(Post as written in FCP.co)

The demise of QuickTime Player 7 left an opportunity for a company like Digital Heaven to jump in and publish a professional movie playing app. New today is Pro Player and it’s been discounted from $29.99 to $19.99 for one week only.

Even though we have had many frustrating conversations with clients on the phone telling them how to flick the counter on QT Player 7 to show timecode, we miss it not being installed on new Macs. QuickTime Player 10 is clean and simple, but maybe too simple to fit into a professional environment.

Software Company Digital Heaven has released Pro Player, a custom movie playing application for OS X that offers a lot more features wrapped up in a smart grey UI.

We’ve know Martin Baker, the author of the program for many years and he sums the benefits up nicely:

“The goal of Pro Player is to deliver a superb experience for professional users, who commonly need more than the built-in OS X player can provide. Comprehensive control is the hallmark of a good player app, and Pro Player excels in this respect with some unique features. The industry-standard JKL keyboard control for variable speed is included, along with interactive jog and shuttle on the viewer area itself. The Jump Back command allows instant rewind (with a choice of timings), so it’s easy to review a missed moment again.

A unique time-saving feature of Pro Player is the ability to view embedded alpha channels without having to open the movie in a full-blown graphics or editing application. Video, audio and timecode information for the current movie is always visible and the current timecode is shown in a large and clear display.”

beta testers have said good things about Pro Player too:

FCPX has been having a very hard year but every update has made its mark and by the sound of it NAB is going to be apples launch pad for the next beg update. It seems almost every month apple are improving FCPX and it is sure to be making its mark soon but has a lot of trust to win back.

Plugins are being released left right and centre with XtoPro to replace OMF’s and Pro tools exports, 7toX, Xto7 and so on and so on. Blackmagic and others are taking full advantage of the new monitoring support, others are taking full advantage of the thunderbolt ports that are set to get even faster.

Mac rumours has made this  report

“Apple met with video consultant and trainer Larry Jordan on the eve of the 2012 NAB show and shared some upcoming plans for Final Cut Pro X. The following features are expected in Final Cut Pro X in 2012:

- Multichannel Audio Editing Tools
- Dual Viewers
- MXF Plug-in Support
- RED camera support

Jordan goes into some light details about some of the new features. FCP X will be able to read MXF files directly without the need to convert to QuickTime. The same can be said for RED camera support whose files will be able to be edited natively. Finally, Apple explains that Dual Viewers is analogous to Source and Record monitors and that they will try to do it better than has been implemented in the previously.

While those are the only features officially announced, Apple indicated that they wouldn’t be the only new features coming this year. Jordan also asked for hints about upcoming hardware, but Apple didn’t provide any information.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference kicks off this week in Las Vegas. Apple has not held a major presence at the show in recent years, but did use the venue last year to introduce Final Cut Pro X. Apple again appears to have a presence at the show and is at least meeting with some prominent figures. The NAB runs through April 19th.”

I maybe the only person excited to see where FCPX will go in the future but I dont care it has its place nad in years to come maybe even just months I feel it will come back in force.

Blackmagic have released their camera to take on the new range of semi Pro video cameras, affordable for the indi and an expensive toy for the people whose wallets are too heavy.  This with no doubt will give an amazing image and they have taken a whole new perspective to how a camera should be designed it is inovation at  its best. It is yet to been seen how this camera performs in the real world but I can not wait to find out, Oh and did I mention you get a free copy of the amazing DaVinci Resolve.

here is what Black magic have to say about it:

“Elegant, sophisticated and jam packed with the latest digital cinema technology, Blackmagic Cinema Camera gives your work that timeless feature film look! Blackmagic Cinema Camera features an amazing 2.5K image sensor with a wide 13 stops of dynamic range for a true digital film camera. You get a built-in SSD recorder, popular open standard uncompressed RAW and compressed file formats, compatibility with quality EF and ZE mount lenses, LCD touchscreen monitoring plus metadata entry, all packed into an exciting hand held design!”

Find out all the details on the Blackmagic website

Brand new pro maintenance tools has been released with a pile of new features including motion plugin installers for FCPX, Digital rebellion just keep adding to their fantastic range of tolls.

Check it out and I say buy it if only for the crash log reporter.

this i what they have to say about it:

“By popular demand, one big new Plugin Manager feature is the ability to create plugin installers. This is aimed at plugin developers who need a quick and easy way of installing their plugins on end users’ systems. Installers are self-contained and users do not need Pro Maintenance Tools installed in order to run the installer. A tutorial for creating installers is available here.

These new features are in addition to the hundreds that already existed in the suite including the ability to analyze crash logs, locate corrupt clips, repair corrupt projects and movie files, clear caches and much more. A full changelog for this version is available here and an updated list of error messages supported by Crash Analyzer is available here.”

“VirtualMXF is the newest generation of the Hamburg Pro Media’s mxf workflow software. Access on the fly, no delay for operations like rendering or rewrapping. No waiting period. High-speed processing of complex codecs like LongGOP MPEGs. VirtualMXF is compatible to a broad range of video/audio editing applications and MXF variations from all major manufacturers. It supports, among others, XDCAM HD, AVC-Intra, DNxHD, DVC-Pro HD, IMX-D10, JPEG2000 and DV.

How does it work? After defining a “MXF Source”, which can be a folder, a whole hard disc drive, an USB Stick or even a server volume, it automatically and immediately originates a new – virtual disk drive – on the Desktop in which all original MXF clips are virtualized as FCP X compatible Movies. Drag&Drop these movie files into FinalCutPro X or nearly any other Mac OS X Application for audio visual content”

Baselight for FCP7 by Film Light is a great addition to your plugin library if you have the money, it has still been left open to if they are adapting the plugin for FCPX as well but only time will tell.

See, buy and watch the tutorials for the product here  at FILM LIGHT

This is what they have to say about their product,

Interface

When you open Baselight for FCP, it is obvious you are working in Baselight. The same interface and menus are familiar to any Baselight operator, with all the grading operations running natively on the Macintosh.

Consistency and Interoperability

Baselight for FCP stores its grades directly within the FCP XML list, allowing the whole grade to be transported into a full Baselight suite for finessing and rendering, if desired. The list can be updated back into FCP for finishing with uncommitted grades. You can simply make the grade, and work between multiple systems and operators.

In-context Grading

For quick projects, simply apply grades in place without leaving the edit. Baselight for FCP allows the editor to do this, while keeping all decisions live. For more complex timelines, it supports in-context grading of multiple image elements within a composite; to view, adjust and approve the final result.

Control Surface

Baselight for FCP supports the Avid Artist Color & Transport control surfaces, allowing the editor to use a standard grading panel with trackballs and encoders for grading.

Education

An editor familiar with Baselight for FCP can easily transition to using the same interface on a fully-configured Baselight system, providing an easy learning and migration path

see X2 pro audio convert HERE

Features

X2Pro v1.0 faithfully translates your audio timeline along with L-cuts, J-cuts and transitions as well as the incredibly powerful FCP-X compound clips. Transitions are converted into linear cross fades. Audio media can be any QuickTime supported audio, non-PCM audio is converted to PCM at either 16 or 24 bit.

Unlimited numbers of audio Roles in Final Cut Pro X are converted into Pro Tools tracks (though different versions of Pro Tools have different limits of the number of tracks they can import), and are conveniently sorted by role name, allowing sound designers and mixers to start working immediately.

Audio edits are translated to a precision of one millisecond ensuring that even inter-frame edits are faithfully translated and sync maintained.

X2Pro v1.0 gives a clear warning when it comes across elements of a sequence which it does not currently translate such as gain, panning, fades, time maps, effects and markers. Auditions must be finalized first before exporting the XML to X2Pro.

Multicam Clips are effectively translated but require the export of the associated event in FCP 10.0.3.

Only audio media is translated. We recommend rendering an off-line or proxy version of the flattened video and exporting that if a reference is needed within Pro Tools.

As they say the best ideas are always the most simple Event manager X can be downloaded HERE

• Quickly manage which Events and Projects are visible using simple checkboxes
• Keep track of hidden (but mounted) Events and Projects
• Keep track of unmounted Events and Projects
• Check that all drives that hold needed Events are correctly mounted
• Never suffer the embarrassment of an Event or Project showing to the wrong client
• Launch Final Cut Pro X faster with fewer active Events in the Event Library

The Intuos5 touch L,M or S merges a stunning ergonomic design with the latest pen tablet and multi-touch technology that allows you to use gestures while you are working with the pen. Beside this new amazing feature, the ExpressKeys and the Touch Ring add further functionality that – together with the new Express View – will take you to a new level of intuitive and ergonomic way of working creatively in digital media software.

Like all Intuos5 pen tablets, the Intuos5 touch L supports the Wacom Wireless Accessory Kit to release you from cord clutter and give you the freedom to work unattached from your computer.

Clich this Link to veiw  http://digitaldomain.com/projects/20