Aperture is not just a D.A.M., but is a workflow tool for Photographers and not for video and should stay that way. It is a D.A.M. dedicated to photography. What you want is a "be all do all Aperture" and history shows that when anything try to do it all does nothing good.

I agree that something like Aperture for video is very much needed, but I always thought that Final Cut Server already provides exactly this. What does Aperture do that Final Cut Server does not, and could this not be added to FCS? Right now I would think it is rather the other way in that FCS has features that AP is missing (like multiple persons accessing it).

I was one of the ones who weighed in on your last post. I'm still convinced that trying to turn Aperture into a full DAM that can handle will make a mess of it. I think your point is valid - there is a need for a Aperture-like program that handles video, but you haven't really made a case for it being the same program.

I also don't think we are ever going to see full convergence between still cameras and video cameras. Are we going to see more still cameras that can shoot video? Sure, the technology allows it and camera manufacturers always want some new features to point at. However, I don't think we are ever going to hit a point where devices can't easily be classified as a still camera that shoots video or a video camera that can take stills. The needs of the two mediums are different. You do both. Think about the simplest feature - form factor and how you hold each device. It is quite different isn't it? That isn't an accident - the form factors are driven by how the devices are used.

The RED Scarlet is, as they say, the exception that proves the rule. It isn't a single device, it is a modular and reconfigurable system. Still mode and video mode look different to meet the different needs of photographers and film makers. Do you really think that kind of configurability is going to trickle down to lower priced devices? I personally don't see it happening.

Okay, putting that aside, you are right on the central point, we are going to see devices that produce both. What I would like to see is a system of applications that all work together: a tool that handles getting media off of a device and sends it to the right place, and then separate tools, Aperture & SomeVideoTermHere, that can handle each media type in related, but different ways.

I completely agree. The features that were brought into Aperture largely came from iTunes. There is no professional audio management type version of iTunes, nor is there any equivalent (at least not at any affordable level) for video. One of the big complaints from people about adding video and audio seemed to be the worry that suddenly Aperture would try to be final cut, or soundtrack. Which is nonsense. You don't have to add many editing tools for the program to be useful, since it's made to integrate with proper editing programs. The same, really, is true even for photos. Yes, you can do quick edits on photos with Aperture. But when you really get down to it, there will always be something you can do in photoshop that you can't do in Aperture (layer masks, comping, anyone?) Aperture is most useful as an organizational tool, and in that regard, people who work in multiple mediums (and there are a lot of us) could really use something like this.

Have you looked into the new version of iMovie? It's a bit unconventional with regard to its approach to editing but it does keep an iPhoto/iTunes-like library of all your video and allows for key-wording of clips. You can even access your Aperture library from the media browser.

If you have enough disk space for lots of video, its great to have it all accessible in one place plus it's easy to export clips/projects. I find that I do less editing (for family video) since all I need to do is fire up iMovie - everything is there and easy to scrub through. I'm not sure how it handles AVCHD but its worth a look. It's clearly not yet the be-all and end-all solution but its a start...

Peter, I have to disagree with your dismissal of Aperture's feature beyond management. There are other DAM tools - iView Media Pro and QPict spring to mind. Both of them can even handle multiple media types. I used QPict for quite some time before Aperture came along. In many ways it is almost as good at Aperture at management - the tools for performing batch changes to metadata are perhaps even better, and it is much less expensive. It also integrates with outside editors. I switched because of the effect it had on my workflow. With QPict I could view RAW files, but to do anything useful with them I'd have to run them through a RAW processor. Then, if I wanted to tweak anything, it was off to Photoshop. Let's not forget that I now had two versions - the original RAW file and the new processed one.

Aperture abstracts that separation away. I treat a photo as a single entity and Aperture handles all of the versioning and processing for me. The RAW processor and editing tools are enough for most of what I need to do. Sure, I'll occasionally break out a separate RAW processor or photoshop for certain images, but that is probably for less than 1% of what I shoot.

You may spend far more time over in PS and only use Aperture as a management tool, but my point is that there is quite a bit of specialized structure built into Aperture that is really targeted towards the specifics of working with images. That is the real beauty of Aperture (and Lightroom for that matter), someone took a step back from the DAM tools and thought about what _photographers_ actually needed. Should someone do that for video and sound? It seems that way. But I think trying to shoehorn it into Aperture will create enormous problems as they try to find some intuitive way to marry different workflows that have different needs.

I would vote for this to meet a simple need that I have struggled with. I have two cameras:

- An EOS 1D which I shoot RAW photos with, and periodically use the audio notation feature which records short snippets of audio for context. This is a pro camera (albeit somewhat out of date).

- A Canon Powershot that I use for casual/snapshot photography. This camera records JPG masters and short AVI videos of decent casual quality.

I am not a pro, but I use Aperture for its features. However there is no ability for me to keep the images I shoot co-located with either the audio or video files that my cameras have been able to capture for 5+ years.

I can import both photos and video into iPhoto, which gives me very basic ability to store videos in context with the primary photo medium (e.g trip photos and short video clips shown in the same album).

However, I cannot do the same with Aperture. I don't want a full blown video editor. I just want a simple way to co-locate files associated with the same event, and taken with the same device, in the Aperture library and provide the simplest integration possible. Let me view and metatag audio and video files in common formats. No editing required (but make those audio/video files available to external editors like iMove or FCP from the Aperture library.) The convergence of device capabilities (audio, photo, video) is not coming, it has been here in a non-pro capacity for 5+ years. Whether its Aperture or not we need a pro-sumer level DAM system that lets us store and catalog, and SHARE all of the various multimedia files generated by our tools. Lets get with the program.

Cheers.

I agree with most of the commenters - adding non-photo specific features to aperture would only bloat the application.

Look at what Adobe has done to PS over the years; constantly adding features that stray from it's core photo and design users. It's so bloated that comes with a utility to remove unneeded features.

However, I think we all agree that a video management tool similar to aperture is needed. Why not integrate something like this into Final Cut? Many FCP users are envious at the media management capabilities of Avid.

Bloat is a cheap word to throw around, and just as misleading as pointing to features which you happen not to use in other products. Unfortunately, cameras are now creating audio notes or video clips, and enough photographers are going to struggle to manage these files which are an integral, if incidental, part of their photographic projects and work. At some point, some will be better served by a proper video management tool, but I agree Apple should take advantage of its famous integration to display and control other file formats (inc various text file formats) in Aperture.

Canon's upcoming 5d II is an opening salvo into this new "prosumer" space, and this ability will go into Canon's new high end HD Video gear blurring the lines even further. For those that haven't seen Vincent Laforet's "Reverie" video... remarkable for a video rookie, a beta camera for a weekend, and one battery & charger.

All the details can be found here: http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/

However, the Aperture Team has shown they aren't capable of fixing long ago identified issues, much less dealing with Video time lines, new file formats, etc.

If you want Aperture to be your everything tool, look for it to break. We might have something if Jobs throws a different management & coding chunk of staff at the problem. Until then, this is probably the worst idea imaginable; sending most still professionals looking for dedicated tools, like Capture One, or even Lightroom 3; using FCP & Server for the moving imagery.

-Steve

I think people are misunderstanding this. all that is needed is for aperture to be able to read movie files. and treat them like still images in terms of adjustments. I think QuickTime is what is driving aperture so it can't be that hard to incorporate movie files and audio files from cameras. pro cameras are the only cameras that support audio. that is needed badly

"all that is needed is for aperture to be able to read movie files and treat them like still images in terms of adjustments."

That's a lot more than is needed. Given Mac OS integration, one would expect thumbnails, but simple file icons would help. Aperture can help me track them, let me add keywords and other metadata, keep them with related photograph projects, and let me launch whatever editing program I choose. Nothing fancy, but all file types in one place. FWIW, exactly the same debate is happening with Lightroom users.

This is an interesting discussion. If Aperture were made to deal with video and audio files what would you do with them? Just catalog? Wouldn't users then ask for editing? How then would this compare/differ to Final Cut or similar? I already read about people complaining about Apples lack of speed for newer cameras, now add different video formats to that mix and the only thing you'd see are complaints.

I do agree about the convergence of photo, video and audio would be nice. I just don't think it's as easy to "slap together" as it seems. Different adjustment bricks for different formats? What about plugins? I'm sure someone would LOVE to use Vivesa on a video clip - why not it's only several pictures, right? We can already batch adjust a group of images. Invest in Hard drive companies, because that 60 GB clip just tripled, now wait a week for that to compress to a DVD or YouTube clip.

Maybe in a few years we'll have a computer that can do that within a day. Movie studios use racks of computers to do this, right? Where do we draw the line? What is enough?

If you just want a DAM I'm sure there's more than one that already exists.

Yes, just catalogue. And what to do with them - well, for one thing, not lose them! I wouldn't want to see any video/audio editing of any kind in Aperture, just Finder's Open With context menu, and no playing either unless that's done by the OS. So there's no issue of "support" - a Finder file icon would suffice - and it's a much more limited request than you imagine.

I agree with thomas and Gio, people are misunderstanding this. iPhoto does this well already and it has not turn into a full featured DAM, just a photo app with the ability to import related video and organize it. All the other video editing etc should be handle by other apps, like iMovie in this case.

Many times the video and photos are tightly connected. Especially when you use the same device for both. So having them organized together and importing them at the same time saves a lot of money. I think a lot of those who doesn't understand this need and the usefulness will understand it eventually.

I know this topic is related to RED and Aperture, but since all of you have high level knowledge of video editing, I thought I could post my question here, and is related to AVCHD videos time stamp.
I would necessarily need to burn the time/date from my Sony HDR-SR11 videos over to DVD, but can't find a software that can do it. Obviously, the data is there in the .moff files, but no software can get it and superimpose on the edited video.
Does anybody knows a solution?

Thanks in advance.
Nikola

I know this topic is related to RED and Aperture, but since all of you have high level knowledge of video editing, I thought I could post my question here, and is related to AVCHD videos time stamp.
I would necessarily need to burn the time/date from my Sony HDR-SR11 videos over to DVD, but can't find a software that can do it. Obviously, the data is there in the .moff files, but no software can get it and superimpose on the edited video.
Does anybody knows a solution?

Thanks in advance.
Nikola