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Feature: Page (2) of 2 - 02/05/08

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2007 Credit where Credit is Due

This is not a 'best of' list or any kind of award, but rather a list of the most influential tools of 2007

For the first time in far too long Apple threw off their ingrained insularity to become a much more open computing platform. They ditched the mindless 'Us vs Them' mentality, that they've held onto for so long, and embraced Windows as a tangible and legitimate option. It really is much more difficult now to make an argument not to go for a dual-boot MacBookPro as a laptop creative production system; especially if you require a wide variety of software tools outside of the still very restricted scope of Apple applications. Credit where credit is due, Apple should be applauded for this direction and encouraged to go further.

Sony (SxS, XDCAM EX)
Much has been made of the tapeless era of digital production ahead of us. While some companies led the way in this new era, Sony bided its time. It waited for the right support tech in the Xpress Card bus, and delivered 50 minutes of HD recording to a 16GB card, coupled with essence markers and very effective and fast software translation to MXF. The debates over Long GOP will continue but there is no question that XDCAM EX is low cost tapeless HD acquisition done right.

DivX
Its hard to have a discussion about high-compression video delivery without the conversation seeming to stop at FLV and AVC/h.264. But credit where credit is due should go to DivX for staying the course for the long haul and not just providing a codec that can hold its own against any other on the market for size-quality ratio, but also for implementing an entire encoding and delivery platform across all delivery mediums.

Where Adobe is only now developing the Adobe Media Player, DivX is several steps ahead with the DivX player, encoder and on-line hosting services, not to mention DivX certified hardware DVD players, mobile devices and PVP's. DivX is an integrated and holistic encoding and delivery platform with a broad perspective. Adobe et al would do well to learn from it.

Sony Media Software (Vegas8)
While not a part of the dominant club of three A's (Apple, Adobe and Avid), Sony's Vegas has grown to be a very serious contender in the NLE sphere. It's done so not by over-powering advertising, massive marketing or gimmicks but simply by innovating and consistently finding new ways of working, not content to simply engage traditional paradigms. The list of things Vegas can do that no other NLE can is significantly long, likewise it's list of 'firsts' that preceded all other NLE's. But that's not what puts Vegas on this list. What's much more significant in Vegas is much simpler.

Where other NLE systems possess separate multi-track audio production applications (Final Cut Pro / Soundtrack Pro, Premiere Pro / Soundbooth, Avid Xpress / ProTools LE) Vegas does not. It doesn't need one. Vegas is a complete DAW and NLE in the one system. There is virtually no audio production task that Vegas cannot perform - surround sound mixing, AC3 encoding, punch-in/punch-out recording, pitch and tempo correction, loop sequencing, monitor wet record dry to timeline, automated effects, live input monitoring, simultaneous multi-track recording, complete mixer panel, unlimited tracks and buses, bus-to-bus routing, real-time ADR looping, event takes, real-time effects adjustment, phase inversion, auto down-mix, control surface support, MIDI clock and synch, MIDI device control and on and on and on. . .

Why is this significant? Because, along with its compositing and motion graphics tools which are significantly more sophisticated than any other NLE, it goes to the heart of re-thinking the Editor's paradigm. Vegas is the first NLE to seriously challenge and break down the division between vision and sound; To fully integrate, rather than segment the process of editing and producing sound with that of the visual.

Traditional editors don't like the idea; traditional editors are very attached to segmented, hierarchical workflow where each part of the process takes place in its own bubble. But traditional editors are dying off and there's a new breed who don't just see efficiency benefits in a new integrated approach, but more significantly see creative opportunities to allow sound to inform vision rather than support, interpret and follow it.

Vegas' approach is unorthodox, its paradigm of being a singular tool for all high-level visual and sound work on the same timeline in the same system, is very much against the established notion of how segmented production processes is supposed to work. Where other NLE's play lip-service to being a complete ?finishing tool,? Vegas is the only NLE that  really delivers audio tools of equal power to its visual ones in the same interface. In the years to come I have little doubt in the forward thinking perspective and approach Vegas champions becoming the one others will follow.

Red Giant Software (Magic Bullet Looks)
Color Grading has become the hot creative buzz word and all the production software developers are moving quickly to establish credentials in this area. Apple snatched a lot of attention with its acquisition of Final Touch and re-badging it with the prize-winning lack of imagination title of 'Color' as part of FC Studio.

But Color's inception into FCS was far from easy - arguably overly complex, a cold and hard to follow interface for anyone who isn't a grading specialist and not yet properly integrated with Final Cut Pro, Color has some way to go before it feels 'right', before it feels like a 'Mac-App.' Apple's true success with Final Cut Pro has not been innovation, there is very little that's innovative about Final Cut Pro, but rather, as Frank Capria has described, a superb commoditization of editing ? powerful, reliable tools accessible for the masses. This is obviously what Apple hopes Color brings; professional accessibility to the power of complex color grading.

I have little doubt that in time Apple will achieve just that with Color but if there's an award for making complex color grading accessible and efficient Apple haven't won it; instead Apple has been thoroughly beaten to the punch by Red Giants' Magic Bullet.

Magic Bullet however offers the same power, functionality and complexity of grading options as Color but does so in a much more accessible and functional suite. Running as a plug-in for NLE's such as Premiere and FCP - as well as After Effects - Magic Bullet is fast, flexible, and highly efficient without sacrificing power and results. Magic Bullet pushes hard at the boundaries of what a plug-in can be and in doing so presents a formidable perspective on more open and flexible modular production platforms of the future.

Celtx
There's a mountain of software to wade through when it comes to post-production elements. But when it comes to Pre-Production and production development there is a remarkable dearth.

That Celtx offers a highly effective screenwriting tool is significant of itself. Celtx is also a comprehensive pre-production management system involving scheduling, script breakdown, asset management and storyboarding. But the fact that Celtx is built on open-source technologies, employs open standards such as XML and is free, is visionary. And I haven't even mentioned the on-line collaboration system and that Celtx can also be used for AV, radioplay and theatrical playwrighting.

There is no question and no debate; no other screenwriting or pre-production tool comes even close to Celtx in concept, functionality and features - Mariner, Final Draft, Movie Magic are not in the same league and seemingly spend their time and money justifying their existence as they choke on their price tags.

Celtx is among the most innovative media software tools produced in the past decade and it?s not even in full release yet! What Celtx delivers to the creative industries is an entirely fresh approach that points the way toward a more flexible, fully integrated and dynamic pre-production paradigm. Moreover it does so embracing a new economic model of open-source development and subscription services.

Celtx is due to go 1.0 in early 2008. Stay tuned. In the meantime, don't sit there waiting, get involved; Celtx is an open source project so it?s open to everyone to contribute, share ideas, make suggestions and pro-actively engage with the development of an extraordinary creative tool.

Cineform
Long before it was fashionable, Cineform was singing the fanfare of compressed Digital Intermediate formats and workflow for HD. Long before Apple performed a trademark back flip to move from decrying Intermediates to delivering their own Intermediate format - ProRes422 - Cineform was plugging away at not only a superb wavelet-based codec but a whole editing system architecture for real-time editing performance with Cineform HD Intermediates. Until you've seen Premiere Pro fly through full-raster, 4:2:2, lossless HD or even 2k Cineform projects in absolute real-time WITH effects and without dedicated hardware, then you simply haven't seen what the future holds.

But Cineform is more than a codec; it's quickly evolving into a holistic platform for lossless HD acquisition and production: codec / plug-in architecture / real-time engine / MOV-AVI format re-wrapping / capture and transcode software / hardware capture devices.

Above this however is the Grail of forward thinking - a complete Cineform RAW format production workflow along the lines of RAW photography. Here the raw metadata of the image process is captured with the image itself invoking an infinitely flexible and fidelity- rich post-production process with huge performance benefits.

Lacking the marketing budget and BS spinning ability of the major corporations such as Apple and Avid, Cineform is nonetheless showing a future far beyond the near-sightedness of current approaches. Apple's ProRes422 and Avid DXnHD are poor cousins to the broad-thinking vision of Cineform as a much more holistic and bold solution to the HD, 2k and 4k future.