NoFilmSchool » mac

Movie Draft Review: Promising (and Affordable) Screenwriting Software with a Bright Future

Ryan Koo — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:51:37 +0000

For screenwriting, I’ve been a long-time Final Draft user, but I’ve never been a huge fan. It’s like the Microsoft Word of screenwriting software — ubiquitous and adequate, but not something you’re particularly excited about. I’ve been using it since Version 4, and it has definitely improved since then, but for a $250 program I’ve never felt that it has evolved as much as I’d like. What am I looking for? More structuring and outlining tools. This is where Movie Draft comes in. Note that it’s ~~Mac only~~ available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, it’s rated nearly 5 stars in the Mac App Store, and it only costs $30. (more…)

Video Editors, How Do You Manage Disk Space? One Neat Solution: DaisyDisk

Ryan Koo — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:14:28 +0000

Video takes up a lot of hard drive space. HD video more so than SD, 4K more than HD… and since the flooding in Thailand, hard drive prices have spiked precipitously. So there’s always room in an editor’s toolkit for an app to analyze drive space and zero in on the largest directories to delete or move. Similar to my approach to tracking time, freeing up space is all about focusing on what’s important: in this case, the largest files. DaisyDisk is a paid Mac app that I find myself using frequently; here’s a review from NextUpMac (and a free alternative). (more…)

The Latest OS X Lion Hackintosh Recommendations for Video Editors

Ryan Koo — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:45:24 +0000

One of the reasons I haven’t updated my How to Build a Hackintosh guide (which, I should note, is even more popular now than the DSLR Cinematography Guide — probably because most people have the PDF of the Guide and don’t need to visit the latter as often) is that my machine has been working perfectly and so I haven’t feel the need to constantly search for new components. However, I recently upgraded my machine to OS X Lion (it’s working great), and so I also updated the guide to reflect an easy way to do it, courtesy Unibeast from Tonymac: (more…)

How to Build a Hackintosh with OS X Lion Natively (no Snow Leopard Required)

Ryan Koo — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:39:48 +0000

Since OS X Lion was released, if you wanted to build a Hackintosh (and I would like to think the tutorial on this site is the most comprehensive how-to out there), you had to get your hands on a copy of Snow Leopard, install that, and then upgrade to Lion. There were often complications along the way, to the point where I refrained from upgrading to Lion. Thanks to tonymacx86, however, hackintoshers can now grab Lion from the Mac App Store and install it natively from a USB drive. Here’s the blurb: (more…)

Is Apple Canceling the Mac Pro?

Ryan Koo — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:16:42 +0000

Despite the scheduled release of new Intel chips appropriate for a new Mac Pro, reports are surfacing that Apple may cancel the Mac Pro line. The full-sized, overpriced Apple desktop hasn’t seen an update since July of last year and makes up such a small percentage of Apple’s sales that company executives are reportedly considering giving the machine the axe. Also consider the prosumer-ization of Final Cut Pro and the release of a simple, low-cost high-speed interface like Thunderbolt. Here’s what the AppleInsider report says: (more…)

Upstart Screenwriting Application Movie Draft Looks Promising

Ryan Koo — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:30:34 +0000

First of all, industry standard screenwriting software Final Draft is $70 off until Sept 30. But thanks to @navesink on Twitter, I found out about a new screenwriting program that brings some appealing changes to the table. Movie Draft SE is available through the Mac App Store for just $30 (“for a limited time,” though I don’t know how limited of a time we’re talking) with some very promising features. It’s also available for Windows and Linux. Chiefly I’m interested in the modularity of the scenes and the navigation sidebar, as demonstrated in this video: (more…)

How to Upgrade a Hackintosh to Mac OS X Lion (Apparently)

Ryan Koo — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:34:43 +0000

Because it doesn’t necessarily make sense for filmmakers to upgrade to OS X Lion just yet, I haven’t done any testing of this myself. But if anyone running a hackintosh is itching to get their hands on OS X Lion, by partitioning your disk and following these instructions, you should be able to transition to Apple’s latest. If and when you do, please report back with your results. Here’s how: (more…)

Apple Releases Mac OS X Lion and New Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Airs

Ryan Koo — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:38:34 +0000

As expected, Apple today released Mac OS X Lion on the Mac App Store for $29.99. Also debuting are new Sandy Bridge MacBook Airs, which are said to be “up to” twice as fast as the previous generation (on which I’m typing this), and now include high-speed Thunderbolt ports, Bluetooth 4.0, and backlit keyboards. The Mac Mini also received a refresh, dropping its optical drive and adding a Thunderbolt port, and Apple also released a new 27″ Thunderbolt display. For filmmakers, Lion and Thunderbolt are the main stories. (more…)

Adapter is a Free Everything-to-Everything Transcoding App for Mac and Windows

Ryan Koo — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:57:26 +0000

Ever since VisualHub was discontinued, there’s been a dearth of freeware transcoding apps on the Mac. I’ve since recommended MPEG Streamclip, but a true “everything to everything” program hasn’t been available in the free arena. As of a week ago you can grab the new version of Apple Compressor for $50, but they didn’t update the program to 64-bit or even change the interface from the last version (which I was never a fan of). Thus newcomer Adapter, while still in beta, looks promising: (more…)

Apple Kills Physical Media with Launch of App Store

Ryan Koo — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 18:50:22 +0000

Many of us watch movies via Netflix, Hulu, and other services instead of ever waiting for a disc to spin up. And when’s the last time anyone went to a Blockbuster? With DVD winding down, Apple has famously sat out Blu-ray, with Steve Jobs calling the format a “bag of hurt.” With iTunes and Apple TV, Apple has worked towards eliminating the CD and DVD, respectively. Will the launch of today’s Mac App Store do the same for software on disc? (more…)

How to Build a Video Editing Hackintosh That's Faster than a Mac Pro for Half the Price

Ryan Koo — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:18:00 +0000

After months of building and testing, my comprehensive step-by-step guide for How to Build a Hackintosh is here. I wrote this guide specifically for video editors and other digital creators, and because video editors are some of the most demanding computer users, I believe this NoFilmSchool Hackintosh is the best machine from a price, performance, and reliability standpoint. There are some other hackintosh guides out there, but I’ve tested this build on real-world HD video projects. I reordered and replaced components to ensure it was the best there is. I could tell you more, but this image should say it all. Here is a price/performance comparison with the latest Mac Pro from Apple: (more…)

What Effect Could iMovie's New 'Movie Trailers' Feature Have on Real Movie Trailers?

Ryan Koo — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:35:28 +0000

Like everyone else on the internet, I covered Apple’s release of new MacBook Airs the other day. And while they showed a number of other products at the same event, one development that specifically concerns filmmakers is the new version of iMovie. iMovie ’11 is not going to replace Final Cut, but it does include an interesting new feature called Movie Trailers. Most of us are not going to be interested in the template-driven tool for our own uses, but I wonder what this could mean for the real movie trailer scene, which already seems template-driven. (more…)

iPad and MacBook 'Hook Up' - Apple Releases New MacBook Airs

Ryan Koo — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:46:53 +0000

At Apple’s Back to the Mac event today, Steve Jobs closed the show by asking, “what would happen if an iPad and a Macbook hooked up?” Indeed, the new MacBook Air seems sort of like an iPad for creatives — people who need a real keyboard and an OS that can run more than mobile apps, but something thin and light enough to take everywhere. It has iPad features like instant-on (with no boot time, apparently), no moving parts (all flash storage, with no hard drive and no optical drive), and increased battery life of 5-7 hours wireless web use and 30 days of standby (a stat typically associated with phones). Are the new MacBook Airs “iPads for creatives?” (more…)

Coming Next Week: How to Build a Video Editing Hackintosh

Ryan Koo — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0000

A couple of months ago I said I was going to build a Mac Pro out of PC components, the goal being to make a faster machine that cost a thousand dollars less. I researched and bought the components, built the machine, installed OS X, tweaked it, ordered new components, and tweaked it further. Then I gave it a trial-by-fire recently while editing a trailer for my project 3rd Rail (we’re still figuring out what to do with the trailer, while we meet with producers and financiers). And it’s been a total success; I never could’ve edited the After Effects-heavy project on my laptop, and the Hackintosh handled it with aplomb. It’s seriously fast – and it hasn’t crashed once. I’m happy to report the machine has lived up to my stated goals at the time: (more…)

How to Uninstall Mac Applications Without Leaving a Bunch of Junk Behind

Ryan Koo — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:17:35 +0000

The Mac operating system is elegant and simple, and the same goes for its process for installing and uninstalling applications — right? After all, to install an application, you just drag an app to your “Applications” folder, and to uninstall it, you just drag it to the trash. Simple. But the dirty secret with OS X is this simplicity comes at a cost: when you drag an application to the trash, you’re leaving a bunch of associated files scattered behind on your hard drive, and they’ll never go away. As I’ve recently been migrating my old laptop files to my new hackintosh, I’ve discovered a ton of old, orphaned files. Luckily, there are a number of simple ways to get rid of them. (more…)

Coming Soon: The NoFilmSchool Hac Pro

Ryan Koo — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:08:42 +0000

When I priced out the components of the new Mac Pro, I realized Apple’s pro line is not a good value proposition. When the same new Mac Pros left off an nVidia graphics card as an option, I took it as a slight to Adobe. When I asked you guys if you’d like me to build a hackintosh in an attempt to have the best of both worlds, you said yes. So I’ve done the research, priced out the components, and drawn my conclusions. Here’s what I think is possible for a video editing-optimized hackintosh: compared to the $2,500 Mac Pro base model that will ship this month, I believe the Hac Pro can have a faster processor, four times as much RAM, a Blu-Ray burner, USB 3.0 connectivity¹, more storage space, and an nVidia graphics card that accelerates Adobe CS5. The kicker? This Hac Pro will cost $1,000 less.

PPBM5 Can Settle the Mac-vs-PC Editing Debate with Hard Numbers

Ryan Koo — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:30:28 +0000

Mac vs. PC is a never-ending debate, but when it comes to video editing, what we need are hard and fast numbers. It would be impossible to generate a comparison of apples to apples (zing?) by using Final Cut Pro, since that NLE is only available on one platform. Instead, Adobe’s CS5 suite is the ideal candidate — and considering CS5 is 64-bit native on both OSes, it should be a fair fight. The best way to settle this would be to open the exact same CS5 project file on a Mac and a PC, play it back, render it out, and measure it in other ways — on various machines, at different price points — and compare the results. If only someone would create such a benchmarking tool and upload the results to a database… As it turns out, someone has done just this. (more…)

"I’ve been abandoned by the company that used to love me"

Ryan Koo — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:36:10 +0000

Not to keep harping on the new Mac Pro, but I’m not the only one scratching my head about the future of Macs for professional content creators. The above quote about Apple comes from Digital Imaging Technician Brook Williard, in a post on his blog titled The state of Apple’s professional line. Brook’s post jumps off with the following: “512 days after the last update, Apple introduced the new lineup of speed-bumped Mac Pros and further established their abandonment of the professional community… With the 2010 Mac Pro update, Apple has literally created a machine for nobody.” (more…)

Why is the Mac Pro so Expensive?

Ryan Koo — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:43:57 +0000

With the announcement of new Mac Pros, I thought back to the last time I used such a machine, during my years at MTV. At one point I found myself picking up the machine to move it; surprised at the heft, I remember wondering to myself, “what do they build these cases out of?!?” Platinum, apparently: that’d be the only way to justify the price. Why do I say this? Because, after yesterday’s announcement, I turned to Apple’s tech specs page and priced out the exact components used in the base-level Mac Pro. The results might surprise you.

The iPhone 4 Does Not "Change Everything Again"

Ryan Koo — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:08:40 +0000

I was at a rental house checking out $500k of video equipment (not for my own project — I wish) when Apple announced the iPhone 4 yesterday, so I forgot it was the day I was supposed to figure out whether my next editing machine was going to be a Mac or a Hac. When I got back home, however, I saw 30 billion posts on the internet about the iPhone — a platform for interacting and consuming — and nothing about the Mac — a platform for creating. (more…)