Boris updated their 3D Titling plug-in Graffiti and the effects plug-in FX at NAB by adding features from Boris RED to the two smaller products.

Graffiti 4

Boris Graffiti – a broadcast quality 2D and 3D tool for creating titles and graphics directly inside a Nonlinear editing system has been improved to version 4:

• Faster rendering – 75% faster on OS X and 25% faster on Windows;
• A new Template mode to create effects directly in the Library Browser;
• An additional 100 presets to streamline effects creation with more presets available for free download soon;
• New filters – Displacement map, Spiral Blur and Burnt Film;
• Preference support for customizable interface colors;
• Create 2D and 3D charts direct from spreadsheets or user input data, based on the same feature in Boris RED.

There are other minor feature updates, such as improved support for Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro and a smaller, faster installer. The standalone Keyframes supports Avid Adrenaline and Mojo video out.

FX 8

Key new features in Boris FX are:

• A new Template mode to create effects directly in the Library Browser;
• Library Browser presets can now be customized to speed effects creation;
• Motion Tracking, Stabilizing and Corner Pin Filters have been added based on the Boris RED filters;
• Speed optimizations for an average 20% speed improvement;
• Preference support for customizable interface colors;
• Additional host support for Canopus Edius Pro 3, Media 100 HD and Pinnacle Liquid Edition.

There are other minor feature updates, such as improved support for Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro and a smaller, faster installer.

With most computer companies (Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sony) committed to including Blu-ray drives in their computers this year, and none yet committing to adding HD DVD drives to their computers, you’d think the High Density Optical Disk war was over before it started. Unfortunately, the major Hollywood studios are split about 50/50 between commitment to the two formats, mostly along corporate parentage or allegiance to either of the two camps.

Blu-ray is led by Sony and Philips Electronics with over 70 companies in the consortium including Apple on the Board. Toshiba leads the HD DVD group with official endorsement by the DVD Consortium. Apple supports authoring to the HD DVD specification .9 in DVD Studio Pro 4, demonstrating a foot-in-both-camps philosophy.

Until recently the battle between the "easy to replicate in current plants, therefore lower cost" HD DVD format and the "definitely technically superior but involves some retooling to replicate" Blu-ray format looked like being a sequel to the blockbuster VHS/Betamax wars of the 1980s. As the adult content industry has not yet committed to either format, no clear winner can be predicted.

However, with the recent changes in the leadership at Sony, there are reports that the company has been publicly stating that they are interested in discussing some form of format unification, even if it’s the ability to have compatible players. Sony remain strongly committed to the technically superior Blu-ray format but appear willing to make some concessions.

Unification is unlikely but compatible players would avoid an unprofitable format war before it starts.

Stone Design’s 19 years experience in Macintosh software development culminates on April 29 with the release of iMaginator – "one who imagines" according to the Oxford English Dictionary (so it has no meaning in American). [Note: the page may be locked out until the official launch time of Tiger, in accordance with Apple policy that no Tiger screen shots can be shown by a third party before the launch.]

iMaginator is built on OS X 10.4 Tiger’s new Core Image technology and provides more than 106 real time image processing transitions and filters available through an easy to use interface. Images can be saved to TIFF or JPEG, or sequences can be created and saved to QuickTime movies to integration into the Final Cut Pro Studio.

Core Image provides a simplified plug-in architecture for accessing Graphics Card Accelerated filters, transitions and effects called Image units. A similar architecture has existed on OS X for several releases for audio called Core Audio and Core Video is also released with OS X 10.4 Tiger. Core Units are shared among all applications using them, and iMaginator not only uses the 100 Image Units that ship with OS X 10.4 but adds six more developed by Stone Design: Oval Mask, Make Transparent, Colorize, Fun Mirror, Grayscale and Polka Dots.

iMaginator is the first Image Unit "harness" and automatically loads any custom image processing plug-ins you add. iMaginator includes Spotlight technology for instant searching and is AppleScriptable. It is also a LinkBack server which means it will integrate with Stone Design’s flagship page layout and web authoring application Create® so that a simple double click in Create® will open the image for editing in iMaginator. LinkBack server and client architecture is a Stone Design innovation.

iMaginator will be available for download as soon as the reigns are take off with the launch of Tiger. A preview will be available for download and the full purchase price, with lifelong updates included, is US$49. Check out the examples in the Gallery or samples.

Video in Tiger, that is mostly QuickTime 7, has had one of the most extensive overhauls to date with many ancient APIs that QuickTime previously used updated to work with modern OS X APIs, including some introduced with OS X 10.4 Tiger. QuickTime 7 is the biggest overhaul of the underlying code since QuickTime 3 and long overdue.

Core Audio enables multiple channel audio capture possible (and hence multiple channel audio capture in Final Cut Pro Studio) and Core Video, Image and Graphics (aka Quartz Extreme) now all port through OpenGL to the GPU for acceleration.

Ars Technica has a great article on Video in Tiger, recommended and not overly technical.

There have been no recent updates to the Knowledge Base for professional applications (expect them just after Final Cut Pro Suite is released in May) but a couple of iLife-to-more-professional-application Knowledge Base articles might be of interest.

DVD Studio Pro 3 can’t import iDVD 5 projects

DVD Studio Pro won’t open iDVD 5 projects, just iDVD 4 projects. I’m guessing DVD Studio Pro 4 will be required to open iDVD 5 projects.

Opening an iMovie project in Final Cut Express HD

This Knowledge Base article details which versions of iMovie projects will open in Final Cut Express HD and the import process.

Mac OS X 10.3: DVD Player video shows through overlaying text, or text "sparkles"

If you get sparkles in green text or see the video through the text used for closed captioning or chapter information, change the color to something other than green. The problem happens when the graphics card does not support Quartz Extreme (has less than 32 MB of VRAM).

Bandmatesloops.com continue their tradition of free loops for (free) members each month. The April Member loops are available if you want some “funky, funky electric guitar”.

Bandmates Drummer – Hip-Hop Beats

“MPC” style grooves combining classic rhythmic style with a smooth, modern tone. A versatile 170 loop collection for cross-genre rock, pop, hip-hop and dance applications. Recorded in 24 bit from Akai MPC with a wide range of processing. US$19.95 for electronic delivery only.

Bandmates Drummer – Rock Drums 2

Rock Drums 2 captures the energy and sonic details of modern rock, captured using the best digital hardware (24bit) from seasoned professional players for natural performance. Rock Drums 2 is suitable for rock and pop, slow ballads, rock anthems and more. US $13.95 for electronic delivery only.

Xsan 1.0.1 is now available through Software Update on systems with the Xsan software installed. It is a general "bug fix" release recommended for all systems. The documented improvements are:

• support for the ‘mv’ command to move files from Xsan volume format (ACFS) to Mac OS Extended (HFS+) format volumes;
• greater server stability for sharing Xsan volumes via NFS;
• eliminated spontaneous metadata controller fallovers that can cause slow performance; and
• improved support for saving files over 4GB to an Xsan vlume via SMB/CIFS (Windows networking protocols) volumes hosted on an OS X server.

More information on the update is in the Apple Knowledge Base. Do not upgrade without authority of your Xsan administrator.

On April 13th AJA announced new drivers for Kona 2 with hardware upconversion, dual link 10 bit RGB capture and a host of other features. These drivers are recommended and should be installed now. [See Hub News April 13 for details.] At NAB they announced compatibility with Final Cut Pro 5 for both Kona 2 and the Io family.

For Io, Io LA and Io LD the main new feature is reduced latency between computer screen and video monitor over the FireWire connection: down from 7 frames to 4 frames for improved responsiveness. The Io family gets 23.98 frame rate support across the board to support 24P and film project ingest and output. Io will support MultiCam playback of up to 16 sources, video output for Motion 2 and video output from Shake 4.

Io Control Panel

AJA have released a first beta of the Io Control Panel that allows the Io family to act as standalone media converters as long as Final Cut Pro is not running. Inputs and outputs can be selected and saved as presets.

Kona 2 gains much more interesting functions in association with Final Cut Pro 5 (due for release in "May"). As well as MultiCam support for 16 sources, Kona 2 provides HDV codec acceleration to take load off the CPU. Taking load off the CPU for HDV playback lets the CPU perform more real-time effects. Kona 2 and Kona LS have full support for Apple’s new Dynamic RT Extreme, using hardware where it can help (mostly offloading codec decoding) and the host processor otherwise. Both Kona cards support 8 channels of audio input and output and, like Io, video out for Motion 2 and Shake 4.

These improvements for Final Cut Pro 5 appear to be included in the 1.1 Driver update now available (but won’t have any of the new features until Final Cut Pro 5 ships). The updated Io drivers will be available in May, when Final Cut Pro 5 ships.

For those who are wondering about QRes – a feature announced for Kona2 for low resolution captures but never shipped – AJA are supporting standard codecs like DV25, DV50 and DV100 for lower quality captures from uncompressed source, making QRes unnecessary. While the feature is not officially "dead", it’s on a very long term hold.