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FCPX comparison ’17 Quad iMac to Octo Core iMac Pro
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[greg janza] “However, the proxy workflow overall is an inefficient use of an editor’s time.”
Unless your in Avid, where you don’t actually have to “make” proxies at all. It’s literally just a button press now as of v8 and your working in 1/4 or 1/16 resolution proxies at literally the flick of switch.
I’m not sure what kind of voodoo is going on under the hood but it works and allows me to play back and do rough edits of 8k r3d clips on 2015 Imac. Going back to full res is just another press of the button. No time needed.
And..if those resolutions aren’t cutting it for you for whatever reason, you can make lower res proxies in the actual background and they wont pause baking while you do other work or pull selects from the clips.
They really took background process and proxy workflows to the next level this year with the v8 update. Otherwise I agree – Letting files bake over night isnt always a viable option and these days all my assits have time to do for me is make proxies for our Premiere Pro projects.
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[Bill Davis] particularly knowing that I can play with scene order, juxtaposition and move things that “feel adjacent” into that type of adjacency on a whim, and instantly undo or re-rearrange them – seems like something I’d be very hard pressed to give up.
A solid proxy workflow encourages that type of experimentation. “
How out of curiosity is that limited to using proxies?
That just sounds like non linear editing to me with or without proxy. No matter the media whether it be pro res 4444, h264/5 proxy, or blackmagic raw – its all manipulated in the same way. The media doesn’t affect experimentation or enhance creativity.
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[Michael Hancock] “You should have tried other NLEs. They didn’t all have that problem. :-)”
Yep, an FCP “legacy” problem.
FWIW – I’m working a lot with shared storage and 4K files. We (the editors) have collectively all decided that going forward, proxy workflow is the way to go. Yes, there’s extra time required to transcode proxies, but the ultimate time savings for more fluid editing is more than enough to offset it. Besides, you can often let the proxies cook overnight.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[andy patterson] “FCPX cannot play back 4K R3D files at full resolution without dropping frames using a 2017 iMac.”
Uh it can and it does using a 2015 Imac so I’m not sure what your talking about, the 2017 should handle it with ease. Obviously each person’s setups will have different variables affecting playback (drive speed being the biggest factor IMO) but it’s definitely doable and NO Im not going to make you a video of it.
Premiere Pro can play back the same clips as well, but in actual editing on a timeline I have to drop resolution to 1/4 to get smooth playback of my sequence so take that whats its worth.
At the end of the day it’s very insignificant to me whether my computer can play back 4k+ natively anyways because I dont cut with native media so I have a feeling this 2015 Imca is going to last me a very long time.
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[Neil Goodman] “Uh it can and it does using a 2015 Imac so I’m not sure what your talking about, the 2017 should handle it with ease. Obviously each person’s setups will have different variables affecting playback (drive speed being the biggest factor IMO) but it’s definitely doable and NO Im not going to make you a video of it.”
I agree except you don’t see Premiere Pro user saying FCPX uses old laggy coding. Edius has no GPU acceleration so spending $800.00 on an 8 core CPU would be better than spending $350.00 on a CPU and $450.00 on a GPU. That is why for some people FCPX works better on their Mac Pro but for others Premiere Pro works better. I have always said they both work just fine.
[Neil Goodman] “Premiere Pro can play back the same clips as well, but in actual editing on a timeline I have to drop resolution to 1/4 to get smooth playback of my sequence so take that whats its worth.”
It depends on the system. You stated that yourself already. When using AVCHD FCPX does have an advantage over Premiere Pro but not Edius. FCPX also has an advantage over Premiere Pro more often than not when using a laptop. Once you get a $1,200.00 desktop PC Premiere Pro might have an advantage. Do you know why that is?
[Neil Goodman] “At the end of the day it’s very insignificant to me whether my computer can play back 4k+ natively anyways because I dont cut with native media so I have a feeling this 2015 Imca is going to last me a very long time.”
I am not saying your system does not work. I am saying people over hype FCPX and the Apple products. My PC is using an old Haswell CPU clocked at 3.4 GHZ. It can play 6 layers of native AVCHD1080P with color correction at full resolution and 8 layers of Red One files at 1/4 resolution. My system can play back a single native 4K R3D file at full resolution without dropping frames. I say it does not drop frames because they playback is smooth. The drop frame indicator will go on after about 15 seconds of play. The bottom line is you would never notice it dropped a frame or two if I let it play for 5 minutes. Having said that my CPU and GPU are working extremely hard to play it back at full resolution so I set playback to 1/4 resolution. I don’t doubt I could playback 8 layers of 8K R3D files if I drop down to 1/8 resolution.
I guess what I am asking is if FCPX can playback 4K R3D files on a $8,000.00 iMac Pro at full resolution without dropping frames should I be impressed? Wouldn’t the fact that Premiere Pro can playback 4K R3D files at full resolution on a $1,400.00 gaming PC seem more impressive? Keep in mind many people claim you need an $8000.00 HP workstation to edit native AVCHD or R3D files using Premiere Pro. That statement is not true but many people insist it is and they also insist Premiere Pro uses old and sluggish coding even though reality says differently. It is OK to like FCPX and the Apple products but I myself don’t over hype them nor should anyone else.
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[Bill Davis] “For my work, the speed of working with proxies until the shape of the cut is determined – particularly knowing that I can play with scene order, juxtaposition and move things that “feel adjacent” into that type of adjacency on a whim, and instantly undo or re-rearrange them – seems like something I’d be very hard pressed to give up.”
I can do all that without needing to use proxy files on a $850.00 PC using Premiere Pro. For collaboration projects proxies can be useful.
[Bill Davis] “A solid proxy workflow encourages that type of experimentation.”
So does working with camera raw files using Premiere Pro. Don’t get me wrong I know FCPX can work with raw files in real-time if you use an iMac Pro vs an Apple Mac Book.
[Bill Davis] “I spent so many years seeing my timelines as assemblies tied to RENDER files that went offline if I moved anything out to place – to have the freedom to move anything anywhere without penalty is one of the greatest joys of modern editing.
That’s the way I see it anyway.”
The days of yesteryear are a thing of the past.
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Bullshit. It can.
This isn’t an fcpx vs premiere debate. This post is a look at Apple hardware. The forum isn’t fcpx vs Adobe.
Co-owner at Pollen Studio
http://www.pollenstudio.co.uk -
Not to beat a dead horse, but according to the benchmarks here – “Low End iMac Pro versus two Mac Pros and one iMac 5K” – an old cheese grater tower with a Radeon Vegas GPU (cMP 12c Vega64) beats the pants off the trash can nMpro in the GPU tests and is about even in the CPU tests. Yet more proof of what a terrible piece of crap the nMpro was and is and why an upgradable design is so valuable.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
“In what way?”
When you factor in that most raids now are large enough to handle multiple 4k projects, it’s much easier to copy the raw media to a raid and then start working instead of adding in the time consuming extra step of proxy creation. The one caveat being that your system needs to be fast enough to handle 4k full res playback.
I Hate Television. I Hate It As Much As Peanuts. But I Can’t Stop Eating Peanuts.
– Orson Welles -
[andy patterson] “I agree except you don’t see Premiere Pro user saying FCPX uses old laggy coding.”
But you said that it cant. now you agree? OK.
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