One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
4GB RAM (4 x 1GB)
640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB Graphics Card

And so, once it arrived, I open up the box, took out the tower, and hooked it up to some monitors we already had. It booted fine, and loaded Snow Leopard. “Ah, no” I thought to myself, and added a mental note that the first thing I will need to do it get rid of Snow Leopard. But, while it’s up and running, I might as well check out some of the new Snow Leopard features. Then I noticed it. Something was not right. For about half a second every five seconds the computer seemed to “stall”. It would just stop for half a second. It was almost as if it had a faulty heart and was missing a beat every now and again. I’ve never seen this before, so I was a little bit scared that maybe this brand new machine might had serious hardware problems. Either that – or Snow Leopard was causing the poor machine some major, major grief. So first thing I did after a diagnostics test (in which the machine passed all tests), was try and dump Snow Leopard and put on Leopard 10.5. I put in the Retail DVD of Leopard we have, clicked install, and waited for the machine to reboot. Then nothing happened. Ummm… Strange! Why wasn’t it booting? I tried another Retail DVD of Leopard we have. Same problem. Ummm… very strange! Time for Google. I hit my first major stumbling block – you can only install Leopard 10.5.6 or later on these new MacPro’s and all our Retail DVDs are 10.5. With no copy of Leopard 10.5.6 on DVD, and no dealers stocking 10.5.6 on the shelves, it was time to sent it back to the retailer so that they can install 10.5.6 and work out what’s going on with the strange freezing issue. We can always grab another copy of 10.5.6 on DVD from Apple’s discontinued software division later (as we’ll need to install the OS again on other partitions anyway).

And so, the Mac went back to the shop. The weird thing however was that the machine worked perfectly once they received it. No lagging, no freezing – it worked perfectly. So they installed 10.5.6, ran the diagnostics tool, swapped out the RAM as a precaution, and sent it back to us. They did say however that they have come across this issue once before, and put it down to electromagnetic interference in the room it was being used in – putting the machine in another room seemed to fix the problem. Very strange!

I got it back, plugged it in, and the same issue occurred. It would freeze for about half a second every five or so seconds. And so, as a test, I tried it in a different room. It worked fine. Very strange! So I tried it in another room. Same freezing issue. In another room. Same freezing issue. In another room. It worked fine! So it seemed that this silly machine would only work in specific locations, and I had no idea why!

Not convinced that electromagnetic interference would do this, I tried swapping out cables, the keyboard, the mouse, and then finally, I tried different combinations of monitors.

And then I found the solution. For some reason certain monitors connected via the DVI port cause the system to lag (i.e. literally freeze for half a second every five or so seconds) if connected via the DVI or Mini DisplayPort. However, all monitors seem to work fine over VGA using adapters.

I’ve tried every single possible combination of screen resolutions and refresh rates – so that’s not the issue.

I’ve tried Googling similar issues, but apart from finding a whole heap of issues with the 4870 graphics card, I couldn’t seem to find anything like this.

Here is a list of monitors I tried:

Works over DVI, Mini DisplayPort & VGA:

Samsung 205BW 16:9 LCD
Benq G2420 HD (Model: ET-0027-B) 16:9 LCD

Works over VGA:
Kogan X19WB 16:9 LCD
Sony LMD-2030W 16:9 LCD
Sony KLV-325200A 16:9 LCD
Sony KDL-2054000 16:9 LCD

Doesn’t Work over DVI or Mini DisplayPort:
Samsung 940B 4:3 LCD
Benq T2200HD (Model: W2108) 16:9 LCD
Benq G2200W (Model: ET-0016-N) 16:9 LCD

When I get the time, I’ll also try a few other monitors we’ve got lying around including some big old CRTs!

So, to cut a long story short, if you get a new MacPro and it looks like it’s lagging – try a different screen! If anyone has a reason as to why this happens, I’d also love to hear it!

Happy editing!

Best Regards, Chris !

However, I tend to do a lot more things that fall outside of the offline banner. Sometime there might be some visual effects elements I’ll throw together in After Effects or Shake, other times I might want to do some hardcore grading in Color, or maybe I just want to export out a really high quality DVD.

Unlike in Final Cut Pro, getting consistent images into and out of Avid seems to be kind of a black art. The RGB vs 601 terminology is at times confusing, and despite the wealth of information out there on the World Wide Web – there still seems to be a lot of misinformation and head scratching. Even creating a dead simple DVD via DVD Studio Pro using Avid footage seems to be a real challenge (the solution on forums normally tends to be use one of Avid’s Sonic products).

Well, rather than spend even more time trying to find answers on the various Avid forums, I thought I’d do some tests and see how things actually work in the real world. This isn’t a formal experiment, nor is it anything like a technical white paper – all I’m really doing is having a bit of a muck-around and documenting what I do for future reference. It’s more for myself than anything else, to try and help get my head around everything. So apologies in advance if this blog entry is a bit of a mess!

To start things off, here are my system specifications. Now, before you all drill me, yes I know I’m running an older version of Avid, and yes I know that technically speaking I’m running a newer version of Quicktime than I should be (as you can see by reviewing the Avid Version Matrix). But as more and more people tend to run Avid and Final Cut Pro on the same system, the more I see Avid running alongside newer versions of Quicktime that what the developers originally intended. As Avid is completely backwards compatible (which is both amazing and EXTREMELY handy!), the less often people tend to upgrade the Avid software. If it ain’t broke – why fix it?

Here are the system specifications of the machine I will be using for these tests:

System Specs:
Processor: 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Memory: 2 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
Mac OS X: 10.5.7
Quicktime: 7.6.2 (1327)
Avid: 3.0.5
Final Cut Pro: 7.0
Photoshop: 11.0

For the purposes of these tests I will be using a 720 x 576 PAL test chart from Belle Nuit.

Once I had a test chart the next step was to convert it to a Quicktime file. To do this I opened up Final Cut Pro, and set up a new Sequence with the following settings:

I also set the Motion Filtering Quality to Best for good measure (in the Video Processing tab).

I then imported the test chart TIFF into the timeline and exported it as a Quicktime Movie.

To make sure something weird wasn’t going on, I then opened up the original TIFF file and the Quicktime File in Photoshop. Using the eye dropper tool I then double checked that all of the value were correct. They were…!

OK… So now I had a Quicktime file that identically matched the TIFF test chart.

The next step was to do some experiments with Avid. First up I created a new 25p PAL project. I then imported the Quicktime Test Chart, as well as the straight TIFF Test Chart a few different ways:

Method 1
Format: OMF
Video Resolution: 1:1 OMF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: Computer RGB (0-255)

Method 2
Format: OMF
Video Resolution: 1:1 OMF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: Computer RGB (Dither Image Colours)

Method 3
Format: OMF
Video Resolution: 1:1 OMF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: 601 SD or 709 HD (16-235)

Method 4
Format: MXF
Video Resolution: 1:1 MXF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: Computer RGB (0-255)

Method 5
Format: MXF
Video Resolution: 1:1 MXF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: Computer RGB (Dither Image Colours)

Method 6
Format: MXF
Video Resolution: 1:1 MXF
File Pixel to Video Mapping: 601 SD or 709 HD (16-235)

Now that the test charts were successfully in the Avid, it was already time to try and get them back out again!

To export out of Avid I used these settings:

For each method, I exported out a Quicktime movie using both the 601 and RGB Colour Levels.

Here are the results in regards to bringing in the Quicktime Files (with the Compression type set to None) and exporting them out of Avid.

Please be aware that to generate the images shown below I opened the exported Quicktimes in Photoshop, resized them to fit in with the blog design, and then saved them as a JPEG. They are only displayed here as a general guide.

Method 1

601:

RGB:

Method 2

601:

RGB:

Method 3

601:

RGB:

Method 4

601:

RGB:

Method 5

601:

RGB:

Method 6

601:

RGB:

Here are the results in regards to bringing in the original TIFF file and exporting it out of Avid:

Method 1

601:

RGB:

Method 2

601:

RGB:

Method 3

601:

RGB:

Method 4

601:

RGB:

Method 5

601:

RGB:

Method 6

601:

RGB:

OK… So now what? What’s the result of all of these tables and charts?

Hint #1: If you brought in your footage into Avid as RGB – then export as RGB. If you brought in your footage into Avid as 601, then export as 601.

If you look at all the different methods – this certainly seems to be the case. When using the same file pixel to video mapping setting for both import and export the file coming in is very SIMILAR to the file coming out – not EXACTLY – but very similar.

Hint #2: I hate to state the obvious, but Computer RGB (Dither Image Colours) only applies when you import still images. If you import a Quicktime movie using this option, it will just export as regular Computer RGB.

According to the Media Composer ReadMe file:

RGB (Computer RGB (0–255)): Select this option if the imported graphics file uses RGB graphics levels. Most computer-generated graphics use RGB graphics levels. The RGB color values are remapped to ITU-R 601 (formerly CCIR 601) or ITU-R709 video color values appropriate for the Avid system.

RGB, dithered (Computer RGB, dither image colors): Select this option if the imported graphics file uses complex color effects, such as a gradation, and you are importing at a high resolution (2:1). Do not use this option to reimport an image that has already been imported with dithering.

601/709 (601 SD or 709 HD (16–235)): Select this option if the imported graphics file uses video levels based on the ITU-R 601 (formerly CCIR 601) or ITU-R709 (HD) standard. These graphics include Avid color bars or images that include superblack (zero black) for keying purposes.

Now with this new found knowledge, it was time to do some further, more detailed tests. First up let have a closer look at what happens to an image if we import it in as 601, and export it as 601.

Original Test Chart:

601 to 601:

Apart from a few very minor differences where the values are off by one (highlighted in bold), the import is basically exactly the same as the output.

Interestingly however, if you use the DigitalColor Meter to measure the values directly from the preview monitors in Avid, the white (255) section reads exactly 255, despite the fact that the output file reads 254. Apart from that using the meter everything else matches the above table.

The only different is the resolution.

Original Test Chart:

601 to 601:

As the test chart was originally 8bit in RGB space,

So now we know that if you import footage as 601 and export as 601 the colours pretty much stay the same. But it’s one thing to do these kind of tests – it’s another thing to try it with real footage. So that’s what we’ll try next…

In Final Cut Pro I created a new sequence with the following settings:

…and everything set to best quality:

I then dragged in a FCP Bars & Tone generator for a second, then the test chart we’ve been using for another second, and then some 4K RED footage. I threw a quick 3-way Colour Correction filter on top of the footage to tweak it a bit and then exported out a Quicktime Movie. This Quicktime will become our test footage.

After I exported out the Quicktime Movie I then opened it up in Photoshop to have a look at the values on the chart:

Obviously all of these values had some kind of gamma/luma shift applied to them. Just to double check I then exported out the same timeline but with the Compressor set to None to see what would happen:

OK… so obviously Quicktime is doing something funky behind the scenes. This is something we’ll have to look into later, but for now the purpose of this test is to try and get footage into and back out of Avid without any nasty changes. As long as we know what the values are of the chart before the footage gets into Avid, it doesn’t really matter if the values aren’t “correct” (i.e. Grey 71 on the chart doesn’t have to equal 71 using the eye dropper).

I then brought the test footage into the Avid as OMF, 1:1, 601. Using the DigitalColor Meter, I then checked the values of the preview monitor:

Then I noticed that something wasn’t right. Turns out that for whatever reason the DigitalColor Meter tool and the Photoshop Eyedropper don’t match up!

After a slight panic, and a bit of hair pulling, I opened up Color Settings in Photoshop and changed the RGB Working Space from sRGB IEC61966-2.1 to my monitor working space. And with a quick click of the OK button, all of a sudden everything started working as per normal. It seems that I just completely forgot about display profiles for a second there! Thanks also to Cail Young at Inspiration Studios for his almost instant Twitter reply!

Hint #3: Don’t forget about display profiles!

I then compared what was in the Avid to the original file as viewed in the Quicktime Player. When “Enable Final Cut Studio color compatibility” was selected in the Quicktime Preferences, using DigitalColor Meter I obtained the following results:

When you turn off Final Cut Studio colour compatibility you obtain these results:

I then went to a specific frame on both Avid and Quicktime Player. I took a screen shot, and compared the two images side by side in Photoshop. So far so good – the image in Quicktime Player looks visually identical to the video in Avid when Final Cut Studio colour compatibility is turned on. So the media looks good whilst IN the Avid – what about when it comes out again? To test this I exported a “Same as Source” 601 Quicktime file from Avid.

I then opened up the newly exported Quicktime movie in Photoshop for review:

Interestingly, the Avid seems to have “corrected” the bars so that they more closely match where they’re supposed to be. At this stage I have no idea why this is or how it’s being done – but all I can assume for now is that the data out of Final Cut Pro was always correct – it just wasn’t being handled correctly in Photoshop or Quicktime Player.

Visually comparing the original file to the file exported out of Avid, what I can say is that they are identical in terms of colour and tone. You cannot tell the difference between the two:

OK – so it seems that it is possible to get footage into and out of Avid without the image being degraded.

Here’s an interesting bit of information I found on the Avid forum:

I have done some fairly extensive testing (with an oscilloscope and vectorscope….)…. It seems impossible to get certain footage with certain codecs to go through transparently through Compressor (or be imported correctly into FCP). A good test to do is the following: Import a testcard such as the one here:

http://www.belle-nuit.com/testchart.html

into Avid with 601 levels.

Export with your chosen codec then import the QT file into FCP. Observe the results in FCP’s waveform monitor, noting in particular the gray scale ramp which should be linear and have no curve. The patches marked 16 and 235 should be correctly positioned in the waveform.

DV footage with the Avid codec consistently has gamma issues (even though with RGB levels the black and 235 white levels are correct).

DV footage without the Avid codec works as from FCP 6.0 but had problems in 5.1.4 as Avid does not insert the image description extensions that describe the colorimetry (primaries, transfer fn and matrix). FCP 6.0 (and the version of compressor that comes with it) appears to deduce the correct primaries, xfer fn and matrix from the image size and codec (at least in the case of DV pal) if the ‘nclc’ QT extension is absent (which it always is from avid).

I have had little luck with the other codecs (prores, and native avid codecs) which are not transparent with a Avid->Compressor (or FCP) workflow. I think something is up with how Avid presents the image samples to the quicktime compression session. I suspect that given the absence of the ‘nclc’ extension which describes the colorimetry in the output QT file, Media Composer gives the codec no information as to the colorimetry of the samples, so the codec makes a best guess. Of course with the Avid codecs this works (the problem is with decode on FCP and not in the encoding), but with third-party codecs such as Apple ProRes there is a problem. As a result gamma correction is incorrectly applied to the source samples when it should not be. It would be nice if this would be addressed for greater compatibility with other software…..

This is also another interesting bit of information I found on the same forums:

Well the main difference between RGB and 601 color space is the ability to have super white and negative black.

If you were to create a black and white image in say Photoshop with the black being 0 and the white being 255 and then brought it into the Avid using RGB, the black part of the screen would be, in an analog world, 7.5IRE and the white would be 100IRE just what you’d expect. However if you brought it it in as 601, your levels would be about 0IRE and 107IRE.

An image created in Photoshop with “black” being 16 and “white” being 235 and then brought into an Avid in the 601 color space would then have correct black and white levels. Obviously this is very handy if you want to key something.

If you want to export a tiff sequence you can use either color space you want, just make note of which you use and make sure that whoever you give it to knows which you use. If you create it in 601 and bring it back into an Avid as RGB, it will look very washed out.

Here is some other information I found which is really interesting:

When I export your sample to Sheer Y’CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2:[4] with QuickTime Player, QuickTime Player feeds the images to the Sheer Y’CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4] encoder in the RGB 8bf ‘ARGB’ pixel format. I find this odd, since the Avid Meridien Uncompressed (AVUI) codec purportedly stores the data in Y’CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4] format. On inspecting the AvidAVUICodec, I see that ARGB is the only pixel format that the AVUI codec supports for input and output; it lacks the ‘cpix’ resource used to list other supported pixel formats.

For the last few frames in the movie (Silicon Artists presenta El Último Deseo), the “black” ARGB pixels passed to the Sheer Y’CbCr[A] 8bv 4:2:2[:4] encoder have the value:

ARGB = {0xFF,0×10,0×10,0×10} (hexadecimal)
ARGB = {255,16,16,16} (decimal)

When encoding to the Avid Meridien Uncompressed (AVUI) codec the settings dialog (‘Avid Meridien Uncompressed Codec Configuration – v1.8.0′) lets you specify the input color range as either ITU-R 601 video-range [16..235] or full-range [0..255]. However, QuickTime does not provide any mechanism to specify settings for a decoder. QuickTime unequivocally defines the ARGB pixel format as having full-range components, so the fact that AVID’s AVUI decompressor outputs video-range ARGB is just wrong.

OK… so now what I want to have a quick look at is the difference between the vector scopes in Avid and Final Cut Pro using the same source footage.

Avid 3.0.5:

Final Cut Pro 7:

With this knowledge, it was now time to try and bring the test footage that was exported out of Avid back into Final Cut Pro. Just to re-cap, I originally created the Quicktime Movie in Final Cut Pro, exported as a 10-Bit Uncompressed QT, brought it into Avid as OMF 1:1, 601 and then exported out as 601.

Amazingly, the export from Avid almost perfectly matched the original file that was sent from Final Cut Pro.

Original Footage (10-bit Uncompressed from Final Cut Pro):

Avid Footage (Avid Same as Source imported into FCP):

I then decided to have a look through the Avid documentation once again and found the following information in regards to how Avid handles Field Ordering:

Allows you to select the field ordering (sometimes referred to as field dominance) of the media you are importing. For 23.976p, 24p, or 25p projects, these options do not appear; all fields are automatically exported as progressive (still) frames.

When the field ordering (or spatial field position) of the imported media matches the field ordering of the project format, no special processing is required. For more information, see “Field Ordering in Graphic Imports and Exports” on page 499.

This setting does not apply to OMFI imports when the import resolution matches the OMFI file.

The following options are available:

• Non-interlaced (Properly ordered for current format): Use this option when the file to be imported has been correctly field ordered for the video format being used (ex: Even or lower ordered for NTSC, Odd or upper ordered for 1080i HD). This is the default option.
• Odd (Upper Field First) Odd (Upper Field First) ordered: Choose this option if the file was odd ordered and you are importing it into an even ordered format. For example, importing PAL DV into PAL.
• Even (Lower Field First) Even (Lower Field First) ordered: Choose this option when importing a file with even ordering into a video format with odd ordering. For example, importing NTSC into 1080i HD.

OK, so now that brings us to the final test of the day. For this test I will capture some standard PAL DV footage into Avid and then export it and try to bring it into Final Cut Pro, hopefully without introducing any strange artefacts, field dominance issues or gamma/luma shifts.

The Avid project is 25p PAL.The Media Type is OMF. We will be using a DV 25P 420 video resolution. I used the Software DV 25 Codec (which I later discovered is not so good for PAL footage!).

Here is a screenshot of the footage as it sits in the Avid preview monitor:

Here are the screen shots of exported footage from the Avid brought into Final Cut Pro:

Same as Source (601):

Same as Source (RGB):

Same as Source (Avid DV / 601):

Same as Source (Avid DV / RGB):

Quicktime Animation (601):

Quicktime Animation (RGB):

So it seems that if you want to get footage that looks right from Avid to Final Cut Pro, then Same as Source (Avid DV Codec / 601) or something like the Quicktime Animation Codec (601) seem like viable solutions. Given that, I did a couple more tests:

Avid DV (601):

Instead of exporting as “Same as Source” and selecting “Avid DV”, I exported as a standard Quicktime File, but used the Avid DV codec. It’s important to note that the Avid DV Codec has some additional options:

DV PAL (601):

ProRes HQ (Automatic Gamma Correction / 601):

Just to see what happens, I exported the footage both using and not using gamma correction.

ProRes HQ (No Gamma Correction / 601):

So, although no very scientific, and purely based on visual observation rather than mathematical fact, it seems that as long as you keep 601 checked, getting footage from Avid into Final Cut isn’t that big a deal after all.

As I said at the start of this blog entry – this was always going to be a bit all over the place as I did random tests and tried out new things. Apologies if you got to the end of this an realised that I didn’t answer any real questions or teach you something you didn’t already know. I really hope it was some help! The more time I have to spend with Avid, and the more time I have to work out viable workflows of getting stuff into and out of it, the more things will hopefully become clear in my head. I will certainly post anything I think is useful here. One thing’s for certain… after looking through so many Avid forums, and reading hundreds of articles randomly scattered on the web, it’s clear that I’m not the only one that’s confused. Like a lot of things these days, it takes a lot of patience, hair-pulling and vigorous workflow testing to get things right. Everything is so complex – and it just takes one little glitch to throw everything off balance.

Happy editing!

Best Regards, Chris!

But today I’m not going to talk about software. I’m going to talk about the other end of the spectrum… hardware.

Even since people started discovering that Apple has been applying for various touch-screen patients the Internet community has been going wild. The funny this is that most people think that they’re working on a Kindle Killer. Alex Lindsay from This Week In Media has been predicting a Kindle-like device that supports video and has a colour screen for months now. Geeks on Twitter, various Mac blogs, and all the Apple rumour sites have been going crazy in recent months predicting Apple Tablets.

Steve Jobs has explicitly said he doesn’t want to make a netbook and that “there are no plans to make a tablet” – so why is everyone so convinced that Apple is working on something that will go head-to-head with the popular, but hardly world changing, Kindle?

Personally, I don’t think Apple is working on a “bigger version of the iPhone”. What’s the point? If you want to read something on the train, you can use your iPhone or iPod Touch. If that’s not big enough, then get a laptop. If neither work for you, then just get a Kindle. That’s what they’re designed for. I don’t think there is a big enough need for Apple to create a tablet just to tackle the “digital book” market. I know it sounds silly – but I think Apple regard traditional books (you know, the paper variety) as dead. Text mixed with video and interactive multimedia is the new black.

Ok, lets be harsh for a minute. Kindle’s are geared towards older people. They’ve been developed as a “book replacement”. Older people love them because they are easy to read. You can change the text size. They’re simple to operate, buying digital books is fairly easy, and you can carry the Kindle around in your giant handbag. Lots of people over 40 really love their Kindle. They’re a great mothers and fathers day gift. That said of course, lots of younger people love them (a.k.a the amazingly talented, intelligent and witty Daisy Whitney), but most of them are “books nerds” from way back. I don’t think Apple wants to make a leap into the “book nerd” territory. Apple is all about being cool and innovative. As I said, I think Apple thinks print media is dead. I love books personally – you have no idea how many film books I have lying around in my house, or how much money I spent of film related books of all varieties! However, the though of buying digital books doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Just like I love having a whole pile of physical DVDs – I love having a book shelf full of books. I think that Apple has realised that people who just love books like I do, will never accept a digital equivalent. I think that Apple has realised that most young people who can be bothered reading, will be happy to read on their iPhone or iPod Touch. And I think that Apple has decided that although there is a market for digital books on a nice and simple digital book reader (like the Kindle) – it’s a market that they’re not particularly interested in.

OK… so the tablet idea is out… what about the netbook? Well I think that’s out too. As others have clearly said:

“One of the key selling points of a Mac lies in its usability, and a Netbook will not be able to deliver the full Mac experience with its small screen and slow single-core processor. Moreover, an Apple minilaptop will be unlikely to compete in price cuts and may cost as much as another premium Atom machine, the Sony Vaio P.”

I tend to agree. Apple isn’t going to make a laptop unless it can easily run the power-hungry applications in it’s iLife suite with ease. iPhone as they currently stand are basically just a more compact version of a netbook anyway. As cloud computing becomes more the norm, and as more people jump on board Mobile Me I think more and more people will start their job on their MacBook and automatically sync everything up to their iPhone. They’ll be able to put together their presentation in KeyNote on the MacBook, but then make changes before they step onto the stage on their iPhone. I don’t see the need for a netbook (after all who wants to cart around yet ANOTHER piece of technology), and I don’t think Apple does either.

So where does that leave us? Tablets are out. Netbooks are out. So what is Apple planning to do exactly?

Well… you’re going to call me crazy. You’re going to think that I’m out of my mind. But my prediction is that by the end of next year, every Mac will be touchable. That’s right. I think that every MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Apple Cinema Display and iMac will have a touch screen. I also predict that the MacBook and MacBook Pro will replace the Multi-Touch Trackpad with a fully functional multi-touch tablet.

Why you may ask? Because it will not only be really cool – but also speed things up dramatically. For instance, right now I have two screens sitting in front of me. I’m typing something in a web browser. But say I want to quickly open a document that’s sitting on my desktop which contains a whole lot of notes. To do that I’ll have to lift my hands of the keyboard, grab the mouse, move it over to the icon and click. How much easier would it be if I could just reach for the screen and double tap directly.

This is my crazy prediction… Apple is planning to kill the mouse. I think that when Apple releases it’s new Operating System (which already supports touch and some pretty cool character recognition), it will also update all it’s hardware to include touch screens, remove mice from the inventory list, but include a new “multi-touch keyboard” with each MacPro tower and Mac mini. The keyboard will basically be exactly the same as you’ll find on a 17″ MacBook Pro – touchpad included.

With Windows 7 coming out, which surprisingly actually works, and works quite well, and with PC hardware prices coming down, Apple needs more things to separate Mac hardware from PC hardware. The super slick operating system is not enough any more. Despite what Mac enthusiast may tell you, Microsoft is catching up again (admittedly by stealing most of Apple’s ideas and concepts!). Apple needs to push the boundaries once more, and having “touchable computers” seems like the logical step forward. They have the cool factor, but they also will help speed up everyday tasks. In the pro world of video and stills photography, I think it will be even more ground breaking. Most visual effects artists love their tablet, but imagine if they could combine their traditional Wacom tablet with two nice and big 24″ touchable LED Cinema Displays!

This changeover to touchable screens will bring the whole Apple product line, into, well, line! Everything from a MacPro to a MacBook to an iPhone and iPod Touch will be running MacOS and have a touch screen. It’s an advertising agency’s dream! Imagine the Mac vs PC ads now…

Will it happen? Yes it will. When, well that’s a bit more tricky. It all comes down to money and technology. I have a sneaky suspicion that we’ll see this kind of thing much sooner than anyone could possibly predict. I have a feeling Apple has been working on this for a while. Although I have no facts, or no evidence what-so-ever to base this on, hell, it’s just a good old fashion guess, but I can imagine that Apple might announce something at the same time as it’s Snow Leopard unveiling.

So that’s my prediction as of today. No Kindle Killer. No bigger-version-of-the-iPhone tablet. No less-powerful-than-a-MacBook netbook. I think Apple will just introduce “touch” to the whole product range. However, leaving the best till last, I also predict that on the MacBook Air, you’ll be able to “slide” the screen around, essentially turning it into a tablet. It won’t be called a tablet, it’ll just be a MacBook Air Touch (or something like that).

Will I be right? As always, only time will tell… I think we’ll find out if I’m crazy slightly before we find out if my FCX predictions are on track… Fingers crossed!

Up until the end of February this year, I have been a Final Cut Pro man. But just to give you some background, as a young child, well before NLEs were available cheaply on personal computers, I did editing the old fashion way between two VHS domestic recorders. Sound mixing was done “on the fly” using a cool four channel Realistic microphone mixer.  It was a horrible system – but it worked. Many a Star Wars fan movie was thrown together in my grandparents back yard. As I grew older, and progressed through Primary School, I moved away from film making temporarly becoming more interested in electric guitars, amplifiers and concert lighting. Towards middle years of high school I had another bash at making films – this time I did all the editing on Premiere on a PC. We recorded everything using Panasonic handycams with VHS-C tapes, and then using one of those cool VHS tape adapters, we captured everything using a normal domestic VHS deck. Once again, I drifted away from films, becoming more interested in live productions.

For my brothers final year of high school, he decided to do Studio Arts, and produce two short films. As he’d never really done any film-making before, and I was working full time as a lighting designer (so I had money!), I decided to go on a bit of a spending spree and purchase some things. So one day we had nothing apart from a little Sony MiniDV camera – the next we had a portable green screen, boom pole, ME66 microphone, some basic tungsten lighting, makeshift steadicam, a few Lacie drivers, and a copy of Final Cut Express 2 and DVD Studio Pro (standalone) to put on a new eMac.

So, over the next couple of weeks, as my brother was in preproduction for his two films – I quickly got my head around both the Mac platform (as up until now we’d grown up with PCs) and Final Cut Express. To be perfectly honest, I feel instantly in love, with not only Final Cut, but also with Macs in general. They just… well, worked!

As so, with the help of Final Cut Express, my brother got his two films, God’s Handiwork and Hello Sunshine. With those now finished, and high school completed, my brother then also moved away from film-making heading to univeristy to study Arts/Science. But we now had all this gear, and the inventory was continuing to grow (we purchased a Sony Z1P as soon as it came out). And so, after working for two years as a lighting designer for live events – an amazing job which took me all over the country and many times overseas – I decided to head back to school, studying Film & Television at university.

The film school I went to was a Final Cut Pro facility, and so I upgraded from Final Cut Express to Final Cut Studio – and because I already owned a copy of DVD Studio Pro – the upgrade was incredibly cheap!

And so, for the past five years I’ve been using Final Cut Pro extensively. I’ve thrown all kinds of footage at it from DV to HDV,  XDCAM to DVCProHD, 10-Bit Uncompressed Telecine Transfers to RED. I love Final Cut Pro. It’s powerful, flexible, fast, and cheap. Plus, everyone knows how to use it.

Final Cut Pro has served me extremely well. However, when I took up an editing assistant job earlier this year, I discovered that I’d have to learn Avid. And so, for the past 12 weeks or so, I’ve been using Avid on a daily basis. And guess what… I love it just as much as I love Final Cut Pro.

And so, when my ex-film school peers ask me which is better, I reply… “I love them both, equally”. I hate to be the kind of guy that sits on the fence, but the reality is they’re pretty much exactly the same in my opinion. They both do the same things – just a bit differently.

Just for the record – I’ve used Vegas and Premiere in the past as well – but only for individual projects. I haven’t played with the latest version of either. I also haven’t played with the latest version of Avid – although I’m really looking forward to testing out the new AMA architecture within the next few weeks.

Ok… so, one of the most common things I hear is, “Final Cut crashes all the time… but Avid is bullet proof…”. Well, although I’ve had my fair share of Final Cut Pro crashes over the years, I have to say, from my experiences, Avid is far from perfect! Admittedly I’m using 3.0.5 at work – so it’s not the latest version, but that’s really no excuse.

Generally speaking, I think that Avid crashes just as much as Final Cut Pro – when you’re not doing “normal” stuff. For example, if I’m just doing a rough cut of DV-PAL footage on Final Cut Pro, with just simple cuts and simple dissolves, then everything will just work. No crashes, no stalls, no bizarre error messages. Everything will just work. Same as with Avid. However, as soon as you start pushing the boundaries a bit – things start going wrong. For example, in Final Cut Pro, if you’re working with heaps of different formats on your timeline, with thousands of hours of footage in your project file, and a bunch of image sequences, PSD files, etc. you’re bound to have problems. Things will go wrong. The project will take a long time to open. Obviously there are work arounds (such as splitting up your project into multiple projects, etc.) but they’re not ideal. Avid is the same. I’ve been doing some temporary visual effects compositions  in Avid for an offline for a television commercial. The reason they were done in Avid was so that when we hand the EDL over to the effects company – they know what footage they need to use. Avid is FANTASTIC for this kind of thing. I love the AniMatte effect – it’s far better than anything Final Cut has. However, once you have twelve tracks of video all with a colour correction and a couple of mattes – Avid starts to panic a bit. Strange errors start popping up. Things stop working normally. Having said that though – I’ve never had Avid crash (i.e. the program close) on me before. It’s crashed a couple of times on load due to a dodgy file in the OMFI folder – but it’s never died whilst I’ve been doing something important. It’s given me lots of cryptic error messages – but so has Final Cut.

Having said all that – Avid does seem a lot more stable. The timeline responsiveness is incredible. Final Cut Pro is generally pretty good when you wizz around the timeline, but at times it seems to slow down for no particular reason. Avid is fast. Always fast. I like that. I like that a lot.

Another thing that people generally always say is that the media management in Final Cut Pro sucks. Everyone seems to agree that this is the case – from film school students, to random people on Twitter to professionals. Everyone, except me. Personally, I think that the way Avid and Final Cut Pro handle files is pretty much the same – and yes, I know this is going to cause all kinds of arguments. When I set up a new Final Cut Pro project, I set up a new folder structure on an external hard drive (on an unrelated topic – I name all my external drives after pet dogs I’ve come across in the past):

For every single project I work on, I have a Final Cut workspace folder. This contains everything to do with the project – render files, caches, stills, graphics, audio, etc. The advantage of this is that when I open up the project on another Mac, everything is there, and ready to go. No need to re-render. No need to reconnect. Everything just works. The disadvantage is that I need to change the Capture Scratch and Cache paths every time I open a project. However, this only takes about 7 seconds, so it’s not that much of a pain. I very rarely open two project files at once unless it’s a massive film I’m working on such as a feature (and almost never open two different films at the same time, so I don’t get any nasty problems like render files being saved to the wrong project workspace).

Unless you’re working with a Unity – Avid pretty much works the same way. For each project you had a OMFI Media files folder (if you’re working with OMF files) or an Avid MediaFiles folder (if you’re working in MXF files). Sure you can store content for multiple projects in the same media folder, just like you can in Final Cut Pro – but that just makes life more confusing when the time comes to moving projects around. So, I much prefer to have a new OMFI folder for each project.

So in that sense – for my workflow – both Avid and Final Cut Pro work the same way. I keep the media in one place and never have any reconnection issues. Of course if I just drag a file from the desktop into Final Cut Pro without first moving it into my workplace – then I’m going to have reconnection issues if I move to another Mac. But I’m a fairly organised person, so I always put stuff in the right place. For those people who are too lazy or forgetful, then do yourself a favour an purchase a copy of Loader from Digital Heaven.

In terms of actual editing (i.e. the creative stuff) Avid and Final Cut are very different. It took me a while to get out of the habit of being able to quickly drag and drop like you can in Final Cut Pro, but within two or three days, I’ve quickly adapted to the new way of thinking. I really like the way Avid works and can see why editors love it (especially the more old school editors from the days were you had to physically “cut and paste” film). Avid seems hard core and industrial – whereas Final Cut seems more like a sexy new toy. That said though, I personally think a good Final Cut Pro editor can be just as quick as a really good Avid editor. I don’t think one method of working is better than the other – just different.

One thing that Avid wins hand down on is the default keyboard mapping. I’ve grown up with Final Cut Pro, so I’ve never really thought too much about it. Until I started working with Avid. The default Avid layout isn’t perfect – but it’s so much better than Final Cut! Make sure you check out the Keyboard Manifesto on the ProVideo Coalition site. Scott allows you to download a great “Avid-like” keyboard layout to “fix up” Final Cut Pro. However, that said, I can see why Apple have mapped the keyboard the way they have. It’s logical. Sure, it may not be fast. But film students can literally walk up to a Final Cut Pro workstation and have a fair idea of what everything does. When they walk up to an Avid – they have no idea. Avid makes the most sense once you’ve been shown once what everything is – but Final Cut Pro makes sense from the onset.

So what do I like about Avid much more than I do about Final Cut?

The colour corrector in Avid is amazing. It’s so powerful and so easy to use. Apple’s 3-way Colour Corrector is a toy in comparison. However, that said, Final Cut Studio comes with Color – which despite what some people may tell you, is amazing. Sure it has some bugs in it – but they’ll be worked out in time. In the meantime there is always workarounds. Most people hate the interface – but I think it makes sense. Sure it’s not very Apple – but who really cares. As long as it creates amazing looks – which it does.

The effects in Avid are a lot better than Final Cut. I love the AniMatte. It reminds me of After Effects. I wish Final Cut Pro had something like this without having to install some expensive 3rd party plugin.

I love the way Avid handles users and preferences. The fact that when you boot up Avid you’re presented with an option to select a project you wish to open, plus select a user preference is fantastic. It’s so simple, so logical, yet so incredible. Why oh why can’t Final Cut Pro introduce this? The only thing that I don’t like about Avid is the one thing that may people love about it! Whenever I change projects, I need to also change the OMFI folders around. It would be great if when you opened a project you could also select which “media folder” you wanted to use.

By far my FAVOURITE thing about Avid is the way it handles project files. The fact that you can simply copy and paste a bin on the finder level is so much better than the way Final Cut Pro handles things. Sure you can export out an XML file in Final Cut Pro – but it’s so much easier to just be able to copy and paste a bin. From an assistants point of view – this is invaluable! I can just copy and paste bins to the editor and the new bins magically appear in his project. Amazing!

My second favourite thing about Avid is the way it handles settings. You can easily copy and paste settings and rename them. For example, you might have a couple of different configurations for deck setups. Instead of having to change all the settings around each time you change decks, you can just uncheck one configuration and check the other. You can have multiple keyboard configurations in the one user profile. The Avid is amazingly customisable. You can basically change EVERYTHING to suit your needs.

So… if Avid has all these amazing features, why don’t I just change? Well, originally it was just a matter of price. Final Cut Pro is DEAD cheap whereas Avid WAS incredibly expensive. This is changing. But, personally, I think I’m going to be one of those annoying people who is constantly switching between Avid and Final Cut Pro. Why? Because they are both fantastic tools – and they basically do exactly the same thing – it’s just that they are both better at different things.

Final Cut Pro is like a Swiss army knife. You can basically throw anything at it and do things quickly. It can basically tackle any Quicktime file you throw at it, and within minutes you can get from the Final Cut Pro timeline to an exported DVD. It’s quick and sometimes nasty. Everyone knows how to use it (and even if they don’t know, they can learn the basics within hours) – so if you get sick someone else can take over the project with ease. As long as the project is set up correctly from the get-go, and you have some kind of self control in terms of managing files, then you shouldn’t run into too many (if any!) reconnection issues. Final Cut Pro is GREAT for short projects. It’s the perfect short film tool. However for longer projects it dies. It doesn’t handle masses of footage well at all. If you have 40 or so hours of footage in the project, it can take up to 15 minutes to boot up even on the fastest Mac. If you have hundreds of sequences within a project, you can run into all kinds of “Out of Memory” problems. Sure there are workaround – such as using a different project for each scene. But that’s a pain.

Avid on the other hand is a workhorse. It can handle feature films with ease. The boot up time is almost instant in most cases. It’s not bullet proof – but I’ve never lost media, render files, or work because of a random bug or error – in comparison to Final Cut Pro where I’ve lost whole projects temporarily (thank goodness for the Autosave vault!). If I know I’m going to be working with a lot of media, then Avid will always be my first preference.

Although the new AMA changes everything – as of Avid 3.0.5 and Final Cut Pro 6.0.5, both NLEs have the same limitation – although it doesn’t bother me that much. Avid converts everything to MXFs of OMFs whereas Final Cut Pro converts everything to Quicktimes. This doesn’t bother me in the slightest. People complain about the transcode times. Do it while you’re sleeping. People complain about requiring so much hard drive space. Hard drives are cheap now. I don’t think this is really a limitation at all.

Finally, I still stand by my prediction that the next version of Final Cut Studio will change EVERYTHING. I’m sorry, but there is no way in hell Apple is going to watch Avid dramatically improve their packages, lower the prices dramatically, and just do nothing. I’m extremely confident that Apple has something new and amazing hidden away in some dark and smelly room somewhere. But, that said, Avid is now a completely different company. They’ve changed. For the better. They are actually listening to their customers, and seriously improving their software.

One thing for certain is that I think Avid will eventually get rid of the EDL Manager and DigiTranslator, and put this functionality directly into the Avid application. I think integration between ProTools and Avid will also become almost transparent. But I also think that the integration between Final Cut Pro and ProTools will become better.  I finally think Avid has decided to stop fighting Apple and start working out ways to get their software in front of the eyes of Final Cut Pro fanatics.

So in conclusion… both Avid and Final Cut Pro are great tools that both can help achieve amazing works of art. Both are far from perfect. Both have bugs. Both needs improving. But I think every editor should have both on their system.

If you’re doing a long form project – unless you have an amazing assistant editor who’s extremely technically proficient and patient – I’d stick with Avid. It’s got an unchallenge amazing track record.

If you’re doing a short film – then maybe Final Cut Pro is the go.

If you’re working with lots of different editors, or if it’s a big project, then Avid is the winner, although you can do these kinds of projects with Final Cut Pro. Personally I prefer the ability to easily copy and paste bins than using XML files.

Either way, I know it’s cliche, but as every editor will tell you, it’s not the tools that make a great film – it’s the talented editor who’s TELLING A STORY. It’s easy to get bogged down in technology, and Final Cut vs Avid discussions – but at the end of the day use the tool that works.

Happy Editing! Feel free to leave your comments, suggestions, abuse, ideas, etc. below! I’d love to hear from you!

Best Regards, Chris!

Directed by Sydney-based Shawn Seet – who traditionally has mainly done television directing and editing as well as being awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in the 2001 Queen’s New Years Honours Lis for his services to Australian society and to Australian film production – this film is sure to be a hit, especially given that At the Movies gave it some a positive review. It will be very interesting to see how this film goes at the box office…

Ignoring the actual film for a minute – the thing that really caught our attention was their online presence. As well as the official movie site, they also had two other promotional sites. One of them teaches you how to throw a punch, and the other features a Cut Your Own Scene competition. It’s the latter that really got us interested.

On the site, you can download five scenes, and some sound effects and temp score and basically do what you want with it (under the condition that you link back to their site if you display it online). The footage is in “rushes” form – meaning the footage has a logo on it, isn’t colour graded and has timecode burnt into it. Although they don’t give you all the footage for each scene (and if they actually do, then they really shot VERY little coverage for each scene), and the “rushes” have been edited together to look like rushes (i.e. slates have been added in for the hell of it, random footage has been added, useful footage has been removed) – you’re still provided with some useful footage, and it’s great to play around with.

Although the competition has now closed – the general idea was that the public can cut together their own scene, and submit it for review.The best five scenes will be posted on Disney’s promotional site for the film (obviously this is a great opportunity for some exposure to high-profile people in the film industry). These five best scene cuts will be selected by Bill Russo head of Editing at the AFTRS and the creative team from the film. Interestingly, Director Shawn Seet, Editor Milena Romanin and Cinematogropher Hugh Miller are all graduates from AFTRS, Australia’s premiere Film and Television school.

If you haven’t already downloaded the rushes and had a play – I highly recommend you do! They’re great for practising your craft, and would also make a terrific training tool.

I downloaded the rushes a few months ago now, and used them to really get to grips with Avid (as I’ve done most of my cutting in Final Cut Pro in the past). Trying to cut together a real scene (as opposed to some dodgy video footage supplied with most books and tutorials), was really handy. Just getting on with the job, and learning as I went, was extremely beneficial.

For your viewing pleasure, here are some of the edits I threw together:

Scene A (Rough Cut 001)

Scene B (Rough Cut 001)

Scene C (Rough Cut 005)

Scene E (Rough Cut 001)

None of these edits are particularly amazing – although I did spend a fair bit of time on Scene C to try and get it flowing a lot nicer. The lack of coverage was a bit tricky – and really added to the challenge. I didn’t have time to really fix up the audio or grade the footage either – so you’re really seeing a first pass of an offline edit.

You can download my Avid Project for the scene here if you like. You’ll need to download all the media yourself though and re-link it. Originally I planned to log all the clips in Final Cut Pro as well – but never got around to it. If you edited the scenes in Final Cut and want to offer your project file on this site, let me know!

Overall – I think this campaign was a really good idea, and I’d love to see some statistics on how many people actually downloaded the rushes and submitted entries for the competition. Looking at YouTube search results, there doesn’t seem to be that many people that got into it which is a real shame. Although the fact that the site moved their rushes over to Amazon Web Services probably means that at least a lot of people were downloading the files. I guess at the end of the day any publicity is good publicity, and the most people that talk about the film the better.

It’s really interesting watching what other people have done. For example, I just watched this version – although it’s cut together OK, it seems a bit all over the place, and doesn’t really have a nice flow to it. Also, you don’t really get an insight into the characters at all. This version of another scene is a lot better – but it seems really fast. I also don’t really like the dissolve at the start. This version of the fight scene however works HEAPS better than mine. At the time of playing with this scene, I was too afraid to use jump cuts, and I really tried to make it flow naturally – but it never really worked. I used far too many instances of the one cutaway (the young worker looking through the window). In retrospect, I think the use of fast jump cuts and really making the action zip past would have worked a lot better. I’ve also been told you should never have characters both enter and exit a sense – you should either have one or the other. This is hard when you’re only cutting one scene, with no overall context – but I think the rule is still a good one, and may have helped me with some of the other scenes.

As we’re in the process of trying to build a similar campaign for the SAKOOZ trailer, this was a really great project to study. The fact that you could download the rushes (as opposed to editing the trailer online) is something that really interests us. However, I think by making people download large files and edit them on their own system (whether they use Mac or PC, Avid or FCP, Premiere or Vegas, Windows Movie Maker or iMovie…) as opposed to just being able to cut something together in the comfort of a web browser, means that the campaign attracts more to geeks and professionals, as opposed to just general movie goers. As a lot of geeks and professionals will probably go see the movie regardless, I’m not sure if this kind of thing will actually attract more audience numbers to the cinemas. What I’m now considering for the SAKOOZ site (and for future “cutting your own version” sites), it having the option – you can either edit online (we are currently working very closely with the team at Kaltura), or download and cut it together using your own tools.

Regardless of all this – we highly recommend you go and see the film at the movies and support Australian films! And when it comes out on DVD – buy that as well! I’m sure there’ll be some great special feature on that one…

Finally – if you edited your own version of the scenes, feel free to let us know via the comments system at the bottom of this page! We’d love to see your interpretation of the scenes!

Happy editing!

Best Regards, Chris!

Some people are predicating the death of DVD Studio Pro, others are predicting that Blu-ray burning will finally become available. With Apple filing for new patents, some are predicting that Final Cut Studio will introduce some cool new storyboarding features.

People are hoping for better round-tripping support, better media management, unified solid state camera support, major bug-fixes in Color, 10-bit and 4K support, GPU Acceleration, true 3D in Motion, features from Adobe Premiere (such as searchable text), features from Avid (such as script sync), features from iMovie (such as an updated trim editor), background rendering, Spotlight support inside Final Cut… the list goes on, and on!

Regardless of what new and amazing features end up in Final Cut Studio 3, everyone wants to get their hands on it quick smart! Most people seem to think that Apple will showcase their new product somewhere between now and NAB (even though Apple have dropped out of NAB for the foreseeable future).

So, given all this, what are our predictions?

Well, we think sometime this year Apple will release Final Cut Extreme – a complete overhaul of the Final Cut Studio package.

The name Final Cut Extreme has been around since the lead-up to NAB 2006, after ThinkSecret, writing for PCMagazine, claimed to have additional details about Final Cut Pro 6, Final Cut Extreme, and long-rumoured display upgrades. Final Cut Extreme was said to enable the most demanding users to edit uncompressed 4K and 2540p video. Compatibility was said to include Red Digital Cinema’s Red, Panavision Genesis, Dalsa Origin, Thompson Viper, Sony Cinealta, Phantom HD, and Arri D20 cameras. After this article was released, the online film community went crazy, with heaps of blog posts being written adding to the hype. Unfortunately, the rumours were false, an no Final Cut Extreme was released at NAB 2006. However, in the lead-up to NAB 2007, everything started again. There was the occasional sensible article being written, but most of it was just hype and strong wishing.

However, we don’t think Final Cut Extreme will be designed for the extreme high-end market – we just think that they’ll rename the existing Final Cut Studio package to Final Cut Extreme and keep a similar pricing. It will still be marketed towards their current broad audience – but we also predict, that with a massive new collection of features and simplified workflows, that a lot of the high-end boys and girls will jump on board.

So what will make this new FCX so different? Well, it’s our prediction that most of the Final Cut Studio (i.e. Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Color, LiveType, etc.) will be merged into the one application. We predict a MASSIVE interface and workflow overhaul. No longer will you need to Send to Soundtrack Pro, or use XML workarounds to get your timeline into Color. Everything will be in the one “box”. In typical Apple style – we predict they’ll make things better, by making them substantially simpler.

So how the hell will this actually work? We believe the key is a new Universal Timeline and a set of different Rooms.

The Project Room will be the “hub” of your project. Taking media management to a new extreme, this will be were you can manage different versions of your project, keep track of scripts, storyboards, and other pre-production information. Taking on board features find in other packages such as Celtx, we predict that FCX will have a big focus on ALL stages of the film-making process, including Pre-Production.

User Management will be dramatically improved in FCX. Much like in Avid, you will be able to easily create and switch between user profiles when the application first loads, and also any time whilst you have the application running. You can easily customise the FCX interface to suit your own needs. Currently, managing user customisations in Final Cut Pro is a joke. Multiple users working on the same project will also be supported. Changes will be tracked and logged.

We predict that as an extension to their current MobileMe platform, they will release MobileMe Pro, which will easily allow you to share pre-production documents such as scripts and call sheets, as well as offer everything that Final Cut Server currently has to offer. You’ll be able to easily export rough cuts out of FCX, that will automatically be uploaded to the MobileMe platform, and then producers can access these videos on their iPhone.

The whole selling point of FCX will be making life quicker and easier. In typical Apple style – they’ll take features only found on extremely expensive and high-end products, and make them cool and pretty for trendy Apple users. The integration between FCX, the Internet, AppleTV and iPhones will be extremely important to the success of the product.

Project Files will also be quite different to the way they are currently handled in Final Cut. They will be an archive file, which when opened will contain a logical folder structure containing any pre-production information, scripts, etc. Each bin in the Edit Room will be an individual file (much the same as Avid), allowing you to easily copy and paste individual bins if need be.

The Media Room, will be a beefed up version of a mix between the Media Manager in Final Cut, and Final Cut Server. This will be were you keep track of all your video, audio, graphics and other assets. When you create a new Project, you will be asked to select a Media Collection. This will be the equivalent of your Capture Scratch, Thumbnail Cache, etc. In this file (which will be an archive, so you can right click on it and “view archive contents) will be ALL the assets for your project, all nicely organised in a logical folder structure. Each project will have it’s own Media Collection (similar to Avid’s way to dealing with things). If you delete a file from the collection on the Finder level, these changes are automatically detected by FCX (just like in Avid). You can have multiple version of the same file (ie. you might have a couple different versions of a musical score) – and this is all handled by FCX. One of the coolest features will be a video Face Recognition function, much the same as the one found in iMovie. Video clips will also be scanned, and using a new Speech-to-Text engine automatic transcripts will be written (just like in the new version of Premiere).

Unfortunately, we still predict that FCX will be heavily based around the Quicktime Architecture, meaning that you’ll still probably have to wrap R3D files into Quicktime files. However, this process will be all done in the background. For example, if you drag a MXF file into the timeline, this file is automatically copied, logged and transcoded or wrapped to the Media Collection in the background. You can still do other things while FCX is adding new media (similar to the way Final Cut Pro handles it’s new stabilisation features).

CinemaTools will also be integrated into the Media Room – allowing you to easily go from a ProRes offline, to a 35mm release print.

The Cutting Room, will be the Final Cut Pro replacement. Although Final Cut has come a very long way since it was shown in private room demonstrations as a 0.9 alpha at the National Association of Broadcasters exposition in 1998, it’s still not as “Apple” as it could be. Apple products are known for their slick interfaces, and features that “just work” – and although Final Cut is one of the more beautiful interfaces on the market, it’s still got nothing on the really cheap and friendly little brother, iMovie. It’s our prediction that the Cutting Room will have all the fantastic features of the current Final Cut Pro, but with some very major improvements.

The biggest and most important difference will be the Universal Timeline. This timeline will be common across all rooms. It will be very similar to the current timeline, except more powerful. Just imagine if you merged the Final Cut, After Effects, Motion and Soundtrack Pro timelines together. Audio will be vastly improved on the timeline – as you’ll be allowed to perform surround panning, etc. You’ll be able to group tracks, as well as label, colour code them, and even give them a thumbnail icon.

Although the interface will look much sexier, and modern – everything will function in a similar way to the current Final Cut Pro. Basically, if you can easily find your way around the current Final Cut application – this change over will be a non-issue. The biggest changes will be an improved Trim Tool and vastly improved Effects Engine.

After you’ve cut together your masterpiece, you can then jump over to the Audio Room. After you’ve clicked the Audio Room tab, your timeline stays the same, but the workarea section of the application changes. Building upon the features of both Logic and Soundtrack Pro, this is were you do all your audio mastering. Any simple audio effects you applied in the Cutting Room automatically transfer over to the Audio Room. There is a powerful real-time audio mixer (with all the automated faders and knobs you can handle), support of virtual instruments, plus all the plug-ins you’ve come to expect from Logic and STP. Plugins that work in Logic, also work in FCX. The sound effects library will no doubt be HUGE – and easily searchable via the Media Room.

Next is the Effects Room. After Apple announced the end of Shake, everyone has been eagily waiting for Apple to release the code-named Phenomenon replacement. However, this, so far, has never come about. That said, a lot of the amazing features of Shake have been included in Final Cut, Motion and even iMovie. We believe that the Effects Room will be the Shake replacement. We think that it will utilise a mixture of using the Universal Timeline – but also nodes (like in Shake). You’ll be able to do everything you can currently do in Motion and LiveType – plus utilise all the plugins that Shake has to offer, but the feature set will also be expanded upon. True 3D will be integrated into the package. Using the Media Room, you’ll also easily be able to import effects shots from other packages such as After Effects, and Nuke. The current Final Cut Studio has been very much designed to keep everything in the one package. Getting from Final Cut to After Effects is not a trivial task. However – in FCX, we predict that this will change. Just like MacOS can easily open and manage PDFs, we predict that Apple will try and make everything easier and simplier. Advanced 2D and 3D Trackers, powerful roto tools, etc. will all be stock standard. Masks that are created in the Cutting Room (which you can do using the new and improved pen tool) are automatically available in the Effects Room. Obviously, there will be heaps of amazing templates and “one click” options – all available via the Media Room.

The Grading Room will be the place to go for your final colour correction. Much as the same as the Audio Room, any colour correction effects you apply to clips in the Cutting Room will automatically be transferred over to the Grading Room. Based on Color, but with some added functionality from the Shake feature-set, this is were you can do all your grading. Tracking Data and Masks created in the Effects Room (or even the Cutting Room) are all available in the Grading Room.

Finally, you have the Finishing Room. This is the were you can export your timeline, clips, effects shots, etc. to web, DVD, AppleTV, iPod, etc. Taking on all the functionality of DVD Studio Pro and iDVD, plus all the power of Compressor – you can export things with one click, or customise the settings to the finest degree. Unfortunately, I suspect BluRay is dead – at least from Apple’s point of view (being a “bad of hurt” and all that!). In this room you’ll also be able to export to tape via a much improved and powerful interface.

Of course, all of this is great – but we predict that the biggest changes and improvements will be behind the scenes. There will be a change over from the 32-bit Carbon backbone to the 64-bit Cocoa. Everything will be GPU Accelerated. New low bit-rate versions of ProRes will be released. Less things will need rendering (for example, no more rendering if you simply “flip” an clip), and there will be better rendering management (i.e. if you drag a clip over the top of another clip, causing it to need to render, if you drag that clip away again, the old render files will be referenced – no need to re-render). There will be full meta-data support and Spotlight integration. You will be able to have multiple instances of FCX running – as you won’t be able to load multiple projects in the same application like you currently can. Every room will support distributed/cluster rendering as well as background rendering (this includes all plugins). Up to 4:4:4 4K will be supported, plus there will be better support for proxy files. It’s our prediction that FCX will be almost written from the ground up – so the code will be a lot cleaner and more streamlined, making everything more zippy!

There will also be heaps of little extra bug fixes and improvements, such as improved speed tools in the Cutting Room, better cutting and pasting of parameters, better and more interactive bins (you’ll be able to make your clips any size, and re-arrange them any way you want). The ability to “click and drag” to enable/disable or lock/unlock tracks, or check/uncheck filters (like various Adobe applications). One of the biggest improvements will be better error explanation (i.e. instead of “General Error”, FCX will explain exactly what went wrong and suggest ways of fixing it).

Cool new features will include a full screen bin browser (much like iMovie), new Titles, Transitions and Effects, Animated Travel Maps (available in the Effects Room – taken from iMovie), Advanced Particle Effects, Snap to Beat Markers (like iMovie), Multi-Touch Support (for laptop users), etc.

Customisation will also be a key. You’ll be able to design your own tool plugins for the Universal Timeline, which can be bought and sold as an application on the iTunes stores. If you open a project that has a whole lot of plugins you don’t have, then you’ll be given an option to download any of the free ones, or purchase any that aren’t free.

It’s our belief that FCX will focus on tying the professional application in with the rest of the Apple family of products. FCX will play nicely with the Xsan, Xserve, AppleTV, iPhone and iPod. It will have great connectivity with their new online “cloud”.

Finally – we have a hunch that Apple will release several hardware addons to FCX. This will speed up renders, and transcodes dramatically. But what makes this hardware so special, is that it’s design and source-code will be released as open source allowing 3rd party developers to take on board this technology. Companies like Blackmagic Design will be able to implement this technology in their own capture cards. They will also release a FCX control surface, that allows you to easily control all the various rooms in the application.

So, when do we predict this will be released? We have a hunch that Apple will release a minor update to Final Cut Studio within the next couple of months (fixing some of the bugs and adding some new codecs), but will release FCX towards the end of this year along with a new range of MacPro towers. At first, users will be extremely annoyed with Apple for completely re-designing the Final Cut workflow – but soon enough, people will start to realise just how powerful the new application is. As a result, Avid will dramatically reduce their pricing further, and start to offer Media Composer and ProTools as a single package.

We predict that the package will be AUD$1000.00, and you will not be able to upgrade to it from Final Cut Studio 2.

Will we be right? Only time will tell! Like most people, we do honestly believe that Apple is due for a major update – especially after we’ve just started using Avid for a couple of projects, and have realised just how fantastic the backbone behind Avid is (just the way it handles user profiles and project files is great). But we have “grown up” with Final Cut (in fact, that only reason we went to Apple was due to it!), so we do really want to support it. It will certainly be interesting to see what actually happens in the next few months (especially considering the state of the world’s finances). I don’t know how many people in the world are quite ready to spend a lot of money on new software…

Feel free to send us any comments about our predictions! We’d be really interested to hear what you have to say! But keep in mind, that all of this is just a big GUESS – we don’t have any insider information, nor do we have any connection to anyone at Apple. But after having a good look at Apple’s track record, we think that this is something that has a huge amount of possibility. As we said – only time will tell…

Best Regards, Chris!

The government’s been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the forties. They’ve infected everything. They get into your bank statements, computer files, e-mail, listen to your phone calls…. Every wire, every airwave. The more technology used, the easier it is for them to keep tabs on you. It’s a brave new world out there. At least it better be…

Brill from the film “Enemy of the State” (Touchstone Pictures 1998)

In Tony Scott’s 1998 blockbuster, “Enemy of the State”, a successful Washington DC lawyer is hunted down by a government intelligence group, after he is inadvertently given a video tape revealing the murder of a congressman. As he attempts to gather the facts with the intention to release them to the public’s eye, the full weight of the government’s surveillance equipment is swung into action – everything from coin size bugging devices and telephone location tracing to real-time satellite surveillance. The lawyer’s bank details, phone records and other extremely personal details are brought up and manipulated with ease by the government using their extensive computer networks (Touchstone Pictures 1998). Although at the time of the movies release the majority of the technology displayed in this film appeared far fetched and extremely unlikely. Step forward seven years and most, if not all of the equipment, suddenly seems all the more plausible.

Global Positioning Systems, or GPS as it is more commonly referred to, is one such technology that transforms science fiction into reality. It is a satellite-based navigation system, made up of 24 satellites placed into orbit by the United State Department of Defence, making it possible for people back on earth to pinpoint their geographic location using a receiver unit (Garmin 2000, p. 1). At the time of the films release technologies such as GPS did exist, however, unlike the equipment portrayed in the movie the accuracy of these devices was far from perfect. However, in more recent times, by using more advanced technologies such as Carrier-Phase Enhancement (CPGPS), the accuracy of GPS device has increased to within twenty to thirty centimetres (Wikipedia 2006). Even more astonishingly, some Differential GPS (DGPS) systems claim to be accurate to around one centimetre (Wikipedia 2006). It would seem that Hollywood has once again made some very accurate speculations of what the future would hold.

One of the key factors for the success of “Enemy of the State” was that it highlighted the potential for governments to invade the privacy of its citizens. Audiences worldwide were terrified of the possibility that intelligence organisations such as the National Security Agency had the potential to record their phone calls and track their movements even though most considered the technology to be quite some time away. Several years have passed since the films release, and now GPS is increasingly being adopted by private and public sectors to track and monitor humans for Location Based Services (LBS) (Wikipedia 2006). For example, current applications include locators for children, the elderly or those suffering from severe memory loss, and the monitoring of individuals for law enforcement, security or personal protection purposes (Dempsey 2001). The constant miniaturisation of GPS technology means that receivers can now take the form of wristwatches and be placed inside mobile phones and jewellery, all with the ability to pinpoint the exact longitude and latitude of a subject, twenty four hours a day – seven days a week. The purpose of this essay is to consider and explore the issues of mobile privacy that are raised in relation to Global Positioning Systems, and to analyse the emerging ethical concerns facing current and future GPS applications. Specific focus will be directed towards surveillance and identity, as most citizens in Australia believe they should have the right to remain anonymous if they so wish.

Although the technology behind GPS is quite complex, the theory behind how the system functions is relatively straightforward. GPS satellites circle the earth twice a day, travelling in a very strict orbit and constantly transmit signal information back towards the earth. Receiver units take this information and use triangulation to calculate the user’s exact location. Essentially, the GPS receiver compares the time a signal was transmitted by a satellite with the time it was received. This difference in time is then used to calculate how far away the satellite is. The receiver must be locked on to at least three satellite signals in order to calculate the 2D position – that is, the longitude and latitude. If the receiver is able to obtain the signal from four or more satellites, it can then determine the user’s 3D position: longitude, latitude and now altitude. With this continuously updated data, software within the device can then plot a user’s position against map information, and calculate other details such as speed, trip distance, distance to destination and other useful information (Garmin 2000, p. 1-16). Although GPS is fundamentally a passive mechanism, in that it does not inherently transmit location information to any other device, it can be combined with transmitters and transponders allowing the data to be transmitted to another party – hence the potential danger (Clarke 2000).

The benefits of the technology are quite obvious – people now no longer have any excuse for getting lost. Another useful example is of that of “Enhanced-911″ in the United States. Prior to 2001, if you called 911 on a mobile phone but were unable to talk, or the signal dropped out before you could alert the operator of your location, emergency services had no way of determining where you are. This could potentially result in a loss of human life. However, with the development of Enhanced-911, emergency services can now determine the geographic location of the caller instantly to within fifty metres (Allen 2006). Although no one can object to the fact that it is a truly incredible life-saving tool, with it comes several potential issues. The implementation of the system has, and continues to cost mobile telephone companies millions of dollars, as they are required to update their infrastructure and their client’s phones to comply with FCC regulations (Said & Kirby 2006). Because of this, one of the ways these telecommunications companies can recover their losses is by partnering with organisations that offer location-based services allowing vendors, for example, to send messages to their customers when they are in the vicinity alerting them to discounts or reminding them that their current hire is overdue. The hope is that customers will appreciate receiving information that is specially customised to their location and interests; however, there is the threat that this new technology will create with it a bombardment of mobile phone spam and much more significantly and dangerously, jeopardize phone customers’ privacy (Said & Kirby 2006).

The theory behind Location-based Commerce, as it is known, is that as one goes about their everyday business, their mobile phone will provide them with useful information, based on their current location (Said & Kirby 2006). Another example is that a theatre might transmit a message to any previous customers nearby alerting them that as their upcoming performance has unsold seats, they are offering a substantial discount on their sale. In principle, this system is very handy, as it helps both the business who may sell more tickets, and the customer who may not have known that the show was on. However in practise, imagine if you were walking through a shopping complex and every individual store that you have purchased from in the past suddenly started to send you messages? Although government organisations such as the Australian Communications and Media Authority attempt to prohibit unsolicited messages and advertising, and customers should, in theory, have complete control over who can send them messages, in reality due to the nature of the technology, this is very hard to manage. Anyone can purchase an almost untraceable pre-paid phone and send junk mail to whomever they please. However, this is hardly the major concern. In the United States, because all mobile phone must support Enhanced-911, that means every phone must have the ability to receive GPS information, which as a result means that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has the ability, after receiving a court order, to determine your exact location at any time (Allen 2000). It should be noted that it is extremely difficult for the FBI to actually gain the court order, and they have been rejected in the past (Chestnutt 2006), however, there are loopholes which law enforcement agencies (and their friends in government agencies) have been known to use and abuse (Clarke 2000), making the Enemy of the State plot seem so much more conceivable. The simple fact remains that if the government wanted to spy on you in the United States – the technology exists for them to do so. Luckily for Australians, an Enhanced-000 service currently does not exist, meaning that it is not a requirement for all mobile phones to contain a GPS device. However, emergency services can still determine your approximate location to within 50 to 500 metres by determining how far away you are from phone communication towers (ACMI 2006).

But it is not just the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is making use of GPS technology. In July of 2003, Robert Moran, a lawyer with supposed links to the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and suspected of selling illegal drugs, had a GPS tracing device placed on his car by the New York State Police (McCullagh 2005). The police made the decision to utilise GPS technologies as opposed to more traditional means (like undercover officers), as they believed this was the only way to gain access into the tremendously cautious organisation. The police monitored Moran’s travels from a distance, and eventually arrested him on drug charges a month later (McCullagh 2005). But the most interesting aspect of this particular case is that a federal judge ruled that the police did not need court authorisation for the GPS tracking to take place. United States District Judge David Hurt stated that “law enforcement personnel could have conducted a visual surveillance of the vehicle as it travelled on the public highways” and therefore “Moran had no expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of his vehicle on a public roadway” (McCullagh 2005). Although Moran was eventually found guilty on charges of conspiracy and drug trafficking, the important thing to keep in mind is that the police were allowed and are still allowed to track anyone they suspect has committed a crime, even if there is no substantial evidence to back the claim (Bray 2005). Do the police have the right to put someone under GPS surveillance without visiting a judge? According to US Attorney David Grable, yes “since it’s not a search, you don’t need any justification to use any one of these devices” (Bray 2005). However, should they have the right, is a completely different question. Australia is no different to the United States, except as there is a smaller percentage of police per citizen, there are fewer resources to devote to tracking people without ample evidence, therefore there is less potential for GPS tracking to take place – however, the possibility is still there (A.I.C 2006). For example, seven years after MP John Newman was murdered in 1994, the police used mobile phone records to determine that Phuong Ngo, a former Fairfield local councillor and suspect, was in the vicinity of the murder, and also, later that night, near the location where the murder weapon was found (The World Today 2001). Not all people agree with using this kind of technology. In 2004, Nassau County Court Judge Joseph Calabrese stated that “at this time, more than ever, individuals must be given the constitutional protections necessary to their continued unfettered freedom from a ‘big brother’ society” (New York Daily News 2005).

But it’s not just the government and law enforcements that have their eye on GPS: companies are using it to spy on their workers; wives are using it to keep tabs of their husbands, mothers of their children. GPS devices are being built into more and more automobiles and are being embedded into mobile phones (Bray 2005). At the end of the day however, the more people that utilise GPS technology, the easy it is for authorities to keep track of everyone. In theory a database could be set up maintaining a list of where everyone is or was at any given time. Enemy of the State could become reality. And as long as those cars or phones are on public roads, the users have no right to object (Bray 2005). However, what the courts failed to consider in the US, is that tracking people via GPS is very different from keeping tabs of them on foot or by vehicle. Before GPS existed, the limited budgets and the lack of man power restricted officers from following anyone they please. But with a cheap and widespread technology like GPS the temptation to engage in casual surveillance may become irresistible (Bray 2005). Although there are obviously benefits to GPS technology the potential for unethical surveillance and monitoring are too great to ignore. With information comes power – and with GPS devices widely spread throughout society, anyone that has access to this data holds the upper hand. Allowing the FBI (or their international equivalent) to have access to this information is scary enough – but what if there systems become compromised and a criminal gains access? Or what if the government officials are corrupt? Sure there are monitors in place, but as Carla Dean states in Enemy of the State, “who’s gonna monitor the monitors of the monitors” (Touchstone Pictures 1998)…

References:

• A.I.C 2006, Sworn police officers in Australia, Australian Institute of Criminology, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/cfi/cfi116.html
• ACMA 2006, Mobile Originating Location Information, Australian Communications and Media Authority, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.acma.gov.au/ACMAINTER.131352:STANDARD:1884699275:pc=PC_7251
• Adomatis, D 2006, Using the GPS for People Tracking, Turner Endeavors, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.travelbygps.com/articles/tracking.php
• Allen, G 2006, Wireless 911 Information, DISPATCH Monthly Magazine, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.911dispatch.com/911/wireless911.html
• Allen, G, 2000, The Wireless 911 Web, Allen Media, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.911dispatch.com/911/wireless_911web.html
• Bray, H 2005, GPS Spying May Prove Irresistible to Police, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/01/17/gps_spying_may_prove_irresistible_to_police?mode=PF
• Chestnutt, A 2006, Cell Phone GPS Tracking – Privacy Issues, EzineArticles, viewed 20 September 2006, http://ezinearticles.com/?Cell-Phone-GPS-Tracking—Privacy-Issues&id=159255
• Clarke, R 2000, Person-Location and Person-Tracking: Technologies, Risks and Policy Implications, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/PLT.html
• Clarke, R 2001, While You Were Sleeping… Surveillance Technologies Arrived, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/AQ2001.html
• Clarke, R 2006, Introduction to Dataveillance and Information Privacy, Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/Intro.html
• Dempsey, C 2001, Uses for GPS, GIS Lounge, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.gislounge.com/features/aa050901a.shtml
• Garmin Corporation 2000, GPS Guide for Beginners, Garmin International, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.garmin.com/manuals/GPSGuideforBeginners_Manual.pdf
• McCullagh, D 2005, Snooping by Satellite, CNET Networks, viewed 20 September 2006, http://news.com.com/2102-1028_3-5533560.html?tag=st.util.print
• New York Daily News 2005, Federal judge’s ruling on use of GPS worries privacy advocates, Infowars.com, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/ruling_on_gps_worries_privacy_advocates.htm
• Roy Morgan Research 2004, Community Attitudes Towards Privacy 2004, The Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.privacy.gov.au/publications/rcommunity/index.html
• Said, C & Kirby, C 2001, GPS Cell Phones May Cost Privacy, San Francisco Chronicle, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/03/19/BU155366.DTL&type=tech_article
• Scott, T 1998, Enemy of the State, DVD, Touchstone Pictures, USA.
• The World Today 2001, NSW MP’s Killer Sentenced, Australian Broadcasting Commision, viewed 20 September 2006, http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s416677.htm
• Wikipedia contributors 2006, Global Positioning System, Wikipedia, viewed 20 September 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_Positioning_System&oldid=76694515
• Wikipedia contributors 2006, Location-based Service, Wikipedia, viewed 20 September 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Location-based_service&oldid=76720378

The purpose of this document is to explain the philosophy behind Open Source. It will first examine the definition of the term, then reveal its history, and finally, explore how the philosophy is affecting all areas of society – not just the information technology world. At the end of this document is a bibliography, allowing you to continue to research this fascinating, and increasing more significant topic, if you wish.

So, what exactly is Open Source?

Although, as suggested in the introduction, open source philosophies can be applied to all areas of society, when first learning about this topic it is probably easiest to think about it in terms of computer software. Chances are – although in the future this may no longer be the case – you are viewing this website using a personal computer running an operating system such as Microsoft’s Windows or Apple’s Mac OS. Both are examples of proprietary systems. By proprietary, I mean to say that all the code hidden behind the software (the ones and zeros) are not accessible by people outside of the company that owns it. For most major commercial companies (such as Adobe and Sony), their software’s source code is considered to be a trade secret, and access to this code by third parties would normally mean that one would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and other legally binding papers (Source: Wikipedia 2006). So, simply put, your average computer programmer simply does not have the ability to modify propriety software in its entirety without permission from the owner.

For example, Microsoft does not allow anyone to view the guts of its Windows operating system, but instead gives programmers the ability to use API calls that allowing them to access specific portions of the proprietary code and make use of them; however no modification can take place (Source: Moylan 2006). This means that a programmer can get the job done and Microsoft continues to have complete control over their creation. On the face of it, everyone wins. However it does limit the programmer’s creativity, and makes his or her life a lot harder.

Open Source software on the other hand, upholds the belief that the source code of software should be available to anyone to easily view, alter, enhance and re-distribute any portion of that code without paying for it (Source: Moylan 2006). For example, with an Open Source operating system, such as Linux, if you decide you don’t like the way the system handles something and you have a programming background, you can modify any aspect of the computer software to suit your own personal needs. If you don’t like the way a button looks, or the way a menu opens – then feel free to tweak the code. You can add, edit, and destroy to your hearts content.

Still confused? Steve Weber, in his book ‘The Success of Open Source’ uses a simple analogy to Coca-Cola to explain the difference between open source and proprietary products. He explains that when you purchase a can of Coke, you are allowed to drink it, and you are also given a generic and vague list of ingredients on the side of the can. But Cola-Cola do not tell you the specifics – they don’t give you the complete recipe. Their secret formula is exactly that, secret – locked in a vault somewhere, with one a few people privileged enough to know what makes up the addictive syrup. Purchasing a can of coke does not give you the right to learn the secret. This is exactly the same with commercial software. Purchasing a copy of Microsoft Windows does not give you the right to the source code (i.e. the recipe that tells you exactly how the program was made).

Open Source projects are usually community-based projects built by programmers who donate their time and expertise to create a product that the marketplace is in need of, regardless of whether or not there is a possibility of financial gain (Source: Moylan 2006). In fact, whole virtual communities have been established where geeks worldwide can work together to create software that will hopefully make their lives easier or just more fun. For example, SourceForge.net (at the time of writing) has 128,465 registered projects, and 1,382,867 registered users. All these people work together to create software that anyone, anywhere can modify and customise to suit their personal desires. Open source is about freedom and liberty – not about price.

The Definition of Open Source

To determine whether something can be considered “open source” or not, the Open Source Initiative developed a definition based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines, written and adapted – for the most part – by Bruce Perens (Source: OSI 2006). The Ten Commandments that he came up with are as follows:

1. Free Redistribution
2. Freely Obtainable Source Code
3. Derived Works
4. Integrity of the Author’s Source Code
5. No Discrimination against Persons or Groups
6. No Discrimination against Fields of Endeavour
7. Distribution of License
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral

Take for example a computer program license. For the license to be considered open source, the program must be able to be given away or sold without restraint. The source code must be freely obtainable (either it should come with the program, or available on the Internet for free download). End users must be allowed to redistribute any modifications they make (however depending on the license, some modifications must be redistributed as patches, as to not interfere with the original code). The program should not discriminate against individuals or corporations (i.e. Bill Gates has just as much right to open source software as anyone else). The appropriate license should be travel with the program (or again, be available on the Internet). The program cannot be licensed only as part of a larger distribution but can be distributed with other software that is not considered open source. And finally, the license must not contain any medium specific terms of accepting the license agreement (i.e. it can’t state “to agree to this license click the ‘OK’ button on such-and-such webpage – as websites may become obsolete in the future).

The History of Open Source

Open Source philosophy has been around for a very long time. There are books dedicated to its history, so I will not go into too much detail, as this is not the focus of this document. But basically, it started with hackers such as Richard Stallman, spending huge amounts of time writing software, but instead of selling it for financial gain they wanted to share their work with fellow users (Source: Kidd 2006). They wanted people to learn from what they had made, and improve upon it. Out of respect, any changes that someone makes should be given back to the hacker community, so everyone can learn more from the additions, therefore improving their skills. This sharing of ones ideas and creation was purely based on good moral principles – money, fame and glory did not come into the equation.

The actual term, “open source” however first surfaced on the 3^rd of February 1998, during a strategy session in California, after Netscape (creators of an internet browser called Netscape Navigator – which sparked the browser wars with Microsoft in the 90′s), decided to release the code to their software to the world (Source: OSI 2006). They decided that the term “free software” was too confrontational, and “open source” was the best thing they could come up with at the time. So although open source philosophy has existed for many, many years (as stated previously, the open source definition is based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines), it was only in 1998 that it became a recognisable term.

Popular Open Source Examples

Even though you may be unaware of it, chances are you make use of open source technology every day. To get you thinking, here are two of the more popular open source examples:

At the time of writing Mozilla Firefox is currently one of the most popular open source software projects going around. With features such as tabbed browsers, integrated search, live bookmarks and a generally faster user experience, it is a lot more feature packed and friendly than proprietary products such as Internet Explorer. Despite the fact that Microsoft and Apple have multimillion dollar development budgets, their browser software is currently being beaten by something developed by the people.

Wikipedia, an open source encyclopaedia is also taking the World Wide Web by storm. Containing over five million articles in a large number of languages, the site is claimed to be one of the top twenty most visited sites on the Internet (Source: Alexa Internet 2006). Anyone can modify the content on Wikipedia, which is one of the key ingredients to its success.

Other Markets…

The open source philosophy has grown across a large amount of different markets – not just the computer industry. For example, in the agriculture industry, open source beer has been created, such as Vores Øl and Free Beer 3.0. The recipes for both of these beers are freely available on the Internet, released under a Creative Commons License. In the health world, organisations such as the Tropical Disease Initiative have been founded investigating open source pharmaceutical development. Content is also a big area, with websites such as Wikipedia (an open source encyclopaedia) and Yellowikis (an open source version of the Yellow Pages) growing bigger and stronger every day. We have already discussed open source software in a fair degree of detail, but open source hardware is also existent. For example, the designs of microchips have been released under open source licensing agreements.

Blogging!

Blogging can also be considered open source, as people are contributing their time and expertise in areas in which they are often not compensated financially. When a blogger reports from a first-hand account, they are in effect “exposing source code” for other people to comment on, enhance and re-distribute (Source: Moylan 2006). The blogger can either take their blogs (their “source code”) and sell it, or promote it for free – just like with open source software. Incidentally, a lot of the web site software used on blogging sites is also open source, such as LifeType.

Society & Culture

Open Source technology is thought to be revolutionary because it promotes concepts of sharing and universal participation. Some believe that this revolution will take us back to the community based ideals of oral cultures, but the thing that puzzles most people about these organisations is that they are non-profitable. There has been a lot of thought put into why these people volunteer their time to set up such outlets and to contribute their information property without any economic remuneration. Demos, “the think tank for everyday democracy”, believe that we are experiencing a historic shift from the rise of the professional in the late 20^th Century to a new phenomenon of people “pursuing amateur activities”, calling this the “Pro-Am Revolution” (Source: Demos 2006). It is believed that this so-called revolution has the potential to strengthen the democratic world by pushing “power to the edges” and to help potential new organisations and leadership emerge through the incubation of this “mega community”.  Goetz likens Open Source to an “ant colony” and believes that “the collective intelligence of the network supersedes any single contributor” (Source: Goetz 2003).

Open source principles have also affected other areas of society and culture, such as politics (i.e. open and collaborative formation of public policy) and journalism (i.e. on-line non-for-profit journalism). Open Source Filmmaking is also starting to gain momentum. One example is Elephants Dream, an animated film created only using open source software, with all the production files available for free download. This means anyone can download and modify the film, distribute it and share their updated version to the internet community.

Open Source Problems/Issues

Like anything, open source does not come without its problems. Luckily though, a lot of the issues of the past are slowly becoming less relevant in more recent times. Compatibility and comparability were once the main topics of conversations when talking about open source, but now some open source technology has become so advanced that it is almost completely compatible and comparable with its proprietary equivalents (for example, with software like WINE, you can run a large portion of Windows-based software on a Linux-based system; you can also open Microsoft Word documents in Open Office).

However there are issues with open source licensing. The main issues that arise are that of ownership. Technically and legally speaking, current open source licenses do not clearly define ownership rights, and therefore there is a possibility that someone could use the open source agreements to take advantage of others peoples hard work, and not give back to the community.

There are also problems with the actual term “open source”. Sometimes the term is used to describe software whose source code is visible, but there are limitations on what can be done with it. For example, you may be able to view the source code, but you may not be allowed to modify it and redistribute it. There is also some confusion between open source software and free software.

Conclusion

Open source philosophy is changing the way people think about technology and society. A couple of years ago you had to fork out a lot of money to get a good graphics editing computer program (such as Adobe Photoshop). Now you can just download a free version of GIMP. You can even modify its source code to make it better, or simply different, if you feel so inclined. Collaborative open source software projects such as Linux and Apache (a web server package) have demonstrated that a large and complex system of code can be built, maintained, developed and extended in a non-proprietary environment (Source: Weber 2004, p. 2). Outside of the computer world, people have created open source beer and cola. Vast amounts of informative content are being release as open source on sites such as Wikipedia. Blogging is becoming a household term, with people globally sharing their views and thoughts for free to anyone who wants to listen, watch or read. Even open source pharmaceutical development is on the horizon.

Despite the fact that most people would have never predicted that a system based around people working for free would work, open source philosophy is making a big impact. The thing to understand is that open source embraces the philosophy of sharing, and because of this, concepts such as piracy are no longer a problem. You are encouraged to share and spread open source products as much as you like. You can copy and redistribute, even after modification. This provides users with a freedom that is not obtainable from proprietary products (as illustrated right throughout this document), and creates remarkable opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs around the world, especially in developing countries.

References:

• Alexa Internet 2006, Top 500 Web Sites, viewed 8th September 2006, http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500
• Kidd, E 2000, A History of “Open Source”, UserLand Software, viewed 8th September 2006, http://static.userland.com/userLandDiscussArchive/msg019844.html
• Moylan, C 2006, The Philosophy of Open Source, Associated Content Inc., viewed 8^th September 2006, http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/32264/the_philosophy_of_open_source.html
• Open Source Initiative 2006, History of the OSI, viewed 8^th September 2006, http://www.opensource.org/docs/history.php
• Open Source Initiative 2006, The Open Source Definition, viewed 8^th September 2006, http://opensource.org/docs/definition_plain.php
• Weber, S 2004, The Success of Open Source, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
• Wikipedia contributors 2006, Closed Source, Wikipedia, viewed 8^th September 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Closed_source&oldid=71562909
• Goetz, T 2003, Open Source Everywhere, Wired Magazine, viewed 8^th September 2006, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/opensource.html
• Demos 2006, The Pro-Am Revolution, viewed 8^th September 2006, http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/proameconomy

External Links:

• The Problems with Open Source
• Problems of Open Source Software: Annotated Chronicle
• Why “Free Software” is better than “Open Source”
• Open Source: Voices from the Open Source Revolution
• History of the OSI
• The Origins and Future of Open Source Software
• A quick history of Open Source…
• Vores Øl Homepage
• Free Beer Homepage
• Problems in Open Source Licensing
• Open Source (Wikipedia)
• Neuros takes open source approach to hardware and software development
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar
• Fighting Raymondism
• Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and The Nature of the Firm (PDF)
• An open-source shot in the arm?
• Open Source Software
• Realizing the Promise of Open Source in the Non-profit Sector
• The Great Software Debate: Technology and Ideology
• A History of Open Source
• History of Unix, Linux, and Open Source / Free Software
• Open Source Politics
• Elephants Dream

When inventor Paul Nipkow completed his “electric telescope” in 1884, he could not have predicted the impact it would later make on the world. Nipkow’s device, which allowed the sending of images over wires, inspired others to build upon this exciting new technology (Wikipedia 2006).  In 1900, the term “television” was coined by Russian Constantin Perskyi. Thirty years later, the first television commercial was transmitted, and the British Broadcasting Commission began regular broadcasting (Bellis 2005). “Television” was now a recognized term. By 1948 over one million homes in the United States alone had television sets, allowing them to tune into shows such as Allen Funt’s Candid Camera, a show where ordinary people were caught on film during embarrassing staged pranks (Murray & Ouellette 2004, p.3). The post-World War II Americans of the 1950s were content with this type of good humoured show. Funt suggested that its success was due to its presentation of “people caught in the act of being themselves” (Balkin 2003). Even though participants might have been briefly embarrassed, their privacy and dignity were ultimately protected, plus no one was actually hurt (Balkin 2003). With the advent of network television, a new genre of programming had arrived: reality TV.

As society progressed, and television technology continued to develop, so did this fresh genre. The 1960s brought with it a rise in social revolution, human rights movements, civil rights movements, and anti-War movements (Wikipedia 2006). Although this decade affected all corners of the globe, in western societies particularly, more people started to protested, riot and reject their conformist lifestyle. By the time Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, society was more sexually open and violent in their actions. Television had no option but to follow suit.

By the 1970s viewers, who were now accustomed to watching confronting Vietnam War footage as they sat around the dinner table, were finally ready for watching programs that displayed even more reality and further invasiveness (Balkin 2003). Non-profit station PBS responded in 1973 by broadcasting a weekly unscripted and unrehearsed show called An American Family which followed the real life travails of the Loud family (IMDb 2006). Reality TV was getting cruder, but it was not yet purely a money-making venture.

Eighteen years later, MTV’s The Real World had drifted further away from its predecessors, focussing on entertaining a younger audience with a cast specifically chosen to ignite conflict (Murray & Ouellette 2004, p.3). During the early years of the 21^st century, reality programs continued along this path. Viewers by the millions were tuning in to watch participants argue, fight, dine on rats and other grotesque creatures, lie to one another and reveal their most intimate personal details to a potentially worldwide audience. Reality television had transformed from a good humoured source of entertainment into a contest where participants competed against one another for love or money. Unlike those of the past, shows like Survivor, preyed on people who were willing to risk everything to win a sizeable cheque. Reality television had invaded the small screen. As president of CBS stated: “the world as we knew it is over” (Murray & Ouellette 2004, p.4).

These new breeds of reality television programs share a common characteristic in that they exploit vulnerable social groups. Shows like that of Idol, Pop Stars and X-factor franchises have proven time and time again that people will do just about anything to be on television and claim their five minutes of fame. These programs target young and naïve people who are tempted by the remote possibility that they might end up strutting down red carpets amongst their favourite celebrities. The reality is that only a few people out of the thousands of participants will actually get to a point in the competition where anyone will start taking them seriously. It is also important to understand that reality television is a dangerous mix of reality and fantasy. Unlike fictionalised drama, where only characters get hurt, in reality television programs, real inexperienced teenagers can be emotionally damaged when, for example, Ian Dickson tells them that their voice “should come with a government health warning” (IMDb 2006). The ironic thing is that some of the worst performers, such as William Hung, sometimes end up with the most success because they are exploited and marketed for comedy value.

Big Brother is another example of networks exploiting vulnerable social groups, but instead of just focussing on young and naïve participants, they take advantage of those that do not have permanent fulltime employment and therefore have the ability to take several months off at a time. By offering a substantial sum of money to the winner of the competition, television networks lour in individuals who are struggling to pay the bills all at the cost of their self-respect and privacy. For most housemates, Big Brother is just another “get rich quick” scheme.

Even shows such as Survivor take advantage of a specific type of individual, although not one that you would usually associate with being exploitable. Unlike those that feature in Big Brother or Idol, these candidates do not necessarily have to be youthful, but instead must have the drive to do whatever it takes to win the competition. Survivor targets those who are experienced, ruthless and competitive. Where Idol has students and musicians, Big Brother tradesman and fish & chip shop employees, Survivor has lawyers and ex-Navy seal operatives. This variety of show also has a genuine element of risk. Despite the fantasy situations, participants, who are real people, can get physically harmed as they perform various stunts. During production, the stakes are heightened even further when viewers grow bored of the show and the producers are forced to increase the danger in an attempt to increase viewers, and with them, advertising revenue.

Jerry Springer is another obvious example of producers taking advantage of the vulnerabilities of people, specifically, unstable working class types with serious personal and relationship issues that can’t afford to get assistance through counselling or other expensive means. Audience’s world-wide tune into this program, and laugh at these peoples expense; much like the freak shows of yesteryear. Funniest Home Videos is just as immoral as it catches parents shamelessly exploiting their injured children and costumed pets for the chance of winning a hefty cash price (Rowen 2000).

The harsh truth is that, like every business, reality television programs exist purely to make money. In the late 1980s television networks found themselves in financial troubles as they started failing to raise enough money to survive. This, and the other factors, such a labour instability, forced the television industry to re-evaluate their programming tactics (Murray & Ouellette 2004, p.7). It did not take long for networks to realise that reality television was the ideal solution. Because reality television shows are unscripted, networks would no longer have to be dependent on hiring unionised writers and actors (Murray & Ouellette 2004, p.7). Where it can take as much as four million dollars Australian to produce a sitcom or drama, an episode for a reality television program will generally cost around a third of that price (Balkin 2003). Because of this, many public television stations, particularly in Europe embraced reality programming. It had been transformed from a form of entertainment into a financial survival mechanism (Murray & Ouellette 2004, p.7).

One of the key differences between reality television of the past, and that of the likes of Big Brother and Idol is that by utilising new technology such as SMS and The Internet, viewers can interact with the show, voting people they like to “play on” and evict those they do not. At first this may seem like a logical step to expanding upon television as an entertainment and information medium, but once profits gained are taken into consideration, it becomes clear that it is just another method for the networks to make money. There are sponsorship deals for the naming rights to bigbrother web site domains. These websites are covered in advertising banners. In Australia, by placing the Big Brother house in the theme park Dreamworld, all parties benefit as each can promote the others respective businesses and products. It is also worth noting that Dreamworld is owned by the Macquarie Leisure Trust, which also owns and operates AMF bowling, a sponsor of the Australian show. These are all examples confirming that television stations have chosen profit over entertainment value. Instead of allocating funds to developing new dramas or sitcoms, they are exploiting specific demographics so they can output content at the minimum of costs.

It is not only new technology that has helped networks satisfy advertisers. Producers also have taken advantage of more traditional advertising means to increase their cash flow. Big Brother is again a most appropriate example. All the items inserted into the house have been placed there through sponsorship deals. In Australia, all of the food products within the house come from specific food companies that have commercial agreements with the show’s production company. Any food products that are not covered by a contract have their labels removed (Wikipedia 2006). The Australian Big Brother has affiliations and sponsorship agreements with paint suppliers, alcohol brewers, car manufactures, building supplies, home automation fitters, fitness organisations and even carpet companies. More obvious forms of traditional advertising can be found during eviction shows, where walls are covered in signs and banners much like that of football ovals.

When shows such as An American Family were being aired in the 1970s, reality television was just another harmless form of entertainment. But as society progressed, and “making a profit” became more important, programs like MTV’s Cops emerged to keep networks afloat. By the new millennium reality television no longer had any redeeming features; it was all about making a profit. Television networks started to exploit a wide variety of social groups to help achieve this aim. They started to use new technology to increase their cash flow. Product placement techniques started to become common place, keeping advertisers happy. Reality television demonstrates that civilisation has put ethics and morals aside, so that corporations can make money. It will be interesting to see what networks will do next when people become bored of the current reality television format, forcing producers to formulate new ways of keeping advertisers satisfied.

Bibliography/References:

• Balkin, K 2003, Reality TV: introduction, Greenhaven Press, viewed 22 May 2006, http://www.enotes.com/reality-tv-article/39483
• Bellis, M 2005, History of television timeline, About, viewed 22 May 2006, http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_television_timeline.htm
• Big Brother Suppliers 2006, Endemol Southern Star, viewed 22 May 2006, http://bigbrother.3mobile.com.au/bigbrother/suppliers.asp
• Cline, A 2005, Ethics and reality TV, About, viewed 22 May 2006, http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/phil/blphil_eth_realitytv.htm
• Friedman, J 2002, Reality squared: televisual discourse on the real, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey.
• Grindstaff, L 2002, The money shot: trash, class and the making of TV talk shows, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
• Hendershot, H 2005, The boob tube, Flow, viewed 22 May 2006, http://jot.communication.utexas.edu/flow/?jot=view&id=513
• Internet Movie Database Incorporated, An American family, Amazon, viewed 22 May 2006,  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211195/
• Internet Movie Database Incorporated, Candid Camera, Amazon, viewed 22 May 2006, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045376/
• Internet Movie Database Incorporated, Memorable Quotes from “Australian Idol”, Amazon, viewed 22 May 2006, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382400/quotes
• Internet Movie Database Incorporated, The real world, Amazon, viewed 22 May 2006, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103520/
• Murray, S & Ouellette L 2004, Reality TV: remaking television culture, University Press, New York.
• Reality TV history summary 2005, BookRags, viewed 22 May 2006, http://www.bookrags.com/history/popculture/reality-tv-bbbb-05/
• Roscoe, J 2002, Interview with Peter Abbott, Carfax Publishing, Australia.
• Rowen, B 2000, History of Reality TV, infoplease, viewed 22 May 2006, http://www.infoplease.com/spot/realitytv1.html
• Wikipedia contributors 2006, 1960s, Wikipedia, viewed 22 May 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1960s&oldid=54505672
• Wikipedia contributors 2006, Big Brother (Australian TV series), Wikipedia, viewed 22 May 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_Brother_%28Australian_TV_series%29&oldid=54496067
• Wikipedia contributors 2006, History of television, Wikipedia, viewed 22 May 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_television&oldid=53947080
• Wikipedia contributors 2006, Jerry Springer, Wikipedia, viewed 22 May 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerry_Springer&oldid=54143409
• Wikipedia contributors 2006, Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, Wikipedia, viewed 22 May 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Gottlieb_Nipkow&oldid=52700591
• Wikipedia contributors 2006, Reality television, Wikipedia, viewed 22 May 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reality_television&oldid=53948497
• William Hung 2006, Intermix Network, viewed 22 May 2006, http://www.williamhung.net/

As you know, every time we come across a media text, we’re not seeing reality, but instead someone’s interpretation of it. The media take something that’s real, manipulated its form to suit a specific purpose, and we end up something very different to the original. This is the process is of mediation (Northallerton College).

An example of this is television show, The Glass House. The punters sitting in the studio audience will see something very different to what ends up eventually getting aired. The seemingly spur-of-the-moment jokes will have been practised repeatedly; the crowd will have been warmed up and trained on how to laugh plus additional audio and computer graphic will have been added in post production. The whole experience of hearing a few John Howard jokes will have been mediated extensively (Northallerton College).

This type of consideration is relevant whether analysing a newspaper or TV news program (and you think to yourself “how true is it?”), criticising a film or television drama (“how lifelike is it?”) or even when evaluating advertisements (“can that stainless steel knife really cut a shoe in half?”) (Dover).

If you look at the definition of the word “media” – which is defined as a medium for carrying or communicating information (Wikipedia 2006) – Chinese whispers, or the telling of a joke springs to my mind. One joke can be told a million different ways by a million different people. More relevantly: one news story can be conveyed very differently by different TV crews or newspaper reporters.

Something worth thinking about though is whether or not it’s even worth raising the issue of ‘realism’ these days? I mean, doesn’t everyone already understand that the reality presented by the media isn’t really real? Isn’t it just a method of intellectualising about forms of fashionable entertainment which weren’t really meant to be read into so deeply or taken so seriously (Dover)? A story of a man getting hit in the groin with a football may have been just a funny narrative in the authors mind, and yet a media studies student will be able to tear the story to shreds and write pages and pages of complex analytical garbage.

That said, it’s probably better to be aware of the prevalence, influence and social effects of the content that’s being (or not being) presented to us as a “real” and “true” (Dover). That way we can develop an understanding of not only how the media operates but also why they operate, retaining a sense of “critical distance” (Dover). Was the film I, Robot made simply to entertain kids or rather to sell more Audi cars, Converse shoes, JVC CD Players and increase FedEx’s clientele? Sociological, political, cultural and ideological influences all determine the way in which the media presents reality to us, as do other influences such as financial and economic factors as shown in the previous example (Dover).

There was a point in the past though, when the term ‘realism‘ was considered outdated and the significance of realist approaches less relevant (Branston & Stafford 2003). Some theories suggested that there is no ‘real’ to represent and that realism is, in effect, just an illusion (Osborne 2001). But now days, with reality TV invading primetime and the insistence of trying to create exact replicas of the past (such as Jackson recreating New York in King Kong), questions of realism have returned with revenge (Branston & Stafford 2003).

With realism back in the limelight, we can once again start to put it under the magnifying glass. One of the main problems concerning realism is the idea that any representation is a selection, and therefore elements have been specifically selected or ignored for inclusion and arranged in whatever manner the creator so desires. For example, in the build up to the 2001 Federal Election the Australian government told the public that a group of Iraqi asylum seekers threw their children overboard, backing their claims with photographs to help fuel the government’s campaign to demonise asylum seekers trying to reach the country. It was later revealed that the public weren’t shown the bigger picture – the refugee’s boat was sinking and no one was in fact thrown in – they jumped.

But even if we were able to include every single itty-bitty detail and possess a completely objective perspective, we cannot convey reality in words because words are just signs – arbitrary signifiers that have no logical relationship to what they symbolize, and therefore cannot clearly and objectively represent reality (Lye 1997). Even the word ‘reality’ has its problems – it’s far too comprehensive and encompasses way too much to be of any real use as well as restricting our very sense of what ‘reality’ actually is (Lye 1997).

Bibliography/References:

• Osborne, R 2001, Megawords, Allen & Unmin, Crows Nest.
• Branston, G & Stafford, R 2003, The Media Student’s Book, Routledge, New York.
• Plato, The Republic, Penguin, Harmondsworth, Middlesex.
• Pope, V 2002, Representation and Realism, viewed 25 March 2006, http://www.litnotes.co.uk/realism.htm.
• Representation, Northallerton College, viewed 25 March 2006, http://www.northallertoncoll.org.uk/media/representation.htm.
• Lye, J 1997, Some Notes on Realism, Brock University, viewed 25 March 2006, http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/2F55/realism.html.
• Dover, R, The News: Realism, Narrative and Form, viewed 25 March 2006, http://www.newi.ac.uk/RDOVER/MED-STUD/the_new2.htm.
• Dover, R, Realism and the Contexts of the Media, viewed 25 March 2006, http://www.newi.ac.uk/RDOVER/MED-STUD/realism_.htm.
• ‘Media’ 2006, Wikipedia, viewed 25 March 2006.