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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 :)

Insight into Apple Strategy for FCP-X, iPad and more?

maybe in 3-5 years a full blown fcpx can cost 5000 usd.
like your lil smoke....right now fcpx is like an iphone with the app store missing.

imagine a

baselight plugin
aja i/o plugin
after effects plugin
blackmagic plugin
protools plugin
scratch plugin
etc.

BUT! BIG BUT!

it makes sense to have diffferent apps and stations because of the persons using these apps....i see no colorist waiting happily to grade in a fcpx plugin.
 
Cüneyt Kaya said:
maybe in 3-5 years a full blown fcpx can cost 5000 usd.
like your lil smoke....right now fcpx is like an iphone with the app store missing.

imagine a

baselight plugin
aja i/o plugin
after effects plugin
blackmagic plugin
protools plugin
scratch plugin
etc.

BUT! BIG BUT!

it makes sense to have diffferent apps and stations because of the persons using these apps....i see no colorist waiting happily to grade in a fcpx plugin.
Click to expand...

If your argument is that there will never be one system that works for everyone, well, then there is no argument 'cuz you are totally correct!!
 
Cüneyt Kaya said:
it makes sense to have diffferent apps and stations because of the persons using these apps....i see no colorist waiting happily to grade in a fcpx plugin.
Click to expand...

I might be seriously tempted if it supported control surfaces and if FCP X eventually gains access to raw R3D (or if it was a ProRes Alexa project or whatever). Probably not for features, but certainly for music video edits, which tend to have effects/transitions/layers that are very annoying to move between apps.
 
for web, musicvideos, cooperate videos, indyflicks, boradcast (which will 100% move to the web)
fcpx will maybe be the standard in 5 years.

for example in turkey broadcast workflows are more advanced than germany.
watching channels kn your iphone with 3G works.
commercials and a few turkish series shot outside turkey are uploaded to the servers of the TV channels.
low budgets forced this in turkey and the content looks good on TV and the web.
all this is a huge portion of the market.


but (good budgeted) big features, who depend on and want super high skilled experts in every department, fcpx will not work.
because there the artist in the department is the most important and not the cost of his prefered tool and the costs involved to move the things around.

maybe i am completly wrong though :)
 
Terry VerHaar said:
And as far as "screwing around with a touch interface." Really? And you still use a dial phone? :lol:

And that really was only half the point, anyway. The design and features of FCP-X, when a few of the controversial "issues" are addressed, will contribute to a very efficient editing workflow that begins immediately as the footage is shot - maybe on a laptop, but I think an iPad will make it even more fluid. And I think that's what Apple is shooting for, too. What other company has as much to gain by making all these things work well together?
Click to expand...

Touchscreens are great for dragging and tapping; there's a reason that keyboards and mice still exist -- touchscreens suck for everything else.

Similar story with motion control (Kinect). Great for broad gestures; lousy for everything else. Newness/uniqueness doesn't equal superiority.

As for Apple's vision for FCPX... you are truly an optimist. Time will tell.

Cheers,
Tim
 
I do a lot of tvc editing. I think FCPx would handle that pretty good. I think it's only going to get better with third party connectivity. But I do think that Apple sees a future without the constraints for the traditional broadcast signals. Instead I think that every tv station, movie cinema and movie release will see the web and the colourists standard. Stations regularly have problems with sub-black signals and chroma issues. It would be great to see all that go for good. So possible the ipad could play a role in post production. As for me, I prefer not to pay $10,000 for a broadcast monitor just so I can grade like the pros can. I'd be out of business in a flash buying that kind of gear for the budgets we work with. Instead, with money I might save buying FCPx, I could put into a davinci suite or after effects. Hell, I'm even toying with the idea of making our whole facility work on laptops with thunderbolt devices, once they're available. I know that if it's possible, if it frees up your money to buy better gear elsewhere, than I'm all for it.
Why not shoot on an Epic, convert to pro res on a mobile rocket, then edit with thunderbolt hard drives that you can carry around with you? Maybe use your ipad as a wireless monitor in the field if you need to?
A first I was disappointed in FCPx. The more I think about it the more it makes sense.
 
It is great to be optimistic, as am I, but we are here working today. I am just as hopeful for Vegas Pro 11 or Adobe CS6 as I am for FCP X. Today, FCP X is no revolution, what it is it's pretty useless for many of our workflows. Almost all of the amazing new features have been featured on its competitors for several years now. When and if it becomes the amazing revolution, we will all give it another shot. In the end, it is all about finding the best and most productive tools to work with, TODAY. And FCP X is not it.

As for cutting on an tablet... Smartphone hardware is a long way off debayering 5K R3D streams. It will happen, I am sure, as image acquisition is progressing much slower than smartphone processors. Ironically, if RED weren't around tablet editing would be a reality by 2013. The laptop will always be much more powerful, though. But sure, tablets would reach a "good enough" level at some point in the next few years. I am going to bet on Windows 8 tablets and Intel CULV processors providing much of the high performance tablets in 2012. The iPad and Android devices are simply supersized smartphones. As for touch as input and a 10 inch screen as output, that's a whole different argument.
 
Subhadip Sen said:
It is great to be optimistic, as am I, but we are here working today. I am just as hopeful for Vegas Pro 11 or Adobe CS6 as I am for FCP X. Today, FCP X is no revolution, what it is it's pretty useless for many of our workflows. Almost all of the amazing new features have been featured on its competitors for several years now. When and if it becomes the amazing revolution, we will all give it another shot. In the end, it is all about finding the best and most productive tools to work with, TODAY. And FCP X is not it.

As for cutting on an tablet... Smartphone hardware is a long way off debayering 5K R3D streams. It will happen, I am sure, as image acquisition is progressing much slower than smartphone processors. Ironically, if RED weren't around tablet editing would be a reality by 2013. The laptop will always be much more powerful, though. But sure, tablets would reach a "good enough" level at some point in the next few years. I am going to bet on Windows 8 tablets and Intel CULV processors providing much of the high performance tablets in 2012. The iPad and Android devices are simply supersized smartphones. As for touch as input and a 10 inch screen as output, that's a whole different argument.
Click to expand...

You are still missing the entire point. iPads (etc) are not the ultimate devices; just another tool in the arsenal. But they do require software to do the work. Who is more likely than Apple to see to that?
 
Terry VerHaar said:
You are still missing the entire point. iPads (etc) are not the ultimate devices; just another tool in the arsenal. But they do require software to do the work. Who is more likely than Apple to see to that?
Click to expand...

Yes, I suppose I am missing the point. Though at no point did I expect tablets to be the "ultimate device", absolutely not. Like I mentioned in my post, it just occurred that the minimum requirement would be playing back a 5K R3D stream, for whatever quick editorial/monitoring/etc. Unless you are thinking of something entirely different? With proxies, maybe? And how will it be any better than using a laptop? Or a powerful touchscreen laptop? I guess I just lack the imagination, so I am curious to know how I could use tablets to increase my productivity.
 
This Ipad HD rumor sounds bogus. I can't see a device without proper in/out, or a graphics card with less than 512mb as well as such limited amount of Ram being able to push an HD video editor. And for this to work it needs to have a 128gb version. To have all the above elements this thing would go for the price of a Macbook pro 15 or 17". Who's going to buy that ?
 
We had the same rumors of an HD iPad last fall, and look what happened.

Apple will release 1 iPad model every year, just like they do with the rest of their consumer electronics. iPads in spring, iPhone in summer (northern hemisphere).
 
Sergio Perez said:
This Ipad HD rumor sounds bogus. I can't see a device without proper in/out, or a graphics card with less than 512mb as well as such limited amount of Ram being able to push an HD video editor. And for this to work it needs to have a 128gb version. To have all the above elements this thing would go for the price of a Macbook pro 15 or 17". Who's going to buy that ?
Click to expand...

I have no idea if these rumors are true, but consider that the desktop version of FCP X already has the ability to transcode a clip to multiple codecs and keep track of the different versions, that iPads have hardware-based H.264 decoding (and encoding), and that the fundamental capability for iOS devices to edit video with reasonable performance in that format is already proven by the iOS version of iMovie.

So... editing 1080p ProRes HQ on iPads? Probably not for several more years. But the idea of the desktop version of FCP X generating 720p H.264 proxies, syncing them over to an iPad for offline editing, and then being able import sequences back from the iPad to conform full quality footage, is quite technically feasible.
 
Chris Kenny said:
But the idea of the desktop version of FCP X generating 720p H.264 proxies, syncing them over to an iPad for offline editing, and then being able import sequences back from the iPad to conform full quality footage, is quite technically feasible.
Click to expand...

What would be the gain in this? If you're creating .h264 proxies you may as well transfer the ProRes files to your laptop, edit with them and avoid the transcode.

Touchscreen editing won't be as precise as with a keyboard and mouse, nor as fast. To make iPad editing possible you'll need the software adjusted to account for the different UI requirements of touchscreen editing and interaction. Will Apple really divert resources just for this? Probably not. They'd likely develop FCPX for both the touchscreen and keyboard/mouse, so now you have a ton of menus and other UI designs in your desktop editor that make it clumsier or more bloated because it also has to be used with a finger.

I fail to see how spending time transcoding/transferring to an iPad will improve the editorial process when you can avoid it all and make more precise edits with more control and a lot more speed on a laptop, using the raw files or ProRes files.
 
When it was released, I gave my mother in law a copy of iMovie for iPad. When I played with it I was immediately struck by how intuitive it was to "handle" clips in bins and on the timeline. It seemed like a very natural way to work, akin to using a Wacom instead of a mouse to draw. Keep thinking about Wacom for a minute and consider the popularity of Cintique, and how similar it is to iPad.

From there it is no leap at all to imagine using an iPad or similar device as an adjunct to an existing desktop system, next to the keyboard and mouse if you like, or replacing them if you like. Already people are doing it.

On an ultra mobile crew the iPad could enable one very talented and hyperactive person to do a pretty fair job of AC, clapper/loader, DIT, script supervisor and assistant editor all at once. Then seamlessly move to a desktop system at their leisure and continue with more serious cutting. From proxies streaming off the camera to intermediate on-set post, then to edit bay with full on RAW quality, all with scripts, notes, synched second system audio etc. Without duplicating work.

Dare to dream! Many of the pieces are here now.
 
So you have one person as AC, clapper/loader, DIT, script supervisor, and the assistant editor? If that's the case, no thanks.
 
Michael Hancock said:
So you have one person as AC, clapper/loader, DIT, script supervisor, and the assistant editor? If that's the case, no thanks.
Click to expand...

Haha I hear you, but how many auteurs and micro managers would like to have all or some of those things at their fingertips, how many documentary film makers... And how many Producers are vibrating at the thought? I am mixing messages now I know, but the possibilities are many. That is the point.

For example you could combine any two or more of those jobs, or employ all of those people and each could be working together with all of the same materials and data live and simultaneously instead of each existing on their own little island.

Cross pollination of data is good. Everyone is on the same page creating a unified product on set, rather than making pieces that nobody sees joined together until months after principal photography wraps.

A director or AD can supervise all of these things as passively as they like on a unified interface. Script Supervisor flags a take for a line? The director can see it highlighted next to picture without someone whispering in his ear. DP doesn't like an element of the frame or wants to report missed focus... He can do a Madden illustration on the director's viewer or send a flashing beacon and never say a disruptive word if he chooses. Sound dept. wants to report noise... You get the point I hope.

That could happen.

I'm not saying that FCPX or iPad are required to create an ecosystem like this, but as parts they could be enabling, making it easier than requiring each of those people to carry a laptop to make it work. A clapper/loader is not carrying a laptop, but he might have an iPad slate.

Camera sends timecode, lens, frame rate, filename and even picture to everybody. The Clapper has a two way with camera and script, adding take and scene info that is also shared with the Audio department. (Actually that is a three-way in which the AC as pivot man who is also blogging at the same time... How Hollywood!) One report is generated not three, and all of these things could go directly into editorial without the effort of compiling that data, or people having to cross the set to share the info.

(BTW, that was a dream sequence, I didn't say that is how I work.)
 
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Producers would probably love it - they'd probably try to do the first cut themselves! Talk about duplicating work. :-)

Seriously though, this workflow is pretty much available now, but without iPad implementation. That's what I don't understand - how is the iPad going to improve this? What is the gain? The cool factor? It's imprecise, it's not as fast, and it's barely more mobile than a laptop. I'd say it's actually less conducive to work because it doesn't have a dedicated keyboard hinged to it so you can easily set it on a table or your lap while you work.

If it's used primarily for a rough assembly or just to check continuity - I can see the benefits of that (sort of). But even then you're generating proxies for it to work (h.264 proxies), so you're increasing storage requirements and the time it takes to create the proxies. When you go to the actual edit you won't be working with the .h264 files, so why bother with them? Just transcode to your offline resolution and do a rough assembly of those.
 
Sorry for the disconnect Michael, I've been daydreaming and editing while you write.
 
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