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FCPX and very occasional lag.
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[Oliver Peters] “[Charlie Austin] “I guess you’re right… I’m getting a little thin-skinned lately, which is probably not the best skin type to have. LOL FWIW, I find your posts to be informative and reasonable. :-)”
Thanks. I do realize some of these points sound like a litany of complaints. Obviously if I weren’t using the app productively, I wouldn’t put it in front of clients. That’s far from the case, as I’ve done almost every session through it for months. There are times where I have to tap-dance around some of these items, but on balance, there are way more pros than cons. For me – and others on this list – at least that’s been the experience.”
Agreed. I do think that, in some cases, problems with people’s installations are attributed to problems with X, but that’s understandable. As you point out, for a lot of people, myself included, the pro’s outweigh the cons. And there certainly are cons, but no deal breakers for me. I have to do the tap dance now and again, and I need to keep a copy of FCP 7 around to do things like capture to tape. Which I could do in X with a 3’rd party app, but it’s all going to a central server so why not use 7, since it works.
That’s sort of an example of how I see X’s shortcomings. I know that lack of tape based capabilities is a big deal for some folks. I guess I just look at it differently. The last 2 jobs I’ve started in X have had DV CAM sources. But my reaction isn’t disappointment that X doesn’t do this well, it’s more like “what the hell is wrong with this dept. of this studio?!” They’re kind of in the minority now. We get features from the same studio (and most others FWIW) as nice HD files on drives, but these guys still send tapes? Which have to be captured in real time, sometimes have TC breaks and, my favorite… get eaten by the deck (knock wood) etc etc. Oh well… they’ll change eventually and I’ll work around it ’til they do.
Sorry for that OT rant… i’m just digitizing crap when i could be cutting it so it’s on my little mind. 🙂
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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
[Charlie Austin] ” The last 2 jobs I’ve started in X have had DV CAM sources. But my reaction isn’t disappointment that X doesn’t do this well, it’s more like “what the hell is wrong with this dept. of this studio?!” They’re kind of in the minority now. We get features from the same studio (and most others FWIW) as nice HD files on drives, but these guys still send tapes?”
I’m fortunate in that I have not needed to work with tape much over the past few years. There are still enough shops in town that have decks, so that on the few occasions where tape ingest or output is required, I can simply buy time, walk in with a drive and get the job done. Far cheaper for me (or the company I’m freelancing for) to do that than invest in the purchase and maintenance of tape decks. Plus the facilities who still have them, make some additional revenue off of that investment. So it’s really a win-win.
Ironically, I think FCP X is the best-suited NLE for a server-based environment. If you look at the AS-11 integration and the Hamburg Pro Audio tools, X actually seems to make a very nice editing client connected to a central server operation. So down the road, X might easily become the preferred NLE for news editing. That’s a bit different than my world, but the hooks seem to be there.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Charlie Austin] “That’s sort of an example of how I see X’s shortcomings. I know that lack of tape based capabilities is a big deal for some folks. I guess I just look at it differently. The last 2 jobs I’ve started in X have had DV CAM sources. But my reaction isn’t disappointment that X doesn’t do this well, it’s more like “what the hell is wrong with this dept. of this studio?!” They’re kind of in the minority now. We get features from the same studio (and most others FWIW) as nice HD files on drives, but these guys still send tapes? Which have to be captured in real time, sometimes have TC breaks and, my favorite… get eaten by the deck (knock wood) etc etc. Oh well… they’ll change eventually and I’ll work around it ’til they do.
Sorry for that OT rant… i’m just digitizing crap when i could be cutting it so it’s on my little mind. :-)”
I guess this if the fundamental difference between how folks perceive things. Admittedly I am not an edit for hire guy, but Apple’s philosophy of only the newest and shiniest rubs me the wrong way. I love working with old and new technology in my attempt to create a certain look. That Apple seems to be saying: “Gee, you can only embrace tapeless if you want to work with us” feels a big limitation in an artistic sense. Hey if I have a reason for shooting on HDV, DV, Betacam, or VHS, who is Apple to say, no you can’t do that?
I recently acquired a large collection of stuff that was shot by many of my artist friends on VHS in the 80s and 90s. Far from bemoaning having to “digitizing crap,” going through this very experimental footage is revealing gems of creativity. And it has a look that is all its own.
Admittedly, I am very small potatoes in the scheme of things and my artistic concerns aren’t all that widespread. But still…
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[Clint Wardlow] “”Gee, you can only embrace tapeless if you want to work with us” feels a big limitation in an artistic sense. Hey if I have a reason for shooting on HDV, DV, Betacam, or VHS, who is Apple to say, no you can’t do that?”
Of course if you need to you can ingest tape from other sources quite easily using your video cards capture utility
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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[Clint Wardlow] “That Apple seems to be saying: “Gee, you can only embrace tapeless if you want to work with us” feels a big limitation in an artistic sense. Hey if I have a reason for shooting on HDV, DV, Betacam, or VHS, who is Apple to say, no you can’t do that?”
I don’t believe that’s not what Apple is saying at all. Rather, why should they re-build that function for the very few users who might need it. The solution already exists in the utilities included with the cards you will need anyway. Or with FCP7. It has always been their stated assumption, that users wouldn’t instantly abandon FCP7 to move to X. That’s one of the reasons that the reactions took them by surprise. And FWIW, you can capture HDV into X.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “I don’t believe that’s not what Apple is saying at all. Rather, why should they re-build that function for the very few users who might need it. The solution already exists in the utilities included with the cards you will need anyway. Or with FCP7. It has always been their stated assumption, that users wouldn’t instantly abandon FCP7 to move to X. That’s one of the reasons that the reactions took them by surprise. And FWIW, you can capture HDV into X.”
It is not so much that I can capture the footage. I already have to jump through some hoops to digitize analog video or audio (including buying an an old VHS professional editing deck that allows me to capture audio tracks without internal mixing). And don’t even get me going on how expensive it is to get decent files from super8.
It is more of the idea that Apple seems to want me to update my technology (with the not inconsiderable cost entailed) every two years. But I guess I am just being curmudgeonly on this. Apple sure isn’t alone on this.
It is just my belief that we have been forced into a world of temporary art that dissipates as fast as it is produced. In the future will be locked away in some discarded file format that can’t be opened even if anybody wanted to.
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Which brings up an important point: the engineer guy at the large network (which I can’t name) I freelance at swears that AJA’s tape capture & layback utility is not frame accurate. At least not the layback. For those who archive or deliver on tape this is kind of a deal breaker.
Anyone have thoughts or experience with this? Specifically, the AJA VTR Exchange?
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[Steve Connor] “Of course if you need to you can ingest tape from other sources quite easily using your video cards capture utility”
Unfortunately, there are quite a few workflows where the card utilities are pretty useless or cause a lot of extra work.
“Tape is dead” is far from true in my experience. 70 per cent of the stuff we get or have to deliver tape and that won’t significantly change for quite a while.
Fortunately I have to say; a lot of the stuff we get on hard drive has issues you usually don’t see with tape because it’s coming from bigger post houses.——
“You also agree that you will not use these products for… the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.”
iTunes End User Licence Agreement -
[Oliver Peters] “Ironically, I think FCP X is the best-suited NLE for a server-based environment.”
Yeah, but it’s weird when people say the collaboration in FCPX is no good, when in fact, it works OK if you know how to use it, you actually have a shared environment setup, or use something like John Davidson uses with sparse bundles.
Jeremy
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[Charlie Austin] “No problem, I actually share your disdain for “everything is perfect, you’re doing it wrong!” posts myself. They’re as unhelpful as the “it’s iMovie Pro and Apple hates pros!” posts… Which have been getting under my skin a lot recently for some reason… (and that wasn’t directed at you by the way, just to pre-clear up any potential misunderstanding) 🙂
“Agreed. And you’ve been a terrific asset to the discussion here.
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