FCPX vs CC/CS6 as of June 2013

[Greg McDonald]

FCPX I see on in offices that specialize in quick and dirty, low-end projects, such as weddings and mid-range to low-end corporates. I have never, ever seen it anywhere else. Magnetic timeline is not well suited to making fine adjustments, trying different combinations etc. It's only made to be fast. If you're a perfectionist and need to make fine adjustments for yourself or as a response to client feedback (i.e. any high end workflow) it's a ludicrous joke.

If you need to edit a wedding in 16 minutes, then it's perfect.

Can you give specific examples on how it's hard to make fine adjustments? I'm asking because a friend said the same thing, that it's not precise. I haven't tried FCP X so I'm wondering what to look out for when I do.

 

[Scott Crawley]

You can intuitively make precise, one frame adjustments.

Can you give specific examples on how it's hard to make fine adjustments? I'm asking because a friend said the same thing, that it's not precise. I haven't tried FCP X so I'm wondering what to look out for when I do.

 

[Chris McKechnie]

Once PP CS6 was released, at the time, it was the only editing platform to work with R3D's natively. Everyone flocked over to the Adobe bandwagon, and I was one of them because they addressed a need I had. I had been a FCP editor for 10+ years, and I also had played with FCPX, and liked it, however, not having native support for R3D's was brutal. So I made the switch, and became an Adobe CC user.

I've been editing in Premier for well over a year now, and given the recent addition of R3D support for FCPX, I have found myself back in FCPX land, and quite frankly, having more fun while editing. I know there are so many FCPX haters out there in the production realm, to each his own, yet I'm reminded of a quote that went something like "Are you willing to re-learn everything you know about something in order to stay relevant and current?" It just seems like FCPX seems to be paving the way in terms of editing in the future, and while I still think Adobe is doing great things, I'd much rather be right there with Apple. The plugins, support, etc for FCPX is leaps and bounds above that of Premier. I want to know that third party software companies have my back, and with FCPX, they do. I still am a CC user, and I like the flexibility of having the Adobe line of programs at my disposal. It will be interesting to see what this coming year brings. I hear Apple is brewing a new major FCPX release later this year.

 

[Richard Luke]

no I understand that...
and that is a great workflow feature....

the only difference is to multicam you had to render proxies...

I am trying to determine the horsepower of FCX....how many native streams of r3d can you multicam ect. Trying to compare it to PPRO....

As far as the workflow....well I could already say FCX sounds like it has a great proxy system....better then anything PPRO has.

I was able to edit a music video recently with 7 streams of native 5K / 4K r3ds running at 1/4 res on a Retina Macbook Pro running off a USB3 drive. I wouldn't do it all the time as sometimes it did slow right down but it was still workable for that particular job

 

[David Battistella]

Very salient point Paul,

i think FCP X will have to be at version 2.0 or 3.0 before it migrates into the kind of workflow you are describing. I'm also looking forward to to the am release of lightworks later this year. There are mountains of content being created for so many specific forms of media now that I can see why a move was made to make editing simpler for a wider user base, but I have also found that there is great depth to the important pro features like media management, tagging, logging, that can be of great benefit when tracking large projects.

i wish it was much simpler to get audio to a DAW but I am sure that is coming.

David

Note FCPX is the only NLE that creates such debate since the day it was released that it can be used in a professional environment. That says a lot. There is no debate...or at least there shouldnt be.

Let me be clear before all the people that own Scarlets and shoot and edit and color and mix on a laptop using R3D files all by themselves on extremely low budget productions jump all over me...Im not talking about your workflow..Im talking about people that need power tools, need total control instead of simplicity and who have taken the years it takes to master a craft...how ironic you call these people old and lazy for not learning new things when most of them have dedicated much more time than you will ever be willing to in learning their chosen craft.

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Agreed.

Moving this debate on...

I'd like to hear from people who are happily using FCPX in a professional context; what type of jobs are you editing, how are you collaborating and managing varied workflows?

Only one rule, you cannot use the words paradigm or game-changer.

Hi Liam,

my story is: I bought it on release, hated it, asked for a refund. Got interested again after the 10.0.3 update, learned to use it. Got frustrated a lot of times, but kept going on, because there was too much interesting stuff going on in the software. My first job on it was maybe 90 percent frustration, 10 percent real fun (like I never had before on an NLE). Then that percentage kept changing balance. Now there are a couple of things that I don't like in FCPX, I have a wish list that's about 50 bullet points long, but all in all, I really like it, and prefer it to every other software (used Premiere Pro in the past, although that's a long time ago and I know the app has matured a lot, and FCP7 for 6 years).

To answer your question: I work freelance. I'm someone, in my spare time writing my own script, and hopefully direct it one day. I make my money by freelance editing. I'm the main editor of a company in Belgium doing very specialized medical videos, so 90 percent of my editing work is that. We tape surgery, tape the signals of different medical monitors, and those need to be edited into full videos with picture-in pictures etc. for medical congresses. Pretty specialized stuff.
For instance, recordings of surgery are often hours long (between 2 and 8 hours of recording), multiple sources (about 6), and because I'm not a doctor, we need to keep an eye out to timecode-sync of all that material, because often it's the only reference we have of something being sync, because when I'm looking at footage of a black-and white monitor of a medical monitor, I have no idea, visually, what's happening.
What we also do is just cutting stuff up on congresses. Doctors doing keynotes, and you have 50 a day, and they all need to be online the next morning. We tried that stuff on FCPX, and with background exporting, the speed of Retina Macbook Pro's and a Thunderbolt Promise Raids, this worked out beautifully.

We also did some multicam interviews with chroma keying. Again, it all worked with superb results. None of our editors was a green key specialist, but with FCPX we got great results, and having unrendered keyed clips in a multicam timeline, it all kept playing and editing went very smooth.

As I was using FCPX more and more, liking the power more and more, more and more plugins coming out, I was thinking about how and *if* we could use it for that kinds of jobs. Because we often get timecode lists from doctors to edit from, and FCPX has the magnetic timeline, no timecode overlay in the viewer but only a dashboard with sequence codec, there is no timecode reader effect, etc. ... This posed a lot of challenges. We also went to Prores LT recorders (Sound Devices Pix's) instead of relying too much on XDCAM, because we noticed FCPX worked best with Prores. But it intrigued me too much to let it go.

In January I tested my first medical case by just... doing it. Learned a lot in the process. There are a couple of steps that we need to take, that we didn't in FCP7, like first compounding our source clips in long timelines with a timecode generator above it, to make sure when we are editing those above each other in the timeline, we are holding sync, because, as I said, visually you often have no reference of this.
It's a step that I rather not take, but on the other hand, we can edit 6 streams of Prores LT trough a network connection, with a timecode filter on ALL 6 of them, unrendered. Using a timecode reader filter in FCP7 was a hell for your speed. Exporting those timecode copies is also very quick, in comparison with FCP7. And the genius of the compound workflow is that now we can edit the whole way trough with clips with timecode on them, making it easy to check things, communicate with doctors etc. At the end of the editing, we go into the compound clips, just switch the visibility of the timecode generator (V), and it updates in all our edits. Just a V back, and we get it back. It's very flexible, although I wouldn't advise it if you have hundreds of clips (but then again, those needs of staying in sync, and checking timecode etc, is less important).
Now we can export much faster, and because of the huge deal of plugins available for FCPX, we can deliver much better and prettier work then we did with 7. Because X is also so good graphically, we can have much better titles, graphics, etc. then we did before with 7.

A month ago they asked me to edit on location with a doctor in Italy. It was just me traveling, and I don't have a drivers license, and I was also coming from a private holiday, so I didn't want to drag too much material for the editing with me. No problem.
Before I left, I let FCPX make proxies of the source material of that medical cases. That material (proxies) was about 200 GB in size, if I'm not mistaken. I just had those on the SSD of the Retina Macbook Pro, went to edit with only the laptop and a Aja T-Tap that I could connect to one of the monitors on location in the hospital. I edited all stuff, went back to the studio, copied the Event and Project to our server again (I could delete proxy media already), and just switched on High Quality Media in the Preferences again. voila. Everything reconnected fine. It was a great experience. I didn't need to copy a TB of material, didn't need an extra drive with me, and it all relinked and did it's job without fuss.

We are also making a company promo, shooting in 4K on the Scarlet. Working with R3D in FCPX is a dream. It just works. We let it transcode proxies in the background, which actually happens pretty fast in the background without Rocket on a Retina. And the simple click in the preferences for going from proxies to native R3D is really genius, and in my opinion, the best implementation of an RED workflow of all NLE's.
I have also done some smaller documentary stuff on it, and I really like it because of all the organisation trough keywords. A real blessing.

Hopefully that answers some of your questions.

 

[Liam Hall]

Thanks Mathieu for an excellent post. Again, I can absolutely see how FCPX works well for you in your set-up. Funnily enough, I recommended FCPX for a client of mine who's needs were similar to yours.

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Liam, honest question out of curiosity: what is it in FCPX that doesn't work for you?

 

[Mike Harrington]

I was able to edit a music video recently with 7 streams of native 5K / 4K r3ds running at 1/4 res on a Retina Macbook Pro running off a USB3 drive. I wouldn't do it all the time as sometimes it did slow right down but it was still workable for that particular job

Thanks Richard....
Well that puts it on par with PPro as far as red playback....can you guys go to 1/8th as well?

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I think FCPX automatically decides the speed for you, depending on your hardware and what flows right... But you have no chance of setting this manually.

I could be wrong though, just guessing. Thought I read that somewhere when R3D support came out.
And it adjusts speed automatically if it detects a RED ROCKET.

 

[Rob Castiglione]

I am not aware of any way of setting playback quality footage in FCP X. Its all done in the background.

 

[Scott Crawley]

There are preferences for playback quality. See the video @ time 1:20 http://www.red.com/learn/workflow/red-apple-workflow-final-cut-pro-x

I think FCPX automatically decides the speed for you, depending on your hardware and what flows right... But you have no chance of setting this manually.

I could be wrong though, just guessing. Thought I read that somewhere when R3D support came out.
And it adjusts speed automatically if it detects a RED ROCKET.

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

There are preferences for playback quality. See the video @ time 1:20 http://www.red.com/learn/workflow/red-apple-workflow-final-cut-pro-x

Yep, but I was just replying to another post: you cannot manually say to play it at 1/8th or 1/4th or...

 

[Liam Hall]

Liam, honest question out of curiosity: what is it in FCPX that doesn't work for you?

Hi Mathieu,

I'm not keen on certain features, the magnetic timeline, compound clips, the lack of traditional tracks or the event browser, but I could probably overcome all of those issues if spent more time with FCPX. I do find rendering slow, and some of the effects are a bit basic for me, but the biggest issue is that I have to collaborate with other people using a range of different software applications, none of which play nicely with FCPX.

Funnily enough, I am going to give FCPX another proper look as I've been asked to recommend an editing app for one of my clients and need to compare it with Premiere CC.

 

[Gabor D.]

So... after starting this topic I arrived to a point when I have to pull the trigger and buy the stuff I need for my feature length project.

I have a...
Macbook Pro 13" 2013 2.5Ghz i5, model with 16GB ram, Intel HD Graphics 4000
Blackmagic Design Mini Monitor (thunderbolt-hdmi)
External Sony LED LCD FullHD tv for monitoring and color correction
G-Drive 4TB, USB 3

+I want to use FilmConvert and maybe Twixtor + giving it a try to grade it in Davince Resolve Lite

Project: feature film, no-budget, mainly on 1080/24p (hdslr)

I need to decide on editing platform.. FCPX or.... Adobe CS6 (I calculated and thought about it a lot, but CC is not in my budget. It costs so much for a month with a one year commitment, and even more without a commitment, that I can't go this route with my no-budget film. And I don't want to edit my project and cancel the subscription after that, because what happens if I need to go back to my original edit files etc...).

Budgetwise FCPX route is cheaper... only if I can get CS6 for a very cheap price. But which one would fit better in my workflow?

I don't have any fancy requirement, I just put shots next to each other, nothing fancy effects or things like that... I just need to sync sound and put the composed music soundtrack on it. A color correction later on + filmconvert. I love the frame-by-frame precision editing in Adobe. That's it.

+ one of my biggest concern with FCPX is the autosave function... it saves everything in the moment I make it, so If I accidently delete something or make a change I didn't want, then theres no going back to the point I last saved it... Or.. I can't save different versions of a project. For example in my older days at Premiere I had several different saves and I could go back to the version I wanted... How could I do that with FCPX?

 

[Gabor D.]

Anybody? I need someone to say something which orients me in either way... :S

 

[David Battistella]

Gabor,

for your last questions. Undo is your friend. The autosave actually gives you many levels of undo. The other strategy is to duplicate your project at various phases in order to go back in it. You could duplicate the project at the end of each day the start on the new sequence the next day, etc. that way you could easily go back to yesterday and only loose a days work.

If you are just putting shots together it is way faster.

You can turn magnetic timeline off easily.

And as for precision argument , you can edit subframe audio in FCPX, which means you can edit the sequence at 1/24th of a frame but audio downto 1/96th of a frame. Not sure you cando that in any other NLE but I have not checked lately.

I'm too happy with FCP X to go back.


david

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Hi Gabor,

David's suggestion of duplicating a Project is one good option. There are a couple of programs (Digital Rebellion has one that works, but isn't so cheap, I think there is another cheaper one too but I don't know details) that make versions of your projects for you.

Considering your needs, also working with DSLR's, FCPX's ability to sync clips (if you have scratch sound), to transcode to Prores and/or Proxies in the background and relink with one click, etc. , ... I think FCPX would be fine. But really learn it. Try a trial, see a lot of tutorials. Don't think you can jump into this thing with the same mindset of FCP7 or Adobe. Really.
If you just try to view the way the program works with open eyes, you will find ways of working that you'll have difficulty going back from. But yes, you will be frustrated at times, maybe, and although the program can be very simple, it also can be very deep if you know where to look.

PS: FCPX likes Prores. A lot. I know it takes much more storage space then some other codecs, but you will want it if you want to keep the editing process smooth on long-form, or working with longer timelines, effects, etc. ...

 

[Gabor D.]

Thanks!

So it seems that for a project mainly shot with dslrs, FCPX is better right? If I would go with Premiere I should also use FCPX to transcode the footage to Prores, so why not use FCPX?

I used FCPX just very lightly on some videos for the web... Well, it's been a while since I used an editing program, so it felt weird, but later it felt easy. too easy. The strangest thing was the lack of many manual settings. Compared to Premiere its really "dumb-proof". So it felt easy, but at the same time didn't seem too professional... (or is it just because of the traditional mentality concerning NLEs?). And a long time ago I used Premiere (maybe 5?!?). I remember that the timeline got mixed up quite a few times, it felt too complicated, but I loved the way I could edit with 1 frame precision.... So its been a while since I used both programs, and in both cases older versions then currently available, but overall why I fear of FCPX is the lact of settings, customizable settings... + I really loved the conveniance that in case of Premiere I could make several saves or copies of the project file, while in case of FCPX I can't.... so I have to have all my projects in the program itself... it slows the computer down... and in case of more projects it feels like a mess.... in Premiere I could put away the unused project files, but open them anytime I wanted.

But FCPX is cheaper, feels fresher...

 

[Mark Allen]

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.