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FCP-X plus new MacPro = 16 track Multicam of 4k footage? Really??.
The tea leaf readers have been dissecting the recent images from last weeks Apple Event – and in both the FCP.CO story and the B-roll images from the Guardian (London Newspaper) story – appear to include image caps of Dean Devlin in LA working on what appears to be a high end multi-cam edit where they have 16 cameras of 4k content being served from the new MacPro for real time editing.
If this is accurate, we’re about to see a massive increase in production speed and capacity at a pretty astonishing price point – thanks to Apple’s new hardware and the modern code in FCP-X.
The photo cap of Devlin working at his edit station and seeing that relatively tiny little black tube – and knowing that it’s likely that the tube is what’s processing those massive content streams is a bit like seeing “The Jetsons” come to life.
Wow.
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113 Replies
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No one has any idea what that image means. There is zero indication that this is a multi-cam clip made up of original or optimized 4K clips. Could easily be 1/2-res proxies or even 1/4-res (assuming Apple is doing additional codec options for 4K variations). We’ll see, Seems to me it’s much closer to Avid’s 9-way splits using m-resolutions in 1999 for SD multi-cam cuts 😉 Remember – all you are seeing is a multi-angle viewer.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Sounds interesting but a screen shot does not always tell the whole story. Interesting times are ahead.
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[Andy Branner] “Like I said before, this was also shown live to several people after the event. I just unfortunately can’t find the link. They spoke of “16 angle, unrendered, 4K multicam”.”
Format is going to be what matters here. Is it the 4:2:2 ProRes flavor of 4k that will be in the Blackmagic 4k camera? What if it’s not quite as easy with XAVC, much less REDCODE.
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But even if it’s one or another form of Proxy – does that really matter?
The point is to present the editor with an effective system for assessing and making editorial and image processing DECISIONS. The way X appears to work even in Proxy – the system agily switches back and forth between source clips depending on what you’re doing.
I’m sure every X user here has parked on a frame of content which, after a brief lag, “resolves” to a better picture as the system swaps out what was a temp image for a freshly calculated higher resolution one.
If I’m working with 4K footage – if X “merely” does something similar – it seems to me that this effectively gives me everything I’d want.
I can work rapidly and easily to make decisions – check when and if I choose to expose the underlying quality of my composites or color adjustments – then go back to doing the decision making I actually need to accomplish.
If that’s an accurate description – then what’s the point of trying to pass 16 4K streams through the box? I’m certainly not going to be playing them out to 16 4K large screen monitors. So the construction seems perfectly suited for meeting the needs of the editing process.
If my thinking is wrong on this, please someone enlighten me.
But it seems to me that the holy grail shouldn’t be to try to maintain massive pipelines when the tasks you are doing actually only require small hoses. Save the massive pipelines for when you actually need to deploy huge amounts of water.
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.
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[Andy Branner] “Format is irrelevant.”
No, it’s not irrelevant at all. Format is where you trade bandwidth (disk speed) against decode complexity (CPU/GPU). If we’re looking at multiple channels of 4K playback on a given system, how the system is stressed and where the bottlenecks lie is germane to the conversation.
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 -
[Bill Davis] “But it seems to me that the holy grail shouldn’t be to try to maintain massive pipelines when the tasks you are doing actually only require small hoses. Save the massive pipelines for when you actually need to deploy huge amounts of water.”
I agree wholeheartedly. The real point is to get stuff done.
It’s only if we’re using multichannel 4K playback as a way of relating the computer’s performance and the software’s performance to other systems that it’s critical for us to understand what’s going on under the hood.
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 -
[Oliver Peters] “No one has any idea what that image means.”
Well, I’ll disagree there.
I can feel confident that it means that at least one experienced Hollywood TV producer has had the chance to work (in advance of it’s public release) with some version of the new MacPro running FCP-X code – and at some point tested it in terms of Multi-cam workflow on top tier professional footage.
I agree that all the subtleties of the results are unknown. But at least we know the tests have happened. And whatever the results, Apple is comfortable with their marketing department using the images for public consumption.
The fact illustrated thusly can only go a couple of ways in the long run.
When the new Pro comes out – people can find it exceeds, or it meets, or falls short – of their expectations.
One of those will be true for everyone.
But the images are instructive if for nothing else in shoring up Apple’s contention that they never abandoned a strong focus on creating and marketing tools targeted at professional visual content creation.
The rest is guesswork – as I plainly noted in my original post.
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.
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[Walter Soyka] “It’s only if we’re using multichannel 4K playback as a way of relating the computer’s performance and the software’s performance to other systems that it’s critical for us to understand what’s going on under the hood.
“Precisely. And for those for whom benchmarks are an end in themselves – or who have high end needs that require dependable metrics for decision making – then the story will be told soon and this is just an early heads up.
For those who just want to import footage from real cameras and get real editing done on a day to day basis – then the fact that it appears that the new MacPro is being tested as to how it does that – in a very professional and deadline driven and fully proven production operation – should be good news.
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.
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[Andy Branner] “But of course assuming that because it can do a whopping SIXTEEN STREAMS of XAVC”
Should probably note that because of the way they designed the multi-cam pagination – and how it switches references so rapidly – this means you can actually effectively work with 64 streams (4 banks of 16) should you need that.
Just 16 at a time.
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.
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[Andy Branner] “Oh puh-leeeeze. Here we go again… “
We are not going. You are.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know what this demo were actually showing so we could have a reasonable discussion about it instead of guessing?
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
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