TMO Reports - Apple is a Big Hit Among NAB Attendees [UPDATED W/PICS]

by , 7:10 PM EDT, April 19th, 2005

LAS VEGAS -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs may not be at this week's National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show, but that didn't matter to the Macworld-like, standing-room only crowds packing the company's booth. Applause greeted the demonstrators who were showing off Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger," and the various components of the new Final Cut Studio all day.

Amid the bustle of the Apple booth. (Click the thumbnail for a full size image)

Attendee Henry Mott, walking away from one of those demonstrations, told The Mac Observer that he's really enthused by the multi-cam capabilities of Final Cut Pro 5, which was announced on Sunday, April 17th, in advance of NAB.

The graphic arts manager for Wachovia Bank, who works on in-house videos used for employee communications, said: "We do a lot of live camera shoots, so we might have three cameras, and being able to edit those based on time of day, or something like that, would be great."

Mr. Mott also cited the 3D graphics capabilities in Apple's new Motion 2, which bring it closer in line with Adobe After Effects, as something that personally interested him.

"I use Motion now," he said, "and I do a lot of projects where I use both [Motion and After Effects]. I might create a moving background in Motion and take it into After Effects to apply some kind of 3D effect to it. That wasn't available before in Motion, but now it is."

As for whether or not he'll switch completely over to Motion 2, Mr. Mott said that such a move depends on the availability of such plug-ins as 3D Invigorator for Apple's upgraded software. In the meantime, he's going to look into Soundtrack Pro, which comes with several built-in sound effects that he said could be useful.

Standing room for Apple demonstraion (Click the thumbnail for a full size image)

Jim O'Brien, president of Los Angeles, Calif.-based Building4Media, is equally happy about the entire Final Cut Studio suite. His company implements Macintosh-based broadcast TV solutions, leading the way in Poland, India and other countries with systems that run entirely off Apple's Xserve. He told The Mac Observer that 31 broadcast stations worldwide, including one in the United States, use Apple's hardware and software with his company's products.

"Multi-cam editing and multi-channel audio are wonderful developments in Final Cut Pro 5," he said. "We've been doing TV station software on the Mac for nine years, and now to see it coming to the point of paying off in such a big way is a great step forward."

In addition, Mr. O'Brien said that Apple's support of H.264 in QuickTime, which is included in the upcoming release of Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger," is "incredibly important. The industry is moving rapidly to standardize on H.264 in many countries."

Mr. O'Brien also pointed out that his company appreciates the lack of worms and viruses attacking the Mac OS, something that he says currently "plagues broadcast news. There hasn't been a single reported worm or virus on the Mac, and that's helping build the momentum of interest among broadcasters to use that OS in a wider way. Not just for Final Cut Pro, but for wider, core functionality."