Apple NAB Media Event Announcements

[MacRumors]

Apple held their NAB media event today.

Apple released the following updates:

- Shake 3.5
- DVD Studio Pro 3
- XSan - "an enterprise-class storage networking solution that's surprisingly affordable. Xsan lets multiple computers concurrently access terabytes of storage on Xserve RAID over high-speed Fibre Channel. Now under development, Apple will ship Xsan later this fall for $999."
- After Effects competitor: Motion, due in Summer. Official Details: $299. "Introducing Motion, the only motion graphics package with real-time previews, procedural behavior animation and Final Cut Pro HD integration."

PowerBook and iBook updates are widely expected tomorrow

Press releases: http://www.apple.com/pr/

[Chaszmyr]

Sounds like much more than I expected, and I am not particularly interested in any of these products for personal use, but it's great to know that Apple is keeping busy!

[Freg3000]

Something new....seems cool. I like the box at least. :D

Motion (http://apple.com/motion)

[seamuskrat]

According to www.macminute.com Apple released Motion today.

The web link www.apple.com/motion did work briefly, but is now offline.

Here is partial text from MM site:
Apple introduces Motion
April 18 - 15:21 EDT** Apple today introduced Motion, a new application that "redefines motion graphics by giving artists the creative freedom and power to deliver stunning professional quality results faster and more intuitively than ever before at a breakthrough price of US$299.".... Taken from www. macminute.com see site for complete story.

[klaus]

Sounds good all we need now is updates for the computers.

Oh god, i'm already waiting to read the first "where are the pbook G5's" post..

It's a great thing for apple, their software will help sell computers. I only hope Adobe isn't going to retract AE from the mac if Motion is indeed a "killer".

So I'll switch to Motion then :)

[seamuskrat]

System Requirements


Motion takes advantage of the Power Mac G5 to deliver highly interactive, real-time performance. Some systems provide greater interactivity than others, and it is important to choose the right system for your needs. Performance depends on the processor speed, the amount of RAM, and the graphics subsystem.


Recommended system


Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5

4GB of RAM or more

Mac OS X v10.3.3 or later

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card or better

Motion Product Overview
Motion Data Sheet



Minimum System Requirements


Macintosh computer with 867MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor

512MB of RAM (2GB or more recommended)

Mac OS X v10.3.3 or later

QuickTime 6.5 or later

Display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher (1280-by-1024 resolution recommended)

One of the following graphics cards:
— NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
— ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
— ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
— ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
— ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

10GB of disk space for application, templates, and tutorial

DVD drive for installation

[SuperChuck]

Okay, now how long will it take for Adobe to abandon AfterEffects support for the Mac platform? I sure hope Motion is significantly better than AfterEffects, or else this could do more harm than good.

[Oirectine]

I'm glad Apple is moving their software forward. Anything that makes Apple a stronger company I am all for (well within Ethical limits of course).

[macridah]

check these out

http://www.apple.com/xsan/
http://www.apple.com/shake/
http://www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro/
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/

for FCP4 user's, the HD update is free!

[LaMerVipere]

WHOA, Xsan looks crazy.

"Expand your network horizons with Xsan, an enterprise-class storage networking solution that’s surprisingly affordable. Xsan lets multiple computers concurrently access terabytes of storage on Xserve RAID over high-speed Fibre Channel." :eek:

[.a]

Okay, now how long will it take for Adobe to abandon AfterEffects support for the Mac platform? I sure hope Motion is significantly better than AfterEffects, or else this could do more harm than good.

yes, i am also afraid that adobe could drop aftereffects for the mac ... they dop a lot lately for the mac ...
.a

[Chaszmyr]

yes, i am also afraid that adobe could drop aftereffects for the mac ... they dop a lot lately for the mac ...
.a

As long as Adobe doesn't drop mac all together. The mac platform would be sunk without Photoshop

[~Shard~]

Awesome, great news - I'm pumped about all these updates - especially Motion - looks pretty cool to me! Glad to see Apple is keeping busy! :cool:

[klaus]

Adobe isn't going to drop photoshop or some other very popular mac app.

Their creative suite gets a rather huge revenue from the mac community (heard it on a drivenbydesign seminar talk by adobe guys)

So, photoshop will remain on the mac for quite a while :)

[LFrascogna]

Is Apple getting in a really bad habit of telling people they are going to release new products later and later. The new G5's took two months to be delivered. The iPod mini the same thing. Now Xsan is going to take until early fall. It could be 6 months. Just seems like if they waited a little while and caught up, it would be nice to have things when they announce them.

[johnnowak]

I hope Apple doesn't keep innovating itself right into a proprietary wasteland.

[Zaty]

System Requirements


Motion takes advantage of the Power Mac G5 to deliver highly interactive, real-time performance. Some systems provide greater interactivity than others, and it is important to choose the right system for your needs. Performance depends on the processor speed, the amount of RAM, and the graphics subsystem.


Recommended system


Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5

4GB of RAM or more

Mac OS X v10.3.3 or later

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card or better

Motion Product Overview
Motion Data Sheet



Minimum System Requirements


Macintosh computer with 867MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor

512MB of RAM (2GB or more recommended)

Mac OS X v10.3.3 or later

QuickTime 6.5 or later

Display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher (1280-by-1024 resolution recommended)

One of the following graphics cards:
— NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
— ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
— ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
— ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
— ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

10GB of disk space for application, templates, and tutorial

DVD drive for installation

Now that's interesting, they recommend the fastest system available. Faster PMs at WWDC?

[iGav]

So, photoshop will remain on the mac for quite a while :)

unless Apple targets Photoshop aswell...

[Trowaman]

THESE UPDATES ARE INSANE!!!!

Free update to FCP HD is great!!!! I was worried the new update would cost money. *Thus mean it's now FCP 4.5?

All Pro apps are now upgraded except Logic and Motion is just what I have been wanting. I just need to get that faulty RAM exchanged. Now I can make Star Wars videos on my computer!!!!! Lightsaber effects, here I come!!!!

[El Duderino]

this better mean HD screens for the powerbooks, otherwide the only way for people to untilize the software to it full potential will be on the cinema displays (for the above average/not quite pro-user)

[dontmatter]

hmmm, not sure what I think about this. Don't want to piss off adobe....whether or not they drop software, it's good to be on their good side...they make some big stuff. But, it's not really my area of expertise.

Also, I don't want to get off topic...but this was at the bottom of the first thing in the thread (don't know what to call it). PB/ibook revisions. wouldn't it be silly to release these things so close to eachother? Seems like a guarentee of spotlight theft. Not good to have motion up on that apple website for one day.

I hope this means apple marketing is stupid, though, instead of apple marketing being smart and updates being put off even further.

Oh well, I'm not buying either.

[chasingapple]

THESE UPDATES ARE INSANE!!!!

Free update to FCP HD is great!!!! I was worried the new update would cost money. *Thus mean it's now FCP 4.5?

All Pro apps are now upgraded except Logic and Motion is just what I have been wanting. I just need to get that faulty RAM exchanged. Now I can make Star Wars videos on my computer!!!!! Lightsaber effects, here I come!!!!

Make sure you shoot me a copy of them videos when your done, Im a UBER fan :)

[ibolithosje]

Apple must start pushing the enterprise-readiness of the X family. They have everything that Sun has to offer (other than a decent Office alternative) at much lower prices. Just need to get the focus off the iPod and onto serious computing.

As for Adobe, buy the company!

[Veldek]

System Requirements

Recommended system

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card or better


Hmm, wonder what this means. GeForce 6800 in next Power Macs?

[cornfedgrowth]

Lighten up will you..enjoy the updates! :)

I do enjoy the updates. the only problem is i'm gonna have to scrounge up an extra 300 bucks to buy Motion.... could be worse things...

[Patmian212]

Great updates apple!!! :D

Does anyone know what time we should expect updates tomorow for the PB and iBook at NAB?
Please advise. :rolleyes:

[Windowlicker]

These apps really make the G5 worth purchasing! I'm too pretty impressed of how much new stuff they introduced. xsan seems very cool, motion seems pretty hot, shake 3.5 -- hot, fcphd -- hot! also I believe dvd studio pro 3 is very welcome.

i won't be having any use for these apps, but I'm sure there will be a good market for all of them. and that's what makes apple once again so cool a company -> they're making the stuff no other could even dream of ;)

let's see what tomorrow brings...

[pkradd]

So Adobe will need to upgrade and innovate some more. Competition is good and it is alive and well in the Mac community. At some future point look for an iApp version of "Motion" to be sure. These upgrades and new products will help sell G5's. Apple is really a software company!

[invaLPsion]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!

[invaLPsion]

Hmm, wonder what this means. GeForce 6800 in next Power Macs?

MacOSXRumors says so. In the next few weeks in a matter of fact.

In addition, a member of MacRumors who works for Apple UK says that the 6800 will be available for macs 3 weeks earlier than for PCs. Presumably along with new powermacs.

[Veldek]

Don't kill me, but has this always been there?


System Requirements (Shake)

Mac OS X
Power Mac G4 or PowerBook G4 with 800MHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor; or Xserve with 1GHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor
Mac OS X v10.2.5
QuickTime 6.1 or later
256MB of RAM or more
1GB of available disk space for caching and temporary files
Graphics card with at least 32MB of video memory and OpenGL hardware acceleration
Display with 1280-by-1024-pixel resolution and 24-bit color
Three-button mouse


Apple Software has a three-button mouse as a requirement?

[klaus]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!

Hmm, I think they are the regular displays..too small to see any detail thought

[AndrewMT]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!

Um, where? Are you serious or are you joking? The only picture I see is really small and it contains a G5 and a current lac screen.

[discoteca]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!

Its also the same colour as the PowerMac :)

[aswitcher]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!


Link please ;)

[~Shard~]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!

Apple has used that graphic many times before - I remember seeing it at least 6 months ago. Definitely not new displays...

[JohnGillilan]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, he's right!!! If you zoom in you can definitely make it out. I wonder if we'll be seeing these sooner than WWDC??

[aswitcher]

Its also the same colour as the PowerMac :)

Really? I saw that and remained unconvinced thats why I asked for a link because there was a better/larger image somewhere...

[Chaszmyr]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!

Wow, it looks like you might be right but I'm not so sure, it's too bad you cant see it in more detail.. If it is new, it has a large bezel still...

[Windowlicker]

As for Adobe, buy the company!

just think how crazy it would be if apple did the same for adobe as it did to e-magic..! without photoshop the PC side would have... um... GIMP. Or at least I can't think of any app for the purpose more or even almost as popular as PS.

I don't know if it was any good business, and it sure would make lots of people mad, but at least it would probably make some companies change to macs.

[Trowaman]

Its also the same colour as the PowerMac :)

Mybe, just maybe. It's hard to tell. Do the current displays have stands like the one you see in this picture?

[AndrewMT]

This is kind of off-topic, but I just wanted to say how much I like Apple's new web pages for its new products. It does look a little weird with the new design under the old, aqua navigation bar. I for one would love a new OSX theme based off the colors/shapes used in the motion, final cut, and xsan pages and the XSAN box. That would be a true, professional theme not a happy, colorful, and cuddly theme.

[invaLPsion]

I increased the size of the picture by 300% and you can definitely make out a silverish color on the display and a completely new stand!

[tnoe]

Avid is really going to have to drop down the Unity's price. An Avid LanShare with 2 terabytes is around $28,000. You can do the same thing now with Xsan for $14,000 and have 3.5 terabytes. Not only that, but it will support RAID 5, unlike the Avid solutions. And if I'm ready this right, it should work with Avid software. This is a big deal for video. Our production facility has been waiting for an announcement like this for awhile. We have one Lanshare, but I doubt now we'll be getting another now.

[Quobobo]

Don't kill me, but has this always been there?
Three-button mouse


Apple Software has a three-button mouse as a requirement?

Yep, it's always been there. Remember, it wasn't an Apple product until recently. I believe it's a requirement for the Mac version of Maya too..

(off topic) I despise one button mice, but at least they're replacable on a desktop Mac, so I don't have much reason to complain. I'd love it if Apple would at least add another button on the Powerbooks..

[Chaszmyr]

just think how crazy it would be if apple did the same for adobe as it did to e-magic..! without photoshop the PC side would have... um... GIMP. Or at least I can't think of any app for the purpose more or even almost as popular as PS.

I don't know if it was any good business, and it sure would make lots of people mad, but at least it would probably make some companies change to macs.


Sounsd like it would be awesome, and Apple really could afford to buy Adobe if they thought it was a really good investment... But I bet if they discontinued things like Photoshop for Windows they'd be slapped with antitrust suits

[AppleMatt]

"Xsan lets multiple computers concurrently access terabytes of storage on Xserve RAID over high-speed Fibre Channel."

Looks as if Apple is making serious inroads into enterprise. I suppose as they aren't yet widely accepted in that market, they have to push the standard up to gain the attention. XSan looks as-if it's doing this.

Also of course, this ties in beautifully with their other announcements, thereby attracting two markets. I vote positive for this thread :)

AppleMatt

[Chaszmyr]

I increased the size of the picture by 300% and you can definitely make out a silverish color on the display and a completely new stand!

Upon further analysis, I no longer think its a new display. I think the coloring is just in that photo, and as for the stand... What you see to the left of the G5 stand I think is the normal left foot of the monitor, and what you see to the right of the G5 stand I think is the rear foot that the displays lean back on

[gotohamish]

This just in on MacMinue:

Panasonic, Apple team for HD over FireWire
April 18 - 15:58 EDT** Panasonic and Apple today announced what the two companies call the world's first implementation of FireWire with 100 Mbps DV-HD (the native video compression of Panasonic DVCPRO HD recording systems) to bring "unmatched capabilities and dramatically lower price points" to high definition (HD) post-production and content distribution. "Together, Panasonic and Apple are bringing HD over FireWire capabilities to desktop and mobile editing with Panasonic's new AJ-HD1200A, the first HD production VTR to offer a FireWire interface, and Apple's newly-announced Final Cut Pro HD professional video editing software, enabling mass adoption of HD resolution images on the desktop, and even on PowerBooks," reads the press release

EVEN ON POWERBOOK? G5 Powerbooks TOMORROW. Fer sho.

[Patmian212]

If they had new displays they would have announced it.

Its a graphic.

[GigaWire]

Is Apple getting in a really bad habit of telling people they are going to release new products later and later. The new G5's took two months to be delivered. The iPod mini the same thing. Now Xsan is going to take until early fall. It could be 6 months. Just seems like if they waited a little while and caught up, it would be nice to have things when they announce them.

I agree, but at least they are offering a beta version of Xsan now that you can use to test if your setup qualifies. Also, proposals to actually aquaire this stuff can take a lot of time to get approval for, so at least you know its there. But on the consumer side, they scertainly need to have announced products shipping when they are announced, even if in small numbers.

[spinko]

This is kind of off-topic, but I just wanted to say how much I like Apple's new web pages for its new products. It does look a little weird with the new design under the old, aqua navigation bar. I for one would love a new OSX theme based off the colors/shapes used in the motion, final cut, and xsan pages and the XSAN box. That would be a true, professional theme not a happy, colorful, and cuddly theme.

I totally approve. Looks much more professional.

[Lancetx]

This just in on MacMinue:

Panasonic, Apple team for HD over FireWire

EVEN ON POWERBOOK? G5 Powerbooks TOMORROW. Fer sho.

These are the system requirements..."For DVCPRO HD, 1GHz or faster single or dual processors and 1GB of RAM."

And from the press release itself..."At that point, users can edit camera-original quality HD content on their desktop, utilizing a Final Cut Pro-equipped Power Mac G5; or if field operations are required, a Final Cut Pro-enabled PowerBook G4 – all without purchasing any proprietary hardware."

[LaMerVipere]

Would it be possible for Apple someday to make a really great competitor to Adobe Photoshop?

I don't know if it would be a wise business decision (although the new Motion is clearly aiming squarely at After Effects), but I am sure they would make it absolutely fantastic, and it would integrate seamlessly with all of the iLife and Professional apps.

[Chaszmyr]

Would it be possible for Apple someday to make a really great competitor to Adobe Photoshop?

Some day? Maybe... Any time in the next 5 years, I wouldn't count on it. Photoshop has years of development behind it, and I don't see anything Apple could really do without totally copying and getting sued by Adobe :-P

HOWEVER! I think it's possible apple might make a program which is like a "lite" version of photoshop. Say costing between $100 and $300 with features akin to the most commonly used photoshop features.

[iGuy]

Adobe's response waits to be seen.

It really depends on how large the Mac After Effects market is. Can Adobe abandon it in favour of a Windows only platform or will they be compelled to inovate and fight back?

I imagine that the Mac Photoshop and Illustrator markets are sufficiently large that Adobe will keep developing Mac versions. Does anybody have a breakdown by application of Adobe's Mac vs Windows sales?

I am concerned, however, that this is one more reason that Adobe will not port FrameMaker to OSX. This may not concern the mostly creative readers of this site, but it is having an impact in Apple's attempt to win over the corporate market.

For those of you who don't know, FrameMaker is a large document authoring tool supporting SGML and XML. It is used mostly for large manual sets and was once promoted as a tool of preference for book publishing.

~iGuy

[Mord]

System Requirements


Motion takes advantage of the Power Mac G5 to deliver highly interactive, real-time performance. Some systems provide greater interactivity than others, and it is important to choose the right system for your needs. Performance depends on the processor speed, the amount of RAM, and the graphics subsystem.


Recommended system


Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5

4GB of RAM or more

Mac OS X v10.3.3 or later

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card or better

Motion Product Overview
Motion Data Sheet



Minimum System Requirements


Macintosh computer with 867MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor

512MB of RAM (2GB or more recommended)

Mac OS X v10.3.3 or later

QuickTime 6.5 or later

Display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher (1280-by-1024 resolution recommended)

One of the following graphics cards:
— NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
— ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
— ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
— ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
— ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

10GB of disk space for application, templates, and tutorial

DVD drive for installation

those specs are crazy

9800 or better=better cards coming soon

no geforce 4 ti support or radeon 9000 support (it's better than the 5200fx)

madness

[Trowaman]

Would it be possible for Apple someday to make a really great competitor to Adobe Photoshop?

I don't know if it would be a wise business decision (although the new Motion is clearly aiming squarely at After Effects), but I am sure they would make it absolutely fantastic, and it would integrate seamlessly with all of the iLife and Professional apps.

Forget Photoshop. The next step is to create a 3D CGI creation app. Something that Lucas would be proud to use for Star Wars (those movies are all about CGI now anyways :D) or more specifically for creating stuff for Pixar.

I said it before, and I'll say it again.

Jobs "What do u guys need?"

Pixar "We need an App that can do . . . . "

Jobs "Apple, make an app that can do . . . . "

Apple "Okay. Here ya go."

Jobs "Here you go, Pixar. You can now make even better movies."


It's so genious. Use this to make a great product to sell and use it to create quality entertainment.

[DHagan4755]

Interestingly, one of the requirements is 6.5 or better. Or better? So is there is something better than Quicktime 6.5?

[Awimoway]

Is Apple getting in a really bad habit of telling people they are going to release new products later and later. The new G5's took two months to be delivered. The iPod mini the same thing. Now Xsan is going to take until early fall. It could be 6 months. Just seems like if they waited a little while and caught up, it would be nice to have things when they announce them.

Well I guess Apple's just damned if they do and damned if they dont. :rolleyes: Would you prefer, the super-secretive insularity of Apple in which they never give any indication when or even whether something new will be released? Legions of fools panting over any and every whiff of a G5 PB that may not come till well into next year?

I much prefer advance notice.

[Bhennies]

I increased the size of the picture by 300% and you can definitely make out a silverish color on the display and a completely new stand!Sorry guys. I hate to say it, but I just enlarged the picture and applied some unsharp mask as well as playing with the resolution (I'm such a dork). It's the old monitor. The effect of the center leg gives the illusion of a new stand. Sucks. I was hoping it was a new LCD. I'm waiting for a new 23".

[nsb3000]

Don't kill me, but has this always been there?


System Requirements (Shake)

Mac OS X
Power Mac G4 or PowerBook G4 with 800MHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor; or Xserve with 1GHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor
Mac OS X v10.2.5
QuickTime 6.1 or later
256MB of RAM or more
1GB of available disk space for caching and temporary files
Graphics card with at least 32MB of video memory and OpenGL hardware acceleration
Display with 1280-by-1024-pixel resolution and 24-bit color
Three-button mouse


Apple Software has a three-button mouse as a requirement?

Remeber, Apple did not create Shake, they bought it. Anybody that is seroie enough to buy softwere that cost more than 2K can aford a three butten mouse.

[cc bcc]

those specs are crazy

9800 or better=better cards coming soon

no geforce 4 ti support or radeon 9000 support (it's better than the 5200fx)

madness

9800 or better does NOT mean better cards are coming.. They put it this way so they don't have to change it everytime a new card comes to the market. And yes, we'll be seeing new cards (duh..) but that doesn't have anything to do with this announcement.

edit: Indeed, Quicktime 6.5 or better is another such thing..

[ingenious]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!


dont think so unless you saw a diff pic :

[mr_austin]

These are cool announcements, but they're pissing off Avid and Adobe again. Every shop I work at is AE/Avid/Pro Tools, not Motion/FCP/Logic. A few have final cut boxes, but not for 'serious' editing. All the kick-ass freelance editors are Avid guys. All the kick-ass freelance mixers are pro tools guys. All the kick-ass freelance effects guys are AE guys. When are all these people (who are booked all the time anyway) gonna learn new software? They only will if it kicks ass and makes them more money...

For people like me who make their money using AE, and have put years into learning and getting fast on the UI, it will be cheaper to buy a new PC setup w/ AE than either buy shake or spend the (non-billable) time to learn a new program. If Adobe drops AE for the mac, there will be a lot of people buying PCs (if they didn't already when the speed difference was so great in the past few years).

The reason final cut pro as so successful was that it was so much better than anything out there. AE is a damn good program - so good that even good programs like combustion haven't make significant inroads to dislodging it. If there's no AE, and motion is good, but not great, it leaves a HUGE gap on the mac side between the $300 motion and the $5000 shake. Apple runs the danger of being associated with the wedding video crowd, while HBO et al look down their noses at it. It took years for AE to make progress against HALs and Flames...

We'll see this fall when it ships.... better be hot.

-a

[cc bcc]

I would really like to try a Apple Motion demo. Too bad Apple never has demo's for their software. I wonder if it's powerful enough for me to replace Adobe After Effects. AE is really powerful, but I would really like real time capabilities, my clients always want jobs finished in realtime. :rolleyes:

[evolu]

it's like seeing an oasis when your dying of thirst in the desert, but alas, your mind's playing tricks on you...

[AmbitiousLemon]

Moderator's Note

Please think before you post. Are your comments adding something to the current discussion? Will your post upset other users? Is your post more than just a joke or one line comment of agreement?

We are trying to crack down on these SPAM and otherwise worthless posts. Such posts will be deleted. These posts make the forums much less enjoyable for most of our members. We do not want to discourage discussion, we simply want to encourage stimulating discussion.

Thank you and happy posting!

[Nny]

just think how crazy it would be if apple did the same for adobe as it did to e-magic..! without photoshop the PC side would have... um... GIMP. Or at least I can't think of any app for the purpose more or even almost as popular as PS.

I don't think average users would flock to Gimp. Probably see more adoption of Jasc Paint Shop and Corel Photo Paint. Certainly nothing as good as Photoshop.

If Adobe is for sale and Apple can afford it then I think it would be a smart move, but I don't think either is the case. Just glad Apple didn't buy Real like everyone was saying they should last year. Apple doesn't even see Real as competition anymore.... they laugh at Real and their plea for open sourcing Fairplay.

[mr_austin]

Forget Photoshop. The next step is to create a 3D CGI creation app. Something that Lucas would be proud to use for Star Wars (those movies are all about CGI now anyways :D) or more specifically for creating stuff for Pixar.

<snip>

It's so genious. Use this to make a great product to sell and use it to create quality entertainment.

You talk about making software like it's easy. FCP wasn't usable til 3.0. Neither was photoshop. What was the last 1.0 that blew you away? iMovie? iPhoto? iDVD? come on.... Safari and Shake were great out of the gate, but built upon existing foundations. And safari is free and still only has ~2% market share.

And 3D? Talk about a crowded and small market. Ask any pro what their favorite program is. Maya? C4D? Lightwave? Max? They all have dedicated followers in thier niches.

Take on Photoshop? If you just got your black belt, would you challenge someone who's had it for 10 years?

Apple better learn to let other people play in their sandbox.... they can own digital video, but not without 3rd party apps.

-a

[applekid]

Not a bad selection except for the fact I have no use for any of those apps nor can my machine handle any of those apps. But, that's okay since there's people out there that actually use this stuff.

iBook and AlBooks tomorrow, and we'll call it a day.

[nsb3000]

Would it be possible for Apple someday to make a really great competitor to Adobe Photoshop?

I don't know if it would be a wise business decision (although the new Motion is clearly aiming squarely at After Effects), but I am sure they would make it absolutely fantastic, and it would integrate seamlessly with all of the iLife and Professional apps.

I think Photoshop is ripe to be targeted. As I user of Photoshop for more than 10 years, I have two things to say about the software.

1) It is the most complete image editing solution on the planet, for both Web design, and image manipulation for print.

2) Its learning curve is unnecessary high. Once you understand how the software works, it is a well refunded tool , but getting there (and I know cus I have taught Photoshop classes) can take a long time. .

I think Adobe is reaching the point the points of diminishing returns with every new version Photoshop. I think Apple could do a great job of building an app that does 90% of what Photoshop does, but is twice as easily to lean use, and literately speed up your workflow because of enhanced ease of use. The problem they would face however, it would need to integrate perfectly in other must have products, such as Illustrator, and Quark, Go live and dream weaver.

These type of software are at there most powerful in suits, and you can see from today’s news shows, what Apple is doing is building a suite of software for profession video editing and post production. If they were going to go after something like Photoshop, they would need to make a commitment to make a suite of Desktop publishing software, something I think they could be great about, but does not seem to be Apple’s focus of late..

[LaMerVipere]

Forget Photoshop. The next step is to create a 3D CGI creation app. Something that Lucas would be proud to use for Star Wars (those movies are all about CGI now anyways :D) or more specifically for creating stuff for Pixar.

I said it before, and I'll say it again.

Jobs "What do u guys need?"

Pixar "We need an App that can do . . . . "

Jobs "Apple, make an app that can do . . . . "

Apple "Okay. Here ya go."

Jobs "Here you go, Pixar. You can now make even better movies."


It's so genious. Use this to make a great product to sell and use it to create quality entertainment.

Yes that's probably true, 3D is the future, but not anytime incredibly soon.

[Matrix9180]

I think a lot of people are over analyzing the system requirements... "or better" is commonly used to clarify that something works with version x and any new versions of product y. It does NOT always mean "oh, they said suchandsuch 6.5 OR BETTER, that means SUCHANDSUCH 6.5.1 NEXT TUESDAY!"... it really doesn't.

[Grimace]

The bezel on that monitor is waaaay to big. Nice try though! :p

[cc bcc]

...

Take on Photoshop? If you just got your black belt, would you challenge someone who's had it for 10 years?

Apple better learn to let other people play in their sandbox.... they can own digital video, but not without 3rd party apps.

-a

Listen to this guy please. And remember this before posting more crap. Apple isn't god, they can't do it all. And they shouldn't, for obvious reasons. These discussions are getting tiresome..

[Macmaniac]

All of this good news must mean G5 PBs!!!!!!
All these products look sweet, I can't wait to try them eventually! I wish I had an Xserve cluster to try out XSan.

[yoman]

I wonder how much Motion will go for in educational pricing. Final Cut Express is $299 retail and $149 educational so I'm hoping Motion would be priced the same way. $150 for an After Effects-like program isn't bad at all.

[Photorun]

As an ex Adobe employee this will undoubtedly irk many in the three A towers in San Jose. However, in 2003 still close to 50% of all the revenue for their the Adobe Creative Suite, which at the time was the publishing and design bundles ($999 street) was from the Mac platform. For that reason Adobe will not stop making Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and certainly not InDesign while their focus is to snuff Quark from the face of the earth (which I hope they do, and good effing riddance). This is going to sting at Adobe HQ. That bad news is, however, they may treat Apple more and more like second class citizens, delay releases of Mac versions of Apps after peecee versions, or not optimize the code as well as they could/should, and that would be a major disappointment, but it's hypothetical. Now if Apple decided to make a robust professional page layout and photo (raster) manipulation tool, then things could get very dicey. If you think about it, M$ has had a craptacular photo manipulation tool out for a while now (blanking on it's name) and that isn't making the professional peecee lusers (I almost said designers, but no designer is using a peecee, or they're not a really a designer) is using Microshaft crap to design with. Apple would be rather foolish to try to just burn that bridge, and it could burn, or blow up from Adobe, not pretty. Same goes for M$ Orface, yeah it sucks that it's so popular, but with Orface I know a lot of companies would drop Macs altogether, sure it's sleeping with the very ugly enemy, but sometimes we have to do what we have to do.

[MCCFR]

Having done a quick run through of the Xsan mini-site, I can't help but admit to feeling a little twinge of excitement.

Consider the following:-


A maximum volume size of 16TB, but no mention on how many volumes. Even if the limit were relatively low (16?), you could have a SAN of 256TB.
The ability to 'stripe' data across multiple Xserve RAID units: in other words, one RAID unit goes down, who cares?
HSM capability through a pre-defined relationship with ADIC (who are currently my flavour du jour for tape libraries)


Now, I've just done a quick shopping list and 42TB of fully tricked-out storage costs around $200,000 including two 16 port FC-SW switches and two (well-specced dual-processor Xserve) Xsan metadata controllers.

I challenge anyone to go and beat that by a factor of two or three. I know how much that costs to implement as an IBM Faststor product, and it's horrific.

If Apple can't use this to prise the enterprise open again, then something is wrong, either with their salespeople or the enterprise buyers.

[egsaxy]

Is Apple getting in a really bad habit of telling people they are going to release new products later and later. The new G5's took two months to be delivered. The iPod mini the same thing. Now Xsan is going to take until early fall. It could be 6 months. Just seems like if they waited a little while and caught up, it would be nice to have things when they announce them.

The mac community is really whack. First people complain when we dont know whats going on. Then when Apple tells us whats going on and when stuff is coming out we complain that they should wait until they have the product. Make up your minds people. Its an extreme shame apple products are selling BETTER than they expect and we have to wait. It stinks when the original date slips but realize that holding a large amount of inventory is bad. So which is better to have a road map of everything they're doing in apple labs so microsoft can steal the ideas or Dell or anyone else or that they keep things a secret and announce them when they're ready or about ready. and people turn and go oh thats an interesting direction too bad apple has been ahead of the game by 6 months. You cant please all the people all the time but it seems that when we get things one way people complain then apple does it the other way and they still complain. If you want crappy products that are rushed out because Mr. Dell said they would be releasing the new product on this day even though that day is about 3 weeks to early because intel cant get them darn chips past 3.4 ghz. or when the product is good and ready it gets announced they take orders and ship when its ready. ARG people are stupid. :mad:

[ingenious]

Having done a quick run through of the Xsan mini-site, I can't help but admit to feeling a little twinge of excitement.

Consider the following:-


A maximum volume size of 16TB, but no mention on how many volumes. Even if the limit were relatively low (16?), you could have a SAN of 256TB.
The ability to 'stripe' data across multiple Xserve RAID units: in other words, one RAID unit goes down, who cares?
HSM capability through a pre-defined relationship with ADIC (who are currently my flavour du jour for tape libraries)


Now, I've just done a quick shopping list and 42TB of fully tricked-out storage costs around $200,000 including two 16 port FC-SW switches and two (well-specced dual-processor Xserve) Xsan metadata controllers.

I challenge anyone to go and beat that by a factor of two or three. I know how much that costs to implement as an IBM Faststor product, and it's horrific.

If Apple can't use this to prise the enterprise open again, then something is wrong, either with their salespeople or the enterprise buyers.


the Xsan sounds soooo cool! perfect for corp and enterprise. i hope apple can crack this market again.

[agreenster]

As long as Adobe doesn't drop mac all together. The mac platform would be sunk without Photoshop

You know, with all of the other 'lookalike' Adobe apps Apple is making nowadays, I wouldnt be suprised if they come out with an Apple version called iDarkroom or something...wouldnt be such a bad thing.

cc bcc: No, Apple isnt god, but niether is Adobe. Photoshop is nice and everything but c'mon. It isnt as revolutionary as it used to be. Its just a image manipulator for cryin out loud.

[cc bcc]

agreenster: Why has nobody got close to PS' capabilities? (Photopaint, GIMP, Fireworks, Paint Shop Pro, MS Paint :D etc.) It would require a huge amount of resources from Apple, and I doubt that a lot of people would switch from PS if something did come out.

(I was really getting annoyed by all those posts about how superiour Apple is. Also, this threat is about some very nice Apple applications. Count how many times the word "powerbook G5" was used in reactions. :eek: )

[dcr8]

As for Adobe, buy the company!

Not likely. Adobe's market cap often exceeds Apple's (depending on what kind of day NASDAQ is having)

[altivec 2003]

I know this is a really minor issue that doesn't affect the comprehensibility of the Motion page on apple's website, but in the side bar it says:
"Natural Simulations Simulate natural phenomena suuch as wind and gravity."
'Tis too bad, for it makes the site appear somewhat unprofessional even though it looks awesome in every other respect. The price on motion, I believe, will make it a very popular product. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to work on an english research project :(

[ingenious]

The mac community is really whack. First people complain when we dont know whats going on. Then when Apple tells us whats going on and when stuff is coming out we complain that they should wait until they have the product. Make up your minds people. Its an extreme shame apple products are selling BETTER than they expect and we have to wait. It stinks when the original date slips but realize that holding a large amount of inventory is bad. So which is better to have a road map of everything they're doing in apple labs so microsoft can steal the ideas or Dell or anyone else or that they keep things a secret and announce them when they're ready or about ready. and people turn and go oh thats an interesting direction too bad apple has been ahead of the game by 6 months. You cant please all the people all the time but it seems that when we get things one way people complain then apple does it the other way and they still complain. If you want crappy products that are rushed out because Mr. Dell said they would be releasing the new product on this day even though that day is about 3 weeks to early because intel cant get them darn chips past 3.4 ghz. or when the product is good and ready it gets announced they take orders and ship when its ready. ARG people are stupid. :mad:

lighten up already! no one is exactly the same! there are ppl who feel both ways about what you talked about. same as there are ppl who prefer (ugh) win to mac, altho that is decreasing.

[P-Worm]

I don't know what the deal is. Everyone is so afraid of Adobe leavind Apple if Apple releases a photo editing app themselves. Big companies like Adobe DON'T hold grudges, they can't afford too. Adobe online dropped Premiere for Mac because no one bought it because Final Cut Pro was better. If Apple relases a photo editing tool and it's better, who cares about PS. So far, all of these apps have had support for other programs, so what's the big deal?

The market decides what sells, not companies like Apple of Adobe.

P-Worm

[RJWP]

Hi.

There's something stirring at ATI. Their website frontpage (www.ati.com) has a headline "get ready to Xperience it". When you click the headline you get a popup with the cryptic message "but not just yet... be the first to know". You sumbit your name an email address on a form and are basically told to wait for the news. This may or may not have to do with their new Mobility Radeon 9700 cards. Makes you wonder, eh?

[Multimedia]

5 Updates To Final Cut Pro Appear In Software Update:

Cinema Tools 2.2
Compressor 1.2
Final Cut Pro HD
LiveType 1.2 for Final Cut Pro HD
Pro Application Support 2.0

Now all that remains for low end HDDV compatability is still a third party plug in from St. Louis' MPEG ENCODER PIONEER Heuris Software

HEURIS
1136 Washington Ave, 7th Floor
St. Louis, Missouri, USA 63101
314.534.1514
(http://www.heuris.com/)

[NETknightX]

Hi.

There's something stirring at ATI. Their website frontpage (www.ati.com) has a headline "get ready to Xperience it". When you click the headline you get a popup with the cryptic message "but not just yet... be the first to know". You sumbit your name an email address on a form and are basically told to wait for the news. This may or may not have to do with their new Mobility Radeon 9700 cards. Makes you wonder, eh?

Mostly likely for their launch of the R420PRO, aka X800PRO

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15377

[P-Worm]

agreenster: Why has nobody got close to PS' capabilities? (Photopaint, GIMP, Fireworks, Paint Shop Pro, MS Paint :D etc.) It would require a huge amount of resources from Apple, and I doubt that a lot of people would switch from PS if something did come out.

You could have said the exact same thing about Final Cut Pro. "No one will buy it! Adobe/AVID are veterans here! Apple's a fool to get into the market." But look where apple stands on the video front now. They might not be #1, but they are turning some heads. I say if Apple can make a PS killer, let them do it. Competition isn't a bad thing.

P-Worm

[Multimedia]

Take a look at the powermac G5 picture on Motion's site. The display's stand at the bottom it shaped like that of a G5! It's a new display!!!!!!!!!
I used my zoom to look carefully and you are right. It's an aluminum frame with different stand.

:p

[jnasato]

Hi.

There's something stirring at ATI. Their website frontpage (www.ati.com) has a headline "get ready to Xperience it". When you click the headline you get a popup with the cryptic message "but not just yet... be the first to know". You sumbit your name an email address on a form and are basically told to wait for the news. This may or may not have to do with their new Mobility Radeon 9700 cards. Makes you wonder, eh?

Just below the main text it has, "Get RADY to Xperience it" What's with the typos today? Haha...

And with all these updates (from Mortal Kombat the movie): "It haaas begun!"

[oingoboingo]

Hi.

There's something stirring at ATI. Their website frontpage (www.ati.com) has a headline "get ready to Xperience it". When you click the headline you get a popup with the cryptic message "but not just yet... be the first to know". You sumbit your name an email address on a form and are basically told to wait for the news. This may or may not have to do with their new Mobility Radeon 9700 cards. Makes you wonder, eh?

It's probably the new R420 based lineup of graphics cards, ie: ATI's next generation after the Radeon 9600/9800. As for the Radeon 9700 mobility, a friend of mine has already ordered a Dell Inspiron with a 9700 mobility in it...it should be here in a few days, so I doubt ATI would be generating a lot of hype about a mobile chipset which is already shipping in large quantities and has been doing so for a while.

[wbrowne1]

Yet again, I am punished for being a good customer and paying for my software as opposed to pirating it like most other students....

First with FCP 2, now with DVD SP 2, they announce a new version ONE WEEK after I paid for v2, so now I don't officially qualify for the up to date program....



WTF!!!!!!!!

this sucks :(

is it worth calling apple and bitching them out to see if they will cut me a deal??

[PowerMacMan]

Yet again, I am punished for being a good customer and paying for my software as opposed to pirating it like most other students....

First with FCP 2, now with DVD SP 2, they announce a new version ONE WEEK after I paid for v2, so now I don't officially qualify for the up to date program....



WTF!!!!!!!!

this sucks :(

is it worth calling apple and bitching them out to see if they will cut me a deal??

I'd say... Try it... Can't hurt...

[Downdivx]

Now all that remains for low end HDDV compatability is still a third party plug in from St. Louis' MPEG ENCODER PIONEER Heuris Software


There is a quote on the FCP-HD website that says Apple is dedicated to coming out with a codec for HDV soon:

HDV Support Coming
Apple Computer is pleased to announce that it has joined the growing list of companies that are supporting the HDV format. HDV will be implemented in future versions of Apple products. Customers can begin using HDV with Final Cut Pro today through third party products such as Lumiere HDV and the Heuris Indie HD and Pro-Indie HD toolkits.


W

[cc bcc]

You could have said the exact same thing about Final Cut Pro. "No one will buy it! Adobe/AVID are veterans here! Apple's a fool to get into the market." But look where apple stands on the video front now. They might not be #1, but they are turning some heads. I say if Apple can make a PS killer, let them do it. Competition isn't a bad thing.

P-Worm

That's true. But Premiere sucked like nothing has ever sucked before :-) And so did Avid. At least, those are my experiences. With Photoshop it's not the case, although there is still much to improve. Come to think of it, Apple might actually do it better ;-)

[mr_austin]

You could have said the exact same thing about Final Cut Pro. "No one will buy it! Adobe/AVID are veterans here! Apple's a fool to get into the market." But look where apple stands on the video front now. They might not be #1, but they are turning some heads. I say if Apple can make a PS killer, let them do it. Competition isn't a bad thing.

P-Worm

Not many people loved Avid or thought it was perfect, before or after FCP. They were/are seen as cocky + overpriced. (see the xsan/unity comparisons - xsan looks like a great product for apple). People wanted to switch before anything even existed to switch to. Premiere was/is a joke.

If you're saving 50K by getting an FCP box over an MC box, it's worth a risk to replace a product you don't really like using. And FCP is STILL regarded as a toy by many producers... changing mindshare takes a lot of time.

As for a PS killer, people on the whole don't have a huge problem with photoshop. It does what it does and does it well. There are things that it could do better, but it is the standard, and no one's begging for change. (like they were with Quark or Avid, etc). That makes adoption more difficult. Also, someone above was talking about suite integration. Is apple also going to make an Illustrator killer? or an Indesign killer? Going after video with FCP and shake and logic already in your pocket is one thing, but print is another gig....

I agree that competition is a good thing. The problem with apple's strategy is that it seems to kill competition. Adobe already decided DVD authoring was a lost cause on the Mac. No mac encore or audition. Who's to say what app is next?

[aussiemac86]

I used my zoom to look carefully and you are right. It's an aluminum frame with different stand.

:p


This image first was seen about 3 months ago, and it is most definetely an old display, there is no alumnium on it whatsoever, it also has the exatly the same stand.
There are just some odd lighting effects which makes the monitor look more like the PM for advertising purposes, as under normal lighting the present displays dont really fit in with the PM's, would you agree?

[Wuddel]

Nice. I don't need that software, but it will help to sell more Macs.

I don't see a move to a proprietary wasteland, since Apple has been strong in audio/video apps for at least some years. Moving further in this direction does not threat Adobe or MS.

I am quite sure that Apple has non-disclosure agreements with Adobe and MS, about not competing with the Creative Suite or Office respectively, in exchange for continuing support of the Mac-platform.

[Dirty Harry]

Oh god, i'm already waiting to read the first "where are the pbook G5's" post..

It's a great thing for apple, their software will help sell computers. I only hope Adobe isn't going to retract AE from the mac if Motion is indeed a "killer".

So I'll switch to Motion then :)


If Motion has the same success than Final Cut (wich is very likely) it will kill After Effects for the Mac too. This makes me have mixed feelings...
I use Mac at home, but the TV station where I work has PC's with After Effects.
Apple, do a Photoshop killer too or buy Adobe right now, but please, stop the distress of this Apple/Adobe user I´ve been for over ten years!!!

[goku]

the Xsan sounds soooo cool! perfect for corp and enterprise. i hope apple can crack this market again.

ADIC has been selling Stornext san for a while and with Xsan and it this may allow some like a NASA to really use thier Macs to fullest and studios can bring macs on board where only unix and windows walked. :)

[iGuy]

If Apple can't use this to prise the enterprise open again, then something is wrong, either with their salespeople or the enterprise buyers.

Apple's commitment to the enterprise seems half-hearted.

I tried to get some help from Apple Canada and after being bounced around ended up leaving a voicemail for the 'Enterprise person' in California. That call was never returned.

Xstorage (Xserve, Xserve RAID, Xsan) are good solutions for supporting Apple's pro apps. No doubt about it.

But please don't confuse Pixar's render farm with corporate computing and storage. I have not seen any meaningful sales promotion and support in the enterprise market. Very sad.

~iGuy

[Frisco]

If Apple does come out with a Photoshop like app and Adobe abandons the Mac platform, it is because Adobe couldn't compete, not because Apple made it!

Adobe dropped Premiere because they knew they couldn't compete with FCE. I guess it's easier to drop a product and then try to improve it to compete. So if Adobe ever drops Photoshop it will be because of their own sense of incompetence.

Competition is what drives things to improve/advance. I can't believe people really don't want to innovate--that's why we love Apple so much afterall--it's their ability to innovate. They shouldn't have to hold back just because of the threat of companies to drop software from the Mac.

[MCCFR]

Not likely. Adobe's market cap often exceeds Apple's (depending on what kind of day NASDAQ is having)

Not after a few more good quarters based on exponential iPod sales. Apple is 18 months away from being able to buy an Adobe, and it could buy Macromedia today and barely pause to draw breath.

This is one of the reasons people like Thurrott try to undermine iPod and iTMS: it gives Apple a volume market, cash flow, profits and increased market cap.

And all of those things help when you're trying to win over the shareholders of potential targets and the boards of potential partners.

It's merely a question of whom they go for first: -

Alias/Wavefront: newly liberated from SGI with an apps portfolio that would neatly round out the whole Shake/FCP/DVD SP/etc. thing.
Macromedia: undervalued for what they have, some of their server-based stuff would look nice running on Xserve, and give Apple control of Flash and Director. Great as a new media acquisition, which is more trendy than print: $1.2 billion today.
Adobe: there are so many reasons why this would be good. $9.9 billion today, but heavily reliant on design for print media which is at the bottom of the curve at the moment.
Avid: Just to get Avid and Digidesign: Apple would pretty much own the low-, medium-, and high-end of editing and music production. $1.5 billion, but TV has money.
Sun Microsystems: You can tell when a company is 'beleaguered' when it starts to make cosy pacts with the devil. Despite a short-term rise in share value following getting into bed with a scorpion, Sun has already closed down 13 days out of 14 which will continue whilst they continue to try and build Sparc into a major market force against better-funded opposition.

I can't help but feel that a SunFire would look better running a hyperthreaded PowerPC processor capable of running OS X Server and Solaris in tandem, whilst wearing an Apple badge. But that's just my opinion. Price today $14 billion, but in 18-24 months, $10-12, whilst Apple moves past $20 billion.

[altivec 2003]

Just below the main text it has, "Get RADY to Xperience it" What's with the typos today? Haha...

And with all these updates (from Mortal Kombat the movie): "It haaas begun!"
If it weren't for the other ones being spelled properly I would think:
RADy => RADEON?
Oh well, maybe this is all a conspiracy to ruin the spelling of consumers. :confused: :p

[iGuy]

If it weren't for the other ones being spelled properly I would think:
RADy => RADEON?
Oh well, maybe this is all a conspiracy to ruin the spelling of consumers. :confused: :p

I'd settle for the use of 'ly' endings on adverbs. :)

The ATI spelling is a tricky one though. I so want to pass comment on American's lack of spelling - ok, outright butchery of the English language, but ATI is a canadian company. I know people who work there. I even had a contract there myself back in the late 1980s.

Oh, the shame of it.... :D

~iGuy

[MCCFR]

Apple's commitment to the enterprise seems half-hearted.

I tried to get some help from Apple Canada and after being bounced around ended up leaving a voicemail for the 'Enterprise person' in California. That call was never returned.

Xstorage (Xserve, Xserve RAID, Xsan) are good solutions for supporting Apple's pro apps. No doubt about it.

But please don't confuse Pixar's render farm with corporate computing and storage. I have not seen any meaningful sales promotion and support in the enterprise market. Very sad.

~iGuy

I've put together infrastructure projects for major corporates, so I don't confuse the two in any way.

The problem with Apple and the enterprise is that it is having to (re)build slowly from the centre: that is going to mean that it will focus its Enterprise people on Corporate America first, before going onto Japan, Germany, France, UK and Canada.

It's also going to have to correct past mistakes: like taking customer's orders for granted by responding professionally and creatively to every corporate RFP, and not just pushing the sale onto resellers who don't have the expertise or the profile to respond.

All of that said, if you don't think that several large-scale and well-publicised (think VaTech) implementations of Xsan and Xserve RAID won't start to create a groundswell of interest in CIOs, it really doesn't say much about the intelligence of CIOs. 42TB for $250K against IBM's 42TB for $1.5 million isn't really a fair fight.

[nuckinfutz]

These are cool announcements, but they're pissing off Avid and Adobe again. Every shop I work at is AE/Avid/Pro Tools, not Motion/FCP/Logic. A few have final cut boxes, but not for 'serious' editing. All the kick-ass freelance editors are Avid guys. All the kick-ass freelance mixers are pro tools guys. All the kick-ass freelance effects guys are AE guys. When are all these people (who are booked all the time anyway) gonna learn new software? They only will if it kicks ass and makes them more money...

What makes you think Apple cares about pissing off Adobe and Avid? Apple wants to be a player in Digital Video period. It doesn't matter if there are legions of Protools and AE users. Evolution moves on and unless people adapt tomorrows "kick-ass" creative Pro will supplant those who cling to old methods.
Adobe will maintain AE until it is no longer profitable to do so. If you know AE then you basically know how Motion Graphics/Compositing works and 80% of that knowledge translate to another program. I learned basic image editing in Photoshop but that knowledge carried over to any other app I used. I just needed to mentally link the nomenclature used in the app with Photoshop nomenclature.

If there's no AE, and motion is good, but not great, it leaves a HUGE gap on the mac side between the $300 motion and the $5000 shake. Apple runs the danger of being associated with the wedding video crowd, while HBO et al look down their noses at it. It took years for AE to make progress against HALs and Flames.

Adobe doesn't run a platform. Apple does. It took all of what 3 years for Apple to supplant Adobe Premiere? BTW Shake Mac is now $2999 that gap is much smaller now :D

First with FCP 2, now with DVD SP 2, they announce a new version ONE WEEK after I paid for v2, so now I don't officially qualify for the up to date program....

Why did you buy a video app knowing NAB was coming on April 19th? No offense but do you realize how stupid that was??? Hint for the future..get used to knowing when Apple is likely to announce new products and be patient. I'd call someone and see what you can do...but in the future do not buy anything a month before NAB if you're looking to remain current.

If you're saving 50K by getting an FCP box over an MC box, it's worth a risk to replace a product you don't really like using. And FCP is STILL regarded as a toy by many producers... changing mindshare takes a lot of time

What do producers know? If Walter Murch can edit a top notch film like Cold Mountain then I'm inclined to think he see's something that the Bollywood Buffoons can't.

I am quite sure that Apple has non-disclosure agreements with Adobe and MS, about not competing with the Creative Suite or Office respectively, in exchange for continuing support of the Mac-platform.

That would be illegal. Anti-Trust...you can subert competition only to a certain point. Apple won't threaten Adobes lead in Print Publishing because it's a slow growth area. If you doubt it hit the classified and look for all the out of work Graphic Artists. When the dot.coms died so did a lot of GA business. Seattle was hit hard.

Motion is not going to kill AE. People that use AE also have plugins that cost them a pretty penny. They're unlikely to give them up. Motion looks very nice but it's going to be missing a lot of features that a mature app like AE has. We always tend to jump the gun a bit with new Apple applications. First you must ascertain motions weaknesses and strenghts before you can see the full picture. There will be many tasks that Motion is superiour to AE in and those with both apps in their toolkit will choose the tool that best accomplished the desired result. It's not always either/or. Especially when you're talking $299(Cheaper than many AE plugins).

I don't look for Apple to buy Adobe or Macromedia or any large company. Companies like these tend to be bloated and overvalued. Adobe has relatively little IP that Apple wants. Apple does not care to get into Print Pub...it's adequately handled by Adobe and Macromedia. If Apple makes more aquisitions it will be centered around a Digital Video company or Enterprise company. That's going to be Apple's focus for the near future. Expanding their market in these areas is paramount.

[iLilana]

those specs are crazy

9800 or better=better cards coming soon

no geforce 4 ti support or radeon 9000 support (it's better than the 5200fx)

madness
there are those new nvidia cards 6700? or something like that that they tested on TSS a few days ago. They kicked the 9800's ass in the PC side. Maybe something for like that is gonna happen on the Mac side?

it was the 6800
http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_6800.html

[gwangung]

"And FCP is STILL regarded as a toy by many producers... changing mindshare takes a lot of time"

I'm reminded of the time when the first photo-typesetters entered the market.

"This stuff looks like crap."

"It costs $15,000"

"Say, this is pretty GOOD crap...."

As FCP gets closer to good enough, it'll start eating into the Avid market (if it hasn't gotten there already).

[numediaman]

The problem with competing with Adobe PS is that the low-end (Elements) is often bundled with scanners and cameras, and there is no major dissatisfaction (like with Quark).

They may do it, but I think they would be better off coming out with products that serve new, emerging needs. I think GarageBand is a good example. The line-up introduced today is fairly impressive. Too bad they couldn't introduce a new PB G5 to go with this stuff, or updated PowerMacs -- but one day at a time, I guess.)

[iGuy]

I've put together infrastructure projects for major corporates, so I don't confuse the two in any way.

The problem with Apple and the enterprise is that it is having to (re)build slowly from the centre: that is going to mean that it will focus its Enterprise people on Corporate America first, before going onto Japan, Germany, France, UK and Canada.

It's also going to have to correct past mistakes: like taking customer's orders for granted by responding professionally and creatively to every corporate RFP, and not just pushing the sale onto resellers who don't have the expertise or the profile to respond.

All of that said, if you don't think that several large-scale and well-publicised (think VaTech) implementations of Xsan and Xserve RAID won't start to create a groundswell of interest in CIOs, it really doesn't say much about the intelligence of CIOs. 42TB for $250K against IBM's 42TB for $1.5 million isn't really a fair fight.

You said it yourself. Apple has put money into marketing, not sales support.

Apple can't rely on VaTech for ever.

~iGuy

[wdlove]

I agree that competition is a good thing. With an Apple product you know that you are getting quality. Programs by Apple just run better on a Mac.

[TMay]

Motion is not going to kill AE. People that use AE also have plugins that cost them a pretty penny. They're unlikely to give them up. Motion looks very nice but it's going to be missing a lot of features that a mature app like AE has. We always tend to jump the gun a bit with new Apple applications. First you must ascertain motions weaknesses and strenghts before you can see the full picture. There will be many tasks that Motion is superiour to AE in and those with both apps in their toolkit will choose the tool that best accomplished the desired result. It's not always either/or. Especially when you're talking $299(Cheaper than many AE plugins).

Amen. I heard this identical argument when iPhoto arrived, that Adobe would kill Photoshop Elements for the mac. Didn't happen. Probably won't happen. Still, if Motion is the consumer version (if you will) and Shake is the professional version, then I argue that Apple will announce a prosumer version of Shake (lite without the annual maintenance requirements) at some time in the future. This WOULD be targetted at AE. More to the point, AE is really a standalone application, that Adobe has been unable to buttress with a Creative Suite as it did with PS,IL,GL,and ID. Apple wants to dominate the entire video/audio workflow, seamlessly I might add, and AE is in the way.

As for the argument that lack of Photoshop would kill the mac platform, I wouldn't be so sure. If anything, there are very good packages lanquishing due to Photoshop's mindshare. I would expect that some developers would see an opportunity to convert mac PS users to something else, not unlike Adobe's conversion of Quark users.

Either way, Adobe won't take the chance.

[e-coli]

That means the death of After Effects for the Mac.

That certainly can't be good.

I guarantee this product has a LONG way to go before it competes with AE6.

[nuckinfutz]

As for the argument that lack of Photoshop would kill the mac platform, I wouldn't be so sure. If anything, there are very good packages lanquishing due to Photoshop's mindshare. I would expect that some developers would see an opportunity to convert mac PS users to something else, not unlike Adobe's conversion of Quark users.

Yes this is generally stated by those who really how no inkling about the demographics of the Mac platform. LOL these are the people that proabably still say "Mac are good for Graphics" ...relics. Print Publishing is stagnant. Adobe has carte blanche to rule this market. Apple's not going to touch it. Even if Adobe had a brain fart and decided to cancel Photoshop there would be plenty of options for Apple. The two developers from Caffenie Software creators of TIFFany III work for Apple. GIMP code could be whipped up into something(if that awful UI could be fixed). What about dormant code like Xres(Macromedia) or Live Picture could be purchased? It's intriqueing. Photoshop or the lack thereof cannot kill the Mac for the basic reason that Photoshop does not give "life" to the Mac. People can run Photoshop on Mac or PCs. I think some people need an "Introduction to Logic" course or something.

You know. I wonder if Apple isn't sending a thinly veiled message to Adobe with Motion. As if to say " We have the framework in place to replace you if you get too squirrely". Make no bones bout it I'd venture to guess that Motion could easily have some major features bolted on that "would" make it a staunch competitor. Apple may have done the opposite and actually "solidified" the availability of AE on the Mac.

[mullet]

I highly doubt Motion is an AE killer. Adobe might get pissed, but Motion is more like AE lite than anything else. While it does include features such as B-Splines, a particle generator, and a Primatte keyer, it doesn't include motion tracking like AE. If you're going to have decent splines, why not have motion tracking? Also Motion doesn't have Keyframe Assistants and Expressions. Motion will probably be gobbled up by the corporate video market where FCP has made inroads. It looks like its AE lite with some powerful features and more automation than AE and Combustion. It will be interesting to see what Apple will do with future versions of Motion. Then I'd start worrying about Adobe axeing apps like AE for Mac.

-mullet

[wbrowne1]

Why did you buy a video app knowing NAB was coming on April 19th? No offense but do you realize how stupid that was??? Hint for the future..get used to knowing when Apple is likely to announce new products and be patient. I'd call someone and see what you can do...but in the future do not buy anything a month before NAB if you're looking to remain current.

Now i won't take offense, but just for the record I was waiting until May for that very reason.

My prof then asked me to give me a copy of my reel on DVD for a presentation he was giving at NAB. Since iDVD doesn't work on my G5, I figured that that was reason enough worth it to buy the App. I bit the bullet and bought DVD SP2 in the hopes that Apple wouldn't already be updating a program that isn't even a year old.

[h'biki]

If Motion has the same success than Final Cut (wich is very likely) it will kill After Effects for the Mac too. This makes me have mixed feelings...
I use Mac at home, but the TV station where I work has PC's with After Effects.
Apple, do a Photoshop killer too or buy Adobe right now, but please, stop the distress of this Apple/Adobe user I´ve been for over ten years!!!

Motion won't kill AE Pro.

Why?

1. Motion Tracking
2. 3D Compositing
3. Expressions

NONE of which Motion does. There are other things too, but these three are key functions.

We use these capabilities extensively (particularly 3D Compositing*) in our motion graphics work as do many other post houses/design firms (e.g. MK12, Mesh22, Motion Theory, Psyops etc. etc.). We and they won't switch to Motion for that work. Perhaps for quick grunt work, but not high end projects.

Motion may add those features, but I doubt it. It seems to be an intermediary motion graphics app which combines a bunch of neat things in a cheap package. Its far more corporate than broadcast. It may evolve to broadcast level, but I have a feeling thats not the plan. Not that seemed like the plan with FCP.

AE Pro will still be the swiss army knife of motion graphics, and I don't think Motion is going to canablise any AE Pro sales. It may, however, eat sales of the standard bundle which is often over priced and over featured for many users.

Oh, if the interface of Motion is anywhere near as slow as LiveType's (which I think its based on) then its goign to really suck. LT is unusable imnsho. DVDSP2 is very clunk as well. I hope DVDSP3 fixes the sheer lag of the GUI.

* Shake doesn't support 3D compositing either. Apple doesn't offer a good 3D compositing tool, at all. Cheating Z depths can be a serious pain in the ass.

[MCCFR]

You said it yourself. Apple has put money into marketing, not sales support.

Apple can't rely on VaTech for ever.

~iGuy

And I'm not saying that they will!

I think they have to find a cross-section of storage customers (for each of the scenaria they describe in the Xsan mini-site) and turn them - by aggressive subsidy and hand-holding - into successful implementations of Xserve RAID/Xsan.

The other thing they might want to do is put several of those articulated roadshow trailers together - complete with extendible awning, and literally take a heterogeneous network around North America and Europe to show a vast Apple SAN in action to every IT manager and CIO they can find. Getting people to attend shouldn't be problem if they give away 5 iPods, 10 minis and a couple of hundred iTMS gift vouchers.

Xserve and Xsan have the ability to Apple's own version of Data General's Clariion product: in DG's case, it transformed them from a financial basket case to a viable takeover target (from EMC), whilst - in Apple's case - it should (with Xserve and the help of Fortune 500 apps like Oracle and Sybase) aid in the rehabilitation of Apple's image as a viable enterprise IT solutions provider.

However (and this is crucial), Apple has to be prepared to repeat the lesson of iTunes for Windows and show the technology more as a cross-platform solution than as another bit of quirky Apple ingenuity.

But - where we agree - is that Apple has to be serious, otherwise all of this R&D and cool technology is a bit of waste.

[mac-in-fool]

It looks as if they (apple) have taken on AVID with XSan and won, made an affordable HD solution, and blown Adobe After Effects out of the water with price and performance, with the new Motion SW. They hyped, they delivered.

[iChan]

Having done a quick run through of the Xsan mini-site, I can't help but admit to feeling a little twinge of excitement.

Consider the following:-


A maximum volume size of 16TB, but no mention on how many volumes. Even if the limit were relatively low (16?), you could have a SAN of 256TB.
The ability to 'stripe' data across multiple Xserve RAID units: in other words, one RAID unit goes down, who cares?
HSM capability through a pre-defined relationship with ADIC (who are currently my flavour du jour for tape libraries)


Now, I've just done a quick shopping list and 42TB of fully tricked-out storage costs around $200,000 including two 16 port FC-SW switches and two (well-specced dual-processor Xserve) Xsan metadata controllers.

I challenge anyone to go and beat that by a factor of two or three. I know how much that costs to implement as an IBM Faststor product, and it's horrific.

If Apple can't use this to prise the enterprise open again, then something is wrong, either with their salespeople or the enterprise buyers.

it would be unbelievable if apple could strike a deal with google to supply them with the storage for their new Gmail service... a match made in heaven methinks... both have the simple, ideological, usable view of the tech world, and it would really put apple's money where it's mouth is...

[ingenious]

it would be unbelievable if apple could strike a deal with google to supply them with the storage for their new Gmail service... a match made in heaven methinks... both have the simple, ideological, usable view of the tech world, and it would really put apple's money where it's mouth is...


i agree. what a great idea! send it off to cupertino!

[Mac Kiwi]

Now we wait for Adobes reply.


It is also possible {as someone said} if Apple keep going this way Adobe will just can Mac support completely.

[stoid]

i agree. what a great idea! send it off to cupertino!

chances are, someone over there has already had that idea and is already working on it ;)

[_iCeb0x_]

As long as Adobe doesn't drop mac all together. The mac platform would be sunk without Photoshop

I am waiting (but not holding my breath) for a "Photo Studio Pro" app coming from Apple. A Photoshop killer app, sure it would be.

If this happens, Adobe's dead... :cool:

[Wonder Boy]

maybe motion's website is a sneak peak if apple's rumored new site design?

[ingenious]

chances are, someone over there has already had that idea and is already working on it ;)

LOL you're prolly right. i hope it works out (if someone at apple has had that idea). that would be great publicity.

[ingenious]

is this it?!?!? is the start??!?!? look at the thumbnail! oh come on updates! :D

[bishopduke]

!

[stoid]

I'm noticing an interesting trend here:

Companies generally drop Mac support because Apple makes a program that is far superior to what they are offering.

Companies generally drop Windows support because Microsoft maliciously forces them out of business.

[theISHkid]

Amen Bishop. Adobe isn't gonna drop something if it is gonna make money. It wasn't until FCP 4 that adobe stopped selling premier for the mac. Mac users simply weren't buying enough to justify development costs. It wouldn't suprise me to eventually see after effects go... but I think it'll take a long long time for that. Premier didn't do that good for the mac even before FCP. Bottom line... Adobe isn't gonna drop Apple just cause they're pissed. They want their money just like all the other whores, and if they can get it, they'll sell it.

[MCCFR]

it would be unbelievable if apple could strike a deal with google to supply them with the storage for their new Gmail service... a match made in heaven methinks... both have the simple, ideological, usable view of the tech world, and it would really put apple's money where it's mouth is...

Yep, $6 a user (based 1GB/user and my swift non-negotiated prices which would probably come down by 15% to around $5/user) seems like where Google needs to be to make this affordable.

It probably works out to around $1.50/user-year once you've taken maintenance and infrastructure taken into account.

Ideal reference account.

[mac-in-fool]

Motion is not going to kill AE. People that use AE also have plugins that cost them a pretty penny. They're unlikely to give them up.[/QUOTE]

Apple claims motion works with AE plug-ins

[Dahl]

Something new....seems cool. I like the box at least. :D

Motion (http://apple.com/motion)
Shocked !!

I wonder how the post world (and Adobe) is going to respond.




Just a crazy thought...
Could/should Apple try and buy Adobe one day ?

[h'biki]

These are cool announcements, but they're pissing off Avid and Adobe again. Every shop I work at is AE/Avid/Pro Tools, not Motion/FCP/Logic. A few have final cut boxes, but not for 'serious' editing. All the kick-ass freelance editors are Avid guys. All the kick-ass freelance mixers are pro tools guys. All the kick-ass freelance effects guys are AE guys. When are all these people (who are booked all the time anyway) gonna learn new software? They only will if it kicks ass and makes them more money...


I think thats slowly changing. Over here in Australia, more and more broadcasters are doing their editorial on FCP. Its taken a while for the shift, but its happening rapidly now. FCP is seen as robust, cheap, and flexible. For shows planning to move from SD to HD, FCP is a cheaper more cost-effecient choice than scaling up their Avids.

ProTools remains the king of audio, and AE the swiss-army-knife of FX. I don't see that changing for a while.

Oh, and as others have mentioned, being pissed off isn't good business. If ProTools still makes money on the mac (and it does. Most PC PT users switch to Mac PT) and AE still makes money on the mac, they won't drop them to spite Apple.

Motion is about grabbing a niche which hasn't been targeted.

[zim]

I would love to know what sort of reaction the applications received at the conference.

I love AE but when thinking of AE the words slow and bloated come to mind, my opinion. I can't wait for Motion, as a designer, it looks exactly like what I need, and for less ( specifically looking and thinking of design education in regards to motion ).

[nuckinfutz]

Shocked !!

I wonder how the post world (and Adobe) is going to respond.
Just a crazy thought...
Could/should Apple try and buy Adobe one day ?

Why would Adobe be worried? Motion is missing features(3D spaces, Motion Tracking, Painting etc) that AE mavens require on a daily basis. Motion nicely addresses weakness in FCP and should the need ever arise i'm sure a Motion Pro could address a departing AE or Combustion. But right now Apple is content to have Motion run it's course.

Apple gains nothing by purchasing Adobe but debt. Adobe has 5 or 6 good Mac programs and Apple is not interesting in furthering developement of large apps for PC. There isn't enough upside to counteract the downsides of an Adobe aquisiton.

[Ajmbc]

As long as Adobe doesn't drop mac all together. The mac platform would be sunk without Photoshop

The reincarnation of MacPaint! :D

aj

[stingerman]

Yet again, I am punished for being a good customer and paying for my software as opposed to pirating it like most other students....

First with FCP 2, now with DVD SP 2, they announce a new version ONE WEEK after I paid for v2, so now I don't officially qualify for the up to date program....



WTF!!!!!!!!

this sucks :(

is it worth calling apple and bitching them out to see if they will cut me a deal??

If you are within a month of a new release you qualify for the Assurance program. Apple has links all over their site with the new product releases. Don't jump to conclusions.

[aafuss1]

Graphical View in DVD Studio Pro-v seems to me a lot like the visual browser in Encarta or UML style modelling for DVD.
Motion-now the price is lower than AE, and takes adavantage of the G5.

[stingerman]

Motion is not going to kill AE. People that use AE also have plugins that cost them a pretty penny. They're unlikely to give them up. Motion looks very nice but it's going to be missing a lot of features that a mature app like AE has. We always tend to jump the gun a bit with new Apple applications. First you must ascertain motions weaknesses and strenghts before you can see the full picture. There will be many tasks that Motion is superiour to AE in and those with both apps in their toolkit will choose the tool that best accomplished the desired result. It's not always either/or. Especially when you're talking $299(Cheaper than many AE plugins).


READ the Specs, Motion is 100% compatible with AE Plugins. So all your investments in plugins is secure. This is an AE Killer. And, by the way, Apple's software frameworks practically have everything you need already developed to quickly put together a Photoshop type App (same goes for MS Office). Apple needs to give users a reason to buy an OS X PC over a Windows PC, Adobe has maintained a common codebase based on the limited Windows API's and then ported their code to OS X. That is why Apple needs to do what they are doing. If innovation dies in key areas of the OS X App product lines Apple will jump in. So, Adobe either needs to change their policy and start innovating on the Mac platform or watch Apple take a couple of year lead and not look back.

Apple is not a short-term thinker anymore they have been building more and more into their frameworks before they release an App because when they release the App , it really has to blow away the competition.

Now, take a look at all the new UI features built into Motion. There is a lot more coming down the pike in the way of innovation and it appears like Motion is giving us a preview of future OS X and App features.

[stingerman]

"And FCP is STILL regarded as a toy by many producers... changing mindshare takes a lot of time"

I'm reminded of the time when the first photo-typesetters entered the market.

"This stuff looks like crap."

"It costs $15,000"

"Say, this is pretty GOOD crap...."

As FCP gets closer to good enough, it'll start eating into the Avid market (if it hasn't gotten there already).

Cold Mountain was exclusively edited on FCP and G4 notebooks played a major role.

[dcr8]

READ the Specs, Motion is 100% compatible with AE Plugins.

My spec sheet says "Use a wide variety of third-party Adobe After
Effects plug-ins"

[stingerman]

Why would Adobe be worried? Motion is missing features(3D spaces, Motion Tracking, Painting etc) that AE mavens require on a daily basis. Motion nicely addresses weakness in FCP and should the need ever arise i'm sure a Motion Pro could address a departing AE or Combustion. But right now Apple is content to have Motion run it's course.

Apple gains nothing by purchasing Adobe but debt. Adobe has 5 or 6 good Mac programs and Apple is not interesting in furthering developement of large apps for PC. There isn't enough upside to counteract the downsides of an Adobe aquisiton.

AE does not have a true Z axis, it allows zooming and layering for Quasi-3D effects. Worse is that all Photoshop vector components are rasterized. You have to import from illustrator to work with Vector objects. It appears that Motion is a major advance over AE. It's not like this is a version 1 product for Apple, I believe it is a derivative of Tremor, an App Apple acquired at the same time they bought Shake's owner. But, tremor required some hefty hardware to work for its time. And was seen as being a major competitor for Broadcast market-share. And that is why Apple needs Motion, the broadcast market is the weakest part of Apple's professional market and Windows dominates there. So Apple needs to really innovate and it appears that they have, especially on the speed front.

[sfoalex]

http://homepage.mac.com/sfoalex/web/avid.jpg

Just a little joke, don't get your knickers in a bunch... I love Avid too...

[stingerman]

Motion won't kill AE Pro.
Oh, if the interface of Motion is anywhere near as slow as LiveType's (which I think its based on) then its goign to really suck. LT is unusable imnsho. DVDSP2 is very clunk as well. I hope DVDSP3 fixes the sheer lag of the GUI.


This quote is meaningless without some idea of the hardware you're running. Maybe it's time to upgrade from your 60MHz PPC. :D Motion comes from the same people who developed Shake (It was called Tremor back then) and Shake is no slouch, just ask almost every major movie house and the guys at WETA.

[nuckinfutz]

READ the Specs, Motion is 100% compatible with AE Plugins. So all your investments in plugins is secure. This is an AE Killer. And, by the way, Apple's software frameworks practically have everything you need already developed to quickly put together a Photoshop type App (same goes for MS Office). Apple needs to give users a reason to buy an OS X PC over a Windows PC, Adobe has maintained a common codebase based on the limited Windows API's and then ported their code to OS X.

Agreed Stingerman. I posted that before noticing the plugin support in AE after reading the pdf for Motion. Motion may be the best opportunity to ensure that AE stays on the platform. Adobe must know that Motion could quite easily become Motion Pro with all the "missing" features.

Shake is now $3k for the Mac and 5K or Linux and Irix. Apple is positioning themselves quite nicely.

[Gherkin]

I really hope Apple gets an image editing program out eventually. I'm making my switch from the PC soon, and I have no idea what I'm going to use for image editing. Photoshop is way too expensive (how much would it be in a university bookstore?), so what are my other options right now?

[dcr8]

AE does not have a true Z axis, it allows zooming and layering for Quasi-3D effects. Worse is that all Photoshop vector components are rasterized.

False and False. AE has had 3D layers, lights, and cameras since 5.0 (early 2001). Photoshop 6/7/CS vector objects turn into AE vector objects in AE 5.0 and later; AE 6.0 can also edit text imported from Photoshop 7/CS documents.

[Nny]

I'm noticing an interesting trend here:

Companies generally drop Mac support because Apple makes a program that is far superior to what they are offering.

Companies generally drop Windows support because Microsoft maliciously forces them out of business.

Haha... I agree.

But you forgot to mention how both Apple and MS cause this to themselves by ripping off ideas of third party developers and taking things that are open-source and making them not-so-open source.

Not that I'm complaining. Apple has done a better job with what it borrowed, stole, and bought than any other company was doing with it before Apple came along.

[dcr8]

I believe it is a derivative of Tremor, an App Apple acquired at the same time they bought Shake's owner.

Uh, no. Tremor was a Shake derivative with machine control and other features designed to be competitor to the Discreet advanced systems products. Motion looks like it's a LiveType derivative, which in turn came from Pismo Graphics.

For more info about Tremor,
http://www.google.com/search?q=nothing+real+tremor+features&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&start=10&sa=N

[Trowaman]

Cold Mountain was exclusively edited on FCP and G4 notebooks played a major role.

you can add Academy award nominated for editing. :D :cool:

[h'biki]

This quote is meaningless without some idea of the hardware you're running. Maybe it's time to upgrade from your 60MHz PPC. :D Motion comes from the same people who developed Shake (It was called Tremor back then) and Shake is no slouch, just ask almost every major movie house and the guys at WETA.

Tremor was a hardware accelerated version of Shake, AFAIK. It added very little to the Shake feature set, besides some real time capability. Motion looks like a derivative of LiveType.

As for Shake. Well, the GUI is fast. (And I was specifically addressing the GUI problems of DSP2 and LT). Nonetheless, a dual Xeon 3ghz is around 40-50% faster than a dual 2ghz G5 in rendering the same comp. Hopefully, Shake 3.5 addresses some of those inadequacies.

WETA run Shake on Linux Boxen. Animal Logic are shifting their front end systems to OS X, but their backend render farms are still Linux. Some smaller post companies and some upstarts are using XServes but thats because they can afford to install a new render farm and the speed issues are outweighed by the freeness of the render licences.

[Prom1]

WHOA, Xsan looks crazy.

"Expand your network horizons with Xsan, an enterprise-class storage networking solution that’s surprisingly affordable. Xsan lets multiple computers concurrently access terabytes of storage on Xserve RAID over high-speed Fibre Channel." :eek:

This is the kind of gusto that I was waiting for Apple to launch with their XServe/XRaid line along with OS X Server. This challenge is good enough to go head to head with corporations supporting Linux dare I say. Although I don't know much about Linux - still finding out about Yellow Dog Linux - It seems that Linux servers have been enjoying this kind of bravada for years.


I'm still having difficulty imagining a world with open source based computing platforms & systems operating under linux and companies like Adobe making software for it. Wouldn't that software be rendered free because of its source code?? Yes I'm aware of the basic underpinnings for OS X follow BSD Unix under the same principle but their the major vendor for an environment, and there isn't open-source for those apps.

Good Job Apple. Keep em coming.

just 3 more months to go, hehe.

Also good to see that the minimum requirements hasn't abondoned those with 4 year old Macs.

[Nemesis]

I increased the size of the picture by 300% and you can definitely make out a silverish color on the display and a completely new stand!

Nope, it's the old one.
You can clearly see transparent plastic legs, and in the background plastic arm that holds the LCD.
Just observe carefully - this is wide-angle shot, observe how G5 stand and plastic LCD legs are overlapping ... looks like new stand for LCD, but it's not.
I hoped too, but well ...
:(

[Bhennies]

I really hope Apple gets an image editing program out eventually. I'm making my switch from the PC soon, and I have no idea what I'm going to use for image editing. Photoshop is way too expensive (how much would it be in a university bookstore?), so what are my other options right now?Photishop Elements is Ok for most people. It's cheap, or it comes bundled with scanners, cameras etc. Personally, I use Photoshop CS, but I do heavy duty work. Depends on what you need it to do.

[~Shard~]

Nope, it's the old one.
You can clearly see transparent plastic legs, and in the background plastic arm that holds the LCD.
Just observe carefully - this is wide-angle shot, observe how G5 stand and plastic LCD legs are overlapping ... looks like new stand for LCD, but it's not.
I hoped too, but well ...
:(

You're exactly right - as I said before, I have seen this photo many times from Apple, and as long as about 6 months ago - it's nothing new. The new displays are NOT in that photo, so let's drop it for now, shall we? ;) :cool:

[legion]

you can add Academy award nominated for editing. :D :cool:

But didn't win. (and the other pictures in the editing category were all done on Avids, plus the 5 best picture nominations were all done on Avids)

FCP is still not prime.

[Bob Knob]

Just a heads up,
I updated one of my DP2GHz G5s and ran a project that I finished the other night as a test. Compressor 1.2 seems to be running faster and if the Activity Monitor is to believed it is continually using about 20% more CPU than the previous version.
BUT it has frozen twice, the last was a complete computer freeze (no force quit, no mouse movement, nothing), this is my first full freeze up since 10.1
I've done all the usual, repair permissions, trash prefs...

I'm going to do a complete fresh export from the updated FCP in the morning and do some more testing, I'll report back either way.

As with any software update, never update in the middle of a project!
If you only have one system and you need to get a project done I'd suggest holding off for a day or so before updating to see if there are any other reports of problems.

(I did repot this potential problem to Apple)

[eric_n_dfw]

...Since iDVD doesn't work on my G5...
So, why exactly doesn't iDVD work on your G5?

[wbrowne1]

So, why exactly doesn't iDVD work on your G5?

I really have no idea...

Check the discussion boards at apple.com. A bunch of G5 users like me have yet to burn a successful project using iDVD4. My dual 2Ghz takes about 12 hours, then spits out a blank or partially burned disc with a "Buffer underrun" error. I've tried everything, no success until I used DVD SP 2.

[doutee]

I don't know how new this is but I was just on Adobe's site and they have released After Effects 6.5. Probably has nothing to do with the release of motion but I felt it might belong in this thread.

[sscoward]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=745551#post745551

Someone promote me to Macrumors God!

[whooleytoo]

I seem to recall someone getting ridiculed a few months back when he said Apple were going to do HD over Firewire?

By the way, regarding the Apple-Panasonic side of this news, the following is intriguing:

"The two companies are also working on a new digital TV editing system that stores information on a card instead of video tapes, and is expected to speed data downloads onto a personal computer, Kitadeya said."

- CBS Marketwatch (http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/newsfinder/newsArticles.asp?guid=%7B95DD3168%2DCEA8%2D49E3%2D9D6D%2DBE82E9917925%7D&doctype=2005&siteid=mktw&selCount=100&value=Apple&property=word&)

[jelloshotsrule]

motion will not touch after effects now, but maybe for some reasons that people have pointed out, there is a lot in its core that enable it to be better eventually... but of course, it needs to do motion tracking and some other things before that can happen...

as for someone who mentioned that maybe motion is the consumer level, shake pro, and maybe they'll come out with a prosumer level app... that seems relatively unlikely, given the imovie, fce, fcp lineup... that said, i could see motion evolving greatly..

what are the big changes/updates in dvdsp 3? seems like it's basically the graphical viewer thing, and not much else..

looking forward to trying out motion, and the others...

[nuckinfutz]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=745551#post745551

Someone promote me to Macrumors God!

Good job. You were pretty much on point.

Here's what I see in the crystal ball.

Quicktime 7 due by end of summer(guessing) is going to be the largest QT update in years. A total revamping. Better MPEG support(including Transport Streams,AVC), Scalling, more than two Audio Ins, more filtering options.

This will let Apple revamp the line at NAB 2005 with major new features for Final Cut Pro, DVD SP and Shake.

Motion will be joined by a Motion Pro within 3 years. MP will contain all the other necessary features that AE/Combustion fans need. Motion Tracking, Painting, 3D support, Wire Removal etc. It will be priced at $699-999

Logic 7- Due probably this year. I'm not sure if Apple is working on the rumored Protools competitor or just beefing up Logic. At any rate Logic 7 is coming with a slightly revamped UI. If Apple comes out with a new DAW it will link to Final Cut Pro like a dream.

The only thing Apple is truly missing now is a 3D app along the lines of Maya or Softimage.

It's a great time toolwise to be a creative professional.

[AppleMatt]

Quicktime 7 due by end of summer(guessing) is going to be the largest QT update in years. A total revamping. Better MPEG support(including Transport Streams,AVC), Scalling, more than two Audio Ins, more filtering options.

I hope so, it has fallen behind. Also full-screen performance dropped with 10.3/6.5 compared to 10.2/6.3.
I've had many people confirm this, but if you want to see it yourself download the 96MB Matrix Revolutions trailer and play it full-screen.

I understand there's a lot of OS 9 code in there, although I get the feeling the person who told me that may have meant Carbon. If so I'd like to see that long-gone and it made totally OS X native.

AppleMatt

[HiRez]

I understand there's a lot of OS 9 code in there, although I get the feeling the person who told me that may have meant Carbon. If so I'd like to see that long-gone and it made totally OS X native.Yep, except for a couple of wrapper classes like NSMovieView, all of QuickTime is still the old APIs. It's not even Carbon, really, it's the same old C-based APIs that have been there forever, and its ancient legacy is shown in the Pascal data types that are still used. Many of the data types have varying degrees of compatibility (including none) with Cocoa types. QuickTime really, desperately needs to be "Cocoaized". It's not object-oriented, and the documentation (what there is of it) is frustratingly obtuse, especially if you are a new Cocoa/Objective-C developer.

However, that would be a monumental task, one I'm sure Apple is quite hesitant to take on. Of course they have a large number of seasoned QuickTime programmers (and existing code based on QuickTime), so it's not really a huge priority for them. Apple does have the QuickTime for Java framework, which has languished somewhat, but it could serve as a decent template for an Objective-C, object-oriented QuickTime framework. The bottom line is that it's quite difficult for a developer new to the Mac to put together a multimedia app of any complexity. Learning QuickTime programming is a long-term process, and there are zero current books on the subject to help you learn.

[AppleMatt]

Yep, except for a couple of wrapper classes like NSMovieView, all of QuickTime is still the old APIs..[entire post]..and there are zero current books on the subject to help you learn.

Excellent, thanks for all your info that's cleared it up for me. I expect a re-write of that magnitude would break a lot of apps. Stuck between a rock and a hard place!

Cheers,
AppleMatt

[whooleytoo]

Yep, except for a couple of wrapper classes like NSMovieView, all of QuickTime is still the old APIs. It's not even Carbon, really, it's the same old C-based APIs that have been there forever, and its ancient legacy is shown in the Pascal data types that are still used. Many of the data types have varying degrees of compatibility (including none) with Cocoa types. QuickTime really, desperately needs to be "Cocoaized". It's not object-oriented, and the documentation (what there is of it) is frustratingly obtuse, especially if you are a new Cocoa/Objective-C developer.

During some of the session movie streams from last year's WWDC, I believe Apple mentioned they were working on new QuickTime Cocoa classes - at least for handling data references (no more FSSpecs!).

[wdlove]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=745551#post745551

Someone promote me to Macrumors God!

I'm afriad that there is only one and that is arn. :) You can easily earn the status Macrumors Demi - god by contributing $20, it will help arn to continue his great work.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=2208&highlight=demi+god+status

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=29851&highlight=demi+god+status

[Downdivx]

Does anybody know the policy on someone who wants to buy DVD Studio Pro now, but only 2.5 is currently available? Is there a free upgrade to 3.0 when it is released? I've checked the apple website but I couldn't find any reference to it. It seems to me that otherwise only very desperate people would purchase DSP 2.5 now, everyone will wait for 3.0

W

[HiRez]

During some of the session movie streams from last year's WWDC, I believe Apple mentioned they were working on new QuickTime Cocoa classes - at least for handling data references (no more FSSpecs!).I hope you are right, that would really be fantasic news! Actually I wrote a long-winded plea to Apple about a year and a half ago about this, and got a nice response requesting more information from me, which I provided. I have no idea if anything came of that, but it seems like they are not entirely unreceptive to the idea. I'm sure more people than myself have asked them about it. Crossed fingers for this year's WWDC...

[Apple of my eye]

From Apple: If you purchased DVD Studio Pro 2 on or after April 18th, you may qualify for the up-to-date program. DVD Studio Pro 3 is expected to begin shipping in mid-May.

http://www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro/

[Dirty Harry]

Motion won't kill AE Pro.

Why?

1. Motion Tracking
2. 3D Compositing
3. Expressions

NONE of which Motion does. There are other things too, but these three are key functions.

We use these capabilities extensively (particularly 3D Compositing*) in our motion graphics work as do many other post houses/design firms (e.g. MK12, Mesh22, Motion Theory, Psyops etc. etc.). We and they won't switch to Motion for that work. Perhaps for quick grunt work, but not high end projects.

Motion may add those features, but I doubt it. It seems to be an intermediary motion graphics app which combines a bunch of neat things in a cheap package. Its far more corporate than broadcast. It may evolve to broadcast level, but I have a feeling thats not the plan. Not that seemed like the plan with FCP.

AE Pro will still be the swiss army knife of motion graphics, and I don't think Motion is going to canablise any AE Pro sales. It may, however, eat sales of the standard bundle which is often over priced and over featured for many users.

Oh, if the interface of Motion is anywhere near as slow as LiveType's (which I think its based on) then its goign to really suck. LT is unusable imnsho. DVDSP2 is very clunk as well. I hope DVDSP3 fixes the sheer lag of the GUI.

* Shake doesn't support 3D compositing either. Apple doesn't offer a good 3D compositing tool, at all. Cheating Z depths can be a serious pain in the ass.

Final Cut wasn´t a killer for Premiere in v1.0 but it killed Premiere when it reached 4.0. Let's see what happens with Motion/AE as new versions come out with improved features.

By the way, I don´t think Apple will release a Photoshop killer, that would be too much. Apple is focused on the video-audio thing, for both consumer and pros, that's it. No Photoshop killer, like no Freehand, no Flash or no Maya killers...

Dirty Harry
...make my day!

[Downdivx]

From Apple: If you purchased DVD Studio Pro 2 on or after April 18th, you may qualify for the up-to-date program. DVD Studio Pro 3 is expected to begin shipping in mid-May.

http://www.apple.com/dvdstudiopro/


Thanks, they've also updated the store so you can order DVD SP3 nor SP2. So that sorta answers my question also.

Well, I've been waiting for updated G5s for about 6 months now. My academic discount ends on May 17th when I graduate, so I'll be ordering next week - probably on Wednesday (still holding out a little hope that I will get a revision B). Though I guess I've resigned myself to paying almost full price for a year old computer. Hopefully I can make it worth it and get a 23" display too...
W

[wdlove]

Thanks, they've also updated the store so you can order DVD SP3 nor SP2. So that sorta answers my question also.

Well, I've been waiting for updated G5s for about 6 months now. My academic discount ends on May 17th when I graduate, so I'll be ordering next week - probably on Wednesday (still holding out a little hope that I will get a revision B). Though I guess I've resigned myself to paying almost full price for a year old computer. Hopefully I can make it worth it and get a 23" display too...
W

If you go that route at least you will get $500 off and a discount on memory. Also, I think that have zero financing available. It seems to always be a limited item.

When speaking about you academic discount, Apple won't just cut you off on May 17th. You should still be allowed to purchase without a problem. Do you happen to have card with a specific expiration?

[Downdivx]

If you go that route at least you will get $500 off and a discount on memory. Also, I think that have zero financing available. It seems to always be a limited item.

When speaking about you academic discount, Apple won't just cut you off on May 17th. You should still be allowed to purchase without a problem. Do you happen to have card with a specific expiration?

My Student ID Card does specifically say it expires the 17th (the day of graduation). Not that the date wouldn't be easy to remove... I called the edu 800 number and they said that it was only while you were currently enrolled in classes. So I guess I could enroll in a continueing edu class at a community college or something. I've been holding off for almost 6 months now and I think I can wait a little longer. But I guess I also don't want to wait until September. So maybe I should just go ahead and buy...

Their financing offer isn't interest free, its interest only - at a "low" 9.9% APR for 24 months and then you still have the entire principle remaining. I'm looking for a small business loan to help buy the G5 and all of the other equipment I'm going to need.

W