Install FCPX -> ProRes available to other software?

[Marvin Holdman]

Well why would you need pro-res to post to youtube?

(pause for effect)

Sorry… I’ll turn off the sarcasm machine now.

I’m not sure as to the answer of your question. We did the “non-recomended” install and had FCS and FCPX on the same boot. I think many folks that use pro-res did this as well. I’m not sure many of the new users for FCPX have a care about accessing this codec, as it seems to be regarded as “old school” for them. Right or wrong, this just doesn’t seem like anything of interest to the apparent target market that Apple is seeking. That being said, we are really wondering…

What is the future of pro-res?

This is another reason we’re still hanging on here; to try and determine it’s fate. Our facility currently masters to pro-res and we’re wondering just how long this is going to be a feasibility. Granted, you can fairly quickly convert your inventory from one flavor to another, we don’t think it’s wise to do this on a frequent basis due to quality issues with repeated transcoding. That being said, pro-res gives us our best “bang for the buck” and we have a significant inventory already accumulated in this format.

Not trying to hijack your question, just adding a thought for discussion. I know it’s been discussed before, but perhaps the last couple of weeks might have added some more information to the topic.

In all seriousness, you ask a great question.

Marvin Holdman
Production Manager
Tourist Network
8317 Front Beach Rd, Suite 23
Panama City Beach, Fl
phone 850-234-2773 ext. 128
cell 850-585-9667
skype username – vidmarv

[Bon Sawyer]

Marvin,

Thanks for your input. Good points that you’ve raised.

I’m trying to decide whether to upgrade our FCP6 licences to v7 while it’s still (relatively) easy to do so. v6 is fine for our current needs, but we won’t be using our current hardware/OS forever, and I worry that not having v7 licences will bite us if/when we eventually upgrade (particularly given Lion’s incompatibility with v6).

On the other hand, a hardware upgrade would also make switching to Premiere Pro an attractive option. If we end up doing that, perhaps there’s little reason for us to invest in v7 licences now, if the combination of FCPX + Premiere Pro will suffice for opening our old FCP6/ProRes projects (in Premiere).

What are people’s thoughts on this?

One more question: do FCPX and/or Premiere Pro work okay with the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC)? We have a fair bit of transcoded footage in that format, too.

[Tony Brittan]

Yes…if you buy and install FCP X, all the codecs are installed and available to other video apps. I have a MBP that I got just to install and learn FCP X, Avid, and Adobe Production Premium (for Premiere) and intentionally left off the legacy FCP suite. I wanted to keep my money making edit suite sperate, and intact, while working with new software / workflows.

Everything works great! And full access to all flavors of Prores. BTW…I think Prores will be around for quite some time as it has become a widely used codec due to it’s awesome quality and camera makers as well as software encoders are using it moe and more.

Tony Brittan

[Chris Gormlie]

Would buying motion from the app store be a cheaper option?

[Tony Brittan]

Not sure if you get all of the codecs with just purchasing Motion but it’s a definite possibility! You have to download the codecs after purchasing FCP X anyway, so maybe it’s the same with Motion? You’d have to try, I guess.

Tony Brittan

[Ben Holmes]

Marvin

As populist as the notion that the YouTube crowd don’t need ProRes, it’s a badly misinformed statement about FCPX. Footage such as H264 is ‘optimised’ in the background in X to ProRes (unless you choose not to) and the package is designed from the ground up to work with it – best performance is with it too.

Despite the shortcomings at present, this is another ‘under the hood’ reason FCPX is still Pro at heart.

Edit Out Ltd
—————————-
FCP Editor/Trainer/System Consultant
EVS/VT Supervisor for live broadcast
RED camera transfer/post
Independent Director/Producer

https://www.blackmagic-design.com/community/communitydetails/?UserStoryId=8757

[Bon Sawyer]

Thank you all for the input! Much appreciated.

Here are a couple of other relevant topics I’ve found, in case anyone else is interested:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/3870#3870
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/916067#916067

We’ve decided to purchase some FCS3 upgrades, as it seems they’ll be useful to us under any of the upgrade (or migration) scenarios we are likely to eventually take (for reasons other than codec compatibility).

Still, it’s good to know that FCPX, Motion etc provide options for utilising the codecs even without the older FCS versions installed.