How long till ProRes dies?

[M Most]

Still think we need an independent industry initiative to create and propagate an open codec that marries 2012 compression tech with modern file based infrastructure. Using ProRes and DNxHD as examples of what people want, and offering a code base with a decent future, an industry controlled independent format supported by all the key stakeholders might finally give us the rest of the payoff inherent in a file based ecosystem.

You mean like JPEG2000 and the DCP?

Industry support and open source distribution don't necessarily make something a widely used standard among those that aren't deeply entrenched in the industry or dealing with studio and other industry entities. What makes things widely used is ease of use, wide consumer level support (thereby making it generally available on many devices and many different software applications - and cheap or free..), and ease of transport. In other words, they don't have to know anything about it to use it. In general, this is only possible when major consumer and prosumer players either develop, support, or propagate that particular item. That is the case with DNxHD/Avid, ProRes/Apple, H.264/Apple/YouTube/MajorInternetPlayers, WVM/Silverlight/Microsoft, MPEG2/DVD Consortium, AVC/BluRayConsortium, and the like. When "the industry" develops standards, they are concerned with things that consumers are not. And while that might include real time encode and decode and resolution independence, it also includes security, rich metadata, and a number of other things that are not applicable to most consumer level applications. There have been repeated attempts to produce such standards (where do you think MXF came from?), but the major players in media creation and distribution are almost always looking for a competitive advantage, so they co-opt the "standard" before it even gets started.

The best hope is for the privately developed standards that are widely deployed - like Prores, for instance - to be either opened up by their creators, or for the open source, reverse-engineered versions of these codecs to be widely disseminated and their original developers not be litigious. Good luck with that when the original developer is Apple.....

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Based on the options you so helpfully listed above, I would take an open standard ProRes in a heartbeat. Perhaps Apple could retain some performance advantage unique to their platform/apps so it made sense to them. Of course all this is more wishful thinking than anything else and your notes about how things play out are well taken.

Cheers - #19

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

"Open" and "Apple" do not belong in the same sentence.

Won't happen.

 

[Brian Merlen]

I have Avid, Adobe and Apple on my home system. But FCP7 is 32 bit. That is what happened, all the computers aren't 32 bit and I'd like to use more 1.5 cores or 3.5gbs of ram when most systems now can easily out do that. It's that simple. The post house I work for can do what it wants, I have no control over that obviously. The only thing happening is FCP7 is a bottle neck on my system and I can't even find clients wanting me to use FCPX. I'll let you know when I see one on CL, so far no paying gigs in sight for that NLE as far as I seen. Believe me I like couch editing more then having to get dressed and go to work. I mean no disrespect to couch editors, I sleep on a couch I envy them that much!


The only reason I am annoyed with Apple is FCP Studio 3 is taking up 50gbs of space to only give me prores encoding abilities. I think on my new system I am going to do what Jeff said and only buy compressor. That and the Mac Pro thing...

What happened to you guys?

The "couch editors" are who FCP started with. If you or your facility are using FCP it's because you were, to some degree, thumbing your nose at Avid and other expensive, turnkey NLE solutions that were representative of the "establishment".

Now you're claiming that FCP can't survive without you?

Avid and its users didn't initially see FCP as anything more than a hobbyists toy, either.

FCP 1.0, a Sony VX1000 and few intrepid filmmakers were all that was needed to give an entire industry a wake-up call. FCP arguably singlehandedly forced Avid to eventually change its tune, put other NLEs on notice and helped put some others out of business. And that was before the internet played a significant role in video distribution.

YouTube is positioning itself to be a major content provider of original programming and high resolution delivery (ala internet enabled 4K televisions). I see many "pros" poo-pooing it because they can only see the real value in traditional broadcast and cable channels and not paying attention to what's happening right in front of them.

I guarantee, there will come a day in the next 3-5 years when some of those same people will be talking about how proud they are of the work they did on that one breakout YouTube original series.

FCPX is $299 for crying out loud. It's already way more advanced and powerful than FCP 1.0 was when it debuted.

There's no reason to think that a new generation of editors isn't going to make its bones on FCPX and start that process all over again.

They are the you that many of you used to be.

What happened to you guys?

 

[ERIC PECK]

I have Avid, Adobe and Apple on my home system. But FCP7 is 32 bit. That is what happened, all the computers aren't 32 bit and I'd like to use more 1.5 cores or 3.5gbs of ram when most systems now can easily out do that. It's that simple. The post house I work for can do what it wants, I have no control over that obviously. The only thing happening is FCP7 is a bottle neck on my system and I can't even find clients wanting me to use FCPX. I'll let you know when I see one on CL, so far no paying gigs in sight for that NLE as far as I seen. Believe me I like couch editing more then having to get dressed and go to work. I mean no disrespect to couch editors, I sleep on a couch I envy them that much!


The only reason I am annoyed with Apple is FCP Studio 3 is taking up 50gbs of space to only give me prores encoding abilities. I think on my new system I am going to do what Jeff said and only buy compressor. That and the Mac Pro thing...

FCP takes 50 GB of space if you let it. Most of the 50 GB of space are the extras like the Soundtracks Pro sound library and the crap that comes with Motion.

If you run your installer you can get rid of all of that crap and just keep what you use... say FCP 7 + Compressor.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

You mean like JPEG2000 and the DCP? (big snip)

In more than one way I mean exactly that:

Basically a less cumbersome version of the DCI spec, based on JP2K, xyz color in the file with a default 709 flag, roughly 8MB/sec for 1080/30P. 4K/QFHD variant in the 32MB/sec range. Etc.

I realize this may be no more than a fantasy but it sure would be useful. If networks and distributors added such a spec to their deliverables contracts it might just catch on ;-)

Cheers - #19

 

[AFX]

Here's a great Windows workflow for encoding prores 4444.
http://www.authorityfx.com/encoding-videos-in-prores-4444-on-windows/

 

[Paul Harb]

FCPX is a toyish curiosity at best amongst professional editors. Only thing anyone I know including long term Mac users are waiting for is to see if Apple kills the outdated Mac Pro as the final death nail in their pro end software and hardware before they change platforms all together. Apple is not catering to professionals anymore, anyone who says otherwise doesnt work as an editor for a living or is a fanboy and not thinking clearly.

Final Cut may be alive and well....but it's days as a viable, professional platform are slowly waning...everyone I know is jumping to AVID...or if not...to PREMIERE (usually smaller shops, or people making stand alone stations).

 

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Don't be so arrogant towards other people. People are making money with FCP X, and saying that they are 'not professional editors or plain fanboys' is just rude, because you think differently. Yes, the program had a bad start, some very well deserved criticisms, and still misses a lot of features. It also has gotten a lot better, has some very good concepts behind it and is ahead in some workflows as well.
Apple has some people in their In-Action page using it full-time. I know it's an easy argument to make, but are you going to say to those people that they are not professional editors either?
I know you only talked about people saying Apple still caters to the Professionals, but I would guess people making a living with FCP X still think so, otherwise they wouldn't be using it. And I know Apple did some bad things towards professionals, but some of these arguments can be made towards other companies as well (Avid & Adobe all have done things that weren't 'nice' towards all their users too, you know).
I'm not saying FCP X is the best professional tool right now (that answer depends on your workflows). It has good things and bad things, and (no one can deny) a rocky start. But I there are many reasons you can make that FCP X DOES cater to professionals (5K timelines, Cinema Tools inside the app, some technology of Color - although I agree not nearly enough, sub sample editing, Logic Filters, very advanced Meta-Data tools, RED RAW Support, Roles - which consumer needs Roles? -, one of the best multicam editors out there, etc. ...) It can do some things FCP 7 never could do.
Yes, Professionals are not Apple's bread and butter anymore. They've done some nasty things towards professionals, but they have also showed that they are adding a lot of features that are pure for professionals. And the multicam update that was released in January, also showed this was in the works before the program was released. So I think a lot of the bad launch was because it was released too early.
Don't tell me I'm a fanboy: I asked a refund when 10.0.0 was released, and I still have a long list of criticism towards the app. But there are also things it does much better then any other app out there, especially FCP 7.
When the app was released, Larry Jordan said he thought almost no-one would do big work on it immediately, but he thinks the situation could change in about 12-18 months. Seeing how Apples updates went, I think he was right. Of course, Adobe and Avid still have some very interesting products and Adobe seems really eager listening to professionals and getting some more market share. The more competition, the better. Let's see how it goes.

With the 10.0.6 update, and how well it seems to work with R3D's native, I've seen a lot of renewned interest in FCP X from REDUsers, so I wouldn't kill off Prores so quickly.
It' still one of the more populair acquisition codecs out there, although I do think the bad rep of FCP X maybe will have an influence on how populair it will stay in the future.