10 Things Steve Martin wants in FCP X

[Bret Williams]

[Bill Davis] “Then game on, guys. “

Aw geez Bill I was just kidding with ya. The glass/kool-aid metaphor was too hard to resist. Drinking Kool Aid is ok anyway. I suspect many of us are a bit guilty of that. I mean, have I gone and researched whether the new Samsung is a better more efficient phone for my needs? Nope. I went and bought a new iPhone 6. Quite refreshing.

[Bret Williams]

[David Mathis] “Then, on the other hand, being able to cook from scratch, ready made transitions, generators, effects, and titles in Motion is pretty darned sweet. That is why I really enjoy working with Motion, plus a solid tool for a mere $50, not bad.
“

…transitions, generators, effects, and titles AND TEMPLATES from companies like motionVFX or make your own. If you’re working on graphics for another X editor you don’t have to finalize things. The rigging and publishing tools are way ahead of simple text replace function AE has in Premiere. You can simply provide templates where the editor can change titles, colors, images, anything. But I assume the next AE version is going to tackle that and hopefully the whole playback engine.

I’m starting to enjoy groups over pre comps too. The ability to work on a group in Motion so you’re seeing it in context with the whole project is great. In AE I’m constantly going back and forth from a pre comp to see if the change I made was too big, too small, etc. It’d be great it AE if you could just twirl down a pre comp and have everything available to edit right in the main comp. It’d also sometimes be nice in Motion to double click a group and work on a group all by it’s lonesome without the clutter of other layers.

It will be interesting to see what BMD does. Where people are giving Apple a pass sometimes saying that it’s new, it’ll take awhile to get all the features back, BMD is just racing ahead but at the same time getting the basic building blocks right from the start. Where FCP X started with the futuristic new stuff, and is still working on some of the basic building blocks. My guess is with some features they’ve painted themselves into a corner and are having trouble implementing some features to their liking.

[Erik Lindahl]

I’d be very happy if FCPX didn’t lag so damn much with playback via video interface. Premier Pro or FCP7 doesn’t have that issue.

[Andy Field]

Can’t speak much for FCP X (gave up on it a while ago….Audio tracks fades a real time mixers are just too critical to our work to do without….seriously I’ve tried it it the FCP X way and it’s maddening with all the range selecting and pen tool tweaking for critical mixing –

I can tell you that Premiere Pro CC is the tool for anyone adept at FCP 7 and looking for an easy, faster transition.

We just finished a three day 15 minute a night trade show nightly news program — 4 people on laptops creating a show from scratch – Graphics, animation supers music and complex sound mixes color correction – turned around each day in less than 8 hours…

blistering fast, responsive — and best of all throw any codec – ANY codec in the timeline and edit – no transcoding – period…output to web DVD and MPEG playback all at once through ADOBE media encoder quickly – done in time for a great dinner for the team

I say this being a long time FCP user (since version 1) and being heartbroken over the first Tinkertoy release….yes I know it’s gotten better – yes we’ve used it for multicam edits (very nice – although know that we know Premiere’s multicam – also nice)

as for Bill Davis’s “what would you give up for the list of missing items?” Why do you need to give anything up? it’s like asking a carpenter — “you want a screw driver?…hand me back your hammer” Adobe’s winning over editors who make a living with the tool because it’s listening to its customes and adding what they request.

Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852

[Bill Davis]

[Erik Lindahl] “I’d be very happy if FCPX didn’t lag so damn much with playback via video interface. Premier Pro or FCP7 doesn’t have that issue.”

Erik, what do you mean “via video interface” – I work with X and a USB driven second screen all the time and there’s no lag at all. So it’s not ALL video interfaces.

I see comments of this type quite a bit. But I don’t see it consistently or hear that many editors saying they can’t work efficiently in X. Far from it. Most of us who work in it daily, feel we’re getting out work done extremely fluidly and easily.

I’ve also seen some discussions of how the X interface “slows down” in responsiveness when the Inspector is open, but I don’t experience that at all. So I wonder if it’s some combination of the interaction between number of projects open, or whether footage is optimized or not, or the size of graphics being used, or SOMETHING nobody’s figured out yet – that causes this for some users, but not for wide swaths of other users.

I imagine it’s a hassle. It’s just not a hassle I encounter. Doesn’t mean to imply it’s not an issue. It just don’ts seem to be a “consistent” issue. Which, I’m sure, likely makes is MORE annoying for those who face it.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Walter Soyka]

[Steve Connor] “Why would you need to trade away things in order to get basic functions back into FCP X?”

Development requires prioritization.

You shouldn’t need to trade anything existing away to get new features going forward, but looking backward, Bill’s question makes sense.

Development resources are limited. Designing and implementing a better keyframing system would have taken time away from other things you can take for granted today. Implementing any new feature basically comes at the cost of not implementing some other new feature(s).

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Steve Connor]

[Bill Davis] “I imagine it’s a hassle. It’s just not a hassle I encounter. Doesn’t mean to imply it’s not an issue. It just don’ts seem to be a “consistent” issue. Which, I’m sure, likely makes is MORE annoying for those who face it.
“

I didn’t encounter any lag, apart from on bigger projects, however I’m just finishing a large project on PPro CC and when I go back to FCP X it seems to be that bit slower!

[Erik Lindahl]

I’m using a 2013 MacPro, 8-core, 64GB RAM, 1TB internal SSD, 1TB externa TB2 SSD + 24TB Raid-5 storeage over TB2. All disks clock at around 1000 MB/s. We’re using a UltraStudio 4K for playback. FCPX has a clear lag when playing / stopping in both the timeline and in the browser / library.

I’ve seen the same issue on a 2012 iMac and 2011 MacBook Pro with a smaller BlackMagic TB1 i/o device as well as a 2008 MacPro with a Kona 3 card. All this on everything from MacOS 10.8.x to 10.9.4 with a variety of FCPX releases.

It’s not the hardware, it’s FCPX that simply has some odd overhead / lag even when doing straight cuts / edits.

If I turn OFF A/V output there is zero lag on all the above machines. But then I’m looking at a computer screen preview not a reference monitor preview. Hard to do color critical or editorial decisions then.

[Bill Davis]

[Andy Field] ” Adobe’s winning over editors who make a living with the tool because it’s listening to its customes and adding what they request.”

Well, except for the little “monthly rental ONLY for rest of your career – and don’t dare fail to pay or you’re cut off from all your work product unless you’re a photographer” thing.

I think it’s pretty fair to point out they’re kinda having a bit of an issue with “listening to customers and adding what they request” about that itty bitty aspect, right?

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Charlie Austin] “I agree, If you do notice a difference, please send feedback to Apple. Honestly, CMD-4 is my most used keystroke 🙂
“

I’ve remapped to f16. One button is easier than two! ….At least some of the time!

See?