Final Cut Pro X Released

[Tim Morten]

I didn't understand the significance of the ipod or App store when it was launched. I think the next ten years will see quite a change in everything. It's a sweet and bitter pill we're expected to swallow, but I think it's worth giving it a try.

I didn't see the significance of AppleTV or the PowerMac cube... oh yeah, that's right: they weren't significant! Just because Apple has released good products before does NOT guarantee that every product that comes out Apple's orifice is gold. There have been plenty of bad products along the way too.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[Chris Kenny]

I guess having a desktop computer, video capture card and a calibrated SDI monitor (basically a suite) is now defined as expensive workflows. So lets break down the categories of editors now... web and sdi. I wonder why Apple is pushing color grading / color correction to the masses without a way for the masses to accurately monitor the colors? I guess if it's for the web... anything goes. All that work to include some of the features of Apple Color into FCPX and no work on video capture card support?

FCP X supports ColorSync. Any decent modern computer monitor can show a larger color space than Rec. 709. This means FCP X should be able to deliver pretty damn accurate color without the expense of a video I/O card and a broadcast monitor. And ColorSync calibration is a fully automated process (with a couple of hundred bucks worth of hardware), unlike calibration of most external monitoring options, which is still something of a dark art as far as most people are concerned. For the median FCP user, who doesn't have a video interface or a broadcast monitor, the color situation is dramatically improved in FCP X.

For those of us who do have those things, Apple did reportedly say, at the London briefing a couple of days ago, that 'real' video output is, in fact, in the works. Why wasn't it in the initial release? My guess is it might have Lion-related dependancies. Also, see above about the median FCP user not actually needing it.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I didn't see the significance of AppleTV or the PowerMac cube... oh yeah, that's right: they weren't significant! Just because Apple has released good products before does NOT guarantee that every product that comes out Apple's orifice is gold. There have been plenty of bad products along the way too.

Cheers,
Tim

Apple is the world's most successful tech company by a lot of measures, especially the one that counts in terms of longevity - financially. Right now, they have some $65 billion dollars in cash - enough to buy up Adobe, Avid, Sony, and still have a whole bunch of money left over! You don't get to that position by being timid. Of course they've made mistakes. Everyone loves to cite the Cube or the Newton (pre-Jobs) but the list is awfully short. Is that the best you've got? :001_smile:

Are you old enough to remember the Apple Media Tool software? Hypercard? Good for their time, but time marches forward and they are gone. No one should get stuck with 15 year old technology; hardware or software. And one might argue that about your NLE as well. :coolgleamA:

And I wouldn't count AppleTV out just yet.

Full disclosure: I have owned a little Apple stock for a long time. The profit has, many times over, paid for every piece of Apple hardware and software I have ever purchased. Not too bad.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Do people really not "get" that color calibration is just a historical weakness of the affordably available technology, left over from the CRT days? Do you think you are always going to have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for a monitor with accurate color? At one point, satellite navigation was considered unaffordable for the average citizen. Now your iPhone can do it while you are texting. It's called progress! :smile5:

 

[Tim Morten]

Apple is the world's most successful tech company by a lot of measures, especially the one that counts in terms of longevity - financially. Right now, they have some $65 billion dollars in cash - enough to buy up Adobe, Avid, Sony, and still have a whole bunch of money left over! You don't get to that position by being timid. Of course they've made mistakes. Everyone loves to cite the Cube or the Newton (pre-Jobs) but the list is awfully short. Is that the best you've got? :001_smile:

Are you old enough to remember the Apple Media Tool software? Hypercard? Good for their time, but time marches forward and they are gone. No one should get stuck with 15 year old technology; hardware or software. And one might argue that about your NLE as well. :coolgleamA:

And I wouldn't count AppleTV out just yet.

Full disclosure: I have owned a little Apple stock for a long time. The profit has, many times over, paid for every piece of Apple hardware and software I have ever purchased. Not too bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_(person)#Fanboy.2Ffangirl

Fanboy is a term used to describe a male who is highly devoted and biased in opinion towards a single subject or hobby within a given field. Fanboy-ism is often prevalent in a field of products, brands or universe of characters where very few competitors (or enemies in fiction, such as comics) exist. An example is the market for CPUs for PCs, where AMD and Intel together hold a market share of 99.6% (as of Q1 2009).

 

[Terry VerHaar]

If you can't actually argue a point, just call someone names. Works every time. :willy_nilly:

 

[Tim Morten]

Arguing a point implies that the other party will be receptive to logic. Certain parties in this thread have demonstrated (over the course of 127 pages) that they will assume the best from Apple no matter what. That's fine... everyone's entitled to their opinions.

As for the "namecalling", I simply posted the definition: it's up to others to decide who fits it. Glad to hear that you've done well off Apple stock!

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Chris,

Since I may be ignorant on this issue what color spaces much larger than REC709 or sRGB can say a Macbook Pro or Apple Cinema Display support?

MacBook Pro colorspace:

Do people really not "get" that color calibration is just a historical weakness of the affordably available technology, left over from the CRT days? Do you think you are always going to have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for a monitor with accurate color? At one point, satellite navigation was considered unaffordable for the average citizen. Now your iPhone can do it while you are texting. It's called progress! :smile5:

Higher end monitors have more of a color gamut than cheaper monitors. Especially 10 bit monitors that have wide gamuts. Having more color gamuts and broadcast monitoring is mostly what people pay for... not necesarily for the calibration. Albeit highly accurate color calibration with a device like a spectroradiometer cost a lot of money. Well... that's unless you have a Flanders Scientific monitor... they calibrate ours for free.

 

[Oliver Peters]

FCP X specifically changes the nature of bins and clip information that the editor interacts with. It also trades the track metaphor for a Storyline metaphor. I'd like someone to explain why either of these is better or faster.

I've now been on the software for 2 weeks and I just don't see it. Just because Apple designers took this approach doesn't make it better. Newer, interesting and innovative - sure. That doesn't make it anything other than different. Other things, like the "automatics" have been less than stellar in my testing. The People analysis mis-categorizes one-shots, two-shots, etc. Synchronization can't sync Canon and H4N clips, where PluralEyes has no problem. Since automatic color balance changes the color profile of a clip and not the actual Color Board settings, you have no idea what values have been altered. So it's a very mixed bag in my view.

That's my opinion, of course, but I'd like to hear from folks who have truly shaken it out and can point to why they think it's better or faster. Thanks.

- Oliver

 

[Brian Langeman]

Do people really not "get" that color calibration is just a historical weakness of the affordably available technology, left over from the CRT days? Do you think you are always going to have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for a monitor with accurate color? At one point, satellite navigation was considered unaffordable for the average citizen. Now your iPhone can do it while you are texting. It's called progress! :smile5:

Do you actually think that a MacBook Pro or iMac display can accurately display color for outputting to broadcast, film, digital projection, and other high end formats?

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Do you actually think that a MacBook Pro or iMac display can accurately display color for outputting to broadcast, film, digital projection, and other high end formats?

I think Terry was thinking of color calibration. I don't think he understands color gamut... which is a different thing than calibration (I doubt "most" web editors would understand this stuff). Even his ideas about color calibration is weird though. Even with colorsync converting to a rec709 profile the monitor would have to be calibrated to a standard for color grading. The reasons why monitors should be calibrated routinely is mainly due to using CCF/LED backlighting which diminishes with aging:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlight

So even expensive monitors need calibrating. Which of course diminishes all of his points.

 

[Brian Langeman]

Exactly. Calibrating with software doesn't help if the hardware you're viewing your material on isn't capable.

 

[Chris Kenny]

Chris,
Since I may be ignorant on this issue what color spaces much larger than REC709 or sRGB can say a Macbook Pro or Apple Cinema Display support?

I was thinking more of models like the Dell UltraSharp U2410. I'm not very familiar with the color capabilities of the Apple Cinema Display, but I wouldn't be hugely surprised it could handle Rec. 709 as well. Rec. 709 is basically sRGB with a slightly higher gamma. High-end desktop displays come pretty close to covering all of Adobe RGB these days (the U2410's specs say it covers 96%), which is (as is illustrated on your graph) a substantially larger color space than sRGB.

Grading on a laptop display is probably going to remain a bad idea for the immediate future; they make significant tradeoffs to be energy-efficient and thin. But AMOLED might make even laptop displays plausible for grading in the long run. (Or for checking color, anyway; the actual process of grading requires at least two screens to be reasonably efficient, so you'd probably be monitoring on an external screen in any event.)

 

[Chris Kenny]

Even with colorsync converting to a rec709 profile the monitor would have to be calibrated to a standard for color grading.

Yes, but there is reasonably priced hardware that does a respectable (and entirely automatic) job of profiling desktop displays. Once you move into the world of calibration hardware/software specifically for pro video, suddenly everything costs 12x as much, largely just because it's being sold into a comparatively tiny market.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Well I can't honestly say I know all the differences between a spectrocolorimeter and a spectroradiometer. All I know is that the spectroradiometer is probably more accurate than a colorimeter. Not that I'm saying web editors need such an high level of color accuracy. Flanders Scientific calibrates their monitors free of charge.

 

[AnthonyFlores]

Arguing a point implies that the other party will be receptive to logic. Certain parties in this thread have demonstrated (over the course of 127 pages) that they will assume the best from Apple no matter what. That's fine... everyone's entitled to their opinions.

As for the "namecalling", I simply posted the definition: it's up to others to decide who fits it. Glad to hear that you've done well off Apple stock!

Come on Tim, I don't think there is a single true "fanboy" on this site -- I've met real Apple fan boys, they tend to work at the Apple store for peanuts and think Apple 24/7
But seriously, I think the "fanboy" is being tossed around toward anyone who defends Apple ... and that just doesn't make sense.

In my case, while I have no problem admitting Apple made some mistakes during this FCPX launch, what annoys me is that many are using the FCP controversy to state or imply that Apple somehow sucks or is incompetent overalll as a company.

And that, by any estimation (especially financial) is ridiculous. Apple is one of the greatest and most noteworthy success stories in the history of business.

Seriously, can you name another company of comparable size that is growing as fast or innovating as well ... ? Every financial indicator is positive, growing in every area over the previous year (yes, even AppleTV) and they continue to create and produce the "best" product in some of the hugest categories (phones, tablets, music players) -- with the iPad and iPod not only best, but best-selling ... by an insanely wide margin.

Om top of that, they are making well-funded, Goliath competitors like Microsoft, HP, Samsung, etc look like a JOKE as they continually fail with tablets, new phones, etc.

You may hate the way handled FCPX or feel it was a big mistake -- it's hard to argue too much with that right now -- yet Apple is anything but a screwup as an overall company. The numbers don't lie.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

How would color calibration work with Colorsync. I'm genuinely curious. Say you get a colorimeter and it does a color profile of your display... you then load that profile for your display... how do you then do the rec709 conversion? I'm just making sure we are not using the terms "color calibration" and "color profiling" incorrectly.

 

[Tim Morten]

Seriously, can you name another company of comparable size that is growing as fast or innovating as well ... ? Every financial indicator is positive, growing in every area over the previous year (yes, even AppleTV) and they continue to create and produce the "best" product in some of the hugest categories (phones, tablets, music players) -- with the iPad and iPod not only best, but best-selling ... by an insanely wide margin. Om top of that, they are making well-funded, Goliath competitors like Microsoft, HP, Samsung, etc look like a JOKE as they continually fail with tablets, new phones, etc.

A year at the top on the strength of a best-selling phone isn't a reason to deify Apple. They make mistakes like everyone else, and just like Microsoft, they won't stay at the top forever. Android is already outselling them in the phone space, and the tablet market is WAY too young to call. Apple remains at less than 10% of the PC market. iPod is their one uncontested win.

The Apple adoration runs thick with some, bordering on religious; Apple does some good work, and some not so good work. This thread is about a product that many of us consider to be in the latter category.

Personally, I think Apple is a better company when they are the underdog. Let's see what the future holds...

 

[Philipe Ratton]

Hullfish nailed it !
http://provideocoalition.com/index...._is_really_just_imovie_-_directly_from_apple/
And Chris, about your coments on monitors and color correction, I know you know better than that, why are you saying stuff like that ?
It's becoming absurd at this point.
Please mr. Most, come back just for this one !
And just to be clear one more time, I'm not pissed because I hate FCP, I'm pissed cause I love FCP !

 

[Andrae Palmer]

I'm curious about this possible ColorSync solution. I think like most people that the graphics card will muddle the signal. I know you discussed this elsewhere Chris (stumbled on your thread over at creative cow). I would like to prove once and for all if this srgb to rec709 conversion for color accuracy is possible. Not to prove you wrong... but to learn what the issues are. So far in my research I've read that srgb has slightly varied gamma compared to the gamma of rec709. I've read that the processing on the graphics card will make the signal inaccurate. You seem like a logical person by reading your posts on here. I would like to know how you counter these arguments.

Wiki on srgb gamma:

Unlike most other RGB color spaces, the sRGB gamma cannot be expressed as a single numerical value. The overall gamma is approximately 2.2, consisting of a linear (gamma 1.0) section near black, and a non-linear section elsewhere involving a 2.4 exponent and a gamma (slope of log output versus log input) changing from 1.0 through about 2.3.

Wiki on rec709 gamma:


Rec.*709 is written as if it specifies the capture and transfer characteristics of HDTV encoding - that is, as if it were scene-referred. However, in practice it is output (display) referred with the convention of a 2.4-power function display [2.35 power function in EBU recommendations]. (Rec.*709 and sRGB share the same primary chromaticities and white point chromaticity; however, sRGB is explicitly output (display) referred with an average gamma of 2.2.) [5]

So if the gamma of sRGB is not a single numerical value how can a colorimeter profile a sRGB monitor for REC709? Also does ColorSync handle the YUV conversion or just sets primaries, white point and gamma? If this works your way... Why haven't anyone on any platform been doing it this way before? Does ColorSync create a LUT for YUV color space? Obviously it can't send an sRGB monitor a YUV signal.