Thunderbolt: a closer look at new MacBook + more

Engadget posted Intel Thunderbolt: a closer look, with video showing streaming of 4 1080p clips from a MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt running Final Cut off a Promise RAID.

See for yourself:

Update: there's always just one more thing, so check out Thunderbolt, Xsan built into Lion Server, hello cheap fast shared storage! at FCP.co and Swipe, Save And Serve: What’s New in Mac OS X Lion [VIDEO] at Mashable.

What should Apple do with Final Cut Pro?

Phillips Hodgetts shares his latest thinking on What should Apple do with Final Cut Pro?

For some background see Final Cut Studio 4: a double scoop.

Update: via @johnmontfx with caveat is Troubled development, 2011 launch rumored for Apple's Final Cut Studio. Rumor has it that besides a massive porting effort, delay is partly due to issues finding a balance between Shake and Motion.

Final Cut Studio 4: a double scoop

Yesterday Mac Soda mused on Final Cut Studio 4: The Inside Scoop, which sent some all atwitter. The article is necessarily speculative and perhaps more fanboy than drivel. Philip Hodgetts, a successful developer and seer of trends, responded quickly with Final Cut Studio 4: The Inside Scoop (from MacSoda), which has its own set of counterpoints well-taken and conjectures (sorry but Nuke is the replacement for Shake).

Hodgetts also recently looked at Apple's AV Foundation and the future of QuickTime (which is quite deep and links to even more deepness on iOS video).

These articles are definitely more fun than the Spring reports of Final Cut retooling for the consumer market. Since the alternatives are uncertain, with Avid apparently still suffering financially and Adobe as yet unproven (and not endorsed by major filmmakers), one can hope that Apple remains committed to the competition even if more out of spite than fast cash.

Update: Even with Apple dragging its feet, the presumed Exodus from Final Cut to Adobe Premiere CS5 seems to have stalled. Oliver Peters explained why a few months ago; see Will CS5 and MC5 toast FCP?

Update 2: Todd Kopriva posted about Premiere Pro overview documents for Final Cut Pro and Avid Media Composer users. Users switching platforms at this point may only be about money at the lower end, since Premiere is still 3rd choice in the NLE hierarchy. For context, see Final Cut Studio 4: a double scoop.

There's really no secret about the kinds of things Adobe could do to improve usability and mindshare beside luring the lukewarm from the Apple camp -- assuming that there are goals in addition to short-term sales. There's plenty of advice aimed at Apple that Adobe could implement. Beyond constant drumbeats pleading for Avid-style media management and Trim Mode (see FCP-List for pro/cons), there are more examples in the feature request list at FCPro.TV and advice from Oliver Peters on Improving FCP and Media Composer.

Update 3: humor from @BeetleCarDriver,

@editblog While you were gone Apple released FCS5...

@editblog ....My mistake, it was a ProApps update...

Update 4: maybe someday a Premiere fan will get a rebuttal from an Avid user; see Dylan Reeve on What IS the big deal about FCP?

Flash CS5 to build native iPhone apps

John Nack summarizes the announcement and links to more in Use Flash to build native iPhone apps.

There a video showing off some of this on Adobe Labs -- and some Techmeme clusters for the wrinkles.

Apple's Pro Apps web Help Library

Apple is providing web access to comprehensive documentation for the Pro Apps at Help Library. It seems similar to Adobe Help (formerly known as LiveDocs).

Update: Owen’s Photolog has some humor in How to Install Final Cut Studio 3.

Update 2: whoops, Owen was right -- "Rendering PAL material to ProRes 4444 in Color introduces a gamma shift."

Update 3: In Final Cut Pro 7: Create your own manual Alex Gollner explains how to convert the Final Cut Pro 7 html-based help system to a single document manual.

Update 4: Apple posted the FCS manuals in the Help Library under View as PDF.

Apple Feedback/Bug Reports

As reported on Final Cut-L, you can report problems to Apple at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/

But the official portal for reporting bugs, like the render problem or Media Manager issues in Final Cut 6, is here: http://bugreporter. apple.com

Apple engineers are required to read the official reports, which require registering for a free developers account. Darrin Cardani explains further:

'As Philip mentioned, we don't work on any bug that's not in our bug database, even if lots of people are discussing it on forums. I don't know of any other developers in our group who read the various internet user forums regularly, though I think a few do. So it's entirely possible that nobody at Apple has any idea there's a problem.
In addition, you need to supply as detailed a description of what you're doing when the render gets lost as possible, and what exactly you mean by lost. Just saying, "Final Cut Pro is losing renders" is almost useless in a bug report because we can't tell if it's happening because the user is doing something to cause it to happen, or because of an actual bug. So we'll need very detailed steps to reproduce the problem.'