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hidden gems
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Premiere Pro CS5.5 has sofar handled any codec I’ve thrown in, including .vob files straight from DVD and bare P2 / AVCHD files outside of their traditional file hierachy. And here comes the kicker – without any transcoding, just real-time playback without any crap starting in the background or filling up the drive with extra media. It’s not until I render out a final edit in either PPro or AE that transcoding comes into play.
The real hidden gem in the PPro / AE combo is that I can cut and paste clips from the former’s sequences to the latter’s compositions – no export steps needed!
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[Martti Ekstrand] “just real-time playback without any crap starting in the background or filling up the drive with extra media”
Yes and FCPX does this as well, choosing to transcode is an option.
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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[Gary Hazen] “I think telling a kid coming out of college not to bother with such trivial things as technical details is bad advice. The market is saturated with editors right now. The ability to tell a story and solve the technical problems is what sets an editor apart from the other 100 “artists” applying for he same job.”
Absolutely true.
“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”
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[Timothy Payton] “Think about the entire concept of interlaced SD video: in a few years there will be no such thing. And frame rates? What will it matter in a world where all video playback or broadcast is in effect a QuickTime movie playing back on a computer screen? You wanna make a 48 fps 3D movie? Knock yourself out. ;)”
Sorry, but I disagree. Even several years from now there will be a lot of interlaced SD material. Huge markets (India etc.) will take much, much longer to transition to an HD world (if that ever happens). And even then, a vast amount of programming will simply be upscaled from interlaced SD. Plus there will be interlaced HD, 24p, 23.976, 25p etc. etc.
And converting between any of them, scaling things up or down, is a complex thing and FCP (old and new), Compressor & Co. do a terrible job doing that.
Frame rate conversion, even using frame controls, are unusable for high quality work.
So instead of giving such jobs to a business with the right hardware folks will fiddle around themselves – probably to a much larger degree than they are already doing now. -
This thread started off with Carsten saying he liked the fact that FCPX could handle many different formats with ease.
It is now a thread about editors or editing with a lot of low balls being tossed about.
Or is it the pro vs non pro discussion.
The truth is that there are many different levels of editing, and many different kinds of editors. There always have been. I started off as an offline editor, making a basic rough cut versions for approval and development further on up the line in the company or with the client.
Only when the content and narrative had been fairly firmly nailed down was an edit decision list generated.
We then moved into the grown ups edit suite with a very technically proficient editor controlling an array of different tape decks, normally situated in another room with an assistant feeding tapes into them on request from the editor. Supporting this operation was a video engineer who was called in to frequently re-calibrate the machines and keep them maintained.
And sitting there in the edit suite was the producer and sometimes the director instructing the editor to maybe shave a half second off here or lengthen a dissolve there.
And meanwhile in another room a video graphics artist was constructing graphic components and titles to be inserted in the edit.
Ha, and we haven’t even mentioned sound yet!
So, a complex collaborative process involving a team of highly skilled and trained people all working under the direction of the producer or production company.
That’s the world I learnt my programme making skills in.
And it’s a world that, bar high end and broadcast work, has largely disappeared.
All of these roles and functions can now be carried out by one person sitting at a laptop.
What technical ability they require will depend on what they are producing.
The wonderful world of NLE enables editors at every level, from producing simple pieces for Youtube through to complex drama and documentaries.
Each level will have it’s own skill base, with experience playing a key role as individuals develop their
careers.To degenerate editors working on the more basic productions does not really make sense.
The world most editors find themselves earning a living in now is a multi skilled one where to survive you have to wear many different hats. Camera operation, graphics production, music production, and NLE editing, let alone communication skills are now all desirable areas to master in order to make a living as a programme maker.
Anyway how complicated is it really to edit?
All you need is scissors, some tape, an editing block, 8mm film and an idea.
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Unfortunately the original premise isn’t correct. FCP X handles a few codecs natively, but generally rewraps native codecs into MOV using the Import From Camera function just like FCP7’s L&T. Codec support is actually less than FCP7, Premiere Pro or Media Composer. Format sizes in projects are now tightly restricted. You cannot create arbitrary custom sizes as you could in FCP7. Things like DV (480) inside an NTSC project (486) are handled less elegantly than in FCP7. You cannot create clean freeze frames. The list goes on….
Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “Unfortunately the original premise isn’t correct. FCP X handles a few codecs natively, but generally rewraps native codecs into MOV using the Import From Camera function just like FCP7’s L&T. “
Now there’s a reply from someone who understands both the creative and technical aspects of NLE.
Without that background knowledge one has no idea of what goes on under the hood. This is fine until something goes wrong.
In the case of FCPX this is a frequent occurrence. A seasoned editor will resolve any problem pretty quickly through drawing on operational experience and technical know how.
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The way one becomes an experienced editor is through training, which is more readily available now than ever before, and putting the hours in.You would think that FCPX, with it’s lack of depth in the user interface, would be easier to learn than legacy FCP or the other 2 main NLE contenders, but it’s so fiddly and unstable in the current version, that I’m not sure that’s true.
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[Frank Gothmann] “Sorry, but I disagree. Even several years from now there will be a lot of interlaced SD material. Huge markets (India etc.) will take much, much longer to transition to an HD world (if that ever happens). And even then, a vast amount of programming will simply be upscaled from interlaced SD. Plus there will be interlaced HD, 24p, 23.976, 25p etc. etc.
And converting between any of them, scaling things up or down, is a complex thing and FCP (old and new), Compressor & Co. do a terrible job doing that.”Seconded.
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[Mark Dobson] “This thread started off with Carsten saying he liked the fact that FCPX could handle many different formats with ease.
It is now a thread about editors or editing with a lot of low balls being tossed about.
Or is it the pro vs non pro discussion.”
No Mark.
I’ve started the fire for this paragraph:[Carsten Orlt] “I know there is a bit more to it like loosing quality when upscaling etc but this is peanuts against the problem which format your source should be converted too and what your seq should be set too and what if you need to change it after you edit the program. “
I do not consider a lose in quality as peanuts neither i think to understand basic formats conversion is such a cumbersome task.
What I extracted from Carsten post is that is more important to do it easier than to get it better.
Sorry if I’m from an old school.
rafael -
[Rafael Amador] “No Mark.
I’ve started the fire for this paragraph:[Carsten Orlt] “I know there is a bit more to it like loosing quality when upscaling etc but this is peanuts against the problem which format your source should be converted too and what your seq should be set too and what if you need to change it after you edit the program. “”
Rafael some people just don’t want to get into the details. They buy software that does it for them, leaving them free to get on with the job.
Now I personally don’t use any of the auto functions in FCPX but others clearly like to.
However I do drive a car with an automatic gearbox and it’s really not necessary for me to know how that works.
Its never broken down yet, if it did I would take it to a garage. Not knowing how the gearbox works does not affect the way I drive.
What I enjoy about the Creative Cow forums is the huge generosity that people have in sharing their knowledge.
What I don’t enjoy are the negative ping-pong matches that do nothing to educate or inspire other participants.
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