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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

FCPX vs CC/CS6 as of June 2013

Eric,

Are you talking final render of playback?

Does 5K EPIC playback without a hiccup in RCX? It doesn't for me.

David
 
David Battistella said:
Eric,

Are you talking final render of playback?

Does 5K EPIC playback without a hiccup in RCX? It doesn't for me.

David
Click to expand...

Thanks David we talked about this and its playback.

Just replying to an old thread and giving new users a heads-up.

RED TEAM replied that it doesnt work at FULL.

I just wanted to know the official word then.

I do notice the increased speed when sharing to Master ProRes4444 at 4K :)
 
Mark Allen said:
Gabor D. If you were a friend of mine and explained what you did in your question, I would suggest FCPX.

Here's why: FCP 7 and PPro are very similar. Of the two I like FCP7 more. since I own PPro and use AE all the time, I have tried many times to warm up to PPro and always switched back to FCP7 for the next project. I used FCPX on one commercial project after learning it to test it out in a real-world situation and I liked it a great deal. This was very early on when everyone was hating it. There were a couple things I didn't like, but a couple things I really learned to love. Your process will be different. Totally different. My entire editorial approach had to change to use it. That's going to really bother many people. If you haven't learned either approach though then it wont bother you. The keywords in FCPX is where for me all the difference and power is. It sounds like you're a solo operator so many of the problems people have with FCPX won't be a problem for you anyway.

That said... I think any of the options will do fine for you and there is going to be some personal preference involved. Consider watching some tutorials for each to see which you respond to more if you're still undecided.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mark!

As soon as I see clearly in my workflow I'll pull the trigger...

I will edit from a Macbook Pro 13", so I will edit from a G-Drive USB3 (I will store my footage here) and using a scratch disk also. However I don't know if I'm converting my H264 footage to Prores, will it be stored on the G-Drive or the Scratch disk, and whether I can change its destination. I would need to know it, because I need to decide on disk sizes... I'll probably go with a 4TB G-Drive for the footage drive and something smaller for the scratch disk. Maybe a WD My Book Essential 2 TB is enough for that. Or should I go smaller, like 500 GB USB 3 drives?

I'm also keen to know if my basic footage is H264, then I want it to convert to Prores 422 for better edeiting and color grading. Should I trascode it to proxy as well? In this case how I tell the program which version to use for editing?

Thanks and sorry for the lame questions :)
 
gabor,

I would set it up in this way.

I would do two drives, one for the original material and one for the renders.

After the original files are transcoded to Prores I would take the drive with the originals offline and edit only with the PR files. This gives you the security of a backup of your whole film that can be be relinked by changing one radio button in preferences.

Also, in FCP X you can set the renders where every you want so it's not hard to set up on different drives.

As an example, I have all my R3D's on a large raid and all my proxy files ona different raid. If I disconnect the R3D drive and turn it off, I can edit with all my proxy material. When I have finshed editing, I switch to HIGH Qulaity mode, plug in the R3D drive and everything automatically relinks to the R3D media.

Very slick, very quick, very handy, very easy, very smart.

When converting the material.

In preferences select CREATE OPTIMIZED MEDIA and FCP will create the best quality Prores for the format you re importing.



David



Gabor D. said:
Thanks Mark!

As soon as I see clearly in my workflow I'll pull the trigger...

I will edit from a Macbook Pro 13", so I will edit from a G-Drive USB3 (I will store my footage here) and using a scratch disk also. However I don't know if I'm converting my H264 footage to Prores, will it be stored on the G-Drive or the Scratch disk, and whether I can change its destination. I would need to know it, because I need to decide on disk sizes... I'll probably go with a 4TB G-Drive for the footage drive and something smaller for the scratch disk. Maybe a WD My Book Essential 2 TB is enough for that. Or should I go smaller, like 500 GB USB 3 drives?

I'm also keen to know if my basic footage is H264, then I want it to convert to Prores 422 for better edeiting and color grading. Should I trascode it to proxy as well? In this case how I tell the program which version to use for editing?

Thanks and sorry for the lame questions :)
Click to expand...
 
Gabor D. : dont buy a 13" macbookpro, but a 15" with i7 processor and 16GB RAM : you will need the better nvidia graphics card for Resolve and FCPX and/or adobe, and the i7 processor is a must for realtime fluid playback of raw RED files. I believe the 13" will even not start Resolve. Pick a Retina 15" with 16GB RAM, you will thank me later. You can add later on a minimonitor from Blackmagic if you need to, or even better add a Ultrastudio 4K. If you buy a second screen for editing in FCPX , take something with 1920x1200 resolution: the extra pixels over 1080 are important for FCPX when editing 16/9 HD images. if you have a display with 1080 height, FCPX will need to scale your viewer, and you dont see your image 1:1 in HD
 
So just to summerize:
Drive 1: G-Drive USB 3, 4TB for editing
Drive 2: Wd My Book Essentials 2 TB for backup
+
Drive 2: Scratch Drive

I thought that I would put the original H264 files on Drive 1, then convert them to Prores 422 and store them on Drive 1 too. Then I would make a backup copy of this drive on Drive 2 and put it away.... I would add a Scratch disk and thats it. So I would edit Prores 422 files.

or

After converting the H264 to Prores 422 on Drive 1, should I make a Proxy version also and use that for editing? In this case can I store the original, the Prores 422 and Proxy on the same Drive 1?

Or did I misunderstand something you wrote? I would like a solution with the least amount of drives as my budget is limited....

Thanks for your help! Really appreciate it!

David Battistella said:
gabor,

I would set it up in this way.

I would do two drives, one for the original material and one for the renders.

After the original files are transcoded to Prores I would take the drive with the originals offline and edit only with the PR files. This gives you the security of a backup of your whole film that can be be relinked by changing one radio button in preferences.

Also, in FCP X you can set the renders where every you want so it's not hard to set up on different drives.

As an example, I have all my R3D's on a large raid and all my proxy files ona different raid. If I disconnect the R3D drive and turn it off, I can edit with all my proxy material. When I have finshed editing, I switch to HIGH Qulaity mode, plug in the R3D drive and everything automatically relinks to the R3D media.

Very slick, very quick, very handy, very easy, very smart.

When converting the material.

In preferences select CREATE OPTIMIZED MEDIA and FCP will create the best quality Prores for the format you re importing.



David
Click to expand...
 
Hey Filip,
Well.... I already have the MBP 13" so.... this project is mainly H264 and we'll see what the future brings... I hope my machine is enough to handle this footage this time... :)


Filip Vandoorne said:
Gabor D. : dont buy a 13" macbookpro, but a 15" with i7 processor and 16GB RAM : you will need the better nvidia graphics card for Resolve and FCPX and/or adobe, and the i7 processor is a must for realtime fluid playback of raw RED files. I believe the 13" will even not start Resolve. Pick a Retina 15" with 16GB RAM, you will thank me later. You can add later on a minimonitor from Blackmagic if you need to, or even better add a Ultrastudio 4K. If you buy a second screen for editing in FCPX , take something with 1920x1200 resolution: the extra pixels over 1080 are important for FCPX when editing 16/9 HD images. if you have a display with 1080 height, FCPX will need to scale your viewer, and you dont see your image 1:1 in HD
Click to expand...
 
The way you have it there can work out just fine. The important thing is to have multiple copies of the media. I would also do a nightly FCP X project backup to the scratch drive, just for security and peace of mind if something goes wrong with your HD drive.

Dont forget to calculate space for renders GFX and such.

David



Gabor D. said:
So just to summerize:
Drive 1: G-Drive USB 3, 4TB for editing
Drive 2: Wd My Book Essentials 2 TB for backup
+
Drive 2: Scratch Drive

I thought that I would put the original H264 files on Drive 1, then convert them to Prores 422 and store them on Drive 1 too. Then I would make a backup copy of this drive on Drive 2 and put it away.... I would add a Scratch disk and thats it. So I would edit Prores 422 files.

or

After converting the H264 to Prores 422 on Drive 1, should I make a Proxy version also and use that for editing? In this case can I store the original, the Prores 422 and Proxy on the same Drive 1?

Or did I misunderstand something you wrote? I would like a solution with the least amount of drives as my budget is limited....

Thanks for your help! Really appreciate it!
Click to expand...
 
Thanks David!

Could you advise me on the drive spaces? What is recommended? I can calculate with my footage length (I calculate with the worst scenario with a 20x coverage... but hope to go around 10-15x), but really have no clue in terms of scratch disk. As I mentioned I try to save on drives... I read that some people uses SSD drives, like 128, 256 Gbytes, for scratch disk. That size seems small for me, or am I wrong?

Would you edit, in my case, proxy or prores?

+EDIT: Could you enlighten me a little more in detail about.... What if I want to archive a project I just finished, but would like to archive my project file or timeline, for example if I need to go back later to edit out some scenes or change something for a festival release etc.... I don't want to keep everything in front of me in the program when I open it... Just like in Premiere, save the project file to a separate place where I can go back when I want....



David Battistella said:
The way you have it there can work out just fine. The important thing is to have multiple copies of the media. I would also do a nightly FCP X project backup to the scratch drive, just for security and peace of mind if something goes wrong with your HD drive.

Dont forget to calculate space for renders GFX and such.

David
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
OK.

I want to define scratch disk, this is an FCP 7 term.

I think you should have three drives.

1. INTERNAL computer HD (SSD is better) with NO MEDIA for the film on it.
2. EXTERNAL HD 001 - A full copy of the H264 cards (used only to create the proxy media which is rendered to the second drive)
3. EXTERNAL HD 002 - All of the FCP events and the project files. (the day to day editing drive with the project and the media)

EXTERNAL HD 001 can also be used as a PROJECT BACK UP DISK where you back up your project file nightly)


If you think you need 2TB then get two 3TB drives. I would personally go with OWC. If you insist on going with 2TB drives then I would use 2 x 2TB OWC USB3 drives.

Just use the internal drive to run the applications, that's it.

david
 
Thanks David!

One more...
What you mean by OWC?

+Could you enlighten me a little more in detail about.... What if I want to archive a project I just finished, but would like to archive my project file or timeline, for example if I need to go back later to edit out some scenes or change something for a festival release etc.... I don't want to keep everything in front of me in the program when I open it... Just like in Premiere, save the project file to a separate place where I can go back when I want....
 
To Projects questions....
These are basically the folders in the "Final Cut Projects" folder? In these I have three files: Backup, CurrentVersion.fcpproject and Render files. So if I want to archive how my project look, to go back at a later time and change the edit etc.... then all I have to save is the fcpproject file? I suppose render files are not neccessary as they can be re-rendered any later time as long as I have the original footage on which my project file is based, right?

+
I read a couple of people who uses FCPX, but convert their footage to Prores in Adobe encoder or other software like MpegStreamclip. What's the purpose of those?

I think I'll go and buy FCPX. At 300USD it seems unbeatable.... I checked the version I had some experiences with, and thats an older 10.0.7 version and I read that there's a hell lot of improvement in version 10.0.8.

Does anyone knows when the Davinci Resolve 10 Lite will be available to download? I hope it will work well with FCPX....
 
And David... thanks again for you help!
 
Gabor D. said:
And David... thanks again for you help!
Click to expand...


No Problem at all.

As to your two questions.

1. Back up the whole projects folder daily.
2. Use FCP X to do your transcoding, it leverages all of the power of your mac to do it.

David
 
What you mean that scratch disk is FCP 7 term? I don't need one for FCPX?

One more clarification in terms of HDDs, concerning the whole workflow from location shooting to finishing...

Drive 0 - internal drive in Macbook Pro 13"
Drive 1 - Edit drive
Drive 2 - Backup drive

ON LOCATION:
I copy all my footage from SD cards to Drive 1 and Drive 2 as a backup. Then erase SD cards.

EDITING:
Drive 0 - programs, os etc..
Drive 1 - I use ONLY this drive for editing (?!?!?!?). So convert my H264 to Prores 422, then Proxy for editing (when transcoding maybe I should transcode for Drive 2, so Drive 1 reads, Drive 2 writes..... and after transcoding is finished I copy all the files back to Drive 1. Right?
Drive 2 - I backup Drive 1 to this... daily..

So to summerize: I need only ONE drive for editing in FCPX???? No scratch drive???

OWC drives are out of my reach..... What I can get is G-Drive, WD My Studio, or Lacie. Price wise WD My Studio USB 3 is the best, but doesn't get too good reps here, however to this time for my stuff I used exclusively My Book Studios without a problem... About Lacie I'm a little suspicious about, but they offer the cheapest one-drive Thunderbolt solution right now in my country.



David Battistella said:
OK.

I want to define scratch disk, this is an FCP 7 term.

I think you should have three drives.

1. INTERNAL computer HD (SSD is better) with NO MEDIA for the film on it.
2. EXTERNAL HD 001 - A full copy of the H264 cards (used only to create the proxy media which is rendered to the second drive)
3. EXTERNAL HD 002 - All of the FCP events and the project files. (the day to day editing drive with the project and the media)
Click to expand...
 
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