Several notes on compatibility with Snow Leopard that are of interest to Final Cut editors:

* Panasonic P2 drivers don’t work with Snow Leopard. Some cards *may* not work either. Check Panasonic’s site for details.

* Sony EX1 cards seem to have problems with laptops. Again, check Sony’s site.

* SonicFire 5 may have problems with Snow Leopard.

Ben Balser has published a site tracking compatibility issues. You can see it here:

slfcpug.ning.com/forum/topics/upgrading-to-fcs09-fcsvr-15

MacInTouch:

www.macintouch.com/specialreports/snowleopard/slcompat.html

There’s even a Wiki:

snowleopard.wikidot.com/

Finally, Apple is also tracking compatibility here:

support.apple.com/kb/HT3258

I’m SURE more lists will be forthcoming.

Larry

My latest Final Cut Studio newsletter is available!

45 pages – whew! – covering Snow Leopard, Final Cut Studio (3), and a whole host of reader mail. Over 36 articles, tips, and techniques in all!

Here’s just a quick listing of the major articles:

* The Cycle of Life – Thoughts on Snow Leopard
* Final Cut Studio (3) is Released!
* Interview with Apple’s Richard Townhill
* My Recommendations on Upgrading
* Technique: Share vs. Send vs. Export in Final Cut Pro 7
* Technology: Understanding Gamma Settings
* Technology: A Quest for a Codec for Archiving

I’ve been publishing this newsletter for almost six years – and every issue is FREE.

You can read it here: www.larryjordan.biz/nxltrs/nxltr_59.html

But it would be even better if you would subscribe, here: www.larryjordan.biz/newsletters

That way, I don’t have to remind you every month.

As always, let me know what you think.

Larry

First, Apple releases the hardware. For instance, until the iPhone was released, the best App in the world had no where to go.

Next, Apple releases the operating system to support the hardware. Sometimes, in the case of the iPhone, the operating system and the hardware are released at the same time. In other cases, such as Snow Leopard, the operating system is released separately.

Finally, with hardware and OS released and available, developers – both inside and outside of Apple – can begin the process of testing, updating, or creating great new software. But only AFTER the release. The definition of beta software is software that continues to change. By analogy, you can’t build a house on a foundation that keeps shifting. The same holds true with software.

Apple needs to release Snow Leopard. Its under-the-hood enhancements promise a wealth of opportunities for developers to build on for years to come. And that’s the key market, initially, for an OS – developers. The rest of us should wait a bit.

As editors, we rely on our gear and software to work reliably to enable us to meet our deadlines. At this moment in time, we don’t know what software works and what doesn’t work with the new operating system. Every third-party developer is scrambling to test their products for compatibility, make necessary updates, and release, if needed, a new version.

It won’t hurt anyone to hold off upgrading for a while. Apple will survive as a company. Developers will have time to update their products. And we will continue to meet our deadlines using our existing software without worry.

Snow Leopard will be great. I’m looking forward to running it on my key editing systems. But not now. Not until a few months have passed and all the kinks are worked out of the system and third-party developers have all their plug-ins, drivers, interfaces, and hardware tested, updated, and working.

So take a deep breath. Force yourself not to install the update in the middle of a project. Wait. Because I’m really not looking forward to answering the email on Saturday that starts “I just updated to Snow Leopard and now I can’t open my project. What should I do?”

Sorry to have been so quiet the last couple of weeks.

With the release of Final Cut Studio 3, I had two book projects to finish. One I turned in last Saturday and the other I need to complete by this Monday afternoon.

On top of that I’ve spent this last week touring the UK – five seminars in five cities in five days – and working on some new tutorials.

So, I haven’t had time to update the website or this blog as often as I would like.

Things ease up by the middle of next week – at which point, I hope to get my newsletter done for August.

As well, we have some great new things planned for September that I can’t wait to tell you about, which I will as soon as I get this next book done.

You’ll be hearing more shortly, in the meantime, I didn’t want you to worry.

Larry

Apple recently posted PDF versions of the manuals for all the latest Final Cut Studio applications.

You can find them here:

http://support.apple.com/manuals/#professionalsoftware

To see the latest manuals, scroll down into the list, don’t click the icons at the top.

Also, still missing are Motion 4 and Color 1.5. I suspect these are still coming.

Thanks, Apple!

Apple is making my life difficult.

The latest release of Final Cut Studio is named Final Cut Studio. This is the same name as the release of Final Cut Studio with Final Cut Pro 5.

Now I spent a LOT of my time writing about Final Cut Studio – the new version AND the old version. This means that I need to spend time explaining whether I am talking about the Final Cut Studio that goes with Final Cut Pro 5 or Final Cut Pro 7.

This is just nuts.

So, in case you are interested, even though it goes against the Apple trend, I’ll be referring to the latest version of Final Cut Studio as Final Cut Studio 3.

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By the way, for those that can take a little humor with their software, the LA Final Cut Pro Users Group has two forum threads you’ll like:

What should we call Final Cut Studio (3)?

How do you pronounce ProRes 4444?

Thanks to Mike Horton for the links.

For some reason Apple decided not to create a printable manual for the latest version of Final Cut.

Even more confusing, the help manual is on-line – which is great as long as you are connected. But, somewhat awkward if you are not.

If you want to review the on-line help manual, click here:

http://documentation.apple.com/

If you want to create your own printable manual, click here:

http://www.lafcpug.org/phorum/read.php?1,236985

Thanks to Alex4D for creating the hack, and Noah Kadner for pointing it out.

(Just between you and me, creating a PDF manual doesn’t seem to be that difficult to me…)

- – -

By the way, as an update, I was doing some research on the Adobe website. They, too, use an on-line web-based system for their CS4 help system. But they provide a one-button link to the PDF for people that need / want to download the PDF manual. It didn’t seem to be too hard for Adobe….

Larry