Quintessential Studios' Weblog

First is iMovie 09.

The presentation by Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro and iMovie creator Randy Ubillos was really outstanding.

It had long-time Final Cut Pro gurus ooing and awing and asking, “Can you put that on Final Cut Pro?”

If you don’t already have iLife 09, I would highly recommend getting it.

iMovie 09 has some incredible features like animated maps (which used to cost thousands of dollars or crazy amounts of hours to achieve) and instant filters and transitions.

iMovie 09 was designed (really) for prosumers using formats like HDV and AVCHD. You can also output to FCP XML, so if you need a way to convert your AVCHD, this is a good solution.

iMovie has additional “detail” editing, which lets you dig down a little deeper into a timeline-like screen. It allows you to easily throw something together or get as fancy as you want to be.

See http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/ for more details.

Next is an incredible announcement from Maxx Digital regarding Final Share.

Did you know that it IS possible to edit compressed HD (ProRes422HQ and DVCProHD) on a regular old iMac and playback the footage on a networked MacBook laptop? Not a MacBook Pro, mind you, just a Macbook.

That’s right, you can create a shared SAN storage system on a G5 and have 20 cheap-o iMacs as workstations sharing files.

“Holiday-whosie-whatsit?”

The folks at Maxx Digital and the “big” brains at Small Tree have figured out a “loop hole” that makes this possible. And it’s a CHEAP solution.

And you know I like that word!

Bob Zelin, a well known Creative Cow moderator and video engineer, flew in from Florida to share the news to the LAFCPUG on Wednesday night. The system is called the Maxx Digital “Final Share”. The complete Final Share system basically requires a stand-alone G5 Mac Pro, a Small Tree four-port Gigabyte network card, a 24-port switch and a RAID disk system. That and a few OS X network setting tweeks and you’re good to go.

It’s a little bit more technical than that (but not really) so I won’t go into too much detail right now. I’m going to review the demonstration footage later and try to layout the exact details but for now consider that you can have a great networked solution for around $5,000 – 6,000.

Also, here’s the homework if you want to learn more:

LAFCPUG Meeting Agenda (currently here: http://www.lafcpug.org/user_schedule.html but will probably later be here: http://www.lafcpug.org/past.html#anchor2009) states:

“7:50PM – 8:25PM – Final Share – Bob Zelin

“Video Engineer Bob Zelin is flying into LA to show off Final Share from Maxx Digital. What is Final Share? From Bob:

“I will be discussing and demonstrating Maxx Digital Final Share. Final Share is a very simple shared storage solution for Final Cut Pro that works with uncompressed SD and compressed HD (ProRes422HQ and DVCProHD). The appeal of this product is that it is very inexpensive, and requires absolutely no management or administration once it is setup. It uses conventional ethernet cables, instead of fibre connectivity. The only software interface is Apple File Sharing. There is no custom software, nor are there any client “licenses”.

“Maxx Digital will provide a MAC Pro Server with a Maxx Digital Disk drive array, and a second MAC computer that is running Final Cut Pro, in addition to the specialty ethernet equipment that makes this stuff work. With this equipment, I will be able to demonstrate playback of RED camera footage at ProRes422HQ footage over an ethernet cable. I will bring along my MAC Book laptop, and be able to instantly demonstrate being able to connect my MAC Book to the shared storage system, and be able to playback full ProRes422HQ footage right on my laptop. I will invite anyone who would like to bring up their MAC laptop to the stage to be able to instantly connect to this system, and play the same footage. All I have to do is go into System Preferences>Network, and assign a static IP address for that computers ethernet port.

“To my knowlege, this is the first time that anyone can have shared storage for very little money, and absolutely no education on complex networking, SAN enviornments, or IT background. ANYONE can do this. And it’s cheap!”

Then go to these links for more info:

* http://maxxdigital.com/shop/index.php?cPath=117

* http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/257/110

* http://blogs.creativecow.net/blog/794/high-speed-san-via-ethernet-its-true

* http://library.creativecow.net/articles/biscardi_walter/media_san.php

If you want to talk to a Maxx Digital representative to get hooked up, call 714-374-4944 and don’t forget to tell them that Quintessential Studios told you about ‘em!

LAFCPUG Meetings are filmed and available for video podcast via iTunes. Check http://www.lafcpug.org/About_klickTab.html for more info.