Meet the new 5D Mark II Magic Lantern Unified from Andrew Reid on Vimeo.

here is out only wanted feature:

* more work on HDMI output for the 5DMKII so it is fully usable with the Atomos Ninja

You can support the development by sending them a small donation: http://goo.gl/gvD8Q. Here is the original sendout from the magic lantern user group:

Following the small, but positive feedback from this thread [ http://bit.ly/ml-unified-5D2 ], I'm glad to announce the next long-term direction of Magic Lantern: merging the AJ 5.x firmware with the unified one currently running on smaller cameras.
I need your help. As explained in the previous post, a good port (one suitable for paid jobs) requires me having a camera for testing. On 550D/60D ports, crashes are almost non-existent, audio meters are calibrated, HDMI monitors are fully usable and so on. So, if you like this idea, you may help me buy a 5D2 by:

- a small donation (you don't need a PayPal account for this): http://goo.gl/gvD8Q
- or by spreading the word, since right now there are not many users familiar with both ML versions

Feature-wise: I'd like to ask the users who have tried both AJ and Unified ML (especially those using both versions in a regular fashion) to comment on this. Main question: what's the best of both worlds? What do you like better in AJ 5.x and what do you like better in Unified? Big thanks to all ML community for making it possible!
Alex

Magic Lantern Unified looks promising: High Dynamic Range VIDEO for Canon cameras:

============== UPDATE ================
available for download now!
magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Release_2011Dec22
======================================
Demonstration of the new and free High Dynamic Range VIDEO feature for control over ultra contrast situations.

Discussion, workflow, RAW footage, FAQ:
vimeo.com/groups/74140/forumthread:250295

Magic Lantern is a custom firmware add-on for Canon dSLR cameras. It is not a hack, or a modified firmware, but it runs alongside Canon's own firmware, booting from the card every time you turn the camera on. The only modification to the original firmware is the ability to boot software from the card.

magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Unified

HDR Video: what does it mean? It does not output pre-processed HDR video from the camera, rather it blends the alternative high ISO / low ISO frames together in post (see this discussion thread at Vimeo). There is of course a difference if you use two Canon 5D MKII for generating a HDR movie (as this guy did) compared to this "hack", although the development of Magic Lantern continues to impress!

Keep on rocking! We can't await clean HDMI output for the 5DMKII to use it with the Atomos Ninja (if this hack is possible at all...)

Intel and Apple originally partnered on the new technology which has become standard across Apple's MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, and iMac. Digitimes reports that the cost of Thunderbolt technology is expected to drop in the second half of 2012, allowing more widespread adoption. While this sure is great for Windows users, that also means Thunderbolt will be available for hackintosh users!

While Apple does offer Thunderbolt across most of its product line, the first Thunderbolt products have been limited to relatively high end devices, such as the Blackmagic Ultrastudio 3D, the Magma Expressbox 3T or the Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID. More widespread adoption should help drive adoption by accessory makers that will benefit both Mac and PC users that use the Thunderbolt technology.

Thunderbolt is not competing against USB3 (Intel said they see both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt as complementary technologies) - furthermore there will be USB3 support for Apple devices, since there will be breakout boxes that offer USB3 connectivity.

Minicraft is an 8-bit game written in Java (playable in the Browser or via a downloadable version) where resources and materials have to be collected to craft and create something new. Persson told, the higher aim of the game is to kill the only other creature with "consciousness" to be alone forever.

Since the Mozilla Foundation got 300 Million US$ per year from Google to implement Google's search engine as the default one, two new releases of the Firefox Browser have been presented: Firefox 10 (stable) and Firefox 11 Aurora (Version 11). The mobile Android version of the Android implementation gets a new, native UI. That makes the browser faster and it needs less memory besides other improvements and fixes. Firefox Aurora and Beta can be downloaded from Future of Firefox.

Here is a list of all the changes:

NEW Firefox can now migrate your bookmarks, history, and cookies from Google Chrome
NEW The CSS text-size-adjust property is now supported
CHANGED Windows: An OS security dialog should no longer come up when updating
HTML5 View source syntax highlighting now uses the HTML5 parser (see bug 482921)
HTML5 The outerHTML property is now supported on HTML elements
DEVELOPER The Style Editor for CSS editing is now available to web developers
DEVELOPER Web developers can now visualize a web page in 3D using Tilt
DEVELOPER SPDY protocol support for faster page loads is now testable
DEVELOPER XMLHttpRequest now supports HTML parsing
DEVELOPER Files can now be stored in IndexedDB (see bug 661877)
DEVELOPER Websockets has now been unprefixed
FIXED Redesigned media controls for HTML5 video
FIXED Firefox notifications may not work properly with Growl 1.3 or later (see 691662)

Known Issues:

UNRESOLVED Some synaptic touch pads are unable to vertical scroll (see 622410)
UNRESOLVED For some users, scrolling in the main GMail window will be slower than usual (see 579260)
UNRESOLVED If you try to start Firefox using a locked profile, it will crash (see 573369)
UNRESOLVED This version of Firefox will not work on Macintosh hardware with Power PC CPUs (see 587799)
UNRESOLVED Under certain conditions, scrolling and text input may be jerky (see 711900)

Currently, with the announcement of the Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 4000GB, SATA 6Gb/s (0F14681) and the 4TB Deskstar 5K4000 as well as the 4TB Seagate Barracuda XT 7200RPM a total of 24TB could be reached when modding the Promise Pegasus just replacing the 2TB drives it comes with.

Tomshardware even reported on 5TB HDDs arriving in January 2012, so a modification to fit 30TB into the Promise Pegasus would be possible theoretically.

While all the drives are not available at the current time of writing of this article, please do consult the Promise Support if you are planning to do modifications or already did! Judging from the current feedback on modifications, updating the Promise Pegasus before an official answer or statement from Promise Technology is NOT RECOMMENDED!

Please send emails to Promise directly and ask them to react on the current limitations. I already did so - still waiting for response.

Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: FindNextLeafNode: Error from hfs_swap_BTNode (node 9852)
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs_swap_HFSPlusBTInternalNode: catalog key #54 too big
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: Runtime corruption detected on SSD, fsck will be forced on next mount.
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: FindNextLeafNode: Error from hfs_swap_BTNode (node 10370)
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs_swap_HFSPlusBTInternalNode: catalog record #22 keyLength=32 expected=65568
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: node=10965 fileID=4 volume=SSD device=/dev/disk0s2
Nov 28 18:30:43 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: Runtime corruption detected on SSD, fsck will be forced on next mount.
Nov 28 18:30:43 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: FindNextLeafNode: Error from hfs_swap_BTNode (node 14503)
Nov 28 18:30:43 mbp kernel[0]: hfs_swap_BTNode: record #55 invalid offset (0x9B46)

It was getting slower and slower, reporting tons of errors in the Console.app. Then, it did not reboot anymore. Even in an external USB drive enclosure the drive did not mount anymore. Contacting OCZ about this issue, they sent me an RMA number right away and told me they will replace the drive. Does this mean our data is not safe in SSD? What can we learn from this?

First of all, it is a myth that SSDs are more reliable than hard drives. Secondly, they are not even fully supported on OSX yet (see Should I use Trim Enabler on Lion for the OCZ Vertex 3? No!) - at least if you install the drives yourself (which is also what I would suggest, since Apple does not offer any decent SATA 6GBPs drives yet).

So where is the proof, you ask?

Proof #1: The Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale (via Coding Horror)

Super Talent 32 GB SSD, failed after 137 days
OCZ Vertex 1 250 GB SSD, failed after 512 days
G.Skill 64 GB SSD, failed after 251 days
G.Skill 64 GB SSD, failed after 276 days
Crucial 64 GB SSD, failed after 350 days
OCZ Agility 60 GB SSD, failed after 72 days
Intel X25-M 80 GB SSD, failed after 15 days
Intel X25-M 80 GB SSD, failed after 206 days

As a commenter put it: "Average life of SSD = 227.375 days (based on Wills' data)" - which is also what I can confirm.

SOLUTION: Backup early, backup often. Don't rely on the SSD and make two local backups plus one backup in the cloud.

Proof #2: long-term study of SSD failure rates (via Tomshardware)

SOLUTION: Buy drives that come with a very long warranty. Be prepared to let your drive replace for several times.

I am still waiting for my replacement OCZ Vertex and I will benchmark how fast it will die again. Since OCZ told me, it can take up to three weeks for my replacement to arrive, I bought myself a Seagate ST750LX003 750 GB SATA 600, Momentus XT, 8 GB SLC - it's a hybrid 750GB HDD with an 8GB SLC cache. The drive shifts data that is used often in the 8GB SLC SSD space automatically. While the SSD part of this hybrid drive can also fail, the data won't be lost and it will suffer just some minor speed loss (if it fails, since SLC is said to be more reliable than MLC chips). While this disk is now my main startup disk, i will go back to using the OCZ Vertex 3 again, once the replacement arrives. I just need to backup regularly - the speed gain is really worth the trouble.

It has not been verified yet, but there are some leaked details, which are of course just rumors:

- 4-inch screen
- Aluminum back
- Capacitive home button
- "Flatter" form factor
- Much faster than current hardware, but poor battery life
- 10-megapixel rear camera
- Siri prototype known as "Assistant", which had been the rumored name for the feature until its introduction

There are quite some good deals on the Apple iPhone 4S on ebay, an introduction of the iPhone 5 would let the price of the "older" models drop significantly (talking about the Osborne Effect)

Canon also announced a real 4k Camera to be available somewhere in the next year. So 2012 could become the real year of DSLR Video.

Here is the original press release from RED.COM
(via red.com/press):

RED STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD, Hollywood, Calif., November 3, 2011 – RED Digital Cinema has officially released its third industry-changing camera, the Scarlet-X. With burst modes up to 12 fps at full 5K resolution alongside 4K motion capture from 1-30 fps, the camera allows professional photographers and cinematographers to simultaneously capture motion footage and still content. Never miss a shot. Ever. Scarlet-X’s compact design, endless modularity and advanced feature set provide a future-proof solution catering to every shooter’s needs, leaving one-dimensional DSLRs and 1080p camcorders in its wake. Priced at under $10,000, Scarlet-X advances RED’s vision to democratize superlative cinema and professional photography.
Scarlet-X comes standard with a Canon EF or PL mount, which can be swapped easily using Scarlet-X’s interchangeable lens mount system. Panavision, Anamorphic, and Nikon lenses are also compatible with the camera, providing ultimate freedom when it comes to creative decision-making. The addition of HDRx reaches up to 18 stops of dynamic range, bringing digital images closer than ever to the natural perception of the human eye.
With the innate ability to capture 5K REDCODE RAW stills and true 4K motion footage, Scarlet-X produces visually lossless files that can easily be graded and finished. Combining all of the finest qualities of cinema and photography into one camera, Scarlet-X allows the customer to have the best of both worlds. Compromise nothing. Shoot everything.
“The future is dependent on those who push… not those who react,” said Jim Jannard, founder of RED Digital Cinema.
RED is now taking orders on RED.com for Scarlet-X.
Since delivering their first camera – the RED ONE – in 2007, RED Digital Cinema has jumped ahead of the pack over camera companies that had dominated the market for decades. Feature films shot with RED cameras such as the Academy Award-winning movie “The Social Network” and the more recent “Contagion” have contributed to a lineage of cinematic success. Since the 2011 introduction of DSMC (Digital Still & Motion Camera) technology, photography icons like Bruce Weber, Greg Williams and Inez + Vinoodh have used RED cameras to shoot covers and spreads for the some of the most influential fashion magazines in the world.
Follow the announcement at REDUSER.net/SCARLET.

[Update 20.11.2011] Philip Bloom posted a balanced take on the Scarlet. Worth a read.

Recommended reading on this topic: The Truth About 2K, 4K and The Future of Pixels

Facebook had 22 Million active users in the middle of 2007; fast forward to 2011 and the site now has 800 Million active users, with 400 million of them logging in every day. Facebook has grown exponentially, to say the least! To cope with this kind of exceptional growth and at the same time offer a reliable and cost effective service requires out of the box thinking. Typical high-end, brute force, ultra redundant software and hardware platforms (for example Oracle RAC databases running on top of a few IBM Power 795 systems) won’t do as they're too complicated, power hungry, and most importantly far too expensive for such extreme scaling. (quoting Anandtech)

"The AMD servers are mostly used as Memcached servers, as the four channels of AMD Magny-cours Opterons 6100 are capable of using 12 DIMMs per CPU, or 24 DIMMs in total. That works out to 384GB of caching memory."

It remains unclear, when or if that server hardware will be available for purchase - but it looks like there will be some cloud/datacenter providers jumping on the idea of the open compute servers, so it might be possible to rent them.

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Video: Tsawout Spit – Gh2 Test (driftwood 176mb gop1 hack) from mark wyatt on Vimeo.

There seems to be no day without any surprises with the Panasonic GH2. The latest hot-shit is a hack to get 176Mbps AVCHD Intra up and running on the camera. Right now there's no possibility to record in 25p but there are attempts by vitaly and others, so let's see what the future holds.

What is AVCHD Intra?
"AVCHD Intra is usually recorded to extremely expensive P2 cards on high end cameras and here it is on a consumer camera with an SD card. [...] This is a codec that uses i-frames only unlike consumer AVCHD. Every frame from the sensor is stored. Standard AVCHD is a Long-GOP compression format and works by estimating and guessing at frames in-between ‘real’ images but Intra doesn’t. [...] AVCHD Intra is very good for heavy colour grading, fast action, hand held footage and green screen VFX work. You certainly get a better result from AVCHD Intra on the GH2 than by outputting from any DSLR’s HDMI feed to a external recorder as well." (via eosHD)

How does it compare?
eosHD has a comparison on AVCHD intra 100Mbps vs 24Mbit AVCHD.

And if that's not enough: there is even a 244Mbps AVCHD Intra Hack, as outlined by Driftwood: "It's stable and with good lighting conditions can look amazing."

eosHD recommends: "AVCHD Intra at such high bitrates can be tricky to edit so I recommend transcoding it to ProRes 4-4-4 first."

The Panasonic GH2 turns out to be the currently best Video-DSLr out there, although it is not even a DSLR. The micro-four thirds sensor is much smaller than a full-frame sensor, but the video footage that this great camera produces is far superior to those from lets say the Canon EOS 5D MKII - no moires, no aliasing and a much better video codec: AVCHD. Besides the obvious facts, the GH2 gets hacked extensively: Vitaliy Kiselev first hacked the GH1 and after that the Panasonic GH2.

With the PTOOL firmware manipulation tool, you can get the following improvements, among many others:

- Change Video Bitrates
- Improved GOP patches.
- Improved MJPEG size patches.
- change the 30min recording restriction
- lots of other changes

Patching the firware was possible, after a GH2 Firmware update leaked.

Here is a short overview on what to do in 10 steps:

1) Get a Patch from the extensive patch repository.
2) Load the GH2 1.0E firmware
3) Check all necessary patches, Version increment must be always checked.
4) Save firmware. Just change last digit to any number you want. (e.g. GH2__V11.bin)
5) Copy firmware to root of SD card. Fully charge you battery. Do not even attempt to use AC coupler!
6) Power off your camera if it was on.
7) Power on camera. After this press (not hold) green play button.
8) You'll see hourglass and prompt to update.
9) Press down arrow and after this Menu/set.
10) Wait until upgrade will be completed.

happy modding!

Intel will bring Thunderbolt to the PC, which means you can use your devices such as the Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID or the Lacie Little Big Disk, but also products such as the black magic intensity extreme Thunderbolt video capture cards on your Windows PCs - and on your hackintosh machines as well.

During Intel’s Developer Forum, the chip maker showed off some Ultrabook prototypes running on its Haswell-based processor and sporting the high-speed Thunderbolt port. The technology was developed in collaboration with Apple and has so far remained exclusive to Macs. That may change soon as Intel teases that Thunderbolt will be heading to Windows PCs as well.

(via slashgear)

hunderbolt was originally code-named Light Peak and was installed on the update to the Mac Book Pro earlier this year. Rights to the Thunderbolt technology were originally registered under Apple, but were transferred over to Intel which is why you'll see it's name popping up a bit more. We already know Acer and Asus are planning Thunderbolt integration, but we're unsure how the port will look. Currently, the Thunderbolt port on Apple products is identical to the mini-display port, but PC users would rather it be more like USB for increased compatibility. Not to many people are aware of this, but Sony released their VAIO Z with a hybrid USB 3.0/Light Peak port, so it's kind of up in the air as to how things will shape-up.

Expected timeframe: anywhere in 2012.

Fuji president and CEO Shigetaka Komori said they will create a mirrorless, interchangeable lens camera built around a larger sensor with ‘resolution and low noise [that] will surpass the 35mm full size sensor’. If Canon does not come up with the EOS 5D MKIII fast, people will start to switch.
(via DC.watch)

What are currently recommended HDMI field recorders?

1. Black Magic Hyperdeck Shuttle (RAW Video)

* Product information page/ manufacturer: Black Magic Design
* Discussion on the Magic Lantern User Group: hyperdeck shuttle

Pro:

Very Cheap: ($339.99 in the USA, 299€ in Europe

Cons:

SSD drives NOT included, so you might need to calculate in some OCZ Vertex 3 SSDs in your budget

No Video Monitoring on the device itself. You might need to buy an external monitor, such as the Liliput external HDMI monitor (starting at $169 in the USA and 186€ in Europe)



2. Atomos Ninja - Portable HDMI Recorder (ProRes)

Pro:

Conclusion:
Unless you are super-rich and have tons of money to spend for Solid State Drives and a RAID Array, you should get the Atomos Ninja. Besides the actual device, you also get a monitoring solution and have a true portable device, that creates files usable with normal hard drives. Overall cost is much lower and there should not be a really visible difference from ProRes to RAW footage. If you are into Bokeh Porn, you might want to spend your money in the Black Magic Hyperdeck Shuttle.

Keep in mind, there are currently some issues with HDMI out an Magic Lantern: there is a video on the 5D MKII's 1080i out and also some discussions going on in the Magic Lantern Forums, because some processing needs to be done to get actual usable files. Actual resolutionis 12-19% less (depending how you do it) but still the results are awesome - especially in low light situations. Maybe we will get real clean HDMI out with the Canon EOS 5D MKIII.

The 10.7.1 update is recommended for all users running OS X Lion and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability and compatibility of your Mac, including fixes that:

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4764.

There is not much fixed, at least not for the reported issues such as SSD TRIM support for non-apple SSDs and the well known flash issues.
Still, Seems more stable. There is a seperate update for 10.7.1 Server and another update specific to the latest MacBook Air and Mac mini models, adding a few additional fixes. (via macrumors)

Taking the rumors from canonrumors.com and some forum posts seriously for at least a bit, it seems that an announcement for a possible Canon EOS 5D MKIII is imminent.

Random Info via canonrumors:

• Canon Australia has sent CPS management to Singapore for product training. [CR2]
• Any Canon announcement will come after Nikon’s announcement on August 24, 2011. [CR2]
• 5D Mark III’s are in the wild and an announcement is imminent [CR1]
• 1D Mark IV’s are out of stock or hard to come by in certain countries. A retailer in New Zealand actually said they won’t be getting any more. [CR1]
• 1Ds Mark IV resolution correction, I’m told it will actually be 36mp.

Since I was planning on getting a 5D Mark II these days, I hope to see increasing price drops on the camera kits very soon - since there are already visible price drops around the globe. On Amazon.com the price for the Body still is $2499,00. Canon Australia already lowered the price for the premium KIT from $4899 AU$ to 4499AU$, so we can hope for price drops on the international market as well. On the German Amazon Marketplace, the currently cheapest price for the 5D MKII Body (new) is 1924,90 EUR, while the Premium KIT (EF 24-105mm L IS USM) is at 2619,99 (a light price drop is already visible).

Commenting on the current question, if it is still a good idea to buy a Canon 5D MKII: YES. Why? The Canon 5D MKII is a great camera and also there won't be any new Lenses coming up so fast (at least when we talk about EF 24-105mm L IS USM), so if you need one now, go and get one. Also, if you are in DSLR-Video, "Magic Lantern" is a great and stable system, which will not immediately run on the MKIII. Some people even suggests that there might be a 1000$ price difference (at least) for an upcoming 5D MKIII.

Conclusion:
Still the 5D Mark II is a good buy, when compared to the Canon EOS 7D, since an announcement for a Canon EOS 7D MKII won't be around the corner until end of 2011, if we believe the rumors. A 5d MKIII won't be available instantly after release, so one way or the other, before 2012 you won't be able to get your hands on a 5D MKIII - and if so, then for sure not for a reasonable price. The current price difference for the 5DMKII to the 7D is 700$ - if you are into DSLR Video, that's a clear GO for the 5DMKII.

[Update] Canon Rumors has a new Blog post "5D Mark III & The Rest [CR2]" which indicates, that there could be a 5D Mark III announced in October 2011

To reproduce the issue:
1) click on "Clear Display" in Console.app
2) go to http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ and the error will show up in the console.

The error must be Flash related. Sometimes, the whole System is unresponsive, freezing everything but the mouse. There is no official response from Adobe or from Apple, so we can only hope and wait. Please check your Console.app for this error and respond to any of the existing discussions.

[Update] the error message also seems to have surfaced in 10.6.4 already, as visible in the Apple Discussion Forums

[Update] installing the Adobe Flash Player 11.0 from Adobe Labs seems to at least minimize the freezes, but still the console messages appear.

[Update] i posted a poll on insanelymac to see which browsers and systems are affected. please also post your results there!

[Update] the new Beta 2 11.0.d1.98 of the flash player is out (thanks JP Hansen)

[Update] The Flash Player 11 is officially released. It seems though, that not all issues are resolved with Mac OSX Lion compatibility.

[Update 23.12.2011] more than 6 months after the issue was reported, (and we have Apple Mac OS X 10.7.2 and 10.7.3 in beta) there is still no update on this issue from Adobe. Please write your concerns to the Adobe Forums in the existing thread to have them fix the issues! Especially for SSD owners this is unacceptable!

Existing Discussions:

* Nanofunk.net discussion thread in the Adobe Flash Player Forums
* Thread in the Apple Support Communities Forum
* Thread on MacRumors Forums regarding Lion Freezes with kernel: IOSurface

[Update] I posted to the Adobe Bugbase with a bug description. Hope they will respond now.

Steps to install OSX Lion:
1. Get the "GM" (Golden Master) of Lion via torrent
2. Get an EFI Boot Loader
3. Get a decent 8GB USB thumb drive and install the Golden Master on there.
4. Install using iBoot.

You can get detailed information on installing Mac OSX Lion 10.7 by reading the geeknizer blog howto.

[UPDATE] tonymacx86 showed how to Install OS X 10.7 Lion on any Supported Intel Core 2 or Core i based PC with xMove + MultiBeast. Furthermore, there is a Mac OSX Lion v10.7.2-HOTiSO that should also boot from any PC. Don't forget that you need to buy Apple Mac OS X Lion from the App Store to legally use it.

Those games are free to download and free to play. Valve makes money if you are ordering additional items such as weapons, mods and so on. On the example of Team Fortress 2: if you ever spent a dime on the game (or would buy it now) you would get premium features: more Items, full "trading" (sell and exchange virtual goods), gifting, etc.

While this is a new approach to capitalizing games, this can be seen as a positive path, the gaming industry is taking. Why? Because the games have to be maintained longer and the communities around the games can emerge. This means: addons, mods, hacks and whatnot, resulting in "ludic artefacts" (as outlined in the german book "Gaming 2.0"). Also, the ludic artefacts of Team Fortress 2 on eBay are increasing daily.

Currently, the only two Mac compatible games are Team Fortress 2 and Spiral Knights. On Windows, there are much more titles available: Global Agenda, Spiral Knights, Alliance of Valiant Arms, Champions Online, Forsaken World, Team Fortress 2.

To play those Windows-only games on your Macintosh, you currently have two choices: either use Apple Bootcamp or use Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac. I can totally recomment Parallels Desktop, since the Version 6 has a very fast GPU and game performace (cf. Arstechnica about Parallels Desktop 6 Gaming Performance).

Happy gaming!

While the new Apple MacBook Pro Machines are really fast desktop-like speed packed monsters, it seems like they also have severe hardware design faults as outlined by zdnet and ifixit. With a geekbench score over 10.000 the new MacBook Pro (early 2011) beats the Mac Pro (Early 2009) Intel Xeon W5590 3.33 GHz (4 cores). All the good talk and benchmarks cannot make up for the current problems Apple users are facing with their brand new machines:

• too much thermal paste seems to raise the CPU temperature
• fans running at 6000rpm+ constantly
• frequent kernel panics or freezes that are maybe related to the new GPU
• heating issues with the whole MBP early 2011 series

Come on Apple, wake up and fix those machine fast, as lots of us could benefit from a stable quad-core laptop solution (talking audio plugs and realtime audio performance).

We can recommend to tell apple to send the replacements before they pick up the faulty machines, so it is easier to transfer the data already on it. (apple care even suggested it this way)

[UPDATE] Gregg Keizer from Computerworld also writes about quality concerns regarding the new Apple Notebooks and there is also a discussion about actual "Overheating" going on in the Apple Forums. Well, I can confirm the issue exists and the current MacBook Pro Models freeze a lot. If it is a hardware, software or firmware issue remains unclear.

[UPDATE] There is a macrumors forum thread discussing that there were issues with the 2010 MBPs as well when they came out. Another thread at macrumors forum tries to sort out if it is a hardware or software issue.
Some people suspect it is related to internal graphics switching, but there really seems to be something going on since also reports on the apple discussion forums are increasing.

[UPDATE] as of 2011/03/14 macrumors suggest in their forum to "go 2010 or wait for ivy bridge". The early 2011 version of the MacBook Pro das 45W TDP vs. last generation's 35w. That's a big increase which automatically makes the whole series go louder and more hot than the 2010 model.

[UPDATE] 2011/03/21: Macrumors posted a story: "2011 MacBook Pros Crashing Under Load?"

[UPDATE] 2011/03/21: Mac OSX 10.6.7 Update was just announced by Apple. Unfortunately, on the two machines we have here, the update does not fix anything related to CPU temperature. Still there are frequent freezes as well.

[UPDATE] 2011/03/22: dailytech confirms that New MacBook Pros Freezing When Stressed, Update Adds More Problems

[UPDATE] 2011/03/28: we received our two replacement MacBook Pros. They don't seem to have any issues and also still did not freeze on us! Also the fans are not spinning like crazy anymore! For all people affected by any of the issues reported above: get your Notebooks replaced! Apple is aware of the issues and replaces faulty hardware (we had to wait for two weeks though).

[UPDATE] 2011/04/23: the current Systems freeze 2-3 times a day. Not all the issues seem to be solved! You should definitely get a late 2010 model, if you need a highly stable system!

[UPDATE] 2011/11/01: Apple replaced one of our 15-inch MBP MC721LL/A machine and the freezes are not appearing anymore. Reports from other users that bought an early 2011 model are positive, so currently the advice would be to get a refurbished Apple MacBook Pro MC721LL/A 15.4-Inch Laptop even before getting a MD318LL/A 15.4-Inch (late 2011) version, not only because of saving some bucks, but also since the Apple MacBook Pro early 2011 performs better in most of the situations compared to the late 2011 version.

Besides the heating issues, there are also reported "intermittent flickering, brief blackouts and other periodic but noticeable flaws" reported in the Apple Discussion Forums. We are getting replacement Machines - let's see if there is any improvement after the first round of shipping!

"lion is booting with some old xpc version" ~ Netkas

Some people are claiming to boot the recent Mac OSX 10.7 Lion with the XPC Bootloader project. More and more voices are popping up, so I am just pointing in the right direction, since "Any and all information about downloading and installing Lion, as well as any details are under Non-Disclosure Agreement from Apple.". You probably find updates on Netkas' Blog as well.

UPDATE: see a posting/ short guide on a popular board as well: Mac OS X 10.7 Lion [Beta/HowTo]

Instruments, Audio Effects, Midi Effects - but of course, this is not all of the cake. Imagine you can create user-interface elements however you please and also assign MIDI to that interface parts. This brings Ableton Live huge steps forward: the possibility to extend ableton to include a full featured audiovisual prototyping environment and to interface with the world: be it sensors, webservices or other Ableton Live installations.

1. Installation and Setup

Ableton Live Suite 8.1 (1.4GB download size!) and max/msp 5.1. are out in final versions as of today. As a happy Ableton and max/msp owner, the crossgrade was only 79€ for me (including VAT).

Right after Live starts up it has to be authorized, so all the extensions would be usable. After everything is set up, the following popup should be visible:

2. Overview

There are 3 different ways to include Max for Live patches into Ableton.

a) Instruments
Instruments would be a Synthesizer, a Sampler, etc.
Input: MIDI, Output: Audio

b) Audio Effects
Imagine any Audio Effect you can build here - let's say a Reverb for now.
Input: Audio, Output: Audio

c) MIDI Effects
Controlling and modifying the MIDI flow - like arpeggiators, mathematical functions, midi-sequencers, whatever.
Input: MIDI (or controller values), Output: MIDI

Of course, the whole bandwidth of max/msp is much more than only that. With Max for Live, now it is possible to use sensoric interfaces directly with Ableton Live: such as the i-cube, the arduino microcontroller board and so much else (for example the wireless MIDI Glove).

Interfacing to the "outside world" is also quite easy with max/msp: the netsend and netreceive objects let you connect via socket to e.g. a webservice, RSS-feed, whatever.
See also: Max for Live and twitter integration, the shoutcast~ and netsend~ objects for sending your audio stream around.

3. First Steps

In the screenshot above you see where the "Max Instrument" can be found in Ableton Live. In the right corner you can also see the first Instrument example I built: a sine wave oscillator.

a) Example: Sine Wave Oscillator Instrument with Signal Oscilloscope [download the patch]

This is a very basic patch: notein gets the MIDI note played, ddg.mono simplifies monosynth creation by dealing with last-note priority and note-on/note-off pairing, mtof (MIDI to frequency) translates the MIDI note to a frequency which is pushed to the cycle~ object (sine wave generator). The cycle~ then sends its audio-output to plugout~ which gets routed back to Ableton Live. Play the Sine Wave Oscillator as you would play any other instrument in Ableton Live: either via keyboard or via MIDI tracks.

b) Example: Simple Delay [download the patch]

This is also a rather simple patch. The incoming signal is delayed for a specific amount of time using the tapin~ and tapout~ objects. The tapin~ object is a continually updated buffer that stores the most recent signal it has received, and tapout~ accesses that buffer at one or more specific points in the past. The sound is mixed with its delayed version to create a sort of reflection.

What you can see in the screenshot below is how to implement images in patches that get loaded also to Ableton (using the fpic object) and which part is actually displayed in Live: everything below the black line is "invisible".
Test out the patch with the presets and also try to change the tapin~ and tapout~ values (use it as an audio effect on any soundfile. percussion or drums may be the best to hear the difference).

c) Example: 8-Step-MIDI-Repeat [download the patch]

The patch is also really simple: a line object counts from 1 to 9, resetting itself to 1 when it reaches 9 (=8 step), the select object checks for values between 1 and 8 and sends the according bang messages to the lights on top. the lights also trigger the int object, that saves values and outputs them on demand. this int objects are used to save the state of the checkboxes.
everytime an int object outputs a 1 (checkbox=checked), the select object on the right side sends the last notein event to a noteout object, causing the last note to be played again.

The difference between the two above screenshots is: hidden objects. Objects that you don't want to be visible in your Ableton Live surface you can hide with Object -> Hide on Lock (Apple+K).

Patch No.3 repeats your last played note in a step-sequencer style: however you checked your checkboxes, every time the light is active over a checked box, the last note will be played again. Test the 3 different presets and also the freestyle option (entering numbers on your own). Be careful with too low and negative numbers.

3. Conclusion

Max for Live is not only a very huge extension to Ableton Live (as stated above, a lot is possible now, from interfacing with hardware to webservices) but also finally a step in the right direction for the said to be lazy "ableton users": while the mainstream of ableton users use similar effects and instruments, this will change from now on. Instrument-directories such as on maxforlive.com feature lots of already available patches.
Another positive point is since max/msp is there much longer than Ableton Live and there is lots of educational content, tutorials etc. around. This could bring more people to look and learn about DSP and sound engineering als well as the physics behind audio.

Max for Live has still a few bugs - but what is there already is really something! Maybe one has to see it like this: in the end max/msp got a really cool sequencer ;)

4. Ressources

* ableton.com maxforlive product page
* cycling74 product page for max/msp
* maxforlive.com
* cycling74: the edit button has been pressed
* max 5 help and documentation

Technorati Tags: ableton, max msp, live, max for live, sound, review