FCP X and the Future of Editing

[Frank Gothmann]

What’s most interesting to me is, again, the misconception that 64bit automatically equals faster in people’s minds. It just doesn’t. It has the potential but if the code doesn’t deliver it can be as slow or even slower than 32bit.

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[Bret Williams]

Decent article, but this quote is moronic –

“The editor, free from worry about accidentally knocking clips or complex sequences out of sync, can playfully shuffle clips and sequences, focusing entirely on story structure.”

I would have to disagree and say that FCP X is the most prone NLE there ever was to screwing up a project. (And it doesn’t warn you whatsoever nor have any visual representation of what’s in sync.) Clip connections being the culprit of course. AND ripple editing. Sure, it makes it easy to swap a clip, but it better not be in the primary with other clips or a secondary connected to it! Since they’ll all move and screw up the sync. And lord forbid you delete a clip in the primary and everything shift down, except your music of course, which will now be out of sync.

Both of the above have ways to prevent them from happening. In .06, you can hold down the tilde key to keep connected clips from moving when moving a clip or slip/sliding it, and you can shift delete to keep the timeline from rippling when deleting a clip. In most NLEs they consider time and sync to be a bit more important, as it should be. I just think X has got the default mode a bit backward. Tilde key mode should be the default behavior, and rippling should require mode toggle.

[Bill Davis]

[Frank Gothmann] “What’s most interesting to me is, again, the misconception that 64bit automatically equals faster in people’s minds. It just doesn’t. It has the potential but if the code doesn’t deliver it can be as slow or even slower than 32bit.”

I know it’s kinda “glass half full” – but isn’t the flip of this also accurate?

Which is to say that with UNLESS you have a 64bit code base – you are RESTRICTED from the potential for subsequent speed increases?

It’s the same exact thing – but seen in this light -it’s kinda like slogging you way through a tough college class – paying a small penalty today for the realistic opportunity to have a much better tomorrow.

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.

[Ted Irving]

I’ll just throw in my teenie weenie comment on the latest version of FCPX which is 10.06. And I gotta say, I love being able to export and the export is a hidden process. Instead of sitting and waiting to render or watching an export bar, I can go on to other timelines and edit. Plus I can export multiple timelines with this new hidden feature while not having to do it in Compressor. That is still an option, but this is very liberating for me. I primarily edit sports packages and once I’m done with one i jump on to the next and now i don’t have any wait time. It’s weird getting used to because I”m used to seeing an export window. I have a lot of praise for FCPX and some complaints, but my guess is that down the road all of this will occur on a tablet with a stylus or your finger. just look at windows 8. Just imagine what Avid Media Composer will look like running on 8. Cool!

Ted Irving
Freelance Content Creation
CBS MaxPreps/BBN3
http://www.tedtv.tv
tedirving@yahoo.com

[Walter Soyka]

[Bill Davis] ” know it’s kinda “glass half full” – but isn’t the flip of this also accurate? Which is to say that with UNLESS you have a 64bit code base – you are RESTRICTED from the potential for subsequent speed increases? It’s the same exact thing – but seen in this light -it’s kinda like slogging you way through a tough college class – paying a small penalty today for the realistic opportunity to have a much better tomorrow.”

Sort of, but not necessarily.

The primary benefit of 64-bit computing is access to larger pools of memory. 32-bit applications are limited to a theoretical maximum of 4 GB of RAM. Additionally, there are a few specific computations that are faster with 64-bit processing due to the wider registers.

Some instructions on 64-bit processors can actually run slower than their 32-bit counterparts, since they require moving twice as much information around.

Practically speaking, the newest Macs mostly ship with 8 GB of RAM, so on these systems, after OS X overhead, other applications, and a bit of free space, FCPX is unlikely to be able to grab much more than 4 GB of RAM anyway, negating the primary benefit of 64-bit architecture.

To Frank’s point, it’s not being 64-bit that makes FCPX so fast — I think most of the speed increase comes from better exploiting the CPUs and GPUs in modern systems. To your point, going 64-bit and having access to more RAM makes it easier for a developer to make their application run faster, but it’s neither necessary nor sufficient for speed.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Andy Neil]

[Bret Williams] “I would have to disagree and say that FCP X is the most prone NLE there ever was to screwing up a project. “

I have to say, I feel like you’re mis-representing FCPX quite a bit, Bret. First of all you talk about all the limiations X has with regards to moving and deleting clips, and then mention in the subsequent paragraph that there are simple keystroke actions to prevent those problems. It’s like you’re saying, “FCPX has all these problems but really they don’t so nevermind.”

Just because the default behavior has been flipped does not make the program more prone to sync issues. You just have to learn to use it that way. In fact, in my editing, it’s rarer that I want to delete a clip and leave a gap than want to close that gap. So to me, X’s default behavior makes perfect sense.

And while I don’t think anyone will argue that it’s a good idea that FCPX doesn’t have sync indicators, you’re being a bit insincere about FCPX’s ability to maintain sync. The article was clearly talking about how since video and audio are married as a single clip, you don’t have to worry about losing sync, and that’s completely true. Sync issues are even less of a problem now with 10.0.06 because you can edit and keyframe individual channels of audio without detaching.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Franz Bieberkopf]

Stunning.

His final statement after he’s carefully dressed the usual tropes in Historical Import:

“I cut a 17-minute documentary one evening last summer … I loaded files, reviewed footage, cut picture, sound, music, added titles and credits, and finished in 11 hours straight. There was no initial rough cut, then fine cut. … The finished results were projected before an audience the following morning.”

Debate over.

My favourite part was this though (and it was hard to choose):

“As an NLE designer today, where would you draw the line between professional and nonprofessional? Which features would you include or deny?”

This is the real point – aren’t we all NLE designers? Haven’t the old distinction been creatively disrupted? Isn’t there a bit of the “Pro” Software Designer in all of us? In short, why rely on the professionals at Apple when there’s been such dramatic democratization of the tools and resources?

Franz.

[David Lawrence]

Yep, same old same old. Guess the author missed the past year and a half of this forum. My favorite part:

The uncluttered interface is key to understanding how radically innovative FCP X truly is. Conventional timelines resemble orchestral scores, with dozens of staffs representing myriad instruments and sections, each charted across time. In a conventional NLE timeline, video and audio tracks can similarly number in the dozens, overflowing even the largest display. In many cases, these tracks are mostly empty, containing only a handful of clips. Arguably, a massive waste of precious screen real estate is the result.

Gee, I thought all that “clutter” on the timeline including empty space was information.

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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
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[Oliver Peters]

[Bret Williams] “I would have to disagree and say that FCP X is the most prone NLE there ever was to screwing up a project. “

I completely agree. Plus this is funny coming from Bret, who has largely been very positive about X 😉

I’ve certainly had my share of moments looking at the timeline and wondering what happened (or what I did) to mess it up. Call it operator error if you like, but the design of X is such that it’s very easy to make unintended edits, which are often not discovered until later. Things like removing a transition, causing the clip to shift position, because you’ve lost the length of media equal to half of the transition’s duration. Then “helped” by the magnetic timeline. Yuk!

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Oliver Peters]

[David Lawrence] “Yep, same old same old. Guess the author missed the past year and a half of this forum”

The irony is he talks of cluttered timelines because of tracks. Yet I’ve spent far more time shifting my timeline around vertically in X than I have in other track-based NLEs.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com