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FCPX metadata–how significant is it? And why?
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[Walter Soyka] “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.”
You are totally correct sir.
X after 100 days or so, is lacking in quite a few areas compared to Legacy after 10+ years of solid incremental development.
It’s NO CONTEST, really.
And I’ll admit that it’s lacking in these same areas (and even more) compared to it’s primary competitors.
So if those specific capabilities are someone’s baseline deal breakers for choice and use criteria, an editor needs to look elsewhere right now.
I suspect, however, that the FCP-X benefit package (astonishing price/performance ratio, file based workflow integration honoring exceptionally robust metadata capabilities, and access to the planetary class engineering resources clearly enabled by being under the wing of the most economically successful company on earth) will help resolve these issues sooner rather than later.
I’m comfortable with this bet.
YMMV.
“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
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[Bill Davis] “astonishing price/performance ratio”
Really? Price yes, performance, hardly. Sure, you can quickly and imprecisely slam clips together. The rest of it slows to slug-level performance. Build a sequence of about 15 animated titles with every 2-3 overlapping and then let me know how it performances.
And speaking of price, look what DaVinci is doing for FREE compared to what Apple is doing. Not really much contest, I’ve afraid.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I didn’t use markers in fcp 6. I was working with a director recently who really likes them for docs he works on and since I’m starting a doc I started messing around with them in X.
How does my not using it before change the way it works? You either have to open another window or you don’t.
It’s working out fine for me in X
What I have been doing is putting interview clips in an event.
I play the clips and mark and type notes as it rolling. If I type fast enough I don’t have to stop the clip.
I can find those key words in the markers quick and easy typing in the search without opening another window or placing the clips in the timeline.
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[Bill Davis] “I suspect, however, that the FCP-X benefit package (astonishing price/performance ratio, file based workflow integration honoring exceptionally robust metadata capabilities, and access to the planetary class engineering resources clearly enabled by being under the wing of the most economically successful company on earth) will help resolve these issues sooner rather than later. I’m comfortable with this bet.”
It sounds like FCPX is a good fit for your workflow, and it’s letting you be more productive than FCP7 did. That’s good to hear, and I am happy for you.
I share your believe that Apple could resolve the issues we’ve all been laying out here for months — but they’ve given me reason to question their intentions [link] over the last few years, so I am not comfortable betting that they will resolve them.
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 -
This is getting good!, Walter. Thanks.
[Walter Soyka] “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.”
True. But in the P2 world, camera serial numbers are part of the metadata, so all I would need to do is search for the camera serial number itself.
[Walter Soyka] “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.”
There is other metadata that is more “human readable” userclipname being a good one.
Now, let’s talk about Reel. The in tape sense, it represents a physical object. Reel 53 corresponds to tape 53 that is sitting on the shelf. When I need to recapture, I grab tape 53 as the computer asks for it. In a tapeless sense, and the way that MXF4mac/P2Flow works is that the reel corresponds to that clip and it’s components. In FCP7, if you need to reconnect, reel/tc/clipname are paramount, that’s it. With this method, reconnecting to these native MXF files has never been easier with FCP7. I can constantly reconnect things much easier with this method than full Quicktime methods. So in the case of FCP7, this reel ID is fantastic. Since other NLEs/apps might use it differently, so it might not be outside of FCP7, but there’s no standard for any of this accept a field named “reel”. That’s why it’s contextual. Certain applications might not have access to this clip data, or choose to use a user customized reel name. More context. For applications that don’t use native MXf media, then that reel name has to transfer to the conformed media. It gets messy, fast.
[Walter Soyka] “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.”
Agreed. I do think it’s locked in some sort of weird state of flux. I think the camera import SDK will be essential here.
I am going to post a screen grab of P2 Flow here in a second in a response to Christian. It will make more sense in a minute.
Jeremy
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[Oliver Peters] “And speaking of price, look what DaVinci is doing for FREE”
For those of us who had been living under a rock for the past 7 hours (!), BMD has released DaVinci Lite 8.1.1 [link] with UNLIMITED nodes and DNxHD MXF support for free.
I am shocked.
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] “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.”
Bill, you totally misunderstand me. The whole reason I started this thread, and others like it, is that I DO want to know what is better or interesting about FCP X. I AM curious about such things. You don’t need to defend your preference for FCP X to me. I think I’ve told you on a couple of occasions that I think it is a good tool for you. AND for many others. I don’t begrudge anyone using it. In fact, I’m intrigued by it. So, I’m just trying to see it for what it is. I think you’ll find in my reply to Jeremy in this thread, that he made me see–and agree to–his POV on several counts. I think you’ll find, if you look across many of my replies, a similar pattern.
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[Christian Schumacher] “On systems I have been to, no beach-balling or crashing when searching at all. YMMV. “
Yeah, and my bet is that those are small projects. I have a decent 8 core and fast storage. It’s not my system, it’s FCP. This particular project takes about 3 minutes to open. It’s pretty big and has a ton of elements. It’s 3 weeks of shooting 1TB of raw footage/audio (720p24, AVC-I, DSLR, AF100) and this doesn’t include the DSLR ProRes transcodes, just the raw footage, countless sequences, and all of the P2 clips have a lot of metadata.
The simpler the project, the faster the search. FCPX is different.
This is someone who has used metadata as a tool to help me get the job done and enhance our workflow for years in FCP7, and it doesn’t work as flexible as I want it to. Metadata is not an after thought for me. Here is the P2 metadata tool I use:
All of this info gets sent to FCP (via XML) and the media is either connected to the native MXF files OR I can send this over to FCP ready for a log and transfer:
All of that metadata is shoehorned in to FCP7 columns, which are fixed and limited (you can’t create customs columns in FCP7, but you can create custom fields in FCPX). FCPX blows the doors of FCP7 in terms of metadata fields as my other screen grabs show.
Pomfort Silverstack is another example of a metadata tool for DSLR/Alexa/ProRes recorder footage:
[Christian Schumacher] “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.”In FCPX, you could group these in a compound clip (which can act as a sequence), or add them to a smart collection, or select all, hit E and they all go to the timeline, OR NOT. I can simply find the clip that I want and edit it. Less clutter, less space, much faster and dynamic.
[Christian Schumacher] ” the Find command also selects all clips that I further search for, “
Yeah, by clip name and some marker information/tc, but that’s it. That is a tiny fraction of the available metadata. Try searching for a reel name on the sequence for example. Or any other data that is not tc/marker/clip name. You can’t. I’m sorry, but FCP7 is not a metadata work horse. You are just going to have to trust that I actually use this stuff.
[Christian Schumacher] “I like the former FCP for its flexibility, something the new generation of this software is going to miss.”
Oy
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[Walter Soyka] “UNLIMITED nodes and DNxHD MXF support for free”
Whoa! DNxHD? How nice!
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[Oliver Peters] “Really? Price yes, performance, hardly. Sure, you can quickly and imprecisely slam clips together. The rest of it slows to slug-level performance. Build a sequence of about 15 animated titles with every 2-3 overlapping and then let me know how it performances.
And speaking of price, look what DaVinci is doing for FREE compared to what Apple is doing. Not really much contest, I’ve afraid.
– Oliver
“Neither you nor I are actually allowed to answer this except for ourselves.
Only the open market can establish the final judgement on things of this nature.I’ve voted YES one FCP-X and will continue to use and explore it.
I expect you will now cease doing so since you’ve clearly judged it to be a “poor value” compared to your other available choices.
I honestly hope you’re happy using them.
Good luck.
“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
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