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What do you mean by Fast?
SO I have been reading a lot on how FCPX is fast. What I want to know is what do you mean by fast. There doesn’t seem to be a cosenses;
For some fast means you get your footage in to the NLE quickly without transcoding
For others it means Render Time is shorter
Still others it means the ability to sift though footage to find what you want.
And lastly some mean they are able to actually arange a sequence on a timeline quicker.
SO what does Fast mean to you? and what is most critical in your workflow?
Mike Jeffs
Video Coordinator
BYU-Idaho -
29 Replies
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Not sure what you’re looking for Mike.
Yes. Yes. Yes. It’s all important to me. It’s like asking which finger I like better. I use them all. I like them all.
Not transcoding…that’s huuuuge.
Short render time, with occasional work in the background. That’s big too.
Our system at work has true background rendering, with 5 dedicated computers, and that’s an awesome thing. I hope FCP heads that way sometime.
Sifting through the footage, that’s huuuuggge. The instant filtering by typing in part of the name, is tremendous. Filtering keywords, favorites and rejected is gigantic. I’m hoping they can add a filter for used footage, and give me the reverse match frame back.
Snappy timeline work, that’s enormous. I get a physical charge from moving things around in the timeline. And it’s not just arranging things. I’m enjoying the skimmer. I don’t need to click to play things anymore. I slide my finger gently over the trackpad and hit the spacebar. It’s so elegant, it gives me joy.
The worst thing for me is wasted time. There are countless times when I’m organizing, or transcoding, or rendering when I’m thinking “I could be doing something useful here”. I still get this in FCX, but some of that is stuff that they will hopefully fix or add to later versions.
The seemless workflow from mind to hand to timeline is what we’re working towards here, and I’m so addicted to it that I have barely touched FCP7 since June.
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FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com -
What i’m getting at is that really all current new NLEs are fast when it come to certain workflows. So when people try and sell that FCPX is faster I want to know excatly what faster are they talking about.
When you look at it they all have major points when it some to speed.
1)Get your footage in to the NLE quickly without transcoding. FCPX has background transcoding, Avid has AMA, and Adobe is codec agnostic.
2) Render Time is shorter. FCPX has background rendering (sorta of), Avid doesn’t need to render for most effects (even stacked ones) Adobe has Cuda accelaration.
3) Sift though footage to find what you want. FCPX has the keyword and database metadata searching. Avid has Phrasefind, Script Sync and search for keywords. Adobe I don’t know but I’m sure it has something.
6) Arange a sequence on a timeline quicker. FCPX has magnitic timeline (helps some I guess) and skimmer. Avid has its Trim mode and multicam. Adobe has a more traditional FCP-like editing.
Again not one of the Major NLEs corner the market when it comes to being “fast” some do better in one aspect while others shine in another. so i was curious as to when people us the term its fast what workflows do they mean.
Maybe this is all a jumble but it make sense in my head, if it doesn’t in anyone elses well just Ignore my ranting 🙂
Mike Jeffs
Video Coordinator
BYU-Idaho -
Just to clarify a much overlooked point when it comes to rendering in FCPX, like Avid for most effects you don’t NEED to render at all until final output. I have background rendering switched off.
“FCPX Agitator”
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No worries.
For me, I feel like FCP knows where I’m going and has anticipated things for me. I’ve always loved FCP because there is 5-10 ways of doing things, and they are all good. There’s not a lot of compromising to get things to work. (FCP in general) Apple has always had that magic combination of hardware and software that lets me be creative.
FCP is not necessarily intuitive in the sense that I can learn it without looking at a book. I’d say it’s intuitive in that once you “understand” the software, it just makes sense, and you can find things and get them to work easily. The workflow works like your brain does, so that you and the application start to work in sync. In my world, I depend alot on muscle memory, so that my brain is free to create. That’s what I like about Final Cut in general.
FCX is like that, but it’s quite immature so it’s not there yet. I believe that it will get there.
I feel like Final Cut is like driving a small sports car, and Avid and Adobe are more like driving the family van. They will all get me where I’m going, but I’ll have a lot more fun in the sports car, and fun is an energy that feeds our edits.
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FCX. She tempts me, abuses me, beats me up, makes me feel worthless, then in the end she comes around, helps me get my work done, gives me hope and I can’t stop thinking about her.Mark Morache
Avid/Xpri/FCP7/FCX
Evening Magazine,Seattle, WA
https://fcpx.wordpress.com -
How about 5 stacked Color Corrections including 2 masks and topped off with a mild Sharpen filter – all with no choking on 1080p footage – similar to Mercury playback in PPro but no special card required! And the results are just crazy good – as good and faster than using Color, which I loved.
Happy New Year!
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California -
All excellent points. This is exactly how I feel every time people say it’s ‘fast.’ They are ALL fast.
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[Lance Bachelder] “How about 5 stacked Color Corrections including 2 masks and topped off with a mild Sharpen filter – all with no choking on 1080p footage – similar to Mercury playback in PPro but no special card required! And the results are just crazy good – as good and faster than using Color, which I loved.”
I just made a little test on Premiere. I set up 15 simultaneous tracks with 1080P footage shot on a Canon 5D mk II on top of each other. I put a different color corrector, mask, sharpen plugin and gaussian blur on each. Then I pressed play and what do you know. All ran in lovely real-time and here’s the kicker: I don’t even have a “special card”. I have a CUDA enabled GTX 260 that I can tell Premiere to use even it is not officially supported.
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So you have a special card – take out the nVidia and plop in an ATI card… Seriously PPro runs amazing on a good card, I’ve tested the GTX570 and wow! But I’m not talking about stacking tracks – the top track is all that matters, my point was that I had a bunch of real world stuff on a clip and it ran faster/smoother than any NLE I’ve tried that cost under $300…
Lance Bachelder
Writer, Editor, Director
Irvine, California -
[Mike Jeffs] “FCPX has magnitic timeline (helps some I guess)”
Yes it helps very much in speed.
I have made this point here before. Since the audio is linked to the video by default you are dealing with fewer items in the timeline.
Same information down there, just fewer items.
Look at it this way, say I’m in a grocery store and they hand me 6 bags or 2 bags. Same items I bought just
in two bags instead of 6. I can move faster with 2 instead of 6. It seems common sense to me if I have things consolidated it would speed things up.Like having my tools spread out all over my garage or in one tool box.
I don’t need timecode for syncing multi-camera because it syncs through sound waves. I don’t have to waste time in the field doing that.
I can preview effects and looks in real time before I use them.
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Mike-
Have you used FCPX much?
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