FCP4 Offers New TV Typography

Haven't we been supposedly 'rejoicing' about HDTV for well over a decade now? Sadly, we're still a ways away.

Am I missing the part where they specify how to make LiveFonts?

If I'm not missing it, there's not much rejoicing to be done. that sample is hideous.

Agreed. Good motion type involves more than animated letters.

We're not that far away from HDTV. My dad has an HDTV set and we get HDTV cable. Recently, TV manufacters and others agreed on a new plug-n-play digital cable format (you take a digital cable from your wall, plug it into your TV, and that's it) which, once it's in production, should increase mainstream acceptance of HDTV. D-VHS is currently the only solution for prerecorded HD, but it's intended for a niche audience. Hopefully they'll get HD-DVD right, but that's a while off (5 years?) it seems.

As a side thread, I assume HD-DVD will hit the market as soon as the current spate of consumer buying slows on standard-definition DVDs. Electronic manufactures already have differing HD-DVD formats ready to compete against each other once the market creates the demand or vice-versa.

I just spent the last week running a booth for my Day Job at NAB in Las Vegas, and I had a chance to spend some time talking to two of the LiveType developers.

The LiveType group is four people in an Apple satellite office in southern Washington State. The program was originally written for Windows in C; they ported to to Cocoa's Objective C after the Apple acquisition. They seem to like their new parent company.

The titling software comes with a "FontMaker" for developing your own LiveFonts. These are essentially folders full of QuickTime movies with some ASCII text metrics files in a format documented at Apple Developer Connection. (Download-only memberships are free.) After a quick glance at the format, you can see that it's pretty easy to convert metrics data from AFM or TTX source.

The format does support Unicode, but not OpenType or AAT so far. Implementing complex connecting scripts like Arabic in this format could prove a rather daunting task: for example, try looking at their shimmering gold letters, and try to figure out how you would make that work in a connecting script. It would be difficult at the very least; it might simply be easier to render that sort of thing in Typestry or Photoshop and import it line-by-line instead of glyph-by-glyph.

As part of my Day Job I have to learn Final Cut and make films with it. We're still using 3; I'll upgrade to 4 once my skills can justify it.

LiveFonts may become an interesting new medium... I wonder if video editors and filmmakers are more likely to pay for licensed LiveFonts than many graphic designers are likey to pay for outline fonts.

Thanks so much for that report, Johnny!

You're welcome, but please never ever call me that.

you can say that again!

The first third party LiveType fonts have just been released at ScreenCaffeine.com. And for clarification, there was a Macintosh version of India Titler Pro before Apple made their purchase of Prismo Graphics. We invite comments and suggestions from typographers (an art (or craft) that I am beginning to really appreciate). One of us is a third generation typographer from Milan, Italy, another is an artist from Caracas Venezuela, and two of us are from Austin, Texas (a designer and a video editor).