Apple/FCP6/4K workflow at NAB?

[Teague Kennedy]

AVID needs to get their head in the game. They are pissing people off, and Apple is doing the opposite. I know in Atlanta two of the big dogs are switching most suites that were AVID to FCP -- Turner Broadcasting and CNN.

 

[Nick Shaw]

It has been suggested that FCP 6 may require Leopard, and as I understand it part of the improvements in Leopard are for multi-core optimisation.

I think it would be pretty daft for Apple to introduce a new version of Final Cut at the same time(ish) as the 8-core Mac Pros, and not allow it to take advantage of those extra cores.

 

[Mark L. Pederson]

The biggest single consistent gripe about FCP is media management and metadata management. Avid had that nailed almost 10 years ago, and their media and metadata management schemes for longform feature post-production is still the gold standard.


Lucas
-----
ASSIMILATE, Inc.
Los Angeles

Amen.

 

[Rob Lohman]

Will the new FCP and Shake support Quad cores? Correct me if I'm wrong but nearly all programs (PC and Mac) currently do not support them and as such are not making the most of the hardware. Effectively meaning Duo's are still just as fast (Maybe not for doing multiple tasks).

It's not a matter of support but more how efficient will it use the available CPU's. It's a matter of proper multi-threaded design. If you do that right it should scale well up to say 8 or 16 CPU's.

So the software will definitely "support" (ie., work on it) the quad-cores. Question is then how will it utilize the available resources. That will be a wait and see.

 

[dalen johnson]

Price...its all relative.
We believe something has to cost an exuberant amount of money - that is until someone comes along and shows us different, and we go "wow".

Its all perspective.

Shake is a good example...from 10k, to not being made anymore. lol

I clearly remember around 2000 when my boss bough Maya for about 25k (complete, unlimited was about 50k) He also bought a PC for about 10k to go with it. (Z, or something like that) About 3 months after his purchase, and a 2nd mortgage on his house...the price went to 7k for maya complete...thats when I won a copy for NT. They gave him unlimited to comfort him, but it wasn't much longer till 7k was the price for unlimited. And Maya complete is at like 1 or 2k. (apple should have bought them...silly, silly apple...)

Also, in 2000 a DVD burner cost 18k...then it dropped to 5k (for mastering dvds for mass production) Now look at the DVD market. (I have not produced DVDs for 2 years now.)

I remember 1998, or thereabout...a company I freelanced for was proud of their 9Gig, very expensive Avid system - compared to after effects, I didn't see the point. (yes, I was coming from print to multimedia to video...still doesn't mean price was justified. lol)

So really...what is the worth of anything.
Apple proved they can make software fro $500 -1k.
Why get greedy. Im sure its possible, but we will see.

Peace

dAlen

 

[Mark Mannschreck]

Here's an example of what I am talking about. I recently finished cutting three shows for Spike TV's "Inside the UFC". The post house where it is cut had adopted FCP on all 10 or so seats. The hardware was all IO and Kona. NONE of the bays operated well. Some had minor problems, some had major problems. Now, I'm not saying it is because of the AJA equipment... Although I have had 4 or 5 IO's replaced in my own system. The EP of the show told me that they were going to move to Newscutters because of all the problems. Also the media management was frustrating... using spotlight, x-serves, and fibrejet.

 

[Nick Shaw]

I agree that the IO has always been a bit flaky, although it's much better now than at launch. I built my first Final Cut Pro system (after abandoning my Media 100 – so I'll admit to an anti Avid bias!) using an IO, and very quickly decided to ditch it for a Decklink card.

That said, I do think Final Cut Pro gets an unjustified bad rep from people in Avid facilities. My experience of using Final Cut Pro systems in big facilities is that they are treated as second class citizens, and therefore not well installed or maintained. The engineering staff have usually (understandably) got far more Avid experience, and the Final Cut Pro systems suffer as a consequence.

Also many Final Cut systems are installed in the corner of production offices, or back bedrooms, as an in-house system because it's cheap, and therefore again not necessarily well configured or maintained. Media 100's reputation also suffered because of this kind of user base.

A well maintained dedicated Final Cut facility (like mine!) can run very smoothly. And if it is the way the editor is used to working, so they go about things in the 'Final Cut way' rather than worrying about the fact that a particular workflow they use on Avid doesn't work the same in Final Cut, the business of cutting a film can be done without worrying about the details of one tool vs another.

At the end of the day Final Cut and Avid are just two different tools that do the same basic job. Each has advantages and disadvantages. There is no best tool, it's just a matter of what you're used to.

END OF RANT

 

[Simon Blackledge]

100% agree Nick.

 

[Mark Mannschreck]

You're right. The post house here didn't spend alot of time maintaining the systems. I'm sure it could have been running alot more smoothly. I also came from a Media 100 background moving to FCP only a coule years ago. There were great things my M100 could do that I still can't do in my IO based FCP. That's why I wish for at least an Apple "branded" hardware solution that Apple would support themselves. It's one thing to be "working closely" with a company like AJA and another thing to be 100% responsible for the hardware. But that said I use FCP exclusively now and will continue to do so (unless they don't update the media manager)

END OF RANT

 

[Rocco Schult]

For someone with a $100K + Smoke system, $10k isn't much.

If Apple interested in a true 4k Extreme FCP, it would most likely target those who do and/or need 2k/4k online finishing.

This means they need to work with industry standards like DPX, Cineon, SGI-RGB, TIFF, TGA, 8bit, 10bit, 16bit, floating point. It makes no sense to do online finishing with Quicktimes, extremely unpractical.

Sure you can go with commodity GPU cards, but reliability is key, so I wouldn't be surprised if Apple wants to create an integrated system that's bulletproof.

I was told by a motion graphics artist, that depending on the graphics card, the anti-aliasing on text in Motion looks different.

Even Silicon Graphics made specific recommendations on what graphics card to use with Final Touch.

To me anyways, a 4k Extreme FCP wouldn't be a mass product, but an industry specific high end product. This would make sense if Apple is really interested in wooing high end post houses and the studios.

This is like when Apple decided to get into the enterprise market with Xserves and Xraids.

You're my man. My prayers all the time.

Do you mean they sold hundreds of thousands of Final Cut Pro licences??
Or hundred of thousands of Xserve or Xserve Raid ??

Maybe not hundreds of thousands , )
But more than a 100.000 for FCP ? Wouldn't be too surprised.

..I dislike the Avid interface, but Final Cut isn't and will never be a viable option to an Avid in a high volume/tight deadline post environment unless Apple were to produce a tightly integrated hardware solution. .. Anyone who is serious about becoming an editor eventually comes to the realization that they will have to learn the Avid if they want to work in these environments. ..Apple knows what it has to do to really compete with hardware Avids...

Yep, Avid is still the dominator. But not only because they make a overall system where an integration seems more with an Avid (they shifted cleverly from the Editors manufaturer to a complete systems manufacturer!) but still because the system is more stable !
We had one Avid and 2 FCPs in an HD config, but still I have to stick to my preferences. You don't have that annoying format bugs (e.g. editing 16:9 with 4:3 stock) etc.
They didn't do much innovation in the last years, no question. But they still knows how it works. And the integrated media-storage has its advantages and disadvantages.

 

[Corrado Silveri]

A well maintained dedicated Final Cut facility (like mine!) can run very smoothly.

Completely agree, Nick.
In my post house there are 8 FCP suites, 2 Ingest suites (Blackmagic Multibridge Extreme), 2 Motion/Shake Suites, 1 Server Room (Xserve+Xraids).

We shot on set with 2 Macbook Pro (Scopebox HD).

All run REALLY smoothly.

Just my two cents.