RED Apple Workflow Installer V16 (08/25/2020)

[Phil Holland]

For those of you who are working with FCPX and missed today's update:
https://www.red.com/download/red-apple-workflow-installer

Something very notable in this update is:

FCP X plugin changes:
- Adds support for Metal GPU decode for Final Cut Pro 10.4.9 or later.


REDcode Preference Panel - FCP X Image Pipeline changes:
- Added "GPU decode (decompression)" option to control Metal GPU decode.

Happy scrubbing and cutting.


Nice link here with some workflow update info:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/08/final-cut-pro-x-updated-with-significant-workflow-improvements/

 

[Brian Timmons]

Wow- This is very nice to hear!
I remember RED delivered that code to Apple late last year.
10.4.9? must be a new version coming out.
*Edit*- I'm completely behind. New version just release.
Thanks for the heads up Phil!
I can really use this now.

***NOTE***
Before updating, backup your old version of FCP X.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203010

Better to have it and not need it - than need it and not have it.
You never know with these updates.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Blair Thornton]

I guess this is the Metal Decode preference

 

[Homer Dulu]

I just tried it on my Hackintosh with an i7 6700K and AMD 5700XT. For reference, I've been able to playback 8K Helium footage with a 4K timeline at Full Res. Premium decode on Resolve 16.2 with zero dropped frames.

The same 8K footage in FCPX 10.4.9 also with a 4K timeline using Better Quality was pretty choppy in comparison. I also had to turn off background rendering because for some reason, it was trying to render the video files in the background, even with Create Optimized and Create Proxy settings turned off.

Not sure what's going on here, but maybe Resolve does a real-time 1/2 quality decode of the 8K footage because the timeline resolution is 4K (which still evens out as "Full Res" anyway), while FCPX does an 8K decode and then resizes to 4K after the fact? Why would it be rendering files in the background (Prores 422 according to my Project settings) - when it should be able to play back in realtime? Or Resolve's playback engine is that much more efficient compared to FCPX?

Also, I think I discovered a bug in the implementation - I opened up Activity Monitor to see my GPU usage and the GPU decompression seems to only work when "Better Quality" is selected. When that's selected, my GPU usage is 100% and CPU hovering around 50-60%. When you select "Better Performance", CPU usage goes up to 100% (how it was in all quality settings before 10.4.9) and GPU usage is barely there - I thought that when you select Better Performance, the decode quality is reduced? It shouldn't affect the GPU decode? Even when I went to an 8K timeline, and selected "Better Performance" it was still barely using the GPU.

Scrubbing is pretty damn fast now though. That's definitely much improved.

Please keep in mind that my computer's almost 4 years old. I think that any of the new 9th or 10th gen processors would be able to handle 8K super smoothly, and play everything back at full resolution with an 8K timeline. I think my optimal settings would be either 8K 1/2-quality or 4K full-quality GPU decode, but it seems like FCPX doesn't handle that scenario just yet.

I'll continue testing and report back if I find anything else.

 

[andrewhake]

Scrubbing is so much faster now with R3D and FCPX. I am curious if that is coming from the Metal implementation or the FCPX update. Scrubbing R3Ds feels close to scrubbing prores now. I am still not quite getting realtime playback with 8K footage in an 8k or 4k timeline though on an iMac Pro with Vega 64 16GB. Haven't tested yet on a Mac Pro but I will give it a go later today probably. I do wonder if it's like Homer also mentioned with FCPX always doing a full quality decode when in Better Quality mode, which I guess that makes sense depending on how you are using the footage in the timeline.

Homer the way bg rendering works in FCPX is it is taking whatever footage you are working with, and encoding it to whatever flavor of prores your project is set to. Which works very well in practice. Usually by the time you are ready to output your master file to prores everything is already rendered and the export process takes just a few seconds.

I do think FCPX still needs to add an option for what decode resolution is being used as Homer suggested. I wonder if this is something that Red could implement in their Apple Workflow plugin? Would be even better to just have as an option right in the FCPX viewer. Honestly, FCPX chomps up 8K R3Ds so fast into prores I usually just let background render do it's thing and never even think about it. Editing R3Ds in FCPX has been really nice for quite awhile now and this just makes it that much better. Especially the huge increase in scrubbing performance with R3Ds.

I am curious what sort of performance people at Red are seeing and on what hardware though. Right now I mainly just notice the scrubbing performance increase.

 

[Jon Dishler]

I guess this is the Metal Decode preference

Where is this screen please? Not sure I need it. If I take 8k footage and make the project a 4k timeline, it will play in better quality mode real time once rendered, or in better performance unrendered -- which is pretty fast considering I am running on an old 2013 Mac Pro with middling 500 gpu processors. Pretty happy to be able to play 8k so easily at 4k. I might have to get a new machine since the 8k files already scrub pretty nicely!

 

[Homer Dulu]

Where is this screen please? Not sure I need it. If I take 8k footage and make the project a 4k timeline, it will play in better quality mode real time once rendered, or in better performance unrendered -- which is pretty fast considering I am running on an old 2013 Mac Pro with middling 500 gpu processors. Pretty happy to be able to play 8k so easily at 4k. I might have to get a new machine since the 8k files already scrub pretty nicely!

This is in the Mac System Preferences->REDcode

 

[Jon Dishler]

Thanks, already defaults to GPU decode, but appreciate knowing where it is!

 

[Sergio Perez]

16" Macbook Pro ( latest maxed out , 2tb internal SSD). Plays back 8K Monstro REAL TIME without problems in an 8K timeline . Yes!

 

[rand thompson]

Final Cut Pro 10.4.9 New Features


By
Ripple Training

Pro Res Raw Camera Adjustments in Final Cut Pro 10.4.9



By Creative One Eleven

What's New in Final Cut Pro X 10.4.9! Quick Tour


By
Pixel Film Studios

The Final Cut Pro 10.4.9 Update - Everything You Need to Know + Motion & Compressor!



By POST-PROfessionals

Social Media Workflows in Final Cut Pro 10.4.9


By Creative One Eleven

Collaborative Workflows made easy with Proxy Enhancements in Final Cut Pro 10.4.9



By Creative One Eleven

Adjusting Cross Fades with a Keyboard Shortcut in Final Cut Pro 10.4.9


By Creative One Eleven

 

[Brian Timmons]

This METAL support is much needed and generally seems to work well.
I have a tower with an AMD 5700XT installed and it works very well (albeit with R1MX R3Ds).
Even in "Better Quality" mode- skimming and playback feels about as responsive as ProRes 422 HQ at a similar resolution.

I do unfortunately have issues on my 2014 MBP laptop.
The system seems to hang with the spinning beachball whenever I try to open a RED file and the thumbnail is blank.
I opened up clips from other formats I had available (AVCHD, Canon XF, Sony XDCAM, mp4, Prores) and there was no issue.
The 2014 MBP is based on the Nvidia based 750M GPU.

MacOS is Catalina 10.15.6

Have tried footage from RED ONE MX to Dragon to the latest Komodo and none of them seem to work.

I previously never had an issue with RED files opening up in FCP X on this system or any other I could think of so this
does seem to be unique to this update.

I installed and even manually uninstalled the previous Apple Workflow installation and installed the new version again and still have issues.
Also have the latest Apple Pro Video codecs installed (though I doubt that would affect RED files).

Are others having issues like this. If so, what GPU are you running?
I sent a report to Apple as well.
Hope this gets fixed soon. Puts a damper on an otherwise very useful update.

*********
UPDATE: I also have an older Mac Pro 3,1 with an Nvidia 770 GPU installed and I saw the exact same issues as my
Macbook Pro which had the Nvidia 750M.
These are both Nvidia GPUs that still have Metal support in MacOS. Again both can play back other formats fine in
the latest FCPX and they were able to handle RED footage well in the past.
All of these systems have the latest Mac Os on them (the two towers have the Dosdude hacks for allowing the latest OS X to install)
but they are otherwise stable and work fine.

Perhaps there's a compatibility issue somewhere with FCP 10.4.9, Apple Metal, Nvidia GPUs (that support Metal) and RED Apple Workflow installer v16.
*********

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Gareth Edward Evans]

Hello I’m confused by the last paragraph of newshooter https://www.newsshooter.com/2020/08/26/final-cut-pro-10-4-9-update-expands-the-power-of-prores-raw/ where it states that RED Raw is not compatible?

In what way? Does this mean you can’t access the red raw tools within FCPX to change parameters of the footage? (iso, Kelvin)

Thank you.

 

[Jon Dishler]

Yes it does. What doesn’t work is Filmconvert, locks up with new SDK. I have been in contact with them and they are investigating.

 

[Gareth Edward Evans]

That’s good, I thought for a second that it wouldn’t work with RED raw which would be weird with the update haha.

Thanks for clarifying and the heads up for filmconvert.

G

 

[andrewhake]

16" Macbook Pro ( latest maxed out , 2tb internal SSD). Plays back 8K Monstro REAL TIME without problems in an 8K timeline . Yes!

Are you testing this in Better Quality mode or Better performance mode? 16" MBP has been able to playback pretty much anything in Better Performance mode even before this update.

I have a 16" MBP as well I will do some testing with it with all the new updates.

Edit: Doing some testing and unable to get full realtime playback in Full quality 'Better Quality' mode. But FCPX will chew through it so fast with BG render on it doesn't even really matter. I like to work in Better Performance mode when starting a project, and just leave bg render on. Whenever I am taking a moment to think about something bg render does it's thing. On most projects I end up with a fully rendered timeline without even thinking about it. Then I can easily switch to Better Quality mode in the viewer and playback anything no problem. FCPX will playback any flavor of 8k prores like butter on a 16" MBP.

The massive performance increase for scrubbing R3Ds directly in the timeline makes this process so easy now. Another thing greatly under appreciated in FCPX is how well the viewer approximates HDR. If you do a quick grade on a non-HDR 500nit MBP display with 'Show HDR as Tonemapped' enabled in the viewer while working in a PQ project. You will get a pretty decent approximation of how it will look on a proper HDR display. I have been able to do quick stuff on the MBP and then connect up to a Pro Display XDR to dial things in.

 

[Brian Timmons]

How have people's experiences been with V16 and FCP 10.4.9?
I have a 2014 MBP with a Metal capable GPU that can't play or even open R3D's without hanging on the spinning beach ball
to a 2010 12 core Mac Pro with 5700XT that plays back very smooth, renders fast sometimes but also has fits of spinning beach balls when
navigating the browser, timeline, and thumbnails rendering.

Have this issue on new and old projects. Have trashed prefs several times.

Hate to say it but despite the performance leap (when things work well) overall this has been some of the most sluggish performance I ever experienced with REDCODE and FCP X.
I've contacted Apple as well about these issues.

Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Homer Dulu]

Looks like V17 has been released

 

[Brian Timmons]

Looks like V17 has been released

RED Apple Workflow Installer V17
https://www.red.com/download/red-apple-workflow-installer


Thanks for posting this Homer.
Stacy Spears from RED DMed me earlier about this earlier today.
I was able to test V17 on the latest FCP X 10.4.10 and it does indeed seem
to work fine on my 2014 MBP with the Nvidia 750M Gpu.

I have to do more extensive testing to see if some of the other "lag" issues come up.

Still quite happy that RED was able to get this out.


Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

 

[Alan Greene]

I wish there was a way for us to be notified when new software and firmware are released. Glad I checked this thread, thanks to those of you who report this stuff!

 

[Steve Sherrick]

RED Apple Workflow Installer V17
https://www.red.com/download/red-apple-workflow-installer


Thanks for posting this Homer.
Stacy Spears from RED DMed me earlier about this earlier today.
I was able to test V17 on the latest FCP X 10.4.10 and it does indeed seem
to work fine on my 2014 MBP with the Nvidia 750M Gpu.

I have to do more extensive testing to see if some of the other "lag" issues come up.

Still quite happy that RED was able to get this out.


Brian Timmons
BRITIM/MEDIA

Brian, I usually don't have any issues with RED footage in FCPX but since updating to 10.4.10 and Apple Workflow V17, I'm getting some lag with the interface when I have R3Ds from 8K Helium in a Library. Usually I just have playback issues on my iMac when using Helium footage and I just make proxies. Interface has never been an issue. But now with a 140 clips in the library, it takes longer to load the project than normal.Selecting several clips creates a lag (spinning ball) for a few seconds. Going from original to proxy lags too. It's just not the smooth experience I am used to. Wondering if you are still having these types of issues or if you solved them?