With Autodesk Smoke on the Mac, the idea is to provide an all-in-one editorial finishing tool to a market that prefers the Mac environment and would never consider the Linux systems products. This makes Smoke an ideal companion to Avid Media Composer or Apple Final Cut Studio. Obviously it's possible to do many of the same things in Final Cut Studio using Motion and Color, but you have to go into several different applications to do that. Many facilities will find that the same tasks can be done more efficiently and effectively by staying all within one advanced interface.
This makes a lot of sense for mid-tier post houses or broadcast facilities, which might be configured with several FCP bays and Xsan shared storage. Adding a seat of Smoke for the "hero suite" is an easy integration, since it can live on the same storage. It's no longer a Linux "island." Key is the ability for Smoke to handle compressed formats, like Apple ProRes, Avid DNxHD, DVCPRO HD, AVC-Intra and image sequence files, such as 3DS and Filmbox files from 3DS Max and Maya, as well as native support for P2, XDCAM and RED files. Since the Smoke software is installed on the same Mac as other applications, it's now possible for the Smoke operator to also have Adobe Photoshop or After Effects open on the same computer right alongside Smoke.
As the broadcast world transitions to HD, the post community will inevitably continue to struggle in a mixed format world -- posting in various HD flavors, but delivering a wide range of target formats. Smoke is resolution-independent, so it can easily handle 4K source material to build a 2K timeline and finally deliver both HD and SD broadcast masters.
Learn more about Autodesk's Smoke 2011 release in Oliver Peters' two-part instructional session.
