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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 :)

Tell me why I should get on board with FCPX

Ben Scott

Ben Scott

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With the announcement of native R3D now in FCPX I thought it would be a good time revisit this topic. A bit of background first...

I was a long time Avid editor form the late 90s. Jobs called for FCP 6, then 7 so I used that but hated it for the most part. That whole 'it never crashes' thing never happened for me. Made the switch to Premiere around CS4 and went between that or Avid MCP where I could, and FCP7 where I had to for particular clients.

Now I am trying to retire FCP 7 completely, rarely have a need for Avid MC and pretty much use Premiere CS6 exclusively.

I never touched FCPX on launch but watched the car crash from the sidelines. Now it's all patched up and whatnot, I was wondering what I am missing out on that would streamline, speed up and generally improve my editing process.

K sell me it :)
 
the fcpx free trial corrupted my mac recently lol. backup your stuff before you give it a go
 
I've been using CS6 a lot over the last couple days. God, this program is laggy. When selecting clips on the timeline I have major delays in my drag and drop operations. When I think the drop has been acknowledge, I move my mouse to another edit point only to realize the "lag" or "delay" didn't take effect yet and was plopped in the middle of my new edit point.

Can't we get CRISP, SMOOTH, editing timeline? I'm constantly hitting "undo" which is workable but not ideal.

If FCPX is better, and with R3D support. I might give it another look. Does anyone know if the new FCPX has a "media manger" type window workflow like CS6?
 
I don't have that with Premiere CS6 until I foolishly startb to add neatvideo. Do you think it might be a byproduct of your drives or system struggling with R3D playback rather than Premiere?
 
Had a play around with the FCPX trial and found there is a lot to like but still LOTS of things to annoy and frustrate in equal measures.

I think for short form corporate work it could be great. The interface while odd at first is very very intuitive and you can pick the basics up much more quickly than any other software I've used.

We all had our fingers burned by Apple when they killed FCP so even although FCPX is making huge strides forward, I'm nervous and treating it with a degree of caution.

If you collaborate a lot on projects, it is not great at the moment and there are still a number of "pro" options missing BUT it made me smile a lot and I said to myself "wow" on quite a few occasions while discovering what it could do :o)

Scott
 
I'm currently investigating what editing programs I will use to edit my current documentary movie. It looks like I will use FCPX.
I remember looking at iMovie years ago thinking, this is brilliant, so easy to browse and navigate, why can't I do that in Premiere. Well with FCPX you can but have access to more pro tools.

I have only used Premiere before so not FCP7 or Avid.
- FCPX seems to have a very good media manager. So easy to browse and tag and see what you got.
- Red integration is very good. I really like that it generates proxies in the background.
- IT feels very fast for previewing especially proxies, but I can work on Red Raw on my laptop too, it's just a bit slower.
- The editing workflow seems powerful with magnetic timeline, it's just so much easier to add clips quickly afte another. Much less moving clips back and forward that I remember from Premiere.
- One of the cooler featurs is how fast it is to skim in full screen. Just press l a few times and it goes super fast forward in time. Haven't experienced this before but I have sure missed it.
- For simpler effects and color grading it's very good. Reminds me a bit of Lightroom that you have access to super easy gradients. For more complex grading it's absolutely not good enough. Premiere is much better since you have curves etc, but more clunky to work with and I wouldn't grade in it anyway.
- I really like the speed they improve the software. They really do seem to listen and most features are implemented very cleverly.

I expect there to be some issues left. You almost have to work in ProRes which is great, but I would like to grade on PC and Davinci doesn't support prores on PC, ugh.
Also it seems to be problematic to get sound into ProTools, but possible. Just need some plugins and workarounds.

I'm verifying the chain of editing in all directions <->grading (Davinci and After Effects) <->vfx (After Effects) <->sound (Proress)
I can post what I find but would be great to hear more experienced people that have worked on major movies etc before.
/Andreas
 
It's a $300 professional tool on a $20 OS.
What could possibly go wrong.


33v2be1.jpg


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/final-cut-pro/id424389933?mt=12
 
If you want to take a serious stab at it then I seriously recommend some online training. I have been editing for 25 years and I set my ego aside (and the part of me that wants to figure everything out on my own) to do the traing offered by Larry Jordan.

Well worth it.

When you understand what has been, changed, why it has been changed and the logic of how the application is laid out, it's a much smoother transition.

This is the go forward application for editing with Apple. It is a powerful tool still being refined. Watching your timeline and searching for shots is something you never thought you would need, but it's nice.

As a pure editor, after the initial hump, you realize it works more with the editors brain than against it, (which at first you might think if you don't do the training).

most other software, rcx, davinci, have copied or have similar easy on the eyes gui's.

try it on personal projects first.



David
 
If. You are already on CS6, then FcpX doesn't make much sense, imo.

Adobe seems to be better poised to support the professional film maker and are more inclined to actually listen to the end user than Apple, who deigns what THEY think you need and then tells you to either use it or stuff it.
 
I'm going to #GASP!# Start a very important TV Commercial on Final Cut Pro X. I feel confident I can make a good edit on it, my main problem will be when I send it to ONLINE. No one has it in the Post Houses at least integrated in grading and online workflows. But Heck, someone has to be the @sshole and if they want this project for finishing and compositing, then they will have to be able to talk with me and Final Cut Pro X.

What I like about X so far is that I-m getting the same reliability of old Final Cut Pro in this 10.0.7 version. I can get good r3d performance (I have a rocket in a thunderbolt case) and after some very basic edits am starting to get the hang of it. Of course this is not a feature but a 30 sec tv commercial, but should be interesting.
 
David Battistella said:
This is generally the experience of people with an open mind who take the time to understand wtf is going on with the software.

David
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree. People want to hear that one app is better than all the others and argue about why everyone should use it. Truth is they're all pretty good these days, and what really matters is your workflow. I'm a one man band over here, and I use all the CS6 apps, so Premiere makes a lot of sense for me. If I was just editing in a larger post pipeline FCPX or Media Composer might make more sense.
 
I thought about that. So I tried a similar edit with the files on my main drive which tests at 350 MB/s Read and Write. Still, when dragging files from one spot on the timeline, the responsiveness of Ppro is terrible and cause many mistakes.

Ben Scott said:
I don't have that with Premiere CS6 until I foolishly startb to add neatvideo. Do you think it might be a byproduct of your drives or system struggling with R3D playback rather than Premiere?
Click to expand...
 
I wish that was the case Matt. Besides Wes Howell at Adobe, their support is TERRIBLE. It's outsourced, India, Philippines. If you really want solutions and are in a rush, better have friends because Adobe will leave you in a lurch.

Bring tech support back into the US, I'm not here to teach these guys English.

ADOBE you are just pissing off the professionals. Glad to work with you guys but at least give us people with command of English and experience using CS6. I'd love to pay a premium even. A "call Larry Jordan" line would be fantastic.


Matt Gottshalk said:
Adobe seems to be better poised to support the professional film maker
Click to expand...
 
Will Keir said:
I've been using CS6 a lot over the last couple days. God, this program is laggy. When selecting clips on the timeline I have major delays in my drag and drop operations. When I think the drop has been acknowledge, I move my mouse to another edit point only to realize the "lag" or "delay" didn't take effect yet and was plopped in the middle of my new edit point.

Can't we get CRISP, SMOOTH, editing timeline? I'm constantly hitting "undo" which is workable but not ideal.

If FCPX is better, and with R3D support. I might give it another look. Does anyone know if the new FCPX has a "media manger" type window workflow like CS6?
Click to expand...



Will, what's your setup?

I cut 5K 2:1 on my MacBook Pro Retina w/ 512GB SSD, 2.7 Quad and 16GBs of RAM at 1/4 and 1/2 resolution and I have never had any issues with Premiere.

I played around with FCX when it first came out and actually updated and got back into it today to test out some R3Ds. I find it still as un-intuitive as I first did. Maybe I'm behind in the times, but I can't get over the UI. I would argue that coming from Final Cut 7, where I started, the jump to Premiere is pretty comfortable.
 
FCPX = iMovie Pro, does certain things well, but has many the same pit falls and limitations.
 
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