LG announced the  LGBH200 Super Blu Player for watching both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs earlier this month. It'll cost $999 when it ships in October.

Apparently, the LGBH200 will have HDi support, 1080p output at 50/60Hz and 1080p upscaling of standard DVDs. It will be able to play audio CDs, and go online for bonus content. It can also access a full set of Blu-ray interactive features-where available.

This is however one of a slew of multi format players coming down the pike, there is one from Samsung at a similar price sporting both the Blu-ray and HD DVD  capability also.
This is a trend I think that will continue until one format finally wins out, (if it ever does)and given that increasingly these disk formats support greater functionality in their second and third generations of interactivity- ie the features that users can access when driving menus and controls- it seems nuts to bank on one format.

Would you ever want anything that cant play both?

Although not quite on the scale of the Avid aquisition of Softimage in 1999 Apple has announced that it is buying Proximity- the  company that makes the linux based asset management product ArtBox. Artbox Rocks. Its java based client allows it to be platform agnostic simple and powerful to use, and Artbox checks all the boxes that a modern digital asset-management system should.

So at last, Apple has most of the pieces, and now needs to put them intelligently together, to build the engine, the big media sausage factory that allows users to create rich content seamlessly accross different interconnected applications or as we like to say "churn it out like a sausage factory" in modern content creation parlance ;-)  without of course "sacrificing quality". 

How do the pieces add up?  Well, We have XSAN the substrate SAN for mediaworkgoup based environments (ability to handle HD playback etc...) and expect to see some new storage hardware soon. Apple has been limping along on the 2GB nonstackable XRAID based chassis for years now. They are good of course, but severly bandwidth limited. Expect 4GB connectivity, SAS metal and more. The intel based hardware comes at a crucial juncture too, breathing new life into Mac based metal accross the board.

You have the post production tools Final Cut Studio, which incorporates a pretty decent set of applications, comprising of Final Cut Pro (editor) Soundtrack Pro (Audio tracklay/mixing) DVDStudio Pro (DVD Authoring) , LiveTitle (title creation) and Motion ( a suite for graphics creation).

Their integration between apps  is pretty decent too. Another big plus is it's support for open XML.  Final Cut's media management is poor, BUT Final Cut plays any flavour of quicktime in it's timeline if you have it's codec installed; which although nice and open is an advantage increasily finding tension against the format which most prosumer digital motion camera's are shooting in which is MXF. (the bigger cameras shoot DPX or Hi end Tape formats like HDCAM_SR)

A common file format is the key to successfull seamless post environments.

Repeat. A common file format is the key to successfull seamless post environments.

Will Apple embrace MXF natively within their apps? - but I digress. Earlier this year apple announced their aquisition of Final Touch, a mac based colour correction or grading system. This coupled with the Proximity buy, puts all the pieces of the pie into place. The rumour mill has been working overtime on this one for months. Rumours circulated that Apple was buying Proximity in April, but nothing emerged. Most industry pundits expected Apple to buy final touch a year ago. The deal finally dropped nearly 15 months later than expected.

So where does this position Apple versus its nemesis Avid? Clearly Avid has thought deeply about the strategy to take it forward, and leveraging the AlienBrain aquisition has bet the farm on INTERPLAY. And quite rightly too.

As a vision of productivity and workflow it is the way to work. As an existing Avid customer with a stack of Avid iron, assets and expertise in house, you can really make no other descision. For others with no such history, the options are more open.

Apple will show a comprehensive environment in the nearish future-  and ship it -  I guess within 14 -18 months or so max. That is a prediction made to be proved wrong, although the Mac faithfull are nothing if not patient. They did wait 10 years for Darwin, so hell, what is an extra couple of months;-) . The emphasis here is on guess. But one thing is certain, without a suite of tools that allow users to build the sausage factory they are not in the game. Point poducts are really no longer interesting- everyone has them.

Avid interestingly have all bases covered except grading. Now will they re-write their whole player engine accross the range so you can do a mousedown/ballroll without stopping playback? maybe it is done already ;-) We will have to see. What fantastic times to be working in this rich and rewarding environment, both as a user and purveryor of post technology.

This is very cool. Rupert showed me this (you should blog mate!)

It is written by a Russian dude (or dude'ess who knows) and can be downloaded here

If you use Avid Aplications that generate OMF or MXF media even on UNITY this application will scan the media databases and break the material down based on PROJECT. Just like the MediaMover of old, exept that MediaMover does not work on unity to the best of my knowledge.

I amd going to run some tests on BIG projects soon, and let you guys know how I get on...

FCP Rescue is a utility written by Anders Holck Peterson

It allows users to trash current and restore previoius versions of Final Cut Pro preference files. A quick blurb about the software details the following:

DESCRIPTION
Instant backup, restore and removal of Apple Final Cut Pro's preference files using this small utility that helps you if Final Cut Pro crashes and corrupts its preference files. Also very useful if other editors use your login, and you want to be able to go back to YOUR settings afterwards. Very simple interface. One backup per user login. Trashing and restore, affects ONLY the current logged in user.

The backup includes ALL FCP settings, including:

* User preferences
* Audio/Video settings
* System settings
* Windowsettings
* Keyboard setup
* Easy setups

WHAT'S NEW

* Keyboard commands: CMD+T, CMD+R, CMD+B
* Dock Menu with commands.
* Audio Feedback.
* Automatically “Check for update” upon launch.
* New “splash screen” shown at first run.
* Send feedback menu item, to send feedback by mail.
* Version for FCP 4 also available from publisher.

Of course the elephant in the room is why you would need a seperate utility to fix the application preferences...but that is something for another day. Save to say that everyone who runs final cut pro a lot uses this tool...enough said. It can really be a lifesaver.

snag it here if you like and DONATE to Anders on his site- link above...