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FCPX on MBP Retina Display – WOW
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[Jerry Hofmann] “I’m talking about the fact that we always want audio to come at a certain place with the video. I’m pointing out that it should move with that video if I move the video. FCP X accomplishes this for me. “
What moves and what doesn’t move can be as complicated or simple as you like. I understand the magnetic timeline makes some types of movement very simple, on the other hand I never found moving clips around the timeline the least bit difficult in FCP7. For me the concept of the magnetic timeline is the solution to a problem I never had.
[Jerry Hofmann] “You have to click in order to highlight certain roles it’s true. But that extra click has allowed you to have the magnetic timeline in the first place, I think that’s certainly a doable trade-off.”
These “extra clicks” of yours certainly don’t speed things up and the idea of editing in the dark has never appealed to me. For me the advantages of the magnetic timeline are small compared to the disadvantage of editing in an incoherent timeline, let alone the loss of such things as the sync indicator window which alone makes me reject working with X, or PPRp for that matter.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
Right! You decide when any audio will always and only move with X and you only select it or the picture it’s attached to. things like sound effects carefully synced move if you move the picture it’s edited to. But the music attached earlier doesn’t move. Just as you’ve set it up to behave.
The number of clicks saved in the timeline are greatly reduced overall through the process. Another reason it’s fast to create a sequence. Do yourself a favor and learn it. Good for the brain in any event!
Jerry
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I’ll be more explicit. I’m a Mac not a PC (most users have to choose between these two) Meant no offense to OS.
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[Jerry Hofmann] ” I’ll be more explicit. I’m a Mac not a PC (most users have to choose between these two) Meant no offense to OS.”
No! Seriously?!? :-]
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[Jerry Hofmann] “The number of clicks saved in the timeline are greatly reduced overall through the process. Another reason it’s fast to create a sequence. Do yourself a favor and learn it. Good for the brain in any event!”
How many clicks has it been reduced by?
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[Michael Gissing] “I know the game has started elsewhere but Bill needs a reminder that we are far from anything remotely conclusive about FCPX’s role in features & broadcast. Potential yes but long way to go.”
A fair assessment… HOWEVER.
I played this game once before a decade ago.
Transitioning between the BetaSP era and the DV era. Nobody in broadcast or advertising (or even industrial production for that matter!) did anything but look down their noses at the few of us who decided that we could possibly produce useful work for real-world clients with a DV camcorder and that weird new Final Cut Pro V1 software.
Five years later EVERYONE had to change to play the new game. And even those for whom the FCP approach “just didn’t cut it” (and they were often right for their particular niche at that moment in time) had to eventually come around when the software came to dominate the landscape over it’s development lifetime.
I’m feeling more and more confident that Apple got this one right as well – even if few of us recognized it from the start.
Aindreas came here and said (as he always does) “it’s toybox crap” – and suddenly a different working professional editor came back and said “well, actually it’s not.”
That was serve and volley to my eye, and the volley was a winner simply because it blew up Aindreas’s long espoused conviction that X is unworthy of professional consideration. In my opinion, that view has to be suspect when more than one working professional editor with network level standards it is willing to stand up and say it’s NOT crap.
I don’t know Mr. Austin personally, but from his posts here, he appears to be a working editor in one of those highly valued hollywood seats. And if so, his opinion should have more weight then mine in the debate of whether the software might be of value to editors doing precisely the kind of work he does.
Ainderes says it’s crap and can’t do pro work. Now someone else says different.
Aindreas served, Mr. Austin volleyed – and the point goes to Mr. Austin in my book. As to whether this is an exhibition game or the first match in a new era of our sport is anyone’s guess.
We shall see.
“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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[Charlie Austin] “Also, all due respect to Bill, the “game, set, match” comment doesn’t help. Nor does the whole “new paradigm” narrative. It’s not a new paradigm, it’s just a new NLE with a different interface, IMHO.
I’m not trying to “win” anything here, Just dispel misconceptions. If X doesn’t work for someone for technical or personal preference reasons, fine. But I have issues with people who loudly proclaim it’s not a “professional” app. That’s horseshit.
“Fair, Charlie.
I should apologize for dragging you into this. For historical perspective, I’ve been in this virtual wrestling match for more than a year with Aindreas – he’s been popping up here since the beginning and relentlessly trashing the software. As I’ve noted before, he kinda takes the EOL of Legacy as if Apple sent a team to his house to set fire to his favorite tree and shave his dog. He just can’t get over his emotional block.
There were certainly others who’ve had their issues with X – and many of those issues have been legitimate. But in his case, it’s been 90% opinionated invective and 10% reality.
Also, forgive me if I’m kinda pleased that after so long in the FCP-X supporter wilderness, voices other than just mine, Craigs, and Jeremys are increasingly popping up. While we might be working professionals in our own niches – we tend to be the sole practitioners who can make software decisions without going up a large chain of command. It’s simply good to see the more flexible of you guys in the big leagues who are willing to give the software a chance.
That’s all we supporters have hoped for, I think. Just let the software sink or swim on it’s own merits – without those who’s opinions were hardened in the first month continue to keep reiterating what they thought they knew about it last year.
Anyway, thanks for your contributions to the discussion.
Take care.
“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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While waiting for my daughter to get her MacBook looked at by the Genius bar, I started playing around with FCPX on the MBP Retina. HOLY SMOKES! This thing flew. It was loaded up with some really great car racing footage and I just had a blast messing around with it. Handled fantastic, I found the display very easy to see and use even with my 49 year old eyes w/o glasses.
FCPX is not for everyone, but FCPX on MBP Retina is very impressive indeed. Apple’s just gonna keep making it better. I wish they could have had Adoobe CS6 and Avid on it as well. I’m sure they both also work great and deliver outstanding performance. The MBP w. Retina is on the top of my wish list 😉
On another note, I just updated the NLE Storage FAQ on the Videoguys website. SSD prices have fallen and we recommend going with an 256 or 512GB SSD. I’m a fan of the Crucial M series. You can check out the update here https://www.videoguys.com/Blog/E/Videoguys+NLE+Video+Storage+FAQ+Aug+2012+update/0xad4968cb52e4a9f2cdf2814f5e503c2c.aspx
If you’ve got an older Mac Pro or Mac Book, adding more RAM, an SSD boot drive and updated GPU can give new life and performance to it.
Gary
COW members get 5% OFF with Coupon COW5OFF
https://www.videoguys.com 800 323-2325 | We are the video editing and production experts!
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[Charlie Austin] “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. 🙂
“Sigh. I just don’t have the time, Charlie. It’s a value judgement. It might be fun and it might be useful, but as I’m watching things move around town, I’m just not seeing it getting much traction. You like it. Folks like John Davidson like it. But I just talked with another cable Network that’s going all Premiere for promos. I’m not feeling any real incentive to get on board with X.
The thing is, I like the way I work now, and I have been given very few actual reasons to rethink it. If I did multicam, for instance, I’d be thinking about it. If I were in fast-paced ENG, with a lot of simple A/B, I’d be thinking about it. And the fact that you and John think its spiffy and valuable, and that we all do kinda the same thing, gives me some pause, and when Summer’s over I’ll stumble over to John’s place and take a look, but I really don’t feel I have a lot of incentive to get on the X bus.
I’m open to sound argument, though, and like it when I hear concrete specifics about FCP X’s virtues. It just gets weird when folks make these majestic pronouncements about X, like it being faster than anything including cheetahs or that its metadata underpinnings are tied into some 23rd century technology that anchors it to the heart of the future and is the door to all known universes. AND that I won’t truly understand either of these facts until I spend six months studying it and rewiring my neural pathways so that I “get it.” And, no questioning or criticizing until then. Sadly, that’s the same argument cults often employ.
I’m certainly open to it in the future. Three things might get me to hand my brain in for 6 months of trial and error–a mixer, color-coded roles (so that I can get a strong visual of where things sit on my timeline), and the ability to manually save both backups and alternate versions. Oh, four–add the ability to export a range.
And FWIW, I don’t know what others mean, but when I talk of FCP X’s inflexibility, I’m referring to its locked down interface–the inability to put windows where you want, the inability to have multiple open timelines, etc.
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[Chris Harlan] “Sigh. I just don’t have the time, Charlie. It’s a value judgement. It might be fun and it might be useful, but as I’m watching things move around town, I’m just not seeing it getting much traction. You like it. Folks like John Davidson like it. But I just talked with another cable Network that’s going all Premiere for promos. I’m not feeling any real incentive to get on board with X.”
I can understand that, I might feel differently as well if I were freelancing. If I needed to edit to tape I’d feel differently. And honestly, at the end of the day I’m gonna need to get the rest of the editors where I work on board. It’s not a done deal. Funny thing is, when you say:
[Chris Harlan] “The thing is, I like the way I work now,”
That’s exactly how I feel about X now, warts and all. I took over a key art reel we’re cutting from another of our editors today. It’s an FCP 7 project, and needs to stay that way because it might have to bounce back to the original editor at some point. 1080p HDTV sequence, but with loads of stills, stuff pulled from the web, all sorts of random mixed audio and video formats. It is painful. Rendering for 8 minutes at a time, because I needed to move a 15 second layer of video. rendering audio. Oh, I need to solo something. Let me carefully trace a line down the timeline to see which track it’s on. Oh, wait… I don’t want to hear the clip right before it on the same track… guess I need to move it, or disable it. No big deal, except 5 minutes ago I was just cutting in an app where I can highlight the clip, solo it, add other clips to the solo group, and never stop playback. Render audio? no need. Spend 2 hours transcoding HD mp4’s to ProRes so I can cut with them? Screw that. I like the new way I work now. 🙂
[Chris Harlan] I’m open to sound argument, though, and like it when I hear concrete specifics about FCP X’s virtues. It just gets weird when folks make these majestic pronouncements about X, like it being faster than anything including cheetahs or that its metadata underpinnings are tied into some 23rd century technology that anchors it to the heart of the future and is the door to all known universes. AND that I won’t truly understand either of these facts until I spend six months studying it and rewiring my neural pathways so that I “get it.” And, no questioning or criticizing until then. Sadly, that’s the same argument cults often employ.
Honestly, I totally agree with you there. As I’ve said before, It’s the 90’s Mac vs. PC argument redux. Pointless. Every NLE has strong points and weak points. I happen to think Pr and MC are big, cluttered messes, but that’s just my opinion. That’s why I started using FCP 1 back in ’99. But I’m not gonna criticize someone else’s choice, or try to convince them of the error of their ways because they don’t use what I like. All I’ve ever tried to do here and elsewhere is say that I really like X, imperfect as it is. For what I do, and for me it is awesome. And FWIW I’m not just doing simple A/B editing. I really want to open that clusterf*ck of a sequence I’m cutting in 7 in X just to see the difference, but it’ll probably just make we want to keep it in there and then I’ll be stuck with it. Yeah, it’s one of *those* projects. 😉
[Chris Harlan] I’m certainly open to it in the future. Three things might get me to hand my brain in for 6 months of trial and error–a mixer, color-coded roles (so that I can get a strong visual of where things sit on my timeline), and the ability to manually save both backups and alternate versions. Oh, four–add the ability to export a range.”
Well, I.m betting that’s all coming, and honestly, I don’t think it’d take 6 months, it took me about a week to get my head around the interface, a little longer to learn the important keyboard shortcuts and figure out a workflow that I could deal with. I avoid storylines pretty much, so I’ve had to adapt to using keyframes and fade handles rather than just throwing fade transition onto clips, but that’s really the only thing I miss. And I don’t miss it too much. I find new fun things every day, and by fun I mean they let me work faster. 🙂
[Chris Harlan] And FWIW, I don’t know what others mean, but when I talk of FCP X’s inflexibility, I’m referring to its locked down interface–the inability to put windows where you want, the inability to have multiple open timelines, etc.”
I get ya, it would be nice to break out windows the way you want rather than the 2 or 3 setups they give you. I guess the bottom line is, if ya get some time, just cut something in X as though you have no choice. That’s kind of what I did. Like: “well, this thing sucks, but I gotta figure out how to use it under pressure because it’s all I’ve got.” That’s what I did, and it turned out it didn’t suck. OK, *some* things suck, but all in all, it’s pretty great.
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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
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