mocha

Today is September 22 so that means you have just over a week left to basically get a free copy a previously featured Useful Tool for Editors, Imagineer‘s mocha for Final Cut. How is it free? You can purchase any node locked license of “any Imagineer product and receive a second matching license for free. Offer expires on September 30th, 2009.” That’s a free version of any of their node locked products, including mocha for Final Cut Pro but many others as well.

Node locked basically means that a unique license key is generated specifically for the CPU in which the product is installed. There will be no buying one version of a node locked piece of software and installing it on every computer in your facility. Besides the fact that doing that is illegal, the end-user hassle of a node locked product is worth it IMHO in that it allows smaller developers like Imagineer Systems to stay in business and produce these great products. Often people wonder what happens with a node locked-type of license in the event their computer crashes or they get a new one. In most cases an email or call the support is all it takes to get such an issue taken care of. I’ve never had a problem with any of this type of software license in the past. The different type of licenses that Imagineer Systems offers is detailed in their store. Just add an item to your shopping cart and there will be 2 products placed in there: one for cost and the other for zero cost.

If you do a lot of tracking and rotoscoping then these products are worth a look. Oliver Peters has a great write-up on mocha for Final Cut and you can grab a demo and try it out for yourself. It’s not the easiest software to use but considering its power it could be a lot more complex. I’m looking forward to digging into it myself on an upcoming job.