Apple push to win back pro editors

[Brian Merlen]

+1 for NLE animal sacrifice...

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

All you have to do is look at their history.

http://www.onerivermedia.com/blog/?p=322

Pretty sure CS7 will put another nail in the Apple NLE coffin.

 

[william howell]

Use the Position tool. If the program's not letting you put things where you want them to be, use position instead of the general select tool. Blew my mind when I found that out. Hope it helps.

i'm going to try this today. Thanks...

 

[william howell]

All one has to do is read the Steve Jobs biography to understand the Apple culture of designing software.

He said that they do not ask people what they want, they design what APPLE thinks you should be using and then plop it down and you can either take it or leave it. There is no end user feedback loop like Adobe or Avid where the users actually tell the company what they'd like.

I think that may have been a little bit of Steve's uncanny ability to apply a Reality Distortion Field to everything apple... I was at a final cut users meeting in san fran and the soundtrack pro engineers had a booth set up... they were asking us what we wanted out of the software... this was after the original release.... i've worked in the audio industry for years.... and my big thing was the ability to normalize with RMS levels... their original normalizer was a gain increaser... using the rms levels is a quick and dirty tool that gets the job done... I imagine i wasn't the only one asking for it... then... a few software updates later... bam... normalize by RMS levels was there...

that being said... it could have just been an apple publicity stunt to get editors to use their software.... they probably threw all of our suggestions in their "hahaha, these idiots think we really care what they think" bin.

but... come to think of it... shortly after that... they killed soundtrack pro.... so... they weren't really interested in listening to us at all... they were trying to save their product....

sigh...

i just hope there's a mac pro-ish machine soon with thunderbolt... if not... i think i will break down and start photographing weddings.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Out of curiosity, what about FCP X allows you to get more stuff done, faster and easier?

If you don't know what you are missing, then you can feel bad about missing it, right? If what you are using works for you, why not keep using it? I have no doubt that Premiere Pro is terrific. Everyone says its just like FCP7 - but it's newer! :smiley: Most of the NLEs work on the same old paradigm and most folks like that. I like changing things up, trying new ways, seeing if things can be improved. That works for me. I think FCP-X is in that category.


Here's an article that says it better then I could in a short post - this has pretty much been my experience, too.

http://www.moviemaker.com/diy/movies-better-fcp-x-red-feature-film-workflow-part-1/

 

[Alexander Thomson]

Just want to mention something regarding FCPX and transcoding. You can do both. You can link to the original files, and it is moderately stable, even when approaching an hour's worth of footage on the timeline. I do a lot of web projects, so linking to the native files is somewhat of an option for me. (I shoot DSLR & RED).

If there's a certain shot I want to transcode, I can click on the clip, and select "Generate Proxy Media" and that'll give me ProRes 422 Proxy or "Generate Optimized Media" and that will give me 422 HQ or whatever flavor of pro res you specify as your render format. On the fly, it will dynamically re-link in the background once it's finished transcoding, and will switch from the native h.264 files from the DSLR, to the pro res files. This is an incredibly useful tool when I don't want to spend the upfront time of converting all of my media before editing, speaking of which, if you the kind of person that wants to transcode before you edit, FCPX has a solution for that too.

When you import, you can select "Generate Proxy/Optimized media" as something FCPX should do during the import process. As it's bringing the files into your final cut events folder (which is basically a prosumer word for "bin") FCPX will make available all of your files on the timeline, and it will do all the work in the background. How the hell does that work?? Here's a scenario:

let's say you're importing 30 clips and they're all on a redmag being imported into your storage system. When you start the import process, all 30 clips are available to edit immediately, regardless of whether or not they're actually on your storage device yet. FCPX will let you edit directly from the camera media while it takes the time to import. One by one, it will re-link from the camera media file path, to the Final Cut Pro X Events Folder file path on your storage device. You don't have to do ANY relinking... It just does it... If you want Proxy or 422 HQ transcodes of your footage, it does that too. After importing from the redmag or CF card or wherever your footage is stored, it will automatically beging transcoding in the background, and once it's done individually transcoding clips, it will relink again from the original native media to the transcoded media. All in the background while you work. FCPX in my opinion has one of the best set of tools for the transcode workflow because, let's be real here, it was made for the DSLR market and damn did they do a great job at nabbing that market. Now all these up and coming filmmakers that can probably get by with iMovie go and spend $300 to get FCPX. It's a decent strategy by apple. Instead of expecting the average customer to step up and learn the old school way of editing they totally re-think it from an amateur standpoint, lower the bar, and the entry price, and hey, if pros dig it, that's cool too. I think they, Apple, has had us on the back burner for awhile, but I don't mind. I have a hackintosh

Final Cut Pro X is definitely worth a look because despite everything it's put us through, it has dual viewers, RED support, a totally new way of color grading, including MATCH COLOR (best hidden feature), the magnetic timeline, and real-time on the fly transcodes and tons of other random features that make you wonder why this hasn't been done in an NLE before.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/ and watch "File Based Workflow"

tl;dr Final Cut Pro X just wants to be your friend. It knows it screwed up in the past. But it can do some really cool things now!

 

[william howell]

Just want to mention something regarding FCPX and transcoding. You can do both. You can link to the original files, and it is moderately stable, even when approaching an hour's worth of footage on the timeline. I do a lot of web projects, so linking to the native files is somewhat of an option for me. (I shoot DSLR & RED).

If there's a certain shot I want to transcode, I can click on the clip, and select "Generate Proxy Media" and that'll give me ProRes 422 Proxy or "Generate Optimized Media" and that will give me 422 HQ or whatever flavor of pro res you specify as your render format. On the fly, it will dynamically re-link in the background once it's finished transcoding, and will switch from the native h.264 files from the DSLR, to the pro res files. This is an incredibly useful tool when I don't want to spend the upfront time of converting all of my media before editing, speaking of which, if you the kind of person that wants to transcode before you edit, FCPX has a solution for that too.

When you import, you can select "Generate Proxy/Optimized media" as something FCPX should do during the import process. As it's bringing the files into your final cut events folder (which is basically a prosumer word for "bin") FCPX will make available all of your files on the timeline, and it will do all the work in the background. How the hell does that work?? Here's a scenario:

let's say you're importing 30 clips and they're all on a redmag being imported into your storage system. When you start the import process, all 30 clips are available to edit immediately, regardless of whether or not they're actually on your storage device yet. FCPX will let you edit directly from the camera media while it takes the time to import. One by one, it will re-link from the camera media file path, to the Final Cut Pro X Events Folder file path on your storage device. You don't have to do ANY relinking... It just does it... If you want Proxy or 422 HQ transcodes of your footage, it does that too. After importing from the redmag or CF card or wherever your footage is stored, it will automatically beging transcoding in the background, and once it's done individually transcoding clips, it will relink again from the original native media to the transcoded media. All in the background while you work. FCPX in my opinion has one of the best set of tools for the transcode workflow because, let's be real here, it was made for the DSLR market and damn did they do a great job at nabbing that market. Now all these up and coming filmmakers that can probably get by with iMovie go and spend $300 to get FCPX. It's a decent strategy by apple. Instead of expecting the average customer to step up and learn the old school way of editing they totally re-think it from an amateur standpoint, lower the bar, and the entry price, and hey, if pros dig it, that's cool too. I think they, Apple, has had us on the back burner for awhile, but I don't mind. I have a hackintosh

Final Cut Pro X is definitely worth a look because despite everything it's put us through, it has dual viewers, RED support, a totally new way of color grading, including MATCH COLOR (best hidden feature), the magnetic timeline, and real-time on the fly transcodes and tons of other random features that make you wonder why this hasn't been done in an NLE before.

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/ and watch "File Based Workflow"

tl;dr Final Cut Pro X just wants to be your friend. It knows it screwed up in the past. But it can do some really cool things now!

i might pick your brain on proxy editing... we had the hopes that we could have the high res files on our machine at work... take the project home on a laptop with proxy files... edit... then relink to the high res files on export.... thereby allowing us to do everything we needed to do with the low res files... until export...

however.... we haven't figured out a way to make that work.... at all.. so... we just edit in optimized hq media...

is it possible?

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Alexander,

Good post but a couple of corrections. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure of my case:

- Optimized media is always regular Prores 422, whatever your render codec in the timeline is.
The only exception is RED material where it's Prores 444.

- there is no way to specify at this point (unless it's in the 10.0.8 upgrade but I haven't read anything about it) what you want as Optimized format. Proxy media: proxy prores (half size), Optimized media: prores 444 for RED material, prores 422 for anything else.

That being said you are completely right. With FCPX and a Fast RAID you can have everything perfectly organized trough keywords which are much more flexible than bins, let it make proxy media in the background, relink automatically and output full 5k prores.
Even making proxy media goes very quickly without rocket on a retina MacBook pro (with Fast Thunderbolt RAID)

At my work place (not creative editing though), we switched to FCPX because I said it would be a good choice.
I teached a friend/collegue there how to edit on FCPX. He now only uses FCPX. Recently he said: "I don't care about what anyone says about FCPX being professional software or not, I'm doing what I have to do in MUCH lesser time and it just works."

Still anything but perfect software - I have a long wish list - but I think FCPX is one of the most interesting NLE's on the market right now, even with all its Faults.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

i might pick your brain on proxy editing... we had the hopes that we could have the high res files on our machine at work... take the project home on a laptop with proxy files... edit... then relink to the high res files on export.... thereby allowing us to do everything we needed to do with the low res files... until export...

however.... we haven't figured out a way to make that work.... at all.. so... we just edit in optimized hq media...

is it possible?

From memory, I believe you go into FCP-X Preferences where you can select whether to use original/optimized media or proxy media. You can switch back and forth whenever you like.

 

[Paul Harb]

No OMF
No projects
No sequences
No collaborative editing
No bins
NO TRACKS FOR F SAKE

You cannot do feature or episodic television with the program. This is not old editors being lazy and not wanting to change, this is Apple trying to fit a square in a circle. No matter what their reality distortion marketing team says.

If Avid cant get their financial house in order someone will purchase them, because every show or movie you watch is probably cut on Avid. Its an extremely powerful tool that works and does what it needs to do in this enviroment. Lightworks looks really good too and uses the same termnology and basic interface that makes sense to editors but with updated powerful features. These are programs designed by editors for editors, they ask questions to editors and listen. Apple has their own agenda and editors dont exist on that list. There is no trust anymore.

 

[Scott Crawley]

i might pick your brain on proxy editing... we had the hopes that we could have the high res files on our machine at work... take the project home on a laptop with proxy files... edit... then relink to the high res files on export.... thereby allowing us to do everything we needed to do with the low res files... until export...

however.... we haven't figured out a way to make that work.... at all.. so... we just edit in optimized hq media...

is it possible?

It is. I go so far as to say that is how FCPX is designed to work. Yes, you can work with native media directly, but the preferred method is to cut transcoded files of one flavor or the other. Switching between the three types of source media should be easier and more intuitive, as Apple design tends to be. It sure would be nice if those controls were more apparent, but they are by no means buried in the interface.

I recommend that you view Ripple Training's FCPX tutorials. They helped ease my transition from 7-X considerably and I barely needed to refer to the manual.

http://www.rippletraining.com/categories/apple-pro-apps-tutorials/final-cut-pro-x-tutorials.html

 

[william howell]

No OMF
No projects
No sequences
No collaborative editing
No bins
NO TRACKS FOR F SAKE

You cannot do feature or episodic television with the program. This is not old editors being lazy and not wanting to change, this is Apple trying to fit a square in a circle. No matter what their reality distortion marketing team says.

If Avid cant get their financial house in order someone will purchase them, because every show or movie you watch is probably cut on Avid. Its an extremely powerful tool that works and does what it needs to do in this enviroment. Lightworks looks really good too and uses the same termnology and basic interface that makes sense to editors but with updated powerful features. These are programs designed by editors for editors, they ask questions to editors and listen. Apple has their own agenda and editors dont exist on that list. There is no trust anymore.

sadly... we've talked at length about this at work... we've been holding off, waiting for a final cut X server... because... we, however silly it may seem, hoped that apple was working on something spectacular for the professionals that need to collaborate on editing jobs.. and going to release it in apple "change the world" style... but... in all honesty... we know it probably won't happen.

 

[Paul Harb]

The marketing on this is comedy and def worth looking at for a laugh

http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/in-action/

 

[Ces Peynetti]

No OMF
No projects
No sequences
No collaborative editing
No bins
NO TRACKS FOR F SAKE

You cannot do feature or episodic television with the program. This is not old editors being lazy and not wanting to change, this is Apple trying to fit a square in a circle. No matter what their reality distortion marketing team says.

I'm really not trying to be an FCPX fanboy here or something like that. Like I've been saying all along there are some things I will rather use Premiere or Avid for, and I truly have no favorite in this race, but some of the things you are mentioning the software is missing are there. They are not supposed to work the way we are used to, but if you really want fcpx to work like other NLE's, there are ways to make it happen. The problem is that if you do, it REALLY sucks, therefore other programs seem much better.

No OMFs: True, but X2Pro will give me AAFs and my sound guy is ok with that.

No Projects: Like you know, they are called Events now, and at this point I'm not really sure what I like better.

No sequences: True, what we have now they are called projects, but it's not the same as sequences, but I haven't found this to be an issue at all, I've found workflows where I don't need a "sequence" anymore.

No collaborative editing: I think this might be the biggest weakness right now and I hate it. I've found some work arounds, but this is the kind of thing I'm hoping the program will be better un at in future releases.

No bins: This is actually what I miss the least. I only used to use bing for organizing purposes and creating a keywording workflow has cut my work time in certain projects in more than half.

No tracks: I don't know anyone elses experience with the program but this is what irked me the most at the beginning. How can one edit without tracks!! At first my track workflow addiction was subdued by using the position tool and nesting clips into storylines, after playing with the program on several projects it suddenly just clicked for me. I understood how to use the program without a huge need for tracks.

Now I haven't had the chance to do an episodic show with FCP-X, and so far I've only done short form work and not a feature length project, though I would love to try, because from what I've learned so far I feel like it shouldn't be the problem mostly everyone makes it out to be.

I do love me some Premiere and Avid, but I'm very happy with knowing how to use fcpx as well, specially when there are projects that I can knock out in half the time than with the other programs. The only thing I'm bummed about is that I was expecting a big update on FCPX during these days since we are about to hit the 2 year mark since it was released, which if I remember correctly, Apple used to do a BIG update every 2 years.

EDIT: And by the way, I don't mean any disrespect or anything like that, just throwing my two cents. I admire your resume Paul, I only wish I had editing gigs like that

 

[Filip Vandoorne]

on the collaborative editing part, Apple got approved some interesting patents... i hope they will make soon a product out of it.
read more at http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/new...aborative-media-production-with-final-cut-pro
The underlying structure of a database in FCPX and each projectsequence is a individual file will make easier to implement than you would in FCP7 or Premiere where everthing is in 1 file. FCP7 for example has much better 'multiuser' support than the adobe software where 'last saved = wins' is not what you always want... Avid has Unity for this, but at a price - financial.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

sadly... we've talked at length about this at work... we've been holding off, waiting for a final cut X server... because... we, however silly it may seem, hoped that apple was working on something spectacular for the professionals that need to collaborate on editing jobs.. and going to release it in apple "change the world" style... but... in all honesty... we know it probably won't happen.

This might hold some promise as a replacement/improvement for FC Server:

http://www.fcp.co/hardware-and-soft...-portal-and-how-it-works-with-final-cut-pro-x

 

[Terry VerHaar]

My airplane doesn't have pontoons and i am accustomed to getting there by boat. What do I do? :smiley:

 

[Brad Webb]

No OMF
No projects
No sequences
No collaborative editing
No bins
NO TRACKS FOR F SAKE

You cannot do feature or episodic television with the program. This is not old editors being lazy and not wanting to change, this is Apple trying to fit a square in a circle. No matter what their reality distortion marketing team says.

All this is why FCPx is not for pro use. Pro use is multiple editors and assistant editors that all share and pass projects between many different machines, and then being able to send parts of the project to other programs.

FCPX is great if you want to do everything on one machine. It's an amazing one man band tool.

However, most of FCPX anger is not because the program is inferior, it's because all copies of FCP7 were pulled off the shelf the day Apple released a very incomplete FCPX. So if you were planning on adding a few more machines you were SOL. Apple left EVERY SINGLE FCP7 user hanging out to dry.

It's like you were cheated on by your spouse. Sure you can forgive and go back to Apple, but you don't really know if they will abandon you again.

 

[Paul Harb]

Marco nails it here. The signs are so in your face of what Apple's about now, but people hold on anyways....ya but she wont cheat on me again....denial.

All you have to do is look at their history.

http://www.onerivermedia.com/blog/?p=322

Pretty sure CS7 will put another nail in the Apple NLE coffin.

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

No OMF
No projects
No sequences
No collaborative editing
No bins
NO TRACKS FOR F SAKE.

OMF you are right, I don't Miss it but I'm sure some do. There is a program that translates FCPX XML to protools.

Projects and sequences now have Another terminology where Events are more like media pools for timelines.
Would you call the media pool principle of Resolve stupid too?

Collaborative editing is probably a feature in the Works. Let's not forget it's not worse now then with FCP7 or Première.

Tracks... We have Roles. In my opinion, it's has a bigger potential especially together with the timeline index- although it has to mature.