I tested the 2014 VS 2015 Macbook Pro using both FCPX & Ppro and results show FINAL CUT X ROCKS!!!

[Herb Sevush]

And if I stick to both OSX 9.5 and Windows 7 for another year, what exactly will I loose?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Chris Frantz]

Troubleshooting options is one. Last time I had an issue with CC 2014, Adobe’s only solution was to upgrade to Yosemite as that would fix the GPU problem. We were locked to Mavericks due to XSAN incompatibility which made that not an option, and our fancy Mac Pro unable to render jobs out of Premiere without GPU errors. In a SaaS model, developers tend to focus on the latest versions of everything so backwards support may become less of an issue for them. On that note though, Apple doesn’t even attempt it as they won’t even allow anything prior to Yosemite run 10.2. I guess there’s a reason some shops still run FC7 and an ancient version of OSX, the bugs you know are better than the ones you don’t.

[Herb Sevush]

[Chris Frantz] ” I guess there’s a reason some shops still run FC7 and an ancient version of OSX, the bugs you know are better than the ones you don’t.”

Yes indeed. Also a good argument for cloning before upgrading either one, and keeping that clone for at least 2 months after the upgrade. Some bugs are slower to bite than others.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Andy Lewis]

Render and output is certainly an important function of NLEs but in my opinion it is not as critical as playback and latency while editing. I tried FCPX in the early days and didn’t really go far enough to know how I felt about the magnetic timeline etc. because it was unusably laggy.

Does anyone have a comparison (even anecdotal) about FCPX and PPro in terms of playback and UI responsiveness these days?

for example:

– Number of multicam tracks of 1080p prores that will play simultaneously with or without basic filters like a primary colour correction
– latency when hitting play / stop (Even back in the PPro version 5 days – it was more responsive than FCP7 which always seemed to me to have about 1/10th of a second lag)

[Dennis Radeke]

[andy lewis] “Does anyone have a comparison (even anecdotal) about FCPX and PPro in terms of playback and UI responsiveness these days?”

Every editor has certain points that matter to him or her more than other bits. At the end, it is the summation of the tools and how it feels to you that probably go a long way to you choosing one over the other…

I personally agree that the perceived responsiveness is important to a large section of editors. It is something that I hear a lot from my large media clients in NYC and on the East Coast. It is something that Adobe has put a lot of time into and we want to continue to focus on for the future. For Adobe that has meant, performance with 3rd party hardware, JKL and mouse scrubbing as well as lag time with space bar play/pause.

That said, there are a huge number of factors that go into the net result, so it is difficult to quantify. Some will say it’s awesome, some less so.

Also, on the original post, let me say that it seems (though I haven’t looked closely) that the testing methodology, source footage, details of effects, render output settings and probably a few more things should I think about it weren’t carefully set out. Always important if you’re trying to compare ‘apples to apples’ – it makes or breaks a lot of the validity of the tests themselves.

Nevertheless, full thanks to Max for taking the time to talk about Macs and how they relate to overall render time performance. I think that the output times are impressive and undoubtedly all vendors aspire to make their outputs as fast and high quality as possible. Certainly, Adobe will continue to work towards that goal.

Dennis – Adobe guy

[Steve Connor]

[andy lewis] “- latency when hitting play / stop (Even back in the PPro version 5 days – it was more responsive than FCP7 which always seemed to me to have about 1/10th of a second lag)
“

This has improved considerably in FCPX over the last couple of versions and is now much better, however on my systems PPro is still slightly faster

[Eric Santiago]

Since a few of you here seem to be pretty vocal about Premiere.
Can anyone give my post a look and possibly send some tips or answers my way 🙂

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/968477

[Momir Alvirović]

Hello Max,
If I do understand your test results – you found that in moderate Premiere Pro workflow there is just slight difference between 2014 and 2015 MacBook Pro, while in moderate to intensive FCP X workflow there is significant gain in performance of 2015 over 2014 MacBook Pro. What makes me super-puzzled, and leaves me in strong disbelieve is side result of your tests which- if I got it right, same GH4 source files rendered in a same fashion to same output format resulted in similar output files sizes while FCP X regularly finished job approx. 10 times faster then Premiere Pro! If it was just for stabilization plugin I would ask for IQ comparison, but you got same relative difference even in simple recompress tasks! I can believe that there is always some difference in software optimizations and that one could be measurably faster then the other, but 10 times faster on same hardware and same OS just looks too extreme not to be praised on each and every corner of the Internet…
Pease, can you confirm my understanding of you findings..
Are you completely sure that you used same codecs and rendering methods and wrapper formats in both FCP X and Premiere Pro?

[Momir Alvirović]

Hello Max,
If I do understand your test results – you found that in moderate Premiere Pro workflow there is just slight difference between 2014 and 2015 MacBook Pro, while in moderate to intensive FCP X workflow there is significant gain in performance of 2015 over 2014 MacBook Pro. What makes me super-puzzled, and leaves me in strong disbelieve is side result of your tests which- if I got it right, same GH4 source files rendered in a same fashion to same output format resulted in similar output files sizes while FCP X regularly finished job approx. 10 times faster then Premiere Pro! If it was just for stabilization plugin I would ask for IQ comparison, but you got same relative difference even in simple recompress tasks! I can believe that there is always some difference in software optimizations and that one could be measurably faster then the other, but 10 times faster on same hardware and same OS just looks too extreme not to be praised on each and every corner of the Internet…
Pease, can you confirm my understanding of you findings..
Are you completely sure that you used same rendering methods and formats in both FCP X and Premiere Pro?

PS – if I understand your testing methodology – your H.264 settings are aimed at low bitrate internet delivery format, while there is no test of broadcast delivery formats or intermediate formats… Did you learn that PremierePro and AME can encode single pass and to/from ProRes 422 as well? In my everyday workflow I find ProRes quite useful in PremierePro where it is twice faster then Cineform codec, and faster then Avid DNxHR (I run i7 5960x rig).

[Max Yuryev]

Yes I’m 100% sure. For encoding FCX is taking great advantage of quick sync where PP is not. Same with effects like image stabilization. FCX is using alms or 100% of CPU and almost 100% of GPU where PP is about 10% CPU and 20ish (if I remember right) percent of CPU.

I edited with PP for years but after learning FCX it’s hard to go back. I only use PP when clients require it.