MacHuna

A clip with no key now produces an SWS with no key plane — instead of a black one that never keyed and doubled the file.

Converting something without a key used to write a full key plane anyway, flat black, and tell the desk it was there. Loaded on a Kahuna it shows a Key panel that is solid black, and it does not key. It never worked; it only made the file twice as big.

Now the rule is simply that a key plane is written when there is a key. Every keyless file is half the size — a 52‑frame wipe drops from 896 MB to 448 MB, converts in about half the time, and a clip twice as long fits under the 4 GB split. Files that do have a key are unaffected.

Confirmed on a live Kahuna on 18 September, loading both versions side by side. This is the first thing MacHuna deliberately does differently from the software it was modelled on, and it was changed only once a desk had shown the old behaviour was useless.

Adds QuickTime MOV output: turn an SWS, an EIF or a TGA sequence back into an editable ProRes 4444 file, with the key as a real alpha channel and the sound intact.

Until now material could go onto a desk but only came back off as a folder of TGA frames. A QuickTime is what an edit suite, a grade or an archive actually wants. Sound comes from the SWS itself, or for a K-Frame clip from its companion .eaf file, which MacHuna can now read. It is an ordinary video file rather than a desk format, so there is nothing about it waiting to be proven on hardware.

Name each file, or leave it blank to take the source name. A TGA sequence declares no frame rate of its own, so you set one — 23.976 through 60, including the 29.97 and 30 that broadcast standards do not offer progressively. If the sequence is itself interlaced, tick TGA source interlaced and it is deinterlaced on the way: a 25fps interlaced sequence becomes a 50fps progressive MOV of the same length, with no combing.

Also in this release: the Kayenne formats are now called K-Frame, which is what they are — Kayenne is one of three control panels that drive a K-Frame, alongside Karrera and GV Korona, and the clip store lives in the frame.

Fixes some files being read half a line out, which made the picture look split down the middle with the sides swapped.

The video does not always start at the same place in an SWS file — the header says where, and some files put it later. MacHuna had always assumed. This affected conversions as well as playback, so if you have ever converted a file that displayed this way, convert it again.

The Video Player now opens split files.

A clip over 4 GB is stored as a folder of 2 GB parts, and the player could not open one at all — the file dialog treats the folder as somewhere to go into, so you ended up picking a single part. Select the folder, or any part inside it, and the whole clip loads. The info strip confirms it with Split: 3 parts.

Long clips also load without running out of memory: the player now decodes a batch of frames at a time instead of reading the entire video plane in one go, so a 1000‑frame clip peaks at 1.4 GB rather than needing 5.5 GB in one lump. That was never really a split‑file limit — a single large file would have failed the same way.

Two fixes to the new item list.

The list now genuinely grows when you make the window taller — v1.8.0 claimed that and did not do it — and the scrollbar sits beside the list again rather than out at the edge of the window.

Batch numbering is now a list, so you can see what every file will be called before you convert it.

Each selected item gets a row showing its output name — alpha.mov → 42.SWS. Type a number per row, or tick Number sequentially and the first row fills in the rest. Converted rows lock with a tick and never run again, so you can add more files and convert without redoing anything. A ✕ removes a row, and the numbers below close up or stay put depending on how you are numbering.

Previously the numbering happened invisibly and you found out what each file had been called by reading the log afterwards. The Start number, Start slot and “Use source file number” controls are all gone, replaced by the list.

MacHuna now tells you, in the log, when an output has never been tested on the desk it is for.

Converting to K-Frame EIF, K-Frame TGA or Sony MVS TGA writes a note saying so at the head of the batch. Kahuna SWS says nothing, because it is confirmed on real hardware and warning about it would be false caution. Converting a clip that has audio to EIF now also warns that the audio is dropped — see the verification table above for why. Nothing is blocked and no dialog appears; you are simply told where things stand.

A Help menu, with update notifications and a way to get in touch.

MacHuna now tells you when a newer version exists: a strip appears at the top of the window with what changed and a Download button. If you are up to date, offline, or the check fails for any reason, nothing appears at all — it is built for galleries and trucks with no route out. Help › Report a Problem and Suggest a Feature open an email with the version, your macOS and your current settings already filled in; nothing is sent until you send it. The user manual is now inside the app, so it opens with no internet.

The update check only ever reads one small file. It sends no information about you or your files, and there is no usage tracking.

A finished conversion now clears the selection, so the next one starts from nothing.

Previously the batch stayed loaded after converting, so reopening the folder browser offered Add to List and the files you had just converted came along and were written a second time. This now applies to every conversion, sequential or bespoke, and after a cancelled batch too. The auto‑incrementing start number is not reset.

The app reports its real version to macOS.

Every build used to report version 0.0.0 in Finder, so you could not tell one copy from another. Press ⌘I on the app to check which version you have. A copy still showing 0.0.0 is older than this release.

Clearer message when Sony TGA output is limited to one clip.

It now opens with how to convert a batch anyway, by ticking Use bespoke names, rather than leading with the restriction.

A blocked batch takes you to the field that needs fixing.

Every offending bespoke field is marked in red with the reason for that row, and the panel scrolls to the first one and focuses it. Correcting a duplicate clears the mark on its partner as well.

Bespoke per‑item output numbers and names.

Give each item in a batch its own output number, or its own four‑character clip name for Sony TGA, instead of taking an auto‑sequence. Blank, duplicate and already‑present values stop the batch and name the offenders, so nothing is ever overwritten. Batches can also be built from more than one folder.