Well, it’s the end of the month, and so that means it’s time for a new beta release.

This update doesn’t really add anything new, but instead focuses on improving the nuts and bolts of the software. We’ve improved some of the codebase, which for you means that we’ll be able to roll out more integrations and add functionality faster and more reliably than before.

We’ve also made big gains in terms of performance. We’ve identified a few areas that were noticeably slow (namely, displaying lists of items on breakdowns), run tests, taken it apart and rebuilt it again to see what we can do to make it faster. That’s led to an increase in speed of about 5 times.

That’s right, displaying lists of items now happens 5 times faster. What that means is that you’ll rarely even notice that you’re waiting for the list to be displayed. And to be honest, that’s the way it should be. Of course, you’ll only really notice the difference if you’re working with huge lists anyway. But given that there are 200-300 scenes on average per production, it won’t be long before you appreciate the difference. Oh and speaking of lists, we also added the ability to filter them by free-typing (in addition to using tags), which will make it much easier to find items when looking through those long (speedy) lists.

There’s the usual bunch of fixes, and other minor changes, and you can read all the gory details in the beta 5 release notes, if you’re so inclined.

The next release is going to incorporate user feedback so far, so keep that feedback coming. As usual, everyone in the beta programme will be emailed soon with a new download link.

With much of the film industry sunning themselves on yachts in Cannes,  leaving the rest (i.e. the ones that do the work, right?) behind to work, I’m happy to announce Synaesthesia beta 4 for your pleasure.

Beta 4 comprises some new features and fixes, largely based on feedback from people at NAB last month.

Of particular note is the inclusion (finally) of a preferences dialog. It’s a bit sparse right now, but expect it to get filled up with all sorts of customisable features in the future. One of the noteworthy preferences in there is certainly going to make the DITs and data wranglers amongst you happy: Synaesthesia now has a setting to automatically capture MD5 (read: bulletproof!) checksums for any file you attach to anything. That means you get a checksum for the R3D file you’ve linked to a clip, as well as for the spreadsheet you’ve added to a scene.

Ok so that’s only half the picture, because the real use of having checksums is when you can verify them. Well, Synaesthesia will do that too! Any time you open an attachment in Synaesthesia, it will automatically verify the file for you and flag any differences. This means you don’t have to rely on third-party tools for verifying file integrity any more, which is typically more of a problem over longer periods of time (and ironically when verification is more important). Of course, Synaesthesia can’t fix your broken files, but it can at least give you fair warning of potential problems (you are doing backups, right?).

There’s a few other fixes and other changes in this release, we’ve increased the contrast of text labels so they’re easier to read– I guess not everyone does data entry in the dark (like I do). You should also notice some performance improvements too. As we move towards final release, expect performance to get some serious attention. For all the other changes, check out the release notes for this version.

On another note, after repeated issues with corrupted downloads, we’ve moved to a new server for downloading. Hopefully this will prove more successful, saving you guys frustration, and allowing us to spend more time packing great stuff into the next release.

As always, your feedback is much appreciated. Everyone enrolled on the beta programme will get an email soon, those that aren’t can still sign up.

Anyone who has recently downloaded Synaesthesia (beta 3) and has been getting errors during the install process, please download a fresh copy (using the link emailed to you) for an error-free experience.

There were a few interesting things to see at NAB this year. Not as varied as previous years have been, perhaps due in part to an absence of many of the prominent companies, but good all the same.

First up, Adobe. Of course they launched CS5, upgrading their entire product line. In total, there are dozens of improvements across the line, but one, seemingly innocuous new bit of technology dubbed “content-aware”. This was first demonstrated to me in the form of a “roto brush” in After Effects. The idea being that you draw a loose selection around a foreground object, and After Effects then determines exactly what it is you are trying to isolate. After a few seconds delay, it automatically redefines your selection to create a very convincing roto matte. And best of all, it does it for all frames in the sequence, not just the current one. There are also controls for fine-tuning, such as to account for soft edges, motion blur and so on. Not sure how feasible this would be for feature visual effects work, but certainly for everyone else it will be a real time-saver.

The most jaw-dropping moment of NAB for me was the demonstration of the content-aware deletion in Photoshop. There was in image of a horse in a field. A selection was drawn around the horse, and the content-aware deletion was applied. The horse was removed from the scene. Let me back that up a bit. The horse was deleted precisely, which is kind of impressive. But more amazing is that rather than leaving an empty space in the image, the “hole” was filled in by interpolating the content (not just the pixels) of the image. By which I mean the fence behind the horse was automatically generated. Even as I think about it now, I still think it must have been some kind of trick. Wow.

Another talking point has been BlackMagicDesign (who recently acquired DaVinci) porting the Resolve grading system for the Mac, and then practically giving it away for under $1000 (although if you want the control surface, that will still cost you an additional $30,000 or so). The technology looks a little dated when compared to some of the heavy-hitters out there, but come on, at this price it’s competing with Apple’s (almost unusable) Color.

Arri was showing off its new Alexa camera, which seems to be taking on the Red One, although at a higher price point (and I’ll skip comparing the picture quality of the two to more knowledgeable people, personally I think they produced quite similar results when all is said and done). And speaking of Red, there were a few glimpses of the new Epic camera at some of the events.

The FCP user group, although a fun night out, was desperately lacking any talk of Final Cut Pro (with more time devoted to talking about Avid than Apple!), however there was an interesting concept presented, which was the notion of using the iPad as a control surface for grading (or anything really), which I completely agree is an excellent application (of an otherwise questionable product).

Finally I want to thank everyone I spoke to about Synaesthesia. Based on those conversations, I’ve got a couple of new short-term plans for new features. I’m not going to reveal too much now, but one area I will be focussing on is methods for verifying data transfer, and the other is to do with different workflows. Demoing the software on a rusty old laptop also revealed that I need to spend some time looking at speeding up certain processes, so there will be a big push on that too.

It’s NAB, so of course that means new releases. We’re no exception, and so a new version is now available for everyone on the beta programme. The latest version includes only one major new feature, but it’s a really good one: you can now import clip data from Final Cut Pro XML files.

With this latest addition, Final Cut Pro becomes another, extremely convenient source for capturing metadata and linking it into Synaesthesia. For example, you can shoot some footage, ingest it into FCP, and then save off the XML file. You can then import this XML file into Synaesthesia, which will then create reels, clips and attach their linked files for you. You then have all your footage inside Synaesthesia to use in the usual way, and if you make any changes, you can always export the clips as FCPXML and load that back into Final Cut.

The other bit of news is that we’re extending the beta programme, to include a greater number of users. Anyone interested in downloading the new beta version can do so for free at http://synaesthesia.surrealroad.com/beta

There’s been a lot of talk about shooting 3D at NAB this year. Let me jump on that bandwagon too. Synaesthesia can be used 3D productions, by setting up two recorders- one for the left eye and one for the right eye. You can then use shooting mode as you would normally.

As always, if you’ve already been accepted into the beta programme, you will receive an email soon with the download link.