nothing goes wrong.

See, once you Burn off a test disc you've "Built" it, now all you need to do is "Format" it which really means burn off the Built project to a disc. There's no need to hit Burn again because that just rebuilds the disc and wastes time. So...after the initial test Build-n-Burn…

Hit Command + F for Format.

Pop in a blank disk.

Hit Return.

It's quicker than building each time and if there are only a handful of discs to burn - like I said, less than 10 it's not a bad way to go.

2. If you need to burn off many copies (but less than what a dedicated disc copier would be needed for) in DVD Studio Pro hit Command + F (this is after your test burn) and at the bottom of the Build/Format window change Output Device to Hard Drive and tell it where you'd like a disc image of your project saved.

Hit Okay.

After a bit you'll have a disc image of your project.

Launch Disk Utility or Toast and set it to multiple copies and that's about it.

You can apparently install Quicktime 7 on 10.7 Lion

Hardmac is reporting that it is possible to install Quicktime 7 (7.6.9) on a Lion system.

Hopefully this is true (I haven't side-graded to Lion yet and likely won't on business editing machines for some time) because Quicktime 7 is immensely useful compared to the debacle that is Quicktime X.

UPDATE: Apple just made it official.

Rendering High-Precision Requires A Graphics Card with More Capabilities

Have you ever seen that?

Without getting into great detail, with that Final Cut is telling you that it can't render what visual effect you want (have applied to a clip or nest) in high-precision because of one of two things (or both).

1. Your graphics card simply can't handle it. You'll need to upgrade.

2. If you're lucky you can adjust a setting and render in slightly less than "high-precision" with some caveats.

A: Highlight the sequence that has the troublesome clip & effect in it in the Browser and hit Command + 0 for Sequence Settings. Fortunately, in here, changes you make DO apply to the current sequence.

B: Click on the Video Processing tab and you'll see something like this:

See the four radio buttons on the left? Try setting your sequence settings to something other than it currently is. RGB is usually good for this problem.

But read the two paragraphs of text to the right there. Rendering with different Video Processing settings can cause colors to go all wonky.

C: Hit OK and test, test and test some more.

The Telephone Voice Effect

I needed to do a quickie telephone effect to someone's voice in FCP and found this way was quick, simple and contained within FCP:

1. Apply the AUHipass filter to the audio clip. It's in Audio Filters > Apple
2. Set the cutoff frequency to between 1900 to 2000 and the resonance to about 18.

Keep in mind that these numbers are what worked for me. Your audio may need drastically different numbers.

Rescuing Dark Footage

Sometimes you'll get footage that you absolutely have to use but it's far too dark as is.

One quick way to possibly rescue the footage is to double it up.

1. Place your dark footage on one track.

2. Color correct and brighten it as best you can (using some filter like Color Corrector 3 Way). Don't worry if it's not perfect, and don't forget to bump up the saturation if you bump up the mid levels a fair amount. The brighter something is the less saturated it tends to be.

3. Option-Click on the clip in the Timeline. (Option-Clicking will just select the Video portion of a clip with linked Audio) then while keeping Option held down, add Shift. Drag the video clip straight up to the track above it and let go of the mouse. You've duplicated the video portion of the clip atop itself.

4. Right-Click on the top video clip.

5. Select "Composite Mode" then "Add". If your clip now seems WAY too bright don't worry. Next step:

6. Bring the opacity down to about 50%. I like to hit Option+W in the Timeline for Toggle Clip Overlays then drag the line over the clip to around 50%. (If you want to get it exactly at 50% using this method hold down Command while you drag the Opacity Overlay Line down and you'll be able to adjust it in single digit increments, cool huh?)

7. Double-Click (or hit Enter with it highlighted) the top clip in the Timeline to load it into the Viewer. Goto the Color Corrector tab and start adjusting the Mids slider to the left (less bright) until the image in the Canvas is more to your liking.

None of this is set it in stone, so feel free to monkey with the method here all you want. It's the general idea of overlaying a clip atop itself, compositing it, lowering it's opacity and then adjusting it's levels that's important.

Around here, since so much of the footage we've received is incompetently underexposed, we've started to call this restoration method "bottom up pattern telegraphing" just to confuse the clients and not hurt their feelings too badly.