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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 :)

FIlm professionals petition seeks to bring back old Final Cut Pro

David Battistella said:
@Andrae

I see news programs "broadcasting" YouTube videos every day. I see many documentaries that use web video in their content and storytelling.

You are stuck on your very rigid view of what broadcast is.

Basically I could feed super 8 video into a kona or decklink card, run it through a legalizer and it's all "broadcast quality" because it's broadcastable. You are identified with broadcast being "professional". Marketers replaced the word broadcast with "pro" for this very reason. Nobody identifies with "broadcast" anymore. It's called premier pro not premiere broadcast.

Broadcast quality has been complete bullshit since DV was introduced.

Some networks have tighter specs than others but they will put anything on the air.

Broadcast is going the same direction as film.

Your version if broacast may mean conforming to standards that barely exist and cling to analog broadcast models which are falling away (like SD NTSC). RED does not even have a REC 709 spec because the invented their own "standard" for color.

"Broadcast quality" has no meaning or definition anymore except in very limited circumstance with networks who require these "specs" as a delivery specification. You can not tell me that what is coming-out of FCP X is NOT broadcast quality. Anyone here would tell you that is nonsense.

If apple release a 4k display and you hooked it up as a second monitor are you telling me that 4k image could not be broadcast.

Stop this nonsense.
Click to expand...

Well if you make up your own definitions of things then we can't have a conversation.

broadcast |ˈbrôdˌkast|
verb ( past -cast or -casted ; past part. -cast or -casted) [ trans. ]
1 (often be broadcast) transmit (a program or some information) by radio or television : the announcement was broadcast live | [as n. ] ( broadcasting) the 1920s saw the dawn of broadcasting.
• [ intrans. ] take part in a radio or television transmission : the station broadcasts 24 hours a day.
• tell (something) to many people; make widely known : we don't want to broadcast our unhappiness to the world.
2 scatter (seeds) by hand or machine rather than placing in drills or rows. See note at scatter .
noun
a radio or television program or transmission.
adjective
of or relating to such programs : a broadcast journalist.
adverb
by scattering : green manure can be sown broadcast or in rows.
DERIVATIVES
broadcaster noun
ORIGIN mid 18th cent. (in the sense [sown by scattering] ): from broad + the past participle of cast 1 . Senses relating to radio and television date from the early 20th cent.

-----------------

Now if you are saying FCPX is suitable for video programs destined for internet deliverable... which is not exactly webcasting... then I'll agree with you.
 
Andrae,

I really like my discussions with you, but i think we have run this one to the end of the road.

Can we just agree to have diverse opnions about this stuff and move along. This takes up energy and thread space and I think (like when the EPIC X ships) much of what we are talking about wont matter in months or a year from now.

The point is that we all have to be pro's and we all have to define ourselves as pros in our own way. I respect what you are talking about here, I often take a different stance because things move so rapidly.

We can go tit for tat on vitually nothing and minor points all day.

I respect your opnion. I can't talk about the FCP X stuff anymore. It's exhausting.

David
 
What does Ipod, Iphone and Ipad have to do with professional software? He would have launched those anyway and come to think of it, it might be just those products that took Apple from the professional market to the consumer market. If they would have listened it wouldn't have been like it is today.

There are three areas on the market.
1. Professionals = Who earns their living with the hardware and software they own. It's the tools that enable them to earn money, it's not "for fun".
2. Prosumers = A consumer who use the same hardware and software as professionals but doesn't earn money in the same way, it's not their primary income and it's more for fun.
3. Consumers = Those who use products not as income and not for anything else then entertainment, communication with their family and friends, gaming etc. etc. it's all for fun.

Neither prosumers or consumers are affected by Apple's choices, the professionals are those who really invest into hardware and software. We are talking millions of dollars of investments in some cases, no prosumer or consumer put that amount into hardware/software. Ipod, Iphone and Ipad does not affect a professional, FCP-X does.
You are comparing a telephone, mp3-player and tablet to a professional software... If steve listened to us it wouldn't be those things pulled.
I don't understand the logic behind this.
 
I agree totally with David. FCP had this huge succes because everybody could affort it, so it democratized the market, so does RED. iPad is not for professionals? Of course it is and that's just the beginning. But I do not compare this tools with a "professional" software. I compare the way how open minded people can change the habbit and the thinking of us customers. If I remember well, Ted said, at the beginning of the RED story, the first thing they did, was, to forget everything about the way how film cameras were built to free up there mind for a new decade in camera history.
 
Well, it is clear everyone thinks different.

Ipad is for professionals, maybe, I see a lot of people using it, I am sure they are professionals at something, but it is a bit of an overstatement. If you love apple, follow them, use FCPX now.

In 1999 i bought a pc with a Matrox digisuite that came with premiere and then i bought *edit, really, FCP in 2001 wasn't a big revolution for me and for a lot of people. FCP 3 was, i think, the first usable FCP. I used EMC2, Avid, Premiere, *edit, Speedrazor, Edius, etc. You don't have to marry a software or a platform if you want to be an editor, you don't even have to own your own equipment. Now I have a Red centric post house and my own Red, waitng for my Epic, and premiere pro is now my best friend. The things I do in PPro I cannot do in FCPX, it is as simple as that. Some people use MC, some FCP7 for the same reason. I see a lot of people predicting the future, gessing, making statements, but the truth is, we've been hearing predictions since 2009, and none of them were true, so why believe them now? I don't get it, really.

If Red was similar to apple you should be reading a lot of people bashing Epic, and that is not the case, Red changed the digital camera paradigm, and everyone seems to be happy with it, it is not the case with FCPX. They may be similar at a marketing point of view, but the products are really different, and let's be honest, marketing didn't make RED what it is today, the RED ONE did, and now EPIC, and the people using it.
 
Just in case any students are on this thread and getting weird ideas...

There will always be great opportunities for folks who can be creative AND adhere to standards. Top-flight folk often charge as much as they do because they are meticulous as well as amazing artists. Or have great assistants working with the right tools :)

On an artistic level, imagine if Michelangelo has said "screw it, I don't have to get my colors quite right because it's all gonna fade anyway"

On the level of commercial ethics: It's basically about a promise to the client. Once you're being paid above a certain amount, they trust you to do things properly.

If you honestly tell the client up front "hey, we can't perfectly monitor on our editing systems - but it's about the creative, right?"... and they are fine with that, you are ethically in the clear. Where I work, we have creative and finishing separated. The client knows our creative editing bays don't have perfectly calibrated monitors and it's okay. When it comes to finishing THEN they worry about getting all of that right in an honest monitoring environment.

But if you pretend to offer true broadcast services while using a weird kludgy monitoring setup but "it's okay because at the end we stick everything through a limiter"... that kinda just seems ethically wrong to me.

I OFTEN use indie tools that would make the "old pros" shriek in horror - I color corrected large parts of a feature film using a frikkin' 27" iMac in a hotel room (I had a trick to make the iMac LCD's reds more accurate, plus my DreamColor monitor was needed by a friend and at that point in the feature I knew what the colors would look like, plus I knew I'd be looking at it on my DreamColor again later - everything turned out fine!).

BUT I always let the clients know what I am doing and why it will save them money. This is an important ethical decision. You can't charge full price, deliver a cut-rate service, then try to weasel out of it by claiming that "broadcast" has been redefined.

Not accusing David of anything - but I think you should perhaps make that clear...?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Santiago Marti said:
Well, it is clear everyone thinks different.

Ipad is for professionals, maybe, I see a lot of people using it, I am sure they are professionals at something, but it is a bit of an overstatement. If you love apple, follow them, use FCPX now.

In 1999 i bought a pc with a Matrox digisuite that came with premiere and then i bought *edit, really, FCP in 2001 wasn't a big revolution for me and for a lot of people. FCP 3 was, i think, the first usable FCP. I used EMC2, Avid, Premiere, *edit, Speedrazor, Edius, etc. You don't have to marry a software or a platform if you want to be an editor, you don't even have to own your own equipment. Now I have a Red centric post house and my own Red, waitng for my Epic, and premiere pro is now my best friend. The things I do in PPro I cannot do in FCPX, it is as simple as that.
Click to expand...

Funny, I started with the exactly same tools as you ;-) but not premiere, I never liked it, same with AVID. Oh, forgot it: 1992 I worked with Videocube from Grass Valley. The first real time non linear editing at these days. The used wavelet compression, PAL 4 giga one hour storage ;-) 120'000 CHF. 4gigas more: 14'000 CHF. So, aren't we both clever? If I will use FCP X for my prof. work? Don't know yet. But I see some great ideas behind it and I always have trusted my feeling. So, I don't bash it, I give them time and a chance to convince me.
 
Bruce Allen said:
Just in case any students are on this thread and getting weird ideas...

There will always be great opportunities for folks who can be creative AND adhere to standards. Top-flight folk often charge as much as they do because they are meticulous as well as amazing artists. Or have great assistants working with the right tools :)

On an artistic level, imagine if Michelangelo has said "screw it, I don't have to get my colors quite right because it's all gonna fade anyway"

On the level of commercial ethics: It's basically about a promise to the client. Once you're being paid above a certain amount, they trust you to do things properly.

If you honestly tell the client up front "hey, we can't perfectly monitor on our editing systems - but it's about the creative, right?"... and they are fine with that, you are ethically in the clear. Where I work, we have creative and finishing separated. The client knows our creative editing bays don't have perfectly calibrated monitors and it's okay. When it comes to finishing THEN they worry about getting all of that right in an honest monitoring environment.

But if you pretend to offer true broadcast services while using a weird kludgy monitoring setup but "it's okay because at the end we stick everything through a limiter"... that kinda just seems ethically wrong to me.

I OFTEN use indie tools that would make the "old pros" shriek in horror - I color corrected large parts of a feature film using a frikkin' 27" iMac in a hotel room (I had a trick to make the iMac LCD's reds more accurate, plus my DreamColor monitor was needed by a friend and at that point in the feature I knew what the colors would look like, plus I knew I'd be looking at it on my DreamColor again later - everything turned out fine!).

BUT I always let the clients know what I am doing and why it will save them money. This is an important ethical decision. You can't charge full price, deliver a cut-rate service, then try to weasel out of it by claiming that "broadcast" has been redefined.

Not accusing David of anything - but I think you should perhaps make that clear...?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
Click to expand...


Bruce,

I am not saying that there should be no standards. What I am emphasizing is that standards change. Ethically, I agree with you completely. I'd never lie about what I am doing and a legalizer doesn't solve all your problems. It;s like saying "just normalize all the audio".

What I will advocate is taking what is not completely ready (like FCP X) and using it as a great creative tool. Finding a particular workflow that is both HIGH quality and usable is possible.

The point is that if you only had FCP X and a KONA Card and you used a few resources at your disposal you could determine how the software is interpretting colors and levels on your system. Calibration is a must in any edit suite and it is possible to calibrate and FCP X edit suite by looking at the images in calibrated environments.

I operate from the principle of making all of the tools useful and knowing them inside out.

For example. If I was outputting a documentary for broadcast and I only had FCP X, an Imac and a firewire raid. I would never say that is not possible from within FCP X. You can do it, BUT you have to be smart about it.

You test. You find the place that is going to do your tape output. The house that has proper scopes and audio mesuring tools and you take five minutes of edited material in and ask where it falls into or out of spec.

There is no substitute for sound principles. A possible workflow for a student or first time film maker could be iike this.

EDIT Five minutes of material with bars and tone and slate as a leader.
Take some screenshots of your FCP scopes and Audio meters at various points in the program.
EXPORT a PR 4444 file to a portable drive
Bring the drive to a properly calibrated system and watch it to see where there might be deficiencies.
Ask the pros where the problems are.
look at the screenshots vs. their scops on the specific shots.
Go back to your edit room with this knowledge.


Nothing beats the foundation of good audio and video levels and knowing how to monitor those signals. Broadcast standards have existed to set and maintain an industry wide set of standards. Those standards are changing but you have to understand them as a baseline and you have to understand that FCP X has some built in tools that can help you maintain these standards.

There is always a way, but the way should be littered with knowledge and testing.

Where there is lack, ask questions.

Plan, do not wait or put off testing.

Learn and adhere to standards and best practices.


Bruce. If there is anything I left out let me know. Broadcast is a subjective thing because of broadcasters not the professionals who supply them with content designed to adhere to (erodiong) professional standards.

David
 
David Battistella said:
Nothing beats the foundation of good audio and video levels and knowing how to monitor those signals. Broadcast standards have existed to set and maintain an industry wide set of standards. Those standards are changing but you have to understand them as a baseline and you have to understand that FCP X has some built in tools that can help you maintain these standards.

There is always a way, but the way should be littered with knowledge and testing.

Where there is lack, ask questions.

Plan, do not wait or put off testing.

Learn and adhere to standards and best practices.


Bruce. If there is anything I left out let me know. Broadcast is a subjective thing because of broadcasters not the professionals who supply them with content designed to adhere to (erodiong) professional standards.

David
Click to expand...

Amen! Standards exist to provide a known common reference point for critical judgment.
 
OK here is my attempt to articulate why FCP X's monitoring setup is worrying from a banding point of view, without resorting to any elitist snobbery ("HD-SDI is cooler than DVI" yadda yadda).

normal practice:

10bit YCbCr footage
-> bits stay intact on 10bit YCbCr timeline
-> 10bit Kona YCbCr outputs
-> monitor conversion from YCbCr to 10bit calibrated RGB <- HOPEFULLY BENIGN CONVERSION

with FCP X and Kona card:

10bit YCbCr footage
-> ColorSync conversion to 32bit float linear RGB timeline <- HOPEFULLY BENIGN CONVERSION
-> Colorsync to 8-bit display <- CONVERSION TO 8-BIT PRECISION
-> Kona conversion back from RGB to YCbCr <- HOPEFULLY BENIGN CONVERSION
-> Monitor conversion from YCbCr to 10bit calibrated RGB <- HOPEFULLY BENIGN CONVERSION

My main worry is that you're converting to 8 bit half-way through the chain. At the end (the monitor)... sure! But in the middle? Then doing 2 more conversions on top?! Recipe for banding.

With the FCP X setup, if you see banding, you're not 100% sure whether it is:
real- in the footage or in a filter you applied
caused by FCP X - that 8-bit conversion with two benign conversions on top of it might get accentuated to something bandy-looking
cased by your monitor - eg the "hopefully benign conversion" at the end is in fact not

If you're jumping from system to system (apprenticing, freelancing, or in a big company with lots of bays), you really don't have time and / or permission to go and troubleshoot the entire damn chain of conversions.

You have to go and do a Levels effect on each clip or something. Very time-consuming.

BTW, if you don't use a Kona card and just output via the graphics card, it's even worse:

10bit YCbCr footage
-> ColorSync conversion to 32bit float RGB timeline <- HOPEFULLY BENIGN CONVERSION
-> Colorsync to 8-bit display <- CONVERSION TO 8-BIT PRECISION
-> 8-bit RGB values transformed by 1-D LUT tables in GFX card according to your Display Profile to new 8-bit values <- BELOW 8-BIT PRECISION
-> Monitor transforms what's left those 8-bit values, depending on monitor settings <- BELOW 8-BIT PRECISION

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
Bruce,

I think the Kona driver that exists now is a temporary and stop gap solution.

AJA built these drivers before OSX LION was released, instead of releasing the OS and then releasing FCP X, making it more difficult to write drivers when FCP X was released and probably forcing them into the DESKTOP EXTENSION ROUTE.

I'm guessing that both AJA and DECKLINK will use the hooks available through AV foundation, but they have not had the OS or the seed to developwers that long.

This was the exact same path as FCP 1 followed only that this is happening much quicker, in that with OS9 and FCP 1 it took a while before you could even get an extended desktop out of the software. At least with FCP X they have that out of the gate. So in that sense it is "quicker" than it was with FCP 1 (legacy).
 
Is there hooks in AV foundation for developers to connect to? Is AJA, BM, Matrox or anyone else currently writing drivers for FCPX?
 
Andrae Palmer said:
Is there hooks in AV foundation for developers to connect to? Is AJA, BM, Matrox or anyone else currently writing drivers for FCPX?
Click to expand...

AV Foundation is the underlying "foundation" within OSX on which audio and video services are run. So, in a nutshell, the answer is yes, developers can use it. They use it all the time. It's been getting a lot of press lately because of how FCPX is "built on AV Foundation". This is really just another way of saying that FCPX taps directly into these foundation classes rather than running through the QuickTime engine. Which is something that most every non-QT video app on OSX does.

In order to get monitoring or other support for cards like AJA, BMD, etc.. within FCPX, Apple needs to give developers the tools and information on how to build that functionality for FCPX. Apple has announced that they will create an SDK for FCPX. I'd wager that it's still some time off and I honestly don't expect to see it until next year. Macworld (Janurary) at the very earliest, but I'm betting developers will be getting a glimpse around NAB time, possibly in time to pre-announce products. If I had to place any bets, I would say the SDK won't arrive until Apple's WWDC in June. And the first several releases will be very much a beta test. I'm also going to say that FCPX will have to undergo some changes in order to better accommodate the SDK and developer support. After playing with FCPX more and more, it really feels to me as if Apple spent about 4, maybe as much as 6, months assembling FCPX using some of the tools they have had in development for some time and incorporating into the existing iMovie framework. It seems to me that FCPX in its current form is little more than a place-holder for what is to come and Apple is genuinely trying to listen to the user community at large. They just have a very funny way of doing it.

As for the whole extended desktop thing, that's not really saying anything about how quick any development is going. It's near impossible to quantify the current situation, which those of us outside of Apple really can't do much to guess at. Comparing to OS9 and FCP1 to Lion and FCPX is like comparing oranges and bananas. Extended desktop solutions for capture/monitoring cards has been available for years. And all FCPX does for "monitoring" is allow you to run a player window full screen on one of your displays. When the two features are used together, you can send playback to an external monitor. But you don't get 10bit color space and other goodies as the extended desktop functionality is limited to 32bit RGBA space within the GDI. Lion support for extended desktop from AJA has been available for almost 2 weeks now, same with support from BMD.

I think it's safe to assume that AJA, BMD and others will have integrated drivers for FCPX, or will begin working on them, as soon as they can get their hands on a SDK from Apple. Some key developers like AJA, Red Giant, etc.. may get some early access to alpha builds, but there's no way they will be releasing product based on those builds. It can help them get a jump-start on the development as they help Apple test and identify issues. I would expect the FCPX SDK to go through their typical beta cycle via the ADC program. So registered Mac developers will have access to the beta and then the kit will probably be freely downloadable to all, just as the FXPlug kit is now, once the SDK is moved over to a release version.

All we can do is tell Apple that this all needs to happen ASAP. I really do believe Apple knows this. I don't think they're going to drag their feet on this... But these things do take time. The whole situation only goes to show how out of touch they have been with their own pro users over the past few years. I'm hoping they're seeing this now....
 
Ipad is for professionals, maybe, I see a lot of people using it, I am sure they are professionals at something, but it is a bit of an overstatement. If you love apple, follow them, use FCPX now.
Click to expand...

So just because professionals have Ipad and Iphones just as any other consumer they become professional tools? There's no logic to this. You can use whatever you need as a professional but that doesn't mean apple made them for the professional market. And also, any professional who goes with a brand just because they love the brand is seriously rulling out solutions for their work.

As I see FCP-X today, after all the appleheads have said "a solution will come next weak", "a solution will come next month", "a solution will come in a couple of months", it's getting quite pathetic and everyone is trying so hard to do workarounds instead of just working with another software that does what they want to. Like the debunk of background render, something you could say premiere does on the fly. Drop a clip, an effect and with enough RAM/CUDA you'll get instant realtime.
 
Christoffer Glans said:
And also, any professional who goes with a brand just because they love the brand is seriously rulling out solutions for their work.
Click to expand...

Dude, you're in a discussion amongst FCP USERS... Your very lucid and rational statement will go completely ignored. As if you're speaking a foreign language or talking of dark magic and evil spells.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
Take a step back guys, you don't need to get so worked up over this issue.
Click to expand...

But this is a religious war :gun:.

Taking a step back, either FCP-X does what you need it to do or it doesn't. If it does, then it's pro enough for you :emote_hippie:. If it doesn't, then it isn't :badputer:. If you currently need functionality that FCP-X doesn't presently have, then keep on using FCP 7 or switch to CS 5.5 or MC 5.5.

Yes there are potential issues, but if FCP-X simply can't do what you need it to, then there are very very viable options :cheers2:.

Debating over if it's pro or not is tempting but rather meaningless. It boils down to does the application do what you need it to do or does it not? And no one saying it "IS pro!" or it "ISN'T pro!" is going to change your answer to that ?.
 
OSX Lion was released in beta form to developers many months ago, before it's actual release. OSX Lion (10.7) is still another incremental update. All the developer tools are still the same, some new features and deprecated code or functions, sure, but overall it's all still the same. Many of the new functions to be released with Lion were added to Cocoa and the Core Foundation libraries ahead of the Lion beta release. So releasing extended desktop functionality for Lion was nothing more than a minor tweak and test. I believe they have also shifted to a 64bit codebase for the Lion drivers, as they should. Developing for FCPX is a whole different deal. The tools are not available, period.

AV Foundation is not the issue here or any significant component. It's just an underlying foundation within OSX that has been there since the days of OpenStep. It is an extension of the Core Foundation API classes for handling audio and video. Nothing more, nothing less. FCPX using AV Foundation is the means by which FCPX is operating at a lower level within the operating system in order to increase performance and preempt interference or resource drain from other higher level applications. We're not waiting on anything for AV Foundation, Apple hasn't updated anything in AV Foundation for about a year -- nothing new in Lion to speak of. Here's the programmer reference for AV Foundation, it was last updated november of 2010. http://developer.apple.com/library/.../AVFoundationPG/Articles/00_Introduction.html

As with any other developer interested in this stuff, I'll be grabbing the FCPX SDK as soon as Apple makes it available in whatever form. Until then, we wait. And worry about other things, like how to get our work done with the tools that are actually available right now.
 
Thank you for posting Jeff... I am always interested in learning from knowledgeable people that can post accurate information. In future discourse on why FCPX will suck for quite a considerable longer time... i'll refer to the lack of "FCPX SDK" rather than mentioning AV Foundation.
 
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