FCPX on MBP Retina Display – WOW

[Jerry Hofmann]

LOL!!! I was hoping you’d respond.

The automation I speak of is the auto color, fix audio problem stuff get rid of unwanted bkg sound and more… it’s real and it works most of the time. Facial recognition is right around the corner with it I’ll wager. Imagine logging a feature where you tag a CU as a certain character, a Medium and a wide… Then as X analyses this for every single clip, it tags the shots of this character FOR YOU… it’s already doing CU’s , Singles, two shots, and group shots. The facial recognition Apple already owns and uses in the stills softwares. Ya have to hold back something for the next generation of software or you go broke.

Premiere has tracks. So yesterday. (sorry, couldn’t resist). I love the magnetic timeline. it’s a whole leap ahead once you understand it. Why shouldn’t audio be connected always to video? It should! Track’s only real reason for existence is the ability to be able to export them separately. X’s “roles” does the same thing, and then some.

Yes, my dearest friend, you do sound like an old fart telling the youngin’s to get off the lawn. I love you anyway.

When Avid hit the scene in Hollywood about 23 years ago, All the editors working on TV and Film said that flatbed and Moviolas were not only faster, but the only way to edit. I know. I was there. I owned a Composer 1 in April of 1989. By ’97 or so, you’d think the world got turned upside down in LA. Flatbeds were dying daily, telecine became a seriously great business… Because the younin’s didn’t leave the yard… it was the new editors on the scene that got it, and got the work. I think there might be 2 flatbeds in LA today or so… for those are afraid of leaks and bootlegs.

You’ve preconceived notions about X it I believe. It’s not the same software most pro’s dismissed a year ago. I’ll be the first one to say it’s not for every job. and have said so in this thread more than one time… however if it is OK for what you need to deliver, it’s a done deal man. What it does do that FCP 7 did, it does better. It doesn’t do things that some people need today, but most users simply don’t.

Apple has sold more copies of X than it did of Studio 3. This is more than 3 million copies. This says something. This says that there are adoptions going on all over the place, and not being talked much about. It’s not about what the 10,000 need. It’s about what the 4 million need. I really don’t think there’s more than about 250,000 – 500,000 full time professional editors in the world. The rest of those 2.7 million people? They use it, most often professionally. But not full time. No matter what the platform, this is the entire market world wide I’m guessing. There are users in our industry that aren’t full time editors all over the place… why? it’s easy to learn, easy to rough cut with, and that’s all they NEED for example. Or simply viewing on the set, among probably a lot more folks of this type.

That said, I recon there are 90% of the “editor full time” professionals out there that this software will accomplish the delivery of their work. Don’t forget that 90% of the money spent on moving pictures in any format is not spent on entertainment. You know this is true, we see it in the booths we work in at NAB.

Let’s get really real here. If you are making your living doing this, why on earth wouldn’t you run Adobe, Avid, Apple, all on the same machine, and simply pick the the NLE that will speed you up the most on the particular task at hand. Heck, this can be done for less than $10,000. Hopefully, the best NLE for any given task will NOT be the same NLE from year to year… this means they are all innovating… right?

That Avid I brought up earlier only produced a CMX list to take to an online room that cost over a million bucks to build. I’ve spent many a day spending $10,000 in those rooms in those years for a single set of commercials. That Avid cost $64,000 and if you were out of sync, you couldn’t tell because the picture quality in a medium/long shot wasn’t good enough to tell.. LOL…

So it’s pretty silly to get too out of sorts with any of this area of discussion isn’t it?

Any way you look at it, if you can produce a finished show in faster time, you’ll end up making more money in the long haul. From any pro’s perspective whither you edit features or weddings or anything else for wages… right?

I’m not familiar with Adobe’s latest stuff, but it too sounds nice. But tracks? NAH no need, no want anymore. Magnetic timeline is much much faster to edit with. MUCH… learn it, come take one of my classes! I’ll give you a discount, and put you up. I’ll even trade even if you train me on Adobe! Nice room I have just waiting for you!

Jerry

[Jerry Hofmann]

We’re messin’ with the tread’s intent, but one last thing about tracks vs roles.

You can export a set of audio files any way you want to with X. It just doesn’t use tracks to do this, but the end result given to a mixer can be the same if you know how to do it, and that isn’t hard to learn either… OMF will be there before you know it, but there’s a work around for that too of course now. (third party software).

I understand where you’re coming from, but still believe that FCP X is faster than anybody’s NLE. It’s the only NLE that is MAC OS Native code. I’m a Mac, I’ll likely never be a PC. So there ya have it. The future of the platform is going to blow your mind… and it’s development time will be considerably faster than any body else’s because Apple writes natively for only one OS, which we all agree is currently the better OS for all round computing.

Here’s a read: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/344/12947

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer, Producer, Writer, Director Editor, Gun for Hire and other things. I ski. My Blog: https://blogs.creativecow.net/Jerry-Hofmann

Current DVD:
https://store.creativecow.net/p/81/jerry_hofmanns_final_cut_system_setup

8-Core 3.0 Intel Mac Pro, Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D, AJA Io HD, 17″ MBP, Matrox MXO2 with MAX – Cinema Displays I have a 22″ that I paid 4k for still working. G4 with Kona SD card, and SCSI card.

[Charlie Austin]

[Jerry Hofmann] “And this is why a lot of pros are scared to death of it. If any one can use it, they believe their jobs are at risk. “

While I agree with much of what you’re saying, I’d take issue with that last statement. I don’t think pro’s are *scared* of X. There are some legit concerns, mostly related to not being able to just quickly switch in mid-project without slowing down. There *is* a significant learning curve, and X does many things differently that people on tight deadlines, with clients foaming at the mouth behind them, need. However, the more time one spends with it, well… it sort of grows on you… 😉

That said, I am starting as many projects as I can in X. And I don’t miss tracks at all… FWIW I come from an audio background and have a *minimum* of 16 “tracks” of audio in a spot. It took a while to get used to it, but when I cut in an NLE with fixed tracks now it drives me crazy. Once they add the ability to group /mix roles, and maybe assign video layer priority (like photoshop) We’ll wonder why we ever cared about tracks imho…

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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~

[Shawn Miller]

[Jerry Hofmann] ” X is the fastest NLE in the world, period.”

What if most of your work involves bouncing to and from After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator? Would FCPX still be faster than every other NLE on the planet? Perhaps workflow and function should be taken into consideration here. 🙂

Shawn

[Charlie Austin]

[Shane Ross] “an AAF/OMF to an audio mixer (with tracks organized in a way that makes it easier on them, not mixed dialog and SFX and music…audio mixers DO work in tracks), “

FWIW, The upcoming revision to X2Pro does this amazingly well. Groups Roles (tracks) in whatever order you define, translates volume and all keyframe fades etc. Really really nice. I expect you’ll be able to do the same in the X timeline soon. Also, not necessarily on topic… A little bird told me there may be an FCPX API available to developers soon. This is strictly here-say and I have no actual knowledge of this at all, but if true it will create some interesting possibilities… 😉

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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~

[Andy Field]

Lets get back to Audio –

I cant grasp how NOT having an automated audio mixer is a plus in FCP X…..

we use it every single day to make subtle on the fly music dialogue and sound effects mixes in FCP 7 as well as AVID and PP….X simply doesn’t have this —

Rubber banding. double clicking and opening audio – is that really faster and more efficient?

we often layer 10 tracks of sfx, music dialogue that does NOT connect to the video – it’s independent of the video ..so the statement “audio should always connect to video” simply doesn’t exist in real life editing for documentaries and features.

Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852

[Craig Alan]

Jerry,

Just wondering how FCP X uses all that ram. How does increasing the amount of media (long form) or is it the complexity of the media (the number of “tracks” or rendering say color correction) have to do with ram usage? I’m not questioning the reality – just want to understand the flow. Yesterday, it seemed like ram had a law of diminishing returns — money was better spent on larger/faster raids.

If Apple designed their new flagship app to utilize as much ram as possible then the development of the next mac pro being on the back burner seems out of sync.

What exactly gets faster with more ram? And does this apply to all incremental upgrades? For example if an Imac station has 16 gigs of ram will moving up to 24 make a difference? I do not have a particular upgrade in mind just want to understand the cost/speed ratio.

MacPro4,1 2.66GHz 8 core 12gigs of ram. GPU: Nvidia Geoforce GT120 with Vram 512. OS X 10.6.x; Camcorders: Panasonic AG-HPX170, Sony Z7U, Canon HV30/40, Sony vx2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Charlie Austin]

[Shawn Miller] “What if most of your work involves bouncing to and from After Effects, Photoshop and Illustrator? Would FCPX still be faster than every other NLE on the planet? Perhaps workflow and function should be taken into consideration here. :-)”

This: https://clipexporter.mindtransplant.com works really nicely.

Yes, you need to go to 3rd parties to do some stuff in X (Xto7, 7toX, EDL-X, XtoPro, ClipExporter etc) But I’d honestly rather have Apple spend all their time on the actual editing software, and provide hooks and let others spend their time on the “niche” workflow stuff. I too need this “niche” stuff, but I don’t care if it it’s built in to the app, as long as it works easily, which in my experience all these apps do.

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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~

[Shawn Miller]

[Jerry Hofmann] “Apple writes natively for only one OS, which we all agree is currently the better OS for all round computing.”

I wasn’t there when the vote was taken, so I’ll have to disagree here. All operating systems have their strengths and weaknesses, but for “all around computing”, my opinion is that Linux is probably the most flexible. That’s why it can run programs on everything from your cable set top box, to the New York Stock Exchange, to the Mars rover. No need for OS chauvinism, IMO. 🙂

Shawn

[Charlie Austin]

[Andy Field] “I cant grasp how NOT having an automated audio mixer is a plus in FCP X…..

we use it every single day to make subtle on the fly music dialogue and sound effects mixes in FCP 7 as well as AVID and PP….X simply doesn’t have this —

Rubber banding. double clicking and opening audio – is that really faster and more efficient?”

It isn’t a plus, and I’m pretty sure that X will be able to do this and more… Hopefully soon. That said, clip based soloing, and soloing/editing without stopping playback in X is awesome. Like… amazingly awesome

[Andy Field] “we often layer 10 tracks of sfx, music dialogue that does NOT connect to the video – it’s independent of the video ..so the statement “audio should always connect to video” simply doesn’t exist in real life editing for documentaries and features.”

Only 10? Piker… LOL 😉 I agree with ya there, I think people try to justify features in X that don’t need justification, or could honestly work better. But… it’s really a non-issue if you edit with connected clips, creating secondary storylines if you need to add a custom transition or something. Works just like any other NLE on the planet if you want it to. X is very flexible despite the fact that everyone who hasn’t used it thinks it’s not. 🙂

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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~