The demise of QuickTime Player 7 left an opportunity for a company like Digital Heaven to jump in and publish a professional movie playing app. New today is Pro Player and it's been discounted from $29.99 to $19.99 for one week only.
Even though we have had many frustrating conversations with clients on the phone telling them how to flick the counter on QT Player 7 to show timecode, we miss it not being installed on new Macs. QuickTime Player 10 is clean and simple, but maybe too simple to fit into a professional environment.
Software Company Digital Heaven has released Pro Player, a custom movie playing application for OS X that offers a lot more features wrapped up in a smart grey UI.
We've know Martin Baker, the author of the program for many years and he sums the benefits up nicely:
"The goal of Pro Player is to deliver a superb experience for professional users, who commonly need more than the built-in OS X player can provide. Comprehensive control is the hallmark of a good player app, and Pro Player excels in this respect with some unique features. The industry-standard JKL keyboard control for variable speed is included, along with interactive jog and shuttle on the viewer area itself. The Jump Back command allows instant rewind (with a choice of timings), so it's easy to review a missed moment again.
A unique time-saving feature of Pro Player is the ability to view embedded alpha channels without having to open the movie in a full-blown graphics or editing application. Video, audio and timecode information for the current movie is always visible and the current timecode is shown in a large and clear display."
Beta testers have said good things about Pro Player too:
"Pro Player has been great for reviewing renders with precision and ease."
Paul Conigliaro, Motion Designer and Editor
"Pro Player allows me to send QuickTime files with embedded timecode to producers and they appreciate the nice big timecode number that they can reference. JKL control over playback makes it easy to locate specific areas that might be problematic such as flash frames, black frames or anything that might need blurring."
Shane Ross, Editor
Good news is that Pro Player will run on the new OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion as well as 10.6 Snow Leopard and 10.7 Lion. The app would normally cost $29.99, but is discounted down to $19.99 for a week. We think it's worth the money just to be able to check on alpha channels without having to load a movie back into FCP or a graphics app.
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
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