FCPX metadata–how significant is it? And why?

[Bill Davis]

[Chris Harlan] “Why do you think I can’t do “find whatever” in FCP 7? AND put them in a group? I’m getting the feeling that some folks here never used the more advanced functions of “find.” You DO know that you can search keywords, don’t you? And that you can label sub clips? And that you can combine all kinds of searchable metadata like “Linda,” “MCU,” “Blue,” and “Whatevers?”

And that it would gather your search into a single bin? And that you could make a permanent copy of that bin with a couple of keystrokes?

I’m not trying to be obstinate here, but I’m just not seeing the magic.”

Chris.

Look it’s FINE if you don’t see any advantage. Stick with what you know for as long as it works for you. IIRC, you’re one of the guys planning to migrate to either Adobe or AVID for the future. That’s perfectly cool as well.

I suspect with your hesitance to even CONSIDER that there might be parts of the X design that could be superior to what was implemented in Legacy will be a big stumbling block to your learning it. (I personally don’t do well trying to learn stuff that annoys me. It shuts down my thinking and makes me resist the knowledge,but that’s me – your learning style might work differently for all I know)

Some of us have spent years (11 plus in my case) editing in 7, then Switched to X and have found it both exciting and interesting and satisfying. Others find it a pain. That’s GOT to be personal difference or EVERYONE would feel the same about it and that’s just not what’s happening here.

I’m seeing LOTS of things that I’m doing right off the bat in 10 that never became part of my workflow in FCP 1-7. That’s likely because the kind of day to day editing I did wasn’t built around a distributed workflow in a high-end house like many here. I’ve worked primarily in corporate communications and somewhat in Advertising. I’ve had maybe 20% of my work destined for broadcast, not 100% like many here. For the “production” editor who’s focused on speed, efficiency and collaboration as the holy grails of editing, they’re likely much better technical editors than I’ll ever be. I was concentrating on being the “program creator” rather than exclusively the EDITOR. And I get that those types of editors miss capabilities in X that they had in Legacy. But that’s how it is right now.

I also believe, however, that there might be something to be learned from those of us who’ve worked extensively OUTSIDE of broadcast but STILL in professional video editing, since we daily see a whole other slice of the industry. One that’s actually growing a LOT faster than the broadcast sector right now.

I think X fits into MY part of the industry BETTER than 7. Not always, not exclusively, but for what I do, powerfully.

So I’m not really interested in going BACK to 7, no matter how much you tell me that my old tool did what I need just fine. (or even “better” I KNOW THAT. I was in the seat doing that for 11 plus years. Now I’m in the seat doing X. And I’m finding “new to me” capabilities that are HUGELY interesting and satisfying when I sit down to cut a project.

I’ll respect that you don’t “like it” or think it’s “innovative enough” to impress you. Or maybe you feel that it’s “innovations” are stupid and unnecessary. Or that it misses out on what YOU need it to be. That’s fine. Thankfully, nobody will ever FORCE you to use it. But any contention that what I feel about it lame because I simply can’t see how “superior” legacy was is kinda ODD as I’ve likely got more operation time in Legacy than anyone else I know – as a result of my start cutting with less than 2 weeks after it’s intro at NAB 99.

The truth is that I’ve in front of Legacy in ALL it’s iterations regularly for more than a decade and probably completed and delivered in excess of 400 projects with it – so it’s going to be hard for you to convince me that I’m not in a position to judge the strength of it, verses the strength of the X approach.

Whether anybody here want to LISTEN TO or give ANY weight to what I’m saying here is totally up to the individual.

And I’m fine with that.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Chris Harlan]

x

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Chris Harlan] “No, not that much. I’m usually editing instead of data mining. “

Hmm

Well, I guess that pretty much negates everything I have said as my process has been reduced to data mining. Because I like to “data mine” by specifically searching for a clip that I need to edit, by text, instead of a double and single click fiasco, I am not editing or I am not an editor? Is that what you are implying here?

I don’t get it.

Since you don’t use the search function in FCP7 (which I don’t blame you, it sucks), then really, you have nothing to compare X to.

For those of us who actually need to use the search function to edit, X is awesome, and metadata helps in the edit, especially when you know exactly what you’re looking for and forgot where you left it.

It is up to you to use it how you see fit, or don’t.

[Chris Harlan] “My projects can be fairly large since they can involve whole seasons with a variety of permutations.”

Whole seasons of raw footage or whole seasons of finished shows? So 20 Quicktime Movies or 20 episodes worth of raw footage? In which scenario do you think a search function might come in handy?

Jeremy

[Christian Schumacher]

Tony,

You’re entitled to find something cumbersome, specially if you didn’t know it existed in the first place.
I guess this is why the debating forum is for, huh?

On the other hand, how is that custom window lay-out working for you in X? I find it extremely cumbersome to scroll down to negative space when having stacked clips to work with in a timeline that cannot be expanded.
But that must be only me, perhaps?

And Jeremy,

On systems I have been to, no beach-balling or crashing when searching at all. YMMV.
I can drag the resulting bin or some of the clips to a new timeline and have them all in there, nicely.
And they go to the sequence in the order that they are sifted in that resulting bin.
This is very, very helpful.

And all of this without breaking any project relationship. Expanding this search on that timeline, the Find command also selects all clips that I further search for, so I can then copy them or drag ’em to a higher position.

I’m taking your word when you said you didn’t used it that much.
I like the former FCP for its flexibility, something the new generation of this software is going to miss.

[Chris Harlan]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Do you really use the find function all that often? How big are your projects in terms of number of media clips and timelines?”

No, not that much. I’m usually editing instead of data mining. But I do use it fairly regularly to round up sound effects and supplied gfx. My projects can be fairly large since they can involve whole seasons with a variety of permutations.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Here’s what happened when I search for footage shot by a particular shooter in a current FCP7 project, and the search took 43 seconds:
“

I’m certainly NOT having problems like that on my 8 core, but I DO admit that it is slow. So, YES–quantitatively faster search.

[Jeremy Garchow] “FCPX is way more fluid and instant, and then tagging those clips is much faster and dynamic “

Okay, I’ll buy that.

[Jeremy Garchow] “and you won’t have multiple physical copies of the clips in separate bins where the master clip relationship might get screwy”

Can’t agree. First, you don’t get “multiple physical copies.” That is an illusion. And second, you only get new master clips if you go through the process of making them so.

[Jeremy Garchow] “With 7 yes, the clips come up in a “results” bin, and then you can put those clips in yet another bin, but the implementation is no where near as useful and fluid as FCPX.”

Now, Jeremy, the few extra keystrokes required to copy all of the contents of one bin and paste them in another is hardly “no where near as useful and fluid as FCPX.” Frankly, the fact that, in FCP X, you can’t have any kind of permanent bin at all is far more inconvenient than the occasional need to select all and then copy and paste.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Also certain characteristics of makers simply aren’t searchable in FCP7, and then once things go in to the timeline, even more of the metadata characteristics become unsearchable. Not so with X.
“

This–like speed above–is the kind of thing I’m looking for. Could you elucidate a bit? What would I WANT to be searching for that I can’t search for in FCP 7? This isn’t a challenge. It is why I asked the question in the first place.

[Jeremy Garchow] “While yes, “Find” does work in 7, it’s slow and inefficient compared to FCPX.”

I’m guessing this is a pretty fair criticism of 7 v. X. Of course X HAS to be this way, as the search function is not ancillary–as it is in 7–but basic to its binning structure. With as much time as you’ve spent in X, do you miss bins at all? Or do you find X’s structure superior in most or all regards? I know this is a matter of taste; I’m curious what yours is at this point.

[Walter Soyka]

[Bill Davis] “I’d forgotten, but yes, REEL data is in there. It’s just not “front and center” in the display – but you can call is up by clip. So problem solved.”

Problem not solved at all.

FCPX has a reel data field available in the info panel, but it doesn’t correspond to anything in the media file. This can actually create problems, because FCPX’s reel data isn’t real (pun fully intended).

Try this: assign a reel to a clip in FCPX. Quit, then launch FCP7. Import the clip. FCP7 does not see the reel ID that FCPX assigned, because FCPX does not write the change back into the media file as it should and as other QT-aware applications expect. (Go back to FCPX, and you’ll see the reel ID is there. It lives in FCPX’s database only, and that particular datum is not currently portable.)

Try it the other way: import a clip into FCP7, then add a reel number. FCP7 will ask you permission to change the file on disk. Quit FCP7 and import that clip into FCPX. No reel ID. Just for fun, import it into Premiere Pro: the reel ID is there.

I suppose this in and of itself may not really matter for FCPX, since the reel ID won’t often be useful without other conform tools, too. That said, reel ID metadata — one of the most fundamental elements of video metadata which NLEs have been correctly tracking for decades — is critical for interchange, and FCPX isn’t quite where FCP7 was on this.

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

[Walter Soyka]

[Bill Davis] “You keep acknowledging time and time again that you’re not actively looking to recycle “talking points’ to either promote it or diminish it – but looking for the reality under the surface. Something I believe is valuable to everyone here.”

I thank you for that, Bill.

We don’t always agree, but hopefully there’s some value in the adversarial approach that sometimes develops here. It works well in justice, and I hope it works here, too. There’s rarely a dull day on this forum, and I certainly appreciate how you have helped to broaden the way I think about the topic.

Hopefully the tension between our perspectives will help others who may be somewhere in between to make well-informed decisions.

Cheers,

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

[Christian Schumacher]

Oliver,

I respect your input as it is an enormously experienced one.
But, see where I’m getting at…If only in 2010 you could’ve foreseen what just had “changed in post”?
A rhetorical question, of course.

I will grant you that it may take some mileage, but I am convinced that is going to be a very short time.
Unfortunately, this is my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt.

[Chris Harlan]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Hmm

Well, I guess that pretty much negates everything I have said as my process has been reduced to data mining. “

Actually, I accidentally hit post direct before I was finished, so I think you’ll find the whole reply less flippant and more to your liking.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Whole seasons of raw footage or whole seasons of finished shows? So 20 Quicktime Movies or 20 episodes worth of raw footage? In which scenario do you think a search function might come in handy?
“

Either/or/and both. Never just 22/23 Quicktime files. Even when it is that simple, it still breaks down to many sub clips, ancillary gfx, multiple sfx libraries, and a fairly large pool of music selections.

Also, why would you even consider editing 22 full episodes in a single project file, when all but a very few elements must be kept away from each other?

[Walter Soyka]

[Jeremy Garchow] “So in this case, it is contextual to the program that created the reel number.”

You can assign a clip any reel ID you want. It shouldn’t matter to the application how you choose to number the reels.

Personally, I see the value in unique reel IDs per clip, but I think ideally that should be a separate clip ID.

A common reel ID connects related clips, but if you overwrite the reel ID with a unique clip ID, you are actually destroying that potentially useful information. What if you had a dead pixel on a specific camera at a shoot? If you know the reel ID, you can quickly identify other defective clips for repair. If not, you must hunt.

Perhaps your application encodes this information within the unique clip ID it stuffs in the reel ID field, but unless it’s “human readable” or every other application you use can deal with that custom encoding, you are taking tools off your bench.

Maybe we’re arguing semantics, but I don’t think that the reel ID is “contextual.” The whole point of reel ID is to be a static identifier across contexts. If every app which accessed a particular media file could see the same reel metadata, the world would be a better place.

[Jeremy Garchow] “With FCPX’s camera import SDK, I think Apple is leaving it up to the camera manufacturers to determine what the best reel number is for their footage. I am totally fine with that. The very nature of the definition of what a “reel” is in digital terms is redefined. It is not a physical object or location anymore and different cameras store data differently.”

All fair points, but for me, this goes back to playing well with others. Reel ID is a free-form field which is very useful for interchange. I don’t expect FCPX to have an opinion on it, but it would be nice if FCPX used it better.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Damn, I was trying to get some work done, but this conversation is good!”

Indeed! I’m going to to go try and get something billable done (until your next response pulls me back in).

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