Sachin Agarwal: April 2007

Click here for all Italy pictures.

For the past two years I have been working on Final Cut Pro 6, specifically the Open Format Timeline. This feature allows you to edit any content into a single timeline. Many years ago, everyone using FCP edited in DV. Or if not, they usually edited in a single format. But these days people get material from different sources, different cameras, different sizes, different frame rates...

Open Format Timeline allows you to edit anything into one timeline and we play everything back in real-time. We do real-time up and down converts, and real-time framerate adjustments. Now, you can even preview an HD timeline on an SD video monitor, something I think lots of people will love.

It all sounds sorta simple and boring but it should make editing much easier. The holy grail of editing is to be able to splice stuff together, add effects, make changes, and always be able to playback immediately. Then you can make changes, playback, make changes, etc. Anytime you have to stop and render seriously slows down the creative process. Hopefully Open Format Timeline will be a big win for our users.

On store shelves in a month...

After a week in Italy I arrived back in New York, and less than 12 hours later I departed for Vegas, for NAB. Vegas is always a blast, and probably my favorite city in the world for sheer partying.

Highlights include:

Apple was staying at the Venetian so we all had AWESOME suites. The suite was about double the size of my NY apartment.

Apple's media event on Sunday where everyone got to see what I and the other members of my team have been working on for a couple years

One of the best meals I've ever had at Rosemary's, a somewhat random restaurant in a strip mall way off the strip. Don't let the exterior fool you, it's a very fancy place and we had some incredible (expensive) bottles of wine.

Crashed the G-Tech/AJA party at the G-Suite in the Palms. This was like something out of Entourage. The G Suite is a 2500 sq feet fantasy suite on the 31st floor which has a waterfall and pond in the room, a full sauna and exercise room, and a private swimming pool on the balcony which overlooks the strip. The view was incredible. Even the bathroom has two walls of floor to ceiling glass.

Played lots of blackjack in a random casino called Slots A Fun. I was disappointed by the blackjack rules in Vegas. Lots of casinos were paying 6:5 on blackjack and hitting on soft 17. All were either single deck or 8 deck. Then Ray told me about Slots where they have all the favorable rules and 6 decks. The dealers were very friendly and some of the other players were cool. And hey, the beer at Slots is the same as the beer at the Wynn so why not?

Ass Juice at Double Down Saloon

Mix. As always, my favorite lounge in Vegas. Though I did get into an argument with the bartender (it's a Sachin/Vegas tradition). Met up with Corinne here!

Somewhat at the last minute, Roy and I booked a week long trip to Italy. I started in Venice on my own, and then met up with Roy in Rome. We spend a few days there and then continued on to Florence. After my whirlwind tour of Europe in 2002, Italy was my favorite country and I wanted to spend more time there. It was perfect when Roy proposed this trip.

We ate lots of great food, drank barrels of wine, and had way too much gelato. It was all delicious. Venice is beautiful but basically a giant tourist trap. Rome is interesting because of all the history. Florence is my favorite city. There are great museums (David), great food, and lots of locals so you don't feel you are surrounded by other tourists. Well, except for the Stanford in Florence students we ran into at a wine bar.

Whenever you see cameras advertised, the first line is always the number of megapixels. The first line should be (in my opinion), the size of the camera's sensor since that has a much larger effect on the quality of the camera. But the megapixel wars continue and manufacturers are making ultra compact cameras at 10 and 12 megapixels now, which is totally pointless. Camera review sites are pretty honest about how ridiculous this is.

Anyway, I bring this up because in Italy I saw a store display with a bunch of digital cameras. They were advertised (like they are here) as 6, 8, 10 megapixels. Then there was a Sony video camera. Surprisingly, it said 1 megapixel. 1 megapixel? haha who would buy that? Well, 1 megapixel is actually 720 HD (1280x720) and 1080 HD is only 2 megapixels. I think it's hilarious that people get caught up buying cameras that are 10mp or more, but still get images that don't even look as good as HD TV. The difference is the sensor and the lens.

At NAB there was basically one totally breakthrough product, Red. While all the other camera manufacturers (Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Canon) are making cameras that shoot HD, sometimes not even at full resolution, and then compressing the data onto little data cards, Red is shooting at a resolution 4 times larger and storing the data fully RAW. The interesting thing here is they have developed a camera sensor that's the same size as the sensor on a 35mm camera. And they have developed a lens converter that lets you use standard Canon EOS lenses. So now imagine the quality you get from a great lens like the Canon 35mm 1.4 or the Canon 135mm 2.0, and think about getting images like that at 60 frames per second and recording them all completely RAW for video. Unbelievable.

I saw a demo movie at NAB that Peter Jackson (King Kong) shot in New Zealand with this camera. Pretty stunning. There was a 2 hour line through the conference hall to see this 15 minute movie. Luckily Apple employees could cut the line because what do you use to edit these massive files once you've shot with the Red camera? Final Cut Pro, of course.

I don't want to get too excited yet, but I think I found a pretty authentic San Francisco burrito. Roy and I were out partying last night and we randomly stumbled into a restaurant on 25th and 3rd. I can't remember the name but it started with Z. I do remember that the burrito was awesome. I need to go back when I'm not drunk.

In related news, Roy owes me $1.5 million dollars because of a bet I won in a bar last night. I am blogging that here because Roy is hoping I will forget. Now it's on the internet and will be archived forever.

Pictures of winter in New York City including Central Park and Astor Place. There are some cool pictures of the Reservoir beginning to thaw.




My trip to San Francisco in February including a Wii party.



Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.



Another trip to California. Pictures from BJs, Tuesday dinner, Gary Danko, Cobb's Comedy Club, hiking in Big Basin, and touristy SF sites.